Rensselaer Republican, Volume 27, Number 45, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 11 July 1895 — An Outside Opinion of Gifford’s Great Work. [ARTICLE]

An Outside Opinion of Gifford’s Great Work.

Delphi Journal. Benjamin J. Gifford may die one of these days but Jasper county will long bless his memory. Several years ago Gifford, who lives in Kankakee, Illinois, dropped down into Josper county and bought in the neighborhood of 20,000 acres of the swamp land in that county. He proceeded at once to make the land valuable.

He set two steam dredges to work, erected two saw mills and employed a small army of laborers in one way and another. The result was that the land which three or four years ago was useless, some of it deep under water, has become valuable and almost every acre of it is tillable. Much of this land, which the average citizen considered worthless, last jear yielded from forty to eighty bushels of corn to the acre. Having drained it Mr. Gifford cut it up into small farms and last year commenced to build houses and barns. Sixty-five houses with as many barns went up, each house equipped with a wind pump and all other modern conveniences and into these sixtyfive houses went sixty-five families last spring. The majority of these families came from Illinois and many of them have already purchased the landr upon which they moved, for it is Mr. Gifford’s policy to sell rather than to hold after having brought this land into the market. On this land that has been reclaimed four school houses have gone up and several churches have been builtr^: Mr. Gifford has made a fortune out of his investment and he deserved to make a fortune. He has done a service to Jasper county

and the state of Indiana that no other man would have done. The course he has pursued has been in glaring contrast to that followed by Nelson Morris, the millionaire of Chicago. Several years ago Morris purchased 20,000 acres in one tract along the Kankakee but has expended very little towards reclaiming it. He intends to let increase in value as the surrounding land is reclaimed and increased in value. In other words Gifford is a blessing to the Kankakee valley while Morris is & "dead weight, and if he holds on and refuses to sell or improve will prove a curse to that region. It was a fortunate day for Jasper county when Ben Gifford stepped into Rensselaer. In the length of «time he has there he nis employed more labor, built more houses and made more marketable land than any - man who ever, lived., in. that range of conntry. Some'day Jasper county should build a modest monument to his memory.