Author Description

Elizabeth Taylor and Tom Jones: The Spring Ranche Incident takes place in Nebraska in the 1880's at a time when the Oregon Trail was the main freeway to Oregon and California. It guided the travelers in their quest for gold, land, and religious asylum. Nearly a half million immigrants of various nationalities traversed along the trail and suffered from many hardships, diseases, thievery, and violence to reach their goals. A fair number never made it. However, traveling to the west coast was never the intention of thousands who disembarked from the trail. Many followed their dreams that would take them off the trail hundreds or thousands of miles from Oregon and California. These were the pioneers who would become the farmers of the most fertile lands on earth. Their descendents, over the decades to come, would later be responsible for feeding the world. Amid the disappearing desolation of the central plains in the 1880's, life for the new residents was placid and one dominated by hard work. But in a small corner of Clay County, Nebraska, an emotional pot was brewing and about to boil over horribly. Armed with nothing but their dreams aspirations, and the grubstakes of the family, a pair of twins, a brother and sister, migrated to the U.S. from Wales and eventually to Missouri. From there, they took their vision of prosperity to the virgin lands of an area once known as the Spring Ranche Precinct, Clay County, Nebraska, which was originally settled in 1864. They arrived in Spring Ranche in 1870 and availed themselves of the Homestead Act of 1862. Land, at the time, could be purchased from Uncle Sam for $1.25 an acre. They laid claim to the maximum anount of land allowed by law. Elizabeth Taylor, who married a fellow Welshman, James Taylor, at the early age of 15 in 1869, was a woman ahead of her time. With the limited skills of farming and ranching that she had learned from her father, and with the help of her beloved twin, Tom Jones, her dream of becoming a successf