The Winnebagoes who had lived on Long Prairie were transferred to their new home and we went to take care of the agency buildings they had left. There were from seventy-five to a hundred of these buildings. Franklin Steele and Anton Northrup owned them. We were awfully lonesome but we braved it out. The Indians were always coming and demanding something to eat. They were always painted and had bows and arrows with them. They would everlastingly stand and look in the windows and watch us work. We were so used to them that we never noticed them, only it was troublesome to have the light obscured. Have I ever seen the Red River carts? My! I should say I have! Seen them by the hundred. My husband had charge of a fur store for Kittson at Fort Garry, now Winnipeg and we lived there. I used to go back and forth to St. Cloud where my parents lived with this cart train for protection. The drivers were a swarthy lot of French half breeds. Likely as not their hair would be hanging way down. They wore buckskin and a fancy sash. Sometimes a skin cap and sometimes just their hair or a wide hat. A tame enough lot of men, fond of jigging at night. They could hold out dancing. Seemed to never tire. Their carts had two wheels, all wood and a cross piece to rest the platform on. This platform had stakes standing way up at the sides. They were piled high with goods, furs and skins going down and supplies coming back. I can shut my eyes and see that quaint cavalcade now. Where are all those drivers? The tracks were wide and deep and could be plainly seen ahead of us going straight through the prairie. It took twenty-one days to go from St. Cloud to Pembina. We used to go through Sauk Center, just a hotel or road house, then through what is now Alexandria. A family by the name of Wright used to keep a stopping place for travelers. I don't know just where it would be now, but I have stayed there often. We went by way of Georgetown. Swan river, too, I remember. There used to be one tree on the prairie that we could see for two days. We called it Lone Tree. Mr. Peter Cooper--1855. I moved to Vernon Center in the early fifties. I had never worn an overcoat in New York state, but when I came to Minnesota particularly felt the need of one. The second year I was here, I traded with an Indian, two small pigs for a brass kettle and an Indian blanket. Without any pattern whatever, my wife cut an overcoat from this blanket and sewed it by hand. This was the only overcoat I had for four years, but it was very comfortable. When I was in the Indian war in 1862 I had no mittens and suffered greatly for this reason. In one of the abandoned Norwegian homes, I found some hand made yarn, but had no way to get it made into mittens. I carved a crochet hook out of hickory and with this crocheted myself gloves with a place for every finger, although I had never had any experience and had only watched the women knit and crochet. Mr. Stephen Rochette--1855, St. Paul.