wild prairie in 1853, Joseph Thrift, of Boone, Johnson Edgar, of Jasper, and Thomas Mitchell, of Yolk, being the commissioners. The first two only made their appearance, accompanied by John M. Barnard, of Polk, as surveyor. The commissioners stopped with J. P. Robinson, who then lived where W. R. Finley lives now, and whose house was nearer to the proposed location than any other. The first public sale of lots was in September, and the first house was raised on the day of sale, being a log cabin built by T. E. Alderman, on the corner where E. W. Lockwood now lives. Into this Mr. Anderson moved on the eleventh day of October. In this house occurred the first birth, the first death and the first marriage in the village. The birth, a daughter to Mr. and Mrs. Alderman, occurred January 13th, and the death was of the same child on the sixteenth of December following, and the marriage was that of James Smith to the mother of Mr. Alderman.
The first physician was V. V. Adamson, who came in 1874. Mr. Alderman was the first merchant, who states that W. K. Wood brought the first pork, and James Broughard the first butter that were bought in Nevada. The butter was exchanged for tobacco. In the extracts from the Advocate may be noted some facts as to the early settlers, to which the reader is referred.
Dr. N. A. Kellogg came to Nevada June 17, 1855. He died May 6; 1856, and was the first adult that was buried in the Nevada cemetery. In June, 1855, there was not a single lot with a fence about it, every house standing on the open prairie. There was a fence about the block where Wm. Lockridge now lives, and some garden vegetables were raised there during the summer of 1855, that being the only land planted within the town limits. There were three stores here then; one on the property now owned by Otis Briggs, on the west side of the south square, run by a man named Harris; one owned by T. E. Alderman, on the lot where E. W. Lockwood now lives, and the other that of T. J. Adamson, at the northeast corner of the south square, where Mr. BELL now lives.
Mattie A. Kellogg, daughter of Dr. N. A. Kellogg, is the oldest native of Nevada now known to be living. Mrs. Kellogg remembers that at that time on the low places between her house and the cemetery the grass was higher than her head, and she has seen wolves in the path.
At that time, and fur several years thereafter, the leading hotel was that of J. M. McLain, consisting of the log portion of the old buildings just south of Quincy A. Boynton's place—the last named place being the site of a quite deep pond, the waters of which were often lashed into waves by the unobstructed wind.
There was another hotel built of logs, which stood west of and facing the south square, popularly known as the Terrific. It was not considered a first-class house, though it is not improbable that many of the "big bugs" of the day stopped there.
July 4, 1855, was celebrated by a procession, orations, etc., at the grove which stood near the old ford, southwest of the cemetery.