The Autobiography of John Milton Morris.

My grandfather called this his "Diary," but it is actually more of an
autobiography.

I (Chaumont Devin) have had a struggle transcribing all of this, and the
struggle is still continuing (in other words, this is not all of John
Morris' autobiography).

A microfilm copy of this "Diary" can be found at the little library at the
top of the hill on UC Berkeley campus.

More information about John Milton Morris and how he fits into the family
can be found in the genealogy section of chaumontdevin.com.

Transcript follows:

Rev. Milton Morris, son of Thomas Morris, carpenter near Knoxville, East
Tennessee.  17 July 1831, married Sally Dodge at Boudinot mission,
Kansas.  He was a farmer as well as a preacher.  Lived in Little Osage,
Mormitan (spelling verified), and Deepwater Creek, in Missouri, on the
Nodaway (spelling verified), in Iowa, seven miles from Platsmouth, and in
Jefferson County, Kansas.  He was a zealous pioneer preacher, of wonderful
memory, a whig (spelling verified), free soiler, and a lover of religious
liberty.  He never allowed a fiddle, a dance, cards, or checker board in
his house, but he never refused anyone hospitality, and never charged but
one man for his entertainment.

Children:
1. Thomas Morris, born 2 October 1832, in Bates (now Vernon) County,
Missouri.  Died 15 March 1864.
2. John Milton Morris, born 29 January 1835.
3. Sarah Morris, born 20 January 1837, died 3 September 1865.
4. Nathanael Brown Morris, born 19 February 1839, died 30 November 1854.
5. William Morris, born 3 May 1841, still living.
6. Lucy Jane Morris, born 27 November 1843, died 18 July 1872.
7. Newell Morris, born 11 July 1847, died 21 August 1847.
8. Harriet Morris, born 25 March 1849, Married Joseph Tracy.
9. Edwin Morris, born 26 August 1852, in Sydney, Iowa, died 13 January
1907(?).
All but the last born in Bates (now Vernon) County, Missouri.

Diary of John Milton Morris

Book 1.

Quite a snow-storm.

It is said by those present that on January 29, 1835, the greatest
and most severe snow-storm known to any of the Indian traders or oldest
inhabitants fell.  The intense cold and severity, my mother has recited to
me so many birthdays, that reigned on the mountain in bates county,
afterwards vernon county, Missouri, where the author of these
reminiscences first made his advent.  (Sally Dodge, born 28 July 1811, at
Barre, Vermont. --Joe).  That same kind of storm, or racket, has been kept
up most of the time since that event.

The first recollections of my infant musings occurred on my father
loading up his effects on an ox wagon, and starting for the state of
Illinois.  The grief being so great on my mother's parting with her
relatives at Balltown, when I was about two and a half years old, that the
then sad event impressed me so tenderly as ever after to have a lodgement
in my little heart, never to be forgotten.

We only journeyed twenty-five or thirty miles to Deepwater, in the
same county, before my father found lands so desirable as to give up the
trip to Illinois; and, in two days, to locate on unsurveyed government
lands, where the second recollection of my mental facilities were shocked
and awakened.  When near three years old, a large wild hog (just after my
father's getting moved into his log cabin) came into the yard.  The dog
took after the hog, and the hog, making a lunge for the dog, both came to
the door, and into the front part of the cabin.  Being the only child in
the cabin, rustling for the beds, my small legs slipped down through the
truncheons of the floor, skinning both sides of one leg.  And to this day,
the affrighted child, scrabbling for life, cannot tell whether the scare
or wound were the worse.

During this winter, my memory was further strengthened by the sad
scene of a band of Indians coming into the settlement we had left at
Little Osage, and stealing a band of hogs belonging to the whites.  All
the settlement were up in arms, including three or four brothers of my
mother, Dr. Leonard, Nathanael and Newell, and maybe Edwards, Dodge.  Snow
being on the grounds, it was easy to track these Osage Indians over the
Marais Des Cygnes, where they were encamped.  On the approach, the Indians
made for their guns and tomahawks, a battle ensued, and Nathanael and
Newell Dodge were wounded.  The former died thirteen days after, and
Newell was never after able to do any hard work, but became interpreter
for the American Fur Company among the Osages, and at Cecil Ball's, at
Balltown (a trading post just over the line of the Indian territory, in
Missouri).  My mother grieved so over this bereavement that, on coming to
the house, we more frequently found her wiping the tears from off her face
than in any other mood.

Marais Des Cygnes.  The country was little else than a wilderness of
game, and my father being an excellent hand with his old flintlock rifle,
we were always supplied in the intervals when game was good, with venison,
wild turkey, mallard ducks, geese, or quail.  The prairy hen and hare were
not so good.  Yet he never hunted for sport.  And the neighbours reconed
him the surest shot for game in our part.

The next recollection.  In a short time after settling on Deepwater,
three hundred Osage warriors came one evening and camped on father's
claim.  All the neighbours were notified, and some sixteen men were all
that could be summoned to order them off from violating strict government
treaty rules.  Meeting next morning, my mother was the only one in the
settlement who could speak a word of the Osage dialect.  She had to act as
interpreter.  Having three children, one brother older than myself, and
one sister younger, leaving them in charge of my older brother, she headed
the posse, and made up the following statement--that there was to be three
hundred United States dragoons there the next morning, and if they were
not over the line, in their own country, these dragoons would put them
over.  All the chiefs hollowed, "woo! woo!" a word of great surprise, and
quickly agreed to be away the next morning, early.  Their word was worth
nothing, for of all the Indians we in after years ever knew, the Osage
were the most treacherous and unreliable.  The next morning, all was
astire, the Indians leaving, and by twelve the dragoons began to pour in,
until three hundred landed in the settlement by night.  The strange part
of this narrative is, my mother never knew that a United States soldier
was in one hundred miles of Deepwater (where they lived) when she told
these three hundred Indians that the dragoons were coming.

Here my father thrived for a few years, until the hard times set in,
caused by the failure of the United States bank, and sickness overtaking
the family.  He had entered land at $1.25 per acre that he could not sell
or turn over to his creditors for the government purchase money, having
borrowed $200 of my uncle, Nathanael, who the Indians killed, he was never
able to pay the estate this amount, and turned over the whole place to
settle the heirs' claim.  Taking the fever and aug, we would all be down,
not one able to help another.  Thus the struggle set in, and the next
three or four years at Deepwater was more like a hospital than a
farmhouse.  My lot, besides having the malaria, was to be given out by a
good physician, ever recovering from spotted, or typhus, fever, my mother
thought to be at the point of death at the same time.  My parents had, in
order to eek out a mere support, to move back and forth from Little Osage
to Deepwater, from Deepwater to Little Osage, where we received much of
our support from my mother's people and others of the old missionary
families, and much of my time was spent at my grandfather Dodge's until
nine years old.  (Rev. Nathanael Brown Dodge Jr., born in Winchester, New
Hampshire, 5 June 1781.  Married Sally Gale, 22 March 1803.  Died at
Little Osage, Missouri, 3 September 1848. --Joe).  This grandparent, the
reverand Nathanael brown Dodge, of Barre, Vermont, was sent as missionary
by the American board of missions in 1820 or 1821 to the Osage Indians.
He established Harmony Mission, long years ago discontinued, then near
where the town of Papinsville, Missouri, now stands.  When the government
removed all the Osages to the Neosho river, he followed the tribes and
established Boudinot mission on the Neosho river.  He put out fine
apple orchards at each mission, which the natives destroyed, and not a
vestige of house, barn, or orchard for forty or fifty years remain.  We
can but recall the days spent at Little Osage with this venerable man.  At
times going away, then returning for near a year at a time, we got quite
well acquainted with the habits and life of this early pioneer that we May
have more to say about later on.  My grandmother Dodge, whose maiden name
was Gale, we never remembered seeing out of humour.  (Sally Gale, born at
Princeton, Massechussettes, 21 July 1784.  Died 20 December 1866. --Joe).
Always at work, always humming some tune, though she could never sing, she
was good for about three ordinary women's work.  Every child, severely or
otherwise hurt, received the same treatment at her hands.  She ran with
sugar bowl in hand and applied it inwardly and outwardly for all known
disease.  And this medicine was very scarce, for sugar was a very scarce
article in those days.

While among the relatives at Little Osage, my first labours of life
began in the way of feeding stock, gathering eggs, and going on errands.
During corn-planting time, at eight or nine years of age, girls and boys
got from ten to twelve and a half cents per day for dropping corn, (ten
cents was called a short bit, and twelve and a half cents a long bit), and
men fifty cents for covering the same with a hoe.

Being sick so much, it was impossible for me to go to school much.
My grandfather taught about sixty scholars, and a most excellent teacher
he was.  Grave, serious, always kind, we never met a man, woman, or child
but reverred and loved him.

One day two french men of the American Fur Company fell out (high in
standing), and one was cursing the other to an old friend; but on seeing
Grandfather turning the corner of the garden fence, Shoto remarked to his
friend, "George was in..." (and, seeing Grandpa turn the corner, he added)
"in heaven."

During three months of my attending the school at his church, we
never saw him reproove a scholar, and complete quiet and order prevailed.
This school, taught in the white church belonging to my grandfather's
congregation (then Presbyterian)  Was all the place for meeting of any
kind for miles away.

When about nine years old, after getting better of my inflammetory
rheumatism, most of one year was spent at my grandfather Dodge's, and my
uncle, Newell, the interpreter, was at home.  He was but a child when
leaving Vermont.  He spoke the Osage language before he was grown to
manhood as well as any Osage chieftain in the nation.  He took up with the
habits of the Indians, and would go further, when grown, to eat a bowl of
buffalo soup made by an Indian squaw than the finest dinner his mother
could get him, she being an excellent cook at that.  He was fairly well
educated in english, and his father sent him to Andover, Indiana, to high
school.  He returned in a little less than one year, remarking that he had
been through college.  That he went in at the front door and out the back
door."  He would step off thirty steps, split a stick about two feet long
with a little slit in the top, and stick twenty-five cents in the top of
the stick (in the slit, stick the other end in the ground), and take his
bow and arrow, and every time he knocked the twenty-five cents out of the
stick with bow and arrow, he took the money.  When he missed the set
twenty-five cents,.  He soon had all the students' quarters that would
gamble, and the professors had to send him home.  He always had money and
property, gave away more than anyone in that country, and, like Victor
Hugo, died more lamented by the poor than any man in that part of
Missouri.  His religion was that of the Indian, and my father used to say
that Father Dodge went out to Christianize the Indians, and made Indians
of his two younger boys, who were children when he came from Vermont. at
any rate, the older stock, when he left Vermont, were all the most
respectable, married, and Christian people of the land, and so remained.
But the younger boys took up in great measure with the habits of the
Indians and the traders on the frontier.

My father, when getting over the aug to some extent at Deepwater,
rented land of Dr. Reckwa (an old missionary of former years) at Double
Branch, Missouri.  The docter was a practicing physician, Presbyterian
preacher, and a farmer, a very fine man, and doctored us for nothing.
During this summer, being at home most of the time, the first sad grief of
death visited our home, the sixth child, a very bright, handsome babe of
six weeks old, took the krupp, and in three or four days breathed its
last.  We wellremembered the throng that gathered at our house, it seemed
all the neighbourhood were out, and at the burial, not a preacher offered
a word, and there were three standing there, and why not, we cannot tell
to this day, but just before lowering the angel form into the grave, a
Presbyterian deacon of Dr. Reckwa's church, and a nephew of the docter's,
stepped forward and said, "You who stand here may think this a very light
thing to lay a little cherub like this away to rest, but I tell you I have
had an experience in this line, and well remember when passing through the
same sad event how dark all around me looked.  And although to you who
have never passed this last sad experience, you May think stranger that a
father should shed these tears when laying our infant child beneath the
sod, allow me to tender the father my sympathy and prayers..."  And on he
went for fifteen minutes, until nearly every one of that assembly shed
tears, and the only reason that seems probable to me that this old deacon
made these remarks was that my father usually, when he could not get at a
dollar from any other source, could always step over to George Reckwa's
and get a few dollars.  Yet my father was a Methodist preacher, and there
were two Methodist preachers on the grounds.  But be it said, in all human
probability, not one of those three or four ministers present could have
done so well in an address on this occassion as good, honest George Reckwa
(as he was called) had done.

My health growing worse, being confined to my bed, and having
inflammation of the bowels this summer, brought on by trying to out jump
some other boys at school, one night some of the neighbours came to set up
all night with me.  When they all thought me asleep (Mother just having
dressed a blister that covered my stomach and bowels, and the docter
having told my parents that death would overtake me before morning) the
following remarks were made by my mother that came very audibly to my ears
as the tears came streaming from her eyes: "he little knows what will
become of him before morning.  The docter says unless a change comes for
the better by midnight there is no hope (now ten o'clock).  What can be
done?"  About midnight, the change came, and on getting over this
dangerous sickness, a lesson was learned.  The larger boys of the
settlement were always getting me to wrestle or jump, if they could.  My
being so very small of my age through sickness and other causes, they
never could get a boy of my size but I could throw down or out jump.  And
looking so small, pale, and child-like, the young men would laugh heartily
to see me out-do boys so much larger than myself by getting me excited and
ambitious.

In the fall, when ten years old, the damp weather brought back the
inflammatory rheumatism.  My parents being very poor, it was thought best
to send me to my uncle, Leonard Dodge's, to be doctored, he being the most
eminent physician of that country.  Having to be pretty well on leaving
Dr. Reckwa's at Double-Branch for Little-Osage.  On arriving at my
uncle's, he took me to his quiet country home, one mile and a half from
the trading post that Cecil Ball had established to trade with the Osage
Indians, who had the only store in the whole country.  And the little
village gristmill and blacksmith shop, which afterwards took the name of
Balltown.  He set me to feeding cattle, husking corn, and running general
errand jobs on his farm.  But nothing escaped my eyes, and on the return
of the docter to his home the next day, he brought a roll of red flannel,
and my aunt went to cutting it up.  Before she had made up the red
flannel, the docter brought home a roll of what they called full cloth,
and my aunt, although a cultured lady, tacked that heavy roll of full
cloth.  But of nights, she would take up her knitting, which looked to be
men's socks, with long legs ribbed.  After this had went on for a week or
two, it seemed to me the docter must soon begin to give me medicine.  But
being averse to taking medicine, having had a great deal of that to do,
and my stomach quite weak, this part of the neglect did not worry me.  One
morning, after noting all this preamble, the docter took me with him as he
went his daily rounds to see his patients as far as Ball's store, and said
to mr. Ball, "i want you to make or pick out this boy a pair of boots that
will turn water."  He got me a seal skin cap, and what we called then a
comfort, or what we now call a scarf, to wear around the neck.  And some
way or other, the next morning, the mystery of the whole matter was
divulged by an under-shirt and a pair of drawers being laid on a chair,
made of red flannel, a pair of long-legged ribbed men's socks, a pair of
full cloth pants, and round about (or a blouse) of the same full cloth we
had formerly seen.  The seal skin cap, scarf, and boots set by the chair
when the docter said to me, "put them on, and never do you let me see you
get your feet wet!"  They were put on, and that was all the medicine taken
for inflammatory rheumatism.  The docter sent me with Old Lucy, an old
colored woman, to have the stock corn on a cart with a yoke of oxen (to
feed forty to sixty head of cattle), and a much more busy winter we cannot
recall in our boyhood days.

(Dr. Leonard Dodge, son of Rev. Nathanael Brown Dodge Jr.  Born 14
January 1805, at Underhill (or possibly Barre), Vermont.

At the age of 16, he went with his father to Harmony Mission,
Missouri.  He studied medicine under William N. Belcher, M. D., the
physician to the mission, and began practice in 1826.  In 1830-31, he
practiced one year in Independence, Missouri.  In 1831, he visited his
friends in Vermont, then a formidable journey.  He united with the
Congregational Church in 1835.  He later united with the Presbyterian
church.  He married Mary Burton Choate, 10 March 1835, at Neosho,
Missouri.  He was a strong friend of the temperance cause.  As a
physician, he had few equals in that region, his rides often extending
sixty miles.  He was beloved by all who knew him for his manifest
integrety, firmness, energy, and for his love of right and justice.  He
died 10 March 1864, at Little Osage, Missouri.

His son, William Burton, born 2 January 1839, died 3 July 1839.
--Joe).

The docter educated and studying medicine under Dr. Belcher
(afterwards principal of Sing-Sing, N.Y.) was thoroughly Eastern in every
phase of life.  The docter was always ahead of his brothers in his
profession.  The docter used to say, "When Dodge talks, all listen."  He
was the most systematic docter we ever remember being acquainted with.
Generally leaving home at six a.m., he as universally returned at six p.m.
If anyone hurried him up by telling him of the urgency of the case, he
would remark blandly, "If they are so bad that they will die before I get
there, I could do them no good if I was there."  If anyone asked what he
was giving, he was just as likely to remark, "Medicine." as anything else.
And if anyone asked what ailed the patient, he would frequently say, "I
don't know."  Unpretending, he got all the practice of all this country.
One peculiarity was he always rode a hard-trotting horse, and was nearly
always away from home in the daytime, but if away of nights, someone must
be dying, or else very bad.

during the year there, he never censured me
but once that we recollect, and that was about leading a jack to water.
One evening, the docter being public administrator, came home leading a
medium-sized jack.  His wife comes out and says, "Docter, where did you
get that animal?"

"At the summer's sale." he replied.

"What did you give for him?" she asked.

"two hundred and forty dollars." the docter replied.

"Well," said she, "Docter, by the time you make two or three more
such trades as that, we will come to want, I think."

"Oh, Mary!" he says, "i have always managed to get something for you
to eat and wear, and I guess i'll be able to do that yet."

"Never mind," she says, "I'll keep up my end of the singletry."

This is all the time we ever remember hearing the docter or wife ever
chide one another.

(Mary Burton Choate, born 31 January 1804, at Thetford, Vermont.
Died 12 May 1866, at Little Osage. --Joe).

The docter gave the jack into my possession; and, being somewhat
diminutive myself, and having about one quarter of a mile to lead my
donkey to water, he found out (the donkey) that I could not hold him.  But
we got a long larriet rope.  When he started to run, by giving him rope he
would fail to pull me down; and for awhile he was manageable this way.
But finally he got so strong he pulled me down.  On telling the docter, he
was a little doubtful of my efforts, and he was always at home Sunday,
unless a very bad case, and the first Sunday at home, only a few days
after, he ventured to lead the jack to water himself.  The jack drank,
then snuffed the wind; and away he went, taking the docter along at a very
fast rate!  But the docter gave him rope, and soon all were out of sight,
and the docter came out at the end of the race (though said to be very
fast on foot) away behind.  The jack was let out to another keeper, and if
anyone found of that animal's whereabouts, it was not through the docter!

Dry, quaint, and always seemed in a deep study about his business or
something, yet a fine conversationalist.  Quite a joker.  Well, and more
than favourably, liked.  He died during the civil war, lamented by all who
knew him.  He married Miss Choat, who volunteered her services as a
teacher to the Osage Indians at old Harmony Mission.  She was a teacher of
infant classes of children in Massechussets before coming west.  Some
three or four years the senior of my uncle.  One of the best cooks and
neatest housekeeper we ever met.  Very systematic.  The first child,
Leonard, died when one or two years old.  They had two daughters
afterwards that always called me their brother.  They were younger than
myself.  And the mother took the greatest care of them, teaching them
herself, at home.  She done all her housework, and besides teaching these
two daughters, braided palm-leaf hats three or four hours each day.

Here we saw the first cook stove and thermometer, the first
apothecary shop, filled up with cinnamon, all-spice, cloves, ginger, and
nutmeg; and this May have been helpful in my aunt's making the best pies
and cakes ever eat in that borderland.  But the cook stove was more of an
ornament than useful nature, for my aunt used her oven and skillet in the
old cabin, where it was my privelage to sleep by the old fashioned
fireplace in a bed in a corner of the kitchen, covered with the huge
buffalo robe and mackinaw blankets of the cold winter nights.  And the
cook stove sat in one of the parlors in the frame building adjoining the
old log cabin, only to be used when company came.

We never remember meeting Aunt's disapproval but twice, one time for
loping her favorite saddle horse that she always rode to church, where she
led the singing for my grandfather when he or anyone else preached; and
the other time was when, feeling unable to go to church Sunday on account
of a large cake being cooked in that stove the day before, and cut for
visitors, and only a small portion eat.  For the loping of the horse that
ate so many oats that when anyone got on her to ride wanted to run and
play.  And when the docter came home at the supper table, she remarked
that, "a merciful man was merciful to his beast."  'Twas the next morning
the docter gave me another animal to ride.  On Sunday, the day too sick as
to be unable to go to church, a stroll was taken through the apothecary
shop, and the pecans and other nut drawers examined before entering the
cinnamon and spice apartment.  Bot on going to the cupboard, we did not
know that in cutting the cake, it being a little dry, the knife would show
just where and how much we cut, and I felt awful ashamed when seeing the
mark of the knife show so plain on the cake on cutting a piece.  I never
saw the remainder of that cake afterwards to this day!

A more benevolent woman, how many times (though no blood relation)
has she helped us.  A wise counsellor.  A good mother.  An accomplished
lady. it was a benediction to dwell under her roof, and I only think of
her to love and respect her.

The old colored woman, a slave, who the docter hired to do nearly all
the farm work when there, belonged to Mrs. Merchant, an old widow lady,
and was Mrs. Merchant's only support.  This colored lady dressed in men's
clothes, plowed, husked corn, hauled hay, and stacked corn fodder, and cut
up in the air (and many times that I fell off the wagon or cart, all the
load on top.  One is incredible and be alive).

The two girls of the docter, my cousins, were very bright, and had a
romp every night, after the docter came home, on the carpet in the parlor.
He was fond of music, but neither he nor wife sang often.  Though the
latter was a good singer, she was always too busy to sing at home.

When Mary ann became of age (the oldest), the docter asked on her
birthday which she would have--a horse or melodian.  (Mary Anne Burton,
born 24 September 1840, at Little Osage. --Joe).  She said, "A horse."
The docter bought her a fine horse.

And when the second daughter became of age (Adoline), he asked the
same question, and she said, "An organ," or melodian.  The docter was so
pleased he got her a melodian, hired a music teacher, and she became a
fine vocalist, as well as a good musician.

(Sarah Adeline Apphia, born 8 June 1842.  Married Joseph H. Warden,
Nevada, Vernon County, Missouri.died 12 November 1876. --Joe).  Adoline,
afterwards Mrs. Warden, of Nevada City, Missouri, was a bright,
intellectual woman, dying early from scrubbing house and overwork when she
had no occassion so to do.  We remember her charms when a young girl, no
less notable when wife and mother.  One of the finest cooks and neatest
housekeepers of the age she lived in.

Her older sister, Mrs. Mellick, has a large, respected, intellectual
family, always at work, no time to visit or receive company.  She married
Dr. Mellick, a good docter and wealthy farmer near Balltown, and is
respected by all, though she May not inherit the mind of her younger
sister.

One more patient sufferer we wish to call to mind before we leave
Little Osage.  My uncle, Thomas Morris, who attended Ball's grist mill at
Balltown.  To conceive in the mold a man, a pattern of more native
simplicity, more patient, persistent endurance, and kindly affectionate to
all. so tall, lean, and people looking, yet so faithful in labours and
care, having charge of this water mill for years.  Whose business it was
to carry every boy's grist brought to this mill, grind it, and carry it up
and down a flight of stairs to and from the mill to the horse, and divide
this two-bushel sack into two parts to keep it from falling off of the
saddle horse as the boy went home.  The idea entertained in this age was
that two bushel of corn meal was as much as would keep good until an
ordinary-sized family used it up.  Hence, two bushel of corn, among the
more wealthy, was all taken to mill at one time.  And corn was the
principle bread of all classes.  The time spent at this mill by my uncle
no one knew but my uncle himself.  For The Governor, as we called him, was
a hard task-master (this name, Governor, was given by Cecil Ball to my
uncle Dodge when interpreter for him).  At any rate, uncle Thomas lost his
wife just after coming west from East Tennessee to Balltown, and these six
motherless children had to be taken care of, the oldest daughter being
only thirteen years old when her mother died.  My uncle tending the mill
day and night, he managed to raise the children, and keep them together
until they were large enough to care for themselves.  We will not dwell
upon this saint.  To think of his hardships makes us sad.  And my wife
never allows me to read the deaths of martyrs to her.  If he misses a
crown in that better country, we cannot now see why it was.

Finally, my father, in his preaching tours, got acquainted with Tayes
and Mr. Summers, two Virginians who had settled at Marshall's Creek, some
miles from Clinton, the county seat, and having got so poor from sickness
and cutting the main artery in his leg when skinning a deer at Double
Branch that he could get little to eat or wear, he concluded to send for
me at Dr. Dodge's, and move to Marshall's Creek.

But before entering into this change, one or two incidents of the
many that happened while at Deepwater and Double Branch may be told to
show how people suffered for the necessaries of life.  One summer, the
whooping cough came to Deepwater, and all our family had it.  Even myself.
I was not more than eight or nine, and had all the work to do.  And the
disease was so malignant that children died with it.  Almost everyone had
it in some form.  The parents were down flat with what the docters called
"nurse cough."  Children would sit for hours as still as death, for the
moment they moved, they would cough.  We never before nor since have seen
such a seige with whooping cough, and it lasted from spring until the next
winter.  With this came a general ear ache.  The ears would fester, rise,
and break.  The suffering was intense.  Deafness set in, and my poor
mother could not hear what the children said.  The stomach had no desire
to receive food.  Off in another settlement we heard of some honey, and
such a thing as sweet was not to be had with us.  Being the only one able
to do anything, Father got up Old Mike, the old sore-back horse, put
blankets on, gave me a bucket, and sent me for honey to Finas Means'es.
The horse very gentle, but would scare, and jump sidewise.  Mr. Mean gave
me the small pail of honey on the horse (it was strained).  On my return
home, the horse scared, jumped as quick as thought to one side.  Holding
onto Old Mike, in vain drew the bucket up onto the neck of Old Mike, and
turned the honey over on the top of my head, running all down over my face
and stomach.  On reaching home, my mother cried, and a funeral procession
could have been no more solemn than this occassion.

Another time, my mother making 42 coats in one year besides pants and
vests.  She nor Father either one of them never saw but one dollar cash
during that year, and that dollar Mother got in part pay for making a
coat.  This was the only dollar seen by either one of them, let alone to
have, and Mother gave fifty cents of that to the presiding elder of that
district.  And we think she got this dollar of Mr. English, ex-sheriff of
the county, for making a fine broadcloth coat to go see General or
President Jackson in.  It being reported that General Jackson had given
English a fine coat, which, after the coat was made, my father being
acquainted with the traits of Jackson, believed the whole matter a hoax.
And on ferretting out the affair, it proved to be the case.  He never went
to Tenessee to see General Jackson.

During this year of starvation, the only resource we had was pecans
brought one doller a bushel in St. Louis.  Dr. Rekwa offered us his wagon
and horses free of charge to go onto the Marais Des Cygnes bottom and
gather
pecans by taking his son and daughter and hired man along, C. T. Towner
(spelling verified).  We all camped together.  Slept in one bed on the
ground, the women on one end and the men on the other end of the bed, that
must have been forty or fifty feet long.  The men fell the trees, and
nearly all the pecan trees on the Marais Deshen botten were cut down this
year.  The women and children picked up the nuts, for when the trees fell,
all the nuts shattered out on the ground, and on clearing away the limbs,
the nuts could be scraped up by the handful on the bare ground.  We got
sixty bushels to our share, and made a store account of $60 all told.  We
well remember how Father and Mother divided and subdivided their $60 to
make it go the farthest.  Father needed a $7 blanket so bad to make an
overcoat, and this $7 seemed to always be short.  Finally Father said, "I
will have to do without the overcoat. pass on."  But Mother would not hear
to it.  We had only one dollar's worth of sugar that year.  One story Miss
Rekwa told on this trip all may have heard, but worth preserving.  A
back-woods preacher one day mounted a hulk's head of molasses in the woods
to preach to an innumerable company, it being the only elevation at hand.
He got warm and earnest, and would repeat every few moments, "My brethren,
if you do not repent, you will go down into irretrieveable woe."  Every
time he repeated this, he would stomp his foot on the hulk's head.  The
third stomp, the preacher went through into the molasses.

At Marshal's Creek we fared better.  My oldest brother, Thomas,
worked for Mr. Tays (spelling verified) by the year, as he had done at Dr.
Rekwa's.  My mother taught school what little she could, and my being able
to help Father farm, we soon began to pick up a little.  The neighbors
were very good to us.  They were well off.  All owned slaves.  But the
women folks did not know how to cook.  They were daughters of Col.
Everetts, of Virginnia, who gave each one of these married daughters a
tract of land and some negroes.  But to the daughters, he gave young,
inexperienced help, while to the sons-in-law he gave experienced negro men
to help improve the raw land he had bought for them.  Mrs. Summers knew
how to weave, and my mother used to spin cotton and wool on her big and
little hand wheels, and Mrs. Summers wove it to make all the clothes we
wore; and in turn, my mother learned the woman how to cook, make cheeze,
and many garments of both male and female attire.

My father, a preacher in the Methodist church South, was ever opposed
to the institution of slavery.  He preached nearly every Sabbath.  We had
an organized Sunday School class meeting, and three months' day school
each year.  But the question of slavery being agitated, the feeling became
very bitter with the two branches of the Methodist church, and charges
were prefered against my father as "being tinctured with northerism."  The
presiding elder, Jessie Green (spelling verified) asked if Father preached
his sentiments in his sermons.

The quarterly conference answered, "No."

"Well," says the elder, "so long as Brother Morris preaches nothing
of this sort in his sermons, we have no right to interfere in a man's
private opinions."

The case was dismissed, but the next year, the same charges were
prefered against my father.  They read just simply that, "Brother Morris
was tinctured with northernism."

These slave-holding Virginnians came forward, pled Father's case, and
every member of that quarterly conference voted for the renewal of
Father's liscence.  But Jessie Green (be it said to his praise, was never
guilty of such a farce) had been removed from the district, and a haughty
Virginnian by the name of Bennet sent to the Lexington District, and
although Father's liscence had been voted him, this elder, Bennet, in
order to legalize them, had to sign the liscence.  But he replied, "No.  I
am not going to sign liscence of any Methodist preacher in Missouri that
is tinctured with northernism."

These Virginnians were my father's friends, done all in their power
for him, offered to help him in any way if he would remain among them.
James Tays (spelling verified) was certainly the best man to the porr we
remember to have met on Marshal's Creek.  But my father had made up his
mind.  He had one yoke of oxen and one old horse, one mule.  He made an
arrangement for an old wagon, and began packing the spring of 1849 for
Iowa.  The neighbors all grieved to think we were going to leave them.
When all the household goods were aboard, Father had $2.50 in his pocket
to make a journey of 250 miles among strangers to Iowa.  But grass was
plenty along the road, travel cheap.

The last night we stayed at Mr. Tays'es, a very trying scene
occurred.  Sarinas (spelling verified) Mackabe, a kind but unenergetic
man, came to see us, and, it seems to me, stayed all night.  The next
morning, on parting with neighbors and old friends, Sarinas Mackabe took
Father's hand, and reached his other hand into his pocket, pulling out
fifty cents.  "Here.  Take this.  You are going on a long journey.  You
may need this." and gave Father the half dollar.  He was viewed as a
simple, rather unreliable man, very poor, and undoubtedly the only fifty
cents he had.  But after going to Iowa, we learned that he engaged with
James Cummins (spelling verified) to work for him a year from time of
starting from Missouri to California for to pay said Cummins for bringing
him to the golden state, and among quite a number of men who engaged with
Mr. Cummins the same terms, Sarinas and one other man were all the men who
fulfilled their contract, and came through to California with Mr. Cummins.
Poor Sarinas.  We know not what went with him.  Mr. Cummins told me
afterwards he never had a better hand or more honorable man work for him.

Before leaving this part of Missouri, it seems prudent to mention of
the more important part of man's mission, the church, state, etc.  My
father, an old Federalist, after that an old line Whig, we never heard him
speak of voting for but one Democrat, and that was Andrew Jackson, and
this was through personal feelings.  Though a Virginnian by birth, raised
in East Tennessee, he always despised the Southern institution of slavery,
and when anyone spoke of blood-telling, he would remark, "My father worked
on Patrick Henry's barn.  If that entitles me to any claims of being of
the first families, I suppose I am one of them."

The Morrises are of old English stock two hundred years back.  The
Fords, a wealthy family of Middle Tennessee that the Morrises never cared
much for, the Morrises accusing the Fords of taking some technicality in
the law to cheat my grandmother, who was a Ford, out of her share of the
slaves in the Ford estate.  (LUCY FORD (FMFFM) WEALTHY, OF EASTERN
TENNESEE.  HER FAMILY WAS ANGRY BECAUSE SHE MARRIED "BELOW HER STATION IN
LIFE" WHEN SHEE MARRIED A MORRIS.  Rev. Isaac Milton Morris, son of Thomas
Morris, father of Milton.  Died young, in 1819.  Other children: Lucy and
two or three other daughters, JOHN CRAWLEY, ZECHARIA OR ZACHARY, AND
THOMAS. --Joe).  Grandfather Morris dying early, my father  had the
principle care of his widowed mother, and being prejudiced against the
institution of slavery from seeing a neighbor by the name of Camel sell a
Negro woman to a slave-driver to be taken south.  This Negro woman had a
child at the breast, and my father went over to Camels' the morning the
driver came for the woman.  When this mother got about half way to the
gate (my father just coming through the gate at that time) saw her throw
up her hands and make a very strange noise.  She turned to the house, and
groaning very distressedly began crying for her infant child.  Camel took
down a raw-hide from over the door and took after her, saying, "I'll learn
you how to be acting the fool in that way," and drove her off.  This made
such an impression on Father's mind he never got reconciled to the
institution, though he was forman on some of the farms in East Tennessee.

My uncle, Thomas, the miller, having been spoken of at Ball's mill,
zack I never saw, but he was the first of the Morris boys to come west and
stop at old Harmony Mission. My mother knew him well, and a more
interesting joker, pranky fellow never was at the mission.  A good axe
man.  Leading out in work.  Well liked. Dying early, he left my father a
fine horse, overcoat, and some other property before I was large enough to
remember.

Uncle John, who it fell to my lot to be named for, was a lawyer,
educated at Virginnia College if we recollect right.  He was always going
back to Tennessee to "law" the Fords for them slaves, as he called it, and
went two or three times.  But he always went to college in lew of lawing
the Fords, and my father used to think the Fords sent him to school or
college.  He started to college in '49, and we never got any trace of him
afterwards.  But being a weakly man, and very ambitious, we suppose he
perished on the plains.  But on our crossing the plains in '57, we saw at
The Devil's Gate, way up where it looked impossible for any mortal to
ascend, the name, J. C. Morris cut up in a hanging rock.  Father said in a
moment, "That is John Crawley," for he was always trying to do something
nobody else could do.

The three or four sisters of my father I leave out, except Aunt
Patsy, who I never saw, but hearing my father say so much of her devoted
life, how they went to meeting together, how she was sent for, allowing
the hands to help get up wedding dinners, etc.  She married Julian
Frasier, a man who had some knowledge of law, and during the civil war,
these cousins (his children) were all scattered, like Uncle Thomas Morris'
sons, over Arkansas and Texas.

All of the entire Morris stock except my father went to the southern
wing of the army during the rebellion.  And be it said, my father's house
being the home of the preachers, I have seen my mother make beds down on
the floor in time of quarterly meetings until there was not room to make
any more.  My mother being an excellent cook, like her mother, before,
both running a free hotel, and it would take volumes to tell the jokes,
interesting incidents, and controversies that took place under my father's
roof.  And during the late rebellion, having ample time to read, being in
a store, we don't remember ever seeing a new idea muted on the vexed
question but was discussed and thoroughly analysed under my father's roof.
An uneducated man like Andrew Johnson, he never went to school over
thirty days during his life, yet nothing pleased him better than to select
all the difficult examples in the then larger arithmetics, and poke them
at some New England school-teacher who could not work them, and then work
these examples himself.  He could murder the king's English the most
completely of any preacher we ever heard.  Spelling correctly was small
potatoes for him.  He read everything.  A controversialist at home, but
never in his sermons.  He labored for the one end in the pulpit, and that
was the salvation of souls.  In controversy at his own home rarely ever
beaten, he became a textbook, and all the preachers in their sophistry
called him "Bishop Morris."  He knew more of the southern strength,
training, and strategy than any preacher of the north, and when Really,
William H. Seward, douglas, and others were talking of the short duration
of the war, and the hypocritical leaders of the south were wanting peace
"just to be left alone," he said, "Ah, little do they (the north)
understand that people.  They claim that all they want is just to be left
alone, when the fact is they want to fight.  Raised to the saddle, the use
of the gun, they mustered every week before I left Tennessee.  The Norht,
raised up to other persuits, not having thought of or devoted their time
to arms will make poor show with all the force and arms in the south.
Why?  I tell you, they are politicians.  And I doubt if they ever clean
them out."  Thus did my father talk.  Prayers always at the home.  He
lived what he taught.  Preached a free gospel.  Though eccentric, he never
introduced his eccentricities into his sermons, and made his boast that he
had preached forty years, and during that time had never received but two
bushel of potatoes and one peck of seed corn for all his preaching.  And
if anyone spoke favorable of his preaching, he would remark, "Yes, I have
during my life heard of two persons bragging about my preaching.  One was
a Dutch woman who could not understand the English, and the other was a
drunk man who fell asleep and I could hear him snoring all the time I was
preaching."

When seven years old, I had deep conviction of sin, used to go out
into the woods and corn fields to pray all alone to myself, my heart all
broken and crushed.  It seemed to me at that early day I should die unless
I found relief.  But being a child, no one took any notice of my
complaints, if I made any, and most likely these fits of melancholy passed
off without my parents thinking or questioning anything about this concern
I felt for my soul.  And my disposition was to keep this matter as far off
as possible from my parents.  Gradually they wore off.

My mother was more of a congregationalist or Presbyterian than
Methodist, and took more care of the children's spiritual spiritual
welfare than even Father in the way of catecising us and learning our
prayers.  But I loved the Methodist preacher.  They were such jolly,
whole-souled fellows, and if they missed putting up at our house over
night every time they come around (which was every three weeks) we thought
we had missed a treat.  There was no preaching place except in log
schoolhouses daubbed with mud unless some citizen opened his doors to the
preacher, which was frequently done.  And most generally in the latter
event, half would stay to dinner.  Camp meetings were the greatest
gathering of this day.  All came to camp meeting, and a revival was
expected.  The first of these was at Deepwater, that we ever remember
attending.  Richard Colburn (spelling verified) was the preacher.  A small
man, full of energy and fire.  He would come back into the congregation,
take hold of the men, and try to pull them up to the altar for prayer.
Nor did he stop at this.  He would even lay hold of mothers, like a man
pulling them out of the fire, and coax, pull, and persuade them to come to
the altar.  He was so well-liked that all seemed to think him perfectly
legitimate and right except our more aristocratic Presbyterians, mostly of
my grandfathers missionaries, who came with him as teachers, docters, and
mechanics from the east when he founded old Harmony mission, and who had
taken land all over the county here and there, and made themselves
comfortable homes.  These Presbyterians were annoyed and mortified about
the Methodists shouting, falling over, and crying, "Amen!  Praise The
Lord!" and clapping their hands, shouting to the top of their voice, and
praying for everybody by calling their names.  Some of the mothers were
scared worse than to have seen a dozen Osage warriors coming to scalp
them, but they were doomed to being worse mortified than this.  John
Austin, the flower of the old missionary families, having married Dr.
Jones'es daughter (Jones was a Presbyterian preacher and teacher, but when
the mission broke up, Dr. went to preaching and practising medicine on
Deepwater) settled near this camp ground, where his son-in-law lived on
Deepwater.  One day or night, we've forgotten which, John Austin, a very
religious young man, comes over to the camp meeting.  The Methodists got
to shouting, John caught the fire.  He clapped his hands and shouted,
"Glory!" until he wore himself out.  The report was that the Methodists
had to carry Deacon John off from the camp ground.  It spread, got to
Little Osage, twenty miles away, that John Austin had so humiliated the
Presbyterians as to shout.  John being well-to-do, well educated, the
Presbyterians did not know what to do about Sir John.  His father (Father
Austin), who built Ball's mill (at that day a greater event than Morse's
telegraph) came to see Grandfather Dodge about John's conduct.  And it was
a self-evident fact that these two fathers had a greater problem to settle
than Christianizing the Osage Indians.  They consulted my mother.  Living
in the door-yard at my grandparents, she, through her younger sister or
mother, usually got the decision some way when a counsel of war was
called, heard this much of the conclusion:

"Oh, well," says Grandpa, "if it comes from the heart, and they don't
make it, I don't care if they shout."

We left Bates County, Missouri, in May, when grass was plenty, as the
custom was to feed all our teams and loose stock in those days on the...

Our trip to Iowa.  Whether it was in the year 1848 or 1849 we left
Missouri for Iowa we cannot tell, for our memory on dates never very good.
May be at fault in many cases.  Yet the narrative set forth is true in
all the subject matter set forth in these essays, as far as the author can
comprehend.  And we may have made the pages more dry and uninteresting by
being too careful to have  each word and sentence written just as it
occurred as far as seemed possible.

We have such a distaste for all books of fiction that we may lean a
little too strong to the opposite.  Yet we hear and receive so much as
true which deceives and misleads that we fill up our cranium without
knowing the fact to a great extent with what we suppose true today and is
contradicted tomorrow that we rather be a little monotonous than utter one
word of unknown truth so as to misguide or create doubts with the reader.

Nothing of a thrilling or mysterious nature occurred on the first
sixty miles of our journey.  But on reaching the bank of the Missouri, at
Kansas City, this wonderful, muddy, wide, and rushing stream brought forth
to our minds much more than Joaquin Miller could picture, much as we
admire that poem.  The city itself amounted to little.  We should judge
five or six stores, mostly for the Santa Fe and California out-trading
trains.  Scarcely any family residences were noticed by the pilgrims, and
it seemed that we were much more favorably impressed with Westport than
Kansas City.

Some inquiry by my father at the ferry soon put us over this mother
or monster of all waters in the cottonwood bottems on the other side,
where quite an amount of four-foot cottonwoods was cut for sale to the
steamboat companies for fuel.  We built up a fire to cook supplies when it
began to get a little dark.  'Twas then we heard a strange noise down the
river.  On looking closely, my mother says, "A steamboat!"  All rushed to
the bank to see the monster that belched forth fire and brimstone from its
nostrils.  But my mother was the only one of the family that had seen a
steamboat.  My father, though traveling from Knoxville, Tennessee to
Harmony Mission, now Papinsville, Missouri, had never seen a steamboat,
knew nothing of the liabilities or casualties of such mighty structures,
and came to each member of the family, stationed them up the bank three or
four rods further from the boat than we were, saying, "Get back! We don't
know the danger!  It might blow up!"

They took on wood, and we had quite a time viewing the outside of the
structure, but none dared to step on board to view the inside.  We had
late supper that night.  My father was up nearly all night.

From Kansas City, we journeyed through Clay, Platte, and Bucannon
counties, stopping to recruit in Andrew County.  Platte City was the
largest place I had ever seen.  It glittered and shined so that, in my
mind, it seemed a beautiful little city to one today.  We came to Saint
Joe, then the most prosperous, busiest, and wide-awake city west of St.
Louis.  And it seemed to me that anything under the canopy of heaven could
be seen or bought in St. Joe, Missouri.  Savannah, the county seat of
Andrew County, was not so fine as the two former-mentioned county seats
(Platte  City and St. Joe).  The most beautiful landscapes, the finest
upland timber, springs of water, sugar tree groves, blue grass pasture and
farm buildings we ever beheld up to that date were in this Platte Purchase
as we journeyed through the above-named counties in Missouri.

The only sad scene of this journey was leaving Old Mike.  On a
beautiful, blue grass slope, the old fellow gave out.  We wrestled,
coaxed, fed; but to no use.  He had served us faithfully so far back, and
as recollections went, done all the cultivating of corn, melons, garden,
and hauled wood, corn, etc.  One year, broke all the grounds we
cultivated.  Father had rode him to all his appointments to preach for
years.  Mother had taken two or three of the children on his back to
church and to see the neighbors.  He was the only horse Father ever bought
or had given him but lay down and died.  He had been foundered from
over-eating corn, and taken to Deepwater, and turned out to die by a big
hole, or ponds, of that river.  When Father went down the next morning to
see him, he was standing half sides in the water, and much better, and
afterwards, when foundered (which happened many times), he always broke
for the water with the same result.  We had to part with him, and like
Beechers' Old Charley, we felt like he had seen a hard time in this life,
and if no hereafter for him, his case was disconsolate.  My Father grew
sad, mysterious, and bewildered, remarking as he nearly cried, "Well,
Mother, I feel as bad as if I'd lost one of the children."  He went to an
aged colored man nearby, and told him if Old Mike got well he could have
him if he would take good care of him.  Taking the bell from off his neck
(the blue grass was good, water fine), we left him in the clover.  The
last scene of poor Old Mike, our faithful, good, obedient horse.

In thinking over our trip in after years through the east counties,
it seems we never passed through so new a country with such good houses,
barns, fields, and orchards.  The people were the best off, lived the
best, the most generally intelligent we ever met.  It seemed like an old
country, judging from the improvements.  Many double-hewed log houses.
When Father would see one of these, he would say, "There lives a
Kentuckyian."  They always build a chimney at each end of their houses,
and usually build two-story houses.  These chimneys were run up on the
outside of the house, usually built of brick, and form a long,
pyramid-shaped flue, looking very high and nice.  Some brick houses and
frame buildings were to be seen, and the people were the greatest variety
we had ever seen, being from nearly every state in the union.  Money
seemed more plentiful than when we left, and this certainly was the
richest country we had ever passed over.

We stayed at North prairie, in some fifty or sixty miles of the Iowa
line to work for more money to carry us on to Iowa.  These people were
from Ohio, Kentucky, and Indiana, mostly.  Hemp was a great staple, and
the slave power not being very strong (yet some owned as high as 100), but
the most of even well-to-do farmers owned no slaves at all.  Father and my
older brother got plenty of work.  It took me most of the time 'round
camp.  How much was earned here we have forgotten, before we started for
Iowa.  But early in the fall, we pulled out for Iowa.  The rains caught us
out the second day, and we went into a house with a Kentucky family
formerly from E. Tennessee, and he and my father were as well acquainted
the first day as ever after, for Father always used to say that E.
Tennessee people were just as well acquainted the first time they met as
ever afterward.  They were very kind.  A large house, but little to eat.
We found them actually living on potatoes and salt.  They had plenty of
Irish potatoes.  Both families joined in the roast.  We would build up a
fire in the large fireplace if there was not a plentiful supply of live
coals already in the hugh fireplace, and when coals were plentiful, then
pull forward on the hearth ashes and all until reaching the solid rock or
bricks in the bottom.  Then we'd pour in from one peck to a half bushel of
potatoes, putting ashes first of all on the potatoes, then the live coals
on the ashes.  In about one hour, all are done.  When all the ashes are
again scraped from the hearth in front of this potato hole or deposit,
when all the potatoes are, with the assistance of the fire shovel pulled
out, each and every inmate helping themselves.  And frequently cornbread
is cooked in the same manner.  We got the salt, and nearly entirely lived
on these potatoes, eating them out of the rinds to save washing the
dishes.  You will say this is hard living, and so it is, but we will tell
of harder living than this before we get done with the Mormons in western
Iowa, some three or four years after.

The rain stopped in two or three days.  This good thoroughbred E.
Tennessee Kentuckyian, on parting, charged us nothing for house, rent, and
potatoe harvest, gave Father some good advice.  One thing more
particularly than others was to be careful of the Indians.  "You may know
them by their always being dressed with yellow hunting shirts and yellow
jeans pants.  They will cheat and rob you if they can.  Beware of them!"

On leaving Mr. Sharp's (our Kentuckyian), the first night come on to
a little, running prairie brook, and camped by the banks, where just
opposite, in two hundred yards, lived a family that my father had asked
the permission of to camp, as was his custome to do.  He never would camp
in reach of anyone but he would always ask the permission to camp, and
never go onto anyone's premises to hunt or fish unless he asked
permission, and would say to us children in our raising, "Ask for anything
you are seeking before you help yourselves."  "Anything worth having is
worth asking for."

We had scarcely built a fire when a rather plain-looking man came
from that house dressed with yellow pants and yellow hunting shirt on, and
all whispered, "Look out for the Indians."  We talked awhile, got up, and
said, "Wouldn't you like some fresh meat?  I killed a beef today, and if
you like we will bring you over some."

"Yes," says Father, "and I will pay you for it."

"Oh, no.  I don't want any pay for a piece of meat given to a
traveler."

We have heard since, that was Mr. Graham, and his wife's name was
Mary, and when the citizens come to name the county seat of Nodaway
(spelling verified), they were bothered to know what to call the town, and
someone says, "Name it 'Mary,' after the first woman that settled in the
town," calling it Marysville, after this Mr. Graham's wife.  We don't know
whether he was an Indian, or whether this naming be true or not.  What we
know, we got a fine pail of meat that we very much needed.

Being heavy-loaded on this trip with our old, rickety, squeekety ox
wagon, about fifteen or twenty miles was all we could travel per day.  In
two more days, we landed in Iowa at Boundary Grove, Page County, so named
from a lawsuit growing out of a twelve-mile strip across the north side of
Missouri and south side of Iowa.  Iowa gaining the suit, Boundary Grove
fell to the state of Iowa.  We stopped at this grove but a few months when
Father traded his oxen and wagon for a claim on government land in the
forks of the Nodaway.  We moved onto this claim not a house, cow, hog, or
chicken.  No money.  A shell of a house, but no fencing.  Dense forests of
timber for miles up and down these two rivers (Little and Big Nodaway),
and the finest kind of oak, walnut, red oak, white oak, and better than
all, deer and wild turkeys.  My mother advertised to make coats for trade,
anything we could eat, just as she had done in southern Missouri.  There
was no money here, but plenty of work for corn, potatoes, etc.  My oldest
brother and myself went to gathering corn for Lark Thompson and Jessie
Majors (spelling verified), two brothers-in-law that were well-off for
that country.  We soon earned bread corn for a year, bread, three or four
hogs, some chickens, and household furniture.  Mr. Robert Stafford
(spelling verified), an old ex-sheriff of Nodaway County, and afterwards
sheriff of Page county, Iowa, soon found us out. Though three miles away,
he used to pack us meat every time he killed a hog on his back.  Father
went to preaching of Sundays, having got to Iowa in time for Uncle Jimmy
Still, the presiding elder of the Nodaway District to renew his liscense
before they run out after the charges prefered, before related, at
Marshall's Creek, Missouri, and going on foot.  No preacher being located
near this part of Iowa, Father had to say all the marriage ceremonies, but
those who married in this locality had hard work to raise the fifty cents
it took to record the marriage certificate in the county clerk's office.
And we well remember two funny ceremonies that took place, one in Boundary
Grove, then in the state of Missouri, and the other at a settlement on the
Nodaway, some fifty miles below where we now lived in Nodaway County,
Missouri.  A farmer came to Father.  His name was Lionabo, a very
nice-looking and honest man, and asked Father what he would charge to go
three or four miles away and say the marriage ceremony for him.  Being
present, my father talked low, but said, "It will cost fifty cents to get
it recorded, and that will be cash.  You will have that to pay.  It will
take a half day to go over there and say the ceremony.  You pay the fifty
cents, and come over and work for me a half day, and that will make it
even."

The ceremony was said.  He came and worked a half day, not an hour
more, ate dinner, and went away.

The other was a young man in Nodaway County, Missouri, but he had to
send to Savannah, the county seat of Andrew County, for a preacher to
marry him, some twenty-five or thirty miles away.  The preacher
encountered a heavy snowstorm the day set, but made his way to the young
man's father, and stayed all night.  The next day being quite cold, he
went to the bride's mother's to say the ceremony.  When the dinner was
over, the young man (who was quite well off) took this Presbyterian
minister out and said, "How much do I owe you?"

"Oh, nothing," says the preacher.

"Why you can't come clear out hear from Savannah and marry me for
nothing!  I intend to pay you well for it," pulling out his purse.

"Oh, I never charge anything.  If they feel like it, I take whatever
they offer me."

It was the days that ten cent silver coins and 12.5 cent silver coins
were in circulation, both legal.  One, the former, called a "short bit,"
the other, 12.5 cents, called a "long bit."  The young man added, "Well,
you must be paid well," and added, "By Bing, I'll go a long bit anyhow!"
and pulled out a 12.5 cent piece from his purse, and gave the minister.
Mr. Florrince (spelling verified), a justice of the peace in Newark,
afterwards Philmore, Missouri, who I worked for, told me this was true.
He would not give me the name, but told me on going one day up the Nodaway
some miles, the same course (though many years after) to say a marriage
ceremony, that this trip of his reminded him very much of the
Presbyterian's ride, although his took only one day.

