USA > Iowa > O'Brien County > Past and present of O'Brien and Osceola counties, Iowa, Vol. I > Part 67
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season was ideal and the crops, as if entering into the spirit of the life and death contest, accepted the challenge, and came valiantly on. The hoppers also, growing larger and stronger, and eating with a never-satisfied appetite, continued the onslaught with ever increasing strength and insatiate appetite The settlers, meantime, were intensely interested spectators. What that crop meant to them must be left to the imagination. Pen can not fully portray it. However, people did not stand idly by and see everything devoured without effort. Many devices were employed to drive off, kill, crush, trap and poison the young and apparently helpless hoppers. But to stop the wind from blow-' ing. or the rain from falling, would have been equally successful. Now, whenever those devices, at that time tried. are referred to, it is a matter of merriment. Finally, the great race was ended, the hoppers gained their ma- turity and rose en masse and flew away, leaving only a few remains of a ruined crop. The settlers saved a little, but not very much. When they went away one very Christian gentleman said he wished they would go to-and there checked himself, fearing he might be wishing ill to some one and, after a moment's pause, said-"where no one lives." When the hoppers left peo- ple were again relieved and although they were obliged to consider them- selves the losers in the second bout with the hoppers, their spirits were not broken. They proceeded at once to prepare the ground for another crop in 1875. The hoppers left without depositing their eggs and this was encourag- ing, but later in the season they returned and filled the ground with such an abundance of eggs that in turning a furrow, which broke up the clusters, the ground assumed a gray appearance on account of the exposed eggs. The experience of 1875 was a repetition of 1874. These three years were the worst. After that. they gradually degenerated and by 1879 they did little damage. By 1880 the country was free from them and they have never re- turned in any serious numbers.
During the grasshopper period many, with good reason, left the country. Some returned to their original home and others went where they could find work. Each one had all he could do to take care of himself and was not able to employ or help any one else to any great extent. It is a wonder more did not leave. It may be interesting to readers of these lines to know how so many were able to remain and live through it all. One thing that contrib- uted largely in enabling many to stay was the discovery that hay could be used for fuel. Other reasons will be better told by enumerating the experience of some of the early settlers from memory. Sidney Beckwith, of Viola, for several seasons hauled freight from Pierre, South Dakota, to the Black Hills across the Big Sioux reservation. Ed. Smith went to some place where a
X
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railroad was under construction and worked as a grader. XPeter Shaw, also of Viola, brought a little money with him and saved a few remnants of crops. D. D. McCallum, of Ocheyedan, put his axe on his shoulder, took a walk for his health and landed in the vicinity of Sioux City and chopped cord wood all winter. He had an ox team and as other settlers came in with a little money. he broke prairie for them according to their wants. Amos Buchman. who lived in a dugout on the banks of the Ocheyedan, went to Spencer and worked at his trade as a tailor. M. Harvey went to northern Illinois and taught a winter term of school. H. G. Doolittle taught winter terms of school in eastern Iowa. W. J. Miller and G. H. Perry returned to Illinois and taught where they had taught before coming to this country. Later W. J. Miller taught the Sibley school. D. L. McCausland taught school somewhere in the east and in the spring of 1872 got possession of the re- corder's office to which he had been elected the previous fall. J. Q. Miller and many others handled ties for the railroad company. In fact many of the homesteaders found employment on the railroad at various times. After the grasshopper scourge was over, those who had remained were of the pluckiest and most determined. The most of those that hung on through those trying times made permanent citizens and are still here or have crossed over the great divide.
INTERESTING AGRICULTURAL FACTS OF OSCEOLA COUNTY.
The official crop report of Osceola county for 1913, as compiled by V. A. Burley, auditor of the county, presents many interesting facts, and an abstract of the report is here presented.
The total number of farms in the county is 1.102. The acreage of these farms is 238,410, of which 11,803 acres are devoted to farm buildings, high- ways and feed lots. There were III acres in garden, 494 in orchards, 11, 198 acres of tame hay, 11,434 acres of wild hay, 51 acres of alfalfa, III acres of crops not enumerated, and 1,539 acres of waste land not utilized for any pur- pose, in addition to the other land wasted for the use of towns.
Corn was the king crop of the county. On 72,392 acres 2.993.755 bush- els of the golden cereal were produced. At market prices this single crop brought its growers over $1,500,000, which explains some of the new auto- mobiles.
The second important crop is oats, of which 2,558,396 bushels were grown on 61.645 acres. This grain supplied over three-quarters of a million dollars for the sustenance of the poor downtrodden farmer.
