an war, one of the Indian scouts showed me how to
find the Indians' underground store houses. Only an Indian could find
these. The soldiers had hunted for days without success, but the Indian
succeeded in a short time and found a community store house holding
several hundred bushels of corn. This was six feet under the ground and
looked exactly like the rest of the ground except that in the center a
small tuft of grass was left, which to the initiated showed the place.

I had a serious lung trouble and was supposed to have consumption as I
was always coughing. After I was married my wife induced me to take the
water cure. She kept me wrapped in wet sheets for several days. At the
end of that time an abscess of the lungs was relieved and my cough was
cured. This climate has cured many of lung trouble.

I have to laugh when I think how green I was about these western places.
Before I left my old home at Troy, New York, I bought twelve dollars
worth of fishing tackle and a gun, also quantities of cartridges. I
never used any of them for the things here were much more up to date.
When I went to church I was astonished. I never saw more feathers and
fancy dressing anywhere.

In 1860 hogs were $2.00 a hundred and potatoes 14c a bushel.

Mrs. Samuel B. Dresser--1850.

We took a steamer from Galena to Stillwater, as everyone did in those
days.

They were paying the Sioux Indians at Red Wing. A noble looking chief in
a white blanket colored band with eagles' feathers colored and
beautifully worked buckskin shirt, leggings and moccasins was among
them. He stands out in my mind as the most striking figure I ever saw.
There was so much majesty in his look.

We took a bateau from Stillwater to Clouse's Creek. My uncle came the
year before and had a block house where Troutmere now is, four miles
from Osceola and we visited him.

A little later when I was seven years old, we went to Taylor's Falls,
Minnesota, to live. There were only three houses there. We rented one
end of a double block house and school was held in the other end. Our
first teacher in '51 and '52 was Susie Thompson. There were thirty-five
scholars from St. Croix Falls and our own town. Boats came up the river
to Taylor's Falls on regular trips.

In our house there was a large fireplace with crane hooks, to cook on.
These hooks were set in the brick. We hung anything we wanted to cook on
them. The fire was directly under them. My mother brought a crane tha