father and at least one of his brothers "traded to Santa Fé" before he adventured forth on the old trail. He crossed the plains westward eight times while engaged in the Santa Fé trade, and he was in Mexico with Doniphan. In 1849 he crossed the plains and mountains to California.

In the year 1906 I began to put in form the material which I had gathered for my edition of Doniphan's expedition. Dr. R. G. Thwaites had then but recently edited and published the Early western travels. Dr. Gregg's work was included in that invaluable series. It occurred to me that I might secure from Dr. Thwaites material for a brief sketch of the life of Dr. Gregg, though I had observed that nothing of consequence concerning him had been set out in the preliminary remarks to Commerce of the prairies. Dr. Thwaites wrote me that he had been unable to find much on that subject. "I spent a great deal of time looking up just such data regarding Gregg as you ask for, for the purpose of my own preface, and failed to get anything more than I gave," he said. Later in conversation with me at the meeting of this association at Omaha, he spoke very favorably of my Doniphan. "I read it with interest and pleasure," he told me. "You have rediscovered Gregg. The information which you secured is of the utmost importance. It is a notable contribution to western history. Until I read it I could not have said whether Gregg was born in America or Scotland."

As it had been necessary for me to know more of Dr. Gregg than I could learn from published works, I began to make inquiry of the veterans of the Mexican war who had followed Doniphan. They all remembered Dr. Gregg, but none of those consulted could tell me anything of his ancestry or family. As a last resort I appealed to the honorable D. C. Allen, of Liberty, Missouri. No other man ever knew so much of the history of western Missouri as does Mr. Allen. I went to Liberty to see him. In an hour he had put me in possession of sources of material which yielded much. And these pointed the way for more. I will set down here the substance of what I have learned of Dr. Josiah Gregg.

The founder of the Gregg family in America was William Gregg, an Ulster-Scot (Scotch-Irish) immigrant, who arrived from north Ireland in the province of Pennsylvania about 1682.

He was of a Quaker family, and was among the earliest people of that faith in the colony established by William Penn. William Gregg had a son John, who had a son William. This William Gregg had a son Jacob, who made more than one trip from Philadelphia (or its vicinity) to the Quaker settlement at Cane creek, North Carolina, to acquaint himself with the resources and physical appearance of that country. He found these satisfactory, and he finally moved to North Carolina, settling near Cane creek. He lived there until most of his children were grown up, when he moved to Arkansas; but neither the date of his removal nor to what point in the latter state he went can now be ascertained. There is some evidence that the locality was in the vicinity of Fort Smith. Dr. Josiah Gregg went to live for a time at Van Buren, and some of his relatives told me they understood that they had "kinfolks" near that town, although they had never been in communication with them.

Of the three children of Jacob Gregg whom I have been able to identify with certainty-Harmon, William, and David-one at least, Harmon, married a Pennsylvania German woman. She was a Miss Susannah Schmelzer, or Smelser, as it was written later. This marriage was in Pennsylvania, and was contracted before the removal of the Gregg family to Cane creek, North Carolina. Harmon Gregg moved from Cane creek to what is now Overton county, Tennessee, where he settled on Elk river (or creek). His brothers, William and David, had already settled in Overton county. William had moved to Madison county, Kentucky, before the arrival of his brother Harmon in Overton county. There he married the daughter of Jesse Cox. He and his father-in-law moved to some point in Illinois, probably Vermilion county, though this is not established. Nor is the date of removal fixed.

In 1809 Harmon Gregg moved from Overton county to Illinois. David Gregg either went with him or had preceded him. Some of the family say that David had also gone to Madison county, Kentucky, and from there to Illinois with his brother William. In any event, the three brothers were reunited in Illinois. The date of the removal of Harmon Gregg and his brothers from Illinois to Missouri is given as 1812. Jesse Cox was one of the men in Colonel Benjamin Cooper's company

of one hundred and fifty families that emigrated to Missouri, stopping first at Loutre Island, then settling in the Booneslick country, in what is now Howard county. It may have been that the Greggs came from Illinois with Cox, and that they joined the Kentucky company and remained with it until the settlement of Cooper's Fort, but the family could not furnish any proof of this. It is claimed by the family that these brothers were inmates of Cooper's Fort from 1812 to 1815. There is reason to believe that this cannot be wholly true; for Jesse Cox, in 1814, was living in Cox's Bottom, in what is now Saline county, which is immediately west across the Missouri from Howard county. During Christmas week of that year his settlement was attacked by Sac and Fox Indians. William Gregg was slain there by these Indians and his daughter, Miss Patsy Gregg, carried off a captive, but she was rescued before the savages reached their towns. The settlement was destroyed. William Gregg was evidently a member of this settlement and lived there with his family at the time, and was not living in Cooper's Fort.

