Time passed with us as with boys generally.  Mr. Ewing was in the United States Senate, and I was notified to prepare for West Point, of which institution we had little knowledge, except that it was very strict, and that the army was its natural consequence.  In 1834 I was large for my age, and the construction of canals was the rage in Ohio.  A canal was projected to connect with the great Ohio Canal at Carroll (eight miles above Lancaster), down the valley of the Hock Hocking to Athens (forty-four miles), and thence to the Ohio River by slack water.

Preacher Carpenter, of Lancaster, was appointed to make the preliminary surveys, and selected the necessary working party out of the boys of the town.  From our school were chosen ____Wilson, Emanuel Geisy, William King, and myself.  Geisy and I were the rod-men.  We worked during that fall and next spring, marking two experimental lines, and for our work we each received a silver half-dollar for each day’s actual work, the first money any of us had ever earned.

In June, 1835, one of our school-fellows, William Irvin, was appointed a cadet to West Point, and, as it required sixteen years of age for admission, I had to wait another year.  During the autumn of 1835 and spring of 1836 I devoted myself chiefly to mathematics and French, which were known to be the chief requisites for admission to West Point.

Some time in the spring of 1836 I received through Mr. Ewing, then at Washington, from the Secretary of War, Mr. Poinsett, the letter of appointment as a cadet, with a list of the articles of clothing necessary to be taken along, all of which were liberally provided by Mrs. Ewing; and with orders to report to Mr. Ewing, at Washington, by a certain date, I left Lancaster about the 20th of May in the stage-coach for Zanesville.  There we transferred to the coaches of the Great National Road, the highway of travel from the West to the East.  The stages generally travelled in gangs of from one to six coaches, each drawn by four good horses, carrying nine passengers inside and three or four outside.

In about three days, travelling day and night, we reached Frederick, Maryland.  There we were told that we could take rail-cars to Baltimore, and thence to Washington; but there was also a two-horse hack ready to start for Washington direct.  Not having full faith in the novel and dangerous railroad, I stuck to the coach, and in the night reached Gadsby’s Hotel in Washington City.

The next morning I hunted up Mr. Ewing, and found him boarding with a mess of Senators at Mrs. Hill’s, corner of Third and C Streets, and transferred my trunk to the same place.  I spent a week in Washington, and think I saw more of the place in that time than I ever have since in the many years of residence there.  General Jackson was President, and was at the zenith of his fame.  I recall looking at him a full hour, one morning, through the wood railing on Pennsylvania Avenue, as he paced up and down the gravel walk on the north front of the White House.  He wore a cap and an overcoat so full that his form seemed smaller than I had expected.  I also recall the appearance of Postmaster-General Amos Kendall, of Vice-President Van Buren, Messrs. Calhoun, Webster, Clay, Cass, Silas Wright, etc.