The daily Gate City and constitution-Democrat. (Keokuk, Iowa) 1916-1922, 1919-01-10
,,,sc.nces OF Former Times Along
historic Highway Now Familiar
to Motorists and Keo-
kuk People.
pAcK K r YEARS AGO
If the Jenkins Family Comes
,ron, Colorado to Visit Scenes
Of His 1oyhood and
Writes About II.

4ona Of the best features OF auto
nohiles is that they III Keokuk
nennle to become acquainted with
psonle and places well worth know.
nc IN the surrounding country. salo
: Reokuk oma the other day.
me really historic places On the
road to Kahoka have become lamiiiar
IL hundreds Of Keokuk people VINO
were ignorant OF them before, OF q
only a hazy idea Of their existence:
A. jenkins. who was born and
reared there long ago, Is writing
rominiscent letters from ais present
nome at Cheyenne Wills, Colo, to
clark county friends, after q visit
mack home, and they are being print
a. IN the Kahoka Gazette-Herald.
Tn jenkins home and school
house and the w. N. Sage farm near
Il are the topics in his last letter.
,ddressed to Hon. Sam Ball, parts OF
raich are as follows:
The Old jenkins Home.
Our mex objective was the Jenkins
lome, where the writer spent thirty
lhree years OF his checkered life. The
lnsparing hand Of time has wrought
many changes there.
Those maple and boxelder trees
have grown to twice their former
,ize in the twelve years since U
departure. The new machinery sheds
md great corn cribs just east OF the
house gives the place a changed ap-
pearance.
But the old. big barn. west OF the
house and built by "Splitlog' Mitch
ell away back in the early forues,
stands phynx-like as a silent witness
VI former generations. Ira Boatman
told me he helped to hang the a
imbers in that huge frame before
was born.
Sunday School in Barn Driveway.
That barn has a driveway In tne
,enter wide enough for two wagons
tide by side. In 1859 it's spacious
center wal used for Sunday school
that summer David Layport was
superintendent. A suitable house
sr public convenience seemed to De
tcking. Memories of my boyhood
days rose up In troops as we walked
Up that ancient road.
The jenkins schoolhouse, "Egypt's'
educational center, occupies a
ground where old John Filler lived
before the war.
Quite an emigration left that very
aeighborhood in 1860 for California
Mr.. Eiler sold his place to my broth
er, Willis Jenkins, and Joined n
parties to California that spring.
His house was used for a school
house for several years after. The
other neighbors who went In That
wagon train were John Black, VIII
liam Boatman, David and Peter
Eler and Tom Dews, all of them
with families. None Of them ever
returned.
Former Owners Of Sage Farm.
The present Jenkins schoolhouse
vas built in 1863 or 80 by David and
Noses Layport, and has been well
Kept up by that progressive and
enterprising neighborhood.
Just a stones throw west of that
Jenkins school is the house OF Mrs.
John Talbot and family. We turned
IN there and were warmly welcomed
by those old friends.
Please allow me to look backward
here. w. N. Sage is owner of this
larn now. Will we abstract it?
Erersmeyer preceded him; then Da-
ud Hand, a well remembered neigh
oor: then my good brother, Willis
Jenkins; then Moses Layport, in the
,ale sixties; then George and Sam
Wayiand. A tenant by tae name OF
joshua Anderson ived there in 81
and so. Before the war 1t was
owned by Thomas Fitzpatrick and
VIE, who owned a family of colored
people and kept them out there.
ihelr name was Anderson