USA > North Dakota > Dickey County > History Of Dickey County, ND, 1930 > Part 25
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"Some kind organization contributed a library to the Sunday School. I, being the fortunate librarian marched proudly home with the library in a market basket, whose contents I dutifully censored by reading through before the next Sunday.
"While memories of those far off days crowd upon me, many of them are of too personal a nature to be of general interest, and one must stop some- where."
Land could be secured by any one who would take possession of an unoccupied quarter section and he might get three quarters. A quarter section of land could be filed on as a homestead, treeclaim or preemption. Quite a few who filed on land as homesteads or tree claims changed and obtained the land on preemption terms. Some of the people who took up tree claims tried very hard to raise trees but were unsuccessful. Ogden Lovell planted tree seeds and slips three different times. For preemption, a person had to live on the land six months then pay $1.25 an acre and prove up, but could live there thirty-three months instead of six if they wished. For homestead the settler could live on it five years (or seven if wished) and then prove up. For tree claim it took thirteen years. The first year they had to plow five acres of land, second year plow five acres more and plant five acres of trees, third year plow five acres more and plant five acres of trees, plant 2500 trees in all.
The claim shanties were mostly wooden buildings, but some were sod and wood. There were many tarpaper shacks. While the fires were going they were very cozy. The house was banked up to the windows with dirt. Once when the Randalls went to Ellendale they covered the shanty floor with quilts but stuff froze in the cellar, there being no fire in the stoves. An organ and Mrs. Eaton's piano were the only musical instruments around for awhile.
When Mr. and Mrs. Randall's claim shack was built there was not a shack in sight on the east side of the Jim river. The next morning there were four new shacks in sight and every morning there would be one or more new ones in view. Mr. and Mrs. Randall's shack was sixteen by twenty, had pitched roof, sides one thickness of boards. They could see out doors.
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In the fall they put brown building paper on the inside and tar paper on the outside which made it very comfortable and cozy. The cellar was so warm that potatoes sprouted. When they papered the shack they built on a bed room and coal shed which was also a storm shed. The furniture was a cook stove, hard coal heater, bedstead, organ, table, six chairs, one rocker, commode, two boxes nailed up on the wall for cupboards. About a mile east of new Ludden there was a shack built all of sod and the stove also was of earth. The man who built it was a Russian.
Frank E. Randall and family came to Dakota Territory from Orton- ville, Minnesota, in the spring of 1883, built a small shack and ran the first grocery store in Port Emma. Different people suggested to Mr. Randall that he start a town on his own land as most of his trade came from east of the river and it would save so many the task of crossing the river when going to trade. On July second, 1883, Mr. Randall and T. T. Crandall had T. F. Schofield survey a town site on Mr. Randall's land on the quarter corner of section 1 and 12 and township 129 north of range 60 west. This was what is now called Old Ludden and it was located just south of the fish hook bend of the James river and north of the Ludden Cemetery, The name for the new town given at this time has been retained for the newer town on the railroad.
In 1875 Mr. Randall lived in J. D. Ludden's home in St. Paul and attended the International Business College. He thought so much of Mr. and Mrs. Ludden and appreciated what they had done for him, that he nam- ed the new town after Mr. Ludden. In 1886 when the Chicago and North Western railroad built into Dickey County the town was moved to the rail- road. Mr. and Mrs. Ogden Lovell were friends of one of the railroad officials and Mrs. Lovell asked that the new town also be called Ludden. He gave his consent.
The buildings moved from old Ludden to new Ludden were F. E. Fandall's store, two-story; Curtis hotel, one story; Ogden Lovell's lumber office, one story; Harvey's dry goods store, one and one-half story; W. B. Allen's law office, one story, and Tom Jones' blacksmith shop. Before Old Lud- Pile of buffalo bones in front of Egbert Lorell's home one mile south of Ludden den was moved and while the C. & Mr. and Mrs. Lovell were among the early settlers. As long as Egbert and Ogden Lovell lived on their farms each had a pile of buffalo bones in front of his house. N. W. railroad was building into the county, Frank Shaw hauled lumber from Ellendale with an ox team, built a one and one-half story meat market in New Ludden, the only building there for some time, and furnished meat for the construction crew. When his shop was finished he killed the
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oxen and sold the meat.
