CAPTIVITY AMONG THE SIOUX.
CHAPTER I.
EARLY HISTORY—CANADA TO KANSAS—DEATH OF MY FATHER—MY MARRIAGE—“HO! FOR IDAHO!”—CROSSING THE PLATTE RIVER—A STORM.
I was born in Orillia, Canada, in 1845. Our home was on the lake shore, and there amid pleasant surroundings I passed the happy days of early childhood.
The years 1852 to 1856 witnessed, probably, the heaviest immigration the West has ever known in a corresponding length of time. Those who had gone before sent back to their friends such marvelous accounts of the fertility of the soil, the rapid development of the country, and the ease with which fortunes were made, the “Western fever” became almost epidemic. Whole towns in the old, Eastern States were almost depopulated. Old substantial farmers, surrounded apparently by all the comforts that heart could wish, sacrificed the homes wherein their families had been reared for generations, and, with all their worldly possessions, turned their faces toward the setting sun. And with what high hopes! Alas! how few, comparatively, met their realization.
In 1856, my father, James Wiggins, joined a New York colony bound for Kansas. Being favorably impressed with the country and its people, they located the town of Geneva, and my father returned for his family.
Reaching the Missouri River on our way to our new home, my father was attacked with cholera, and died.
In obedience to his dying instructions, my widowed mother, with her little family, continued on the way to our new home. But, oh! with what saddened hearts we entered into its possession. It seemed as if the light of our life had gone out. He who had been before to prepare that home for us, was not there to share it with us, and, far away from all early associations, almost alone in a new and sparsely settled country, it seemed as though hope had died.