In 1848, Wisconsin Territory was to be made a State. The people there wanted to take all the land into the new state that was east of the Rum River. We fellows in Stillwater and St. Paul wanted a territory of our own. As we were the only two towns, we wanted the capitol of the new territory for one and the penitentiary for the other. In the Spring--in May, I think, I know it was so cold that we slept in heavy blankets, the men from St. Paul sent for us and about forty of us fellows went over. We slept that night in a little hotel on one of the lower bluffs. It was a long building with a door in the middle. We slept on the floor, rolled up in blankets. The next day, we talked over the questions before mentioned and it was decided that we should vote against the boundary as proposed and have a new territory and that St. Paul should have the capital and we the penitentiary. This decision was ratified at the convention in Stillwater, the last of August 1848. The hottest time I ever had in a steamboat race was in May, 1857, running the Galena from Galena to St. Paul. A prize had been offered, free wharfage for the season, amounting to a thousand dollars, for the boat that would get to St. Paul first that year. I was up at Lake Pepin a week before the ice went out, waiting for that three foot ice to go. It was dreadful aggravating. There was an open channel kind of along one edge and the ice seemed to be all right back of it. There were twenty boats all waiting there in Bogus Bay. I made a kind of harbor in the ice by chopping out a place big enough for my boat and she set in there cozy as could be. I anchored her to the ice too. The Nelson, a big boat from Pittsburg was there with a big cargo, mostly of hardware--nails pretty much. There were several steamers that had come from down the Ohio. When the ice shut in, it cut the "Arcola" in two just as if it was a pair of shears and she a paper boat. She sank at once. It shoved the "Falls of St. Anthony" a good sized steamer way out of the water on the niggerheads. The "Pioneer" sank. It broke the wheels of the "Nelson" and another boat and put them out of commission. I stayed in my harbor until morning, then steamed away up the little new channel. The "War Eagle" locked us at the head of the lake and held on. I was at the wheel. When we came to Sturgeon Bay, I took a cut in through the bar. I had found it when I was rafting so I knew they did not know about it. That little advantage gained the day for us. As it was, we burned several barrels of resin and took every chance of meeting our Maker. We got to St. Paul at two o'clock in the morning. Such a hullabaloo as there was--such a big tar barrel fire. We could plainly see "Kaposia" six miles away. Christmas the company sent me one hundred dollars which came in handy, as I was just married. Mr. Caleb Dorr--1847, Ninety years old.