USA > Iowa > Kossuth County > History of Kossuth County, Iowa > Part 20
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MRS. B. F. REED (1865)
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farms in this new and undeveloped country. There would be occasional days of sunshine and then it would rain and rain. It was no foggy, misty weather, but a down-pour for days at a time. Rivulets became rivers, ponds lakes, and the river apparently a large bay opening into some great body of water. It was not a season of violent storms, but of gentle rain that seemed to descend with the greatest of ease alike on the just and the unjust.
During this wet year of 1858 the county received some settlers, and among others the family of the writer's parents, although his father had come the year before and selected his claim on the ridge near Irvington. The experiences the family had in coming must have been similar to those of the others who located in Kossuth about that time. The writer being then ten years old, has a vivid remembrance of the incidents of the journey. The start was from Lafayette, (Albion) Marshall county, Iowa, where the family had lived for five years. For three weeks the wagons in the yard had been loaded and unloaded over and over again, the rain frustrating every attempt to get off on the road. Finally the second day of May came and the sun was shining bright and warm. Everything now being in readiness, the start for the new home was made. The train con- sisted first, of a heavily loaded wagon drawn by two yoke of cattle and driven by George Churchill who had bought a claim also near Irvington ; second, of a wagon drawn by one yoke of oxen and driven by their owner, Mr. Taylor, a hired man; third, of a covered wagon containing the family and some provisions and drawn by the ox team, Tom and Jerry; and third, of a few head of cattle driven by the oldest boy who was riding Pete, the old white horse. The day being fine, all went well and the train reached a point that night somewhere in the southern part of Hardin county, where a family by the name of Houk or Louk lived in a double log house. In one of these cabins the campers took lodging. The next day as it rained in torrents the train did not move. The following morning the sun refused to shine, though it did not rain. The heavy clouds that settled down on the earth made it quite dark and suggested a warning that was unheeded. The claim owners, impatient on account of the many delays, decided to take their chances on the weather and move forward. The train started, splashing through mud and water with the wheels cutting through the sod every inch of the way. The sloughs and ponds were more than full, and the track barely visible. After going two or three miles the heavens opened and the rain came down in torrents. The water came through the wagon cover and drenched the members of the family so that they did not have a dry thread on in a few minutes. The teamsters called for the oil cloth table covers, and after fastening them over their shoulders, splashed along the road beside their teams. Skunk grove was twenty miles away, and it was either reach that place or camp in the rain with wet clothes that night. Had there been nothing but the soaking rain to bother, the members of the train would have gotten along fairly well. The loaded wagons would sink to the hubs in the sloughs, and all four teams hitched to any one of them could not pull it out without unloading. Sometimes the three wagons would all be stuck fast at the same time. To lighten the loads so that the wagons could cross over the sloughs the contents were frequently partly dumped into the water and the remainder carried over by hand. Sometimes the four teams would haul a part of one load across, then unload on the ground, then return and get another part of a load until all the household goods were taken over. This kind of work went on Vol. 1-10
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during the entire day while it rained continuously .. Night came on and there was no grove in sight. Not a member of the party had had a mouthful to eat since early breakfast. They were wet, hungry, cross and exceedingly tired. Leaving two wagons sticking in the mud up to the hubs, the four teams attached to the rear wagon, after the load had been lightened, were driven with the family aboard in search of the grove, which in the morning was twenty miles away. It was midnight when the Stuart house at Skunk grove was reached. For an hour they sat around the fire drying themselves, the most discouraged and disgusted crowd of homeseekers that ever passed over that route on their way to northwestern Iowa. As all the goods were soaking wet there was no chance to have a change of clothing. Besides that, the "change" was with the goods in the wagons that were left in the mud, miles away. If ever a hot supper tasted good it was the one served at that late hour. The men were too wet and tired to sleep. One of them -Taylor-lay and swore all night about the bad roads and the way he was com- pelled to abuse his oxen.
The next day was spent in bringing up the wagons that had been left in the rear and the next in letting the teams rest and getting prepared to resume the journey. When ready to start, Taylor balked and would go no further, declaring that he would never abuse his oxen again as he did the day they reached Skunk grove, and that he would not go on to Kossuth for a gift of the whole county. The contents of his wagon were stored at Stuart's, where they were to remain until called for at some later time. Taylor then took the back track for home. The rest of the party journeyed on over the prairie where there were no bridges, meet- ing many obstacles of the most perplexing nature, and finally reaching the log hotel in Irvington, May 12, 1858. Now after a lapse of more than half a century no incidents of that trip are better remembered by the writer than those that occurred in crossing the twenty-mile prairie to Skunk grove.
