Barlow wrote the following unique notice and posted it in different parts of the country:
"Gentlemen, I will say to you
That I will sell at a vendue
Horses, hogs, sheep and cattle,
Plows, hoes and other things that rattle;
Also, some fine honey bees
And other things as good as these."
It is needless to say that he sold everything very readily, taking his pay in all kinds of legal tender— which included state paper money, hides and Mexican silver dollars, which were the best specie in those days. He bought a box of friction matches to take the place of his flint, steel and punk, and paid for them with a coon skin.
In Illinois, he reconnoitered for six weeks, looking for a good location. He visited the present site of Chicago and soon discarded the idea of settling there, "where a man could not keep his hat from blowing off his head." He finally settled near Farmington, Illinois, on a 320 acre farm. The family was quite prosperous there, raising diversified crops in abundance, but found there was little demand for grain as their market was mostly local and prices were poor for other farm products; oats and corn brought only ten and twelve cents a bushel, pork was worth from a dollar and a half to two and a half a hundred pounds. By working hard, the family came out about even for nine years. By selling their acreage, a good log house, including one of the first iron stoves in that part of the state, they would have ample money to take them to their final goal—Oregon. Barlow determined to carry out his original intention made when Henry Clay was defeated, and start for the Pacific Northwest. A great deal of Oregon literature had been distributed throughout the East, and the Barlow library contained almost every book and pamphlet published. One of the
