Working on Wednesday:George W. Slater, Prairie Breaker

My maternal great great grandfather George W. Slater was born in Lawrence County, Illinois, in 1832. After his father died in 1847 he lived with his older brother for a time, working as a farm hand. In the 1850 U.S. Census he's to be found living in the household of his sister Mary and her husband William Smith in Montgomery County, Illinois.

Source Citation: Year: 1850; Census Place: Southwest, Montgomery, Illinois; Roll: M432_121; Page: 162A; Image: 326
Ancestry.com. 1850 United States Federal Census [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2009. Images reproduced by FamilySearch. Original data: Seventh Census of the United States, 1850; (National Archives Microfilm Publication M432, 1009 rolls); Records of the Bureau of the Census, Record Group 29; National Archives, Washington, D.C.

On the 18th of August, 1851, he and Sarah M. Matthews were married and nine years later G.W. and his young family were living in Shelby County, Illinois. In the 1860 U.S. Census his occupation is listed as "prairie breaker." (For more information about what that entailed, see here and to read more about walking plows in general, here.)

Title: Plowing on the prairie beyond the Mississippi / sketched by Theodore R. Davis, 1868. Notes: Illus. in Harper's weekly, 1868 May 9, p. 292. Source: Library of Congress, http://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/90712909

In 1863, by his own account he was employed by a railroad company to run a saw mill in Lichfield, Montgomery County, Illinois, and must have still been doing some farming as that's listed as his occupation in his draft registration in July of that year.

In 1870 he had acquired $2,500 worth of land according to the U.S. Census that year, with personal property of $200, and as shown in the 1880 U.S. Federal Census Non-Population Schedule for Productions of Agriculture, he mostly farmed Indian corn, wheat, and oats. He had 18 pigs, 3 horses and some poultry too.

He and his son Lewis Logan Slater (my great grandfather) practiced as lawyers in Harvel, Montgomery County, Illinois, and G.W. also served as Constable, a Justice of the Peace and had a place on the Town Council there.

Census Year: 1880; Census Place: Harvel, Montgomery, Illinois

Source: Ancestry.com. Selected U.S. Federal Census Non-Population Schedules, 1850-1880 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2010.

Perhaps he got tired of farming because by the 1885 Kansas State Census, he and his wife and their two youngest children (twins Sarah and James) were living in Elk County, Kansas, and he had become an insurance agent. 

Source: Ancestry.com.. Kansas State Census Collection, 1855-1925 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations Inc, 2009. Original Data: 1885 Kansas State Census. Microfilm reels K-1 – K-146. Kansas State Historical Society.

This double portrait of George W. and Sarah M. (Matthews) Slater was probably taken during that period. (I love her dress!)

Photo courtesy of Olive Kennedy

In the 1895 Kansas State Census, he and Sarah are living in Severy in Greenwood County, Kansas,

Source: Ancestry.com.. Kansas State Census Collection, 1855-1925 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations Inc, 2009. Original Data: 1895 Kansas State Census. Microfilm reels K-1 – K-169. Kansas State Historical Society.

And that's probably where G.W. died at the age of 67 on October 10, 1899. He's buried in Twin Grove Cemetery in Severy.

Photo courtesy of Olive Kennedy

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