When I was 5 years old or thereabouts I was attacked with the Typhus Fever. and at one time, during my sickness, my father dispaired of my life. The Doctors broke the fever, after which it settled under my shoulder. & the Dr <​Dr Parker,​> Caled it a sprained shoulder & anointed it with bone ointment, & freely applied the hot shovel, when it proved to be a swelling under the arm. which was opened, & discharged freely. after which the disease removed & desended into my left Leg & ancle & terminated in a fever sore of the worst kind. and I endured the most acutest suffering for a long time under the care of Drs. Smith, Stone & Perkins. of Hanover.

At one time eleven Doctors came from the <​Dartmouth​> Medical college, at Hanover New Hampshire, for the purpose of amputation, but, young as I was, I utterly refused to give my assent to the operation, but I consented to their Trying an experiment by removing a <​large portion​> great of the bone from my left leg. which they did. & fourteen additional peices of bone afterwards worked out before my leg healed, during which time I was reduced so very low that my mother could carry me with ease. & after I began to get about I went on crutches till I started for the State of New York <​where​> In the mean time My father had gone to the State of New York for the purpose of preparing a place for the removal of his family, which he affected by sending a man after by us by the name of Caleb Howard, who, after he had got started on, the journey with my mother & family spent the money he had rec[e]ived of my father in drinking & Gambling &c.