Twice-a-week plain dealer. (Cresco, Howard County, Iowa) 1895-1913, 1898-08-23
About Howard County.

/ X
Howard county as one of the best in
SOIL and productions, it's farmers as
among the most industrious, temper
ate and frugal people to be found
anywhere, and yet their prosperity.
after all their outlay of labor and
skill depends upon the prices which
these products of their industry and
skill will bring in the open market.
Our route on Saturday took us over
what in an early day was known as
the old Granger road; it's residents
then being Hull Doolittle, Horace
Bingham, Roswell Shapley, William
Shapley, Horace Hurlbut, Madison
Taft and Jas. Nichols. OF all these
but one remains in our county, and is
probably the only one living.
| Our first call was at the Hurlbut
farm, now the property of the A. b.
Barnes estate, occupied by j. H.
Becker, as a five year tenant at an
annual cash rent of $4OO. In 1868 the
writer took Morris Clutches, of Kan.
kakee, Ind, to look at the farm,
which Mr.. Hurlbnt had authorized
him to sell for $3.50; the 100 acres now
at low estimate being worth SO, 400,
without regard to its buildings. The
present owners and occupants of not
only these farms, but of all the others
along the route, then owned by non
resident SPECTATORS, need not be
mentioned as they are we'll and favor
ably known to our people. In that
early day the business rivalry be-
tween the villages of Vernon Springs
and New Oregon was such that the
present Granger road, and especially
from the foundry south past the
Converse farm to the township line,
was not opened by the township
trustees, thus compelling all the
travel from the north to pass through
Vernon Springs. And these two riva |
villages are now as dead as the old
settlers whose names we have called
10 mind. From the DeLange school
house we west, thence south, past the
w. G. Nichols farm, now occupied, as
tenant, by Carl Mohs, and here we
stop to say that if there is any better
piece of land in Howard county than
that farm, extending one mile along
that highway, we have failed to see
it. Thence we took the town-line
road to the west line of the Wygandt
farm, passing the half section once
owned by William Nichols, which he
lost and went to North Dakota, where
he died, From the Wygandt farm our
route took US north, past the farms
owned in those early days by Mr..
Abrams. Horace and William Phillips,
(now the Monroe Phillips farm) by
Jacob Beam, Joe Starkey, and the
Hnr'eys, all of whom are dead or
gone, thence east to the Granger road.
And along this thoroughfare we find
the ones of those early days dead or
gone. Among them we recall the
names of Charles Arnold, John.
Nichols, Jonathan Moon, the Rimas.
u. 6. Reed and his father, Seth P.
Hazen, Jas. DUMP, zeke Miner; all
the other farms along the route being
then unoccupied, and mostly owned
by eastern land owners.
Along this entire route tile farms
are in fine condition, producing i'm
mense crops of the varied products
known to our state. The farmers
remembering the high prices
made for everything by the civil war
anticipated like results from the
Cuban war. With more than 200, 900
drawn from the producing classes to
consumers to them this expectation
looked reasonable, and laborers look
ing to the number withdrawn from
the varied industries, expected an in
crease in the wages paid to labor.
Under proper conditions the expecta-
tions of each would have been real
lied.
AT that time more than thousand
million of dollars, in one form and
another, were added to the currency
of the country, thus enabling pro-
ducers to give employment to labor,
with the means Of payment at hand,
in exchange for its products. In the
present war this necessary element to
higher prices for labor and its pro-
ducts was denied the people when
Congress voted down the project for
immediate coinage of the fifty million
dollars of silver in the treasury and
for the issue of $50 million of treas
ury notes, but instead issued $sO0, O0O,- |
900 in bonds, imposing heavy internal
taxes, but providing no additional
means of payment.