ii Qass. Book, hp^\ rr \ HISTORICAL SKETCH OF THE THORNGATE-ROOD FAMILY DESCENDANTS OF GEORGE THORNGATE, SENIOR AND MATILDA BLANCHARD 1798-1906 I Written by Hosea W. Rood Madison, Wisconsin Published by Horace M. Davis, Ord, Nebraska and Walter G. Rood, North Loup, Nebraska :^ \ WITH LOVING AFFECTION THIS VOLUME IS DEDICATED TO MY MOTHER AND UNCLE HENRY MAY GOD BLESS THEM A Kew Words Concorning this Family SRoich ^TT^he work connected with the preparation of this family sketch has been a labor of love. It was undertaken with the conviction that it is well worth while to preserve what is good in fam- ily traditions, — those stories that tell of the am- bitions and desires of our parents and our grand- parents in behalf of their children and grand-child- ren; stories that tell how they met and overcame the primitive conditions of pioneer life; stories indicative of worthy character and right motives; stories that tell of something in them well worth our emulation, and that should inspire us to high- er ideals and better living. It is the sincere de- sire of those who have been concerned in the writ- ing and publication of this book that it may serve a good purpose; and that every descendant of our good grandfather George Thorngate may cherish the memory and emulate the virtues of both him and his worthy sons and daughters. Tho I have taken great pains to get at facts, I suspect that some errors will be found in this book; still I think that nearly all the facts stated and dates given are correct. I have undertaken to tell the story of our family life as plainly, dir- ectly and impartially as I could, and, above all other things, to have it true in spirit, even if not correct in every detail. In the writing of this sketch I have had some of the best of help. My good niece, Mrs. Ora Clement, prepared most of the malerial from which the story of the family life in Nebraska has been written; also, my brothers George and Char- ley, and my sister Mrs. Mary Davis and her hus- band, Mansell, have kindly contributed reminis- cences of pioneer life in Nebraska. My uncle Henry Thorngate has written sketches of the his- tory of his own family and that of uncle George, and has given his help and encouragement in var- ious ways. The v/ell written story of the family life and connections of uncle Charles Thorngate came from his two daughters Ella and Ethel. I could not have told the story of the Thorngate family in New York, and the coming to Wisconsin, had it not been for the interested help given by aunt Hanna Stillman, who has, since the begin- ning of this work, entered into the higher life. Among those who have given me moral sup- port and encouragement, I may mention my dear old mother, now in the eighty fifth year of her age, my brother Herman, and especially my nephew Ray Rood; also, my loving companion of forty years has sat by my side during all the time I have worked on this book, ready always to help and encourage in every way. I have depended much for counsel and advice upon my brother Walter and nephew Horace M. Davis. Walter has attended to the getting of the pictures and Horace has done the printing. To every one of these helpers I now return my grateful thanks. HOSEA WHITFORD ROOD. Madison, Wisconsin, October 13, 1906. THORNGATE-ROOD HISTORY It is said that not one American in twenty knows who his great grandfather was, to say nothing about knowing what kind of man he was. For mj^self I cannot think this ignorance commendable, tho now and then a great grandfather may have been hardly worth knowing. I am glad to say, however, that the great grandsire of my children, the children of my brothers and sisters and of my cousins, was well worth the knowing, and I wish to introduce them to him. Their great grandfather, George Thorngate, was not rich, he was not great, was not a man of culture. He was a poor man, one of the commonest of com- mon men, a man of almost no such education as the schools give. But he was what is better than all that, — an industrious, honest, God-fearing man; a man so just and upright, so true and conscientious, that he could not knowingly wrong any living being, man or beast. I cannot think of him as ever stoop- ing from his erect manhood to do a thing that had in it the least suspicion of meanness. Grandfather Thorngate was a modest man, timid and retiring even among his daily associates, — a quiet gentle man ; yet, in the presence of manifest injustice or cruelty he was apt to be stirred with righteous indignation to the very depths of his strong nature. Tho of a calm and quiet temperament, and a lover of peace, he cheerfully parted with his four stalwart sons when they thot they were needed to fight for the flag of his adopted country ; and he said that if it came to the worst he would go himself. He was intensely loyal, and hated slavery as he did every other form of oppression. I presume my Grandfather Thorngate had some faults, for he was but a man. I presume, too, that he could tell what those faults were, but I never found them out. I have heard it said that he had in him something of the spirit of John Bull. This means, I take it, that he had decided notions upon questions of right and wrong, and was hard to be moved from what his judgment told him was right. I think that every descendant of this good man should know about him. The knowledge that such a man as he was the founder of our family in America should make every one of us desire so to live as to be worthy of him. I am not so sure but that every day he looks down upon us from up yonder and bestov/s upon us his benediction. And others there are w^ith him who are dear to us in memory, and who have lived so worthily for us that we may well honor them in our own lives. It is to call loving attention to v>^hat has been good in those of our family who have gone on before ; to draw us who still live, especially the young, the more closely together in the sacred bonds of love and kinship ; to lead us to know more of one another, to love one another better; to inspire us with higher ideals and impel us to better living and more unself- ish service, that this little book has been written. May God help us ail! —10— GEORGE THORNGATB On the 30th day of April 1798, there was born in Marlborough, England, into a family of honest, hard- working, God-fearing people, a baby boy who was named George Thorngate. The father's name was William Thorngate. The other boys in this family were David, William and Jacob ;the girls, Betsy, Ann and Hanna, — seven children in all. The father died while George was quite young, but I do not know in what year. When George was about fourteen years old he was "bound out" to a man named Beason to learn the carpenter's trade. According to the custom of those days his apprenticeship must last seven years, — until George would be twenty-one years old. I suspect that he did not take kindly to the trade se- lected for him, for when he was fifteen years old he enlisted for life in the English army. I think he must have run avvciy from his master in order to do so. This was in the year 1813, during what we now call the "War of 1812," the second struggle between John Bull and his wayward son Jonathan. I do not know very much about the nature of the service to -11 — which this yonng sojdier was put at once, but I have heard him tell, after he became a white-haired old man, that his command was at one time guarding French prisoners on a prison ship somewhere on the coast of Scotland. Later, the troops with which his regiment belonged were sent in a fieet of seventy sail to Canada. His regiment was stationed on the Can- ada side of that part of the St. Lav/rence River con- taining the "Thousand Isles," and opposite Jeffer- son county, New York. I remember his once telling me about getting tired of army life, and wishing he were an American citizen on the Yankee side of the river. He said he found that some of his comrades had the same desire; that they talked the matter over and decided to desert the British army and, if they could, get across the river; that when outside the lines they made for the river, where, without per- mission of the owner, they borrowed a boat ; that in this boat they boldty pushed out into the swift cur- rent for" the land of the free and the home of the brave"; that they had a fearful night of it, coming more than once very close to a watery grave ; that their rations consisted mostly of a cabbage they had foraged; that after many hazardous experi- Ciices they succeeded at last in landing on New York soil, very wet, tired and hungry, yet thankful and full of courage. George Thorngate was then seventeen j^ears old, and according to his own testimony a very bashful, awkward "Henglish" boy. He managed sometime after this to get into the family, near Brownsville, Jefferson county, of a man named Ainsworth. They —12— were good to him and suggested that he go to school, for he had not yet learned either to read or to write. He did begin to go to school, but,becaiise both pupils and teacher laughed at his ''Henglish" talk and manners, he quit at once the getting of an education. After this he worked by the month two years on the farm. Then he took the land to work on shares. He had a good home and was a steady, faithful worker. HERMAN AND MATILDA BLANCHARD In the summer of 1820 there came to that neigh- borhod, to live with her brother Herman, a young lady namxcd Matilda Blanchard. I think that Her- man had come two or three years before, and had bought a farm there. He had served a year in the war of 1812, being a member of Captain Bradford's Company of the 45th U. S. Regulars. The native place of the Blanehards was Concord, New Hamp- shire. I must give a little attention to them just here, for they are ^oing to get into this story. Their father, David, had lived two and a half miles from .the state house, on a farm his father had taken up and cleared. David is said to have served in the Revolution.* He died when Herman was about twelve years old and Matilda ten. There was also a sister, Susan, who later married a man named Grover, also NOTE— Aunt Hanna thinks there is a mistake here. She thinks the father of Matilda and Herman Blanchard was WiUiam, and that David, who was in the Revohition, was their grandfather. Herman, himself, was a soldier in the war of 1812, having served in Captain Bradford's company of the 45th. Regulars. —13— a brother, William Blancharcl. The mother of these four was living in Bethel, Maine, in 1830. Her name was Hannah. I have a letter written by her Septem- ber 8, 1830, to her "Dear Children," George and Matilda. In it she tells of the death of their grand- mother Eaton in March, 1829. The letter is full of religious sentiment, and shows great love and strong affection for those of her own family. It also shows her to have been a woman of bright mind. After the death of David, the father of Herman, "William, Susan and Matilda Blanchard, Matilda was put, for bringing up, into the family of a Mr. Clark, of Concord. They were good to her and treated her as their own. There was a Mary Clark in the family who was a talented writer and, I should think by her letters, a Quaker. When Matilda left the Clark home, in the early summer of 1820, Mary wrote for her, to take with her, a long letter in excellent verse. It abounds in expressions of lofty religious senti- ment and love of nature. This letter is dated May 1, 1820. It must have been a blessed thing for Ma- tilda to have so good and true and noble a friend and sister as this Mary Clark. ]\^ary died in 1834. GEORGE THORNGATE AND MATILDA BLAN- CHARD. George Thorngate became acquainted with Her- man Blanchard, and, after Matilda arrived, bashful and awkward as he was, he got acquainted with her, too, and in such fashion that on the 18th of January, 1822, they were married. Both were then 23 years old. —14— LETTERS FROM ENGLAND, When George Thorngate left the British army his people in England lost all track of him. They heard nothing of him for two years, excepting a rumor that he had been lost at sea. But after the boy had got settled in the home of Mr. Ainsworth, Mrs. Ainsworth, on August 14, 1817, wrote a letter home for him. This message was received in Marlborough November 12 following, and created no small sur- prise. All rejoiced to hear that George was alive and well, but they were not altogether pleased, I guess, that he had left the army as he had done and become a Yankee. Four days later his brother David, whose wife was Alice, answered the letter. I have that letter here as I write. It is yellow with age and worn by the tender handling of many fingers now still. In it David tells George that their dear mother is yet alive and in excellent health ; and says that the brothers, William and Jacob, and sisters, Betsey, Ann and Hannah, ''are all well and they send their kind loves to you." It is a long letter, full of home news. It is full of concern for George's religious welfare. David urges him to read his Bible and prayer book and above all other things to serve God faithfully. Correspondence was kept up between these two brothers for sixteen years, till 1833. All of them speak of a deep and abiding religious faith. In one of them David tells of the death of Uncle Thomas, whose last words were, "I am complete in Him!" In a letter dated April 30, 1820, George's 22d birth- -15— day, he is told of the death of his mother on the 17th of that month, and that on the following Sunday she had been buried at Preshute church by the side of her late husband, William Thorngate ; that she had been very happy in her last hours, talking to her friends until five minutes before she breathed her last. One of the letters says that Jacob had enlisted in the English artillery for twelve years and been sent to India. Other letters say he was never heard from afterward. A letter dated September 29, 1822, congratulates George upon his having taken to him- self a wife and wishes him and his companion all happiness in their new relation. A letter dated September 2, 1823, congratulates the young people on having a little girl born to them. This little girl, Marianne, in due course of time came to be my own good mother. Hereafter in this story I shall call George Thorngate grandfather and Marianne mother. On June 29, 1828, David tells grandfather that Uncle Daniel is much interested in hearing of his welfare, especially the welfare of his soul. In this same letter David exhorts him to bring up his children in the fear of the Lord. The last of these old letters was written August 31, 1833. It brings to my grandfather the news that his brother William had died of asthma three years before, — the same disease that had caused their father's death. David says that he himself has lately had a ''sharp pinch" of asthma, — was laid up several weeks. And this same letter tells of the death of Uncle Daniel at 80 years of age. David rejoices that George has "sought divine grace." —16— The brother who wrote these yellow old letters, these kind, helpful, brotherly, " homey ^' letters, died in May, 1834, and then no more messages came from grandfather's home in England till 20 years later. I will mention them in due time. I must stop a minute right here in this story to say that I am indeed glad to learn from these old letters that the parents and other relatives of both my Grandfather and Grandmother Thorngate were Christian people, temperate people, industrious, and, tho belonging to the working class, were intelligent people. There is a great deal in their short and simple annals with which to be well pleased, and nothing to make ashamed. All honor to them. May all who live after them be as worthy of respect as they were ! REMOVAL TO CATTARAUGUS COUNTY, NEW YORK. A little more than two years after my grandfather was married, and when my mother was something more than a year old, — that is, in 1824, Grandfather and Uncle Herman moved to western New York, Cattaraugus county, town of Persia. There they bought land on what was known as "The Holland Purchase." The two farms joined each other. Soon after this Uncle Herman married a Miss Betsey Taylor. The country was new, the timber heavy, and it took much hard work to clear off a small field. Neighbors were few and far between, all —17— lived in log houses, money was hard to get, the com- forts of life were not known. Grandfather had sometimes to go away from home to work, leaving the young wife and little children alone in the woods, with only a blanket hung up for a door. Indians sometimes frightened them, but never did any other harm. Their lives and experiences were such as were common in those days to all frontier families in the heavy forest. Here five other chil- dren, David, Hannah, Henry, Charles and George, came into the family. SOME THINGS ABOUT THE FAMILY. Very soon after reaching this new home Uncle David was born, July 26, 1824. Aunt Hannah has this to tell about her arrival : ''Father used to work on a bridge at Lodi — now Gowanda — about the time of my birth, and mother had to get along alone with the chores at the barn and attend to things in gen- eral. One time she slipped and fell, hurting her some. When I came along it was a good while be- fore I could walk, and when I did I went with a limp, as I always have done." She was born Febru- ary 13, 1827. Uncle Henry was born September 27, 1829; Uncle Charles, May 25, 1831; Uncle George, August 6, 183-4. About the year 1828, grandfather and grand- mother went on a visit to the people they had left in Jefferson count^^ I think they went on to Bethel, Maine, also, and spent some time with grandmother's folks. I do not know whether they went by way of —18— Concord, N. H. It was a long trip to make with a team and sleigh, — a drive of more than a thousand miles, going and coming. The effort they made shows the love they had for old friends. The settlers in this new neighborhood got a log school house built, and after a while there were enough young people to make a good-sized school. A part of the time George C. Babcock was teacher. My grandmother was some of the time in not very good health, and so mother had to do work at home when she would otherwise have been in school. When her little brother George was a year or two of age grandmother had inflammatory rheumatism and mother had almost the entire care of him. Uncle Henry was not a healthy little boy and Uncle Charles was puny when j^oung. ''George was a nice little boy, and good," so Aunt Hannah says, I have said that grandfather at the time of his marriage was not able to read or ^vrite. Grand- mother was a bright woman and she taught him to read and to write his name. He became quite ^ reader later in life. Grandfather was a quiet man as I knew him, and I guess he was so in his younger days. Aunt Hannah says of him : ' ' I may say con- cerning my father that he had his own troubles and trials within himself, and he doubtless made mis- takes and had some shortcomings. He was, you know, no talker — had no gift that way — in words and phrases to express what he thot and felt. Since words would not come readily at his call, he was commonly silent. As he had not when a boy been sent to school, he could not write, and he always —19— grieved over the matter. He learned to read, tho, and to sign his name." It seems to me that, as I knew my grandfather, a better man never lived. Uncle Daniel Babcoek, of whom I shall speak later, and who knew grandfather well for many years, once said that he would be so glad to see George Thorngate again that he would kiss him; he would be glad even to kiss his foot. That dear old grand- father of ours has left us all a precious heritage. I have grandfather's naturalization papers before me as I write. It was in the county court of Catta- raugus county, October 7, 1841, that he declared his intention to become a citizen of the United States, and in the same court, January 31, 1844, when he got his full naturalization papers. SEVENTH DAY BAPTISTS. Some time in the early days of this settlement there came to it a colony of people from Brookfield, Madison county, New York, among them the Bab- cocks, the Prentices and the Whitfords. They were Seventh Day Baptists, good people and religious. They began holding meetings in Deacon Hosea Whitford's house. He was their leader in religious services and in singing. Preachers of the denomina- tion came there from time to time and held meet- ings. In due time a church was organized Under the preaching of the Rev. Walter B. Gillette grand- father made a profession of religion, was baptized and joined the church. Grandmother had been a Baptist, but she thot the Seventh Day folks all —20— wrong on the Sabbath question.. She thot, too, that she could easily convince them of their error and she went about doing it. But when she began studying the question she concluded that they were right and she wrong. She was a woman of decision of char- acter, and so both she and grandfather began to keep the Sabbath. They at once set up a family altar, grandmother reading a chapter from the Bible and grandfather following with prayer, grand- mother taking turns with him. This little Seventh Day Baptist church in Persia had several preachers whose names have since then become well known, among them Elders Gillette, already mentioned, Varnum Hull, Nathan V. Hull, Russell G. Burdick and Thomas E. Babcock. Under the preaching of Thomas E. Babcock, mother, Aunt Hannah and Uncles Henry and Charles became members of the church. Uncle George wished to be baptized too, but it was thot he was thop. too young. Years later, when he was baptized at Da- kota and joined the church there, he sail that if he had ever experienced religion it was at that time back in New York, when he was nine years oid. Two of us boys bear names that commemorate those days, — names of two good men in Persia. I was named Hosea Whitford after Deacon Whitford, and my brother Walter G., got his name from Elder Walter B. Gillette. THE LITERARY SOCIETY. These Brookfield people brot with them to Persia -21— the country literary society and set it to going in their new home, where it was the means of no little culture. When the Cattaraugus folks moved to Wisconsin they took the literary society with them there, and in due time it became a lively institution in Dakota. I shall refer to this matter later. CHARLES P. ROOD. When Uncle David came to be eighteen or nine- teen years old he got acr[uainted in some way, at Clarence, New York, about forty-five miles north and a little east of Persia, with a young man named Charles P. Rood. For some reason David invited this friend of his to his home at Persia. The young man seemed pleased with the Thorngate family, es- pecially with the daughter Marianne. He worked in that vicinity for the next year or so, and on the 13th day of July, 18M, he and Marianne Thorngate were married. And now, as he has become a part of the family, I must stop and tell who he was and whence he came. THE ROODS IN VERMONT. I would give a great deal now for an hour of talk with my father a])out his early life. I did not, while he was alive, think so much about the matter. I have come to feel that it is well vv^orth while to learn things one wishes to know while he has the oppor- tunity. Father did not talk very much about his early life, and what little I have been able to find out has come from various sources. At this time there is living in Vermont, Franklin county, town of Swanton, an Elisha H. Rood. He is a first cousin to my father's father. Here are some of the things he has told me by letter. I have abridged somewhat : "I shalJ be very glad to tell you what I know of the Rood families. Three brothers, Asa, Elijah and Elisha, moved from Massachusetts to Bennington county, this state, and from there to St. Albans, the next town south of Swanton. In a short time they located on the Missisquoi river, in Swanton town- ship, — Elijah on the north side, Asa and Elisha on the south. This Elisha was my father, and I now own, and live near, the old homestead. ''I will tell you first about your branch of the family. Elijah Rood, my uncle, died longer ago than I can remember. He had three sons, Benager, Burrell and Elijah. I cannot remember anything about Burrell, your grandfather, for I was not born till April 18, 1835. But the name is very familiar to me, as I pass, every time I go to the village, what is still known as the 'Burrell Rood Place.' These boys had a sister, Polly Rood. "My Uncle Asa was twice married. One son only, William, came to bless the union, and he died young. By a second marriage he had a daughter, Betsey. She married a man named Reynolds and is now a widow with several daughters. I do not know where she is. My father, Elisha, was twice married, first to Polly Stillwell, by whom he had one son, Stephen, who died when nine years of age. Not long after- —23— ward his mother died. Then my father married Betsey Higgins. I was the only child. My father died suddenly November 26, 1847, of heart disease, being then 81 years old. My dear mother died August 28, 1877, 85 years of age. My beloved parents were both members of the Methodist Episco- pal church more than 40 years. I have one daugh- ter, born in 1863, wife of Dr. 0. A. Gee, of Brandon, this state. She is a graduate in art and music from Cowle's Art School, Boston. She was for several years a teacher in Montpelier. "Yesterday I asked a Mr. Barney, over 75 years old, if he could remember Burrell Rood. He said he could remember both Burrell and his wife, Mary ; that she was a lovely woman, but he could not recall her maiden name. ' ' There is much more in this letter of Elisha Rood's, February 16, 1898, about the various branches of the family of Elijah Rood, my father's grandfather, but I will here confine my attention to our own branch of it — that of the above-mentioned Burrell and his wife Mary. They had six children, Lola, Abram, Alonzo, William, Charles Persons, and Elijah. I am not sure where the sister, Lola, be- longs in the order of birth, but she was one of the elder children. GRANDFATHER ROOD. I wish I had here many good things to tell about my Grandfather Rood, but I know little about him. He must have been a peculiar man, — bright and —24— capable, but unsettled, and not much of a home- maker. He moved about a great deal. When the mother died he married again and more children came ; then there was trouble. I will not try to tell much concerning what I know so little about. Grandfather had four different wives in all. He lived at different times in Canada, northern New York, and then near Buffalo. It was there, I think, that the family was broken up. There w^ere, if I mistake not, three of the younger children left with my father to take care of. He was then about six- teen years old, and he tried to support himself and them by chopping cordwood. They were all desti- tute and, as the authorities and neighbors saw the struggle the poor boy was having, they took the children to support. One of them died and another, Martha, only four years old, was taken by a family to Illinois. At this time my Grandfather Rood had gone to Wisconsin Territory, and he was expecting my father to bring the children to the West. MY FATHER. What little I know of my father's lot after the death of his good mother gives me to understand that the story is a sad one, — too sad, perhaps, to know in detail. It must have been especially sad to him, and I suppose that is why he did not often refer to his early life. My father, because of the unsettled conditions of the family life, never went to school any more than six months. But he, like many other boys with an —25— imfavorable environment, longed to know what was in books, and his mind was active. He had only his Bible from which to learn, and so that book came to be very familiar to him. He read it during much of his spare time and, to use his own expression, never forgot a thing he read. He came to know much of the book by heart. Oh that the poor boy, so hungry for knowledge, could have had such schooling and books as most boys of these days enjoy! And he never knew by possession what a good suit of clothes was. A pair of shoes was to him almost a luxury. This study of the Bible brot the question of the Sabbath to his attention. He came to believe the seventh day to be the Sabbath, and, about the time he was chopping cordwood in a desperate but vain effort to support those three little children thru a long, cold winter, he began to keep alone what he had come to accept as God's Sabbath. A year or two later he heard of Seventh Day Baptists at Clar- ence, not far away, and he went there and got work. Whatever those who read this little book may think about this important question, all must respect and admire that honest, conscientious, struggling, six- teen-year-old boy and his manly decision of char- acter. It was not long after this when Uncle David Thorngate found my father and invited him to his Seventh Day Baptist home. The boy did not know until just before he found work at Clarence that there was another person in all the wide world keep- ing what he believed to be the Sabbath. I do not very much wonder that he felt much at home in his -26- new surroundings and that he should fall in love with and marry my good mother. I was the first born of this happy union, the day of my birth being May 30, 1845. PIONEER LIFE. Grandfather's folks led the typical pioneer life after their settlement in Cattaraugus county. They had at first a simple log cabin with only a blanket hung up for a door. Grandfather had often to go away to work to earn a little money for the pur- chase of such things as they could not produce on the farm. The timber was so heavy that it was hard work to clear the land. With a growing family of boys and girls grandfather found it all he could do to feed and clothe them, and so he was a long time in debt for the land on which he lived. They had visits now and then from neighboring Indians, and the woods were more or less infested with wild ani- mals. At first the nearest neighbors were two miles away. But for all of the loneliness and the struggle to get a bare living, there was hope in the good boys and girls growing up in that log house. In due time they came to be helpful in clearing up the farm and keeping house ; and they so lived and increased in strength, knowledge and virtue as to make glad the hearts of the father and mother who had toiled and sacrificed for them. —27- REMOVAL TO WISCONSIN. In the early '40s there was much talk about the inducements to settle in the West, especially in Wis- consin Territory. Three or four years before I Avas born, in 1842, Uncle Herman Blanchard had moved to Michigan and settled in the town of Cooper, a little north of Kalamazoo. In the spring of 1845 grandfather, with Uncle David and some others of the Seventh Day Baptists, went on a tour of obser- vation to Rock county, Wisconsin. The families of Elder Daniel Babcock, George Babcock and Allen Prentice had settled in Johnstown, about nine miles from Milton, and grandfather went there. He liked the country, with its fertile prairies and woodlands, and made up his mind to bring his family there. He left David at work there and went back to Cattar- augus county after the folks. He sold his farm and such stuff as he could, and about the 22nd of Sep- tember they all bade good-bye to what for twenty- one years had been the family home, w^here all the children but mother had been born, where she ha^ been married and her first baby born, and started for Buffalo, where the took a steamer up the lakes for Milwaukee. Now it came to pass that at Milwaukee they found my Grandfather Rood. Four miles out from the city he had a log house and he wanted them to go out and make their first stop with him. He had no wife then and was keeping house by himself. Aunt Hannah says that father's half-brother Bur- rell, who had been with his father in Milwaukee and had run away and gone to New York State to see —28— my father, came back with us at this time to Milwau- kee, and she thinks my Uncle Elijah Rood came west at the same time. Uncle Elijah soon enlisted and went away to the Mexican war. Later he returned to Milwaukee, where he was married and lived about a year. Then he went to Minnesota and our people lost all trace of him. FIRST SETTLED IN MILWAUKEE COUNTY. I can do no better here than to quote from a letter written by Aunt Hannah : ' ' The, result of going to see your Grandfather Rood was that we made ar- rangements to stay there that season. He wanted your father to stay, and he rather wished to do so. That, of course, would keep your mother and you. Now, your Grandmother Thorngate did not like to leave your mother and the baby, so our folks looked for a place in which to live. For the first few weeks we lived in a school house. Then your Grandfather Thorngate found a farm to rent, and we settled in a fairly good and roomy double log house. This was in the town of Lake, four miles south of the city. ''In a few weeks your grandfather and grand- mother, your father and mother and I, and you too, of course, took a trip with the horse and wagon to Rock county, leaving your Uncles Henry and Charles to keep house. Mr. Prentice and George Babcock had rented land of Elder Daniel Babcock and were living in a double log house on the place. Your Uncle David was working there for Elder Daniel Babcock, so you see that nearly all of us were there —29— together. We went to Milton on Sabbath morning to church. The meeting was held in the old gravel academy building, where EUery Burdick's photo- graph gallery now stands. Elder Stillman Coon preached to us that day. ''After visiting a week we returned to Milwau- kee. The next spring all of us bi>t your mother had the 'fever and ague.' It was a sickly season. Our doctor bill cost us a nice young horse that we could not well spare. In the spring of 1847 all but your father and mother and you and I moved to Rock county. On the 12th of April your brother George was born and I staid to help take care of your mother and him. Father took land of Elder Babcock and lived in that part of the house where George Bab- cock had lived. In June your folks went- to Rock Prairie and your father and David took the Doctor Babcock farm to work together. You, Hosea, had a long and severe run of fever. At one time you came very near dying, but revived. It took you a long time to get well." ON ROCK PRAIRIE. This home on Rock Prairie was the first of my recollection. We lived there till the fall of 1850, a little more than three years. There, on December 20, 1848, my brother Herman was born. My mind is full of my own recollections about Rock Prairie, but I cannot tell all the stories I recall. Brother George was only three and a half years old when we left there, yet he seems to remember about as much of our doings there as I. He has an unusual memory. —30— ]\rOVING TO NEAR PRINCETON. The soil on Rock Prairie was rich, but our folks did not feel able to buy farms there, and so grand- father bargained for a piece of land sixteen miles, north of Milton, at Utica, in Dane county. Later he gave that up and moved to a place called Pleasant Valley, about three miles from Princeton, Green Lake county, and on the road to Dartford. There grandfather selected a piece of land, but for the first season worked a farm on shares. Again he lived in a log house. I think that grandfather moved up there from Rock Prairie in the spring of 1850. In the fall of that year LTncle David moved my mother and her three babies, Hosea, George and Herman, up there too. Father remained at work in Rock county till sometime in the winter, then he joined us. AT DAKOTA. In the meantime George Babeock, Allen Prentice^ Lewis Pierce and their families had moved on fur- ther north, to the town of Dakota, in Waushara county. This was on what was then called ''The Indian land." That seemed to them a beautiful country and there was plenty of public land to take up. It was natural for my Uncles David and Henry and Charles and George to want to go there, too, sr^ as to be with their young friends, Oscar, Delia and Heman Babeock, Asa and Nathan Prentice and Franklin and Harrison Pierce. They said they wanted to take up farms there, too, and so they went up and made "claims" and built a house of pine —31— logs for the family home. In the early spring of 1851 we all moved up to this new house of grand- father's. It was built on the east bank of Pine Creek, one mile east of the little village of Dakota. It was in April, I think, when our folks moved up to Dakota. Grandmother had been taken sick in the February before, and it was thot best that she be taken to a neighbor's home — that of Mr. Loomer — to stay till the weather was warmer. Grandfather staid with her till sometime in May, when they both went up to the new home. She was not well all that summer of 1851, and on the 8th day of February, 1852, she died. She w^as the first to be laid at rest in the little burying ground across the river from the village of Dakota. Her sickness was of a drop- sical nature. The loving testimony of her children is that she was a good woman. My mother has this to say about her: "I can say that my dear mother was a good woman; a kind neighbor, always ready to do for others what she could; a Christian woman, a kind and sympathetic mother. In stature she was of medium height and very straight; her hair was straight, not thick, soft and fine ; her complexion dark. She weighed, I think, about 120 pounds. She was quite a talker, a great reader and a good one. Your grandfather was not, you know, a ready talker, and so she had to talk for both." Aunt Hannah says: "She was a good woman in every place — a true wife, a tender and loving mother, a faithful friend, a kind neighbor, always ready to give help when needed ; self-sacrificing, hos- —32— pitable, quiet and peaceful; a Christian woman in character and living; patient in tribulation, gener- ous, forgiving; and doing the best she could under all circumstances." Mother and we three children, George, Herman and I, were with grandfather's folks when they moved from Princeton to Dakota. In the meantime father had come up from Rock Prairie and taken up some land two and a half miles up the Mecan River from Dakota, had built a log house there and began breaking. On the 13th day of May, 1851, — mother thinks it was the 15th, — we moved into this new home. Here our folks were living ten years later when I went into the army. This was in the present town of Richford, Waushara county. Here, on the following 4th of July, my brother Charey was born. Here, also, my four sisters were Charley was born. Here, also, my four sisters were born, — Mary, August 27, 1853 ; Genia, March 11, 1856; Emma, March 27, 1859; Etta, September 14, 1861. During the war father moved to a farm two miles north of there — the ''Clark place" — and that was my brother AValter's birthplace, June 5, 1864. In this new home on the Mecan River we had at first very few neighbors, but as the years passed bv settlers came one after another till it did not seem so much like a new country. 