Meantime, the forested lands pivoting on Milwaukee, the most promising of the lake ports, were open to entry at the land office or to purchase at private sale on easy terms. The Yankee had not altogether shunned those lands. There, as elsewhere, he had been looking for good investments, and the project for the Milwaukee and Rock River Canal, which was to traverse a portion of the forested area through the present Milwaukee, Waukesha, and Jefferson counties, favored speculation in farm lands as well as in mill sites and town sites. Besides, there is evidence that some of the poorer Yankee immigrants who felt unable at once to maintain themselves on open land farms, often settled first in the woods, where they began making improvements with ax and fire, only to sell out promptly at an advance and go to the prairie or openings to establish permanent farms. But most of the forested land was still “Congress land” when the Germans began coming to Wisconsin. The German “Pilgrims,” as the first colony was called, arrived at Milwaukee early in October, 1839, their leader being Henry von Rohr. Within a month they had decided on a location, in the western part of township 9, range 21 east (the town of Mequon, Ozaukee County), and had made numerous purchases of government land. They selected a tract of high, rolling land, heavily timbered, well watered, and with an extensive marsh near by in the public domain which would furnish free hay and pasture.[7] The situation was similar to that which was chosen, near Watertown (in the town of Lebanon), a few years later by a German colony from the same region. They also took a tract of heavily timbered upland neighbored by an extensive marsh. “Here,” said their leader, “we have both wood and hay” (“_Holz und Heu_”).[8] Many of the colonists in these two congregations were very poor. Those who had means lent to the indigent to enable them to emigrate. For them it would have been madness to go to the prairies, where such absolute necessities as fuel, building material, and fencing might cost ready money and at best would be difficult to procure. In the woods trees cut on the spot were used to build cabin and log house, stable, garden and field enclosure. Some of the German families were months without draft ox or even cow. All work was performed by hand, including the carrying of logs from the spot where the trees were felled to the place where they were to be rolled up to make the cabin wall. To such settlers, bringing timber from a distance would have been among the impossibilities. Their place was in the forest, where labor alone was required for making the beginnings of a self-sustaining home.