USA > North Dakota > Dickey County > History Of Dickey County, ND, 1930 > Part 19
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31
The children went to school in Keystone that first winter. They drove. Mrs. W. A. Caldwell was the teacher the summer before, and Chas. Sheppard was the winter teacher. The Higgins boys, Roy Stevens and the Faits went to school. They bought a base burner the first years and kept warm with that, but they were afraid of the gas and then they used a straw burner. It was a furnace that had a drum on top filled with flax straw or hay. They would fill one drum and set on the furnace and light it. It would burn several hours and then they would have another ready and put it on. They used this for several years. Keystone was abandoned about 1887 and the school was moved away to Monango and some time later, 1888 or 89, the Fait family had school in their house.
Mr. David Cortrite had come to Dickey county about the 17th of April, 1882. He came up from Aberdeen to the "end of track" north of the present site of Ellendale. His wife and son came along a week or two later. He and Jason Fenton had an emigrant car together and shipped out their goods in it. Jacob Burton shipped in a car in the spring of 1882. He shipped mostly lumber and had also a team of oxen and a cow. Fenton and Cortrite had a team of horses and a cow, a smoothing harrow and a breaking plow. They also brought lumber and household goods but no seed grain. They also brought a wagon and a one-horse buggy. Mr. Cortrite settled on the north- west of 21 and Fenton got southwest and Burton on east half. The township boundaries were surveyed at that time but the section lines were not run, so they had to hire Taylor and Farren to make a preliminary survey so they could locate. They got it pretty close, but when the government survey was made it was found that Cortrite's house was ten rods on the south of the line and he had to drag it over on his own side. He made a preemption of his land. Fenton did the same. In a few years Fenton went out in the hills and got a homestead and lived there awhile and died there. Burton got a
194
A HISTORY OF DICKEY COUNTY, NORTH DAKOTA
very good well on his place at 16 feet and they used to get water over there when it was necessary, which was not very often as they did not have much stock. They had the house up about two weeks before his wife and child came. He broke about forty acres on his and Fenton's place that first year. The first fuel they bought was from Frederick, S. D., and after that they went out to the gulches in the edge of the hills and got wood. Jay Haggerty seemed to be the head man around Keystone. W. A. Caldwell was a banker and in real estate. He opened up in 1882. Mrs. Caldwell is still in Monango.
They got coal from Ellendale and by the time the first winter came they had built their little house tight and kept warm in it. There was not much to do that winter as they did not have very much stock yet. They had to put up their hay with a scythe in '82 and it all burned up in a prairie fire that came along about September 20th, from the south. The barn went, also the wagon and harness and everything in it. They saved the house all right. The cow had been picketed out but the rope burned off and she es- caped by getting into the Maple river. The dog ran ahead of the fire and came back the next day so sore footed that he could hardly crawl.
The mail and stage route went from Ellendale to Grand Rapids. It was a day's trip from Ellendale to Grand Rapids and Stevenson's was about half way. They used to get dinner there. Geo. Merrifield used to run a stage south of Grand Rapids but Cortrite is not sure if it was the Keystone line or not. It angled across prairie from place to place. He thinks the horses were changed at the half way house, but is not sure.
A Mr. Hamilton was Milwaukee agent at the Soo and he was pretty nervous about an Indian scare in the late eighties. He went so far as to order cars to have on hand to get the people out of the country. His family had guns and kept them ready. Mrs. Cortrite went to bed with her clothes and shoes on for awhile as she was so nervous.
Mr. Northrup had a binder (twine) but did not have horses so he and Burton and Cortrite changed work and cut all the grain. They went so far as to change teams and run the binder nights.
The year 1883 school was held in Haggerty's "tabernacle" the walls of which had posts seven feet high with a flat roof. There were tiers of bunks along the walls for the accommodation of guests. The next school was held . in the upstairs of the Wilson house and the next was in the original Caldwell store.
The first winter after the town was moved to Monango, they all went to a little school house out in the country a mile or two west . They used to change off with teams. Eb Magoffin and Frank Glenn had the teams. It was a hard winter and the road kept building up till by spring it was several feet high. Eb Magoffin, Frank Glenn, J. O. Glenn, Mrs. Laughlin Shay, Roy Stevens, Clarence Kilberry, Frank Noice and Emma Magoffin attended this school-Clarence was a man of forty and some of the others were past school age. There were in addition to the above named some country
195
A HISTORY OF DICKEY COUNTY, NORTH DAKOTA
children to fill up the school. Mrs. Mary Crabtree Morrison was the teacher. The second winter the school was moved into town and used till they could build a larger one.