Winter at the forks of the Nodaway.
My brother, Thomas, and myself worked away into the mid-winter gathering
corn for these drunken brothers-in-law.  One of them, Larking Thompson,
and was so beastly drunk he hardly ever got out of doors, and if he saw a
cloud, he would always bet with his hired girl fifty cents to two-fifty
that it would rain before tomorrow morning.  Then the hired woman would
always bet with him, and nearly always win.  She was an Indiana lady, if I
may call her so, for she was handsome, smart, and had twin babies with her
that the neighbors called "illigitimate."  We never hunted the matter up,
and what she cooked, corn bread,  very thick side pork, occassionally a
little cabbage or sour crout, never poisoned us.  And as the Mormons were
scattered pretty thickly over this region, which soon will engage my mind
and pen, she may have been hermetically sealed to some of these Mormon
lords so plentifully squatted over this part of Iowa on their way from
Naru to Salt Lake City.  On many occassions, we came home (or to Lark
Thompson, for it was no home for anyone), and had to take the oxen from
the wagon we were hauling corn in all day, go into the woods, quarter or a
half mile away, cut a hickory tree, the ground usually frozen, hitch this
excellent yoke of oxen to the but ends of the tree with a log chain, and
drag it up, cut wood to build a fire, before getting our side pork and
corn dodgers for supper.  Sometimes the same performance before breakfast.
And we were quite sure we never saw another yoke of oxen that could pull
as much as that at Lark Thompson's.

At Jess Majors' we fared much better.  Mrs. Majors done the cooking.
We had more vegetables, and Orleans molasses.  Then there was a barrel of
sour crout set by the large fire place in one corner of the kitchen.  I
set by that sour crout, and during the debates after supper 'round the
fireplace, I would raise the lid.  It was just working.  I'd dip my hand
into that barrel of sour crout, take out a big handfull, and eat it.  It
was kind of free-truck for all, and no one, after jerking corn for
fourteen hours, felt that he was stealing this food.

The winter passed, and after doing much moonshine work unloading
stock, fodder, getting wood, and our father come to see us.  These fellows
were coarse jockeys (nay, horse racers), and they were very anxious to
show my father their horses.  And they had fine ones, too!  They had one
that had been beaten they wanted to sell. They bragged him up.  Father
went to the stable, looked at all their fine stock, telling them this
one's good points, and that one they wanted to sell, his bad points.  And
on my father's leaving the stables for home, my older brother heard Majors
remark to Thompson, "Why, that damned old Methodist priest knows more
about race stock than anyone in the country.

The last part of the winter, what my brother, Thomas, done, we do not
now recollect.  But it does not seem that he helped Father and myself make
rails on the claim at the forks of the Nodaway.  But we were so poor and
out of clothes that what little sowing Mother got did not get us much to
eat or wear.  She used to try to get half out of the store of them in
Missouri, the other half in trade, meaning corn, wheat, vegetables, honey,
pork, eggs, or whatever we could use.  What we got from the stores was
counted cash.  But so few were able to pay anything from the stores that
it might be all called trade.  She got fifty cents for making pants, 75
cents for a vest, and two dollars for making a man's coat.  In Iowa, close
by where we lived, was a tailor who got most of the work.

On returning home, we went to work helping Father make rails, and we
recollect all we had to eat was straight thick-side bacon.  No lean.  We
were too far from home to go to dinner from where we were making rails,
and we would take our corn dodger and bacon at noon, and cut a forked
stick, build a fire (the weather being cold), stick the two forks through
bacon, put it up before the fire, and cook the bacon, put the slice on a
piece of corn bread, and cut off from the side of bacon a mouthful, then
the bread, in like manner, drinking water.  Thus we made ten-foot rails
until spring.

At home we fared a little better of mornings and evenings.  My mother
usually managed to keep a little flour to make thickening gravy, and she
would take the grease she fried out of the bacon, and for breakfast and
supper we would have gravey on our corn bread.  That was made up with
water, without any shortening.

No cow, no horse, no wagons, nothing but the unimproved land, and
father could  only go on foot to his appointments, and got acquainted with
but few.  In the spring of 1850, something had to be done.  To part with
any of the children was a source of grief to our parents, but on sprin
opening, the parents held a consultation.  They had got somewhat
acquainted in Andrew County, Missouri, where we stopped to work and we
came to Iowa.    My older brother and myself were counselled, and all
thought it best for us two to go to Andrew County to work.  My older
brother was a fine hand of his age.  He was seventeen years old.  He had
worked for Dr. Rekwa one year and James Tays one year before he came to
Iowa.  Mother patched up our old clothes.  One pair of my pants was made
of thin linsy, and holes came in them shortly after leaving home.  All a
parent could do was done for us in the way of advice and good counsel, but
they found no way to furnish us any money for the journey, but sent us to
L. Thompson, to the same Mr. Graham who gave us the beef at Marysville
from Lark Thompson to stay all night.  As bad as Thompson and Majors were,
they were kind in this way, and the women were very different from the men
morally (and I have forgot to mention the greatest object of piety we ever
met in Page County, Iowa, at Lark Thompson's when working there.  Mrs.
Thompson's sister had a sore shin, or fever sores, on her leg, and I am
ashamed that in giving the narrative of our working there, the suffering
of this poor, afflicted mortal were not mentioned.  She used to lay awake
all night and groan.  No one to pity her but her sister, Mrs. Thompson.
How often I have thought of her, and how she was forgotten in my writing
up our winter's work puzzles me).

We made Marysville our second day, and Mr. and Mrs. Graham treated us
very kindly.  Yet we were tired and sore, having made nearly thirty miles
carrying all our clothes, and being only fifteen years old, very small of
my age, it seemed we could not have made this distance.  It seemed my
mother seemed to part with us in better heart than on former occassions
like this.  She always cried on my leaving home before, but if she cried
this time, we have forgotten the fact, and maybe the pressing necessity
had something to do with the matter.  Where we stayed the next night we
have forgotten, but we know where we took up to enquire for work and
stopped until we found it, VIZ at Amos Collinses.  My brother had no
trouble to get work.  He went to work for Amos Collins at ten dollars per
month.  Amos was a Methodist preacher, raised and educated in Indiana, we
think, and now had a good farm on North prairie, five miles from Newark,
Andrew County, Missouri.  His brother, Tom Collins, had been in the state
legislature in Missouri, and adjoined farms with Amos.  The Old Man
Collins, uncle Jacky, as we called him, lived near Newark, in one or two
miles.  And Kerns Laughlin (spelling verified), his son-in-law, lived in
Newark, clerking in a store.  Mr. Laughlin was said to be the best
salesman clerk in that time in the upper Missouri country.  My being so
diminutive, Uncle Jacky being a good farmer, and the father of Amos and
Thomas Collins, of north prairie, where my brother went to work, they all
seemed to take my case into consideration, and Uncle Jacky said if I would
come and work for him one year, he would give me seven dollars per month,
I went to work for him.

Being thus thrown among these good people, it made the matter very
pleasant, and the distance of sixty or seventy miles from home did not
seem far to those who had a good horse and saddle.  To a poor boy who had
no clothes scarcely, and every cent that was earned must go to the
parents, and five or six children at home, there was no opportunity to go
home, and we were farther from the forks of the Nodaway than we are to the
facilities of the railroad from New York City.  Uncle Jacky Collins was
very kind, honorable man.  A good Christian, and always took me to Newark
to church if I desired to go.  And through going to church, I got
acquainted with Kerns Laughlin.  This excellent Christian man, who gave me
so much good advice in after years.  Mrs. Collins done my washing (as was
the custom in hiring a man in those days.  You got your washing and
boarding and eating at the same table.  You was treated better, if
possible, than though you had been a son of the landlord).  Thus, only
having my work to do, we were always up early, and worked until dark
before getting all the chores done. My brother came once in awhile to see
me, and we had all Sunday to ourselves.  The Sabbath was strictly observed
by all classes, and Uncle Jacky Collins would not allow us to read a
secular paper or anything on the Sabbath, but religious books and
pamphlets.  The Western Christian Advocate, the leading Methodist paper at
that time, coming to his table every week.  We had one grown son at home,
Andrew, and two single daughters.  Malissa was one of the girl's names,
and the other we have forgotten.  They were very quiet, and we only
remember that the oldest was a consumptive, and a very devoted Christian.
She must have been sixteen or seventeen years old when I worked there, and
often reminded me of Samuel Wesley Jr.'s beautiful poem, "The Morning
Flowers Display Their Sweet," which has been sung at more funerals of
young people than any other hymn (and was the best type of the life of
that author written that hymn that has ever been published).  She died
shortly after my year was up, and we well remember her clinging to the
door case, being unable to stand without some prop to lean against.  But
we know from her Christian demeanor while there she had a more sure prop
to lean upon than earth can give or take away.

Nothing very remarkable occurred during my stay at Mr. Collinses.  My
father came down during the summer, and we let him have fifty or sixty
dollars earned, and he drew a few dollars ahead.  With this cash he bought
a pony for $25, a fine Durham cow for $12.50, and he had several dollars
for the necessaries of life.  The vexed question (slavery of the negroes)
began to assume huge proportions.  Debates were held all over the land,
and much persecution existed on the application of Californian's
admission.  The two Methodist churches had the most of these debates.  One
man by the name of Kelly, a northern Methodist preacher, came to Savannah,
and spoke on the division of the church.  Wen done, they took him, poured
tar into his ears, gave him a coat of tar and feathers, rolled him on a
rail, and sent him out of the country.  This was done in many places with
the Methodist preachers of the old church.  And no doubt the southern
church egged it on to great an extent, for they claimed that the northern
Methodist preachers had no rights south of Mason and Dixon's line.  We
were strongly prejudiced in favor of the north, and politically and
religiously the communities were quite equally divided.  Yet the epithet
of abolitionists was  not so commonly applied to everyone who did not
think just as Calhoon or the southern leaders advocated.  John Chivington
(spelling verified) and a few others were heard under the color of the
resolver.  We do not particularly admire Chivington, although our sympathy
was entirely with the north.

Next spring, 1851, we went to work for Mr. Florrence (spelling
verified), a saloon keeper in the town of Newark, and the then-acting
justice of the peace.  He had little to do, and only wanted me for a
month.  It was about as near doing nothing as we ever remember doing.
Just he liked me so well, he kept me longer at $7.50 per month.  He was
kindly.  Good pay, and the most to eat, his wife being a good cook we ever
remember having where we worked.  Here we met Mrs. Kinnison, a docter's
wife, up street, and she says, "When you get done with Mr. Florrence, I
want you to come and work for the docter.  I will send him up to see you."

The next day, the docter came, and offered me $10 per month for one
year.  On inquiry, he was well and favorably spoken of, and so was the
wife.  He had married Perrman Taylor's daughter, a slave-holder of
Virginnia.  A virginnian by birth and raising, and I may add, by politics,
but a Yankee in genius and knowledge, a practising physician and southern
Methodist preacher.  He had more practice than he could attend to.  Often
have we seen him asleep in his saddle, always going horseback or on foot.
Here I slept in the Docter's office or apothecary shop among the
medicines, and made myself generally useful by being up by daylight,
feeding the small amount of stock, building all the fires, and hoeing the
garden until breakfast, which came any time from six to ten A M, owing to
the combination of the wood and the time the spirit moved the cook.  The
cook was a negro girl, judging about sixteen.  She knew how to mix so as
to make dough.  Whether it came out dough or paste, it was all the same.
She knew how to boil Irish potatoes and boil fat bacon sides.  This was
all.

Sarah, the oldest daughter, was an excellent cook when she went into
the kitchen.  Then we had a fine meal.  She was always there when they had
company, and they had quite an amount of company.  It was not necessary to
enquire if company was there.  If you went to the well at the kitchen door
and found Sarah in the kitchen, you might know there was company.  But
unless some visitors, the girls (five in the family, and two of them
grown) would absent themselves from the kitchen.  But each come to the hog
and hominy every meal, as regular as the hired man, enjoying the meal,
always cheerful, handsome, and happy.  Naturally they made more fine
quilts than any young ladies we ever were acquainted with.  They milked
the cow, helped the colored girl do the washing, and sarah could build and
make a fire burn out of green out of green elm, which I could never do,
and she was not red-headed either, but rather golden.  Then she could beat
me or anyone else I ever saw picking wild blackberries in the woods,
except my present mother-in-law.  I did not like the latter performance,
but was always glad to have Miss Sarah along at the blackberry picnics.
We were not like Jacob, serving fourteen years, for she was my senior.
Yet she had a younger sister, very diminutive, and said to be the most
handsome girl in ten miles around.  We always quarreled, that is, she was
always raising some little dissatisfaction with all around her.  Yet it
was only mischievious fun with her, for she was wonderfully good meaning.
This was Miss Ann (spelling verified).  The next was Susan.  Her business
was to take care of her little brother, and a more faithful soul could not
be found.  The child, William Pearman, was good.  Two years old, and
humored in every whim, but it never spoiled little Willy Pearlman.  And
Verdie were too young for me to pay much attention to.  And then it
occuppied most of my time to keep Miss Ann straight by hectoring her what
little spare time I had from my work.  The docter not much at home, we had
less to do with than any of the family, for he was nearly always away from
home among his patients.  But when at home, you fine a more interesting
man if you could than old Dr. Kinnison!  During the whole summer, the
docter came out twice on the plantation by my vehement urging and his
protest, to see how I was running things.  And all he said, "Oh, it's no
use for me to come out here.  You know just as well how to do it as I do."

Of all the makeup of man, never shall we behold another like him.  He
could tell more funny things, looked younger, though bald, more pleasant,
and chewed his tobacco nicer than any man we ever saw to chew as much as
he did.  Always pleasant, the greatest humanitarian, never asked for the
payment of a bill unless some member of his family was in need.  Always
poor, could not get enough out of an extended practice.  He had for to
respectfully support his family of six children.  Never played any pranks.
Could not bear to see anyone hoaxed, but would quickly come to the relief
of any party that was the victim of any plot.  Temperate, yet taking all
the men that were drunk or got into a fight election days to his house,
and took care of them until they got sober.  A peacemaker, a good
preacher, and a fine physician.  Although accused of never receiving a
medical education, always trying to do something for young men, advising
them how to get a good education, how to go into business, and so forth.
If anything in this world worth living for, I owe Dr. Kinnison, next to my
father, of all earthly benefactors, that debt.  Two or three of his
amusing traits among hundreds let me mention.  One day, on walking up the
street from Dr. Baker's store, where we done all our trading, we met the
Dr. Baker with a huge fish.  Accosting him with the usual salutation, I
said, "Where did you get that fish, docter?"

"Oh, just down here in the pond (a lake one half mile from town).
You can catch lots of them down there.  Just get you some hook and lines.
You can catch all you want."

Keeping on up to Dr. Kinnison's with the bundles I had brought for
the family, I goes up to Dr. Kinnison and says, "Docter, I want a dollar."

He run his hand into his pocket, and gave me the dollar, saying,
"What do you want with it?"

"To buy some fishhooks.  Dr. Baker had a great big fish he caught
down in the lake, and 'you can catch all you want,' he says, 'down
there.'"

Going down for the hooks, someone come running after me, and on
looking, here comes Dr. kinnison.  "Oh, Johnny, that's just one of Dr.
Baker's hoaxes.  He never got that fish out of that pond.  Go  back.  I'll
find out pretty soon.  Here comes the docter back."

Just as I suspected, he replied he had bought it off a fish wagon.
Of course I felt cheap.

We came home one night from Savannah, and after supper he said, "I
saw a lot of fellows horsing a well-dressed, well-appearing young man.
He, the young man, came into the drug store where I was, and asked for a
pair of Jew's harp mold.  The clerk went, and looked, and said, "They were
loaned out over at a drug store over the way.  You can get them there."

Doctor followed the young man out doors, called him to one side,
and said, "Young man, them fellows are hoaxing you.  There is no such
thing as Jew's harp molds."

The young man thanked him, and they parted friends.

On another time, just before Christmass, a very ragged-dressed young
gawk of a man, looking to have his father's shoes on, his uncle's coat,
and Jew Bowerses patched pants, and on coming up, looked embarrassed,
knocked
at the docter's front door.  The docter ask him in that cold morning
early, and on settling him a chair, kindly asked, "Have you had your
breakfast, young man?"

"No, sir," was the reply.

"Ann, daughter, set on some breakfast for this gentleman, will you."

After breakfast, he carried a fine quarter of beef as we ever beheld
into the docter's kitchen, and bidding all "good morning," started for the
gate.

"Oh!" exclaimed Ann.  "Did you ever see such shoes?  They were big
enough for the fat man.  And then his coat!  Oh, was it queer!  His pants
were large enough for two or three such men.  Oh, wasn't he queer?"

"There, Ann!  Stop right there!  That poor boy come to bring me a
quarter of beef to pay his father's docter bill.  He put on the best he
could get.  Now never again do you let your father hear you make any such
remarks about anyone who comes under his roof."

We never lived in a more obedient family to parents than these
children were, and we have lived in twenty-seven different families.

Of Mrs. Kinnison, we will speak farther on.  She was very kind and
good to me and everyone else, only taking three or four tantrums a year,
and they amounted to nothing, only to amuse all present.  She was the
daughter of a wealthy Virginnian.  Raised to do nothing.  A complete lady.
And she kept it up all through life.  Of her antiques we may speak later
on.  Suffice this for the present.

Of the two younger daughters, Caroline inherited the amiable
disposition of her father like Sarah, her older sister.  None could know
her but to love and respect her.  Verdie, the young girl, like Ann and her
mother, spritely, mischievous, and high tempered, she is said to have been
the most successful spies in the southern army.

Of the little two-year-old and only son, he was the pet of the
family.

During this year, though living hard, we look as the most enjoyable
ever spent away from home.  Only for one sad event or all would have been
complete.  Just before my time was up with the docter, I took the measles.
They settled on my lungs, or cough set in.  For a month, I was
prostrated.  All thought I'd die.  The girls, by the docter's order,
carried cold water to my bed in the office, and ordered me to drink all I
wanted, the docter being gone nearly day and night.  But one night I
noticed him when conscious always in the shop with me.  The next morning,
on coming to myself, my quarters were changed, and waking up in the
docter's quarters, the old lady and girls seemed quite interested in my
behalf.  The docter had sat by my side all night, then carried me in his
arms into his family apartment.  He told my brother, Thomas, who he sent
for early in the morning, that he had a very hard time to keep me alive
through the night.  Being able to do nothing that fall, my brother thought
best to send me home to the folks on the Nodaway.  The docter charged me
for this four weeks' doctering, nursing, and board, four dollars.  We met
a wagon going within twelve miles of my father's, and we got aboard,
leaving my brother, thomas, to take my place at the docters.  Being very
weak, we were not able to walk very far.  But so anxious was I to see my
mother, father, and the children, that about two o'clock, reaching the
destiny of the wagons, I shouldered up my traps, and started out on the
twelve-mile stretch home.  Night coming on, there were seven miles of
forest without a house, and I never shall forget how the wolves howled
that night!  The road was dim, being little traveled.  Occassionally a
wild turkey or two would fly out of the tops of the trees, but it was too
dark for the most part, for the turkeys to see me.  We reached home about
two o'clock in the morning.  Gave all a surprise, but found all well.
Mother got me breakfast about four A M.  Tired.  Worn out.  Had been
twelve hours making twelve miles with my heavy load.  Went to bed, and was
wakened up away after sunrise by someone coming rushing into the room and
accosting Mother thus: "Good morning!  I hear John has got home.  Where is
he?"  And rushing for my bed, she says, "How are you, John?"  On looking
up, there stood Nance Limels (spelling verified).  She left my room long
enough for me to get up, and then returned her visit.  She was a young
lady.  Grown, but this was all she knew of the rules of etiquette or
decency.

My cough and cold from the measles stayed with me the most of that
winter, and never did regain my voice so as to govern it in singing.  My
father, needing an opportunity to sell his claim on this government land,
it not being yet surveyed, the population being very rude, quite a number
of Mormons scattered here and there, Father sold for about as much as the
rails we had made and the buildings erected were worth.  And in the spring
of 1852, we had two yoke of oxen and a good wagon, and were on the road
again.  We came from Page County to Mills County, took up the Missouri
River, came to old Cainsville, in Potawatimie (spelling verified) County,
now Counsel Bluffs.  In all that region there were said to be but
seventeen gentiles.  The Mormons called themselves "Latter Day Saints,"
and all who were not Mormons, "Gentiles."  We got as used to calling
ourselves "Gentiles" as they did, and this became the distinguishing term,
"Latter Day Saints," and "Gentiles."

Cainsville was a business place.  Some 20 or 25 large stores, and all
the gentiles to be found in this city were heavy merchants, coming here to
make fortunes trading with the Mormons.

The Mormons, as a mass, were ignorant, poor, and despised.  Mostly
foreign, and the English were in the majority.  Orson Hyde (spelling
verified) had the command at this time at Hanesville (spelling verified).
They were just out from Norvau (spelling verified), Illinois, and camped
all up and down the Missouri bottom and tributary streams to recruit for
Salt Lake City.  This must have been in the year 1852 at any rate.  For
two or three years, there was a big immigration of the Mormons from all
parts to Salt Lake, and Cainsville was the center, or headquarters, for
all these throngs of immigrants to congregate, sit out, and start for
Utah.  We lived in the house with them where the men had as many as three
wives.  They were always up for a controversy, and we got accustomed to
all their habits and beliefs.  And the various wings of the Joe Smith
dynasty may talk as they please about Smith being opposed to polygamy.  We
know better.  The old Joe Smith proselytes were the strongest of the
polygamists.  The women advocated the doctrine, and thought it the
greatest honor to be sealed to Joe, claiming he had about 300 sealed to
him.  We knew quite a number of the elders.  They were great boosters,
pretenders but cowards.  One Gentile could put a hundred to flight, and
for this reason they were abused shamefully.  We well remember the first
Methodist preacher that came among them to preach, Mr. Simpson (spelling
verified), of Iowa.  He was very tall.  Six feet and seven inches.  They
used to threaten him, but never molest, and the year after Simpson
preached, Elder Shinn (spelling verified) came.  They (the Mormons)
threatened Shinn (later of Shinn's addition to Omaha), and on the Mormons'
gathering on the streets of Kanesville, headed by Elder Hyde, Shinn got
down off from his fine horse he always rode, took a large club with a
great head to it, and run Elder Hyde and all his emmissaries from the
street with nothing but his club for a weapon.  Shinn was the first
presiding elder on Bluff District, and we think he belonged to the De
Moine Conference.  He settled in Kaynesville, lived there for years, made
a fortune in Omaha, and we think him dead long years ago.

Simpson preached the celebrated "frog" sermon, "Mormons, the
Apocalyptic Frog."  We wish we had kept this sermon after we read it.

So many amusing, strange, and mysterious affairs came up during our
two or three years' residence in western Iowa, where half of our neighbors
were Latter Day Saints.  We will not attempt to here make enumeration of
their peculiarities any further than they relate to our own life.  My
mother would not consent to stop at old Kanesville or in any of the
sections of country we had passed, and Father turned his course up the
Missouri, and came up above the Booyer (spelling verified), in Harrison
County, we think it was.  The most beautiful, productive region in North
America.  Now known as Upper Missouri Valley.  But here all were Mormons.
It rained and flooded, so we had to stop and live in the houses with the
saints of three or four wives.  And before the floods dried up, we were
about as anxious to leave pens covered with haye, dirt slabs with mud
floors, as Noah and his family were to leave the ark.  Yet these simple
people may have saved our lives, for it seems that it done little else but
rain and flood for too months, and these saints were very kind.  They
believed in entertaining strangers, and any enlightened man who had a soul
as big as a mosquito must have felt sad to see the want and starvation of
these poor, deluded souls.  Not even corn to make hominy.  They had peeled
nearly all the bark from all of the slippery elm trees during the bitter
cold winter, and ate it as food.  It was a strange spectacle to see these
trees peeled like tan bark forests, and eaten by people as food.  Many
died.  Some recanted.

Forgot to put in Towner and the Lands store.

It was a sorry spectacle to see these pilgrims start for Utah.  The
Lords, with for or five yoke of oxen hitched to a good wagon, then a much
larger amount with two yoke.  Then cows, with cows yoked up with oxen.
Then all cows, with old, rickety wagons.  Then the wagons with raw-hide
tires.  Last but we like to have said not least at all, the hand carts.
All bunched up in a train on the Missouri bottom, presented a picture of
the outward faces of humanity we never remember encountering elsewhere.
Then the maimed, halt, and the blind.  So many with one eye, or with some
blemish, that with all our experience among the Indian tribes, we do not
recall among the savages so much deformity and shocking examples of
depravity as seemed to be depicted in the face and form of these pilgrims
to the promised land.  And this may be accounted for in part from what the
proselyting had preached throughout Europe and America.  They preached
that they had the Lord's store among them.  That anyone could get what
they wanted by giving to this store.  That all things were held in common,
and they had a fund to help these poor mortals to Jackson County,
Missouri, Novau, Illinois, and Salt Lake.  These thousands came of these
poor, maimed, halt, and blind, by being helped out through this fund.
They recanted, and left by thousands in all these different localities,
some renouncing the faith, others, like Fisher's Grove, in Iowa, concluded
to hold onto the faith but not go to Utah.  We worked for Mr. Fisher
(spelling verified) one summer, and they have quite a town at Fisher's
Grove, Freemont County, Iowa.  Glenwood (spelling verified) once nearly
all Mormons called Coonville when we lived there, after Elder Coon.

My mother would not consent to stop in Harrison County, Potawatimie,
nor Mills counties.  We had turned our course down the Missouri River
until reaching Freemont, the corner county of the state on the southwest,
and drove into Sydney the very day the old man Sharp and Ford, two jack
Mormon lawyers, were laying off the town lots.  And not a house.  But the
county seat being located here, it soon became a little village of three
stores, Singleton (spelling verified) and Bradford, Botcher (spelling
verified) and Bourn (spelling verified), and the other name, we think, was
Rinkle (spelling verified).  Afterwards the firm of Toodle (spelling
verified) And Company.  One hotel, one drugstore, this comprised the
business part of the town of Sydney.

In three miles of this town, at the head of Key Creek (spelling
verified), Father took up a claim on government land.  Here lived a good
order of people.  Industrious.  Some very intelligent.  The various
churches were represented.  The Maine  liquor law being passed in Iowa
while we lived here.  And the district judge, Judge Bradford, having his
cellar full of spiritus liquors, being a leading merchant of the place and
judge.  We could not see them being circuit judge.  He opened the cellar
doors, and gave away all anyone wanted.  Such a thing as getting alcohol
was next to impossible.  He helped Father improve his claim in the fall of
1852, we think it was, for awhile.  But on times being hard, we returned
to Andrew County, Missouri to work again, my brother, Thomas, having gone
to California.  Yet we did not find things so favorable here as formerly.
My brother, Thomas, having the position at Dr. Kinnison's, we went into a
blacksmith shop, and struck for John Whitton (spelling verified), a good,
E. Tenessee man, part of the winter.  Helped Mr. Armstrong in the store a
little, went to St. Joseph, Missouri, with this merchant, Armstrong, and
helped him down with a drove of hogs, some hundred and fifty.  On our
return from St. Joe, Riddle (spelling verified) shot down Murray (spelling
verified) on the streets of Savannah.  One of the most cold-blooded
murders we ever heard of.  Armstrong, though a Methodist preacher, was
summoned by the Masons to Savannah to counsel over the Riddle-Murray
murder, Riddle being a wealthy man, and Mason.  We plodded on until a late
hour at night, stalled with our two-horse team, and put up for the night.
Riddle was cleared, and sat on the bench at Counsel Bluffs, Iowa, being
circuit judge of that district.  This was the second murder we ever heard
of in any of the counties we had lived in, either in Missouri or Iowa.

We worked for C. K. Chambers a month or two at twelve dollars per
month, for John Shroefand (spelling verified), Thomas Smith, but do not
remember working for anyone else but Thomas Collins of North prairie.

At T. K. Chambers' we saw the first lump of California gold ($60) we
ever beheld.

And not being so well as the years gone by, we concluded to bid adieu
to Andrew County, Missouri, and go home to Fremont County, Iowa, in the
spring or summer of 1853.

Our place being too small at Sydney, Father doing most of the work,
we went to work for Robert Gorden (spelling verified) and William Steward
(spelling verified) for $12.50 per month.

After corn plowing was over, we quite work for William Steward and
Robert Gorden, and went to hauling stone for Fisher, the founder of the
Mormon settlement at Fisher's Grove, east of Sydney.  He was a
well-digger, and my business was to haul the rock.

In the fall of 1853 and the winter of 1854, being a severe winter, we
worked on contracts for the most part.  We cut wood for William Lambert at
fifty cents per cord until about Christmass, when the weather got so
severe that no merchant would venture out to cut the four-foot wood into
stove wood.  Walking three miles into Sydney, we cut wood all day, and
walked back home at night all the balance of the winter, making thirty
dollars per month, the largest amount we had ever made.  When spring came,
I was given a horse and buggy, and sent out by Botcher (spelling verified)
and Bourn (spelling verified), the then-leading merchants of Sydney, to
buy up all the first of that locality.

Preaching was at my father's house, and we had three or four local
Methodist preachers in the settlement, and about one third of the
congregation would stay to dinner.

Wages were good.  Finding more than wages could be made by
contracting than month or day work, we would take would to cut and hay to
cut by the acre.  Yet I was never a good axe man or a good hand to mow.
But this winter, we worked further out of debt, and went up to Mills
County to camp meeting.  And these days, if a boy got one or two weeks
during the year from hard work, he done pretty well.  This was in the year
of 1853 and 1854.

In the fall of 1852, while at our home near Sydney, a revival of
religion broke out at Lacies (spelling verified) Grove, in Freemont
County.  My father done most of the preaching, assisted by Fathers Baker,
Martin, Rector (spelling verified), and Brackner.  My oldest sister,
Sarah, was converted, and my younger brother, Brown.  The latter was very
bright and wide-awake.  The meeting was held at Brother Jefferson Lacie's,
in his dwelling house of two rooms, one or two beds, in a hewed log house.
The neighbors helped make benches by splitting logs in two, and boring
holes in the logs, driving legs into these  logs with the wide, split side
up, shaved smooth with a drawn shave, and set all over this room for the
congregation to set on.  A small square in one corner for the preacher to
stand in with a kitchen chair in front constituted the pulpit.  When
seekers of religion were called for, one or two of the front seats were
cleared of the occupants, and the congregation were asked to sing, while
all desirous of salvation were asked to come and kneel at these benches
for prayers.  Sometimes fifteen or twenty men, women, boys, or girls would
come forward crying and weeping.  Rarely any ever came unless under
conviction.  Once in a while, Brother Simpson, the missionary among the
Mormons, came and preached in our sixteen-feet-squar log cabin.  Once in
three weeks, we believe.

This Lacie settlement was noted for its drunkenness and immorality
generally.  Here and there were some excellent families interspersed here
and there.  Jefferson Lacy (spelling verified) was given to strong drink,
and his good wife, taking the right view of the situation, believing
nothing but being converted to God could save drunkards from a drunkard's
grave, as my father had always preached for years, labored assiduously,
patiently and hopefully all through his meeting, helping feed the
multitudes that came.  She being quite frail, it was a wonder to all how
she kept up.  But Brother Lacy being the first converted, she seemed to
look as her only sure safety getting the entire community saved.  Men came
to this meeting with belts girt around them and butcher knives in the
scabbords.  Men and women gazed with astonishment at these meetings held
everywhere in the woods, at cabin and barn, and at least half of the
ungodly were converted who attended those meetings.

During this time, I was mowing away at my hay.  Father, my oldest
sister and my brother, Brown (the scholar of the family) were attending
this meeting, and stopping at Father Martin's, a local preacher mentioned
above, my father usually came home of nights, and urged me very strong to
go to the meeting.  I had a curiosity to see what was going on, but never
mooted (spelling verified) the matter to him, but would invariably say, "I
think we had better be making hay to winter our cattle."

On one Friday, at the breakfast table, my mother says, "John, I think
you ought to go over and attend the meeting.  Your father wants you so
much to go."

"Oh, I am going to put up the hay first."

"The meeting, by that time, may be over."

"Oh, well, I have no vest to wear.  If I had a vest, I might go."

"Well," she says, "I'll make you one today if you will go."

'Twas too much.  I promised her to go, but did not believe she could
make the garment, having so late a start.  But on coming home at night, we
found the vest done, ready to go, and it seemed I went that very evening.

For years having tried every way to be an infidel, all feelings of
conviction had left me, but there was something within that would keep me
from believing the doctrine so hard espoused, and with all my efforts in
that direction, we could never bear to see people make fun or ridicule
Christian believers. The Methodist preachers were my idols.  They seemed
just about perfect to me.  And be it said, they WERE in that day.  But
they were quite different from the salaried self-seekers that some of them
are today.  The meeting had progressed favorably.  My father preaches with
his usual earnestness, and called for mourners to come to mourners' bench
(not the anxious seat nor altar, but the old, plain, mourners' bench).  We
always liked things called by their right names.  Several went forward,
but not I.  Several came, and talked to me, but not my father.  He knew
better.  He was too great a general for that.  My sister came.  Several
young people came.  But no feeling, and always the impression was wrought
within me that no one should go forward without conviction.  The last one
who came was a veteran.  A soldier, shall we call him?  Nay, but a Marshal
Ney of a fellow.  He could out-general me when I told him I had no
convictions, and did not believe in going forward unless convicted.  He
replied, "You may never have any.  You should discharge your duty.  Many
people never have convictions until they set out."

He out-done me on every point.  Finally, to put him off, I said to
him, "If it will please you in any way, I will go," thinking to get rid of
him.

"Come right along," he said, laying hold of me."

In two steps there was no more legs under me than had they been out
of square up to my body.  The standers by looked hazed.  The lyon of the
tribe of Judah had been slain, and such a shout as went up from that house
it seemed would take the roof off.  All concentrated on the moralist of
the settlement.  The vain, precise skeptic of neighborhood.  But the old
warrior who got me there (Father Martin) was floored.  He talked, prayed,
sang, and implored my sister to come and hug me.  My brother, Brown,
prayed by my side, but oh, the heavens were brass.  The storms raged, and
it seemed a log lay across my stomach.  Such a load.  The carrying of my
load to Pondray County, sixty miles and back, was a light, light burden to
this.  Yet determined if there was anything for me, I was going to have
it.  Then my father came, and I saw where his strength lay.  Simple,
clear, he could tell me just the way to Heaven.  But all was dark.  Oh,
how I felt!  Never so bad before.  And I was going to have light before I
left that house.  They opened the doors of the church, but no, never would
I join the church until converted.  Marshal Ney appeared again, urged me
to join the church to no effect.  But he calfed ***** with me, and said,
"Oh, what a thing our prejudices are, only to give up all!  It may be the
means of your conversion to join the church."

He out-generaled me, giving the preacher my hand.  The benediction
was said about midnight, and I went home with Father Martin to stay all
night.

Still the load was there.  The next night, going back to Brother
Lacy's to meeting on the invitation to go to the mourner's bench, it took
no lengthy remarks to get me there, but no relief.  I went, and prayed
aloud.  All tried to help me on agonizing.  My father would come and talk
to me.  It seemed he had a little clearer idea of the way than any of the
rest.  A little light would gleam.  The intense gloom and darkness would
set in.  The load was still there when my father says, "Tell me just how
you feel."

On telling him, he says, "You cannot save yourself.  Just rool your
load on Jesus.  Believe on Him that He will save you."

"Oh," said I, "I could see a little."

"Just hold onto what you have got, and ask for more.  Pray, 'O Lord,
give me more faith!'"

But I said, "Oh, this load!"

"Never mind the load.  Just roll it onto Jesus."

The light grew a little brighter.  My father whispered something to a
by-stander.  This individual disappeared, but soon came back with my
sister, Sarah.  She kneeled down on one side, my father on the other.
Rays of light, just like the streaks of sun, shone right on me.  "Oh, I
see a little better!"

"Praise the Lord!" my father says.  "Only praise the Lord for what He
has done, and ask for more."

Light poured in.  Arising, all I remember was clasping my hand, and
shouting, "Glory."  Down the room to the door, where my skeptic friends
stood, I poured out my soul to them until they looked as white as sheep,
and it seems to me the best sermon I ever preached was to those young men.

Returning up the aisle, someone says, "How about your hay, and
wintering the cattle."

"Glory to God!  We will winter our cattle on the rush!" I cried,
knowing Father had put this in someone's ears.  (In the Missouri bottom,
in early days, the rush would grow up along the low banks as high as one's
shoulders, and the snow never fell so deep but the cattle would keep fat
in the timber among these rush bottems).

These meetings continued until forty or fifty were converted at
Lacy's grove, when they spread more or less over Freemont County.  Camp
meetings were innaugurated up and down the river, and hundreds were
converted to God, and joined the church.

End of volume one.

BOOK2

NEBRASKA

     On approach of spring, my father sold out the claim at Sydney, and
took a trip up to Glenwood with ox teams.  We had some eight or ten cows
besides two yoke of oxen. The Mormons were thinning out in Mills county,
and on our return this year of 1854, we only found about one half of the
population at Glenwood were Mormons.  The name had been changed from
Coonville to Glenwood.  Father sold some of our cows, and we moved into a
house owned and occuppied by A. C. Towner, who accompanied us upon that
famous Pecan trip at DR. Reckwa's.  These Towners, Abraham and A. C.,
followed my father from Bates County, Missouri, to Page County, Iowa, and
from Page County to Freemont.  Then to Nebraska and California.  The
father (Abrahaam) was a Methodist preacher.  He joined the movement at
Independence, Missouri, under Old Joe Smith, the founder of Mormonism.
But on going to the Lord's store to buy an axe and some tea (his wife
being sick), the Lords would not trust him.  Sam Owens, the richest man in

all that part of the country, who controlled the Santa Fee trade at that
time, and who owned a large store at Independence, was unacquainted with
Towner, but Towner having no other store to go to walked over to Owens
(both being strangers one-to-the-other), and Mr. Towner accosted Mr. Owens

thus, "Are you the owner of this store?"

     Mr. Owens replied, "Yes."

     "Well, I've been over to the Lord's store, and the Lords would not
trust me, and I thought I'd come to the Devil's store, and see if the
Devil would trust me."

     It is useless to say that Owens let him have the goods.

     The Mormon elders pretended, when preaching over the country, that
this Lord's store was to give the goods away to the poor, as explained
elsewhere in this essay.  Towner did not want them to give him the goods,
but simply to credit him.  This done, Towner pulled out, as hundreds of
others done, and never had anything further to do with the Mormons.  This
was the case all over Missouri, Illinois, and Iowa.  My mother having
taught the first school in Independence, Missouri, and Dr. Nathanael
having been at Independence when Joe Smith first came to the village, my
people were pretty well posted on Mormonism.  These Mormons in Iowa that
remained here as late as this year, 1854, were mostly deserters of the
ranks, and many of them, like Cooledge, Green, Gaylords, Leekies, Fisher,
and hundreds of others we could name, renounced the faith, were well-to-do

citizens, and much respected.

      We lived in this house during the spring of 1853 with A. C. Towner,
wife, and we think some five or six children, in two miles of Glenwood (if

we recollect right).  They were most excellent people, and A. C. and
myself formed a partnership to break prairie, putting both of our teams
together.  While my father and quite a number of people from Mills County
went over into Nebraska to look after homes over there.  They reported the

land rich, fine water, and the most beautiful country they had ever
beheld, and my father and some eight or nine men bought the right of the
Otou Indians to settle in Nebraska before that territory was open for
settlement.  Mr. Towner and myself did not get much prairie to break, and
I
went to work for Mr. Shield, at Glenwood.  He was a blacksmith, and had a
small farm just out of town.  How long we worked for Mr. Shields we have
forgotten, but some months when we concluded to move on to the banks of
the Missouri and be ready early in the spring to cross over into nebraska,

and go to work on land my father had previously claimed when he bought the

right of the Otou Indians.  And during this summer or fall, ten of us went

over the Missouri River, and put up ten cabins, one cabin each for each
and every one who bought the right of the Indians to settle in that wild
country just above the mouth of Platte River.  This region was rather
scarce of wild game, for a new country, but a few deer and wild turkey
were to be found along the bluffs of the old Missouri.  My mother, always
full of good deeds, volunteered to go along with this poass of
land-grabbers, and cook for the entire company.  Such a crew you can only
find by taking one each from Kentucky, Tennessee, Ohio, Indiana, Missouri,

Illinois, and Iowa.  Of all the good, jolly fellows to be met, they were
here.  And in place of ten men in camp, we had nearer twenty, being known
in Freemont and Mills county as soon as it was known that Father Morris
had bought the right of the Indians, and gone to the territory to build
cabins, any amount of our friends followed, and come to camp, and looked
at the country, gathering around the huge campfire of nights.
Tale-telling was the principal amusement, and it seemed we had the best
crew for this we ever met.  Uncle Thomas Ashley, it seemed, was not to be
surpassed.  We got up a cabin every three or four days, and in thirty or
forty days were ready to take up our abode for a short time again in Iowa,

making preparation for to move onto these claims in the early spring.  But

one of the party, bringing over a prairie plow, Father had this man break
him two acres of prairie for a garden.  I did not get my cabin built,
being
only nineteen years old, and having no right to hold a claim, although all

had agreed as I helped these nine or ten families put up their houses, I
should be entitled to full rights with the rest, and insisted I should
have a cabin put up on a claim, but on telling the company that we would
put this off until we all got moved over, they defered the matter for the
present, and it was never after attended to.

     In the fall, we took our effects, and moved into a cabin on the banks

of the old Missouri River, some eight or ten miles below our claim, on the

Iowa side, and close by an island some three miles long by one mile wide,
covered all over densely with large cottonwood trees, brushes growing as
high as a man's waseburns all over the island under these trees, and
hundreds of head of cattle wintering on these rough bottoms.  Wild turkeys

and deer pretty plentiful, and the richest colonies of bees we ever saw in

the hollows of these trees.  We cut one bee tree that had ten gallons of
as fine honey as anyone ever tasted on this island, besides others running

from five to seven gallons to the tree.  We suffered here intensely from
ulcerated teeth.  Having two docters try to pull teeth for me and neither
one succeeding, but one telling me after smashing one all to pieces with
his old twisters, that I would have to be very carefule, or I'd get a jaw
broken, for my teeth were very bad to pull, and my jaw bone very slim.  My

face would swell up even from shoulder to chin, and being unable to eat
much for one week while my father, mother, and sister were gone up to
Iowa, it seemed that sleep was almost unknown to me.  Some Mormon families

were all the neighbors we had.  One of these men brought over the book of
Mormons, and read to us, and he and Father would have some controversial
talks, until Father gave him to understand that he did not wish to hear
him read further.  Fish were plenty, and no finer locality could be found
for winter than these bottoms.  The most productive lands of the east are
poor compared to these bottoms, the easiest place to make a living, but in

the spring, summer, and fall, the fever and Ague prevail, and where one
has no help, there is no enjoyment or happiness to be found.

     Early in the spring, we moved onto Father's claim, seven miles from
where the city of Plattsmouth now stands to the southward, and three miles

from the Missouri River.  To show that my father knew how to locate a good

claim, when the government surveyor came to run out this county of Cass
(Mr.  Cazad), he, after surveying all this region, bought the land my
father had located.

     Here the battle set in in earnest.  We were the first family in Cass
County, and being known all over the land, everybody came to stop with us.

 Mother had to make beds on the floor of nights.  Railroad men,
speculators of all kinds, put up at our place.  All our provisions had to
be hauled over the Missouri River.  Sometimes getting to the ferryboat
with a load of corn, flour, or groceries, we were detained two or three
days with high winds in three miles of home, the river being so rough at
Kenoshe we could not get ferry over.  Finally, after running a free hotel
two or three months, Father says, "Well, I shall have to charge people, or

they will eat me out of house and home."  He charged one poor footman
fifty cents for keeping him overnight, giving him supper and breakfast,
and felt so bad about it, he never after charged anyone else.  My younger
brothers, Brown and William, had to help me haul the provisions from the
Iowa side, and it took quite an amount of our time.  We all went to work
vehemently, making rails.  My brothers helping me chop the timber, and
father helping me split the rails.  After the rails were split, Father
went to hauling them, and I went to breaking prairie.  Having bought two
town lots in Glenwood when working there for $13 each, we traded the town
lots for two colts.  These two colts were sold for $75 each, making $150.
We borrowed $100 of A. C. Towner, bought a yoke of oxen for $75 on credit,

and while father was hauling out the rails as he supposed, to fence forty
acres, we boys cheated him.  He left it to us to measure the land, and we
put the measure to fifty acres, he knowing nothing of the matter.  On
buying a plow and three other yoke of oxen, having my brother, William, to

drive, we broke forty acres of prairie for Father, and twenty-five for my
brother-in-law, Elza Martin.  We planted sod corn, cut prairie haye, and
entertained all who came.  The meetings were held at our house, and the
first quarterly meeting ever held in Nebraska was held at my father's
house by Elder Good.  (See "Outposts of Zion," by William H. Good).  Good
had Kansas and Nebraska for his district.  We had good meetings after the
settlers gathered in, in the fall, Rev. Gage being the first preacher on
this circuit.  We lived here nearly one year without neighbors, and the
worst annoyance we had was the Pawnee Indians, of a low cast, much like
the Osage, treacherous and unreliable, they moved all over the praries,
and one time when all of us except Mother and the four younger members of
the
family left to go to Iowa to camp meeting, (we got one of the neighbor
boys nearly grown to stay with Mother, and the children, while we were
gone) the Pawnees came into the settlement.  Some twenty or thirty came to

our house, while we were away, and began clubbing our chickens.  My mother

went out and ordered them to leave, but one or two taking out some bows
and arrows, when the young man says, "Oh, Mother Morris, just give them
anything they want", at that Mother picked up a club and went after them,
and they all ran.  They were great cowards.

The Otoes on the other hand were noble, trusty, always keeping their word,

fine orators.  We used to like for the chiefs to come.  Many of them spoke

the Osage language well, and my mother and the Otoe chiefs had many fine
talks in the Osage language.  The Otoes kept their words with Father and
all the ten men they sold settlement rights to, and we had no trouble with

them.

The most of the people that came to live by us were Christians, and the
camp and grove meetings were well attended.  Times were good, and no one
seemed to be in want, health was good and although most of the immigrants
coming late in the fall, their houses being open, not daubed with mud
even, some living in tents, but the winter was one of unusual warmth, and
we heard of no one suffering.

Late in the fall we had a camp meeting at Three Groves, and the Reverend
Taylor, who done most of the preaching, a fine orator, a great wit, we
have rarely ever heard better preaching.  All joined in to help the
meetings along.  Sectarian bigotry was not known.  We knew nearly everyone

in the county, and for the first time in life took an active part in
politics.  Iowa shipped nearly all the office holders over to our side of
the river, and virtually Iowa ruled Nebraska.  We soon got tired of this,
and one day four neighbor men at our house, got to talking about the
matter, when one suggested we put up a ticket, against the Iowa clique as
we called the men nominated on the Iowa side and sent over for us to vote
for.  We had four delegates in the appointment of the first legislature
that met in the territory and one senator.  We took four good men from
different localities in Cass County, and a very popular man by the name of

Kirkpatrick for senator.  William T. Laird, a young man who had taught
school from our settlement; Mr. Buck from Three Groves, a well-to-do
farmer; and J. N. C. T. Haygood of Kenosha (the least acceptable of the
four) (Haygood one must know from his name was very tall, red-headed, he
done to fill up with and man by the name of Thompson a good citizen).
These four we set up as the nominees of Cass County's choice.  J. Stirling

Morton afterwards First Secretary of Agriculture at Washington, was then a

young man, and through F. S. Nuccolls of Nebraska City, was the political
boss south of the Platte.  And he laughed at the Haystack Clique as we
were called, (from William T. Laird's hay stack catching fire while our
caucus of seven (if they call me one of the convention) was in session
John Carroll putting out the fire--he could do more with fire than any man

we ever saw, but no politician.).  Well, we were thought to be of small
calibur, and so we were, but they did not know the old war horse (my
father) was at the back of all of this, and undertook the wrong thing to
ridicule our abilities dumbness.  The old man knew every voter in that
county, and his son, John, rode the fastest horse (though it did not
belong to him).  They sent out their oraters--they were good ones.  (Sir
John, though not allowed a vote, he being too young) after these oraters
harangued the voters of Cass county, was loudly called for by the
assemblage.  He as well as his father were well-known all over the county.

 He only exposed their plots in his speeches.  In return they called him a

monkey.  So it went, but our precinct outvoted all the rest of the county.

 On election morn, Sir John knew the Morton wing had deceived some of our
good men, and thought he would get onto his brother-in-law's fast horse
and go up to Plattsmouth and see what was going on there (having no horse
of his own).  He had not been in Plattsmouth ten minutes until he got all
the Morton methods.  Mounting his horse, he turned her head towards Rock
Bluff, our voting precinct, and in less time than it takes to tell, this
Sir John arrived at Rock Bluff and exposed their schemes.  All the experts

except Sir John and the old war horse thought us beat.  We knew better.
And sure enough that racehorse beat Morton and all his emissaries.  The
vote was overwhelmingly in our favor.

The legislature met at Omaha, and the fight came over the moving of the
capital.  My father for the present thought the capital had better remain
at Omaha, and although the South Platte man could outvote the North Platte

man, they could not move the capital.  On my becoming mixed up in
politics, a lot of old men wanted me to go up to Omaha as a lobby--and be
fore I was of age, they sent me to the capital.  And my exit from home
created something of a flutter in the Morton wing of the South Platte
delegation.  But it was only a few days before we found out that this
business they sent me on would not come up during the term of that
legislature then in session.  Morton was the leader then of the Democrats,

a very young man, always wore a red shirt and big coat over it, looking in

this heavy shirt like a mirror of temptation.  When we saw him, and his
paper was filled up with the most outlandish headings we met with.  It was

published at Nebraska City, and all such headings as "The Latest
Skullduggery," "Hell Caved In," etc.  We never admired the man nor his
paper, but in after years we think all parties respected him.  This, like
all first legislatures, was pranky, and little was done.  Mrs. Bloomer
came and dressed in her bloomer costume, made a speech on women's rights.
Many of the old men took up her cause, among them Major or Colonel
Larimer, whereupon Morton and some others are said to have got a woman's
skirt and put the skirt high up over Larimer's head, and when he got up to

speak, they let down with ropes over Larimer's head this skirt.

The wolves used to howl of nights so you could hear them howl all around
the capital.  Strickland, of the Council Bluff paper (four miles away from

Omaha) came over with a friend to Omaha one evening, the river being
frozen over, and calling at the editor's office of the leading paper of
Omaha, went in to warm.  The Omaha man, having got a fine piece of
beefsteak for his supper, lays it down on the counter, thinking of
something to do of a half hour's duration, and says to Strickland, the
editor of the Bluff City paper, "Will you be here for half an hour."  "Oh,

yes," answered Strickland.  "Well, you keep office until my return."  As
soon as the Omaha editor left, Strickland fell to broiling the steak, and
says to his chum, "We will eat that up before the Omaha man gets back",
referring to the fine steak.  The Omaha man returning, and seeing his
steak gone, took the situation in at a glance, exclaimed "Good God,
gentlemen!  You haven't eat that beef have you?  Good heavens!"  He
carried a bottle of machine grease, "Here, take this and be off for the
drug store or you are dead men.  I put strychnine into that beef for to
give those wolves that are howling around here of nights.  Strickland and
his chum took it, and all went to the drug store stating the facts and
took about one pint of castor oil each.  It like to have killed
strickland, and all the city sympathized with Strickland.  No one joked.

Our home was saddened by my brother, Brown, taking sick and dying while
away from home at A. C. Towner's, my old friend and benefactor at Mills
County, Iowa.  He and myself had gone over for a load of provisions at the

time, and he took inflammation of the brain.  The doctor called to doctor
him was young, though said to be a good doctor.  He was unconscious.  It
seemed to me he should be bled, but the doctor thought not.  It run three
or four days, and another physician was called.  He knew more than the
other doctor, and said there was no show for his life.  On my suggesting
again to bleed him, Dr. Donald, we think his name was, says "The stage to
bleed has passed.  It will do no good."  "Oh, it may restore
consciousness" he added, and got a lancet and bled him or tried to bleed
him.  He bled a little, but the blood was too thick to run much.  But he
spoke "Oh, Mother" he says "I want to go home and see Mother"  I heard Dr.

Donald, the last doctor, say to Street, the one who had charge, "Only one
thing I'd have any hope of.  That is to put him all over in warm water,
and I don't think that will save him"  They put him all over in warm
water.  He had a very large operation in his bowels, was conscious the
next day or two, but the fifth day peacefully and quietly fell asleep to
wake no more.

My mother taking very ill the first day after we left, Father could not
leave my mother's bed side, and my brother, William, only fourteen years
old, was on the road every day for five days.  One night at home in
Nebraska and the next night at A. C. Towner's in two miles of Glenwood,
Iowa, not knowing which was likely to die first, the mother or the son.
They were some twenty-five miles apart.  For five days and nights, I stood

by that brother's bed, and wanted no sleep, no rest, nor little to eat.
Then the coffin in the spring wagon and an escort of faithful friends
started early in the morning for my father's farm in Nebraska.  All the
settlement out, my mother better, to receive us.  We arrived safe across
the Treacherous River at about five PM, and lay my dear brother in the
grave the neighbors had opened upon my father's farm.  And as his body
passed over the muddy stream of commotion, his sweet spirit crossed over
the river into the bosom of his God.  My mother bore up wonderful under
this sad affliction, but my father walked the woods of nights, and refused

to be comforted.  He had always been more favorably impressed with this
brother than any son he had ever had.  He was sixteen years old, a great
student, read and understood everything he read.  Tall, sandy haired, fair

skinned and freckles on his face, he read theological books, history,
biography, and the Bible; would answer almost any question asked him,
being so well read and posted in all good literature.; a leader of the
young men's woods meetings before churches were built, he looked like the
Dodge wing of the house, and how often we have heard Father say "Of all my

children, he is the scholar of the day."  My brother, William, was two
years younger.  There were six boys in the family and three girls.  One
brother, Newel, dying in infancy.  This brother, Brown, named after his
Grandfather Dodge, of whome he was a fit type.  Everybody said he was in
looks, disposition, and love of learning the image of Father Dodge.  Our
ranks thus broken, my older brother, Thomas, gone to California, this may
have had somewhat to do with my father's restlessness.  He always wanted
to go to California.  He began to talk of going to the golden state.  Yet
the surroundings here were beautiful, here and there interspersed groves
of timber, good wells of springs of water, all over, the praries gradually

rolling, but rarely ever steep, it was the most beautiful place we had
ever beheld.  Then the land so easily worked, so productive.  One could go

to plowing in two hours after the heavy rains, the soil being so sandy, a
loam) it was easily cultivated.  The only pull-back the winds, it was
quite windy.  And then Father being the first settler in the county,
getting the first fifty acres broke.  We had often bought corn for high
prices, but this was the first we had ever sold (one dollar per bushel) at

high rates.  When Father got the two acres broke, we sat down to rest on
the beam of the plow.  He, the man who broke the ground (my driving his
team) and I remarked to this man (Father being present), "This is the best

country I was ever in to make money, I can clear $250 every year clear of
expenses."

