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RECOLLECTIONS' OF FkVTLY HISTORY
As told bv my mother, Nancy Klbbe
Born: Minehead, Vermont, 1^10
Died: Mississippi City, Mississippi, l^?l
My first recollections are associated with a cold winter In Buffalo, N.Y.
My father, sitting before an	o^en fire, and	I, a	timid little Kiri,	crossed
between him and the fire. I	suppose that I	must	been corrected for	it be-
fore, but this time the punishment nroduced an Indelible impression; for, after all-^?hese years, I refer to tsat evening when my own little ones do the like rudeness. My father simnly detained me thpre before the hot fire until I felt very nearly scorched, and then sent me to bed. He was?a large, tall man, a man of energy and authority, and a strict Presbyterian, but of, a reckless nature as evinced by *>!s freouont- removals. Born in ^nfield, Connecticut, August 17, l'7^, the secohd son of Isaac Kibbe and Margaret Terry, he first married Polly Pease on August 1.7, 17^5* Oalus (2), Margaret and Henry were born in Enfield. Then i.n	17?1	or T92 he moved to	Cole-
brook, New Hampshire. Isaac	(L<r) , Mary, Lucy and	Benjamine were born in
Colebrook between the years of 1790 and 1^00, T^en my father moved to Minehead, Vermont, where Oeorre,' tv'e last child of his first wife, was Born in l?02, when she died. On the 17th of March, 1^03, he married my mother, ^ancy Kidd, Chesterfield, Massachusetts, but still resided in Minehead, where her four children were born. The children were Charles, Frances, myself (Nancy), and Y'-iJliam, which brings us down to the war of 1^12.
He moved to Buffalo, New York, and built the first hotel there after the city was burned by the British. An old naner of Bebrusry 1^12, states that the Presbyterians met on the Sabbath day to worship in t^he house of Oaius Kibbe, as the only building of any size in Burfalo, known as the old Fa^le Tavern. Where this house was located we do not know, but my mother has told us that it was never legally sold, as she nev?r signed any i^aners or knew of its purchase. He not only owned and operated this hotel but had . farming lands nearby, on ,?hich v/as produced the ve^tab.Les, milft, ete. to.-supply the table, in lr?? or r20, he tTioved with all his lar^e family of sons and daughters and sone-: n-la1-, down to Louisiana, having first made the long and arduous journey settling a grant of land in St. Mary Parish.
Before the long journey south',"' impressed unon me perhaps because it was the last sleighride and snr>v; I w^s to eniov for years, Uncle Isaac, took us on a lohg journey to bid our Aunt Dana, good-bye; then to see Aunt ^arsons and Aunt Margaret.
Now my memory becomes more circumstantial and I see to the utmost detail the three lon^ houseboats that vie lived in for more than Q year, as they slowly drifted or vere noled and prop&lled by long sweeps, down the Ohio and Mississippi rivers.
We were caught by low w-ter and held up all winter In Cinc.inatti . The Indian village was a great curiosity to us, and we traded such things as we had plenty of for food and corn for the stock. Father knew the country to which were traveling and provided for farming as well as all household goods and comforts, such ^s we were accustomed to. There began our first grief in the loss of sister T-ucy(s husband; he fall between the boats and could not be rescued until dead. One of the boats was sunk by ice , and the older sons left us. Sister Lucy married later to Mr. Debows, and stayed in Cincinatti, Ohio.
Next spring when the ice broke up we resumed our old living in the boathouse, and drifted on down to the Mississippi, and on through to the Atcha-falaya to the wild farm in St. Mary. Here the hard work of building houses and exposure to the hot sun, fehd the malarial soil, brought on a fever, from ?which my father died on July 21, 1^21.
One of tVie children of my si ter Mary also died. I had for years a letter written to my father from his sister T:argaret, i n which she writes In great anguish of a. sad dre^m she	had, She is be-ide a dark, sluggish stream,
and draws near to a low, bro^d spreading tree, which is mournfully borne