His hands were busy with his trade of cabinetmaking a part of the time, for the support of his family, although he rode from place to place to preach.
A few years of earnest Christian work, devoted affection and service to his family and he passed away to his reward, leaving the young widow with three little children, the youngest but eighteen months old.
In her old age she often reverted to their brief, happy life together, testifying that he never spoke a cross word to her.
She told of his premonition of death and her own remarkable dream immediately preceding that event.
While yet in apparently perfect health he disposed of all his tools, saying that he would not need them any more.
One night, toward morning, she dreamed that she saw a horse saddled and bridled at the gate and some one said to her that she must mount and ride to see her husband, who was very sick; she obeyed, in her dream, riding over a strange road, crossing a swollen stream at one point.
At daylight she awoke; a horse with side-saddle on was waiting and a messenger called her to go to her husband, as he was dangerously ill at a distant house. Exactly as in her dream she was conducted, she traversed the road and crossed the swollen stream to reach the place where he lay, stricken with a fatal malady.
After his death she returned to her father’s house, but the family migrated from Tennessee to Illinois, spent their first winter in Sangamon County, afterward settling in Knox County.
There the brave young pioneer took up her abode in a log cabin on a piece of land which she purchased with the proceeds of her own hard toil.
The cabin was built without nails, of either oak or black walnut logs, it is not now known, with oak clapboards, braces and weight-poles and puncheon floor. There was one window without glass, a stick and clay mortar chimney, and a large, cheerful fireplace where the backlogs and fore-sticks held pyramids of dancing, ruddy flames, and the good cooking was done in the good old way.