340 INDIANA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS 

 To Western Emigrants. 



[Albany Cultivator, 10:17-18; Jan., 1843] 



[November 25, 1842] 

 Another "Trip to Mill." — Fatal effects of venturing to 

 cross cm unsettled Prairie in a stormy night. 



Editors of the Cultivator — How often I have been 

 asked by my eastern friends, whether my account of the 

 "first trip to mill," published in your paper in June, 

 1841, 1 was "founded on fact." These inquiries show how 

 little you that dwell in cities and densely populated 

 places, know of the hardships and perils of life that the 

 pioneer endures. "How little do we know how to ap- 

 preciate trifles until placed in a trying situation." 



In that article, I spoke of the danger of life to the 

 teamster, who attempted the perilous passage of the 

 prairie in a cold winter night. I also spoke of the beau- 

 tiful weather of November, usual to this region. Just 

 such weather was the first part of the present month, 

 but what a change suddenly came over the face of nature 

 — a change that brought desolation into the cabin of an 

 afflicted emigrant. 



The reader of the narrative I am about to give, will 

 undoubtedly say that there was a great lack of prudence 

 and forethought in the emigrant, and it is upon that 

 point that I wish him to be advised, and not attempt to 

 buy his knowledge with an experiment that may cost 

 him his life. 



The 16th of November was a delightful sunny day. 

 "I think," says Mr. W., 2 (one of my neighbors, for he only 

 lived a dozen miles off,) to his wife, "that I will go to 

 mill to-day, it is so pleasant." "I wish then you would 

 go down the river, for they make the best flour there, 

 and as wheat is only worth three shillings a bushel, we 

 can afford to eat good flour." 



The wagon was loaded, and away he went, under the 



1 Ante, 160-64. 

 1 William Wells. 