Lon Wilson was the first editor of the Keystone Commercial. He sent out his press and type and horse and buggy in the emigrant car which Mr. Stevens rode into Dakota. The townspeople of Keystone had taken up a collection and bought a lot and built the shell of a building for him to set up in business and gave it to him. He had been out during the winter of 1882-83 to look the place over, coming between blizzards which were frequent and seemingly terrible on the bare prairie.
Monango was built in 1886 in the fall. When the railroad came they were moving buildings all winter from Keystone, some people moving their own. Any property owner in Keystone who had a building on his lot was given a lot in the new townsite of Monango when that town was platted so he did not entirely lose out. Mr. Stevens is positive that the Milwaukee pulled up the track which was north of Ellendale for three miles shortly after 1883 and it was left without iron for about three years, then relaid, when the grading started for the extension to Edgeley in 1886. It was graded and ironed the same year. It came along so fast that they could hardly get the bridges in fast enough. The first railroad tank was at the south end of the bridge over the south branch of the Maple.
The people of Keystone were ambitious to have the county seat and their location near the geographical center of the county with rumors of the coming of the Soo railway from the east gave them a claim, but Ellendale as a town held the lead and secured the larger vote for the county seat. A great disappointment came when the Milwaukee railroad built its extension from Ellendale to Edgeley so far west of Keystone. Haggerty had been at Aberdeen dealing with the Northwestern railroad. He owned a tree claim on the outskirts of that town and the Northwestern people were anxious to get part of it through which to get into the town. The Milwaukee people were equally interested in keeping the Northwestern railroad out. The outcome was that Haggerty sold part of his tree claim to the Northwestern so they were able to get a foothold in Aberdeen but this offended the Mil- waukee management and they shortly afterward changed their survey in the vicinity of Keystone and ran their line two miles to the west.
Nobody seems to know where the name "Monango" originated. Mr. Stevens said George McDonald told him that it was the name of an Indian child captured on the White Stone battlefield by the soldiers. It was sup- posed to have had a hand shot off and when found was strapped to a travois attached to a dog. This child was said to have been taken to Iowa by some of the soldiers. Another story is that the name for the townsite was selected by some of the Soo railroad officials. A list of names had been submitted to them for consideration and they selected the first letters of several of these and made a composite word, "Monango."
196
A HISTORY OF DICKEY COUNTY, NORTH DAKOTA
Beriah Magoffin, a Kentuckian, had secured contracts for hauling the mail over several routes in Dakota territory and he and his son, Eb Magoffin, came out here in 1884. After the mail route business was played out he and his father had the horses on their hands and took a contract with the Mil- waukee to haul out timbers for the culverts along the line which was to be built between Ellendale and Edgeley. The McGinnis boys of Silverleaf had the contract to haul out the big bridge but Magoffin and his father had the others. They put up a shanty on the present site of Monango where they put their stock and where they stayed themselves when they needed to, on their trips from Ellendale north. This building was about where the elevator site now is and was the first building on the site of the present town. The Magoffins hauled the culvert and bridge material for the ten miles of track north of the Soo crossing. This kept them busy till about the first of September when the auction was held on the townsite and the lots sold. At that time they bought the lot where the Farmers and Merchants Bank now stands. They put up a dwelling there and conducted the postoffice which was opened Oct. 1st 1886. Dilly was the first agent at Monango.
The Keystone people moved their outfits and buildings over the fall of '86 and the following winter most of them came over, a few moved onto farms and took their buildings along, including Knox and Fleming.
The church at Keystone was moved over to Monango. It had been racked by a storm and had to be rebuilt but the same material was used. It is the only Protestant church in Monango.
There was never a real boom in Monango but along about 1888, when there was a big crop, the town was larger and did more business than in later years, both sides of the street were lined with buildings and one of the stores was reputed to be about the best in the county. Haggerty was a big wheat speculator and bid way up for the good No. 1 hard grain in those days and made Monango a big wheat market. Mr. Magoffin has seen a hundred teams lined up waiting at the elevator to unload. At one time the livery barn kept sixteen to eighteen teams on hand for use on country drives and then at times they could not supply the demand. There was a cheese factory for a number of years; it ran from about 1897 for about five or six years and then had to go under; the hand separator came in and farmers shipped their cream. For three years they took first state prize for cheese at Monango.