My father looking at me says, "Well, I think I'd be at it in place of
talking about it."

This was the last year I had to work for my father (I was only twenty
years old then).  He never was able to help me any since I was thirteen
years old.  Two years after he made this remark I had cleard of all
expenses two thousand dollars, and this was quite a fortune in those
backwoods settlements.  Many enjoyable scenes came up, many amusing things

also.  One morning on going over to Uncle Thomas Ashly's, father-in-law of

A. C. Towner.  He, Ashly, done all our blacksmithing.  He was a good man
but ignorant, and no comprehension of political facts and tricks.  They
had put him and Abraham Towner, the father of A. C. Towner, on the Morton
wing described heretofore for office thinking they both being friends of
my father and myself, we would support these two candidates and they would

be sure of election.  The old man Ashly would not speak to me, but cutting

a large hickory goad, like we use to drive oxen with, he began twisting it

at the small end.  The hickory being very tough in that country.  It never

occurred to my mind what Uncle Tommy was going to do with that hickory.
But there were several men standing there, and two of Uncle Tommy's sons
in law (A. C. Towner and Harvey McCowen) were there when someone asked,
"What are you going to do with that hickory, Uncle Tommy."

He having quite the forge to attend the more urgent necessity and
remarked, "I am going to give Johnny Morris a sound thrashing, Damned him,

I'll take the conceit out of him."

Being as bad surprised as scared, I did not know what to do.  He was the
stoutest man I had ever seen.  He could easily tie three such youngsters
as myself.  The blacksmith's shop had some bystanders, and it occurred to
me that it would be strange if there was no friends of mine among so many,

but not knowing what extent the defeat of the Morton and Knuckles combine
might have had, I was in a quandry what to
do.  To run (I never remembered doing but once, and then I only ran into a

treetop with my mother, switch in hand, was trying to catch me).  Just at
this juncture, Harvey McCowin, the son in law, who of all men I then knew,

I thought the most unfavorable, to me says to Uncle Tommy, "You ain't
going to do any such thing."  He swore and cursed me, but McCowin being a
wonderful, active, stout (and used to wrestling) man, actually being along

in years, yet I knew Ashly was too much for McCowin and myself both.  For
Ashly, a Kentuckyan, claimed to have carried one thousand pounds of iron
around a courthouse in Kentucky.  He weighed two hundred and fifty, I
think, and not very fleshy either--None of the men said a word, but
McCowin stepped between Ashly and myself, and says to me kindly, "You had
better go home."  I went.  This ended the political campaign.

The second winter was noted for its severity, as the first for its
mildness.  Snow fell so deep as to be difficult for the deer to get
around.  One day a deer came inside of the house.  We did not want to kill

the animal, for they were not fit to eat, but the snow being some two feet

deep, and two or three neighbor men being at our place, and the crust
being so that the deer broke through the top, we thought to catch this
deer, and off we went.  I tied up my ears and got laughed at by the crew.
We failed to catch the deer, but my laugh came at the other end of the
road, for getting back, I was the only man but had a frozen ear, nose, or
finger of the five.

On going to Omaha, I walked all the way, for I knew I should freeze if I
rode.  Mercury froze that day at Omaha and Council Bluffs, and I traveled
into twenty degrees of as cold as Dr. Cane traveled in the arctic regions.

 See Dr. Cane's works.  But how did I do this?  Putting on flannel drawers

and undershirt, two pair of pants, under and over coat, two pair of yarn
sox, boots and buffalo overshoes, cap that tie right over my ears, scarf
around my head, neck, and ears, yarn mits inside of buckskin, wrapped so
only my nose, mouth, and face was exposed, beating my hands and rubbing my

face all the place frozen was a spot about the size of a ten-cent piece on

my cheekbone.  The Missouri River was frozen all the way so I could walk
up the river from Plattsmouth to Omaha.  We never met a man who traveled
that day but had a frozen finger, toe, or ear.  At our place the snow was
two feet deep.  You could only drive a team in the beat, packed road.

And one mile to the east lived my father's old Iowa friend, William Davis.

 He was our nearest neighbor, and just as willing to borrow as to lend.
Well, he had four handsome girls now just about grown.  And I was always
willing to take my prairie team over to haul a big sill or log for him.
But he had two sons also: Berryman and George.  It was George who defended

my mother against the Pawnee Indians.  But Berryman, the oldest, was my
rival.  I don't mean among the girls, but in oratory at the debating
school.  They had always been our neighbors in Iowa, and we were fast
friends.  Berryman was as concipty as myself, which is saying considerable

for him.

One day, he and two cousins, Miss Randall, and Miss Barns from Illinois
and his two sisters got an invitation to a Christmas-eve party at Louis
Young's.  There had been a report of someone seeing a panther track some
two months before down the Van Horne Ridge, just beyond where this party
were to assemble.  Mr. Barns, a young man twenty-one years of age,
weighing one hundred and eighty pounds, and these three young ladies, got
into a sleigh, they had to keep the main beat track.  Mr. Davis, the owner

of the team, driving.  They all enjoyed the evening at Mr. Young's, Mrs.
Young knowing just how to entertain young people.  During the day, a man
from Plattsmouth came by Mr. Young's with a mare and a new colt following
the mare.  Late in the evening, the man was seen to return by Mr. Young's
on his way back to Plattsmouth, but no mule colt following.  He went by
Davis' going back to Plattsmouth.  The party disbanding at a late hour at
night, the Davis guests all off for home in glee, and be it said there was

no such beautiful, accomplished ladies at the young party as the Miss
Davises and Randall.  On their way home, their horse stopped, and snorted.

 Just in front of them, there being no moon, was to be seen a dark object
about the size of a panther.  They could hear this ferocious beast thump
its tail on the ground ready to jump.  Finally the panther screamed.  All
the party jumped from the sleigh.  Unhitching the horse, Mr. Barns mounted

the horse taking Miss Randall on the horse behind him, and Miss Sarah June

Davi before him crosswise like a man would carry a chunk of wood, Berryman

Davis took his sister, Miss Isabelle, a beauty, by the hand, and the two
latter leading the way, they struck across the country.  No road, but
Davis and his sister breaking way for John Carolls, some half mile away.
Reaching Mr. Carolls' about four in the morning, waking Mr. Cup, he
invited them in telling the two young men to put up the horse and come in.

 No sir!  Not unless he had a gun to give them.  He gave them his fine
gun, they went out in the dark, but seeing the panther the second time,t
hey threw down the gun, came dashing back to the house.  Mr. Carrol went
and helped put up the horse.  The neighbors were aroused to find out that
on that cold night Miss Isabelle Davis had both of her feet frozen badly,
Sarah Jan, here sister, some fingers frozen from holding onto the mane of
the horse, and Miss Randall's ears were frozen.  Mr. Barns also was soft
enough for the frost to penetrate his corporrial system.  Berryman Davis
being the only one but was frozen.  The neighbors, on investigating, found

out that this mule colt, hunting his way back to Plattsmouth, had seen
this horse in the sleigh, stopped, and the road not being practical to
pass, he had by pawing with one forefoot, made the striking noise of the
panther's tail, but how Mr. Barns, an Illinois farmer, should never have
heard a mule bray was a mystery.  Mr. Davis is reported as never having
seen a mule colt, nor heard one bray, although he was a major afterwards
in the union army, and one of the best speakers in North Missouri, and a
lawyer with a good practice at Marysville.  The girls, being frozen so
badly, deprived the neighbors from ever joking anyone of the party about
the panther scare.

We had a vigilance committee in Cass County, and a sad affair seemed to be

necessary took place the winter before we left that part, causing regrets
both on the Iowa and Nebraska side of the river.  Many citizens being
afraid of being molested or even murdered by a band of outlaws headed by
the Old Man Johnson, his two sons (Seth and John) and some other roughs.
Even some good citizens seemed to be of the number that associated with
this band.  It was commonly reported on the Iowa side that the Old Man
Johnson had killed seven men before coming to Iowa.  The Burgers, a large
family over in Iowa, had trouble with the Johnsons, but the Burgers, being

the more respectable of the two cliques, were backed up by a more
respectable class of citizens than the Johnsons.

For two years, in Iowa the citizens looked and expected a battle between
these two sides.  All went armed on both sides, and all well knew the Old
Man Johnson to be a very dangerous man.

The courts had arrested and tried the Johnsons but to no effect on the
Iowa side.  But the Johnsons being pretty well off, and the courts and the

citizens drawing the reigns closer every year, they got restless and
concluded to the joy of the Iowa side to change base to Nebraska, coming
into our county.  They claimed any man's place they came to, and ordered
him off.  If the squatter so ordered, did not leave, the gang severely
abused the family and went away.  The vigilantes met.  I was some two
hundred and fifty miles away.  The Johnsons coming over from Iowa went to
Mr. cole's, one of the representatives of our county to the legislature,
chased his hired man round the house, and ordered him away, Mr. cole being

absent.

The Johnsons were arrested, but the lawyers, finding some technicalities
in the law, got them off.  The vigilantes arrested them sometime after.
Everybody was up in arms, and sat all day, and the citizens all belonging
to the vigilantes except a very few, hearing the proceedings of the
committee.  Night coming on, it was supposed all went home after placing
an armed guard around the five men they had arrested.

In the night, a lady who lived on the Iowa side of the Missouri River
heard some parties row a boat out in the river just below Plattsmouth.
She heard some pleading for life, and in a few moments she heard something

like three chunks threw from this boat into the river.  This was the last
seen of the Old Man Johnson, his son, Seth, and one of the most desparate
of the gang, John, the younger, of the Johnsons was at home in Iowa with
his mother, and grown sister.  Both these ladies were well thought of by
their neighbors, and it created quite an amount of sympathy for the
Johnsons seeing this mother and daughter on the Iowa side crying and
hunting for the missing ones along the bank of the river.  If anything
more has ever been known of the three leaders of this band, I am not aware

of the fact.  My father never did approve of this night's work.  I was
glad to be away in Missouri at the time.

We broke forty acres of prairie for John Buck of Three Groves, and
twenty-five for Mr. Hunt, they were brothers in law, and Mr. Buck was
representative of our county.  He was most likely the wealthiest man in
Cass County at that time, very close, and stubborn, when the forty acres
was broke, my having stepped the land, he raised a question about the way
to measure the forty acres, and I measured it with a rod pole after
stepping it off.  He contended it should be through into what he called
"water land," and made me understand enough to see I must break through
the hills in order to have the water level applied.  On my telling him I
broke and measured the surface, not going through the hills, he said he
would not pay for any measurement, and we got into a dispute about the
matter.  And his wife having a brother out on a visit from Illinois that
was a professional surveyor, the grounds being quite hilly for that
country.  My father expected they would beat me.  But my conceipt being
too great for to doubt my ability to beat this representative.
Threatening to sue him, he too, pretended to be fair, offered to have the
county surveyor survey the land, each paying equal amounts for surveying,
and he would stand to the amount that the county surveyor made the tract I

had broke.  The county surveyor got one of my near neighbors for chain
carrier, who did not charge me anything, and on surveying, he just lacked
thirty-five cents of making as much out of the land as I had with the rod
pole at three dollars per acre, the price agreed upon for the breaking.
Mr. Hunt paid me up like a gentleman.

This was the year I became of age, quite conceipty, being the summer of
1856.  I devoted much of my time to trading, would buy anything they
brought me, and nearly always make well on what I bought.

On going to Plattsmouth or Nebraska City, always riding a horse or mule, I

would return home loaded down with merchandise or some kind of traffic.
In the spring of this year, father having fifty acres of fine land fenced
and broke the year before, we hiring ten acres broke, he offered to rent
forty acres and cultivate ten himself.  "No," says I, "We can do better
than that.  I will put in all the lands before going to breaking prairie,
plant all the corn, and pay you one dollar and twenty-five cents per day
for every day's work you do on the farm, and we will divide the crop
equal."

"But I have no horses to plow with.  How can I cultivate the lands?."

To which I answered, "I will furnish you the horses to cultivate with
besides, and you know, Father, I said the first year after the sod is
broke, corn or vegetables need little cultivating.  The weeds don't grow
much, and all to be done to get a good crop is to stir the land a little."

"All right," he says.

I put four yoke of oxen onto a large harrow, weighted it down heavy, and
tore this sod all to pieces, harrowing it both ways, and we never saw
ground in better order.  We had sowed five acres in fall wheat, and having

two horses, we laid off forty acres of corn land both ways, and planted
it.  Then sowing five acres to spring wheat, we went to Mr. Buck's to
break prairie.  The corn come up well.  Father plowed it one way, and
cross-plowed about one half of the field the other way before the corn got

too high.  We had over two thousand bushels of corn.  I sold my entire
crop for eighty cents per bushel to one man.  Father sold his for one
dollar per bushel, retailing it through the country.  After all expenses,
counting all the labor, feen, buying horses, gathering, etc., I cleared
five hundred dollars on corn alone, made one hundred and seventy dollars
on trading one yoke of oxen for a span of mules, and nine hundred dollars
selling claims on government land, besides all the other barter on hogs,
colts, horses, and garden stuffs.  We took the premium on onions, wheat, a

colt, and several other articles at the county fair, if we recollect
rightly.

One incident that occurred in the fall was a good joke.  Having bought a
fine-haired, long-bodied, rather small but indicating fine-bred mule, the
best saddle mule I ever rode, except when you ran him his very best you
might know the facts, for he would fall down usually with his two forefeet

on each side of his head, and the saddle, unless you had a krupper, would
go clear over his head, slip through his legs without ever unfastening the

girt, and thus clear himself of saddle and rider.  Well, one day I loaned
this mule to my brother in law to go to Plattsmouth or Nebraska City.  He
came back and brought the mule home telling no bad things of the mule's
conduct.  Only two or three months after I had an occassion to ride this
mule to Nebraska City doing my trading.  I got on the mule.  He went to
the rack where we hitched.  I whipped, but no use.  He was sullen.
Getting off and leading him up Main Street two or three blocks, I got on
him again, and despite all my pulling the bridle, reins, whipping and all
I could do, he went sideways, backwards, and every way but the way I
wanted him to go, taking up at that rack or hitching post.  The next time,

I was sure I had him far enough away, went nearly all out of the city
before daring to mount, he turned round,a nd heading for that rack down
Main Street he came.  The excitement was up at Nebraska City.  People on
Main Street with shakes, brooms, sticks, and whips striking over his head,

sides, and legs, all to no avail.  He like to have run over half a dozen
in the street trying to head him off.  The Morton wing had the inside
track for once.  What with all the hisses, laughs, and clapping of hands,
he was fearless of all the enemy's charges, and reaching his Gibraltar of
strength, he run under the cross beam that all the saddle horses hitch
to,and would have badly crippled, may have killed me, only the horn of the

saddle came up tight against the hitching beam, he always slowing up when
he reached the barracks.  On starting up the third time, all were out to
see the fun.  The fourth time,a nd who should I meet but Mr. Kasad, who I
supposed to be in Cleveland, Ohio.  Would have rather met anyone else than

our government surveyor who had bought the home place.  He tried to keep
his face straight, but I imagined I could see him smile under the skin of
his face, and all could rest assured they would not see me come down that
Main Street the fourth time, for as soon as I could, I got onto a back
street, and they never got to see that mule in Nebraska City again.  How
far we led this long-eared animal out of the city, we do not now
recollect, whether one or two miles.  We were homesick, and having
eighteen miles to reach home, and having to go by Miss Abigail Buck's,
where I broke prairie,and the lady of all I then knew I respected the
most,
it is safe to say I never stopped to warm at Buck's that day.  The next
morning, going up to my sister's, Mrs. Martin's, to tell the joke on
myself, I could see her all the time before I got into the details nearly
killed to laugh, but she waited patiently until I got through, laughing
all the time, when she says, "He done the same thing with Elza when he
rode him three months ago, but he said, "Don't chirp a word to John about
this.  He will find it out soon enough.'"  Martin was a very different
makeup from Morris.  He kept all his counsels to himself, never telling
any jokes on himself.  On the other hand, Morris, with all his conceits,
never enjoyed a joke so well as when he got a good one on himself.

My older brother being in California and writing favorable, Mother did not

oppose the move to California, but I did.  Having plenty of money to get a

good education, it seemed the best thing to me to go to school and take a
collegiate course, and my parents could not get me to think of such a
thing as going to California.  But in the fall, preparations set in, in
ernest, for to prepare for the crossing of the plains.  And having for
years to do most of the buying and selling, it fell to my lot to buy the
oxen, wagons, and provisions for the trip.  Yet we ernestly hoped
something might occur preventing my parents going.  Elza Martin, my
brother in law, taking the California fever, the journey became a foregone

conclusion.  And it being ten years since my mother had seen any of her
people, she had to take a trip to Southwest Missouri, Little Osage, to see

them before going to California.  We made the best preparation we could
for the trip, and planned for Elza Martin, my brother in law, to take
Mother and myself to Dr. Kennison's, in Andrew County, where I had worked
before, it only being twelve miles from Holt County, Missouri, where he
was going to buy his team for the California trip.  From Newark, Andrew
County, we were to take the stage for St. Joe, and then take the steamboat

for Independence Landing, Jackson County, Missouri, then hire a livery
team to Little Osage, the last sixty miles of the journey.  We started on
this journey with Elza Martin, the first seventy-five miles all went well
until we got in two miles of the end of his journey at the Nodaway River,
or Hollister's Mill.  We could not get our team ferried over.  But while
parlying with John Smithie, the ferryman (a man well known to us) up
drives a very genteel, fine-looking, tall young man with a two-horse
buggy, we judged about thirty years old.  He just flatly stated that he
had to get over that river right away.  The ferryman, Mr. Smithy, told him

we were ahead of him, and that he had refused to take us over, it was
dangerous, and all this.  He replied that he would risk the danger, and
finding out that our team was only going to Newark, he volunteered to take

my mother in his buggy to Dr. Kinneson's, two miles away, and I could
walk.  The ferryman, at the risk of the stranger, said he could take his
light rig over--and so he did, and we reached Dr. Kinneson's, stopping
over night at the doctor's.  But here we found all the stages were broke
down to St. Joe, and we did not know what to do.  The roads were
impassable through the late storm, but on seeing the young man who had
brought Mother to Newark.  He had a very lame horse, he remarked, "I can
take your mother to Savannah if you can get any way to get there
yourself."  It being only twelve miles, I said, "All right, I can travel
on foot as fast as that lame horse can go."  We started, and any good
footman could keep up with that lame horse.  When we got to Savannah, we
found no conveyance to St. Joe, and he volunteered to still take my mother

further.  We found no conveyance at St. Joe, and crossing over the
Missouri River to Levenworth, stopped all night the second night from
Newark.  Before leaving our home, we knew all about the Kansas War, Joe
Lane having been up through Nebraska, and we supposed stopped in disguise
at our house.  We were just as much interested in the issues as Kansas up
in Nebraska.  The night we got to Levenworth, every hotel was booked, and
it was said five hundred men had just landed at the warfs, that had rolled

up in their blankets and were laying on the warf.  These were Free State
men from the east, that Joe Lane had imported out from the East to make
Kansas a free state.  What to do we knew not.  But in our distress we met
a U. S. officer, a captain in the regular army, and he said to me, "You
take your mother down to the fort.  My wife will take care of her."  How
many companies were stationed here we do not know, but the fort was full.
On Mother's arriving at this officer's quarters, the wife was not long
devising means to lodge me.  We never spent a better night, and on leaving

next morning, neither captain nor wife would take one cent.  Our young New

Yorker, A. C. Davis, who so graciously having hauled my mother so far,
took her on for the next point of destiny, Wyandotte, at the mouth of the
Kaw River, all this three or four days' travel with Mr. Davis.  My mother
was restless, and often speaking what a trouble we were to him, and so
forth, to which he would invariably reply, "Never mind, I once had a good
mother.  I'll take care of you."  He would get out and walk for miles to
rest me, but as the horse got better, I found the heavy roads pronounced
impassable (all the stages stopped) were telling on me.  A. C. Davis told
us on the road to Wyandotte we would stop for dinner at Johnny Cake's, an
Indian chief of the Delawares or Wyandottes, we have forgotten which, for
dinner.  We had a good dinner, and reached Wyandotte long before night.
Here, too, we found the hotels (being only one large one) full.  Here the
land office being located with the straggling Free State men, who put up
at this hotel kept anyone from getting a single bed.  Getting Mother into
comfortable quarters, the landlord put me into a wide bed between two
large men, I think either one would weigh two hundred.  A. C. Davis they
put just over from me two or three tier of beds, all the beds being in a
large hall or upper chamber.  Davis' bed was against the wall, and as soon

as his companion got into bed, he exclaimed, "There is no cover on this
bed!"  Whereupon Davis walks over to the nearest bed and helps himself to
the cover, getting into bed.  When the clerk comes up with the next two
men, he says, "Where in the Devil has the cover gone?."

One man close by says, "That man," pointing to Davis, "took it."You can't
have that cover."

Davis reached over to the wall saying, "You lay your hand on me or my
money and you are a dead man."

The clerk left, but the next morning at the office he steps up tot he
landlord (when Davis goes to pay his bill) and says, "You charge that
fellow for two beds.  He had two beds last night."

Davis ran his right hand behind him under his coat saying, "Stepback."

The landlord says, "Oh, never mind."

Davis paid for one bed and went on.  Afterwards Davis told me he had
nothing but a pen knife.  Here we parted with one of the most generous,
kind, and intelligent men we ever met.  We wrote to him in New York until
the war absorbing everything else, we lost track of this noble man.  We
heard he was a lawyer exchanging Eastern banknotes for Western.  This is
all we ever knew of him.

I shall always remember the squeeze I got between these big men that
night, and have never been back to Wyandotte since.  The run of ice
closing the Missouri River above, the boats that took the Free State men
to Levenworth and other points up the river returning, Kaw River being
impassable, the only way to get below was to take steamers at Wyandotte
for Kansas City or points below.  We got on a steamer and billed for
Independence Landing, my mother's girlhood stamping grounds.  On this
steamer we met General Geary, the Free State governor, for the first and
last time.  He was on his way back to the east.  We looked feeble and
pale.  We also met Kasad, the government surveyor, on his way to
Cleveland, Ohio, on this steamer.  Arriving at Independence, we could get
no livery team, and were in a quandry what to do, when Mother says, "John,

I can walk out to Younger's (on the Blue, I think it was)."  Sixteen
miles, I think, but am not certain of the distance.  Only from knowing
Mother's endurance, or I'd never consented.  But her baggage being light,
she took one satchel and  I took the other, we walked out to Harry
Younger's before night.  They knew all my mother's and father's people,
besides being acquainted with my father and mother.  There was some two or

three young ladies at home besides the boys.  The young ladies were
intelligent, well educated for that day, religious we think.  Parents and
girls belonged to the Cumberland Presbyterians, but am not very sure of
that fact.  Mr. Younger, tall, fine looking, treated us finely, and we
should have taken more notice of the Younger boys if we had have known
they were to be so intimately related to the James boys in after years.
Mr. Younger let us have horse and buggy to go stay and return to and from
Balltown for a reasonable price.  He talked to me very rational about the
Kansas troubles.  He owned slaves, and told me he had went to Kansas and
spent one thousand dollars to make that state a slave state.  But when
they went to make it a robbery, "I pulled out."

Reaching Little Osage, some sixty miles away, we were at the journey's
end, and thankful that we were alive and well.  My aged grandmother,
between eighty and ninety, was alive.  Also the doctor.  How long we
remained at Little Osage we have no recollection now, but we had a fine
visit with relatives and the old missionaries scattered here and there.
We visited some of the sick.  Paid the last debt my father owed.  This
debt was made many years before, during the time my father failed, before
we went to Iowa.  Cecil Ball and this man, Johnson, were the only men that

my father left Missouri unable to pay.  Ball took all the money my mother
got from her father's estate when he died.  He, Ball, being a second
cousin of my mother's, but Mr. Johnson, on the other hand, said, "You are
a son of Milton Morris, you say."

"Yes, sir."

"Well, the account was outlawed long years ago.  I do not know even how
much it was, having burnt up all my books.  But I will tell you just what
I am going to do if your father is as honest a man as that.  I am just
going to take half what he says the debt is, and call it square."  And he
only took half.  While Cecil Ball came out from Vermont a poor shoemaker.
My grandfather gave him work at the old mission, Newel Dodge was his
interpreter at old Balltown for years in the Osage Indian trade, and Newel

Dodge had more influence at that time among the Osage Indians than any
other man.  Only for the Dodges helping Ball get his start or he would
have been worthless by far than he was.  Dr. Dodge, always the one who
doctored him all his life nearly, yet being the richest man in the county,

he never willed one of the name a cent, and his aunt, my grandmother, was
quite poor.

On the other hand, he willed a competency to everyone of a large relation
of his wife.  He never had any children of his own, and never ought to
have had.

My aunt, Philena Modrel, was a wonderful woman, the oldest of the Dodge
family at old Harmony Mission.  Her mild temper, genial spirit, I will not

attempt to describe here, but should God spare me, if this book is well
received, I may make an extended sketch of her life when I write up my
mother's peregrinations.  We had a good visit with her and my Uncle
Modrel, a deacon in Grandpa's church, was one of the school of honest men
for the greater part, having so many years ago passed away.  My uncle,
Newel, was living on the old Dodge homestead taking care of his mother.
The doctor, in full vigor of life, came out horseback onto the high
prairie
two or three miles away from home on our starting back to Independence,
and said, "Sally, write," throwing a twenty dollar gold piece in my
mother's lap while the tears came rushing down his cheek, which I never
saw before come in his eyes during the many years we had looked into that
face.

Uncle Thomas was selling goods and whiskey.  I never got so much attached
to him as the other aunts and uncles.  He was a fine-looking man, but very

wicked, would swear.

One vacancy in the Dodge family gave me much pain.  My uncle, Edwards, had

married Father Austin's daughter, one of the old missionary stock.  He,
Edwards, got in a debt about the time my father did.  He worked hard at
his trade, carpentering, for years, some seasons away at Fort Scott,
nearly all the year, but never working out of debt.  Having five or six
children, he one day says to my mother, "Sally, I am going to California,
and if I make anything you are to share with me.  We are the only poor
ones in the family."  He was the captain of a large company of immigrants
who came to California in 1849, died at Nevada City in the spring of 1850,

and left the widow quite poor.

Aunt Harriet Dickison also was poor, and had quite a family I know but
little about.  She was the only single member of the then original Dodge
family at Little Osage when I lived at Grandpa's, and I'd judge her about
eighteen years old at that time.  She was very popular, well liked by all,

helped her father teach school one winter at Little Osage.  Easily
deceived, she did not do well in marrying.

Having said thus much here of the Dodge family, we will take adieu, and
retrace our steps toward our old Nebraska home.

Coming to Deacon George Requa's and Dr. Requa's of Double Branch, where my

infant brother sleeps, we visited them a day or two, and in two more days
reached the Harry Youngers'.  He took us to Independence the next day, and

charged us nothing.  We took boat for St. Joe, Missouri, where we hired a
man to take us to Iowa.  The upper Missouri River not yet being broke up,
people still crossing on the ice, we had only one bad thing to contend
with.  It rained a great deal on the way back from St. Joe to Iowa, and we

had to shield ourselves from the storm by tying the wagon cover down close

around the wagon bed.  My mother was very seasick.  I had to hold her head

all one day.  We got home without being arrested as spies by Senator
Atchison or his raiders, but in order so to do, we had to keep our lips
closed, which was very hard for me to do.  The war virtually raged just as

effectually at this time as later on during the
rebellion.  Lane done one good deed.  He ran a posse of men down to
Balltown and captured Cecil Ball's fine span of horses and buggy.  If he
had taken any other man's horses and buggy we knew in Missouri, even Harry

Younger's, I should have said it was wrong--Ball, a Vermonter, had become
a slave holder, and a very small man.  We were glad to get home, finding
all well.  We went to preparing every comfort for Father's trip across the

plains, selling off our household effects, stock, and produce.  There was
most excellent sale for everything, immigrants pouring in from all parts,
wanting cows, hogs, horses, fowl, and lands.

The spring was very backwards, and snow drifted in the head of the hollows

and lay on until the first of May where the timber shaded.  And we done
the perxxxable thing Goodrich describes in his "Universal Traveler,"
gathered a blossom with one hand in the head of one of these ravines, and
in the other at the same time took a handful of snow.  Something we had
never before seen or done.

Before starting on the trip Father had mapped out to California, we will
review to some extent the Iowa and Nebraska fields we had roamed over so
much.  We should have felt quite sad if we had of thought of taking the
trip ourselves, but as we were calculating to be away from home anyhow
going to school in the East, we thought that then we would most likely go
to California ourselves.  Through all these years of toil, we had been
trying to live for a higher purpose than mere self.  Although we may have
been quite selfish.  We know that at home we had been humored owing to our

having to work out from home and being sick so much.  When telling things
at home that were of a marvelous nature, the brothers and sisters would
remark frequently, "That took place in Andrew County, didn't it?" making
fun of my Andrew County experience.

Knowing myself that I was quite dressy and vain, sometimes having two
suits of broadcloth hanging up in the house or in the trunk at one time.
Becoming of age this year in Nebraska, and it being a very prosperous year

with me, it is little wonder that I became wise in my own conceits, and
may have been put on some deportment not becoming the Gentle One in a true

sense.  Yet my associates were mostly with old men and women.  At camp
meetings generally to be found among the preacher or more devoted of the
assemblage.

We had a camp meeting this year in our own settlement.  William H. Good
was the presiding elder, a fine preacher, and being known all over the
country, we knew that many of our old friends would be over from Iowa and
elsewhere to stop with us and make great preparations to take care of all
who might come.  Taking a load of wheat over the river to Iowa, we had
about forty or fifty miles to make before meeting with a suitable mill,
getting it ground and all taking a week, travel and all.

This wheat being tramped out with horses on our old home place in
Nebraska, one would not think the flour would have been very good.  But on

going to the mill we did, called the New French Mill at McKisics Grove,
the mills cleaned the wheat so thoroughly that we never saw such white,
fine flour before.  In one week from date of getting home, Mother had all
of that load of that flower except two sacks loaned out.  I felt pretty
bad about the matter, but it being camp-meeting time, all kept quiet  if
they did know where the flour thus loaned when returned would scarcely be
fit to use.

Our principal enjoyment was our meetings, and one thing that was in
Scriptural keeping, the young people were "grave, serious."  There was
little or no drinking on either side of the river.  The main liquor law
being in force in Iowa, young men on either side rarely indulged.  The
best order of young people we had ever associated with.  But my
associations were more among older men, for one could gain more knowledge
from this order.

The camp meeting, once in session, Elder Good done the most of the
preaching, and it was sublime.  We carried through some forty members of
that camp meeting besides our own folks, and a good meeting it was, many
receiving evidence of salvation through the Blessed Redeemer.

The associations at Freemont and Mills County, Iowa, were very dear to me,

and many of our old friends were over at this camp meeting.  If we had
have known we were never to attend another camp meeting in Nebraska or
Iowa, we should have felt doubly sad.

Some of the Iowa fathers we felt indebted to.  Father Martin more
particularly.  He had befriended me at so many different times, I felt the

debt quite accumulative.  Here, coming so poor from Missouri, and having
gained so much among this people, we never dreamed of ever living
elsewhere.

But the days passing, we bought good wagons.  Father contended that he
wanted only enough provisions and teams to take him through.  But it
seemed to me he had better lay his money out in cattle and provisions.  He

objected.  "Well," says I, "Father, I will send one team through of four
yoke of oxen and a good wagon, and you can sell them when you get through,

and send me the money."  He agreed to this.  Instead of four yoke, I
bought five, and a good wagon, paying eighty dollars per yoke for the
oxen.  Our wagons were the late, improved, high top, square bows.

We bought prunes, dried peaches and apples by the hundred, sugar by the
barrel, and loaded up the wagons to the brim.

No finer outfit could be made.

The day for starting came, but Mother having a sick lady in her charge (it

being Mother's and Father's mission to take care of the sick), Mother did
not leave this lady's bedside for three days and nights, thus delaying our

train three days.  Already Father having engaged two men to go along, he
was to take these men for what they could do to California.  Mother took
sick the morning they left.  All were off finally, and on my going over to

one of the neighbors', Uncle Bobby Stafford's, who lived by us in Page
County, Iowa, and who had become quite well-off following Father to
Nebraska in order to live neighbor to him (and offering to give Father a
hundred and sixty acres of land if he would stay in Nebraska and not go to

California), I found that had the neighbors buried my parents and the
entire family, they would not feel worse.  And to my astonishment, all
thought it my duty to go and see my parents through to California if I
returned back by the first steamer.  Only one dissenting voice to this
decision, and that was William Davis, my father's nearest neighbor.  He
said to me, "No, you have done your duty.  You tried to keep the old folks

here.  You have done all you could for them, and I don't think it is your
duty to do anything more."

Thinking Mr. Davis might be activated by some selfish motive, I did not
take his advise, but began to settle up my business for to leave.  In less

than two days, I was on my way with this same mule that went to the rack
at Nebraska City, and one of the finest two-year-old fillies in Cass
County, Nebraska.  So well had I my business affairs attended to that all
was wound up and attended to in one day and a half, and bidding a good-bye

to all, mounting this mule, leading the two-year-old behind prairie Ridge,

leading up the Platte River was taken.  No road but the trail of these
wagons served for a mark to follow to overtake my people up the Platte.
They had two days the start.  But knowing they would go slow the first
week or two, I thought to soon overtake them.  Having plenty of time to
meditate on this lone journey, one thing troubled me: the other amused.
Isabelle Davis cooked a fine chicken for me, and coming out to the gate to

give me this lunch, after bidding her good-bye, she broke down, sobbed,
and cried fit to break her heart.  'Twas then I saw as never before how
this girl had clung on to a vain hope.  She always sought my company at
church, home, or any place she found me, but never was she encouraged by
me or any of my people.

The other was Preacher Gage's daughter.  She followed me way out on the
prairie, her father's being the last house I'd have to pass before
overtaking the train, and lamented my going so ernestly, talked so
sensible, and sympathetic,hoping I would soon return, crying seemingly
just as ernest as Miss Davis, asked me to pray for her, and on my getting
about thirty yards away after bidding her good-bye, she broke out in a big

laugh, hooted and halloed, laughed and shouted to the top of her voice,
and seemed more like a Comanche warrior than a white, refined,
well-educated lady.

This was all the way through the Indian nation, and reminds me of a big
scare our settlement had something like one year before.  Reports came to
Plattesmouth that the Indians had invaded the country, that the Pawnees
had come in some fifty miles up the Platte and killed two land hunters
about forty miles from where we lived, were making down the Platte to our
settlement.  A party of one hundred men under Uncle Tom Patterson was
formed, but I rode up and down the country and laughed (and acted the
fool, my father said), doubting the validity of any such reports.  But on
the formation of the company, they were very far from giving me any
commission after ridiculing these authentic reports.  But my being very
much opposed to running on most occassions, never having retreated but
once, and that the time Uncle Tommy Ashly got after me, all were willing I

should join them, and elected my friend, William T. Laird, first
lieutenant.  All the women except a few were gathered into my father's
house of one room eighteen feet square for the two men left behind (my
father and Elza Martin) to protect.  We started, leaving Laird's wife
crying, early in the morning out this same ridge I was then on.  After
organizing, and my father's house at that time was the last one we passed
going west on up the Platte, except James Gardner--he got water out of the

spring we did two hundred yards away.  We traveled fast all day, anxious
to get to the seat of war for fear some other posse might beat us there
and get the honor of conquoring the Pawnee nation.  But about sun one hour

high ( we had sent out a scout at twelve of five picked men well mounted)
someone called a halt.  He had seen an Indian.  We formed in line when
here came five men running as fast as the horses could carry them toward
us, throwing up their hats and shouting.  But before a volley was fired,
we perceived it was our five scouts.  They had met some campers and found
out all was peace and quietude, and our laurels all gone.  All hungry,
plenty of water, we began to get supper when our lieutenant (who left his
wife crying in the morning) remarked, "Boys, I'm going home."  Some five
or six of those having horses fell in.  I was on this same animal that
defeated Morton the day of election.  She had run more prairie wolves than

any animal on that prairie, it being the dark of the moon, it was certain
this animal would take me home.  All went well the first twelve or fifteen

miles, and we thought we were about twenty-five miles from home when we
started back.  Finally the six men began to parley where we were going,
and there were but two that thought alike, Wilson, the ferryman of
Kenosha, and myself.  The Parley kept up until Mr. Laird called a halt.
He knew we were going wrong.  Said I to Laird, "The horse will take us in.

 She has run wolves all over this prairie country.  I'll give her the
reins.  She will take us in all right."  I said I had been letting her
lead the way for miles before telling them this.  We made five or six
miles, and on pointing out the North Star to Laird to prove I was going
the right direction, I found he knew nothing of the Dipper or North Star.
But no use, and the little band halted.  Mr. Laird thought we were going
into Plattesmouth, Louis Young to Nebraska City, eighteen miles below our
place.  Wilson, the ferryman at Kenosha, and Carol Holcomb thought I was
right.  They stopped and parleyed.  I went on, and after my leading them a

mile or so, my horse began to cross swampy places.  They did not look
natural to me.  A strange feeling came over me.  Was I right?  Carol
Holcomb and Wilson having left me, my horse went into the woods and began
to pick grass.  Getting off, I heard some cowbells, took a road, and came
to a house, knocked, and took hold of the door knob, could not open the
door, went back to my horse thinking I must have got too far to the right,

and gone to the Three Groves.  Concluded to turn my horse out and wait for

daylight, but thinking I'd make one more effort to open the door of that
house, I went up, and it was a homemade latch of a very peculiar shape and

cut.  It was at our nearest neighbor on the west, in two hundred yards of
our own house.  The bell I heard were our own cowbells, and I did not know

them.

Getting home about two AM, found the neighbors all up, and relieved their
fears.

In about an hour, Laird rode up.  After parleying awhile, they came on
after me, but bore to the north, going into Louis Younger's.  His dogs
came out and barking at him, he did not know them.

So ended our famous Indian scare.  If we had kept the record of the
organization, we could have come under regulations afterwards made
entitling us to land warrants, we have been told.

Resuming my journey, traveling day and part of the night, we overtook the
train in two days.  Father having been quite sick, my mother was better.
I forgot to state in the beginning of my narrative in parting with my
folks that Mother was quite sick.

All were rejoiced to see me except the men who Father had engaged to go
along as hands.  They seemed a little dry, I imagined, but not being too
well acquainted, thought little of the affair, and all went well for
awhile.  Grass was late, and we did not rush, knowing we had plenty of
provisions along to do us a year if required.  There having been so many
immigrants going overland, there was not much danger of Indians, and we
could travel most any way we chose keeping mostly to ourselves.

Our wagons were about all the high, square top covers we saw, and other
trains called us the high wagons (on the plains).  Up the Platte we met
James Cummins and family, one of our old neighbors at Deepwater, Missouri,

and traveled with them awhile up the Platte.  But he having a drove of
cattle and we having no loose stock, it was inconvenient for us to travel
with him very far.  Mr. Cummins having been to California in 1849,
crossing the plains, he was a good, safe, reliable man to travel with.

One day the hands got up a strife about driving.  The rule was that the
man who led or drove the front team today would be behind tomorrow.  Thus
everyone in the train comes in rotation, one team being in the lead just
as often as the others.  This was a hot day.  In the evening, I was out
horseback, and on coming in noticed that all the teams were driving at a
fearful rate.  Giving my father my saddle horse, I went to my wagon to get

a drink.  We usually stopped the team when we poured water out of the kegs

to drink, but I got a drink all right by some splashing of water.  Then
all the family wanted water, giving those who rode in my wagon all a
drink.  My mother riding in my father's wagon wanted water.  On attempting

to pour out some for Mother, and the keg being heavy, the road rough, I
made poor headway, and asked Mr. Shoop or Shoup to stop until I got some
water for my mother.  He replied that he would stop when he caught up with

the other teams.  He had been trying this for an hour, and failing.  We
knew that Father's team had been left by the teams before, and could not
catch the teams ahead of us.  Then by losing my temper, I got down and
said, "I'll show you that I will stop that team."  He drew the whip on me.

 I drew my revolver.  Father stepped in and gave me my horse, and all went

on until night, when I said to Father, "This is the last day Shoop drives
my wagon.  My brother, William, was then sixteen years old.  Large of his
age, he had drove my prairie team before in breaking prairie.  You can
take
the hands, and William and I will drive my team", and so it was settled.
But all the family could see that a conspiracy was formed by the hands
that might make things unpleasant.

All went on fine up the Platte.  Roads good, grass plentiful, and no very
bad storms.  We crossed the southern Platte and entered upon the North
Platte country, when we met quite an amount of Soux Indians.  They were
tall, stout built, and very bold; but offered no molestation.

Shoup and Parrott, Father's hands, had shown themselves very inefficient,
either from prejudice to me or some cause, they were shiftless.  One day,
Mr. Cummins says to my father, "I would not have such a set of loafers as
Parrott and Shoup round me.  They are fit for nothing."

This opened Father's eyes.  He soon saw William and myself had all the
work to do.  I made no complaint, resolving when the Shoup trouble was
settled, that was the last of my difficulties with anyone.

On Father catching them neglecting duty by devoting their time to playing
cards, he called them to one side.  We don't know what he told them, but
the next morning he led up a mule I had paid one hundred and forty dollars

for in Iowa, and took bacon, flour, sugar, coffee, tea, lard, dried
fruits, in fact everything we had, and I saw Shoup and Parrott begin
packing up.  I noticed my mother was sullen when the mule was packed with
everything they wanted.  Father good-humoredly, and with all the
pleasantness imaginable, bid each one a good, hearty shake hand, good-bye.

 This was the last seen of Shoup and Parrott.  My mother blamed Father for

this, but he replied, "I will never have it said I turned off anyone on
the plains without plenty to take them through."

We do not know if he gave them any money or not, but we know it was just
like him so to do.

This ended, we had a very pompous fellow who called himself "Captain" in
Cummins' train.  He was a fairly well-appearing and looking man, had one
yoke of cows and a yoke of oxen hitched to a small wagon.

The women and children used to get out and walk for miles going up Platte.

One morning early, we met quite a number of Soux Indians.  The cattle
occassionally would snuff at them.  Having the two-year-old mare and that
indomitable mule along, it fell to my lot every afternoon to hunt camp,
and of days, I let any of Cummins' or our men ride these two animals that
wanted to, driving my team in the morning awhile.  I went back to where
Cummins' drove of cattle were, which were drove in rear of the wagons, all

helping drive who wished.  This was the place visited to hear all the
yarns and jokes spun.  On my getting behind, I took the two-year-old mare
of mine, put a loop of the rope (she had tied around her neck to lead her
by) over her nose, and mounted.  By this time being some one hundred yards

behind, she was either anxious to catch up or got scared, and started off
in a run.  I could not stop her speed by holding onto the rope while on
her back, and jumped off, falling as I jumped, giving her rope as the rope

was a very long one.  I took her up just before catching up with the drove

of cattle.  But their having snuffed the Indians all the morning, were
easily scared, and it looked like there was not a steer, cow, or calf, but

jumped at the same moment.  A stampede was up.--After being pulled down
with this mare, I was just up in time to see near two hundred head of
loose cattle run, and upwards of twenty wagons with from two to seven yoke

of oxen hitched to them enter into the chase.  The bottom or upland
plateau was level for miles, and one behind as I was could see the
disaster much better than those mixed in the fray.  All up the road for
one mile were groups of women and children walking away ahead of the
teams.  Then mixed all in among the wagons on each side were women and
children walking, the roads being forty or fifty feet wide, beaten smooth
with droves of cattle that had preceded us.  No living soul could, knowing

the situation of that train as I did, depict such a scene of sorrow as
presented itself to my eyes as I stood looking up that plain.  Cattle
lowing, horses and mules neighing, women and children screaming at the top

of their voices, men hoarsely shouting "Whoa!" and it was all woe to me
hurrying up to try to be of some assistance.  The first man I met was this

would-be captain.  He piled into me, cursing and swearing at the top of
his voice.  I never was so abused in all my life, but for once I held my
temper, said not a word.  I do not believe I even said I was sorry, and I
did not know but half of my own folks were killed.  For I could see one
wagon dart by the other, hear women scream as if in the agony of death.
Someone coming took my mare, and the way they went, I dare not ask a
question.  But finally the dust began to clear away, and someone came to
me and said, "I don't think anyone is killed."  At that my heart leaped
for joy, and I started up to investigate.  After the loose cattle were
corralled, and the wagons strung out in line on the road, all the damage
done was one cow of this troublesome "captain" had one horn pulled off and

the other cow had some bruises on her side from being dragged a few rods.

One young but stout lady in this notable event had done what should have
her name down to posterity.  She had crossed the plains with her father in

1849, been with him in California all the time he was there, returning
with her father via the isthmus to New York, and back home to Deepwater.
There was snow on the road the second time.  She was my senior by about
two or four years if recollecting rightly.  This was Miss Jane Cummins.
She was away ahead with some young ladies, my sister, Lucy, being of the
number.  When they saw this stampede coming (of the teams).  She went to
school with me two or three months at Deepwater.  Her mother dying when
she was twelve or fourteen years old, she being the oldest of a large
family of girls, having the children to cook and wash for, she saw rather
a hard time.  She stepped into the road before the foremost team, threw up

her apron, and crying "Whoa!" to the top of her voice, she checked the
leaders a little in this way, then grabbed the lead steer by the horn with

both hands, swung to him, she turned the lead yoke round, stopping in
nearly correll shape the entire train.  She lived in Anderson Valley,
California, some years after this event, and if alive, we would like to
know of her prosperity.

Nothing was said to me of the stampeding of the train.  But on going to
Mr. Cummins, who was really the true captain of the company, to see if I
could do anything towards settling the damages, he says, "Why, you were no

more to blame than anyone else.  All the boys have been riding her that
way."

Elza Martin, my brother in law, a very intelligent, good, and highly
respected man, took this pretended captain to one side, both being on
horseback and revolvers swung to the horn of each saddle.  I could not
hear a word said, but could see Martin laying off with his hand as they
talked.  I knew what they were talking about, but to this day I do not
know what Martin said to him.

In some week from this time, we parted regretfully, the Cummins train on
the best of terms with the entire company.

As this narrative is not a description of the country but some of the few
events of that trip crossing the plains, we will only deal with the facts
that related to our own individual family, for the most touching here and
there some few particulars affecting our journey.

My business, as stated before, was to hunt camp, and when noon came,
usually someone of the company volunteered to drive my team.  For when
Shoup and Parrott left, we only had my brother, William, and Father to
fill their place.  This made three hands to two wagons.

When we reached the Black Hills, our oxen's feet began to get sore, and
one large ox gave out entirely.  You would find plenty of French traders
and quite a number of Americans trading and stealing among the Indians,
ready to buy or trade ponies for these gave out, lean cattle.  But they
would not give more than one fifth the amount your ox was worth.  For this

great, large ox, they gave me a yearling heifer.  This heifer may have
been stolen for ought we knew.  Be that as it may, she was very fat, and
we killed her on the spot, distributing the meat among the train.  This
reduced my stock to four yoke of oxen and one cow.

Finding we were too heavy loaded, we began selling off, and bacon and
sugar being worth fifty cents per pound, we sold some two hundred and
fifty dollars worth, and came on our way rejoicing.

We soon found out the trouble of crossing the plains at this era of
immigration.  In former years, the Indians might have been more
troublesome than now, but the year we crossed, so many large, well-armed
and equipped trains had passed years before that the Indians were under
cow, and even the most daring traders were afraid to molest.  As we were
going to remark, the worst feature was the hurry to get through.  Men and
women thought if they could only get to the El Dorado, they could make
fortunes, pick up nuggets like rocks.  Hence this hurry and push to get
through.  If the team gave out, they did not know how to wait a day to
rest up.  If anyone was sick, no one wanted to lay by.  And the only to
stop over on the Sabbath was to have a train all of devoted Christians
that would not travel on the Sabbath under any consideration.  You might
start with part in favor of keeping the Sabbath, but the uninitiated would

hitch up one by one and pull out to other trains who prefer to travel on
this day until you would be left with only those who would under no
consider being induced to travel on this day.  Thus it was the teams were
overdriven, men overworked, and all was hurry, drive, fret, and worry to
get through.  If people were willing to stop when an animal got lame to
recruit up and not hurry, took good care of their teams--for most of the
teams gave out from being beaten and misused.  This was proven by our
experience in this train we came in.  My brother in law, Elza Martin, had
the finest team in our train.  He had a man that done most of the driving
(two men part of the way).  He, like others, let the men misuse the
cattle.  My brother and myself attended to the yoking and unyoking of my
team, and would not allow a teamster to drive that abused the cattle.  We
had to begin to take part of my brother in law's load into my wagon before

we got to Salt Lake.  If anyone threw an oxbow and hit one of my steers in

the side of the head, they heard from me in return.  And none seemed to
know why my team kept fat and fine.

One thing could not be averted: the bad water.  And it was bad the greater

part of the way.  Another thing preying upon the constitution: running
such long hours, getting so little sleep.  It seemed to me that my
make-up, like Napoleon in this respect of doing with little sleep, could
not serve on the plains.  For if my parents were not along, it seemed to
me, when these spells came on, I would have lay down and slept many times
if I had have known the Indians would have come along and scalped me.

We passed Fort Larame on North Platte, and it seems to me that this was a
nice situation, but making no halts, we were soon through the Black Hills
and traveling up the Sweetwater.

We met the first unnatural mother we had ever seen.  Having to cross and
recross Sweetwater so many times that not unfrequently a wagon would turn
over.  Well, this unnatural Arkansas mother Our wagon or Father's once
upset, and we remember Mother grieving about losing three German silver
teaspoons out of a set that was given her. Well, this unnatural Arkansas
mother one day was sitting in her wagon with a large brood of young
children when the wagon upset in Sweetwater, all the men nearby seizing
the wagon to get it out.  The old woman was the first to make her
appearance, and unconcerned for the children's safety, went up the bank of

the river and sat down,  when the children began to crawl out of the water

from under the wagon.  "Oh, you little scamps!" she exclaimed.  "No danger

of you drowning.  You are always in some devilment.  I wouldn't care if
half of you would get drownded, you are so mean.  And thus she went on,
enough to rouse the indignation of the savages we were then among.

Another scene came up at Green River in a few days after that shows how
even among traders and Indians that a sense of higher feeling than the
brute or this American lady had dwells inside of a very rough exterior.  A

man with a large drove of cattle comes to the ferry on Green River (and
would not pay the rates for ferrying his loose stock, some say seven
hundred head) which was all right, for most drovers swam all the loose
stock.  But Green River being very treacherous, after getting the herd all

in and mostly over the river, the man's son who owned the cattle went into

the river to swim over, being on the horse he rode, and the current being
very swift, he was swept down, and all saw he must drown.  The traders
came to his rescue, offering the father to send in two Indians to save the

son's life.  The Indians rescued the son, but on coming out, the owner of
this herd of fat cattle (the trader who told me said seven hundred head),
pulled out two dollars, and gave the Indians one silver dollar each for
the rescue of his son.

"No, sir!"  They disdained his offer, would not have the money, and went
to the trader mad, and asked if the father thought that was all his son
was worth.  Whereupon the trader notified the drover if he did not want to

be followed and his stock drove off, he had better settle with the
Redskins.  The trader told me he did not know how they settled the matter.

 But when the Indians brought out the young man, if the father had just
drove out one or two fat cattle from the drove, enough for a feast for the

tribe, all would have been right.

What others have seen to amuse them up these Platte rivers we are at a
loss to know.  Antelope were plentiful, it is true, but where they were
the most plentiful, at the region of Chimney Rock and other places, one
will shoot at them thinking they are about fifty yards away when they are
a thousand yards.

We went to the top of Chimney Rock, and like to have never gotten down.

The Devil's Gate, another curiosity at the head of Sweetwater was worth
seeing.  But the greater part of the country to me looked very
uninteresting.

After leaving Sweetwater, we went over the most smooth mountain region of
the journey, could never have known we were crossing the Rockies only for
the water running to the westward.

Mr. Draper, my brother in law, was taking sick when we were on this trip,
and there being no way for him to be comfortably taken care of, I took him

into my wagon.  My sisters cooking for him, and all doing our best to make

him comfortable.  We finally got him up, but he was a little soured by my
having the Shoup disturbance, and we never were very intimate.

Having to hunt camp for the train on this celebrated mule and my
two-year-old mare, I would let them run with the lariats hitched to them
of nights.  Father told me one day that some of the men were complaining
of the mule and filly driving up the cattle by dragging the long lariats,
but thinking nothing serious of the matter, I did not tie them up of
nights in order to give them better show to graze as they had to be rode
so much.  But one night, going to bed early and not being on guards that
night, sleeping in a large tent, I heard Draper remark, "If that mule
drives up any of the cattle tonight, I will shoot him."

