While at Beloit Major Johnson and Cyrus Eames took the canoe that Sanborn and I made and floated down to Burlington where the first territorial legislature for the Wisconsin Territory was in session. The present states of Iowa and Wisconsin were called Wisconsin Territory then. At that session they obtained a charter for a female seminary in Beloit, it being the first charter for an institution of learning that was granted in the Territory.[110] While at Beloit in September, a Professor Whitney of Belvidere preached the first sermon in the Beloit House that was preached in the county of Rock. I remained into October and then returned to Milwaukee by the way of Watertown on horseback, riding one of George Goodhue’s horses in company with him and remaining over night in his shanty at Watertown. I remained in Milwaukee until February, 1838, having sprained my ankle in January, which confined me to crutches for three months. My father and sisters, Jane and Amanda, reached Fox River in December, where my sisters remained with my Aunt Tyler until March. They left Vermont in October and came by land with a three-horse team. My father came on to Beloit, and learning there that I was confined in Milwaukee by lameness, he started for me with his team, expecting to find his goods shipped by water from Burlington, Vermont, but found that the vessel and goods had been sent near Mackinaw and that a friend of mine had started with me in a jumper for Beloit, where we met after three days. We rented one-half of the log house which Blodgett had just left to occupy a new frame house. We went to Dundee for my sisters in March and settled in our home with but little furniture. My father had brought with him two beds and bedding and clothing. Dr. White, father of Horace White of New York, occupied the other half of the house with his family. I met him in April and we soon became fast friends. He was a good physician and a man of great business capacity, one who had great command of language and would say more in the fewest words than any man that I have ever known. He was a man of sound judgment. He was a very [word illegible] and reserved man, making but few confidants. We were more intimate than brothers usually are. We had no secrets that were withheld by either from the other. He died in December, 1843, and I was left very sad. In the summer of 1838 I bought four yoke of oxen and broke prairie for the crop of 1839 after seeding the 20 acres which was my share of the 320 acres, which was ploughed in two fields and paid for and owned in common by the colonists. My father and I harrowed in wheat and oats in March. Bread and meat were very scarce and dear, and some days we had nothing but suckers caught out of Turtle Creek. But most of the time we had meat and as soon as the vegetables grew we lived very well having plenty of hog product and bread. Our fall crop of wheat was good.