USA > North Dakota > Dickey County > History Of Dickey County, ND, 1930 > Part 18
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Mr. Johnson never was burned out as he was careful to have fire breaks, but one time he saved the depot at Clement from burning by getting his hired men out with gang plows to make a fire break. He told the Soo people that they should give him a free ride to Minneapolis and back for that and they said that any time he wanted to make that trip to let them know, but he has been too busy to go, so still has that trip coming to him.
In order to get some land that was within his power to purchase Mr. J. H. Denning went west in 1880, to Kansas. He was taken ill and had to go back to his home in Illinois, and did not like Kansas. In 1882 he came up to Dakota and looked over some land: In 1883 he shipped out to Ellendale over the Milwaukee, landing with his car of goods on March 14th. He found land that suited him west of the new town of Hudson, but for the first year he and a Mr. Cross opened a grocery store in Ellendale. In 1884 the family moved out to their land taking both a preemption and a tree claim in Sec- tions 34 and 35, 131-60, three miles west and one north of Hudson. At first they had a one-room house but in 1885 they made it larger. Most of their trading was done in Ellendale, and all grain had to go to Ellendale and coal
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and other fuel brought out. They bought small trees and set out the be- ginnings of a grove to comply with the law regarding tree claims. There were a great many railroad surveys through the country west of the James but no road ever materialized there and most of the buildings at Hudson were drawn to Oakes on the ice when that new town was started.
In early 1883 Gus Strutz and Gust Beck were a committee to look for land for five men who had agreed to locate together. These two men finally found land that suited them in the northern part of Township 131-60. They put up a shed 12 by 12 on Mr. Strutz's claim with a frame bunk and later sodded the shanty up on the outside. They had to do the best they could for the time, used grass and buffalo chips for fuel and of course did their own cooking. There were twelve or fourteen springs on his quarter and they opened one of these and had better water than most of the people had in those days. After getting up the shanties on the two claims they went to Grand Rapids to get a plow. They had to go right through LaMoure but it was a city of tents and there was no plow to be had. They made the trip in a day. Chris Gorder ran a little blacksmith shop a mile or two south of Strutz's place, and he did not have to make the long trips that some of the settlers made.
They planted out an acre of beans and a few potatoes the first year, but that was all the crop they had. They lived together the first summer to economize on domestic duties and for company. In harvest time they both went back to Everett to work, taking their teams to the harvest fields and for plowing. Men got $2.00 a day and were allowed $2.00 a day for their teams. After Mr. Strutz returned to his claim that fall with the team, he found that a settler named Russell had located about a mile east of him and he left his team there that winter and went back to the lumber woods of Wisconsin to earn something.
On his return he took up farming, having to buy everything he used. Not being able to borrow for himself, still he loaned his things to other people, never getting a fanning mill returned to him. He nearly lost his life while hunting ducks on the river. He was thrown out when the boat overturned, lost his gun, but managed to get hold of the boat and drag himself to shore and to a neighbor's house where he could thaw out and get off his rubber boots and hunting gear. He never tried to cross the river standing up in his boat. It was several years before he recovered his gun, but has used it many time since then. In the winter of 1884-85 he went east and brought his wife out to the new home and of late years has been in the cattle business with his son.
It was in March 1884 that Chris Frogen filed on his land, the southeast of 25, 131-60. There were seventeen acres broken and a little shanty that came with the relinquishment that he bought from Mr. Stenquist. He had a neighbor work this land for him and he went back to the Dalrymple farms for the harvest, and he worked for the railroad company in the winter. In
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1885 Mr. Frogen worked for the Dakota Midland near the city of Hudson. The next year he was called from his claim to help on the grading of the Northwestern south of Oakes. This company had struck a soft place where the dirt had to be wheeled in by hand. He got 18 cents a yard for this work and after being paid went back to his claim. Later he was quite ill from his exposure and hard outside work.
