Western Reserve chronicle. [volume] (Warren, Ohio) 1855-1921, 1872-04-17
SEVEN HUNDRED NILES on FOOT.
Nils Stevenson NySten, the Home
Steader. Where there's VIII,
there's n Way.
by PROF. ]. D. BUTLER.
LINCOLN. March 3, 1872

Nils Nysten is a Swede,--and was
born where his forefathers, even 10
the years of many generations, had
Deen content with "Only this and
nothing more
ITO draw nutrition, propagate, and rot"
He aspired higher,-but 50 low was
birth, and so strong the barriers
around him, that he was threescore
years old before he could work his
passage to America. Two years ago
he reached Iowa with his wife, and
pennileSs, stopping first in Mount
Pleasant.
While working there at his trade of
wagon making, he became convinced
that his best means Of further ad-
vancement, was to secure 2 Nebraska
Homestead without delay. His mode
of making this boon his own, is worth
telling to encourage the others.
HOW HE DID 1T!
He walked from his home to Lin
coin, 500 miles, along the track of the
Burlington & Missouri River Rail-
road. This journey he accomplished
in about fifteen days. at Lincoln he
found shelter in the Immigrants
Rest, a building provided by the
B. & NJ. Railroad Co., where land
hlnters 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
therefore 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 %, 1871, paying Sl4 in
fees. His homestead consists of so
acres, in The 34th section of the llth
township in the Sd range west, of the
9th principal meridian.
WHAT THEN?
Repairing again to the farm of his
choice he made sunllry 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
Lincoln, and thence home, as he had
walked hither, daily laying behind
him about twenty miles.
Soon after reaching home, at the
end of a seven hundred mile walk, he
learned that his hay stacks had been
burned by a prairie fire-having no
pillow, he had been unable to make a
fire-break around them. But through
out all, he seemed to have lost nothing
of heart or hope, but to have remained
as jolly as Mark Tapley, in ChuzZle.
wit.
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 fora mule and
harness. Then putting on board his
wife, a barrel of pork, a harrow, all
of wood, made by himself, and some
other needments, he drove westward,
by the same route which he had last
fall travelled on foot.
He took with him three other
Scandinavian Homestead hunters,
each with n wagon and his family
IN it.
He arrived in Lincoln in due time,
rested little among the old familiar
hOspitalities for strangers, afforded
gratnitOusly by the B. x NJ. Railroad
Co., through the whole-sOuled keeper,
John Frost, AID on the 2lst of March,
in spite of an equinoctial wind, set
his face towards his homestead. His
journey thither can hardly Iequire
more than three days,-but as he
must needs be there before the first of
April, or be egregiously April fooled,
by forfeiting his farm, he resolved to
make assurance doubly sure. Hence
he has taken 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. Itshames
many faint hearts that are weeping
like women, for lack of farm, which
they have the privilege of seizing
like men, had they only manly pluck.
Nils Nysten's homestead was one
of 6, ,S22 which had been enter ed in the
Lincoln United States Land Office,
before last New Years. The number
there entered since New Years is sol. |
The B. & NJ. Railroad Company
have sold 35l, ,705 acres to {, ,23S buyers,
on ten years credit and six per cent. |
interest.