In 1825 Mathew Tatum, then unmarried, with two companions, Squire Wilcoxen and Landrine Eggers, left Indiana for Illinois. When the little party reached Fulton County they found a wild country with but few settlers, but Eggers, and Wilcoxen, after exploring the county, found suitable locations, erected cabins and became pioneers in the wilderness. Game then was the principal food and the red men had not left the country. Young Tatum pushed on to Galena (150 miles north on the banks of the Mississippi River), returning to Fulton County in 2 or 3 years.

In 1825 Fulton County extended east and west from the Illinois to the Mississippi river, and from the baseline near Rushville, Schuyler Co. to the northern boundary and included Galena, Rock Island, Peoria and Chicago, except there were no cities there in the 1820’s.

Many Indians were still here in the late 1820’s and their log and bark canoes could be seen gliding over the waters of the Illinois and Spoon Rivers. But the westward tread of the Anglo Saxon had reached the military tract and the country was soon wrested from those who had for centuries refused to develop its resources. When the fearless, industrious, enterprising pioneers came, the Indians the buffalo, the deer and the wolf had to go.

Dr. W.T. Davison was undoubtedly the first white man to make his home within the present boundaries of Fulton County, but John Eveland, who located just above the old pioneer town of Waterford on Spoon River in 1829, was the first actual white settler. Eveland lived on Spoon River a few years when he moved to Buckheart Township and built a cabin on what is now known as the Eveland Branch, a small stream which flows into Big Creek west of Bryant.

In the spring of 1830 Mathew Tatum built a round-log one room cabin near the source of the Eveland Branch, and on the first day of August 1830 was married to Mrs. Lydia Eggers—whose maiden name was Dollar. Only a few stones are left to mark the spot where the cabin stood. About 1833 a one-room hewed-log house was built to shelter the family, and this is still standing and is one of the pioneer landmarks of Fulton County. It is in a fair state of preservation when we take into consideration that it has been standing for three quarters of a century.

The winter following the occupation of the original cabin (1830-31) was the winter of the deep snow, which is so vividly remembered by the old settlers who are still living and who were there at that time. It was the heaviest snow that ever fell in Illinois, so far as known by anyone now living, or within the memory of the earliest pioneers.

"It was after this snow," said the subject of this sketch, John G. Tatum, (son of Mathew Tatum), "that many settlers accustomed to the advantages of an older civilization became dissatisfied and left the country never to return. I often heard my parents speak of this great snowfall. Father’s corn was up on the Shepley place, in Canton township and had not been gathered in and cribbed, and as the depth of the snow was a great barrier to all travel he had a pretty rough time going into the field and digging down until he came to ears enough to fill his sack, which he carried home on his back to feed his stock or to beat or grate into meal for family use.

"The big snow found many of the pioneers wholly unprepared for a long siege and there was a great deal of suffering. People were absolutely blockaded or house-bound and did not go out till starvation compelled them.

"I was born in the hewed-log cabin built in 1833 which is still standing about 100 yards south of our present residence, but which has not been occupied for several years. I lived in it several years alone and am the last occupant of the old home where I was born and reared to manhood, and where my parents lived and died.

"The date of my birth is Dec. 13, 1837. My father was a native of Rowan Co., N.C. and my mother was born in Laurens Co., S.C. Father was born Feb. 18, 1789 and died Sept. 19, 1868. Mother, whose maiden name was Dollar, was born in 1803 and died Oct 2, 1872. Her father, William Dollar was a native of Wales, and her mother, Ruth (Beasley) Dollar, of Virginia. Grandfather served under Washington in the war of the revolution, for seven years. He died in Buckheart Twp, Sept. 6, 1838. The remains of my parents are interred in the Shields Chapel Cemetery. The Tatum children are: George W, born Mar. 25, 1838, died in 1864; John Goforth, Mrs. Amy Cluts, and Mrs. Sarah Jane Shields. Mrs. Cluts and myself still reside on the old homestead, but Mrs. Shields lives at Los Angeles, California.

"I never married and we three are the only representatives of the Tatum family now living. When we pass away the name will become extinct.