THE ANNUAL PRAIRIE FIRES
Settlers who have located in the county during the last forty years can form but little idea of the havoc the prairie fires played each fall of the pre- ceding ten years. Neither can they realize the extent of the fire line that swept from one end of the county to the other, nor the grand spectacle it presented when seen in the distance at night. The tens of thousands of acres of grass, when deadened by the frost, were liable at any time to be swept by a running fire. It came many times when the settlers were the least prepared to protect their property. In those early days the grass had a much more luxur- iant growth than in later years, and as a result fed the fire to such an intense heat that it consumed with a greedy relish everything combustible that lay in its way. Campers were always uneasy in the fall for fear they might be surrounded by a fire before morning through which they could not pass in safety. Teamsters were frequently compelled to take the back track when they discovered a fire line in the distance approaching and the outer ends were too far away to be seen. Grazing cattle sometimes were overtaken and their retreat cut off by the encircling fire. Occasionally some died as the result, but generally in such cases the herd escaped with a severe scorching. It is a well-known fact that horses in the presence of a dangerous fire, act with less
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understanding than do the cattle at such times. They have often been seen to run through the flames when there were good chances for escaping in the opposite direction.
Several methods were employed to resist an approaching fire line. If the buildings were wholly unprotected and the fire was so close that there was no time to make the necessary preparations, the only recourse was to back- fire. Among the many times this was skilfully accomplished was once in particular in the fall of 1860 when the settlers on the ridge, northeast of Irvington, saw a long fire line coming up from Humboldt county. It was so long that it occupied the entire space between the east fork of the Des Moines and the Boone rivers. Although coming squarely against a strong wind, it made good headway in the heavy, dry grass over the bottoms. The three or four families whose property was the most in danger of loss, hastily agreed upon a line of action. The east and west ridge road being but little traveled and offering but slight protection, a fire was started along the south side of it while men, women and children with mops, wet in water that was being hauled along in barrels and tubs on a sled, kept the fire from crossing the road over to the north side. They managed to run their fire for a distance of about a mile eastward. It went south with the wind with great speed and met the main fire line in the bottom nearly east of the village. The eastern end of the advancing fire passed over the ridge road on its way north, but the settlers with their wet mops beat out the western edge of this fire, and so maneuvered on the north of the buildings as to cause them to escape destruction. It took several years for the settlers to learn how to make the best protection for their homes. At first they plowed a few. furrows around the field and a few around the buildings and grain stacks. They soon learned by dear experi- ence that when the fire came with the wind, these furrows were but little better than nothing. Then they plowed a strip a rod or more wide around their farms, and the same around their stacks and buildings. Fire frequently jumped this plowing and sometimes consumed buildings, stacks and all. Finally the settlers adopted a method of protection that proved very effective. This was to plow a few furrows around the entire farm, several rods away from the fur- rows that had already been plowed, and then burn the grass in the enclosed strip. To do this burning and not let the fire escape, required considerable experience. It was always done at night when there was but little wind and when there was a light dew on the grass. They fired along one edge and cau- tiously watched that the sparks did not fly over and set the grass on fire.
When a sweeping fire jumped the furrows or the blackened strip and entered the fields the stake-and-ridered rail fences went down first as the stakes burned off near the ground. If the buildings from any cause escaped being consumed, the work of putting out the fire along the burning stakes began. Cloths of any kind wet in water were generally used for that purpose. The work in the evening would consist largely in doctoring the burned fingers. In combating a fire that had advanced upon a settler's premises, men and boys often pulled off their coats and by taking them by the sleeves beat back the fire line so effectively as to save their homes. Among the uncrowned heroes these fire fighters are entitled to have their names recorded far up on the roll. The women, too, fought desperately at times against the flames that were about to
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devour their homes, and sometimes, even in the absence of their husbands they devised ways of protection which evidenced their good judgment, skill and courage.
During the closing years of the 60's these great annual prairie fires that so often illumined the heavens by night and brought ruin to so many settlers in the central and southern portions of the county, began losing their terrors and their destructive force. It seemed like a special dispensation of Providence, when the redtop and blue grass began growing along the outside edges of the farms, and kept so green in the fall after frost came that it deadened the prairie fires on their approach. Wider and wider this green strip grew, year after year, until it served as a perfect protection. The constant grazing of stock and their tramping over the ground, reclaimed the sod from its wild state. When the native grass began to disappear, and the chances for prairie fires to do damage to the settlers' premises became lessened then was realized a comfort that was not experienced in that region in the earlier days. In the northern part of the county where the settlements did not start to form until the middle 60's, prairie fires raged in their fury many years later than they did in that part of the county which was earlier settled.
