8 JOHN WESLEY POWELL. 



geographic work and always kept him supplied with abundant ma- 

 terial from which to prepare his lectures, and he always gave her 

 an outline of his discourse before delivering it in public. 



In the following summer (1853) he worked on a farm at Bonus 

 Prairie. In the meantime his father became interested in the found- 

 ing of a school at Wheaton, Illinois, under the auspices of the 

 Wesleyan Methodists. Near the village he bought a small tract 

 of land of forty acres, on which stood a little farmhouse. He had 

 also bought five acres of land close by the new building erected for 

 college purpose, and was himself one of the trustees of the college. 

 Early in the fall John's mother and sister journeyed with him from 

 Bonus Prairie to Wheaton. On reaching that place he had the 

 little frame moved from the forty-acre lot to the five-acre lot near 

 the village, a distance of about half a mile, and with the help of 

 two or three men it was soon fitted up in comfortable style for the 

 winter. Here John studied and taught until summer, when he 

 returned to the farm. 



Early in the fall of 1854 he went south to Macon County, and 

 taught a County school, and the following spring went into busi- 

 ness with his brother-in-law, Mr. Davis, who had married his eldest 

 sister. A nursery and stock farm, the latter for sheep, was the 

 business venture in which he engaged, hoping that at the end of 

 two or three years he would make sufficient money to enable him 

 to take a college course. 



When the news of his undertaking reached his father, and 

 with it the alarming statement that John had run into debt, he 

 wrote his son a very bitter letter, saying that he considered the 

 debts which he had assumed to be dishonorable and that his course 

 in the matter was not a whit better than highway robbery. His 

 mother also wrote advising him to withdraw from the business, 

 although she treated the matter with leniency. The combined op- 

 position of his parents made him relinquish the enterprise, and he 

 then fully determined never to commence again until he had com- 

 pleted a course of study. Accordingly he went to Decatur and 

 rented a little house with a single room, which had previously been 

 used as a shoe-shop. In this humble tenement he boarded him- 

 self, purchasing bread, milk, and such other things as did not need 

 cooking; and occasionally his sister, who lived in the country, 

 would send him a joint of meat ready for the table, or would in 

 other ways add to his little store. 



On going to Wheaton, he expected that the school would 

 furnish all the educational facilities needed, but as it was just or- 



