On May 1, 1899, Miss Amelia Schmidt conveyed the 642 acre Mount Pleasant tract and its remaining improvements to John and Amelia M. Schmidt, who were brother and sister and residents of Surry County. The Schmidts apparently sold some of the timber on the property, for when they disposed of it in June 1900, its forest products were excluded from the sale. In January 1900 the tax assessor credited Mount Pleasant and its $300 worth of buildings to Amelia Schmidt (Surry County Deed Book 28:363; 29:15; Land Tax Lists 1900).
In 1900 Surry County’s census-taker indicated that John Schmidt was a 26-year-old white male farmer, who had been born in Iowa in April 1874. John, who was single, shared a home with his sister, Amelia M. Schmidt, who was age 22 and had been born in Iowa in January 1878. John and Amelia’s father had been born in Louisiana and their mother, in Illinois. John and Amelia M. Schmidt were literate and according to the census-taker, spoke English (Surry County Census 1900).