Ogden Lovell was Postmaster in Old Ludden but Mrs. Randall did the work as the office was in Randall's store. Tom Smith was the first post- master in New Ludden. Five postoffices which were established in the early days near Ludden were discontinued and mail addressed to them comes to Ludden. The offices were Ticeville, Eaton, Emma, Weston and Hillsdale.
On the west side of the James river they have to go deep to get water, which is not always good. Most of the wells on the east side of the river have good water. F. E. Randall's first well was fifteen feet, in clay, and the water not good. Across the road A. A. Randall's well was dug in sand and had good water. Gilbert Greenwood had a well at his barn and another at his house. Water in one was hard, in the other soft.
Bob Wilson's father, also Bob Wilson, settled near Columbia. His trade was boat-making and he built the boat Nettie Baldwin at Jamestown. In the spring the boat was brought down the river to Columbia. When the boat reached Columbia they thought it was too small for the freight they would have to carry so cut it in two and built in twenty feet. When they made the next trip up the river they found it was too long for such a crooked river. Mr. Wilson thinks the length of the boat when built was sixty feet. The Nettie Baldwin came up the river Thursday April 17th, 1884, and navi- gation was opened for the season. The steamer left Columbia at nine A. M. and arrived at Port Emma at three P. M. The freight rates were: lumber $3.00 per M; coal $3.00 per ton; mdse. 15c to 25c per 100 pounds; passen- gers $1.50, round trip $2.50.
In 1886 the Chicago & North Western Railway came up the east side of the James, and the people of Ludden moved over to the railroad and the new town was located and still remains as the town of Ludden.
The "Manitoba" railroad came through from the east soon after this but it missed the town of Ludden by a mile and a half. A community meeting was held to adopt means of getting the new railroad to come into town. The following are the resolutions drawn up at a mass meeting of the citizens of Ludden and sent to the officials of the Manitoba railroad head- quarters in St. Paul, Minn., November 19, 1887: "Resolved that the citizens of Ludden, Dakota, who being desirous of having a track from the main line of the Minneapolis and Manitoba railroad run into the town; and the re- moval of the Riverdale (now, Newton) depot to this point, do hereby agree to give five hundred dollars in work on the grade, and at least an equal portion of our freight, rates being equal to that of other roads which are or may be built to this point, provided that said railway company shall estab- lish a depot on the east side of the C. & N. W. depot at Ludden, and run all regular trains over said line into town of Ludden."
The township for civil government was organized with the township to the west as Eaton Township, but later when the two were each given organ- ization in its own territory the school district was named Eaton and the
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township, Lovell, in memory of some of the early pioneers and families who took a very active part in its early history.
The town of Ludden is still the center of trade and the shipping point of a large territory. Eaton School District ranks high in education, and many of the descendents of the early settlers are still found in the township; in fact, many of the early settlers themselves are in the township (1928). The new Highways, Nos. 1 and 11 come together a mile west of the town and pass through Ludden over a splendidly surfaced roadway.
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CHAPTER XXXIII
THE TOWNSHIP OF RIVERDALE, 130-59
[The authorities for this chapter are Hans Lowe, Wm. H. Leffingwell, A. J. Anderson, other residents of the township and the stories of the pioneers of this and Hudson townships.]
R IVERDALE township was crossed north and south by the trail of the old stage route from Columbia to Jamestown. At the time the stage was in operation there was no stopping place in the township, in fact it did not contain people to make use of the stage. It was so located with reference to other towns that it has had no town or village of size or prominence within its borders. Port Emma and Ludden were to the southwest, Hudson and Guelph were to the west and the city of Oakes grew up to the north. The story of its early settlement blends with those of other places, but a few of its pioneers went through experiences common to their neighbors, and ex- hibited characteristics worthy of record.
