Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 7.pdf/62



I wish to state concerning some of the past. In 1813 my father was drafted to fight the English. In 1814 I was born on Reeds Creek in Blount County, East Tennessee. I knew but little of Tennessee. In 1820 we moved to Arkansas. Now, concerning the trip: my father, grandfather, R. Bates, and William Tate bought a keel boat at Henry's Mill on Little River in which we shipped for Arkansas. Very little was known about the navigation by any of the company. We started from Henry's Mill on Little River in the spring; we voyaged down Little River to Tennessee River. There we stopped at the Mussel shoals. My father made a fine canoe; it was stolen that night from the boat. We voyaged down Tennessee River to Ohio River and to Mississippi River and stopped at Memphis at the mouth of the Wolf River. We stayed there three weeks while my father and uncle went across to see the country. In the mean time a negro caught a large catfish. He tried to sell it but its belly was so large everybody was afraid it had swallowed an infant. The negro said, "You not buy; I eat him myself." He opened the fish and found, tied in a handkerchief, three hundred dollars. The negro was in luck, don't you think?

Well, the men returned well pleased with the country. Then we loosed from Wolf River to navigate down to the mouth of White River at Montgomery Point. Now comes