The White Pine News

The Wheelbarrow Tramp:
[Chicago Herald.]

As an old man stepped cautiously from the train at Elgin a passenger remarked: "There goes the great original tramp. No, I don't mean that he is a tramp now: on the contrary, he is worth $50,000 or $60,000. But he was the first man that ever made a biz of tramping in this country. He is a German, you notice; he came to this country when he was 20 years old, with several thousand dollars. He settled in New England, but got to trading farms and horses with the Yankees so that in 1826 he found himself with one old horse and wagon, a wife and five children, and no farm. So he started west, but the old horse died, and then he traded the wagon for a wheelbarrow, loaded the small children in, the rest walked and they continued the journey. Well, that old horse dying made his fortune. The sight of a man wheeling his family west in a wheelbarrow worked on people's sympathies so they took up collections for him at every village and settlement, besides housing and feeding the family free every night. Money just rolled in; there was no expense, and so the German found himself in a profitable business. The result was that between 1826 and 1835 he made four trips from Newburyport, Mass., to New Orleans, with a wheelbarrow. On his last trip he stopped in Illinois, bought land, and is now rich. Some of those children that made the trips in a wheelbarrow with the original American tramp can put on more style than anybody else in the State."