Annals of our ancestors; one hundred and fifty years of history in the ...

HOME BUILDING IN MINNESOTA 241
venture. This inheritance has come down to each, perhaps,
in different measure and developing in different ways, and to
this day existing in love of new scenes and strange lands.
However that may be, we know that they made their plans for
emigration with spirit and animation. They decided to take
almost all of their goods and chattels with them, as their journey
was to be made by water and that simplified the matter of
transit. They had three horses and as many wagons. One
was a new army wagon with a white cover, a sort of evolution
of our grandfather's white covered Jersey wagon. The other
two vehicles were a one-horse phaeton and an express wagon.
Only a generation before, oxen had been used m the removal of
our grandparents from New Jersey to Ohio; but in this emigra-
tion only horses were taken. Our parents brought their
tables, chairs, and bedsteads, and it meant a great deal of
preparatory work to get everything packed and then hauled
to Cincinnati and put on the boat; but at last the task was
finished and they were ready to start.
By some chance a letter has come into my possession written
by Brother Joe to Will, dated December 13, 1861, while the
former was still in Ohio and William was in Minnesota without
his family. The letter comes in aptly here, for it was concern-
ing this very period. I will insert some excerpts:
Dear Brother: I am again seated to write you a letter, but I
hardly know where to commence. I took your wife and child to
the Tree [Green Tree] and got back yesterday. By the way little
"Todamon" as I call her (I have almost forgotten my Greek!) is a
very fine child. She loves her Uncle Joe more than any of them. I
suppose father told you of how matters stand at the present time.
I consider it a roya/ way of getting away from the old place. . . .
I feel very well satisfied with the prospect of things. I suppose he
will have enough to buy as large a farm there and maybe larger. As
for me, I will get there with $40 or ^50 of my own, but as to what I
will do with it, I have not come to a conclusion. I have thought
some of investing in horseflesh to take out. Mr. R. Van Zandt has a
fine yearling filly which he asks $25 for, which I think is about ^15 too
much. George Robinson last night brought a three-year-old colt
belonging to his brother for me to pasture and feed this winter.
He is poor and much abused, can be had for about $40. Will make
a fine horse about as large or larger than Lucy. There is a fellow