Percy G. Ebbutt

This report on Kansas pioneer life in the 1870s was written by Percy G. Ebbutt for an English audience when he returned home to England. Ebbutt left Blaxton in the south of England when he was ten years old. He made the trip with his brother, father and three other young men. His father was a successful upholsterer who decided to go to Kansas when the family's home burned down. Of the six pioneers, only one, Will Humphrey, had any experience with farming. They embarked by steamer from Liverpool and crossed the "Herring Pond" as the Atlantic Ocean was nicknamed in twelve days with nine hundred emigrants on board. They traveled by rail to Junction City, Kansas, and from there they hauled their luggage by wagon onto the prairie to start their new life.

On the 18th of February...