establishment of religious services.

At Racine we engaged a man to take us, six in all, with our trunks to
Delavan. The roads were almost impassable. The rains had fallen so
copiously that the streams overflowed their banks, the marshes were full
and the prairies inundated. With a good team, however, we made an
average of about fifteen miles a day. Our conveyance stuck fast in the
mud eighteen times between Racine and Delavan. Sometimes we found these
interesting events would occur just in the middle of a broad marsh. In
such case the gentlemen would take to the water, not unfrequently up to
the loins, build a chair by the crossing of hands, as they had learned
to do in their school days, and give the ladies a safe passage to the
prairie beyond. But woe worth the day if the wheels refused to turn, as
they sometimes did, in the middle of some deep, broad mud-hole. The
light prairie soil, when thoroughly saturated, is capable of very great
volatility and yet of stick-to-it-iveness. While the team and wagon,
buried deeply in the mud, found the soil as yielding as quicksand, the
passengers, on alighting, were no more fortunate. To make the chair and
wade ashore with its precious burden, at such a time, involved a very
nice adjustment of balances. If the three went headlong before they
reached the shore, each received a generous "coat of mail" of the most
modern style.

We reached Delavan in due course of travel, where we remained several
days. The Sabbath intervened. My father preached in the morning, and I
held service in the afternoon. On Monday a council was held. Since our
feet touched the soil of Wisconsin, our ears had been filled with the
praises of the country, and especially the counties of Dodge and Fond du
Lac. By the time we had spent several days at Delavan, and were ready to
move on toward Iowa, this clamor had become so decided in its tone,
that, as a result of the consultation, it was decided that two or three
of us should go up through Dodge and Fond du Lac counties. Not with the
expectation that our destination would lie in that direction, but it was
thought advisable to know what had been left behind, in case we should
not be pleased with Dubuque.

Leaving the balance of our company at Delavan, we started on foot on our
tour of exploration. Keeping our eyes and ears open, we were ready to
go in any direction in quest of the promised "Eldorado." Like all "land
seekers" of those early times, a few thing