426 INDIANA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS 



orchards of old trees, one of which, containing 1200 bear- 

 ing trees, (owned by Gershom Flagg, 1 Esq., brother of 

 your Comptroller of State,) upon a large and excellent 

 farm in Madison county, 30 miles from St. Louis, where 

 he has resided 27 years, 25 of which in the same log 

 cabins, which are his castles still, and in which I met 

 a kind of welcome not to be measured by outside appear- 

 ances. He has about 500 acres in cultivation, and is still 

 adding more; and keeps about 100 head of cattle, with 

 horses and hogs to match. His orchard of excellent 

 grafted fruit brings him in some $2,000 a year, most of 

 the fruit of which he sends to New-Orleans. He keeps 

 10 or 15 yokes of steers at work, which, as soon as he 

 gets well broke, are offered for sale, and bring remuner- 

 ating prices. He is reputed so, and is undoubtedly rich, 

 and I will also add, proud. But it is proud of living so 

 long in a house that has been of so little expense to him. 

 All of his out-buildings, and they are very extensive and 

 convenient, are of the same primitive description. In- 

 deed, he says that he has never used a brick or shingle 

 upon the place, but if I may judge from appearances, he 

 is now preparing to do so shortly. He is not waiting for 

 sledding. Every thing around him is on the go-ahead 

 principle, except the house, and that is going to decay. 

 And when we look abroad over the towns, cities and 

 farms extending hundreds of miles away to the north, 

 and think that this very house when built, was the 

 "frontier settlement," the very outpost of civilization, 

 it is easy to imagine that it is time for it to pass away. 

 At the time Mr. Flagg settled here, he was looked upon 

 by his neighbors in the "thick woods," as little better 

 than a crazy man to undertake to cultivate the prairie, 

 when it was evident it would not produce crops, other- 

 wise it would have produced timber. 



1 Gershom Flagg, Madison County, Illinois. Pioneer settler and 

 farmer. Contributor to Prairie Farmer. His "Pioneer Letters," 

 edited with introduction and notes by Solon J. Buck, are printed 

 in Illinois State Historical Society Transactions, 1910, pp. 139-63 

 (Springfield, 1912). 



