OF THE SADDLE AND SIRLOIN CLUB 259 



considered as desirable as timber land. Many believed that it 

 would be a century before the prairie would be settled, due to 

 the exposure to col4 bleak winds and the difficulty of obtaining 

 fuel. By 1842 as a result of saving all the money he could and 

 investing it in land he was owner of 240 acres. During this 

 year he married and began running cattle on the open grass of 

 Sangamon and Logan counties. This stock was secured from 

 other settlers and was descended from the best blood of the 

 Ohio and Kentucky Shorthorns. Mr. Gillett determined to 

 cultivate to corn all of the lan4 he could secure. Although 

 corn sold at only 6 to 8 cents a bushel, it was quite profitable 

 when put through cattle. He fenced his pastures, selected his 

 best heifers, and in 1850 bought his first purebred bull, a Short- 

 horn, secured to effect his feeder ideal, from the herd of Mr. 

 Thomas Skinner. From time to time he bought more good 

 bulls of Shorthorn blood, but always paid more attention to 

 individual merit than pedigree. He was not a breeder as he 

 always purchased his own sires, but he stayed neither hand nor 

 pocketbook when he found animals that met his concept. He 

 omitted no opportunity to purchase all the cattle his neighbors 

 had to sell and his wonderful ability to judge the quality and 

 weights of cattle on the hoof often netted him $500 profit on a 

 single day's work. 



By 1852 Mr. Gillett ha<l the largest farm and the greatest 

 number of cattle, horses and hogs, of any farmer in Logan Co. 

 He employed a number of men to attend to the manual labor 

 of feeding and herding the cattle, and several tenants to farm 

 the land and raise his corn at 10 to 15 cents a bushel, thereby 

 conducting his farming and stock feeding operations on the 

 largest possible scale. He conceived the purpose of supplying 

 the Chicago market with a line of grade steers that would 

 excel anything received there, and there is little question but 

 what he accomplished his purpose. At the end of his first 