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Of winter wheat 199 acres were planted and 3,331 bushels harvested. Spring wheat was a little more extensively grown ; 1,504 acres yielded 25,734 bushels.
Of barley there was 287,675 bushels grown on 11,785 acres.
Three hundred and twenty-six acres of rye yielded 6,445 bushels.
There were 11,646 tons of tame hay. 12,146 tons of wild hay and 93 tons of alfalfa cut.
A yield of 93,070 bushels of potatoes was dug from 1,066 acres.
On 658 acres 5,212 bushels of flax seed were grown. Of timothy seed there were produced 15,828 bushels from 1,975 acres; and 539 bushels of clover seed from 450 acres.
Twenty-eight acres of sweet corn produced 474 bushels ; and 570 buslı- els of popcorn were taken from 16 acres.
There were 4,777 bushels of apples picked.
Stock grazed on 43,584 acres of pasture.
There were on the farms January 1. 1914, 60,981 hogs, and 36,620 had died of disease in 1913.
The number of horses of all ages was 9,441, and of mules 149.
The total number of cows and heifers kept for milk was 7,508. of other cattle 17,127, and of cattle of all ages 25,189.
The sheep kept on the farms numbered 2,781 ; shipped in for feeding, 2,969; sold for slaughter, 3,338. The wool clipped amounted to 14,908 pounds.
There were 179,158 head of poultry on the farms, and 787.935 dozens. of eggs were laid during the year.
The average monthly wage of farm help was $32 in summer and $23 in winter.
PIONEER LETTERS.
The two following letters were written by Josef von Willemoes Suhm to his brother in Germany in the spring of 1872. Suhm was a very observ- ing young man and his letters throw not a little light on the early experiences of the first pioneers of this county. It might be stated that Suhm stayed only a short time on his claim. He returned to the county in the summer of 1913 for a visit and was intensely interested in seeing the marked changes. which had come about since his first view of the county in 1872.
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"Go West Young Man, go West."-HORACE GREELEY.
Wednesday, 2nd of May, 1872.
In Camp near Algona, Kossuth County, Iowa :
Dear Mother-From my last letter ex. Lyons, Clinton county, Friday the 12th of April, you will remember that we were ready to start the next morning, Saturday, the 13th of April, for the far west. We were three men, Henry Dunkelmann, August Carstensen and your son Josef.
Dunkelmann furnished the covered wagon and four horses while pro- visions went for joined account.
The good old Lena, and Lisette, Dunkelmann's wife, had tears in their eyes when we started, while his sister Dora and father Wohlenberg were full of fun and I was delighted that at last I had a chance to bid, for some- time, farewell to the regular work of civilization and to roam like a gypsy through the country !.
One moment we stopped at the Victor grist mill, the property of Wohl- enberg, there to receive a sack of flour ; then away we went with "Hip, Hip, Hurrah," over the little bridge, up the hill, with a last glance at friend Tritschler's brewery on our right. Twelve miles out of town (at Dunkel- mann's farm) we stopped for the night. There two young men with their wives and wagons joined us and together we left on Sunday, the 14th of April, for Maquoketa. On the way I bought a big Newfoundland dog "Prinz" (of which you will hear more in due time) for five dollars. When nearing town a fearful storm overtook us and we tried to put our horses urder shelter but the price asked being so high we resolved to camp under some big trees not far from the river.
There we started our first camp-fire in a fearful storm, then we retired unker orr wagon cover, but the horses being very restless, left us very little sleep :. Therefore we lit our lantern and pipes and smoked and talked till daylight. On account of the frost and snow we did not break camp the next day but had a look at the little town and only left for Anamosa on the 16th where we camped close to a little stream west of town. That night we again had a hard frost. We did not reach Quasqueton on the 17th but made camp in a little wood near the road,-it was a cold starlight night and it was late when we left our warm crackling fire to crawl under our blankets. Inde- pendence, a fine little town, was our next stop. From there to Cedar Falls, via Waterloo, took us two and one-half days. On the road to that town we had our first accident. On a slanting road, crossing a pretty prairie, dotted with trees, the horses drawing one of the young farmer's wagons bolted,
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while his wife was driving, and the wagon upset. Not much damage was done. only the tongue broken and the fair damsel fell in a basket of eggs. which gave her dress a nice yellow color. While Dunkelmann and we repaired the wagon the women changed her dress behind a bush and after one hour's delay we started again.