I said in a good-humored way, "Oh, I recon not," the mule being close by
the tent and Draper being only a few rods away.

"I will be darned if I don't," he says.

I was mad in a moment.  Getting up, I stepped out in my drawers with my
revolver in hand, and says, "You try that, and I will put a hole through
you."

He says, "Shoot and be damned!"

Father interfered, and the matter ended.

In after years, Draper came to Minersville, and I gave him employ at three

dollars per day, and we were better acquainted than ever before.

We were hoaxed into getting our oxen shod at the Devil's Gate, but in
three days they began coming off, and in three or four weeks they were all

gone.  But in all our experience, we never saw men who could hammer iron
so smooth or fast as these Mormons who shod these oxen.  We paid enormous
prices for this work, all to no purpose.  The Mormons were all along the
road to pick up what they could from Sweetwater to the head of the
Humboldt.

We came to Salt Lake by the Echo Canyon,a nd could see Johnson's Pass
through this canyon.  On the rocks way up on the walls of these canyons
that were piled up by the thousands of tons to roll down onto Johnson's
army if he came to Salt Lake to molest them.  And these walls of rocks
were for fortifications or to hurl at Johnson's army only showed the folly

of the man who planned the enterprise.

We stopped at Salt Lake City three days, and did not get to see Brigham
Young, nor did we try to.  We had seen enough of these boasters before
coming to Salt Lake City to satisfy our curiousity.  Yet from what both
saints and gentiles told us at Salt Lake, we think Brigham a different
leader from any of the leaders we had heretofore known.  Anything in the
way of groceries, clothing, the immigrants had could be sold at
extravagant prices.  Even second-hand household goods were exorbitant.
Vegetables were poor in quality this time of year, and the fruit scarcely
fit to use.  All the country round the city seemed little else than a
desert.  But the water was bountiful, and of most excellent quality.  In
fact, these water aquaducts were all that made these lands worth anything.

 The Tabernacle was already built, and the foundation of the temple laid.
This temple was to be forty years building, they told us, as long as
Solomon was building the temple at Jerusalem.  They were making salt that
early in different localities around the lake.

Journeying from Salt Lake through Thousand Spring Valley, the most
destitute part of the road and most poisonous water, we hurried on for the

head of Humboldt.  My brother in law, Elza Martin, having met a young man
by the name of Burnet, and his young wife, set out on the road by
Christians, Martin took Burnet into his charge, loading his wife and
household effects into his (Martin's) wagon, to my discomfiture, for I had

to haul more of Martin's load than otherwise.  We soon found out Burnet to

be the biggest liar in the train, but a strange makeup.  He seemed to have

general intelligence, for an educated man, he was always ready to do any
work needed and stand proportion of the guard.  His wife was a
good-hearted young lady, but simple.  One day Burnet got me to go back at
the head of Humboldt, Old Tug Platter's, where someone of the train had
lost some valuables.  The journey back took over half a day, and I had to
furnish the animal for Burnet to ride, but reaching the Old Ignorant
Mormon, Tug Braider, platting his rawhide lariats.  He seemed to
understand nothing Burnet or myself said to him.  Whereupon Burnet says,
"I know the old rascal has them, and I've a notion to kill him," loud
enough for the Mormon Tug Braider to hear him.  He (Burnet) taking out his

revolver, I says, "Burnet, come out here."

He came out.  When I told him I had come out there with him to try to find

an article reported lost.  That these Mormons were all in with the Indians

to kill a man out there might cause our own scalps to be taken, or all the

train, so far as that was concerned, that I did not approve of any such an

insult to decency and justice, that we had no proof that this man had any
of our goods, etc.  Mounting my horse, he followed, and we had quite a
grim ride back down the Humboldt to catch our train.

My father having known the Burnets in Missouri, and also the Hoppers,
relatives of Burnet's wife, he was very charitable to Burnet and wife, but

one evening, traveling all day and getting into camp late, we concluded to

turn out the cattle without stationing the guard, all helping prepare the
supper, and then go for the cattle.  But Burnet buckles on his revolver
when the rest had got about one half done eating.  He quickly starts for
the cattle which were close by, but went clear round them, it being quite
dark by this time, and the cattle always string out over quite a latitude
to feed.  He (Burnet) shouts to the top of his voice, "Here, boys, are
Indians," and the way he went, we could hear him run through the sage
brush, and stop for a minute, then bang-bang went his revolver.  "Here,
boys, why don't you come?  Here are the Indians."  Then again bang-bang
goes his navy-sized Colt's revolver.  Then a fearful crash and run with
another bang of the revolver.  By this time, all of the twenty or more men

of the train were out, but in the dark could hear nor see any Indians.  It

was too dark to tell an Indian from a white man.  Old man Holderfield and
one other man were bound to defend the women and children, and never
ventured out of camp.  One of these men had what we called an "Allen's
pepper box," one of Allen's repeaters, and Thomas Draper, Elza Martin's
hand, had laid his revolver down in the wagon and could not find it during

the Indian fight.  But on going to Jack (the man who stay at the wagon
with the old man Holderfield to defend the women and children), he asked
Jack to go to the battlefield or let him have his arms.  Jack would do
neither, and when the battle was over, Draper comes up to Jack and says,
"You're a coward, or you would have went or gave up your arms, and you
step out and I'll settle with you."

When a big, six foot two inch tall man and a friend of Jacks says to
Draper, "You are a larger man than Jack," he being as much larger than
Draper as Draper was larger than Jack.  Draper was no coward, being what
else he might, says to this tall,  well-built man, "Well, how much do you
weigh?"

"You take it up and I'll try you."

Just at this juncture, up comes Martin, a man we should think fifty pounds

lighter than either Jack or Draper, and the man we had never seen out of
humor on the entire trip, the model of the company.  And taking in the
situation, he took his rifle from his shoulder, and lay it down on the
ground, then takes his powder horn and shot pouch from off his neck, and
winds the string round the powder horn and lays all on the gun on the
ground, saying, "If I ain't the best man on this ground, I feel just like
I was."

You could understand what all that meant.  All went to the tents.  Our
first battle with the Indians was over.

In about three days after this famous battle, going down the Humboldt,
Burnet got ahead.  Just about noon, he went into the willows that lined
the banks of the Humboldt to fish or hunt, and we heard the old, familiar
yell, "Indians," and the bang of the revolver, but to no use.  This was
the third battle Burnet had encountered.  The last, poor fellow, he had to

fight all alone.  No one went to his assistance.

When we got to Carson Valley, in Nevada, we found that valley pretty well
settled up with Mormons.  And at the foot of the old Sierra Mountains,
after my brother in law taking Burnet into the settlement, he dismissed
him from his service, to the great satisfaction of all present.

On the Humboldt we met the notorious Haws Gang who were in the Holaway
Massacre.  We were not aware of any such outlaws being on the Humboldt.
But we were aware of this being one of the greatest places for Indian
depredations, and had acted very unwise by thinning out until we only had
ten wagons and seventeen or twenty effective men, and come near all being
murdered twice.

One afternoon, after having rode nearly all the afternoon hunting camp,
and finding no good grass, I concluded to try once more, but my mother
this time accompanying me.  We had only proceeded about one mile when we
saw eight or ten Indians come into a cliff of rocks just ahead of us, and
near the road.  We stopped for our train to come up, but fearing they
might come in behind us, we concluded to go back to our train and report.
When we turned back, just below where we saw the Indians at the cliff, a
great, black cloud of Indians came out of the mountains at the mouth of
the canyon and waved blankets and whooped, and on coming back to our
train, we had to retreat a mile back to Blunts large train and camp for
the night, or else all would have been murdered.

At another time, being away ahead of the train two or three miles, we saw
three Indians come in the road ahead of us on horseback.  Not willing to
meet them, turning my course, one of the mounted men took away out to my
side, and tried to get in between me and my train, but my mule outwinding
his pony, he was left in the rear.

The Haws brothers, for there were two of them, would come and camp by us
on the banks of the river, and always tell us not to camp close to the
willows, for the Indians might come out of the willows along the banks of
the river and kill us.  We noticed that they camped in the willows
themselves, and before going to bed would go out and holler out something
in Indian or some other lingo, but thought little of it.  Their trades
that they proposed was always seemingly to bring out some ideas of our
money's stock.  We all talked poverty tot hem, but had quite an amount of
cash along.  We were well-armed, and they were always looking at our arms.

One day, one of the Haws party remarked, "I think you would be afraid to
travel with so few men," to which the individual impressed his mind that
we were well-armed, and it would take quite a band of Indians to capture
us.

We knew nothing of these three men.  There was three of them, and two or
three straggling Indians, one who they called Jack.  One of the Haws men
had quite a winning way.  Tall, black eyes, straight,a nd well-formed,
brown hair and quite fair for so dark eyes and hair.  The other showed no
refinements, and if he was a Haws, he was the opposite to the other in
every respect.

One evening, they told us they were not going any further down the river,
and we expected that was the last we would see of them.  But after dark
(we having heard of the scalping of Mrs. Holaway, were keeping double
guard), and hearing something coming down the road, formed in line across
the road.  They come up in one hundred yards of us, when we called out,
"Who comes there?"

Not receiving any answer, all our arms were presented, when one fellow
just ahead of us stammers out, "We are one of the Haws men."

Directly the Haws man came up behind, and Father remarked, "You came near
being shot in two."

They calculated to take our train that night, but finding us ready to
receive them, gave it up.

That night few, if any, slept, and in the morning we left the Haws
fraternity for good, resolving if they followed us up to have a reckoning.

For safety we joined a large train, and although we up to this time never
knew anything about their standing, it was but a few days until we found
out that Mr. Holaway, a man we had met severalt imes in western Iowa, was
held up and the entire train rifled, Mr. Holaway himself killed, and his
wife scalped, and we have forgotten how many others killed and wounded,
all the stock and valuables carried off.  In a few days after this, Jack,
that was with the Hawses, came into the sink of Humboldt, and the
immigrants arresting him found four hundred dollars of English sovereigns
on his person.  They hung Jack, and would have hung both of the Hawses if
they could have found them.  Mr. Holaway having seven hundred dollars all
in sovereigns, which was a very rare thing for one man to own.  It was
conclusive that the Haws gang was at the head of this massacre.  Besides,
some of the Holaway party that escaped saw and recognizes one of the Haws
in the fight.

There was two reasons for our escape.  There were large trains just behind

and ahead of us.  Then, they could not find out about our amount of money,

and having no loose stock, seeing we were so well armed, and finding out
that evening they came upon us that some of their party were likely to be
killed, they thought the risk too great for the amount they were likely to

receive, that they abandoned the object.

Having passed the gravelly fords where the Holaways were murdered,we
proceeded down to the sink, having the great desert to cross.  We all felt

releived when we landed at Old Rag Town at the mouth of the Truckee River,

rejoiced that all were alive, sad to think how near death's door one of
our party lay--Elza Martin, the most efficient and cool man of our train,
took diarrhea up the Humboldt, and for a week all thought he would die.  A

doctor was at Rag Town.  He was called, and began to pour chalk and flour
mixed in water down him.  He said in our anxiety to get Martin well, we
had given him so much medicine that all the coating on his bowels was
eaten off.  And although a supposed quack, he was a nice-appearing man,
got Martin up in a remarkably quick time, and charged a very small fee.

Carson Valley was nearly all settled by Mormons, and what little mining
then done, where afterwards Dayton stood, was done by Mormons.  We not
wishing to settle among them, our company mostly scattering (being no
occasion to stand guard any further), some stopping here, we took the old
Truckee route for California.

One more amusing incident occurred in the Sierra Nevada Mountains.  My
father one day picked up an interesting young man on the plains.  He was
very kind, good natured, a good hand, he seemed to think much of us all,
and I knew we all liked him.  His name was Isam (something else).  We have

forgotten.  We always called him Isam.  Having got up the Sierras near the

top, I took my gun to look for some game after we had camped by a
beautiful lake and plenty of grass.--Having proceeded only a short
distance, I came round this beautiful lake, and turning rounds toward
camp, I saw the fire had got out and ran back to camp finding all the men
moving wagons.  I pitched in to save the camp.  By this time, the fire had

reached the top of a large pine tree.  And turning to the person standing
by, I pointed to the tree, saying, "Who sat that afire?"

Mother or someone else said, "Isam."

In a good-humored way, not intending to affront anyone, replied, "That
ought not to have been done."  This was all I said.

He flew into a rage and went on fearfully, but I think did not use any bad

language.  He wanted his clothes.  Father, usually not taking sides, very
strongly sided with me, says, "Why, you just acted the fool, Isam!"

We tried to get him to not leave, but had no further use of him.  Father
says to him, "John said nothing wrong.  Nothing for anyone to get offended

at," but to no use.  Isam must have his clothes, and left.  Poor Isam.  We

never met him after that, but would like to know what went with him.  He
was about eighteen or twenty years old, we should think.

Having reached the summit of the Sierra Nevada Mountains, the beautiful
groves, lakes, and streams could but capture the mind after being so long
on the desert plains.  Such timber we never before had seen, and all our
most sanguin hopes were realized.

We soon made down the eastern slope to Sacramento, where we saw the first
railroad we had ever beheld, a line some twenty miles long from Sacramento

to Fulsam.

After viewing the capital, we came onto a slough of Cashe Creek, near
where the town of Davisville now stands, and camped to recruit our teams
until I went up to Trinity County to hunt up my brother, Thomas, in the
mines, some three hundred miles away.

But before going on to this trip, I will review a few thingst hat have
escaped my mind while writing up the few things so hastily written on our
journey.

This wonderful mule that was so useful on our journey to the sink of the
Humboldt, we never had a more serviceable animal than he was.  He was very

fast.  But that trait of stopping at every hitching post became a
nuisance.  Then he got to wanting to stop at every camp or train he saw
camped any or all times of day.  Sometimes he would want to stop with the
trains traveling, and would run up by the side of a wagon so close as once

or twice catching his feet in the wheels.  He came near getting crippled
or crippling the one riding him.  It was amusing to see how he ran
sideways to keep one from reining him off from these trains and camps.

One evening about sunset, he came to a large train camped from Arkansas.
In passing, or trying to pass, the camp fires all ablaze getting supper,
he concluded to stop there.  In reining him off from the camp, he ran
through the camp sideways upsetting one coffee pot on the fire, and come
near running over two or three women.

Then when you got into a chase, and run him to his fullest speeds, which
was as fast as almost any horse, he was likely to fall sprawling on the
ground, being so small.  It was astonishing how he would fall so as the
saddle would slip through his legs and over his head.  He like to have
killed me two or three times this way.  The last time he fell, he threw me

three or four rods from where the saddle lay when they found me on a chase

to keep the cattle from getting to an alkali pond.  On the return of the
men after the cattle, they found me unconscious.  How long I had lay
there, they could not tell.  On getting over this, I resolved to part with

him notwithstanding his value for service.

He came through sleek and fat notwithstanding his doing more hunting camp
than any animal we knew of.

We met an old Sacramentan up the Humboldt by the name of Bradley.  He
seemed honest, candid, and interested in our welfare.  He told us mules
were no account in California, but good brood mares were valuable.
Proposing to trade me a small, glass-eyed, California mare for this mule.
I did not talk favorable, but my people thinking I was going to get killed

with this treacherous scamp would be glad to see me give him away.  He
offered to trade even.  I laughed at him.  He had no trouble to make me
believe that mules were no good in California, but I did not trade.  At
the Sink of Humboldt we met him again.  He wanted me to make him an offer.

 "Well," said I, "the best I'd do if I would trade at all is to give the
mule for the mare and twenty dollars."

He offered me the mare and fifteen dollars.  "No, sir."  It was off.  He
told me to take her along.

Bringing this glass-eyed, poor, Mestang Mare to California, paying
pasturage for her for more than twenty dollars, we don't know of ever
getting one cent for this scrub animal.  But on Bradley bringing the mule
to Sacramento, they told me he sold the mule for one hundred and fifty
dollars the day he got into the city.  He was worth two hundred in any
part of California at that time.  This was the first trade I made after
crossing the Rocky Mountains, and got cheated for two hundred dollars if I

remember right.  I gave one hundred and fifty dollars for the mule in
Iowa.

One other disaster occurred, and then we will have penned all we shall of
this vexed region of crossing the plains.  My brother, William, would run
in behind the oxen that were hitched to the tongue of the wagon, get on
the tongue, and climb into the wagon.  In fact we young people done this
to a great extent.  One day, attempting to get into the wagon in this way,

he slipped, and the wagon ran over him.  We could hear something squash,
and all supposed he was killed or seriously injured.  But after spitting a

little blood, in three days he was able to walk around a little, and in
one month probably was doing the same performance, thinking nothing more
than had the wagon never ran over anyone.

The moral effects of this trip will never be told, and why gold fields
should so craze men is a mystery.  Let Vanderbilt or Drew make a million
dollars in the stock market on Wall Street, and no man of good sense would

get bewildered over the matter.  If Van Buren made thousands raising
sheep, Billy Gray with his vessels at sea rise in the scale of commerce or

the Astors make millions in real estate, no one will be so blind as to
rush headlong into a business they know nothing of.  Yet in the discovery
of gold, though the earnings be small, and where twenty or thirty thousand

men gather and work hard for one year, three fourths not making expenses,
but the thirty thousand take out one million out of the mines, there will
be a greater stampede to those mines than all the millionaires of Wall
Street could draw to New York City in a half century.  So with sheep or
hogs, cattle, farms, or city lots.  Let it be known one man has actually
taken out fifty thousand dollars out of the mines, and fifty thousand men
will rush to the scene of action all excited and fatigued and worn out,
many walking three or four hundred miles on foot to reach this land of
chance and lottery.  Not only this, but before reaching the gold fields
men and women seem to grow more depraved than in any sphere we remember
having passed through, and it is to be deplored that as a trader told me
on the plains that it was impossible for a man to drive an ox team across
the plains without swearing.  This, of course, is nature, but the great
amount of profanity one hears would lead the men who reside at these
stations to form such conclusions of the plains life.  Men and their wives

parting, leaving the sick and destitute to the mercy of the savage.

Of the thousands buried we only saw one substantial mark to the memory of
the dead up Platte, where every object looks close and is so far away.  We

saw something white.  We traveled for miles, conjecturing all the time
what this white object could mean.  What it could be.  The most general
conclusion was it was a goose, but then it was on too dry and high land
for that, and one goose could not be there alone.  On getting closer, it
looked higher.  Finally, on nearly approaching, we saw a white column loom

up, and this proved to be a beautiful, white marble slab with something
like this: To the memory of Mary Jane Camp.

We were struck with admiration.  This was no vain show for to be seen of
men way up three or four hundred miles from anyone but savages, had for
years stood that white sentinel to watch the pure angel form of a little
daughter that we expect was the child of some United States officer during

the wars with some of the savage tribes of the plains.

On crossing the plains afterwards, we never saw the marble slab, and
expect the parent came up here and took the remains home.  Be this as it
may, the impression made upon my mind was lasting.

And having thought of the cholera ravages, we often think of the uncle we
never could trace further than the cutting of his name at the Devil's
Gate, buried with the forgotten on these plains.  Or could a lawyer of the

acquaintance he had up and down the Missouri River be buried thus without
anyone knowing the sad fate of my uncle, John C. Morris of St. Joseph,
Missouri.  These are sad reflections left as we have wondered over these
desert lands in search of we know not what.

Volume 3.

Trinity County.

Mounted on a horse with two hundred miles up the Sacramento on a level
plain most of the way destitute of any settlements, we reached Red Bluff
at the head of navigation in five days from the time we left camp at Cashe

Creek slough.

Ed Baynum's was the only house we remember on Cashe Creek besides
Wolfscale's, then the Ohio House, supposed to be half way from Wolfscale's

to Colusa, if memory be correct.  We remember stopping above Colusa at a
settlement where we got some grapes to eat.

From Colusa to Red Bluff we found nearly everybody down with the ague.
One not able to help the other, they all seemed to have plenty to eat if
there was anyone to cook the food.  Many places, laying out on the ground,

we turned our horses out on the feed and went without supper.  And then
finding a farm house, would get off to find all down with the Ague, would
cook my own breakfast and journey on.

The Sacramento Valley seemed a cattle ranch.  Droves of fat cattle lined
the banks of the river, and you could see them coming for miles back
towards the foothills, to the river for water during the middle of the
day.

Tehema, the same name as the county, was a stopping place for travelers
also.  Monroville, forty miles below at the mouth of Stoney Creek, there
was a hotel known as the Monroe House.  These were all the accomodations
we met.

But on reaching Red Bluff, we found a thriving town.  All the goods for
the northern part of the state were boated up here, loaded on large
freight wagons or either on the backs of mules, and sent into Shasta,
Trinity, or Sisque Counties, where the mines were then the most important
resources of the country.  We found Shasta City a beautiful mining and
trading town.  Good stores, good boarding houses, and where many of the
outside sections like Weaverville came to do their trading in a large way.

 There were stages running from Sacramento to Shasta, and here we saw the
first stages with people sitting on the top with their legs hanging around

the stage in circular form.  On one of these stages we counted sixteen men

on the top besides what were inside.

At Shasta we think it was that we heard the first sermon preached that we
had heard since leaving Nebraska.  Rev. S. D. Simons, the first editor of
the "California Christian Advocate," was preaching at Shasta, and we
remember in that sermon two things we never heard before.  One was the
amount of cubic feet of gold in the world, and the other was the phrase
then old but new to me, namely, "It was the last straw that broke the
camel's back."  He was a nervous, eccentric, but good preacher.

On leaving Shasta, we only had one more day's travel to reach Minersville,

where my brother, Thomas, was located.

We passed a most beautiful place on leaving Shasta some twelve miles on
our road.  It was the Tower House.

Then three miles brought us to French Gulch, a rich mining camp.

Then hurrying on, we took the Trinity Mountains seven miles up a long,
steep ridge, brought us to the heavy timbers of Trinity County.  Water
cold and most excellent.  We took the west slope down the Pa Poos to the
Trinity River.  The great trees, pine, fir, and Ewe saplings along the
rivulets made up for the hot region we had left only seven or eight miles
away.

Crossing Big Trinity River, we went up the east fork of Trinity to
Sebastopol, a large flour mill, and one mile further to Minersville,
enquiring all the way for Thomas Morris.  Not a soul knew him.  'Twas then

we woke up to the fact that you might find a town of one store, one hotel,

and a blacksmith shop and saloon, but not be able to find the man he was
in quest of.  Finally one woman says, "Yes, that is Tommy Pike."

On enquiring for Tommy Pike, everybody knew him, having met him on the
road down the river.  No one of the crowds knew him by the name, Thomas
Morris.  He did not know me.  Neither did I recognize him.  Having changed

from boyhood to manhood, looking so different, it seemed he was a
different person altogether, when only a little over five years had lapsed

since we had parted.

Not finding him calls to my mind what a man done in the middle mines above

Placerville some years ago.  He told me this himself, saying it could not
look rational but was true.  An acquaintance of his coming out from
Indiana having his address and going to the mine where the man was running

twenty-five men, all were eating dinner at the same long table.  He (the
stranger) ask if Mr. Saunders or some such name was there.  Mr. Sreplying?

 No.  The stranger looked inquisitively into Mr. Sreplying's face, but
went out.  As soon as leaving the boarding house, one of his men spoke up:

"That is your name he is enquiring for."

Then it was he thought of his true name.  Hunting him up, he apologized as

best he could for having been called by some other name so long as to
forget anyone would seek him in any other.

My brother was quite different from myself.  A very genial, mild, and good

disposition, he never gave his parents any trouble in raising.
Industrious, ingenious, he could make nearly everything in wood, though
never learning a trade.  He always wanted, when a boy, to learn some
trade, he used to say.  Finally his father, he says, took him to a
shoemaker to learn the shoemaker's trade, and beginning on Monday morning,

he made a better pair of shoes Saturday of the same week than the man
could possibly make he was learning under--a trade that my brother said
anyone who had any independence would quit as soon as he had learned it.

My brother had an interest in two ranches on east fork of Trinity.  But he

had a partner who had a family by the name of Camlin.  They were in debt,
and it took quite an amount to support a family where everything had to be

packed in forty miles on the back of mules; freight being three cents per
pound for this forty miles.

This year, he was raising vegetables, peddling round among all the miners
his vegetables.  We had a consultation, and decided to come up where he
was.  Plenty of rich land along the rivers, fish, deer, and occassionally
a grizzly bear.  Plenty of California lions, a specie of the panther.  But

what most charmed us was those big trees three hundred feet high.

Only stopping a few days to retrace our steps  back to where we left our
people and effects at Cashe Creek Slough, nothing remarkable happened on
the return trip.  The weather was hot.  The ague had the inhabitants in
attendance.  We camped out without blankets, and were plenty warm.

Reaching our camp, bringing a good report, all were up for Trinity County.

The trip back a more enjoyable one, for we had good ox teams and wagons.
We took the same route on the west side of the Sacramento River that I had

before made, and on arriving at French Gulch, the nearest point we could
reach by wagon to Minersville, we left our wagons, took pack mules
twenty-five miles, arriving at the latter place the second day from French

Gulch, and struck camp for the night.

The country at this season of the year is most beautiful.  We were all
delighted with the country.

There was not much at Minersville.  The post that the most trading was
done at, Old Ridgeville, back in the mountains, was going to decay.  But
there were scattered here and there some three hundred miners, and one
village could thrive with this many to patronize the town.

Mr. Crane, the former landlord at Minersville, wishing to close out his
business, having moved his family to Santa Rosa, Sonoma County, offered
the hotel very cheap.  All talked.  And Crane coming to me, offered the
old shell of a house for sixteen hundred dollars.  My brother, Thomas,
never a good financier, thought I'd better buy.  So sought Mr. Chellis,
afterwards lieutenant governor of California, and all we could see.  He
offered to take my oxen at two hundred dollars per yoke, wagon for two
hundred dollars, the two-year-old mare for two hundred and fifty, balance
in cash.

We saw a fine chance to become proprietor of a town by buying the
storehouse, blacksmith shop, butcher shop, and so forth.  My brother,
Thomas, thought by getting all these buildings we could get the old town
of Ridgeville to move down to Minersville, which we had no trouble to do,
and the hotel would do a thriving business.

The venture of buying the Old Hotel was not so much, but there were other
furniture to buy.  All Cranes dishes and effects to run the hotel,
amounting to four hundred dollars more, making Crane's bill two thousand.
And then there were all the rooms up and downstairs to be partitioned off
and finished up.  On putting two carpenters to work after making this
purchase, they were at work on high wages for six or eight months.  Lumber

in the rough forty dollars per thousand, all having to be planed by hand,
to seal sixteen rooms besides a large dining room.

Nearly all these three hundred miners leaving for Frasier River during the

gold excitement up there, the patronage for two years did not more than
pay expenses of running the house, after all these improvements were made,

and myself doing all the cooking and waiting on the table the last year.
The first year, my father was partner with me in running the house.  It
was not long before we found out the only pay in hoteling at Minersville
was the bar, and that neither my father nor myself would engage in for all

of Trinity County.  My mother and sister, Lucy, went to taking in washing.

 My brother, William, and myself went to mining in connection with my
running the hotel.  We bought mines and ran them, did not make wages and
getting discouraged, Father and I went to farming, there being about
thirty acres of farm land with this hotel property I had bought.

But before going on to the farm business, we are under the painful
necessity of chronicling the most sad event of my life.  My oldest
brother, Thomas, never was capable of taking care of himself.  I have
often wished I was more like him.  He worked all the time for big wages,
but any of his friends coming up to him and saying, "Tommy, lend me fifty
dollars, sixty dollars, or seventy-five dollars," he would run his hand
into his pockets, give the amount to them, never take a note, and that was

the last of it.

To proceed.  As soon as my brother went to work on the hotel, Jack Camlin
claims both ranches.  They being partners, Camlin presents a large,
itemized bill for hundreds of things, in order to bring my brother out in
debt to him but in order to get the best ranches and all the improvements
himself.  He had a trifling kind of fellow named Garton working for him.
I had better not say "trifling," but that was what some of the miners
said.  That he, Garton, was a dangerous fellow, had stabbed a colored man
in Shasta, the adjoining county, and had to run away.  We do not know
anything of this or the man, but he came to Father one winter day, snow
being deep, and borrowed a sled, and went to hauling fence rails from off
my brother, Thomas', ranch on to Camlin's, Thomas having given Camlin the
best ranch for the sake of peace.  Having to go by the hotel to haul these

rails from one ranch to the other, the next morning my father meets Garton

at the hotel, and says, "I never thought you so impudent as to come and
borrow a sled to haul rails from round my son's land to another man's."

Hearing Father and Garton having a talk, I went to the hotel door, and
Garton says, "You're the fellow I am after.  I respect age and the women
part of the house, but you, Tommy,, and all the rest, are using bad
names."  When I took out the weights that belonged to the scales and threw

at him but did not hit him, he threw some stones.  Stepping inside to
dodge his missiles, I saw an old smooth-bore Yawger my brother, William,
used to hunt with, not knowing whether loaded or empty.  I was too mad to
know anything, but seeing the gun, I come out and firing, there proved to
be one man the less in the world.

Going to Weaver, giving myself up to the sheriff, went to jail.  J. P.
Jones, the afterwards great silver king, being justice of the peace at
Weaver, he fixed my bail at ten thousand dollars.  I had no trouble to get

bailsmen.  The Grand Jury found no bill, and on paying the lawyers that I
nor any of my relatives ever employed four hundred dollars, I was a free
man once more.  Some of my friends getting scared went to Weaver and
engaged Pittser and Birch to attend to the case, and I would not go back
on them and paid the four hundred dollars.  I was honorably acquitted.
Chellis, who was lieutenant governor under Leland Stanford, was one of my
bailsmen.  Maurice Griffin, afterwards county clerk, and then being
supervisor of Trinity County, was another of my bailsmen.  With all this,
it is a sad thing to take, and that we can never return.  And any good man

will see a dozen ways he can avoid an encounter of this kind just after it

occurs.  And think what the world may, pro or con, we know this has made
the world darker to me, and my days of usefulness small compared to what
they would have been if this sad event had never occurred.

Taking a journey from Trinity clear round the bay of San Francisco in
1858, including Contra Costa, Alameda, Santa Clara, San Mateo, Sonoma,
Napa, and Solano, we thought that the bay counties must ever be the
foremost counties of the state.

Being thus baffled, in the spring of 1859, I rented my brother, Thomas,
the hotel, and soon my father, Elza Martin, and myself concluded to go to
some of the bay counties.

We could but admire the great mountains, with her wonderful cliffs, the
great, straight columns of the Sugar Pine, two hundred feet without a
limb, her Cedars and Firs, great streams of water, and snow-capped peaks
of perpetual snow, and the health and beauty of their summers; the
products of her mines, the gold was of the best quality in the state.  Yet

with all this, the winters of long duration, snow falling from three to
six feet deep, and laying on all winter; having to drive all our stock out

to Shasta county to winter, or take them up to Sisque to Scotts Valley,
some sixty miles away, for to stay some six months each year.  Then we
having to pay such enormous prices for all our groceries, clothes, and
hardware.

Having found out much of the mining system, how uncertain were the
products of these mines, in fact nearly everything was little else than
good or bad fortune.  And we do not object to calling it by the name the
miners called it, "luck," for that only is a name for the same thing as
fortune or misfortune.

Any man with an experience in mining must be amused, and we have had to
laugh heartily at these scientists that came to the mines to educate the
miners by teaching them geology and formation of strata.  We never saw one

of these experts ever make anything in the mines during the two years we
were mining.  They sat in the hotel of nights, and talked.  In the day,
prospected with their hatchets and testing horns in hand, always had a
fine prospect, bood, defined ledges, the right kind of wash gravel if
hunting for placer diggings.  On the other hand, the most ignorant makeup
was the most likely to blunder onto the richest claims.  Of course those
who uncovered the greatest amount of bedrock were more likely to get gold.

 But no man can see under the ground to tell what is there until it is all

worked out by proper gold-saving processes, the bed cleaned, and the gold,

if any, collected together.

One man by the name of Stafford was so fortunate as to nearly always make
well.  The miners used to say, if Stafford set his hydraulic pipe on a
dunghill, he would find gold when he cleaned up.  He was nothing but an
ordinary miner, bording with us all one winter.  Clever, not conceipty, he

was simply clever from what he could perceive, uneducated, and not
well-read.

Another, the opposite of Mr. Stafford, was Ruphus Hathaway.  He was
conceipty, knew a great deal, seemed shrewd in business, but none of the
miners called him an extra worker or manager.  This man made in the mining

business, made in his investments in San Francisco, and was counted a
lucky man.

Mr. Carr, a fine scholar, some said a good geologist, left a salary in the

city of one hundred and fifty dollars per month, worked hard for some
time, and had to send for money to get out of the country.

Mr. Titlow, who wrote "Seven Years in a Railroad Office" at Redding,
Pennsylvania, tinkered round with pick and pan, and made some money.  He
could write like print, but never lucky like Stafford or Hathaway.

How about the uneducated masses?  We have rarely ever met so generally
well-read, educated set of men, to take them as a whole, as the miners.
Nor have we met a class of men that have done so much hard work, went
through so much exposure, for so little pay.  There is something about the

business fascinating.  Men work to the extent that we have never known
elsewhere without knowing the fact themselves.  Have went to work after
getting breakfast, and it seemed to me that not an hour had passed before
it was noon.  Go to dinner, and before you know it, the sun is setting.
The falling of trees, rolling of rocks, splash of the water, and grind of
the hydraulic pipe, all tend to keep you throwing the rocks  until the
ends of your fingers are worn off from handling the stone and debris
without your thinking you have done anything scarcely at all.  And during
the big floods, if you have a claim in a creek, running trees down the
tail waste a foot or two at the butt, getting all your props knocked from
under you, and going all over in the water.  Then repair to your cabin and

sleep in wet clothes half of the week, it is a wonder all do not die, but
strange to say, we saw less sick men in the Trinity mines than anyplace
else.

Like driving out our cattle to Shasta or Sisque to winter, these miners
used to go out of Trinity by the thousands where winter was warm to mine
during the winter season, then in the spring return to work their claims
on Trinity during the summer months.  How strange to think that only
fifteen miles from this region where snow is usually from three to four
feet deep for four months in the winter, you can in the month of February
pick flowers only fifteen miles away.

Thus it is that good men like Dr. Bellows of New York, in coming to
California and attempting to write up a history of California in three
months have committed so many errors that men who have lived in California

for forty years care nothing of reading up his many mistakes.

Two brothers in law sitting on Dr. Baker's counter in Newark, Missouri,
were asked, "Is it true that oats grow wild in California?"

To which the truthful one replied, "Not a devil of an oat did I see."

But the other one, being in another locality, replied, "If you had been up

where I was, you could have seen plenty," this latter being not very
truthful.

All in the store believed the mistaken but truthful man when both had been

to California the same length of time but in different localities.

Like the plains, the demoralization was great in the mines.  Men that
would disdain to be seen east with a deck of cards in his hands would
spend all his leisure hours playing cards.  It was only the exception that

men did not draw drink.  But rarely you would see anyone beastly drunk.

The greatest prankers we ever met.  You did not find them so much given to

telling great, exaggerated yarns that no one would believe.  Neither did
they boast of their great deeds.  Yet to play a prank or some trick was
the delight of the Trinity miner, and, we presume, all miners.

Our merchants, the two Griffins, Maurice and Pat, were foundry men (we
were told) in a large foundry in Louisville, Kentucky.  Mr. Fogerty, the
third partner, we understood, was a boss in this foundry.  They came to
California in an early day.  Making a fortune, they returned to Louisville

and bought a fine steamer to run from Louisville to New Orleans.  Mr.
Fogerty was the captain, and Maurice Griffin was the clerk.  Two more fit
men for a vessel of this kind could not be found.  The captain, a
gentleman in every sense.  Griffin a fine businessman, and could do enough

swearing for both.

Having run up the Red River, they got their fine steamer wrecked, and had
returned the second time to make a fortune, and was up in this wilderness
region selling goods, buying gold dust, and selling drinks, the latter
being the more remunerative of the three.  In connection they ran a pack
train also to get their provisions, liquors, etc. into the mines.  Mr.
Fogerty, too much of a gentleman to play a joke but not too much of a
gentleman to enjoy one.  The two Griffins were the greatest prankers in
the camp.

One day, Gassy Smith, as he was called, wound up his business and packed
his keepsakes to start back to Ohio.--And going to his bundle that he was
going to pack on his back forty miles away to take the stage for San
Francisco, he takes out a feather pillow, saying, "There is a pillow my
wife gave me on leaving home so many years ago, and having it everywhere
I've been in California, I am going to take this pillow back and show my
wife I have carried it all the way round that I've been in California and
got back to Ohio with my pillow safe and sound."

'Twas too much for Pat.  Mr. Fogerty asked Smith into the saloon to take a

farewell drink.  Old Pat staying in the store, he unpacks smith's bungit*,

takes out the pillow, and putting a cabbage head into Smith's bundle,
helps Smith onto his shoulder, adjusted the straps, bidding Smith
good-bye.  We heard of Smith arriving safe in Ohio, but nothing of the
cabbage head.

This Pat was a very profane man.  Coming to California when a boy, he went

to packing with a pack train some years before, but on Maurice, the older
brother, being elected County Clerk, Pat then gave up chasing the
long-eared animals and went into the store.

This year a scholarly man enters the County Clerk's office, approaches Mr.

Griffin, the County Clerk, and says, "I am getting up a history of Trinity

County, and have called to get some items about Minersville and your part
of the country," referring to a large hay ranch that Griffins owned up
Stewarts fork of Trinity.

"Oh, yes!" exclaimed Mr. Griffin.  "Certainly."

Griffins had an old packer who lived on the ranch in bygone days byt he
name of Montgomery Wasson, and having superintended Griffins' packing, he
sold out the ranch to Griffins but lived there when not at work.  The
county clerk, after telling him some of the funny things that happened on
the ranch, he finally says, "Our ranch was located by Montgomery and
Wasson.  Montgomery sold out and went to the States long years ago, but
Wasson is still on the ranch."

The facts in the case were the man's name was Montgomery Wasson, and
Griffin divided him up, sending one half of this packer to the States and
left the other part up on the Steward Fork Ranch.

Both of the Griffins were wonderful profane men, but generous to an excess

one would little expect, always giving to those in need.  We have heard of

them giving from fifty to three hundred to many.  They were very feeling,
and it had to be someone suffering or in extreme need for the Griffins to
give much.

Mr. Fogerty, on the other hand, would always weigh the right and wrong of
the matter, and give if any principle were in question.

We had a camp meeting at Minersville in 1862.  We never thought of asking
the firm to give anything, but on hearing me speak something about getting

candles to light up the grounds, he spoke to me and says, "Johnny, I'll
give the candles to light up the camp ground."

Dr. Morrow, a fine physician and Methodist preacher, was the presiding
elder on the Mt. Shasta district.  He was a good preacher, but not so good

a preacher, we thought, as S. D. Simons, the former presiding elder.  This

camp meeting was pretty well-attended.  Some few joined until we had a
membership sufficient to keep up a society.  This should properly come
under the second time to Minersville.

Dr. Thomas, editor of the "California Christian Advocate," made a tour of
the northern part of the state in 1858.  He walked eighteen miles from
Weaver to Minersville on foot, preaching at Weaverville, Minersville, and
all the miners' camps along the way.  He probably was a man of the
greatest originality, most logical, and to rouse him on any question
requiring great genius of invention or eloquence then on the Pacific
coast.  He passed then on to the north of us, little thinking as he
entered Cisque County that in after years he should meet the tragic death
he and General Canby met in the lava beds during the war of the Modocs.

To return to Minersville scenes, we know of no scene that amused us so
much as the joke got off on our old assessor, Ketchem.  We all called him
"Ketch."  Putting up at the hotel, Pat Griffin took the assessor's mule to

their stables, a fine, large, fat, gray mule.  The next morning, Mr.
Fogerty was going to accompany Ketchem to Trinity Center, twelve miles
above.  It being a bitter, cold morning, Pat says to Ketch, "You stay by
the fire.  I'll get out your and Fogerty's horses, and you be ready to
jump right on as soon as I get your mule and be right off, and you will
stand the cold much better."

Whereupon Pat goes down into my pasture in the edge of town, and gets an
old, broke-down gray pack mule that he had turned out to recruit, now a
rack of bones, brings him up to the livery stable, and puts Ketch's saddle

on this mule, leads it round to the store, and shouts, "All ready.  Come
right ahead."

Mr. Fogerty says to the crowd, "Come in, boys.  Let's all have a drink
this cold morning before we start.  Then we'll be right off."

Taking the drink, Pat holding the mule, Ketch mounts, spurs and kicks, and

the mule made up the road about two hundred yards, when the mule calls a
halt.  Ketch dismounts and walks clear round the old cripple, and says,
"Jehue, how you have lost flesh in one night!"

The mules both being the same color, Ketchem did not know fully but his
fine, gray mule had gone through some strange transformation, until he saw

Pat coming up the road leading the fine, fat animal Ketch had rode into
Minersville the evening before.

Some years after coming into Hydesville, Humboldt County, meeting a man
who walked up to me reaching out his hand, he says, "How are you, Morris?"

"Don't know you, sir."

"Don't know Ketch?"

"Ketch, ketch," I replied.  "The name seems familiar."

"Don't you know your old assessor in Trinity?"

A smile came onto my face when he says, "What are you thinking about?
That mule story?  You need not tell that in Humboldt County, for Fred
Leach has told that all over the county."

While you could organize a temperance lodge of one hundred members any
time, it would last no time until all was surrendered and gone down.  C.
V. Anthony, the first Methodist, and we think the first minister of any
kind sent to Weaverville, used to walk out to Minersville or Old
Ridgeville up Digger Creek before we came to California.  My brother
raised money to buy him the first horse he had, we were told, while
preaching in the mines.

Rev. Reasoner followed C. V. Anthony.  He was a poor stick.  No one had
much confidence in Reasoner.

S. D. Simons and wife made a more thorough tour of the country than anyone

else, going over onto Salmon River, and we think down to Eurika and
Arcada, when he was on the district as presiding elder.  At any rate, he
explored most of this barren waste, his wife accompanying him on horseback

through all these dangerous regions.  She was a refined, cultured,
Christian lady.  We think she taught school in San Francisco.

In the hotel, the room called the Bar Room from being used for that
purpose before I bought the property, was used as an office or sitting
room and turned into a preaching place.  Until the large dining room was
finished.  Then we had preaching in the dining room.  My brother in law
was class leader, Father preached, and a few turned to good in this wicked

land so far away from churches and schools.

Here lived men who in after years became famous in state and nation.
Chellis, who the miners called Old Razor from his being very shrewd in all

his business and political relations.  He knew more than Stanford or
Senator Jones, the Great Silver King, afterwards of Nevada and United
States Senator from that state.  John, C. Burch, Low, and others we will
not mention.

But one more atrocity: the flogging of Chinamen.  This, we think, was
resorted to more or less by all the Sheriffs to collect the license tax of

four dollars per month per capita on Chinamen.  We never liked the
Mongolian inhabitants, would exclude their immigration and all other
foreigners of low grade, making a test of qualifications on moral and
intelligent basis if we had the power and none other.  But for Heaven
sake, when they are here, let's not make ourselves Barbarians and worse
than these people we call Heathens by treating them worse than we treat
brutes.  The only excuse offered byt he Sheriffs and their deputies was
that the Chinese had the money but refused to pay the license.

One day, some eight or ten Chinamen came running to my sister bringing
trinkets and valuables to borrow money to pay their taxes with.  She
loaned them the money after they had been unmercifully flogged by these
deputy sheriff, and they paid her back every dollar of the money.  The
sheriff getting a percentage of this tax, it was very profitable to be
sheriff in those days where there was a large Chinese population.

Jones, it used to be said, could scarcely pay his board before he got
elected Sheriff.  And it was said at one time that his wife was the wisest

politician in Trinity County.  At any rate, a story related by one of
Jones' opponents for the Sheriff's job is worth telling here.  My sister,
Lucy, afterwards Mrs. Bartholomew, used to visit a resort down Trinity,
and got the joke before May told it at Weaver.  May comes over to the
lower Trinity to lectioneer, going to this place.  He being running for
Sheriff against J. P. Jones, meets a lady at this country resort that
seemed wonderfully well-posted in national, state, and county affairs.
The lady being out at the barn when May rode up, that owned the premises,
coming in and saluting May, finding him busily engaged talking with this
lady, both being from the county seat, supposed they were acquainted, did
not introduce them.  When May had finished his talk, getting ready to
leave, he says, "Well, if I can only get you to do what you can for me, I
think we could beat Jones, don't you?"

She replied that she thought they could.  The lady of the house, ashamed
she had not, introduced Mr. May to Mrs. Jones, telling them that both
living at Weaver, she supposed they were acquainted.  It was too much.
May had to tell the joke when he got back to Weaver.

My agent back east having married and getting away with what little we
left in Nebraska, feeling quite poor after changing countries and
financial base, for probably there was not a bach in Cass County,
Nebraska, worth as much as myself.  There were married men that could buy
a dozen of me.  Yet being young we did not repine, but rigging up teams in

the spring of 1859, we packed our effects up and took mule steerage for
French Gulch, and loading up wagons, my brother in law resuming his march,

all taking down the west side of Sacramento, we reached the beautiful Napa

Valley in the summer of the above-named year.  Coming up this valley some
twenty miles, I bought me a Ray's arithmetic, Smith's Grammar, and an
advanced geography, and started to college at Grass Hill by buying forty
or fifty acres of land in Napa valley with a house of four or five rooms
that we could live in, and went to studying under some live oak trees
without a teacher.  Having never been to school more than one year from
infancy up to this date, and that year being fractions of time taken from
ten or twelve years of my sickly boyhood life.  We found an excellent
settlement up here.  Were in a mile of the first church ever built in Napa
Valley (Methodist).  We have heard this statement contradicted in after
years, but never heard any other version at the time we came into Napa
Valley.  Be that as it may, we met quite a number who had come here in
1846, a temperate, religious population, and well-to-do.

My brother, William, went to work and mowed hay, drove ox teams to
sawmills, and done any kinds of work he could get.

My father moved onto the small farm I had purchased at Glass Hill, and
preached round in Napa Valley as a local Methodist preacher.

We all put in our letters at Old White Church in Kellogg Tucker
Settlement.  All the Methodist population of Napa Valley attended this
church, and soon became schoolhouse, debating clubhouse, and a place for
all assemblages.

There was a camp meeting coming off just as we got into Napa Valley.
Having a large tent, we pitched it on the campgrounds, and had about forty

boarders to carry through this camp meeting.  I think one good Canadian
sister gave Mother five dollars, all we received from two weeks running a
free boarding house in cash.  But we received a great deal more than money

can buy, the outpouring of the Holy Spirit.  Many were converted, some
forty, we think.  And here we got acquainted with some of the best
elements in California.  People came to this camp meeting from Sonoma,
Lake and Solano counties, and from San Francisco.  Eleazor Thomas preached

the finest discourses we ever had listened to.  Father preached, and James

Corwin had the meeting in charge, and Rev. Banister was presiding elder.
We saw several fall at a time prostrated at this camp meeting, and lay in
an unconscious state seemingly, then they would come out of this swoon and

shout "Glory!" to the top of their voice.  It reminded us of what we had
read of the revivals in former times, but even in Iowa and Nebraska, we
never saw as many prostrated all at one time.  My brother, William, used
to fall on the ground and lay for hours speechless.  So did Preston and
Wanda White, son and daughter of Old Father White, who claimed to be the
founder of the first church in San Francisco.  He was an Immigrant to
Oregan in an early day.  Come on down to San Francisco, and preached in
his Old Blue Tent, and formed a Society before Rev. William Taylor built
the First Methodist Church up on Powell Street, San Francisco.  Here we
met quite a number of the Old Pioneer Preachers, like Hazen, Corwin,
Speck, Simons, Porter, Johnson, Bannester, and White--long years ago
passed away.  But of all the Giants, Eleazer Thomas surpassed them all.
He, in an ordinary way, did not preach so eloquent, but he get him up
before a large audience, it seemed that he would tower so high that he
never would reach Earth again.  Then he would still tower up and up until
it seemed he would never come down.  Never could--But just then, like a
great rocket bursting, the lights and knowledge would flash all over the
campground, and the shouts of glory would reach clear unto the Gates of
the Old City.  Tall, well-built, large, gray eyes, prepossessing, his
presence was a benediction.  Stationed so long at the head of the Book
Concern at San Francisco, the preachers of the California Conference
getting somewhat jealous of him, they got him finally appointed as
Presiding Elder of Petaluma District to put him out of the depository.
His friends, thinking his good position taken from him, and the district
having so much hard work embracing Humboldt and Del Norte counties, it
would look fine to have him appointed Peace Commissioner tot he Modocs
under President Grant.  He knew about as much about Modoc Indians as a
little child.  But he thought that he could go up to the Lava Beds and
settle the trouble with a  council of the Chiefs.  General Canby, it is
said, remembered when Thomas went to the tribes that it was taking a step
in the jaws of death.  But he, Canby, would not be outdone by a Methodist
preacher in bravery.  Meacham being the only man that went armed.  He was
the interpreter.  Thus, through the vanity of his friends, Thomas lost his

life.  One member of the California Conference told me that the preachers
of the conference said one word from Dr. Thomas would go farther with the
bishops of the Methodist Church than all the California conference.  Of
course he committed some errors, like fighting Free Masonry in New York
when Roberts was turned out of the church for opposing the Buffalo Regime,

as it was called, from being the Mason ring of Methodism in New York.  He,

with giants of that conference, was transferred, and came to San
Francisco.  He joined Golden Gate Lodge, the richest Mason lodge in
California.  Yet taken all in all, he certainly was the wisest, most
eloquent, devoted Christian man we ever knew.

Making through my studies at home to go into the harvest fields and take
some outside work, I could not get along as well as to devote all my time
to my books.  And winter coming on, the good people of the church, my
being superintendent of Sunday School and part of the time class leader,
let me have the use of the church to teach a writing school at said
church.  We furnished the paper, pens and ink, and charged three dollars
for twelve lessons--the girls going free.  We had a full house.  Got along

all right, but on Samuel Clark going down to St. Helena, they ask him how
that man was getting along with his writing school.

"Oh, very well," was Sam's reply.  "When he began, lots of the scholars
could beat him writing, but he has improved faster than any scholar he
has.  I believe he can write now as well as any scholar he has."

Having graduated at Glass Hill.

The next summer, finding my ranch was owned by the grant holder, survey me

in on a new survey they had got confirmed by the government.  We sold out
this right that we supposed good (when we bought it at the first) by
losing another thousand dollars.  This being the last thousand dollars I
was in possession of.  Necessity compelled me to go to work in order to
gain a livelihood at anything that might offer.  And this done me some
good.  For sometimes my sisters would hear it said that if John would work

as hard as William, we would get along all right.  The facts were I had
been helping my brother, William, while this talk was going the rounds,
and did not explain to the neighbors that I was going to college at Glass
Hill.  And they not seeing me at work all the time, thought me lazy no
doubt.  But being very diminutive, only weighing one hundred and fifteen
pounds, they did not seem to censure me much.

And on hearing that a man by the name of Collins wanted a man to cook for
a crew of reapers and binders, I hired to him to cook.  The second day, he

being a Yankee, asked me what I was going to charge him.  "Oh, I suppose
the same as the other hands," I replied.

No, he could not give that much.  "It was not worth as much as to go into
the harvest field."

"Well, you pay me for what I've done, and I will quit."

So he did, and went to cooking himself.

The boys made all manner of fun of him, took his biscuit out and threw at
the side of the barn and said they were as good as rocks, that they could
knock a bullock down with one of them.

I went to binding in the harvest field, bound wheat and oats until I only
weighed ninety-six pounds.  Came home and lay in bed a week.  Went to
where I knew a man wanted a hand to help him two or three days fixing for
the threshers.  When the threshers came, I said to him, "Mr. Hopkins, if
you have no objection, I will go into the field and pitch onto the
wagons."  This was counted good, average work.  We then hauled the grain
without stacking to the machine, throwing the wheat onto aprons to the
band cutters.  having pitched considerable hay in the west, I thought I
might stand this work.

To which he remarked very blandly, "I never have a man round me picking
his job.  You can go to carrying off sacks from the machine."

This was counted the hardest billit at the machine.  The first day, we had

oats, and I got along pretty well, but the next we got onto wheat, and I
could not scarcely lift the hundred and forty pound sacks of wheat.  Then
we saw what we never experienced before.  Not an American came to my
assistance, I don't think.  I eat a very hearty meal--but I don't know but

what I would have died before I would have deserted my postt, and went
back to the machine, tackled a sack, when a large, rough-looking Irishman
steps up to me and says, "Here, young man, that job is too heavy for you.
You take my place and sew sacks with Ed Filpot.  That work is too hard for

you."

I think he was the only Irishman of that crew, and I am of the opinion he
was a Catholic, but don't know.

There was two sewed sacks for a machine in those days (now they only have
one).  I had a very light job, and stay with the Emerson machine most of
the thrashing season.  Finally Emerson put me to cutting bands.  This was
not a hard billit, and I got along well.  When getting done up at the head

of the valley, I went down toward Napa City, grain being later down there,

and went to pitching grain onto wagons, and pitched until I could not
raise my right hand to the top of my head before harvest was over.

During the summer, I was laid up a week with a fellon on my finger.  I had

one bad attack of convulsions from hives or some fever at the old Glass
Hill.  Otherwise we don't remember being sick.