"The Rev. James Tatum,. Who was one of the pioneer preachers of the county, died in Hays County, KS in 1898, aged 97 years. His wife and all the children are dead. Uncle Jimmy Tatum was two years younger than Father, was of powerful build, and although a little eccentric was an earnest preacher of the pioneer days and was of a fervently religious turn of mind. He labored arduously in building up the early regular Baptist churches of the county. His education was limited and he was compelled to perform severe manual labor to supply his family with the necessaries of life, yet he was a faithful, untiring and conscientious worker who went about doing good. His was a life well spent and affords lessons of zeal and Christian devotion under adverse circumstances, worthy of emulation of all believers. He helped to organize the Baptist Church in the Eveland neighborhood in a very early day.

"Father bought the old Tatum homestead from the patentee, named Bullard, paying $300 for it or a little less than $2 an acre. It was wild land, and save a small prairie on the west side, was covered with a growth of heavy timber.

"The men and women who remained here after the winter of the deep snow, and built homes in the forests and developed farms from the wilderness—the men and women who endured the hardships and bore disadvantages found in the early settling of the county—were made of sterner stuff than the weaklings who became homesick and went back to the older states from whence they came.

"Yes, I have heard my parents speak of the sudden change in January 1836. The cold came on suddenly and was so intense that many people’s noses, ears, fingers and toes were frozen. I have some recollection myself of the severe winter of 1842-3. The years 1844, 1851, 1858 and 1865 were notable as wet years, but after 1865 every seventh year ceased to be wet.

"The 17-year locusts made their first appearance since I can recollect in 1844. They were very numerous that year and did considerable damage to young trees, etc. Seventeen years later, or in 1865, they again came, but not in such great numbers as in 1844. They came in 1878 and in 1895 also and will come again in 1912. Their numbers seem to be gradually decreasing.

"Oh yes—I can recall the time when there was very little money in the country, and when Father first came to the county most of the business was done by bartering one article for another. ‘Coon skins passed as currency up to about the time I was born.

"In an early day cotton was grown quite extensively in Fulton County and Father raised a crop the first year after he was married. But the climate was not adapted to the raising of the tropical plant, and flax was substituted for cotton.

"Neighborhood exchanges, as I stated before, were the earliest commercial transactions carried on in the county. Beeswax, honey, tallow and peltries were among the earliest articles shipped by flatboat to St. Louis. Sometimes a few bushels of wheat or corn would be added. This was before the advent of steamboats on the Illinois River.

"After the steamboats commenced to ply up and down the river a new system of commerce sprang up. Every town would contain one or two merchants who would buy corn, wheat and dressed hogs in the fall, store them in warehouses on the river at some of the landings and when navigation opened in the spring would ship the winter accumulations to St. Louis, New Orleans or Cincinnati.

"At first, so far as the farmer was concerned in all these transactions, money was an unknown factor. Goods were always sold on 12 months time and payments made with proceeds of the farmers’ crops. Hogs were always sold ready dressed and from $1.50 to $2.50 was the price paid per hundred-weight.

"A farmer would call in his neighbors some bright fall morning to help him kill hogs. Immense kettles filled with boiling water were emptied into a huge scalding hogshead or tub and the sleds of the farmer, covered with loose plank, formed a platform for dressing. When the work of killing was completed and the hogs had time to cool, such as were intended for domestic use were cut up and salted down in barrels or troughs and the surplus was hauled to market. The farmers then were content to raise pork at the prices paid but such prices would not satisfy them now.

"But very little of the land was under fence and stock of all kinds ran at large. A bell was put on one animal of each herd and drove of cattle, sheep or horses and every farmer knew the sound of his own bells. Bells that could be heard a long distance were the ones usually selected and we didn’t have much trouble locating our stock. The woods each fall were full of acorns, hickory nuts, walnuts and hazelnuts, and hogs would grow fat on them.

"It is not generally known, but it is a fact nevertheless, that there was no bluegrass here in an early day. Stock lived mostly on the prairie or bluestem jointed grass which attained a very rank growth on the rich prairie soil or on the bottom land along the streams.

"Another thing I wish to state: there were no rats in Illinois until along in the early 50’s, and there were no red foxes here until after the close of the Civil War. Gray foxes were quite plentiful, but they have almost or entirely disappeared, and the red foxes have taken their places. Gray foxes are not long distance runners and are easily caught in an hours chase with a good pack of hounds.

"Oh yes, there were wild hogs ever since I can remember. Along in the spring of 1838 or 1839, I heard my father say, the settlers went out in mass and caught and killed all wild hogs in Buckheart, ___________, Liverpool, Banner and Putnam Townships, and the following winter they were hunted and killed and the meat divided pro rata among the citizens.

