Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 20, Number 88, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 11 July 1899 — Jolly Old Boys Have a Jolly Old Time. [ARTICLE]

Jolly Old Boys Have a Jolly Old Time.

There was quite a notable excursion party from Rensselaer Thursday. The party consisted of seventeen of our oldest citizens, and they left here in the morning, in carriages, and took an all day’s jaunt in the country, tfie special objective point being the Gifford region, z and to the most of them it was the first time they had seen that country since B. J. Gifford began the wonderful series of improvement which have transformed an impassible and almost illimitable marsh into a land of fertile fields and pleasant homes. At noon the party stopped at the old Sim Dowell place in Barkley, until lately the headquarter farm of the Gifford district, and here they tested snd partook of the bountiful picnic dinner they had with them. In the afternoon, they visited Comer, a new town at the present southern terminus of Gifford’s railroad, where half a dozen or more good buildings are already completed and a number of others underway. Comer is now the Gifford headquarters. They were wonderfully impressed with the magnitude of the evidences of Gifford’s enterprise. The miles upon miles of immense ditches he has constructed, the roads and bridges he has built, the 155 handsome two story residences, all exactly alike, and each with good barns and other outbuildings, also exactly similar to the corresponding buildings on the other farms, t They passed right through the center of the Gifford onion belt, and so far as they saw the 300 and odd acres of onions his tenants are raising this year, promise a great and profitable crop. Oats look fair out there, but owing to the excess of rains early in the season, com and potatoes are not very promising. The party was organized by Upcle Davjd Nowels, our earliest V v iR and th e carriages furnished by him. The members of the : party and .the year pf their births were as follows: Micah Sayler, 1812 , Janies Leathertaan, 1822 * . UamwT.KOU! 1831 d Henry Smith. 1814 Addison Parkison, 1822 x Simon Phillips, 1823 V Jared Benjamin, 1820 David NoWels, < 1821 V Wm. Bull, .1825 *Wm Wishard; 1818 Wm. Bussell, 1830 Sylvester O’Mera, 1822 Ellis Walton, 1820 John Makeever, 1819 Sidal King, 1823 Henry Bruce, 1823 D. C. Hopkins, 1823 jC