The first bad fire was the meat market about 1910. The next was a bad one in 1916 which burned out Magoffins' big store. Mr. Magoffin did not get to school more than six months after he got to Dakota and it had been irregular before that. After they got the postoffice at Monango he worked out at whatever he could get, mostly carpentry. In the fall of 1889 the elder Mr. Magoffin started a store just east of his house where the postoffice was. Eb worked in the store after it was started. In 1896 the business was moved across the street to the location where they burned out, the father continuing in the business until he grew too old and died at the age of eighty-
197
A HISTORY OF DICKEY COUNTY, NORTH DAKOTA
one. Eb gradually grew into the business and still continues it.
J. E. D. Brown came out from Thompson, Ill., in 1882. He came out with his parents to Ellendale. His father was Ben Brown. They located six miles north of Ellendale. Ben Brown got a homestead in that vicinity and later J. E. D. also got some government land, when he became old enough, as he was only about fourteen years of age when they came to Dickey county. Mrs. Brown got a homestead or at least took the family there in 1898. They moved off in the spring of 1900 and then moved onto a place a mile and a half east, then they lived in Ellendale and worked a farm some distance out while the children went to school in town.
198
A HISTORY OF DICKEY COUNTY, NORTH DAKOTA
199
A HISTORY OF DICKEY COUNTY, NORTH DAKOTA
CHAPTER XXV
YORKTOWN
[The authorities for this township and the interesting town that once flourished within it are the stories of C. H. Curtis, James Curtis, William J. Uecker, Mrs. James Pollock, Ben Nelson and Mr. Ira Barnes.]
IN the spring of 1882 three gentlemen from the State of New York, Rev. G. S. White, Rev. Robert Hogaboom and William Gilbert came to Dakota together for the purpose of taking up for themselves and others government land, and if the three could unite on a location the parties rep- resented by them would constitute a sufficient number to form a settlement.
At that time there were no settlers in Township 131 between the Maple and James rivers. Preferring to keep outside the land grant limits of the Northern Pacific Railroad Company the gentlemen named looked over Township 131 Range 61, which so fully satisfied them that they at once chose it for their colony. At that time Ellendale was but three months old and the nearest railroad station. On the southwest quarter of Section 17 was found a beautiful location for a townsite surrounded by miles of fine farming country. A preliminary survey was secured, a line measured in from the township west (Maple) to get the location, the townsite fixed upon, and the country round about occupied by the parties represented by the building of claim shanties and a little breaking around each.
The land being as yet unsurveyed by the Government and the general belief being that the Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul Railroad Company would push on its road to Jamestown at once, the preliminary work of locat- ing the New York colony was suspended until those forming it came to estab- lish a residence in the spring of 1883 on the claims chosen for them.
On the return of Messers. White, Hogaboom and Gilbert to New York state with a report of their work here many others expressed a desire to join the colony which was made up of professional men, farmers and mech- anics under the management of the eastern members of the company. Ar- rangements were perfected for bringing the first of the colony to Yorktown in April, 1883. Others soon followed and many from other states came and joined it. Rev. Mr. White and his two sons were the first actual residents, spending most of the summer of 1882 upon their claims. George A. White, one of the sons, was the first to open a store, beginning trade in April, 1883, and he was also the first postmaster at Yorktown. A. C. Hogaboom built the first residence on the townsite; Sutton & Stone Brothers were the pioneer hardware merchants. Later, Crocker & Holway from Boston, Massachu-
200
A HISTORY OF DICKEY COUNTY, NORTH DAKOTA
setts, built a fine store building. Messers. Mead, Jennings, Rounds, G. F. Morey, W. H. Main erected buildings upon the townsite, Mr. Morey's being the Yorktown House. Beck & Fell put up the first blacksmith shop. The first well to be put down in the township was on the townsite, a fine vein of water being struck at thirty-five feet, the work being done by James Curtis and Matt Kelley. The government had donated the townsite and from this fact any one who would put up a building was given a lot, so several of these buildings were located on donated sites.
On April 10, 1884, Mr. M. B. Kimball established a newspaper in Yorktown called the Dickey County Press. W. M. Teichman also erected a blacksmith shop in 1884. At first any settler brought the mail out from Ellendale, some one who was in town or the settlers took turns in bringing out the mail. Mr. Ira Barnes one of the first settlers brought mail out on foot from Ellendale. After LaMoure was established the stage line was changed to run through Yorktown between Ellendale and LaMoure. This was established as a mail route and the new town then had daily mail service both ways. W. A. Caldwell of Keystone established a loaning and land office upstairs in the post office building, offering loans of from $250.00 to $600.00 on good quarters of land. Hall & Holway also conducted a land and loan business.
