For several years he conducted a medical practice in Terre Haute, Indiana, where he and his family followed his mother and siblings in relocating from Baltimore after the completion of the National Road in 1834. He resumed sea duty as Passed Assistant Surgeon aboard the ship-of-the-line in 1836, sailing to St. Petersburg, Russia, where Czar Nicholas boarded and inspected, before the "Independence" sailed to the South Atlantic. Tragically, his wife Hannah died while he was serving on the "Independence" and he returned to Terre Haute to tend to his young daughters Hannah and Elizabeth and the family property in the middle of 1838.