His sod house was very comfortable being 12 by 20 feet inside. It had four foot sod walls with clay plaster on the dirt and then lime plaster. There was a board floor and a board roof. There was tar paper on the roof and then a long grass thatch above that. It was very warm and water never froze inside, but it looked pretty crude from the outside. One storm in the following winter buried it up and he had to pull snow inside to get a hole outdoors so he could work and shovel it away. He was married in the fall of 1886 and homestead life became more pleasant. They had to burn slough hay and straw even after the first winter when the railroad came, for they were not able to get coal in.
On the 26th of April, 1883, Mr. Iver Olson landed in the township. He was one of a party of six who came out from Kindred to look for land in the two unsurveyed townships, 130-60 and 131-60. He got started on his location but met with a great loss from a prairie fire which burned his barn and all his live stock, but he was quite successful with good crops later. Also he suffered bereavement in the death of his baby girl in the summer of 1883. Another died later and both are buried on the old homestead as there was then no cemetery near his home. This was the first death in the town- ship. The first wedding was that of Arne Pederson and Hannah Gronbeck, and the first birth that of Peter Pederson. The first religious service in the township was held at Marcossion's place, probably in the spring of 1884. Rev. Mr. Ofstedahl from Aberdeen was probably the first preacher to visit the township. After 1885 Rev. Rogne of Ellendale came out regularly and held services. Gibson laid out a trail direct from his place to Ellendale in practically a straight line. He set sticks to mark it till the track was worn down enough to follow. There was also an old trail across from Ft. Ransom to Ft. Yates which was abandoned and grass-grown when the settlers came in 1883.
Mr. Arne Pederson was from the same neighborhood in the old country as Iver Olson and Henry Gronbeck. He had come to Richland County in 1881. Quite a party of landseekers came over to Dickey County and located in what became Clement Township. Nick Edwardson squatted on 10, Herman Pederson got the southwest of 11, Henry Gronbeck had the north- west of 11; Iver Olson was on the southeast of 2, Martin Bratland got the northwest of 12, Alexander Swanson was also on 12, Hans Gronbeck located on 12 a little later, and Nicoli Gronbeck the father came over from Norway that summer and located on 14. As these people were about the first in the township they had good opportunity to locate near each other. As soon as
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they got located they had to put up shanties, most of them using sod and building 8 by 8. They had to go to Ellendale to get some lumber to put a frame roof on these shacks. Then they covered them with tar paper. Two of them, Olson and Herman Pederson had to have larger shacks as they were married and expected to have their wives keep house for them. They brought provisions to last a week while they were getting located and then went back to Richland County to work that summer. Arne and Herman Pederson with Herman's wife went back to the claims and completed five acres of breaking on each of the six claims. The Pedersons had lived under their wagon when they came out and before they got their shack ready. The whole party had brought two wagons with a yoke of oxen on each. When their land came onto the market the 10th of March, 1884, they had to go to Ellendale to make their filings, and they had to walk to Ellendale as the snow was so deep that there were no roads. On the first trip made by the Pederson brothers to Ellendale in the spring of 1883 they had started early and intended to make the round trip in a day but it got dark before they got home and they wandered into a slough and got stuck so they had to unload their lumber and leave it. At that they had to give up trying to get home, turned the oxen loose to graze, took off the wagon box and turned it over on the grass and crawling under it tried to sleep. As soon as they could see they went back, hunted up their lumber in the slough and got home soon after daybreak.
For some years after Rev. Rogne had come as a missionary to the Scandinavians of the township, meetings were held in the school houses and were led by traveling missionaries or ministers, and in 1898 the church was built in the west part of the township. The first school was built on Section 16 and the district included Bear Creek Township but was called Climax district. They bonded the two townships and raised $1500.00 and built a school building in each township.
The preliminary meeting for the organization of the township was held in the Nichols' boys home in about 1884 or 1885. The name used at first was Norway, but the official map of 1886 gives the name Climax to the two townships, 131-60 and 131-59, the same name as that of the school district, but when the division came later the dividing line was made the James River and the civil township to the west was named Clement. When the Soo railroad came through a station was located at Clement and a postoffice established.
