By at least 1857 the Jemima Boling clan had arrived in southwest Mo. and were in Stone County. Since Jemima owned no land it is impossible to pinpoint where the family lived; but known neighbors, lead your author to believe they were in the general vicinity of the James River somewhere in the Hooten Town---Jamesville districts. Perhaps Jemima and clan were squatters who moved from shack to shack as her boys found work helping local farmers. It is a verified fact that son Alfred (Alf) worked for Calvin Cloud who lived on the James River near the future McCall bridge. More on his relationship with the Clouds later. 
It is also known that Alf Boling hired out to prominent Stone County figure Samuel D. Nelson.
A note on Nelson: he was born in Virginia in 1802 and brought his family to Taney County in 1845, settling on Swan Creek. But when Stone County was formed in 1851 Nelson had moved to the new town of Galena where he was the foreman on the building of the first Stone Co. courthouse in 1853. By 1855-1856 he had bought land at the mouth of Crane Creek in a valley below Oto Ridge, south of Hooten Town. Nelson built a mill at that site and Alf Boling worked for him there before the Civil War, and was one of Nelson's best workers. In 1859 when Christian County was formed, Nelson was 1 of 3 men appointed by the Missouri Governor to "organize" the Christian County government! A son of Samuel D. Nelson was John Nelson who would run a mill northwest of Nixa beginning in the 1880s.
A third man that Alf Boling worked for before the Civil War was John W. Bilyeu of future Spokane. Mr. Bilyeu thought so highly of Alf Boling that he bought and then gave the 26 year old 160 acres of land at the site of the current Spokane, bordering land that old Mr. Bilyeu and his sons owned!! One has to think that Mr. Bilyeu "gave" Alf this land for some specific reason------I would guess it was in return for good faithful work-------not because Mr. Bilyeu felt sorry for the young man????????????
Many of the pulp fiction stories about Alf "Bolin" portray Alf as a little boy or a youthful teenager who was "raised" by and befriended by neighbors. Alf was in his 20's when he came to Missouri SO he was very much of age.
Self-proclaimed "Doctor" John Gideon who grew up on the Gideon Barrens just south and west of Highlandville wrote that the Bolings lived 2 miles from the Gideon Barrens. Gideon said "the Bolin family was very dark complexioned----supposed to have been mixed with Indian." As for Alf in particular, John Gideon described him this way, "Alf was six feet one inch tall, dark complexioned, black hair worn down on his shoulders and parted in the middle, black eyes, forehead very broad and not more than an inch high, mouth very broad and lips very thin. He never laughed and very seldom smiled. He was broad-shouldered, slender-waisted and weighed about 165 pounds."
TO BE CONTINUED