USA > North Dakota > Dickey County > History Of Dickey County, ND, 1930 > Part 27
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Walter Webb added to his homestead and pre-emption holdings by purchase and built up a large farm. His son, George T. Webb, was a small boy when the family came to this county, and he used to picket the oxen on the prairie in the old days of breaking; his people had no horses until later times. George Webb secured his education at the University of Minne- sota, graduating from the law school of that University. He practiced law in Ellendale and served as State's Attorney of Dickey County; later he took over the management of the large farm, making it a real plantation for the growing of grain and the raising and feeding of live-stock. The father and he took active part in the business life of the town, having an interest in the brick elevator, in merchantile enterprises, and in the bank. Walter Webb built a beautiful California bungelow in Ellendale and made his home there until his death in 1925. George Webb served on several important commissions in North Dakota, and was employed to market the State Bonds in 1922. From his acquaintance in the East he was employ- ed by the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineer's Bank in Cleveland, Ohio, soon rose to be its Vice-President, and has proved himself adept in the busi- and soon rose to be its Vice-President, has proved himself adept in the busi- ness life of that city and in New York. The former holdings of the Merri- court farm have been disposed of with the exception of the old family home in Merricourt, and Mr. George Webb still has a controlling interest in the Bank there.
Considerable activity was revived around the town at the time the Soo Railroad was ballasting its roadbed. A gravel pit of generous size at the base of the hills west of the town was opened and a track built into it. Securing this pit cost the railroad expensive condemnation proceedings and considerable delay, and its operation transformed a part of the old Sweeney farm into a considerable hole in the ground.
Merricourt, like most western towns, had very insufficient protection from fire and has suffered much from these burnings, the last one being on the night of September 19th, 1927. This fire left the town short of store buildings for several months, when the store at Winship, South Dakota, was purchased, mounted on trucks and taken to Merricourt, a distance of over thirty miles. The town now has a very attractive little hotel, a good bank building and several good places of business.
Mr. J. O. Glenn was one of the prominent business men of Merricourt for many years, keeping a large general store on the east side of the main street. His store was lost in a fire, and for some years he and his family have been residents of Ellendale. Lee Northrop was identified with the town for many years, serving as cashier of the bank, a position also held for some time by Mr. H. C. Peek, whose homestead was in Hamburg township about four miles out of Merricourt. Lee Sullivan and his brother Warren
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A HISTORY OF DICKEY COUNTY, NORTH DAKOTA
lived on the old Maly place, where the Manns kept the first postoffice, until Warren was married, when he built up a good place further east, which is now occupied by Frank Hollan (1929). Mr. Hollan is one of the substantial farmers. Mrs. George Chambers, who lives on the county line, is one of the Mann girls, and holds the distinction of being one of the few pioneers who still reside in the township.
In 1926 a state highway was graded into Merricourt from the south and was extended to the county line in 1927, where it connects with a road to Edgeley on the north and with a good highway east and west in LaMoure County.
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A HISTORY OF DICKEY COUNTY, NORTH DAKOTA
CHAPTER XXXVII
THE TOWNSHIP OF NORTHWEST, 132-66
[The story of this township is gathered from the stories of Joe Hollan and August Hartman two of its earliest pioneers, men who have with their families seen ihe township from its very beginning to its present history, and from the records of early history in this region.]
T TOWNSHIP 132-66 is located on the tableland of the Missouri Coteaus and was settled and organized later than many of its neighboring town- ships. In the Atlas of Dakota of 1886 it not only did not have a name but it was marked as unsurveyed. Since its excellent soil and fine grazing lands have become known it has received its just share of attention.
Joe Hollan had known the two Stephensons who had come up to Dakota from Kansas and homesteaded north of old Keystone. These men knew that Joe was intending to look over the new country and they invited him to come up and join them. He had visited at the Stephensons about a month at their place on the flat when he borrowed a team of them and drove up into the hills looking for land. This was about the 1st of July and the country looked beautiful. There was not a neighbor in sight and it was a rancher's paradise. He went to old Keystone and made a filing on his land before W. A. Caldwell, a notary. Shortly after this he put up a claim shanty of the customary size, 8 by 10 feet, and set up a stove and hung up some clothes, even going so far as to get some petticoats to make people think he had a wife to occupy the legal home. He went back to Sephenson's and hired out to them, staying until it froze up, when he went back to Kansas and gathered up some stock and supplies and shipped an emigrant car to Ellendale.
Mrs. Hollan stayed a few days longer in Kansas, then followed him to Ellendale, a bride of two weeks. Will Stephenson had a wagon and with the Hollans moved their outfit out to Stephenson's where they stayed until the grass came up when the Hollans went to their claim and put up a little barn. They had over thirty visitors that summer and had to use nail kegs and store boxes for furniture when company came. If they stayed over night, as they frequently did, the women stayed in the 8 by 10 house and the men bunked on the hay in the barn.
