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large houseful of Germans on Deer Creek. In the fall of 1875 he took a piece of land on Crooked creek and a timber claim which are still his home.
About Christmas he left his team on Deer creek and walked back to his family a distance of three hundred miles, in eight and one half days, where he remained about three weeks and then started home, walking back again. In the spring of 1876 he hired teams and returned to his family, who were then living twenty miles east of Irving, Marshall county, Kansas. Charlie Bieber and two of Daniel Palmer's boys and a Swede by the name of John Brodheen helped them to move. From 1876 to 1880 he spent most of his time preaching and organizing churches in different places until August 1880 when he went east to solicit aid for the drouth striken (sic) people of Norton county. In 1889 he quit preaching to try farming and from 1881 to 1890 he raised some very fine crops. The country began to improve, people began to come in and settle on land and to come in and to make nice homes; and school houses and churches were erected all over the country until in a short time the country was very much changed. During this time thirteen German families came from Wisconsin and settled near him and are here yet, and are well to do. He, with some of the neighbors, started for Colorado, August 6, 1890. After ten days' travel they landed in Greeley. Here for the first time they saw farming carried on by irrigation, there being considerable gardening done in and around Greeley and liking to work in a garden Schesser soon found employment at good wages. In October he returned to Norton county and during the winter of 1892 built a dam in the creek that runs through his farm for the purpose of trying irrigation in Kansas, and met with greater success than he expected. From his first experiment he raised $150 worth of vegetables on an acre by irrigation. In his estimation and from every side of which he has studied, the subject of irrigation deserves a great deal of praise; for wherever it is practiced good crops are sure to follow. He has now two dams on his farm and a number of acres which can be irrigated and would recommend all those who can to try it and be convinced. Mr. Schesser came to Kansas with nothing and in the twenty-three year (sic) he has lived here he has accumulated property until he is worth ten thousand dollars and is doing well. Speaking of prosperity he says: "I know that any one coming here and willing to work may not only make a living but accumulate enough to live on through old age. I am not only speaking of my own experience but from observation." Alvin Smith was born in New York state May 6, 1838. He came with his parents to Iowa when he was a boy and settled in Keokuk county where he was married to Mary E. Price July 4, 1859. She was born in Knox county, Ohio, July 7, 1840. They came to Kansas and settled in Norton county July 12, 1873; they took up land near the mouth of Battle Creek one mile north of Calvert. Nine children were born to them, seven of them still living: Norman B., the eldest, was born June 16. 1860, died while an infant; Lionel E. born August 5, 1861; he lives on a farm in Emmet (sic) township at this time and is unmarried. Adelia L, born September 13, 1862; she was married to James McGininis September 13, 1884; they lived in this county for several years but reside in Brown county, Kansas, at this time. John W. was born July 4,1866; he now resides in Montana. Leonard E. was born December 31, 1868; he resides in Denver. Orla and Orville, twins born November 17, 1871; Orville lives in Wyoming and Orla in Norton. Bertie C, was born September |
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