CHAPTER I
History is always interesting, and there is
something peculiarly fascinating in the record
of past events. We look forward with feelings
of hope, of admiration and of ambition, but
we look backward over the seemingly forgotten
past in the spirit of meditation, and with
our hearts concentrated upon the scenes and
incidents of other days, and we ponder them
with absorbing interest. The statements of
history are sometimes doubted, and controversies
arise which can end only in
controversy, never settled, because the actors
then in the drama of life are
mouldering in forgotten and neglected graves.
And even when the actors are still living,
there often arises a dispute which history
cannot fully settle, as demonstrated by the
conflicting reports and statements of many
a battle by participants themselves in our
civil war. Our history is one of comparative
recent events, whose pages turn back only
two decades, and which our earliest settlers
are familiar with, and which will be of much
interest to the people of Northwest Iowa generally,
and indeed to the people of all parts of the
State. The intention of the writer in the
history of Osceola County is not only to make
a record of such facts as pertain to its organization,
its growth and progress, but also to weave
in reminiscences and events connected with
the early settlers, and make mention of every
circumstance that will be of interest to the
general reader.
In the spring and summer
of 1870, the fair and fertile prairie land
of Osceola County was without a settler. The
older parts of Iowa, with that instinctive
feeling that an old settled country has for
a new, regarded Northwest Iowa then as a barren
and bleak part of the state, and as unfit
for man's habitation; but before the close
of that year Mr. E. Huff came came
and filed on a claim November 3, which was
the southwest quarter of Section 32, Township
98, Range 42, in what is now Gilman Township,
so that this gentleman, now a non-resident,
was the first settler.
After Mr. Huff
had made settlement as the law required he
retured [returned] to Beloit, in Lyon County,
and remained there during the following winter.
In the spring of 1871, while at
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Sioux City, he came across C.
M. Brooks, who was pushing west under
the advice of the lamented and distinguished
Horace, but who had started for Nebraska.
Mr. Huff explained to him the wonders
of Osceola, and the graphic description he
gave of this Garden of Eden resulted in Mr.
Brooks coming to Osceola County. Mr.
Brooks left behind him others, who
were to follow when word was received where
to go, and when he reached this County and
looked upon its fair and fertile prairie land,
he determined at once upon settlement here,
and wrote to his friends to lose no time in
hastening to this new and wonderful country.
This correspondence brought
W. W. Webb, D. L. McCausland
and M. J. Campbell, who, with C.
M. Brooks, took Section 8, in Township
99, Range 41, now West Holman, each taking
of it a quarter section. Mr. McCausland
and Mr. Webb came through with oxen,
and Brooks and Campbell through
to Le Mars by rail. About this time, and we
believe on the first day of May, 1871, H.
G. Doolittle, with James Richardson,
from Floyd County, arrived at the house of
E. Huff and remained over night. The next
day they struck for claims; Doolittle
settled on the southwest quarter of Section
24, Township 99, Range 41, and Richardson
on the same section. They built sod houses,
and had some lumber with them. Mr. Richardson
after being here a short time returned.
Houston A. Doolittle,
a brother of H. G., came in June, 1871,
and filed on Section 30, Township 99, Range
40. He left here in 1889, and now lives in
Hancock County. H. G. Doolittle established
a land business that year near Shaw's store,
elsewhere referred to, and did business in
a tent. He was engaged in locating incoming
settlers, and did considerable business.
Returning again to Messrs.
Webb and McCausland, they with
the others, Brooks and Campbell, came
from Fayette County. At the starting of Mr.
Webb and McCausland with the
oxen, Mr. McCausland was ill, indeed,
low with consumption, but the idea of still
going to a new country seemed to infuse new
life in him, and his entire recovery afterwards
was indeed miraculous.
When Webb and
McCausland got to Osceola County and
came to the Ocheydan, McCausland, still
weak, undertook to jump across the narrow
stream and landed nearly to his neck in the
middle. This was severe for a consumptive
man near to death's door, but after a change
of clothing he was all right again. This was
in April, 1871, and the weather disagreeable
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with rain and sleet. There is
something wonderful in the mixture of ambition,
of romance and love for a pioneer life, that
will turn a seemingly disagreeable hardship
into pleasure and enjoyment. The forces of
nature seem to hold a man with peculiar devotion
to a venturesome life in a new country; he
can scale a cliff, cross troublesome steams,
lay down content on the damp ground, and stand
all kinds of weather as long as the El Dorado
is ahead of him, and, indeed, after it is
reached. Webb and McCausland
that night remained at the bank of the Ocheyedan,
and crawled supperless into their wagon and
slept soundly until morning. When morning
came they drove on west and soon spied a sodded
shack, which they reached, and, building a
fire, had a good square meal. The shack evidently
had been put up by a trapper, as some deer
meat was hanging inside, but was alive with
living evidences of decay. After breakfast
they pushed on the residence of the first
settler, Mr. E. Huff. Huff's
house was one story, 12 x 16. No windows had
been put in and no door, but a blanket hung
over the place of entrance. They remained
over night, and besides them, were Amos
Buchman, with wife and five children,
Huff and his family, James Richardson
and H. G. Doolittle, and how they packed
themselves around none of them seem to remember.
Buchman had been there about one week,
and had drove through with his family from
Buchanan County.
