Jury were from several causes nearly all squashed." Can any of our lawyers tell in what condition that left them?
August 18, 1858 reports an almost entire failure of wheat and oats. During the previous winter the weather was mild and rainy, and the roads and streams impassable at times from mud and high water. The summer continued wet—and in June the streams in Central Iowa were higher than ever before known.
In September there was published the first news of gold in Colorado, being an extract from a letter written by H. C. Nutt, of Council Bluffs, to B. F. Allen, of Des Moines, as follows:
"I open this to say that we have great gold excitement here. Two men came in from Pike's Peak with $40,000 in dust. It is five hundred miles west of here. One hundred men leave from here, Omaha and Pacific City. It is thought here to be a fact."
The excitement thus begun carried off quite a number of the citizens of Story County during the winter and the early spring of the following year.
On Friday, October 8, 1858, the first mail from Eldora arrived, carried in a hack.
About this time wooden rollers for grinding sorghum were put up, and the editor began to receive half-gallon measures of the product. He gives his opinion that nearly enough was made to supply the home demand.
About this time the Advocate office was removed to the old Abner Lewis house., just north of the National Hotel, near the spot where M. M. Ross now lives. The office had been m a small building facing north, near the present residence of Mrs. T. C. Davis. The building was afterward removed to the lot north of where the cheese factory now stands, and is, I believe, part of the rear of Mr. Robinson's house. Mr. Thrall used it for a dwelling in that location. He paid for the apple trees on that lot in advertising nursery stock for James Smith, of Des Moines.
November 17, 1858, a call was published for a meeting at the Court House on Saturday the 27th, to consult in reference to the location of the College and Farm, by the Agricultural Board. Attention had been called to this matter during the summer, and to its importance, and the necessity for action if we would secure the location.
On the evening of Saturday, December 9, 1858, the Nevada Brass Band gave a concert at the Cumberland Presbyterian Church. They played thirteen pieces; admission ten cents. Before this mention is made of the Iowa Center Brass Band.
March 1, 1859, three teams started for the gold diggings, with J. P. Robinson, Sr., J: M. Robinson, J. Heffler, Doe. Tichenor, C. D. Berry, B. P. Haman, Charles Lovell, A. F. Dinsmore and Bar Scott. The next week I. B. Compton, Wilson DALY and wife, Mallory DALY, wife and sister-in-law, J. D. Ferner and W. P. Staw followed.
March 29, John H. McLain, wife and two sons, R. M. McLain, F. A. McLain, Mrs. Laura A. Berry, Leroy Childs, Frank Hunt,