The ground was laid off, the city survey extended
over it, and the whole was sold in partition. I made some
purchases, and acquired an interest, which I have retained more or
less ever since.
We continued to reside in St. Louis throughout the year 1851, and
in the spring of 1852 I had occasion to visit Fort Leavenworth on
duty, partly to inspect a lot of cattle which a Mr. Gordon, of Cass
County, had contracted to deliver in New Mexico, to enable Colonel
Sumner to attempt his scheme of making the soldiers in New Mexico
self-supporting, by raising their own meat, and in a measure their
own vegetables. I found Fort Leavenworth then, as now, a most
beautiful spot, but in the midst of a wild Indian country. There
were no whites settled in what is now the State of Kansas. Weston,
in Missouri, was the great town, and speculation in town-lots there
and thereabout burnt the fingers of some of the army-officers, who
wanted to plant their scanty dollars in a fruitful soil. I rode on
horseback over to Gordon's farm, saw the cattle, concluded the
bargain, and returned by way of Independence, Missouri. At
Independence I found F. X. Aubrey, a noted man of that day, who had
just made a celebrated ride of six hundred miles in six days.
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