Interesting Letter
  Scottsville, Va.
Dear Sir: In reply to yours of the 29th, will say: nothing would please me better than to attend the 50th anniversary celebration of Farnam, to which you allude, as I was the first settler within a radius of ten miles of Farnam and expect I am the only living one of the first residents of the town. It would certainly be appropriate for me to occupy a front seat in this celebration. As I recall, Will Declow put up the first building in town and hung out a real estate sign, having been installed as agent of the Lincoln Town Site Company; soon thereafter I bought him out and put out my first sign as Attorney at law and took over the Town Cite business which I held until I left there three years later.
I suspect from your inquiry in regard to some poems that I contributed to some of our social gatherings out there before the advent of Farnam and the railroad, that some of the old timers have been talking to you about the social gatherings we occasionally held at the houses of neighbors, blessed with good wives; and those similarly fortunate attending our sociables brought with them amply provisioned, harmless of the most
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delectable frontier edibles, to the delight of every homesteader bach present; and well do I remember the fine pumpkin pies that Mrs. John Walker invariably supplied us with about Thanksgiving time. I recall at these sociable gatherings we usually had on the programs readings, recitations and essays and a poem was expected from me and as Will Stebbins was our local news man he had them published in the Gothenburg newspaper, and other papers copied some. I remember one was "The Lonely Homesteader Bach," and one "A Homesteader Bach in Quest of a Wife," and signed Bashful Bach, Keystone, Nebr. This is all the information I can give you in regard to these poems, as I have no copies of them.
If you chance to meet any of the old settlers that pioneered with me in the old days, tell them that I am still "on the turf" though moving slowly, as I was shocked by a bolt of lightning four years ago. They know I was a pretty tough chunk of "Wood," but this bolt was too much for me, it left me an invalid for life, I fear.
I hope you will be able to read this, as I cannot use a pen, and can use a pencil poorly, as you can see.
Will it be asking too much of you to send me a copy of the "Boost" edition of your paper?
E. N. WOOD
1886
1936
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