He raised cotton, but only the amount the women needed for
their looms. He grew wheat and corn, but no more than was necessary for
flour and meal for the neighborhood and to feed the stock he owned,
laying aside a portion for use in time of need for the improvident and
unfortunate.
He was ready at any time to trade with anybody for almost anything. In
the last score of the years of his life, the most successful
financially, he found that the money he could accumulate came only from
the sale of products that could move from the valley across the
mountains by their own motive power--something that could go on foot. So
he turned to stock-raising and with his own slaves cut the present
roadway from Pall Mall to Jamestown, there to join with the old Kentucky
Stock road which ran from Atlanta and Chattanooga, along the Cumberland
plateau by Jamestown on to the north through Frankfort and Cincinnati.
Old Coonrod was not a one-price man on the realty he owned. If the
purchase was for speculation he was a trader with his sights set high.
If the buyer wanted a home, he was generous. It meant the upbuilding of
his community. So the people of that day lived in comradeship. There
were few luxuries and no real want. If there was "a farming patch" to be
cleared, the neighbors came from miles around and there was a
"log-rolling.
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