William King returned to Jackson, Louisiana where he found his wife and child well. The three headed up the Mississippi to visit with King’s family in Ohio before returning to Edinburgh. “At Detroit my boy took what the Doctors called intermittent fever. On the third day he appeared to be better and the Doctors said I could go on to Ohio, that he would be well in a few days. So I left Detroit on a Steam boat for Toledo where I took the canal to go to Father’s who lived about thirty miles from Toledo. But before I reached Waterville on the Canal my boy got worse and died on the canal boat. I got out at Waterville to get a coffin for my child, and wait till it was made. There I hired a team to take myself, wife and child out to my Father’s and there I buried him in a grave yard on my Father’s farm where most of my Father’s family have been buried since. This was a severe trial to my wife but she bore the dispensation with Christian fortitude and in a week she was able to go with me to New York where we took a sailing Packet for Liverpool and arrived there in fourteen days and twelve hours.” (55)

Can you imagine???????

I have no question for this passage. I just can’t imagine how Mary King left for New York and what the trip across the Atlantic must have been like for her.