Greetings and congratulations warm and heartfelt are exchanged; and speedily the mail is opened, papers and letters are distributed; all search eagerly for news from home, and my joy is turned into grief for my friend Lieutenant Hunter, who learned, by the very boat whose coming he hailed with so much pleasure, that he is fatherless. All sympathize deeply with him; few know how closely drawn together are the occupants of a frontier post; but the common joy, although dampened, was not destroyed, and civilities were tendered to the captain and officers of the boat, who were real gentlemen, and became great favorites at the fort. They came again the next year, perhaps more than once, and pleasant excursion parties on the boat relieved the monotony of fort life.
The steamboat was the topic of conversation for a long time. The day of its arrival became an era from which we reckoned, and those of the first occupants of Fort Snelling who still survive, can scarcely recall a more delightful reminiscence than the arrival of the first steamboat, in the summer of 1823. Years passed away, childhood with its lightheartedness gave way to youth, and that again to womanhood, and then came middle life with its many cares, its griefs, its joys too, and its unnumbered mercies, with bright anticipations of a blessed rest from toil and pain,--when on one pleasant summer day in 1864, I find myself, with a party of friends who have come to visit Fort Snelling and its many interesting surroundings, standing, side by side with my mother, on the bastion of the fort, recalling days and scenes gone by. Leaning against the railing, and contemplating the river, so beautiful from that height, she remarked to me: "Can you remember, my child, when the first steamboat came up this river?" I answered, "Yes, oh yes! most distinctly do I remember it." And then we talk of the event, and recall the many pleasant things connected with it, when, lo! a whistle, and the loud puffing and snorting of the iron horse! Captain Newson, standing near and listening to our conversation, exclaimed, pointing over to Mendota, "And there goes the first train of cars that ever started out from Fort Snelling!"
Hushed and breathless, we gaze at the fast vanishing train, feeling, as we stand there, we two, alone, of all who saw that other great event, _over forty years ago_, like links connecting the buried past with the living present. And we would fain weep as we think of those who stood beside us then, now long since passed away--but living, loving friends are about us, and we will not let our sadness mar their pleasure; so down in the depth of our hearts we hide these tender recollections, to indulge in when we are alone. I look long at the beautiful river, and think, as it ripples and laughs in the sunlight, that, could our ears catch the language of its murmurings, we should hear: