304 LABETTE COUNTY, KANSAS. 



fact, if my ideas of a model farm and an independent home 

 are correct. 



HISTORY. 



My family and myself came here from the Buckeye State, 

 in March, 1870. This was then a comparatively new country. 

 People were moving in from every section of the Union, taking 

 up claims upon Government lands, building cabins, and open- 

 ing settlements. As a general thing they were all poor, having 

 been tenants in some of the older settled States, and I was no 

 better than any of tlie rest. What little money I brought with 

 me, I spent in buying a man off, who held a claim upon eighty 

 acres of land, and in purchasing a 3-oke of oxen to begin with. 

 I was not as hale and strong as a man should be, who goes to 

 open a home on the frontier ; for I was one of the many badly 

 wounded soldiers of the late war. My help was an industrious 

 and frugal wife, and four stout boys, whose ages were from 

 eight to fourteen. 



We began life here through many disadvantages. There 

 ■^ere no railroad facilities then, and every thing we had to buy 

 was high. We all went to work with a zest, and a determina- 

 tion to succeed. We had to deny ourselves many comforts, 

 and use the most rigid economy, so as not to get into debt. 

 My eighty acres of prairie land was large enough to begin 

 with ; in fact, it was as much as my boys at their age could 

 cultivate with a single yoke of oxen. All I was able to do 

 was to manage and superintend. To furnish employment for 

 myself, and also to furnish us means to subsist on, I commenced 

 teaching a country school. While the boys were at work on 

 the farm, I was in the school-room earning money to help to 

 live and improve the land. 



FIRST CROP 



The first thing to be done was to break some of the wild 

 prairie. This was accomplished by employing a man at four 

 dollars per acre. The boys put it into sod corn, which grew 

 without any further cultivation, and made an excellent crop, 

 yielding enough to more than pay for the breaking and sodding 