Political affairs becoming warm this year.  Mr. Emerson, the owner of the
threshing machine, was a southern sympathizer, but rational.  He always
talked sense.  Myself being the only one at the machine that was a
Republican.  In fact I don't believe that twenty Republicans could be
found in Napa County in the spring of 1860.  But as the speakers began to
pour in, being so much better qualified, and having right on their side,
it was wonderful how the people flocked to the Republican standard
banners.

But at St. Helena there were only five or six from Yountville to the head
of the valley that we knew, and at that time we knew the most of the
voters: my father, Joab Risley, Drake, Marsh, Mcdonald and myself at Napa
City.  Judge Watson was the leading man.  They threatened to rotten-egg
him if he spoke at St. Helena.  On a St. Louis, Missouri, man coming out
to speak for Lincoln, Hartson came up and made a nice speech, but the St.
Louis man, I think his name was Fry, seems to me, Colonel Fry, speaking
wonderfully well.  When through, the crowd called for me.  On getting onto

the stand, the southern sympathizers had their tin pans, horns, and, we
were told, rotten eggs to egg me.  Of all the rain of cowbells, toot of
horns, and tin pans, Judge Hartson rushed tot he stand, pulled me by the
coattail, and said I had better get down, which of course I done, and
saved a riot.

Mrs. Emerson, a well-read lady, was a great deal round the machine yard.
She was always for an argument, and being no other abolitionists, as they
called the Republicans, to argue with, she always went for me.  She was
bright, and too well-read for me, but always good-humored and ladylike.
But on my telling her that if we had the returns in all rights in each
county that estimates made by the County Central Committee of each county
gave the Governor of California and Lincoln the election.  She pretended
to be a Christian, wanted to bet me any amount from twenty dollars up that

the Democrats would carry the state.  We had several controversies on the
vexious questions, and all the crew enjoyed seeing her get away with me.
She having nothing else to do but read the papers, and she read both sides

pretty well.  Here the matter rest after the old thresher was laid
aside--seeing the Emersons no more until two or three days after the
election was over, when coming home one day about one or two o'clock from
church on foot, who but Emerson and his wife and two young ladies should I

meet in a spring wagon out on a wide, flat bottom where we all left the
main road to keep out of some mud holes.  When in about thirty yards of
me, I pulls off my hat, and to the top of my voice shouts, "Hurrah for
Leland Stanfords!"

I heard a chatter of feminine voices, saw a kind of flutter in the wagon,
like they were going to return the cheer in some way, but on getting up to

my side about ten steps away, they all kept talking, but I could not tell
what they said but could see Emerson pull up on the checklines, and then
whip up the horses, alternately thinking to myself they acted quite
strange, but seeing them no more, I had almost forgotten the performance,
when a year afterwards my sister with the rest of the family moving back
to Trinity, which will be described more fully hereinafter, had previously

met one of these young ladies that were in the wagon with Mr. and Mrs.
Emerson that Sunday afternoon when I met them, and said to my sister,
Lucy, "Did you ever know how near your brother, John, got whipped by Mrs.
Emerson one evening on us meeting him coming out from St. Helena?"

"Why, no."

"Well, Mrs. Emerson just begged Mr. Emerson to let her get out of the
spring wagon.  She would learn that little John Morris how to insult Tom
on the road, she would cowhide him into an inch of his life.  The little
scamp!"

Thus unknowingly I escaped being cowhided by a woman.

Next time, I did not come off so well.  Sitting in the Baptist church at
St. Helena one prayer-meeting night, the church being full, one of my best

friends, Andy Hudson, a son of one of the old four immigrants, come up to
me and put his hand on my shoulder, whispered that his father wanted to
see me.  I picked up my hat coming out of the church with my friend, Andy,

and he took me back behind the church where his father stood.

The old man drew his fist on me, and says, "You have got to take back what

you have said about my family or I'll knock every tooth you've got down
your throat."

I did not have any teeth to spare, so I says, "I will go back into the
church and then I will come back and see you.  Only wait until I go into
the church, and I will come right back in a few moments."

On entering the church, I called out my brother, William, and we went out
to where the two Hudsons stood, when I said, "Now you can get anything you

want.  You two great, big fellows to pile onto one little fellow like I
am.  I will settle with you now."

"Oh," say Andy, the son.  "He shan't hurt you.  Now I want to know what is

the matter."

To which the old man says, "You have been talking about my family."

"What have I said about your family?  I have never said a disrespectful
word of you nor of your family.  You find a living soul that has ever
heard me say a disrespectful word of your family, and then I will
apologize to you."

Then he said, "You said to me the other day in Hasties store that you knew

things that were disgraceful about the Hudson family."

Then it all come to me what was the matter.  On going into the post office

for my mail, and the post master reaching out the California Christian
Advocate, William Hudson, the father, being present, he, Hudson, says,
"That Black abolition sheet, I would not have it in my house.  It is a
disgrace to any community," or words to that effect.  Hearing that Mr.
Hudson, then a Baptist, had a very devoted son that was converted and
attended all the Methodist meetings, as well as all the family now living
did, the former son being dead, and I being told he belonged tot he
Methodist church, and that day in the Hastie store said, "Mr. Hudson,
knowing what I do of your family, I think it very unbecoming for you to
make any such remark about that paper."

Some said I stated "disgraceful" in place of "unbecoming."  I may have
used the latter word.  I explained tot he old man that the sons, and I
here hearing all this family had been converted at the Methodist meetings,

the one who died and all, the Advocate being the Methodist paper, I
thought he ought not to say any such thing.  That was all I meant, and so
on.  Mr. William and Andy Hudson (the son) said it was all right, and here

the matter ended.  But Andy had been waiting on my sister, Lucy, for some
time, and I preferred him to any young man I was acquainted with.  He
never came to see her anymore, and for her sake I regretted more than
anything else this misunderstanding.

This was all, and enough escapes from being assaulted during the political

campaign of 1860.

Having lost my land at Glass Hill, we moved into a small house Uncle Edwin

Kellogg owned between St. Helena and Calistoga Springs.  There was no town

at Calistoga then, but a kind of hotel building owned by Samuel Brannon,
then the richest man in San Francisco.  And for fear we forget the
sagacity of this businessman, we will here give the commonly-received
report of how Sam Brannon got his riches.  He was sent out by Brigham
Young as early as 1846 to the Pacific coast as the lord of the Pacific
Coast Mormons.  When the gold was discovered, many of the Mormons came and

dug gold, all of them being in  Brannon's diocese.  He was the lord of all

these Mormons in California, and said to be the only man that got ahead of

Brigham Young of all his many lords to any considerable extent.  Some say
Brigham fitted out a vessel and sent round the Horn with Mormon
passengers, but on Sam getting here, he sold the ship for sixty thousand
dollars, devoted the money to his own use, etc.  We never cared enough for

the Mormons or Sam Brannon to hunt up the facts.

Be that as it may, we are more familiar with the following story, and
believe there is something in the report, for long years after we were
acquainted with Brannon, he never came to Calistoga Springs from San
Francisco without having someone along they called his bodyguards.  At any

rate, as reports have it, these Mormon gold diggers, whenever they got any

considerable amount of gold, would bring the treasure to Sam Brannon for
safekeeping, depositing it with the "lord," as they called him.  Brannon
was then always careful to receipt in the name of the Lord.  Soon the
Mormons began to want to go to Salt Lake, or their several homes, and
called on Sam for their money, bringing in their receipts.  Sam took them,

then looking at each one says, "This money is deposited in the name of the

Lord.  When you get an order from the Lord, I will pay over the money."
Sam kept the money.

There must be something in this report, for the Mormons threatened him,
and as stated before, he, in an early day, always went with an escort
heavily armed.

Be this as it may, we know of no example of an active brain put into a
fine casket that exhibits to our mind more fully the contrast of the
"noblest work of God" possessed wholly of the sullen spirit of Lucifer.
He certainly partook of every vice known to man.  Building his own
sepulcher at Calistoga long before his death, to be occupied by other
hands, a king in Mexico, a userper in Mormondom, a bully and tyrant in
California.  He used to carry out schemes by forcing people to accept his
dictates by the mob at the mouth of the revolver.  It seems strange that
he lived so long when his house a bedlam, the time he went to Calistoga to

run of Palmer's cure of men proved the only check to his riotous infamy.

He had a way of renting out his property at Calistoga, and returning in a
few months after would order them off.  If they would not go, he would
pick up all the drunks he could, and go and intimidate or put them off.

One morning, Squire Palmer having Brannon's sawmill rented for a certain
length of time, and having heard Brannon was coming up from San Francisco
to put him off the premises, having to go to San Francisco that day
himself, he, Palmer, goes to Mcdowel, a man who was a captain of
volunteers in the late war, and telling McDowill and the Gwin boys, we
think (but of the latter we are not very certain of the names), anywise
two other men the situation, puts them into the sawmill telling them to
hold the fort at all hazards.

That day, Sam coming up and treating all day in Calistoga, it being quite
a town by this time, when night came on, he gathers up all the roughs he
could and starts for the mill to take possession.  When he got in a few
rods of the mill's entrance, a volley of bullets came his way from the
mill.  Mcdowell, for one (the boys said), shot as if he intended to kill
the "old dragoon and his angels."  They put seven bullet holes through the

old Emissary, and anyone, it was said, was sufficient to kill any ordinary

man.

The best surgeon in San Francisco was sent for.  He came up and stayed
eight or ten days, charging Brannon one thousand dollars per day, it is
said.  On being asked his opinion, he replied, "Well, if it was any other
man but Sam Brannon, I know it would kill him.  But I don't think anything

will kill Sam Brannon."

Hoping I may be pardoned for spending so much time and paper on so poor a
subject, I will just add that he managed to get rid of six million dollars

that the Sacramento Union set him to be worth when we come to the state in

riotous living and died in southern California, unwept and unsung.  If he
ever was buried in the sepulcher he built in the hills at Calistoga, we
have never seen the notice of that event.

During the fall, I done a little, having a bad cough, and being promised
an Indian Agency by Lieutenant Governor Chellis if the Officers were
appointed that the Republican Central Committee recommended to Lincoln
from this state.  But unfortunately there were four sets of Delegates come

to Washington for the patronage of the Pacific Coast.  Even William H.
Seward is reported as having relatives in San Francisco that went up with
papers presenting their claims.

When all these claims were presented, the parties getting into a row, the
President told each set of aspirants (as the story goes) that he wanted to

see all their credentials tomorrow at the White House at ten AM.  They
were all on hand presenting the recommendations to the President.  Lincoln

done something unlike himself.  Opening the stove door, he put them in.
Turning to the entire delegation, he says, "If you knownobetter than to
come up here to quarrel and wrangle, and these areperiloustimesof war, I
will treat you all alike by appointingnoneof you.  But in case I get into
trouble, I will counsel my Old and tried friend, Colonel Baker."  My
recommendations were not on that roll of parchment.  But in order to get
my appointment, the
General Superintendent of Indian Affairs, Lieutenant Governor Chellis had
to be appointed, he being the regular nominee of the State Central
Committee.  From an expected Indian Agent, I became a Dish Washer.  Mr.
Killburn of Napa Valley having heard I was a suitable housekeeper, engaged

me to go and keep house for him in two milesof Calistoga.  On beginning my

arduous duties, which every man before marrying should serve an
apprenticeship of one year, cooking three meals a day, washing dishes, and

doing all maids' service.  I found four or five children that could speak
the Spanish language, their mother being half Spanish (one of the Pope
heirs of Pope Valley).  But Mr. Killburn and his wife had parted for some
cause or other, she going to her Pope Valley ranch, and he occuppying a
Spanish grant he had in Napa Valley.  I found the children very
even-tempered,obedient, and easily suited.  The mother came two or three
times during the time I was there, usually staying about a week.  Mr.
Killburn always, so far as I could see, treated her well.  He, Killburn,
was a Philadelphia man, I think, if not of the city, closeby.  The
neighbors spoke unfavorable of Killburn on account of his drunkenness, but

all the time I was there, for six months, I would judge, he was perfectly
sober and a complete gentleman.  I liked him fine.  The children were
good, and had good minds.  We became very much attached to our little
flock.  Only one thing hindered us from staying longer.  Mr. Killburn had
got his financial affairs, so it seemed, almost impossible for him to
raise money.  He had mortgaged until he could mortgage no more.  Being
sorry to quit, I was afraid to stay.  We left regretfully.

We worked some for George Tucker.  He married a Kellogg, and all the
Kelloggs and Tuckers were nice men.  Mr. Tucker offered me three hundred
dollars a year to work for him one year.

"No sir, you suppose I will work for one dollar per day when I have got
mines in Trinity that will pay me three dollars per day?"

We will see farther on how these mines turned out.  We took what work we
could do, William and I.  But I got pale, coughed hard, and many times
people would say to my mother, "Has not your son got consumption?"  Others

would say, "I don't believe John will live a year."

We had a fine Lodge of the Sons of Temperance at St. Helena, over one
hundred members, and the country was very thinly settled then.  One store
only in St. Helena was all.  Here at St. Helena I had run for the highest
office in the Sons against Andy Hudson, and some of the members said I was

elected by the biggest majority of any man to that office.  But on my
having the difference with the Hudsons, I handed in my resignation, and
never more attended.  My sister, Lucy, said to be quite handsome at that
time, always went to lodge with me.  She was the best figure I knew at
that time on horseback, and I always thought her and Mr. Hudson would have

married only for this feude.

Church affairs were fine, good camp meetings, the prayermeetings were
well-attended, generally as many out to a prayer meeting as preaching.  In

fact nearly all went to meeting, and three fourths of the community, I
think, were religious.  We had two preachers after Father Speck on the
Napa Circuit; Dr. Jacobs, a practicing physician and a preacher.  He was a

money getter all you could call him, turning Spiritualist, stock
speculator, he did not preach long when engaged.  Father Walker, the other

Preacher, a good man, a local preacher employed by brother Tansy, the
presiding elder, done good work.  He had a good camp meeting, and a
revival of religion was the result.  Many good people gathering in from
Lake, Solano, and Sonoma counties.  The city of San Francisco always
furnishing a large membership to help on these camp meetings.  There being

few outings for the city people those days, many came to the camp
meetings.  Being Steward, I had as much to do with the collecting of the
revenues of the church as any of the officers.

We had a good Sunday School, not that I superintended it, but from the
amount of efficient work done.  Some half dozen memorized and recited the
entire Gospel of Matthew.  Most of these that committed this gospel to
heart have long years ago gone to their better land.

No place have we lived where a more intelligent, devoted assemblage of
Christians attended church.  We became very much attached to this people.

Some mysterious deaths occurred.  One family we will mention, Erwin
Kellogg used to have a Fruit Buyer come up from San Francisco each year to

buy fruit.  On one trip, Mr. Kellogg's daughter, Jane, we think it was,
took sick and died.  The next trip, the youngest daughter, going up to a
big reservoir on the point of the hill, fell in and was drowned.  The
third trip Mr. Baily took, on Sunday at the dinner table, Aunt Becky (as
all called Mrs. Kellogg) says, "Brother Baily, I wonder what will happen
this year while you are up?"

"I hope nothing serious," he added.

She complained of feeling a little bad, but nothing more than frequently
occurred.  She being a weakly woman at best, there being three-o'clock
services at the Old White Church, Mr. Kellogg and some of the family (we
think) went to church.  But in a half hour, there came a runner stating
Mrs. Kellogg was dying.  She was dead before anyone got from the church
(only a half mile away to the Kellogg residence).  She probably was the
most esteemed of any lady in Napa County at that time.  Thus three of
Brother Kellogg's family dying on three of Mr. Baily's annual trips to
Napa.  Mr. Kellogg nor Mr. Baily neither one were superstitious, both
belonging to the Methodist Church, but all was very mysterious.

My brother in law, Elza Martin, having been licensed to preach as a local
preacher the year before, done considerable preaching up and down the
valley, and I used to go to Sebastopol to meeting frequently when he
preached.  He had fine abilities as a public speaker, a young man about
twenty seven or twenty eight years old.  He, as young as that, was
probably the best preacher in the valley.

Father Davenport of Coon Valley, Father Lasiter (an Old Wesleyan
Englishman) and my father all local preachers of the North Methodist, and
Benjamin Johnson, Smith Vann, and Father  Write of the South Methodist,
and Y. A. Anderson and one other Cumberland Presbyterian at the head of
the valley.  We had no scarcity of preachers in Napa Valley.

The High Sheriff, a Methodist, and they used to tell it that he and family

used to come up to White Church from Napa City, twenty two miles, to
meeting, and on going home of nights would strike up a hymn on going
through St. Helena.  And frequently some of the party shout before getting

out of town.  We wish we could say as much of the man then in the
legislature, Nathan Combs, he being a horse racer shows that the lower
part of the county was not so Christian as was the upper and middle part.

The slavery agitation ran high, and on the campgrounds come the first news

of Terry killing Broderick, then United States Senator from California, in

a Duel.  Many were very bitter against Terry.  But for our part, we never
could see but the man who accepted a challenge to fight a duel was just as

guilty as the man who gave it.  We only wish both of the Duelists would
invariably get killed until this Monster of Barbarism was put down.

Broderick is the first man we ever heard of resorting to bribery by paying

the coin coldly and unscrupulously down for votes to seat himself in the
United States Senate.  And he may be said to be the father of this
Nefarious High Treason of the United States law-giving tribunal.  Gwin and

others may have resorted to wire-pulling and questionable terms, but
Broderick is the first and only man we ever heard of paying delegates in a

senatorial contest so many thousand dollars to vote for him.  And finding
out they were going to throw off and not vote for him, he and his roughs
armed themselves, went into the Convention with revolvers in hand saying,
"Now vote straight, or down goes your meat house."

Allowing such men to take their seats in Congress is the cause of the
poisonous doctrine taught our children that every man has his price and
all men are fair in politics, that men are all alike and would do the
same if they only have the opportunity.

Like the rescuing of the Donner Party.  Father Tucker, Roads, Judge
Starks, and the fourth man we did not know, who were the true deliverers
of the Donner Party, who never sought any noteriety or even thanks for
their services, were never in any account we have seen given any credit
for what they done.  They did not want any.  Although the facts are that
Reson P. Tucker, John Starks, afterwards Sheriff of Napa County, and
William Rhodes of San Joaquin County, and a third man we have forgotten
the name of, wer really the deliverers of the Donner Party.  George W.
Tucker, son of Reson P. Tucker, was left at camp in the Sierras when they
could get no further with the saddle horses or pack train.  He saw the
most lonesome and tiresome part of that heroic little band.  Left alone
with an incompetent old man, he had all the Provisions and Animals to look

after.  Only sixty years of age.  How often we have heard him relate that
tiresome, lonesome solitude of the camp, not knowing the fate of those
four brave men.  Someday, we hope some of the Tucker or Rhodes families
will publish the true facts of that expedition.

We met Mrs. Wimmer long years after the discovery of gold in California,
and the general belief of those who knew the Wimmer family best is that
the Wimmer boys picked up the nugget that Marshall brought to Sutter's
Fork, and did not know what it was, giving it to Marshall.  He took the
nugget to Sutter's Fort after the Wimmer boys gave it to him.  They were
poor boys, quite ignorant.  But Marshall seems from the start to have some

knowledge of what it was.  Yet after all that has been published of this
matter, who would believe the report of the Wimmer version.

My father in the fall of eighteen hundred and sixty one (we think it was)
traded a yoke of oxen to Mr. Butler of Napa Valley for a claim on some
government land, and moved onto this tract, and lived until the spring of
1862.  My brother in law having moved onto what was called the Old Frank
Kellogg place, and after getting them comfortably fixed for to live, my
brother, William, and myself concluded to go to Trinity County to look
after some mines we had sold but got no pay for.  We were out of means
except eight or ten cows I had that were worth only ten dollars per head.
We never saw cows before as low in California nor since.

Before going on our return to Trinity, we will give our experience on a
four or five months trip to Gold Hill and Virginia City, Nevada.  There
was always a slack time in the valley about work in the fall after harvest

was over.  So in the fall of sixty, we think it was, starting on foot from

Napa Valley, we took the Main Grade from Sacramento to Virginia City.
This was the greatest thoroughfare we were ever on outside of a city.  We
think the road we took was called the Oglesby Grade, but being so poor at
recollecting names and dates, we cannot rely on these in all cases.  But
to return to this Road, the widest, finest grade we were ever on.  A toll
road kept in most excellent order.  But it was not the road so much as the

traffic on the road.  You could find almost any article of trade you
wished, any kind of vendor, from the Wandering Jew to the Arab Jip.  The
teams also were the most diversified, from the pack mule or pony led by
the man seeking his fortune with pick, shovel, and pan lashed onto his
pack.  The ox teams were the most rare of any order going to Virginia
City.  But in the fall, you met quite a number of these teams drove by
immigrants coming across the plains.

The most trying affair we had during our tour to Nevada was one of these
Kings (the mule teams), for they were the Kings of the road, carrying all
the way from three to ten tons of freight on a large wagon big enough for
a small cottage.  Generally you found them good, solid men.  They had
hearts just the same as other men if you could scrape the dust off from
the exterior and claw the clod mixed with the drinks and dust off of their

throats.  The solid part of them was they were large men, usually, with
large whips that they knew how to use.  These persuaders they used for
everything, to strike the mules over the ears and head when they could
govern in no other way.  There was said to be lead in the butt end of
these governors (I mean the whip).  Well, at any rate, the teamsters used
these Blacksnakes, as they were called, for everything--man, if you
trespassed on their rights, as well as mules.  And judging from what I
saw, you would think that a
 mule was far better than a man.

To resume, on foot, going up this grade, for it was mostly uphill from
Sacramento to the summit of the Sierras, we met a poor immigrant from
across the plains with two or three yoke of oxen hitched to a poor wagon.
All the family were out walking, looked frail, poorly clad, and
discouraged.  When one of these kings described in the preceding page,
coming up to this immigrant, begins to curse him for being on the wrong
side of the road.  In this locality the road was double track.  The
unloaded team from Virginia on their return kept the outside track, while
the loaded team kept the inside track next the bank, nearly all the road
being graded on the mountainsides.  This poor immigrant getting in the
inside grade coming from Virginia to Sacramento, probably not knowing the
rules of the teamsters.  This teamster peremptorily ordered him off from
the inside track.  The immigrant turning the lead steer over to the other
side, the team being very weak, one of the oxen in the hind yoke fell,
thus blocking the road.  Then Goliath raged, swore, and cursed the
immigrant, and we thought he was going to use this blacksnake on the
pilgrim, and we dreaded these blacksnakes more than all the Rattle Snakes
in the Sierras.  'Twas then I stepped up and says, "See here, I was once
an immigrant.  This man is doing all he can to give you the road.  That is

all required.  Has no one any rights here on this grade but you?"

He cooled down.  We soon got the poor steer up, and all were on their way.

Reaching Virginia City, we found many we were acquainted with.  Never
heard such a noisy place as Virginia and Gold Hill.  Gold Hill more
particularly was a City of Quartz mills.  The Stamps of her forty Mills
running day and night.  The roar of the machinery was deafening to behold.

 The most business place we were ever in.  We never heard a man say during

the whole time we  were there, "I have no money."  Wages six dollars per
day.  Work for all.  Board remarkably cheap, only eight dollars per week,
and you furnish your own bedding.  There was a different kind of miners
here from the ordinary mines.  C. V. Anthony, who used to be at
Weaverville was the Methodist preacher when I was at Virginia and Gold
Hill.  We had the best-attended, prosperous church in Virginia.  A good
Preacher, a kind-hearted man.  He was reading Thomas A Kempis when I used
to go to his study.  Would we met him while at Governor Blaisdel's private

residence.  His study was in one part of the Governor's House.  He asked
me over to his office to spend my leisure hours, and it seems Brother
Anthony was in a more devoted state of mind at this time than we ever met
him afterwards.  He has written a book on the introduction and progress of

Methodism on the Pacific we should like to read.

Though at Brother Anthony's office so much, we never had any introduction
to Governor Blaisdel.  He was a very tall man, yea, large, and it seems to

me, well-built.  We have heard him address the Sunday School several
times.  He was superintendent.

Mrs. Roger, we think was the name, drew more to Anthony's church by her
singing than the influence of the governor.

Blaisdel was an Indiana man, we think.

One thing we heard of Blaisdel's wife commendable.  By her husband making
quite an amount of money in San Francisco in an early day, sends for her
via of Panama.  On the way out Blaisdel lost all his fortune, and Blaisdel

was quite disconsolate.  On going to one of his intimate friends, he says,

"My wife is on her way out here.  She will be here in about one week.  I
have lost all my property, and don't know what I am going to do."

His friend says, "I got five hundred dollars you can have if you need it."

Blaisdel says, "It will pay expenses until I may be able to get into
something else."

On Mrs. Blaisdel coming into San Francisco, her husband took her to a
hotel, sat down, and told her the worst, to which Mrs. Blaisdel laughs and

says, "Never mind.  I can more than support myself with my needle."

Some two men, well-to-do miners, living up street, keeping batch, meaning
bachelor, meets Blaisdel one day and says, "How would your wife like to
come up and cook for us?  She will have only us two to cook for, and we
will board you and your wife to cook for us too."

On Blaisdel moving into their house, one of these men says one day,
"Blaisdel, if you see anything you think you can make any money out of an
investment, I have money and will loan you some."

Blaisdel says, "I know of a vessel sunk out here in the bay.  If I had
about seven thousand dollars, I think I could buy her and raise the hulk
and float her up to the dock and make a warehouse out of her."

This done, going into commission business, we were told that in six months

Blaisdel was worth seventy-five thousand dollars.  We think that he moved
to Oakland, and many years after died there.  This friend who loaned the
governor the five hundred dollars always poor, but we never heard of
Blaisdel helping him.

We could have done well at these mines, but not being very well when we
come to Nevada, as soon as we drank the water from these Mining Tunnels,
my head would whirl and I would vomit.

While here, Mr. Patchett, an old Napa friend, had one of those large
freight wagons run over him.  He was doing well teaming with his team, and

going down grade one day, his team scared.  He could not hold them, but
trying to pull them into the bank, the hind wheel ran over both of his
legs.  One leg was all shattered at the shin.  The other broke a square
break between the thigh and the hip.  He was the plucky man we ever saw.
In all the lifting, he never complained.  The most thankful sick man we
ever attended.  Setting up with him two or three nights, he was always
planning to do something for me.  But on cutting off the leg so badly
crushed at the shin the ninth day, it is said, he never complained, but in

two or three days after died.

On account of bad water, my stay was short.

We worked a day for Sharron.  Bore until two o'clock one day, and he gave
me six dollars for little over half a day's work.

Leaving Gold Hill, we came over twelve miles from Virginia near Steam Boat

Springs, and worked for Mr. Davis near two months at forty dollars per
month.  Wages were low in comparison to other work on farms, and it was a
wonder to me the first two weeks here what Mr. Davis was going to sell to
get the money to pay me.  In a Sage Brush Desert he had taken the sage off

from this sand plain, and had in a few cabbage and potatoes and about four

acres of rutabaga turnips.  But before being there long, all my fears were

relieved.  There come in two mule teams, and I pulled up and we loaded on
six tons of turnips onto these two wagons at sixty dollars per ton.  Davis

sold one thousand eight hundred dollars worth of produce from this little
patch on the desert as  it looked to me.

Steam Boat Springs piping away only one mile from Mr. Davis' I never
visited, for I could see them all the time from where I was at work.
Davis was away most of the time, and one day a set of roughs before I come

there to work, finding out that Davis was on a valuable piece of land then

unsurveyed by the Government, concluded that if they could intimidate Mrs.

Davis and run her off, they could get a valuable claim.  But no sir.  She
told them her husband was the first man who had taken up that land, and
she was going to stay on the ranch at all hazards.  They made some threats

that they would come back the next day with a posse of men and put her
off, to which she replied, "You can come back, but I know how to use the
Revolver and Rifle, and all the Army of the  Great Potomac cannot put me
off from this claim."

They did not come.

The water was fine here, pouring down from the Nevada.  But to this day we

could never see why farm hands got so little in comparison to other labor
at Virginia and Gold Hill.

I took an axe and went from house to house and cut four-foot wood into
stove wood, and never did anyone offer me less than six dollars per day,
and I had all I could do.

But finding I was sick all the time, I left.

But in after years, when water was taken into these cities from the
Sierras, we were told, health abounded.

Mrs. Davis one day got onto her fine horse to go to Virginia City.  She
had a beautiful babe to be gone a week.  We believe it was twenty miles in

lieu twelve as before stated.  Leaving me to batch.  On my reaching her
the babe, she said, "You will have to milk the cow until I come back."

"I never milked a cow in my life," was my reply.

"Oh, we've had plenty of men on the ranch like you that did not know how
to milk," and off she rode.

On my seeing she thought I was fooling her, I concluded I will not have it

said I do not know how to milk, and practiced all this week she was gone.
But at the end, I could not see that I had gained a particle.

Being done at Mr. Davis', hearing of a Saw Mill up in the mountains where
they wanted a man at sixty dollars per month, shouldering my knapsack,
taking the Sierras up to the dividing ridge between California and Nevada,

I soon found out why they wanted a hand.  For they gave me two men's work
to do for one man's pay.  Being on the line of California and Nevada, we
debated in our mind whether to winter in the cold or go into the warm
climate of California again.  In Nevada the winters were severe.
Everything high here.  We paid twenty-five cents for the first time for a
single apple.  We were feeling feeble, and not long in deciding to come
home to Napa.  And in the fall of 1861, on foot, William and myself
started for the Trinity Mines.

We walked for the first two or three days.  The weather being very hot up
through Mary'sville and Chico.  The first time we had ever taken the east
side of the Sacramento in going to Trinity.  This route was settled, and
we, being afoot, could get places to stay over night.  But the Mary'sville

route was the farthest.

We spent but a short time in Sacramento and Mary'sville.  Suisun was but a

small place.  Venetia and Vallejo the same.  Two men on foot, plodding
along in the dust, tired, footsore, and even on this road long stretches
without water, it is no wonder things did not look flattering to either
one of us.  We got some of the best peaches we ever ate at Chico.  Nothing

but the same monotonous tramp each day.  My feet very sore.  Never before
did I realize how much faster or farther my brother, William, could
travel.  He was always waiting for me.  Six feet tall.  Weighing about one

hundred and seventy pounds, he made the journey of three hundred and
twenty-five miles in much better condition than myself.

Only one thing came up on this laborious trip to amuse us.  On the Horse
Town road to Shasta from Red Bluff, there was a sixteen-mile stretch
without water, and a man eighteen miles out had hauled water and put up a
saloon to sell drinks.  He saw us long before getting to his place, and
come out one hundred yards to meet us.  On approaching my brother,
William, he says, "Come in, young man, it is my treat.  You have the
largest foot of any man that ever trod this road."

My brother had on a pair of tens.

We walked all this road but forty miles carrying our luggage, and were
glad to reach the Trinity Mountains, where the water was good and the
shade bountiful.  We then slackened our speed.  We would recruit up.

Reaching Trinity, on up to Minersville, we met some of our old Nebraska
neighbors that we had not met since leaving that state.  James Gardner and

Charley Jerdan, Coral, Holcomb (who accompanied us on the celebrated
Indian raid), and J. D. Draper had all come to Digger Creek or
Minersville, went in to Our Diggings, and dug out nine hundred or one
thousand dollars, for which they never paid us one cent.

Mr. Jordan, a Methodist preacher, was in the Old Hotel, and we found quite

a change of population since we had left, a little over two years.  James
Gardner was our nearest neighbor in Nebraska (the place I did not know the

door-latch when I got lost returning from the Pawnee War).

They gave up the mines to us after work out a pay streak that in a little
over one month they took out nine hundred dollars.  Being three of them,
three hundred to the man.

The contract we sold the mines on was, the parties three of them agreeing
that they would take one dollar and twenty-five cents per day for board
and sharpening of tools.  Then, whatever they took out per day above that
amount was to be paid to J. M. Morris until three hundred dollars were
paid for said claims.  They thus had three hundred dollars of our money.

But as the party we sold to had left the country turning the contract over

to these men, they took a turn to beat us out of our pay, but turned the
mines back to us.

William and myself went to work in these mines.  We went to the firm of
Griffin and Fogerty, and laying in some three hundred dollars worth of
provisions, and after thinking of nothing more we would want, I turned to
Pat, the junior partner of the firm, and says, "I thought I'd buy out the
store so I would not have to come back to the town for anything more
during the winter."

Pat replies, "We have quit letting men have such damned big bills as we
used to."

"Have I not paid you for all I ever bought at your store?"

"Yes, but we are cutting down the credit system, and do not intend to
credit out such a damned amount as we used to."

This astonished me.  I had ran indebted to them seven hundred or eight
hundred dollars before, and questioned whether I had better take the goods

from the store or not.  But on thinking of the thousands of dollars worth
of goods I had bought of them at high rates, I said nothing, only to
William, of the matter.

William says, "Well, if they don't want to credit us, I will go to
Weaverville to McClure and McCain.  I think they will let us have what we
want."

The rains would not come on so we could go to work on our own claims for
two or three months, and William went to work for John Dodge on the Old
Red Hill mines under a large water ditch some nine miles long, cut by Old
Lieutenant Chillis some years ago.

I went up to the old deserted town of Ridgeville, where but one man out of

four or five hundred remained by the  name of Uncle Johnny Tittow.

Working here, buying water, we had a hard time to make water money.

By the time these two jobs were done, the rains came in torrents, and we
went to work in the old Minersville claim at the mouth of Digger Creek.
It rained.  We sluiced.  It poured.  We fell trees, running great logs
down digger, and it was the most uniform winter we ever experienced.
Beginning usually on Monday, it would pour down for three or four days day

and night, then clear up and remain three days and nights clear.  Usually
having a bright Sunday, so all the miners could come to town for dinner on

that day as was their usual custom.

Few of the miners had such a mine as we.  Hardly any could work during the
heavy storms.  But it just suited us.

The weeks were so uniform, beginning usually Monday to snow or rain,
running three or four days, and then two or three clear, that it became
proverbial.

We were the talk of the mining camp.  We were doing about twenty times the
amount of work ever before done in Digger Creek.  One of the merchants
asked Vin Leach (who came by our mine every few days) how the Morris boys
were doing.  Oh, they have got about forty acres sluiced off."  We
probably had about one.

Thus it ran nearly all winter.  The gravel looked fine, and all the talk
was the Morris boys were going to do well.

One day we saw a man come walking down the hillside with a dog.  We knew
the merchants were the only men who had a dog at Minersville.  And on
their coming closer, we saw it was Mr. Fogerty, the senior partner in the
store.  We motioned our salutation to him, when he sat down on a log and
motioned for us to come up.  On coming up to him, he says, "Sit down.
Don't work too hard, boys.  You want anything from the store?  Just come
down.  You can get anything you want. I am not afraid of men who work."

He loaned us money, let us have goods, and was one of my best friends.

One thing was universal: that never before in Digger had any two men ever
run off so much top dirt with a ground sluice as we had done.  It was not
that we were better miners than others, but the floods just suited our
diggings.  Every wheel went out of the main Trinity River, and what was so
strange, the snow would fall three or four feet deep all over the
mountains, then would rain, and all up the hillsides it would be from one
to two feet deep on the hillsides just as slushy as if you were on level
ground until it would get just like a bed of water and pour down the
hillsides like a waterspout flooding the whole country.  The main Trinity
raised seven feet in some places.

My people in Napa reported the biggest floods ever known there.  So all
over the state.  But on Trinity it outdone itself.

We had a debating club at Minersville this winter that was the most
amusing affair we ever attended in any country.  There are always plenty
of good debates in the mines, so it was at Minersville.  All classes
attended--women and children--and where do you reckon this debating club
was held?  At the Saloon.  You will say, "Ladies go to a saloon?"

"Yes, and Christian ladies too."

Well, Mr. Fogerty would roll the billiard table to one side, cover up the
bar, bring in the chairs and benches, and not a drink was taken until all
were gone home from the debates.

We chose our president, and the populace elected the judges.  In case of
the judges could not agree, the president had the casting vote.

Some meetings were held in the dining hall of the Old Hotel.

The war question ran high.  Our merchants were both Sesesh.

My brother, Thomas, poor man, from working day and night, had gave out.
Lean, pale, and weak, he had given up a good position in Dr. Stocton's
drug store and come to Trinity to try and build up.  This brother of mine
the greatest genius we ever met.  He had the resources of twenty ordinary
minds.  No education.  He told me that when offered the position in the
drug store, that he shut himself up two or three months to master the four
branches of arithmetic before he could proceed to accept the position.  He
had not been in this store one year until Reddington of San Francisco
offered him one hundred and fifty dollars per month to go to San Francisco
and compound drugs.  He seemed a natural chemist.  He would go into a
hotel and get up a fine dinner, go out and rig machinery that all the
carpenters would fail to make run, and have all running directly.
Well-read, a good historian, a fine debater, an excellent Christian, but
no Financier.

This winter, the climate was too damp on Trinity, and he had to go below.
Mr. Fogerty loaned William and I the seventy dollars it took to send him
down to Napa.  We remember well the first time we ever saw him take a cry
after he was eighteen years of age.  We were moving from the east fork of
Trinity to another Mining Camp three miles away.  He was carrying a
skillet or oven and lid for to bake bread in.  It did not weigh more than
ten pounds, I'd think.  I was carrying a sack of flour, and had to stop
often to rest.  On this footpath we came to a stump.  He sat down and
says, "I see now what a fool I've been.  When a man's health fails, the
best friend he can have is his money.  I could have had a plenty, but now
I am not able to do a day's work, and have no money," and he took a hearty
cry.  Every unreliable man he knew nearly owed him money.  The county
clerk of Lake County owed him two hundred and fifty dollars.  Even Old Man
Rush owed him an outlaw debt of three or four hundred dollars.  He
belonged to the I. O. O. N. at Suisun, and they would set aside forty
dollars per month for his support, and he, from some cause or other, would
vote it back to them again.

We had quite an enjoyable winter outside the suffering of this dear
brother.

He would cure any common disease, anything curable that he knew the name
of the disease.  He used to say anyone can give medicine if they know the
disease.  He used to give as much medicine as any of the doctors during
the three years he was in the drug store at Suisun.  Everybody called him
"doctor" at Suisun, and supposed him to be an educated physician.  He had
letters in his trunk when he died written to him in the dead languages,
and all supposed him a highly educated man.

We had only been back a few days until the pranks of these merchants come
to our ears.  A man coming along the road one day that most men called a
tinker, mending tin ware, clocks, and the household affairs generally.
Mr. Fogerty tells him that the next neighbor had a clock he wanted
cleaned, but he was very deaf.  He did not think that he could make him
hear.  The Tinker went over, and hollering at the top of his voice at the
man of the house, like to have frightened the wife and children before he
perceived the man could hear as well as anyone.

My brother, Thomas, a very dry joker, got the start of Mr. Fogerty on the
war question.  They were warm friends, and used to set out on the front
porch of the store during the leisure hours in warm weather.  One day, Mr.
Fogerty says to my brother, "I never talk about the war or say anything
against the government, and all the people set me down as a rebel."

To which my brother replies, "I never say anything about the war, never
say anything against the South, and all the people set me down as Union."

Fogerty saw the point, say, "Bunk," got up and went into the store.

We had many good debates this winter, there being nothing else to break
the monotony of the storms.  And my being somewhat easily interrupted when
speaking, one of the dry jokers concluded to prank me one evening while
speaking.  He got up on the long bar counter, and stretching himself out
when I went to speaking, he pretending to fall asleep, begins to snore.
Whereupon I says, "Well, gentlemen and ladies, I would speak louder, but I
am afraid of waking up that man on the counter."  All the house got the
laugh on him.

And we do not remember ever having (all the time we were at Minersville)
anyone to try and play any pranks on us.

The most amusing debate we ever attended came off one evening this winter.
 In selecting a question for the next evening's meeting, someone proposed
"Resolve that married life is more conducive to happiness than Single
life."

Next someone getting up proposes that we get the delegates all chosen
sentimentally.

Finally, on counting noses, found there were about as many batches
(meaning bachelors) belonging to the society as married men.  And the
Married Men proposing to all go on one side against the single.  It was
agreed on.  But Sunday (our debates were always on Saturday night), Mrs.
Jordan says to me, "Did you know all the married women are to be out next
Saturday to the debates?"

"No," say I.

"Well, the married men have been all round telling us to all be out.  That
they guess all you fellows will weaken when you see all the ladies out."

As far as I could, I saw every batch, telling the facts in the case,
requesting them all to study hard and come out prepared.

We had more than a full house.  But the excitement had run high all the
week, the married men not knowing we knew their plans, made no extra
preparations, relying on the presence of the ladies to embarrass the
Bachelors.  Now comes the trick.  The bachelors went to a man by the name
of Jerome Beardsley, a well-read New Yorker from up the Hudson River who
always enjoyed any dry fun, and ask him if he would be one of the judges.
Getting his consent, we next proceeded to Mr. Morton, a fine miner, but a
kind of disappointed in love, a woman hater, for the second judge.  To
seem fair, we took John Dodge, a big Ditch Owner that had only been
married about four months, for president.  He, Dodge, was a man of more
moral worth than either of the judges.  But Jerome Beardsley knew more
than both of the others.  Then we went to the married men and told them we
thought it about fair to give them a married man for president and them to
let us have the two judges, to which they were agreed.

We were very anxious to gain the case, for we knew there was one Old Lady,
and her husband would explode if the debate went against them.

We lacked a man when all were formed in line, and asked for Fred Leach, a
man that was no speaker but wonderful for a pun, weighing two hundred and
forty pounds, well-liked, but a little vulgar at times.

Mr. Hall, leads in the Methodist Episcopal Church the married men.  He was
the class leader in the MEC, and engaged in some witticisms that came near
bordering on to things a little smutty, and this gave a little license to
our men.

Mr. Urn, a well-read Englishman, lead all the rest of his side in heavy
logical arguments.

But taken all in all, we had the wits on our side.  Mr. Hutchison, who
once ran for sheriff of the county, led out on the Witticisms.

My part was to balance off Hall and Urn on solid argument if I could.

Mr. Hall led out.  I followed him as best I could.  Then Urn was witty as
well as being the best-read man on either side.

In all debates, usually about four men are the ones that have all the work
to do.  We had six or seven on each side, but the most of them could say
but little before so full a house.

When Hutchison got up against Urn, it was soon seen that for comparison
and wit he was in the lead.

All I have to say of myself was I done my best.  My brother, William, done
well.  But it seemed that the Old Lady Gardner being well-read, took it on
herself to correct up all my and William's mistakes and ask us quite a
number of questions to which William answered pretty well on the floor for
one of his age.  We don't think Henry Clay ever held an audience more
spellbound than these Illustrious Debaters held that assemblage.

My brother, William, made one grave mistake in his argument, getting Henry
Clay for Lord Byron or someone else, claiming that Clay was never married.
 Mrs. Gardner cries out to the top of her voice, "Where did he get his
son?"

To which Fred Leach in an undertone says, "Piped him out of the mud."

Mr. Hutchison says, "Now, Mr. President, we do not pretend that a man can
raise a respectable family without getting married.  Nor are we arguing
the right or wrong of the institution.  But whether they are or not, a man
ought to study physiology and phrenology before getting married so they
would understand each other's dispositions.  Most young would know just
about as much about a Young Lady to feel of her hand as of her head."

It was no time until the judges gave the question to us.  Then came the
fun, if you ever saw excitement run high in a stockbroker's board you may
form some idea of this Mr. Fogerty, never before excited in our presence,
went back to the Billiard Table, lay down on the table, and laughed fit to
kill himself.

My brother, William, went up to Mrs. Gardner and says, "It was all John
Dodge's fault.  He had been married just about long enough to tell which
was the happiest state."

To which Mrs. Gardner replied, "No such a thing.  It was not John at all
but Old Jerome Beardsley that gave the decision to us."

The Old Man Gardner had lived in our house and got water from the same
spring in Nebraska, and he and the Old Lady, both good Methodists, walked
up to Brother Hall, the Class Leader, and says, "Did you ever heard the
like, the way them Morris boys went on?"

Brother Hall says, "Oh, they don't believe what they said."

"Yes they do."

And the old man actually cried, and says, "And to only think they were
raised by respectable parents."

This was all the way the miners had to break the continued beat of the
storm.

There was quite a number of Christian people had moved in at Minersville,
and we had some meetings occasionally.  One thing gave me great joy.  My
older brother being away from home so much when my other brothers and
sisters were converted, he seemed to give himself no concern.  And after
praying for him for years, and growing more indifferent, even neglecting
to pray for that brother.  He always was the Morris one in the family.
But I felt I wanted him to have something more.  After a year or two, he
wrote to me from Suisun while he was in the drug store, "I have turned
over a new leaf.  I have joined the church, and am try to lead a new
life."

To which I wrote to him, "I am glad you have joined the church, but you
did not write what church."

Then he wrote again, "The Methodist Church, which you all belong to, of
course."

He was much more strenuous than any of us, he used to say seeing us read
any magazine or paper on Sunday.  "Do you know how I'd live if I had my
life to live over?  Well, I'll tell you: Under the shade of these trees
reading my Bible and on my knees."

He had been converted while in the drug store some four years before this.
 I used to visit him there and look at his responsibilities.  One side
books, the other side of the store drugs.  Then Wells and Fargo's Express
was in this store.  He had the care mostly of all three of these
departments.  But catching cold, he had good medical care but to no use.
Dr. Morton, Head Surgeon in Donolson Army, told me four years before this
that he could not live a year.  During this winter, he built up some with
the home folks at Napa.  He run everywhere over the state getting what
wild game he could to eat.  Coming up with Father, Mother, and family in
the spring, though stormy.  He seemed to build up, and in the summer of
1863, he bought fruit out at Shasta and hauled to Minersville and peddled,
camping out on the road.

We had our debates until spring.  Generally interesting.  But when the
warm weather came, all the miners being so busy, the debate went slow, and
we disbanded.

William and myself kept to our mining until our people came up.  They all
got up in April.  And Brother Ellis, a most excellent Methodist man,
accompanied them.

When William and myself left Napa, Elza Martin and all my people concluded
to return to Minersville, and Father meeting an opportunity to sell his
claim on government land for teams to move, all the family with my
brother, thomas, come up, and Elza Martin, Franklin, Ellis.

William and myself went to mining in the Digger Creek mine, shoveling in
the gravel and cleaning up the bedrock on the ground.  William and I had
ground, sluiced, during the winter.

The work was too hard for me, and on breaking down, I sold my interest to
Alexander Campbell, and went up onto Stroup Creek and prospected, living
alone.  Striking nothing here, in the fall, Mr. Collins and myself went to
work on another claim in Digger Creek above the one we formerly owned
about one mile.  Making but little in this mine during the fall of
sixty-two and the spring of sixty-three, we were somewhat discouraged.
And the Lieutenant Governor writing for me to come and stand guard at the
state prison, I concluded to go.

These mines that we worked out were the ones that were going to pay me
three dollars per day, when George W. Tucker offered me three hundred
dollars per year to work for him.  True, we took out quite an amount of
gold, but after blacksmith, meat market, and store bills were paid, we had
nothing left.

My sister, Lucy, and mother took in washing, and they had more money than
any of us men.

My brother, William, and I done all kind of mining, cut ditches, run
hydraulics, and no men tried harder.

But in the fall of sixty-two, we think it was, he went to Weaver and
enlisted in the battalion that went into the Massechussets quota that went
from California.  The government at that time would not enlist any man
here but to stay on the Pacific Slope, and those who wished to go into
active service had to go east.  The enlisting Officer told my brother that
all the money it took to pay their fare to San Francisco would be refunded
and their fare would be paid to Boston.  After drilling at Platts Hall,
San Francisco two or three months, they were put on a vessel for Boston.
Taking their bounty of three hundred dollars the government gave, and
paying their passage to Boston, they were turned over to General Lowell as
a set of Border Ruffians until getting into a battle.  The Massechussets
Counter Jumpers all running.  The California boys sticking to Lowell, he
gained the day, and ever after honored and respected the California boys.

[There is a marginal notation believed to be in the handwriting of Edith
Gregory, daughter of Joseph and Harriet Tracy, which reads as follows:
"The Golden Age sailed December 11, 1862, with the "California Hundred" to
join the second Massechussets Cavalry."]

We had good meetings at Minersville, a camp meeting heretofore described,
and a school starting up.  We seem to have more promise of some moral and
religious feeling than when here formerly.  But being so unfortunate
financially, we grew restless, and after trying farming and mining.  One
year having thirty ton of potatos we could not sell nor give away, they
all rotted in the holes.  No return of the mines.  All discouraged, we
began to look for the day when we could emigrate to some better region.
Some of our Old Nebraska friends having followed us out here, Mr. Gardner
and William T. Laird, my old friend of the Haystack Clique.  We stopped
longer on the account of their coming to Trinity than otherwise.  But on
my brother, William, going into the army, we felt broke up and I felt like
getting out to where I could do better if possible.

So on the spring opening, I bade farewell to Old Trinity once more, and
came to Sacramento, where I got a commission from Governor Stanford to go
to San Quinton to stand guard.

On Weeks, the Secretary of State, writing out my commission and reaching
it to me, he says, "The cons will have you before you have been there a
week."

Reaching San Quinton, we were among strangers but found good quarters.
Plenty to eat, plenty to read, all our washing and mending done free of
charge.  We were allowed fifty dollars per month for our services.  But
virtually you only got twenty-five, for you were paid in Orders or Script,
as they called it,a nd if you wished to cash this, all you could get was
fifty dollars on the hundred.

Book4:

The Lieutenant Governor was warden of the prison when the legislature was
not in session.  But during the time the legislature WAS in session, the
Lieutenant Governor, being president of the senate, brought the
Commissary, head officer at the prison.

We had not been here long before we found there were three parties at the
prison.  Whether by law, precedence, or courtesy, we do not know, but the
Governor appointed one third of the guards, the Secretary of State one
third, and the Lieutenant Governor one third.  So we had Stanford men,
Weeks men, and Chillis men.  The Chillis and Stanford men were at outs
from a feud between the two governors.

One day, during the sitting of the first legislature under Stanford's
administration, Chillis being away two or three months from the prison, he
concludes he will go down to San Quinton and see how things were running.
Arriving, he goes up to the Commissary's office and ask the Commissary for
the keys to the storerooms, to which the Commissary replied, "That is MY
part of the business.  I will attend to that."

The Lieutenant Governor brings a hearty laugh, goes into the office, and
writes out the Commissary's resignation, and asks the Commissary to sign
it.

"No sir."  He would not do that, but telegraphs up to Sacramento for
Stanford to come down.

The next day, here comes Governor Stanford and Secretary Wix.  They used
to always call Wicks "Tin Pan Wicks" from an accusation brought against
him in an early day accusing him of stealing some tin pans when in the
dairy business.  Be that as it may, he knew more than a dozen of Stanford.

Stanford calls at Chellis' office and asks, "What is the matter with you
and Jones?"

Chellis relates the trouble, and Stanford says, "Mr. Jones, the
Commissary, is a friend of ours.  He will have to stay here."

"You keep that man here, and I will publish this matter in every newspaper
in the state."

'Twas then that Stanford found out that he had caught a Tartar.

This feud kept up all the time of Stanford's gubernatorial term, and was
the cause of Stanford's defeat the second time he ran.  Chellis knew more
about politics than twenty of Stanford.  Always thick-headed.  We might
say bull-headed.  For if any favors were granted while we were there, it
was usually to Englishmen.  So frequent was this that if any criminal that
was an Englishman whimpered, in passing the gates, the Guards would say,
"You need not mind.  You will be pardoned out before you have been here
long."

There never was a man who had so many Strings to his Bow as Governor
Stanford.  All the Bosses on the Wagon roads over the Sierras, all the
Bosses on the C. P. R. R., all the Military patronage during the War,
besides all the Ropes and pulls common to the Governor.  Yet with all
these, we never had a man more easily defeated for the second nomination.
It is said only two men worked for his defeat very energetically.  They
were the Lieutenant Governor and Ex-Congressman Phelps of San Jose.
Chellis told me one day how the whole matter was worked, and on my asking
him why he did not aspire to something more, he replied, "I could not
defeat Stanford if I was a candidate myself for any high position."

Chellis was the most popular Lieutenant Governor up to his time at
Sacramento.  The first Officer of any kind that went in for prison reform.

 They used to rent out the Cons to Private Individuals on commission in
the rock quarries round the bay, and put guards round them to use and
abuse as much as they chose.  And after Chellis took charge, he had not
been at the prison one year until all the inmates were his friends.  They
would say that he was the first man that ever gave them enough to eat.  At
any rate, the speculators, like Jones, were soon gave to understand he had
no use of them.

The greatest excitement we had with the Cons was when the Governor was up
at Sacramento two or three months, and Trusties outside the wall would
notify the inside cons that the Governor had got off at San Quinton and
was coming up the walk of some two hundred yards to his office.  Every
prisoner, it seemed, respected and liked him.  He was not at the prison
during my stay at that place, for it was short.  Wick took a conservative
part with these two factions, and there was little jealousy with the Wicks
men.  But the Chellis and Stanford parties were always jealous of each
other.  While Chellis was away, the head of the various departments were
mostly Stanford and Wicks men, and the Chellis men had the disadvantage.
But when Chellis came from the sitting of the legislature and was warden,
then the Chellis men were all right.

We were placed on night guard, coming (if we recollect) on at midnight and
running until six in the morning.  It was simply doing nothing, only
staying u p and keeping awake.  We thought we had a pretty good position,
plenty of time to read.  We read through Washington Irving's "Life of
Washington," a kind of dreamy intermixture of history, fiction, and
courtships, as my memory serves me now.  Maybe it seemed to me that way
because he did not mention the general coming to see my great, great,
great aunt, as my father used to tell it.

