USA > Iowa > Pocahontas County > The pioneer history of Pocahontas County, Iowa, from the time of its earliest settlement to the present time > Part 33
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"The locusts," says the wise man, "have no king, yet go they forth all of them by bands." This is true of the grasshopper, which is a species of lo- cust. They form in compact ranks like the battalions of a disciplined army and they march at the command of a divine and mysterious will. One spirit rules the mighty hosts, and they move in numbers without num- ber- countless as the snowflakes and dark as the clouds. When they travel on the earth they cover everything as completely as the river its bed. When they fly they not only darken the sun, but the sound of their wings is as the sound of many waters. They enter windows, doors and chimneys, cover beds, tables and furniture and fill all wells and open fountains of
water. They are omnipresent like on your cornfield before you can say
the pestilence and, defying sword, spear and cannon, are resistless like
the tornado. Famine and pestilence of the grasshopper is suggested by the follow their march.
The Arabs say "they have the face of a horse, the eyes of an elephant, the neck of a bull, the horns of a deer, the chest of a lion, the belly of a scorpion, the wings of an eagle, the thighs of a camel, the feet of an ostrich and the tail of a serpent."
One who had the opportunity of ob- serving them and their habits in 1876, wrote as follows:
The grasshopper as a champion mul- So I tied a rag over the critter's ear
tiplier has no equal. He lays an egg which is about the size and shape of a long primer "O;" in fact he lays. sev- eral of them. From the first of Au-
He is not, however, unsophisticated; he thoroughly understands numera- tion and multiplication. He will stand himself bolt upright like a peg in one of those holes aforesaid, and viewing the heavens with sublime se- renity and wooden-headed uncon- sciousness knows just what he is about. He prefixes himself like a fig- ure "1" in the business and adopting the decimal system of notation calmly places a "0" where it will do the most good. That stands for 10, and before you know it he has added an- other cipher to that and he now reads 100. About this time you begin to find out what kind of a multiplier he is and you entertain a degree of awe for him not inspired by a front view of his green goggles; you discover that he is a dangerous neighbor. In one hour he has given you a problem that with all your powers of multipli- cation cannot be solved. He com- pounds his interest at 100 per cent ev- ery month and puts a snap judgment "grasshopper."*
A practical use of the innate energy following incident. A man riding along the border line of the county about the time of their last visitation, was passed by a runaway mule and soon after met fragments of a wagon and the owner of the outfit. The owner, after making inquiries, re- marked quite cheerfully that he was pretty sure he had cured his mule of "balkin." "You see, I heerd that a grasshopper put in the ear of a hoss or mule wonld cure 'im from balkin'.
so it couldn't get out, cotched a grasshopper, put it in, an' stranger, *Fergus Falls Journal.
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SECOND PERIOD, 1870-1882.
it's the best remedy I ever seed. The when they take wing they average mule didn't give me time to get in about 20 miles a day.
the wagon. I never seed a mule so sprightly. I reckon the hopper 's out now an' I'll go an' cotch the mule."
In 1867, the date of their first se- rious visit to Pocahontas county, they came to Powhatan township from The eggs of the grasshopper are laid in almost any kind of soil, but principally in one that is tolerably compact rather than loose. When about to lay her eggs the female forces a hole in the ground by means of the two pairs of horny valves that open and shut at the tip of her abdomen and which, from their peculiar struc- ture are admirably fitted for the pur- pose. The eggs in each nest are care- fully placed side by side in four rows and each row generally contains seven. the southwest, and when alighting their appearance was like the "falling snowflakes of a December storm." They moved in vast swarms, some- times several miles in extent, and in looking toward the sun they appeared a mile in depth. After doing consid- erable damage and depositing their eggs they rose from every part of the country like smoke from a forest and departed for Minnesota. Their reap -. pearance in 1868 consisted of the young brood that came from the eggs depos- The laying season, commencing about ited the previous year in this section of the country. During this year their ravages were seriously felt in
the first of August, lasts six to eight weeks, and each female lays 100 to 150 hatch out about the first of May fol-
eggs during that time. The young Lizard township.
