at the court house and arranged a joint discussion between a young fellow about my age, named McIntyre, and myself. He was an ardent supporter of Bell and Everett. We both spoke. At this precinct I was quite successful the next day and received a large plurality over my opponents.

I left Fulton late in the afternoon on my return to the lower part of the district, passing through Williamsburg on my way back to Hobson's, and learned the result of the poll at that place. I stayed that night at Hobson's. The next morning, Wednesday, I rode on down the Boon's Lick Road to Danville, and stopped to get the returns of the election in Montgomery County. About noon of that day I rode to New Florence, a distance of four miles, for the purpose of taking a train down to Warrenton, where the Circuit Court was in session and where my chief opponent was for the time being engaged. At New Florence I took the saddle and bridle off of faithful old Sam and tied a card in his mane, saying, "Let him go-D. P. Dyer," and turned him loose.

This place was about twenty-five miles west of my mother's farm in Lincoln County. The next morning she discovered the horse in the cornfield "helping himself."

The train came along shortly after this and I went on to Warrenton. Here I met Colonel Minor, my opponent, compared notes, and found that I had been elected Circuit Attorney for the 3d Circuit by less than three hundred votes. The most gratifying circumstance attending that election was the vote cast in Clark Township, Lincoln County. It was here that my father settled in 1841 and it was here

that I went to school when a boy. The poll showed 125 votes cast in the precinct, of which I received 125.

I went from Warrenton to see my mother and remained with her until the 14th of November. On that day I went to St. Louis and took a boat, the Rob Roy, for Louisiana, Missouri, where I was to be married the following day. The boat arrived at Louisiana about sunrise the morning of the 15th. Here I found my sweetheart waiting for me on the porch of the residence of Dr. W. C. Hardin, her uncle. Her father, Judge Ezra Hunt, had, in September before, suddenly died at Troy, while there attending a term of the Circuit Court. This necessitated a change at Bowling Green and it was determined that the wedding should take place in Louisiana at the residence of her uncle and aunt, Doctor and Mrs. William C. Hardin.

After the death of Judge Hunt, I bought of Doctor William Bolton two acres of ground with a one-story log and frame building containing four rooms and an outbuilding of one room for servants, situated in the eastern part of Bowling Green opposite the late residence of Champ Clark, for the sum of $700.00. Part of the furniture used by the family of Judge Hunt was removed to this house and there placed in position by myself and my intended bride in October. Thus it was that everything was in readiness for our future home.

The fifteenth of November, our wedding day, was the most charming of any day in the year. The sky was clear, the air balmy, and for once at least it could be truly said that it was a "beautiful Indian-summer day." After breakfast that morning, I drove to

THE FIRST HOME OF MR. AND MRS. DYER AT BOWLING GREEN, MISSOURI

Bowling Green and returned to Louisiana that evening to be married. At 7:30 Lizzie Chambers Hunt and I were joined in marriage by the Reverend John T. Worthington, rector of the Episcopal Church at that place. The wedding party that attended the bride and groom was composed of Misses Sallie Block, Ella Porter, Maria and Louise Hardin, Robert A. Campbell, William McCormick, Righter Levering, and William R. Hardin. Shortly after that time, Sallie Block was married to William McCormick and Ella Porter to Righter Levering.

It has now been sixty-one years since the day my marriage took place. All of those composing the wedding party except Robert A. Campbell, Louise Hardin Pratt, and myself, have passed into the great beyond. Mr. Campbell is now in his 90th, Mrs. Pratt in her 82d, and I in my 84th year.

The evening after we were married, my wife and I took the boat, Rob Roy, on her return trip to St. Louis, for a visit to my mother in Lincoln County. On our way we stopped over at St. Charles from Saturday, the 17th, to Monday, the 19th, and had a visit with Judge and Mrs. W. W. Edwards, the latter being an elder sister of my wife. On Monday we proceeded to the farm in Lincoln County and there remained with my mother until the following Thursday.

She took the course usually observed in her day, of preparing something for the comfort of new beginners at housekeeping. She engaged a neighbor, with a wagon and team, to make a trip to Bowling Green. Promptly on the morning specified, he appeared and took on his load, consisting of two