USA > Iowa > O'Brien County > Past and present of O'Brien and Osceola counties, Iowa, Vol. I > Part 18
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THE PARADE.
"Fall in" was the order given by the marshals and old soldiers. The Sanborn band headed the procession. Next came Hannibal Waterman and wife, the first settlers, seated in the rear of a beautifully decorated carriage. The front seat was occupied by John McCormack, the deer slayer, Mr. Wat- erman's neighbor and noted hunter of the early days. At his left sat Miss Jennie Scott, holding the banner': "First Settlers of O'Brien county, Mr. and Mrs. H. H. Waterman."
This carriage was surrounded by a band of Indians in war paint, ap- parently intent on capturing Mr. and Mrs. Waterman, picturing out the scenes and frights they had contended with. ' All this can only be described in part. The procession was lined with all kinds of banners and mottoes, and included all manner of old relics, horses over twenty years in the county, harness made of rope and hay twists, haytwisters twisting hay, as was act- ually done during the years and throwing them out to the crowd, with even sod shanties built on wagon floats. One banner read, "Dod blame it, boys, come on," being a very familiar expression of Capt. Andrew J. Edwards, an old homesteader, an old soldier and captain in the Civil War and ex-county auditor, 1872-1876. Another read, "How far is it to Paine's store," so many years standing on the treeless prairie in Highland. One large banner read. "In this (s) Wheat Bye and Bye," and was represented by two grasshoppers sitting on the fence looking over into a wheat field, one playing a musical instrument, while the other was doing the singing. A banner from Carroll read "1889 Prosperity and Friendship." Another read, "1880 Turn of the Tide." Another, "Common Schools the Hope of Our Country." Another. "1876, They Took It All, Still We Stay." As this last banner moved along. scores of spectators who lived here in 1876 could be seen wiping away the
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tears, for they knew too well what it meant; the days when prayers were offered to take from them the grasshopper plague came fresh to their men- ories. The mother recalled to her mind those days of distress; that little boy or girl she could see again, with nothing scarcely to eat and less to wear; she beheld them clustering around on the boxes used for chairs endeavoring to keep warm by the old hay stove; she saw the labor of herself and husband vanish in a day before this unconquerable foe, the hopper, and in this affliction the parents' affection for their little ones became stronger and the child's for the parent, as they entwined themselves in actual embrace around papa or mama, even as the delicate tendrils of the ivy wound around the protecting and sheltering limbs of the sturdy oak. Those were indeed days of trial and desolation, and now, this August 31, 1889, the panorama was passing by -yes, mother and father beheld it in all its meaning. The plague was here, the earth was parched, distress was inevitable, the clouds of misery were enveloping them with its wrapper in stern reality ; courage must hold out, and to withstand the storm was the only hope. What gave them hope? We will tell you. As the dew of early morning most refreshes and benefits the sum- mmer blossoms, so the sweet, trusting confidence and sublime simplicity of these children keep fresh the flowers of affection, and prevent the father's heart front becoming like a parched and sandy desert. But victory came at last.
Charles Slack, one of the oldest settlers from Grant, carried in the pro- cession a beautiful fruit banner, upon which were many different kinds of fruit, all from his farm. Nothing "slack" about that. The Omega town- ship delegation had a beautiful banner made entirely from the grasses and wild prairie flowers. As the procession passed sixteen guns were fired, one for each township. Gust Kirchner, the first settler in Clay county, was in the procession, and also Mr. Phipps, though not the first, one of the first from Cherokee county. The procession was one hour and thirty minutes passing a given point. It was claimed that the procession was between five and six miles long, besides which hundreds of teams did not get into it at all. It was said by many here from the other counties that no parade ever held in north- western Iowa equaled it. At the stand two other banners found a place. "We came to see the father and mother of the county," and "We want to see the Old Folks, Pap and Mam." Prof. W. S. Wilson, for so many years head of the public schools at Sheldon, was chairman of the day. The address of welcome was deliverey by J. L. E. Peck. D. A. W. Perkins was scheduled to deliver the main address, but failed to arrive, sending a letter instead which was read.
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O BRIEN COUNTY RELICS.
During the old settlers' reunion held August 31, 1889, the following relics were exhibited that related to O'Brien county people :
Canes secured by Capt. Robert C. Tifft (Primghar) during his sea voyages.
Mariner's compass, by Capt. Robert C. Tifft.
