They settled for a short time in New York City before moving to Michigan and later the town of Greenfield, Wisconsin.
He returned to Wisconsin the next year, where he organized an 1852 expedition to move heards of horses and cattle to the fertile ground around Sacramento Valley.
Losing his fortune, he moved to Chicago, Illinois where he again worked as a commission merchant, but also invested in Colorado mining and sheep.
While still living in Chicago, he also worked on Wisconsin reclamation projects, including emptying swamps near Muskego and Wind Lake.
[3] This article incorporates text from the 1909 edition of Memoirs of Milwaukee County, by Jerome Anthony Watrous which is in the public domain in the United States.