The township of Yorktown was surveyed by the government surveyors in June of 1883, and was open for filing late that fall. At that time a settler was entitled to file on a homestead and tree claim at the same time, thus acquiring 320 acres of land. When the township was organized it consisted of the township in which Yorktown was located and also the township to the north afterward known as Wright township. The township was named Yorktown on account of its being settled by people mostly from York State.
Among the first settlers or squatters who filed in the township in 1883- 1884 are the following; E. C. White, Chas. Young, Ira A. Barnes, M. P. Flagg, Mrs. Bell Bucklin, C. W. Palmer, who later became Treasurer of Dickey County, W. H. Main, Miss Hewit, George Pierce, W. M. Uecker, Sr., H. P. Holway, Z. Crocker, George White, Sr., George White, Jr., Albert White, Miss Carrie Holms, Mrs. M. B. Priest, George Vanfleect, Sr., Elizabeth West, Frank Van Middleworth, A. P. Morey, George Kellet, C. A. Birdsell, A. J. Wells, J. A. Dawe, James Kerr, C. A. Roundy, A. C. McKorkell, David Craig, Guidean Merchant, Dr. M. F. Merchant, Robert Arndt, Morg Jennings, Wm. Gilbert, A. C. Hogaboom, Sidney Mead, B. M. Gamber, Frank Lick, Mrs. Spiller, E. A. Fell, Matt Kelley, H. H. Peck, James Curtis, Wm. Gregg, Dell Williams, Alex Smith, George Earl, Chas. Morrison, Joseph Harrison, E. A. Wippich, Chas. Johnson, George Morrison, Jacob Elners, Mrs. Larkin, Neil McLean, Lafayette Crowell, Luke Killmer, R. D. Cook, N. Morgan, Sol Hunter, John Hunter, W. H. Seward, Sam Kessler, George Lippincott, Carl Nelson, B. L. Nelson, Cox brothers, Julius Hoganson, John Anderson, E. C. Holms, Ole Enger, Ser Holms, M. Cox, Sr.,
201
A HISTORY OF DICKEY COUNTY, NORTH DAKOTA
Otto Lindell, Garret Fort, Mrs. Alida Lewis, Annie Hoganson, Gil Swanson, G. F. Morey, Dr. Mead, Rev. White, Wm. Sloan. W. J. Uecker bought a relinquishment of Martin Flagg for $400.00, which purchase included a team of horses, a wagon, a shanty, and a few dishes and chairs.
The first homes built upon their claims were mostly of cheap material some simply built of sod and plastered on the inside with clay; some were built of one thickness of boards and sodded up on the outside, and some were entirely of lumber. They were all warm and comfortable, however, in the wintertime. Nearly all the barns were built of sod walls with either boards or hay for a roof and they were comfortable in the coldest weather.
The fuel that was used for cooking and heating by our first settlers consisted of soft coal (which could be bought then for about $6.00 a ton), hay and cow chips. Some families burned nothing but hay all through the winter months. There was no grain of any kind raised here in the year of 1883, that the writer has knowledge of, therefore there was no threshing to be done that year. In 1884, Charles and Frank Leonard of Kent township ran the first threshing machine in Yorktown, that being the year the first crop was raised, and this crop turned out well. Farming was carried on at that time to a large extent with oxen. Many farmers having no horses at all were obliged to use oxen on the road as well as on the farms. Trips were often made to Ellendale and LaMoure with ox teams for supplies and delivery of their first crops, a distance of twenty miles or more, often the round trip being made in one day, or from four in the morning till twelve at night. Many of the early settlers on a Sunday put their families in the lumber wagon or on a stone-boat, hitched a yoke of oxen on and slowly wended their way to church: others not so lucky as to own even an ox-team went on foot. There were few buggies here at that time, but every one seemed to enjoy the means of travel.
The first Sunday School was organized in 1883 and held in Sutton & Stone's hardware store, with a good attendance. Later a suitable building was purchased for church purposes, which served as a church for many years.
