We lived on a public thoroughfare where hundreds, and I may say
thousands, passed on their way to take up new homes in Wisconsin, then
the extreme outskirt of civilization in the Northwest. There was not a
day in which several wagon-loads of emigrants did not pass our door,
and the road was a cloud of dust as far as one could see over the level
prairie country. The usual emigrant wagon contained an entire family,
with all its earthly possessions, and in some of them families had
lived for many weeks. Occasionally a length of stovepipe protruded
through the canvas cover, and it was known that this wagon belonged
to an aristocratic family, such a one usually having two wagons, one
being used as a living-room. Nearly every family had from one to four
cows, a coop of chickens attached to the tail-gate, from two to five
pigs traveling under the wagon, and occasionally a drove of sheep and a
loose colt near by. There was sometimes a rich caravan, or association
of families, which had entered a large tract of land and was moving in
a body, with horse-teams, droves of cattle, and horses.
As we lived near the road, people usually stopped at our house,
either for a drink of fresh spring-water (a scarcity in those days),
or to purchase milk, butter, garden-stuff, or anything that we could
spare. These were the pioneers of Wisconsin, and were mostly from
Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, and Michigan. They were the second
generation of pioneers of their native States. In asking where they
were from we generally asked, "What are you?" If from New York, it
was "Empire State"; if from Pennsylvania, "Keystones"; if from Ohio,
"Buckeyes." Many more Illinois pioneers moved on to Wisconsin in those
days than remained, owing to the dread of fever and ague. In this
endless train of "movers" it was not uncommon for my mother to meet
people whose families she had known in western New York.