The Highland weekly news. [volume] (Hillsborough [Hillsboro], Highland County, Ohio) 1853-1886, 1872-05-02
700 MILES ON FOOT. !
Nils SVens0n NynsteD. th'
FEOme-Sfead7er-EVhere TIA ere'I
- Will. there's q Way.
ny PROF. ]. D. BUTLER.

Il
/ LINCOLN, March 25th, 1872.
! Nils Nysten is Swede,-and was
born where his forefathers, even to the
years of many generations, had been
content with "only this and nothing
rnore''-
''To draw nutrition, propagate, and rot"
He aspired higher,-but so low was
his birth, and so strong the barriers
around him, that he was three-score
years old before he could work his pass
age to America. Two years ago he
reached Iowa with his wife, and penni-
less, stopping first in Mount Pleasant.
While working there at his trade of
wagon making, he became convinced
that his best means of further advance
/ meut, was to secure Nebraska Home
stead without delay. His mode of
making this boon his own, is worth tell
ing to encourage others.
HOW HE DID 1Tl
He walked from his home to Lincoln,
S07 miles, along the track of the Bur-
lington & Missouri River Railroad.
This journey he accomplished in about
fifteen days. At Lincoln he found shell
ter in the Immigrants Rest, building
provided by the B. & NJ. Railroad Co.,
where land hunters may lodge and live
without charge, while seeking farms.
Looking at the maps of public lands
in the United States Land Office there,
he judged York county to afford the
most desirable homesteads. He there
fore walked on thither-seventy miles
further. Having picked out the farm
which suited him best of all those still
vacant, he returned to the Land Office
and filed his claim to it, September ID,
1871, paying s14 in fees. His homestead
consists of so acres, in the 34th section
of the 1lth township in the Sd range
west, of the 9th principal meridian.
WHAT THEN?
Repairing again to the farm of his
choice he made sundry improvements
for a month. He finished him dug
out and stacked twelve tons of wild
hay.
His purse was now empty, save one
dollar and a half, but he walked to Lin
coin, and thence home, as he had walk
ed hither, daily laying behind him
about twenty miles.
Soon after reaching home, at the end
of seven hundred mile walk, he learn
ed that his hay stacks had been burned
by prairie fire-having no pillow, he
had been unable to make fire. break
around them. But throughout all, he
seemed to have lost nothing. of heart or
hope, but to have remained as jolly as
Mark Tapley, in Chuzzlewit.
Through all the winter he worked at
his trade, sometimes beginning his tolls
at two o'clock in the morning. Thus he
finished three good wagons.
Two he traded off, for mule and
harness. Then putting on board his
wife, barrel of pork, harrow, all of
wood, made by himself, and some other
needments, he drove westward, by the
same route which he had last fall trav-
eled on foot.
He took with him three other Scandi-
navian Homestead hunters, each with
wagon and his family in it.
He arrived in Lincoln in due time,
rested little among the old familiar
hospitalities for strangers, afforded gra-
tuitously by the B. NJ. Railroad Co.,
through the whole-souled keeper, John
Frost, and on the 21st of March, in
spite of an equinoctial wind, set his
face towards his homestead. His jour
ney thither can hardly require more
than three days,-but as he must needs
be there before the first day of April, or
be egregiously April fooled, by forfeit
ing his farm, he resolved to make as
surance doubly sure. Hence he has ia
ken time by the forelock.
Nils Nysten is sixty-two years old,
though he declares himself only forty
when just shaved. His example shows
what others can do. 1t shames many
faint hearts that are weeping like wo-
men, for lack of a farm, which they
have the privilegesof seizing. pike men,
had they only manly pluck.
/. Nils Nysteu's homestead was one of
9,S22 which had been entered in the
Lincoln United States Land Office, be-
fore the last New Years. The number
there entered since New Years is sol.
The B. & NJ. Railroad Company have
sold 351, ,7O5 acres to 3, 23S buyers, on ten
years credit and six per cent. interest.