I have not investigated the family of William Gregg beyond the incidents here recorded. I have made no effort to trace the family of David Gregg. The record of the family of Harmon Gregg is fairly complete and accessible. I found the family bible of Harmon Gregg in the possession of Mrs. Mary Loughrey, wife of Andrew Loughrey and daughter of Philip Allan Hardwicke and his wife Margaret Gregg, four miles north of Harlem, in Clay county, Missouri. The record in this bible states the date of birth of Harmon Gregg as February 21, 1774; he died in Jackson county, Missouri, August 10, 1844. His wife, Susannah Smelser, was born on September 17, 1774, and died in Clay county, Missouri, June 23, 1857. The record also says that she was born and married in Pennsylvania. And this bible has also the following record of the births of the children of Harmon Gregg and Susannah, his wife.

David Gregg, born October 28, 1797.
John Gregg, born April 25, 1800.

Jacob Gregg, born April 9, 1802.

[Margaret] Gregg, born July 31, 1804. (Called Peggy in record) Josiah Gregg, born July 19, 1806.

Polly Gregg, born January 19, 1813.

Harmon Gregg, born December 20, 1815. (Harmon Gregg, Jun., in record)

Susan Gregg, born Dec. 13, 1818.

The following record also appears in this bible:

Marriages of the children of Harmon Gregg and Susannah Smelser. David Gregg was married to Nancy Adams, August 8, 1818. Peggy Gregg was married to Philip Allan Hardwicke, October 9, 1821. Polly Gregg was married to James Lewis, November 6, 1827. Jacob Gregg was married to Nancy Lewis, March 14, 1828. John Gregg was married to Martha Eliza McClellan, November 25, 1835.

Susan Gregg was married to John McClellan, August 15, 1838. Harmon Gregg, Jr., was married to Nancy Shortridge, March 10, 1842.

Josiah Gregg was never married. Of him, I summarize what has been said herein to this point. He became a Santa Fé trader and the author of Commerce of the prairies. He was born in Overton county, Tennessee, July 19, 1806. He arrived with his parents in Missouri in 1812. He was an inmate of Cooper's Fort, Howard county, from 1812 to 1815. These facts are fully established.

Harmon Gregg remained in the country about Cooper's Fort some ten years after the close of the war of 1812. In the fall of 1825 he moved with his family to what was known as the Blue river country, and settled four and one-half miles northeast of the present town of Independence, Jackson county, Missouri. Independence was not established until 1827. Harmon Gregg erected a house at the point mentioned, which was yet standing in 1906; he died there on the date already given. That house was the home of Josiah Gregg. It was a story-anda-half log house, which was weatherboarded long after it was built, and was a typical frontier dwelling as modified for use after the frontier had passed.

Thus, I find that Josiah Gregg was of the sixth generation of a pioneer family founded by a hardy Scotch-Irish immigrant in the primeval forests of the Appalachians. This family kept steadily in the van of the westward movement of the American people to subdue and occupy the wilderness-then the most

fascinating land on the globe. And this experience, together with the fruits of it, found concentration in Josiah Gregg, the source of that faith in himself, that reliance on his own powers, that confidence in his own ability, that courage and hardihood of mind, which made him a great American. His achievement is but another incident in the great movement from Missouri, by Missourians either native or adopted, to complete in the American settlement of California, the girdle of civilization westward around the world.

Josiah Gregg, as a child and youth, was of delicate health. In the vernacular of the frontier, he was a "weakly" child. He worked at will at the labor always present and pressing on the farm-especially the frontier farm. He was not expected to go out at the break of day and work until dark, as was the pioneer practice. He might do this if he wished, but his mother often restrained him and kept him at the house. There he read every book and paper he could lay hands on. He was dosed with frontier remedies, principally "bitters"-whiskey in which were black snakeroot, sarsaparilla roots, dock roots, dogwood and wild cherry barks, and often the gum of the black pine. In those days the weaker boys were expected to become preachers, lawyers, doctors, or storekeepers. Josiah Gregg chose for his life work the medical profession, and his family provided the funds necessary to fit him for it. He was sent to a medical college in Philadelphia, and from that institution he graduated with honors. I have made no effort beyond inquiries of the members of present Gregg families to ascertain the name of this college. They were unable to give the name or fix the dates of his attendance there, though it was affirmed that he was in Philadelphia four or five years. He must have applied himself with diligence to his studies and have included others than those pertaining to medicine, for he had many additional accomplishments, as may be perceived from his writings.

Only one incident was I able to recover from his student life. On one occasion he was seized of a serious malady. Neither his associates nor his instructors could discover the nature of it, even though it had carried him to death's door. When told that he had little longer to live he asked for a hot whiskey