Major Stoddard at that early day had purchased a small farm back of
the village, of some Spaniard or Frenchman, but, as he was a
bachelor, and was killed at Fort Meigs, Ohio, during the War of
1812, the title was for many years lost sight of, and the farm was
covered over by other claims and by occupants. As St. Louis began
to grow, his brothers and sisters, and their descendants, concluded
to look up the property. After much and fruitless litigation, they
at last retained Mr. Stoddard, of Dayton, who in turn employed Mr.
Ewing, and these, after many years of labor, established the title,
and in the summer of 1851 they were put in possession by the United
States marshal. 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