CHAPTER XI
In the
fall of 1871 S. J. Cram came from Alamakee
County and settled on a part of Section 32,
in what is now Wilson Township, and still
resides here. W. W. Cram, a brother
of S. J., also came in 1871 and filed
on a part of Section 14, in West Holman Township.
He left here in 1882, and now lives at Butte,
Nebraska. A. H. Clark also filed the
same year on Section 32, in Wilson Township.
In Holman Township at this early day, S.
A. Wright settled on a claim, also the
Halsteads, father and son, F. R.
Cole, O. C. Staplin and the Widow Rosenbury,
and Randolph Kinney on Section 28,
in Wilson Township. S. A. Wright was
Treasurer of the County one term, and now
lives at Beatrice, Nebraska. O. C. Staplin
still lives in the County on to the original
claim, and is one of our pushing farmers.
S. H. Westcott came from LeMars to
Osceola County and filed on a claim in the
fall of 1871 on the Southeast Quarter of Section
22, Township 99, Range 41. Mr. Wescott
has held township and County offices, and
now lives in Sibley. In April, 1871, there
came from Alamakee County to Osceola Mr. E.
Morrison, R. O. Manson, F. M. Robinson, W.
W. Cram, Myron Churchill and Thomas
Parlan; these came to file on land, and
with them to see the country was Mr. McFarland.
Mr. Morrison settled on a part of Section
10, in Township 99, Range 42; Mr. Manson
on northwest quarter of Section 24, West Holman;
F. M. Robinson on _____, West Holman;
Myron Churchill on a part of Section
_____; and Parlan on _____, while Mr.
Cram has heretofore been described in his
location. Mr. Morrison now resides
in Sibley, having been here since his first
settlement, except to return for his family
in the fall of 1871. Mr. Manson still
resides on the claim originally taken.
After these incoming
settlers had got here from Alamakee County,
they looked around and decided upon the claims
they wanted. A part of them then started for
Sioux City to file, while Mr. Morrison
drove to LeMars to get some groceries, for
there were no provisions left, and it was
a long ways to market. When Morrison
got to the Huff shack he found that
Mrs. Huff was out of bread and no flour
to make any; he then had to drive to Orange
City, or where Orange City now is,
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before he could get anything
for himself or team. In the meantime he had
left Robinson, Manson and McFarland
at Frank Stiles' habitation. This consisted
of an old stage coach approximating the Deacon's
one-hoss shay when it fell to pieces. Stiles
had hauled it to his claim and placed it there
as a settlement which the law required. At
this stage coach Morrison left the
three parties above named, they to wait until
Morrison returned with something to
eat, but hunger got the better of them, so
they started southeast to find somebody, or
something to eat, and came across a shack
near the Ocheyedan where Mr. Miller
lived, but here there was nothing to eat so
they returned again to Frank Stile's
cottage on wheels. After about forty-eight
hours' absence Morrison returned, and
by this time Robinson, Manson and McFarland
were in about the same condition that Greeley
was when discovered in the Artic regions.
They were handed out some bread, and the loaves
disappeared about as fast as water in a gopher
hole, they couldn't wait for butter or anything
else, but soon the boys felt better with a
satisfied appetite.
W. A. Morrison,
a brother of E. Morrison, came in July,
1872, and made settlement here, but left the
county a few years ago and now resides in
Kettle Falls, Washington.
In June, 1871, Rev. Smith
Aldrich arrived in the county and settled
on Section 30, West Holman. When it became
known that Aldrich was a preacher,
it was thought best to have services the following
Sunday, so E. Morris and some others
went around to what few there were and gave
out the notice. The preaching was in Morrison
and Churchill's shack. There were about
twenty-five present, and this sermon, no doubt,
was the first preached in the county, though
W. W. Webb claims that some other was
the first. In the fall of 1871 Mrs. Aldrich,
wife of the reverend gentleman, died on their
claim. This was the first death in the county,
and at that time the undertaker's shop was
far away, so that Mr. A. M. Culver
made the coffin and Mrs. John Douglass
stained it with grape juice. The simple services
at the funeral were impressive, for Mrs.
Aldrich was a woman much respected. Her
body was removed east some time after its
burial here, and Mr. Aldrich himself
went away after remaining here a few years.
Mr. Wallace Rea
came here in the spring of 1872 and settled
on the southeast quarter of Section 14, Township
99, Range 41. He is now at a Soldier's Home.
At the first school election held in the Rea
district there were only three
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present—Rea, O. C. Staplin
and J. S. Reynolds. Staplin
was Chairman, Rea the Secretary and
Reynolds the people. A ballot was taken,
and the vote stood: Rea, 1; Staplin,
1; Reynolds, 1. On the second ballot
Staplin was elected. Reynolds
declares that on the first ballot he voted
for Staplin, and Staplin for
Reynolds. At that time there was much
eagerness for the establishment of a school,
and it wall all right in that feeling of personal
anxiety for a fellow to vote for himself as
school officer.