"I omitted to state that the severe winter of 1842/43 was one of the longest winters ever experienced since the country was settled by the whites. Cold weather set in the first part of November and lasted until the following April.

"There was a wilderness of grass and flowers on the prairie here in pioneer times. And plenty of grass was found even in the timber.

"Isaiah Stillman and John Coleman are two Canton pioneer businessmen that I can remember.

"When Father first came here, and up to 1830, there were no regular dry goods stores in Canton. Up to that period goods were purchased either at Edwardsville or St. Louis.

"D.W. Vittum was also one of the pioneer businessmen of Canton and ran a sort of general store.

"The country was full of game, and while Father was not a noted hunter, he killed a deer or a turkey occasionally and our table was supplied a part of the time at least with wild meat. The last deer killed in this neighborhood was in the winter of 1864, but hounds chased one across the country west of us in 1873.

"Yes, I am one of the pioneer teachers of the county and was educated in pioneer schools of the county which were conducted in log houses provided with home-made furniture. The Tatum schoolhouse was an unhewn log building and stood a few feet west of the present brick schoolhouse. The logs were by no means straight, and the roof was low and covered with clapboards kept in place with weight poles. Holes were cut through the logs to admit a scanty supply of light. The seats had no backs and the writing desk was a board supported on slanting pins driven into one of the logs. One side of the room was occupied by an enormous old fashioned fireplace. It was in this building that I learned the rudiments of the 3 Rs. John Spencer was my first teacher, and Frank Hyatt, son of Squire Henry Hyatt, was my second. Hyatt was a cripple and died when still a young man. Lawrence Slaughter and L.P. Rogers were both old time instructors.

"Divine services used to be held in the old Tatum temple of learning and among the pioneer ministers who conducted services there were the Rev. Lawrence Eggers and the Rev. Jas. Tatum, the Rev. John Spencer, and the Rev. John Goforth. The old Pleasant Grove Methodist Episcopal Church, which stood west of our place near Civer, was sold and moved onto the farm just north of us, which now belongs to Everly brothers. The remains of many of the pioneers who were buried in the Pleasant Grove Cemetery have been disinterred and buried in other cemeteries, but some of them are still there. But as the land is now farmed the graves probably could not be located.

"I taught my first school in 1859, I think, in the Tatum schoolhouse, and my last school in 1874 was taught in the same place. During the years intervening I taught at Independence, at Science Hill, and in other districts. Ira Porter, John Jamison, Arthur Stell, Mrs. Olive Harris, Charles McBroom, George Wilcoxen, Frank Moran, and Thompson Laird, son of Samuel Laird, of Joshua Township are some of my old scholars. I held certificates from the following county superintendents of schools: Horatio J. Benton, Wm. H. Haskell, and Stephen Y. Thornton.

"I omitted to say there were no pheasants in Fulton County until after I had reached manhood.

"We took our grists at first to Jacob Ellis, or Henry Hines’ Mill on Big Creek, but later went to Duncan’s Mill on Spoon River, and to the James Eggers Mill which was located where the village of London Mills now stands.

"Some of the names of the early settlers whom I now recall were Robert Shields, Squire Henry Hyatt, George Putnam, Ephraim Reeves, Samuel Wilcoxen, John H. Martin, Samuel Turner, Thomas and Michael Moran, Major Joseph Herring, Nicholas McCreary, Joseph Crosthwait, Daniel Brown, Nathaniel Banks, John W. Shinn, J.H. ____ipp, Thompson Maple, John G. Graham, Joel Wright, Samuel Colton, John G. Piper, John Colton, and John Luckey. John Colton was a blacksmith and made the first plow I ever saw that would scour. It was the old Diamond Plow made all in one piece that was first used in this section. Canton, when I first knew it, was not the important business place, the city it is today. I was here long before the advent of railroads. I was here when the county was almost in a primitive wild state, and when deer, turkey, wolves and all kinds of game were abundant. In fact I have grown up with the country, have lived to see Fulton County developed from a wilderness to a well settled and wealthy section of the state. I assisted in clearing the old homestead and it is here that most of my uneventful life has been passed. I guess I might say that my life in a great measure corresponds with the development that has gone on about me.

