Note 227 — XXI ORGANIZATION OF RELIEF AT FORT DODGE AND WEBSTER CITY
Reading edition
Hoover in his Expedition to Spirit Lake in the Hamilton Freeman (Webster City), August 20, 1857, speaks of Major Williams as “afflicted with rheumatism, and the frost of 70 winters whitening his brow” as resolutely setting “forward at our head.” This Major Williams resented and took occasion to reply in the succeeding issue of the Freeman that “I can’t agree to be made so old. I was 60 last December [1856], and never have I been afflicted with rheumatism in my life.... I don’t wish to be considered so old.”