At the earnest solicitation of my friend, Judge Cunningham, one of the promoters of this society, I consented to present a paper setting forth a few incidents of the trip (as I now remember them) of the immigration of my father and his family from Massachusetts to Illinois in the year 1830. Some few years previous to that time a brother of my mother's from the adjoining town to our residence, against the wishes and entreaties of his friends, relatives and neighbors, started west to see if he could find a country presenting better facilities for a permanent home than he had among the hills and rocks of the East. He had a distant relative of his wife living in Vigo county, Indiana, and to that point they drifted; and after examining the country around there went west to the prairies of Illinois which presented such an inviting appearance to him that he at once decided to stop there and make it his future home, being near Paris, the county seat of Edgar county. The glowing descriptions he gave his old associates of the country he had found induced my father to join him in Illinois. My oldest brother having preceded the rest of the family a year or so before, and having purchased a forty-acre tract of land adjoining his uncle's for the use of the family on which to make a new start in life. Some time about the first of May, 1830, we bade goodbye, to the old homestead in Charlemont, Franklin county, Mass., and the old friends and neighbors, which to them seemed more like a funeral than a temporary separation, and started with such household goods, clothing, etc., as loaded two wagons and teams, hired for the purpose of conveying them to Troy, N. Y., a distance of about fifty miles, at which place we were joined by a brother and sister of my mother's with a span of horses and a light wagon which accompanied our family the entire trip. Remaining in Troy two or three days, we got passage on a canal boat for the entire family (save the uncle who drove his team to Buffalo), the family then being my father, mother, aunt, a sister aged 13 and myself, five in all. After a slow and tedious trip we joined my uncle and team again at Buffalo, a distance of about 250 miles from Troy.

1 This paper was read by the author at a meeting of the Champaign Historical Society.

The trip while on the canal was a slow and tedious one. Not having any record of the time and after an absence of nearly seventy years, I will not attempt to say how long it took us. It was on this part of our journey that I first heard boys scientifically swear; it seemed that at every change of horses and drivers the new driver endeavored to show us that he could do more hard swearing than any of our former ones, and I think if such a thing were possible our last one was entitled to the plum.

On our arrival at Buffalo we had to wait two or three days before we were able to get passage to Perrysburg, situated on the lake at the mouth of the Maumee river, at or near where Toledo is now situated. Having succeeded in getting passage on a popular schooner commanded by Captain Wilkinson, an old lake captain, we loaded our goods, horses and wagon on board, and with a few other men going west and with two additional ladies, took possession of the cabin, located in the "hole" of the craft and quite a cosy, neat apartment.

When supper was announced a majority of the passengers asked to be excused from participating, the rolling of the boat having relieved them from all feeling of hunger, besides occupying their time in attending to the duties required to keep their stomachs from getting in their mouths; but fortunately I had not yet taken the disease and was able to do justice to the good things we had for supper, awaiting my time until later.

Sometime after midnight a heavy storm came up; the waters became very angry and occasionally a wave would wash over our boat so that the most of those who did not want any supper forgot their sickness and fully expected to go where sickness never comes. Before morning, and to clap the climax, a very strong gale of wind broke the mainmast of our craft and all below at the crash expected to find themselves at the bottom of the lake, but about this time the fury of the storm began to abate and with the smaller mast the sailors kept the boat in an upright position until daybreak when at about 10 or 11 o'clock they landed at Dunkirk and rigged another mainmast so that by dark they were in condition to proceed, but waited until the latter part of the night before they left.

Before starting from Buffalo they had erected a good strong fence or pen around our horses which were on top of the boat and fortunately when the mast broke it fell in such a direction as not to strike them. Well, when morning came and breakfast was ready. and the tenderfooted found they were alive, the most of them partook of such diet as they thought their stomachs would stand. Now in all seriousness this was no pleasant trip, so far, and in after years the recollection of that night brought up memories in the minds of most of those present that were far from pleasant.

The next night after leaving Dunkirk the lake again became very rough, accompanied by high winds that drove our boat and stranded it in shallow water near Long Point, which extends into the lake from the Canada side, and not to exceed one-fourth of a mile from the main land; and on getting up in the morning we found ourselves fast on the sand and all that could be done was to remain there until we

could attract the attention of some passing boat for our relief by com. ing to our assistance and lightening our boat so it would again floatAs soon as it became light enough our captain had his flag of distress run up to the highest point of our mainmast, but, having by the wind been driven so far north and out of the usual track, we remained in our then present position for five days and nights before our distress signal was seen, when a passing schooner discovered it, came to our relief, and after taking on enough of our cargo to allow our boat to again float, we got into deeper water and reloading our freight again, proceeded on our voyage.

Having been delayed there so long our provisions were getting short, but got a supply from our rescuer to relieve us until we landed at Cleveland without any suffering except food for our horses, which while stranded, had eaten all we had provided for them, and the Canada shore having no show of vegetation, we unpacked several crates of Queensware on board and fed them the dirty, musty straw which they ate with avidity and which kept them alive until we reached Cleveland. Before getting to the pier we sailed along close to the land for quite a distance where stock was grazing on the green grass, which our starved horses aboard discovered, and they became perfectly frantic and so cross that the sailors passing them on deck dared not go near them. When we got to where we could take them off and to where they could get something to eat they soon got all right.

Here we also took our wagon off the boat and my uncle drove them to Perrysburg, getting there a few days after the boat arrived, and where we waited until he joined us. Here we saw many Indians, and in fact hardly a day passed until we got to Logansport, Ind., that we did not encounter more or less of them.