Also we read the "Life of General Jackson," and do not remember seeing
that he fought a duel and killed his antagonist, marry the widow of the
deceased.  Nor do we remember Colonel Eaton knocking the general down, all
of which we have heard our father make mention.

We learned much here.  The Old Guard were largely in sympathy with the
convicts.  Some of them taking nearly all their wages to buy tobacco and
delicacies for these poor fellows, and slipping the articles of nights
through the gates.  Again and again you will hear it said, "The worst men
are on the outside, and the best are on the inside of the walls."  Many
times this is the case.  One poor boy waiting on the table up in Nevada
stole silver spoons and tableware to the amount of eighty dollars.  Some
said the amount was not large enough to make out a case of Grand Larceny.
But the poor fellow having no money and few friends, they got the value of
the spoons inflated and made a case of grand larceny, sending up this lad
for twelve years.  Petitions had been sent two or three times for his
pardon.  The last one, the judge that sentenced him and every party that
had anything to do with his  conviction signed the petition tot he
Governor, but no, he was there when we left with two or four more years to
serve.  And the guard said he was not an Englishman.  Another Trustee.  We
forgot to say of the lad we described above that he was a trustee.
Outside the walls, waiting on the table of the guards.

The other, we were attracted by the general intelligence of a gentleman
inside.  Assistant Gate Keeper.  Asking who he was, they told me he was a
Con that never ought to have been there.  His wife in San Francisco left
him, and on his looking for her, he found her downtown in a Saloon playing
cards with some men.  Going up to her, put his hand on her shoulder,
calling her by her given name, "Come, let's go home."  One of the men
playing cards with her gets up, picks up his chair, and draws it over this
man's head, saying, "You let her alone."  This man shot the man who drew
the chair on him, and killed him dead on the spot.  They put him into the
prison for one year.

The work is all done by Trusties, as we call them, and that's what they
are.  They mend your boots, wash and patch your clothes, shave you if you
like, keep the books for the Commissary and clerk, run the Bullets and
carry to the posts outside before cartridges were invented, keep the
horses at the barn.  In fact we could see nothing but what they done.

The great break the time the Seventy got away by capturing the Lieutenant
Governor and holding him up before them so the two or three canons could
not be turned loose on them, showed no disrespect for the Governor, for
they knew he would order the Guards not to shoot for fear of killing him.
In that break, one of the unprincipled breakers threatening the Lieutenant
Governor, the leader of the breakers coming up to Chillis, and gave him
what, and assured him he should not be hurt, that they had only captured
him to be secure from the assaults of the guards.  This took place a few
months before my coming to the Prison.  On the day of the break, one man
named Miller, who took care of the horses at the barn.  He was a trustee
(and a lifetime man, we think) going, at any rate, from Trinity County.
Some said Miller had so gained the confidence of the officers that he
slept at the barn.  We do not know about this.  But on the day of the
break, he mounted a horse, ran to San Rafael, gave the alarm to Citizens,
heading off bands here and there.  He done better work than any guard.
The Governor said he should never sleep another night inside the walls.
But after doing all this, he went back to San Rafael, and getting drunk
the next day, he went about twenty miles over into Sonoma County and stole
a horse, and was arrested and taken back to prison before two days had
ellapsed.

Some convicts are harmless.  One little fellow we called Mose was
perfectly harmless. He had been pardoned out or served his time out two or
three times.  But it would only be two or three months until he would be
back.  Always put in for some short time.  He rather be here than
elsewhere.

The men who are at the most responsible posts are usually lifetime men.
The librarian, Bogs, (we think a nephew of Governor Bogg of Missouri).
The Book Keepers and all we knew in responsible stations among the
Trustees were lifetime men, or so we were told.

Some of the State Officers and their wives come here and stop a week or
two at a time.  Frank Pixley's wife was here a week or so, and Mrs. Brown,
Stanford's private secretary's wife (while we were here was pointed out to
me).

We met a nice Irishman here by the name of Flynn.  He claimed to be
Steward of John C. Freemont's house in San Francisco when Freemont run for
President.  Through Mr. Flinn we learned much of that gentleman's private
life.  Mr. Flinn was reported worth about thirty thousand dollars, and
took his part with the boys standing guard.  The boys said Mr. Flinn was
there to buy up state Script.  He would cash the guards' script for fifty
cents on the dollar, and as soon as he got one thousand dollars on hand,
he would go up to Sacramento and get this thousand dollars or upwards
turned into state bonds, and then it was at Par.  He and the Captain of
the Guard (Captain Vanderlip) were wonderfully smitten after the game of
Checkers.  They were pretty evenly yoked.  And we have known them to play
all day as intently as anyone at a poker game.

Thus things ranf or about a month, when we had a very stormy night.  The
wind was very strong, and I would tramp until I'd get tired, then I'd go
under a shed, sit down, and rest.  This shed was close by a tin shop,
where bushels of scraps of tin was thrown out, and the wind kept a fearful
noise all my beat from these scraps of tin.  But that offers no excuse for
what followed.  Everything went by the bells during this stormy morning.
The first thing I saw was a trustee coming straight for me.  I knew then
that the inside guard should be off from duty, for all the guards who
stood inside the Yard were passed through the gate before the trustees
were unlocked from their cells.  Then, when the trustees were all out, the
rest of the cons were let out.  When this con got into about four rods of
me, he turned and went round me.  On hastening to the gate, I found it
open, but all the guards had passed through.  I came to breakfast.
Nothing was said.  Dinner, but nothing said.  Just about one PM, some of
the offficers says to me, "The Captain of the Guard wants to see you at
his office."

On walking over, I met the Commissary and clerk at Vanderlip's office, and
the captain telling who I was to the commissary and clerk.  The commissary
says, "Where were you this morning when the bell rang?"

"On my post," was my reply.

"Why did you not come off when the bell rang?"

"If I heard the bell ring, I presume I did not think what it was for." was
my reply.

At this, the commissary says to the captain of the guard, "Can't a man
hear the bell ring from any part of the yard?"

"Yes," says the captain.

"Oh, I don't pretend but anyone can do that, and suppose I heard the bell,
but did not think what it was for."

Then the Captain of the Guard, we think it was, says, "One of the trustees
says he caught you asleep on your Post and could have taken your gun from
you if he had been of a mind to."

"Why did he not do it?  He would have had a funny time at that." was my
reply.  But if you prefer to believe a Con to me, it's all right."

The commissary says, "We will have to suspend you until the Governor comes
up," and all three takes up their hats and leaves.

This was the way they had of getting rid of men they did not want.  Most
of the appointees would have went over tot he office, called for their
time, sold it for fifty cents on the dollar, and away they would have
went.  Not so with me.  I went to reading newspapers, magazines, and
books, and was clear of leaving the State Prison with anything hanging
over my head if I had been inside of the walls.  I read here another month
before the Lieutenant Governor put in his appearance.  During this time,
Captain Flynn and myself talked Politics, Theology, and History.  He being
reported to have been banished from England when but a boy for havingwritten against that government, come to New York and broke up there, but
paying the last cent of a seven thousand dollar failure by constanteffort, then coming to San Francisco, and he was now accumulating his
second fortune.  A liberal Catholic, a complete Gentleman, very devoted to
the United States.  He got a good joke on one of his countrymen coming to
the Prison to stand guard.  This Irishman, right out from Ireland, goes on
guard through some influence of the bosses out here, and after boding a
day, he says to one of the guards who sat next to him at the supper table,

"How do you like the grub?"

"Good enough," says the man.

"It may be good enough for some people," says the Irishman.

At night, this Irishman comes right up and connects with Captain Flynn on
his beat, and says to the captain, "How do you like the board?"

"Good enough," says the captain.

To which the Irishman made the same reply as at the supper table.

"Now," says Flynn, "it ill becomes an Irishman just out from the Old
Country that never gets meat but once a week and that on Sunday, living on
Irish potatoes the rest of the week, to complain of what we have here,
beefsteak, coffee or tea, butter and bread, potatoes, etc., for breakfast,
roast meats, soup, vegetables, pudding and pie for dinner.  Fruits, bread
and butter, tea, syrup and meat for supper.  The Americans read a little,
and will know you never had anything to eat where you came from.  I
pocketed that insult when you asked the same question at the supper
table."

Here I learned more of the Catholic faith than ever before.  His wife
being a Methodist.  He said that he went to the Methodist church every
other Sunday and his wife attended the Catholic's half the time.  That
they had no trouble to get along.

Brother Burton, a Methodist preacher, and a Catholic priest were all the
preachers we remember seeing very often.  Burton was faithful, a good man,
and well-liked.  He had good lung power, and done his duty, and some of
the inmates turned to God.  He preached just after the dinner hour on
Sundays.  Just as soon as all were done eating in the dining room, all
remained at the dinner table who wished to hear.  Burton began without any
of the usual paraphernalia, and prayed and preached like a fully-saved
Methodist minister would do.  He long years ago went to his reward.

Finally, after we had boarded one month on the state without standing
guard, and which I should not have been permitted to do only for the
commissary expecting I would leave, up comes the governer one day, landing
at the wharf about ten o'clock in the morning, and went directly up to his
office.  Then like bees to the hive you could see everybody pouring into
the Governor's Office.  I sat reading about seventy-five yards away, I'd
judge, at a place I could see into the door of the Office.  Finally, about
one or two o'clock in the afternoon, I could see no one going to his
quarters, and ventured over.  The door was open.  The governor got up and
gave me a good shake hands, and says, "How are you getting along?"

"Bad enough," said I.

He got up and shut the door and locked it.

I told him of the former-related court martial and Suspension of the
Commissary, Clerk, and Captain of the Guard, making it out just as bad on
myself as I could.

The Governor says, "Oh, that amounts to nothing.  There is worse than that
occurring every day here.  You can stay here as long as I stay."

"Well, I don't want to stay here."

To which the Governor replied, "If I had have thought what a civilian you
are, I would never have sent for you."

"If I had my money, I believe I'd go to Idaho."

"I can get your money," says the Governor.

"All right," said I.

He says, "I am going tot he city tomorrow, and you can go down with me."

He gave me a check on Donahoe and Ralston for the two months I had been
boarding at the prison.  I think I had been there two months and ten days,

and he gave me the check for a hundred and twenty dollars, when I says,
"Governor, I will have to borrow one dollar of you until I get to the city
to pay my fare down."

"Never mind," say he.  "I will take care of you."

We entered the boat next day and the Governor disappeared from my sight,
and I had no money to pay my fare to San Francisco.  I saw the purser
begin to take up the tickets, and just before the collector reached me,
Chellis comes along and whispers to me, "Tell him to charge it to the
state."

I done as directed.  They passed me by, and that is all I know to this day
of the fare to the city.  Whether the governor, or state, or nobody paid
it, I never enquired further.

Thus parting the Old Prison and entering the City, I walked up to
Donehoe's and Ralston's bank, presented my check.  And Mr. Ralston took
the check and went back through the back apartments of the bank, two doors
that were open.  I could see him pass, and then he disappeared entirely.
There was not another soul in the bank, and there I stood like a fool,
wondering where my check had gone long enough to have went in and helped
myself to what Bullion I could have carried off, when my sandy-haired
cashier came back through the two doors he had so leisurely passed out at,
and without a question gave me his hundred and twenty dollars in gold.
This was the first and last time we ever had a Cashier do this with us,
and do not to the present day know the reason.

Thus for two months given to reading and study at San Quinton, I drew as
much money as the ordinary guard received for four months and twenty days.

The city of SanFrancisco began to undergo quite a change when we came
first into its limits in 1858.  Montgomery Street was the great
thoroughfare.  And never before did I see such splendor as on this street.

 The first city of any dimensions I had ever been in.  The Brokers, with
their specimens of Gold.  The selections of Quartz and Nuggets of the
placer mines presented a spectacle altogether new to me.  And the Old What
Cheer House run by R. B. Woodward was the best then patronized house in
the city.

We knew no person in fifty-eight when we first visited this occidental
city.  But a strange intercourse came up with me at the Old What Cheer
House.  My having nothing specially to do but sight-seeing, a man neatly
but plainly dressed gradually coming into my acquaintance.  He seemed to
be sensible, candid, and a fine specimen of good morals, and a gentleman
of about thirty-five.  Telling me he was a Bostonian, belonged to the fire
department of San Francisco, was all he mentioned to me in his chats that
I could get any clue at his business.

One day he says to me, "Would you like to see some of the city?  I am
doing nothing at present, and can show you some places of interest if you
have not been to them."

I consented rather reluctantly, taking but little money with me.

He took me up to Montgomery Street and boarded the Omnibus Line, took me
to Woodward's private residence.  Then to South Park and North Beach.  In
fact, all over the city.

At night, he comes round and asks me if I had ever seen Billiards played
on a grand scale.  If I wished, he would come round and take me to the
largest billiard rooms on the Pacific Coast.  Going with him, he remarked,

"Here is where all the Gentry of the City meet to spend their evenings."

This man was the first I ever accompanied as a stranger.  It has been the
last.

He seemed to be a perfect model.  He would not let me pay any part of the
expenses.  I do not even know his name.

Old Grisly Adams, as they called him, was showing his Grizzly bear in the
city before taking them to New York, and we got to see this eccentric, as
well as Old Samson, who broke in Adams' skull.

But as I am not writing a history of places, I will say I heard Mr. C.
Boggs preach here for the first time.  He was a young man, the wit of the
California conference at this time as he proved ever after to be up to the
day of his death.  Yet hearing him many times afterwards, we only saw what
head culture, not heart, could do, and should never attempted what the
California Conference attempted at his death, to have Canonized him as a
Saint.

San Jose at that time only had one poor Hotel and a store or two.

We took Steerage for Portland, Oregon, in 1863, at San Francisco.  We
think the steerage was forty dollars.  We were four days out, and were not
well enough read at that time to know on the approach of Astoria at the
mouth of the Columbia river that the Old Grandfather Aster, when in the
American Fir Company, came across the Rockies to the Mouth of the
Columbia, and the little village at the mouth of this river is named after

him.

Always awful sick at Sea, yet this being my first Sea voyage.  I saw some
whales spout and a few big turtles.

Tidewater reaching up this river something over one hundred miles, we saw
little else but a wilderness of woods from the mouth to the entrance of
the Willamette.  Going up the Willamette some eighteen miles, we landed in
the wooden City of Portland, Oregon, and met with the best order of people
we have ever met on the Pacific.  Mostly made up of the old settlers
coming to the state under the old land grant system of the government to
these immigrants and their families.  Portland claimed a population of
eighteen thousand, if we recollect correctly.  At the time we are writing,
Portland looked as if one had cut out about a half mile in a forest
gradually sloping back from the Willamet and closely built this square
with streets and houses.  It was not the town so much that charmed me, but
the people.  All everywhere an air of American life.  Young ladies waiting
on the table as handsome as the Georgians or Chicagoans.  The men ready to
give a candid answer to all.  We fell in love with the people of this
Webfoot City, and the fever has never entirely went off.

But the Gold excitement, we had only made a start for the land of
Promise.  Taking the steamer for Yumatilla, landing up the Columbia, for
some one hundred and sixty miles, if we recollect correctly, we only
journeyed down the Willamet and up the Columbia a few miles until we came
to the Cascade falls of the Columbia.  They are not high, but the width of

the whole river, looking just like some architect had drew a plan and put
in a damn clear across the river.  All the passengers were asked out of
the Washington side to take a walk of six miles or so on a level plain
some half mile wide, we should judge.

This made, we again enter our boat, and are off for Dalls City, east of
the Cascade Mountains.  We had never before met with a river so large that
had cut its way through such mountains.  On the right and left, great
ranges, thousands of feet high, showing this river had divided the
continuous line that formed the great ridge of the Sierras and Cascades.
Up the Columbia tot he Dalls, we met the most beautiful and grand scenes
then known in North America.  Old St. Elias, Hood, and other peaks of
perpetual snow, with streams pouring on the sides of these mountain
pallisades.  Boat landings after boat landings for miles of any height or
level you choose.  We never could imagine the beauty and grandeur of this
upper Columbia River.  And men who were raised up the Hudson have told me
they never have seen anything like it in the East.  We had the second
portage at The Dalles, of sixteen miles, having freight teams to ride on
or
to take it afoot, which many done.  The river at The Dalles nearly
disappears in the fissures of the rock, and looks as if one might throw
slabs from rock to rock and cross on these boards.  No river had we ever
seen that seemed to be cut out of solid rock on both sides.  Shelved by
cliffs of from one to one hundred feet high for miles, gradually sloping
to the mountains.  Town site after town site that would never be occupied,
there were too many.  And no country to set up port these idle ports.

After passing The Dalles, we left to some extent the rock-bound banks, and
more sandy beaches came in sight.  And the plains

***** turned cassette over, but contents seem discontinuous. --Joe Devin.

my buying Salt, Flour, Sugar, and a few tools.  He said I could go along
with him, and it would cost me nothing to get into the mines.  We loaded,
and started up the Yumatilla River, traveled ten days, and made eighty
miles, his horses having to live on the grass all the way.  He took good
care of his team, we noticed.

There come along a man by the name of Beck one night with his pack on his
back, and wanted to camp with us.  He had a good watch, and seemed clever
and intelligent, and my teamster let him put his pack on his wagon.  We
got quite well acquainted, but on reaching Grand Round, only eighteen
miles from Yumatilla, having got over the Blue Mountains, we concluded to
shoulder our blankets and make for the mines some two hundred and twenty
miles away.

Bidding farewell to teamster, goods, and all, we started, to the regret of
my good Webfoot teamster, and in six days, footsore, tired, and half sick,
we come to Placerville, Boyce Bason, Idaho.

On my way in, I came to one of the Pony Express posts, and meeting a
young-looking man, he accosts me thus, "Young man, what are you doing
along here afoot?  You are too frail a man to be going that way.  Are you
out of means?"

"I have two and a half," I replied, "and when I have plenty of money, I go
with better conveyance, but when I am out of money, I go so as to owe no
man anything."

He gave me ten dollars, which I sent him the first money I got when in
Idaho.

On enquiring for friends, I found Jacob Bowerman, an Old Trinitarian who I
never had befriended anyway.  He says to me, "Johnny, did you get in with
any money?"

"Yes, two dollars or so."

He weighed me out an ounce, and says, "You know where to come to get
more."

A day or two before reaching Placerville, a singular affair took place.
We met Oron Loumis with a pack train, one of our Old Trinity neighbors,
and camped with him overnight.  O. M. Shaw, we think it was with him, had
killed a prairie Hen, the first one we ever saw west of the Rocky
Mountains.  They dressed this hen the evening before leaving us.

On the next morning, they got off before we did.  And I was always looking
to see if anything was left, and saw this prairie hen hanging up that they
had gone away and left.

We came on up the Payette River, and in a marshy place outran a wild duck,
and I found seven eggs.

We came close to one of the Pony Express company's stations, where one of
the hands had the ague, and traded two of the eggs for a pint of Sugar,
and going down a slough to look for some water, we found some wild
Currants and built a fire.  I fired out some grease from a piece of bacon
Loumis had given us, and made some doughnuts.  Frying the Prairie Hen, we
cooked the four eggs.  Cooking the currants for sauce, made syrup, coffee,

and with what we had, sat down to a dinner elegant to any we had sat for
years.  What was so strange about this was we never saw but this one duck,

these seven eggs, and that one prairie hen, and that one patch of currants
on our entire trip.  Never saw such a desert place for fruit or game.

From Placer we come to Centerville, where we found P. A. Chalpham, another
Trinity friend.  He weighed me out two more ounces, and the next man I met
was A. J. Bryant.  He knew me in Napa, and says, "Come over to the hotel.
I have enough money to board you a month."

Board then twenty dollars per week.  Nothing would do him but I must go to
the hotel.

We talked over our trip, when I remarked, "I don't think anyone ever come
to Boyce that used less cooking utensils than we did."

"What did you have?" says one of my acquaintances.

"Just a bread pan, a coffee pot,, and frying pan," says I, thinking I had
them.

"Oh yes," says this packer, "all we had was our tin cups."

One says, "How did you wet your bread?"

"In the mouth of the flour sack.  Fried our meat on the coals, made our
coffee in our tin cups, and had no dishes to wash."

My board at eighteen dollars per week.  I got nervous, bought me an
eighteen-dollar pair of blankets, got a tent, and only boarded one week at
the hotel.

But had no work.  Bryant would always say, "You aren't going to mining.
I'll get you a place in a store.  You aren't able to mine."

It went on for two weeks when Button, one of the merchants at Centerville,
told me he would board me for what I saw fit to help him in the store, and

he thought he could get me the Agency of Rockyfellow's Express.  So he
did.  This was all I had to do for myself, and would have got to be well
off.  Andy Rockyfellow could not get in one newspaper where twenty were
wanted.  Then Idaho City being the center, that office robbed the
Placerville and Centerville office of their papers.

Rockyfellow had the first and only express to Idaho at that time, or, I
mean, to THIS part of Idaho.  We got One Dollar for News Papers, per copy,
and one dollar and twenty-five cents for Letters.  There was no United
States Mail.

Rockyfellow only ran a short time, and sold out to Tracy and King, of
Portland, Oregon.

We knew of Tracy from reputation, when he was Wells and Fargo's agent
years before at Shasta City.  He loaned Tower, of the Tower House, seven
thousand dollars in an early day, and while Wells Fargo's agent, then ran
away with Tower's wife, going to Portland, Oregon.  After he thought Tower
had got over his mad, he comes down to Shasta a few years after, and say
to Tower, "You owe me seven thousand dollars, do you not?"

"No," says Tower.

"Didn't you borrow seven thousand dollars of me?"

"Yes sir, but you have my wife.  If you don't think she is worth seven
thousand dollars, y ou bring her back, and I will pay you the money."

Tracy was a fine businessman.  I saw him, and he gave me the Centerville
Express agency.  But on selling out to Wells and Fargo a few months later,

they had a pet for the Centerville office, and I lost my position,
although Woodward, the general superintendent of Wells and Fargo, had
promised me the place.

After two or three trips to Idaho City, my man that I loaded at the
Yumatilla come in to that place, and on selling out the load and paying
the money back that he had been given me.  Paying my board and for my
blankets and outfit I had while camping in my tent.  Found one hundred and
thirty dollars left clear of all expenses.

We met men that had boarded with me at Minersville for months who we had
befriended in many ways, but none of them took such an interest in my
welfare as Jacob Bowerman, P. A. Chalpham, and A. J. Bryant.

Having to be at Idaho City a great deal this summer and fall, I became
quite well acquainted with her caravan Street and modes of life.  Never
before had we seen such a jam, rush, and noise in any town.  Twenty
thousand patrons were estimated to do their trading here.  Packs on mules
and horse wagons with loads of groceries to peddle, all were in the
traffic.  A perfect Mecca.  We never was in such a bedlam of a place.

The pack trains were the principle supply.  The owners of these large pack
trains usually freighting for the merchants.  But the smaller caravans
usually sold out on the spot to anyone they could find to buy.

Auctioneers crying off mules or horses, merchandise,  saloons running full
blast, gambling the leading excitement of the hour, here the vendor of the
dime novels at from one to three dollars per copy.  We never saw such an
excitement, and met any amount of old forty-nine California miners that
told me they never saw such an excitement in California during their most
exciting days.

It was called the Rebbels' Heaven from the fact that both Union and
Disunion Soldiers ran here to get free from being drafted in either army.
But the South far outnumbered the North.

We never saw so many gamblers congregated at any place as here.  They had
the best claims, made the most of the laws, and virtually ruled the
country.

Highwaymen and often civilians would meet, but the loafs of life was not
so great as one would think made up of such an element as we met in the
Gem of the Mountains.

One day, walking down Main Street, we made a halt to hear a political
combat of the tongue, and entered into the discussion, when an Old
Auctioneer crying off horses called a halt.  Getting off from the auction
block, he comes to me, calls me to one side, and says, "Young man,  never
enter into any political discussion while you are in the basin.  I looked
for that man you were talking to for to shoot you down every moment.  He
is a desparate character, has killed several men."

This learned me a lesson I never forgot.  Having never seen this man
before or since, we know nothing of this stranger further.

The war question absorbed every other interest of a national character,
even up here.

Old John Kelly, the then greatest fiddler in North America, was up here
playing for the Southern saloon keepers.  Every day we passed these
saloons, we would hear him singing to the chime of the fiddle strings,
"The sun has crossed the line, oh Abraham, resign.  Poor old Father
Abraham, once the people's pride, your glory has departed, oh Abraham,
resign."

The streets were jammed in front of these saloons as he played for his
forty dollars per night.  We presume he got as much per day.  His Lament
of the Scotchmen over his dog was a well-rendered piece.  We tried both in
New York and Philadelphia in after years to get this in Sheet Music, but
failed.

Most of our time was spent in Centerville and up and down Grimes Creek.
The claims were good, but all located before I came.  Wages, like Virginia
City, were good, six dollars per day.  The most general paying gold field
we were ever in.  Not but there were much richer pockets and veins of gold
in California, but the country paid something nearly all over the entire
basin.  The creek bottoms for hundreds of yards wide payed for stripping
off the top from four to twelve feet deep by hand, and then shoveling in
the gravel by hand into the Sluice Box.  Grimes and Mores Creek having so
little fall, this was the only way these mense creek bottoms could be
worked.  The hillsides paying from the fact of being so little rock to
wash off from the bed, and the bed being so soft one could clean all off
with hoe and shovel without a pick in most localities.  One could unearth
in many places as much bedrock, clean it up, and have the malgum gathered
into the pan in one day as in a month in California or Nevada.

The towns usually occupied one long street built of hewn logs or cloth
tents.  Some of them very comfortable.

My friend, Bryant, was at this business of building houses in Centerville
when we met.  All the lumber had to be sawed by hand at Centerville.  It
was worth twenty dollars per hundred feet at one time.

One old lady who fell int he fire in Oregon and burned her face so she was
a sight to look upon brought a dozen hens and rooster up to Centerville
and began to sell the eggs for three or four dollars per dozen.  When a
miner went over for a couple of eggs, she told him the price.  He began to
parley, when she says, "If you want eggs, don't talk love, but come out
with your money."  He had to tell the interview.  She done well by
shipping this dozen hens.

One of the merchants at Walla Walla, shipping quite a large stock of
goods, thinking the mice might be bad in his store, puts a good Mouser in
the freight wagon,and sends her up to Centerville,where the store was to
be opened.  She had a large brood of kittens after she arrived, and the
merchant sold one hundred and twenty-five dollars worth of cats the first
year, and kept the mother.

One man on going to florrence the first year of its discovery, heard at
Lewiston that the mines were out of black pepper.  No trains could get in,
snow being four to six feet deep.  He buys, some say eight, others
sixteen, pounds of pepper, gets him a pair of snowshoes, and carries in
the pepper.  For every pound of pepper he carried out one pound of Gold
Dust.

We kept the express office at Centerville.  Got our board for what we
helped Mr. Burten do in the store.  The Express Company charged ten
percent for all the dust sent to San Francisco, but there was precious
little dust sent below at that time.  My principle profit was selling the
Sacramento Union and letters.  The Union was read by everybody.  It was
the leading paper on the Pacific Coast at that time.  The San Francisco
Bulletin and the Oregonian at Portland, Oregon, were next to the Union.

We bought an occassional remnant of goods from a stock that Packers would
not stop long enough to close out, and made a little in this way.

We tried to get work in the mines, but was too light a pattern.

The man who accompanied me on foot from Grand Rounds to Boyce was a tailor
by trade.  He had no faculty to get work.  One day, I said to him, "Beck,
I can get you a job."

He says, "I wish you would."

I went out one afternoon and found two situations, one of which he
accepted and worked all summer at six dollars per day.

But on going out to look for work myself, we could find hundreds of men
who wanted men, but would say, "You will not fill the bill.  You are too
light."

On begging to try, pale, coughing, weakly, they would say, "Young man, it
is no use.  The job is too heavy."

Buying ten or twelve pair of gum boots off a packer one day for eight
dollars per pair, putting on one pair of these long legs, I'd shoulder up
three or four pair and go up and down Grimes Creek and sell them for
fourteen per pair, thus nearly doubling my money in two or three days.

The miners would take all of the papers we could get in two hours after
the express got into town.  But we only got express once a week.  And all
the papers then read were weeklies.

There were two partners in this store, Button and Creighton.  Never having
seen Creighton, he had a store in Florrence and some saloons or gambling
houses in Oregon.  In the fall, Button told me he was coming up to
Centerville, and in two or three weeks the largest cargo of goods we had
ever received come to the store, and a large, well-built man come in.  It
was the other partner, John Creighton.  On getting four or five Miners to
help us get the cargo unloaded.  When all was done, Creighton brings in a
keg of whiskey and treats the boys.  It being bed-time, he had to sleep
with me in a double bed in the store.  Button having a wife and one child
had a small house where he and family resided.  We got in bed, when
Creighton says, "What kind of men were those fellows who helped in with
the goods?"

"Oh, they're all good fellows," said I.

"Well," says Creighton, "I like all of them except the one who would not
drink with me.  I never have got along anytime with a man who won't drink
with me."

My being the clerk, and he supposing the clerk would help himself never
noticed whether I drank or not.  But it seemed to me this was a pretty
strange relation existing between a man who never drank and a saloon
keeper.  He stopped at Centerville the balance of the fall.  He was a
wonderful man.  We think the most wonderful brainpower we met in the
basin.  Being a contractor of the government in the war with the Indians
in Oregon, he knew Joe Hooker, Sheridan, Grant, and all the government
officials up in that campaign.  He used to tell me how much several of
them owed him for Saloon bills, etc.  He had an inventive brain like
Grant.  One feature of his business, he never connected his saloon
business with his store, always keeping these relations separate.  Having
three or four stores in different parts of the Territory, he was estimated
to be worth about Fifty Thousand Dollars, the best Chess Player in the
Basin,a nd the most inventive Brain.

'Twas said one year at Dalls City, Oregon, the editor of the paper at that
place (The Dalles at that time being the business emporium east of the
Cascades), had a brother die at Sacramento, California, and the editor of
the paper being sent for to go to the latter place, asked John Creighton
to edit the paper while he was gone.  Creighton, as soon as he found the
editor had got on the steamer for San Francisco, advertises the entire
establishment for sale, sending the editor a copy to Sacramento.  The next
number of The Dalles City paper stated, "That having heard of the former
editor of this paper, it seems he entered the ocean steamer, and meeting
the purser and captain of that steamer (giving their names) had bummed his
way to San Francisco, picking up two or three of the editor's intimate
friends at The Dalles, he told all the mean traits of their character he
could collect together.  He hunted up a few of the editor's worst enemies,
and lauded them to the skies, sending a copy to the editor at Sacramento.

The editor, on receiving the paper, sat down and swore and cursed
Creighton as only a wicked editor could do.  At any rate, he exhausted all
his energies abusing Creighton, the present incumbent.  This better to
show what an unscrupulous scamp and how ungrateful he was to his present
benefactor.  Creighton put into the next Dalls City paper verbatum oaths
and all, just as the former editor had written, adding how unthankful and
wicked this Scape Gallows must be, always forwarding to Sacramento a copy.

 The editor at Sacramento writing back for God's sake to desist, that he
was a ruined man.  His paper would never be any account again.

To which Creighton replied through the next number, that having discharged
his duties faithfully and increased the circulation of the sheet as he
had, he thought it but in keeping with the association of this
unscrupulous vendor of the quill, and gives some more of the weak points
of the original editor's friends.

One man eighteen miles out of The Dalles comes into town, to which
Creighton (they called Creighton "Big John" in The Dalles at that time)
and
hunting up Creighton on the street, he says, "Are you Big John?"

"No sir," says Creighton.

"They told me you were," says the man.

"Well, they are making that mistake here every little while.  There are
lots of people make that mistake, we look so much alike."

The man looked at Creighton with a mysterious look, then went away.

The people for miles around The Dalles wondering what next would come and
subscribe for the paper.

The Sacramento editor, cutting his visit short, hurrying back to the
Dalls, meeting Big John at the wharf, saying, "You have undid me."  "I
shall never be any account after this."

"Oh yes.  Your paper has a larger circulation than when you left."

On going up to the office and finding the paper had nearly doubled in
circulation, he felt better, and Big John retired.

He was a fairly good man to work for, but not so good as Button.  The
latter never disapproved of anything done that you could see.  During the
six months with him, we never saw a scowl come on his forehead.  He kept
no drinks in the store, had the best pair of gold scales in Centerville,
and never mixed poor dust with good to pay his debts.  He had a beautiful
little girl who became much attached to me.

John Creighton never bothered himself about selling goods, put in the most
of his time on the street or int he saloons.

One day, on his return from Hoggem (a name gave to a town some four or
five miles above us on Grimes Creek for their taking up all the land and
holding it by the revolver), he was walking along the trail and an
Irishman stepped out from behind a large tree and hollered out to him, "A
dollar a pound, sir."

On a little farther, another Irishman steps out and says, "One dollar and
a quarter a pound, sir."

The third man stepping out says, "One dollar a pound, sir."

He told me of the matter, and explained thus: "When I was at Florrence, I
used to have the largest stock of goods, getting in more supplies than
anyone else.  One winter, flour advanced to a dollar and a quarter a
pound.  And Mr. Creighton said they (the Irishmen) used to tell on him at
Florrence that anyone coming to his store and asking the price of flour,
he would walk out of the store and look all around, and if it was clear,
looked favorable for trains to come in, Creighton would say, "One dollar a
pound, sir."  But if cloudy and looking stormy, he would say, "One dollar
and a quarter a pound, sir."

We worked this summer hard, and saw many tragedies, the most serious
occurring next door to our store.  Hall Sutton come one forenoon and sat
down on our front porch or floor, in front of the store.  When Willey, an
elderly man who ran a bakery and saloon just above us, comes up to Sutton
and begins to abuse him.  Sutton and Willey both drew their revolvers and
began to fire.  Sutton ran into the store, and Willey after him.  On my
crying out, "Don't shoot in here!" Sutton made for the back door, and
Willey covering him witht he revolver swinging it to the right and left as
he ran.  On Sutton going through the back door, he fell, and Willey shot
him when down.  But Sutton was mortally wounded before he went through the
store.  He died in a few hours after.

There was a saloon below the store, and I always got up earlier than the
rest of the clerks to sweep my store and be ready, Mr. Button usually not
coming down until late.  Thus I got many good customers on their coming in
early and finding me ready to wait on them.  They would come back the next
time if they liked the way they were treated.  On one of these mornings,
McKnabb, a gambler, rode up just as I had the store swept out before
sunup,a nd asked the French baker on the other side of my store where
Willey killed Sutton, to hold his horse.  Going into the Saloon below me,
we heard a revolver go off.  In a moment, out comes McKnabb, revolver in
hand.  The French Baker, being scared, dropped the rein of the horse, and
McKnabb says, "I've a notion to shoot YOU."  You are a pretty fellow to
hold a horse."

But catching the reins before the horse started, McKnabb mounted and put
spurs to the horse, and away he went.  It seems Conner and McKnabb had
been gambling all night and falling out.  Conner having, it was said,
waked up one of his chums one night and said, "You make a pretty looking
face for a man that is going to be shot," and shoots the man, killing him
instantly.  The bar keeper related that McKnabb repeated this same phrase
word for word to Conner on waking him up, and shot him just above the eye.

And that was all the tragedy occurring while working in the store for
Button.

But one day, a fine-looking man came into the store while Button was gone
to dinner, and says, "Have you any white shirts here?"

On throwing some four-dollar shirts onto the counter, he says to me, "Have
you got any better than those?"

On giving him some five-dollar shirts to look at, he says, "I will take
two of them."

On doing them up, he says, "I am going into the Barber Shop here to put
one on, and then I'll come in and pay for them."

To this I remarked, "You are a stranger to me."

He remarked, "I know Mr. Button, and will come in and pay for them."

He looked just like the picture of Melancton that Comb in his Phrenology
gives to show that it was impossible for a man who had such a shaped head
to do anything wrong.  He left the store, taking the shirts without my
permission.  On Button coming back from dinner, I told him the story.
"What was his name?" says Button.

On my telling him that he gave his name as Boon Helms, Button remarked,
"Never let him have anything else.  He will never pay for them, never
intended to when he got them."

In a few moments, in walked Boon, and says to Mr. Button, "I got two
shirts here of the clerk.  I will call and pay for when I get the money."

"All right," says Button, and it surprised me to hear him tell Boon this.

But as soon as Helms left the store, Button says, "I never pass him if I
have any shooting irons but I keep my finger on the trigger.  He would
kill me in a moment if he dare.  I put him out of the hotel at The Dalles
when I was running the house, and he has killed two or three men."

'Twas plain Button was afraid to refuse him credit.

The strange feature of this man, it is said there were seven brothers in
this family, and all fine-looking.  That the five dead had all died with
boots on, signifying someone had killed them, and the two, Boon and Tex
Helms, were deserving the same fate.

We were never in a region before where there was so much crime and murder.

The mines for the most part ruled by gamblers.  But even these gamblers
had some ideas of justice between man and man, and were divided off into
different classes or cast.  None of them associated with the highwaymen,
then so plentiful in this locality.  One day, seven highwaymen came into
the street of Centerville (we only HAD one street), built a fire, and went
to cooking dinner.  Not an officer or man dare arrest one of them.  We put
out a large guard that night, but not a store was molested.

One more event, and we will close the criminal scenes that took place in
our dooryard or store.  One afternoon, Mr. Phillips, a Packer, came to our
store with a cargo of goods.  After unloading the mules, he ask if he
could make his bed down on the floor of the store.  Mr. Button told him he
could.  Button and myself being very busy all day, having sold fifteen
hundred dollars worth of goods that day and not going to bed very early
that night.  Mr. Phillips comes in to make down his bed, when Mr. Button
says to Mr. Phillips, "We have done pretty well this day, selling fifteen
hundred dollars worth."

To which Mr. Phillips takes out a large buckskin purse and shaking at Mr.
Button says, "I am not quite broke," we just having paid him seven hundred
dollars.

At this time, James Bruin, a man who bought his tobacco of us, was looking
at some tobacco but did not buy, and thinking strange he did not, for he
had always bought his tobacco of us, we closed the store just as Phillips
went to bed.

The store was all finished except one corner pretty high up from the
ground, did not have the floor laid.  We should judge this unlaid floor
about three feet square.  And we kept some boxes sat over the hole until
Mr. Bryant, my friend, could get the flooring sawed to finish his
contract.  Mr. Button would neither carry the keys to the store nor the
money.  But Mr. Bryant and Murphy, who built the store, had a large,
double bed in one corner of the store where they slept and took care of
the store's cash, there being no safe in town at that time.  My business
was to lock them in at the front and take the door key with me to my tent
where I slept.  The back door of the store was bolted with iron bars, so
the inmates could get out that way.

In the morning, coming to the store, unlocking the door, and having got
the store swept about half way, I heard Phillips say, "If I ain't robbed!
Damn me!"

On going up to him, he says, "If I ain't robbed!  Damn me!"

He had a large revolver under his head which was taken out and laid just
out of his reach on the floor, a hole cut through the pocket of his pants
showed the thief had pulled at the pants, and finding them fast, had cut
their way through and taken the money that way.  Phillips had a good
watchdog laying at his side that he thought no one could pass.  But all
was gone.  If the thief had gone back tot he double bed where Bryant and
Murphy slept, they could have got from two to three thousand dollars.  All
was shrouded in mystery.

But on John Creighton coming up in the fall, on telling him about the
theft, he says, "Was anyone int he store when Phillips went to bed?"

"No one but James Bruin," was my reply.

"Well," says Creighton, "he is the man that got the money.  His name is
NOT Bruin but Brown.  He is one that got away from San Quinton the time of
the break.  None of them fellows will steal from me, and it shows that the
man who got that money did not want to rob the store, or they would have
went back to where Bryant and Murphy slept and robbed them."

If anyone suspected me, I never heard of it, and we think not, for we had
to take care of all the cash of the store as long as we stay in the employ
of these merchants.  And this was the most difficult part of the affair.
On nights, after blowing out all the lights, we would pull back the beans
int he barrel, and sink the bags of dust as deep down in the barrel as
convenient.  The next night, for fear some rogue might see you take the
sack out of the beans, you must put into a coffee sack, gum boot, box, or
up behind the bolts of calico, and so on, never hiding in the same place
for fear someone see you take the money bags from the place of lodgment.

There were few ladies here, but more than in California during the early
days.  Like other regions where the snow falls deep, the miners, as far as
possible, went out of the basin to winter.  And my losing the Express
Agency, as stated before, by Tracy and King selling out to Wells and
Fargo.  The latter being the principle cause of my return to California.
This time of year you could get plenty of opportunities to come down with
returning freight teams.  But they travel so slow it took three weeks from
the basin to Yumatilla Landing.  Then eighteen dollars from Yumatilla
Landing to Portland, Oregon.

Bidding adieu to my old friends and promising John Creighton to return in
the spring, we started with Drews Teams to the Webfoot Nation.  It was a
long, tedious journey, and we concluded to take leg bail and try our
under-standers once more for to reach the Willamet Valley.

On reaching the Yumatilla one morning early, about twenty passengers sat
down about half starved at a hotel--if we can call such a hotel--to eat
breakfast.  We kept asking what time the boat started, when the landlord
said, "Oh, you have plenty of time.  Eat your breakfast, plenty of it,
before starting."

When nearly done breakfast, the whistle blew, and the passengers saying,
"That is the last whistle."  All broke for the boat.  She had just pulled
in the planks, and we tried every way to get the boats to take us aboard
without success.

Mad, tired,and determined we would not patronize that Steam Boat line, all
determined to walk it through to The Dalles.  But when ready to start,
only one man of the twenty started with me.  Having asked and been told
that the country from Yumatilla to The Dalles was settled, we started with
about one day's rations for The Dalles.  Down the Columbia river,
stretches of sand and no beat road except a trail, we found when too late
we were out on a wilderness journey, uninhabited and untraveled.  My
companion, a fine walker but too heavy loaded or he would have left me to
the mercy of the Indians, for it seemed no ferocious animal except Indians
could live in that land.  We got out of food the second day, but coming to
a squad of Indians drying salmon, my companion could eat the salmon, but
they were so fat or my stomach so weak they sickened me, and I could not
eat them.  This was all the squad of Indians we saw, and no game of any
kind.  But we had the fortune away up the river to met a man at a camp who
represented himself as being a keeper of a mail station.  He let us have a
small piece of bacon half he had and a small piece of bread, and we found
out we would not reach settlements for forty miles.  Yet footsore, my
campanion blaming me for telling him the country was settled, he would
have left me only he was too heavily loaded.  In twelve miles upt he river
from The Dalles, we came to a house and saw a squaw but no white man.  She
spoke English, and gave us all she had, some cold Irish Potatoes with
salt.  Having nothing to eat of note for twenty-four hours, we never ate
anything that tasted any better, and should have killed ourselves only the
potatoes gave out.

Reaching The Dalles, taking boat, we had invested in all the adventures we
wanted for the next twelve months, and were somewhat rested before
reaching Portland.

After resting in Portland, we set out on foot for California.  Came to
Salem.  Leaving Oregon City to our left, being in no hurry.  We stopped
with these good people up the Willamut until we reached the head of the
valley at Eugene.  The most beautiful valley.  The kindest people.  But
you did not want to tell them you was a Californian. And if the
Californians in general used them as some that claimed to be honest,
respectable citizens of Trinity County, we do not blame any citizen of
Oregon for hating us.  These gold hunters on the way to Idaho made their
boast to me that they never bought a bit of meat through the entire state
and had bear meat and wild turkey all the way.  Their bear meat was
pork,and the turkeys tame.  Such men are a disgrace to the Modocs, and out
to be lodged in the State Prison.

We took the stage at the head of the Willamet to rest us a little.  But
before leaving this great valley, the finest we ever beheld, let us look
at the caravans.  The roads to Portland was lined with Men, Women, and
Children going down to Egypt not for corn but groceries, cloting, and to
sell the wheat, oats, hogs, cattle, and fowl of the entire valley.  It
reminded one of reading of the traffic on the Nile.  For all the families
were supplied from Roseberg, on the Umpqua to Salem by loading wagons of
all descriptions and teams of every possible kind with every imaginable
product of that clime and taking these products into Portland and
exchanging for every possible wear and groceries to do during the six
months winter's mud.  The only objection to this region is the damp
climate.  Mud, mud, mud for six months.  Cereals growing in the shock
before threshing.

How we reached home we do not recollect all the various walks and rides.
But we well remember the worst scare we met with.  On leaving Scotts
Valley early one morning, we saw just at break of day a ragged, tall,
dark-looking man coming towards me, having a  very quick, restless step,
and coming down Scotts Mountain so early, the first thought, a robber,
came into my mind.  Having carried about Six Hundred Dollars on my person
from Idaho down this Columbia River road and to within sixty miles of
home, was I to be robbed now?  On passing him, he seemed crazy, and so he
was, we learned afterwards.

Reaching home at Minersville in two more days, we found my brother,
Thomas, very much worse.  The home folks were all fairly well, but my dear
and oldest brother was past going.  Only as we hitched up a yoke of oxen
and took him round from place to place.  He would eat, and then get up on
his elbows and knees in the bed, and suffer so intent it seemed to us he
would die.  To all it seemed the end must be approaching.  All were very
good to him.  Pat Griffin or Mr. Fogerty, on going to Trinity Center or
Weaverville, would bring out as high as eight or ten dollars worth of
medicines or dainties at a time, but we could never get them to take a
cent for anything done for Dear Tommie.  They would say Tommie's debts
were all paid long years ago.

I got back to Minersville with about five hundred dollars after it was
coined.  My father owed a store bill of one hundred and fifty dollars to
Fogerty and Griffin.  On my going to pay this bill, Pat in his usual way
had to swear about everything, and says, "Now, John, I don't want to take
every damn cent you got, and I'll tell you just what I am going to do.
Your Father has been preaching round here, and I am going to just take one
hundred dollars and call it square."

He owed seventy-five dollars butcher bill for meat.  The Meat Market man
took the seventy-five dollars.  William left a debt when he went into the
Union Army of seventy dollars.  The Griffons were rank Rebbels, but Pat
says, "When a man goes into the army, all his debts are paid."  But I paid
this bill.

And a good joke come up on the Griffins and Fogerty this winter.  The
Griffins had a younger brother back in Louisville, Kentucky, who the
Griffins and Fogerty had highly educated.  This brother enlisted in the
Union Army, got promoted to a Colonel.  In the Perrysville fight under
Buell, Griffin done wonders with his regiment, got his flag all shot in
Riddles.  But on the close of the battle, the ladies at Louisville made a
fine silk flag and presented it to Griffin.  One of the Union Miners,
getting a glowing description of the battle and presentation of this flag,
lays the paper away for a suitable occasion to present this article to the
firm.  It was not many days after when the elder Griffin coming out from
Weaver to see Pat and Mr. Fogerty, when he, about half drunk, begins a
harangue against the Union Army.  When this miner takes out the paper and
gives Maurice Griffin the eulogy on his brother to read.  It was a poser,
none of the Griffins or Fogerty having seen it.  They offered, of course,
to treat the crowd.

All I could do this winter was to take care of my brother.  He became very
peevish and hard to suit.  The one who turned him in the bed, raised him
to take his soup, etc.  He got quite used to their manner of lifting him,
and woud wait for hours for that individual, if away, to return.  He would
not let my mother cook a thing for him, saying, "I did not come home for
Mother to wait on me.  The girls are able to do that."

He could not bear the least noise.  My younger sister, Hatty, if she came
into his room on tiptoe, he would not take his eye off from her until she
left.  But my sister, Lucy, could just suit him.  There was a mute used to
come and bring him flowers, but this boy, being about fifteen years old,
come to the house one day.  His Parents lived about one hundred yards away
in plain view of our house.  His father having gone afishing that day (and
to annoy more than anything else), began rattling a chain.  My brother,
Thomas, told me to go out and order him away, but he would not go.  Then
my brother said, "Take a stick and drive him off."

On attempting this, he seized me, tore my shirt nearly off of me, and I
had to push him onto the hard gravel road for to hold him.  His face being
down, he got his nose on the hard ground, and in the scramble, it got
badly bruised and bled furiously.  At the sight of the blood, he started
for home, gave a mute groan like someone dying, the blood covering the
front of his person.  He was a desparate sight to behold.  We did not know
what to do, but my sister, Lucy, ran over to Mrs. Leach to tell her how
the affair occurred before Mr. Leach returned.  Here Pat Griffin helped me
out.  All were fearful the father would blame me.  But on Mr. Leach coming
home, he nearly always stopped at the store, and done so this time, when
Pat says to Mr. Leach, "We had quite an excitement in town today."

"What was that?" says Mr. Leach.

"Oh, Johnny Morris and George had a fight, and George come near getting
away with John.  He tore Johnny's shirt nearly off from his back, and tore
one pants leg up to the knee."

Fred weighed two hundred and forty pounds, the fastest man on foot for
forty yards, and the stoutest man in the camp, laughed, and although he
was very sensitive about anyone touching his half-idiot boy, he never
mentioned the affair to me.

All the miners took a great interest in my brother, Thomas: were ready to
set up and do anything in their power for him.  He became more devoted to
God every day of his life.  He would reprove me for reading Harper's or
Frank Leslie's Magazine--did not want them in his room.  "Oh," he would
say, "what have I to bring as an offering to God?  If I had read my Bible
and lived on my knees I should now have something to bring along with me."

We had a good, Old Father living with us, a good Methodist Preacher by the
name of Speck, that held the first camp meeting we attended in Napa.  He
was a great blessing to my brother, Thomas.  Taking him in full connection
in the church and baptizing him.  Father Speck prayed with and for him.
And my brother seemed very much resigned to his situation and destiny.

We had a good, live membership of profes

***** Here is a huge gap--perhaps the entire half of a cassette tape.
--Joe Devin.

     All of these added sorrow to sorrow.  And my brother-in-law, being
with no success, determined to go back to Iowa as soon as spring opened.
It is but reasonable to suppose that people who have made well in any
locality will think after losing somewhere else that they can return to
fields where fortune smiled and make again.

     But my sick brother absorbed all my attention.  He never rallied
anymore.  Only took his morphine, and suffered on.

     Little of interest occurred during the winter.  Some of Pat's
laughable jokes returned to him.  One day, Peline Fellows, a jeweller,
coming to the store one week day, there was no miners in town, and Pat was
going to shet up the store and go up horseback to the big Ranch on
Stewart's Fork of Trinity.  Fellows, the jeweller, always called to see my
brother, Thomas, after buying his supplies.  After having bought a long
pair of gum boots and some other small articles, and leaving them at the
store, tells Pat he would be along before he closed the store to go up to
the Ranch.  While Pat was left alone, he fills Fellows' gum boots with
Irish potatoes.  Coming by our house, tells Fellows he had put the
articles in his gum boots, and set them outside the store for him when he
got ready to start. Fellows stayed quite a while, and on going to the
store to start home, I walked across the street with him.  But on Fellows'

taking hold of the boots, they felt too heavy, and looking in, he saw the
Irish potatoes.  Taking them out, he lays them all on the door sill in a
row.  Turning to me, he says, "Have you any wire."  On being told we had
not, he says, "Oh, that would be too bad.  'twould fix him."  He took
small pieces of wood, whittled them in core shape, and putting them in the
key hole, he would turn them 'round, and break them off, until he filled
the keyhole full of wood, and says, "That will be enough for this joke."

  When the citizens of the town began to come home, up rides Pat, gets off
from his horse, takes out his key, and going up to the door, gives a jag
with the key, takes a good look, and gets up and looks up and down the
street to see if anyone was looking, then he goes to the back door of the
store. Coming back, he goes to each window, and examines to no use. Then
he comes over to tell my brother, Thomas, and asked him how to proceed.
When being told the only way to proceed would be to take the doors off
from the hinges, he proceeded to take off all the hinges, the lock and
all.

    By this time, a carpenter coming along told Pat all he need to have
done was to take off the lock, and he could have lifted the doors right
out of the hinges.  Pat says, "What a damned fool!  I've moulded thousands
of them, and knew that."  He was a pattern-cutter and moulder in the
foundry at Louisville, Kentucky.  It took a carpenter and two or three men
half a day to repair the damages.  We never heard of Pat playing any more
pranks on Fellows.

     The culminating point in my watch experience happened in this town.
On crossing the plains the first time, I had two silver watches.  One, a
Liverpool, Thomas Yates Scapement watch, the other a Bulls Eye.  The
Scapement watch ran until we got about half way up the Platte, when on
yoking oxen one morning, I broke the crystal out.  On laying it away, the
Bulls Eye would not run.  When getting to California, and taking it to a
watch maker, it never would run for me anymore.  I traded it to Franklin
Ellis, and it ran for him seventeen years without going to the shop.  The
Bulls Eye a carpenter bought for $5, and he started the watch, and as long
as we knew him, it was running.  At Minersville one night, having to set
up with my sister to give medicine, I borrowed Maurice Griffin's watch.
It stopped on me, and refused to run until taking it to a hop, and having
it repaired.  It cost me eight dollars.  I never opened the watch all
night.  One evening at the debate, they elected me president, and I asked
Pat Griffin for his watch, it being a duplicate of the watch borrowed from
Maurice when I set up to give medicine, both being fine gold watches.  And
Pat, being present at this debate, saw that I never opened or interfered
with his watch, but simply laying it down on the table to time the
speakers.  It stopped on me, and went no more until taken to the shop.  He
charged me nothing, for he knew I never opened it during the debate.  Some
years after buying a full-jewelled Liverpool, pure silver watch costing
$35, it would run for my sister, but not for me.  She carried it while
teaching school, and it done all right, but on bringing it home, it would
never run, and lay in my trunk.  My nieces sent, and got me a Nifocase $17
watch at Montgomery Ward Chicago, and it cose me three dollars per year to
keep it running, and it done no good.  But on my son getting a dust-proof
case, it has run fairly well.  These are all the watches I ever owned, and
have the greater part of life gone without a watch.