"I am a Democrat and cast my first presidential vote for Stephen A. Douglas in 1860. I have held the offices of supervisor and town clerk, and in the winter of 1882 kept the books for the F.J. Williams Coal Company at St. David. I have passed the time of active work but spend a part of my time in the garden and orchard. Mineralogy I guess is my hobby and I have a pretty thorough knowledge of the science of minerals.

"I was reared amid pioneer scenes and know something about the unremitting toil required to clear, plow and improve the land of Buckheart Township. My sister, Amy Cluts, will tell you something about her early recollections and something more about the early history of Buckheart and the Tatum family."

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John Goforth Tatum is one of the native pioneers of Buckheart Twp, and one of the prominent factors in the growth and development of Fulton County, with which he has been closely identified since his boyhood period. He is the oldest living representative of the Tatum family, is a close student, an intelligent citizen and has interested himself much in educational and scientific matters. He has never sought office, preferring the quiet and happiness of the peaceful fireside to the turmoil of public life.

In speaking of the early settlers of Fulton County some time ago Samuel Laird, Joshua Township Pioneer, said in substance that they were a strong, rugged, warm hearted people and that they kept everlastingly at their jobs of building new homes and developing the country. "The men," he observed, "were whole men with the bark on, and the women were full-blooded, strong and courageous, and were well qualified for the arduous duties they were compelled to perform. They endured with their husbands all the hardships and labor of frontier life without a murmur. They had their trials, misfortunes, adventures and privations, but they were made of the right kind of stuff and bore all uncomplainingly."

While the pioneers were hardy and brave, they had much to contend with, and no doubt many were the dark forebodings that crept into their minds as they contemplated their situation in a vast wilderness surrounded by wild animals and wild men. The Indians were still here when many of them came in the ‘20s and some of them participated in the Black Hawk War in 1831-32. In their rude cabins they lived along the streams and in the belts of timber, with the chilling winds of winter sweeping down upon them. Often their food supply was limited, and in the fall of the year many of them were afflicted with the chills and fever, but they lived through it all. Where they saw a wilderness we see today large, well cultivated, productive farms, beautiful grounds, cities, towns, schools and colleges. There is not a trace of the hunting grounds and camping places of the Indians, but in every direction are evidences of wealth, comfort and luxury.

"The changes that are written on every hand are most wonderful," said Mrs. Amy (Tatum) Cluts of Buckheart Twp., whose life record is presented this week. "The cabin built by my father in 1832 is all that is left of the old landmarks on the farm to remind us of the days of long ago. It is a sort of link connecting the past with the present. My father, Mathew Tatum, was a pioneer and came here when the wild whoop of the Indian rent the air, and the howl of the wolf was still heard in the land. And only think of it! A little over 50 years ago people lived in log huts, wore homespun clothing which they manufactured, cut and made themselves. The country was wild and but sparsely settled. Now look about you and see how great the transformation. By incessant toil the pioneers and their children have made this country great. The men and women who went through the experiences of pioneer life may have had old-fogy ideas and old-fogy ways, but they have changed our wild lands into productive and fruitful fields and gardens and have peopled every section of the country with intelligent and enterprising citizens.

"I am the daughter of a pioneer and can recall the time when children were destitute of shoes until Christmas, and some of them all winter. We children had no clothing except what was carded, spun, woven and made into garments by our families.

"Churches, at first we had none. Many families were afflicted with sickness incident to all new countries.

"We had when I was a girl few of the luxuries of life and some people lived for weeks upon hominy and venison when Father first settled on this place.

"I was born in the cabin which still stands on the old Tatum homestead, on the 29^th day of March 1840, daughter of Mathew and Lydia (Dollar) Tatum, and am a sister of John G. Tatum who lives here with me. I was reared to womanhood right here on this farm and have been a resident of Fulton County all my life—nearly 67 years. For my parental history the reader is referred to the sketch of John G. Tatum published in last week’s Register. I have not witnessed the entire growth and development of this section of the county, but I have witnessed much of it. My girlhood was passed in attendance at the pioneer schools and in assisting my mother in household duties. I remember that Thos. Kirkpatrick taught several terms of school at the old Tatum schoolhouse. Harriet McCleary, Harvey Montanya, Margaret, Mary J. and Samuel Taylor were all old time teachers. Perry Blair was my last teacher. I was a regular attendant at school and some of my old schoolmates who still survive are Mrs. Eliza Putnam, Frank Moran, James and John McCleary, and my sister Mrs. Sarah J. Shields of Los Angeles California.

