"Section 8 also includes the premium farm owned by A. N. Phelps, Esq., and contains 200 acres without a foot of waste land...As an indication that Sparta [Township — later Knox County — ] is a rich agricultural locality, capable of producing a great quantity as well as a great variety of crops and having in it many enterprising stock-raisers, besides begin well watered by nattural streams and springs, may be noted the fact that A. N. Phelps' two-hundred acre farm now owned by William Robson on Section 8, took three first prizes from the State Agricultural Society." (History of Knox County, p. 836)

"Phelps' celebrated farm, which took the first premium at State Fair, is on Section 8, and is certainly as fine a farm as we ever saw..."  (Illustration and quote from Atlas Map of Knox County, Illinois, Andreas, Lyter & Company, Davenport, 1870, 91 pages. Scanned by Todd Walter)