33- RELIGION AND EDUCATION. The Babcocks and Prentices, who had been Grand- father's neighbors in Cattaraugus county and Rock Prairie, settled a little to the south of him on Pine creek. There came, also, other Seventh Day Baptist people, and in two or three years a church was or- ganized and meetings held in the school house at Dakota. This school house was a small one, but made of boards and was a pretty good one for those days. There were at this time quite a large number of young men and women in the community, and the school there was a good one. And there a literary society was organized and kept up year after year, both old and young attending and taking part. The men had a debating society, and in that little school house many j'oung men got their first lessons who, later, became public speakers and men of influence in the world. The church grew in membership and influence until it included three or four such mischief-makers as could kill the healthful growth of anything. After this its influence for good was not so great — still, it was a constant elevating force in the com- munity until the members got the fever to move somewhere else, then everything declined. The peo- ple were hardly able to support a settled pastor. Elder J. M. Todd, pastor of the Seventh Day Baptist church four miles south of Berlin, used to come now and then to preach, as did other ministers of our de- nomination. Elder Henry B. Lewis, Hiram Babcock and George C. Babcock used at different times to preach. Later, Oscar Babcock and my father led ^ —34— Old school house at Dakota the meetings, both preaching for nothing. Our home in Richford was a little out of the com- munity, tho we went to Dakota to meeting. At first George and I went there to school. Then we had school a year in a log shanty on my Uncle David's ''claim," half a mile west of our house. Later, a neat little log school house was built close by our house, and in a few years we had a good school. Our best teachers were Esther Maine and J. L. Pope. Miss Maine taught five terms and Mr. Pope two. We had great spelling schools in those days. MILL BURNED. In the early days Dakota promised to become a thriving village. It had a store, tavern and a grist mill. One morning the mill took fire and burned. This was discouraging. My Uncles David and Charles, being of a mechanical turn, undertook to rebuild the mill and run it, but they were financially unable and so had to give it up. The village never prospered after that. UNCLE CHARLES MARRIED. In the meantime the young folks were growing and mating. Uncle Charles, on the 5th of June, 1856, married Eugenia Torrance, who had been a teacher in the log shanty school near our home. She was of a sweet spirit and was beloved by everybody. The preceding winter Uncle Charles had taught the school at Dakota. The next spring he took his young -35— wife' and what goods he had in a sleigh and started for Nebraska. They had not gone far before they had to exchange their sleigh for a wagon. They had a long, hard journey. They settled ten miles up the creek — Salt Creek — from Lincoln, the present capital. Finding conditions there quite discouraging they moved, in a year or so, back into Fremont county, Iowa. UNCLES DAVID AND HENRY MARRIED. In June, 1856, after Uncle Charles' marriage, grandfather and Aunt Hannah went to visit Uncle Herman Blanchard, in Michigan.. They staid till October. Henry and David both spent some time there. David met Miss Lucina Duell, whom, on November 7, 1857, he married and two years later brot to Dakota, with their baby boy, Charley. He settled on a farm and did carpenter work when he had time. Uncle Henry was married at Dakota, June 14, 1858, to Miss Lorenda O. Crandall. She was a daughter of one of the old New York families — that of William Crandall, commonly known as ''Uncle Bill" Crandall. Uncle Henry worked on a farm at Dakota two or three years. GRANDFATHER AND AUNT HANNAH MARRIED. On the 16th of March, 1857, grandfather was mar- ried to a Betsey Langworthy, sister of Elder J. M. Todd's second wife, Emma Janette Langworthy. —36— She was a good woman, but not healthy. On the 6th of March, 1860, she died and was buried by the side of Grandmother Matilda. On the 25th of August, 1860, Aunt Hannah was married to Robert Stillman. He bought a farm and settled about two miles south of grandfather's home. He had a young boy, James I. Stillman, son by his second wife. FATHER FINDS TWO BROTHERS AND A SISTER. About the year 1858 father's half-sister Martha, one of the little children he was trying to support by chopping wood near Buffalo when he was sixteen years old, came to us. She was about twenty-two years old. She had found father by advertising in Buffalo papers. She lived with us tv/o or three years and was then married to a neighbor of ours named Burton IMonroe. Some time after that they went to Minnesota to live, and I have never seen her since. She is still living in that State, I think. Soon after Martha came, father, by chance, heard that his brother Abram was living in Dane county, Wiscon- sin, four miles north of Sun Prairie and sixteen miles northeast of Madison. Father went to visit him and then heard that his brother William was living in the town of Dane, fifteen miles west of Abram 's. Father and Abram visited William, and later both William and Abram visited us at our home. Abram was quite well-to-do, owning a fine farm where he and his young wife, Elizabeth, had settled when the country was new — when Aunt —37— Elizabeth was only sixteen. Abram had five chil- dren — Charlotte, Calvin, Selden, Howard and Horace. William had two or three children by his first wife and four or five by his second wife, Sally. Father brought one of the elder girls, Jane by name, home to live with us, but she did not stay long. The children by the first wife were William, Ruth and Jane ; by the second wife, as nearly as I can remem- ber, John, Robert, Jordan and Sarah. I think that neither Howard, Mary nor Alice had yet been born. I think it was in the summer of 1859 that I went down and worked thru harvest with Uncle William. It may have been a year later. He was just getting started on his farm and was having a struggle of it to support his family and pay for the home. I may say here that about this time Grandfather Rood came and visited at Uncle Abram 's. He had a German wife at that time and two boys, Caleb and David. He did not come to our house. Later he moved to Iowa, — Tama county, I think, — and a few years later he died there. GRANDFATHER'S THIRD MARRIAGE. When my Aunt Hannah was married Uncle Abram was visiting us. He saw that Grandfather Thorn- gate would be left with no housekeeper, and so he told him of a Mrs. Dickinson, a good woman living near his home in Dane county, who would make him a wife worth having. Later, grandfather went down and saw the widow and they liked each other so well that on June 4, 1861, they were married. She was all to us that any grandmother could be. We all loved her as our very own. She lived with grandfather till his death, November 29, 1881, near North Loup, Nebraska, and died herself August 27, 1890, at the home of my mother at North Loup. MORE LETTERS PROM ENGLAND. About the year 1854 my Aunt Hannah wrote to the Thorngates in Marlborough, England, grand- father's old home. Her letter was received by some of grandfather's nieces. They v/ere very happy to hear about their Uncle George, and some of them wrote letters in answer. Correspondence was kept up for about three years and then dropped. I have som^e of the old letters before me now. They are full of good will and friendship, and abound in religious sentiment. They indicate a strong trust in God, the merciful Father of us all. I think none of them have since been heard from by letter. A PRETTY COUNTRY, BUT- I must now bring this sketch up to the time of the beginning of our civil war, in 1861. At this date our people had lived in Dakota ten years. The country was a delightful one in many respects — fair to look upon, the best of water, clear, sparkling streams, and the land easy to clear and work — but the soil was sandy. When first broken up it produced pretty good crops, but after a few years, unless well fertil- ized, it was disappointing to the farmer. Grand- father was a careful farmer, but his land was par- ticularly sandy and he could not get ahead. My father was not a natural farmer. Our fast growing family demanded much to eat and something to wear, and we were not able to get far from primitive conditions. We knew more about the necessities of life than its comforts. Luxuries were unknown to us even by rumor. I guess, tho, that we did not con- sider ourselves very poor, for our condition was about like that of our neighbors. Our standard of living was not such as to give us any high notions. So we got on fairly well, tho I am sure that our good mother was every day struggling with problems a hundred times harder than any we got at school. SOIME PERSONAL REMARKS. My father got to digging wells for people. That work brot in quicker and surer returns than the sandy farm. If he had been a better farmer it might have been different, but he did the best he could to meet the demands of his growing family. Father was a hopeful man, full of fun, and with much physical energy. He could hold his own in a rough- and-tumble scuffle Vv^ith half a dozen of the big boys and young men of our community. Ke was a great reader and, whatever we might want beside, he would take the New York Tribune and The Sabbath Recorder. These two papers had no small influence in our home. And so did the family altar. I wish every home of the Thorngate-Roods would maintain —40— a family altar. Father was always in favor of good schools, and it vras mostly thru his influence that we came to have a good school in our district. My uncles and Aunt Hannah were great readers, too, and they also had the Tribune and the Recorder. Aunt Hannah taught school one term while living near Princeton. Uncles Charles and George became teachers, and both sang well and played the violin. George went to school at Milton College a term or two. All my uncles were good men. Grandfather's home was a place where God was worshiped every dav. I START OUT INTO THE WORLD. ENLISTED. On the 2nd day of April, 1861, with my father's permission, I left home and went south, 75 miles by the road, to Dane county to find work for the sum- mer. Iwas not sixteenyears old till the following 30th of May, — rather young to start out in such a way. About a week later I was settled in the family of Dw^ight Brown, town of Vienna, about fifteen miles north of Madison, capital of the state. I had en- gaged to work there six months at ten dollars a month, and was to have the privilege of keeping the Sabbath and working Sundays. Within a week after I commenced work the w^ar began, and there was great excitement. John Gillespie, a young m.an of twenty-two living in the same family with me, went to Madison on the 17th of April and enlisted for three months. After serving his time in the First Wisconsin regiment he was discharged August 21st. —41— He went to Delton in Sauk county and there, in con- nection with Abraham Vanderpoel and Lewis T. Linneil, raised a company for the war. On the 6th day of October, 1861, I enlisted in this company and went, on the 16th, to Delton and began with my com- rades to learn how to be a soldier. Our company went to Madison and into Camp Randall, just at the western edge of the city, on the 1st day of Novem- ber, where we became Com.pany E of the Twelfth Wisconsin infantry regiment, commanded by Col. Geo. E. Br^^ant, who had served as a captain in the First Wisconsin. OUR ARMY SERVICE. Our regiment left Camp Randall on January 11, 1862, and went to Weston, Missouri, and a month later to Leavenworth, Kansas. In Kansas we marched to Fort Scott, from there to Lawrence, thence to Fort Riley, and then back to Leavenworth — 500 miles of marching from March 1st to May 27th. At Leavenworth w^e took steamer down the Missouri to Columbus, Kentucky. We spent the summer of 18G2 in Kentucky and Tennessee, staying three months at Humboldt, Tennessee. Then we joined General Grant 's army in northern Mississippi. After the surrender of Holly Springs we moved north into Tennessee, then on to Memphis, where we arrived on the 14th of March. May 11th we started down the river for Vicksburg, in the siege of which we took part. After the surrender we went, under General Sherman, to Jackson for a three-weeks' —42— o^ o liJ< I Q O O 0) U -1 a: < I O campaign. On the 14th of August we went to Natchez, where we did service till, in the early part of January, 1864, I with fifty-two others of my com- pany re-enlisted for another three j^ears. Two or three times we made trips back and forth from Natchez to Vicksburg. On the 3rd of February we started with a good-sized army on what was known as the "Meridian Expedition," from Vicksburg east to the Alabama line and back. We got back to camp near Vicksburg March 4th. On the 13th of that month we started home as a regiment on what was known as a "veteran furlough" — a furlough given because we had re-enlisted. We got back to Cairo, Illinois, where our troops v/ere gathering. May 3rd. A week later we moved in steamers up the Ohio and Tennessee rivers to Clifton, Tennessee, a.nd from there across the country to Sherman's army operat- ing against Atlanta. We joined this great army on the 8th day of June, at Big Shanty, near Kenesaw Mountain. We took our part in the campaign against Atlanta, being attached to the First Brigade, Third Division, Seventeenth Army Corps. Atlanta was taken and evacuated about the 1st day of Sep- tember. I was in the hospital from August 14th till about the 1st day of November. I was slightly wounded in my right arm at the great battle of At- lanta July 21st. Our regiment left Atlanta Nov. 16, 1864, for the famous ' ' March to the Sea. ' ' We entered Savannah December 21st. January 5, 1865, we started on the "March thru the Carolinas" and were at Raleigh when Johnston surrendered his army to Sherman. —43— We then made a quick march to Richmond and so on to Washington, where we took part on the 24th of May in the famous ' ' Grand Review. ' ' In early June we went to Louisville, Kentucky, and there, July 16, 1865, we were mustered out of the service. We left Louisville on the 18th for Madison, where we ar- rived on the 21st of July. Twelve days later I went home. We were in camp about two weeks near Washington and there I had several visits with my father and brother Herman. While in camp at Louisville my brother George's regiment, the Thirti- eth Wisconsin, was there, and we had some pleasant visiting. My father and brother Herman had been nearly a year in the Thirty-seventh Wisconsin Infan- try. It so came to pass that they got to Madison so that we three could go home together. We got there at daylight on August 3rd, marched into the house and gave my good mother and the rest of the family -a pleasant and rousing surprise. OUR FOLKS IN THE CIVIL WAR. Now I must go back and say that all of our folks and grandfather's were, for one reason or another, just the kind to enlist for the defense of our flag and all for which it then stood and still stands. During that first summer of the war the Dakota boys went to the army in large numbers. All my uncles enlisted early, and my peaceful, saintlike old Grandfather said that if the cause needed him he'd go too. In order to condense I shall here tabulate the facts of the army service of the members of our families. —44— i\cr^i-^. yntiA :^:r*. til lU* -if , no .» iU'' dill ft far the lant -1 be )iscnbers the :in' <:;WUl .tH»-:>' iiK 19,18( 1864 i06i), 1863 . .....' »■ 1 ..,.-3r, My r'\ari(>ivi ame 18G4 ^ ?ust ^^'"' ^«^ hey ■ ■ »'> ¥is- -tijix'l Mi.f: io". 22,18(: in ■•-..v! .^^irtiU i.'d.^i i9,l8oder i.»' 1864^^*® UV^,1864^^^^ IP n imi 1864 g^._ •— 2i,i8r on ish- i\ fvlttJ i^ .nd. ill JjimM ii.'i-) KK')5 ine- .csBiKL ..Yfiii^vrtj*^ Mv')') It Kir 4 18()^^- ;,. -4,180^^^- , der . ood. ^ )Ut tl ^^^ il.'»ii''':> r- w to Mr we 18i hamaV' Lo ■ ■ .,.. — ■ ■• . .iKi ho .'- >''.!• ■; W M .' . 1' fal ■ : M s^aBcrj Lo ■ -.-vi .vV 4i'*^oH et\. b'vri ;U ;-ii4lOdc> vis , booVjt xiButi-^a .w ne; trj thr ■ ■ ■ - ■ • j t^MiM i-KIV3ii'-> ( „gii^ ta booH H H W at • ii boo VI n a w am ' ^~i \Ui-LiH\ a I an -a aiJf bgrt li«xt'l fe.^r»iiit.> all c> jitiV fooi>*l ..W fi^aoH th^ 1 ati| ji rK>oSi .a H w to • i. . w ^ 1 -,1., ,.^l» i^.-roUl eai sai or( th( ficial Records at JE HEIGHT 1 Feet In. G 5 11% 5 0% 5 6% 5 5 \' "'^^2 SO far in the Madison, Wisc onsin , anendant ";vill be Eyes 3 9 10 1 7 Blue Blue Blue Gra}' Blue Gray Hazel Graj^ Gra3^ Gray Blue Blue 5 G% 5 101/2 5 8 5 5 r 1 Blue Gray Gray Gray Blue Haik Dark Brown Brown Brown Dark Sandy Light Brown Brown Brown Light Dark Auburn Liaht Complexion Light Light Fair Dark Ruddy Fair Light Fair Fair Light Light Ruddy Fair Light Brown Dark Sandy Light Auburn Dark Fair Fair Light Fair DATEOFDIBCH^^^^^^^ Died July 19, 18(iin the April 1, 18G3 January 1, 1864 January 30, 186c July 27, 1865 Henry January 5, 1861 same Sept. 20, 1865 ugust July 27, 1865 ^f^ DiedAug.22,18(^^ .^ DiedFeb.l9,18('T^^^^ January 1, 1861 State October 31, 1864 gton, January 4, 1864 me a Died Sept. 21, 18C ^^^' _rs on July 27,1864 July 24, 1865 i/'ash- 3ond, "^ine- Julyl6, 1865 ^ j^ September 4 186] gjj. September 4,186,ttle- 'in^, numbers of regiments, -vice of the above nam Wisconsin is to be understood. Qder ed fourteen soldiers was about tl.h uf Tal.lc .f T^nrtwyn^ernjng Arm v^ervke. T^e^ ^^ Madison, Wisconsin, and Pes Moines. Iowa NAMES DATE AND Place of Kni.istm'nt Co. 1 1 A i«: G Ri;(;t. Kank THK.vL David Thornjtfate Henry Thorn^^ale CliaH. Tliorn^ale Geor>fe Tliorii^ale Cliarles P. Kood June 23, 1H(3I June 23, 1801 July 23, I8()l May 10, 1H()1 Nov. 2, IKfU Dakota Dakota Civil Hend, Iowa Milton Dakota Till Till 4tli la. r)1h 37tli Private Corporal Musician Corporal I^rivato 3 yean' 3 yearj^ 3 jearr .i yean 1 year Hoeea W. Rood Ocl.fi, iWi! Vienna, Dane Co. 1-; rjdi Private 3 j'ean George H. Kood Aiij--. 20, IHC.L' Iv'ichiord <; ;5()iii Private 3 year W. Herman Kood Nov. 22, I8(;i Dakota (i :i7tii I'rivate 1 year 3 year' Calvin Wood Sept. 9, 1S()1 vSun Prairie (; nth Private W. II. 11. WocxI Sr. Aug. 15, 18()2 Dane, Dane Co. 11 2:^rd Private 3 year' VV. 11. H. Wood Ir. Nov. (i, 18(11 I.odi, Columbia Co. i< nth Private 3 year' Unrrell Rood June H, IHOl I loth Mo. Private 3 year' Daniel Dearie Sept. 10, 1801 Middleton,I)aneCo D mil Corporal 3 year' * Alexander Taylor Dec. 30, 1863 Shopiere, Rock Co. J*^ 33rd Wis. Pat Private 3 yean KIvKNM.STMKNT Nov. 20, 1S()3 Dakota KJt. Ser«>eant George Thornj>ale 3 yea Cliarles Thorn;.;:ite Jan. 1, 1SC)4 Civil Ik-nd, la. A Ith la. MiTsician 3yeai Hosea W. Kood Jan. (), 1801 Natchex, Misa. 1*: 12th I'rivate 3 3ear? W. H. H. Kood Jr. Jan. 1, ISC.t Indianola, Texa.s K 11th I'rivate 3 year Daniel Deaj^Ie Jan. 4, I8G4 Indianola, Texas B lltli Corporal 3 year Feet In. 5 ii^U 5 Gl/2 o 034 5 71^2 5 r^Ks 5 3 f) o^L' 5 9 5 3^2 f) 10 1 5 7 5 0% 5 101/2 T) 8 .^ .1 1 Kyks Gray Blue Graj' Blue Blue C;ray Blue Gray Hazel Gray Gray Gray Blue Blue IMue Gray Gray Gn.y Blue Hair Dark Brown Brown lirown Dark Sand}- Lioht Brown Brown lirown LiK-ht Dark Auburn Lioht lirown Dark Sandy I.io-ht Auburn Complexion Li-ht I.io-ht Fair Dark Kuddy Fair Li-ht Fair Fair Lioht Lioht Kuddy Fair Light Dark Fair Fair Li-ht Fair Date of Disch. Died July 19, 1802 April 1, 1803 January 1, 1804 JaiHiary 30, 1803 JtUy 27,180.1 January 5, 1804 Sept. 20, 180.-) July 27, ISO.-) Died Au8-.22,18(i2 Died Feb. 19, 18(« Jatnuiry 4, 1804 October 31, 1804 January 4, 1804 Died Sept. 21, 1803 July 27,1804 July 24, 18()r) July 1(), 18()r) September 4 ISCu September 4, 18(r) Kank Private Corporal Musician Serf>eatit Private Private Private I'rivate J'rivate Private Private latSero-. Corjioral Private Serft-eant Musician Corporal Private Corporal REMAK'KS at Wash., D. C, disease wounds at South Mt., Md. for re-enlistment as veteran wds W' msburo- V'a. May 5 '02 close of tlu> war for re-enlistment as veteran close of the war close of the war at Oldtown, Ark , disease at Younj^'aPoint, La., dis. for re-enlistment as veteran close of term of service for re-enlistnient as veteran at Madison, Wis., disease for promotion in U. S. C. T, close of the war wd. at Atlanta, Ga., Jul 21 '04 woimded at Ft. Blakely, Ala close of the war Where no state is indicated in the above table, in connection with places of enlistment a^^ numbers of regiments, Wisconsin is to be under.stood. Tho great pains have been taken to verify every fact in the table, thein; may possibly be a mistake or two. The full time average of two years and two months each. oi service of the above named fourteen soldiers was about thirty-one years,— a little more than an w to Mf we 18' Lo ri\ ho W fal Lo etl .. vis ne; trV thi ' at ■ an; a I . an JUJ all thj to eai sai on th( d Des Moines, Iowa RAxNK Private Corporal Musician Sergeant Private Private Private Private Private Private Private 1st Serg. Corporal Private Sergeant Musician Corporal Private Corporal Remarks at Wash., D. C, disease wounds at South Mt., Md. for re-enlistment as veteran wds W msburg Va. Ma5^ 5 '62 close of the war for re-enlistment as veteran close of the war close of the war at Oldtown, Ark , disease at Young'sPoint, La., dis. for re-enlistment as veteran close of term of service for re-enlistment as veteran at Madison, Wis., disease for promotion in U. S. C. T. close of the war wd. atAtlanta,Ga., Jul21'64 wounded at Ft. Blakely, Ala close of the war Tho great pains ha.ve been taken to lirty-one years,— a little more than an {S<^€ Table Herg) I will now undertake to give brief sketches, so far as I can, of the army services of those named in the foregoing table. I think every patriotic descendant of my good grandfather, George Thorngate, will be interested in these sketches of what various members of the family did to save our Union and maintain the honor of our fla«r. DAVID AND HENRY THORNGATE. It will be seen by the table that David and Henry Thorngate enlisted on the same day in the same company. They went with this company on August 30th to Camp Randall, near Madison, where they were attached, as Company I, to the Seventh Wis- consin Infantry. They spent some time there in drill, learning the various duties of a soldier. Under Colonel Joseph Van Dor, the regiment left the State on the 21st of September, 1861, for Washington^ where it arrived October 1st. There they became a part of what came to be knov/n as the ''Iron Bri- gade." The brigade went into v/inter quarters on Arlington Heights across the Potomac from Wash- ington. This Iron Brigade consisted of the Second, Sixth and Seventh Wisconsin Regiments, the Nine- teenth Indiana and the Twenty-fourth Michigan. It becam^e famous for its ready service, the physical en- durance of its men and their courage on the battle- field. The brigade, first under General Rufns King, then under General John Gibbon, and later under Colonel Cutler of the Sixth, was, from the 10th of -45- May, 1862, in active service along the Ra[>palian- nock, and in all that part of Virginia during the summer. On the 28th of August it was in the de- structive battle of Gainesville. Here Herbert Cran- dall, of Company E of the Seventh, was killed. He was a Dakota boy, brother to Uncle Henry Thorn- gate's wife, Lorenda. The second battle of Bull Run was fought two days after Gainesville, and the Seventh did good service there. General Lee crossed the Potomac on his way north and the Iron Brigade was a part of the army that marched around by Washington, then up the northern side of the Potomac, to intercept him. While the brigade was, on September 14th, storming the position of the enemy at South Moun- tain, Uncle Henry was severely wounded in the ankle. This wound unfitted him for any further service. After some time spent in the hospital he was, on April 1, 1863, discharged for disability, hav- ing served nearly two years. In May of 1862 Uncle David was detailed to do service in a detachment of bridge-builders. He was taken sick and died at a hospital in Washington of bleeding at the lungs. There is a little uncertainty about the exact date of his death, but it was, prob- ably, July 19, 1862. CHARLES THORNGATE. I do not know from any public records about Uncle Charles Thorngate's army life, but I have a bunch of letters he wrote during the war to Aunt —46— Hannah. Also, he was in Sherman's Army in the Atlanta Campaign and on the "March to the Sea/* and so he and I saw each other now and then during the last year of the war. The letters I have show that in 1861 and the winter and summer of 1862 his regiment was in General Curtis' army in Missouri and Arkansas; that it was once on an expedition across the Mississippi river and out into the State of that name. In the summer of 1863 his regiment was in the Siege of Vicksburg. In the spring of 1864 it was in Sherman's army starting out from Chattanooga for Atlanta and in the many battles along the route. George Torrance, brother to Aunt Genia, Uncle Charles' wife, was with him and was mortally wounded at Resaca. Barnum Torrance, another brother, was also there and was hurt by a falling tree while in a detachment building fortifi- cations. Barnum recovered, tho. After Atlanta was taken Uncle Charles was on the "March to the Sea," and from Savannah north through the Carolinas, at the surrender of Joseph E. Johnston near Raleigh, then on to Richmond, then to Washington, thru the Grand Review, and then off to Louisville, Kentucky, where he was mustered out with his regiment. It was just four years and one day from the time of his enlistment to the date of his muster out. Tho Uncle Charles was a musician in the regiment, when a battle came on he picked up a musket, put his fife into his pocket and fought with the men. He was a cheerful, contented soldier, and much loved by his comrades. The few visits I was able to have with him did me good. Tho in fairly good health -47- during his service, he contracted a disease that wore his life out. He died at Weeping Water, Nebraska, November 7, 1883. He was a good man as well as a good soldier. GEORGE THORNGATE. Uncle George Thorngate's company was brot to Camp Randall not long after his enlistment. May 10, 1861, and it there became Company E of the Fifth Wisconsin Infantry. I visited him once or twice in Camj) Randall, as I also did Uncles David and Henry. It was on the 24th of July that the Fifth Regiment, under command of Colonel Amasa Cobb, left Wisconsin for active service. Having arrived at Washington it was attached to what later became known as the Iron Brigade, but on the 4th of Sep- tember the regiment was taken from this brigade and permanently attached to the brigade then com- manded by General Hancock. After some service in the vicinity of Washington the brigade went into winter quarters at Camp Grif- fin, where the troops remained until the 10th of the following March. On the 23rd of March they em- barked at Alexandria and went down the Potomac to Fortress Monroe. After some skirmishing in that vicinity they advanced toward Yorktown and were in the siege of that place till the enemy left it. On the 5th of May the battle of Williamsburg was fought, in which the Fifth Wisconsin took part in a gallant and successful charge upon the works of the enemy, and for which General McClellan gave them —48— ^ . HERMAN Rood Charles P. rood AS SOLDIERS great praise. In this battle Uncle George was wounded. A ball struck his chin and broke the bone of his lower jaw. This terminated his service in that regiment. He went to the hospital and later to Dakota on furlough for sixty days. He went back to his regiment but was, on January 30, 1863, dis- charged because of disability. He came home in bad condition but, with good care, recovered. During the following summer he taught a term of school in what was known as the ''Chaffee district." There my wife, Lizzie, then Elizabeth Monroe, went to school to him. On the 20th of the following Novem- ber he enlisted in the Thirteenth Wisconsin Battery. The men were mustered into the United States ser- vice December 29th, at Camp Washburn, Milwaukee. On January 28, 1864, they left for New Orleans. On the 18th of February they were at Baton Rouge, Louisiana. They were on duty there or near there till they were mustered out on July 20, 1865. On the 27th of July, 1864, Uncle George v/as dis- charged to accept promotion in a regiment of colored troops. For some reason he could not be mustered in that regiment, and so he returned to his battery and served till it was mustered out. For some time he was detailed as teacher to. negro children. He was the kind of a man to make a first-class soldier. MY FATHER AND BROTHER HERMAN. My father was drafted. He had just the spirit in him to take him into the army, but, with two of his boys in the service and seven younger children at —49— home, he thot it his duty to stay with his family. When he was drafted he thot that, because of a stiffened elbow, he would not be accepted; but Uncle Sam was, in the fall of 1864, too anxious to get recruits to be very particular about physical de- fects; so he was told to get ready for service. He thot at first he would let brother Herman go in his place, and that idea just suited my little brother. But, someone having remarked that "Rood will send all his boys to the army but stay out of it himself," he determined to go. Herman made no small fusa about this decision, and he said to some of the neigh- bor boys, "I'll be darned if I don't go after father leaves home !" Father heard of this remark and said that if that was the boy's plan they'd both go to- gether, and so they did. At Berlin an old gentleman heard that Herman was to enlist and so told him that if he would go as his substitute he'd give him a good sum of money. The bargain was made. I do not now know how much Herman get. Both father and Herman were sent as recruits to Company G of the Thirty-seventh Wisconsin In- fantry, then at Petersburg, Virginia. Nathan Pren- tice, Henry Chase, Heman Babcock, Lawrence Bris- tol and some others of our Dakota friends were in the Thirty-seventh.. When father and Herman reached the regiment it was in the siege lines at Petersburg. The weather was cold and wet. I will copy here some of the regimental history of that time. "On the morning of the 30th of November, 1864, they took position in the second line of works, but —50— in the afternoon moved to the woods in the rear of the line, where, with a New York regiment, the Thir- ty-Seventh was held in reserve. In this position, more or less exposed day and night to the enemy's fire, their time was occupied in building houses for the winter, and in the performance of picket, guard and fatigue duty. *'0n the evening of the 8th of December the regiment moved to the rear, by order of Colonel Rob- inson, commanding provisional brigade. Here they lay in an open field on a very cold night without shelter or fire, a cutting north-east wind sweeping over the bare surface of the country with a chill that went to the very marrow. Next day they moved a few rods to a ravine, where they were somewhat sheltered from the keen wind. Towards evening a cold rain set in which, freezing as it fell, covered everything with a sheet of ice. At length, on the af- ternoon of the 10th of December, the third day of this apparently needless exposure, orders came to march. Marching down the Jerusalem plank road, almost knee deep in half frozen mud and sleet, they advanced during the night a distance of 25 miles in a south-westerly direction, arriving about daylight the next morning at Hawkins' Tavern on the Not- toway River. "The object of this movement was to reinforce and protect the rear on the return march of the Sec- ond and Fifth corps, which had previously been dis- patched on a raid along the line of the Weldon rail- road at Jarrett's Station, 30 miles from Petersburg, and had torn up the track from that point to the —51— North Carolina line burning the bridge across the Meherin River. At three in the afternoon the Sec- ond corps passed through the camp of the provis- ional brigade, which was at once put in motion on the return to camp. Without rest they went back the 25 miles they had come the night before, getting there about two o 'clock in the morning of December 12th. * * The men, overcome with fatigue by the exposure, suffering and want of sleep during the three nights before starting, were almost completely exhausted. Many fell out on the march, utterly unable to pro- ceed farther, and did not reach camp until evening of the following day. All that day the men came straggling in, and towards night they were ordered to move again out into the open field. Manj^ unable to get their feet into their shoes, bound them with cords to the bottoms of their feet for protection from the frozen ground. In this manner the Thirty-Sev enth marched nearly two miles to a piece of timber in the rear of the Jones House, where they biv- ouacked for the night. The regiment lay there two nights and a day, returning on the 13th of December to the old camp ground on the Baxter road, there to go into winter quarters till spring." I have given at some length this account of two weeks of the first service of the Thirty-Seventii after father and Herman joined it. They, having just left home and not being at all used to army life, thot it pretty severe, and I do not wonder. Sometime after this it was found that Father could not, on ac- count of a stiff arm, handle his musket very well, so -52— he was detailed to duty in the quartermaster's de- partment, and Herman was sent with him. The regiment was in all the movements about Petersburg till after the surrender of General Lee at Appomat- tox. Then it went to Washington, where it was in the Grand Review on the 23rd day of May. On the 26th day of July the men were mustered out of the service near Washington, and on the 31st of July they reached Madison, where they soon after were paid off and disbanded. Father had a very sick spell at Washington in June and July, but recovered. I have said on a previous page that Father, Herman and I went home from Madison together. I think we got to Dakota on the morning of the 3d of Aug- ust. GEORGE B. ROOD. My brother George, having enlisted August 20, 1882, in Captain A. B. Swain's company, at Wau- toma, went soon after to Camp Randall, near Madison, where the organization became Company G of the Thirtieth regiment, under Colonel Daniel J. Dill. It was the fortune of this regiment to be kept in the north during the most of the war doing various kinds of duty. Som^etimes they were broken into groups of two or more companies each and sent here and there as they were needed to keep the In- dians quiet or to help enforce the draft. Immediately after the organization of the regi- ment Company A was sent to New Lisbon, Wiscon- sin, and four companies, one of them Company G, —53— went to West Bend, same state, to prevent trouble arising from resistance to the draft. They returned to Camp Randall in February, 1863. In the mean- time the rest of the regiment had been sent up the Missouri River to the far north-west, where thej^ remained till the fall of 1864. Company I was sta- tioned at Fort Union a year and a half, and did not rejoin the regiment till the summer of 1865. May 24th, 1863, Companies G and E were sent to Milwaukee and from there to Lake Superior, Com- pany E being stationed at Bayfield and Company G at Superior. On the 6th of the following August they were started by boat back to Milwaukee, Camp Washburn. They remained there till the last of the following November, Avhen Company G was sent to Davenport, Iowa, where they were put in charge of the Indians captured in Minnesota during the great uprising of 1862. They did duty there till the 7th of May, 1864, when they went by boat up the Mis- sissippi to Fort Snelling, Minnesota. There they were joined by Companies B, E and K, and they started for Fort Ridgely 120 miles west. Compa- nies B, E. and K proceeded 180 miles further into Dakota Territory and there built Fort Wadsworth 35 miles west of Big Stone Lake. On the 18th of September Company G started for Fort Wadsworth, arriving