Leaving the Stollbehn family
in Cincinnati, we and the Hoelscher family traveled on to that new settlement of
Stallotown (Minster). Coming to Dayton on the canal boat we rented a teamster wagon, which
took us on to Stallotown for twenty dollars. Arriving there we rented an old house for one
month and moved into it. We then went to Piqua to the land office and entered eighty acres
of land for one dollar and a quarter per acre.After we bought the land, we could not
find it and got a surveyor who showed us the land and the lines. The next day we took our
oxen, a bed and provisions to make improvements and build a house on it. In going to the
land, we got lost in the wild woods, wandering nearly the whole day before we found our
land. About one hour before sunset we came upon the land.
Now the first thing we had to do, we
built a fire and made us a supper. Water for coffee we found ready in a pond. After we
had taken our supper, we made ready for a sleeping place. For that we selected a big white
tree, putting sticks and poles against that and covering it with prairie grass, putting
grass and leaves into the hut and spreading it on the ground and spread our beds on it. We
slept comfortable for we were very tired. We had a fire built near the opening of the hut,
near the white oak tree. After we had been sound asleep, the fire climbed up at the tree
and had set the hut on fire. Good luck that someone had awakened.
The next day we went to work in earnest to put up a small house or shanty as we may
call it, about twenty feet square with a clapboard roof on it, daubing up the crevices
with clay and made a door and chimney on it. The house was finished up and ready to move
into which we did in a few days after. Then we went to clear some ground for us for
a summer crop, such as corn, potatoes and all sort of vegetables. During winter and part
of spring we had cleared up over seven acres of land.
Then we bought us two milk cows and several hogs. Hogs will fatten in the woods, for
there is plenty of mast for hogs to fatten on, as acorns, hickory nuts, beech nuts and
others; and for cows and cattle there is plenty of pasture more than they need and enough
left over from summer to do them over next winter; for there were no cattle to eat it over
summer. Land bought at one dollar and one quarter was not taxed before five years.
Tax on cattle was twelve and one half cent each, on horses fifty cents each. Eggs cost
five to six cents per dozen and butter cost from five to eight cents per pound, coffee
from ten to twenty cents. Dry-goods and clothing were dear.
The woods and country around were full of game of all kinds and turkeys were so
plentiful they could be seen almost any time when going into the woods. Many hunters made
a living by hunting; the hindquarters of a deer brought from sixty to seventy-five cents,
the forequarters of a deer twenty-five cents and the hide sixty cents.