George Washington Carver grew up on the farm owned by Moses and Susan Carver in Newton County, Missouri, and although his life later took him far from it, he considered it his first home. In the 1830s, Moses and Susan Carver moved there from Sangamon County, Illinois, with Moses’ brothers Richard, George, Abram, and Solomon and their families, and together they broke the prairie land with wooden plows. Although the U.S. government encouraged westward expansion, Moses Carver could not buy his land until 1843, when the United States Land Office first offered it for sale. The farm eventually expanded to 240 acres of crop fields, orchards, and grazing pastures for horses, cattle, mules, sheep, and oxen, producing corn, wheat, oats, Irish potatoes, hay, and flax. In 1855, the Carvers purchased a 13-year-old enslaved girl who gave birth to two boys before she was abducted. Moses and Susan raised the boys, Jim and George, and gave them farm chores; Jim was strong, while George was frail and could manage only lighter work such as sewing and fetching water from the spring. Over time, George developed a need to learn that led him to leave the farm he had grown to love.