there ten days later. Af- ter twelve days the four companies, B, E, G and K, started back to Fort Snelling, stopping two days at Fort Ridgeley. Five days after reaching Fort Snel- ling they went by boat down the Mississippi to Cai- ro, then up the Ohio to Paducah, Kentucky, where —54— they arrived Oct. 31st. Troops were being hurried to Nashville, and the Thirtieth was destined for that place to help defend it against the approaching army of General Hood. But as a part of the men that had been in the far north-west had not yet arrived, nine companies were put on duty at Bowling Green, Ken- tucky. This was just before General Thomas' de- feat of Hood at Nashville, Dec. 14 and 15. He-.e it became a part of the Second brigade. Second divis- ion, military district of Kentucky. Colonel Dill, of the Thirtieth, had command of the brigade. On the 10th of January, 1865, the regiment returned to Louisville, where they did guard duty at the mili- tary prison there. On the 8th of February Major Clowney, with Com- panies B, E, and G, proceeded by rail to Frankfort, Kentucky, where the men became the permanent garrison of the city till early in June, when they returned to Louisville. Thence came Company I from Fort Union and the ten companies of the regi- ment were once more all together for the first time in three years. Here on the 20th of September, after three years and one month of service, the regi- ment was mustered out. On the 25th it arrived in Madison, where it was disbanded. I have said on a previous page that George was at Louisville when our regiment got there from Washington on the 12th day of June, and so was Uncle Charles' regiment, the Fourth Iowa. George and I and he had fre- quent visits from time to time till the 16th of July, when my regiment was mustered out. Tho the Thirtieth regiment never got far south, -55— and did not do any fighting, the men in it wera of the best and they did faithful service where they were sent. CALVIN ROOD AND OTHERS IN THE ELEVENTH WISCONSIN. Uncle Abram's son Calvin, Uncle William's son William and Daniel Beagle, a cousin of my father's, all belonged to the 11th Wisconsin infantry. I will tell the story of their service together. Calvin belonged to Company G,Wiliiam to Compa- ny K and Daniel to Co. B. The men of theEleventh gathered in Camp Randall in September and October 1861, where the regiment was organized under Col- onel Charles Harris. The men of this regiment left the state on the 20th of November. They went to St. Louis, then to Sulphur Springs, Mo., where they did railroad guard duty during the winter. In the middle of the following March they were sent to Pi- lot Knob, same state. On the 27th day of March they joined General Steele's forces at Reeves' Ferry, From there they moved southward short distances at a time till, on the 24th of June, they were on the White River in Arkansas, near Jacksonport. On the 1st of July the troops began a toilsome march down the Vfhite River to Helena, Ark. They had some fighting on the way and the Eleventh lost several men. On the 26th of July the troops moved to Old Town, 24 miles below Helena, where the regiment had its headquarters till September 20th. Calvin Rood, of -56— Company G, died at Old Town August 22nd. Sep- tember 26 they went into camp at Sugar Point, ten miles from Helena. Then in October, they proceed- ed by way of Sulphur Springs and Pilot Knob to Patterson, Mo. During the winter the regiment did patrol and railroad duty in that part of Missouri. In March they took passage down the Mississippi by boat to Vicksburg, where later they became a part of the Thirteenth Army Corps and took an act- ive part in the siege of Vicksburg, which surren- dered July 4th. They did splendid service in this notable siege. After the surrender they went with General Sherman on an expedition against Jackson. The enemy was driven from the place, and on the 23d Sherman's forces got back to Vicksburg. On the 13th of August the regiment left Vicks- burg for Carrolton, Louisiana. From this time till the middle of November they did some hard march- ing and skirmishing in the eastern part of that state. Then they took boats on the Mississippi at Algiers and went to the mouth of the big river and across the Gulf of Mexico to Brazos, Santiago, Texas, GOU miles from New Orleans. Here in Texas they did hard and faithful service till, in the early part of January, 1864, at Indianola, Texas, more than three- fourths of the regiment re-enlisted as veterans. William Rood of Company K, and Daniel Beagle, of Company B, were tv/o of the mxen who re-enlisted. On the 14th of January they started home on vet- eran furlough, but because of many delays they did not get to Wisconsin until March 21st. On their re- turn, after their 30-days leave of absence, they went —57— to Memphis, Tenn., where they arrived April 29th. Here they were sent on an expedition in Tennessee and northern Mississippi that kept them till May 9th, when they took boats and went to Carrolton, Louisiana, six miles from New Orleans. From this time till the 9th of the following March, the regiment was in constant and hard service in Eastern Louisiana. On March 9th they went to Dauphin Island, near Mobile, Alabama, in the vicin- ity of which they were in active service till they were mustered out at Mobile on the 4th of September 1865, when they returned to Madison, where in the latter part of September the regiment was disband- ed. They received their pay and final discharge, having been four years and two days in the United States service. In a hard fight at Fort Blakely my cousin, William Rood, was shot through with a musket ball. It was a terrible wound, but he was not easy to kill. I am told by men of the regiment that he was a brave soldier, always on duty, and afraid of nothing. Daniel Beagle, of Company B, my father's cousin, was, his captain has lately told me, a fine man and a model soldier and officer.. WILLIAM ROOD, SR. My Uncle William Rood came, with Company H of the 23rd regiment, in which he had enlisted Aug- ust 15th, 1862, to Camp Randall in the latter part of the same month. The regiment had for its colonel, Joshua J. Guppy, of Portage City. The Twenty- —58— Third left Camp Randall for the South on September 15th. On the 17th they arrived at Cincinnati, Ohio, and crossed into Kentucky, where they became a part of General Green Clay Smith's division. They did various kinds of duty in Northern Kentucky un- til November 11th, when they were ordered to Louis- ville, where they arrived on the 15th. On the 19th they embarked on the Ohio and went down that river and the ]\Iississippi to Memphis, where they landed on the 27th and became a part of the First brigade. Tenth Division. On the 21st of December they were put on boats and sent to Milliken's Bend, 25 miles above Vicksburg. Until January 1, 1863, they were active in the operations of the troops on the river above the city. In the early part of the month they went up White River to the ''Cut-off", then crossed to the Arkansas River and moved up to Arkansas Post. There they were engaged in an at- tack on the place in which they lost several men, — four killed and 34 wounded. On the 15th of Janu- ary they took boats again for Vicksburg, going into camp on the 24th at Young's Point. This was on the Louisiana side, a short distance above Vicksburg. The health of the men had been greatly affected by the malarial conditions of the region and nearly all were sick, while many died, among them Uncle Will- iam. His death took place Feb. 29th. My father's half brother Burrell was in the army, but we did not know anything about him then. La- ter — in the spring of 1866 — he came to Dakota and made us a visit. He told us he had served through the war as first Sergeant in a Missouri regiment. I —59— do not know just where the regiment served, but a part of the time it was in Tennessee. After the war he lived about Moberly, Missouri. He died a few years ago at Leadville, Colorado. ALEXANDER TAYLOR. The last of the soldiers of whom I am to speak here is Alexander Taylor. He was the son of my father's sister Lola. We knew nothing about her till a few years after the war, nor of her children. There were two of them,-- Alexander and Mary Jane. Alexander, as may be seen in the table, enlisted in Company F of the Thirty-Third Wisconsin. The- rgiment had been in the service a year when he joined it as a recruit, near Hebron, about ten miles east of Vicksburg, near the Big Black River. The regiment spent a part of the winter there and then started February 3d, 1864, on what is known in histor}^ as '^The Meridian Expedition," from v/hich it returned March 4th, after marching 416 miles. On the 9th of April the regiment left Hebron, took boats at Yicksburg, and went dov/n and joined the ill-fated Red River Expedition, from which they re- turned on the 24th of May to Vicksburg. On the 30th of May they were at Memphis. On the 22nd of June the regiment went on a campaign of a month in northern Mississippi. On the 3d of August they entered upon a hard campaign in Arkansas and Mis- souri, which ended in the middle of November at Ben ton Barracks, Missouri. On the 23d of November they embarked for Nashville, Tennessee, arriving -60— there on the 30th. On the 15th of December the regiment was in the battle of Nashville. After this they were in a short campaign about Corinth and luka, Miss. After this they went by way of the Tennessee,the Ohio and the Mississippi Rivers to New Orleans. In the middle of March they were near Mobile, Alabama. From this time till the 21st of July they were in active service in the southern part of Alabama, taking part in the fighting at Spanish Fort and Fort Blakeley. On the 23d of July they went across the country to Vicksburg, where they were mustered out. Alexander's time not having expired, he was transferred to Company F of the Eleventh Wiscon- sin, a regiment near Mobile at the time when the Thirty-third left there. On the 4th of September 1865, the Eleventh was mustered out of service. Alexander was sick at the time, and, being among strangers, he did not get good care. He got back to Madison and there died on the 21st of September of brain fever, so the record says. The record al- so says that he was buried at Madison, in Forest Hill cemetery, but I cannot find his grave. It is sad that the poor boy, after two years of hard service, should die after he had been discharged and got back to Wisconsin. ALL DID GOOD SERVICE. I have told, in as little space as I could, the story of the service in the Civil War of the different mem- bers of our families — the Thorngates and the Roods. Not one of them failed to do his duty faithfully and well, and I am proud now to be able to give so good —61- an account of them all. I may just here say to those who read this sketch a long time after we are all gone that they need not be ashamed of what their ancestors did in the war that saved our Union, did away with slavery and made this land of ours in fact, as in theory, ''the land of the free and the home of the brave." It was a happy day in Dakota when, after all our soldiers had come home from the war, — except those whose lives had been given for the cause, — we all got together for a bit of jollification. We and our friends had as good a time as we knew how to have ; yet there was sadness, withal, as we thought of our dead comrades. I may say here that from the families belonging at one time or another to our Dakota community seventy-two young men and boys went into the army. Our folks were a patriotic people. SOME SOLDIER FRIENDS OF OUR FAMILY. I think that before leaving the war quite behind I must mention several young men closely connected with our family, who were in the army. My Uncle Henry Thorngate had married Miss Lorenda Cran- dall, and three of her brothers, Herbert, Samuel and Porter, went into the service from Dakota. Herbert was in Company E of the Seventh Wisconsin infan- try, and was a sergeant of his company. He was killed August 28th, 1862, in the battle of Gainesville, Virginia. Samuel served with my brother George —62- in Company G, Thirtieth Wisconsin ; and Porter was a member of Company C, Fifty-Second Wisconsin. Two brothers of the wife of my Uncle Charles Thorn- gate, Barnum and George Torrance, were in the same company with him — A, Fourth Iowa. George was mortally wounded at the battle of Resaca, Georgia, in May, 1864, and died a few days later. William S. Monroe, brother of my wife, Lizzie, served three years in the Sixteenth Wisconsin Infan- try. He went out as a corporal in Company H and became captain of Company I. All these were good soldiers. A TERM OF SELECT SCHOOL. In September, after we had got home from the war, my Uncle George Thorngate opened a term of select school at Dakota. If I remember rightly there were twenty students, sixteen girls and four boys. The boys were my brother Herman, Robert McMullen, John Sheldon and myself. I suppose we learned something from our books, yet I, just home from nearly four years of army life, had little of the student in me. I did have a jolly good time, tho; and I suspect that Herman and Robert and John can say the same thing concerning themselves. Fun was easier than either grammar or arithmetic. But my good uncle did his best for us, exerting over us the best possible moral and intellectual influence. On the 15th of November, just after the close of his term of school. Uncle George was married to Miss Arloena Crandall, sister of Lorenda, Uncle Hen- -63— ry's wife. I wanted him to teach the district school at Dakota that winter so that I could have the ad- vantage of another term of instruction from him, for he was a most excellent teacher and a good man ; but he took a school four miles north of Dakota. Then I thought I would go to Madison and begin a course of study in the university, but by an unfortu- nate trade I was cheated out of half the money I had saved from my pa^^ in the army; so I taught, in what was known as the ''Francisco District," a six weeks' term of school instead. MY FATHER'S WORK. Father had, after the war, gone to ''teaming" from Dakota to Berlin, buying and selling cattle, selling beef, farming etc. He was a hard worker, and when he had anything to do he would keep at it regardless of the dinner hour or bed time. He often, in order to push business, drove his team the most of the night. He had little care for his health when hurried about his work. He used to take a load of produce to Berlin on Friday, then drive over to the Seventh Day Baptist settlement four miles south of the city and preach to the church there on the Sab- bath. On Sunday he would drive home — 30 miles — stopping half way to feed his team and preach at a certain wayside school house. I cannot tell just how man}^ years he did this kind of work, — five or six, I think. He would not take much pay foi his preaching; he believed the Gospel should be free. Almost all the time while he drove his team along Old Home at Dakota the country roads he read a book or a paper. He was an inveterate reader and had a retentive and ready memory. TEMPERANCE WORK. We had in Dakota an active and successful Good Templars' Lodge, and there were numerous such lodges thruout Waushara county. Our folks were zealous temperance people and all belonged to the lodge. Father was, much of the time, district deputy, and was presiding officer at our district con- ventions. He was a ready speaker, and in his tem- perance lectures he was radical in expression. He was nothing, if not in dead earnest. He had an in- tense hatred of both whiskey and tobacco. We used in those days to have great times attend- ing district conventions. We went — young and old together — in big loads, got well acquainted with leading temperance men and women in various parts of the country, and, I am sure, did much to create and maintain a wholesome temperance sentiment. And the work was educational in various ways. We learned how to preside, keep records and take part in literary programs. Our Good Templars' Lodge took the place of the literary society of earlier days. THE CHURCH AT DAKOTA. The Seventh Day Baptist church at Dakota was smaller than before the war. Elder George Bab- ies— cock, who used to preach there more or less, moved, in the spring of 1866, to the vicinity of Brookfield, Missouri. And with him went my Uncle George Thorngate and his young wife, Arloena. Some time in the following summer my Uncle Henry and some others moved to the same place, Uncle Henry starting May 29, 1867. This migration of so many good people thinned out our Dakota community. Church services and Sabbath School were still main- tained, my father and Oscar Babcock leading the meetings and preaching alternately. Both these men were faithful in their labor of love, yet the res- ident church membership ran as low in 1869 as thir- teen. Tho there were many of us young people we were none of us open professors of religion. THE GREAT REVIVAL. In May, 1870, the Rev. Charles M. Lewis came to Dakota and held a series of revival meetings. He was a good man and a wise one. Within a few weeks the church membership was raised from thirteen to fifty-four. All but two or three of the Roods be- came professing Christians at this time and members of the church. The prospects of the church came to be bright, indeed. This wonderful religious in- terest was kept up thruout the following summer. Tho some fell away, the most of those who then professed Christianity and joined the church have remained faithful. Also, some who then , tho almost persuaded, resisted the influence of the spirit have never yet made a public profession of religion. I presume they have never since then felt so deeply on the subject. SOME FALLING IN LOVE, OF COURSE Among so many young people there was naturally some falling in love and marrying. I have said that when we had got home from the war my Uncle George kept an eight-weeks term of select school. Among the sixteen girls gathered there in the old time-honored school house, one attracted my spe- cial attention. Her full name was Ann Elizabeth Monroe, better known as Lizzie, — sometimes as Libbie or Lib. She was sister to Captain William Monroe of the Sixteenth Wisconsin regiment, whom I have mentioned on a previous page. I can hardly say what drew us together. I do not think it was good looks. I know it was not money, for neither of us had that. I guess it came about with no par- ticular reason, — just 'cause. With no formal en- gagement we together took it for granted that we were sometime to be married, and we let it go at that. TEACHING AND FARMING. After teaching school in the winter of 1865-6 in what was known as the "Francisco District," I went in April to the town of Vienna, in Dane county, to work during the summer. I found employment with a Mr. Fisher, near where I had worked in the summer of 1861. -67— During the harvest time my brothers George and Charley also worked for neighbors of the Fishers, and in the fall, after we had gone back home, Octo- ber 13, 1866, Lizzie and I were married. I taught the school in Father Monroe's district, five miles west of Dakota, and we lived with Lizzie's people. In the meantime I bought of my father what was known as the ''Allen Place", a farm a quarter of a mile south of Dakota village. There, in a log house in a beautiful spot on the river bank, Lizzie and I began, March 19, 1867, keeping house,— and we are still at it, tho Vv^e have moved since then about thirty-five times. There on the 17th of July of that summer our son Louis was born. We had two other children born in that house, — Minnie May, August 11, 1869, and Ida Lillian, October 11, 1870. There, too, our sweet little Minnie died when only a month old, of whooping cough. In the winter of 1867 I taught the school atDakota, having among my pupils six of my brothers and sis- ters, — Herman, Charley, IMary, Genia, Emma, and Ettie. I am glad to say concerning them that 1 never had in school better behaved pupils than they, or more respectful. The next winter I taught again in the Monroe district, where I had Lizzie's brothers John and George in school. We lived with Lizzie's people again, her mother being in poor health and needing her help. The following winter, that of 1869-70, I taught again at Dakota. During the summers of these years I worked on my farm. Tho it was a pretty place, the soil -68- George and Jennie Rood was sandy. I was not a farmer by nature and I did not get much out of the sand. I laugh now as I think of the frolicsome times I had with my steer team when they ran away from time to time, tho I did not enjoy it then. I did not swear at them,but I did do some loud talking. The most of the time when I was plowing and husking I was thinking about teaching, and wishing I could go to school my- self. I was finding out that I could not be content on the farm. I guess I did not try very much to be satisfied there. BROTHER GEORGE MARRIED. For a year or two after my marriage my brothers George and Herman worked much of the time in the Seventh Day Baptist settlement four miles south of Berlin. George was employed by Uncle Datus Lewis, father of the present Rev. Dr. A. H. Lewis, editor of the Sabbath Recorder. While there George got sight of Miss Virginia Saxton, daughter of Ray Saxton. I think that with him it was a case of love at first sight. We had always thot George very bashful, but by some means he and Jennie, as she was called, came to an understanding, and on the 21fot day of March, 1869, they were married. Dur- ing the summer they lived with the family of Uncle Datus and worked for them, but in November they moved up to Dakota. George made a bargain for a farm two miles north of Grandfather Thorngate's home, and in the spring of 1870 they began house- keeping there. Their daughter Stella was born there June 28th, 1871. —69— EMIGRATION. I have said that in 1866 and 1867 my Uncles George and Henry Thorngate and some other Da- kota people moved to the vicinity of Brookfield, Mo. Others began to talk about moving away somewhere, and the question of whence to emigrate came to be one of common discussion. Wherever and whenever two or three Dakota people came together, there they talked and talked about moving away. They declared the soil of that region unfit decently to afford subsistence for man and beast, and they sought many reasons for leaving it. COLONIZATION. Our Dakota people, especially those of our church, desired to keep together, and so, after much discus- sion of the question, it was decided to form a colony association and go about the matter systematically. This association was organized in the spring of 1871. I have before me a printed copy — yellow and worn — > of the articles of agreement of that association, a part of which I will write down: ''The object of this association shall be: ''First, — To procure a suitable location on Govern- ment or railroad lands, somewhere in the States of Iowa, Nebraska, Kansas, or elsewhere, to settle in a body such persons and families of this place and elsewhere as desire to obtain cheap lands. "Second, — To give such of our people as observe the Seventh Day of the week as the Sabbath the op- portunity to settle together for purposes of conven- -70— ience to themselves, as well as to avoid molesting others who differ from them in religious faith, while they carry out their convictions of duty in keeping another day than Sunday as the Sabbath. ''Third, — To secure the immediate advantages of good schools, good morals in society and church privileges, as well as to mutually assist each other. ARTICLES OF ASSOCIATION AND AGREEMENT. ''First, — Only persons of good morals and sober, industrious habits shall become members of this asso- ciation, and the Board of Commissioners hereinafter to be designated shall have povv^er to reject such ap- plicants for membership as the members thereof shall deem unsuited to promote the general good of the association. "Second, — No m.ember of this Association shall establish or patronize any gambling or liquor shop within the bounds of the Colony, nor shall intoxicat- ing liquors be sold as a beverage by any one there- in." The remaining articles specify, among other things, that the colony shall be considered organized when ten persons, five of them being heads of fami- lies, shall have subscribed to the articles and paid each a membership fee of five dollars; that the offi- cers shall constitute a Board of Commissioners, which shall be the executive body of the Colony; that a Locating Committee of three or more persons be chosen by ballot, whose duty it shall be to find —71— a suitable place for settlement; that this committee shall start in the month of June following to spy out the land. The officers chosen for the colony were as follows : President, Hon. Oscar Babcock; Vice President, George B. Rood; Secretary, Nathan B. Prentice; Treasurer, Edward M. Carpenter. The date of or- ganization was April, 1871. The Locating Commit- tee, chosen by election, was, Charles P. Rood, Nathan B. Prentice, Amos Travis and Charles Wellman. JOURNEY OF THE LOCATING COMMITTEE It v/as some time in the latter part of May when members of this Locating Committee started out. My father had not been much in favor of this no- tion of leaving Dokota, and it was with no little re- luctance that he joined in the movement. But, be- ing chosen as a member of this committee, he meant to serve the colony faithfully. He and his associates went thru lov/a without finding such location as they wished, a^d then they crossed over into Nebraska. They found that much of the gov- ernment land even in this state had been bought up by speculators. They went on west and heard of what was known as "The Loup Country." In due time — July 3 — they found themselves on the North Loup River below the chalk cliffs that are op- posite the present village of Scotia, in Greeley coun- ty. Some of the men did not wish to go any farther. They wanted to return without deciding upon any- thing. But my father said they ought to go and —72— see the valley beyond the cliffs of chalk. The owner of the horses said his team should go no farther. Then Father alone climbed the bluffs and went to a high point, — what has since been known as "Sugar Loaf/' From the top of that bluff he looked upon the beautiful Loup and Mira Creek Valleys. The sight charmed him. I will put down here, as nearly as I can remember, what I heard him say about the country as he saw it spread out before him: *'I fell on my knees there and thanked God for having brot me to that place. I said then that whatever others might do I would return and live in that beau- tiful valley, and that I would be buried there!'' He did as he said he would, and today he lies at rest in the beautiful North Loup cemetery in full view of the bluffs where he stood and thanked God that summer day in 1871. It was only a hurried survey of the land that he could take, for the owner of the team had threatened to go avv^ay and leave him if he did not soon come back. REPORT OF THE COMMITTEE. And so the committee returned to Dakota. Then a meeting w^as called to receive the report. I re- member how crowded the little school house was with eager listeners. My father was decidedly in favor of accepting the North Loup and Mira valleys as the location for the Colony. One other member of the committee was as decidedly opposed to doing so. None of the committee, exceping Faher, had —73— seen tlie land at all. Therefore he plead with the people to decide with him. It was a warm discus- sion. When the vote was taken there was a major- iiy in favor of Father's recommendation. But inter- est in the matter was not strong enough to make a general impression on the people. The colony as an organization did not exist after that evening. Some went one way, some another. There Avas no unity. FATHER'S SECOND TRIP TO NEBRASKA. Some time after this meeting my father, deter- mined to know more about the valley he had looked into from the chalk bluffs, started with three others to travel 700 miles — 1400 miles for the round trip — to get a fair look at it. The three others were my brother Herman, John Sheldon and Mansell Davis. John Sheldon had been a neighbor boy of ours since some years before the war. He was of sturd}^ Ger- man stock and was not much past twenty-one years cf age. Mansell Davis was also young. He was a good man in every way, and intelligent. He was married just before starting west to my eldest sister, Mary. For this journey my father took his own team, and they paid their own expenses. They start- ed on the 28th day of September and drove directly to the Loup country, passed over the chalk hills and explored the valley my father had looked upon in the summer. They all liked the place and John and Mansell took claims. Then they returned, my fa- ther being well satisfied. But the return trip was —74— a hard one. They had little money and I guess both they and the team suffered for want of food. I know they suffered from cold, for they did not get back to Dakota till some time in December, and they were not dressed in winter clothing. I wish it to be remembered that my father, in his effort to get our people favorably located, traveled from 2,800 to 3,000 miles, sometimes in intense heat, sometimes in storm, over muddy roads, and a part of the time in severely cold weather. And he spent nearly six months in the work — from May to Decem- ber. Tho he met with some determined opposition he persisted in bringing about what seemed to him a desirable result. I am sorry that some of those who later profited by his self-sacrificing efforts did not give him more of the credit he deserved. But, I am glad to say, my father was an unselfish man. He was glad to exert himself for the good of others, and he did not care very much about himself. It is pleasant for me now — older by five years than he was when he died — to think of this trait in his char- acter. THE FIRST MIGRATION. During the following winter my brothers George and Charley, John Sheldon, Charles Wellman, Mrs. Janes and Mrs. Bartow with her two sons, made act- ive preparations to start for Nebraska as early in the spring as practicable. In the meantime an ac- count of the plans of the Dakota folks got into the Sabbath Recorder, our denominational paper, and —75— so others in several different states began making similar preparations. It was during the first three days of April, 1872, when the first emigrant train started from Dakota for the future home in Nebras- ka. I cannot now tell just how many started at that time. I will copy here a few lines concerning the journe}^ They were written by my brother George : ''The snow was deep when we started and some of , us got stuck several times in the drifts, after getting a hundred miles on the road. Snow, mud, wind and dust were sandwiched all along. Some features of our journey were very trying, but it was, on the whole, interesting to us, and much of it pleasant. John Sheldon and Mrs. Janes, Mansell Davis and Mrs. Bartow started on the 1st of April. Charles bellman and I started on the 3d. At the edge of Dodge Prairie we overtook Mansell and Mrs. Bartow and her two boys. Mrs. B. had an ox team. We left them behind the second day ofter getting in- to Iowa. Wellman, by traveling every day, came up, before reaching North Loup, with John Sheldon and Mrs. Janes. We stopped at Central City on May 7th and later a short time at Grand Island, getting to North Loup May 12th. A dozen families had already got there. The first of these to reach the place was G. H. Johnson, who came from Minne- sota; then there came L. C. Jacobs from Kansas, and some families from Long Branch, Nebraska. Others came in quick succession from Welton, Iowa ; Milton and Dakota, Wisconsin; Jackson Center, Ohio; Brook field, Missouri, and various other places. -76- By the first of June there were about thirty-five fam- ilies, or, at least, that many claims taken. Some men secured claims and then went back to return with their families in the fall. •EARLY RELIGIOUS SERVICES. ''Two religious services were held in the month of May, tlie first one May 18th, at both of which Elder Oscar Babcock preached, and Charley Rood — our brother— led the singing. Oscar was there two or three weeks in May to see the country and take up land. He then returned to Dakota for his family. He got back, I think, in December. It was in Aug- ust, I think, when the Sabbath School was organized. It was kept up — with but little irregularity — until the return in the fall of the most of the men who had gone after their families. Then the interest in the school was increased and it was thereafter held reg- ularly. When Oscar Babcock returned in the early part of winter he preached for us, and from that time until now Sabbath services, both preaching and Bible school, have been regularly maintained. The Seventh Day Baptist church of North Loup was organized March 23, 1873, with thirty-seven mem- bers. '^ OTHER MIGRATIONS. Now that I have got the colonization of North Loup well under way, I will tell about further migrations from Dakota. I have said on a page —77- not far back that my father did not much care to leave Dakota, yet because the most of his family did wish to go he entered heartily into the plans for emigration. Oscar Babeock, having gone to North Loup in the spring of 1872 and made choice of some land there for himself, returned in the summer to Dakota. Later, his good wife, a most lovely .woman, was taken sick and about the 20th of October, she died and was laid at rest in the Dakota cemetery. After her death Oscar and his four children went to their future home in North Loup, and my brother Herman went with them. In the following spring Herman went to Omaha to work. Just before harvest time my brother Char- ley joined him there and they went together into Minnesota to work in harvest. In November Char- ley returned to North Loup and Herman came back to Dakota. The next spring — March 30, 1874, — Fa- ther and sister Genia, with Elder True, started for North Loup. They drove the 700 miles in just a month, arriving there on the 30th of April. I can hardly understand how they could get over so long a road in so short a time at that time of year. On the following 17th of May Herman and Sister Emma started on the journey, Jay Knapp and his wife and a few others going with them. They drove a herd of cattle along had no easy time of it. In the mean- time Mother and Walter and Ettie went to Grandfa- ther's to live until such time as arrangements could be made for them to go, too. Father had taken land about four miles up the Mira Creek valley, from North Loup, and there Her- - 78— man, Genia and Emma went to live in a "dug-out.'