well and glad to see us. We found no blockades, no frost on the windows after we left Ottumwa. Snow gradually disappeared as we went southwest. It is a fine looking country; but very little snow; thawing, and beautiful sunshine and spring. I wish you could come down next summer. I think it would be beneficial to your health. It seems to be a sudden transition from cold and storm to the mildness of spring. I hope you are both better than when we left. Hope to hear from you. PHEBE P. GOSSARD.
The above, Mr. Editor, is from the pen of one who., thirty-eight or forty years ago, as the wife of a missionary to the Cherokee and Choctaw Indians taught school among the Indians while her husband, then the Rev. Samuel Allen, was laboring as missionary among them. During that time the Cherokees adopted a written constitution in which was engrafted a stringent clause on temperance prepared by their missionary and at their request. It has grown into a prohibitory law which is now being enforced by "Bushyhead," their chief. Although Indians, they are more advanced on that question than a vast number of whites. Their supreme court(?) sustains a prohibitory law, while ours does not. The writer hereof was a brother of that missionary. He has been dead about thirty-five years. His widow, when living in Central Ohio, married the Rev. S. J. Gossard. Ackley, Iowa, is their present home. They, many years ago, were citizens of Nevada. Rev. Gossard labored as a Methodist minister for quite a while in different parts of our county. Two or three weeks ago Mr. and Mrs. Gossard were visiting friends in and near Nevada, while on their way to Kansas on a visit; consequently Mrs. G. now writes from Kansas and makes a striking contrast between our winter here and the winter in Kansas. W. G. A.
THE NEVADA WELL.
It is not an artesian well, for there has been no effort to elevate the flow of water only by pumps. It is, however, a very remarkable and very valuable well. It supplies water for most of the stock in Nevada, and many of the families, and for street sprinklin—equiring much of the time the use of two pumps at the same time, and sometimes three, and still the supply of water seems abundant. The dry seasons of 1886 and 1887 made no visible change in it.
LIST OF VALUABLE NAMES.
The following gentlemen kindly gave me their assistance in securing authentic history of the County, and whose judgments as tried citizens are of value. The list here given contains names of citizens of our County, who are known generally over the County, and such as are worthy and reliable persons. Most of them can tell you when we had hard times in Story County, and what