Breakfast over each day, Brother Gaston invited his little company into his state room for worship, and prayer for divine guidance and direction in regard to the object he so ardently cherished and seemed never to lose sight of.

One day under a feeling of languor and longing for something new to pass the time, the writer asked a fellow passenger, in whose hands he had sometime before seen "fuller's Letters on Slavery," if he would lend him the volume to read. Instead of readily and cheerfully granting the request, he at once began to ply him with questions, evidently for the purpose of drawing out his views on the question of slavery. Although by no means courting discussion, the writer regarded it cowardly not to be willing, when challenged, to avow his sentiments and state the reasons for the same. It was soon found that his views and those of the writer were, on the subject of slavery, directly opposed, and into a hot discussion the parties at once plunged. the writer doesn't remember all the points touched upon, but he well remembers asserting that the slaves in our country had a much better reason for rising and fighting for their freedom than our fathers ever had for forcibly throwing off the yoke of Great Britain. In the meantime the news had gone all over the boat, and passengers from every quarter were crowding into the cabin, where we two were engaged in warm controversy, and the crowd pressing us on every side. As soon as the multitude came near enough to comprehend the case, they began to cry out, "Damn the Abolitionist!" "Shoot him!" "Kill him!" A Louisiana slaveholder, more noisy than the rest, as he entered the cabin door, cried out: "The d--d Abolitionist! I wish I had him! I would swap him off for a dog and then I would shoot the dog!" At this juncture the noise and confusion had become too great to prolong the debate. The writer's friends interposed and led him into a stateroom; and the occasion of the excitement being gone, the crowd gradually cooled down and dispersed. The book civilly asked for was not obtained, and the writer subsequently learned that his antagonist was a minister of the gospel from Missouri. Each had judged the other to be of the legal profession.

Next morning when the writer arose (as he was wont to rise earlier than most) he found the colored servants and waiters in the cabin busy doing up their morning work. They recognized him at once, and greeted him very cordially, and from that time onward until we reached St. Louis, no one on board was served more faithfully, or waited upon at table more promptly and generously, than your humble servant.

Among the passengers on board was a young man recently from the seminary, and under appointment by the A.H.M. Society to a field in Missouri, who though not pro-slavery in sentiment himself, admitted that he would be under the necessity of keeping silent on the subject of slavery. As we sat conversing together on the upper deck the boat rounded to and landed at Cairo, where all passengers going south disembarked. Prominent among these was the Louisiana slaveholder, so eager to kill the abolitionist but unwilling to disgrace himself by expending his ammunition on such unworthy game. As he mounted to the top of the levee, followed by his faithful slave in charge of his baggage, he cast his eye back, and seeing the writer on the deck, called out, "Ho, you abolitionist, ain't you going south with us? I'll keep you a week for nothing, till they get ready to hang you." The writer replied, "That's where they do such things. I'm not going there."

Before reaching St. Louis it became apparent that the boat would not get in before Sabbath morning. Brother Gaston had all his goods on board, he felt it to be his duty to remain on board with them. Others of us had no such excuse. When, therefore, we learned that the boat had to land a passenger at St. Genevieve, we proposed to land with him. It was late Saturday night, very dark and raining, and the landing some distance from the town. We went for our baggage, but the boat did not come to a full stop, but simply slowed up to enable them to shove out a plank; and we returned just in time to see the plank drawn in and the disembarking passenger scrambling up a steep bank.

In 1848, in proportion to the amount of traveling done, a larger portion of it was done by river steamboat than since railroads have become so common. Few boats then ran up the Missouri farther than St. Joe, although the river was navigable many hundreds of miles higher up. Boats were always lying at the St. Louis landing, ready to go wherever business called, and whenever they had secured a load. Boats for the upper Missouri would advertise accordingly, and as travelers usually are eager to be forwarded on their way as expeditiously as possible, it is some object to take passage on the boat that leaves first for your destination. Consequently, as you go along the levee to ascertain when the different boats are likely to start, you will find them exceedingly accommodating with promises. They are always going to start about the time you want to go, if they can find out what that time is. They fire up every day - blow off steam - cause their paddle wheels to revolve in the water - splash and spatter and foam, as a race horse restive to be gone. These measures are resorted to for days in succession in order to retain the passengers already engaged, and also to add to their numbers. Sometimes you may learn from the merchants that they are lying to you. Having had occasion to purchase some articles to take along, and on urging them to not fail to have them put on board by a set time, as the boat was then to start, "Why," said the merchant, "they are not going to start by that time, you may be sure, for there is freight here to be put aboard that same boat twenty-four hours later than that." There is, however, this redeeming feature in the case, as soon as you engage your passage, you can go aboard and make yourself at home, and be boarded and lodged gratuitously until you do start.

