When the first boat came up the river in the spring it brought my mother and us boys. My father had sent us word to come up to Fort Snelling on the boat, but we had not received the message and so got off at St. Paul and came up to St. Anthony by stage and got a team to take us to our new home. We found it empty, as my father and an uncle who was also here, had gone to the fort to meet us. As we went into one of the back rooms, a very strange sight met our eyes. My father and uncle had set a fish trap in the creek the night before and had poured the results of their catch in a heap on the floor and there was such a quantity of fish that it looked like a small haycock. This was done for a surprise for us, and as such, was a great success, as we were only accustomed to the very small fish that lived in the creek that ran through our home town in Maine, and these long pickerel and large suckers were certainly a novelty. We salted them down and packed them in barrels and for a long time had plenty of fish to eat, to sell and to give away. Our house soon took on the character of a public building, as my father was made Postmaster, Town Treasurer and Justice of the Peace, and all the town meetings were held there, as well as church and Sunday school. My father gave five acres down at the creek to a company who erected a grist mill and the settlers from fifty or sixty miles away would come to have grain ground and would all stop at our house to board and sleep while there. Then the house would be so full that we boys would have to sleep on the floor, or out in the barn or anywhere else we could find a place. During our first winter, a party of about fifty Sioux Indians came and camped in our woods just west of where the Washburn Park water tower now stands. They put up about twenty tepees, made partly of skins and partly of canvas. We boys would often go in the evening to visit them and watch them make moccasins, which we would buy of them. They would often come to our house to beg for food, but in all the time they remained there (nearly the whole winter) they committed no depredations, except that they cut down a great deal of our fine timber, and killed a great quantity of game, so that when they wanted to come back the next winter, father would not allow it. Once after they had gone away, they came back through the farm and went off somewhere north of us, where they had a battle with the Chippewas. When they returned, they brought two scalps and held a "pow-wow" on the side of our hill. We had a great deal of small game in our woods, and great quantities of fish in the creek. We used to spear the fish and sometimes would get two upon our spears at once. My mother was very fond of dandelion greens, and missed them very much, as she could find none growing about our place. So she sent back to Maine for seed and planted them. But I hardly think that the great quantities we have now are the result of that one importation.