In 1867 they came from the Rocky lowing and as soon as the supply of Mountain region and, depositing their
food in their locality is exhausted, they commence to migrate, frequently
eggs, a second crop appeared in the young brood that hatched in this vi- in a body a mile wide, devouring as cinity in the spring of 1868. Their they advance all the grass, grain and ravages during both of these years was garden truck in their track. In mi- felt most in the gardens, where they grating they move, as a rule, during devoured most of the vegetables. They flavored their tobacco and cab- bage with onions, peppers, carrots, peas and tomatoes. Pumpkins and squashes were partially destroyed but they were not favorite articles of diet. the warmer hours of the day only, and always in search of food. If it is per- fectly calm a traveler may meet dif- ferent bodies of them moving in dif- ferent directions, but if there is a breeze they rise facing it and then On Friday, June 13, 1873, the first move with it. Only those that are year of their second visitation to this hatched in their permanent region county, a swarm arrived in Cedar near the Rocky Mountains are capable township. In two days they had de- of reproducing their species; that voured the corn and garden truck, but those hatched in this section and they remained in this section until throughout the region of their tem- they had deposited their eggs. These porary migrations lack this power is hatched the following spring about attributed to the effect of the change May 15th and by July 1st were ready of climate. If the latter lay eggs they for migration. Their injury this year hatch the same season and are killed was chiefly confined to the small grain by the frosts of autumn. Their rate and this was so nearly destroyed that of movement when half grown is sel- in Cedar township in threshing time dom greater than three yards a min- 15 acres of wheat yielded 6 bushels, ute and then they walk three-fourths and 10 acres of oats 30 bushels. Six of the distance and hop the rest; later farmers who were neighbors stacked
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PIONEER HISTORY OF POCAHONTAS COUNTY, IOWA. .
. all their crops together to get a setting the one that hatched in this section in for the thresher, and it still cost them about ten cents a bushel, the crop con- sisting almost entirely of straw.
J. C. Strong, a resident of Washing- ton township, on June 13, 1873, had occasion to go to Sioux Rapids, and when a short distance east of that Constant and unceasing cultivation was found to be of great value in sav- ing the corn crop. On cool nights and windy days the young grasshoppers would cluster in bunches of old hay, place he encountered them on their first recorded arrival in that township. They were coming from the west and in a cloud so dense and thick that it was with difficulty he kept his team in grass or stubble as a protection from the road or urgedthem forward. the cold. By taking advantage of They were in the act of alighting and this instinct of their nature, dry hay when he emerged from the swarm the and straw were sometimes scattered ground was covered with them. When in small bunches and many were thus they encountered on the wing a build- burned in the cool of the following ing or other obstruction, they fell to morning before they began to move the ground and laid in heaps and rows about. Sometimes a deep ditch was like drifts of snow that could be scoop- sunk on one side of a field and some ed with the shovel.
This swarm arrived in the north- bottom of it, several persons moving west parts of the county, in Swan Lake abreast with brush in their hands would then drive them into the ditch and there burn them.
and Marshall townships, on June 14th, and other townships south and east on the day following. In crossing Pickerel lake they did not commence to alight until they had passed about
Another device for destroying them, called a "hopper catcher," consisted of a tin pan which in some respects a mile beyond it, and by reason of this resembled an eaves-trough. It had a circumstance, the fine crop of Milton high back and was divided into sec- Newell on the east side of the lake es- tions each one foot in length. It was caped uninjured. Some time after usually eight, twelve or sixteen feet harvest this crop was bought by J. C. long, six inches wide, two inches high Strong and it yielded about 400 bush- in front and ten at the back. The els of wheat and 600 bushels of oats.
short ones were carried by hand either
The grasshoppers on this occasion level or at an inclination of forty-five did not incline to alight on the open degrees, but the long ones were usual- prairie, no doubt because the grass ly supported by a pair of light wheels, was well advanced in its growth and one at each end, and they were then it did not afford them so delicious a drawn or pushed along either by hand repast as the tender, cultivated crops or a horse. This machine was intend- of the early settlers. The settlers ed to catch the young grasshoppers then were few in number, widely sep- when they attacked the heads of the arated and their cultivated areas be- wheat and oats crops, and when ready came the special object of their rav- for use the sections were filled with ages. When they passed to another kerosene, or water and kerosene. district the scene left behind them
When it was passed back and forth was as sterile as if had been swept by over the field scaling the heads of the the dreaded prairie fire.
