He Was Paid for His Wheat in GOLD!

Edmund Gates, Sr. came to Newkirk and Ponca City around 1898-1900.  This trip was prompted because Edmund was disturbed because his brother John was getting a cut of the profit but doing no work on the Kansas family farm.
As a single man Edmund Sr. was working shocking wheat during the harvest here in Oklahoma Territory.  It seemed to him that every other door in Ponca City was a saloon.

Edmund Sr. was notified that the wheat crop he planted on the Gates farm near Garnett, Kansas, was ready to harvest. His neighbor in Kansas had a binder and Edmund shocked the wheat by hand.  He was so fast he had the shocking done about the same time the binding was finished. 

Here is a link to observe wheat being shocked:                              

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jvUsdvCda04

Here is a link to see a horse-drawn binder at work:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SO01Lg0kKFs

Edmund hired the threshing crew as well as someone to cook for them. He cleared around $350 from his crop.  When he sold his grain he was paid in gold.  It was too heavy so he converted the gold to bills.

Interesting Note: A troy ounce of gold was worth $18.98 in 1898. A troy ounce of gold is now equal to around $1,400. I calculated and had Edmund Sr. kept the gold and passed it down to his descendants, it would be valued at over $25,000!