News from Martinsburg, Indiana. March 1, 1863. Written by George M. Loughmiller to his brother Jacob.
Wheat is priced at $1.25 and on the rise. Corn is$0.50. Oats, we have a new kind, $0.75 a bushel. The old oats failed last year and there was a pretty good crop of the new kind. I will have to tell you how it came here. Wyley Elrod brought some sugar cane seed that came from China and there was a grain or two of oats among them. He planted those grains, and so on till last year he had twelve hundred bushels. Some got ten and some got twelve, and that is the only oats that did any good last year. There is a good demand for them, I will send you a few grains, so you can get a start of them. You must sow earlier than other oats as it takes three weeks longer to ripen. Hay and wheat harvest is both out of the way before they get ripe, and they say the straw is more like wheat straw, and after it comes up it spreads over the ground like whest. You would think to see it by other oats, that it would not make anything, but be patient, it will come on after a while all right.
After Grandfather Loughmiller's death, Grandmother and Jessie Brownlee, a granddaughter, lived together on the home place. Jessie was motherless since her mother Victoria had died at child birth. One day grandmother and Jessie planned to make a visit. They had driven old Kitt singly to a light rig many times. The old mare was well broken and dependable and strong, but she had one bad fault that had to be considered. She hated the small of fresh blood. Uncle Henry and the boys had butchered something for their meat and when Kitt got a wiff of blood she took the bit in her teeth and ran wild. The light rig went into a ditch along the road side and both occupants were thrown out. Grandmother was injured so badly that she was bedfast for several weeks.
Sarah Loughmiller, daughter of William Loughmiller of Easton, Kansas, married a Mr. Jepson and had one son, Billy. Mr. Jepson was employed as depot agent at Easton and later, at Soldier, Kansas. Sarah (known as "Aunt Sarah Will", as there were more than one Sarah Loughmiller) died and Billy moved with his father and stepmother to Soldier, Kansas. Billy was the age of Arch Kroth and frequently rode a horse out to the Kroth homestead on Sunday afternoons. When he grew to manhood, he lived in Clay Center and worked as a car salesman.
James Brownlee, bereaved husband of Victoria Loughmiller, and James Pollock were friends and farmed and batched together in a little plank house with wide cracks between the boards. James better known as Jim, married Mary Bostwick and reared al09 Next Page
To the Table of Contents
To Roger Kroth's Homepage