growing crops, the hoppers naturally
The second crop of this visitation, and fortunately hopped against the
.
the spring of 1874, was not quite so de- structive as the first one, during the previous year, and various means were employed both to destroy them as soon as they were hatched and to protect the growing crops from their ravages.
dry straw or hay being placed in the
259
SECOND PERIOD, 1870-1882.
high back-board and falling into the being well advanced. In Dover town- kerosene, very soon expired. Wm. ship and other parts of the county Bott and Wm. Snell, of Cedar town- they arrived two weeks earlier, did ship, and others in this vicinity, used more damage especially to the late these hopper catchers with good re- corn, and deposited their eggs. sults.
On Saturday evening, September 23,
Hon. L S. Coffin, of Webster county, 1876, a meeting of the citizens of Grant using hot water in the sections instead township was held in school house No. of kerosene, saved the grasshoppers 1, and an organization was effected for and feeding them to his hogs found the mutual protection of that settle- that for that purpose one bushel of ment, then embracing eleven sections. them was worth about three of corn. against prairie fires and the ravages of When the chickens, however, fed upon the young grasshoppers the ensuing them too freely, their eggs, of which season. A. W. Rake was elected the yolks became red like blood, had a chairman and C. H. Tollefsrude sec- peculiar taste and emitted an unpleas- retary of this meeting.
ant odor that unfitted them for use.
In the spring of 1877 the young Prof. J. H. Fowler found that one brood, forming the second crop of this barrel of grasshoppers contained from visitation, commenced to hatch about three to four gallons of a fine grade of the first of April and in numbers so machine oil, suited for sewing ma- great as to endanger all the crops of chines and the like, and that a manu- that year. Fortunately for the farm- facturer of the oil could afford to pay ers, a storm of three days' duration from 75 cents to $1.00 a barrel for the commenced on Thursday, April 26th, hoppers for that purpose.
that destroyed most of them. This
At their meeting held January 5, storm was a regular old-fashioned 1875, the board of supervisors of Poca- blizzard, somewhat out of season but hontas county, finding that many of bringing relief so immediate and com- the settlers were unable to pay their plete from the grasshopper pest that taxes by reason of the loss of their every old settler remembers it with a crops by the grasshoppers in 1873 and feeling of gratitude. A gentle rain 1874, adopted a resolution to the effect commenced on Thursday that on the "that no interest should accrue on next day about noon changed to snow taxes delinquent until March 1, 1875."
In 1876 the grasshoppers came again from the Rocky Mountain region and in as great numbers as in 1873, but they arrived too late in this county to injure the crops of small grain for they had already been harvested. In Cedar township, coming from the northwest, they began to alight about noon on Sabbath, the 6th day of Au-
tables. The next day at noon most of them "took wing," and though they left their mark behind them, very little damage was done, the corn crop
accompanied with a high wind, and the snowing and the blowing contin- ued until nearly Sabbath morning fol- lowing, when the ground was covered with a deep snow. The frosts and the dampness that ensued had the good effect of destroying the unhatched eggs and most of the young brood. The few that survived, at the time of their maturity, "took wing" and de-
gust. The air was full of them and parted. A little later the same season they began their depredations by de- another lot came from the northwest vouring the choicest morsels of the and settled in the gardens and fields husbandman's store, the garden vege- of oats, then nearly ripe, but they re- mained only one or two days.
These repeated ravages of the grass- hoppers deprived the farmers of North- western Iowa not only of their ex-
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PIONEER HISTORY OF POCAHONTAS COUNTY, IOWA.
pected incomes, but of profitable em- disasters occurred, commencing with ployment. Their lands were rendered the crash on Wall street, New York valueless, many were compelled to city, that caused among others on seek lucrative employment in other that same day, the failure of Jay sections and the outlook was dark in- Cooke & Co., September 19, 1873, the deed.