Shellrock is a clear, bright river. We camped in the center of the market place at Rockford on the Shellrock. Near Mason City we had a beautiful camping ground on Lime creek, close to a water mill, and on the other side of the river opposite our camp there was a high rock, a bluff, all grown over with ivy, which looked splendid in the pale light of the full moon. Our two young farmer friends left us here, as they had bought land in the neigh- borhood at twenty dollars per acre. We had a good look at the fine land around Clear Lake, and after a stop of five days started again for Algona.
From now on we found worse roads day after day and the night before reaching Wesley we had one of the biggest thunderstorms I've ever wit- nessed so far on the open prairie. Unable to start a camp fire we went hun- gry to bed. When we started next morning the wide prairie was one big bog and even on the hill where we had camped the wheels dropped, as soon as we started, up to the axle in mud and our horses had no footing whatever, so we were obliged to hire oxen to haul our wagon to Wesley, while we led the horses. On reaching the station we shipped our baggage by rail to Al- gona. at this time the terminus of the Dubuque Railroad. Six other wagons suffered as we did and when we made camp at Wesley we joined thirteen more emigrant outfits who were likewise detained by the bad roads. All told, we were, that night, twenty wagons in camp-it was a grand sight after the fires were lit to see the men, women, children, dogs, horses, mules and also some cows moving about in the glare of the light! On the last day of April we reached here ( Algona ), having been that day up to the knees in mud and water, while helping the horses and wagons to cross the sloughs and creeks. We found regular roads, anywhere with bridges, and the trip through Han- cock and Kossuth counties is a never-to-be-forgotten recollection of hardship.
On the first of May we fetched our baggage from Algona station. The price of the freight was only seventy-five cents. The weather was very cold, with a little dash of snow. On that day ( Ist of May) eight more wagons reached our camp and there and then started our friendship with N. D. Bowles and his famous mules. Uncle Ned, as we called him, was a grand companion, always ready to spin a yarn. Today, the 2nd of May, Dunkel- mann and Angust went to look at some land near Algona, which has been offered for sale, while other men from camp went fishing.
JOSEF VON WILLEMOES SUHM AND HENRY DUNKELMANN, CAMPING COMPAN- IONS IN THE EARLY HISTORY OF OSCEOLA COUNTY, 1872
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I am sitting before the mess-box. The weather is turning cold and it is also difficult to write in the open air while children and the dogs are running around me. Therefore I close my letter. You will hear from me soon again.
Give my love to the whole family and kindly remember
Your son
JOSEF.
Sunday, the 19th of May, 1872.
Dunklemann's Homestead :
In camp near "Bean-slough," Osceola county, Iowa.
Dear Mother-I hope that my letter from Algona reached you. We left that town on the 3rd of May with six other wagons, bound via Emmettsburg and Milford, for Osceola county !
Without much trouble we reached here on the 6th of May and camped the first night near the sod shanty of a half-breed trapper by the name of John Mckinney. The land in sight is very fine-a vast, treeless, rolling prairie, without a limit to the eye and no settlers' homes to the north, south, east or west, can be seen from the trapper's little place. Dunkelmann took a homestead claim and so did August Carstensen and I, but it would have been better to my liking if we could have gone to North Dakota near the Buffalo range, where the wild Indians roam about four hundred miles northwest from here. I am afraid that this will be rather a lonely place with no other excitement than hard work, for all the game has left this vast prairie and the elk horns we found were well bleached and therefore not lately dropped.
I shall probably need a lot of books from home for the long winter evenings when there is nothing to do outdoors. For the registration of my claim I had to pay fourteen dollars. We had to do this in Sioux City, the land office for this district. Mckinney, or "Lazy John," as we called him, went with us as a witness. The weather had turned warm and the trip across the prairie to Sioux City, touching the little town of LeMars, was a pleasure trip as Uncle Ned, who had taken a claim next to Dunkelmann's, never left off telling yarns about his mules and deeds in battle during the late rebellion.