Wm. H. Leffingwell came out to the Red River Valley in the spring of 1882. He came from Kalamazoo County, Michigan, and was looking for a homestead. He landed at Amenia and worked on the farm of the Smith Brothers driving mules. After most of the fall work was done, in late October, he went to Jamestown and from there to Grand Rapids and Ellen- dale by the stage line. He paid a dollar to sleep on a pool table at Grand Rapids and earned first claim to passage to Ellendale by helping the driver unhitch the night before. There was too large a crowd to be all transported the next day but Mr. Leffingwell sat with the driver on the trip through the rain, catching much of the drip from the driver's oil-skin coat.
In Ellendale he and his partner secured the services of a man named Jones and looked for land, first around Keystone and out towards the hills. An acquaintance in Michigan who had been out here in the Indian fights told him there was good land along the James, so the next year Mr. Leffingwell went over there and located his claim. He had worked at the carpenter trade in Ellendale, and it was in July that he and some others hired a driver with a big pair of mules and hunted up places to locate. They did not stay on the land then but later as they found time they put up shanties. Mr. Leffingwell was able to hold his claim, the Northwest of 31, 130-59, and still lives on the original homestead. Besides getting his shanty up and digging a well he did not do much with the claim the first year, although he hired a few acres of breaking done.
Mr. Leffingwell was a blacksmith and after getting located on his claim
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he rented a little building of Mr. Bush at Port Emma and opened a shop. As the season was too dry for farming he did not have much work at the shop, so he closed it and went to Casselton to work in the harvest fields. He tells of finding a trail that went to Lisbon, passing a bone pile southeast of where Oakes is located, a bone pile which had been described to him by the old soldier in Michigan. On his return from Casselton he did black- smithing when there was work to be done. He says that the pastime of the fellows that winter was playing cards and chasing wolves on the prairie. Mr. Leffingwell kept a feed store in Port Emma for a year or two and later bought a blacksmith shop in Ludden from a Mr. Perkins and ran it for some seven years. He lived on his claim but had a building in Ludden where he could stay through the winter. He took quite a prominent part in the events of the early days and had some good neighbors.
Hans Lowe came up to Milbank in 1881 and on to Ellendale in 1882. Snow was so deep that winter that no trains were running and no com- munication with the outside world was had for three months. He had a little carpenter shop in Ellendale and did what work he could when the weather permitted. In the early spring of 1883 he was hired to take a load of lumber from Ellendale to Bear Creek for Mons Nelson. He got out to the neighborhood of Hudson but could not go further north on account of there being so many ravines, so he carried the lumber across the James on the ice a mile or two south of where Hudson was located and sent word to Mr. Nelson that it was there. On this trip he saw the land on which he afterward located and thinks but for his trip with the lumber he would not have found the place. He made several trips with lumber for people who had no teams and on his return trip he would pick up bones to sell in Ellen- dale. He went to Fargo and tried to file on his land, but found it was not yet on the market.
Later that spring he went out and put up a shanty and located, taking squatter's rights. The township lines were surveyed but not the interior lines. He did a little breaking that season and then went up to the main line of the Northern Pacific and worked thru harvest near Casselton and Wheat- land. When he went away the surveyors were already at work and when he returned he found he had located all right according to the survey. He had planted some turnips and they did well, so he had something to sell in Ellen- dale. He had to wait until the next winter before the land came onto the market and he could file on his homestead.
He spent the winter twisting hay for his stove and in repairing furniture and machinery for his neighbors and in building things for himself so he was busy all the time. He lived in a frame shanty 12 by 16, sodded up on the outside. Hans Jenson, who had a claim near Ellendale, spent the winter with him. Mr. Lowe had some stock at the time and his partner had a yoke of oxen to winter and had a little stack of hay for feed. After every heavy snow he had to raise the stack up onto the new level, and he had to do this four times.
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In the winter time they went quite often to Hudson when they could cross on the ice, and in summer they crossed on a ferry. He had ten or twelve dollars for his winter's supply so had to be economical. They had pancakes and salt pork most of the time. Some of their neighbors got fish out of the springs on Bear Creek but Mr. Lowe did not have any. The next spring they did a little more breaking and also had to arrange for seed for all their farming, so had to make a journey of thirty-five miles to Columbia to get this seed grain.
