Week 42: Adventure

   When I think of Adventure, the only thing that comes to mind is when ancestors decided to go west. Whatever the reason was, it was definitely an adventure. Packing up your meager possessions and leaving everything you have known behind for the unknown. Most of my family stayed in the midwest, so I never had to research the idea of going west... until I came across the Bell family.
     Daniel Preston Bell was born in Indiana in 1848 and lived there for most of her early life. He married Mary Patrick in 1872 in Indiana and they had three children. Then in 1881, they left Illinois and headed west to New Mexico by train. This was the beginning of a new adventure for the family.
     I have not done extensive research on the Bell family before they left Indiana so I do not know why they decided to go west. I will have to research history more in-depth to understand the motivation behind their decision. I do know that once they got to New Mexico, they took a covered wagon to La Plata County, Colorado. Once there, Daniel Preston Bell acquired a Land Patent in 1886. It's possible he acquired this though the Homestead Act put in place by the government. That could have been a motivator to move west. What an adventure!
     The Bell family farmed the land as best as they could. Although I've lived in Colorado and am familiar with the surrounding area they lived in, it's not exactly the easiest ground to farm. It's very mountainous, dry, desert-like, rocky, so it's possible it didn't work out very well. I wonder that because in 1900, they are living in Durango, La Plata County, Colorado, running a boarding house. It could be that they were just doing that to earn extra money. Their farm property was located about 20-25 miles East of Durango.
     To my surprise, they went from Durango to the little town of Silverton very shortly after this. Daniel Preston Bell decided to jump on the wagon of becoming a miner. According to the 1910 census, he had become a miner in a quartz mine! Wow!
     As I said before, I haven't done extensive research on the Bell family... yet. But I plan to. I plan on taking a trip back out to Colorado at some point to visit Silverton. I wrote a small story about the Bell family when I first learned they lived in Silverton. You can read about them here: Relatives in Silverton, Colorado?!
     Though I can't provide many details about this family, I can still say without a doubt when I think of the word Adventure, I think of the Bell family traveling from Indiana to Colorado. It may be time to trace that adventure.