"Oh yes, we have lived to see a flourishing and prospering community of people where my parents found a wilderness. We were comfortably housed for years in that old cabin down there. I can recall the time when the country was in a wild condition and showed but little indication of its present advanced state of development. I have often heard my parents speak of the first cabin erected on their place in 1830. A part of the chimney of this hut was made of earth and sticks and the floor of puncheons.

"When I was a school girl deer, wild turkeys and other game roamed at will across the thinly settled country. My girlhood and youth were passed amid primeval surroundings and snakes of different kinds were a common sight. On the Thompson Laird place southeast of us 274 rattlesnakes were dug from one den and killed, and near the south bridge over Big Creek as you go into Canton 300 rattlers were killed in one day. The prairie grass was very thick and tall and a dense forest surrounded our cabin home.

"Both my father and my Uncle James Tatum were well adapted for pioneer life, being large muscular men with powerful frames. When a mere girl I was initiated into the hard labors of pioneer life for we all had to work. We were compelled to put up with numerous inconveniences but finally surrounded ourselves with many of the comforts of life. I have a vivid recollection of those old days and the wild condition of Buckheart Twp.

"Linsey gowns were worn for every day, but calico dresses were worn on Sunday. We dressed more comfortably after the Colton-Piper fulling mill was built in Canton. Here is a coverlet woven by my grandmother Ruth Dollar over 100 years ago. It is all wool and is kept as a family relic.

"Yes I have eaten cornbread, hominy and wild meat and honey. We used to have honey the year around. I have cooked by the old time fireplace, but my parents purchased a cookstove when I was 10 or 12 years old—first one used in our neighborhood.

"We made butter to sell as far back as I can remember. The prices we received for it in early times were from .08 to .12 ½ c in trade. Good cows were worth only from $8 to $10.

"Many girls in pioneer times performed outdoor work and some of them could swing an ax with the ease of a veteran lumberman.

"As I stated before I was born in the cabin, and the old Tatum Schoolhouse which I first attended was a log building with slab benches and other primitive furnishings; but as I grew older a better building was erected and the facilities for instruction were greatly improved.

"I remained with my parents until I was 17 years of age, when I married D.W. Cluts of Putnam Twp., the Rev. John Waggoner officiating. The date was Jan. 22, 1857. The Rev. John Waggoner was a minister of the United Brethren Church, employed on this circuit. After marriage we located in Knox County were we spent the first summer. In the fall we returned to Fulton Co. and lived awhile on the Cyrus Libby place. Later we moved on the Peabody farm, which we rented from the Hon. Oliver Shepley. There we lived for four years. Finally we settled on the old Tatum homestead and lived for a time in the cabin in which I was born. In 1863 we built the house in which I now live. We lived on this place until 1868 when we moved below Cuba, where my husband operated a sawmill until 1872, when we moved back on the old homestead, and I have been here ever since. My husband died in 1893 and his remains were buried in the Shields Chapel Cemetery.

"The Cluts family came from Pennsylvania to Fulton Co. in the early 50’s. My late husband was a brother of Benjamin Cluts of Cuba.

"I am the mother of 13 children, 10 of whom are still living: George lives here with me. Colton and Andrew are deceased. Elijah is a veterinary surgeon in Canton. John is a resident of Canton. Mrs. Nellie Ward is deceased. James and Jasper reside in Canton. Mrs. Eva Turner lives in Canton. Joseph is in Selma, Alabama. Charles is on a farm in Buckheart Township. Grover, the youngest, is at home. I have 15 grandchildren, five boys, 10 girls.

"I have attended meetings in log buildings, and have been a member of the United Brethren Church since I was 12 years old.

"In the fall of the year here, in an early day, many people were afflicted with ague and in many cases the pioneer mothers doctored their own children. Boneset and pennyroyal tea were some of the simple remedies they used. After you recovered from a chill you felt languid, stupid and sore, and you didn’t care much whether you lived or not.

"My husband hunted some and has killed deer and turkeys. I remember seeing deer, turkeys and wolves and hearing the latter howling at night. Just before the circular wolf hunt, or ‘round up,’ at Overman’s mound, a report was circulated that a boy had been torn to pieces by a wolf over on Spoon River. This story was told, evidently, to get the farmers to turn out and join in the hunt. Fully 50 men passed our place that day. The timber northwest of us was called Wolf Grove. In that grove some of our folks caught a wolf in a trap once.

