Capt. Helm still continued to take the oversight of his slaves, and was
out every day, superintending his business, just as his overseer used to
do.

About this time a man named Henry Tower came to Bath to hire "slave boys,"
as we were called. The Captain hired to him Simon and myself, and a Mr.
Baker also hired to him one slave named Vol. McKenzie. We three started
for Dresden, Ontario County, where we arrived in due time.

Mr. Tower had just bought a tract of land, three miles this side of the
village of Lyons, on the Canandaigua outlet. Here Mr. Tower contemplated
making great improvements, building mills, opening stores &c. This tract
of land was comparatively wild, there being but a small frame house for a
dwelling, one for a store, and another for a blacksmith shop. Mr. Tower
had two brothers; James, the eldest, who took charge of the store, and
John, the younger, who took charge of the hands who worked on the farm;
Henry himself superintending the building of the mills. This firm had a
great number of men in their employ that year. I was kept busy helping the
women about the cooking and house-work. And here, for the first time in my
life, I had a comfortable bed to sleep on, and plenty of wholesome food to
eat; which was something both new and strange to me.

The Towers were thorough-going business-men; they built a large grist
mill, with four run of stone, and also a distillery. In those days it was
customary for nearly all classes to drink spirituous liquors; hence, the
distilleries were sources of great pecuniary interest to those who owned
them. But having lived to see the dreadful evils which the drinking of
alcoholic beverages have produced on community, I can hardly speak of
distilleries in the favorable light in which they were then regarded.