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THE FARM LOCAL HISTORY IMPROVEMENTS HUNTING INFORMATION |
FARMING IN LOVELY RIDGE & LOVELY RIDGE NEIGHBORS Narrator: C.C. Alden, 78, of Kidder, Missouri Mr. Alden is the son of George L. Alden and Marietta Bump and is a lineal descendant of John and Priscilla Alden. When he was three years old, his parents came west to settle in Missouri. His father, as he says, was of a roving disposition and tried several homes before he settled down. They were two years in Illinois before they came in the early Sixties to this county. At one time they owned the Lenhart place over the line in Daviess County but they did not run the old mill there. They lived for a while on the McKee farm in the Lovely Ridge district, but the lack of fruit trees did not please them. In the early seventy's Mr. George Alden was in the produce business with Andrew Nash in Hamilton, located on south Broadway, an early business street, about where the Cope shop stands. They employed hucksters who went in wagons through the country and picked up eggs, butter and poultry. He finally settled down on land bought from Henry Clark, father of Elmer E. The son C.C. Alden worked as a hired hand four years for Clark getting $186 cash yearly besides room, board and washing. When he asked for $200, Clark refused; and C.C. struck out for himself, got married and began paying for a home on time. Farming, even as late as 1800 was harder work than today. Much of the land was full of stumps which had to be encountered in plowing. The farm processes took more time because they were done by hand not machinery. A trip to town for necessities meant a day not a few hours. They had crops burned out (although never as bad as in 1934) they had crops ruined by grasshoppers 1875; they lost all their hogs by cholera about the same time - when soap companies sent wagons through the county to pick up dead hogs; they had to experiment to find the best crop for their new soil. They had their small, poorly built homes damaged by the hard winds. Some of the neighbors whom Mr. Alden recalls in the Lovely Ridge district are: D.W. Rosencrary, the first teacher in the second school, who lived first house south of its site; Addison McKee who suggested the name Lovely Ridge and lived near the Shaws and Baldwins to the west of the Henry Clark farm and east of George Alden; the Esteb family lived in the brick house, but earlier lived one-quarter mile south of the brick. Jake Esteb, a son built on the present Ora Hosman place. The Forbes family lived on the Jim McBride place; the Allen place was the present Hogkinson home near the county line. Dan Booth owned the Gregory farm and across the road was Jackson Edminster. Wm. Bray lived west of Edminsters, George Brown south of Edminsters, Thos. Bennett west of Browns. The Jones families Wm., Jones, Will Henry, John and Joe were all clustered east of Booth farm by the railroad. The C.C. Alden farm is yet owned by the Alden family. Interview taken August 2, 1934. |
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