Thursday, February 29, 2024

The Story of My Life

Now on ACX, narrated by Bill Anderen
The Story of My Life - Autobiography of Lorenzo Reynolds, the Treasurer of Hillsdale College, 1862-1877 #hillsdale #michigan #pioneer #biography

Monday, February 19, 2024

James Walker Leverett

I'm knee-deep into the biography of James Walker Leverett (1830), an ancestor of many people I know - fifth, sixth cousins and the like. He lived an interesting life. He settled in Nebraska before it was a state, back when many people back east were "Anti-Nebraska." He ran a farm in Wisconsin for ten years, and then went into the lumber business in South Dakota, before it was a state.

Right at the moment I'm about at the Civil War, but there are some things before it that have me a llttle confused. One is a steam-powered sawmill. He apparently took this sawmill out to Nebraska, but I'm not sure if it ran by steam engine before he took it or if they developed that out there. The thing was a conversation starter, for sure. I'm not sure if I'd know one of those if I saw it. I definitely wouldn't know how to use one, let alone make one.

Keep your eyes out - it's on its way. It'll be called Prairie Leveretts>.

Minden, Iowa

Today would have been my dad's birthday; James Leverett Jr. would have been 95, but died a few years ago. He was a prolific photographer...