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crops. I was hired to out up the oorxi for him, but the grasshoppers ate it up first. He could not pay me for sometime. Grasshoppers were s.~ thick you cou ‘ t step on the ground without stepping on about a dozen at each step. I got n~r money and came to Ottawa in December 1874, about Christmas time.~

	“My master‘ s name was siirnus and I was known as Sinmfs Bill ‚ just like horses. When I came out here I just changed my name from Sixi~ Bill, to Bill Bimms.“

	“Ottawa was very small at the time I came here, and there were several Indians close by that used tà come to town. The Indians held the5. r war dance on what is now the courthous e grounds . I planted the trees that are now standing on the courthouse grounds. I still plantad trees until three or four years ago. There were few farms . fenced and what were, were on the streams. The prairie land was ai]. open. This is what North Ottawa was, nothing but prairie north of Logan Street, and a few houses between Logan Stre et and the river • Ottawa didn‘ t have many businesehouses. There was also an oil mill where they bought castor beans, andmade castor oil on the north side of the Marais des Cygnes River one block west of Main Street. There was one hotel, which was called Leafton House and it stood on what is now the southwest corner of Main and Second Streets.W S

	“I knew Peter !~ai s er ‚ when I came here ‚ and A. P. Elder was just a boy then.“

S	“The people lived pretty jr imitive~. We idn‘ t have czi. OEir only lights were tallow candles ‚. mostly grease lamps ‚ they weré jùat a ~pan *ith grease in it, and one end of the rag dragging..out over