  Reverses:—Loss of our Farm:—Strange Resolve:—Travels West:—Forest Life:—Another New Farm. Time passed; harvest came; a fine crop, but no market; and consequently the payment came due on our land and there was no means of payment. The winter rolled round; spring came again; and with it a prosecution on the part of Mr. Morgan for money due on land. The consequence was that all our hard earnings, and all our improvements in the wilderness, were wrested from us in a moment. Mr. Morgan retained the land, the improvements and the money paid. Weary and disconsolate, I left the country and my father, who took charge of our crops and all unsettled business. I spent a few months with my uncles, Ira and Allen Pratt, in Wayne County, N. Y., and in the autumn of 1826 I resolved to bid farewell to the civilized world—where I had met with little else but disappointment, sorrow and unrewarded toil; and where sectarian divisions disgusted and ignorance perplexed me—and to spend the remainder of my days in the solitudes of the great West, among the natives of the forest. There, at least, thought I, there will be no buying and selling of lands,—no law to sweep all the hard earnings of years to pay a small debt,—no wranglings about sects, and creeds, and doctrines. I will win the confidence of the red man; I will learn his language; I will tell him of Jesus; I will read to him the Scriptures; I will teach him the arts of peace; to hate war, to love his neighbor, to fear and love God, and to cultivate the earth. Such were my resolutions. In October, 1826, I took leave of my friends and started westward. I paid most of my money in Rochester for a small pocket Bible, and continued my journey as far as Buffalo. At this place I engaged a passage for Detroit, on board a steamer; as I had no money, I agreed to work for the same. After a rough passage and many delays, I was at length driven by stress of weather to land at Erie, in Pennsylvania; from whence I travelled by land till I came to a small settlement about thirty miles west of Cleveland, in the State of Ohio. The rainy season of November had now set in; the country was covered with a dense forest, with here and there a small opening made by the settlers, and the surface of the earth one vast scene of mud and mire; so that travelling was now very difficult, if not impracticable. Alone in a land of strangers, without home or money, and not yet twenty years of age, I became discouraged, and concluded to stop for the winter; I procured a gun from one of the neighbors; worked and earned an axe, some breadstuff and other little extras, and retired two miles into a dense forest and prepared a small hut, or cabin, for the winter. Some leaves and straw in my cabin served for my lodging, and a good fire kept me warm. A stream near my door quenched my thirst; and fat venison, with a little bread from the settlements, sustained me for food. The storms of winter raged around me; the wind shook the forest, the wolf howled in the distance, and the owl chimed in harshly to complete the doleful music which seemed to soothe me, or bid me welcome to this holy retreat. But in my little cabin the fire blazed pleasantly, and the Holy Scriptures and a few other books occupied my hours of solitude. Among the few books in my cabin, were McKenzie's travels in the Northwest, and Lewis and Clark's tour up the Missouri and down the Columbia rivers. Spring came on again; the woods were pleasant, the flowers bloomed in their richest variety, the birds sung pleasantly in the groves; and, strange to say, my mind had become attached to my new abode. I again bargained for a piece of forest land; again promised to pay in a few years, and again commenced to clear a farm and build a house. I was now twenty years of age. I resolved to make some improvements and preparations, and then return to my native country, from which I had been absent several years. There was one there whom my heart had long loved, and from whom I would not have been so long separated, except by misfortune. |
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