While awaiting the arrival of uncle with the team, at Perrysburg, we contracted to be conveyed by keel boat up the Maumee River to Ft. Wayne, Ind., a distance of about ninety miles on a straight line, but how far by that tortuous course of the river I don't know; it seemed a long way. Our crew was composed of a captain who steered the boat, and six men, three of which worked on each side of the boat and propelled the craft by long poles, the lower end of each pole covered with a sheath of iron drawn to a point, and by walking from stern to bow dragging the poles thus equipped, and then facing the stern of the boat, placing the lower end on the bottom of the river and the upper end against their shoulders, pushing the boat the length of it and getting up a speed to carry it along until they walked again to the bow and repeated their trip to stern as before stated, walking on a wide board with slats nailed across the top to prevent their slipping, and when the boat is loaded is but a few inches above the water.

At Perrysburg we again put our wagon on board the boat and either uncle or father rode one of the horses and led the other; there was no wagon road the most of the way, only a trail traveled by the mail carrier on horseback and marked by cutting three notches in each side of a tree occasionally as a guide. After arriving at Fort

Wayne (an old town from the appearance of the buildings, and 1 think a population not exceeding two or three hundred) we were compelled to remain there until our men folks went across a low flat timbered country some twelve or fifteen miles to the Wabash River to see what the chance was, if any, to get transportation down said stream to a point about seven miles above Terre Haute.

They were gone three or four days and on their return reported that the only chance to get down said stream that they could find or hear about was to purchase a pirogue and float down. They accordingly found one made of a large poplar tree, about fifty feet in length, holding its size pretty well its entire length, the inside measure at the large end nearly three feet and the small end about twenty-eight inches. This they purchased, the party agreeing to have it at a certain place where it could be reached by wagon from Ft. Wayne, and returned.

We then engaged a couple of wagons and teams to haul us to the river in a day, but owing to the condition of the roads and no wagons having passed over them since the fall before, trees had been blown down and across the track, some of which were where we could not get around, and consequently had to spend so much time in removing them that dark overtook us some four miles from the river. We consequently halted and after building a big fire interested the female portion of our party in preparing supper. We then changed the position of the load in one wagon so as to get a sleeping place for my mother and her sister, while my sister and I stowed ourselves away: and there we all spent the first night of our lives in a wagon, while the older males of the party put in the time until morning keeping up the fire and spinning yarns, after having satisfied some six or eight Indians who visited them (having been attracted by the fire) that we had no whiskey.

The next morning after getting breakfast we struck out and found our boat, in which we proceeded to place our freight, having plenty of room for sleeping quarters. Here again we loaded on our boat our wagon, and, as on part of our voyage previously spoken of, one of the older ones travelled with the horses, saluting our craft occasionally through the day, and if convenient, staying with us at night. The weather was warm and comfortable and by this time (it being June) we leisurely floated along for several days without anything unusual occurring. Almost any one of us could steer our craft until one night when altogether and all asleep the moon having gone down and hardly a ripple on the water, our craft tipped to one side and before we could get it righted up was at least one-third full of water; and attracted by a noise on shore like the cracking of brush we were fully satisfied that someone had stepped upon the edge of our craft, as we always thought, for the purpose of purloining something, and having tipped our boat and at the same time awakened its occupants, left in a hurry; and on the next morning we found footsteps to and also going in the direction of the cracking heard the night before. After righting up our boat we went to work and dipped all the water out

we could get, and where our clothes were wet replaced them by dry ones but we did no more sleeping that night.

The next day was bright and warm and again we started on our journey, and as luck would have it, my uncle, who was with the horses, found another pirogue nearly as large as the first one, only about thirty-five feet long, which he bought, and when we got along he hailed us in good time to land, when they lashed the two boats together and made a very safe and commodious craft. The only thing missed from our boat was my mother's willow work basket in which she had her knitting and other work, which we found the next morning in a drift about a mile below where it was tipped out the night before.

The balance of our trip was free from any other mishaps worthy of note, drifting with the current by day and tying up at night, making stops only at towns occasionally to replenish our larder, until we arrived at Durkee's Ferry, seven miles above Terre Haute, where we found my oldest brother, who had come to meet us, and a representative of the distant relative of my uncle and wife, spoken of in the fore part of this paper, tendering us the hospitality of their home until we could get moved to our destination, which invitation was thankfully received, and on the same day had our goods conveyed there and remained until everything was unpacked and such as had got wet from the tipping over of our craft, thoroughly dried.

After a day or two my father and uncle with our own conveyance drove to the place of our destination, about fifteen miles west, where father procured a couple of yoke of oxen and a wagon and returned to where he had left us. After reloading a portion of our goods he returned to where he had procured a log cabinn in the neighborhood, and in which we remained until he built a house on the land heretofore spoken of. My father permitted me to accompany him with the first load. The first nine miles of the road was through timber when we struck the Grand Prairie as it was then called. The grass waving in the beautiful sunlight of June and all the wild flowers indignous to the prairies bowing their heads to the breeze, presented a sight that I thought the most beautiful I had ever beheld, the remembrance of which, notwithstanding seventy years have passed and gone since then, is still as vivid to my mind, it seems, as the day when I first viewed the beauties of the grand old prairies of Illinois.

This brings us to the end of our trip, a distance of 820 miles in straight lines as follows: from Charlemont to Troy, fifty; thence to Buffalo, 250; thence to Perrysburg, 240; thence to Ft. Wayne, ninety; thence to Durkee's Ferry, 180; thence to destination, fifteen; said computations being from points named derived from the scale of miles marked on the map of each state traveled. Taking into account the tortuous course of the streams navigated, and land traveled, the distance was at least 1,000 miles.