Previous to my visit to New York, I think it was in 1820, when I was ten years of age, I made my first expedition to my landed property, “Ivy Island.” This, it will be remembered, was the gift of my grandfather, from whom I derived my name. From the time when I was four years old I was continually hearing of this “property.” My grandfather always spoke of me (in my presence) to the neighbors and to strangers as the richest child in town, since I owned the whole of “Ivy Island,” one of the most valuable farms in the State. My father and mother frequently reminded me of my wealth and hoped I would do something for the family when I attained my majority. The neighbors professed to fear that I might refuse to play with their children because I had inherited so large a property. These constant allusions, for several years, to “Ivy Island” excited at once my pride and my curiosity and stimulated me to implore my father’s permission to visit my property. At last, he promised I should do so in a few days, as we should be getting some hay near “Ivy Island.” The wished for day at length arrived and my father told me that as we were to mow an adjoining meadow, I might visit my property in company with the hired man during the “nooning.” My grandfather reminded me that it was to his bounty I was indebted for this wealth, and that had not my name been Phineas I might never have been proprietor of “Ivy Island.” To this my mother added: “Now, Taylor, don’t become so excited when you see your property as to let your joy make you sick, for remember, rich as you are, that it will be eleven years before you can come into possession of your fortune.” She added much more good advice, to all of which I promised to be calm and reasonable and not to allow my pride to prevent me from speaking to my brothers and sisters when I returned home. When we arrived at the meadow, which was in that part of the “Plum Trees” known as “East Swamp,” I asked my father where “Ivy Island” was. “Yonder, at the north end of this meadow, where you see those beautiful trees rising in the distance.” All the forenoon I turned grass as fast as two men could cut it, and after a hasty repast at noon, one of our hired men, a good natured Irishman, named Edmund, took an axe on his shoulder and announced that he was ready to accompany me to “Ivy Island.” We started, and as we approached the north end of the meadow we found the ground swampy and wet and were soon obliged to leap from bog to bog on our route. A misstep brought me up to my middle in water. To add to the dilemma a swarm of hornets attacked me. Attaining the altitude of another bog I was cheered by the assurance that there was only a quarter of a mile of this kind of travel to the edge of my property. I waded on. In about fifteen minutes more, after floundering through the morass, I found myself half-drowned, hornet-stung, mud-covered, and out of breath, on comparatively dry land.