War relics, by William Church.
Cedar knot from cedar tree on Waterman, by Mrs. Roma W. Woods.
Chair fifty-five years old, by Mrs. Hannah Waterman, used in their family.
Piece of first house built in county by Hannibal H. Waterman.
Indian mauls or war axes, by A. W. H. Stone and C. West.
Cluster of buffalo, antelope and deer horns. by Mr. Wells, of Highland.
Hog trough thirty-two years old, by H. H. Waterman.
Deer horns, by William King, of Highland.
Baby carriage used for Frank Tifft, of Primghar, when a baby.
Pocket book made in 1660, used in family of Capt. Robert C. Tifft.
Captain Kane's panoramic views in the Arctic, by Captain Tifft.
Picture frame and spoon carved by N. Remington in grasshopper times.
Spinning wheel used in family of Henry Buse seventy-five years.
Spike and brick taken from old school house in Grant. A brick made for same.
Sample of oak, walnut and cottonwood cut on Waterman creek and sawed at Peterson in 1870.
Silk dress, one hundred years old handed down in family to Mrs. C. F. Albright.
Photographs of early settlers, contributed by John Walters.
Photograph of first court house (log), contributed by Clark Green.
Letter head used by Arichbald Murray.
Knife used by John McCormack in killing and dressing over two hin- dred deer in O'Brien county.
Early maps of O'Brien county, by W. H. Gunsul.
CHAPTER XI
AGRICULTURE.
A PRAIRIE COUNTY.
lowa is a prairie state. O'Brien county was distinctly prairie. The grand sight of a broad prairie expanse is never to be witnessed again by O'Brien county people. The now large groves, the fences, the long lines of trees along the road sides. the tilled lands, the buildings and farm yards, the straight and squared up roads, the builded towns, the lines of railroads and telegraph lines and poles. the rural telephone lines, and many other items have each contributed to eliminate much of the idea and appearance of the original prairie.
Twenty-five miles of continuous waving prairie grass, from eight inches to four feet, and even five feet in height, solid hay so to speak, was in fact the grand sight as the original old settler saw it. In various places on this broad expanse of prairie was then often seen, with the sweep of the eye, five hundred to fifteen hundrd head of cattle grazing on nature's wild pasture- age, under one management of herdsmen. Millions of sweet williams, tiger lilies and other prairie flowers were like diamonds in the grass. No sweeter tame strawberries ever grew than the wild prairie variety. No boy or girl ever paid or dropped a cent into a slot machine for purer, healthier or better tasting gum than that boy gathered on the big rozin weed stalks, two varieties, high and low in height, growing in every slough. This grass formed and furnished not only free hay to the settlers, but was made into hay twists and served as fuel, which the poverty of the settlers could not have supplied with coal. For sundry years also large haying companies camped out in tents, and cut hundreds of acres, yea, thousands of acres, and baled and shipped it to Chicago and the East. Angling roads, proving that a straight line was the shortest distance between two points, ran everywhere. The long slough grass was used to stuff in between two rows of posts, with willow strips nailed thereon, and made into warm hay barns and sheds. Even roofs were thatched with it. The prairie grass seemed to make a tough, hardy sod, hard
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to subdue in the first crop, or even for several crops, but was an utter failure to propagate itself. It had no seed. It moved out and grew from the roots. When once a plat of prairie sod, whether a rod square or five hundred acres. was broken or plowed up it never reestablished itself. It was forever done. Like Lo, the poor Indian, it could not stand civilization.
While mirages are still seen in the county, yet not so prominent as when the sun shone on a large expanse of the dead brown prairie grass in the fall of the year, producing those false rays or lines of light, producing an object in the distance at a higher elevation, sort of lifted up, in a hazy light cloud. as it were. For instance, in the early days Sheldon and Alton have been distinctly seen at Primghar, and vice versa, elevated in appearance in this way.
Another singular false appearance was often commented on when one viewed a whole township of wild, rolling, waving prairie grass, namely, that each way the eye gazed, it looked up hill. The rolling grass, with the sun shining and wind blowing. gave it all the appearance of a billowy, rolling sea of waves. Before Omega and Hartley townships were settled, those broad expanses of rolling prairie grass were often referred to as "Over in the Great Beyond."
