Mrs. Sadie Brown
  We left Pennsylvania on the first day of December 1884 and arrived in Plum Creek, now Lexington on Thursday, Dec. 4 about 10 o'clock at night. There were 10 of us in the party.
Friday morning my father went to the livery barn and bought a team and wagon and in the afternoon he took us all out for a ride. We only got out of town about half a mile when the wagon tongue came down and the team ran turning the wagon over, spilling all 10 of us out. My father held onto the team and stopped them. No one was badly hurt but we all walked back to town.
Early Saturday morning we loaded boxes, grub baskets, groceries and the 10 of us into the wagon and started out. When we got to the river we all got out of the wagon and walked across the bridge which they said was a mile long, and I think it was, for I carried a four year old boy that was sick and mother carried the baby, 15 months old. When we got across the bridge we all piled in the wagon again and started out.
We drove and drove and finally saw a house and when we got there my father asked if we could water our team and eat dinner. They asked us in to eat and the women made us some coffee. That was at the Billy Hickock place. After the team had rested a while we started out again and finally we saw another house. It was the Billy Clark place east and north of Eustis there we asked the way to the Oiler place and the Stevens place where Elmer Stevens was living. Just about sundown we got to the Stevens place then we had to go a mile north to where my cousin lived in a small dugout with one window and a door,
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but we were all so tired we were even glad to find a place to stay. Even if we did have to sleep on the floor.
The next day my father took four of us down to my uncle's 10 miles south of where Eustis is, and the next day went back to my cousins and brought the rest of the family down to my uncle's. Then we rented a dug out to live in until we could get a well dug and a house built, on our homestead which we moved into on the 20th day of April 1885 and it had no doors or windows, until October when we could get money to get them. There were no floors in the house except in the kitchen. The rest of the floors were just the ground.
It was a home and we were all very happy. In May there were some men came to make brick about two and a half miles from our place. My brothers and cousin, Will Cecil got work there carrying brick. After the bricks were burned and ready for sale my father hauled the first load. This was the first load of brick to be hauled into Elwood and was used to build a bank.
On May 13, 1885, my father and I went through Eustis and there were nothing but stakes, staking out the town and rattle snakes. My father shot a large rattle snake just south of where the depot was built.
As for our mail we got the first at the White Robert post office over on the valley, then we got some at Keystone and some at Arapahoe, 25 miles away where we went to buy our groceries and get our flour. We went about every three months to get our flour for 65 and 75 cents a sack and 14 pounds of coffee for $1.00; 22 pounds of sugar for $1.00; 20 pounds of prunes for $1.00; muslin for 5 and 8 cents per yard; calico and lawns for dresses was 3, 5 and 8 cents per yard. We sold our hens for $2.50 and $3.00 per dozen. The fall of 1889 corn sold for 8 cents per bushel and potatoes for 7 cents per bushel. I counted 25 wagon loads of corn in one day coming to Farnam that was sold for 8 and 10 cents per bushel and now see what a change and folks still want higher prices.
1886
1936
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