About six weeks after we stopped at Exeter, Father and Mother decided that we too would go to Indiana and make the trip overland. Up to that time it had been a delightful fall, and anticipating a continuance of mild weather for a few weeks longer, believed we could make the journey in comfort. So our covered wagon was again loaded with our household goods and we started on the public road leading across the state through the state capital. After traveling three or four days, through a beautiful well improved prairie country, we stopped late one afternoon and camped for the night near a large farm house, in sight of Springfield. The weather had continued very pleasant up to then but that afternoon the sky became overcast with ominous looking clouds, and by night it was thick cloudy, and we were fearful of rain.

Our fears were realized sooner than we expected. During the night there was a fearful rain and electrical storm accompanied by a very hard wind, and we soon became drenched with the downpour, which seemed like a cloud-burst, and Father asked the people at the nearby farm house to give us shelter from the storm, which request they kindly granted and, as they soon had a good fire in their spacious fireplace, we were soon able to dry our soaked clothes and were then given comfortable beds where we slept until morning. On awaking, we found that it had turned very cold during the latter part of the night and was blowing a terrific gale that morning. It was then near the last of October, and Father believing the weather might continue to be too cold for us to go on our overland journey, turned round and we went back to Exeter and took up out abode again in the house we had recently vacated.

Soon after we returned to Exeter, Brother Dolph came back from Indiana and in a few days, Mother, Dolph and I went on the train to Indiana. That was the first time I had ever ridden on the cars, and I was very much afraid there would be a collision or other accident and we would be killed or injured. But as hour after hour passed and nothing happened, my fears subsided partially and I finally went to sleep. The next morning when I awoke we were passing through the town of State Line, so called because it is on the line between Illinois and Indiana, and that morning we also passed through Lafayette and Crawfordsville, the latter city being the home of General Lew Wallace, a brave general in the Federal Army.

Toward the middle of that afternoon we arrived at our destination, the home of Aunt Sarah Slavens, where Dolph and Irene and baby Alice had been staying since they came to Indiana. Aunt Sarah lived about five miles from Greencastle, the county seat of Putnam County. We were very kindly received by Aunt Sarah and given a cordial welcome to her home. She had a nice farm and a very comfortable frame dwelling house. It was a two story building and there was a stone chimney and a fireplace in both the lower and upper rooms. The farm was all enclosed, I think with a rail fence, and a good part of the land was in cultivation and the balance was in woods pasture, the timber being mostly beech, sugar tree and poplar. Aunt Sarah’s family consisted of herself and her son Heber, a boy about my age, and she had a hired hand whose name was Bill. I went several times with Heber and Bill to haul wood from the timbered land. Brother Dolph had got a position as teacher of the public school in the school district in which Aunt Sarah lived and Mother permitted me to go with Heber to the school one day. The schoolhouse was a frame building and was furnished with good seats, desks and black board. The pupils were well behaved and it was such a pleasant school I wished we could live in that district and I could get to attend that school. There was a Methodist church house near Aunt Sarah's home, called Brick Chapel, and we all attended Sunday School there on Sunday after we got to Indiana. There was a good attendance of children and many grown people. The feature of the exercises that I enjoyed most was the music, which was the best I thought I had ever heard.

The same day Mother, Dolph and I left Exeter for Indiana, Father and Brother Bud again loaded the wagon with our household effects and started overland to Indiana, and after about ten days travel arrived at Aunt Sarah’s home. Father said they had encountered some very cold weather on their trip and had suffered with the intense cold very much. We remained there a few days after Father and Bud came during which time we visited some of our other kinfolk, who lived in that neighborhood. They all had good farms and comfortable homes and seemed to be prosperous people. Then after enjoying her hospitality so much during our sojourn with her, we bid farewell to good, kind, old Aunt Sarah, and went in our covered wagon, of course our only means of transportation, to Portland Mills, a small village 15 or 20 miles from Greencastle, situated on Raccoon Creek and on the line between Putnam and Park counties, a part of the town being in each county.

We stopped a few days at the home of Dr. John Slavens (whom all who knew him called Jack), Father’s cousin. He was a son of Father’s uncle Reuben Slavens, whose farm home was about a mile from Portland Mills. We were entertained at Dr. Jack’s hospitable home several days. He and his wife and children made our stay with them very pleasant. There were three children, two daughters, Mary Elizabeth and Julia, both about grown, and a son, Horace, who was about my age.