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Ingram, Orrin Henry, 1830-1918 / Autobiography, Orrin Henry Ingram : May, 1830--December, 1912
(1912)
In Eau Claire to remain, pp. 42-44
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Page 43
ORRIN HENRY INGRAM and that we would join them there. We were delayed longer at Glens Falls than I expected we would be, and there had been a wreck on the railroad from Buffalo on, and it seemed advisable to take a steamer from Buffalo to Detroit. A day or two before our arrival in Buffalo one of the steamers plying between Buffalo and Detroit had burned, and of course that fact appealed to our nerves; but we didn't know how long we might be delayed, and decided we would take the chance of being lost on the lake. We left Buffalo about nine o'clock, found plenty of room (not many persons wanting to make the trip then). Of course your mother felt more nervous about it than I did. Before taking our staterooms, to retire, we met a young lady who had come to Buffalo on the steamer which had been burned, and her account of her escape did not make the trip seem so much like a pleasure trip as it would have seem- ed if we had not talked with her, or known about the accident, and of her being saved by another boat before the steamer was entirely burned. She told us she had clung to a rail at the stern of the boat, and that the fire was getting near to her when she was taken off by another boat When we retired it was a question with your mother whether she would remove her clothes, but I prevailed on her to remove most of her garments, but she said she would keep her stockings on, anyway. We got some rest, arrived in Detroit in good time the next day, and took a night train to Chicago. There were no sleepers and we had the seats turned. In the night a thief stole your mother's pocket book and money. We arrived in Chicago the next day and found that Mr. Playter and the maid had left for Eau Claire. We took the first train for Milwaukee, where we had to remain over Sunday; then took the first train Monday to Prairie du Chien. There were some good passenger boats on the Mississippi. We took the steamer War Eagle, and among the passengers was Thurlow Weed, the then widely-known editor of the Albany Journal. Mr. Weed was well advanced in years, took much interest in us when he learned we intend- 43
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