| 658 This mill runs on stated days of the week; so that on the days when its rolls are still this token of business life is missing also. This at one time lively spot is an area of over a mile in length and nearly three fourths of a mile in width from the river back to the bluffs, is but a rural suburb to a small country town, having the shelter of a city government to give sonorousness to its title of city. It is said that there are fourteen hundred inhabitants in the city, but we fear the census-gatherers will show less. Of the part of the city called the "Flat," the miller, M. P. Welter, feelingly said: "The Flat go constantly to pieces. Plenty houses be torn down but no body builds any houses up. Nothing builds up any more on the Flat."
Building after building has been torn down, the bricks and stone being hauled elsewhere and used for various purposes, some going to make some of the few better houses and business places which have been built on the hill, along Mulholland Street, the main business street now, in fact the only one worthy of the name.
There is no livery stable in the place, where a man can secure teams and carriages for hire; one or two persons permitting their private equipages to do service now and then in case one is urgent, as an accommodation.
To him who knew the city in its palmy days the transition from the thronged, busy streets, the sounds of life and bustle, to the stillness of the untrodden streets, and the total absence of the sounds and stir of business life is depressing, almost appalling.
For many years the chief industry of the place was grape growing and wine making, and the raising of vegetables, which were drawn on wagons to Keokuk, twelve miles below, on the west bank of the river. Of late, vegetable growing has been largely abandoned, disease has developed in the vineyards, crippling the wine making industry, and so, under the fostering care of a Mr. Stahl, from Quincy, Illinois, the vacated lots and blocks are turned into berry fields where blackcaps and strawberries are grown to feed the early northern markets. At our arrival hundreds of women and children were in the dewy fields gathering the luscious fruit, which was taken in crates on wagons across the river and thence by rail-where-away to the north somewhere.
There used to be, now and again, a sort of railroad agitation; and we were not surprised to find the old town in the midst of a railway excitement. There is some talk and some prospect of a road running from Niota, near Ft. Madison, on the river at the crossing of the Santa Fe, to Quincy below Nauvoo some fifty miles, through Nauvoo, which, if it should be secured, will greatly aid the city, we think.
Bro. Blakeslee much enjoyed the ride over and about the "beloved city," once his home as well as ours, and whence he, with other sojourners and pilgrims, was obliged to leave. "From city to city; from synagogue to synagogue;" was verified in our experience.
We returned to Montrose in the late afternoon. . . . Bro. Blakeslee missed the evening train, but rose early and reached Chicago in time for
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