JUST UP THE ROAD - HISTORY OF ELKMONT, PART 20

He was up by 4:00 am and breakfast was already cooking. He had two eggs, fatback and fried potatoes, even coffee. When the sun came up, he went outside. The weather was unsettled with high winds and you could see lightning in the West. He pulled his parka out of his saddle bag, preparing for the rain.

When he arrived at the land office, there were people already gathering around. Since Levi couldn’t read very well he asked this clean cut fellow what was going on. The fellow said, “ there is a land auction taking place starting at 8:00 o'clock. Pretending not to know anything about it, Levi asked, "who is selling the land?" The fellow explained that it was the land over in Elk County that the Government got from the Indians. "Well, are they selling it all in one big piece." "No," the fellow said. "It will be divided up into quarter sections and sold in that fashion." Levi followed up, "How would a fellow know what to bid on?" The fellow showed the descriptions to Levi which were on a poster outside of the land office. "See these descriptions written down here, the Government had these lands surveyed and that is the descriptions of all the sections that will be sold." Levi tipped his hat and thanked the fellow. Levi moved away pretending to be leaving.