I am really having trouble getting today’s post put together.  That is because I am not feeling well at all, but the story I have to tell really should be told today.  It may be shorter than it could be, but here we go.

This story comes from two directions.  First, we come to the end of the journey of the Knickerbocker up the Mississippi River.  I will come to the end of the portion of Teacher Winter’s journal that described that trip.  Secondly, I will share a few thoughts about the fact that today marks the 3rd anniversary of this blog.

The very first post that I wrote on January 30, 2016 was the story of the Knickerbocker arriving in St. Louis.  That original post can be seen below.

There certainly was not much to it.  Two paragraphs.  No images.  WordPress lets us know statistics for our website, and they say that our average number of words in a post these days is in the 800’s.  Three years ago, I was a rookie at this business.  I had a lot to learn.

Teacher Winter’s journal adds some new facts to this story.  Below is the entry for January 30, 1839.

“On the afternoon of the 30th, at three o’clock, with the help of God, we finally arrived safely at St. Louis.  And it was high time, for the illness of several persons was growing steadily more serious.”

Once the Knickerbocker had arrived in St. Louis, there was only one more boat that would arrive later.  That was the Selma, which carried the passengers from the ship, Olbers.  I am sure there was a time period when the members of the immigration held out hope that the passengers of the Amalia would arrive, but eventually they would have to concede that they had been lost at sea.

I am going to echo the words of Teacher Winter by saying that the success of this blog could only be possible “with the help of God”.  Allow me to show you some of the statistics for our website.  The image below shows some of those stats.

If you add today’s post, that will put our posts total up to 977.  Not all of them are the kind that I compose on most days.  Carla Jordan occasionally publishes a post that pertains to events going on at the museum.  However, most of them are historical in nature.  As you can see, we are sneaking close to publishing our 1000th blog post.  Gerard and I have already discussed the fact that we may have to celebrate when we reach that benchmark.  There likely will be beer involved.

I would like to take the time to thank some folks, but I will do it by pointing you back to one of our previous posts that recognized many of these people.  You can find it by clicking the link below.

Blog VIP’s

However, I would be remiss if I didn’t mention the people who are the most important.  That would be our readers.  Thank you so much for stopping by our website on occasion to partake in a little bit of East Perry County Lutheran history.