We found the Kirksville farm...

Well, we're pretty sure we found approximately where the Kirksville farm was.

I mentioned to the breakfast group in Kewanee on Sunday morning that Rita and I were returning to Nebraska via a detour to Kirksville, Missouri. We have the text of a local newspaper add that JD ran when he put the farm up for sale in 1874. The sale ad was as follows:

Fifty Acres Farm for Sale

This farm is situated on Bear Creek, four miles south of Kirksville, and one and one half east of Troy Mills on the N. M. Railroad.

The ad goes on to describe the farm, forty acres fences, 25 in cultivation, rolling, a well, orchards, etc. Asking price was $25 per acre.

We drove south of Kirksville on highway 63, a four-lane divided road with wide shoulders and ditches. Kirksville development makes it a bit uncertain to determine where central Kirksville may have been 140 years ago to start your four mile clocking and the development extends about four miles to the south with a Days Inn not far from the target location. We noticed an antique dealer called The Old Inn Mini Mall and stopped there after scouting the neighborhood. The folks there were very friendly informing us that Bear Creek was behind their location, there used to be railroad tracks that ran parallel to the road and Troy Mills was two miles west of us.

We drove to the west on state highway 11 and found several business using the Troy Mills name. We stopped at a convenience store. No one could tell us where the name came from. We later Googled the name and found that Troy Mills was a wollen mill that operated in 1868 - when the Rowlisons lived there, and that a small community grew up around it.

We went back to the east stopping at about the location that best fit these descriptions. We were on highway 11 about 1/2 mile west of 63. The creek is a couple hundred yards north of the road, there are wooded areas over much of the land with small cultivated plots between but mostly hay fields. I took several pictures in each direction from that point and am relatively certain that we were within no more than 1/2 mile of JD's farm.

I've often joked that JD had seen his best farm land where he was born in Jefferson County, Indiana. We've been there and it is very good for corn and tobacco. I'd been near Kirksville, Moulton, and in Peru, Edgar and Hoxie and always felt that JD had generally migrated to poorer and poorer farm land as he moved west - no offense intended Kansans, but I was raised on a corn farm. We drove north of Kirksville and the land in that direction compares favorably with any, but I cannot fault old JD for wanting to move on from his farm south of town to find a better setting.

They moved to Moulton, Iowa in 1874; he must have gotten somewhere near his $25/acre. Moulton is only about 40 miles to the north of Kirksville, just across the Iowa border. We made that drive quickly and checked out the little town. I don't have any information on the location of that farm, but the general farm land situation there is much better than at his farm south of Kirksville, at least from this corn farmer's perspective.

It was Sunday afternoon but there was a landscaping project underway at the library with the librarian supervising. I had a good conversation on the history, development and decline of the community. The library has a full collection of old newspapers that may warrant a return visit someday.

I've now visited the areas of each of JD's farms, if not the exact locations. Ironically, I actually need to take Vaunden's legal descriptions and track down the several Edgar area locations to say I've seen each location, as well as the actual Hoxie farm. Still, generally speaking, the farmland in Jefferson County must have been a gnawing memory for him all along that trail. I suspect that the population pressure there made it tough, or impossible for a new farmer to get a toehold on land and the open country to the west must have been a strong draw.

JD and Rhoda arrived in Kirksville with Dolph as a baby less than one year old. They left for Moulton seven years later with Dolph at age 8, Maggie was six, George was 4, Minnie was two and Charles was born in May of that year (1874) before they moved, probably in the fall.

Martha was born in Moulton in 1877 and they were living in Peru Bottom, Nebraska when Myrtle was born in 1879. That litany of the dates of birth of those seven kids as well as the prospect of making those multiple moves is worth re-reading and pondering for a bit.

People move, or populations migrate for a variety of reasons but usually they are either trying to find something or are trying to leave something. I wonder what were the motivations of JD and Rhoda. Maybe he (they?) was just restless.

G'day for now - Jerry