Editing Solomon Northup (section)

===Canal worker, farmer, and violin player===
In the winter of the year that he married, Northup worked as a laborer repairing the [[Champlain Canal]]. He then bought two horses and contracted to tow lumber on rafts to [[Troy, New York|Troy]] from [[Lake Champlain]] beginning the following spring. He employed two workers.<ref name="PS - freedom" />{{sfn|Northup|Wilson|1853|pp=22–23}} He worked on other waterways in upstate New York<ref name=Britannica/> and he traveled to northern New York and [[Montreal]], Canada. When the canal was closed down, he cut lumber during the winter of 1831–1832.{{sfn|Northup|Wilson|1853|p=23}} He worked as a farm laborer in the Sandy Hill area.<ref name=Britannica/>

He arranged to farm corn and oats on part of the Alden farm where his father lived in Kingsbury.{{sfn|Northup|Wilson|1853|pp=23–24}} He built a fine reputation as a [[fiddler]] and was in high demand to play for dances in surrounding villages.<ref name= Oxford/>{{sfn|Northup|Wilson|1853|p=24}} The couple had become prosperous due to the income Anne received as a cook and that Northup made farming and playing the violin.{{sfn|Northup|Wilson|1853|p=24}}

The couple moved to Saratoga Springs in March 1834, where he drove a horse-drawn taxi for a businessman. During the tourist season, he worked for the United States Hotel,<ref name="PS - freedom" />{{sfn|Northup|Wilson|1853|p=24}}{{sfn|Northup|Wilson|1853|pp=24–25}} where he was employed by Judge [[James M. Marvin]], a part-owner of the hotel.<ref name="PS - freedom" /><ref name="Sylvester">{{cite book |last1=Sylvester |first1=Nathaniel Bartlett |title=History of Saratoga County, New York |date=1878 |publisher=Everts & Ensign |location=New York |page=196 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=j8spAQAAMAAJ&pg=PA192-IA12 }}</ref> He played his violin at several well-known hotels in Saratoga Springs.{{sfn|Northup|Wilson|1853|pp=25, 28}}<ref name="Worley">Worley, Sam. [http://muse.jhu.edu/login?auth=0&type=summary&url=/journals/callaloo/v020/20.1worley.html "Solomon Northup and the Sly Philosophy of the Slave Pen"], ''Callaloo,'' Vol. 20, No. 1 (Winter 1997), p. 245.</ref> He also worked on the construction of the Troy and Saratoga Railroad.<ref name="PS - freedom" />{{sfn|Northup|Wilson|1853|p=25}} He had become a regular customer and friend of William Perry and Cephus Parker, who owned several shops in town. Over the seven years that the Northups lived in Saratoga Springs, they had made ends meet and dressed their children in fine clothes, but they had been unable to prosper as hoped.{{sfn|Northup|Wilson|1853|pp=25–27}}

In March 1841, Anne went 20 miles to Sandy Hill, where she ran the kitchen at Sherrill's Coffee House during the court session. She may have taken their oldest daughter, Elizabeth, with her. Their two youngest children went to stay with their aunt. Northup stayed in Saratoga Springs to look for employment until the tourist season.{{sfn|Northup|Wilson|1853|p=28}}