Another gruesome and awful sight, never again to be seen in the county. was in the fall when this same great expanse of thousands of acres of waving grass was ripened and dead, and the fires had burned it over, all looking much like the judgment day was at hand, and that the Good Father had actually set fire to the whole thing and then had run off and left his mighty works to take care of themselves. But the next spring the "Green grass grew all round, all round."
LAND.
Land is the basis of wealth. This is especially true in agricultural Iowa. In O'Brien county it is especially true even with an Iowa measurement. Some other counties in Iowa have coal and lead and other items to give variety. In this county it is all exclusively farming. Its variety lays in its large num- bers of crop and farm products. All estimates and enterprises in the county must hark back to the land. Everybody in the county must deal with the farmer or his land, and that direct. Interest on money went down as land went up. Prior to 1885 practically all land loans were ten per cent. From 1886 to 1896 they were eight, then went down to seven, then six. now five per cent. Prior to 1880 loans on land were only made in sums of five hun- dred dollars on a quarter. In 1890 loans of two thousand five hundred dol- lars were made, in 1900 from three thousand to four thousand dollars,
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now eight thousand dollars to twelve thousand dollars, when needed. The writer hereof bought his first eighty acres of land in Highland township at two dollars and eighty cents per acre in 1879, which tract is now worth one hundred and fifty dollars per acre. In 1880 Herman Greve sold four thou- sand acres to George W. Schee for four dollars per acre. In 1877 Frank Teabout bought thirty-six hundred acres at two dollars per acre. As late as 1885 the writer and Mr. Schee together bought eight hundred acres for five dollars per acre, all now worth one hundred and fifty dollars per acre, though they in fact sold it all two years later at about twelve dollars per acre. As late as 1890 the expression was made many times by citizens that if "land ever reaches twenty-five dollars per acre I am going to sell." As late as 1902 it was selling from sixty dollars to seventy dollars. Its greatest bound has been during the past ten years, and even more true in the last five years, prac- tically doubling in the last five to six years. The expression of Jurgen Renken, of Sheldon, as early as 1890, calling his land the Garden of Eden, was then treated not as a joke, but with a smile. But it now seems well settled that O'Brien county land (and nine-tenths of it is all the same in quality ) is destined to command the top of most of the best counties any- where in the country. Its crops, rains and results have been so uniform dur- ing a period of forty years that the fact is established. Actual sales verify it.
RIVERS AND STREAMS.
O'Brien county has only two streams that rise to the dignity of rivers, The Little Sioux river runs through the very southeast corner of the county, meandering through about five sections of land. Its adjacent lands show up some hills that might be called bluffs, and provides rough pasture, being prac- tically the only untillable acres in the county. It flows into the Missouri. This river sported a ferry boat for several years about 1870, and approached that near to furnishing the county with a maritime port of entry. That, however, was only a part of the gaiety of its earliest officials. The Ocheyedan river cuts through section I only, in the very northeast corner of Hartley township and the county. In breadth of river bottom or valley it might be taken for a much larger stream, from bank to bank of outlying hill in many places exceeding a mile. The mere stream itself, however, is no larger than many parts of the Waterman. The bed of the stream was in 1909 ditched and straightened under the drainage laws of Iowa, both Osceola and Clay counties joining. The Waterman runs north and south nearly the whole length of the county and empties into the Little Sioux near Waterman's ford.
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It, with the township, was named for its first citizen, Hannibal H. Waterman. It is alternately called a creek and a river. It has some considerable bluffs down towards the Little Sioux. It traverses Hartley, Lincoln, Omega, Grant and Waterman townships. Mill creek runs through Center, Summit, Dale and Union townships and assumes respectable proportions before it reaches Cherokee, where it flows into the Little Sioux. The Floyd river flows through Franklin and Floyd townships in O'Brien county, while the Little Floyd river also courses through Franklin, runs close or into Floyd and across Carroll and joins the larger Floyd just west of Sheldon, and from this Floyd river the splendid water system of Sheldon is secured. The Floyd can hardly be dubbed a river for its size in O'Brien county, though it becomes quite a formidable river at Sioux City, where it empties into the Missouri. Dry run betrays its sometimes slackness in water supply in the bed of the stream itself, though the town of Primghar, in one of the few sand beds of the county on that stream, discovered that splendid natural filter for one of the best drinking water supplies of any town in the county. It flows through Center, Highland and Dale townships. Several lesser creeks in different townships How into the streams named.
