DESCRIPTION OF FARM. 487 



the Indian outbreak in Minnesota, and I learned that people 

 were being killed within sixty miles of us. I took my family 

 and left our home on the 25th of August, and traveled forty 

 miles to Smithland, where I left them and enlisted in the 

 6th Iowa cavalry. I served on the frontier until October, 1865. 

 I remained in Sioux City until Spring, then returned to my 

 farm. Becoming dissatisfied, I bought a mill near Cherokee, 

 and ran it for a few years, then received back the farm, since 

 which time I have labored hard to make it successful. 



DESCRIPTION OP FARM. 



This farm consists of three hundred and twenty acres, 

 about one-half of which is under cultivation. It lies in the 

 Little Sioux Valley, on the west side of the river, and is a mile 

 and a quarter in length, the south half being a square, and the 

 north half an ell. The south half comprises nearly all the 

 farm land and slopes gradually to the east, skirting the bluff 

 on the west, thus being mostly on the river bottom, and above 

 high water. The valley road runs along near the west line the 

 whole distance of the farm, while near the center a road ap- 

 proaches from the west. The house stands on the north half 

 near the middle of the farm north and south. Just north of 

 this is a small creek skirted with high banks, affording the best 

 of shelter for stock, and good spring water at all times of the 

 year. This stream is fringed with a fine little grove of burr- 

 oaks, that have mostly grown up in the last ten years, and are 

 now about fifteen feet high. Crossing this stream on a bridge, 

 and then passing a plum thicket we soon come to the north 

 eighty acres, which lie east and west, extending across the 

 river. A portion of this tract near the road is in cultivation, 

 and the rest next the river is in excellent grass land ; sometimes, 

 however, it is subject to floods. A small body of timber skirts 

 the river, and just below this, inside of a bayou, is a fine grove 

 of ten acres. Between this grove and the creek lies a field, 

 part of which has been planted in maple trees, the rest being 

 designed for an orchard. 



My land is dry, rolling prairie, with abundance of springs 



