I., New York State. My
parents' folks mostly farmers and sailors--on my father's side, of
English--on my mother's (Van Velsor's), from Hollandic immigration.
There was, first and last, a large family of children; (I was the
second.) We moved to Brooklyn while I was still a little one in
frocks--and there in B. I grew up out of frocks--then as child and boy
went to the public schools--then to work in a printing office. When
only sixteen or seventeen years old, and for three years afterward, I
went to teaching country schools down in Queens and Suffolk counties,
Long Island, and "boarded round." Then, returning to New York, work'd
as printer and writer, (with an occasional shy at "poetry.")
1848-'9.--About this time--after ten or twelve years of experiences
and work and lots of fun in New York and Brooklyn--went off on a
leisurely journey and working expedition (my brother Jeff with me)
through all the Middle States, and down the Ohio and Mississippi
rivers. Lived a while in New Orleans, and work'd there. (Have lived
quite a good deal in the Southern States.) After a time, plodded back
northward, up the Mississippi, the Missouri, &c., and around to, and
by way of, the great lakes, Michigan, Huron and Erie, to Niagara Falls
and Lower Canada--finally returning through Central New York, and down
the Hudson. 1852-'54--Occupied in house-building in Brooklyn. (For a
little while of the first part of that time in printing a daily and
weekly paper.)
1855.--Lost my dear father this year by death.
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