The name Norway was given to the spur on Section 24. The elevator at this spur was managed for seventeen years by Mr. John H. Coulter who lived in Oakes. John McManus was a large farmer living to the south of Norway Spur and in one season he shipped fourteen cars of wheat raised on his farm from this siding. His hired man let his wages lie in the hands of Mr. McManus and when he came to settle with him Mr. McManus gave him the quarter section of land across the road from the Norway elevator and a
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set of good farm buildings which made a new and prosperous home.
Among the later settlers that have come to this township since the early days are Mr. A. F. Gramlow who has served several years as County Commissioner, August Wedell, Matt Pheiffer and William Zieman who served as State Senator for four years. Gus Strutz served as Representative a term in the State Legislature, and James Stevens was a State Senator in the populist days of the middle 90's. A grandson, Bert Stevens, is still a resident of Clement.
As evidence of the progressive spirit of the people a very good sized and commodious community hall was erected at Clement. A live community club in which the younger generation took active part decided that they needed a meeting place for public gatherings, so they raised some money and donated their own labor and constructed the best community house in the county, if not one of the best in the state. It contains a stage and piano and can accommodate any kind of public enterprise, such as community fairs, dances, rallies, and has never failed to hold the largest crowds that may wish to attend. The community club, which includes practically every citizen, young and old, has done a great work for the diversified farming that so many of the people are following, and is the means of keeping its members informed on the better practices of modern farming.
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CHAPTER XXIV
KEYSTONE TOWNSHIP, 131-63
[The story of Keystone Township is told by interviews with Clark G. Fait, D. Cortrite, George Feathers, Roy Stanley Stevens, Eb Magoffin, W. B. Knox and some of the others who helped transform its raw prairie to the home of a prosperous people.]
T HE original Keystone was organized by J. F. Haggerty and Will Lloyd. These men were from Pennsylvania where Will Lloyd had an uncle in the banking business. This uncle failed in business and in the wreckage there was found a quantity of N. P. railroad stock which he had managed to salvage when the bank went under. His nephew, Will Lloyd, was sent out from the east to turn the stock into land and dispose of it during the boom days. The Keystone location was selected by Lloyd and Haggerty as being a desirable location, approximately half way between Jamestown and Aberdeen. It was a good country on the bank of Maple Creek, in the fork between the north and south branches of that stream on the North- west of 10-131-63. The site was selected and a colony of Pennsylvania peo- ple organized to settle it.
The Keystone town site was platted some time in the summer of 1882. It was a government quarter and had to be "Scripped." This term refers to a provision that was in existence by which government land could, by application, be purchased for town site purposes and the requirement of living on it and proving up under the homestead regulations were not necessary. This arrangement was made in order that the necessary com- mercial centers could be provided for the newly settled communities.
The beginning of Keystone was about a mile north of where the town was finally established. A shack was put up there and a camp made by the col- onists, when they found that the tract had already been "squatted" on and they were obliged to back up to section 10. Here the camp was made again and every one lived together in community style while the men went out on the vacant government land to put up claim shanties. These were all 7x12 feet in size. When sufficient shanties had been provided for the seven ladies they drew lots for choice of these claims. Two sisters had the first choice-one drew a location and her sister was given the claim next to it, then the other ladies drew in turn till they were all provided with a home- stead. After that the men selected claims. Their legal residences were in the 7x12 shanty-roofed buildings on the claims but actually they spent most of their time in the community camp or town of Keystone. W. A. Caldwell and John Lloyd put up a store that summer. There was also a
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place kept by the colonists for "stoppers" or transients who were passing through. In the fall of 1882 Mrs. Pomeroy and J. F. Haggerty built the Keystone House and ran a hotel. There was no blacksmith shop till the spring of 1883, when C. E. Livingston put up a shop. The postoffice was started in 1883; John Oldfield was the first postmaster and he held it as long as the town lasted.
