s were deemed essential to
make a location desirable. These were prairie, timber and water. But
with us one additional requisite must not be ignored. We must also find
a "water power." With all these objects in view, the line of travel
became perplexing and described a good many angles, but the main
direction lay through East Troy, Summit, Watertown, Oak Grove and
Waupun. At the last named place we found a few scattered log houses,
and, within a radius of five miles, perhaps a dozen families. The
location was beautiful. With its prairie of from one to two miles in
width, skirted on the north by groves of timber, through which ran the
west branch of Rock River, and fringed on the south by extended
openings, it took us captive at once. Passing up the stream two or three
miles we found the looked for water-power, and abundance of
unappropriated lands. By setting our stakes on the crown of the prairie,
and making the lines pass down to the river and through the belt of
timber, sufficient land of the right quality could be secured for the
whole family, including, also, the desired water-power. To decide upon
this spot as our future home, was the result of a brief consultation.
All thought of going to Iowa was now abandoned. Obtaining a load of
lumber, which was all that could be secured for either love or money, a
shanty was immediately erected for the accommodation of the family. Was
it a providential intervention that assigned us our home and field of
labor in this new and rapidly populating portion of Wisconsin, rather
than the city of Dubuque?

Society in its formative state needs, above all other agencies, the
salutary influences of religion. To provide these and give them
efficiency among the people, the presence and labors of the Gospel
ministry, and the establishment of churches, are a necessity. To secure
these at the outset requires the emigration of ministers from the older
States as well as people. Perhaps the motives of neither class in coming
will always bear a thorough scrutiny; yet who shall say that their
coming is not under the general direction of Providence? Nor is it
improbable that the hasty steps that seem to bear the unwilling servant
from the presence of the Master are the very ones that most speedily
bring him face to face with his duty.

CHAPTER II.

The Young Itinerant.--In a Lumber Mill at Waupun.--The Surprise.--An
Interval of Reflection.--A Graceful Surrender.--The Outfit minus the
Hors