     The most that occuppied our minds during the winter was the meetings,
the Good Templars, and the church.  Many of the miners come when we had
preaching.  Occassionally some of the pranks of an innocent nature would
crop out.  One April Fool's evening, my sister, Lucy, whittled out potato
candles, and put to the officers' stands.  She made them so perfect,
blackening the wick, that no one mistrusted the joke, after lighting many
matches.

     The deputy sherrifs flogged some Chinamen for not being able to pay
their taxes.

     My brother, Thomas, growing weaker, I was confined to the room most
of January and February, waiting on him.  His indegestion growing worse,
we could find little he could eat.  Having to stay with him so much, my
nerves became somewhat unstrung, and Father, noticing my condition, said
something would have to be done to relieve me.  One evening it was so
arranged that I should go to bed in another room, having all winter slept
in his room on a bed where we had a stove, and he could wake me any
moment.  My sister, Lucy, was to take my place, and set up with my sick
brother.  On my going to bed, having not yet got to sleep, my sister came
to my room, telling me that Tommy was having a bad spell, and wished me to
come and set up with him until he got out of it, and then I could go to
bed.  Dressing myself, and coming into his room, my sister sat up quite
late to take my place when returning to my room, but he was so bad, and
seeming imprudent for me to leave him, we sent my sister back to bed.  He
kept calling for ice.  There being plenty, we gave him all he wanted.  He
picked up a Westonhouse pen knife he had paid $2.50 for at Sosoon, and
says, "If I live, that is mine.  If I die, it is yours."  On his getting
easy, he insisted on my lying down on the bed by him, while he could touch
my toes at any time all the winter, to wake me when he wanted anything.
This was about four o'clock in the morning.  No sooner reaching the bed
than I fell asleep.  Having a faint recollection when waking up that
someone called me, and touched my toes.  My brother grit his teeth, and on
raising up, it was evident he was speechless and dying.  It was just
sun-up on notifying my parents.  It being so unusual for them to sleep
this late.  We ran across the street, notifying the neighbors.  He lasted
some two hours, perfectly conscious, but could not speak.  Then was gone
all that was mortal of Thomas Morris.  Early to rest.  Thirty-two years
old.  Beloved and respected by all.  But the best of all, his pure spirit
had left the abode of pain and sorrow, for he had much, although he always
wore a cheerful, happy look.  The quiet life he leads, the labors that he
bore, scarcely resting, only as he slept, truly a framework of fibers too
delicate for what his active mind had undertaken to perform.  We wept, not
that he was anchored safe in a better port, but that love's emblem lift
from the eyes that had gazed on a sweet face we could no more behold,
until the Angel call shall with the trumpet's blast free us from the clash
of war, and oppression of the tyrant by giving us a passport to the
unpretending though wise spirit of the son, brother, and patriot of this
troubled land that gave him birth.  On sending a telegram to Trinity
Center for shrouding, the wires sent the sad but joyful end of the sainted
brother to Weaverville and Sosoon.  The editor of the Trinity Journal and
Thomas Carr, on one of the most stormy nights of this winter, got into a
buggy at Weaverville, and drove eighteen miles over a rough mountain road
to Minersville to see if we wished him buried under the auspices of the I.
O. O. F. at Weaverville.  But we prefered having him buried at Bateses,
one mile below Minersville, where two or three of the miners were buried.

     Some two or three years after, while at Idaho, sending my sister,
Lucy, one hundred and twenty dollars for tombs, she had the body removed
and intered at Oddfellows' Cemetary, at Weaver.  He was the oldest of the
children of nine, and went to work away from home at fifteen years,
helping the parents raise the younger members of the family.  He was the
best axeman of his size we ever saw enter a forest, weighing 125 pounds.
In fact, he was hard to beat with an axe by anyone.  We never saw but
three or four men who could out-chop him, and they weighed 180 pounds.
Raised a farmer, but he could do nearly anything in wood. Well read.  A
good debator, and of most excellent wit.  But he never engaged in
witticisms after he was grown.

     One sad scene he told me of when he crossed the plains with John
Shroes in 1852 I will relate here for preservation.  He was sick up the
Platte, and at times very feeble.  He became acquainted with a young lady
who used to joke him in the Ohio train.  The train he was in and the Ohio
Train camping together sometimes.  And my brother being feeble, this Young
Lady would cook up nice things, and bring my brother, telling him she had
some nice boards in the bottom of her wagon, and she would see he had a
nice coffin made, and some nice lining shrouding in the bottom of her
trunk.  She would see had a nice burial.  And always joking and carrying
him dainties. One day, after the Ohio Train had quit traveling and camping
with the Shroes' train, my brother getting able to walk, and getting
behind the Shroed train, on trying to catch up, he came to another train
camped near the road, and a man coming up to him says, "There is a lady in
that tent who wants to see you."  On going to the camp, he saw it was the
Ohio Train, and entering the tent, he saw this same Young Lady who had
joked and cooked and cared for him so tenderly, lying on a bed.  She
reached her hand, but could not speak.  She was dying with cholera.

     (One thing forgotten:  Father Speck preached my brother's funeral,
and he fairly beat himself.  One lady said that there was not a dry eye in
the house.)

     The spring having come, my brother dying in the month of March 1864,
my brother-in-law Martin began to rig a wagon for to cross the plains back
to Iowa, where his father and relatives lived. My people once in awhile
mentioned to me we had all better go back where we had been so prosperous.

 But not countenancing these suggestions, they said little to me of the
matter.  Having an engagement with John Creighton for the summer, I began
to arrange to return to Idaho, thinking my people could not make an outfit
to cross back with Martin.  Not expecting to start for a week or two, but
a team coming along that would take me to Trinity Center, I picked up my
clothes, and bidding my parents a hasty farewell, I got into the wagon and
faced what it takes a stout heart to do, my mother's and sister's tears.
But the saddest scene met my eyes up the road over one mile above on my
road to Trinity Center.  My sister, Mrs. Martin, lived here; and begging
my friends to let me run into her house, and bade her farewell.  Never
before did we know how frail she was.  Sick for years, expecting her to
die so long, we had been indifferent to the approach of the destroyer.
But then we saw plainly that we, in all human probability, would never
meet again on earth.  Then her words, "Oh.  I did not know you were off so
soon.  Good-bye.  I know you are good to write."  And the tears stiffling
both hearts.  It was a sad day to my poor, bleeding heart.  We took the
stage for Portland, Oregan.  We think the fare was sixty dollars.  We ran
to Jacksonville, Oregon, before stopping overnight.  Then we took the
stage again, and rode day and night until reaching Portland.  We think it
took five days and nights.  Many strange, funny, and sad things happened
during this trip.  We met with Jesse Applegate, who surveyed our land in
Bates County, Missouri, when I was a child.  In Douglas County, Oregon,
went over the Corduroy roads Joe Hooker built when he was fighting Indians
in the Umpqua region of the country. Saw grouse so thick one could kill
them with stones.  Met Jones, the great, witty stage driver, who knew
enough when drunk to get someone to drive for him, and he was a little
boozy when we met him, just enough so to ask all out to walk every little
hill he came to.  It is said of T. Star King, that he bought a ticket on
the stage from Sacremento to Portland when Jones was driving on this line.

 All went well until getting to the Calipoos Mountains, where during the
winter months they would pile up tons of U. S. mail at Oakville, and hitch
onto a cart with four horses to go down the worst canyon on the entire
road before reaching Canyonville.  Jones drove out his fine George Horses
to hitch onto the cart, when King says, "What are you going to do with
that cart?"

     "Take the mail through the canyon," was Joneses reply.

     "I cannot ride on that cart," says King.

     "If you ride with me, you will have to go on that cart."

     "Have you no buggy you could take me in?"

     "No, Sir. That is all we can get through the canyon with.  If you go
with me, you will have to go on that cart."

     King offered to pay extra.  No use.  Finally King says, after trying
every ingenuity, always modest, "Probably you don't know who I am."

     "No, Sir."

     "Well, I am T. Star King, of San Francisco."

       "If you are T. Star, God Almighty, if you go with me, you will have
to mount that cart."

     And T. Star King mounted the cart, and away they went.

     We never saw so much abuse on a mail route as on this.  The drivers
would pile the U. S. mail up to the bows on the stage, then the passengers
would climb as best they could up on the sides of these stacks of mail,
and away they would go.  The postmaster in some localities would take out
the mail, and pour it out behind a tree or stump, and change the local
mail when it was raining.  Such roads we never remember seeing.  It rained

about one half the time, we should judge, this April, as we went through
the Willamet Valley.  At the Long Tom, in the night, we came to a mud
bottom, we should judge about half a mile wide.  I was sick that night,
and two politicians were aboard, an Ex-Congressman, and Governor somebody
(we think Wood), and some three other passengers.  The stage driver says,
"All out here."  All got out but one fellow, and the stage driver says,
"Are all out?"

     "One fello-passenger says, "All but one."

     The stage driver says, "You will have to get out, or we will stick."

     "Stick it is!  Wells & Fargo can hitch on more horses.  They are a
rich company."

     One man, we think it one of the politicians, says, "That man is
sick."

     "Oh, well," says the driver, "that's all right," and on he went.  We
did not stick.  But we think from the splash of mud and water, these
passengers must have went about half knee-deep in the water, and made not
a complaint from anyone.  But it was an imposition for a rich company to
advertise for passengers and give no comfortable seats half the way from
Jacksonville to Portland.  Mr. Thomas, we think, was the name of the
division superintendent that got on the stage at Salem for Portland.

     Near Oregon City, we got threw off of one of these stacks of mail
onto the wheel of the stage, and badly hurt.  On climbing up onto the
mail, the driver starts.  When I says, "I wish you would stop until I fix
my seat or get, one," the driver says, "I don't care a damn which."

     Then the division agent sitting with the driver says, "Stop until the
man gets fixed."

     He stopped, and on reaching Portland, I expected to sue the company,
but there were only two passengers aboard, one a German, who did not speak
good English, and one back-woods American.  They were crazy to get to the
mines, and making up my mind that if they found out I was going to sue the
company and they would be detained at Portland that they would dodge me.
They were both so opposed to my prosecuting the company, I gave the matter
up.  But Mr. Stackpole, of Idaho, told me afterwards that he was well
acquainted with the agent at Portland, and if I had just went over to his
office and stated the facts, proving them by these two men, they would
have paid me two or three thousand dollars rather than have the matter
exposed.  I spit some blood, and did not get over the hurt for three
months, and the most probable thing was that I got one or two ribs broke.
Here we missed the best opportunity of getting damages, and that justly
too, from a rich company, we ever had.  We would not pass through what we
endured that trip for a moneyed consideration.  We met for the most part
good men driving stage, but one of the drivers told me in after years when
passing over this line that the company kept this great, overgrown bully
that drove when I was threw out, to do the flogging, that he had a fight
every few months with someone, and on this bad section of the road they
kept him on purpose to domineer over the passengers.  We did not stop long
at Portland, but taking the steamer for Yumatela, we found an Oregonian
with saddle train for Boyce Basin.  The fare was $40 for the trip, and you
got your board by cooking it yourself.  There were about forty or fifty
men in this saddle train.  Among them was Judge Wight, an English lawyer
who spent some twenty years in the employ of the English government in
India and China, according to his statements, and who wrote the first
guide to Cariboo.  He was an interesting man, and going to Idaho City.
The firm I worked for gave him some law business to attend to.  We had one
West Pointer who took a wild horse and practiced jumping ditches until his
horse would jump quite a stream.  Before reaching Idaho, on one of these
occassions of camping, a funny affair come up with an intelligent Irishman
and an Englishman.  The Irish did not seem to be of foreign birth, but a
clear, clean-cut American.  Shakespear, as we called the Englishman, was
well-read but conceity, and as usual, these two men, cooking and eating in
the same mess, did not agree.  When one day Shakespear, on going to hunt
some firewood, the Oregonian who was taking them to the mines says to the
Irishman then in camp, "You and Shakespear ought not to disagree, both of
you being the same nationality."

     The Irishman says, "By no means!  He is an Englishman."

     "No, Sir!" says the Oregonian, "Shakespear told me he was an
Irishman."

     "Well," says the Irishman, "If he doesn't say 'hegs' for 'eggs,' I
will give it up."

     On the Englishman coming with his wood, knowing nothing of the chat,
when the fire was built, the Oregonain says, "Now we have the ham.  If we
only had some eggs."

     "Yes," says Shakespear, "I'd like some hegs myself."

     All laughed heartily, and the Oregonian doubled nearly up.  On
Shakespear hearing the joke, he turns to the Oregonian, and says, "I will
bet you two and a half you don't know why a man goes to bed."

     In goes the hand of the Oregonian to his pocket, and pulling out a
two-dollar-and-a-half gold piece, he says, "Who will hold stakes?"

     "Stakes up," says the judge.

     "Why?" says the Oregonian.

     "Because the bed don't come to him."

     Shakespear says, "You can take the money."

     We met the first Greybacks on this trip we had ever beheld.  On
stopping where a great many had camped, someone says, "This place is alive
with greybacks!" and I saw a few of these pests.

     We had a very nice crew.  The war was in full blast, and one would
scarcely think so many men could travel three hundred miles together and
have so little bitter feelings.  The majority of our company were Rebels.
The West Point man was a very intelligent, fine-looking young man, not
more than thirty years old.  At this time, people had come out from
Oregon, and established stopping places where people could get meals for
one dollar, and you could spread your blankets on the floor of these
eating houses if it looked rainy. One evening, some seventeen of our party
concluded to stop overnight where things looked pretty neat, and we spread
our Blankets on the floor of the dining room.  There was a large dog
concluded he would lodge with us. He always went to judge Wight's bed.
The next morning, the landlord spoke in very flattering terms of his dog,
when one says, "I don't know how about that.  He appears to keep bad
company.  He seemed to be on the hunt of Republicans last night."

     "Oh, well," says the landlady, "I'd be glad he would exterminate all
of them."

     One man says, "He is a good judge of human nature, for on hunting a
bed, he universally went to Judge Wight, and the judge is the most
intellectual man in the crowd."

     The landlady went on at great rate about black Republicans.  She did
not want any of them 'round where she was.  When we began to count vote,
there were but two of the seventeen but were Republicans that stopped
overnight, and paid $2.50 for their fare.  All the rest went out to a
willow patch and camped, and the most of that crew were rebels.

     One thing we met up the Snake River region.  Many of the small
mountain streams were lined with salmon, that we presumed had come up the
Columbia and then up the Snake River for hundreds of miles.  When they had
reached these banks of the small streams, they were clear worn out and
dying, lined the shores so thick in places that they stank, and become
quite obnoxious to the traveller.

     On this tedious journey we were about three weeks, besides spending
One Hundred and Seventy Dollars.  There was one feature of these
Oregonians peculiar to them.  The men seemed slow of thought, rather dull,
and simple in look.  On asking a question along the road, while a man was
studying what to say, the ladies of the house would out-wit the answer.
On the other hand, the ladies always seemed bright, cheerful, and full of
chat.  This caused some comment, and puzzled some of the wits, and the
most general conclusion was that the climate had much to do with the
matter.  It rains so much in winter that the men sit 'round, and when it
clears up, being an easy place to get a living, the men think as they have
done during the winter so they can continue.  But the women, having their
regular routine of labor each day, they become more active and quicker of
perception.  There may be also a climactical benefit for women in this
climate other than that of their everyday occuppation.  The inclination
favors fair skin most assuredly.  To a greater extent than Californians,
they live for comfort, and to have something to enjoy. Very rarely they
ever aspire to amass so great fortunes at this age.  Friendly, hospitable,
and kind, very little caste.  Great for good stock of horses and cattle.
We never saw as fine stage horses as the George stock, all deep bay, and
fine travellers and pullers.  Not very large, but of uniform size.

     The war element in Idaho was chiefly Southern, and the roads were
lined with Southern sympathizers from all parts of the united states.
Being too far away from any rule, and too small a population for the
government to send troops to coerce or suppress any views that might be
advanced by these men who come here to be free, as they called it, and to
speak their minds.

     We reached the Basin before there had been much done in the way of
mining, and went to work for John Creighton in the Centerville Store.  The
Southern element was somewhat thinned out during the winter.  These
Southern men were not so used to inure the cold and do any kind of work
that come up as the North.  More of them went out of the mines to winter,
and some never returned.  But at the fall elections, it was plain to be
seen that the rebel element had very largely the ascendancy.  And there
was a fault even with the Union men.  They came her to dig gold, not to
meddle in politics, and Pinkham, the Old Sherif, was little else than a
gambler.  His office, purporting to be worth Thirty Thousand Dollars per
year, was  principally spent in the saloons and other places no more
worthy of the Gentleman.

     Holebrook, the delegate to congress, was a Gambler, and the most
unscrupulous scamp.  He carried counterfeit dust.  A bully, and a
bloodthirsty rebel.  One day at Centerville, Holebrook was speaking, and
an Irishman drunk cries out, "What have you done with Mrs. McKibbin?"
Whereupon Holebrook gets down off from the stand, goes to the Irishman,
pulls out his revolver, and pounds the fellow over the head with the
revolver.  He returns to the stand, and finishes his speech, and the
assembly disperse.  Yet he had no trouble to get elected to congress.

     John Creighton was a rebel, but Button, the other partner, we never
heard open his mouth during all these trying times, and do not know what
he was, but think he was a conservative union man.  By the time we got
back to Centerville, Old John Kelly, the fiddler, had come to Centerville,
and was singing, "Abrahaam, Resign!"

     We got acquainted with all the leading miners at Centerville, and
many at Idaho City, Placerville, and Hogam.  There were scarcely any coins
in circulation.  Green Back no one wanted.  But occassionally we would
meet one of those compound gold-bearing interestnotes that very few people
have ever seen.  On laying up all I could get my eye upon, I sent my
sister, Lucy, $250 in this currency, charging her to put it in some safe
at Weaverville for safekeeping.  She was living at the County Clerk's of
Trinity County at that time.  On going to the Express Office for this
money, it seems some highwayman saw her get the money, and watched her.
She went to the County Clerk's, Jed Loumis'es, and went up to her dressing
room, opened her bank box, put the compound bearing interest notes into
the bank box, turning her hat over the bundle, and went downstairs.  In
the night, she was awakened by a man in her room.  She ran, and awoke the
county clerk and his wife.  They saw someone come downstairs.  A club
was left on my sister's bed.  The money was gone, and some $170 pure gold
jewellery of her own, an $80 gold chain was cut from my sister's neck, and
this is all known of my and her treasures to this day.  After being here
some three months, my mother wrote to me at Salt Lake City that they had
all except my sister Lucy gone, or were on the way, back to Iowa.  My
sister, Lucy, would not go back, but made arrangements with Mrs. Loumis to
go to Weaverville and live with them.  The first time I had ever been so
sorely tried by my parents, and come to the firm resolve I would
discontinue my support.  Business was not so good at Centerville as the
year before.  Yet we had mail facilities from Boyce City, and Ben
Holiday's line of Overland Stages was established this summer, and we got
papers and letters for paying the postage.

     Mr. Creighton concluded to establish a branch store at Hogam, now
changed the name to Pioneer City.  The first mines struck at Grimes Creek
were struck here, and an old wooden fort building here was called Fort
Hogam.

     At this creek were found what we never saw before: pebble rocks of an
egg shape were found with gold all through the rock, some of them larger
than a goose egg.  Also a loose, flat, slabby shell rock at Centerville
had gold in it.  There were no quartz mills of any size at Centerville or
Pioneer City.  Yet some of the quartz ledges seemed quite favorable for
paying rock.  We had plenty of opportunities to go into these ledges to
help develop the country, but were prejudiced so against quartz mining,
thinking and seeing so many ruined in California and Nevada by investing
all they had and getting thousands of dollars in debt that we never cared
to invest.  Wish I had been as careful in placer mines.  Then you had to
invest so much in quartz before you realized a cent, the assessments
usually eating up all the shares.

     Some amusing affairs came up with these Quartz Miners.  One company
ran a tunnel some hundred yards up into a mountain at Centerville, when
another party of men came along and claimed the ground.  The latter had no
right in justice or law, but threatening the rightful owners of the mine,
the two parties armed for mortal combat.  The only thing that gave any
tone to the jumpers was that one of the deputy sheriffs was among them.
The tunnel men went into the tunnel with double-barrel shotguns, and the
jumpers could not dislodge them.  This Pow-Wow was kept up all winter, and
none got hurt.  In fact, it was so monotonous that in the spring, the
jumping party, all cowards, became bankrupt, disbanded, and put an end to
the strife.

     After working some two months for John Creighton and Button at
Centerville, the long-expected goods for the Pioneer City store arrived,
and Mr. Creighton and myself came up five miles above Centerville on
Grimes Creek to Pioneer City, where he engaged in general merchandise,
having quite a good trade.

     He was no salesman himself, but a good hand to whiskey up the Irish.
He always kept a barrel of the best whiskey he could get sitting in one
corner of the store that he rarely ever sold anything out of.  But every
Irishman that come 'round, he always gave a full glass, and thus held the
Irish trade whenever that population gathered together.  I would neither
sell the nefarious stuff nor give it away, and thus offended some of his
good Irish customers when he was away, and could not be there to treat
them.  Creighton was the most interesting man we ever saw in the store.
With getting up late, he rarely ever ate breakfast before nine A. M.  Then

he would take a stroll out through town, and at dinner, he would tell me
every funny incident that occurred in the forenoon.  The same after
dinner.  The worst feature was his selfish proclivities.  He always got a
paper, would read it, and then ask your opinion about the matter.  He was
not much for controversy, but quite vindictive.  One day he came into the
store in quite a hurry with a paper in his hand, and opening it, he read,
"Burnsides Defeat at Fredericksburg," and says, "Lee's in Washington
before now, don't you think so?"

     "Oh, no."

     "Why?" says Creighton.

     "Oh, he may just stop at Arlington Heights long enough to peek into
sum of those guns before he goes in."

     "I will bet you $1,000 that Lee is in Washington!"

     "Oh, you know I don't bet on anything."

     There were two East Tennessee men in the next door who could hear
everything said.  They were from Oregon up to the Basin.  On Creighton
getting excited, he says, "I will bet any man $1,000 Lee is in
Washington!"  These Tennessee webb-foot merchants, very quiet, good
neighbors.  I liked them well, and we exchanged goods.  But Sir John got
the blood warmed up.  John was wonderfully stout built, while our
neighbors were tall, over six feet, and bony, and lean.  One of the
partners steps into the store with two sacks of gold dust, and lams down
on Creighton's counter, and says, "I am your man.  I'll put a thousand
dollars, or two thousand, so far as that is concerned, that Lee aren't in
Washington."

     Creighton took water, backed square down, but I could see he was mad.

 The merchant, picking up his bags of dust, says, "I'll bet you any amount

you wish that Lee never gets into Washington."

     John wouldn't bet.

     "No," says the Tennessee man, "He is too big a coward to bet on
anything unless he has a sure thing."  We suppose the latter refered to
Creighton being an old monty cheater.

     Creighton, after the man went out, goes behind the counter, takes
down the ledger, and I made up my mind he was going to discharge me.  But
without a word, he walks out of the store, and on my going to the ledger,
I found he had turned to my account, run up the columns, and saw what he
was owing me.  Then, of course, I expected my discharge.  But he soon come
into the store in a good humor, and says we had better not talk politics.

     "Well," I says, "I am willing.  You always begin.  You get the paper,
and read, then you ask my opinion.  And if a man asks my opinion, I aren't
going to lie to him if I give  an opinion at all."

      This was the first and last talk of any serious import.  He was a
Canadian by birth, raised, we infer, in East Tennessee for the greater
part, but had been nearly all over the United States.  A trapper in the
Rocky Mountains.  Had a squa or two for wives in the Rockies.  He told me
all about the marriage ceremony of one of these wives.  He rarely ever
swore an oath in my presence, and always at home of nights.  He was not a
disagreeable man to work for, and a good man to help one along in
business.  Not radical on any question.  He was very fond of a good joke,
and once in awhile entered into a prank.  His associations were among the
more wealthy businessmen of the place. One day he says to me at
Centerville, "I am going to the ball Saturday at the hotel, which I rarely
ever do."  He never got drunk himself during the time we were with him,
and we never heard of his being drunk.  This ball was at Centerville,
before we went up to Pioneer City.  On his return next day to the store,
he told me of the night's proceedings.  He got the two most wealthy
merchants of Centerville to go to the ball with him.  But before going, he
went 'round with these two merchants, and got them quite drunk.  Then they
went to several houses of ill fame, and borrowed all the flashy jewellery
they could, and on going to a dry-goods store, they had the clerk cut them
off a square yard of broad red striped gingham for neckties, and putting
them on with the jewellery, Mr. Creighton leading told them they were
suitably dressed for the occassion, and away they went for the ballroom.
It took two or three men to keep the wealthiest one of these two merchants
from getting into some knock-down-and-drag-out.  The other, claiming to be
a direct descendant of Pokahontus on asking the landlord's daughter to
dance with him.  She excused herself, telling him she would dance with him
the next set.  By the time the next set was to be danced, Creighton had
gotten Young Pokahontus too drunk that the young lady was shy of him, and
someone telling the merchant that he was too drunk to dance with the
landlord's daughter, and he, beginning to feel that he could not walk very
clear, concluded he would apologize to the young lady, and not dance with
her. But some of the male population, knowing the jewellery, it was noised
abroad where it come from, and whose it was, and the young ladies, of
course, were shy of these merchants, and the Pokahontus chief could not
get near enough the young lady to apologize.  But meeting her father, he
says, "I spoke to your daughter to dance with me this set, but I guess
under the peculiar circumstances under which I am of necessity placed at
the present time, if it will be of no offence to her, otherwise I will do
the best I can.  But it seems prudent to me, having some trouble to keep
step to the tune, I had better, according to the diplomacy of the
ballroom, be excused for the present time."

     The landlord, mad, says, "I don't care a damn whether you dance with
her or not."

      Upon this, young Pokahontus, feeling himself highly insulted by the
landlord, and being one of the first families of Virginnia, John Creighton
and young Pokahontus' friends had about all they could do to keep this
merchant from challenging the landlord to fight a duel.  The ball come
near being broke up by these three men.  But none of the party knew that
this whole racket was planned and carried out by John Creighton.  He only
appeared on the field as an arbiter and settler of these difficulties, and
only for his telling me of the matter, or I should have known nothing more
than the rest of the community that never attended such places.  But there
were a very few of that order up here at that time.

     It seemed strange to me how men would act up in these mines.  An old
man, a Deacon in the Presbyterian Church before he came to Centerville,
used to play cards with the gamblers, was as wicked as Lucifer would have
been.  Yet when one of these men he had thus sported with would die, he
would go to the grave and line a hymn, and sing, "Asleep in Jesus,
blissful sleep, from whence none ever wake to weep."

     We will end this Tragedy for the present, and may open something of a
better nature later on.

     End of Book 4.

***** Discontinuity.

[Beginning somewhere in Book VI.]

We refilled it for three hundred and sixty dollars.  But to this day we
know nothing further of the matter.  Only that my Jew Merchant at Pioneer
City would have kept the Barrel, only he thought that he made the mistake
himself in ordering.

Mr. Isaacs, on returning in the spring, knew no more than we did how the
whiskey got there.  But we all knew that the Vinegar would have been worth
about one tenth what we got for the whiskey.

We were sick of the business. One thing we had to do we did not like.
Grimes Creek dust would not, on an average, coin more than fifteen per
ounce in San Francisco.  But over at Placerville it would coin seventeen
per ounce.  Mr. Isaacs had a friend over there, and each Saturday, when
these miners cleaned up, he would send me over to Placer with as much dust
as we could get exchanged, Centerville or Placerville, and they would pay
off all the debts of the mining company with our dust.  And we would send
THEIR dust to San Francisco to have it coined, making two dollars on the
ounce.  But we divided this profit with the mining company, leaving us one
dollar per ounce.  Having this dust to lug over alone and the Placer dust
to lug back, we went afoot and alone, and men were being murdered for
their money every few weeks on these trails.  We took the precautions to
not let even our best friends know of this part of the business.  And
there being three trails from Centerville to Placer, we rarely ever
returned on the same one we went over on.

Another swindle in paying out dust.  There was no coin or Currency int he
basin of note.  Owyhie Dust would only coin twelve dollars.  Thousands and
thousands of this Owyhee dust was brought to Centerville and Idaho City,
and, we presume, all the other towns, for exchange.  And on paying
Packers, Hands, yea most any debts, they would mix one half Owyhee and one
half Grimes Creek, and pay it out.  All dust going for sixteen dollars per
ounce when payed out.

Then some men would keep two sacks, and would mix one with sand to pay
out, and if it was objected to, they would, undaunted, take out the clean
and pay THAT out.

Another mention and we will pass.  The criminal code, murder, was not the
uncommon, but frequent way of getting money.  And men who had killed and
robbed ran in circles, little expected.  By some, fear permitted this.
Then the difficulty of getting evidence together granted a license in this
direction, as in the Donald McDonald case.

A man by the name of Bill Wells committing a desparate murder in
California and escaped to Nevada.  The sheriff at Sacramento finding where
Bill was, all needful arrangements through the state authorities made, the
sheriff at Sacramento sends over his deputy to Virginia City, and his
deputy with two other men start with Wells back to Sacramento.  But on the
then tedious and long drive over rough roads across the Sierra, the crew
traveling day and night either got sleepy or careless just as they reached
the valley above Sacramento, and Wells, handcuffed as he was, managed to
get one of the men's revolvers.  Shooting the Deputy Sheriff dead on the
spot, he killed the man sitting by the deputy, the driver, and wounded the
other man.  Taking the keys from the deputy's pocket, he liberated himself
from the fetters that bound him, taking to the tuley, stripped for the
race.  He evaded the officers and posse of men from Sacramento who came by
the scores to capture him, by burying himself up in the mud in the tule
swamps.  Although he, Bill Wells, told his Idaho chums that the Sacramento
officers come in a rod of him on his trail when he was buried up all over
in the mud except his face while he lay on his back stuck up so he could
breath.

While deputy at Pioneer City under Pinkham, the Governor of California
sent a requisition for Wells' arrest.  But Pinkham, thinking this surmise
unfounded, that the man spotted was not Bill Wells, left all attempts
alone.  This man called himself by the name of Donald McDonald.

This all passed at Centerville, where Donald McDonald was working on the
Thatcher Ditch and ran with his clique until Furge Patterson killed
Pinkham, when a Disloyal Sheriff was elected.  There was a reward of six
thousand dollars on Wells' head by the State of California, and two
thousand dollars by some other individuals.  He, Wells, was better known
by this rebel faction, and the New Sheriff resolved to arrest Donald
McDonald, as he was called.

But how to do it was the momentous concern.  Yet this Rebel Sheriff was a
huge monster himself, brave, discreet, and a strategist.  One day, in
broad daylight, one Deputy with double barreled shotgun primed and cocked,
entered very unceremoniously a house of ill fame while the high Sheriff
entering the front door of the same house found Donald McDonald sitting up
erect with his Delilahs away from his revolver.  He had nothing to do but
die or surrender.  He done the latter, and the Deputy Sheriff brought him
into our store for to warm while the liveryman, Coe, was getting the
horses and sleigh ready to take Wells to Idaho City.  The snow was five or
six feet deep, weather cold.

We had heard much about this desperado, but had never known who he was
until now.  He was only eighteen or twenty years old when he killed the
man or three men at Sacramento.  Now looking to be forty or fifty, his
hair gray, he stout-built, and anyone could see the animal predominant.
We scanned this light-eyed, ashy-faced scamp, and either through what we
had heard of him or our own imagination, we set him down as the most
terrible man in strength and visage we had ever seen.

On his getting into the Sleigh at our store, his chums gathering round him
to bid him good-bye and telling him to keep up a stiff upper lip, he broke
down and cried like a child.

On Coe, who drove him over to the county seat, asking him why he did not
have his trial at Idaho City, he said, "I don't think I have any show
here, and a damned less show in Sacramento."

There was no questioning his guilt in Idaho if he could have been tried
here.

The man who guarded him at Virginia City and took him his meals while the
authorities had him there said if every man in America would swear he was
not Bill Wells, HE knew he was.

All this circumstantial evidence as wellas individual showed too plain he
was the man.  On his chums and this man who guarded and fed him at
Virginia City, Nevada, calling him Bill occasionally.  One day, he was
heard to say, "You fellows will get the top of your head blown off one of
these days if you don't quit calling me Bill."

On arriving at San Francisco, Chief Police Burke said before he was tried,
"I am quite sure Donald McDonald is the man."

But being only eighteen years old when the terrible tragedy at Sacramento
took place, he was so changed no one could positively identify him at
Sacramento but Chief Burke.  And their bringing two or three persons to
swear to the contrary, the legislature being in Session at Sacramento,
public opinion came like a torrent for the arrest of this unfortunate man.
 A Theatrical troop playing at Sacramento at that time gave him a benefit,
raising seven hundred and fifty dollars, and gave it to him.

In a short time, up come Bill Wells to Centerville, walked into the store
where he took his last warm, wanted to see the D. M. SOB that had said
anything about him.  We were glad we never had known or conversed with
him, but felt our life in danger for fear some emissary might have told
him something to cause his ill will.

During all this man's stay, if anyone was killed for any considerable sum
of money, Bill Wells was flush of means.  On working on the Thatcher
Ditch, he always prefered to work alone.  He never would allow anyone to
come up at his back if he heard or saw them.  If they came up unawares, he
would jump and whirl around quickly.  At saloons when treating men, would
keep his side to the counter and on the watch of the persons present.
Always sitting down against the wall so no one could get behind him.

On Thatcher,the ditch owner, telling him one day that if he was Bill
Wells, he had better get up and get out of there, and if he was not, he
would make these hounds keep their mouths shut or he would knock their
teeth down their throat, Bill made no reply to Thatcher, pro or con, to
which Thatcher thought very strange.

But when robbing the overland stage got so prevelant, and Ben Holiday's
men strung up seven men on one tree, and all along the Utah and Idaho line
swang up men for running off stage stock and murder, they took the scare
and thinned out.

We were the secretary of the Vigilantes at Centerville, but never hung
anyone.  We found the difficulty to be to get the evidence of guilt
without getting innocent parties.  We sat nearly all night taking evidence
against three desperados lodged in jail, and had more trouble with the
Irish at the trial than the criminals locked up in jail with a guard round
them.  And would let the vigilantes hang these three men, only there was
an innocent-looking young man of about eighteen years with the other two
men we were trying.  And if one went up, all most likely would have to
hang.  We were glad the next day when the sheriff's posse came from the
county seat and took them over.  But learned after though they were turned
loose at Idaho that if we had executed them, we would have got the right
men, who killed a miner on this same Placerville trail we carried so much
gold dust over for seven hundred dollars.  But on carrying this miner to a
prospect shaft, before they got him threw in, three brass-band men players
with instruments in hand coming along, they shot them down to keep from
being detected.  The head Old Man of these three, some months after,
stealing a couple of horses off of a Methodist preacher.  On the owner
overtaking the old, hardened man in crime with his horses at camp,
larietting them out away from his revolver, and alone, threatening the
preacher and making for the tent, the preacher gave him a mortal wound,
and turning him over to the proper authorities, he died of this wound
remarking to the sheriff that the only regret he had was being killed by a
Methodist priest.  This was the end of Old Burke.  But what went with Bill
Wells, to this day we don't know.  We may have lingered longer on these
crimes than prudent, only to tell the sad scenes in part that occurred
during my stay of three years in the basin.

When we got better, making up our mind to go east on a visit, we took the
stage from Idaho City to Boyce City, the capital of the territory.  Mr.
Goldstrap offered me a position on the ditch at six dollars per day, seven
days in the week, or a hundred and eighty dollars per month.  Yet on the
account of Sunday work, and having a desire to see my brother, William,
who had enlisted in California and went into the Massechussets Battalion,
serving during the war, being captured and taken to Libby Prison by Mosby,
and my health failing, we bid adieu to Centerville, and left before Mr.
Isaacs returned from Limbie or Mr. Sheers from Galena, Illinois.

We met Colonel Preston at Boyce City, who done more stump speaking for the
Republican party in Idaho, and at a time when it was a dangerous thing to
do in these disUnited States.

On the stage next morning was Wells and Fargo messenger to guard the
eighty thousand or a hundred thousand dollar Gold Dust said to be aboard.
This messenger occupied an outside seat with a short, double barreled
shotgun and two long-range Colt revolvers.

One ex-editor of a paper at Idaho City by the name of McDonald, a
Scotch-Irish wit, who the Sesesh editor of another paper at Idaho City had
challenged to mortal combat and McDonald had agree to fight, but learning
that a conspiracy was up to kill him in case he hit, he was running away
from the country to preserve his individuality.  We found Mr. McDonald an
interesting passenger, a good singer, talker, and full of humorous
stories.

Another, ex-Methodist preacher, we think, by the name of Kingsles, once in
high position in church, was aboard.

These two gentlemen kep us amused day and night with their witticisms.

Meeting General Steele near Grand Mound, we did not wonder at his not
reinforcing General Banks up the Red River, for he had more trunks than
they had teams to pull at that momentous time.

This was not the long, tedious journey on foot we had taken in
sixty-three, for three years had made quite a change.  Arriving at
Yumatilla, we took Steamers for Portland, and improved some on this trip
of four hundred miles, staging some a hundred and thirty, boating at the
Cascades, we met a man at the side of the road selling apples.  We had to
still walk these six miles at the Cascades.  But at the shoals above the
Dalls, the steamboat company had built a railroad sixteen miles, and we
fared much better than on former times.

But to return to my apple vendor by the side of the road below the
cascades.  We pulled out a quarter of a dollar thinking we would have some
nice apples, which we did, and an abundance of them, for this peddler
would have measured us out a heaping half bushel if we would have let him.
 We asked all the passengers to partake, and left the vendor half we had
bought to sell over again, forgetting we were where you could buy a bushel
of apples for fifty cents when at Idaho we pay twenty-five cents for one
apple.

We carry what dust we had on our person, preferring to take our chances
among the smaller robbers than with this Great Monster, Wells and Fargo,
who held an embargo of one tenth of all the miners' treasure.

We can never come to Portland without praising this people.

Yet, being anxious to see my sister, Lucy, at Weaverville, Trinity County,
California, we took the first steamer for San Francisco, once more coming
down this beautiful Columbia River, lined on either side with dense
forests, touching at no point except Astoria on the Oregon side at the
mouth of this grand river.

Nothing amuses me at Sea.  Always sick.  I hate its very roar.  Once in a
while a whale may spout or Sea Gull fly by the window to amuse somewhat
until we reach our destination and sight the Golden Gates.

Reaching the Occidental City after three years' absence, we could see that
the city was bending to the pressure of the wide street called Market, and
the greatest enterprises were vesting Kerny and Market.  The Occidental
 otel was the only structure claiming to be a first-class hotel.
  Yet the Old Whatcheer done more business at this date than those more
pretentious.

Only beginning my journey, we hurried on up the Sacramento to Red Bluffs,
something over three hundred miles from San Francisco, then staged to
Weaverville eighty miles.  We walked up to the residence of the County
Clerk, and surprised my sister, Lucy, she not knowing her brother was on
the way from Idaho.

Stopping here a week we were as much Surprised as my sister, for she had
never intimated to me that in a few days she was to be married to Mr.
Bartholomew.

Wedding all over, being the only relative on my sister's side to attend
the wedding, all the rest of the family having returned east, we took a
trip down the Trinity River eighteen miles before resuming my trip east to
see where my sister was to reside.

Marriage of Lucy Morris, September 9, 1866.

We were well pleased with Mr. Bartholomew's appearance.

Stopping here at Canyon City two or three days, we resumed our journey
east via San Francisco, the Istmus [sic] to New York.

Being always sick at sea, we went to Acapulco, in Mexico, without taking a
drink of water.  Off the Gulf of California we encountered the greatest
storm for twenty years.  Several vessels went down in the Atlantic, more
than had ever been known in the recollection of the nation.  We were on an
old vessel, the St. Louis, but (the captain said) a wonderful, seaworthy
steamer.  At any rate, although the first mate got knocked down on the
upper deck only catching to the railing to save his life, we were all
saved.  Too sick to be amused.  What little strength we had (my old
partner in Trinity Mines met me in San Francisco going east) and that
being very little, was spent in Missionary work on the vessel, taking care
of a man with wife and several children in the last stages of consumption.
 This man took a great shine to my old Trinity partner, would not let
anyone do anything for him, not even his wife, if Collins, my Scotch
partner, was around.  This dying, consumptive man, if I came round to try
to do anything, was vexed in a moment.  And if I looked as bad as I felt,
it was no wonder, for eating little or nothing.  I was ready to cry, "New
York," on all occassions.

We had a long voyage to the Isthmus, and here we were sadly disappointed.
The authorities would not let us get off the train at Panama, being so
many riots there of late.  We only stopped in the cars about two hours,
locked up.  But such a scene of trays and baskets, every manner and kind
of wares from a mole skin to a tiger or leopard.  We never saw such an
exhibit during life, nor do we ever expect to.  A moving world on either
side the train of cars, the trays on the vendors heads just about reaching
up to the windows.  You could get a good Panama hat for twenty-five cents,
an excellent one for one dollar.  This was free trade in all its
vengeance, and color, for truly every color of the human race were here.
And all pulling and yelling with all the vengeance they had. for the
mastery.

Soon we bid good-bye to this mixed throng, expecting the same state of
things at Aspin Haul.  But to our great chagrin, we found right the
Opposite, dry, dull, nothing to amuse, everything high.  And we were glad
when the magnificent, the Henry Chauncy, come to take all aboard for New
York.

The Caribbean Sea smooth after the terrible storm.  We never knew a word
of the disaster at sea until the pilot met us at New York City.

One thing impressed me at Panama: seeing the native women washing clothes
in the river with soap.

The other was on the Henry Chancy [sic].  They took about fifty or a
hundred feet square down in the Steerage, and fencing it off on sides and
top just the height of banana stalk when they set these banana stalks all
over this space upright.  The steerage passengers getting up on this
framework when hollering, "New York," vomited all down over these bananas
as bad as a set of buzzards.  We never liked bananas since.

Many good singers aboard.  We never heard Sherman's March sang before,
"From Atlanta to the Sea."  It sounded beautiful on the water.  And the
spacious vessel, roomy and large for that day, was a great treat compared
to our little St. Louis on the Pacific.

Our sick, consumptive Canadian, with his wife and five little, helpless
children, clung to Mr. Collins with a death grasp.  Poor man.  He could
just stand alone, scarcely walk a step.  Mr. Collins had to stay with the
sick man.  And as we had plan to go up to the Howard House, he sent me out
on the wharf to hunt up the Howard House coach.  A long row of coachmen
behind the chains line the walks and nearly closing the passway crying, "A
bus!  A bus!  A bus!"  We never mind them, but went right along this
narrow passway until one coachman caught me by the shoulder, whirling me
half way round.  When I drew my hand back wide open and struck this tall,
gangling coachman square across the mouth.  It popped like the cracking of
a gun.  The other coachmen by him along the line threw out their feet in
hope of tripping me up, which they had done no doubt they would have
kicked and maybe trampled me down.  But seeing them, I stepped round them
all, and looking back, I saw police tap the coachman I had struck over the
mouth and say, "This way."  The next thing I expected the police to arrest
me, but no one came near me, and on reaching the wharf where the coaches
stood, I soon found the coach of the Howard House.  And I knew as soon as
I found the coach the driver would soon be round.  We got the sick man and
his wife and little children safe to the Howard House.  But not knowing
city rule, we were looking the first day or two for police to come for me.
 None ever came, and we presume this policeman who arrested the coachman
saw him lay hold of me and saw the whole performance.  But why I struck
this coachman as I did is a mystery to me to this day.  I seem, if
possible, to strike him before I had time to think what I was about or
doing.

We could not stop at the Howard House short of four dollars per day, and
my Scotch partner, hearing wonders about the Lovejoy hotel, wanted to go
up there.  We liked the room they gave us facing Old White Hall, but did
not like the restaurant.  And next went for French Hotel, or Sweenie's (we
forgot which name), on Fifth Avenue.  The bill of fare set every article
of food down at high rates, and I says to Mr. Collins, "Beat again!"  We
were in for a short time at any rate, and I ordered broiled chicken to
start with.  When my chicken came, for fifty cents, you never saw the
beat.  A nearly half-grown chicken cut right half in two, and everything
one need desire with it.  We found the right place at last, and boarded
the rest of the time we stay at New York at this place.

One amusing thing happened at this hotel.  My partner, Mr. Collins, and
myself sat down at the table with our hats on.  The gentleman waiter
stepped up very politely and said, "I'll take your hat."

On reaching him mine, the Scotchman rebelled, to which the waiter very
politely remarked, "It is contrary to the rules of the house to eat with
hats on."

Mr. Collins giving up his hat, but remarked, "I thought we were in a free
country.  We can eat with our hats on in San Francisco."

And Collins was sulky at table for two or three days.

We thought this a pretty good start for the first trip to New York, my
hitting the coach driver square across the mouth, the first man I ever
struck in life, and Mr. Collins getting into a conflab [sic] with the
waiter.

We had one thousand dollars gold coin on our person all the way from San
Francisco, which we went down on Wall Street and exchanged for sixteen
hundred dollars greenbacks.  Went on to Fults Street, and bought a
fashionable, fine suite of clothes, an overcoat that cost forty dollars,
silk high-crowned beaver hat, kid gloves, and start out to see New York
City.  It being just after the close of the war, everything high, the city
full, business rife.  We had never been in such a great city before.

My Americanized Scotchman, who we expected to know and do everything in
common to city life, was no service to me.  He was the easiest man lost or
bewildered in a city imaginable.  He could not tell where we were in one
block of our hotel.  Would have to read the name of the hotel before he
would give up but what we were going wrong.

Not believing in Theater-going, but being asked so many times by those who
made it a habit to attend, we made up our mind as a matter of education to
visit the playhouse.  Having went at San Francisco two or three times, we
come first to Barnham's Museum and stay tot he Theatre.  Saw Comodore
[sic] Nut and Minnie Warren, and The Old Clown performed laughably well.
We went to two other first-class Theatres.  When we remarked to our Land
Lord that if we had seen the best they had in New York, we could discount
them in San Francisco, to which he said, "You go up on Broadway," giving
the numbers, "and you will get all your money back.  It is a panorama show
that cost half a million to get it up, and is worth seeing.  It purports
to show the greatest events from the creation down."

We went, and it was the finest show we ever attended, and to our mind the
only feasable way at this time to exhibit where the individual cannot
visit the things of the world worth seeing.

Sunday, coming to the Methodist

***** Reverse side.  Evidently I started with side b.  Now here is side a:

And my father was the first man to preach outside of some of the
straggling Mormon elders that may have happened to stray that way.  Now
all these Mormons gone except a few Apostates who would not join Brigham
at Salt Lake but went over the Nishnobatna River some eight miles at
Fisher's Grove and have built up quite a village, and live there to this
day unmolested, and are good industrious citizens, but only one wife.  We
met quite a number of our old Methodist friends at Sydney, Iowa, where my
father had done so much preaching in the neighborhood some years before,
and to my great joy found nearly everyone converted at these revival
meetings holding out faithful to God.  All my former business friends,
most of them getting quite well-off who remained at home during the war,
and wanted me to go into business, made me good offers.  But having made a
great blunder before leaving Idaho by promising to bring my parents b ack
to California, feeling obliged to keep my promise, refusing all offers.

For the first time seeing our family   l broke up and scattered, we began
to cast about for to see the best method to adopt to this end.  My sister
who had married Elza Martin having died and left four motherless children
who were living among my brothers in  law's relatives in four miles of
Sydney while their father was on the Hawleysville Circuit preaching for
the Methodists, in the Des Moines conference.  We visited him at
Hawleysville, where he was stationed, and found a most excellent work was
now done under his administration.  Some set down that there were one
hundred and fifty converts during this year's labor of my brother.

We here met for the most part strangers around our former home.  We were
very intimately acquainted with Hawley, who the town was named after in
Andrew County, Missouri, before he went into the mercantile business at
Hawleysville.  He owned a home in three or four miles of the present town
site before there was ever a house in that village.

My father preached all over this Page County region at Boundary Grove and
other portions of the then settled part of the county, but we think
organized no societies.  He being a Local preacher, and always working
under his own direction, never could content to be under any bishop's or
presiding elder's direction.  And though he preached all over these
regions before any other man except the Mormons, who occupied about one
half of the then inhabited region.  This was the first place we located at
after leaving southwest Missouri in 1849.

Many things amused me.  More made me sad.  My dear Sister, who I had
parted with in Trinity County, California, had gone to the Spirit land,
and although the last word she ever spoke to me when we parted, "Good-bye.
 I know you're good to write."  Yet the mail lines being closed to the
country she had immigrated to, my communication being cut off.  All the
time I was with her reverend husband, it seemed a vacancy was present
either with the husband or the four motherless children.  She having died
near Sydney, Iowa, at Father Martin's, some two years before.  Her last
baby son having preceded her to the spirit land but a few months before
she died.  Although the telephone, telegraph, or US Mail line was not up
to the Heavenly Canaan.  The Spiritual Telephone seemed almost to speak to
me in the flesh.

After my visit to her dear children and husband, the earth seemed more sad
and Heaven more desirable.

Few of the old-time sports or diversions amused me.  Of the wild-turkey
hunts, venison roasts, or bee-tree cuttings, hickory nut or walnut
crackings were to be enjoyed, and we took the backtrack by the way of
Clarinda and Tarkio to Sydney and lodged at my brother's once more.

Began our preparation after a few weeks' stay for Delaware Reserve, where
I had left my parents closely housed with my younger brother in twelve
miles of Lawrence, Kansas.  In Iowa, the country all changed in ten years
from wide stretches of prarie ten and twenty miles without a house, but
now for the greater part occupied with lanes and houses whose inmates the
brightest genius of the now northwest.  It seemed I was in a strange land,
and to a great extent among a strange people.  Where not a vestige of
settlement was formerly made, now schools, churches, and colleges were to
be seen.

One of these worthy of mention was Tabor, a Congregational institution on
a high, level plateau of land between Sydney and Glenwood, not far from
the Nishnobatna River.  We had many times years before passed over this
high prarie only to admire and wonder if it would ever be settled and, and
where some years before we come so near losing our life one cold, snowy
day.

Having to go from Sydney to Glenwood to Mill one winter, we loaded up a
large ox sled, hitched on two yoke of oxen, and made off over this high
prarie stretch some fifteen or twenty miles to Glenwood.  On getting our
grain ground, we, after two days' waiting for our grist, turned our course
one snowy, blustery morning towards home near Sydney.  It began to snow
and blow the snow.  Got so deep it would catch on the cross-beams of our
sled.  Abb Atchison, a tall, stout Westerner who was with me, could have
tied two or three such boys as I, was my partner on this expedition.  It
snowed and it blowed and was cold, stormy weather.  We had to walk to keep
alive and comfortable on reaching this long prarie ridge, not a house for
miles, where Tabor now stands.  Mr. Atchison got tired, and worn out.  On
my finding I could out-endure my stout countryman, I done all the driving.
 He got so fatigued he would lie down on the sled, and on my whipping them
up with the ox whip I notice as he would run after me to try and catch me
after whipping him up from the sled he seemed strange and somewhat vexed.
He would try to lay down on the ground, but on my expostulating with him
telling him if he lay there and went to sleep he would never wake (of
which he seemed to be ignorant) after journeying all day.  Away after
dark, we got to Mrs. Iler's, in three miles of home, and though (by this
time) as sleepy and worn out as Mr. Atchison, we put up at the first house
we come to in three miles of home after this twelve-mile stretch which
took all day in the snow knee-deep to our oxen.  And the next morning, on
waking up, it was half an hour before being able to straighten my legs,
and I found myself worse off than Abb Atchison.  In after years, during
the war, I had the consolation to believe I had saved the life of one if
not the best artilleryman in Grant's army in the name of Abb Atchison.

Well, to return to this village of Tabor, the best school then on the
upper Missouri River above St. Louis, Missouri, was located.  Nearly all
the faculty and village being from Oberlane, Ohio, and some say a branch
of that institution.  Here my sister went until the Methodist denomination
persuaded her away to Sydney, a much poorer college than Tabor, and soon
collapsed for want of funds.  We felt vexed and chagrined about this
change, but being away at Idaho, the change was made, and they counseled
me afterwards, when powerless to veto the decision of her and my brother,
William.

On this trip to Iowa, having gone over the greater part of my life scenes
from sixteen until becoming twenty-one, my sadness was increased by the
reflection of the brother who lay beneath the sod in Nebraska on our
once-beautiful home twenty miles away, of my brother, who at thirty-two
folded his hands across the suffering breast that had pained him so long,
and slept in the lone mountains of Trinity in California, and last but not
least of my oldest sister, who they buried at the McKisic Grove in Iowa.
The whole scene was changed, and the days when prosperity and plenty was
the case before the civil war.  Now all the neighbors had become better
off than we.  Those we used to help and lend to in those days were now our
benefactors and to some extent our support.  Yet we enjoy our visit
through the haze and misty days that blinded to some purpose the sunshine
of the once-happy days.

When returned to Kansas, we found all as well as when we left them except
my youngest brother, Edwin.  We could see he was failing to some extent.
The goods in the course of the winter coming to light, we hauled them out
to Oskaloase, Kansas, and sold them to the merchants as best we could, but
goods being on the decline.  Ever since these were lost or en route from
Philadelphia, they only brought me about two thirds the amount given for
them in Philadelphia.  Yet we got enough to ensure a good outfit overland
to California once more.

