In the year 1845 a letter came from Grandfather Baker in Ohio to my mother, saying that he would give her a thousand dollars with which to buy a farm. The burning question with my father and mother was how to get the money out from Ohio to Indiana. They actually went in a covered wagon to Ohio for it and hauled it home, all silver, in a box. This silver was nearly all foreign coin. Prior to that time but a few million dollars had been coined by the United States Government.
Grandfather Baker had accumulated his money by marketing small things in Cincinnati, twenty-five miles distant. I have heard my mother tell of going to market on horseback with grandfather many times, carrying eggs, butter, and even live chickens on the horse she rode. Grandfather would not go into debt, so he lived on his farm a long time without a wagon. He finally became so wealthy that he was reputed to have a barrel of money—silver, of course. Out of this store came the thousand dollars that he gave mother. It took nearly a whole day to count the money. At least one of nearly every coin from every nation on earth seemed to be there, and the "tables" had to be consulted in computing the value.
I was working on the Journal at the time when the farm was bought, but it seemed that I was not cut out for a printer. My inclinations ran more to open-air life, so father placed me on the farm as soon as the purchase was made and left me in full charge of the work there, while he gave his time to milling. Be it said that I early turned my attention to the girls as well as to the farm and married young, before I reached the age of twenty-one. This truly was a fortunate venture, for my wife and I lived happily together for fifty-eight years.
The first railroad in Indiana.