Browning chief., 1945-01-26
CHAPTER I

l was born on a farm near the
center of the United States, so, when
! began making notes for this chron-
icle, I decided would find just how
near the center our farm really was.
wrote the United States Depart
ment of the Interior, Geological Sur
Xey, Washington, D. c., and this is
the answer:
The geographic center Of the
continental United States, exclusive
Of Alaska, lies in Smith County,
Kansas, about two miles northwest
OF the town Of Lebanon. The dis
tance from this locality to Mary
vile, Missouri, is 1879 miles,"
I suppose our farm was typical of
great many farms in this heart
center Of the United States; and that
our way of life was typical, too. And
l suspect that my own personal sto-
ry is typical of a great many life
stories Of this section.
II you want to find where Mary
vile is you'll have to do quite a bit
OF looking, for it's still pretty small
place. Il don't know what our Cham
Der OF Commerce is going to say
about that.) Maryville is A miles
north Of St. Joseph, Missouri, and
the farm where I was born is IA
miles south of the Iowa line, and
the back of the farm is on Highway
II.
The story of our farm is the story
OF me, for, in way, am the farm
and the farm is me. Our two stories
are wrapped so closely together that
I cannot tell one without setting
down the other. And that is what I
hope to do: to tell the story of the
farm and of myself. A sort of dou-
ble-barreled biography.
The 102 River pokes along just
east OF us. Friends are always ask
ing me how river got that name.
I suppose I had just as well tell it
now as any time: it was the hum
dred-and-second river the Mormons
crossed on their way to what is now
Salt Lake City.
St. Joseph is where the OK teams
were outfitted to cross the Great
Plains, and where the Pony Express
started. Also where Jesse James
was killed.
All this was prairie country, in
the early days. We used to have an
old buffalo wallow, but my father
put a strawstack on it and leveled
it off till now it's just a plain, un-
romantic patch of cornfeld.
My father and mother were cov-
cred wagon pioneers. They left Ohio
by OK team for California, but the
land at Maryville looked SO good
they stayed. But they didn't know
each other, as they came numbering
out from Athens County, Ohio. They
were on different wagon trains and
never heard of each other until they
met in Missouri. Many Ohio people
came into this prairie section and
got to marrying each other. Later,
many came from Tennessee and
Kentucky and settled down among
the Ohio and Indiana people; and
that is one reason ours became a
Border Warfare State.
My father knew nothing about the
Croys, except they were "Ohio
folks"
My parents were two of the thou
sands upon thousands during this
period in American history who
were looking for land, for land rep
resented Opportunity. They were
typical of the time and the way
they went about opening up a farm
was, suspect, typical, too.
The Ohio people camped together
that first winter and shared work
and shelter while they secuted for
land. Most of them wanted timber,
because they had come from timber
and had always worked in timber.
But my father wanted what he called
"open land" which he had seen
during the Civil War; so he went a
bit north Of the rest of the Ohio peo-
pie and singled out prairie quar-
ter section. Then he rode in to
town, horseback, to enter it up, but
one OF the land spectators of the
period had got there ahead of him
and had filed. Pa always said it
was blow, because an ex-soldier
was supposed to have first go at
homestead land. The land specula-
tor had paid the government $l.25
an acre. and my father had to pay
him twenty-five cents an acre prof
it. I am sorry that my father did
not get to "enter up" the land, for
that would be something to talk
about. But the land grabber was
there first. So there is one other
name between the United States
Government and Croy. I wish that
was otherwise, too. But it's some
thing to have had farm under one
name since 1870, through drouth and
depression and easy money (seem-
ingly) and hard times. And there's
always plenty of the latter. Ask any
farmer who pulls a living out of the
soil.
Sometime during that first winter,
my father and mother met. She
was the belle Of her wagon train,