Here the greatest mistake was committed.  Before leaving Idaho, having
agreed to bring Father back to California.  Whenever we suggested staying
in any one of the western states, Father would walk yard and pasture, but
scarcely sleep, and say, "I'd rather be set down in California without a
cent than be given the best farm in the western states."

We began to sell off our effects, which was not very extensive, for Father
and Mother had been too destitute to accumulate much.  And all I had was
some dry goods, teas of high grade, etc., of the Merchandise from the
former stock of goods mentioned above.  We were to make the principle part
of our purchases up in Iowa at my brother's for to cross the plains.

On arriving at my brother's in Iowa after leaving Kansas regretfully, all
our friends and relatives opposed the move, offering me fine business
inducements to stay, but to no effect.

We bought two more yoke of oxen, loaded light, and my sister, Hattie,
leaving her studies at the high school in Sydney.

My brother, Eddy, was always content and happy, willing to do anything
thought best for the good of the family, were all the ones to join the
family on this extended and laborious trip.  No one knew better than they
the hardships of the desert and plain, the rough mountain roads, and the
want of wholesome food, all having crossed these very regions twice before
with ox teams.  And it was no wonder my sister, Hattie, rebelled and
begged to stay, but all to be overruled by her parents' disapproval.  And
even the Iowa friends explained her opposition to the craze, being a love
affair of one of the college students.  My mother did not take a very
decided stand.  She had interests at both ends of the road.  The same
thing over that occurred when I first went to California.  I did not want
to go back, although I had left California expecting to return.  The
opportunities were so much better to succeed financially while I was
anxious to try my hand.  Yet I knew there was no way out of the dilemma
without breaking my word with my father, which I would not do.  My
patience, never too good on a trip like this, despite all my energies, I
entered in a melancholy fit.  Yet determined to make the best of (to me) a
dangerous and unjudicious engagement, that in all rules of right I should
be priveleged to break.  What detered me from this was my great hatred of
violating my agreements.  Once my word was out (like the saying), it
should be as good as my note.  It seemed to me a terrible thing to have my
Mother and Father subject the third time to all these hardships,
privations, and dangers of life by the Indians, sickness, and accident.
My means had got reduced until we were not so well provided as when we
made the venture in 1857, yet much better than when Father and Mother made
the outfit in California and returned to Iowa when I went to Idaho in
1864.

We bade farewell after an extended visit with old friends in and around
Sydney, Iowa in the spring of 1867, and come up the south side of the
Platte River traveling all alone, and unlike the counties on either side
of the great Missouri River, we found settlements sparse, and very much as
when we went up the Platte River ten years before.  Nor were we free from
the danger of the Indians.  The war of the Rebellion had retarded the
settlement of the country, and the Union Pacific Railroad began to make
headway.  The Indians all up in arms, and before we had got over three
hundred miles out, we were stopped by the government troops, and had to
lay by until enough immigrant wagons come up to make a train of seventy
wagons strong.

We found the South Platte full banks at Fort McPhearson, some three
hundred miles out from the Missouri River, and could not cross without
using the Government Ferry Boat.  General Sherman and other big generals
were up here for the protection of the railroad builders and the
immigrants.  We had the promise of the government boats after laying by
several days and if wagons had come up to make our number sixty or seventy
strong.

And we began ferrying one day, and on getting about one half of our train
over the Platte River, a lot of Freighters came along and seized the
government boat, and there we were, some families one wagon on one side of
the Platte and the other being ferried over expecting the next boat to
bring the family and another wagon.  The immigrants went to Fort Sedgwick close by and lay in their aggrievance and the officersin charge stated the boat should soon be returned.  But the next day the freighters were all day using the boat setting over their heavy wagons.  On going to them we found they had enough wagons to keep them one week ferrying.  We were in dire distress.  Families divided, the great Platte River rolling full bank between.  We had a business Philadelphia man in our train who had been in the commissary department in the Civil War.  He was wagon master on the Patomic and on Sherman's celebrated campaign we think he held a position.  At any rate he knew all about military affairs.  He went over to the fort and had some not very polite words with the officer who had oversight of the government boat.  On returning he told us he had tried to get a conference with General Sherman but he had seen him and General Onger both drunk and in a quarrel who was to command that western department.  Very western indeed.  With Fort Onger on one side of the Platte River and Fort Sedgwick on the other side, with the great Platte full banks between the two departments and their command embracing all the sagebrush, desert sands, and rock barrent mountains of the plains, reaching from Omaha to the Sierras and Cascades.  Well their troubles only involved us far enough to try and get some higher authority than this understrapper of Red Tape who gave the Freighters an order for the Ferry Boat.  But Mr. Noble, our man described above with the war volunteer quartermaster, commissary wagon master of the Patomic under Ulysses II, now ex officio Private Citizen of the divided United States comes to me and says, "We can do nothing with these red-tape diplomats.  The only way out is to arm ourselves and take the government boat."

We were not long deciding, right under the Guns of the fort if they had any generals Sherman and Augur lodging in that wooden fort.  We drew on our revolvers, coming to the Row Ferry boat we seized it, rowed down two hundred yards to the emigrant camp, putting on from four to five wagons at a trip all that afternoon.  We were careful first to get every family's supplies and wagons on the same relative bank of the Platte River.  We worked as only men and women could in distress and by night the next day all the oxen were swam over the Platte River and the last wagon safe in possession of the owner and his family.  Great rejoicing that night to know we were in a fair way now to escape the Tyrant's Power.  For of all the dreads the emigrants have in crossing the plains is this Red Tape power, and it turned out just as Mr. Noble, our general, predicted.

He said that if a few hundred Cheyenne warriors come to the fort, they would have the whole pass cometatis captured before the officers could draw on their armaments and get sufficiently liquored up to discover what was the matter.  Not an officer, even a freighter, ever visited our camp from the fort, only one half mile away, and we presume if any complaint was registered against the volunteer force that captured the boat, all was properly made out and duely signed by the adjutants ex officio of the Fort by the time we reached Salt Lake.  At any rate we only saw one officer.  The next morning, all the wagons being ready to roll after we got over the river, a rather tall,slim,intelligent gentleman of about fifty years, quite quick stepped and quite nervous, come over from Fort Sedgwick on his way afoot to Fort Augur.  He saluted my father, then the oldest man present, asking after the welfare of the immigrants.  Walking on a few steps he would return two or three steps and ask questions.  Dressed in plain citizen's clothes, no one took him for a government officer.  But after he had passed us, a soldier came up and says to Father, "Did you know who you were talking to?"

"No," says Father.

"Well, that was General Sherman."

The only indignation meeting held at immigration camp waswith me and General Gibbons.  One day, as we lay at camp waiting for the government boat, up rides a dozen or so soldiers from Fort Sedgwick to ford Platte River and carry dispatches to Fort Augur on the opposite side.  One of the soldiers shaking all over, another one steps up to me, General Gibbons not more than a rod away.  One man says to me, "Do you see that man how he shakes?  He cannotswim."

"Well," saidI, "General Gibbons may know how to fight on the Patomic,but he doesn't know athing about Platte River to order men in at that stage."

To whicht he General replied in his aristocratic, swell, military tone, "Can't he swim?"

"No," says his comrade.

"Well," says General Gibbons, "Order him out andorderin aman who canswim."

"To which I replied, "A man may know all about fighting on the Patomic,but any man who knows the present condition of the Platte would not order any soldier or anyone else into Platte River."

The day before, General Augur, we were told, ordered in twoprivates, and they were both drowned.  We watched the private General Gibbons ordered in, and having crossed the old Missouri River in all stages and conditions, we never witnessed such a sight as these two privates fighting for life.  Horse and rider would plunge all over, only to rise out of the quicksand eddies to go all somersault, head over head dismounted.  Would rise on some submarine sand bar.  Would rise to mount again.

We presume this was far superior to any circus for General Gibbons.  But to the innocent women and children that stood on the banks of the Platte that sunny day witnessing this tragedy it was a very different thing.  For our own part, we had ten years before this in low water mark drove an ox team across this deceptive river when we had to cling to the lead ox bow to keep from drowning when we went into these quicksands, and knew something about what we were talking about.  The men finally made landing on the other side, but I tell you there was a flutter in that immigrant camp on the banks of the Platte that beautiful day.  Nor did we wonder what made the Western States volunteers swear and hiss when they were supported or reinforced by the regular army.

We had our seventy wagons all formed in line, and my father fairly laughed and shouted when we passed the military lines.

Nothing more of an exciting nature came up at this time more than is common on crossing the plains.  Only Mr. Noble and some hunters killed an elk that the meat was so blue we could not eat it.  And on going up Pole Creek, one man, Correll, next wagon to ours, saw something he wished to shoot or use the gun for, ran to his wagon where his other two partners were, and seizing the muzzle of the gun, pulling the barrel toward him, the hammer catching on something in the wagon, it sprang fire shooting him in the breast and bowels.  He dam the gun, and here brought out the traits of our noble Captain Cook of Boyce City, Idaho, who we had just elected captain.  All saw this stout picture of a well-formed frame must in a few hours be withered and die.  Some of the immigrants, it being midday, wanted to go on.  But no, Captain Cook and Mr. Noble and the two partners of the dying man took the Cap Spring wagon and mules, and made for the nearest Station, he dying before they reached the station.  They bury him and returned to us.

Our train was about equally divided with ox and mule teams.  And as soon as we got where the Indians were thought not dangerous, the mule teams began to chide the slowness of the oxen and wanted to pull out and go ahead.  But our good Captain Cook kept in his mild, genteel way all together until we got where there was little risk in our traveling in smaller companies.  And knowing we must lose him at the junction of the Fort Hall and direct California roads, he and wife going to Boyce City, Idaho, we told the captain of the company to go ahead, regretfully parting with this noble couple.  We never heard the captain or wife ever hint of their bravery, but were told by parties who knew them that on a former trip overland that the company they were traveling in got into an Indian fight, and the Indians having the advantage in the start, Mrs. Cook drew her Colt six-shooter and stood side-by-side of her husband all through the fight until the Indians were routed.

We were sorry to lose Mr. Noble, our experienced adjutant at Fort McPherson or Sedgwick, but he having mule teams, we advised him to go along.  This being the third trip for my parents and the second for me, we assured Mr. Noble we would pull through all right.

We did not come by Salt Lake this time.  We could save fifty or sixty miles in cutoffs by going more northern routes.

And but little come up out of the ordinary camp life until coming up North Platte, well to the head of our road on that stream, and before parting with Mr. Noble and Cook.  As usual, we began to meet Indians.  Our oxen began to get shy when about 10:00am a captain of the United States army come running, his horse at full speed, by our train.He had done this once before, but a little more full of Alkali dust and Sage Brush, whiskey, he gave a war whoop as he passed.  Every steer started on the run.  It was not so large an exciting stampede as my first seven stampede described more fully in a former chapter owing to their being no loosed stock.  But just about interesting enough to have some apprehension of what such frights might be and as severe as we cared to witness.  The ground being somewhat rough, the things bounced about and out of the wagons worse than my debate in '57.  And my father was worse worked up than I ever saw him.  When the teams were all stopped, he coming up says, "Boys, get out your guns.  Have them in readiness, and if that captain ever comes by our train again in that manner, shoot him down."

You could see the boys felt just about as my father on this question.  The only good result of this stampede was we had a man from Ohio by the name of Tubs.  He was not so big-seeming as to be whupped.  On the contrary, he was plain unassuming, and had a large overjet wagon bed big enough for a small cabin, filled with upholstered beds, cook stove, dishes, shelving, and canned fruit.  Side-shelved equal to a small store.  Loading down so he had, if we remember, five or six yoke of oxen, wife, and two or three children.  No hand but his wife to help.  He was always asking help and never able in the morning to start on time.  If he had been poor, all would have bore with him.  But he was going to Montana,a nd seemed quite well-off.  On account of him delaying the train nearly every morning, no one cared much for his interests.  When this to him and wife sad accident come up, all he had in this big wagon was sadly and fearfully mixed, molasses, sugar,kerosene, flour, spices, oysters and canned fruits pretty thoroughly shook up.  Cook stove smashed and everything in a disquited state.  In fact all cast to the four winds, only that he being always behind you may call it the back winds.  For Mr. Noble, who always sympathized with all good people, called me back on the route.  Mr. Tubs' wagon had descended, and it was the terriblest ascent of back wind we ever had witnessed.  Oysters, canned fruit, cooking utensils, disjointed, cook stoves and washboards, dishes, spoons and bedding all long our pathway.  When Mr. Noble says, "Mr. Morris, this is equal to a managery."

None of the little or big tubs having burst their hoops, all felt they were served about right.

The Union Pacific Railroad was built out about four hundred miles from Omaha, but we did not travel along that route.  Yet we met some contractors up Pole Creek before reaching the Sweet Water countery.  The last trip across these plains did not seem as our first adventure.  We were more lonesome traveling in smaller trains.  Grass was more plenty.  Stations along quite a stretch of the road.  We don't remember of coming in contact with so much alkali water as in former years.  Then there being but little travel comparatively, the grass had grown up better.  Yet the Indians seemed full as treacherous as our first trip.  We were in constant dread.  No protection.  We must have traveled nearly one halfof the way alone, just Father, Mother, my brother, Eddy, sister, Hatty, and myself with one lone wagon camping night after night.  We knew not the distance we were from any living soul save the savage and the robbers that live in these mountain vastness.  We were never so long in dread and suspense as on this tedious, lonesome, and laborious journey, and resolved if we ever got through safe, we would never under any circumstances ever cross the plains again with teams.

On reaching the headwaters of the Humboldt, we resolved to take the Bidwell for Chico Pass Road over the Sierras, and on reaching Honey Lake Valley, we were never more happy over any earthly triumph than escaping all the accidents, sickness, anxieties and sorrows of this never to be forgotten lonesome trip, my second and Father, Mother's and the brother's and sister's third trip accross the plains.

Laying in fresh supplies at Susanville, having traded my oxen for a couple of horses near Austin, Nevada, we were where we could buy feed and travel in some comfort the rest of the way.  Coming up a good grade road from Susanville to the summit of the Sierra Nevada mountains, we camped by a beautiful lake, beautiful groves of pine, fir and other varieties of trees common to these mountains and lakes.  We were rejoiced beyond measure to know we had once more arrived safe in California.

Taking the Red Bluff branch of the Chico Pass, we come to Trinity County to see my sister, Lucy, now Mrs. Bartholomew, at Canyon City near the Trinity River, and another sad loss met us here.  When we got ready to journey to the Bay counties for to look up a home in the agricultural districts, my youngest sister, having been worn out on these long journeys, resolved to stay in the mines with my married sister, thus leaving me and my brother alone with the old folks to hunt up our future destiny.  Thinking my married sister treated us quite cool, we made a short stay at Canyon City.  Bidding adieu to those dear sisters, we come to Minersville,our old town on East Trinity, and visit the old friends there.  A shade having thus come over my path, we wandered down through the Sacramento Valley,out through the San Joachin, over to Santa Cruz, back by San Jose, and concluded to go to Lake County to the north.  Having to go through Napa to get to Lake, we come to the old neighborhood where we had lived some five or six years before, not expecting to stop in Napa.  But on reaching the old settlement up in three miles of St. Helena, our old friends came out delighted to see us, and asking us to stop with them.  There being an empty house in the settlement, plenty of work to do, and in all seemed favorableto our remaining in Napa.  My brother, Eddy, and myself went to gathering grapes for Mr. Tucker, and I hauled the grapes with my team to Fulton's wine celler at St. Helena, some three or four miles away.  We moved into the Old Colonel Richie house belonging to George W. Tucker, and lived one year, taking what we could get to do of work of any kind, and kept out of debt most of the time.  My father done some preaching in Napa and Bareesa Valleys, but he continued to preach a free Gospel as he ever had done, and there was no revenue come in from that source.  Yet this was a fine settlement, almost everybody Christian and temperate.  The camp meetingswere most excellent. The old White Church was well attended in less than half amile of our house.  There was a Sunday School organized under the care of the Methodists, and I had to act as superintendent.  All the neighbors were very good to us.  We attended Good Templar Lodge.  Held class and prayer meetings at the Old White Church, and was a kind of Roust About in the church and moral hemisphere.  Made no money, but lay up some treasures in the Spiritual Zone.

My younger brother seemed to grow more frail, yet kept on at work.  We formed acquaintances with some of the best of earth and enjoyed the fruits of our labors.

Thus passed the first year of our return to Napa, and we made a good living by chopping wood for the Napa Wood Company and what we got to do in harvest and other times.

We had not long stayed in Napa until one day who should walk up to our place but Robert Noble, my old wagon master at Fort McPherson on the Platte where we captured the government ferryboat by the valor of our arms.  He, a fine machinist and engineer, had run all over California looking for work at his trade, but finding none, being only offered forty dollars per month.  He told me that he would not belittle his profession for that price, and had gone to cutting cordwood for the Napa Wood Company at one dollar and fifty cents per cord, and could make about sixty dollars per month chopping wood.  We talked plains life over, and nearly every week he and his brother would call round to see us, all of us working nearby the Tuckers ranch.

To our great joy my sister, Hattie, come down in the spring of the next year.  And on my going to G. W. Tucker to pay the rent on the place we were living on, he would not take a cent.

We rented a two-hundred acre tract of land just across Napa River from Reson Tucker's, and my brother and I went to farming.  He plowed all winter, but I could see he was getting very frail with a haggard cough.  Yet he insisted on keeping at work.  By this time the Union and Central Pacific R. R. were finished, and our state was flooded with Idle Men.  But my brother and myself done all the work on this farm, known as the Old Starks Place.  And when the wheat and oats were all stowed in the spring, I went to work and drained ten acres and put into corn.  Taking down under the doctor's care in the summer when the thrashers and headers come, not being able to be round, cylinder of the old thresher losing teeth, they run about one fourth of my wheat crop through the machine in the straw unthreshed.  It was a sorry summer for me, the dropsy in my knees keeping me flat of my back most of the time.  When the headers come to head my grain, I told them if they had any wheat on hand to sell, for I always brought the market, it would go down on me sure.

When I went to plowing in the fall, I told the neighbors the same thing, but they all said I'd raise nothing, that the land was no account, that there had never been but one good crop raised on the ranch since it was settled in 1846.  "Oh yes," was my reply.  "A crop always grows for me, but when I come to sell, the price goes down."

I always dig about the roots.  It rained just as soon as the threshers come, and they were at my place several days to feed their horses and board before going to work.  The rain dampening the straw, some of the teeth out of the cylinder (it being the last job the thresher had to do), they did not get them put in, and my not being able to be round.  One of the neighbors comes and says, "Morris, they are running about half the grain through the machine without it being thrashed."

On sending out a man to see, he reports more favorable on the grain being thrashed or strangled through this old, rickety machine.  I made the same remark at the dinner table that I had made before about their selling.  All laughed.  In a few days, getting able to hobble round, I took samples of my wheat and mounted the train for Napa City.  An old friend of mine was in the warehouse buying for Mr. Lawley, and the County Treasurer was buying for Mr. Shehan of San Francisco.  Both friendly to me.  The first we visited was Mr. Corwin, my friend, buying for Mr. Lawley.  He says, "Mr. Morris, wheat is on the down tendency.  We cannot give as much as we did two or three days ago."

On coming to the County Treasurer's, Mr. Boggs, who was buying for Shehan.  Taking out my samples to show him, he says, "Morris, will your wheat average as good as that?  It is the best wheat I have seen exhibited in Napa this year."

"I think it will."

"Well," says he, "I will give you $150 per central if it will average as good as that."

On turning away, he says, "Now, Morris, if your wheat will average as good as the samples, I will give you $2.50 per ton extra, but that is private between you and me.  No one but us is to know anything about that matter."

On going back to Mr. Corwin and telling him what was offered, he, Corwin, says, "Morris, stick him.  He is a greener, has not been buying long for Shehan.  The market is going down."

I wheeled round and went back to Bogs, the county treasurer, and says, "Mr. Bogs, you can have the wheat on drawing up the contract."  I says, "Mr. Bogs, how long will I have to deliver that wheat (the time not being written in the contract)."

He says, "Two weeks."

"Oh that won't do.  I can't bind myself to do that.  But I'll deliver it in three weeks."

"All right," he says.

I come home leaving him the samples, and went to Calistoga to engage cars.  Wheat went down to a dollar twenty-five cents per hundred the next day.

"There!" said I.  "I told you I'd bring themarket."

No cars came.  I wrote and wrote.  The cars were promised fromday to day, but did not come.  Two weeks were nearly up.  No cars.  When I sat down and wrote to head authority that I'd had the promises of cars for two weeks, and if I did not get the wheat to Napa in three weeks, the contract was up, and I'd hold the company for damages.  The cars came the next day.  The neighbors turned out, hauled the wheat, and put it on the cars.  In two days, we were on the way for Napa City.  But at St. Helena I received a letter from Mr. Bogs stating he was sorry to inform me he could not take the wheat on contract, but send it along, he would take the wheat and store it for me, and do the best he could, etc., etc., but did not state why he could not take it.  I had all the way to Napa to study what to do.  Slow train, twenty miles.

On arriving at Napa, I come to Mr. Corwin, telling him the matter.  He says, "Have you the contract?"

On reaching it to him, and he reading it, he says, "You have got him.  Hold him to it.  He is a green buyer.  Not experienced.  This is his first year."

On coming to hunt Mr. Bogs, I found him writing in the Goodman Bank, and said, "Mr. Bogs, that wheat is here."

"Well," said Bogs, "Did you get my letter?"

"Yes."

"Well, we will store it for you and do the best we can for you."

"Well, Mr. Bogs," says I, "By the time that wheat is sold two or three times more, I think it will be pretty well sold."

This reminded the treasurer he had paid eighty dollars on the contract on drawing the papers.  He took down his trier, walked down to the flats, and run his old trier in sacks of all the flats trying to punch out poor wheat.  Each time emptying the wheat into his hand, he would say, "I'll swear, Morris, that's fine wheat."

We started back for the bank, and on the way bogs says, "Morris, you throw off that private contract of two dollars and fifty cents, and I'll take the wheat."

I could not collect the private contract as it was not in the writing, and I said, "All right."  I fould our county treasurer would not lie, but if any place to crawl out of a bad bargain legally, he would take it.

We weighed up the wheat in two or three days.

On going after the derelict R. R. company, they allowed me $20 for not furnishing flats.

We returned home, paid all our debts, and had $750 clear of all expenses.  The neighbors would take nothing for hauling my wheat to the train.  And after all doctor bills of myself and brother, father having a Tumor cut out of his hip this year, and misfortune of so much sickness, we had this $750 clear from farming this poor farm that everybody said was no good.

Then it was we heard it whispered that anyone who worked as hard as I did was not deserving of much sympathy from the neighbors.  Quite different was the verdict rendered in this case from theone rendered in the same settlement eight years before, when the same judges said (I was at that time studying my school books at the old Glass Hill alone under a big live oak shade tree without any teacher but my textbooks).  "If John would work as hard as his brother, William, they (the family) would get along all right."  They concluded that I was a little lazy, and I do not know myself which conclusion was the most correct.

My brother, Eddy, grew worse, and though not a word ever escaped his lips in a complaining way, twas plainly seen by all he was on the downhill grade.  Dr. Adams, our family physician, told me early in the fall he defied any Physician to tell the shape my brother's sickness would take.  But in two or three months he could ascertain.  At the endof which time, he says to me, "It is a clear case of consumption.  This is no place for such people as you.  You will have to get up and get out of here or die, 1."

"Where shall we go, doctor?"

"Over into Nevada between the Sierras and Rockies is a good climate for such people as you."

"Why, Doctor, I have not got enough money to take me through the winter over there."  And my brother, William, having bought land near Fall City, Nebraska, I says, "What do you think of a trip to some of the western states, doctor?"

"I think it is the best thing you could do," was the doctor's reply.

We began to sell off mules, horses, cows, hay, vegetables, corn, and pasture, and soon bidding farewell to Old Napa for the second time, we come to San Francisco to buy our tickets for the overland passenger trip by railroad.

My father, now upwards of sixty, had never been in a big city, and we amused ourselves thinking about how he would act.  But to our sore disappointment, he walked the streets to and from the hotel like a man who had been raised in a large city, making strange of nothing.  His good common sense and strong mind carried him through all the emergencies with gravity and decorum.

We all had our photos taken, andin due time entered the emigrant train for Fall City, Nebraska.  But our tickets called for St. Louis, Missouri.  You could, at that time, buy tickets just as cheap to New York, Boston, or Chicago as to any point on the Missouri River.  Thinking we might wish to go to St. Louis, we took passage for that point.  If we had bought our tickets to New York or Boston, we could have sold the remainder not taken up at Omaha for half we paid for them in San Francisco.  And at one time, they charged more for passage to Virginia City, Salt Lake, or Denver than New York or Boston.

On entering the cars, we found no cots to sleep on all the way was to doze the best we could, sitting up in our seats.  Or if we had room for one person to have two seats, take up the seats and lay them crossways and a short person could sleep pretty well this way on the cushions.  Father being tall, six feet, he could not rest very well this way.

We had left all our old friends in Napa, feeling we were to return to them soon again, and it was not like parting not expecting to come back.

The Conductors on these emigrant trains were very obliging on the Central Pacific.  And we amused ourselves looking out the windows over the deserts, mountains, and once in a while old camping places we could recognize where we had camping grounds and watering privileges.  Mother, who had crossed three times with ox teams, exclaimed on running across the Humboldt Desert, "How different from the first time we crossed.  Then there was log chains, wagon tire, and other Irons scattered all over the Desert and up the Humboldt River for miles."  Some writers (and we have no doubt it was true) stated that there was enough Log Chains to reach clear across the desert by linking them together.  When Virginia City and the mines in Nevada broke out, all these irons became worth from five to ten cents per pound to haul to the Foundaries.  And some said the Mormons at Gold Run had gathered up all these irons and made quite a raise out of them.  The Mormons found these gold-run diggings in an early day, and were digging gold here when we first came to California in 1857.

Soon all was astir on the train, strangers soon becoming acquainted, each trying to outvie each other in little acts of kindness.  No people in the world are quite equal to our poor and middle class in America in such an emergency as this.  All wanting to help each other even to dividing their lunch.  And in these returns of emigrants and miners to visit their long-absent friends east, the greater part were intelligent, well-to-do men and women from the west.  So delighted to see the day star gone that ushered them into the arms of their long-absent friends, that the now five-day travel on an emigrant train only seemed a rest to their longings if they had to set up these five nights or sleep in an upright form.  And the joy of that assemblage was equal in a worldly sense to an old-time Methodist camp meeting.

On the Central Pacific we only had one unhappy man, an Old Sea Captain from Main, intelligent, accomodating,seeming eighty years old.  But nothing the Central Pacific officers done suited him.  He was always complaining of accomodations, and being close to our department, my getting tired of his complaints remarked to him (as he did always in his winding up his tirade on the Central Pacific), "We will be all right when we get on the Union Pacific."

To which I remarked, "Oh yes, when we meet the Grave Diggers we will be all right." Aims, the great shovel man, being president of that company.

All went favorable until we reached Ogden and had to take the Union Pacific.  Not a car but caboose cars to take us on.  Taking in the situation at a glance, setting my aged parents and sick brother and sister in the middle of the car on their bedding, I said to them, "Sit here until I return," making for the office of the headman at Ogden.  I called for the general superintendent, a well-dressed, fine looking man steps up to the counter and says, "What do you want?"

"I want to know if we have to go to the Missouri River on these caboose cars."

He says, "They are all we've got."

"Have you not just as great facilities to ship Rolling Stock as the Central?  They have to ship through you or by ocean."

Just then, the whistle blew, and knowing I'd have to get aboard or be separated from my people, I boarded the Caboose Castles, and all was on the move.  I sat down, my head in my hands, buried in meditation (as we moved along) what to do, when I heard the Conductor enter and say, "Tickets."

Throwing up my head in an instant, the idea come like a flash of lightning, and I cry out to my people, "Don't let him touch your tickets."

The conductor says, "How many of you refuse to have your tickets punched?"

Everyone in our car refused, but not getting sight in the other cars what was going on in ours until too late, most of the other passengers gave out their tickets.  Excitement ran high.  Some said they will put us out.  Many in other parts of the car blamed me.  My mother got scared and says, "They will put us off the train at the first station.  Then what will you do?"

"Climb on the first First-Class Passenger train that comes along, my ticket's not being punched."

Along comes the conductor.  I hailed him, "Now Conductor, I have traveled on every kind of a transporting Company except the great raging canal, and this is the first time I ever had occasion to complain of a Transporting Company."

To which he says, "I don't blame you a D. M. D. bit.  It's the first time this has happened since I've been on this train.  It's a damned imposition."  But he added, "You draw up a statement to Mr. Weed at Wausach, Utah, and get the ladies of the train to sign it, and I'll wait at the first station we come to for you to telegraph to Mr. Weed and get an answer."

I set down and wrote, "Mr. Weed, we are shipped aboard of Caboose Cars, not an accomodation aboard.  We ask you for redress."

Getting some twenty ladies to sign this article, adding below their names and many others, we crossed over to the first Telegraph Office, paid three dollars, and sent the message to Mr. Weeks.  Then, on the conductor waiting ten or fifteen minutes for an answer, he says, "We will pull along to the next station.  By that time the telegram will be answered."

The next and next and the next, but no answer.  We took a survey of all these cars.  Not a seat but one round the wall.  Most of them no seats at all.  Box or any kind of cars picked up for the occasion.  All was riot except one car where six or eight gamblers had spread out their blankets and about as many looking on at a game of cards.  They said, "This suits us well enough."

Nearly every man, woman, and child was at my back when they found the conductor was standing by me.  Only for this Conductor or I'd been at my wits' ends.  He engineered the matter.  I was only the messenger of dispatches carrying out his orders.  But, this exulting, happy, well-to-do people on the Central Pacific, were the wrathful rioters, ready to fight the passengers on the Caboose Disunited Pacific of the Rockies.  Of all the plights and varieties to be seen it was inside that train.  Men cut holes down through the floors of the Cars for refreshments, and Sanitary relations without even consulting me or the Conductor.  All class and condition, all had to carry their blankets and food to get much to eat.  And we had bedroom, kitchen, and state room and parlor all in one.  All were tramps.  Women as well as men had to carry their blankets  One man and his wife from Sonoma County by the name of Peoples we got wonderfully well acquainted with.  They had one beautiful little daughter.  One day a brakeman came to the door, and I asked him a civil question.  He spoke disrespectful to me.  We saw Mr. Peoples go like a flash out after him.  At the car door his wife swing to his arm.  I ran out after them.  Peoples with his revolver was trying to find this absconded Brakeman.  We got him back.  He was not drunk.  His wife a fine Christian lady.  He was a temperate, well-to-do gentleman.  If we had known he was a Captain in the Confederate Army, we should not so soon, probably, got intimate.  But dear me, Lee's surrender was small fry to this commotion.  No answer to my telegram.  But about ten at night of the first half day's run, we got to Mr. Weed's headquarters at Wausach.  Lanterned men all out at the village, no doubt expecting a riot.  All our train up in arms (that had any arms) for to hunt up Weed.  I had none myself, but my tongue.  There was quite a formidable number of us when we all got together and started for Mr. Weed's headquarters.  The first thing we met was an innumerable company of men with lanterns.  They accosted us by asking, "Where are you going?"

"To Weed's headquarters," was our reply.

"Mr. Weed is abed and asleep.  What do you want?"

"We want to know if we are to go to Omaha on these cars."

"Oh, no, there is a whole train lit up for you down there.  Just go aboard."

"Come on, boys," I says.

We met another Lantern Brigade who told us the same tale.

Then I said, "Just wait here until I go onto the train and find some of the officials.  They will tell us the truth."

There was a Brakeman sweeping out the car when I entered and said, "Where is this train going?"

"To Omaha."

"Who is going on it?"

"These immigrants that come in.  Mr. Weed got a telegram this afternoon stating they had run out of cars for immigrants at Ogden, and he stopped all this train."

We entered and found first-class cars enough to carry four times our company.  The joy was, if possible, far greater than the riot that killed nor hurt no one.  J. M. Morris was king.  Not a thing could happen without someone running to me.  Yet it was all the conductor's work.

We went as fast as the cars were permitted to run on this new road, and after all delays made our trip to the Missouri River on better schedule than common for the immigrant trains.

After getting dinner at Omaha, we took train for Falls City, Richardson County, Nebraska, and found my brother, William, quite well.  Also his wife and little Sadey, the girl baby who looked just like all my mother's children.  We had not been at my brother's more than a few hours until up drove Father Wilson from Iowa, my brother not knowing either his father-in-law or our family were coming until we arrived.

My brother-in-law, Elza Martin, having married again, was living in one mile of my brother's, having all the motherless children of my sister's at home.  Isaac Martin, the father of Elza, having given three or four of his children land to get them to move to Falls City from Sydney, Ioawa.  He offered Elza an eighty-acre lot, and nearly all this big family of Martins we used to live by in Iowa had with a lot more of our neighbors and acquaintances done likewise.  One half of  the people we were among at Falls City were our old friends.

We were stopped in two miles of the Kansas line and very pleasantly located with this people formerly either Nebraska or Iowa, and this was very pleasant for us while all so afflicted.  My brother, William, gave up his house to us for the winter, and he and his wife went back with Father and Mother Wilson back to Iowa tolive.  We were very sorry to lose the company of him and his excellent wife, but the reverand Isaac Martin and his family, a host of other Christian friends that we knew formerly, made up in part for this loss.

We found living very expensive at this place.  But this did not trouble us so much as my poor, lovely brother.  The disease was making fast progress with that dear one, and though we have had little to say of the two most interesting individuals of my father's family, namely my mother and my youngest brother.  Only one apology maybe offered for this.  They were too sacred subjects for my frenziedpen to grapple with.  My oldest brother, two years older than myself, were always until he was twenty and myself nearly eighteen together, only absent one year of this time.  While my youngest brother and myself were separated for the greater part of the time.  Their dispositions were very similar.  If any difference, my older brother had the best mind, would gather to him more acquaintances and friends.  The latter more devoted and religious, more to look out for home affairs.  More lovingto his parents,less social toothers than my older brother.  He was spoken of by the more sacred part of God's People.  My older brother more sought for of the worldly wise.  The younger the better spiritual barometer.  My older brother more dry wit, more prudential, historic, and more fond of reading, quite demonstrative, could domost any kind of mechanical work.  While my younger brother was a natural receptive Singer.  My oldest brother could not sing at all.  My youngest brother was from infancy, seemingly, a devoted Christian.  My oldest brother never embraced Religion until he was twenty-eight or thirty.  But when he did, he was more radical, would not allow Harper's or Leslie's magazines brought into his room or read in his presence during his last sickness, suffered more while sick, was the more peevish in his sickness.  The younger the very embodiment of patience, never complaining, always happy, hopeful, and sweet.  If to be good means to be God-like, he was good.  We took care of both in their last sickness, turningthem in their bed andlifting them up when too weak to help themselves.  We would not detract a jot from the one or add a tittle to the other.  But when they both died, we never could see why we felt the sting more sensitive when the younger died than the older.

During my brother's sickness, I got out quite frequent.  He being present at home with my youngest sister and his parents.  While the older brother always wanted me with him.  And if away at any time, he would wait for hours for me to come and lift him up.

Although both lingered long, were lean and bedridden, having to be treated very similar.  One complained like Job his most bitter grief.  This was most assuredly from his extreme suffering.  The Younger wanted me to go to the spelling school, Debate and Church; prefered me to lift him or turn him round, but if gone someone else of the family could do as well.  My eldest brother would not let my mother cook a thing for him.  He did not come home, he said, for his mother to wear herself out waiting on him.  There was plenty of girls to do that.  And if Mother cooked, he would not taste a bit of it.  My sister, lucy, being at home, single at that time, had to cook all my brother, Thomas ate.  He would not let my Younger Sister, Hatty, do a thing for him.  On the contrary, Eddy would eat anythingothers cooked, let anyone wait on him, and never complain.  He certainly was the most patient,resigned personwe ever attended when sick.

After arriving at Falls City, he soon took down to his bed, never to rise again.  The winter being extremely cold,and the doctor by advising us east, cut his life short at least two years.  Yet the Doctor was counted a most Excellent Physician, and one of the best friends we ever had.

Many amusing andinteresting things come up this winter.  We attended meetings, visited old friends, attended debates, and done some work.  Got much good.  And here for the first time met that distinguished and able Presiding Elder Lemon.  He always wove some pleasantry or wit into his sermons.  One day, just as he closed an able sermon, he says, "In deliminating character, if a boy is honest, truthful and able, we will make a farmer of him.  If he is cruel, kills birds, and throws stones at stock, we will make a doctorof him.  If he is mean, given to rascality, and tells lies, we will make a lawyer of him.  But if he is easy to get tired when well and evidently lazy (here haltingin his speech as if he hated to proceed,he eventually said), we will make a preacher of him."  Lemon was a very able man, but we never thought him near as able as Presiding Elder Mitchell of Kansas who we heard preach after hearing Inskip preach on the same subject in New York City--the centennial of Methodism.  Mitchell was a most excellent historian.  Never indulged inwitticisms unless to save time or to explain something quicker, better, and more forcibly.  In this centennial sermon he said, in summingup the strength of the differentdenominations, "In reference to the United Brethren, I will simply quote from Horus Greeley's speech in Lorus, Kansas, 'Two things under the sun I have never seen.'  One is a finished Brethren church, and the other is a dead mule."

In theology Mr. Stombs told me a beautiful analogy of the Indians at the falls of the Nimaha.  The Indians at this place told him (he could speak their language) that there was a long pole stretched across a wide river between them and the good country to which they were going after death.  If an Indian was good, he could just walk this pole over into the better country without any difficulty.  But if he was a bad Indian, he would fall off from the pole and be washed down the mighty stream, and never be anything further heard of him.

The school and religious interests of this part of Nebraska were fairly good, and the best place for workers along that line we met in the west.  One Brethren exhorter so faithful to visit my brother in his last sickness was constantly urging me to go with him and help him in his labors for the bettering of mankind on his Sabbath appointments.  He was not a man of much ability, and one Sabbath afternoon I concluded to go.  We went away out in the high prairie, not a grove to be seen scarcely, to a schoolhouse where the most intelligent, best dressed assemblage we ever had met for years assembled.  After Brother Gardner made a few remarks, he called on me, and the Lord helped me wonderfully.  Most of the audience shed tears, and if we could have come out there and labored a week, it seemed a score or more might have been saved.

One other matter we took part in during this winter's revival work done me much good.  There were a set of young men, we cannot call them gentlemen, that went round to spelling schools, Debates, and religious service to disturb and annoy.  They even got so filled up with the spirit of the Devil that they would go and set down by some poor mutes (there being two or three families of this kind in our neighborhood) and during prayer time stick pins into these poor distressed mortals.  I saw something had to be done, and John Martin, my old chum in Iowa, had moved here with his father, the reverend Isaac Martin, who found religion just the same after twelve years when shouting happy in the schoolhouse in Iowa as when converted.  Now found religion "just the same as fifteen years ago in Iowa."  To cut a long story short, we concluded to break up this disturbance, and he was as strong in his body as I was with my tongue.  And one night, after revival service, some of these deaf and dumb people going forward for prayers, these toughs would annoy them no little.  This Indian Brigade, as we called them, always were the last to leave any assemblage.  And we knew they would lay back to hear if anyone said anything of their behavior.  We were prepared easy with a little religious wrath or determination to see at least decency carried out.  John Martin first attacked them and told them plainly these shameful and disgraceful things had to stop.  If they did not, he gave them fair warning, the law would be put in force.  All the crew were eyeing the Californian, and he stepped up and says, "Now, I've been all over California, in Idaho, Virginia City, Nevada, and among the gamblers in the mines.  I never saw such behavior.  If they were here, they would be the first to put this rioting down.  You fellows remind me of some things I heard.  One day, so the story goes in the legend, a traveler comes along to where they were making men.  Having run out of good material, they picked up chips, broken pieces of brick, any fragments they could stick together to make legs, arms, body, and head.  The last thing done was to put in the brain.  But one day when they had these fellows all made out of these broken fragments (described above), they ran off before the brains were put in, and were never heard of afterwards.  But to my great astonishment, I have found them here."

They did not disturb any more meetings that winter.

Along in February it was self-evident my brother could only hold out a short time longer, someone having to set up with him each night.  His mind kept clear, and he seemed, if possible, to grow more wise and considerate than when in better health.  Never did webut two or three times ever hear him make any allusion to his condition or circumstances that surrounded him.

On going to meeting on the Delaware Reserve in Kamsas one Sunday morning, we were both afoot.  It was a cold morning in 1867 before our returning to California.  He stopped on going up a long hill not very steep and says (being somewhat fatigued), "Here, put your ear up to my chest and you can tell what is the matter."

On my approaching, I could hear the phlegm rattle like one dying.

At another time, during his long sickness for years, he said to me when we were all alone, "Once I was in hopes I might live to see Father and Mother buried, but that cannot be so now."

This was all the time we ever heard him speak about his failing health or condition in life until the night of his death.  All the family were up.  We saw the change was coming.  He made an effort to change to his right side.  I turned him, when he said in a plain whisper, "Oh, dear."  Father, Mother, and sister were looking on, and I said, "What is the mattter, Eddy?"

"Oh, nothing," he says.

"Well," I said, "you are about as near dying now as anyone can be and know anything."

He added, "Sometimes I almost wished it was over."

This was the last words.

No one seemed desirous to ask him a word or talk to him, although my father was such a good hand to talk to the dying.

For my part I felt I would just as soon interrogate an Angel from the other world, he was so saintly.  And it seemed my father was feeling much the same as I did.

He only drew two or three easy, quiet breaths after whispering the above.  Not a twitter, move, or ruffle come over him.  He simply rested from the long, tired race for life that crept on so slowly for a few years, and went to sleep.

As long as he could walk round, he for years would come up behind my mother's chair, lay his arms around her neck a moment or two, and go away.

He could catch a tune in an instant from an instrument or hearing one sing it.  Although his voice was so weak yet so musical, a who Camp Meeting would listen when he sang.  And he introduced some of the new songs he picked up here and there into California, like "Nearer My God to Thee," "Climbing Up Zion's Hill," and many of the Patriotic songs of the rebellion.  He was the only brother or sister that could sing.

And this may be the cause of my taking his death more severely than any of the other brothers when he died.  He was only one year older when he died than my brother, Brown, being seventeen.  Only one brother left of five.  We felt lonesome, broke up, the jewel of our home was gone.

The weather was too cold to return to California when my brother died.  William and wife comes down from Iowa to take charge of his farm, and we lived with him until the weather got warm.

The day we buried my brother, on an eminence looking over the falls of the Nimeha, the snow blew and it was bitter cold in the month of January 13, 1870.

In the spring we gave my father and mother all the money we had except twenty-five dollars to bear their expenses by rail back to California.  My sister, Hattie, took all of the Gold Specimens she had picked up in the mines, her pure gold neck chain, earrings, finger rings, buckles of pure gold, worth at least two hundred and fifty dollars we should think, and sold them for eighty dollars to a Falls City merchant.  Then she did not have a sufficiency to take her back to California.  But just before they got ready to start, who should come along to Falls City but Jack Tucker, one of our old, intimate, California friends, and loaned her what money she wanted to go back on.

For my part, I went in company with Mr. Perkins and Malcolm clear through Kansas to the Cherokee line in hunt of land to squat on or get some farm work to do.  The wind blew so fierce.  To get work was impossible.  All over the prairies you could see cabin after cabin for miles.  Persons having taken up this land could get no work, times were so hard.  They had deserted the premises and gone on railroads or other public work for to get something to eat.  Here and there we found a family shaking with the ague.  And not desiring to settle in that part of the country, we turned our course to Little Osage, Vernon County, Missouri, where the remnant of my Mother's people (the Dodges) lived.  They were nearly all dead or moved away.  The visit was more like a funeral procession than anything else.  But I found dear cousins that had passed throught he mills of afflictions as well as myself and thought what a world of afflictions this is.  My aunt and uncle, grand parents, that I lived with a year, each had died.  One aunt moved away, and the Cousins, about equally divided, had gone into the war fighting in the same battles one against the other, not knowing the facts themselves until the war closed.  Yet we had some consolation in meeting.  Although for the most part, the old landmarks were destroyed.  Someof the old landmarks shot down on each side.  No preaching only occassionally at my grandfather's church.  After a week, we turned our course afoot to Falls City to my brother, William's, once more.  One cousin brought me sixty miles on my way to Lawrence, Kansas, and I took it afoot from there to Falls City.  The winds like to have blew me away.  And I never knew how severe these winds were, although raised up among them until I came to California and lived so many years.

On reaching my Brother's at Falls City and resting up a little, we borrowed twenty dollars of him and started to the northward looking for work.  The returnof a million of men from the Civil War of these Disunited States of America had gone to producing the labor market was full.  Everything was in an unhealthy state financially.  One thousand men were at Omaha waiting for the railroad to start up the bridge at that place.  But the company had put off all the operations until one year.  And all the labor markets were prostrate.  We hunted for work from the Cherokee Nation on the south to Sioux City on the north.  And one little Swede merchant at the latter place gave us a small job of moving some crockery that was piled up out doors into his store.  We think it took a day and a half.

Crossing over into Nebraska to the town of Dekota, we heard of a man who wanted someone to take hold of a prairie team he owned some miles out on the waste prairies without a house.  No one to cook for you.  Oncomingto the tent, we found a man down with chills and fever in a tent with an Irish boy to drive team for him.  We went to work at thirty dollars per month bossing this job.  The manleft us sole monarch of these prairies by doing all the work ourselves.  The Irish boy being entirely incompetent to hunt and yoke oxen or to cook at camp.  But being at our old trade we used to follow in Iowa and Nebraska before goingto California, we felt at home in this desert land, ten miles from any settlements and went to work with a will, it being the first work we could get for two months' hard searching and travel of five or six hundred miles, someof the time on foot.

All went well for two or three weeks, when I began to break out, and on speaking to my boy bedfellow about it, he coolly remarked, "Them blankets," refering to our bed, "have greybacks in them."

I itch as I write this, thinking of my plight at that time.  Throwing out the bedding and doing best as I could for another week until my month was up, I collected my thirty dollars and bid adieu to camp and greybacks, madeback to Council Bluffs, Iowa, then the biggest city on the Mississippi river above Saint Joe.

On reaching the latter named city, knowing Elder Flemming, my brother-in-law's presiding elder at Hawleysville, years before, was stationed at that place (Council Bluffs).  I went up to see him for information, knowing Methodist preachers usually know everything going on, and told him who I was and of some of my hardships and trials, remarking on the wind up, "If I was only back in California, I could get something to do."

To which he remarked, "You can get back to California.  There is a man over in Omaha who is giving away his money to everybody.  He has more money than he knows what to do with.  You go over to him.  He will let you have the money."

"Who is it?"

"Old Moses Shinn," he says.  He owns Shinn's extension to Omaha.  Is rich."

I was bewildered, rejoiced, and surprised.  I was well acquainted with Shinn when he was Presiding Elder on the Bluffs District in Iowa.  Knew him the time he chased the Mormons out of old Kanesville with a club.  He used to pat me when I was a boy, and I felt as confident as if I had the money in my hands.  He would let me have it.

Thinking, "Well, this is pretty well for meeting a stranger."  Bidding the elder goodbye, I started for Shinn's headquarters.  On reaching his residence at Omaha, I was worse surprised to find that he had just returned with his wife from an extended visit to California only the day before, scarcely rested from his journey.  He had visited my father and mother, and knew all about them, more than I did, for I had been on the wing ever since they left Nebraska.

On telling him my mission, he remarked, "There are ten thousand men out of employment in California.  You could get nothing to do if you were there.  They are going to work on the railroad bridge next spring.  Then there will be work for forty thousand men in Omaha.  You can then get all the work you want.  I enquired all about your father and mother.  Saw your sister.  They are well provided for.  There is no man I would sooner go down into my pocket and help quicker than your father, but they are provided for.  If I thought it any charity, I would give you the money.  But you could donothing if there."

To which I said, "Elder Shinn, if you think I have come here on any charitable mission, you are mistaken in your man.  I would not have the money unless I could borrow it and pay you the interest.  Good bye."

I survived these shocks of surprise in one day, and made up my mind to visit my old Nebraska home in seven miles of Plattesmouth.  Quite feeble harvest just coming on, but I entered the harvest fields in the Old Morris Settlement dead broke, discouraged, and alone except my brother, Brown's, grave on the old Homestead we left when we first started for California in 1857, thirteen years before.  To speak of my own sickness or frailties it has never been my disposition. But to confess the truth, I was not able to work.  Yet keeping my station up after the reaper, there was no complaint.  But having bound wheat in California when only weighing ninety-six pounds, it seemed I had more strength in that climate than I had here when weighing a hundred and fifteen.  After thus working for two weeks, I got a letter from L. G. Purvis, now of Iowa, a man we lived by when we were boys in Nebraska, who lived by us in Trinity County, California, and served with my brother in the California Battalion during the war, and last but not least to help two other men work out some good mines at Minersville, California, that they never paid me for.  Stating that he had sold out at Falls City, Nebraska, and was going to California, to come over immediately.  He wanted me to go back with him to California, and he would furnish the money.  He had a young wife, very simple and childlike, but good.  We had scarcely time to see the old friends of our pioneer life in this section.  Nearly all of them had moved away.  Some dead.  But the old settlement then and for years afterward wen by the name of the Morris Settlement.  In writing up the first history of Methodism in Nebraska, my father's name figures to some extent in that history, and the historian always calls it the Morris Settlement.

But to return to Iowa.  Purvis and wife and myself were in about one week on our way back to California.  The same old routine of cars we had when coming out the fall before, only they did not ship us aboard of the caboose train.  Yet you could not get sleeping accomodations unless you went first class.  We got two seats for three of us, and by shifting around we got some rest.  You could get hot coffee from vendors each meal when the train stopped for those who wished to go to the eating houses.  Generally cakes and pies also were passed to the cars by peddlers, but generally they were very poor, while the coffee and milk sold to the immigrants was good.  We fared pretty well on this trip of five days from the Mississippi River to San Francisco.  No excitgement occurred, but one thing amused me.  We learned from the Indians on the banks of the Missouri River years ago.  We observed the Indians coming to the banks of the river would turn their backs to the river, bend their bodies forward, and  look between their knees or legs over the river.  In these transverse gazes the river would look as far again across as when your face was turned and you looked standing erect in the usual manner.  In coming to a place known by every traveller familiar with this locality that objects looking close by are very far off, one elderly man out on the platform says, "How far is the foot of that hill from us?"

I turned on my back, reversed my head, stooped forward, and looked between my legs, and said, "It is two miles away."

"Oh no.  Impossible.  It don't look more than a half mile at the farthest.  But what made you look between your legs?"

"That gives you a better relative perspective of the distance," I said.

He looked.  The conductor came along, and the man says, "How far to the foot of those hills?"

"Four miles," he says.

But the conductor had never known anything about this transverse look either.

You should have been surprised to see the number of men on that train who came out to the platform from here on to the Missouri river looking in that attitude.

We noticed several ladies in the cars as we passed looked queer at us, but never saw one of them come out to the platform and hold up her dress and look in that attitude.

Mr. Purvis, one night getting in a sound sleep, had a terrible nightmare.  He made a terrible, distressing, curious noise.  Hollered out fearfully.  I lay hold and shook him.  The carse not being lit very well, the passengers didn't know but I was murdering him, all asking, "What's the matter?"

"Oh," says one, "he has only a night horse."

Then such a roar of laughter all over the car.  And as soon as silence reigned, another says, "What was the matter?"

"Oh," says someone loud enough to be heard all over the car, "he only had a night horse."  Then went up another volley of laughter nearly sufficient to frighten his young wife to death.

End book 6.

Book 7.

Arriving in San Francisco, we soon made haste to get up to Napa Valley, and found Father and Mother living at the old man Tucker's.  This old man was the father of six sons, all grown, some of them forty years old.  We found him no such a man as his sons, George W. and Jack Tucker.  He had a way when he made a contract he did not like of running a freeze-out game, furnish nothing and require them to deliver the prize.  Mother was to keep house for him and little two-year-old daughter for her and Father's board.  The old man was very good for a month or so.  Then he began to allowance the cook, making things very unpleasant for Father and Mother.  I tell you, I soon moved them out of there.  We went into a small shanty up the creek.  My father was cutting cord wood to get a little money to use.  This was how Elder Shinn saw my parents cared for.  To say the least, I was sick.

The Union Pacific and the Central Pacific railroads being completed, I found one thing Elder Shinn told me strictly true.  The country was flooded with men, thousands out of employ.  Hard times always on hand, when men cannot get work.  Out of means, owing nearly three hundred dollars borrowed, I did not know where to turn or look.  But along comes a shrewd man I knew for years as a great scamp.  He was selling subscription books.  He knew just how much to talk.  His family lived close by, and he had to pass right by our camp going to and from his home.  Always had something to say.  He put at me to go to selling books.  I would just as soon thought of going to begging, but he hung on.  And for one week that untiring confidence man would call, chat about so much, and pass on.  Finally after setting round for a week blueing, my face half of the time in my hands, sick, tired, and discouraged, I said to him, "If I knew that I could make twenty-five dollars clear of all expenses per month, I'd go into business."

He says, "You go out and work a month.  If you don't make fifty dollars, come to me.  I will make up what you lack."

His word was just as good as his note: neither one was worth a cent.  I had got so low-spirited I had not the power to resist anything offered to me, and said, "You se