That sort of hotel accommodations
might strike an easterner dude as somewhat
inconvenient, but to those early settlers
it was no doubt delightful and enjoyable in
the highest degree. After a night at the "Huff"
house, Webb and McCausland started
back with Buchman to locate him where
the trappers shack was, and not knowing the
exact spot or even the right direction, their
going was somewhat devious, but they finally
found it, and this claim Mr. Buchman
at once settled upon and lived there until
1882, when he moved into Sibley. Mr. Buchman
sold the claim this year (1892) and its description
is the northwest quarter of Section 22, in
Ocheyedan Township. If any new settler ever
had a hard time to get along, it was Amos
Buchman, and family the summer and fall
of 1871. They lived on anything they could
get; ground corn in a coffee mill, caught
hawks, badgers, skunks and any other animal
they could get hold of. Some friend living
in Dickinson County sent his team before winter
set in and removed the Buchman family
to Milford, where they remained until the
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spring of 1872, when they returned
again to their claim. Mr. Buchman now
resides at Sibley, one of its most respected
citizens, and is able now to enjoy the comforts
of life.
In June, 1871, Elder
John Webb, then living in Fayette County,
came to Osceola, and along with the rest filed
on a government claim, which was the southeast
quarter Section 6, Township 99, Range 41.
When the Elder first drove up to where his
son W. W. Webb, was, it was Sunday,
and coming across D. L. McCausland
with a gun on his shoulder, said to him, "Young
man you are breaking the Sabbath." Mc
retorted and inquired, "Why are you not
preaching?"
In
connection with the coming of these people
from Fayette County, the writer wrote to Rev.
John Webb, now living in Des Moines,
for some contribution in regard to himself
or his living here,which he thought might
be of interest. Mr. Webb replied and
contributed as follows:
"In June, 1872,
in company with Mr. James Block, I
left Fayette County, this state, to visit
my son and others who left Fayette to locate
in Osceola County on government claims. I
was directed from Lakeville to go to Ocheyedan
Mound, and was told that when when on the
mound I could in all probability see the tents
in which McCausland, Brooks
and W. W. Webb were living. I went
to the mound and on top of it, but could not
see any signs of life in any direction. Mr.
Block and myself then went down to
the banks of the Ocheyedan and camped for
the night. The next morning we started in
search of the boys, and about noon found them
one mile east of where Sibley now is. We spent
a few days with them, and our horses were
picketed out by the fore leg. While the horses
were thus secured, something gave them a fright,
when they run the full length of the rope
and brought up so suddenly both turned somersaults
and one of them was killed. I liked the country,
and that fall took charge of the Spirit Lake
Circuit, and the next year took charge of
Sibley Circuit, and formed the first class
ever formed in Osceola County at the house
of A. M. Culver. I cannot remember
all the members of the class, but Mrs. Culver,
Annie Webb, Robert Stamm and
wife, Mrs. Rogers, Mrs. McCausland
and Mr. Morrison and wife were among
them. I built the first Methodist Episcopal
Church, or enclosed it, and Rev. Brasheers
finished it.
"While I was living
at Sibley at that early day there was a young
lawyer came to town, not very scrupulous,
and persuaded the board of supervisors to
pay him $20,000 and he would recover certain
moneys due from Woodbury County to
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Osceola. I heard of it and went
to the court house where the board was in
session, requested them to hear me and they
consented. I told them they would regret the
day that they issued the warrant, and gave
the general reasons why such an official act
should not be done, and even as an outsider
I made a motion, to the board and to the crowd,
that Blackmer be allowed $500 retainer,
and a per cent. afterwards, and I added to
the motion that the hiring include all the
lawyers, or the remainder will be coming in
for a share. J. T. Barclay, Esq., who
was standing close by me, moved an amendment
that the preachers also be added, but they
were not. This was the last ever heard of
the suit against Woodbury County.
"I continued to
live in Osceola County, and in 1876 my first
wife was taken from me by death, and I was
afterwards married again to Mrs. A. D.
Bellord, a sister of Captain Chase.
I saw the County and town grow from a small
beginning to a county well settled and a thriving
town. I went from Sibley to Vermillion, S.D.,
where I remained not quite a year; then went
to Kansas, where I was three years, and from
there to Des Moines. I then went to California
and remained there a year, when I longed for
Iowa again and returned to it, where I shall
spend the remainder of my days, for, take
it as a whole, Iowa is ahead of all the rest
of the universe, and here let me abide and
pass the remnant of this mortal career.
"On my return from
Osceola that early time, and after I had got
to Independence, the hotel keeper, Mr. Naylor,
asked me what the Osceola County people used
for fuel. I told him principally hay. I think
I could have heard him laugh twenty miles
away. 'Hay for fuel,' said the astonished
listener, 'why the last armful would be consumed
before they could get from the house to the
stack and back again.' Notwithstanding, under
the circumstances, hay was a pretty good fuel.
"When our Methodist
Church at Sibley was ready for dedication,
we met Sabbath morning, and, just before time
to commence public worship, and while some
of us were standing on the steps of the church,
it was discovered that something was coming
from the Northwest, which looked like a cloud,
but still it could be seen that it was not
a cloud, and upon its nearer approach we could
then see that it was a swarm of grasshoppers.
This so disconcerted and discouraged the people
that it was impossible to hold them for the
purposes of dedication that day, and it was
deferred. The ravages of these pests which
followed are known to old settlers."
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