Of the early settlers
in Township 100, Range 41 (now Wilson Township),
but few remain. Will Thomas still owns
the original claim, and in this township he
still retains his residence. On Section 26,
in this township, are two early settlers.
Mr. John Klampe took the northeast
quarter about twenty years ago, and still
occupies it. On the southeast quarter, Benj.
Davis settled in 1872, and has borne the
burden and heat of the day from that time
to the present, farming the same piece of
land. Mr. R. S. Eakin also came to
this township about twenty years ago, and
first settled on Section 8. He now owns 240
acres on Section 28.
On the southwest quarter
of Section 14, Mr. Jacob Widman has
lived since about 1873. He has made very fine
improvements, and on his place there is a
spring of very nice water, which we believe
is the only spring in the township.
On Section 32, lives
C. P. Reynolds, who settled there in
1872, and has lived there continuously since.
He has good improvements, and has been a member
of the County Board of Supervisors.
The north tier of sections
in Wilson, as in other townships on the north
bordering the Minnesota line, are clipped
off, or rather the surveyors run out of land
when they reached the line; or, as some one
with bar-room proclivities remarked, "they
were lost in the shuffle." The absence
of this north tier of sections has been the
cause of some trouble to some, as well as
a loss of money, and has brought others grief.
Some years ago several sharpers, who were
of that class of men constantly seeking opportunities
to perpetrate a swindle, actually made conveyance
of some of these quarter sections which had
no existence to innocent and unsuspecting
parties, who took the deeds all right and
paid for the land, only to soon find out they
had bought nothing, and couldn't buy what
the deed described if they wanted to. Some
of these villainous grantors were apprehended
and made to languish in the penitentiary,
and to suffer punishment for the crime which
was involved in this method of conveyance.
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Allen
Cloud filed in 1872 on the northwest quarter
of Section 34, and lived there until he died
in January, 1884, and was buried in the Wilson
Township Cemetery. His widow now lives in
Sibley.
The only old settlers
still living in Wilson Township are Will
Thomas and W. A. Cloud.
Mr. C. E. Yates,
on Section 10, went there about ten years
ago; James Zweek, on Section 14, about
five years ago, and Mr. H. A. Cramer,
on the same section, two years ago. The Makee
boys, on the northwest quarter of Section
15, have been there some time.
Mr. Joseph K. Shaw,
on Section 18, was reasonably early in settlement,
as he filed on a claim and made final proof
in 1876, and still resides there. On this
same section resides Fred Thiese and
Mons Sorem. On Section 22, the northwest
quarter, W. J. Miller filed, and still
owns the land. The balance of this section
belongs to the Thomas family, with
Clifford Ling as renter. F. J.
and J. D. Engle are living on the west
half of Section 23, and on the northeast quarterJohn
Ackerson resides. Other parties in the
township, and among Wilson's best farmers,
not before mentioned are Terkark Benezek,
on Section 24, and F. A. Klampke, on
Section 25. Mr. Kampke has 320 acres,
and has lived there about 14 years. The east
half of Section 27 is owned by Claus Klepka,who
has lived in the township about two years.
Mr. Comstock lives on the southwest
quarter of Section 29; also, on the same section
is H. S. Lindsey.
J. N. Robinson, on the
northwest quarter of Section 30, owns the
land, and has lived there about six years.
On Section 31, Mr. W. C. Connor owns
the northeast quarter, and on the same section
lives Charles Hoffman.
Mr. A. B. Evarts
is the owner of a part of section 32 and has
lived there seven years. W. A. Cloud is on
section 33. This gentleman has been in the
township seventeen years, and would pass for
an old settler. On the northeast quarter of
section 34 lives E. A. Beaston, while
the southwest is owned by J. W. Kaye
of Sibley, and upon which there lives at present,
Mr. H. S. Linsey. Mr. N. W. Williams
who settled in O'Brien County in 1871, has
recently purchased the northeast quarter of
section 36 and will soon be a resident of
Wilson. In 1871 W. N. Bull settled
on the northwest quarter of section 26. Mr.
Bull still resides in the county at Sibley.
CHAPTER XII
There ought
to be the strongest ties of feeling between
the old settlers of a country who have remained
with it and borne the burden and heat of the
day, and there is. By reason of the weakness
of human nature there may be sometimes a hostile
feeling over some petty and insignificant
affair between neighbors, but, as a rule,
the surviving settlers of a new country whose
experiences runback a quarter of a century
are attached to each other; it would be unnatural
to be otherwise. Age may bring upon us its
infirmities; it may palsy the limbs, and gather
the crows' feet insidiously about the eyebrows,
but as long as the faculties remain we shall
ever retain a feeling of fond recollection
of the scenes and incidents of other days,
and of those who shared with us its experiences,
its joys and sorrows. And then again, people
who bear the same misfortune together become
united in each others interests and are bound
together.