"The Rev. Mr. Dark and the Rev. James Tatum were both pioneers, and both regular Baptist ministers.

"There was but very little money in circulation when I was a girl. Father had a long money sack, and he put every dollar he got into it and kept it until tax paying time. Sometimes he would spend a little for postage on letters that came from other states. Postage on letters was not prepaid then as it is now.

"We had to pay cash for cotton yarn, which was used as the chain for woolen cloth. Mother sometimes used woolen chain, but cotton was preferable. We raised our own madder and indigo, made our own soap, and dyed our own garments.

"James Cluts, who died on the Captain Haacke farm in PutnamTwp, was the father of my husband and Benjamin Cluts. While he came originally from Pennsylvania, he came from Ohio to Illinois.

"In weaving linsey, the chain used was linen, and the filling wool. In spite of the wolves we succeeded in raising sheep and manufactured our own woolen cloth. Nearly all the cloth in outer garments worn by the men was homemade brown or blue jeans. If occasionally a young man appeared in a suit of store clothes he was suspected of having gotten it for a particular occasion which occurs in nearly every man.

"Wheat bread did not become a common article of food until about the time I was married. It is true some families used it earlier and it was used by all on extra occasions, as when the minister called or on Sundays when your friends came to visit you. ‘Store coffee,’ even during the war, was not generally used for the simple reason that it could not be had at all times. Rye in some families was substituted for coffee.

"The plain homemade furniture of the pioneer cabin was as primitive as the occupants, but the traveler always found a welcome in those rude homes. The pioneer was not only liberal to his neighbors but would divide his last corn pone with a stranger, giving the latter the larger half. An opportunity to aid a needy or sick neighbor was never neglected.

"Our schoolhouses were rude and the information imparted in them was somewhat meager, but some of the old time teachers were graduates of eastern colleges and possessed advanced ideas on many subjects.

"There were no railroads in the county until about the time I was married. And the highways of travel were rough and at times almost impassable. Rude ‘corduroy’ roads were built over the soft marshy places, and we managed to do what little hauling we had in one way or another.

"The removal of my father from Indiana was made with teams and the greater part, or all of the way, lay through a wilderness. There were but few families in Fulton County when he first came here in 1825, and the Indians still lingered around their old hunting grounds on the Illinois and Spoon Rivers.

"The women in pioneer days worked as well as the men, and carding, knitting, spinning, and even weaving were common household duties.

"The unremitting care of her household was something wonderful. Just how the pioneer woman accomplished what she did is beyond the comprehension of the women of the present day. All or a great part of the fabric to clothe her family was constructed by her own hands. The great and the small spinning wheels seem before me now as in girlhood, and I seem to hear their music late at night as in the days of yore. Often have I dropped off to sleep at ten and eleven o’clock at night with the music of those wheels ringing in my ears, and it used to seem to me that Mother’s feet could never get weary. The loom was no less necessary than the wheel, but not every house in which spinning was done had a loom. But there were always some in each settlement who besides doing their own weaving did some for others. Wool was carded and made into rolls with hand cards, and the rolls were spun into threads on the ‘big wheel’ as we called it. Besides looking after the household duties, carding, knitting, spinning and weaving, many of the pioneer women of Fulton County assisted their husbands in clearing the land, and putting it under tillage. In other words, some of the wives of the early settlers of the county helped their husbands perform outdoor work during the day and did their knitting, spinning and even weaving after night. There was no eight hour law then, nor did ten hours constitute a days work. Many women rose at four o’clock in the morning and worked till eleven o’clock at night.

"But their toil and privations were not a series of unmitigated suffering. If both the father and the mother worked hard, they had their seasons of relaxation, their seasons of enjoyment. They contrived to do something to break the monotony of their daily life. Log rollings, house raisings, quilting bees and cornhuskings were among the amusements common in pioneer time, and were greatly enjoyed by both men and women. What we possessed we obtained by the hardest of labor and individual exertion, but we enjoyed life as well as people do now or better.

"My house is here on the old homestead where the days of my life have been spent. I have tried to attend properly to the duties found in each line of my work, and have not lived alone for myself but for others. I have tried to be a benefit to the community in which I have lived so long and have always been willing to help in forwarding its best interests."

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