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EDWARD JERRY CASPAR.
A number of the leading farmers of the younger generation are carrying on operations on property that has been brought to a state of cultivation from wild swamp, prairie and timber land by members of their own family, and take a justifiable pride in the fact, and among these may be mentioned Edward Jerry Caspar, of Cache township, whose fine farm of one hundred and thirty-four and one-half acres, located one and one-half miles west of Belknap, is one of the productive tracts of this section. Mr. Caspar was born on a farm one mile west of Belknap, March 24, 1883, a son of Jeremiah and Elizabeth Jane (Sowers) Caspar.

Samuel Caspar, the grandfather of Edward Jerry, was born in North Carolina, and came from that state to Johnson county, where he spent the remainder of his life in agricultural pursuits and died at a ripe old age. His son, also a native of the Tar Heel state, accompanied him to this locality, became an extensive farmer of Johnson county, and died in 1895, at the age of sixty-three years, owning several hundred acres of some of the best land in Cache township. He and his wife were the parents of eleven children, of whom five are now living, namely: Jesse Adam, David Calvin, Edward J., Mrs. Minnie Pearl Kean and Mrs. Lulu Allen Lowry.

Edward J. Caspar was reared on the home farm and attended the

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district schools of the neighborhood. Reared to the life of an agriculturist, at the age of eighteen years he inherited a tract of seventy-one acres of land, which he at once began cultivating, and subsequently added thereto tracts of forty-seven and sixteen and one-half acres. Mr. Caspar belongs to that school of agriculturists who believe in scientific conditions of the land, and he has made a study of crop rotation and soil conditions, as well as being an adherent of draining and tiling and the use of modern power farming machinery. His buildings are large and substantially built, his fencing neat and entirely competent to his needs, and the whole appearance of the property denotes the presence of good management and enthusiastic industry. Mr. Caspar's progressive ideas have made him in favor of any movement that will tend to advance the interests of his community, and he may always be found supporting the enterprises that have for their object the development of the best resources of Cache township or Johnson county. His genial personality has made him numerous friends in the vicinity of his home, and he is very popular with the members of the Odd Fellows and the Modern Woodmen of America, belonging to the lodges of both orders at Belknap.

On January 19, 1907, Mr. Caspar was united in marriage with Miss Milly May Morgan, the daughter of William Morgan, a well-known agriculturist of Johnson county, and one child has been born to this union: Wanda Jane, who is two and one-half years old.