| 688 visit to Illinois. He had a brother-in-law, Samuel Marsh, living near Shabbona Grove, in Dekalb County; and while there he bought a farm on condition that I would consent to let them take my wife, their daughter, to Illinois. At that time this seemed a great journey; but I consented. So in the spring of 1856 they moved to Illinois. They started the last of February, and I followed the first of April of the same year.
I worked that spring and summer at carpentering. In December, a young man, Philip Kelsey, came from Canada to where I was in Illinois. We were well acquainted. He had a brother living at String Prairie, Lee County, Iowa, and he was anxious to see him; so he invited me to go with him. I well remember when we were going from Burlington, Iowa, to Montrose in the stage, we came in sight of Nauvoo. There were three of the columns of the temple to be seen. I thought it was a strange affair. But I knew nothing of the Mormons and cared less; so it did not affect me, only as one of the delusions (so I supposed it to be). We walked from Montrose to String Prairie, where we found Mr. John Kelsey.
While there we learned that there was a big job of cutting wood, getting out ties and timber, on the Des Moines River, near a place called Belfast. We went there and agreed to cut wood for one dollar a cord. We built us a shanty and boarded ourselves, Philip Kelsey and I. We cut seventy-five cords in the spring of 1857. The foreman of the job, Mr. William Beach, left to become foreman of a coal mine. But he recommended Kelsey and me to the proprietor, Mr. Redington, living in Keokuk, Iowa, as competent to manage the job. He sent for us and we went to see the gentlemen. We took the contract to cut into wood, or ties, or timber, or have it done, all that was left on the three hundred acres, and deliver it.
During that summer I learned of the death of my wife in Illinois. We went on with our business, just getting money enough at the end of each month to pay expenses, leaving the rest with the proprietor, thinking that when we go through we would have something to start ourselves
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