Watertown republican. [volume] (Watertown, Wis.) 1860-1906, 1869-06-09
HOW 4 BOY BOUGHT a FARM.

Several years ago a youth Of sixteen
years, Of good sense and fair English
education, not having profitable employ
ment at his fathers home in Kentucky,
sought for employment among bis en-
serprising neighbors a few miles dist
ant; and although wages were low in
those days ef gold and silver currency,
he saved from his first years wages
seventy dollars. He was then seventeen
years old, healthy, lively looking, aspir-
ing and ambitious to become useful,
noble, and perhaps great. He had al
ready learned that money loaned at
high rates Of interest was oppressive to
the borrower, and reacted on the loaner,
and in the falling Of prices of nearly all
articles in the commercial world that
men sought justification for their bauk-
ruptcy and delinquency in the faes that
they had payed large rates OF interest.
Feeling, therefore, that liberality; as
Well-as justice was necessary to every
mans dealing with his fellow men, he
loaned his money to an exemplary, en-
terprising, and prosperous trading man
in his neighborhood, at the lowest rate
of interest known in the bushes in that
state, viz, SIX per ceat. per annum. lie
worked another year, clothing himself
in Kentucky jeans and other neat but
cheap articles Of apparel, and went to a
country school three months in the
winter Of that year, and learned the
rudiments Of Latin and something Of
the higher branches of mathematics,
working for prosperous and liberal
farmer evenings and mornings to pay
for his board and at the end of the
second year, or when he was eighteen
years of age, he L.! !;;.a s So ninety-six
dollats more. His character for integ-
rity and industry began to be better
known in the neighborhood, and his
serVsices were sought for.
He wor sed on farm and rode as col
lector for trading men and the sheriff
of his county; and at the end of his
nineteenth year had saved one hundred
and ten dollars more. With the int
rest accumulated on his other two
years wages be had now three hundred
dollars; was comfortably clothed, and
had a good business education, which
he improved from one winter to
another, till he became scholar, both
fterarilly and scientifically, His in
huence and usefulness increasing, he
had at the age of twenty years, four
hundred and eighty dollars. At twenty
one he had accumulated six hundred
and fifty dollars, and was well known
for his activity of life as young man
of intelligence, virtue, and usefulness,
as we'll as young man of very attrac-
tive ways and manners,
He moved to Western state where
lind was cheap, and entered one
hundred and sixty acres of land war
rant, which he purchased with one
hundred and fifty dollars Of his money ;
He made good selection of land, in a
good region Of country he useda por-
ton Of the balance of his money in i'm
proving his land, buying little stock,
and a few implements for farming, and
the second year he raised a small crop.
Having gone to his new neighbohhood
with about four hundred dollars in
money, and used it cautiously, he by
degrees gained the name Of a response
Die citizen and good paymaster, and
his influence rose gradually from his
appearance among his new and scatter
ing neighbors. Year after yoar he
raised a crop, continuing to read the
best newspapers. periodicals and books,
which still further improved his mind
till sheep, cattle, and other stock grew
up in focks around him, more land ad-
joining him being purchased from time
to time, till row he finds himself, when
scarcely arrived at the middle of life,
gentleman farmer of wealth, surround
ed by comfort and many Injuries, es
teemed by nighbors both far and near,
and would receive the SUFFRAGE ofthose
who know him to any Office for which
he might be nominated, irrespective Of
party politics, SO firm is their confidence
in both his ability and integrity
Journal Of agriculture.
-