140 years ago

July 29, 1881

Peabody, not to be behind Marion Centre, dedicated a new Christian church last Sunday, and paid the debt upon it.

The Grand Central Hotel, at Peabody, has closed its doors to the public. We understand that Mr. Duvall contemplates removing to Kansas City.

Score still another distant order for stone from Dr. Hannaford’s inexhaustible stone quarry. This last order was for a school house in Lyons, Rice county.

The Amateur Minstrel exhibition by the Band Boys Wednesday night was largely attended and the performers are said to have been equal in many respects to professionals.

Mr. and Mrs. Levi Billings celebrated the fifth anniversary of their wedding last Saturday evening.

Their spacious rooms were thronged with friends who came to rejoice with them that the matrimonial sea had thus far furnished them such smooth, pleasant sailing, and to wish them a placid and prosperous voyage the rest of the distance upon life’s ocean.

Jim Moreland, whose escape from officer Wise we briefly chronicled last week, is still at large. None of the posse in pursuit appears to have struck the trail of the fugitive.

Later events, however, reveal his route. A few miles southeast of where he left Wise, the buggy and harness were found in a ditch.

Moreland crossed the Cottonwood bareheaded, on horseback, at the Williams farm near Florence. He was next seen in Summit township, where he procured a hat at Mr. Starbuck’s, representing that he had lost his chasing antelope.

He was probably making for Caldwell, his old home.