"I turned north and went to Ottumwa where I met Judge Greene, then a member of the Supreme Bench of Iowa; he persuaded me that Cedar Rapids was in the near future to become a metropolis and I decided to go there. After four days' hard riding and swimming several swollen streams, I struck the town on the afternoon of June 14, 1849; I crossed the river on a rope ferry operated by David King, who lived in a cabin on the west side; on the other side of the river stood a cabin, once the home of a man named Shepherd, and said to be the resort of thieves in an early day. I can not say that I was very favorably impressed by the thirty or forty small one-story unpainted houses that were scattered about near the river. There seemed to be a great deal of sand, and the houses were so situated that there was no sign of a street. There were three two-story houses, one on the river near the foot of what is now Third avenue called the 'Park House' in which the Greenes had their store, one on Second street in which John Coffman kept a hotel, and one on Third avenue back of the Dows & Ely block, also a hotel. I was discouraged and would have travelled further but only had about $10.00 left and from necessity had to stop. I put up at the Coffman hotel which, as I have said, was a two-story structure with a wing; it had been built of unseasoned oak lumber and was not plastered; the whole of the second story of the main building was in one room and contained eight or ten beds and was the common sleeping room of the guests. The lumber had shrunk and there could be no complaint as to ventilation, however short the accommodations might be in other respects.... "Within a week I made the acquaintance of all the people of the town. Among the leading persons were William and Joseph Greene, brothers of the Judge, Lowell and Lawson Daniels, Homer Bishop and John Weare, all of whom were merchants. The three stores of which they were the proprietors would not compare well with the department stores of today, but all the same they were department stores and in their miscellaneous stocks the customer could find all he wanted--from castor oil to broad axes. "Pollack and Stewart were the blacksmiths, and the carpenters and wagon makers were represented, but I can not recall their names. There was also a saloon kept by James Leverich, a brother of Joe, a respectable man and a good Mason. The inhabitants were mostly young people, John Weare, Sr., Deacon Kennedy and Porter Earl being the exceptions. I found three doctors already located, Dr. Mansfield, Dr. Traer and Dr. Larabee, the latter being what was called a 'steam doctor.' Isaac Cook and Henry Harmon represented the law.