NO MORE GRASSHOPPERS.
panic of that year and a period of hard times, that culminated in this coun- try in the bloody railroad strikes of 1877. The day on which this crash
In the spring of 1877, Prof. Aughey, the celebrated western naturalist, who had made a special study of the came on Wall street was Friday, and so far-reaching were its ominous re- sults that it has since been known as. "Black Friday."
grasshopper, predicted that that sea- son would be the last of the grasshop- per visitation for many years. The U. S. commission entertained the The panic of 1837 inaugurated a pe- same opinion. The basis of this opin- riod of hard times that old men still ion was the following report made to remember as disastrous, but it was the governor of Nebraska, June 10, preceded by bountiful harvests and 1877, by Prof. Aughey and Prof. C. food was plenty. The panic of 1857 Thomas:
was one that ruined the material
We consider the danger from the prosperity of thousands, but it was young which have hatched out this soon relieved by the discovery of gold season in Nebraska, over, and that this part of the problem is already solved. We also believe the long series of their visitations has come to a close. There may be and doubtless will be at irregular periods, visitations by migrating swarms, but it is not at all likely that the present generation will ever witness another such a series as that which has just passed.
These predictions were singularly verified for that and every year since that time. Their conclusions were based on facts that they had learned from the natural history of this in- sect. The cultivated areas are now
the same year in California and Aus- tralia, and the use of steam in indus- try had marvelously increased the productive power of human labor, but in 1873, no adequate immediate relief was found; even the planting of new homes on the frontier was completely checked by the remarkable visitations of the grasshoppers that occurred at this time and for several years de- voured the new settlers' means of sub- sistence.
RAILROAD STRIKES OF 1877.
The great railroad strikes of 1877 so large that in the future, even if had their beginning in the east, on they should come, they will not be July 16th, when the locomotive en- able to make much if any impression gineers and firemen on the Baltimore on the growing crops; and the people & Ohio, at Martinsburg, W. Va., left have learned how to meet and contend their posts, and in less than twenty- successfully with them when they ap- four hours the entire B. & O. system pear in the spring, so that as a de- of railroads was idle. The men on stroyer they have lost their terror.
other railway systems joined the FINANCIAL PANIC OF 1873. strike, so that on August 1st, follow In 1870 and 1871 occurred the brill- ing, they numbered 15,000 who, resist- iant victories of Germany over France that resulted in an accession of terri- ing the constituted authorities of the government, burned a vast amount of tory and the payment of an indemnity railroad property in Pittsburg and of more than a thousand millions of caused the shedding of blood in Mary- dollars to the former. Two short land, Pennsylvania, New York, New years thereafter a series of financial Jersey, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michi-
261
SECOND PERIOD, 1870-1882.
gan, West Virginia, Kentucky and and have the loving and innocent eyes Missouri. Trade and commerce were of a family looking to them for sup- paralyzed and the scenes of devasta- port and such comforts as others en- tion and murder were unparalleled in joy, can appreciate this situation. the previous history of this country during an era of peace. The immedi- ate cause of this strike was a reduc- tion of ten per cent in the wages of engineers and firemen. It was the first violent demonstration of that an- archistic movement, which was im- ported to this country by Johann Most and Justus Schwab, and that continued to grow until it received its quietus by the execution of Spies, Parsons, Engel and Schwab, ten years later at Chicago.
HARD TIMES-SECOND PERIOD, 1873- 1877.
The period from 1873 to 1877 was one that we live in an age and country of hard times throughout the com- where the texture of the wearing ap- mercial world. The hard times ex- parel does not establish the standard perienced by the residents of Pocahon- of intelligence, morals or refinement. tas county during this period were They learned to live economically and not incident to a peculiar condition contract as few debts as possible, by of things in this section of the coun- making the products of the cows and try, nor even in our own land, for the chickens supply their table and even people in the various countries of meet other demands.
Europe experienced the same unfavor- able conditions that affected us. The laws of trade and the ways of com- merce seem to have been obstructed or disturbed, and the whole world was struggling under the same. wet blan- ket that covered us as a nation. It may be truthfully said, however, that on the frontier the trials of this peri- od were more severely felt than in other sections of the country, by rea- son of the repeated ravages of the grasshoppers and the greater distance of the settlers from all sources of sup- plies.
