James and Martha Murdock MacMillan, in 1867, when they began their nearly fifty years of married life on the farm. weighing 2,000 pounds, for which he received $2,000, a rather large transaction for the time and place. Later, however, in his life, reverses set in. The panic of 1873 was a severe blow to his financial status. After this, life on the farm was a struggle. In 1893 there was a greater panic, one even more disastrous, in which farmers suffered more severely than any other class. Prices dropped to the lowest in the history of the nation. The only thing left of what was once a large estate was the original homestead, and that heavily mortgaged. These were the years that tried men’s souls. James MacMillan, who began his business career in a “care-free” if not careless way, was tried to the breaking point. By this time there was a house full of children to be fed and clothed and family appearances to be upheld. There was help on the farm to be paid, as this was before the days of farm machinery. Farm help at this earlier period was an army in itself, especially at harvest time, and a hungry army at that. Help had to be fed as well as paid; and if this were not enough, a high rate of interest had to be paid on the 21
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