Every new County has
to wrestle in the throes of doubt and difficulty.
The incoming population are generally of moderate
means, and come for the purpose of building
a home and acquiring a competence. The first
acts of settlement are liable to absorb the
little that was brought with them, and for
a time it is a struggle with hardship, and
sometimes for the necessaries of life.
Their manner of living
was not in commodious dwelling houses, but
in what was called a shanty or a shack. A
settler's shack, or shanty, was an exclusive
western institution. It was the first castle
of the settler, was of generally uniform size,
8x10, with a shed roof and tar paper covering.
If anyone doubted the continuous residence,
the shanty was referred to as the mute but
standing witness, and the doubter became silent
under this avalanche of proof. There was also
provided a stove pipe, projecting through
the roof, and this, added to the shanty, emphasized
the good faith of the settler. Occasionally
when the shack was left too long to itself,
some mischievous or malicious fellow carried
away some part or all of it, and the place
that once knew it, knew it no more forever;
but among settlers themselves it was regarded
as the sacred habitation, the legal improvement,
and everybody was warned
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neither to disturb nor molest
it. Sometimes, instead of this kind of habitation,
the settler had a dugout or a sod shanty.
A dugout consisted of an excavation in the
ground, a hole large enough to live in, with
a covering to it of some kind, sufficient
to shed the rain and enclose it; or, if the
opportunity was had, it was built into a knoll
or the side of a hill. One room served all
the purposes of the homesteader and his family.
If he prospered for a season he would add
to the front of his abode by erecting walls
of sod on the sides and putting in a new front;
the old would serve as a partition between
the two rooms. You would often, upon entering
such an abode, be surprised, for once you
got through the narrow hole, called door,
to get into it, you would find elegant furniture,
left over from the former residence, and an
organ with an imposing cathedral back, towering
high in one corner of the room.
Sometimes a settler's
claim would be jumped, as they called it,
but jumping claims was a very disreputable
and sometimes a serious business. It was expected
in those cases where a party entirely neglected
his duty as a settler and paid no attention
to the requirements of the homestead or pre-emption
law, that some one who could comply would
take the land and earn it with a continuous
residence. But where the settler was performing
his duty to the best of his ability, and was
faithful to his claim, with good intentions,
then he who undertook to deprive him of it
was a miscreant, and the neighborhood would
sit down on him with a determined vengeance.
Any person of character and respectability
would not jump a claim without the surest
and safest reasons, and where a claimant abandoned
his claim without actual settlement, and with
continued neglect, then it was the duty of
any seeking government land to take it, and
let the other party lose his rights by his
delay. They did not blame anyone for jumping
a claim where the claimant showed bad faith,
but where good faith was exhibited, then the
act was reprehensible.
We will conclude this
chapter with an experience of W. R. Boling:
Mr. Boling came to Osceola in the fall
of 1872, and left papers for filing on his
claim in Horton Township where he now resides.
He returned and remained that winter in Poweshiek
County, and came back to Osceola in the spring
of 1873. While traveling out, he was joined
by Ol. Hemmenway and John Wood,
who were pointed for Sheldon, and settled
there. Boling's trip was uneventful until
he
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reached the Little Ocheyedan,
about ten miles south of now Ocheyedan Town,
and was then on his way to Sibley. The river
from heavy snows that winter had become quite
a stream, but the ice was still underneath
in some places. Boling had a span of
mules, a covered wagon filled with the requirements
of a settler, and the difficult task of crossing
the Ocheyedan was before him. He took a long
pole, walked in sounding the bottom to decide
the question of safe crossing, and satisfied
himself that he could make it. He got aboard
the wagon, started up the mules and ventured
to cross. When he was about eight feet from
the opposite side, the mules went into the
water out of sight, also one of the front
wheels, leaving the wagon partly tipped. Boling
jumped into the stream to try and right things,
but had a narrow escape from drowning and
only by desperate efforts reached the other
side, and with out time to worry over the
fix he was in, went to work at once to save
the outfit. One mule was completely under
water, and the other had his head just out
of it; finally Boling got one mule
out and hitched on to the other one and pulled
him out upon the bank more dead than alive.
A mule's existence does not always require
soft bedding and a palace barn, and this one's
experience demonstrates the fact that a mule
can be pretty well drowned and still live.
Boling waited until both of them got
life enough to travel, then rode one and led
the other about eight miles to a settler's
cabin, where he staid all night, and, returning
next morning with assistence, [assistance]
rescued the wagon and its contents and renewed
his journey.