THE PERIOD OF HARD TIMES
Much has been said about the hard times period through which the early settlers passed. It is difficult to state truthfully when such a period began and when it ended, for times have always been hard for some people and always moderately easy for others. As the term is generally understood "hard times" means a period when it is unusually difficult to get money enough to defray the living expenses and have anything left for a "rainy day." Among the settlers of the first decade were those who could find no way of making more than a poor living. There was nothing in sight that they could handle and have it yield them a profit. What money they earned went for present wants. They had no faculty for investing it so as to have it increase, neither did they have the disposition and courage to try. These people always felt the pressure of hard times. There were others who made the most of what they found at hand, and devised ways of making more than enough to support their families. Some after locating their claims sold their rights and then selected others which they disposed of in the same manner ; some keeping informed as to choice loca- tions settled new comers on them for a reasonable fee; some divided up their timber tracts with those whose claims were on the prairie; some bought deeded land, improved it and then sold at an advance in price; some busied themselves trapping up and down the river or on the creeks for the fur they could obtain ; some dealt in fur without trapping; some began farming more systematically than their neighbors; and some showed their wisdom and good judgment by starting herds and letting them thrive on the free, open range.
The privations the early settlers endured, formed another element of hard times which all more or less experienced, though some took the matter much more seriously than others. It was a hardship to be deprived of what may be considered the necessities of life, but a much greater one to procure these neces- sities from the far-away markets. To make these trips over muddy roads and
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bottomless sloughs with slow ox teams, camping out on the houseless prairies with myriads of mosquitoes swarming on every side, and the journey taking two or three weeks, sometimes, to complete it, was one of the trying ordeals with which the settlers had to contend. In winter these trips were attended with constant danger; for the blockading of the road with snow, or the coming of a blinding blizzard with the mercury dropping down to the 30's, left the driver in a position that was serious. The families at home, in their anxiety to know the fate of the one off on the journey when raging storms occurred, suffered frequently as much as though they had been members of the snow-bound party.
Of all the hardships endured by the early settlers in making journeys, those experienced by parties going to and returning from "mill" were by far the most vexatious and severe. There was absolutely no way of knowing, when they started, where they could go and have their grists ground without delay. It was a game of chance with the odds against them. In those days the mills available even at a long distance were weak concerns and limited in capacity. On arriving at one of these, the settlers frequently found so many grists ahead of theirs they would have to wait several days before their turn came. When they found there was no prospect of getting the grinding done in any reason- able time, they drove on to some other point where there was a mill, only to find in some instances that they would have been better off if they had remained where they were first. It was this uncertainty and these delays that worked the hardships. Boonesboro, Masqueton, Cedar Falls, Marshalltown, Waverly and other places near the center of the state, were visited in search of mills that could and would grind their grists soon after they arrived. Those who succeeded in making these journeys through the deep snow, when the weather was intensely cold, are richly deserving of praise. The settlers felt as though a mill was in their door-yards when they learned that one had been erected at Fort Dodge; but they met with as many disappointments on going there as they did at the other places. Its capacity was so small that unground grists were always on hand.
In making the long journeys to mill, the settlers, having had so much bitter experience, finally adopted the plan of having several teams go at the same time, so each driver could help the other. One team would go ahead and break the road through the snow for a certain distance, and then the others in turn would do the same. The teamsters often returned home with their hands, feet and faces frozen or badly frosted. Much suffering was experienced in the trips made between here and Fort Dodge, though the distance was consid- erably shorter than to Boonesboro where the settlers first went with their grists. Many narrow escapes from death by freezing occurred while the early settlers were away endeavoring to get flour or meal for their families. An instance of this kind happened at so late a date as when the mill at Humboldt started. Samuel Reed, Kinsey Carlon, Thomas Robison, and another man of the Irving- ton community, and Ed Blackford of Algona, drove with the five teams to Humboldt, and after having their grists ground started home. Trouble stared them in the face from the very start. Besides being intensely cold the wind was blowing from the north and the newly-fallen snow had blockaded the road. It became a serious question not only as to how they were going to travel through the deep snow, but as to how they were going to make the journey without freez-
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ing. They plowed through the drifts every rod of the way while their teams were foaming in spite of the weather. Each team in turn broke the road for half a mile, then turned out for the others to pass and then followed up in the rear. In order to keep from freezing the drivers were compelled to walk and stagger along in the snow. This exercise, while the salvation of their lives, was very fatiguing. The men were nearly exhausted as well as their teams long before the Irvington community was reached. Ed Blackford was then a boy, but was robust and courageous. Taking the advice of the senior members of the party, he walked with the others and got along as well as any of them. One of the Irvington party was a man whose name has been forgotten. He had been walking until he was tired out. He crawled upon his load and con- tinued to sit there, unheeding the warning of the others. The teams changed their position in the line from time to time but still he remained on the load. Finally Reed, Carlon and Robison, three of the most husky settlers that ever located in the county, went to him and found that he was almost speechless- half dead and half alive. They pulled him from his seat and compelled him to walk like the others. This saved his life. Had he not done so there is not the least doubt that he would have been frozen stiff before reaching home. Mr. Blackford is of the opinion that the man was a new comer, not well known. He has forgotten the name, and the three who compelled him to walk have passed away. It is to be regretted that no one is left who is able to furnish the name of the one who figured so conspicuously in this event. Such were the trials the early settlers had in procuring bread stuff for their families. Those were days of struggle and days of hardships. Is it any wonder that events like the ones narrated in this story, gave rise to the term "hard times" when applied to that period?
