When I was 5 years old or thereabouts I was attacked with the Typhus Fever. and at one time, during my sickness, my dispaired of my life. The Doctors broke the fever, after which it settled under my shoulder. & the Dr <​Dr Parker,​> Caled it a sprained shoulder & anointed it with bone ointment, & freely applied the hot shovel, when it proved to be a swelling under the arm. which was opened, & discharged freely. after which the disease removed & desended into my left Leg & ancle & terminated in a fever sore of the worst kind. and I endured the most acutest suffering for a long time under the care of Drs. Smith, Stone & Perkins. of Hanover.

At one time eleven Doctors came from the <​Dartmouth​> Medical college, at Hanover New Hampshire, for the purpose of amputation, but, young as I was, I utterly refused to give my assent to the operation, but I consented to their Trying an experiment by removing a <​large portion​> great of the bone from my left leg. which they did. & fourteen additional peices of bone afterwards worked out before my leg healed, during which time I was reduced so very low that my could carry me with ease. & after I began to get about I went on crutches till I started for the State of <​where​> In the mean time My had gone to the State of for the purpose of preparing a place for the removal of his family, which he affected by sending a man after by us by the name of Caleb Howard, who, after he had got started on, the journey with my & family spent the money he had rec[e]ived of my in drinking & Gambling &c.— — We fell in with a family by the name of Gates who were travelling west, & Howard drove me from the waggon & made me travel in my weak state through the snow 40 miles per day for several days, during which time I suffered the most excrutiating weariness & pain, & all this that Mr Howard might enjoy the Society of two of Mr Gates’ Daughters which he took on the waggon where I should have Rode, & thus he [p. 131]