Residence:
August 31, 1870: York Township, Tama County, Iowa
June 1, 1880: Marion Township, Morgan County, Ohio
1900: Brown Township, Linn County, Iowa

Ed Emmons and a brother homesteaded near Colby, Kansas, in the late 1880's. They stayed the required number of years and each took title to 320 acres, but for Ed it was never home: "I'll never go back to that God forsaken land where the winds never stop blowing and the trees are 100 miles apart."

He never did go back; his Kansas land was traded, with some cash, for 640 acres near Dumas, Moore County, Texas. When Ed died, he divided the land between his daughters and friends. Phillips Petroleum took a 99-year lease on the mineral rights and after Ed's death brought in one of the first and biggest natural gas wells in Texas, so many of the family continue to receive a monthly check from Phillips.

Ed owned a threshing machine and steam engine and his crew kept it busy in Linn and surrounding counties. Ed made his own soap and hominy from oak ashes and taught his grandson to make pan gravy. It seems his only vice was Red Man chewing tobacco. He mistrusted banks; after he died while chopping wood, even though the woodshed was already full, an honest undertaker retruned his jacket to the family, with its lining full of hundred dollar bills. He was for many years an elder of the Friends meeting at Whittier, Linn County, Iowa.

Buried
Whittier Friends, Linn County, Iowa

Obituary:
[Died] At his home at Whittier, Iowa, on Second month 17, 1938, EDWIN EMMONS, seventy-nine years of age; a member of Whittier Monthly Meeting.