Handbook N-P - Fulton County Public Library

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fifty days, they landed at Baltimore, July 2d. Having passed inspection, the emigrant agent asked
my father where he was going. Father had no definite plan except he wanted to go to the country.
The agent then asked him how much money he had and when Father showed him, he said: “That
will take you just forty miles from Baltimore.”
Father took passage on a freight wagon going west, along the old Baltimore pike. When
the fortieth mile stone was reached the negro driver told father his journey was ended. There was
no house or shelter of any kind, so the driver had some pity on them and took them to a clump of
apple trees on a dilapidated farm, a little farther on. Here, with their belongings, they were
dumped from the wagon. A search was made for shelter and after going to the top of a hill, father
discovered some farm buildings at a little distance. Going to the house, he found a kind
Pennsylvania German family. Telling them his trouble they offered him an abandoned log cabin.
With the little worldly goods they had, and the help of the good Christian people, they situated
themselves in this place. Here, four days later, I was born.
For two years they lived in Maryland then moved to York county, Pennsylvania. Here
they bought a small, run down farm and improved it to such an extent that after four years they
sold it for $600, having paid nothing on it up to that time, but the interest.
Preparations were now made to mo ve to Indiana. From a year before we left
Pennsylvania, I can remember everything quite well. In Pennsylvania I went to school just one
day and learned one English word, “yes.”
Loading our household goods upon one wagon, we started, in company with the King
family, for Indiana. By this time, there were two more children in our family. Only our mother
and the babies rode on the wagon, and that only part of the time. Although I was not quirte six
years of agve, I walked every step of the way from York county, Penn., to Indiana. We traveled at
the rate of twenty-five miles a day. The first interesting thing on the trip, I think, was crossing the
Allegheny mountins. Where we crossed, it was about seven miles from the foot to the top.
Although the road was an excellent pike, it was too steep to go directly up, but angled back and
forth, or zigzagged.
My friend, Nicholas King, and I took the opportunity to save a few steps and went
through the woods straight to the top, or as near as possible. On the other side, the road went
down the same way. Near the top was a fine spring, and a waterning trough so arranged that
horses could easily drink without being unchecked. Here the first sugar trees were pointed out to
us, but we had no idea how sugar could be obtained or made from them.
The next important place I remember, was Wheeling, where we crossed the Ohio river on
a ferry boat propelled by horsepower. A cable was stretched from bank to bank and hitched
around a windlass turned by a horse.
After crossing the Ohio river, nothing of note transpired until we arrived at Dayton, Ohio.
There we stopped to feed, near the only bridge across the Big Miami river, in front of a bakery.
Here I saw the first colored person, an old “mammy.” My brother Jacob, a mere baby at the time,
was crying bitterly. The old mammy came out and called to him: “Here, poor baby, take this
sweet cake with a hole in it.” He took it and stopped wailing at once. I have always had a kind
feeling toward black mammies ever since.
Nothing more of note happened until we arrived at Hagerstown, Wayne county, Indiana,
May 28, 1839, after a journey of twenty-eight days. The day after arriving there, an animal show
was given, and I saw elephants, rhinoceros and other animals for the first time. By that time
father’s purse was reduced to $17.50 and we began to look around for a place to move into.
Finally found an old dilapidated cabin which the good old man who owned it said we could have.
On June 2d we moved into it. There was a patch of ground attached in which we were allowed to
plant potatoes, father paying 50 cents for a half-bushel of seed potatoes. A cow was needed, as
milk was necessary for the children. Father found one and paid $17.00 for the same, which
emptied his purse. Harvest time now arrived and father and mother being good reapers, got work
in the field. Father got fifty cents and mother forty cents a day, and my oldest brother six dollars
per month for grinding tan bark in a tan yard. With the help of good neighbors we got along pretty