Along the shore of Pewaukee Lake, the traveler met a wolf which bristled and snarled but at last surrendered the right of way before the superior bluff, which was put up against him, backed by a “big stick.”  That night he stayed with a friend named Terry, who had come West the year before, and preempted a piece of land on the east shore rock, about seven miles above Watertown.  The next morning he saw on the opposite bank a gently rising slope covered with stately maples and oaks; beneath were the grass and flowers of mid June, and the swift flowing river, clear as a spring brook, was in front, making the scene one of entrancing beauty.  It was fully equal to his highest expectations, and he never rested until he had secured title to that particular block of land.

He at once prepared to build a log house, and, after a few days, the neighborhood was invited to the raising.  Some men came eight and ten miles, and a big laugh went around when it was found that logs a foot and a half and two feet in diameter had been cut for the house.  Four large ones were rolled together for a foundation, and then the inexperienced young man was told that for a house he needed to cut logs half as large, and they would return in a week and raise them.  This they did, showing the kindly, helpful spirit of the early settlers.

In August my mother came and brought the household furniture from their Oneida County home, together with a year’s provisions.  The trip from Milwaukee to their log house, nearly forty miles, took nearly three days by ox team.  She was delighted and happy with the building and its surroundings, and never faltered in her love for that first home in the West.  A barrel of pork was among the supplies she had brought, and people came as far as twenty miles to beg a little of it, so tired were they of fresh meat from the woods, and fish from the river; and they never went away empty-handed, as long as it lasted.

They came, as I have said, in 1839, and I the year following.  There is a vague, misty period at the beginning of every life, as memory rises from mere nothingness to full strength, when it is not easy to say whether the things remembered may not have been heard from the lips of others.  But I distinctly recall some very early events, and particularly the disturbance created by my year-old brother, two years younger than myself, when he screamed with pain one evening and held his bare foot up, twisted to one side.

My mother was ill in bed, and the terrified maid summoned my father from outside, with the story that the baby’s ankle was out of joint.  He hurried in, gave it one look, and, being a hasty, impetuous man, he declared, “Yes, the child’s ankle is out of joint; I must go for a doctor;” and in another moment he would have been off on a seven-mile tramp through the dark to Watertown.  But the mother, a level-headed woman, experienced in emergencies, called out from her bed, “Wait a minute; bring me the child and a candle;” and a minute later she had discovered a little sliver which pricked him when he set his foot down, and extricated it between thumb and finger.  “There,” said she; “I don’t think you need walk to Water-town to-night.”