* Father came back to Dakota in December of that year by railroad and stayed with mother, Ettie and Walter that winter at Grandfather Thorngates's. THE FINAL EXODUS. On the 18th day of May, 1875, Father started with Mother and the two children on his fourth trip to Nebraska. They drove a team of young oxen and took with them a cow. They made pretty good time, getting to North Loup on the 4th day of July. I and my family were living at Hancock at this time, fourteen miles northwest of Dakota. We came down a day or two before Father and Mother started for North Loup so as to have a last visit with them. It was hard for Mother to leave Grandfather. When the wagon was loaded with what goods they were to take, the team was hitched in front, the cow tied be- hind, and the last thing in making ready was done, we all stood talking. In due time Father said he supposed they might as well start, and asked Mother if she were ready. She spoke up abruptly and said: "I suppose I am as ready as I ever shall be!" It seemed as if she could not bid Grandfather good bye. She was 52 and he 77, and they had never been apart for any length of time, and it is no won- der the parting at this time was hard for both. It was soon over, tho, and they drove away leaving Grandfather and Grandmother standing in the morn- ing sunshine watching them as they went out of sight. It had been twenty-four years since we all —79- came from Princeton to live in that same log house when it was scarcely finished. Those 24 years had brot to none of us any very, great sorrow,except Grandmother's death during the first year, and Uncle David's death in the army ten years later. To my mother there had been born, during that time, two sons and four daughters, Wal- ter, the youngest, lacking then only a few days of being 11 years old. Those years had brought many poor folks' pleasures, — not such as money brings. The sandy soil of Waushara county had not yielded abundantly the fruits of the earth, and none of those people who lived in the vicinity of Dakota had much more than made a bare living. But our peo- ple had enjoyed during those years all the pleasures that come from good, honest, hard-working lives. And they left behind them a good name, which is rather to be chosen than great riches. When Father and Mother and Etta and Walter started on their way that m.orning Lizzie and Louie and Lillian and I drove along with them with ''Old John", the honest horse Grandfather had owned since he was a colt. We ate dinner with them by the road- side and then went two or three miles farther with them before bidding them goodbye and going back to Grandfather's. I was always a kind of ''mother's boy," and I felt pretty lonesome. A STORY OR TWO BY THE WAY. My brother Walter has told me about two inci- dents of this journey to Nebraska that I will tell —80— here. I have said that Father and Mother, with Wal- ter and Ettie, made the trip with a team of young oxen to draw the load, and that they took a cow with them. The team was not only young but frisky. The flies were thick along the dusty road, and they so tormented the steers that they were minded now and then to run away. In order to hold them in check Father tied a rope to the horns of the ''nigh" steer, and Avhen the flies were very troublesome he would walk along side, holding on to the rope. Sometimes his strength was hardly sufficient to keep his frisky young cattle from leaving the road and making a desperate dash for the bushes by the wayside. One day in particular the flies made the steers almost frantic. Buck said to Bright: ''Let's make a break for yonder clump of plum trees and rub these pesky flies off, and scratch ourselves." "All right," said Bright, "here goes!" And away they went, fairly snorting with delight at the pros- pect of rubbing up against those scratchy bushes. They had a brave start before Father got a good grip on the rope; and then, with his running at great speed, he could not overcome the inertia of the team and load. As the wagon bumped along the rough roadside and Father was making long jumps to keep hold of the rope. Mother, who was in the wagon, began to think that something \v£[s doing outside. She put her head, with her traveling sun bonnet on it, out- side the wagon cover and with an anxious tone called out: "Charles, where are we a-going?" Fa- ther, out of breath, hat gone, taking long strides and —81— clinging to the rope, shouted back: '' Marianne, how in the world can I tell where we're a-going!" When they started from Dakota they intended to tie the cow to the wagon and let her follow on. But she positively objected to being led in that way. She'd not go a step there unless dragged; and she continued all along the road to object, so Walter had to lead her. Ettie would sometimes take his place while he got on the wagon to rest. One day when Walter and the cow had fallen a mile or two behind the team he got to thinking how mean it was of the old jade not to be willing to fol- low the wagon, but make him walk all the way. A bright idea came into his mind, — he thot he might ride anyhow ; so he got astride the cow and let 'er go. She ran like a steer and soon caught up with the team — and Walter was there, too. After that he did not walk, except when he wanted to rest himself. With considerable training on the broad prairies of Iowa his brindle cow came to be something of a racer, and her speeding along the highway with Walter astride astonished the natives. The day when they came to the Missouri River opposite Omaha they fell in with two smart young chaps out on a horseback ride. They had come from Omaha and were returning. All had to cross the river at a ferry three miles up stream from the city. The young fellows were amused at Walter's riding the cow, and on the ferry boat they undertook to tease him by proposing a race with him after getting across the river. Walter was shy and did not much like to be made fun of about riding the cow. Father —82— heard the talk, and when he had Walter where he could speak to him he told him to agree to a race ; and he said that if Walter would keep up with the young chaps, and stay by them on the way down town, he would give him a quarter of a dollar. Now a quarter of a dollar was wealth to Walter in those days and worth the getting. So, when the young fel- lows renewed their proposal for a race, Walter agreed to give them a go. It was great fun for them after landing to get into the road for a start. No scoring was necessary and away they went, the horsemen enjoying the fun. Walter was thinking of the quarter and stayed by them till they were in the suburbs of the city. Then the young men began to think that such a race would not look well in the streets where they were known, and they told him he would better go back. But Walter's getting the stakes depended upon his staying by them, and he wanted the money ; so he kept along. They tried to ride away from him, but the cow herself seemed to have caught the spirit of the race and she kept close to the horses; and in that way my brother Walter first entered Omaha. In these days he laughs about it whenever he goes to the city. In those long journeys of several hundred miles by team over all sorts of roads and in all sorts of weather, our people had all sorts of experiences, try- ing, hard to bear, amusing and jolly, — enough inter- esting experience to fill a big book. —83- GRANDFATHER AND GRANDMOTHER GO, TOO Grandmother had never wanted to go to Nebras- ka, and so sometime that summer they moved down to Dane county, town of Bristol, where my grandfa- ther had, 14 years before, married her. They went to live with Myron Sweet, whose wife was daughter of our grandmother by a former husband. This Myron Sweet lived three or four miles east of the home of my Uncle Abram Rood, also about four miles north-east from Sun Prairie. Here I will leave them for the present. MY WORK IN SCHOOL. So far as I was concerned I never thot much of going to Nebraska to live. I wanted to be with my folks, but I was a teacher, and I thot Wisconsin a better place for my work than an entirely new coun- try like that about North Loup. And then Lizzie's people lived in Waushara county and she liked to be near her folks as well as I to be near mine, so we thot it best, on the whole, to stay in Wisconsin. And now I will go back and tell as briefly as I can the story of my own family and my work up to the present time. I have said on a previous page, that during the winter of 1869-70 I taught the school at Dakota. The winter following I taught at what was known as Coloma Corners, 13 miles north-west of Dako|i, and in the summer of 1871 I worked for the Berlin Courant as collector and correspondent. It was during this summer that Father went twice to Nebraska to find a suitable location for the Da- kota Colony. In the fall of that year I undertook a term of —84— study at Milton College. I had to practice the strict- est economy, — board myself, — but my goinj:: there was profitable for me in that I not only learned how little I knew, but was made hungry and thirsty for more knowledge. I was led to get books and study all my spare time. That winter I taught again at Coloma, and to better purpose. In the following spring, 1872, I assisted our county superintendent, Theodore Chipman, to conduct at Pine River, what was called a county normal school for teachers. Dur- ing the following four years I helped him in one other such school, at Wautoma, and organized and taught two at Coloma, two at Hancock and one at Richford on my own account. I also, during that time, taught the public schools at Auroraville two terms, at Hancock four term.s and at Richford one term. In the fall of 1874 I was an independent can- didate for county superintendent of schools, but for- tunately for me I lacked a few votes of election. In the fall of 1876 we moved to the village of Sun Prai- rie, Dane county, where I was for the following year principal of the graded school. GRANDFATHER AND GRANDMOTHER. I have said that when, in May 1875, my Father took Mother and Walter and Ettie to Nebraska, Grandfather and Grandmother were left alone at Dakota ; and that in accordance with previous plans, they soon after went to live at Myron Sweet 's home four miles north of SunPrairie, Mrs. Sweet being Grandmother's daughter. While I was teaching at -85— SunPrairie tliey came to live with us. Grandfather had for several years suffered intensely at times from asthma, the same disease that had caused the death of his father and his brothers William and David in England. In all his sickness Grandmother gave him the best of care and attention. She was a blessed good woman. It is pleasant now to think of her faithful devotion to him. Tho I had come to be thirty-two years old I felt that, if I were to continue teaching — and I liked the work better and better — I must go to school at least a year or two. And so it came about that in the year of 1877 we moved to Milton and settled in some rooms in the basement of the college. We took our grand- parents with us to Milton. They had come to think that they would like to go to North Loup and live with Father and Mother. So Father came to visit us at Milton and took them back with him. FATHER BROKEN IN HEALTH. Father had never, so long as I remember, cared for his health, and his hard work getting the family settled at North Loup had been too much for him. Lizzie and I could see, when he came to Milton, that he was broken down in health and strength. In walking only a short distance he would have to stop now and then to rest and get his breath. It was sad indeed to see him, who had been so strong a man, in such a condition. We never saw him again. He gradually failed in strength until, on the 17th of the following March, he left this world for a brighter and better. —86— 5I3 -^ 4 ^^^ h-. .41 ^m F^^^ i ^u i 1 ""Jk,.^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ }\ HOSEA W. ROOD May 30. 1907 -62nd Birthday a: 111 Q 5 o O Q O O cr o N [^ -j "^ Q cr Q o o < hi 0) O I <^5^ HIGH SCHOOL WORK. I was in Milton College a year. I took full class work, taught some classes and did all I could beside to help pay my way. In the following June I was graduated from what was known as ''The Teachers' Course," with the class of '78. In October I became principal of the high school at Pewaukee, twenty miles west of Milwaukee. I taught there a year, my family still living in Milton. In September, 1879. I became principal of the high school at Omro, ten miles west of Oshkosh. I had charge of the schools there three years, then in October 1882, went to Ca- dott, Chippewa county, to teach, where I was princi- pal one year. In the fall of 1883 I returned to my former position at Omro, where I remained another three years. My school work in both Omro and Ca- dott was pleasant, and I am now glad to know that I yet have many good friends in both places. Lizzie had two brothers in Cadott, James and William. In 1879 y/e bought a house in Milton, and we still call that house our home. During the first year I taught at Omro Lizzie and our children remained in Milton, in our new home, but in the fall of 1880 we moved to Omro. When I went to Cadott they re- mained in Omro till the following March, then they returned to our home in Milton. They remained there during my second term of three years in Omro. It was during my last year in Omro — September 23, 1885 — when Grace, our youngest daughter, was born. I did not see her until the Christmas vacation. While I taught at Omro and Cadott I used my spare tim.e in hard study for a state teachers' cer- —87— icate. In the summer of 1886 I passed the required examination and secured the much coveted prize. I had to pass in twenty-two different branches. It gave me the right to teach for life in any public school in Wisconsin. I was proud of that certifi- cate — justly proud, I think. In September, 1886, I became school principal at Palmyra, a village twenty miles from Milton toward Milwaukee, and I remained there four years. The first two years my family lived in our Milton home, then we moved to Palmyra for the next two years. Louis, however, remained at work in Milton, and the last year Lillian was there in college. In the fall of 1890 I became principal of schools in the city of Washburn in the extreme northern part of Wiscon- sin, on the shores of Lake Superior. I remained there eight years, when I resigned my position and in September, 1898, became principal of the schools in the city of Shawano. While at Washburn I taught four terms of summer school for teachers. Yv^ash- burn, when I went there, had a population of a little more than 3,000; when I left, about 6,000. While I was there the people erected an elegant brown- stone high school building at a cost of about $40,000. No teacher's work could be pleasanter than mine at Palmyra and Washburn and Shawano. In all, I have taught 94 terms of school. I taught every year for thirty-four years, — from January 2, 1866, till June 1900. -88— I LEAVE OFF TEACHING. After teachino: two years at Shawano I went into the office of the Shawano County Journal as editor. The intention was to go into partnership with the publisher, David B. Gorham ; but after six months of working together we found that the income would hardly support two families. So when the legisla- ture of 1901 met at Madison I got the position of assistant postmaster in the senate. During the ses- sion I was instrumental in having a bill introduced providing for a Memorial Hall in the Capitol, where war relics, books, and pictures might be gathered and preserved as memorials of what our state had done for the preservation of our Federal Union. The bill was passed and it afterwards pleased Gov- ernor La Follette to appoint me custodian of this room. I am still occupying that position, and the work connected with it is very congenial to me. In the summer of 1901 a beautiful room was fitted up in the capitol for this IMemorial Hall. During the following two years I succeeded in getting to- gether a large collection of such relics, books and pictures as I wanted. It was an interesting place for the public in general. About 800 visitors regis- tered there every month, and it was becoming more and more attractive, when, on the morning of Feb- ruary 27, 1904, the capitol was almost entirely de- stroyed by fire, and everything I had gathered went up in smoke. This was a most discouraging misfor- tune and I whined some about it. Then I went to work making a new collection. Now, December 26, 1905, I have, in a large room near the Capitol Square, nearly as much as we lost by the fire ; and I am receiving frequent additions to the collection. My room is also headquarters for the Grand Army of the Republic for Wisconsin. In June 1901 our home was moved here from Shawano, and we have now lived in Madison nearly five years. OUR SON LOUIS MARRIED. Our son Louis was married December 30, 1891, to Addie Holmes of Milton Junction. They settled in Milton and Louis worked in a wagon shop. In 1899 they moved to Beloit, where Lou worked in the large manufacturing establishments of that city, the most of the time as a pattern-maker. He has great skill with tools. One day while at work, he had the misfortune to have the second and third fingers of his left hand taken off up to the knuckles by a pla- ning machine. This loss did not, however, prevent his continuing at his work. In 1904 he came here to Madison to work at his trade, but, finding continued shop work not good for his health, he gave it up, and is now living on a seven-acre farm three miles south of Madison. He works in the shops in the whiter and on the farm in the summer. On the 21st of January, 1900, a little girl was born to Lou and Addie, but she died a few hours after birth. In the spring of 1898 they adopted a two-year old girl whom they named Thelma Grace, and she is now their only child. Louis is a member of the Sons of Veterans here in Madison. I m O rn o r OUR LILLIAN MARRIED. Our principal reason for keeping the family home in Milton while I was teaching was the fact that we wished to keep the children in school there. Lou did not take to college, but Lillian got into the clas- sical course. When I had taught at Washburn four years she came to the point of graduation with the class of '94. That summer we moved to Wash- burn, and Lillian became the principal teacher in a two-room school at Mason, a lumbering town about thirty miles south of Washburn. On the 18th day of the following July she was married, where we were camping out near Washburn, on the shore of Lake Superior, to John R. Wheeler, son of Rev. Samuel R. Wheeler, a leading Seventh Day Baptist minister. Soon after their marriage they began housekeeping in our Milton home. John v/as clerk in a store there. In September, 1897, John and Lillian moved to Palmyra, where John v>^ent into the business of photography. In the fail of 1899 they decided to go to Boulder, Colorado, where John's parents were then living. He went then, but Lillian lived with us at Shawano until the following March, when she went to the home John had prepared for her. John opened a photograph gallery there. They still live in Boulder. September 8, 1897, while still at Milton, their only child, Doroth}^ was born. We have with us now our only daughter, Grace, twenty years old. But she is in her fourth year of attendance at Milton College, and so we have her at —61- home only during the school vacations. SOME INMATES OF OUR FAMILY AT MILTON. "While our home was in INIilton we had in our fam- ily, from time to time, several young people who attended school there. Some of them we came to think almost as much of as if they really belonged to us. Among those who thus lived with us for a time I will name the following : Mary A. Rood, daughter of my father's brother William. She is now Mrs. Emerson Odell, of Okee, Columbia County, Wisconsin. Lola Sherman, granddaughter of my father's sis- ter Lola. She is now the wife of Judge C. A. Smart, of Ottawa, Kansas. Ethel De Ford, who was a pupil of mine at Omro. She is now Mrs. Orson Stillman, of Buffalo, Wyoming. Frank E. Peterson, an\3ther of my Omro high school students. He graduated from Milton College, studied for the ministry, and is now pastor of the Seventh Day Baptist church at West Hallock, Ills. Charles A. Smart, who later married my ipousin, Lola. Edward D. Dike, one of the friends of our family in Waushara county. My brother Walter G. Rood, my sister Genia, and my sister Mary's son Horace M. Davis were all with us at different times attending school. COUSIN LOLA'S FAMILY. I must here take a little space to tell about Cousin —92— Lola and her family. I have said that my father had one older sister, Lola. He never saw her after he was sixteen or eighteen years old near Clarence^ New York. It seems that she had married a man named Taylor. After his death she had come with her two children, Mary and Alexander, to Rock county, Wisconsin, where her father was then liv- ing; that she died there and w^as buried in a ceme- tery near what w^as known as INIount Zion, on Rock Prairie, close by where the Thorngates and Roods had lived before moving up to Princeton and then to Dakota. I have told on a former page about the army service of her son, Alexander. In due time the daughter, Mary married a man named Bedford, and to them a little daughter was born, who was named after her grandmother, Lola. Just before the w^ar began Mr. Bedford went down the Mississippi to get w^ork in the South. The war came on, and he was never heard from after- ward. There was good reason to believe he was killed because he w^ould not go into the Confederate army. After the war Mary married a Samuel Sherman, who had served as a musician in Company F of the Thirteenth Wisconsin regiment, having enlisted from Shopiere, Rock County, September 21, 1861, and been mustered out November 21, 1864:. By Mr. Sherman i\Iary had two sons and a daughter, — William, now living in Chicago, Charles, a musician of some note, and May, now a Mrs. Stott in Chicago. Samuel Sherman died in Chicago in the early 90 's, and Mary is now a trained nurse in that cit}^ She -93— is a bright, intelligent and capable woman. Mary's daughter Lola, a most lovable girl, came in 1878 to live with us in Milton and attend college. In 1885 she married one of the young men whom she came to know in college, named Charles A. Smart. Mr. Smart had become a teacher, then a lawyer, set- tling in Ottawa, Kansas, where he got a good prac- tice. He and Lola, with their family of five girls, still live in Ottawa, where he is now judge of the District Court, having jurisdiction oyer four coun- ties. He is an earnest Christian man and a church worker. He and his family are Congregationalists. .Here are some facts concerning the members of their bright, happy household: Charles A. Smart, born January 5, 1858. Lola Bedford Smart, born October 8, 1860. Georgia Ethel Smart, born March 19, 1886. Lola Lucile Smart, born January 31, 1888. Mary Euphemia Smart, born March 11, 1890. Charlotte Ella Smart, born April 3, 1892. Carolee Bedford Smart, born April 5, 1901 An infant daughter died September 6, 1897, short- ly after birth. OUR CHURCH MEMBERSHIP. In 1877 Lizzie and I changed our church member- ship from Dakota to Milton, where we still belong. Our son Louis joined the church there in 1884, as our Lillian had done in 1879. Louis thot, after he went into the shops to work, that he could not keep the Sabbath, and he has now no church connection. —94- Lillian and John are members of the Seventh Day Baptist church at Boulder, Colorado. In the spring of 1903 our daughter Grace, attending Milton Col- lege joined the church there. Tho we have for thirty-five years lived much of the time away from our own church home, we have undertaken to keep the Sabbath as well as we could, for we thoroly believe in it. Yet we have attended regularly the services of some church where we have lived, and have tried in every way we could to help in its work. Nearly all this time I have been superintendent of some Sunday School. To the credit of those among whom we have lived and wor- shipped I am glad to say that they have manifested respect for us, tho we differed from them in belief and practice, and have taken us into as cordial and and fraternal fellowship with them as practicable. Tho firm in our own belief, we have easily found common ground on which to stand with other de- nominations. I have never been much of a ''jiner." My mem- bership is limited to two societies, the Good Tem- plars and the Grand Army of the Republic. I have been a Good Templar nearly all the time since I was fifteen years old, my membership having been with the lodge at Omro about twenty-five years. For nearly five years my G. A. R. membership has been with the Lucius Fairchild Post of Madison. I have been its adjutant during the past four years. The only club to which I belong is that meeting ev- ery evening in our own home. I do not know of a better. -95- EARLY LIFE IN NEBRASKA. George Rood and his young wife Jennie, Mansell Davis and my sister Mary, and Charley Rood were the first members of our family to reach North Loup as permanent settlers. They left Dakota April 3, 1872, and arrived there May 13. They did not have an easy time of it all the way, but they were young and hopeful, and so did not much mind some mis- haps and hardships. Oscar Babcock started for Nebraska on the cars and reached Grand Island in time to go with George and Charley up to their future home. Others who had started from Dakota about the same time with George and Charley were already there ; also, a few people who, having heard thru the Sabbath Recorder, our denominational pa- per, about the proposed settlement at North Loup were just arriving to select homesteads. Tho these people were tired after their long jour- ney they did not neglect ''the assembling of them- selves together." On the first Sabbath after their arrival they gathered at an appointed place on the bank of the North Loup river, about a mile and a half from where the village now stands, and held re- ligious services. When the Sabbath was past the people began to hunt about the country for such spots of God's green earth as best suited them for home making. George Rood and Charley made claims on opposite sides of the road near the present location of the cemetery, and Mansell Davis settled about four miles south-east of the present village site, and not far west of the river. —96— I wish that the story of those early clays could be told in this book in such manner as to impress the minds and hearts of all who read it with the hard- ships undergone by those pioneers of North Loup, — the self-sacrificing labor they endured; the dangers of both fire and flood thru which they passed; the drouth that destroyed their crops, and the grass- hoppers that devoured both grain and vegetables; the terrible blizzards in which a man might be utterly lost between his house and his stable; the cyclones that would almost pick up a ''dug-out" and carry it off thru the air; the lack of the bare necessities of life, to say nothing of the comforts; and many personal experiences that called for cour- age, hope, and faith in God. I wish, too, that it could be plainly put down here how brave they were, how hopeful, how full of life and energy; how, in spite of every deprivation and discourage- ment, they were almost all the time possessed with the spirit of fun, jollity and merry-making; how like boys and girls they played pranks upon one an- other and indulged in some rather strenuous prac- tical joking — just for the fun of it. It is interest- ing to me now to hear some of them tell stories of the trips up to' 'the cedars" after logs, and their "freighting" to Grand Island. They went with their teams in company, and tho they suffered many pri- vations they made up in fun what they lacked in comfort. In all their work, their hardships and self-sacrifice they thot of the homes they were found- ing for their wives and little ones. Thru the eye of faith they saw better times coming, and so they —97— were brave and courageous. ORA'S STORY. Mrs. Peter Clement, my sister Genia's elder daughter, Ora, has written about those early days as she has seen them after having heard her mother and uncles and aunts tell about them over and over again. This is her story: No one who did not live thru them can tell all the hardships of our Nebraska pioneers. As I have gone here and there thru the Loup and the Mira valleys, which Grandpa Rood found so beautiful when he first gazed down into them from the bluffs in that summer of 1871 ; as I have admired the fine farms and substantial buildings now giving the country so pleasing and prosperous an appearance, I have tried in imagination to see it as he saw it. I have tried to fancy those hills without a furrow, and the valleys without a road or a trail thru the waving prairie grass; without a building or a tree except where the willows and cottonwood fringed the river bank, or the cherry and plum thickets marked the ravines. I have wondered how it would seem to me to stand alone on one of those bluffs yon- der and look into this valley stretching away for miles with no sign of human habitation. Then as I think of the many present advantages offered by church, school, comfortable homes, good farms, railroad, commerce, telephone and rural mail delivery, I wonder about the life of the early set- tlers with only the barest necessities upon which to live, — when want, actual hunger, was not unknown. Peter and Ora Clement AND CHILDREN Earnest and Helene They endured hardships that make us shudder when they tell us of them, while in our hearts we feel thankful that, in spite of all they suffered, and their discouragements, they stayed here and so shaped cir- cumstances and influenced environment as to make our North Loup home what it now is. Some incidents of those early days will give those who read this little book to understand something of the conditions under which our people lived. A NIGHT ALONE ON THE PRAIRIE. One of the troublesome things of early life on the prairie was the lack of roads, paths or even land marks. Even the bluffs looked much alike until time made them familiar. The few houses were ''dug- outs" and could not be seen until close at hand. Many amusing stories are told of even the men's getting lost within hearing distance of their own homes. But I will tell a story of being lost that is anything but amusing. When Uncle Mansell Davis and Aunt Mary came to Nebraska they were both young and had been married less than a year. They built a little shed on the ''claim" he had taken, and where they still live, set up a stove under it and used their covered wag- on for a bed room. Mary was only eighteen years old and had never been much away from her mother until she came in that same covered wagon from Da- kota to Nebraska. I suppose no girl was ever more homesick than she, poor child. There was no place for her to go, no one to see, and no work to take her attention except to cook their scanty meals. She had just to stay day by day around that little shed over —99— the stove on the big prairie. One day in June 1872, about a month after she and Mansell had built their little kitchen, Mansell went with his team up the river after a load of tim- ber. As he was to be gone all day Mary rode with him a mile or two to where John Sheldon and his Mary had a home something like her own. The two Marys visited together till toward night, when Mary Davis, instead of waiting for Mansell's return, walked back home. She then got supper ready and looked for Mansell. As he did not come she became uneasy and started out in the hope of soon meeting him. She had walked only a short distance when darkness came on, and with it a heavy black cloud in the north-west. Soon the rain, driven by a chill- ing wind, began to fall. It was too dark for her to see her way, so, being unable to go back or find a neighbor, she wandered about the prairie She knew that she was walking around over the same ground for she fell several times into a hole four or five feet deep where a well had been begun. At last she saw, not far away, a fire blaze up. Surely Mansell must have retured and lighted a sig- nal for her! She quickly started for the light, but in a short time it flickered and died out, leaving the night all the darker for her disappointment. So she still wandered, too cold to stand still or sit, sick from fright because of the yelping and howling of the coyotes. This sound was new to her and she thot great danger must be near. But the keenest of all her sensations was a sickening longing for **home." She says now that as she wandered about in the —100— Mansell and Mary Davis AND DAUGHTER MARY darkness her thots kept going back to dear old Da- kota, where her mother and sisters were then sleep- ing at peace under the home roof little dreaming where their absent one was that dark, stormy night. Once as she was hurrying on in the darkness there came a sharp flash of lightning, when, to her horror, she saw only a step before her the brink of a steep bank at the bottom of which there was a small pond, the water being eight or ten feet deep. She turned away, but w^ith a new dread, as she walked aimlessly about, that she should again come to that steep bank and step off. How dreadful and long must have seemed those hours of wandering about in the rain ! At last, in the gray light of the early morning, she saw only a little way off the little kitchen shed from which she had started out before dark. Hast- ening to it she found her husband there. He had been belated because of the storm and camped out till it was light enough to find his way home. We can imagine their meeting and the story each had to tell. They found that the fire that she had left the night before had in some way got into the bedding piled near it, and this was the light she had seen and taken for a signal. Had it not been for the rain to put it out, the fire would have destroyed every- thing they had. I do not think that Aunt Mary and others are any the worse now for this and other similar experiences, yet we of the younger generation have reason to be thankful that they are not ours to endure. —101— PRAIRIE FIRES. Fires on the prairie were not nncommon when both property and life were in peril. But the most notable of these fires, that of October 12, 1878, has come to be called "The Big Fire." For several days it had been burning off toward the north-west, tacking back and forth between the two Loup riv- ers. On the morning of the 12th it was so near North Loup that the black smoke arose in great masses, causing fearful anxiety. During the fore- noon the wind so changed that cinders came whirl- ing thru the smoke-laden air, a sure sign of danger close at hand. Uncle Walter was sent to summon Uncle George, who was working south of the village. This left no man on Grandma Rood's farm but Grandfather Thorngate, and he was old and feeble and dazed by fright. Uncle Solon and Aunt Emma, who did not live far away, saw the danger, and they came to do what they could. For greater safety all left the house and went to the j)lowed field nearby. Solon undertook, with a small plow to run a furrow around the house for a fire guard, but was not able to do much. In the meantime Uncle Charley, who was working at or near the village, had become anx- ious for the safety of the folks over in Mira Valley, where Grandma lived, about three and a half miles from the village, and resolved to hurry to their aid. He was working with a sulky plow and three horses. With this outfit he started on a ride almost equal in importance and excitement to that of General Sheridan from Winchester to the battle of Cedar Creek. This is a part of his story of it : —J 02— >- a: > UJ q: 111 _i 1- < < :^ _1 >- q: LiJ H z LiJ >- IT q: < LI ^ >- 1- X a: C) u h- z LiJ I 1- -J o 0) LiJ *^I shall never forget the sight I got when I came to the top of Watt's hill. The whole Myra Valley seemed on fire. Here and there the flames leaping higher than at other places told where a haystack or a building was burning. I put the whip to my horses then, and ran them as fast as they could go. They, with me on the sulky plow, raising the dust we did, must have presented the appearance of a Roman chariot race. "As I came near our folks on the field, Solon ran to me shouting: ^ Begin here and plow up around there I' indicating what he had, on seeing me coming, quickly decided to be the surest way of protection. I followed his direction, using my "blacksnake" unmercifully on the horses, and they went into their work on the jump. I think the plow threw the dirt ten or twelve feet from the furrow. My first furrow retarded the on-coming flames a little, but did not stop them. The second furrow, a few feet inside the first, was made not ten seconds before the fire was upon it, — but that was enough. The fire was stopped and the house saved." A NARROW ESCAPE FROM BURNING. A Mr. Burdick was that day helping a poor family move. My mother was riding with him on the load of household goods. The fire came like a race horse across the prairie after them. Mr. Biirdick saw that their only possible chance for safety lay in starting a counter fire. He had only one match. If that failed him they could not escape. My moth- er held her dress in such a way as to shut off the --103— wind and Mr. Burdiek struck the match. It burned all right, and set the grass afire. This little flame spread rapidlj^ burning off a small space, and into this space he hurried his team with the load. He was just in time, yet when the two fires met they seemed completely to envelop the team and the load in the fierce, sweeping flames. Mother says that she gave up all hope of getting out of that fire, so she just shut her eyes and waited. It was only for a minute, tho, for the raging fiend swept past, leaving them uninjured in the smoky desolation. None of our folks lost anything of much value in this fire, tho there was great damage all about them, and some of their neighbors lost their lives. A BLIZZARD STORY. I have asked my sister Mary to tell me the story of a certain blizzard, that of 1873 ; and this is the way she writes it: The snoAV storm, or blizzard, when we lost our ox team comm.enced on Easter Sunday, April 13, 1873. It was a warm, damp day. Mansell w^ent af- ter a load of wood in the morning, but after dinner he did not feel well — had a severe chill, and then a fever. His father was with us then, and so he did the outdoor chores. Monday morning it was snow- ing, and it came hard and fast, the wind blowing strong from the north. Mansell, not being well, did not get up from bed until afternoon. His father went out and fed the hogs, then attempted to go to the stable to milk the cow and feed the oxen; but the snow was so blinding and the wind so strong -1C4- that Mansell urged him not to go. Toward night Mansell tried to get out to attend to the cattle, but, because of the fierce storm and his physical condi- tion, I persuaded him to stay in the house. Tuesday morning we talked the matter over, and Mansell concluded to undertake, if possible, to get the cow into the house. He found the oxen down in the snow and completel}^ chilled. He suc- ceeded in getting the cow^ into the house, and I emp- tied the straw and husks from our bed ticks for food and bedding for her. We had our seed corn in the house, and fed that to her. Mansell went, during the day, several times to the stable to try to do something for the oxen, but they would not try to get up. He fed them the best he could and tried to stop the crevices thru which the snow came. The snow was soft and wet, and every time he came to the house he was wet to the skin. Our house — or dugout — was completely covered with snow, and we had to keep the lamp burning all day. The load of wood that Mansell had got on Sunday was still on the wagon near the door. He w^ould get, now and then, a log of it into the house and cut it into stove lengths with his handsaw. We were comfortable enough in the house save for the worry and anxiety over our stock, for it was our little all. In the meantime we were wondering how our neighbors were getting along. It was terrible when Mansell went out. It was impossible to see ten feet away, and one in such a —105— storm is quite apt to lose all knowledge of direc- tions. While he would be gone to try to care for the stock I was wild with anxiety, and the joy I felt at every safe return lessened, in a measure, my grief over the loss of our oxen. On Wednesday afternoon the snowfall grew lighter, and before dark it ceased entirely. Mansell said then that he would take the shovel and dig into the snow for the calf, Cherry. She was in a little pen near the stable, and was completely cov- ered with snow. After digging down to quite a depth he felt something below moving. He called me and I waded out. By that time he had the calf uncovered, and she was trying to stand on her trem- bling legs. Well, — I cried! We got her into the house beside her mother for the night. The next morning we turned them out of doors so that we could clean house. Our well was near the house and we had kept it covered with boards laid across it on the ground. It was only six or eight feet deep. When the storm first came on, the boards were blown away and the well was filled with snow. Well,the cow walked over it and down she went, sinking into the soft snow nearly to the bot- tom. We thot then we must surely lose her, too,, with our oxen; yet later, with the help of our good neighbors, we resurrected her. Our hogs had tunneled through the snow in vari- ous directions. In their chill and hunger they grunted and squealed their strong disapproval of a Nebraska blizzard. Mansell has added some statements concerning —106— this particular blizzard, as follows : Our ''dug-out" was like most others, — like a house basement in a hillside, the door opening upon the low land, while the roof of the back of it was about on a level of the next higher bench of land. It was to be seen from the front but was scarcely visible from the rear. Our stable was built of large poles and was banked with hay; and it had a hay roof. It stood on the higher ground back of the house, and was five or six rods away. Before the storm we had been enjoying wonder- fully pleasant weather. Farming was well begun and grass had so started that our cow was giving more and more milk. The oxen had been allowed to run to the haystack, yet they preferred to eat the hay from the sides of the stable until there were more holes than otherwise. It was so late in the spring and the weather was so pleasant that we were off our guard. "Were it not for this we could easily have averted our loss. There were some people who had brot a good many horses and cattle to the country and depended upon the canyons and high banks for shelter for their stock. ]\Iany of these animals were running loose when the storm began, and as they wandered about in the blizzard, some fell over steep banks and were killed, while others got into the river and were drowned. To give an idea of the depth of the snow in some of the canyons I can say this: The deepest and widest canyon between here and St. Paul is near Elba. It is about 40 feet deep and 200 feet wide, and that was full of snow; and the snow was so hard that teams —107— crossed the canyon on it for two weeks after the storm. Charlie Rood and I drove across there with a load on the 28th day of April THE GRASSHOPPERS. This is what Mary says about the *' hoppers*^: I do not like very well to talk about the grass- hoppers, for when I do people look as if I were tell- ing a big story. They came first in 1874 and took nearly everything eatable. When on the wing they looked like a "black cloud rising over yonder.