Belvidere, Nebraska
February 7, 1921

E.E. Correll, Editor:

   Dear Sir - In compliance with your request to write something in connection with the celebration of the Golden Anniversary of the Journal's birth, it might be of interest to some of your readers and in harmony with the spirit and purpose of the occasion to mention a little incident that I remember very which occurred even more than "fifty years ago" when my father was making arrangements, at our home in north central Indiana - a very heavily timbered country - to buy this section of land, viz: Sec.7, Town 3, Range 2, west of the Sixth Principal Meridian, from the United States government.

   But right here, Mr. Editor, I feel impelled to pause just long enough to remind you that you surely should have known of the very unpleasant effect ti would really have on a youngster like me, when you requested me to write in regard to what had occurred a "whole half century ago." It seems to me that you might have known very well that it would make one feel that he was really classed "among the old." But then, we have the consolation and relief of knowing that the burden of the thought, in your mind at the time, is measured only by the significance of the request, be that much or little.

   But back to the incident. In the early spring of 1869 our brother Robert, who had seen service in the Civil War, the oldest of we seven boys, after many long _____________ consultation with our father and despite the much discouraging advice of nearly all the safest old heads of that rural community, came to Nebraska and homesteaded an eighty (that being as many acres as could be entered as a homestead in railroad limits) about twenty-two miles southeast of Lincoln, on which he spent his bachelor days (bachelor on year only), except such times as necessity compelled him to seek employment in the little city of Lincoln.

   During the spring and summer months he wrote many letters to us descriptive of the soil, the climate, the people, the productions, and what he considered the future possibilities of this then frontier country. Such letters were of much interest to all of us, but more especially to our father and mother.

   In the early autumn he wrote advising my father to come out and bring enough money to buy a section of land farther out on the frontier as one might purchase any number of acres he desired beyond railroad limits for one dollar and twenty-five cents per acre. At that time the very liberal land grant to the St. Joseph & Denver City Railroad company, now known as the Grand Island Railroad, had not been made. To do as requested my father must borrow some money.

   For that purpose he called on our good old tried, true and trusted friend, Richard Burton, who was recognized throughout the entire community as the safest counselor on all material and economic questions of that day. After a moment or two of hesitation, while apparently engaged in very serious meditation, he replied to my father's request in quite a serious manner, using, in well measured sentences, the following words, as nearly as my memory will reproduce them after the lapse of those many years: "Brother Dill, I am perfectly ready and willing to lend you the amount you desire with your own name only on the note, but I would be sorry indeed to learn of you investing it away out there beyond the very farthest limits of civilization, in what, according to the best information I can get, appears to be nothing but a broad, quite sandy, barren, timberless plain."

   If space permitted I might relate a very similar incident which occurred at about the same time in this same neighborhood, with reference to Butler county land, the characters involved and the results obtained being very similar to the above.

   But what is the ________________ less span "two short generations" land in the localities mentioned in this state was selling much higher than in the locality we left, and now almost twice as high. But what else? At the time of the advice and warnings above referred to that country was invaded with marked regularity every autumn, following a wet summer, by a silent, stealthy, invisible enemy in three different and distinct brigades, to the presence of each on of which I can personally testify, each brigade being liberally equipped with its own special means, methods and elements, cruelly destructive of peace, prosperity and all human happiness, viz: chills and fever, the kinds that "sticketh closer than a brother."

   Mr. Editor, I will close with this thought, that while the incidents above referred to may be of interest to some, I trust they may also be the means of convincing some of "we lords of creation" who think we possess much wisdom, that in fact it takes only a few short years at most to prove that we are after all, only common, simple human beings.

Respectfully,
M. C. DILL

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