r wants and make them comfortable, but they were
by no means able to furnish them with supplies for the coming winter,
and as it was terribly severe there was untold suffering among them.
But by scattering to different points and struggling bravely against
great difficulties, they managed to exist and some of them in time
made permanent homes for themselves, while others feeling they could
not content themselves in what had impressed them as an inhospitable
country, left the settlement as opportunity offered and came nearer
civilization. As early as 1821, some who had put themselves under the
protection of a party of armed drovers, on their return to the States,
having taken some cattle to the settlers, arrived at Fort Snelling and
were kindly cared for by Colonel Josiah Snelling who consented to let
them remain at the fort during the winter. The next spring they
settled on the military reservation near the fort and made homes for
themselves. I well remember my mother's descriptions of these
emigrants as they arrived, so nearly famished, that the surgeon was
obliged to restrict the amount of provisions furnished them lest they
might eat themselves to death.

In the spring of 1823, thirteen more of the colonists started to go to
Missouri, of which country they had heard glowing accounts. They made
the journey as far as Lake Traverse, the headwaters of the St. Peter's
river, four hundred miles, in Red River carts, which need no
description here; where they remained long enough to make canoes, or
dugouts, of the cottonwood trees abundant there, when they began the
descent of the river, and after perils by land and by water, and
perils by savages, who were very hostile to them, they reached "St.
Anthony" in September, and were warmly welcomed by the friends who had
preceded them two years before. After a few weeks rest, our Colonel
furnished them with two small keel-boats and supplies for their
journey, and they went on their way comforted and encouraged. But
probably from the effects of the fatigue and hardships of their long
and wearisome journey, and from the malarial influences, at that time
prevalent on the river, several sickened, and Mr. Monier, the senior
of the party, and his daughter, died and were buried near Prairie du
Chien. Mr. Chetlain also became so ill that he and his family remained
at Rock Island until his recovery, when he joined his friends at St.
Louis, but finally settled at La Pointe, on Fever River,