Dunkelmann, being an old soldier, got one hundred and sixty acres, I only eighty acres, for when I mentioned that I had been also a soldier in the Prussian army during the war of 1866, I was told that Emperor William had to give me eighty acres, as from Uncle Sam I could receive only eighty acres, not having served him during the late war. Eighty acres is, therefore, all I could claim, but as there is railroad land in front of my homestead which I can buy at three to five dollars per acre, I have the intention of ac-
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quiring one hundred and sixty acres of said land so that I shall soon have two hundred and forty acres, which will be as much as I can well look after. We camped near Sioux City on a piece of prairie, close to the Floyd river and were soon joined by six hundred U. S. A. soldiers coming from Kansas City, being on the way to Dakota to protect the settlers against hostile In- dians. In the afternoon the band played nice pieces from "Die Weise Dame," "Robert der Teufel," and "Lucrecia Borgia." The soldiers offered to sell (very cheap) buffalo robes and revolvers, but I Had no money to spare. Twenty-three of them deserted that night and only a few were recaught the next morning.
Since we returned to our land we had a look for our county seat, Sib- ley, expecting to find it quite a big town. One fine afternoon, Dunkelmann, Carstensen and I mounted our horses, and started in the direction northwest. where, according to rumors, Sibley should be. While riding along we first looked at the soil, which was, according to our judgment, not near as good as our own claims. So the time was filled most pleasantly, but suddenly we remembered what we had come for, and glanced from a near hill over the country. To the south there stood a big frame house, otherwise there was nothing to be seen of a living settlement, for the sod shanties we had passed had all been deserted. My proposal to ride to that big frame house and there to ask for information about the whereabouts of Sibley was cut short by my dear friend Dunkelmann, who said, "No, Joe, I'm not a tenderfoot or a greenhorn like you. I'm an old prairie-rider and pathfinder, who has been roaming three years on the plains of Dakota, chasing Indians and buffalos. No. my boy, I shall not ask for hints to find a town on the level prairie!" Well, mother, I gave in, but when soon a fearful thunderstorm bursted over us, and we were compelled to ride full speed for shelter to that big house, we found that we were in Sibley! Think of it, that one house, Sibley, our county seat ! Down went the biggest castle in the air I ever built! The one big room below was full of surveyors, land agents and a great variety of other professionals, while up stairs were bed-rooms, for it was also a hotel and restaurant, besides being a court house! It was, so far, the funniest experience I've had in the west, always to be remembered as long as I live, the hunt for the town and the great scout, Henry Dunkelmann, my beloved friend !
Now we are breaking our land and making sod shanties with board roofs, one day is like the other. We are hard at work, have plenty of rain and are often wet to the skin, but that don't bother us.
The other day we went for a walk across the prairie when Prinz found
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an old he badger. We three big men and the dog went for the poor fellow and when we had killed him we found that his meat was not fit to eat. I felt sorry and ashamed of the deed. At night, serenaded by the mysterious silence of the prairie, we sit around the camp-fire talking and expecting big things from the unknown future. Some day we will know all about it, as "Uncle Ned" always answers when I ask his opinion about the unsolved mystery of our future in Osceola county. Farewell, mother. In love I remain
Your
JOSEF.
CONCLUSION.
Those of the first settlers who remain alive look around at times and wonder and marvel at the change. When this beautiful prairie was first viewed, all covered with rich grass and bedecked with prairie flowers, it brought visions of fine farms, with good buildings, protected by thrifty groves and lined by well-graded roads. However, after a few years, the first glamour wore off and we hardly expected to live to see our visions a reality. Now we look about and wonder whether we are dreaming.
During the first ten years we experienced hard times and met many disappointments. Well do we all remember when we were following the breaking plow and turning up to God's sunshine and air the richness of the sod, for the first time; we wondered then, as we do now, how many thousand years of accumulated richness we were disturbing. Scientists can examine rock and estimate something of the distance of the primeval time. when the rock commenced to form, but no one has told when this soil began the building process. It was something of a privilege to be first to dis- turb the accumulation of untold centuries.
We have witnessed a miracle. The present generation can only see the achievements performed. Of the experiences that wrought these mira- cles. it knows but little. We hear a lot about the high price of land at the present time. The fact is Iowa land is cheaper today than it was forty- five years ago. You probably think this is a rash statement, but we can prove it by evidence that will stand the test of any court in the land. You say our land cost us almost nothing. That all depends on how you figure the price paid. Today you can buy land in this county at from one hun- dred to one hundred and fifty dollars per acre. You can go on that land and if properly tilled and managed can pay for it with the income from the land. In the meantime, while you are paying for it, you enjoy all the comforts of a king. Every convenience of the twentieth century is at
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your door. You wear good clothes, your children enjoy good school privi- leges, and your families live as well as the wealthiest people, as far as good wholesome food is concerned. You ride to town in a fine carriage or in an automobile. You enjoy all the comforts of a wealthy and prosperous com- munity, with good roads and as fine schools as the best in the land.