^' If the w^ind was blowing they would pass over. If the wind went down so did the '^ hoppers". When they were flying the air would be as full of them as it is of snowflakes in a heavy storm. It was surprising to see how fast they ate. A very few minutes was time enough for them to strip everything from a hill of corn, leaving only the hard stalks. Our cornfields were a sorry sight when they left. They would eat anything. One day I had some clothes spread on the grass to be aired. When I went to get them they were hardly worth the bringing in. They bothered us more or less for three or four years. I must tell one more thing about our oxen. After they died in that storm Mansell skinned them, so as to save what he could of them. They w^ere large oxen and their hides brought a good price. Man- sell took them for sale to Grand Island, our nearest trading point then, fifty miles away. Mr. Bartlett tells yet that Mansell said he did not know how we could have lived thru that summer had the oxen not died, for all the money we had to buy the bare neces- sities of life came from the sale of those hides. In —108— this way we lived till we could raise a crop — and then the grasshoppers took that! I am thankful to say that we were never flooded. George can tell you better than we can about perils by water. Our dirt roof used to leak, tho. I re- member that one night we slept under the table, for that was covered with an oilcloth, so there was at least one dry place in the house. I must say that I do not very much like to talk or even think about those early days. I would rather forget them. Anyhow, I do not like to tell so much about ourselves and our hardships. We had no harder times than others. But I was — oh, so homesick! That is what made it so hard for me. I will now return to Ora 's narrative. NEIGHBORS, THO MILES AWAY. As other members of the family came, with various old acquaintances, and made homes here and there^ life on the prairie became less lonesome and in many ways more endurable. There were social gatherings of one nature or another, and families visited back and forth, and thus they varied the monotony. All living in the valley, tho miles apart, were called neighbors. Being drawn closely together by ties of common hardships and like experiences, bonds of good fellowship were established which still exist. Families that do not now meet twice a year would,, thirty years ago, drive miles for a day's visit, and visitors were always warmly welcomed, tho the hos- tess might not have a cupful of sugar with which to *^stir up a cake," and could offer only a johnny-cake in the way of bread. Nor was there any embarrass- —109— ment for want of chairs to seat her guests withal. They were content to sit almost anywhere. ''HAVE A SEAT ON THE BED, MRS. BADGER.'' It was not long ago when I called on a lady who laughingly remarked, as I sat upon the edge of her bed, "Have a seat on the bed, Mrs. Badger. "Then she explained that that was an old saying, for in the early days Mrs. Badger, being the doctor's wife, was always given the seat of honor — on the bed. GREAT FUN IN THOSE DAYS. When I was a little girl and used to hear my mother tell of the Good Templar lodges, the singing schools and literary societies she attended in her younger days, I thot it must have been great fun to be a girl when she was. GRANDPA ROOD A TEMPERANCE WORKER Grandpa Rood was a man greatly interested in all good works, especially in the cause of temperance. Thru his influence several Good Templar lodges were organized in Valley County. The charter of the first lodge he established was afterwards given by the state organizer to Grandma Rood because of the part Grandpa had in instituting it. THE CHURCH. Mention has been made on a previous page, of ear- ly religious services at North Loup, and of the organ- ization of the Seventh Day Baptist church there; also of the early beginnings of the Sabbath school. Most of the Roods and Thorngates from that time —110— till now have been members of this church. Uncle George Rood was for several years church clerk, and was olso ordained as one of its deacons. Uncle Mansell Davis succeeded Uncle George as clerk. Uncle Henry Thorngate has been one of the deacons ever since he came there from Missouri, in 1879. Uncle Charle}^ Rood has for several years belonged to the board of church trustees. Uncle Walter Rood has for some years been very efficient as Superin- tendent of the Junior Christian Endeavor Society. He seems peculiarly fitted for this work. Various members of both the Rood and the Thorngate fam- ilies have been active as officers and teachers in the Sabbath School and Christian Endeavor work. Nearly all the members of both families, both old and young, are now Seventh Day Baptists in both belief and practice. Some of us who are younger have sometimes been so situated that we could not attend worship on the Sabbath, and so have worked with other denominations ; yet I think the most of us who profess to be Christians have not been backward about maintaining our doctrine and giving, on proper occasions, a reason for the faith within us. Still I believe that in this matter we have striven always to manifest the sweet spirit of Christian charity. Grandpa Rood used to preach much of the time for the church at Dakota, Wisconsin, before coming to North Loup, and he preached occasionally here, but not at any time regularly. EARLY SCHOOLS. —Ill— In 1873 Valley county was divided into two school districts, the south half, w^ith North Loup, being number one, and the north half, with Ord, being num- ber two. Uncle George Rood was the first director in No. 1, and he engaged for the first teacher Miss Kate Badger, who came from Milton. She was a graduate from the Teachers' Course at the college there. She taught her school in an undersized and very earthy dug-out near the creek, and on Oscar Babcock's claim. Charley Rood taught the school at North Loup in the winter of 1874-75, and the following winter he taught at Ord. The first school house in North Loup was built in 1874 of cedar logs that had been hauled on wagons forty miles. Charles Wellman later bought it for a dwelling house, and his family still occupy it. My mother began teach- ing here in 1875 and taught ten terms before her marriage. She taught four terms before leaving Wisconsin. Aunt Emma and Aunt Ettie taught each a few terms after coming to Nebraska. GRANDPA ROOD'S HEALTH FAILS. As has been said. Grandpa brot Grandma here in the spring of 1875, and they settled on their claim three and a half miles from North Loup up the Mira Creek valley. He got the contract for furnishing beef to the soldiers at Fort Hartsuff, twenty-five miles up the river from North Loup. This work called for many long and tiresome journeys back and forth. He bot cattle for beef here and there as he could find them, and he often found them hard to handle as he led them home or to the fort. There were no bridges across the streams and he had to —112— Charles D. Rood ford them, often in cold weather. Many a time he waded the North Loup River when the water was freezing', and then drove on without change of clothing. He also did "teaming" for other pur- poses, and all the time with little regard for his health. He ought not, of course, to have done this, but he was working for the sake of those he loved, and so he took little thot of his own ease and com- fort. It had, indeed, been for years his habit to do so. And so, under so much of hard work and expo- sure, he broke down and began rapidly to fail in his health. He held out as long as he could, but in the summer of 1877, he who had been one of the most robust of men, and of great physical strength, slowly but surely yielded to the hand of disease upon him. He was able to go on the cars to Milton, Wisconsin, in the fall of 1877, after Grandpa and Grandma Thorngate and get them settled in the home he and Grandma had opened for them, but this was his last work. He gradually grew weaker and weaker till, on the 17th day of March, 1878, he went to his rest. He had suffered from a complica- tion of diseases involving the bronchial tubes, liver and perhaps other organs. He suffered very much as the end drew near, and his death was to him a blessed relief. He was ready for the call of the Master and he welcomed the summons. Herman, with Walter's aid, was in the meantime, doing the work on the farm. —113- NATURAL FAMILY EXPANSION. During these earlier years the family had, accord- ing to the way of the world, been increasing. On the 14th of September, 1873,Uncle Mansell and Aunt Mary were made happy by the arrival of Horace Mansell. This was a particularly welcome event, for it furnished a happy relief from the young mother's homesickness. The new baby had had no part in the home life of Wisconsin, and so he created a real interest in the new home of which he was an import- ant part. June 11, 1874, little Warren Ray came to gladden the hearts of Uncle George and Aunt Jen- nie ; and on the 17th of February, 1877, Harry Lee was made welcome to the same home. And there were marriages, too. October 30, 1875, Uncle Charley took for his wife Miss Rosa Furrow, who in 1872 had come with her father, John Furrow, from Humboldt, Nebraska ; and on Christmas day of 1877 Aunt Emma was married to Solon Terry, who had come here with his mother from Welton, Iowa. On the 13th of September, 1876, Bertha Alice was born to Uncle Charley and Aunt Rosa, and on the 2nd day of October, 1878, Byron Ross came to be Bertha's brother. Also, on August 13, 1879, Loyal Erwin came into the family of Aunt Emma and Un- cle Solon. UNCLE CHARLEY MEETS WITH ACCIDENTS. While in the fall of 1877, Uncle Charley was driv- ing the horses running a threshing machine he slipped and fell into the machinery of the horse power, and one of his legs was very badly hurt. He —114— FOUR GENERATIONS ORA CLEMENT GENIA CRANDALL MARIANNE ROOD HELENA ROOD was taken to Grandpa Rood's and there he lay suf- fering fearfully for several weeks before the wound healed. He received the best of care, for everybody was glad to do something for him. Some years later the other leg was badly hurt. He has always since then limped a little because of the injury, but is thankful that nothing worse came of it. In the summer of 1903 a company of our people had a picnic over at *'The Ranch," as we call the place where Cousins Jay and Stella VanHorn live. While there they were enjoying sliding down a long rope stretched over a deep ravine near the house. As Uncle Charley was going down, the rope by which he was suspended to the cable gave way,and he had a fall that nearly broke his back. It was a long time before he was again able to stand. He can now do light work, but will never again be strong. GRANDMA AND THE "RATTLER." In the early days there were rattlesnakes on the prairies, especially in the vicinity of prairie dog towns, and they were apt to turn up most anywhere. One day in the fall of 1878 Grandma Rood went out to where the family cows were staked out to grass. She drove the stakes in new places, where they could get fresh feed, and was about to return to the house, when she felt a pricking sensation on the top of one of her feet. She looked down and saw there a large rattler, and then heard the buzz of his tail.The upper part of her shoe was cloth and the snake had sent his fangs thru it. Having the ax in her hand she cut his —115— snakeship twice in two, then went to the house and told Uncle Herman. He quickly wound her ankle with a strong cord, while Uncle "Walter rode after the doctor at North Loup at such speed as befitted the occasion — three and a half miles and back in twenty minutes. Careful attention on the part of the doctor and others got Grandma and her foot so that in two or three weeks she was able to walk again. Not so, however, with the rattler. In those days people used to go out in companies to destroy rattlesnakes. ANOTHER MARRIAGE AND OTHER BIRTHS. On the 7th da}^ of April 1880, there was another marriage in the family. Uncle Herman was married to Miss Linda Pierce, who had, with her parents, come to the country June 7, 1878, from Clinton, Rock county, Wisconsin. January 20, 1880, a sec- ond daughter, Tacy Fanny, was born to Uncle George and Aunt Jennie; and January 12, 1881, a second daughter, Nina, to Uncle Charley and Aunt Rosa. DEATH OF GRANDFATHER THORNGATE. Grandpa Thorngate had suffered from asthma for several years. As he came to old age he coughed a great deal and gradually failed until he was, No- vember 29, 1882, taken to a better world than this. Grandma Thorngate cared for him tenderly thru all the years of his ill health, and when he was taken from her she was lonesome, indeed. After Grandpa Rood had brot them to Nebraska they lived in a —116— Q O O DC < Q Z -J (/) a: 2 room of his house and kept house for themselves as best suited them. After his death Grandma contin- ued to live in that room, very lonesome, yet resigned. WHERE THE ROOD FAMILIES LIVED. As has been said, Grandpa Rood's home was up Mira Valley about three and a half miles from North Loup. Uncle George and Uncle Charley had located on opposite sides of the road leading out to Grand- pa's, nearly as far as the present cemetery. Uncle Herman bot a farm on the same road, and about a mile from the village. Uncle Mansell and Aunt Mary lived then where they still live, about four miles down the river valley and a little west of the railroad. Uncle Charle}^ later took a claim on Davis Creek, and eight or nine miles from the village, where he and his family lived until 1895, when he sold his place and then moved to North Loup so that the children could have better school advantages. In April, 1883, Uncle Herman and Aunt Linda moved to Cheyenne, Wyoming, to work on a sheep ranch. They soon returned, however, and settled on the farm he had bot. In 1884 Uncle George sold his farm and moved to the village to live. Uncle Solon and Aunt Emma lived at first on a farm near Grandpa Rood's, one he and his mother had settled upon soon after coming to North Loup, but in the fall of 1879 they, too, went to the village to live. In the fall of 1878 Alpha Crandall came from Fa- rina, Illinois, and took up a claim about six miles north-west of the village. On the 22nd day of May, 1882, he and my mother were married, and on the —117— 26th of February, 1883, I began to play my part in the family history. Grandpa Rood's home was home to all the family, and all were heartily welcome there, till one night in January, 1888, the house caught fire and burned to, the ground. Grandma and Uncle Walter then rented a place in the village, but in 1888 they bot the home where they now live, and where we are all delighted to find her and our good Uncle Walter. MORE CHILDREN. As the years went by children came into the fam- ilies as follows : To Uncle Herman and Aunt Linda, October 20, 1883, Sarah Inez. To Uncle Charley and Aunt Rosa; November 16, 1882, Esther Amy; January 23, 1886, Marianne, whom, for some reason, we all call ''Bird;" April 24, 1889, Marcia May ; July 11, 1891, Carrie ; Novem- ber 27, 1894, Bayard Alvin ; June 3, 1897, Elsie Lea ; April 14, 1900, Eunice Pauline. To Uncle Mansell and Aunt Mary, July 22, 1880,Ainslie Loran ; July 17, 1895, Mary, now known as ''Little Mary". To my father and mother, August 5, 1885, Paul Rood; Au- gust 31, 1893, Mary Hazel; June 4, 1896, Horace Charles. THE LAST WEDDING. On the 15th of October, 1884, Aunt Esther, whom we call "Etta", was married to Calvin Crandall. His father, the Rev. G. J. Crandall, had come to North Loup as pastor of the Seventh Day Baptist church. In the year 1891, Uncle Calvin and Aunt —118— CALVIN AND ETTA CRANDALL PERCY CRANDALL GEORGE CRANDALL ESTHER CRANDALL ADA CRANDALL CECIL CRANDALL Etta moved to West Hallock, Illinois, where they lived until the spring of 1905, when they settled on a farm near Milton, Wisconsin, in order that their children might go to school at Milton. There have been born to Calvin and Etta the following named children; April 17, 1886, Cecil Irma; February 17, 1888, Ada Elizabeth ; April 14, 1891, Percy Jay ; May 21, 1893, George Herbert; November 24, 1894, Es- ther. Esther and George were born at West Hal- lock, but the others at North Loup. They lost by death one child only a day or two old. I call this the last wedding, tho Uncle Walter is still left unmarried ; but I do not see much hope for him. He seems to prefer to live with Grandma and be a bachelor. He may yet surprise us all, tho. For the marriage connections of the younger genera- tion the reader may study the ' ' Family Tree ' ' in an- other part of this book; also, for the names and dates of birth of the children of the still younger generation. Just after the close of the Civil War, in 1866, Uncles Henry and George Thorngate, with some oth- ers, moved from Dakota to the vicinity of Brook- field, Missouri. After the Dakota colony had got set- tled in and about North Loup, some of those people began to think about coming here to live. In Janu- ary, 1876, Uncle Henry came to see the country. In 1878 Uncle George Thorngate and his family came here to live, and in 1879 Uncle Henry's folks came too. Uncle Henry settled later on on a farm about a mile south of the village and Uncle George close by Grandpa Rood's place up the Mira Valley. Their -119- coming added not only to the pleasure but the num- bers of the Thorngate-Rood clan. Uncle Henry and Aunt Renda brot with them Cousins Herbert, Gajdord, Roy and Belle ; and Uncle George and Aunt Arlie brot Ray and Charley. By referring to the *' Family Tree" in this book, it will be seen that since then a goodly number of Thorngates have come into our expanding group of relatives. From the time when Uncles Henry and George came to Nebraska up to 1890, nearly all the members of both families were together here about North Loup, — the exceptions being Cousin Charles Thorn- gate, son of Uncle David, whose home has been at Martin's Ferry, Ohio; Aunt Hannah Thorngate Stillman, of Farina, Illinois; Uncle Charles Thorn- gate's family, at Weeping "Water, Nebraska; and Uncle Hosea Rood's family, in Wisconsin. In 1890 Uncle Solon and Aunt Emma moved to Boulder, Colorado. FAMILY GATHERINGS. M}'- memory does not, of course, go very far back into those years. What I write must of necessity come from the family traditions, — stories I have heard told over and over in my own home and at the family gatherings to which we have long been accustomed. Yet I do remember many reunions at the home of this one or that, with the attendant feasting, chattering, games, — and some quarreling among us little cousins. I remember our being to- gether one cold day at Grandma Rood's — her sixty- fourth birthday it was — and how Cousin Bertha —120— Alpha and Genia Crandall AND CHILDREN Hazel and Horace wrapped me np in a big cape so that I could stay out on tlie hill and see the big folks slide down hill. Grandma went down with the rest on the bob sleigh, and she said it was fun. I remember when ''the folks'' came in a big crowd to our home on the prairie one day in the summer of 1887 to help my father and mother celebrate their *' wooden wedding". As usual there was a great deal of fun going on. Uncle Hosea Rood was then here on a visit from Wisconsin. He proposed play- ing "Donkey-tail." An image of a tailless donkey was pinned up against the side of the house. The trick was, to be blindfolded and then, after being turned around and around, go and pin a tail where it belonged on the donkey. I remember how we all laughed to see Grandma Rood undertake to put the tail in its appropriate place on the de-tailed donkey. She won the prize for getting the tail furthest from where it belonged, for in her search she had wandered around to the other side of the house and stuck it on a box. I remember another game played that day — called *'Tug of War," The men got a long rope. Grand- ma Rood's four married sons got hold of one end of the rope and pulled one way, while the four sons- in-law pulled against them the other way. It was a great tussle, and all the crowd of relatives looked on cheering and laughing. One set of contestants got on the steep slope of a ravine and were pulling the others down hill when — the rope in the middle! Then four stalwart uncles went rolling over one an- other to the bottom of the ravine. — 121— In those days both old and young united in get- ting a great deal of fun out of life. At all of our family gatherings there were lively times. After Uncles Henry and George Thorngate came from Mis- souri their families and those of the Roods were as one family in all these social events. THANKSGIVING GATHERINGS. The fall before Grandpa Rood died, that is in 1877, he wished to have all his children at home on Thanksgiving da}^ and arrangements were made to that end; but before the time came something prevented the gathering. This was a great disap- pointment to Grandpa, for he was never happier than when his children were together under the home roof. After this the Thorngates and the Roods began to hold annual family reunions on Thanksgiving day, and the custom has been main- tained to the present time, almost without interrup- tion. This gathering has been held now at one home and then at another as circumstances seemed to direct. And there have been other reunions be- side those on Thanksgiving occasions. These have come at weddings and various merry-makings, and when some of our folks have come from other places to visit us. Sometimes we have taken a birthday or a wedding anniversary as an occasion to turn out in force to offer congratulations and eat good things till we were all but uncomfortable. We always see to it that Uncle Henry Thorngate gets all the chicken he can eat. On such occasions the most of us talk — several at a time — and we all laugh together. We have some music, too. —122— E 05 E t. (U I 4) ^- r ™ re E c (U E^ uj ,^ s| o S I 5 « -M -E TO « O) — CO A STORM BOUND PARTY One time, January 12, 1887, we went in a big crowd to the home of Uncle Solon and Aunt Emma to celebrate the tenth anniversary of their marriage. This was not the date of their wedding, — that was December 25. But for some reason we went on this later date. They had a small house and we crowded it full. In the midst of our merriment, about noon, there came on a fearful blizzard. This struck dread to the hearts of the farmers present, for they could not go home to care for their stock. Night came on and it was still snowing so that no one dared under- take to go home. For the best of reasons there was no going to bed, and so we had a night of it. Fun? well, I should say! Some tried to sleep. I recollect curling down on a comforter and wishing there were not so many others who wanted the same place. Morning came at last, and the storm had so moder- ated that we could go home. This blizzard of Jan- uary 12, 1887, was one of the worst we ever had. STRONG FAMILY TIES. At all our family gatherings it has been the cus- tom for every housekeeper to contribute her share of things to eat, and all have united to do the nec- essary work, not putting the burden on the hostess alone. Almost without exception the sweet spirit of unity and Christian charity has dwelt with us as a family, whether at our various homes or togeth- er at any one of them. The close relations of one with another have been characterized by kindly feel- ings and filial affection. We have had within us a —123— feeling that has led us to speak of ourselves as the *'Thorngate-Rood Clan/' tho I think we are not clannish in any wrong sense. It is not to be understood that we all think alike on every subject, for every one of us has a mind of his own ; and we differ somewhat in opinion on more than one subject. But we have not thot it best to talk much concerning our differences. We have found enough to say about things upon which we were in harmony; and I guess it has been good for us that this has been so. We have not, as a family, been money makers. It has been said of us that we 'd leave work or business at any time to attend a family gathering or an old settlers' picnic. This is better than to be charged with driving sharp bargains and being moved by selfish ambition. It is recorded that man shall not live by bread alone. In a most important sense we have been rich. GRANDMA'S HOUSE BURNED. I have alread}" said that one night in January, 1888, Grandma's house on the farm caught fire and burned. The fire began in that part where Grandma Thorngate lived. Nearly everything she had was lost. She was hurried out of her room, blankets thrown around her, and taken down to Uncle George Thorngate 's, not far away. She was but little dis- turbed because of her loss, saying she should not want the things much longer anyhow, so it did not make much difference to her. In a day or two the folks made a sewing bee and dressed her up again. —124— LUCRETIA THORNGATE Some of the things in Granma Rood's part of the house were saved, yet much that was highly cherished went up in smoke. Uncle Calvin and Aunt Etta, also, were living with Grandma and Uncle Walter when the house burned. After the fire they all went to the village to live. For a few years Grand- ma and Walter lived in a rented house, — then they hot the place where they now live. GRANDMA THORNGATE'S DEATH. Grandma Thorngate kept in pretty good health up to the time of her ninetieth birthday, but after that old age began to tell upon her health and strength. In her younger days she had been a great worker, and she kept going as long as her strength lasted. When she got so that she had to rest a part of the time she read a great deal. She often read late at night. She was greatly interested in all the questions of the day, but she gave special atten- tion to the subject of missions. Because she had these things to think of and interest her, she was happy and cheerful. Life was no burden to her. As the end drew near she was happy in the thot that she was soon going home. Those who saw her and talked with her in the last few days of her life say that her faith was beautiful. Uncle Walter said to her a few hours before she died that he thot it too bad that she was so sick and must be taken away from the family. She told him it was not too bad; that the going was to her no more than for him to go down to the postoffice and back. It had no fear in it for her. During the morning of the day of her —125— death she said brightly and cheerfully to those about her bed, "I am going to see your grand- father, children! I am going to see your grandfa- ther!" And so, on the 27th day of August, 1890, she quietly and peacefully left us to go and see our good grandfather, who had nine years before gone to the home of the blest. VARIOUS VISITS BACK AND FORTH. I have said that in the summer of 1887 Uncle Ho- sea Rood came from Milton, Wisconsin, to visit us. It was his first trip to North Loup. He was with us about six weeks. In the summer of 1892 he came again, and with him Aunt Lizzie and Cousins Lillian and Grace. They were with us then four or five weeks. At the same time Aunt Emma came on a visit from Boulder, Colorado. In the summer of 1889 Uncle Herman and his family went to Wiscon- sin and Grandma Rood went with them. It was at the time of the National Encampment of the Grand Army of the Republic in Milwaukee. They visited Uncle Hosea and family, then living at Palmyra, near Milton, and Aunt Linda's people in Clinton, Rock county. In the fall of 1890, Grandma Rood, with my mother, my brother Paul and me went to Farina, Ills., where my father's parents and Grandma's sister. Aunt Hannah Stillman, then lived. It was a wonderful journey to me. I had not sup- posed the world was so big. Grandma, before re- turning, visited Uncle Hosea 's folks in Milton. In the summer of 1890 Uncle George Rood made a trip —126— Grandfather Thorn^ate George Thorngate sr. to Wisconsin. lie made a hurried visit to the old home at Dakota, and at Uncle Hosea's. In the fol- lowing summer Aunt Jennie visited friends in Min- nesota and different parts of AYisconsin. Grandma went to Wisconsin again in the summer of 1893, when the Seventh Day Baptist Conference was held at Milton. She visited Uncle Hosea's folks there and Calvin and Etta at West Hallock, Illinois. During these later years there have been several go- ings back and forth. I cannot remember them all. SOME LATER MIGRATIONS. Now and then we have had here in the vicinity of North Loup what we have called hard years. Be- cause of drouth and hot winds crops have been poor. One of these seasons was that of 1890. Crops be- ing poor there was little demand for paying labor. Because of this there was complaint of hard times, and with it talk of change of location. That year Uncle Solon and family moved to Boulder, Colorado, where they still live. About the 4th of July, 1891, there came another break in the family, when Uncle Calvin and his fam- ily went to live at West Hallock, Illinois. Tho I was quite young I could see that it was hard to endure these separations. We missed the absent ones more at Thanksgiving time than on any other occasion, and we wished over and over that all could be at home again. As we had no school near our home six or eight miles from the village, in the fall of 1892 my father moved our family to North Loup so that Paul and I —127— could have the school opportunities we needed. In the early summer of 1894 Grandma Rood and Cousin Inez went on a visit to Uncle Solon's folks in Boulder, and Grandma stayed there during the summer and following winter. This summer of 189-1 was another time of poor crops. Many in our com- munity were in real want that winter. Early in the fall my father with his family, and Uncle Herman, went overland to Boulder, where work was said to be plentiful. We shall always remember that trip as, on the whole, a most pleasant one. We were followed two or three weeks later by Uncle Geovge and his family, — tho Cousin Ray was already at Boulder. Uncle Herman soon returned, but the rest of us remained till spring. The men managed to make a living for their families and horses, but the work — much of it teaming over the mountain roads — was hard. We were glad in the spring to return to our Nebraska homes. Grandma came back about the same time, in March, 1895. Our life there was not altogether enjoyable, tho we had a pretty good time socially. We met at Thanksgiving time there at Uncle George's. We found some good friends in Boulder. In the spring of 1902 Uncle Herman went to Cal- ifornia to do carpenter work and see the country. He had some thot of moving his family to that state, but in the fall he returned, and is still at home on his farm near North Loup. We are all glad they did not go. In the fall of 1901, because Cousins Ray and Tacy were in college at Milton, Uncle George and Aunt —128— Jennie moved to Milton, and they still live there, George having sold his place at North Loup. It has been said that in the spring of 1905 Uncle Cal- vin and his family moved from West Hallock to Milton. His father was at that time pastor of the S. D. B. church at IMilton Junction. His father and mother were both in poor health, and he w^ished to be near them so as to help care for them. In July, 1905, his father died, and his mother went to Chica- go to live with her daughter Grace, who was studying medicine. On the 7th of February, 1901, Cousin Bertha, Uncle Charley's eldest daughter, who had been married to Henry Williams, moved with her husband to Gentry, Arkansas, which has since then been their home, tho they have spent one or two winters in North Loup. His second daughter, Nina, who had married Roy Lewis, and her husband spent one year in Fouke, Arkansas, where she taught a school established, there by our S. D. B. people. They now" live in North Loup. GEORGE ROOD TELLS OF A FLOOD. Going to Nebraska in the spring of 1872 with little to do, yet with a good bit of ambition to make a home for ourselves and establish a Seventh Day Baptist Society in North Loup, we had many diffi- cult things to accomplish. First, we must break up a patch of prairie and plant some corn and garden stuff. Then we must get some logs from far up the river to use in house building. After that we must go 50 miles away to the Platte River valley to work in the harvest fields for a little money to help us live —129— a frugal life through the winter; to get some hay for the horses and cow, and a great many other things incident to beginning life at the bottom. All these things to do made us late in getting into winter quarters. I will try to tell how we built the house in which we lived. We dug a hole in the ground about four feet deep and 15 by 19 feet in area. Then with this as a basement we built above it a house four logs high, the log part of the house being 16 by 24 feet in size, and about seven feet high from the bottom of the hole in the ground. Then we put on for a ridge pole a good-sized cedar log, which was made the support for some good stout rafters of ash poles. On these we placed some willows, next some coarse hay, and then a layer or two of good tough sod cut first with a breaking plow and then by a spade into convenient lengths. These sods, when cut, were about two feet long, one foot wide and four inches thick. When care was taken to make it compact such a roof shed water very well, indeed. On top of the sod we put three or four in- ches of clay we got from a nearby ' ' buffalo wallow, ' ' and then pounded it down hard and smooth. A roof so made would not leak in the hardest kind of a shower unless it was long continued, in which case the roof would soak through. This house, or *' dugout," was built on level ground facing a shallow ravine, the ground sloping gently from the front to the bottom of the ravine. From the door in front we dug a ditch, or trench, the width of the door, the bottom of the ditch being —130— as low down as the floor of the house. Tea or twelve feet from the door the bottom of this passage way came out on a level with the ground. This ditch was our passage way into the house and out. After it was too late in the fall to build a house in another place our neighbor Jacobs warned us that if a heavy rain should come we would be in danger of a flood; for the water would run down the slopes and fill our ravine up to where our house was built into the bank. We worried some for fear we should have trouble, yet, as a matter of fact, we could not very well help what might thus come to us. About the first of June of the next year, 1873, a heavy storm came suddenly upon us, and for half an hour or so the water came down as it can come in Nebraska when the flood gates are once wide open. We were eating supper at the time, and the door of our dugout was closed against the storm. I hap- pened to look toward the door and was somewhat surprised to see water runing in under it. I went and opened the door and there I saw rushing down the ravine a wall of water two feet high. When it struck the passage way into our house it came pour- ing in, covering the floor and rising rapidly. Mr. Paine 's people were living with us then and Mrs. Paine and her daughter Hattie were in the house. I told Mrs. Paine and Jennie to to get on the bed, which they did in a hurry. Hattie stood in the middle of the room and screamed, pulling her skirts higher and higher as the water arose. Though the condition of things was serious we could not help laughing to see her watch anxiously the rising flood, —131— and hear her scream in her excitement till Frank Paine carried her ont. In the meantime I was fishing up snch things as I could and throwing them on the bed. 