FRONTIER LIFE AND CHARACTER IN THE South and West.
BYWM. T. COGGESHALL,
Author of "Home Hits and Hints," "Poets and Poetry of the West," etc., etc.COLUMBUS: FOLLETT, FOSTER AND COMPANY.
1860.Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1860, by WILLIAM T. COGGESHALL, In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for the Southern District of Ohio. FOLLETT, FOSTER & CO., Printers, Stereotypers, Binders and Publishers, COLUMBUS, OHIO.
DEDICATORY LETTER.
TO WILLIAM D. GALLAGHER:When I went to Cincinnati, in the Spring of 1847, seeking the humblest place in the editorial corps of a daily newspaper, indulging, at the same time, slight hope that, one day, I might see my name over articles in literary periodicals, I was anxious to see and know you, because I had been informed that, holding an humble post in an influential journal, you had risen to the chief post, and had, meantime, added wealth to the literary store of the West.
Because, when, afterward, I was a worker with you, in the same office, * I found, contrary to what had been told me, that you were a friend to striving young men; and because you were the first literary man who encouraged me, by just criticism and good advice, to write something more pretending than "items," I dedicate to you this volume of Tales and Sketches, designed to illustrate frontier life and character
*Daily Cincinnati Gazette.
page: iv-v (Table of Contents) [View Page iv-v (Table of Contents) ] acter—to you, who, in my judgment, have written about, and for the West, from just impulse, with just purpose—to you, who have made no small sacrifice for—Ah, me! Western Literature.
However justly those terrible fellows, the critics, may find fault with my unpretending romances, you will have charity for them, because you know they were written when "local" matters of fact commanded a large share of my days and nights; and you know, too, that they are now republished from the columns of the newspapers and magazines in which they first appeared, with only such revision as could be made on proof-sheets.
Accept, then, this frank epistle, and its intention, as an honest acknowledgment that, if there be any merit in this volume, it was developed under your encouragement.
WILLIAM T. COGGESHALL.
COLUMBUS, OHIO, May, 1860.CONTENTS.
- THE EVERGLADE HEROES—A Tale of Florida. 1
- FLEET FOOT—A Legend of Kentucky. 89
- HUNTER BIRTY; OR, THE HALF-BREED COLONY OF ILLINOIS. 113
- GOLDEN BIRD OF MENOMINEE. 211
- THE COUNTERFEITERS OF THE CUYAHOGA—A Buckeye Romance. 217
- THE BRIGHT EYE OF THE SETTLEMENT. 307
