26 May: Hot day. At seven thirty, 75°F [23.9°C]; no wind. At nine o’clock we put in near the isolated house of a certain Porter. This settlement was called Washington. However, it consisted [at the time] of just one or two houses. The inhabitants were friendly people. Porter owned a young bear, which he sold to me and [sent to have] it fetched from the neighborhood. We therefore had to wait about two hours here. This man requested that I name the bear after him—Porter. In the immediately surrounding forest, dark, high, and beautiful, [we] shot two birds new to us—a beautiful songbird, Sylvia formosa, and Muscicapa no. 132. 35

The day was very hot, no wind at all. At noon 88°F [31.1°C.] Opposite Porter Oppositeʻs house, 4 to 5 miles inland, Baron Mertens, or Mertels, from Hanover, bought some property. In this area also lived Duden, who is called [a] doctor here, but they do not have much good to say about him, because he profiteered from lands.

At two thirty [we passed] rivière de la Femme Osage on the left. [There was] a brief, violent thunder crash without [a] storm [sic] but with heavy rain. About five o’clock [we passed] the isle de St. Charles, [and] right after it, the rather sizable town of St. Charles on the left bank of the Missouri. We put ashore [on the opposite bank] at a settlement of five to six homes where a certain Chauvin keeps a stage inn, [offering] passengers the most direct route straight overland to St. Louis. Today’s stage had [already] left, so we had to stay overnight. Another [Page 3:189]stage came from St. Charles about noon, from across [the river] on a horse-driven ferry. [The ferry] had a round roof and a large wheel; six horses walked to set [the paddlewheel?] in motion. Very heavy rain continued and made the ground completely sodden. We got rooms in Chauvin’s house, where much was said about the cholera that carried off many people here last summer.

We found some Germans [working] here as farm hands; they were generallypraised generally praised. Many [Germans] live now in St. Charles and the vicinity. They have a German inn in town, where they get together.