At Racine we engaged a man to take us, six in all, with our trunks to Delavan. The roads were almost impassable. The rains had fallen so copiously that the streams overflowed their banks, the marshes were full and the prairies inundated. With a good team, however, we made an average of about fifteen miles a day. Our conveyance stuck fast in the mud eighteen times between Racine and Delavan. Sometimes we found these interesting events would occur just in the middle of a broad marsh. In such case the gentlemen would take to the water, not unfrequently up to the loins, build a chair by the crossing of hands, as they had learned to do in their school days, and give the ladies a safe passage to the prairie beyond. But woe worth the day if the wheels refused to turn, as they sometimes did, in the middle of some deep, broad mud-hole. The light prairie soil, when thoroughly saturated, is capable of very great volatility and yet of stick-to-it-iveness. While the team and wagon, buried deeply in the mud, found the soil as yielding as quicksand, the passengers, on alighting, were no more fortunate. To make the chair and wade ashore with its precious burden, at such a time, involved a very nice adjustment of balances. If the three went headlong before they reached the shore, each received a generous "coat of mail" of the most modern style.
We reached Delavan in due course of travel, where we remained several days. The Sabbath intervened. My father preached in the morning, and I held service in the afternoon. On Monday a council was held. Since our feet touched the soil of Wisconsin, our ears had been filled with the praises of the country, and especially the counties of Dodge and Fond du Lac. By the time we had spent several days at Delavan, and were ready to move on toward Iowa, this clamor had become so decided in its tone, that, as a result of the consultation, it was decided that two or three of us should go up through Dodge and Fond du Lac counties. Not with the expectation that our destination would lie in that direction, but it was thought advisable to know what had been left behind, in case we should not be pleased with Dubuque.
Leaving the balance of our company at Delavan, we started on foot on our tour of exploration. Keeping our eyes and ears open, we were ready to go in any direction in quest of the promised "Eldorado." Like all "land seekers" of those early times, a few things were deemed essential to make a location desirable. These were prairie, timber and water. But with us one additional requisite must not be ignored. We must also find a "water power." With all these objects in view, the line of travel became perplexing and described a good many angles, but the main direction lay through East Troy, Summit, Watertown, Oak Grove and Waupun. At the last named place we found a few scattered log houses, and, within a radius of five miles, perhaps a dozen families. The location was beautiful. With its prairie of from one to two miles in width, skirted on the north by groves of timber, through which ran the west branch of Rock River, and fringed on the south by extended openings, it took us captive at once. Passing up the stream two or three miles we found the looked for water-power, and abundance of unappropriated lands. By setting our stakes on the crown of the prairie, and making the lines pass down to the river and through the belt of timber, sufficient land of the right quality could be secured for the whole family, including, also, the desired water-power. To decide upon this spot as our future home, was the result of a brief consultation. All thought of going to Iowa was now abandoned. Obtaining a load of lumber, which was all that could be secured for either love or money, a shanty was immediately erected for the accommodation of the family. Was it a providential intervention that assigned us our home and field of labor in this new and rapidly populating portion of Wisconsin, rather than the city of Dubuque?
Society in its formative state needs, above all other agencies, the salutary influences of religion. To provide these and give them efficiency among the people, the presence and labors of the Gospel ministry, and the establishment of churches, are a necessity. To secure these at the outset requires the emigration of ministers from the older States as well as people. Perhaps the motives of neither class in coming will always bear a thorough scrutiny; yet who shall say that their coming is not under the general direction of Providence? Nor is it improbable that the hasty steps that seem to bear the unwilling servant from the presence of the Master are the very ones that most speedily bring him face to face with his duty.
CHAPTER II.
The Young Itinerant.--In a Lumber Mill at Waupun.--The Surprise.--An Interval of Reflection.--A Graceful Surrender.--The Outfit minus the Horse and Saddlebags.--Receives Instruction.--The Final Struggle.--Arrives at Brothertown.--Reminiscences of the Red Man.--The Searching Scrutiny.--The Brothertown People.--The Mission.--Rev. Jesse Halstead.--Rev. H.W. Frink.
In March, A.D. 1845, a letter from Rev. Wm. H. Sampson, then Presiding Elder of Green Bay District, Rock River Conference, found me at Waupun. The intervening nine months, since our arrival in the preceding July, had been spent in making improvements upon the land I had selected, and in the erection of a lumber mill, of which I was in part proprietor.
The bearer of the letter found me in the mill, engaged in rolling logs to the saw and in carrying away the lumber. I opened the letter and glanced at its contents. To my surprise and utter consternation it contained a pressing request that I would take charge of the Brothertown Indian Mission until the next session of the Conference, as the Missionary, Rev. H.W. Frink, had been called away by family afflictions. I instinctively folded the letter and then crumpled it in the palm of my hand, inwardly saying, "Hast thou found me, oh! mine enemy?" No rash answer, however, was given. This question of duty was certainly assuming grave aspects. For four years it had haunted me at every turn. And even in the wilds of Wisconsin it was still my tormenter. Like Banquo's ghost, it would not down at my bidding. I now tried to look the question fairly in the face, and make the decision a final one, but found it exceedingly difficult to do so. To yield after so long a struggle, and especially to surrender all my fondly cherished plans for the future, appealed at first to my pride, and then to what I conceived to be my temporal interests, and the appeal for a moment seemed to gain the ascendency. But how then could I answer to God? was the startling question that burned into my soul at every turn of the argument. In the midst of my embarrassment the thought was suggested, "It is only until Conference, and then you can return and resume your business."
Catching at this straw, thus floating to me, and half believing and half hoping that three months of my incompetency would satisfy the church and send me back to my business again, I consented to go. Leaving my temporal interests in the hands of my father, I hastened to make the necessary preparations for my new responsibilities. The outfit was provokingly limited. The horse and saddlebags, the inevitable Alpha, if not the Omega, of an Itinerant's outfit, were wanting, as such conveniences had hardly, as yet, found their way to the northern portions of the Territory. But in their place were put good walking ability and a small satchel. A few pieces of linen, a few books, but no sermons, were put into the satchel, and I was immediately stepping to the measure of the Itinerancy.
My first point of destination was Fond du Lac, the residence of the Presiding Elder, where I must necessarily report for instructions. The walk of twenty-two miles, with no other companion than a plethoric satchel, passing from hand to hand as the weary miles, one after another, were dismissed, was not the most favorable introduction to my "new departure," but, bad as it was, I found relief in the thought that my Eastern friends, who had so kindly and repeatedly proposed to give me a comfortable seat somewhere in the New York Conference, were in blissful ignorance of the sorry figure I was making. Whether Jonah found his last conveyance more agreeable than the first, I cannot say, but certain it is, I found my first entrance upon the Itinerancy a tugging business.
I reached Fond du Lac before nightfall, and was hospitably entertained. Notwithstanding the cordial reception I received, however, from both the elder and his good wife, I felt embarrassed by the searching look they occasionally gave me. Whether it was occasioned by my youthful, green or delicate appearance, or my light, feminine voice, I could not divine.
The conversation soon turned upon the state of affairs at Brothertown, and I speedily forgot my embarrassment. In the course of the conversation I inquired whether