In 1883 the "Keystone Optic" was started by a man by the name of Wilson, who later sold the paper to his "devil" and went to Ellendale to start a paper, but was bought off.
A hardware and drug store was started in 1883. The hardware man's name was C. K. Shear, the druggist's was Lewis Spink. There was no saloon or barber shop, but Chas. Misfeldt came up from Ellendale once a week and trimmed up the hair and whiskers for the colonists. There was a $3000.00 church built in Keystone which was used there as long as the town lasted and then it was moved to Monango where it is still in use. The first supply pastor was there while the Church was being erected, and he went out there early one Sunday morning and found some of the men working on the un- finished building. He was quite indignant at their breaking the Sabbath, even in such a good cause.
The first regular supply was Rev. Mr. Dickey, but not the man for whom the county was named. He had a claim some distance north of the town and when the congregation got behind with the salary due him a "bee" was organized and about thirty teams went out and did a lot of break- ing for him. A later preacher was Mr. Brackett, who also took up a homestead and "batched it" for awhile. The church building at Keystone was built by the Van Meter brothers of Ellendale.
Many of these pioneers have interesting stories. W. B. Knox was a Pennsylvanian who was interested in the opportunities offered in the North- west. He came over the Milwaukee to the end of the track which was three miles north of the present site of Ellendale in the spring of 1882. There were no accommodations there at first that spring, and it was an awkward situation for new comers. One bunch of men who came up that spring asked the train crew to leave an empty box car for them to sleep in, but this was declined. The men took matters into their own hands and uncoupled several cars and kept them for the accommodation of the transients. The "end of track" was on a tract of land owned by a Mrs. Bishop. She had expected to get a townsite on her place but the town was located further south and she went back and started a hotel, the "White House" there.
Mr. Knox was one of the men who helped haul the lumber out from "end of track" near Ellendale for the Keystone settlement. When the shan- ties were completed, the lady delegation was brought up from Aberdeen where they were waiting till a shanty was erected for their accommodation, then they were all hauled out and "parked" in one shack till the other buildings were completed. On the first night after their trip from end of
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track to Keystone, they were all fed on pancakes baked on top of a sheet iron stove.
Mr. Knox put up his claim shanty on the southwest corner of the northeast quarter of Section 13 in 1882 and built his house in 1883. His home was on this place until the family moved to Ellendale in 1926. His present house was built in Keystone and when the town was abandoned the house was moved out onto the farm.
Mr. Beaver came from Pennsylvania to Cherokee, Iowa, leaving his family in the east, then in the fall of 1884 he came up to Keystone to W. B. Knox's claim and went to work. In the fall of 1884 he filed on a preemption while working at the Knox farm, and in the spring of 1885 he sent back to Pennsylvania for the family and they came out and were unloaded in Ellen- dale. Mr. Beaver's family landed in Ellendale the 17th.of April, 1885, and Mr. Beaver met them there and brought them out to the Knox place, where they all stayed the first season. He hauled the family out with Knox's farm wagon and team. Mr. Knox was a single man and they kept house for him that first summer. There was quite a crop in that year and the Keystone people had to haul their grain either to LaMoure or Ellendale There was a store and a hotel at Keystone. Mail was carried out to Keystone from Ellendale in a little spring wagon. On the same trip the mail carrier would deliver to Merricourt.
In 1886 Mr. Beaver put a house on his preemption and moved onto it and made his home. It was a little house 14x18 with no plaster or finish- ing, very cold in winter till it could be completed. Mr. Beaver was a veteran of the Civil War and was in many of the battles in the east, Fredericksburg, Antietam and Spottsylvania, and at Lee's surrender shortly after the battle of Petersburg. He first served in Co. D. 131st Penn. Vol. Inf., then he re- enlisted in Co. K of the 205th Penn. till the close of the war.
The population of the town of Keystone reached 51 at the time of its greatness. In 1883 or 1884 a school was started in Keystone which had an attendance from the town and surrounding prairie of about 30. The last deer was seen about 1885.
