Shells and Lincoln

"Fifth day, Noon [Thursday, October 17, 1867] We are feeding & eating dinner by the side of the river (which we have been coming up ever since we landed) about half way between Pontoosuc and Dallas. Are in about a mile of Dallas I guess. The children are getting shells on the sand. The River is low. They are hitching up & I must quit."

We drove up to the edge of the Mississippi in Pontoosuc. There is no levee here. Wow! We saw shells all along the edge, just like the ones the children got! River clams, maybe? We each picked one to take home.

In Dallas City, a large rock at the river's edge marked the place where Abraham Lincoln spoke in 1858, nine years before Ann & Henry came by.