They had a pre-emption and a tree claim, and planned on living on the pre-emption for five years and then converting it into a homestead for another five years to stave off paying taxes as long as possible. Water was a problem, and Mr. Hollan dug seven wells before he finally found good water, at a depth of only fourteen feet. They used to haul water from a lake
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a mile and a half away until they got the real well. There was also a surface well that supplied a little water. He broke five acres the first summer and five the next for trees. When he got the land subdued he sent to Kansas for boxelder seed and planted it and had some really fine trees.
For about five years Mr. Hollan ran a herd for the neighbors and made pretty good money. He charged five dollars a head for cows and two dollars for steers and the farmers brought and came after their own stock. The cattle did very well as there was limitless range and abundance of lake and spring water. He corraled his stock nights, and his herd never ran over a hundred and fifty head. When Mr. Hartman came and was prepared to run a herd Mr. Hollan turned the business over to him. During these first years, Hollan was building up his own herd in quantity and quality. There was any amount of prairie hay to put up but no labor-saving machinery such as the farmers have at present. They cut the grass, raked it into bunches and then hauled it on wagons and made stacks. About the first attempt at stacking with horses was to have a long bucking pole with a team hitched at each end to drag a quantity of hay up to the stack and slide it up on top on an inclined plane. It was not many years until the sweep rake and the stacker came into use. It was about ten years from the time that Mr. Hollan came into the country before the country was ruined for ranching. In those first years on the homestead he had no neighbor on the west clear to the Missouri river, so far as he knew, no one on the north so far as he traveled, and no one on the south till he got to the Jones place four miles away.
In those early years it was necessary for Mrs. Hollan to be entirely alone on the homestead for a week or more, caring for the herd while he was away with the team down in the valley threshing or helping some of the neighbors down there. There were months on end when she did not see a woman. She had some hard experiences. When the children were small it was not possible to take them all along to go any where so she was compelled to stay at home for months. If she got to Ellendale once a year she was lucky. They went down there once to have the family picture taken, starting at 3 A. M. and it was morning before they got back home. Sometimes when she had to herd the cattle she would get lost with the herd and start driving them away from home instead of toward the corral. On one such occasion Mr. Hollan got home and hearing the cow bell far out on the prairie went out and found her on the pony doing her best to make them go in the direction she wanted them to go, but the cattle did not want to go away from home. One thing Mrs. Hollan did and of which she is justly proud was to help dig the well. She pulled up the dirt as Mr. Hollan dug it loose and put it in the bucket, and she lowered the stone for him to wall it up. There were twenty-three loads of these "nigger-heads" to be lowered into the well. The most they had when they came into the country was ambition.
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The Hollans were so busy finishing a sod barn that first fall that they did not have time to cook. There were three days when they lived on rutabagas and milk. He made a trip to Ellendale and return, 70 miles, for supplies, to find when he got home that they had stored and forgotten a two bushel sack of corn meal which they had brought from Kansas. When they were snowed in some of the winters they would be out of groceries by March, but the meat and potatoes and garden stuff helped out. Their gardens were not always a success; it seemed too dry on the sod for things to grow well, although potatoes planted in the sod brought a good crop, and beans were sometimes successful, though other things languished. They had to go to Merricourt for their mail, and they could get coffee, sugar and tobacco there but no groceries.
It was through Hollan and his marriage to Hartman's sister that August Hartman came up from Kansas about 1892 to the new country. There was the mother, Mrs. Hartman, and the smaller Hartman children. They landed in Edgeley and Joe Hollan met them there and took them out to his place in the hills. Joe Hartman came with the car of emigrant goods and they unloaded at Edgeley and hauled their goods out. A man by the name of Blanford had located in the northwest part of the county by 1888, and a man named Jones was located south of Hartman's. Jones had forty or fifty head of cattle on his place and Blanford was also a rancher. They pulled out as soon as the settlers came in. Jones said he did not want any neighbors but would rather be a hundred miles from civilization. Adams' brother worked winters for Jones, who was living in a stone house whose walls were so cold that it was difficult to keep warm.
The Hartmans stayed with Joe Hollan that first summer helping him and getting acquainted with the country and the ways. The mother got a claim and they lived on it two years, but as they could not get any water on it they proved it up as a pre-emption and located another claim where they have since lived. The Hartman's used to run a herd during the summer months from the farms down on the flats. August ran a herd for several years getting $1.10 a head for the season, and he had to call for the cattle and deliver them at that price. They lost several head of cattle by rustlers and that season Wirch lost several head. Joe Hollan lost $800.00 worth of good beef cattle that summer. Reams of Monango followed one bunch of fifty head of cattle to Jamestown and recovered them. The Soo Railroad was building through to Kulm that summer and Mr. Hartman thinks some of the meat may have gone to the grading camps along the railroad. A firm in Kulm was furnishing meat for the contractors, but some of that was paid for and there was a good market for beef cattle.