'Mrs. Paine and Jennie, thinking the water would fill the room and drown them, begged to go out to a tent we had pitched near the house. I caught little Stella up, wrapped a quilt around her and told them to come on. The water was then on a level with the top of the bed. Jennie stepped from there upon the stove - — one of the old elevated oven sort. All the floor we had consisted of a few boards laid upon the ground. These arose with the water and were then about on a level with the top of the stove. Jennie in her excitement, stepped ofc the stove upon these floating boards. They shot out from under her feet and she dropped into the water all over. Now, as this water rushing down the ravine had brought much of my garden with it, it was thick with mud, and Jennie was sticky v»^hen she came up out of it. Well, after getting Jennie and the baby and Mrs. Paine and Hattie out into the tent I went back into the muddy wetness of the house to save as much more as I could. The water was about tv^^o feet deep, and when I got back it had just begun to re- cede, and the current was carrying along with it such things as would float. I shut the door to stop those things from starting for the Gulf of Mexico, and remained there till the water had drained out under the door. In the meantime I was picking up things and wiping off the mud as I sang "Ye banks and braes o' Bonny Doon". —132— Then I dipped and sopped the water out of the stove, chopped up a dry cedar pole and started a rousing fire that steamed us all after the manner of a Turkish bath. We kept the fire going till after midnight in order to keep any one from taking cold. Jennie was not at all well at the time. When we got things cleared out and cleaned up we found that not so much damage had been done as one might think. Still, some of our few earthly possessions were spoiled and others made to be of not much account. On the occasion of several other storms I was obliged quickly to dam up this passage way into our dug-out to prevent our being driven out of house and home again. Some of our neighbors suffered worse from such floods than we did. This story is told only to give an idea of one of the rather hard things with which we had to contend when we were early pioneers in Ne- braska. Before we got used to the country and its peculiar conditions something was every little while coming to pass that we did not expect and taking us by surprise. And then our having so lit- tle to do with left us open to many inconveniences. Sometimes we suffered, but we were young and full of hope and so not only made light of whatever was unpleasant, but got some real fun out of our hardships. Much of the time we heartilv enjoyed life. ■133 THE STORIES TOLD BY OEA AND MARY AND GEORGE. Much of what is put down in the foregoing pages about the family life in Nebraska is as it was written by my sister Mary and her husband, my niece Ora and my brother George. But I have changed the arrangement of the matter, somewhat, and have made some additions, the details of which have come to me from various sources. I am greatly indebted to them for the help they have given me. It seems to me that what they have told must give a pretty clear idea of the settlement and growth of our fam- ily in and about North Loup and the migration of some of them to other places. They have not told so much in detail of the families of Uncles Henry and George Thorngate, for it has been left to Uncle Henry to do that. "What has been told in general of our people at North Loup has had reference to both the Thorngates and the Roods, for they have been united in spirit and purpose and in their social and fraternal relations ever since, in the years 1878 and 1879, Uncles Henry and George moved to North Loup from Missouri. It has been a wonderfully pleasant thing to us here in Wisconsin to think of our closely related families out there, and the har- mony existing among them. I have thot many times of that passage of holy writ, ''Behold how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity." -134— BRIEF PERSONAL SKETCHES. Tho our Grandfather Thorngate and our Father Rood had almost no school advantages they gave their children a desire for knowledge. Grandfa- ther's children got as much learning as they could out of the rural school near their home in Cattarau- gus County, New York. After we moved to Wis- consin Aunt Hannah taught a term of school. Uncle Charles was teacher at Dakota in the winter of 1855-56. Uncle George had a special desire for ant education. He went to school at Milton academy before the war and enlisted from there. He taught several terms of school in Wisconsin and continued teaching in Missouri as long as his health would per- mit. I myself had little in the way of education, yet I went to teaching after the war and kept at that work for almost thirty-five years. I was, in 1878, graduated from the teachers' course at Milton Col- lege. Our daughter Lillian was graduated from the college there — classical course — in 1894. She was during the following year principal of the graded school at Mason, Bayfield county, Wisconsin. She was married in July 1895. Our daughter Grace is now a senior in the academic course at Milton. She expects to be graduated with the close of 1906. My brother Charley taught two or three terms in Wisconsin and as many more after going to Ne- braska. Mary and Genia taught four or five terms each, in Wisconsin, and Genia ten terms in Nebraska before she was married. Genia attended Milton College two terms in the year 1879-80. My sisters — 185 — Emma and Ettie were both teachers in Nebraska be- fore they were married. Brother Walter came to Milton in 1893 to study at the college. After being there four or five terms he went to West Hallock, Illinois, to teach. In 1897 he returned to North Loup and taught a term or two in Howard County. Then he began teaching in the grammar department of the North Loup Schools. In 1899 he bot the Loyalist, the local paper, and he is still its proprietor and editor. He is making a success of the business. In his office several of our nieces have learned to set type. Wal- ter calls them his "office angels." Stella, my brother George's eldest daughter, was the first of our family to be graduated from the North Loup high school. This vv^as in 1890. After teaching four or five terms she was married to Jay VanHorn, and their home has since then been on the VanHorn Ranch in Sherman County, ten m.ileg west of North Loup. They have three children. Dale, Ross and Everett. Ray Rood, George's eldest son, v/as graduated from the home high school with the class of 1892. About Christmas time, 1899, he and his sister Tacy came to Milton and began a course of study. He was graduated from Milton academy in 1902; from the college, classical course, in 1903 ; and from the department of music in 1904. He was engaged dur- ing the summer vacations for three years in evangel- istic quartet work. He taught nine terms of dis- trict school in Nebraska and was, in the years 1903- 05, principal of the graded school at Drummond, —136— Ray and Ella Rood Bayfield County, Wisconsin. At the present time he is first assistant in the high school in the city of Bayfield, on the shore of Lake Superior in Wiscon- sin. Ray's wife — Ella Babcock — whom he married at Milton, December 24, 1903, was graduated from the North Loup high school in 1395, and taught one term. She was graduated from the academic de- partment at Milton in 1902, and from the musical department in 1904. She took some work in the college course and spent one summ.er vacation in evangelistic quartet work. Harry Rood, George's second son, was a gradu- ate, in 1896, from the high school at North Loup. He taught two years. He spent some time in a busi- ness college in Omaha and at the Norm.al School at Fremont, Nebraska. He had learned while yet in school, to set type. He edited the Loyalist, at North Loup, about six months in 1897. Later he was, for something more than a year, foreman in the office of the Holt County Independent, and after that he had charge of the Stuart Ledger. In 1899 he became manager of the Greeley Citizen and was there nearly a year, when because of ill health he had to leave the printing office. He then joined a concert company and was for some time on the road. Having, in part, recovered his health he became ed- itor of the Stromsburg Journal. Failing in health again he was obliged to give up the newspa- per business, and he again joined the Davis Concert Company. He soon broke down completely and went home, he says, to die. But later he was takeu to Omaha for a very dangerous surgical operation. 1 07 lo I Contrary to all expectations he lived thru the trying ordeal and in time recovered, when he went with his parents to live at Milton, Wisconsin. This was in November, 1901. There he became associated with W. K. Davis in the management of the Edgerton Eagle, where he remained a year, when he became manager of the State news department of the Mil- waukee Journal. But the too close confinement of that work began again to tell on his health, when he left Milwaukee and became a city reporter upon the Leader-Press, of LaCrosse, Wisconsin. He is still connected with that paper, having charge of the business and circulation in North LaCrosse. Tacy Rood, sister of Ray and Harry, was gradu- ated in 1897 from the home high school, after which she taught one year. At Christmas time, 1899, she came with Ray to Milton to attend school. In 1902 she was graduated from the academic course of study. She took up some work of the College Course and was, in 1904, graduated from the school of music. She had learned, in the office of the Loy- alist, at North Loup, to set type, and was for some years a compositor in the office of the Milton Jour- nal. In August, 1905, she was married to D. N. In- glis, of Marquette, Wisconsin, who had recently been graduated from Milton College. He became principal of schools in his home village, and he and Tacy have set up housekeeping at Marquette. 'Inez, only daughter of Herman Rood, was mar- ried, in 1902, to Otto Hill, of North Loup, where they now live next door to my mother. They have two children, Russell and Dwight. — J38- NELSON and TACY INGLIS Charley Rood's eldest daughter, Bertha, was mar- ried, in 1899, to Henry Williams, of North Loup. Their home is now in Gentry, Arkansas. They have one child, Melvin. ' Charley's eldest son, Byron, was not a graduate of the North Loup high school, but at the Christmas time of 1900 he came to Milton, where he attended college five terms. Later he began work inVan- Horn's meat market, and he is still engaged there. He spent a part of the summer vacations of 1901 and 1902 in evangelistic quartet singing. In 1904 he was married to Miss Lena Nelson, of Dell Rapids, South Dakota. They have bot a home in Milton, and have a little boy, Leman, to make them happy there. Byron's second sister, Nina, was graduated in 1898 from the high school and she began teaching that year. In the Christmas vacation of 1901 she came to Milton College, where she remained two terms. She then taught school a year at Welton, Iowa, after which she returned to North Loup, where she continued her work as teacher. In October, 1904, she was married to Roy Lewis, of North Loup. After their marriage they went to Fouke, Arkansas, where she taught a year in a school established there by the Seventh Day Baptist people. In 1905 they returned to North Loup, where they now live. Nina has taught sixteen terms of school. Charley Rood's third daughter, Esther, was grad- uated from the home high school in 1901. After teaching two years she came to Milton, where she has now been in school two years. She is a member —139— of the senior class in the academic course of study. Charley's fourth daughter, Marianne commonly known as ''Bird", was a graduate from the high school with the class of 1902. Since graduation she has set type in the office of the North Loup Loyalist. Brother Walter calls her "the office angel." And there is yet another daughter of Brother Charley's family who has graduated from the home high school, Marcia, a member of the class of 1905. She is still at home, as are the younger members of his family. 1 suppose they, too, will in due time want high school diplomas. Horace Davis, eldest son of my sister Mary, was graduated from the high school at North Loup with the class of 1891. He taught two terms of school the following year, one in Greeley County, the other in his home district. The next year he attended Milton College, returning in the summer of 1893 to North Loup and teaching during the following year in Valley County. In the fall of 1894 he again entered Milton College, but later went to teach in a ward school in LaCrosse, Wisconsin. During the year of 1895-96 he was principal of schools at Elba, Nebraska. The next year he was teacher of the grammar department at North Loup. The follow- ing two years he was principal of the high school at Ord, Nebraska. 'During his summer vacations, after returning from LaCrosse, he took special studies at summer schools held in connection with the state university at Lincoln — where he secured the degree of A. B. — and was engaged as instructor in several teachers' institutes. Also, he organized at Ord a —140- HORACE M. DAVIS •t 1 iT Km/ BESSE PACKLER MANSELL AND KEITH :^ili^^^p :■:§ p^^l "mf. %il 9 ^R?4^V '<-'' ■ ^ .. ^piRHpF^^^M ■ Normal and Business College, but did not continue in charge of it. In 1900 lie got into politics and was elected Clerk of the Court, in which position he served three years. . While teaching at Ord he became associate pub- lisher, with Harry L. Rood, of the Loyalist, at North Loup, Harry being the manager of the office work. Later he bought the Ord Journal, which he published a year,and then sold at a profit. In a few months he bot the Leader-Independent, of Gree- ley, Nebraska, which he published two years, his younger brother, Ainslie, managing the office. "Hav- ing sold his paper, he re-purchased, in January, 1905, the Ord Journal, which he is still editing and publishing. 'Horace likes newspaper work, yet says that were the pay for teaching better, and the tenure of posi- tion more certain, he would prefer work in school. He was, on the 17th of July, 1901, married to Miss. Besse Fackler, of Ord. They have one son, Mansell Fackler, born April 30, 1902. Ainslie Davis, Horace's younger brother, with an eye to good farming, has attended the state agri- cultural school in Lincoln; yet he has a leaning to- ward newspaper work. He has from time to time been engaged in the office of the Loyalist at North Loup, and with Horace at Ord ; also, he was, as has been said, associated with his brother two years as office manager of the Leader-Independent, at Gree- ley. He is as yet unmarried. Mary Davis, sister of Horace and Ainslie, com- monly known as ''Little Mary," is at home with her —141— parents. She is a close attendant at school, and has, I guess, an eye open toward the high school, — maybe something beyond it. Ora Crandall, eldest daughter of my sister Genia, was graduated from the North Loup high school with the class of 1901. In September of that year she began setting type in the office of the Loyalist. In the November following she went to Milton to attend school. While in college she paid her way in part by working in the office of the Milton Jour- nal. She won two prizes there in college oratorical contests. She returned, in April, 1903, to North Loup, and worked a part of that summer in the of- fice of the Loyalist. In December she came back to Milton and was in college the rest of the year. In August 1904, she was married to Peter Clement, of North Loup. Peter was a teacher in the high school at Darlington, Wisconsin. They kept house in Darlington the following year, but in 1905 he be- gan teaching in the high school at David City, Ne- braska ; and they are now living there. Paul Crandall, Ora's eldest brother, was gradu- ated in the spring of 1902 from the home high school. About Christmas time in 1904, he came to enter Milton College, where he is still studying. He has a natural liking for the study of electricity. Hazel and Horace, the younger children are still at home. Loyal Terry, only son of my sister Emma Terry, went from North Loup to Boulder with his parents in 1890. He has lived there ever since, except a few months in 1902, when he was at work at Hammond, —142— ^] CALVIN AND ETTA CRANDALL PERCY CRANDALL GEORGE CRANDALL ESTHER CRANDALL ADA CRANDALL CECIL CRANDALL Louisiana. In January 1905, he was married to Miss Ethel Coon, of Boulder, and they have estab- lished their home there. Cecil and Ada Crandall, daughters of my sister Ettie, are both students at Milton College, and are doing good work.They began study there in Sep- tember, 1905. The two boys, Percy and George, attend the village schools of Milton, and Esther, the youngest girl, is a pupil in the country school near their home, two or three miles north of the village. UNCLES HENRY AND GEORGE THORNGATB. I have said that in the spring of 1866 my Uncles Henry and George Thorngate moved from Dakota to the vicinity of Brookfield, Linn County, Missouri. I have asked Uncle Henry to tell the story of their life in Missouri and later removal to Nebraska; and he has done so as follows : — During the winter of 1865-66, Frank Babcock had letters from his brother-in-law, of St. Catharine, Linn County, Missouri, that caused him to decide to leave Dakota and settle in Missouri. A little later Elder George C. Babcock, who was brother to Frank, made up his mind to go there, too, and he induced my brother George and his young wife, Arloena, to go with them. Then they together persuaded our father-in-law, William Crandall, and his family and that of Matthew McCormick to go also. Nat- urally they wanted Renda and me to go with them, and we did so, tho we did not all start at the same time. This move was not altogether to my liking, —143— yet I could not consistently ask Eenda to remain in Wisconsin when nearly all of her father's fam- ily were to settle together in Missouri. So on the 29th day of May, 1866, we left our home in Dakota for what was to be our new home in Missouri. We drove thru to St. Catherine in a little more than a month, arriving there July 4. Not having a house in which to settle at once we went into camp near where Frank Babcock and my brother George and their wives were living, they having arrived before we did.Frank soon moved into another house, and then v/e went into the house with George. We had not been there long before we began to have the fever and ague. This so shook us up that we felt somewhat discouraged. Tho we were blue when the chills crept up and down our backs, we got what amusement we could out of it all. One day while Eenda was having a hard shake and was crowding close up to the stove in search of warmth, our Herbert, then about five years old, came in from the garden and crawled under the stove — one of the old-fashioned, elevated-oven kind. He had a chill, too, and was hunting for comfort. He had in his hand a little pail. His grandma asked him what he had been doing, — if he had been eating tomatoes. The little fellow said, as his teeth chat- tered, that he had eaten ''only one pail-full!" We found, that season, little profitable employ- ment. It was a semi-secession region and we were Yankees, several of us not long since in the Union army. A few months before this time the Hannibal —144— and St. Joseph Railroad Company had put upon the market a tract of land in that county, a part of it being about ten miles north-west of St. Catharine, on what was known as "The Brookfield Divide." In the spring of this year Elder George Babcoek, his son-in-law, Henry Chase, and George Thorngate, had taken out contracts for forty acres each of this land. Elder Babcoek and Henry Chase moved up to their land, but George remained in St. Catharine, where he was teaching school, and continued to teach for, I think, two years. In October of 1866 Renda and I moved into a small house on a farm owned by Watson Crandall, which was three-quarters of a mile north of the vil- lage. We remained there until the 17th of the fol- lowing March, when we too, moved up to ''The Dvide." We went into the same house with He- man Babcoek. In the mean time my brother George had, as he intended to continue teaching, turned over to me his land contract. This land was just across the road from Heman Babcoek 's place. We all found it uphill work getting started there on the open prairie. All the land we wished to use for crops had to be fenced with rails, for that was before the day of barbed wire. We had taken a lease of a piece of timbered school land on Long Branch, nearly a mile from the forty on the prairie, and I did some hard work that spring, splitting and hauling about 1,200 heavy rails to the farm and building them into fence before beginning to break up the prairie sod for a crop. I had no team of my own, so I bought a pair of mules at a high pric€, —145— running in debt for them. Two years later I turned them back to the man of whom I got them. In the spring of 1867 Elder James Bailey came as a missionary to our neighborhood. After preaching few times he thot best to organize a Seventh Day Baptist church there, which he did. It had thirteen constituent members. It was to be known as the Sev- enth Day Baptist church of Brookfield, Missouri. Elder George C. Babcock was chosen pastor and I was elected deacon. During this summer I did not break up much land, and so did not raise much of a crop. I spent consid- erable time getting out timber for a house. I cut logs and hauled them five miles to a portable mill to be sawed into lumber. I cut and split into blocks a lot of Cottonwood timber and hauled these to a mill in St. Catharine to be sawed into shingles, giving one half for the sawing. Before leaving our home in Wisconsin Renda had made a nice rag carpet of twenty-eight yards, which we expected to put down in our new house in Mis- souri. But we found that we needed a house more than we did the carpet; so I traded it to a lumber merchant in Brookfield for a thousand feet of com- mon boards, which made the sides of our house. We papered it inside with newspapers. We moved into this place about the first of October, 1867. As I have already said, I did not get much land broken up during the first two years nor raise much in the way of crops ; but, besides fencing and break- ing and building, I worked out a part of the time. The first two or three winters I cut and hauled eon- —146— siderable eordwood to the Brookfield market, but be- cause it was so far away — seven miles from our tim- ber — the profits were small. I went down into Chariton County, about forty miles south, and bought apples and peaches to sell in the villages along the railroad. This work paid me pretty well. Brother George taught the school at St. Catharine about two years. In the early part of the winter of 1868-69 he moved to what was known as the Cary district, about ten miles north-west of St. Catharine, where he taught that winter. In the summer of 1869 he taught in the Fosher district, three miles north of where we lived. In the summer of 1869 a new school house was built in our neighborhood on *'The Ridge." I was clerk of the school board for the district and had the letting of the contract for the erection of the building. Brother George was our first teacher there. In August, 1869, Heman Babcock and family, and his father, decided to go back to Wisconsin on a visit. So Renda and I concluded to go with them. We made the trip with our teams, and arrived at Dakota on the 15th of September. Heman and his family and his father returned to Missouri in November, but Renda and I and our Herbert remained at Da- kota until spring. In March we sold our team and returned to our Missouri home by rail. During the winter while we were visiting in Wis- consin my brother George had a small log house built on the north part of our farm, and he and his family made their home there until October, 1878, when the moved to North Loup, Nebraska. He had —147— for some time been failing in health, and, because of this, he was obliged to give up teaching — the work he liked best. His last term of school was that in our new school house in the winter of 1869-70. Having sold our team and wagon at Dakota and used a part of the money to pay our fare home, I found myself not a little handicapped in my work. During the following two years we had some pretty severe attacks of Avhat is known as "the blues." But in November, 1872, I was allowed a pension of four dollars per month, and this brot with it back pay amounting to $424. This was to us at that time a large sum of money. It set us on our feet again, and the world began to look brighter to us. I spent a part of the following winter peddling va- rious notions and drygoods, buying and selling hides, pelts and furs. In this business I traveled with a two horse team and wagon, and made good profits. It was, I think, in the winter of 1871-72 when we organized a literary society and lyeeum. This was the outgrowth of the society in which the most of us had been associated back in Dakota, Wisconsin. Much good and no little enjoyment came to us thru the influence of this society. About this time we began to cast about for a name for our '* Corners", or neighborhood, and it was de- cided to call the place Branchville. But when it came to be known that our school house stood with- in a few rods of the geographical center of Linn county the name was changed to Linn Center. Dur- ing this same fall of 1871 the idea was conceived —148- that we should have a postoffiee. So a petition was circulated to that effect, and the result was that the postoffiee department at Washington directed that an office be established at Branchville, Missouri ; and I was appointed postmaster. Yet, tho we were giv- en a post office, no provision was made for the car- rying of the mail. Besides, because the salary was so small, I declined the appointment of postmaster and recommended that the office be discontinued. About this time I was appointed Justice of the Peace for what was known as Locust Creek town- ship. This was to fill a vacancy. The business of the office, however, brot me but little pay. In the spring of 1873 I was elected Justice of the Peace. That year the township system of government went into effect, and I was made chairman of the town board. The other members of this board were old settlers and older men, too, than I. During that term of office I received some honor and, for the time I spent, good pay. After the organization of our church, and until the time when our school house was built, we held our Sabbath services in private houses; but after that in the school house. For about two years Un- cle George Babcock was our pastor, but after that we had no regular preaching. It was, I think, in the year 1874 when the Rev. Samuel R. Wheeler, of Pardee, Kansas, — now Nortonville — came to us, under the direction of the Missionary Board, and held meetings for a few weeks. I think he was there four different times in his work.He preached not only at our place but at some other neighboring —149— school houses. During his labors in the spring of 1876 there was quite a revival, and several converts joined our church. The winter of 1875-76 was a mild one, and about the first of January James H. Crandall and I talked over the matter of going to North Loup, Nebraska, to visit our relatives and other friends there, and to take a look at the country. We got ready and started on the journey the 17th of January. We went on horseback and led a third horse we had agreed to take to Mr. Horr at North Loup. We went by way of Weeping Water, Nebraska, where my brother Charles then lived, and stopped three or four days to visit with him and his family ; also the Torrances, who once lived at Dakota. Brother Charles' wife was, before their marriage. Miss Eugenia Torrance. We found Herman Rood there on a visit, and he went on to North Loup with us, riding our extra horse. We spent nearly two weeks visiting our friends at North Loup and in that vicinity, after which we sold our horses and returned by rail to our home in Missouri. While at North Loup our friends took considerable pains to show us the country. They hoped we would find places on which we would like to locate, tho Mr. Crandall had no thot at any time of making his home there. One quarter-sec- tion of land was shown to me that had been taken by a young man who wished to abandon it. He was willing to take ten dollars for his right to the land. I did not say much about it; yet as a mat- ter of fact I would not at that time have taken the —150— land as a gift, and been required to live on it. That place is where John Barnhart now lives, and it would probably sell, with the improvements on it, for $8,000. As my brother George's health continued to fail, he and Arlie and our friends at North Loup, espec- ially our father there, thot it would be wise for him and his family to move to North Loup, where they might obtain a homestead claim. So on the 14th day of October, 1878, I started with my team and wagon to move them to Nebraska. We arrived at North Loup on the last day of the month. While I was at North Loup at this time it was thot that the railroad land there would soon be put upon the market. So I selected an 80-acre tract which I thot I would like, when the opportunity came, to purchase. This w^as about two weeks after the great prairie fire of 1878. It had swept over that part of the county, and I can assure you that I was not fascinated with the looks of the country. I returned to my home in Missouri, arriving there only a few days before the beginning of a severe winter. By this time several of our Seventh Day Baptist families had moved away, and others were planning to go. And so we decided that it would be best for us to go to North Loup to live. We wanted to have our children grow up under as good influ- ences as possible and among people of our own de- nomination. But there came to us another ques- tion. If we should go where my father and step- mother and other relatives lived, Renda would have —151— to leave her aged father, brothers and sisters. Our decision was made in accordance with what it seem- ed to us was for the best good of our children. We began in the early part of the following summer to lay our plans for removal. On the 29th day of September, 1879, we, in company with Uncle John Larkin and wife, Henry Chase and family, and Uncle George Babcock, started for North Loup, ar- riving there on the 20th of October. We had two teams of our own and drove along six cows. Ella McCormick, daughter of Renda's sister Mary, made the trip with us and that winter she taught the first term of school in the frame school house in what was known as the Barker district. In the spring of 1880 she returned to her home in Missouri. When we arrived at North Loup Brother George and family were living in the original ''dugout" on George Rood's homestead, and we staid for a short time with them. But before leaving Missouri I had made arrangements to rent the house and farm owned by Mrs. l^.Iary Babcock, and where Solon Terry was then living. Solon soon moved to the village, and in the early part of November we set- tled in the house he left. We continued to rent and live on this place three years. Brother George had taken a homestead near where we lived, but there was no house on it. Not being able to build at once he and his family did not occupy their place until the fall of 1880. When we arrived at North Loup there was no railroad nearer than Grand Island, fifty miles away; and, as we could not get coal, the fuel question was at that time a serious one. The most of our wood had to be hauled from the "Oak Canyons" in the western part of Valley county or from the "Cedar Canyons" over in Garfield County. The winter of 1880-81, was, I think, the most severe we have ever known in this country, and we found it very diffi- cult to get fuel. We had to resort to corn and corn- stalks a part of the time to keep up our fires. And then another serious problem confronted us that winter; it was how to get our wheat and corn ground into flour and meal. All our mills were run by water power, and the extremely cold weather had frozen the streams almost solid, so it was very diffi- cult to get any grinding done. Yet in due time spring came, the snow and ice thawed, the water began to run and the mills began to grind, so we soon had bread and to spare. In November, 1882, we moved into Dr. Badger's "dugout," near where Samuel McClellan's barn now stands. In September and October of that year our son Herbert was very sick with typhoid fever. He did not fully recover his health for sev-^ral months. During the three years we had been living here we had broken up land as we could on the farm we had bought of the railroad company. What we broke up we planted to crops, and we rented some other land besides. This eighty acres of land w« got of the railroad lies a mile south of the Metho- dist church building in North Loup. In August, 1883, we had a house built on the place, and on the 28th of that month we moved into it. We lived there and worked the farm until October, 1891^ when we rented the farm to our sons Herbert and Gaylord and moved into the house in North Loup owned by the Rev. G. J. Crandall. While on the farm we had various degrees of success. Some years our crops were good and prices fair; on other years we had scant harvests and low prices. About the first of December, 1885, we heard that Father Crandall was very sick at his home near Brookfield in Missouri. So on the 6th day of that month Renda and Arlie, with our daughter Belie, started to Missouri to see him, and were gone about four weeks. During their visit there their father's health improved somewhat. While they were away our Gaylord was taken sick with a nervous ailment that proved to be a very serious matter — so much so that for some time we feared he could not recover. This nervous trouble required that for a long time he have constant care and attention. Much of the time he suffered intensely. It was not until the fol- lowing August that he recovered his health and stren^^th. Our principal reason for moving to the village was, to make it more convenient for our daughter Belle to attend school ; also, for our son Roy, who, in addition to attending school, was working in the Loyalist printshop. But, after living in the Cran- dall house for a year, we returned to the farm. Gay- lord, in the meantime, had been married to ^liss Mary Nurse, and they lived on the farm with us. In the following March, however, we returned to the village and moved into the house where we now —154— Home of Henry Thorngate, North Loup live, near the Seventh Day Baptist church. After my brother George and his family had lived four or five years on their homestead they traded places with the Kev. Mr. True, who had come from near Dakota, Wisconsin, in the ealy days of the settlement. This is the place now owned and occu- pied by the Meyers Brothers. They lived on this farm four or five years, then bought a house and lot in the village of North Loup and moved to that place. They lived there until George's death, De- cember 12, 1891. In giving the foregoing sketch of our family and that of my brother George, I have left some of the most important facts to tell last. During the years over which I have hurriedly passed our families were, according to the w^ay of the world, increasing — first by births and then by marriages, and still later by more births. Our son Herbert was born in Dakota, Wisconsin, October 9, 1861, about three months after I had en- listed and gone to war. He is the only ''Badger" among our children. On the 31st of March, 1887, he was married to Miss Eva Matteson, of North Loup. They now have three children, Vera, Vesta and Ernest. Ernest is an adopted son. They have lost one daughter, Ena, who died at North Loup, No- vember 4, 1896, at three years of age. Herbert is a farmer and lives near North Loup. Our son Gaylord was born near Brookfield, Mis- souri, May 30, 1870, and was married at North Loup, October 14, 1892, to Miss Mary Nurse. They now live about four and one-half miles north of Boulder, —155— Colorado, on a stock and hay ranch. They went to Boulder in 1898. They have three children — Paul, Ouy and Mabel. Our son Roy was born near Brookfield, Missouri, March 5, 1872, and was, May 31, 1894, married to Miss Zillah D. David, of Harvard, Nebraska. They have a