GROVES AND TREE PLANTING.
Three things have contributed to the hundreds of fine groves and parks now seen in the county. To plant a tree and see it grow is a natural desire. This becomes both poetry and prose when the eye looks over a treeless prairie expanse, or the intense sun calls for a shade, or a howling northwest wind demands a shelter, or the cook wants some stovewood.
However, there were two other prime causes that produced the actual grove in this and other counties in this part of Iowa. There was a federal law providing for tree claims and requiring the claimant of land in a new country to plant fourteen acres of trees on a quarter section, and to keep them growing in a thrifty condition for a given number of years. This produced many of our largest groves. Indeed, as practical farming developed, and land has advanced to now one hundred and fifty dollars per acre, a farmer cannot afford to devote that much high priced land to a grove.
There has been for forty years and more a state law of Iowa, passed as an encouragement to tree planting, permitting a deduction of one hundred dollars valuation for taxation purposes for each acre of trees thus planted, if kept in healthy, thrifty condition for a period of ten successive years. As land is now valued so high, it would not deduct enough to be an incentive.
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But when land during this tree planting period from 1874 to 1886, was only worth about sixteen dollars per acre and the taxable value at about four dol- lars per acre, it can be figured that from four to five acres of trees would deduct half the taxes on a quarter section of land, and this grove would be about the right size for other purposes.
One great handicap was to get the trees at all, much less a variety. Tree agents could sell them, but the people in those times had no money to pay a price for a choice tree variety. The one available tree was the later-on almost despised cottonwood. These little slips, from a foot to three feet high, grew on the sand bars along the Missouri river by the hundreds of thousands and could be pulled up by the hand. Adam Towberman, a home- steader, made many trips to Sioux City and, with light wagon, could bring back fifty to a hundred thousand trees. He sold them from two to eight dollars per thousand. Soft maple slips were likewise procured, though more often maple seed by the bushel was procured and the little trees grown from the seed. White willow cuttings were planted also. Many little trees were actually planted in the tough unsubdued sod. It was then much of a public question and even debated in the lyceums and farmers' institutes. Others more fortunate procured choice varieties of young trees from the old homes in the East or from the nurseries, as ash, hard and silver maples, birch, chest- nut, walnut, elm, the evergreens and other trees. In this year 1914 fully half of these cottonwood trees thus planted have been cut down, as likewise many willow groves. The long lines of cottonwood and willow trees along the road sides sapped too much high priced land. During those years it was the duty of the county auditor to establish these tree claims for taxation purposes on the tax list. George W. Schee and J. L. E. Peck were the auditors during the eight main years of this tree planting and claims for trees, namely, during the years 1876 to 1884. But as a result these fine groves were secured, giving so comforting a relief to the appearance of the country and to the homes, as likewise serving the people in many public gatherings.
WHAT IS RAISED ON O'BRIEN COUNTY SOIL ..
In the first place, for thousands of years, it raised the luxurious prairie grasses. A soil that can produce such growths as were originally seen on the prairies of O'Brien county possesses the strength to grow any thing on earth corresponding to this latitude.
O'Brien county is proud of its mud, mud that is mud, the rich black loam stuff, the mud that smears the clothes and hands, the mud that hogs root up,
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the inud that raises corn. While corn is king and chief, it is not a one-crop country, but is an all-around-crop country.
This rich black loam soil can grow weeds spelled in capital letters. It may not be creditable to a gardener or a farmer to find that garden or farm a weed patch. But it is creditable to a soil that it has the strength and dura- bility to grow weeds, weeds, and still more weeds, year after year. O'Brien county is even proud of its weeds, its rank weeds, its great big weeds, three feet, four feet, five feet, six feet, as tall as a man, as tall as the best crops, all but as tall as the tops of King Corn. Its people are proud of both King Corn and King Weed.
"Where grows the lusty great big weed, There man can safely plant his seed."
It is not the big weed that O'Brien county people frown upon, but rather upon the man who will slovenly let them grow to the extent of a weed crop. The historic fact, however, remains that our lands raise much more corn per acre than twenty years ago. Indeed up to as late as 1880 it was discussed by our own people whether in fact it was a corn country. It is the corn fact, long now established, that has added its now high price and value. These higher prices reached have produced also intense and better farming.