Mr. Lowe hauled lumber from Ellendale for a man who was to build on 'the site that afterwards was the city of Oakes. He has had the experience of stacking wheat on the townsite of Oakes near the depot. On the trip with the lumber for Mons Nelson the Maple river broke up so he could not cross to get back to Ellendale and had to stay on the east side. He says he used the week or ten days of the waiting time to help in building a country blacksmith shop. He lived on his land nearly thirty years, when he moved into Oakes, leaving his farm in the care of a renter.
A. J. Anderson while still living in Sweden had a letter from a friend in this country, probably H. M. Bergendahl who was in business in Ellendale, urging him to come over to the new country and take land. In October, 1884, he made a slow trip across the ocean and then to Ellendale where he secured a job working around town for a while. In 1885 he went over be- yond the James river and selected a location. He did not go onto it when his family came that fall but rented the farm of Hans Lowe, "while Hans was gone back to Denmarck to get a wife." The Anderson boys had been helping Mr. Lowe set out trees on his claim. There was a row-boat kept on the east side of the river to be used in crossing to go to Hudson, which was a mile or so above and on the west side. The boys were small and it was all they could do to get to the other side of the river when going on errands. The Anderson boys did not go to school as the school was in Hudson and it was too far for them. In the fall of 1886 the family moved over to a preemp- tion in the west part of the county.
One of the sad cases incident to pioneer life occured near the James river in this township. Mr. T. W. Millham had located his claim on the east side of the James and the family was holding the claim and making the home there while Mr. Millham in the day time was serving as postmaster and merchant in Hudson. The family was stricken by diphtheria soon after locating their home. All were in one room, some dying and some so sick they would have been glad to die. There was no quarantine, so at first the neighbors used to go up and help care for them. But when the disease proved so fatal the neighbors were afraid of spreading it. Dr. Mathews, a physician who had located on the east side, attended the children and fought valiantly for their lives. M. N. Chamberlain and John Kunrath took the risk of taking the disease, took over the personal care of the children, gave them the medicine and waited upon them. Dr. Matthews gave them
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preventatives so they might not take the disease but afterward they found they had it in spite of these preventatives. The children died at intervals, the oldest one, a girl, first, then the others at intervals of a few days until seven had died. The baby was constantly exposed but did not take the diphtheria and grew up and lives in California (Mrs. Erwin). The funeral of all seven was held at one time on a cold, stormy Sunday morning and the burial was there on the farm. Later the children were removed to the new cemetery at Oakes. By some of the people the cause of the diphtheria was placed in the new plastering on the home, but none of the other families be- sides the two men who served as nurses were afflicted with the dread disease.
A settlement out on section twenty-five was known as Hillsdale, and had a postoffice for a time. This place is mentioned in the accounts of parties going to the sandhills on picnics and for strawberries. Early in the settlement of the township the name of Coraton was suggested for a place on section 20 but never officially adopted. Later when the Great Northern railroad built through the township a station stop was located north of Ludden and was called Hillsdale, Riverdale, and finally Newton. The place that had been called Hillsdale on Section 25 was renamed Cresent Hill and for some years has consisted of a flag stop and cattle chute only. The North Western never had a station stop in the township until in 1915, when the Great Northern located its box-car depot at the crossing of the two rail- roads a few rods west of the site of old Newton and a union flag stop has been maintained there since that time.
When the township was organized it was the eastern part of Hudson township, but after a few years of this large organization the township was divided on the James river and has since then had its separate government.
The township had maintained three schools for its children, but with so few in at least two of these schools the progressive citizens planned con- solidation, and in 1918 built a new brick school building on the south side of Section 16 and transport the pupils to the new consolidated school. This building was dedicated with due ceremonies in January 1919, and was constructed to be used as a community center as well as for school. The township maintains a good active community club which holds regular meet- ings and programs in the large assembly room and gymnasium. The school house is constructed so that the teachers can have a home in the building and do their part in the community life. This township has never had any trouble in getting good water and an excellent well is located in the school house.
