He followed farming in his native town for several years, but, like his kin, the State of New York had a peculiar attraction for him, and early in 1830 he resolved to seek his fortune in that land of promise. He halted for a time near Utica, where he found prosperity sufficient to make that his abiding place for some years, and there he found his wife, a daughter of wealthy parents. In the fall of 1839 he paid his native place a final visit with a view of another removal. About this time the great West held out inducements to till her broad acres, and early in 1840 he left Utica with his family for Illinois, traveling by canal boat to Buffalo, a luxury in the mode of travel which had superseded the slow moving ox team of his grandfather's time. From Buffalo the journey was made with a pair of horses and wagon.
Reaching the vast prairies of Illinois he took up a ranch and erected a house three miles from Buffalo Grove, since called Polo. But fortune still beckoned onward, and after a residence of three years, he sold out and moved to Albion, Dane County, Wisconsin, where he encountered all the hardships and uncertainties of a pioneer farmer, and when the earth refused to yield sustenance to man, the venison of the forest and fish of the lake was the resort, while rattle snakes and other natives disputed the right of way, but he conquered obstacles and resided in Dane Co., twenty-four years. He then sold out and purchased a farm on Otter Creek, in the town of Milton, Rock County, where he continued to reside until his death which occurred on Aug. 15, 1876 (Severance, B. Frank. Genealogy and biography of the descendants of Walter Stewart of Scotland and of John Stewart who came to America in 1718 and settled in Londonderry, N.H. Greenfield, Mass. : T. Morey & Son, 1905, pg. 69, 131-132)