You pay nothing like the price the homesteader paid, forty-five years ago. Then the settler who came to northwestern Iowa and entered a home- stead, jeopardized the life of himself and family. Many times neighbors were miles apart, and supplies, at first, were fifty to sixty miles distant. Wood for fuel had to be hauled twenty to thirty miles, requiring an ab- sence from home of two or three days, if you had good luck and ever re- turned at all. The first few years a little sod corn was planted. The chances were that nothing fit for family use was harvested. When fall came the entire crop would not support a family of today one week. If the settler was fortunate enough to own a gun he could secure some small game to help a little. When he went a long distance to a railroad town for family supplies, there was only the mark of his own wagon as a trail to follow on his return. Sometimes he never returned. These things were part of the price he paid for a piece of land. If the grasshoppers left a little crop he was very fortunate.
Sometimes sickness came and wife or children were stricken with some wasteful disease. They could not be left alone long enough to go many miles for a doctor or medicine. The best you could do was to try to reach some neighbor, who would go and bring something for the sick one. Many times the settler was compelled to stand at the bed-side of dear ones, helpless to alleviate suffering, watch them slowly pass away, and then compelled to dig the grave with his own hands. This also entered into the consideration paid for a piece of northwestern Iowa land.
To this should be added something that money and land can never pay for. That was the days and weeks and months when the wives and mothers endured hardships that neither tongue or pen can ever describe-the homesickness and longing for human companionship, which comes to those who are shut in by vast solitudes, where the faces of other men and women seldom appear. The men who were busy with their out of doors work did not feel this loneliness ås did the wives and mothers, who, when their sim- ple duties were over, had nothing to divert their minds, from day to day, but to wait and welcome night as a prisoner behind the bars welcomes the marking of one day of his long sentence. Months went by, when the women of the settler's family saw no one but the members of the family and the
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wonder is that the insane asylum did not claim more of these pioneer women. This homesickness is something that cannot be put into words, but the victim suffers more acutely than those who suffer from bodily ills, and no medicine can bring relief. The victim either dies, goes insane or recovers. The suf- fering endured would melt the hardest heart. In computing the cost do not leave this item out.
A few were fortunate enough to escape some or all of these ills and at the end of ten years were in possession of a piece of land worth ten to fifteen hundred dollars. Then they were obliged to mortgage it for all they could get to pay debts, contracted during the hardest years, to keep the family from starving. In other words, the homesteader had spent ten of the best years of his life and had only a small equity in a cheap piece of land to show for it. Do you think that was cheap land? Does it not seem more like a wasted life?
Many ask how people lived under such circumstances. God knows how. We often find ourselves asking the same question and we are unable to answer. We did not live in the true sense of the word; we merely existed. It was often purely a matter of endurance. Would you like to pay the price they did? Does not land at one hundred dollars an acre look cheap by the side of the price the homesteader paid? We insist again that land in Iowa is cheaper at one hundred and fifty dollars an acre now than it was forty-five years ago at two dollars and fifty cents per acre, and the ten years of hard service, while improving the same. The survivors of the old settlers rejoice over the marvelous changes that have taken place and are gratified to know they had a part in redeeming this country from a wilder- ness.
ODE TO OSCEOLA.
W. T. MILLER.
We speak of a land most fair to the sight,
With its rich, waving grass and flowers so bright;
A beautiful land and good to behold,
With a wealth in its soil of riches untold,
Where the sunshine from Heaven spreads over the plain And the valleys and hillsides respond to the rain; Where the air with its ozone is laden with health
And the husbandman tickles the soil for the wealth
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That is hidden away in this grassy retreat, To respond to the plowman and lay at his feet A harvest so bountiful, an abundance so rare, To sustain all who come and have plenty to spare. The name of this land, would you like to know? No lovelier name can be found, I trow, Than beautiful Osceola.
Whether sunshine or shadow, or summer or snow, Or whatever dame fortune sees fit to bestow, Be it bountiful harvest and sumptuous fare, With abundance for all and a portion to spare; Whether summer brings showers and fortune and gold Or winter brings blizzards and hunger and cold, Whatever betide us we still love the land, Our fair Osceola, so beautifully grand. We love all our homes and do not repine That we chose Osceola, the "ninety and nine." Oh, dear Osceola, where brave men hold fast And true hearted women spread a sumptuous repast, Were't the last drop in the bucket, and we on the brink Of eternity's ocean, 'tis to thee we would drink, Our beautiful Osceola.
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