HISTORY OF GREEN COUNTY. 
 
light work, till the fall of 1835, when I found 
myself some two and a half miles down the 
Susquehanna, below Wilkesbarre, where I kept 
a school for three terms. I then took a wife 
and started the same day, for Wisconsin, where 
my wife had. a brother, John Inman. We took 
a steamer at Buffalo, for Michigan City, where 
my wife had several relations; but when we ar- 
rived at Chicago we were politely told if we 
would wait till they got ready they would take 
us there. 
We then took a stage and went to Michigan 
City, where, the next day, John Inman came. 
After a few days spent there in visiting, we 
started for Wisconsin where we arrived on the 
13th day of September, 1836, with provisions 
sufficient to last us five or six weeks, and be- 
tween $84 and $85 in money, without a stove 
or the first hoof of any stock. My wife, for 
some four years, had the charge of her brother's 
son, a lad then some ten or eleven years old. 
She boarded, clothed and schooled the lad for 
four years without any pay, though he supposed 
she was getting her pay quarterly. 
We moved into his (Mr. Inman's) house just 
below Janesville, mine making the eighth fam- 
ily in Rock county. The house was a log one, 
12x14 feet inside, with a fire-place about half in 
the house, and the other half out doors, and the 
chimney entirely outside. The house had one 
window by the side of the door, consisting of 
two lights of glass, 8x10 inches. The door was 
made of shakes nailed to two sticks, with a sort 
of wood hinge. There was a wood latch, the 
same being raised with a string. 
Mr. Inman    got a   team  and went to 
Chicago for some winter provisions, where 
lie got some sour flour at $7 per barrel 
and  two barrels of pork,     at $20 cash. 
lie also got a few groceries such as coffee, 
tea and sugar with some rice. He there learned 
that his brother with a large family would be 
along in a few days. Finding his load of provis- 
ions heavy, he left one barrel of pork some 
twenty-five miles out from Chicago, which he 
 
afterward sold for $45. The pork we got was 
of a miserable quality, poor and scant of salt 
and soured. It consisted of heads and shanks, 
hardly affording fat sufficient to cook itself in; 
but, bad as it was, what with all of us together 
it did not last till January. We could get fish all 
we wanted but we lacked any fat to cook them 
with. No butter, no milk, no grease of any 
kind. 
About Christmas Richard Inman moved on 
to his claim a little above Afton oil the east side 
of Rock river. We (that is, my wife; her girl, 
say eleven years old; John Inman and his boy) 
by dint of good management, made our flour 
last until the middle of February, when I went 
to Rockford'with one of my neighbors,-he to 
get grain for his horses and I to get flour. There 
had been a thaw the day before we started 
which made it difficult to cross ravines. Some- 
times we had to go up them and at other times, 
down. At Roscoe, we had to cross a small 
stream which was swollen. It was without a 
bridge and the water had washed off the snow 
and left the banks icy and very slippery. A 
person living on the opposite side told us to 
keep up as high as we could and we tried to 
cross according to his direction; but the current 
took both horses and wagon down stream, so 
that my neighbor jumped into the water and 
got hold of the horses bits but could not get 
them over. I then jumped into the water and 
got ahead of him and took hold of one of his 
hands to help him and the team out, but as I 
stood on smooth and slippery ground, I could 
help but little. The man living there then 
waded into the stream and took my hand, by 
which assistance we got the team and wagon 
out and across the stream, but we were wet to 
the middle. We went into the house to dry 
ourselves and finally staid there all night. We 
went to Rockford next day where I bought a 
barrel of flour at $16 offering to take two at $15 
each, which was refused. On our return, we 
passed through Rockton where we found two 
barrels of flour at $15 each of which my neigh- 
 
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