family of three children-Roscoe Marion,Julia Belle and Bruce. Their home is in Lincoln, Ne- braska. Roy attended the high school at North Loup, but was not graduated. When E. W. Black started the Loyalist at North Loup, Roy began work in the office and continued to do so much of the time from 1888 till 1892, when he went to Lincoln, Nebraska, to work on the New Republic, state official organ of the prohibition party. Soon after that he was engaged with the Lincoln Daily Call, where he remained till March, 1894, when he worked a short time in the railway mail service. After his marriage he settled in North Loup and took charge of the Loyalist from June, 1894, till No- vember, 1895. From January, 1896, to June, 1897, he published the Arcadia Champion. In October of that year he went to Lincoln, where for a year and a half he worked for a type writer concern, then for nearly a year for a wholesale grocery house. He then received an appointment as letter carrier in Lincoln, and he has now served five years in that capacity. Our daughter Belle was born, July 14, 1878, at the home near Brookfield, Missouri. She was only a little more than a year old when we came to Ne- —156— braska. She entered the 8th grade of the North Lonp schools when she was ten years old, and was graduated from the high school in the class of 1895. During the following fall and winter she taught her first term in what was known as the ''Hardscrabble" district, twelve miles west of North Loup. The next year she taught six miles west of Arcadia. The fol- lowing three years she was teacher in the intermed- iate department of the North Loup schools. In the year 1900-01 she attended the state university, at Lincoln, and then taught a year ten miles southwest of North Loup. Beginning September 5, 1904, she was one year in charge of the 8th grade of the Ord schools, when she became assistant to the principal of the Ord high school, a position she still occupies. During the summer of 1905 she attended summer school in Lincoln, at the state university. UNCLE GEORGE AND HIS FAMILY. George was the youngest of Grandfather's four sons. He was only eleven years old when the family came to Wisconsin from Cattaraugus County, New York, and sixteen when we settled at Dakota. Aunt Hannah said of him in one of her last letters to me that ''he was a nice little boy — always was." Uncle Henry says, "I remember George as a pleasant, good-natured boy. He would at times get so 'tick- led' at anything he thot 'funny' that he would laugh so heartily hr could scarcely contain himself. Once when some of the boys and young men were on the ice at Crystal Lake, near Dakota, Oscar Bab- eock undertook to skate. It was the first time he -157— had ever tried the sport and his antics made every- body laugh — especially George. He was so amused at Oscar's maneuvers that he almost went into con- vulsions. As it was, it was a serious matter, for in his laughing so hard he sustained some kind of in- ternal injury and was sick. It took him a long time to recover from the effects of the fun he had. But that did not break him of his laughing. ' ' I had myself a great liking for Uncle George. When I was a little boy he took pains to amuse me, and I have always loved him for it. It was he who first told me about Santa Glaus and his reindeers. Our folks in those days had not got into the Christ- mas habit, but Uncle George told me one evening that, if I would hang my little stocking up by the window, Santa Glaus would come in the night, and that one of his reindeer would poke his little hoof through a crack in the glass and put something nice into my stocking. I could hardly see how such a thing could be, but I had a childish faith in my uncle, and so I did as he said. In the morning I found some pop-corn and a doughnut in my stock- ing. Those things were more than common to me. Nothing of the kind ever tasted so good before. But no reindeer ever did for me such a thing again ; how could he without the co-operation of parents that had the Ghristmas habit of thot? Now we have all come into Uncle George's notions of Santa Glaus, and I am glad of it. Uncle George, as he grew into young manhood, wanted more of an education than the common schools afforded, and so he began study at Milton —158— Academy, teaching a term of school now and then to pay his way. I have here a letter he wrote home from Milton in those days, in which he said he was studying German and music. I remember hearing that very letter read, and hearing my father remark that "the boy had better study something useful." But in these later years several of my father's grandchildren have studied music at Milton as well as various languages besides English. My father meant all right, tho. But, for all he liked school so well, in less than a month after the firing upon Fort Sumter Uncle George had enlisted and was soon in camp. Two months later his brothers had all enlisted. A year after his enlistment he was wounded, and later was discharged for disability. After coming home and teaching and getting well he enlisted again to serve till the close of the war. After the war he began teaching again. I suspect that he would like to have returned to college, but he was then thirty-one years old, so he married and with others went to Missouri to establish a home for himself. He continued his work there as teacher until, as Uncle Henry has said, his health so failed that he was compelled to give up his chosen occupa- tion. It was in the year after the war when he began to have a kind of spasms. These continued at irregular intervals, and as the years went by increased in both frequency and severity, till they affected his general health of both body and mind. In time these spasms developed into epilepsy. It could —159— never be determined what caused this disease. Some thot it the result of his wound in the army. All that could be done to bring about a cure was done, but with little or no effect. In what should have been the prime of his life he grew old and had to give up all work and wait patiently on the Lord. When I last saw Uncle George, in 1887, he was only 53 years old — eight j^ears younger than I am now — yet his gray hair and flowing white beard gave him a venerable appearance. He lived only four years longer. In his long sickness he required much attention and care. He could not for any length of time be left alone, and so for years Aunt Arlie and the boys watched over him tenderly and lovingly, doing for him everything that could be done. I suspect that in this way certain qualities of char- acter were developed in them that not all of us possess. Uncle George was early in life a Christian boy. When, after the close of the war, he taught a term of select school at Dakota he exerted over all of us in attendance a positive Christian influence. He had regular prayer meetings during the term. But I am told that thru the unfortunate influence of one or more persons in Missouri he came to think that reason, rather than faith, should be the governing principle in our relation to the higher life. All this was, however, after his ill health began to tell upon him. I am glad to know that in due time the faith of his earlier life came back to him to bless him in his declining years. In both spirit and manner Uncle George was a —160— genial companion, and he had a keen sense of humor. Little things that pleased him lighted up his face . with a wonderfully expressive smile I can see just how he looked when he thus manifested his pleas- ure. His voice was gentle in tone, and agreeable. With such a voice and smile as his he could more easily gain the confidence and good will of timid pupils than most teachers. He was a lover of music, and his violin led the singing in school. He was happy when playing his favorite instrument and singing either songs or hymns. Uncle Henry says of him that he would at any time rather sing with a company of his friends than eat a good dinner. It is with a feeling of no little sadness that I think of Uncle George's being so handicapped by disease that he could not reach out after the high ideals of his young manhood and become such a teacher as he once hoped to be. But the Father of us all knows what is best for every one of us. Uncle George and Aunt Arlie had two sons born to them in Missouri — Ray, December 24,1866, and Charles, September 2, 1868. Because of their fath- er's ill health they had while yet young to take upon themselves the responsibilities of life. Charles was married on the 5th day of September, 1891 to Miss Ethel Babcock. She is sister to Ella, wife of Ray Rood, my brother George's eldest son. Ray was married November 24, 1891, to Miss Flora David. Both have homes in North Loup and fine families. Ray and Flora have four girls and two boys, and Charley and Ethel three girls and two boys. I have —161— heard it suggested that one of the four boys may become a preacher. I hope he will, for I'd like to see a Thorngate in the pulpit — and a Rood or two, as well. Because of their father's inability to work Ray and Charley could not go to school as much as they wished. Ray had something of his father's longing for an education, but chose duty rather than desire. He has the name of being '*sot" in his way. This means, in other words, that, whatever others may say or do, he will do every time what he believes is right. This is his way at the ballot box. Both are members of the Seventh Day Baptist church, and are active in all lines of church work. They are yet young enough in spirit to be working members of the Young People's Society of Christian Endeavor. Ethel, wife of Charles, is a music teacher and is or- ganist at the church. In a musical way she is a most useful member of the church and society — always in her place. Ray is a paperhanger and painter and Charles works at carpentry. He and my brother Herman often work together at the trade. Aunt Arlie lives in North Loup. For some time her invalid sister, Angelia, has been living with her. UNCLE DAVID THORNGATE. In the early summer of 1845 Grandfather Thorn- gate and Uncle David left the old home at Persia, New York, and came to what was then the territory of Wisconsin to spy out the land. They liked the country about Johnstown, eight or nine mile south- —162— east of Milton, and Grandfather went back to Per- sia after the family. But David got work near Johnstown, on Rock Prairie, and remained there. He was then twenty-one years old and so was begin- ning to plan for himself. When our people, five years later, moved up near Princeton, and then to Dakota, Uncle David went, too; and he took up a "claim" half a mile west of my father's, and three miles up the Mecan River from Dakota. There on the bank of the river he built a log shanty, intending some time to do more building and make his home there. As he was yet unmarried the house was left vacant, and when our school district was organized three or four years later it was used for a school house. Miss Eugenia Torrance was our first teacher. She was a sweet young girl of whom we children thot a great deal. She afterwards became the wife of our Uncle Charles Thorngate, and our beloved Aunt Genia. I stood a few days ago by the cellar hole of the little house which Uncle David built. As I thot of both him and Aunt Genia I involuntarily uncovered my head. My mind went back to the days when twenty of us boys and girls sat on slab benches there and studied our simple lessons. I recalled my first little arithmetic, and the geography having in it the picture of the Prince of Wales and his young wife, Alexandra. I recalled the games we played and a mean trick I played on Reuben Larue; and the time we children killed a big massasauga, a kind of rattlesnake. I found the other day that locust trees had grown —J 63— thick about the place. They were in full and fra- grant bloom. Oak trees and birches grow along the bank, and in the marsh below there are hundreds of graceful young tamaracks, or larches. All about me birds were singing the same old songs of 50 years ago. Over across the field the crows were holding a convention. Pink phlox and blue violets bloomed in profusion with not a child to pick them for the teacher; and over it all was the deep blue sky of one of the rarest days in June. It did me good to stand there and think. My father and Uncle David were together a great deal. He was only a year younger than Father, and I think they must have been congenial companions. It was thru Father's coming to be acquainted with David at Clarence, New York, that he came to Per- sia, and so got into the Thorngate family. I think that on Rock Prairie and after we settled at Dakota Uncle David lived some of the time at our home. I remember him as a tall, square-shouldered man, with dark hair and beard. I think he was rather quiet and inclined to be serious. He was anything but boyish. When he was pleased a peculiar smile took possession of his face and a merry twinkle got into his eye that, it seemed to me, expressed more than the loudest laugh of some people. Tho quiet, he had a keen sense of humor. For some reason he let his land near my father's go, and later he spent some time in Michigan where his Uncle Herman and family lived. On the 7th of November, 1857, he was married to Miss Lucina Duell, of Ohio. A year or so after that he brot his —164— young wife and baby, Charles W., to Dakota, and went to keeping house about a mile east of where his father lived. He had no little mechanical genius and spent a part of his time doing carpenter work. When the Civil War came on all my mother's brothers made short work of getting into the serv- ice. Four sturdy, intelligent men they were, rang- ing in age from 27 to 37 years. George enlisted May 10, David and Henry June 23, and Charles July 23, all in the summer of 1861, and almost within three months after the firing on Fort Sumter. David and Henry were told by the enlisting officer that they might remain at home and work until it became necessary for them to go with the company to Camp Randall, Madison. They undertook to get Grandfather's summer's work as nearly done as pos- sible. They completed the harvesting and stacking of his grain, as well as settling up their own affairs so far as they could; and then they made ready to put up the hay. Uncle Henry went to the hay marsh along the creek close by the house, one after- noon, and began the mowing. He had just begun work, when a messenger came to the house with orders for both Henry and David to report at Waii- toma on the following morning. The company in which they had enlisted was to go at once into camp at Madison. Henry has told me the story as follows: **I hung up the scythe at once, and we began to get ready to go to war. When evening came we all sat and talk- ed the matter over until bedtime. Your Aunt Luci- na had gone a day or two before with a company of —165— people up to the "little pinery" to pick blackber- ries, and had left little Charley at your grandfa- ther's. As we talked that evening he climbed up to his father's lap and there went to sleep. When it was time to go to bed your Uncle David looked at the boy asleep in his arms and said, 'And how will it be with this little boy!' I can never forget the expression on his face and in his voice as he said this. I can see and hear him yet as he tenderly look- ed into the face of the little fellow and then carried him to bed. ''We arose early in the morning. David thot it best not to awaken Charley, and so he took his last look at him as he slept. Little did he think he should never see his little boy again. We thot when we went away that morning that we could surely get a furlough to come home a short time before leaving the state, and so we did not feel, in taking our leave, as we should have done had we known that we were going away for good. "Your Aunt Lucina, as I have said, was away from home, and so David did not see her gain. She felt hurt, on her return, that he had gone away with- out seeing her. She did not understand the fact that he could not have staid there till she came home, — that he must go then ; and that tho he might plead for the privilege, he could not come home to see her again. Some time after that she and Char- ley went back to her people in Ohio. After having been left a widow for some time she married a Doc- tor Barrett of Kent, Ohio. We never saw her again. "During the first seven or eight months of our —166— service in the army we were hardly ever separate from each other.. If one got a pass to go out of camp, the other got one, too. In general, we were together on guard duty. When he was detailed for service in the bridge construction corps I was lonely without him. But he lived only about two months after we were thus separated. **My earliest recollection of my brother David is^ that he was a young man, and always at work. It was, of course, my boyish imagination that made him a young man then, for he was not quite five years older than I. As he was the eldest boy in the family Father depended much upon his help. There was, you know,heavy timber where we lived in Cat- taraugus County and it was hard to work to clear the land. Your mother and I both remember Father's telling how David used, when he was a small boy, to tease for an ax so as to help chop down trees. One day when he was but little more than five years old he got what was called 'the knot ax.' He took the whetstone and spent some time trying to sharpen it. Then he said to Father, 'There! that is sharp enough now to cut a fellow's toes off!' In letting it down it dropped so that it hit one of his big t0es and cut it very nearly off. All thru life that stub of a toe was troublesome to him. ''When David grew to manhood he was equal to the strongest of men in chopping timber, cradling grain or any other heavy work. He was very fond of music, both vocal and instrumental. He was a good singer and used, in the earlier days, to lead the singing at our Sabbath services at Dakota. He was —167— converted when he was about eighteen years old, at Clarence, N. Y., and he joined the Seventh Day Baptist church there. He was one of the constitu- ent members of our church at Dakota. I think he had something of a tendency now and then to be- come despondent, and to look on the dark side of lif.e I presume he inherited this characteristic from our father." Not long ago I was talking with an old veteran who was an officer of the company — 1, Tf:h Wiscon- sin — in which Uncles David and Henry served while in the army. He said that both of them were good men and the best of soldiers. I have today seen an- other survivor of that company. He, too, had the same thing to say concerning David and Henry Thorngate. David died in a hospital at Washing- ton, D.C., July 19, 1862, after a little more than a year of service, and a week before what would have been his 38th birthday. Had he lived till today, July 26, 1906, he would be 82 years old. Uncle David was the only one of our family to die in the army. Tho others were very sick at times, and some were wounded, all came home alive. I think that because of his being the only one whose life was sacrificed in the service of our country I have a peculiar regard for his memor}^ The ''little boy," Charley, has for the last 25 years lived in Martin's Ferry, Ohio. He says of himself that he is just a common, everyday work- ingman. He has so outgrown his littleness that he is now six feet and two inches in height and weighs 200 pounds. He has a family of six healthy boys —168— ranging in age from 15 years to 23. Charles V.,the eldest of these boys, was married recently to a Miss Eva Lucile Fowler of Martin's Ferry. He is an electrician and has a good position in the tin mill of the American Steel Company, one of the largest in the country. His sons Fred and Ernest work at a freight depot. George and Ross are twins. They also work at the tin mill. Walter, the youngest is in school. All are doing well. None of his family have yet seen any of the rest of us. AUNT HANNAH THORNGATE. Aunt Hannah was born in Persia, Cattaraugus County, New York, February 13, 1827. She came with the family to Wisconsin in 1845, and was al- most always at home -until her marriage, at Dakota, August 25, 1860, to Robert Stillman. She had as good an education as could in those early days be got from the country school. She taught a term of school near Princeton not long before we moved up to Dakota. After the death of our grandmother, and, in fact, from the year before her death. Aunt Hannah was the housekeeper. Grandfather's second wife, whom he brot home in March, 1857, was a sickly woman, and so Aunt Hannah was still the mainstay of the household. And she was a good housekeeper, too. Her butter was known as the best brot to market. We who were children then remember in particular Aunt Hannah's walk. From her birth one limb was shorter than the other and she limped. We used —169— to wonder why. Eobert Stillman was a native of Berlin,New York. About the year 1856 he settled near Peoria, Illinois. In the summer of 1860 he came to Dakota to visit the families of Deacon Prentice Maine and Alozo Coon, old friends of his. He became ac- quainted with Hannah, and about two months later they were married. He bot the farm of Alonzo Coon, two miles south of Grandfather's, and there he and Aunt Hannah established their home. He had with him one son, James, seven years old at the time of his father's marriage to my aunt. They lived on that farm until the spring of 1866, when Uncle Robert sold out and moved to Farina, Illinois. They started at the same time Uncle Henry and his family set out for Brookfield, Missouri, all driving along together as far as Newville, near Mil- ton, Wisconsin, where Uncle Robert and his family stopped to visit a son by a former wife. When they got to Farina Uncle Robert bot a farm not far from the village, and there they lived till his death in 1878. The son, James I. Stillman, took to learning, and in due time entered Milton College, from which he was graduated in 1878. He taught school several terms and did other work to pay his way thru col- lege. He was one of the strongest students of the school. The next year after graduation he began the study of law in Vandalia, county seat of Lafay- ette county, Illinois, and was , in February 1882, admitted to practice before the supreme court of the state. In 1886 he was chosen county judge- —170— November 20, 1887, he was married to Miss Sarah Meek, of Vandalia. James was regarded as one of the best lawyers in in that part of Illinois, and the future seemed to have much in store for him. But only seven weeks after his marriage, after a short illness, he died. He was considered not only a bright lawyer and an upright judge, but a man whose character was above reproach. He was said to have been ''the soul of honor, universally liked and admired by all who ever came into contact with him, either socially or in a business wa5^" At the time of James ' death Aunt Hannah was liv- ing in Farina. She had a small revenue from a piece of land she owned and she did some work that added a little to her income. There she lived among friends she had known for years, but I guess she was sometimes lonesome for the company of those who were of her own family. She made two or three visits among her old friends, and my mother went once or twice to see her at Farina. The infirmities of old age were, in the meantime, coming upon her. In the early part of the year of 1904 her strength began to fail her and she wanted to go to North Loup and be among her own relatives; and so in the early spring my brother Walter went to Farina af- ter her. With his good care she made the journey comfortably, and was soon settled in the home with Mother and Walter. The two old sisters, having been apart all the time for 38 years, took a great deal of comfort in living over again in memory their younger days. But soon Aunt Hannah's health so —171— tailed that she had to keep her bed. She suffered in- tensely from eczema and a complication of other troubles, but she had the best of care. On the 18th. day of November her spirit was released from her old and worn out body and she went to her home where there is always sweet rest and no such thing as pain. She was buried near the graves of her fa- ther and her brother George, in the North Loup cemetery. She was a member of the Seventh Day Baptist church at Farina. Aunt Hanah was a good woman. Being a Thorn- gate she was rather quiet. She did more thinking than talking. She was quite a ready writer. The ■Sabbath Recorder contained now and then some of her thots. She was a good letter-writer, and she liked to correspond with her closest friends. I have now a bundle of old letters that she gave me. They were written to her by her brothers in the army and other old friends of Dakota days. She prized such friendly messages very highly, ^he memory of her old friends was dear to her. She cherished family traditions, and well she might when there was almost nothing unpleasant to remember. She helped me very much in writing this family sketch. She had a ready memory ; she appreciated the earn- est and prayerful efforts of her parents, tho poor in this world's goods, to bring their children into hon- est manhood and worthy womanhood ; she cherished the memory of their many homely virtues; she un- derstood something of the subtle influence of their daily life upon their children and their children's children; she thot much of these things and was —172— ■glad that their lives and example, their labor and patience, their obscure struggle for what was best in this life, their hopeful Christian faith, might be held up as well worth the earnest emulation of those who live after them. Her trust in God was firm to the last. I have be- fore me, as I write, a sheet of paper on which not long before her death she tried to write me a letter. It is covered with faint markings of a pencil that she could not guide. I can make out just enough of the words she tried to put down to know that she wanted to tell me she was trusting Christ for salva- tion. The last sentence is fairly plain; it is this: *'I cannot see to write, but this is the main part of it. Your Aunt Hannah." God grant that everyone of us, when we ap- proach the river of death, may feel to say as Aunt Hannah did, that to trust Him is the main part of life. I would rather have her faith and hope and trust than houses and lands and a bagful of gold. THE FAMILY OF UNCLE CHARLES THORN- GATE The following sketch was prepared by my cousins Ella and Ethel Thorngate. It tels in a comprehen- sive manner the story of their family life, and con- tains loving tributes to the character and worth of their parents, now in the home of he blest Our parents, Charles Thorngate and Eugenia Tor- rence Thorngate, were married, June 5, 1856, in Da- kota, Wisconsin, and early in the spring of the fol- lowing year they came to Nebraska. It was a long —173— and hard journey for the young couple at that time of year, yet they were starting out to make a home for themselves, and, with the hopefulness natural to youth and love,they did not think much of ordinary hardships. Arriving in Nebraska, they first stopped at Nebraska City, then one of the chief towns of the territory. They soon went to Salt Creek, near the present site of Lincoln, and there they took up a homestead. INDIANS. At that time Indians were numerous about Salt Creek. They resented the intrusion of the whites into their territory and began to make trouble for them. In other parts of the territory — Nebraska was not admitted as a state until ten years later — several families were massacred, and such distress- ing rumors came concerning these barbarities that our parents and other settlers decided to give up their claims and return to Nebraska City. Our mother used to tell us an interesting incident concerning some Indians at Salt Creek. One day while she was working about the house a big Indian appeared at the door and demanded something to eat. There was very little food in the house of any kind, and she was not a little frightened as she tried to think what to do; but she remembered a batch of soda biscuits she had attempted that morn- ing. They were a failure and about as hard as rocks,but she decided to try one of them on the big chief. He ate it, grinned his satisfaction and want- ed more, declaring that the little white woman was —174— *'heap good squaw." After this Indian went away Mother felt a sense of relief, but was soon surprised by other red men who wanted biscuits, — and then others came singly and by twos and threes, all want- ing biscuits. The fame of them had spread, and thus Mother made those Indians her firm friends. THE FIRST BABY. Our parents did not live in Nebraska City long after returning from Salt Creek, but moved about 1858 over into Fremont County, Iowa, settling at what was then known as Eureka — afterwards Civil Bend. Their first child, Walter Leslie, was born on the 19th of April. He lived only a year and a half. His life, tho short, was sweet; and with his affec- tionate ways he was, while he lived, the sunshine of the home. His death was a heavy blow, but in due time other children came to brighten the home. Ida Ella and Jennie were born at Civil Bend. Grand- father Torrence and his family came, soon after our parents moved to Civil Bend, to live near them there. It must have been a great comfort to our young mother to have her father and mother so near her. At Civil Bend Father worked at his trade, that of a carpenter, until the beginning of the Civil War, when he was one of the first to respond to the call for troops. He enlisted July, 23, 1861, in the Fourth Iowa Infantry. Grandfather had a large house, and, as he was a strong anti-slavery man, his place was made one of the stations of the "underground railroad" to aid escaping negroes on their way to Canada. Grandpa —175— used to tell of a certain instance when some refu- gees came to him in a terrible fright, saying that the slaveholders were close after them, and asking to be hidden away from them. Grandpa quickly looked about for a place to put them. In a field nearby there were shocks of wheat, and he bade the negroes crawl in among the sheaves. They did so, and were well hidden, soon their pursuers came riding in hot haste and demanded their slaves. Grandpa told them to search his house and premises, which they did; but they did not think of looking into the shocks of grain; and so they went away baffled. IN WAR TIME. Father served in the army four years. His regi- ment was all the time in active service and took part in some heavy battles ; yet, though he was sometimes in ill health, he was never wounded. Once when he was home on furlough he and Mother, with Ida and Ella, then little girls, went back to Dakota, the old home in Wisconsin, to visit Grandfather Thorngate and other friends. Our mother, like all other soldiers' wives in those days, had need of much courage and a heroic spirit, — which, indeed she did have. Father's being always at the front where there was much fighting gave her cause for constant anxiety. And then the cost of living was very high. Here is an extract from one of her old letters to our Aunt Hannah Thorngate, dated February 25, 1865: **Wood costs from eight to ten dollars per cord; Sugar is 30cts to 35c per pound ; tea. $2.50 to $3.50 per pound and coffee 65cts —176— per pound; cotton cloth T5cts to $1.00 per yar^j'eal- ico, -iDc to 55c per yard; wool sold in the fall for $1.00 per pound. I am told tha.t it is liiglicr now. Butter and cheese sell readily for 50cts per pound. ''I suppose everything is higher priced here now than it would be if the country were not over- run with refugees from Dixie land. Thfey are driven from Missouri because they will 'not swear allegiance to the Union, so they come up here, and they are destitute of everything on which to live. But they must have something to eat, let it cost what it may. ]\Iany of them have money, yet others are wholly destitute, and there is much suffering among them. There are half a dozen such fami- lies in our neighborhood and they are living on the charity of the people." FATHER BOUGHT A FARM. Not long after Father came home from the war he bought a farm about two miles from the tovfn of Percival, which was four miles from Civil Bend. A railroad had by this time come thru the state, and Percival was a new town on this line. The post- office was moved there from Civil Bend. The fam- ily, home was, after this, on the farm, but Father rented the land to a neighbor and still worked at the carpenter's trade. He was not at all strong, and he suffered much from bronchitis, which he had contracted during his army service. He had always an annoying cough. 