Now I worked that winter in the Cigar Factory, here I made the acquaintance of a cigarmaker that had traveled over most parts of the globe and from him I had a good deal of information of different parts of the world.

In the spring a friend of mine came from New York City to visit me, it was Fredrick Eckel, a schoolmate that had come with me across the ocean and he talked so much of New York that I concluded to go with him to New York as I really did not like the cigar business anymore. We went and arrived in New York City all safe. In the time I lived in Boston, two historical events took place.

One was a revolution in Kansas and the other, the execution of John Brown in Virginia.

There existed in Boston an "Emancipation Society" and the idea of abolishing slavery in the United States had already taken deep root in the people. Kansas was then yet a Territory and the slave states of the South were working hard and hearty to make Kansas an other slave state. While in the North, particular in the New England states, they supported the idea for a free state and settlers from both sides went into Kansas to settle there, where finally a revolution broke out between the free and slave elements.

They had a good many bitter fights until the free element got the upper hand. But agriculture had by that time been somewhat neglected and a famine followed right on the heal of the revolution. That is in short, the first event.

The second! A certain John Brown collected a lot of men and stormed the arsenal at Harpers Ferry in Virginia and there they armed themselves and now they intended to go from plantation to plantation to free the slaves by force. Thinking their ranks would swell soon by those abandoned slaves so that they could not be resisted anymore. But they failed badly! The militia of Virginia overtook them and made them prisoners, they were prosecuted according to the Virginia law and sentenced to death by hanging. This created quite an excitement through out the North, but John Brown and some of his followers had to hang.

These two events were the forerunners of much greater movements that later shook the whole Nation to it's very foundation.

Now I left off with my personal. When I had arrived in New York City all I had in possession was $10.00, ten dollars in cash and just necessary clothing. I found me a boarding house with a countryman of mine, then was looking for a job. This was an easy matter as business was in good condition.

I found a job in Elisabeth Street in a furniture establishment as varnisher for six dollars per week wages, but now the trouble was I had no experience in varnishing yet and this was the wages for regular hands. So after a few weeks they found out that I was not the man they should have so there was nothing for me but to change places.