Money was scarce with many of the early settlers in those days and work was also not very plentiful, and many of the new settlers were obliged to go north around Lisbon and Fargo to procure work for harvest and threshing to get their winter supplies. Wages at those places were from $1.50 to $1.75 per day, and what little could be earned at those wages for a short time in the harvest fields did not get any luxuries for their families during the long, cold winter that followed; as the winter of 1883-1884 was a winter of deep snows and many blizzards lasting from two to three days, many of the low sod houses being completely buried with snow. But none of the early settlers of Yorktown perished in any of those storms, although some had narrow escapes before finding some place of shelter.
The first residence to burn in the township was the claim shanty of
202
A HISTORY OF DICKEY COUNTY, NORTH DAKOTA
Otto Lindell, which took fire while he was out and burned up with all his belongings. The next to lose their home was the family of Mr. Cox whose house caught fire in the night and they too lost nearly all they had in the house.
The James River Mutual Hail Insurance Company of Plankington, Dakota wrote the first hail insurance in the county, but the people of the county felt they could maintain their own hail insurance company, organized a mutual company backed by many of the most substantial men in Dickey county, and they made it pay as witnessed by a letter sent with a refund check to Mr. Ira Barnes who was himself a member of the company, a York- town pioneer and still connected with the mutual insurance company for fire insurance in his county.
In April, 1883, the first religious service was held in Yorktown. The Rev. Bishop Haire of Sioux Falls was traveling from up in the north part of the territory, by stage, to Ellendale, and the Maple river was at flood and could not be crossed, as the ferry at the Hancock Crossing was not quite completed, so the Bishop was obliged to stop over Sunday at Yorktown. Word was sent out that the good old man would hold services if we would furnish the congregation, and fifty-two people gathered the next morning at eleven o'clock in the unfinished hardware store of Stone Brothers. Of that number only three remain in the vicinity (1925), according to a list that was written out by George Lippincott that morning. The pews were constructed from scaffold planks and empty nail kegs, and the pulpit was the still crated office desk.
On another occasion, in the winter of 1884, the stage from LaMoure to Ellendale was blocked by a bad storm, and compelled to stay over at the Morey House in Yorktown. Among the passengers was the Hon. Eli Perkins a noted lecturer of that day. "We boys"-which is the generic term for all settlers, either old or young, male or female-got into the village to the number of thirty-five or forty and were entertained for one and one-half hours by a lecture of the best humor and anecdote, from one of the most popular speakers of that day, and, best of all, it was free, "which just about fitted our pocket-books."
Among the early settlers of Yorktown township was Colonel George Roff, father of Mrs. A. J. Wells, and a man of wide acquaintance in New York and Chicago. He was among such men as Horace Greeley, and the Putnams, father and sons also, Pierpont Morgan and Hon. William Mc- Kinley. Mr. Roff conceived the plan of starting a Settlers' Library and proposed that the homesteaders should furnish a building, organize a board to manage it, raise enough money to pay the necessary expenses, such as postage, cataloging and labeling, while he would ask for donations of books and magazines. A Mr. Crowell of New York City donated a building, and the community took hold of the enterprise as a unit, and the result was that within eight months 1200 volumes of choice books and magazines were on
203
A HISTORY OF DICKEY COUNTY, NORTH DAKOTA
the shelves. At the opening in June there were 400 people in attendance and Governor Burke came down from Bismarck and gave the address of dedication. There was a good dinner served at the church, where the tables were filled and reset three times. Mayor W. H. Ellis of Oakes, a popular lawyer of pioneer days, also spoke, as well as others of lesser note.
The first school officers in Yorktown township were elected in 1883 and were; Director Geo. Roff, Clerk M. P. Flagg, Treasurer E. H. Fell. They called their first school board meeting on August 3, 1883. One of the im- portant questions discussed was the location for the first school house to be built in Yorktown. The first school house was built in the fall of 1883 on the southwest quarter of Section 10. The size of the building was 12 by 14 with 7 foot posts. The furniture consisted of seats and desks made by the carpenter. The text books used in the school were books that the pupils happened to have on hand that were brought here from the East. There were fourteen scholars enrolled. Those who helped to erect the building were E. H. Fell, H. H. Peck and James Curtis. Professor C. O. Roundy, a homesteader from New York was hired to teach the first term of school at a salary of $20.00 per month. Among those who attended the first term of school who still reside in the county are C. H. Curtis of Yorktown, Matt Kelley of Porter township, and Mrs. George Whitfield (Isabell Fell) of Glover.
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.