WILLIAM EPLER, 1835-1922.

William Epler died at the home of his daughter, Mrs. A. L. Watkins, 626 Broad Street, Lake Charles, La., Saturday, February 4th, 1922, at 11:45 o'clock p. m., aged 86 years, 9 months and 20 days. Funeral services were held Monday afternoon February 6, 1922, and the remains of the deceased were buried at Graceland Cemetery, Lake Charles.

According to the request of Mr. Epler, the pallbearers included three friends from Welsh and three from Lake Charles. The three from Welsh were, Messrs. Geo. W. Cosner, C. E. Carr and A. R. McBurney, Dr. L. G. Lewis, another old friend, also attended the funeral.

Mr. Epler was born near Virginia, Ill., April 15, 1835. He first came to Louisiana in 1900, and has made his home here practically the entire time since. Up to a few years ago he was engaged in surveying. Among his many acquaintances in this section are a number who prided his close friendship. A volume could be written of the beauties of his fine character. His early life was closely interwoven with the early history of the great northwest and the details are best recounted as they were written by him, at the request of members of his family on his 80th birthday, April 15th, 1915, here made public for the first time:

BIOGRAPHY.

"This, April 15, 1915, is my 80th birthday.

"I was born in a log cabin in Morgan County, Ill., April 15, 1835, a son of John and Sarah Beggs Epler. My boyhood was passed on my father's farm and attending the common schools of the neighborhood. I attended Illinois College, at 'Jacksonville, in the fall of 1853, and because of ill health left college in February, 1856.

"In April, 1856, in company with Samuel Montgomery, a neighbor friend of about my own age, also in bad health, hop

ing that roughing it would improve or entirely cure our illness, traveled with a mule team, camping out by the way, across Missouri and out into Kansas, as far west as Ft. Riley, at the mouth of the Smoky Hill Fork of Kansas River, thence southerly across the country to Council Grove, on the great Santa Fe trail; thence eastwardly on said trail to Fort Leavenworth on the Missouri River; thence up said river, first on the west side and then on the east side to Council Bluffs, Iowa, and Omaha, Neb.

"After a few days sightseeing we resumed our journey eastward across Iowa to Dubuque, at which place we arrived a few days after the 4th of July. Here at Dubuque I suffered my last serious illness, also, here at Dubuque, we were joined by Abram S. Bergen, who had just graduated from Illinois College, and a nephew of my companion, Samuel Montgomery; also, here at Dubuque, we disposed of our mule team and all took steamer for St. Paul, head of navigation on the Mississippi River.

"After a few days in and about St. Paul, visiting St. Anthony Falls, now Minneapolis, and the Falls of Minnehaha and Ft. Snelling, we left for Taylor's Falls on the St. Croix River. From Taylor's Falls we traveled afoot on an Indian trail to Superior City, where we arrived August 5, 1856.

"My companions, Montgomery and Bergen, at the end of the week, left for Chicago, on their return home, on a steamship, by way of the Lakes, myself remaining. At Superior City, the September following, I joined a company of U. S. land surveyors engaged in surveying on the north shore of Lake Superior. I had studied surveying while in college and liked it. While in camp I gave it some attention, under instruction of William Burt, a son of William A. Burt, of Detroit, Mich., inventor of that most perfect instrument designed for land surveying, 'Burt's Solar Compass.' William Burt was a veteran surveyor of the western peninsula of Michigan, in the copper districts.

"Until the spring of 1860 I continued in the business as chain carrier and compassman and U. S. Deputy.

"At Duluth, April 12, 1859, I was married to Miss Jane Abigale Woodman of Paw Paw, Van Buren County, Mich. Miss

Woodman was spending the winter with her sister, Mrs. Col. J. B. Culver, receiver in the U. S. land office in Duluth, when we first became acquainted. It may be worth mentioning that we were the first white people married in Duluth, then scarcely a village but now a great commercial city. Ours was the second marriage license issued, the first was issued to a Frenchman, or half-breed, but was solemnized down at the Grand Portage, near the Canada boundry. In May, 1860, we left Duluth, via Lakes Superior and Huron, for Detroit, on our way to visit kindred in Michigan and Illinois. At my father's house within fifty feet of where I was born, in a log cabin, our daughter, Nellie, was born August 10, 1860. She is now Mrs. Nellie Epler Mills of Virginia, Ill.

"About the first of October following, we left kindred and the friends at the old home and went to Omaha, Neb., I, as a U. S. Deputy Surveyor, thinking I should go where there were public lands to survey. We remained in Omaha until the spring of 1861 and then we parted company, she and our dear little daughter, Nellie, to go east to Michigan and Illinois to abide with kindred temporarily, I to go to the far west, where I felt assured good business in my line awaited me. I left Omaha May 22nd, 1861 for Nevada Territory-my wife and our dear little daughter Nellie had left a few days previous for the east. After a very interesting and pleasant trip across the plains I arrived at Carson City, Nev., August 27th, 1861. Arriving in Carson City, without delay I joined a camp of U. S. Surveyors in charge of Butler Ives of Detroit, a veteran surveyor of Michigan and the Pacific Coast. It was he who started the public surveys in the state of Oregon, then Oregon Territory. Mr. Ives proved to be one of the best friends I ever had and I have had many good friends. He lost his life in the service of the Central Pacific Railroad of California. I continued with Mr. Ives, as his compassman until driven from the field by deep snows which overwhelmed us while engaged in the survey of the east shore of Lake Taho.

"The honor of measuring the south half of the east shore of Lake Taho is mine. We were encamped at the celebrated Shakespeare Cliff one night about the middle of November when the snows came, compelling us to abandon the field. In

January following I was appointed by James W. Nye, governor of the Territory, county surveyor for Humboldt County. I had gone out to Humboldt County December preceding. In March, 1862, was elected to the office and held the same until my resig nation in August, 1865.

"Mrs. Epler, with little daughter came to San Francisco from New York, via the Isthmus of Panama, I meeting them there as they landed. After a week's rest and sightseeing we journeyed over the Sierra Nevada Mountains to Nevada and on to Star City in the Humboldt Mountains, which was to be our home, arriving there in April, 1863. Mrs. Epler had a brother, W. W. Woodman, who with his wife, Melissa, and their daughter, Florence, were living in Star City, therefore she did not feel that she was utterly cast away from kindred and friends. I grieve to state, even at this distant day, that she died October 2nd, following, leaving her little daughter, then three years old in the care of her good aunt, Mrs. Woodman, and as before stated the child is now Mrs. Nellie Mills of Virginia, Ill.

"In the fall of 1863 I was elected to represent Humboldt County in a convention called to frame a constitution for the new state of Nevada, which was expected to be organized and admitted into the Union in the near future. The constitution we framed was voted down by the people. Under that constitution I was elected to the state senate, that is the senate that was to be, but as the constitution was vetoed by the people there was no senate created in which for me to serve. Another constitutional convention was called the following year and formed a constitution which the people adopted. Our constitution is known in the history of the state as 'the first constitutional convention.' Mark Twain was also a member of the convention. We became personal friends of long standing.

"In August, 1865, I received a contract from the U. S. Surveyor General of California, office in San Francisco, to extend the 4th standard parallel of the Mt. Diablo Base and Meridian 150 miles farther east in the state of Nevada. During the winter of 1865-66 assisted in subdividing a large Spanish grant back in the mountains west of Petaluma, Calif. The subdivision consisted in dividing the grant into 63 equal parts—