The Missouri river is always very low in the autumn. This fact, together with the many snags and sawyers which obstruct the ever-shifting channel, makes it difficult to navigate. Its swift but turbid waters roll and tumble along their uneven and changeful channel, sometimes with a smooth surface and again plunging and boiling like a pot. The Missouri river boats usually carry with them two mast-like sparring poles, with rope and tackle, to help over sand bars and lift the boat off when it gets aground. So shifting is the alluvial soil through which the river flows that the principal channel can be determined in places only by the lead and line. One day the pilot, being in doubt as to where the channel lay, ordered out the "lead and line." As the boatman threw it he cried out, "No bottom!" "No bottom!" "No bottom!" and the very next throw, "Five feet and a half!" Of course the boat could not run at night, and the passage became necessarily tedious. Before reaching St. Joe our boat ran for miles through what we were told was a few years before a luxurious corn field. We reached St. Joe Saturday afternoon. As we were intending to procure horses there, and proceed the rest of the way by land, we no sooner made our wishes known than plenty of horses were offered at very reasonable rates, the owner eager to sell. Brother Gaston bought a span, and Deacon Hall and the writer each one horse. We took lodgings at the Edgar House, then two or more blocks from the river, but twenty-five years later a frail, deserted building on the river's brink.

Having rested on the Lord's day and attended worship with Christian friends, we arose on Monday morning refreshed and eager to reach our destination.

The wagon and buggy which Brother Gaston had brought with him were soon fitted up and goods loaded. As my horse was not broken to harness, Deacon Hall's was harnessed to the buggy to take the women and children. Thus our little caravan of then persons set out for a hundred mile journey to Percival, Iowa. But we had not proceeded far before we learned that Brother Hall's horse was not a safe buggy beast, and that some different arrangement must be made. The convincing evidence of that fact was as follows: We had proceeded but a short distance - the writer on horseback in front, followed by Deacon Hall, Mrs. Adams, Mrs. Gaston, and Euphelia in the buggy, and after them Brother Gaston, Alexander and Alonzo in the loaded wagon, and S.H. Adams and D. P. Matthews on foot some distance still in the rear. As the buggy neared a bridge across a small stream which wended its way at the bottom of a deep worn channel, the animal became restive and fractious, and had scarcely crossed the bridge when Deacon Hall, in efforts to control it, broke one of the lines and thus caused the animal to turn short about and plunge down the bank and dart through under the bridge, throwing some of the passengers clear across the brook, breaking the buggy and leaving it bottom side up, the horse never stopping until it had torn itself entirely free; nor could it be made to go near the buggy again, and all pronounced it unsafe. Some were seriously but none dangerously hurt, although they bore the marks of the injuries for months. The whole catastrophe occurred in much less time than it can be told.

Accordingly the buggy and some of the lading were left by the way, and we went forward - two on horseback and the rest with the loaded wagon.

Thus we plodded on our weary way through a sparsely peopled country where conveniences and comforts were few - no nobility to cringe to, no palatial residences to covet, nor overflowing wealth to envy, but everywhere a simple-hearted generosity that stands ready to help in time of need. Sometimes we found friendly shelter at night, and sometimes we slept under the broad canopy of heaven, but in due time without any serious mishap we reached the hospitable home of Lester W. Platt and Elvira, his wife, in October, 1848. they had been expecting us, and our arrival was a mutually joyous meeting.

Having reached our destination, and while enjoying a hearty hospitality, we took it a little leisurely, resting a day or two from our long journey, though never losing sight of the object in view.