To those who suffered the loss of their crops the preceding year, even the prospect of commencing the en- suing summer's work on the farm was gloomy, for they had no money in hand and nothing that might be ex- changed for the necessaries of life, Only those who are in this position,
In this school of experience on the frontier many learned that the real necessaries of life are few; that for health, strength and comfort, but few things are absolutely needed, and these are within the reach of every honest and industrious tiller of the soil, no matter how low his stock of provisions might be reduced. They learned to be content with such things as they had or to which the ne- cessities of the situation confined them. They realized that fine cloth- ing was not necessary for the comfort and respectability of the family, and
It has been said, "A German will live on what an American throws away; a Jew on what a German throws away, and a Chinaman on what a Jew throws away;" and yet all these classes enjoy just as good health, are able to perform as much hard labor and enter as fully into the pleasure and zest of life as the American.
The lessons and experiences of this trying period are now recalled by the early settlers with a good deal of pleasure and delight, a fact that is very neatly expressed and illustrated by the following incident:
A poor old Scotch woman having nothing to eat, knelt on the floor of her little cabin, built close against the rocks of a hillside, and prayed for bread. A roguish boy of the neigh- borhood chancing to pass that way, heard her voice and listened at the door. He hurried home and, quickly returning with a loaf of bread, stepped
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PIONEER HISTORY OF POCAHONTAS COUNTY, IOWA.
from the rocks to the roof of the cabin and then dropped the loaf down the chimney. It rolled from the empty fireplace to the chair beside which the old lady still knelt earnestly praying. There was a moment's pause and then ces indicated that when Mrs. Snyder her supplications were changed to thanksgiving. "You need not be thankin' the Lord for that loaf, I brought it," shouted the youngster down the chimney. "Ah, my laddie," she answered from below, "it was the Lord that sent it, even if the devil brought it."
OTHER CAUSES OF HARD TIMES.
No account of the hard times ex- perienced by the sturdy pioneers of this county would be complete that did not include some reference to the numerous destructive prairie fires that occurred during the period now under consideration, and of the depredations committed by the gophers and black- birds.
PRAIRIE FIRES DURING THE '70'S.
Prairie fires occurred before, and oc- around them and either mowing or
casionally afterward, but it was dur- ing the 70's that the aggregate amount of losses from this cause was the great- est to the early settlers of Pocahontas county. The first settlers, locating their homes along the streams and timber belis in the eastern part of the county, found in them a natural pro- tection from the devouring flame of the prairie fire, but when the prairies became dotted with scattered homes without any natural protection, they were exposed to this danger, and the losses sustained from this cause were very severely felt.
just outside the door of it lay the charred and lifeless bodies of his wife and little child, the latter amid the ashes of the buggy. The circumstan-
saw the fire approach the stable, she hastened thither carrying her babe in her arms, and placing it in the buggy, undertook to remove the stock from the stable, and while thus engaged both became enveloped in the flames and perished. Their bodles were first buried on the farm, and afterward sent to Wisconsin. Their house was not burned and Cedar creek prevented the fire from spreading farther east. This sad loss of life and property led the new settlers in the southwest part of the county to adopt the prac- tice of surrounding all their buildings with fire-guards made by plowing two sets of furrows a rod or two apart burning off the intervening space.
The summer of 1871 was unusually dry throughout the Upper Mississippi Valley, and the autumn of that year has become historic for the great fires that occurred at that time. On Oct. 8-9th, the great fire in Chicago oc- curred that burned 18,000 buildings, covering 2,124 acres and valued at $200,000,000. Terrible forest fires that same year caused great destruction of property and some loss of life in Michigan, Wisconsin and Minnesota.
On Sabbath evening, October 8th, 1871, which was the very time of the Chicago fire, there passed over Poca-
About October 1, 1870, a fire was started one afternoon on the NW} of hontas county a prairie fire that is Sec. 29, Cedar township, (now Ilawley said to have been the most destruc- farm) by the hired man employed by tive one in its history. It came from T. J. Curtis and, the wind from the the southeast, the vicinity of Twin northwest becoming strong, it was Lakes, Calhoun county, and with a soon beyond his control. In a very broad front that in the shades of short time it had reached the premi- evening resembled an ocean of fire. ses of Jacob Snyder, on Sec. 31, now Sweeping over Bellville, Colfax and the Stafford farm. Mr. Snyder had Cedar townships on the south it sped gone to Sac City and when hereturned northward across the county, con- he found the stable, which contained suming everything that was not care- one horse and two cows, in ashes, and fully protected,
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