Most of the small towns would protect themselves from fire losses by prairie fires by plowing a few furrows around the edge of the town, and then on some still evening all hands would go out and burn off the grass between the furrows, leaving a burned strip around the town which would stop any fire that came along.
Mr. George Feathers came out to Dakota from Blair County, Pennsyl- vania, just east of the Alleghany mountains. W. B. Knox of that locality was coming out to the new settlement of Keystone with his family and wanted to ship a car of emigrant stuff. The man whom he had engaged to ride the car and take care of the stock backed out and he had to look for someone else .. Feathers heard about this and made the remark: "If Knox wants someone to go with that car, I'll go." This was repeated to Knox and a few
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days later Knox came to see Feathers about it. At first Feathers declined as he did not know how his people might take it, but they told him to do as he wished, that if he thought he could better himself in the west, to go. So it was decided for him to go. He had to continue to work at his former job a few days in order to give the man a chance to get someone else and then went with Knox's car.
There were five horses, two cows and a calf, and a lot of household goods, and brick for chimneys. Some lumber was used in the lining of the car and this was to be torn out when they reached their destination. They stocked up with what hay they could in the car and filled two barrels with water for the animals. He had a comfortable bed arranged and lots of grub in the car, preserves and canned stuff for the summer in the new country. The hay only lasted to Chicago and there he had to buy more. He was thirteen days on the road from Pennsylvania to Dickey county. Mr. Knox met Mr. Feathers and the car in Ellendale. After unloading they let the stock rest a day or two before they started to haul out to the claim. Mr. Knox bought a wagon box and necessary things to move with. He had built a little house for his sister, Viola Knox, and a claim shanty for himself, and it was to these two buildings that they hauled the load the 23rd of March. They hauled out the goods from the car and then George took up a claim on section 8-131-64. They hauled out some lumber and built a shack on it and plowed a fire-break around it and burned it out, but most of the spring was spent working with or for Mr. Knox. There was considerable building going on and there was lumber to haul and other jobs to be done. They helped haul lumber and build the church in Keystone and did some breaking for Mr. Knox and his relatives. Breaking was $3.50 to $4.00 an acre. Mr. Feathers ran a breaking rig for Knox using five horses and a Cassidy sulky breaking plow. It was years before people discovered the scheme of raising flax on the new breaking and in this way doing away with the fall plowing or "back setting" of the sod.
George Feathers filed on land in 1888 and after proving up the home- stead he sold it, and for several years was not located permanently, but was on several different places. He bought land, lived on it awhile and sold it again, so was moving about considerably for a number of years but finally settled at his present location just east of the junction of the north and south Maple rivers. Here he has been for the past fifteen years. The dining room of the present Feather home was the old Caldwell claim shanty, two other parts having been added to the building to make the present roomy home.
Mr. Clark Fait came out from Indiana in the spring of 1882; he came out to Jamestown and LaMoure. On the way across from LaMoure to Ellendale he stopped at Keystone a few days and a man named Haggerty located him. He took the northwest quarter of Section 12 as a preemption and a tree claim on the southwest quarter of Section 1-131-63. Several
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years later they took a homestead adjoining. He bought ash and boxelder seed in the store at Ellendale and planted them out for his tree claim. They did well, being carefully tended, and when they grew up he cultivated them like corn. This is now one of the finest groves in Dickey County. They planted five acres in 1884 and then later Mr. Fait planted out another five acres. He bought a team of mules and a wagon and put in the summer of 1882 teaming between Ellendale and Grand Rapids. He got $10.00 a load for haul- ing lumber and it took two days to make a round trip. He had built a house 12x12 on his claim and broke up a little patch of ground and called it home. The first season he dropped enough seed potatoes so that in the fall he har- vested sixty bushels which he buried deep under his house so that they were safe the next spring. He had tried out corn the first year and satisfied himself that it would grow here. They put in a trap in the Maple river and caught great quantities of fish. They salted down a great many in those days before there were any game laws. The creek was quite a convenience for water for the stock although it was a breeding place for mosquitoes.
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