In the system of new highways the state roads, No. 1 which runs across the state in a north and south direction and No. 11 which connects some of the county seat towns and others along the south side of the state by an east and west route run over the same route across the township to Oakes. With no postoffice maintained in the township the mail is brought out on rural delivery from Oakes with some of the people getting their mail from Ludden.
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CHAPTER XXXIV
HAMBURG TOWNSHIP, 131-64
[The material for this chapter was gathered by Major Dana Wright, supple- mented by facts gleaned from interviews with several of the older settlers, especially J. R. Wilson and his father, Mr. and Mrs. D. C. Peek, Mrs. Eliza Herbert, W. E. Kellogg and others.]
T OWNSHIP 131, Range 64 lies in the level prairie country in the north central part of Dickey County. It is level and very fertile and admir- ably adapted to farming, as there is no waste land whatever, and it has good drainage. The Soo railroad crosses the northern end of the township, giving easy access to the eastern markets. That the township has good water is attested by the fact that the railroad has a tank used by all its locomotives at a well on Section 4.
The first settlers were people of high vision, and so the educational and religious life of the locality has always been of the best. It is now well settled by a first-class body of farmers, many of them being the children of the early settlers, to which have been added enough new settlers so that the town is one of the best tilled in the county.
The Kellogg boys,-W. E., Elmer and Frank, were raised near Clyde, New York, and in 1883 they came to Dakota territory looking for land. They found it to their liking in 131-64, and W. E. filed on the northeast quarter of Section 15 in that town, which he still owns and which is now farmed by his son Paul. He has added to it from time to time until it is a large farm, and under the expert management of the young man, it is one of the best paying farms in the county. They raise stock, especially hogs and sheep, although other stock and grain are extensively raised.
Mr. Kellogg batched for the first years, and with all the farm work and his housekeeping found a busy life. One of his neighbors tells of his being so busy that he could not get his shanty up for a long time, and his trunk in which he kept his personal effects sat out on the prairie all summer while the owner was using a tent for his dwelling. He found time later to pro- vide a comfortable house and soon afterward a housekeeper, as in 1890 he married a neighbor girl, Cora E. Lane, and five children have come to the family of the young New Yorker. Mr. Kellogg erected the first cheese factory in the county, and for several years supplied all the cheese for the local trade. Elmer died, Frank went back to New York state and now lives on the old Kellogg homestead near Clyde, and Will E. has been County Treasurer two times of two terms each.
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Mr. H. C. Peek came to Dickey County in March, 1886. He and his brother brought a car of emigrant goods and stock out from Michigan and unloaded at LaMoure. Mr. Peek had to buy relinquishments, as the land was all filed upon, but he secured choice locations on the northwest of Section 17, and the northeast of Section 18, filing a tree claim and a home- stead. Like most of the new settlers, he went up into the older part of the state and worked in the harvest field and at threshing, after which he went back to Michigan and was married to Miss Lulu White, a young woman from the Buckeye state. That was the best move he ever made, as they settled down and built up a fine home, becoming leaders in che community life of the town and county. Later, Mr. Peek was elected County Treasurer,
The Early Home of W. E. Kellogg on Northeast Quarter of Section Fifteen in Hamburg School District
Mr. Kellogg states that he built this home himself in 1884 with only a hammer and saw as his tools. The straw-covered building between the house and granary is the barn. Mr. Kellogg is also visible standing near the well with his team of oxen.
holding that responsible office for four years. A son, Charles Peek, is now occupying and farming the homestead, and is one of the successful young men of the county. Mrs. Charles Peek was Olive Sullivan, the daughter of one of the pioneers of a neighboring township.
J. C. Wilson came out in 1882 with the Pennsylvania colony that sectled in Keystone, but afterward took a homestead on the southwest quarter of Section 7, 131-64. He relates that on Decoration Day in 1884 there was a celebration at the Whitestone Battlefield, and it was so cold and windy that they came back east to the foothills for their dinners. He also relates that there was a large amount of "junk" on the battlefield such as old wagon irons and pieces that later Joe Drew and his brother gathered
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