CHAPTER IV.
John H. Douglass came to Osceola
County in October, 1871, driving through by
wagon fromWisconsin. He had with him his wife
and daughter, now Mrs. Henry Newell,
and son. Mr. Douglass filed on the southwest
quarter of Section 14, Township 110, Range
42, and made the usual settlement and improvements
required of a settler, and in November of
that year went to Alamakee County, Iowa, for
the winter. In the spring of 1872, Mr. Douglass
and family returned to their claim, and got
here towards the latter part of March. He
started before the frost was out of the ground
and while the roads might be fit for travel,
but when he reached Osceola County, it was
breaking up, and the spring weather had thawed
the snow away and the rivers and creeks were
running with water. Mr. Douglass came
to the Ocheyedan, that treacherous stream
with which every incoming settler seems to
have had an adventure, and the prospect of
getting over was unfavorable, for the appearance
of the stream to cross it was neither promising
or inviting. Douglass arrived at the
bank of the Ocheyedan at the Buchman
place on the evening of March 7, 1872. The
river was narrow at this point but was yet
filled with snow, but soft and watery on the
surface. He first assisted his family across,
and after this was done together with the
transportation of a few articles, he was making
arrangements to get the horses and wagon over,
when the water began to pour down the river
over the snow, which startled Douglass
with surprise, and confronted him with a difficulty
entirely unexpected. He unhitched the horses,
tied them to the wagon and then started across,
wading in the water on the snow, treading
lightly, knowing the danger of being completely
submerged. But it seems that he wasnot to
escape so easily, for when about midway down,
in he went, and when the bottom was reached
his head was just above water. There happened
to be at the Buchman shack H. G.
Doolittle and his brother. These with
the Douglass family, rescued the venturesome
settler and brought him out on the bank, but
in a deplorable condition of wet and cold.
The next morning the river was still worse,
but the Douglass effects were divided and
something had to be done. The horses and
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the wagon with the household
goods, including a barrel of pork and two
pigs in a box strapped on behind, were on
the other side, and they must be brought over,
let the sacrifice be what it may. Douglass,
with a board or two, a rope and such other
devices as the ingenuity of man will bring
into requisition under such circumstances,
was enabled to get over to his effects, and,
finding them all right, the troublesome question
again arose as to how to get them over. Douglass
on one side and his friends and family on
the other, discussed the difficulty in all
its bearings, and the task seemed to be hopeless,
and the question without any probability of
solution. Finally Douglass was seized
with an idea. He had tied to the wagon a red
cedar bedstead, which had come down as an
heir loom in his wife's family from the old
Knickerbocker days in New York State, and
which had been prized from generation to generation.
It was of the old-fashioned kind, about enough
material in it to have absorbed a lumber yard,
and with posts of enormous length and size.
Douglass got this out, and by a system
of mechanical contrivance formed a raft that
seemed capable of greater navigation than
that for which it was intended. Mrs. Douglass
protested, but had to look on while this sacred
relic from her ancestors was fast becoming
transformed from its orginal construction,
into nothing but a float for the purpose of
ferrying. John succeeded, however,
with the help of the others, in taking over
the barrel of pork and the other household
goods, until all was over except the horses
and the wagon. He tied a rope to one horse
and this to the other and they were led single
file, and by swimming and clambering theywere
soon on the other bank. Then came the wagon.
With this, they tied a rope in the end of
the tongue and hitching the rope to the horses
started with the wagon across. When the hind
end of the wangon went down the bank, the
box with the pigs in struck the bank and broke
off, letting the pigs loose, and they went
squealing away, glad to escape. The tongue
stuck into the opposite bank, but this was
soon pulled loose and the wagon drawn out.
The pigs, with the aid of the family dog,
were soon caught and got over and Douglass
heaved a sigh of relief. It took all day,
however, to do the crossing, and the next
day he started on northwest to his claim,
and camenear having the same experiences in
crossing the Otter that he had at the Ocheyedan,
but he finally landed at his shack and soon
was set up in the usual style of homesteader
housekeeping.
