Bailey Burns

BURNS, HOFFMAN, FITZGERALD, WARD

Posted By: Deborah Gilbert (email)
Date: 9/4/2016 at 09:46:10

A Window Into Prairie City's Past as seen through the files of Prairie City News (compiled around 1949)

Burns Family Comes Here in 1869

Bailey Burns was born in Vermont in 1868 and moved with his parents to Prairie City the following year and lived first on land which is now Waveland Cemetery. With the Burns family, came a Vermont neighbor, B. C. Ward, who later served as editor of the Prairie City News for several years.

In 1880 the family settled on a farm one mile north and 1/2 mile east of town where he attended the Squaw Creek rural school. He married Ella May Hoffman. Children are Mrs. D. A. (Ina) Fitzgerald, Duane DeWitt and Hubert. Hubert now rents the farm from his father.

"That man must be crazy," said some of his neighbors many years ago when Bailey planted his corn around a hill instead of up and down it, practicing soil conservation which no one else had heart of yet. He was raising alfalfa hay as early as 1910.

For years (40 to be exact) the Burns family has lived on their present farm one mile east and 1/2 mile north of Prairie City. He now has 150 lambs on feed and raises chickens as a sideline. For many years, he shipped his eggs to the New York market and cleared from 3-5 cents a dozen more than he could get at the local market.

Helping to organize the KP Lodge in 1890 here, he is now the only living charter member. He also served as school secretary in Mound Prairie township for 34 years and as township assessor for six years.