I was still suffering with the ague daily.
On the 27th of September, my grandmother (on my mother's side), Anna Thompson, died at Avon. She was eighty-four years of age.
It was a singular coincidence that she, with her husband, Lot Thompson, also Mercy Thompson and Samuel Thompson, all of one family, died when they were eighty-four years of age. I was not able to attend my grandmother's funeral.
On the 4th of October, 1839, my uncle, Adna Hart, died, aged forty-three years. I had visited him in his sickness, and preached the gospel to him, and he was believing. I had also been associated with him from my youth up.
On his death-bed he sent me a request that I would preach his funeral sermon.
I was having the chills and fever daily at the time, attended with a very severe cough, so much so, that my father thought that I would never leave his home alive. But when they brought me the request of my dying uncle, and the day came for his burial, I told my father to get his horse and buggy ready, for I was going to attend the funeral.
He thought I was very reckless in regard to my own life, as I had suffered with the chills and fever some fifteen days, and to attempt to speak in my weak state, and to begin at the same hour that my chill was to come on, seemed to him foolhardy.
My parents were quite alarmed, yet according to my request my father got up his team, and I rode with him and my step-mother five miles, through a cold, chilly wind, and I commenced speaking to a large congregation, at the same hour that my chill had been in the habit of coming on.
I spoke over an hour with great freedom, and my chill left me from that hour, and I had no more attacks for many days.
On the Monday following, October 17th, I felt sufficiently restored to health to continue my journey. I took leave of my father and sister, and left for New York, where I arrived on the morning of the 8th of November.