From Oberlin, where there was but one church, and the people eminently a church-going people, the writer took his first pastorate in Clarksfield, where were three churches in a community not half so populous as Oberlin, and where the attendants on worship, in all three churches taken together, were not half so many as attended the one church in Oberlin. These facts deeply impressed the writer with the wastefulness and want of economy with which evangelistic efforts were carried on-and the importance of more union and cordial co-operation in the work of the Lord among Christians; and while it seemed impracticable to organize union, where the different denominations had already started separately, yet the folly and cost of so many divisions among God's people was so apparent that, if in the outset on the frontiers the children of God could be brought together, we might hope to secure permanent union. This consideration more than any other led the writer to consider favorably the proposition to come to southwestern Iowa.

Some time before, Dr. Ira D. Blanchard and family, including Miss Abbie Walton, so recently deceased (1890), located in the near vicinity of Mr. Platt's. They had come from the Baptist mission among the Indians in Kansas, but were open communion in sentiment. There were also a dozen or more families in a circuit of two or three miles radius, some of whom were decidedly partial to Methodism. Most of the latter were from Virginia, Kentucky and Missouri, where free schools were not prevalent, and many of them were unable to read or write.

We soon began to search out the country, traveling usually on horseback, escorted by Mr. Platt, or Dr. Blanchard, and sometimes attended by both. We were taken across the bottom to the big spring, and visited Father Rector's. Again, we passed through the large body of timber, in the bend of the river. To those of us who had lived among the thick forests of northern Ohio, the tall straight cottonwoods looked very homelike and inviting, while in the uplands the trees were more scattering and shorter, requiring, according to the idiom of country, two trees in order to get a log long enough to make a fence post. Indeed, timber was so scarce in the bluffs that we did not expect to see the prairie between Missouri and the Nishnabotna all settled up in our lifetime. The Missouri bottom, with a width of eight miles, and extending north and south far beyond the reach of human vision, was a beautiful level plain, whose fertility was assured by the tall, rank grass which everywhere clothed its surface. repeatedly did we hear the saddening story of many thousands of dollars lost for want of flocks and herds enough to consume the grass. Another time we attended a political mass meeting on the Wabonsie creek, not far below the old carding mill, where Wabonsa, the old Indian chief, was said to have once resided. The meeting was called to take measures to urge upon the legislature the organization of a new county in the southwest corner of the state, as the Gentiles in these parts were restive under Mormom rule at Kanesville. The meeting was numerously attended and harmonious in its action. A form of petition was agreed upon, signed, and entrusted to Johsiah B. Hall and John Todd, with instructions they should meet as they crossed the state on their return to Ohio, which they accordingly did.

At another time we took a ride north as far as Trader's Point, about forty miles, left our horses on this side of the river, and crossed over in a skiff to the Presbyterian Indian Mission, which occupied the present site of Belleview. There we found Rev. Mr. McKinney in charge of a boarding school for Indian children, and enjoyed a pleasant talk with him about the success of his work. As Brother Gaston had for a time lived among the Indians at that point, he was well acquainted with many of them, and we were permitted to enter many of their log cabins with him, and were introduced to many of his aboriginal friends in their own homes - Indian, squaw, and papoose, all in their native style and polished manners. After a hasty call and friendly chat, to most of us wholly unintelligible, we retreated across the river and mounting our steeds took up our line of march eastward along the Mormon trail. Deacon Hall and the writer set out for Ohio, and our companions kindly accompanied us as far as Silver Creek, where we lodged together in the unfinished house of Dr. Dalrymple. In the morning (Friday) we parted, Brother Hall and the writer to pursue our long and lonely way to Ohio, the others to return to Civil Bend to provide winter quarters for their families. We had found no very desirable location for our purpose. The uplands were ineligible because so rough, hilly and destitute of building timber. The bottoms, though level, beautiful, and possessed of inexhaustible fertility, were low, and though now dry, indicated in places that they were sometimes overflowed. On the whole, it was agreed that we found no point preferable to the vicinity of Percival. We had heard much of the beauty and desirableness of "the river country," and were charged to keep on the lookout as we crossed the state and visit if possible "the three river country," in the vicinity of Des Moines, and, if we found any more desirable location we should inform them by letter, otherwise the vicinity of Percival would be regarded as the location.

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