Ulysse Doesn't Plow Well

Leon Proctor
2002 Aug 13
 

Apparently Leon's grandfather Ulysse Huguenin was not much of a farmer. Leon told me a story about Ulysse one day hitching up a team of horses to do some plowing. He hitched up the team, and took the horses, the plow and himself to the field to till the soil. He set the plow into the ground and plowed one length of the field. But then, he became seriously perplexed. He couldn't figure out how to get the horses and the plow turned around to plow back in the other direction. He had met his farming Waterloo. He unhitched the horses, took them back to the barn, and never plowed again. Leon doesn't vouch for the accuracy of this story, but we agreed that it is a fine story!
 

The only evidence that I have that Ulysse ever claimed to be a farmer is his occupation on the 1880 US Census. (1) Upon immigration in 1878, he was a clerk (2), and his granddaughter Jane Good tells of his making house to house deliveries of kerosene with a horse-drawn wagon. (3) I guess that kerosene wagon was easier to get turned around than the plow. -- dg 2004 Mar 24.

Notes

1. "Branch Twp., Marion Co., Kansas" in 1880 Federal Population Census (US Census Bureau, 1880 Jun 18). Also www.dgatx.com/family...sse-Huguenin/hs.html. Microfilm available through US National Archives. Ulysse Huguenin.. 2. "Labrador List of Manifest" (Port of New York, 1878 Feb 28). Excerpts www.dgatx.com/family...s/1878/02-28/hs.html (2004 Mar 11). Ulysse Huguenin immigration.. 3. Jane Huguenin Good, "As I Remember" (1982). Also www.dgatx.com/family/peo...s/1982/11-23/hs.html (2002 Jul 1)., 3.

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