The devices used in preparing corn and wheat so that bread could be made from them, and so that going long distances to mill could be dispensed with, were many. Grinding wheat by hand in a coffee mill, was practiced by some, and by nearly all at times in cases of emergency. The rich as well as the poor had occasions for resorting to this necessity. George W. Paine was a well-to-do farmer who moved into Plum Creek township, from Illinois, at the close of the war. His family turned the coffee mill more than one day grinding wheat they had brought down from Mankato. Even Judge Call served his time in the fall of 1855 pounding sod corn into meal with an iron wedge. Coffee mills set on posts and propelled by wind power were later used by some. They were a decided improvement on the hand process. One of these rattled away at Horace Schenck's and another at J. E. Blackford's. In the Irvington community there were three erected that were very substantial and did excellent service. At Samuel Reed's a large hotel coffee mill with a balance wheel was used. The frame work was made by David Shaw. This consisted of a post set in the ground and well braced at the bottom. Hung on this post was an upright frame to which the mill was attached, and which could be turned in any direc- tion to have the front face the wind. The cloth fans on the ends of the four arms gave all the power necessary to grind quite rapidly on windy days. All the neighbors ground on it, and even Michael Reibhoff drove down from the Black Cat and superintended the grinding of his grist. This mill was put into opera- tion in 1859 or 1860. Reuben Shaw then built one that far eclipsed the Reed
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mill. His was in a snug little house that could be turned around on a post. The fans revolved a drum inside, around which ran belts that propelled three large hotel coffee mills. Being a genius he made a little factory that was valu- able to the community. Down on the south line of the county lived another genius who had come from New England. He was not to be beaten by any Shaw or anyone else in making a mill. The iron frame work and cog-wheels of an old McCormick reaper, which were at hand, were material which he could easily utilize in the construction of his mill. Elhenan W. Clark pounded, sawed and filed and chiseled and bored until he had a little grinding factory to his liking. The neighbors in that part of the county had access to it, and were much accommodated as the result. These little mills, forced into existence by the conditions of that early period, have long since disappeared. The story of their construction, location, necessity and effectiveness is entitled to its place on the pages of written history, along with the stories of the settlements, the Indian encounters and the buffalo chasing to help inform future generations as.to what occurred in the early settlement of Kossuth.
No class of settlers felt the pressure of hard times more than the farmer who depended on his crops alone for money to meet all expenses. Much of the land at that time was cold, sour and non-productive. The plowed land still possessed its wild nature for want of being properly subdued, and the ponds, by retaining the water, made the adjoining land when plowed hang to the moldboards like putty. The implements being poor, the cultivation was far from being good. Foul weeds and grasses choked out the crops as a result and the farmer had but little to show for his summer's work when the harvest was over and the thresh bills paid. Of course those on the higher and more choice tracts fared better, but as a rule no money was made while nothing was raised but crops which could not be taken to the far-away markets. With thousands of acres of free pasture lying on every side, no one dreamed that money could be made by keeping a herd of cows. It took a crisis, a grass- hopper scourge, to awake the settlers from their slumbers, many years later, and drive them into other channels of labor besides raising Yankee-eight-rowed corn, Canada club wheat and Norway oats.
Every Sunday school boy is familiar with the story of the wise men of the East and they ought to be informed of the wise men of the West. These were those who early realized that fortunes could be made with herds on the great grazing pastures of Kossuth. The tens of thousands of tons of hay annually being consumed by prairie fires, they reasoned ought to be saved and fed to stock in the winter. The range was free, and the hay belonged to the one who first mowed it down. Those who began raising and collecting herds soon were the independent kings of the county. Some began in a modest way with- out money and without education, but with a full stock of energy and good judg- ment as capital, and soon had not only hundreds of steers and other fat cattle, but hundreds of acres of the choicest of lands as well. Barnet Devine was the first to embark in that enterprise and for many years was Kossuth's cattle king. He was followed by D. W. Sample, Stephen Sherwood, Patrick Kain, Owen McEnroe, the Chubb brothers and others at a later period. While these wise men of the West were accumulating wealth in the cattle industry and defying hard times, many of their neighbors were having a struggle to keep the wolf from the
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