Wisconsin Historical Collections, Volume VII (1876)

              personal narrative . 361 and whisky john le roy had his violin and we had a great feast i believe we were the first to celebrate the fourth at madison i do not remember that as many white men had ever met there be fore in the spring of 1838 martin rowney a discharged soldier who had been trading with the indians on the puckaway lake came back to the portage and had a spree for two weeks or more i do not know whether he was tired of drinking or wanted to break off but he took an oath that he would not drink another drop of liquor as long as he lived he was living with me in a house occupied by myself and walsworth a little below carpenter's house he slept in the same room that i did he awoke up in the night with ter ror jumped close to my bed and told me that the devil wanted to take him away i pushed him with force and told him that if the devil had him he had no business with me he began to cry and lament over his condition keeping it up some time when ten dered some liquor in the morning he declined it saying he had sworn not to drink any more and he would rather die than taste it i had toast and strong tea made for him at breakfast he barely tasted the bread but drank two cups of tea and appeared much bet ter he told me he had an idea of going to madison to take a lot there as it seemed a point of some promise he left us about eight or nine o'clock and about eleven or twelve smith the mail-carrier told us that he saw a man four or five miles up the road crying and appeared to be out of his mind i started in company with j walsworth laront parin carpenter and old man rowan we found the track about half a mile north of rocky run there was a little island surrounded by sand we measured it all around and i found it twenty-five and a half feet on either side to where any trees or grass grew on that patch of grass thus surrounded we found his coat vest pants hat and other clothing but no trace of himself in his pocket there was a pocket-book containing some memorandum papers and several dollars in money we took all his things and brought them home we met captain low and reported to him the sad story he told us to go and get some soldiers to aid us in making a farther search 1 engaged fifteen indians whom i promised to pay well to find him dead or alive captain low came with twelve soldiers and ten or twelve citizens joined in the search which with a brief intermission was kept up till the 24 	 his