CHAPTER II.

CAPT. BACON'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY.

BIRTH-FAMILY-EARLY ACQUAINTANCE WITH MR. JEFFERSON-EMPLOYED BY HIM AS OVERSEER-WITH HIM TWENTY YEARS-VISIT TO ST. LOUIS IN 1818 THE PARTY-JOURNEY ON HORSEBACK-FORDING RIVERS-DEER, WOLVES, AND WILD GAME ON THE ROUTE-GOV. COLES AND HIS SLAVES AT EDWARDSVILLE, ILL.-ST. LOUIS A SMALL FRENCH SETTLEMENT-GOV. CLARKE HIS VIEWS OF THE FUTURE OF ST. LOUIS-CHOUTEAU'S FARMHIS ANXIETY TO SELL-REASONS FOR NOT PURCHASING-RETURN TO MONTICELLO-SUBSEQUENT EMIGRATION TO KENTUCKY-SECOND VISIT TO MISSOURI THE KENTUCKY WIDOW-DETERMINATION TO RETURN AND MARRY -SATISFIED WITH THE UNION.

"I AM now seventy-six years old. I was born March 28, 1785, within two or three miles of Monticello, so that I recollect Mr. Jefferson as far back as I can remember anybody. My father and he were raised together, and went to school together. My oldest brother, William Bacon, had charge of his estate during the four years he was Minister to France. After he was elected President, he told my father he wanted an overseer, and he wished to employ my brother William again. But he was then quite an old man, and very well off, and did not wish to go. He then inquired of my father if

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he could not spare me. He replied that he thought I was too young. I was his youngest son, and not of age yet. Mr. Jefferson requested him to send me to see him about it. My father was a comfortable farmer; had ten or twelve hands. He was very industrious, and taught all his children to work. Mr. Jefferson knew this. That was why he wanted one of my father's sons. He was the most industrious man I ever knew. When my father told me Mr. Jefferson wanted to employ me, I was keen to go; and I determined that if he employed me, I would please him, if there was any such thing. When I went to see him, he told me what he wanted me to do, gave me good advice, and said he would try me, and see how I would get along. I went to live with him the 27th of the December before he was inaugurated as President; and if I had remained with him from the 8th of October to the 27th of December, the year that I left him, I should have been with him precisely twenty years.

"Some time before I left him, I determined to go West and buy land upon which to settle, and Mr. Jefferson recommended me to go to the Missouri. It was a territory then, and there was a great deal of talk about it. At the time that we had arranged that I should go and look at the country, Mr. Jefferson was at the Warm Springs.

In going to his Bedford farm, he had somehow caught the itch, and it troubled him a great deal, and he went to the Springs to see if he could not get rid of it. But he wrote me not to let his absence interrupt my plans, and said that in going, I would pass directly through the yard where he was staying, and he would see me there. That is why that letter of his, that I showed you, is dated at the Warm Springs.

"There were six of us started together on horseback from Charlottesville for the Missouri,John D. Coles, Absalom Johnson, James Garnett, William Bacon, and Jones-I forget his given name; he was as good company as ever lived. We went by the Warm Springs, Hot Springs, Guyandotte, and crossed the Big Sandy at its mouth; and then went on by Flemingsburg, Mt. Sterling, Lexington, and Shelbyville, to Louisville. It was a little settlement then, and the people were very anxious we should settle there. When we crossed the Ohio into Indiana, there was no road at all. We took a pilot, and went to Vincennes. We had no road, only a bridle path. From there we went Edward Coles, after

to Edwardswille, Ill., where wards Governor of the State, then lived. I had known him well in Albemarle County; we were raised together. He was very anxious for us to buy land there. He had bought a great deal. He

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had taken about twenty negroes with him from Virginia, who worked for him for a time, and made improvements on his land. He finally sold his land. for a great profit, freed his negroes, and went back to Virginia. From here we went on to St. Louis.

"There were no bridges on our route, and only the large rivers, like the Ohio and Mississippi, had ferry-boats. We had to swim all the smaller streams. Some of the more difficult streams had dug-out canoes, in which we rowed over, and swam our horses behind and beside us. My mare was one of the best animals ever backed. She was a granddaughter of imported Diomede. She would swim almost like a fish. She would seldom wet me above the knees. Garnett's horse was a poor swimmer-swam very deep. He called him Henry. When we crossed a river, you could only see his head out of the water, and Garnett would be wet almost to the armpits. On our way we saw a great deal of game,-gangs of deer, fowls, and wolves. At one house where we stayed all night, the wolves came about the house and howled so terribly, that the dogs were afraid of them--would not go out and attack them. They took several pigs out of the pen, and we had to go out and throw brands of fire at them to drive them away. We saw no bears except some tame ones that had been caught by the people when they were young.

"When we got to St. Louis, I called on Gov. Clarke, and showed him the letter from Mr. Jefferson, and I never was more kindly treated. There was a small tavern near the ferry, but he insisted that I should stay with him. He knew a great deal about the Western country. He and Merriwether Lewis had explored the Missouri River. St. Louis was a dingy little settlement, not much larger than a good negro quarter. There was only one narrow street three or four hundred yards long. The houses were mostly old-looking, built of rock in the roughest manner possible. A few of them were plastered houses. They were all one story. Gov. Clarke lived in a one-story plastered house with two rooms. The fences around their truck patches (gardens) were a kind of wickerwork made of posts stuck into the ground, and brush wattled into them. For miles around it was a prairie country. Back from the river some two or three miles, there was a large spring, and near it a windmill that did most of the grinding for the settlement. I went out there several times. When the wind blew hard, it ground very fast. Most of the people were French. Even the negroes spoke French. Gov. Clarke was very anxious that I should buy there. He advised me to look no further. He said that with so many large rivers coming in near there, and such a rich, fertile country,