Waupun came early on the list.  Many changes had occurred at Waupun during the twenty years which had intervened since my Pastorate in 1845.  I found a small frame Church and one of the best Parsonages in the Conference.  The Society had become strong both financially and in numbers.  I was happy indeed to meet old friends with whom I had labored in other years, and especially the converts of the early times, now grown to be pillars in the Church.  But with our rejoicing there also came the shadows of sadness.  Many had gone over the river.  And since my visit, others still have gone, and among them, Brother and Sister William McElroy.  But they were ready.

Rev. D.W.  Couch was the Pastor at Waupun.  He entered the Conference in 1857, and before coming to Waupun had been stationed at Bristol, Pleasant Prairie, Geneva, and had also served as Agent of the Northwestern Seaman’s Friend Society.  After leaving Waupun his appointments have been Janesville in the Wisconsin Conference, and Mineral Point in the West Wisconsin.  At the last Conference he was appointed Presiding Elder of the Madison District, where he is rendering effective service.

Brother Couch is a very useful man, having unusual ability to adjust himself to such work as requires special adaptations.  He has a great fund of anecdote, and is able to make a draft on this reserve whenever needed.  He has special control of the purses of the people, and hence is in great requisition wherever there is a call for funds, and especially at Church dedications.  He is a pronounced success.

At Lamartine my Quarterly Meeting also revived old recollections.  The charge now embraced Rock River, where I formed a class in 1845, and also the Society that held their services, at an early day, in Brother Stowe’s Chapel.  A Church had now been built at Lamartine, the centre of the charge, and also a Parsonage.  The charge was now in a flame of revival.  With the praying band at Rock River at one end of the Circuit, and Brother Humiston and his devoted laborers at the other, an almost continuous revival was but the normal condition.  But in addition, I now found the circuit under the charge of Rev. I.S.  Eldridge, one of my old co-laborers at Janesville.

Brother Eldridge entered the Conference in April, 1859, and before coming to Lamartine had been stationed at Utter’s Corners, Palmyra, Wauwatosa, and Byron.  He was now on his second year, the charge having enjoyed during the former one great prosperity.  After leaving Lamartine, Brother Eldridge’s appointments have been Horicon and Juneau, Fox Lake, Brandon, Sheboygan Falls, Burnett, and Eagle.

Brother Eldridge is yet in the vigor of his strength, and gives promise of many years of usefulness.  While his great forte is revival work, he has mental and spiritual force enough to amply sustain every other department of a Minister’s obligation.  During the earlier portion of his work, his incessant labor in protracted meetings greatly abridged his opportunities for study, but I presume in later years he has endeavored to retrieve the loss sustained.  At this writing he is again at Eagle, where his accessions are already climbing the second hundred.