dashed for the
figure to find a white woman and baby and was horrified to think that if
the gun had fired she would have been blown to pieces. This was woman
for whom they had looked in the swamp thirty miles away. He aroused the
troops, who took her in. She held out her baby whose hand was partly
shot away, but said nothing about herself. Later they found that she had
been shot through the back and the wound had had no dressing except when
she laid down in the streams. Her greatest fear had been that the baby
would cry, but during all those eight awful days and nights while she
lay hidden in the swamps or crawled on her way at night, this baby had
never made a sound. As soon as it became warm and was thoroughly fed, it
cried incessantly for twelve hours. The mother said that for three days
the Indians had pursued her with dogs, but she had managed to evade them
by criss-crossing through the streams. She had said "Winnebago" as she
thought she was approaching a Sioux camp and they were supposed to be
friendly to the Winnebagoes. She would then have welcomed captivity as
it seemed that the white people had left the earth and death was
inevitable.

In May 1857, eggs were selling in St. Peter for 6c a dozen, butter at 5c
per pound and full grown chickens at 75c a dozen as game was so
plentiful.

Mrs. Jane Sutherland--1856.[3]

[Footnote 3: A sister of Mrs. Duncan Kennedy.]

Mrs. Cowan came to Traverse in 1856 when it was almost nothing. At her
home in Baltimore she had always had an afternoon at home, so decided to
continue them here. She set aside Thursday and asked everyone in town,
no matter what their situation in life, to come. My maiden name was Jane
Donnelly and she asked me to come and "Help pass things"--"assist"--as
you call it now. She had tea and biscuits. Flour and tea were both
scarce so she warned me not to give anyone more than one biscuit or one
cup of tea. This we rigidly adhered to. She had the only piano in our
part of the country and we all took great pride in it. I could sing and
play a little in the bosom of my family, but was most easily
embarrassed. Judge Flandrau was our great man. He dropped in, bringing
his tatting shuttle, and sat and made tatting as well as any woman.
Mrs. Cowan explained that he had learned this on purpose to rest his
mind and keep it off from weighty matters. Mrs. Cowan insisted that I
should sing and play while he was there. I resisted as long as I could,
then was le