CHAPTER XVIII.
During an experience of many years in the transactions of the U. G. R. R., no incident is remembered as more sad than the voluntary exile of William Holmes and his wife, Margaret, at about seventy years of age. They arrived at our station late in the evening of a very cold day, and although well protected with blankets and Buffalo robes, they suffered terribly on the route to our station at Versailles from Fredonia, from which station they started at 3 p.m. The snow was deep and much drifted, and it was one of the coldest days of the season. They had seldom seen snow more than a day at a time, and to cross a river on a bridge of ice was an idea that they could not comprehend until they found themselves rising the east bank of the Cattaraugus Creek (the crossing was on the ice, there being no bridge at that time), on the way to friend Andrew’s station.
As soon after their arrival as they were fed and comfortably warmed, they went to bed. An hour before daylight they heard a boy making a fire, and Margaret was up and at work before the room was warm. When the family came into the sitting room they found her sweeping, and she insisted upon helping about the work as long as she could find anything to do. She was of medium height, and remarkably well formed for one of