But O'Brien county has the man that scours the plow, that kills the weed, that saves the corn, that feeds the hog, that buys more land, that raises the grass, that feeds the sheep, that grows the wool, that clothes the kid, that feeds the horse, that pulls the plow, that plows the corn, that feeds the steer. that makes the meat, that sells for the cash, that buys the "House that Jack Built."
In other words, O'Brien county is strictly agricultural; being all the time cow, all the time steer, all the time horse, all the time hog, all the time butter and eggs, sometimes of everything, plenty to eat, no famines, no hunger, plenty all the time and to spare.
ITS EGGS NOT ALL IN ONE BASKET.
Did we ever grasp the full meaning and extent of that word or phrase as applied to O'Brien county? Do. we fully measure it? That not only all the eggs are not in one basket, but that eggs are but one item in the basket, or, even still broader, only one of the items in the half hundred baskets. How many sections of country or communities are dependent on practically one item as an outlook for their families? When that fails, all fails. It may be
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cotton. It may be rice and only rice. It may be a syndicate mill. When the mill stops, work stops. It may be some immense factory plant, with a strike on, when, after that, the judgment. It may be a rubber plantation or an all-fruit community, or a single fruit specialty. So many places it is one or none.
But in O'Brien county how different? A goodly number of hogs, it is true, may die. It is a loss. But the same disease will not ordinarily take off a bunch of horses or sheep at same time. One steer may die, but not usually a whole car load. Oats may be short, but corn is not dependable on the same days of growth or rain as the cat crop.
O'Brien county happily belongs to that part of the surface of the earth where its people are the chefs of the earth. They feed the world, the com- munities comparing to these situations. In doing this, its people are well fed themselves. Verily its eggs are not all in the same basket.
The following are among its egg baskets, not merely nominal egg baskets, but full-up baskets that bring the cash: Wheat, flax, blue grass, turnips, peas, vegetables, butter, cream, oats, millet, timothy, beets, tomatoes, fruits, milk, corn, hay, alfalfa, parsnips, cucumbers, flowers, cherries, rye, pasture. straw, carrots, melons, gardens, eggs, plums, barley, clover, corn cobs, onions, potatoes, pumpkins, cheese ; Little Fillers-Horses, chickens, peacocks, cattle, ducks, pigeons, hogs, geese. bees, sheep. turkeys, mules, guinea fowls, farm labor, town avocations, trees for wood, railroad labor, rise in value of lands.
These are all items not merely that can possibly be raised, but are found in the total number on practically two-thirds of our farms, as annual revenue producers.
The O'Brien county farmer safely sleeps on his bed of ease with the happy and secure thought that it seldom occurs that any considerable number of the above egg baskets are dependent on the same destructive storm or disaster, and never does it occur, or has it occurred ( save in the one and only one grasshopper scourge in an early day, when the measure of crops was small), when either all, a half, or even a large number of same have been at such a risk.
Other countries have famines as historic incidents. O'Brien county has for thirty-five successive years had its regular crops in plenty as its annual item of history. This statement that all O'Brien county eggs are not in one basket becomes a truism and an established fact. These now nearly two score successive crops fixes this historic value, "To have and to hold in permanency and tenancy in common for all its people." Filled with plenty. here stands the Hope Box of O'Brien county.
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FROZEN SOIL HEAVES UP AND DOES BUSINESS.
O'Brien county is in a cold, yet temperate latitude. The forty-third parallel of north latitude passes east and west through the county, two miles south of Primghar, or two degrees or one hundred and forty miles south of midway between the equator and the North pole, the best part of the temperate zone. We have cold winters and often heavy snow. Of course it is cold. It tingles the fingers and the cheek. Comfortable houses are needed, and such buildings are found universally on the farms. Plenty of coal is necessary. Cold weather is healthy. It thickens the blood. Nature accommodates itself. The body adapts itself. It is a dry and not a damp cold. however, during its colder period. Cold puts vim into people. It makes them hustle, walk faster and work harder, and the work brings results. It generates activity and energy in both man and the soil. It heaves it up and starts it moving. It reorganizes its parts. The soil doesn't lay dead still all winter as in the southern climates. Its melted snows in the spring are equal to rains. The snow banks and snow contain a sediment or quality even superior to rain. Freezing and rain and snow are the farmers' best hired hands. Our people say, let it freeze ; simply hustle and keep from freezing. Everybody has his heavy overcoat for driving, and when working it is not needed.
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