177— KEMOYAL TO WEEPING WATER, NEBRASKA. Mother's younger sister, Susan, was not long after this married to Frederick F. Rexford, and they went to Weeping Water, Nebraska, to live. In the northern part of our count}' there was a college town, Tabor. Many people going back and forth between Weeping Water and Tabor made Grandfa- ther Torrence's place a sort of halfway house, or inn ; and so it came about that our folks got to be in- terested in the little town over in Nebraska and werepursuadedto move there. First, Mother's broth- ers, Barnum and Oscar, settled there and after them Grandfather and Grandmother. Later on Father found a business opening in Weeping Water, and he moved his family there in 1874. Soon after this our mother was taken very ill. From September until the following April she suffered with a long run of typhoid fever and typhoid pneumonia. It v/a.f feared during this time that she w^nlri not recover, yet God in his goodness spared her life for us. FATHER'S BUSINESS IN W^EEPING WATER. After about a year's residence in Weeping Water Father went into the furniture and undertaking business, having as a partner a Mr. John Chase, who had come there from Council Bluffs, Iowa. The firm name was Thorngate and Chase. After several years this partnership was dissolved and Father alone conducted the furniture business. He was also a cabinet maker. When the firm dissolved Mr. Chase took the undertaking department, and he sold hardvv'arealso. Later, he bought out Father's business —178— and again combined the two stores. Father then put up a new building and opened a general store. His health had been poor ever since the war, and after this it began to fail more noticeably; so he took with him into partnership Horace H. Russell, a young man, son of Judge Calvin Russell. But Fa- ther's health continued to fail and he was obliged gradually to give up the responsibiliy of the busi- ness to his partner. At last, finding himself unable longer to work, he sold the stock to Mr. Russell, re- taining ownership of the building, however. FATHER'S DEATH. In August, 1883, our eldest sister, Ida, was mar- ried to Horace Russell. Three months later, Novem- ber 7, 1883, after long suifering, our father died, leaving Mother with three daughters for whom to care, — Ella, Jennie and Ethel, the last only four years old. Father was a man who Vv^as held in high respect by all who knew him. He was a quiet man and undemonstrative, yet kind and affectionate. He possessed a high sense of justice and fairness that made him loyal to his friends and quick to de- fend the w^eak, or those whom he thought had in any way been wronged. He was a natural musician and played well on sev- eral instruments, among them the flute, the fife, the violin, and the cello. He is known to have made at least one violin, and he often repaired other instruments of that kind. He had considerable lit- erary ability. When young he had the training of a good literary society in the village of Dakota, his —179— Wisconsin home, and in later years he occasional- ly wrote articles for the papers. At one time a friend of his was in disgrace and under the shadow of an offense that, if proven, might send him to the penitentiary. Father knew the facts of the case and, feeling' that there were extenuating circumtan- ces, he wrote for his friend a loyal and masterly de- fense. This was published over his own signature in one of the leading state papers. Though written in defiance of public sentiment, and in spite of the harsh criticism to which it might subject our father, this letter undoubtedly did a great deal to change public opinion and save both the man and his family from disgrace. Father was a member of the society of Odd Fel- lows, and of Lafayette Post, No. 61, Grand Army of the Republic. OTHER ^MEjIBERS OF THE FA]\IIEY. To return to other members of the family, Ida and Ella attended school in both Percival and Weeping* Water. After finishing school nt the latter place they spent some time in study at Tabor College, the State CongTegationalist school for Iowa, though neither completed the Course. The Weeping- Water schools were not always of the best, and so both girls took private lessons for two years of the Reverend James Chase, Sr., fatlier of the John Chase once partner with Father in business. This Rev. Mr. Chase was a Yale graduate, a splendid old nuni and a fine schol- ar. He was cousin of Salmon P. Chase, once Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court. Under —180— his instruction the girls got their start in Latin. Ida showed some talent for painting, while Ella's taste was for music ; so Ida took lessons in painting at Tabor College and Ella lessons on the piano. Ida, also, had some musical ability and played and sang fairly well. Ella later attended Doane college at Crete, Nebraska, the state school of the Congregation- alists, for a part of a year and studied music there. Jennie had about the same schooling as her elder sisters, attending the i)ublic schools of Weeping Wa- ter until she had completed the course — which was not then up to the high school standard — and then going for a part of a year to Tabor College. There she took lessons in both drawing and music. Tho she payed the piano quite well her special taste was for art, and she was always drawing pictures. She had, however, little opportunity to cultivate this talent. SISTER IDA AND HER FA]MILY. We have said that on the 28th of August, 1883, our sister Ida vv^as married to Horace Russell. They established their home in Weeping Water, where they lived until her death on the 29th of May, 1889. Her sickness was the same as our fath- er's. She left two little girls, Grace Irene and Ma- bel. Ida was a member of the Zetetic Club, a ladies' literary society, of which our mother was also a member. It was one of the first women's clubs in the state, its original purpose being the study of -standard literature. It is still in existence. Horace Russell, after going out of business in the —181— store which he bought of Father, engaged in the sale of musical instruments. He played the piano to some extent, also several wind instruments in the band. Grace and Mabel inherited from both their parents a love for music. At the time of her mother's death Grace was five years old. She went to live with her father's parents, then residing in Plattsmouth, Ne- braska. Mabel, at the time of her mother's death, was only a year and a half old. Our mother took her then into our home and loved and cared for her just as tenderly as she had loved and cared for us when we were little. But in 1895 Mother, too, died and little Mabel was again homeless. For about two years after this she lived with different relatives in Weeping Water. In the meantime her father had married again, and Mabel went to live with him at Villisca, Iowa. Grace went there about the same time and the two were once more together in the same home. But in 1902, owing to a change in her father's business and domestic affairs, Mabel came to Omaha and into the care of her aunt Ella Thorn- gate, who was teaching in the city. Here she at- tended the public schools and entered the high school. Mabel showed decided musical talent, and so in the fall of 1905 she went to Weeping Water, w^here she is now, April, 1906, attending the high school and studying music in the Weeping AVater Academy. She is living with two unmarried sisters of her father 's. Grace has, the most of the time, made her home —182— with her father's relatives. She was oTaduated from the high school of Villisca, Iowa, and later studied music at Highland College, Des Moines, Iowa, tak- ing voice culture. At present she is livin?; at Lin- coln, Nebraska, and is a seamstress. ELLA AND HER AVORK. At the age of seventeen Ella began teaching. For a sliort time she taught in Weeping Water, after which she spent a part of a year at Doane College. She then returned home and resum^ed her work as teacher in the schools at Weeping Water. In the fall of 1887 she accepted a position in the schools at Omaha, where she has taught ever since. JENNIE AND HER FAMILY. Jennie was married in January, 1886, just a few days before the golden wedding anniversary of Grandfather and Grandmother Torrence, to Edward Payson Churchill, a son of Prof. Charles Henry Churchill, of Oberlin College.Edward Churchill had come to Weeping Water just after his graduation from Oberlin, upon invitation of a former college friend, and gone into business there. He was for a time a partner of John Chase, in the firm of Chase & Churchill, hardware and china salesmen. This Mr. Chase was the same who was at one time our fa- ther's business partner. At the time of their marriage Jennie was not quite nineteen years old. For about three years they lived in Weeping Water. During this time two chil- dren were born to them, Philip Charles and Ella, —183— After a time Chase and ChiircliiU dissolved partner- ship; vrhen Mr. Churchill and his little family re- moved to Lincoln, where he went into the real estate business. This was at the time of a great boom in Lincoln property. Later, in the consequent depression, Mr. Churchill, with many others, suf- fered no small loss. After living- in Lincoln about four years the fam- ily returned to Weeping Water, where Edward took the management of a pressed brick plant, making a success of the lousiness until the general financial deprerssion whicli sweT)t over the country in 1895 and, 1896. Our sister Jennie vras never strong in body, and about this time her health quite gave way. So Ed- ward decided to take her to his old home in Ohio, hoping that she would receive benefit from the change in climate. They v»'ent to Oberlin in the fall o£ 1894. Jennie received the most tender care from Edward's good mother, who loved her as if she were her own daughter. But she failed rapidly, and on the 6th day of the following January, her ninth wedding anniversary, her gentle spirit took its flight. Before her death they sent for Mother and she hurried to her bedside in time to see her once .more before she died. Her sickness, too, was the same as our Father's. Jennie was buried at Oberlin, and Mr. Churchiirs mother took charge of both children, Philip and Ella, and gave them a good hojne ; but within two years she, too, died, and again the little ones were left motherless. Since then Edward has been both —184— father and jnotlier to tliein. They lived in Oberlin and Youngstown, Ohio, till ?ilay, 1901, when they went with tiieir father to Seattle, Washington, Avhere he went into bnsiness. Philip is now in Vashon College, at Biu-ton, \Yash- ington. Ella attended the high ^eliiiol at Seattle, kee])ing house a part of the time for hei- father and brotlier, until this winter of 1906. In January of this year there came to her the advantageous oppor- tunity of going to Paris to spend a year with an nnele and aunt, Mr. and Mrs. Alfred V. Churchill, who are are artists there. She is now with them in that great city. Ella inherits her mother's love of art and shows considerable a])ility in that line. She is now, under her uncle's care, studying drawing and painting. ETHEL TIIORNGATE. Ethel was the fourth daughter, and baby of the family. She attended the public schools of "Weep- ing Water and the Academy, graduating from the latter school in 1898. She then attended Doane College for a year, w^hen she returned to Weeping Water and began work in a printing office. In the fall of 1901 she went to Lincoln, where she pursued some studies in the state university, work- ing a part of the time in a printmg office there. After two years of this work she secured a position as proof reader on the Lincoln Evening News. In this capacity, and that of reporter, she was connect- ed with that paper two years, then came to Omaha to engage in a similar line of work. She has in- —185— heritecl lier father's love for the violin and has studied it for several years. She and her sister Ella, the only remaining members of the family;, live together in Omaha. OUR MOTHER. Our mother, though quiet and unostentatious, was held in high esteem by those who knew her, as a woman of a noble character and high ability. She was not apt to put herself forward, but she was< ever kind and gracious to all v/hom she met, and those who knew her best loved her most. A lady who once came as a stranger to Weeping Water told years afterward of meeting Mother at the first social gatliering she attended after her arrival. She was a dear, white-haired old lady herself, and vshe said, with tears in her eyes: ''I thot your mother was the sweetest lady I had ever met — she was sa kind to me then.'' A neighbor who had known her for years said of her, ' ' She is the most unselfish per- son I ever knew." After Father's death Mother was left with her three daughters, Ella, Jennie and Ethel. Ella was teaching, and in a little more than tvro years Jennie was married. Mother kept her home, and as her father and mother became old and feeble she took them into it ; and when Ida died she took Mabel too. Grandmother, always hale and strong for one of her age, was taken suddenly ill and soon died, leaving to Mother the entire care of Grandfather. He was so stricken by Grandma's death that he failed rapid- ly. With her aged father and two children for whom to care, Mother was ever devoted, patient and —186— cheerful, though her burden must have been heavy. She gave them faithful and tender attention until on the 6th of September, 1895, just nine months after our sister Jennie's death, our good mother en- tered into her rest. Mother was a member of the Congregational church of Weeping Water, and was a faithful and consistent Christian. She was not apt to talk much of her religion, but she lived it all the time in her kind, patient, loving every day life. Mother loved music and had some literary ability. As one of the first members of the Zetetie Club, she took great pleasure in the study of literature, and in writing papers upon the subjects under considera- tion. Though she had not enjoyed the advantage of much early schooling, she was possessed of a good degree of native culture and refinement, and sought to perfect herself in the little things that are the outward evidence of true culture. But while our mother enjoyed her v/ork in her club, and vras devoted to it, it never took first place in her thought and purpose. Her home and all per- taining to it held ahvays the highest place in her desires and her affection. She was a true and loving daughter, wife and mother. The memory of the unselfish and devoted lives of our father and mother and our tvro sisters who have gone on before, comes to us who still live like a blessed benediction. —187- UNCLE HENRY AND AUNT REND A. Uncle Henry was sixteen years old when the fam- ily came to Wisconsin, and twenty-one Avlien we settled at Dakota. I do Jiot remember anything of him as a boy. I think he was more serious in manner when a young man than Uncle George was. As I remember him he was thotful and practical, and had about him something of his father's quiet dignity of manner, I may as well confess that I was a little afraid of him vrhen I was a child. I guess he never played with me much. He gained mj^ good will, tho, when he carried me on his back thru the deep snow to school. He has, of course, forgotten doing it, but I remember. Matt. 25 :40. During the next few years after our settlement at Dakota Uncle Henry was principally concerned in getting a start in life, and he was a steady, hard- working young man. He w^as one of the active members of the liteTary society at Dakota, and by his interest in the work of the society he, with oth- ers, received a training that was of great value to him. The young men of my grandfather's home were great readers. The two papers that came to all of our homes were the New York Tribune and the Sabbath Recorder, and I remember that Grand- father took the Milwaukee Sentinel, the leading newspaper of the state. I remember, too, that my uncles, Henry and George in particular, took ''The Phrenological Journal," published by Fowler and Wells; and they studied the science of Phrenolog.y to that extent that they undertook to "examine heads," that is tell by the "bumps" on a person's —188— HENRY THORNGATE LORENDA THORNGATE cranium what manner of man he was. And they got to be students of hydropathy, or "water cure," as we call it. According to that system of treat- ment, when a person was sick with any manner of disease he must be put into a "pack." This con- sisted in wrapping him in a sheet soaked in cold water and then covering him up w^ith a stack of bed clothing and keeping him there an hour or so — until hd was in so much of a sweat that he fairly begged to be let out. Uncle Henry "packed" me once when I had the measles. I thot it heroic treatment. I lost some faith in him as a doctor because I was not well at once. I slept one night in the winter at Grandfather's. When Uncle George got up in the- morning he took a bath in ice-cold water. You will perceive, my dear reader, that my uncles^ of the Thorn gate family were young men of ideas. It is my opinion that when a person gets out of bed on a winter morning in a room where the mercury is below the freezing point, and, before going down stairs, takes a cold-water bath, he is not only a per- son of ideas but of positive convictions. Well, my uncles were of that kind of folks. Uncle Henry took a liking to ]\Iiss Lorenda Cran- dall, vrho had come with her people to Dakota from the same neigjiborhood in New York where our family had lived, and on the 14th day of June, 1858, they were married. Aunt Renda was in those days a jolly girl, given to much laughing. She could see fun in most anything. Tho she has now had a long- life of hard work, and suiters from some of the ills, to wliich flesh is heir, she still iiiids something to -180— laugh at. When I saw her and visited with her last fall she made me think of the old days. She has practiced the doctrine, ''Laugh and grow fat." After I grew to manhood I found my Uncle Henry the best of company. I never enjoyed visiting with him better than I did last fall. Tho he was seventy- six years old he was hearty in manner, sociable in spirit and genial in temper. He and Aunt Renda have lived good lives, and now^ as the}^ w^alk togeth- er down the sunset slope, respected by their many friends and loved by their children, I guess that life does not seem to them to have been a failure. Their Christian faith tells them that it is still better further on. May God bless them both ! MY FATHER AND MOTHER. I do not feel like closing this family sketch until I have said some things in particular concerning my father and my mother. Neither had much opportun- ity for education. Grandmother Thorngate w^as, when my mother was young, often in ill health, and Mother had to stay out of school to help do the work. I have heard Father say that he never went to school more than six weeks all together. But he had a strong desire for knowledge. He became while yet young a great reader. Newspapers w^ere not then common and books were hard to get. He had the Bible, however, and he read that a great deal — some parts of it over and over again till he knew much of it by heart. Later he read other books, papers and magazines. He used to say that he forgot almost nothing of what he read. And —190— then he had the ability to recall readily what his memory held in store. Words for the expression of thot came to him easily and he became a ready speaker. But he did not know grammar, and his speech betrayed him. And then he was not free from some mannerisms in public speakin^^, such as are common to those who lack the culture of early training'. But for all this he was able to talk to the point and with no little force. He did con- siderable preaching' for our Seventh Day Baptist churches at Dakota and Berlin, and lectured fre- quently on the subject of temperance. Mother, too, got into the habit of reading a great deal, and as books and magazines came to be com- mon she became a well informed woman. At her present age, 83 years, she does much reading and keeps up with times. She was always a good letter writer, and those messages she sent to us in the army brought with them so much of m.other and home, of love and hope and good cheer, that they inspired us w^ith faith and courage. And the letter I got from her last week was just as neat in penmanship and clear in expression as these of forty-five years ago. I do not think my father got much religious train- ing in his boyhood. But he w^as religious by nature, and his bible study strengthened this tendency. I have said in another place in this book that, tho he did not know of another person in the world who kept the seventh da}' of tlie weelv as the Sabbath, he began to do so alone before lie was eighteen years old. With him, to believe a thing w^as right was to do it. This was the settled habit of his life. He —191— had a strong iiatiire, and was no goody-goody. I have seen his temper get so much the better of him that, but for the grace of God, I guess he woukl have used pretty strong Umguage. He was by nature not only strong but tender. Toward us children, espe- cially when we were young, he was very affectionate, yet we gave him without question quick and ready obedience. I guess that if he were now living and should tell me to do this or that I'd think of nothing- else than to obey him at once. I and my brothers remember that he did not spoil us l)y sparing the rod. lie Avhipped me once or twice when I did not deserve it: bnt he thot I did. I suspect that most fa- thers make some such mistakes. I have my- self found that one cannot always know what i.s best for careless boys. ]\Iy mother was a mild woman, — timid and unde- monstrative. She never thot she amounted to much. I think she sometimes wished it were so tliat she might accomplish some of the things strong v»^omen of the vrorld bring to pass. But she lived in a log house on the frontier, and, in spite of hard work, the wolf would soinetimes come prowling around the door. Children came into our home faster than dollars. There v»'as no sewing machine, no washing nuichine, no ejisy wny of doing ;niy liind of work. She sewed, and sew(id and sewed; aiul I of- ten saw big tears moistening the slovviy lengthening sciim. She Avas, I suppose, finding the problem of making both ends meet, almost too much for her. Sometimes she was playful, bnt she was not so ex- pressive of her emotions as Father Avas. She kissed —192-- Marianne Rood at home and fondled the baby, bnt did not manifest so much affection for those of us Avho had got out of the cra- dle. There was no time before I came home from the army when there was not a baby in our house. I may say here, too, that up to that time I had never seen a bottle with a rubber tube attached to the neck of it. Mother, too, had a deeply religious nature, yet she did not talk much about it. She sometimes spoke in meeting, but commonly broke down crying as she told hoAv unworthy she was. When she did this I alwa.vs felt guilty — as if I had been naughty, which, indeed, was quite likely to have been the case. Yet, on the whole, we children meant to be good. We always knew we had one of the best of mothers, but we did not know it so well then as we do now. Tho our mother was a timid, modest little woman, she could, when the occasion for it came, be as strong as the strongest. She could without a word of complaint, give up her four brothers, her husband and three sons for the defense of her country. She could, during those four long years of waiting and suspense, pray for us and bid us be of good courage ; She could care for the six children left at home: She could have faith in God and wait patiently and hopefully for victory, the end of the war and the re- turn of her dear ones. As I look back upon it all now, and think it all over, I feel sure that no braver, stronger, more he- roic woman lived thru those dark days than our bles- sed, good little mother. 1 tliiuk tliat wlien times were hard, and the out- look not encouraging, Father was more hopeful than Mother. As I remember him he was almost always cheerful. I think that ^Mother leaned on him more than she knew. She had little notion of business matters, and wlien he was taken from her she felt lost, — as if her trusted guide had suddenly left her in the dark. But her faith in the goodness of God asserted itself, and she was able to say, "Blessed be the name of the Lord. ' ' Mother's love now for her grown up children, and their children, is like a strong, deep, steady current, not like a babbling brook. And all these are in love Avith their mother and grandma. Everyone is glad to do all that is possible for her comfort, pleasure and happiness. I am glad I can say of both Father and Mother that they were as unselfish as any two persons I ever knew. Neither sought any pleasure or profit at the expense of others. Father's chief delight was found in the pleasure and good of those who were dear to him. He cared very little for his own com- fort. I think that, had he taken better care of him- self, he might still be living. Mother was like ma- ny another good nu)ther in being satisfied with what was left after all others had been served. Tho she may have had some personal peculiarities I have never yet found out that she had any faults at all. She would never knowingly do wrong. I think she took her characteristic traits from her father. It must be that my father and mother had now and then diflierences of opinion, for in many ways —194— they were by nature quite unlike; yet I cannot re- member anything at all like a quarrel between them. In fact, I cannot recall so much as a hurd word spo- ken l>y one to the other. I think each had full faith in the other. I suspect that it wns a good thing that Father's somewhat impulsive , emotional nature was held slightly in check by Mother's quietness and reserve. And no doubt his buoyancy and love of fun was what she at times most needed. I can even now liear her gentle rebuke. "Why, Charles,!'' come across fifty years of space. And there was no particular tone of displeasure in it, either. It seems to me that each of our parents was the com- plement of the other. Father, when we all sat around the fire of winter evenings, used to tell us stories of all sorts. — folk- lore jingles and conundrums. Nothing could j)lease us more than such evenings with him. Some of those jingles still ring in my ears. And then he used to play" blind fold" with us, and tumble on the floor with all of us that could climb over him. Af- ter we were tired of that we used to "play tricks." One evening he told me that if I would go out of doors and turn over three things he would tell me when I came back what I turned over last. While I was gone he leaned a chair against the door. It was quite plain to all on my return what I upset last. Another time he said that if I would go out of doors and stay till he called me I would be as big as Uncle David. Now there was nothing I wished more than to be a man, and so I went out gladly. Well, I stood around and waited, till I got so cold I -195— could stand it no longer: then I went in. I was dis- appointed that I was not big:, and I told Father so. But he, with a bit of twinkle in his eye, said that had I stayed till he called me in I would most certainly be as big as Uncle David. I saw the joke and felt foolish. While this kind of fun was going on Mother used to knit on our stockings, and look on and smile. Yet Mother used to laugh sometimes as hard as the rest of us. She could not read a humorous storj^ aloud, she laughed so. Now and then she would get off a joke. Once when I asked the distance between two places she answered, "Twice the length of a fool; if you don't believe it lie down and measure it." Such a remark was so unusual with her that it was all the more amusing. I am glad to remember that our home was not without the family altar. Dail}^ scripture reading and prayer led us children to feel that God was at all times within speaking distance; and I think our family worship had a greater influence for good over us than we then knew or even to this time appreciate. I am sorry that fam- ily worship is coming to be regarded as rather too old fashioned for these days. My mother is of medium height, slender, aud of of light complexion. When in middle age she weighed about 105 pounds; but now in her 84th year she weighs only 85 pounds. Father had dark hair aud beard, and ruddy complexion. He was five feet five inclies in height, thick set, and weighed about 170 pounds. —196— Walter (f. Rood A WORD ABOUT PERSONAL SKETCHES I have now compiled personal sketches of some length of all of Grandfather Thorngate's children and given brief accounts of the children of the fourth generation, our present young peo- ple; but have not taken much space to tell about us grandchildren— of the third generation. I sup- pose there is enough about us scattered all along thru the story. All along I have had my grand- father and grandmother, father and mother, un- cles and aunts, more in mind than the rest of us. We of the younger generations owe to them all that is worth while in us, and we all think of them with love and gratitude. Tho not perfect in life and character, they were good men and women. They acted well their humble part in life, and v/e can do no better for ourselves than to honor them in our own lives. There is much more that I would like to write about them; but if I should put down all I'd like to say, this book would be a big one,— too big. So now, dear reader, I bid you good bye. CONCLUSION I have had the pleasure of readhio- the ad- vance sheets of this family book. I am «:lad it has been written, and that it is nearing completion. I have tried as well as I could to keep ev- ery statement in it as close as possible to the truth. No error that may be found was intended. I am sorry to find several typo«>Taphical eri'ors. They are more annoyinOA July 6.1904 North Loud. Neb North Loup, Neb Oct. 22.1904 Oct. 22.HX)4 Mark. 99 100 101 102 III m 1 m IV m NAME. Bayard Alvin Rood... Elsie Lea Rood Eunice Pauline Rood. Mary Matilda Rood Mansell Davis Horace Mansell Davis. .. Besse June Packler Mansell Fackler Davis Norton Kieth Davis Loren Ainslee Davis Mary Davis Eug-enia Rood Alpha Latimer Crandall Ora Adelia Crandall Peter Ernest Clement Ruth Helene Clement . . . Ernest Crandall Clement. Paul Rood Crandall Mary Hazel Crandall Horace Charles Crandall. . . Emma Janette Rood v'^olon Chapin Terry Loyal Erwin Terr.v Ethel Lenore Coon Warren Austin Terry Esther Amy Rood Calvin Eug'ene Crandall Cecil Irma Crandall Ada Elizabeth Crandall.. Percy Jay Crandall Georg'e Herbert Crandall. Esther Crandall Walter Gillette Rood David ami His Faiuiiy. David Thornirate Lucina Duell Charles W. Thorng-ate ELsieL. P. Mitchell Charles Verne Thorng-ate — Eva Lucile Fowler Fred Allen Thorng-ate , Twins. Georg-e Thorng-ate ' Ross Thorng-ate f Ernest Thorng-ate Walter Bracken Thorng-ate. Haiiuali and Her Family. Hannah Thorng-ate. Robert Stillman James Stillman Sarah Meek Henry and His Family • Bm Place. Henry Thorng-ate Lorenda Otis Crandall Near North Loup, Neb . Near North Loup, Neb . Near North Loup, Neb . Near Dakota. Wis Jamestown. New York. Near North Loup. Neb. Astoria, 111 Ord, Nebraska Ord, Nebraska Near North Loup. Neb . Near North Loup, Neb . Near Dakota. Wis Milton Junction, Wis. . . North Loup. Neb Welton. Iowa David Cit.v. Nebraska . . North Bend. Nebraska. Near North Loup. Neb . Near North Loup. Neb . North Loup. Neb Near Dakota, Wis , Bolton. N. Y Near North Loup, Neb . Hutchinson, Minn , Boulder, Colorado Near Dakota. Wis Watson. N. Y North Loup, Neb North Loup. Neb North Loup. Net) WestHallock. HI West Hallock, 111 Near Dakota, Wis Persia, N. Y Tallmadge. Ohio Cooper. Mich Mount Pleasant. Ohio . Wellsburg, W. Va Martins Ferry, Ohio .. Martins Ferry. Ohio... Martins Ferry. Ohio... Martins Ferry. Ohoi... Martins Ferry. Ohio... Martins Ferry. Ohio.. . Persia. N. Y Berlin, N. Y DeRuyter. N. Y Vandalia, Til Per.sia. N. Y I'ersia, N. Y THS. Date. Nov. 27. 1804 July 3.1807 April 14.1900| Aug-. 27.1853 Dec. 5, 1848 Sept. 14.1873 June 17,1881 April 3. UXIS May 24. 1007 July 22.1880 July 17,1805 Mar. 11.18.56 Dec. 1.1851 Feb. 26. 1883 May 10.1873 Sept. 13. 1006 June 28. li)08 Aug. 5, 1885 Aug-. 31,1803 June 4, 1896 Mar. 27, 18.59 Oct. 7. 1852 Aug-. 13, 1870 f'eb. 22. 1884 Mar. 5, 1007 Sept. 14,1861 July 28.1863 April 17.18861 Feb. 17. 1888 April 14. 1801 i May 21.1803 Nov. 24. 1894 June 5. 1864 July 26.1824 July 20.18.58 Mar. 2,1850 Auff. 12.1883 June 22.1884 Dec. Aug-. Augr. Mar. Sept. 8. 1884 1, 1886 1,1886 24. 1888 12, 1891 Feb. 13.1827 Jan. 31,1807 Nov. 21.18.53 Jan. 0. 1860 Sept. 27.1820 Aug. 18,1836 Marriages Deaths. I'lace. Date. Place. Date. Dakota. Wis DalvOta Wis Sept. 10. 1871 Sept. 10. 1871 July 17.1901 July 17.UX)1 Ord. Neb Ord Neb North Loup, Neb. ... North Loup. Neb North Loup. Neb North Loup, Neb May 22.1882 May 22,1882 Aug. 14.1S104 Aug. 14.1904 Near Noi-t h Loup. Neb Near North Loup, Neb Denver, Colo Dec 25 1877 Dec. 25,1877 .Ian. 3.1905 Jan. 3.1005 North Loup. Nel) North Loup, Nel » Oct. 15.1884 Oct. 15.1S84 Tallmadse. Ohio Tallmadge. Ohio INIartins Ferry, Ohio . Marthis Ferry, Ohio.. Martins I'erry. Ohio.. Martins Ferry. Ohio.. Nov. 7.1S57 Nov. 7.1857 June 21. 1882 June 21. 1882 July 9,1906 July 0.1006 Washington. D. C... Heidelberg. Germany 1862 July V^.^mk Feb. 21.1001 Dakota. Wis Dakota AVis Aug. 25.1860 Aug. 25. 1860 Nov. 20.1887 Nov. 20. 1887 June 14 1858 Noi-th Loup. Neb .... Farina. Ill Nov. 18. 1W4 Oct. 26.'1878 Vandalia. Ill Vandalia. Ill Jan. 7. 1888 Vaiid-ili-i 111 Dakota Wis Dakota. Wis .June 14. 1S.58 Num- ber. Mark. 103 1 104 m 105 a 106 b 107 c m a 109 3 110 m 111 a 112 h 113 c 114 3 115 m 110 a 117 b lis c 119 4 120 V 121 m 122 1 123 2 124 m 125 a 126 b 127 3 128 4 129 m 130 a 131 ]. 132 5 133 VI 134 m 135 1 136 m 137 a 138 1) 139 c 140 (1 141 e 142 f 143 2 144 m 145 a 146 h 147 c 148 a 149 e NAME. Herbert Henry Tliorngate Eva Melissa Matteson Vera Viola Thorng-ate Ena Thonigate Vesta May Tiiornji-ate Ernest Earl Thorngate (adopted). Gaylord William Tiiorngate. ]\[ary Nurse Paul Gaylord Thorngate... Guy Henry Triorngate M Sihel Anna Thorngate Roy Roscoe Thorngate Zillah David Roseoe Marion Tliorngate. . . Julia Belle Tiiorngate Bruce WhitHeid Thorngate. Belle Thorngate. Charles and Mis Fansily. Charles Thorngate. Eugenia Torrence. Walter Leslie Thorngate. Ida Viola Thorngate. Horace Hart Russell. Grace Irene Russel! Mabel Russell Ella Thorngate. .Jennie Thorngate Kdward Paysou Churchill Philliy Charles Churchill Ella Churchill Ethel Lena Thorngate George, Jr., and Mis Family. George Thorngate, .Junior Arloena Crandall BiR Place. Dakota. Wis Troy, N. Y North Loup. Neb.. North Loup, Neb.. North Loup. Neb.. Near Omaha, Neb. Near Brookfield. Mo. Hallock, III Noi'th Loup, Neb North Loup. Ne]j Boulder, Colo Near Brookfield. IMo. El Paso. Ill North Loup. Nelj Arcadia, Neb Lincoln, Neb Near Brookfield. Mo. Persia, New York — Pen Yan, New York. Near Lincoln, Neb. Civil Bend. Iowa [ La Crosse. Wis 1 Weeping Water. Net). Weeping Water. Neb. Civil Bend, Iowa Civil Bend, Iowa Oberlin, Ohio V/eephig Water, Neb. Weeping Water, Neb. Weeping Water, Neb. Persia, New York. Persia, New York. Ray George Thorngate Near Brookfield. Mo. Flora David I Near El Paso. Ill Arlie Gladys Thorngate j North Loup. Neb Melva Rachel Thorngate I [ North Loup. ^eV) Arthur Ray Thorngate j North Loup. Neb Walter Allison Thorngate i North Loup, ^eb. Aletha Ruth Thorngate. ., Alice Angelia Thorngate. , Charles William Thorngate Ethel Angelina Babcock Myra Willametta Thorngate.. George Thorngate John Harold Thorngate Mai-gueiite Helen Thorngate. Eleanor Kathryn Thorngate.. North Loup, Neb. North Loup, Neb. Near Brookfield, Mo. Welton. Iowa North Loup, Neb North Loup, Neb North Loup, Neb North Loup, Neb North Loup. Neb THS. Marriages. Deaths. Dale. Place. Date. Place. 1 Date. 1 Oct ^ ]8w] North Loup. Neb North Loup. Neb Mar. 31.18871 Mar. 31.1887 1 Apr. 15.18b2: Dec. 20. 18iH>, 1 Aug-. 29. 18i>;>' Nortli Loup, Nelj Nov. 4,1896 Au"" 13 1S9HI Sept 15 1902 Mav 30.1870 North Loup. Neb North Loup, Neb Oct. 14,1892 Oct 14, 1892 Au^. 14.1868 Sept. 17.1893 Jan 13 1896 t June 5.1903 Mar 5 187'' Harvard. Neb Harvard. Neb May 31.1894 May 31,1894 April 25,1871 Oct. 14. 1895 June 23.18971 Aug. 3,1902' July 14.1878 1 Mav 25. 1831 Dakota. Wis June 5,1856 June 5.1856 Weeping Water, Neb. Weeping Water, Neb. Civil Bend. Iowa Weeping Water, Neb. Nov. 7,1883 Jan. 25, 1837 Dakota. Wis Sept. 6.1895 April 19,1857 Oct. 28,1858 Dec. 6, 1859 1857 Weeping Water, Neb. Weeping Water, Neb. Aug. 28.1883 Aug. 28, 1883 May 29.1889 May 25,1884 Sept. 5 1887 May 30,1861 Mar. 1,1867 Sept 19 1860 Weeping Water, Neb. Weeping Water, Neb. Jan. 6,1886 Jan. 6, 1886 Oberlih. Ohio Jan. 6,1895 Nov. 7, 1886 May 27 1888 June 19 1879 Aug-. 6. 1834 Dakota, Wis Nov. 15.1865 Nov. 15, 1865 Nov. 24, 1891 Nov. 24, 1891 North Loup. Neb Dec. 12.1891 May 24,1846 Dec. 24 1866 Dakota Wis Nortli Loup, Ne b Nortli Loup, Neb Oct. 7,1867 April 5, 1893 1 Jan. 9, 1895 June 2, 1897 Oct. 12, 1898 Feb. 17. 1900 Sept. 17.1905 Sept. 2 1868 Nortli Loup, Neb North Loup, Neb Sept. 5,1891 Sept. 5,1891 Aug-. 16,1872 1 June 7 1892 1 Oct. 14, 1893 1 Aug. 13 1895 ■ Sept 25 1898 Oct. 5. 1902 i Notes. 1 . In the foregoing " Family Tree" the names of Grandfather Thorngate's six children are marked by Roman Numerals, I, II, III, IV, V, VI: the names of his grandchildren, by the Arabic figures, 1, 2. 3, etc., the names of his great-grandchildren by the letters, a, b, c, d, etc., while the names of his great-great-grandchildren are left unmarked. The letter m marks the names of those who became members of the family by marriage. 2. There may be some errors in the dates as I have given them, yet I have taken great pains to have them as nearly correct as possible. 3. Of the 149 persons named in the table, .six are Grandfather's children; 21 his grandchildren; 62 his great-grandchildren: 15 are his great-great-grandchildren. One is a step grandson, one an adopted great-grandson, and two adopted great- great-granddaughters. Forty have come into the family by marriage. Of those named, 74 are men and boys and 75 are women and girls. Today— November 18, 1908 — 131 are still living. Eighteen have passed on to the higher life. 4. In none of the families of the foregoing table has there been a separation of hus- band and wife. I do not know that one of the 149 persons named has ever been in a court of law as either complainant or defendant: but I do not know everything. I guess that not one knows the taste of one kind of liquor from another, and very few of them have used tobacco. I have never heard one of them use profane language. If any one of them does drink or swear he must feel lonesome and out of harmony with those of his own kin. Nearly all are professing Christians and church workers. Addition to Table of Family Connections Since Thanksgiving, 1908 MARRIAGES NAMES 1 No, PLAGES DATES Esther Amy Rood Martin Lester Nelson Ainslie Loran Davis Zua Murrell Reed 45 86 62 87 North Loup, Nebr. Loup Gity, Nebr, March 24, 1909 June 2. 1909 BIRTHS PARENT'S NAMES No. Ghild's' names No, PLAGES DATES Byron Rood Lena Rood 40 41 Nelsie Evelyn Rood 88 Milton, Wis. June 4, 1909 Grace Lowther Norton Lowther 16 17 Sarah Eliza- beth Lowther 89 Milton, Wis. Oct. 6, 1909 Ainshe Davis Zua Davis 62 87 Anslie Reed Davis 90 Greeley, Neb, March 12, 1910 INDEX. 7 Remarks Concerning this Family Sketch y.'.^'.'.'.'.'.'.'.'.'.'.'. 9 Introduction H Geortre Thoi-njzate. . - . . . •■•••■ 13 Herman and Matilda Blanchard 14 Geortfc and M atilda Married _ 15 Letters from Eiiffland • ; ; 17 Removal to Cattarauffus County 18 About (grandfathers Family 20 Seventh Day Baptists 21 The Literary Society. .. .,. ••■■■•■••■■: 22 Charles P. Rood-Roods m Vermont 24 Grandfather Rood 25 My Father • 27 Pioneer Life 28 Removal to Wisconsui 29 Settled in Milwaukee County 30 On Rock Prairie v^- •,- • : 31 Movintr to Princeton— to Dakota 32 Grandmother's 1 )eath~ Character 34 Relitrion and Education ■"".■.'.■..... 35 Father finds two Brothers and a Mster 3g Grandfather's third Marriage 39 More Letters from England 39 A Prett.v Country. 1)ut— 1 40 Some Personal Remarks 4I I Start out into the Woi-ld.— Enlisted ^o.gs Our Folks in the Civil War, • • 42 M.v own Service 45 David and Henry Thorngate 4g Charles Thorngate 48 Georg(^ Thorngate 49 My Father and Brother Herman ^3 George B. Rood • • • • • • ■ • - • .- 56 Calvin Rood and others in the Uth Wisconsin ^ Uncle William Rood ^ Cousin Alexander Taylor •••••:; m Some Soldier Friends of our Family ^ A Term of Select School 64 My Father's Work i^T*; fi5 Temuerance Work.— Church at Dakota ^ The Great Revival gg Some I'^alling in Love, of Course g- Teaching and Farming gg George li. Rood M airied .^q Emigration— (\)l()nization ._ 7, Articles of Agreement and Association ij Journey of the Lo-at ing Committee Lx Reix)rt of the Committee 74 Fath«'r's Sr.-oiid Trii) to Nebraska L\ The I'i rst M igrat ion 77 Other M igrat ions-- Early Religious Services ' ' The Final Exodu^s ^f A Stoiy oi- Two by the Way ^1 Grandfather and Grandmother °7 My Work in School ''* Grandfather and Grandmother go, too 85 Father's Health Broken 86 Mv High School Work 87 I Leave Off Teaching 89 Our son Louis IMarried 90 Our Lillian Married 91 Some Inmates of Our Family at Milton 92 Cousin Lola's Family 92 Our Church Membership 94 Early Life in Nebraska 96 Ora's Story .- 98-12a A Night Alone on the Prairie 99 Prairie Fires— A Narrow Escape 102 A Blizzard Story 104 Grasshoppers 108 Neighbors, tho Miles Away 109 Grandpa Rood a Temperance Worker 110 The Church 110 Early Schools 11^ Grandpa Rood's Health Pails — His Death 112 Natural Family Expansion 114 Uncle Charley Meets with Accidents 114 Grandma and the "Rattler" 115 A Marriage — Births— Grandfather Thorngate's Death 116 Where the Roods Lived About North Loup 117 More Children — The Last Wedding 118 Family Gatherings — Thanksgivings 120 A Stormbound Party 123 Strong Family Ties 123 Grandma Rood's House Burned 124 Grandma Thorngate's Death 125 Visits Back and Forth 126 Some Later Migrations 127 George Rood tells of a Flood 129 Remarks on the Stories told by Ora, Mary and George 134 Brief Personal Sketches 135-143 Uncle Henry's Story of His Family and that of Uncle George 143 Uncle George and his Family 157 Recollections of Uncle David 162 About Aunt Hannah Thorngate 169 Uncle Charles and his Family 173 Uncle Henry and Aunt Renda 188 Our Father and Mother 190 Tables of Army Service and Family Connections— Appendix.