William Anderson
came with Douglass in 1871
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settled on a claim and
lived here, we think until 1877, when he returned
to Wisconsin, and now lives at Sparta.
S. A. Dove (pg. 33)
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The
spring of 1872 was a troublesome one in Osceola
County for traveling. Then the streams had
no bridges, and the treacherous snow underlying
the surface water was not inviting to venture
in. After a limited thaw in the fore part
of March there was part of a brief winter
again, and it seemed to the people then that
an actual spring was never coming.
Quite a number
of the early settlers came from Grant County,
Wisconsin, so that even if they didn't know
each other there, when acquaintance was made
between these Wisconsin people it established
a mutual feeling of interest in each other,
for there is always an attachment arises between
people of the same nativity, where the same
sights and scenes were familiar to them all.
D.
D. McCallum also came from Grant County,
Wisconsin. He started from there the fore
part of May and drove to Clayton County, and
soon after on to Osceola County, where he
arrived about the middle of June, and on the
25th day of June, 1872, filed on northwest
quarter of Section 14, Township 99, Range
40, what is now West Ocheyedan. McCallum
drove in with three horses and a linch-pin
wagon; had with him his wife and one child
(now Mary McCallum); had a few household
goods, pork enough to last several years and
$105 in money. He first struck the Ocheyedan
River at what was called the Lone Tree ford,
drove northwest until he came to Mandeville
Homestead, on Section 26, Township 99, Range
41, and there he camped for the night. The
next day he went to Buchman's riding
one horse and leading another. Buchman
mounted the other horse and the two men rode
over the country looking for a claim upon
which 
McCallum
could settle. He finally selected the one
before described, went to Sibley the next
day, borrowed a saddle from Ward—leaving
his revolver as security—and started
for Sioux City, where he arrived safely and
did his filing. McCallum's first habitation
after settlement was his wagon cover, and
once installed in this he went to work breaking,
and planted some potatoes. He soon after put
up a sod house, lived on the claim until 1878,
when he moved into Sibley. McCallum,
like a great many others in those early days,
had a hard time of it. Soon his money was
gone, no income was in sight, and only those
of the McCallum pluck were able to
see it through. His house, lumber and furniture,
and all its belongings, cost about $20; so
that in those days of settlement
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our ex-Judge was not in shape
to entertain any of the kid glove or swallow-tail-coat
members of fashionable society.
In the winter of
1872 and 1873 McCallum was in Sioux
City chopping wood, and remained there until
the memorable blizzard in the spring of 1873,
when, feeling alarmed about his family, he
returned home. Soon after this in the summer
season Elder Dean while burning the
prairie grass around his property, carelessly
let the fire get away from him, and it swept,
as a prairie fire will when turned loose,
all over the country. This fire swept away
all McCallum's hay and all other loose
property, except the house.
The Elder, in spite
of all his religious graces, his Godly ways
and good intentions, was very much blamed
for his carelessness, and had he been a layman
it is hard to tell what might have occurred
as a penalty. As it was, McCallum had
the Elder arrested, brought before a Justice,
who found the accused guilty and fined him
$5 and costs, which he paid. The Board of
Supervisors had offered a reward of $50 for
the apprehension and conviction of a party
who was the cause of a prairie fire. McCallum
in this case was entitled to it and got it.
This affair did not cause any hard feelings
between the Elder and McCallum; indeed,
the Elder had not the slightest animosity,
for he was a man of broad views, kind and
charitable, as well as a sincere Christian.
McCallum rode home with the Elder and
staid all night at the Elder's house, and
out of the $50 McCallum magnanimously
reimbursed him for all the outlay and trouble
he had been put to, though brought about by
his own carelessness. In other words, McCallum
whacked up with the Elder.
Prairie fires then
in this sparsely settled country were very
much to be feared. Whenever they occurred
but few were prepared for them. They were
not set maliciously, nor with any intention
to do harm, but were always the result of
carelessness or inability to hold them against
sudden puffs of wind unexpected, when the
burning aroud was done with a still atmosphere.
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