John Mouldenhour was the first Russian to locate in the northwest part of the county. He went to Ellendale and got his location from some one there and then came back and located about two miles north of Hollan's. Samuel Schnikner was the second to locate. He was a fine type of man and
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well liked and respected by the people generally. These families had landed somewhere in South Dakota and stayed over winter with relatives before they came to Dickey County.
They had school as soon as they had pupils for the required number. The first school was held in the Hollan house. This was in 1899, when they had a three months term in the house, with three Hollan children and three of Joe Hartman's. There were no churches but services were held in the homes at times when preachers came around. These were also held in school houses for several years. They used the Hollan house for several years and then bought an abandoned claim shack and used it for some time before a regular school house was built.
The township was a part of the large town of Merricourt for many years. This large township was divided for school purposes by cutting off the congressional townships to make a district of each. The township of Potsdam on the east was separated for governmental purposes and Merri- court consisted of the two townships in ranges 65 and 66. The school district was named Hollan from the first settler and first family to send children to school and some time later the civil township was created with its own territory and was named Northwest.
The people who tamed its prairie have lived to see a thriving town grow up just over the county line to the north, where the mail comes and where the community interests center. Good roads have been built and a highway runs through the township two miles from the west line, and while this township is farthest from the county seat and its trading point is in another county the people of Northwest are Dickey County citizens in the fullest sense of the word. The two pioneer families are still found in the com- munity and have fine country places fully justifying the faith they had in the county when they saw it in its untamed days.
Among the many fine homes in Northwest Township we have room to mention only a few. John A. Flegel, Christ Gummack, Gotfried and Albert Heck, F. W. Hildebrand, and J. J. Muller, have established themselves in such a substantial manner that we may be sure their descendents will be found living there in future generations.
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CHAPTER XXXVIII
THE TOWNSHIP OF POTSDAM, 132-64
[The story of Potsdam is based upon interviews with people who knew the township in the early days, and condiserable information has been obtained from the Illustrated Annual and County Directory for 1886, published by the Ellendale Commercial.]
POTSDAM TOWNSHIP is located in the extreme northern part of the county and is surrounded by townships with which its early history is closely connected. Land seekers from Ellendale and Keystone looked over its land offerings and after filing they looked to these other towns for trading headquarters. The township was unnamed in the official atlas of the county in 1886, although the survey had been completed some time before this.
The directory of its land owners in 1886 gives the following names: George Bradford Addison Freeman Patrick O'Connover
Frank Bradford
J. C. Gamble
Albert Peterson
Joseph Bradford
D. L. Kelly
J. J. Schmidt
H. B. Chilson
Matt Kelly
Nicholas Schmidt
Daniel Chilson
B. W. Knox
J. Thornburg
W. M. Cook
Viola Knox
Frank Stephenson
E. Curtts
D. Kuvus
A. R. Stevenson
Wm. B. Dean
J. W. Jork
Wm. Webb
J. M. Devain
J. E. McKee
R. W. Webb
Robert Dean
John D. Noval
M. Young
L. M. Freeman Frank Noyes John Freeman
J. G. Hyde also had a claim in this township. He was with M. M. Cook on the expedition to pick up bones when the site of the Whitestone battlefield was discovered. He tells of finding several relics of the battle and especially of a pair of military boots in a fair state of preservation after the number of years that had elapsed. In the early days Mr. Hyde left the township and has since resided in the city of Lisbon.
The Michigan colony that came out to the Merricourt country was just at the corner of this township on the southwest. The interests of these people in that corner of the township were the same as those of the township west. For trading purposes and social affairs and in politics they all looked to Merricourt as their town. For a number of years the organization for governmental purposes was a township extending eighteen miles east and west, known as Merricourt Township. The range line meant no more division than any other section line.
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A HISTORY OF DICKEY COUNTY, NORTH DAKOTA
Mr. Richard Webb established his home on the southwest of Section 30 and built up a good sized farm. Later he removed his family to Ellendale where he gave his children Arthur and Irene a good education in the State Manual Training School. The home farm was operated for some years by the son, Arthur, an enterprising and well trained mechanic and business man who applied business principles to his farming. While not advertising any model farm he maintained an excellent example of what good judgment, trained ability, and hard work could accomplish in making a real home and a self-supporting business on the land. His wife was Florence Van Meter, who like her husband was trained in the technical knowledge of a Home Economics course at the State School. Mrs. Webb died in 1918 and a few years after that the farm was sold and the family of Richard Webb, including Arthur and Irene located in California. The farm came back on default of payment but has been managed by local parties. Arthur Webb has found his technical training very useful in the new location.
The Glenn family came into possession of Section 31 and Mr. C. M. Glenn built up a fine country place just at the extension of the road east from Merricourt. An artistic sign over the driveway to the house told the passing traveler that this place was Glendale. When advancing years made it difficult for Mr. Glenn to carry on the farm work, his son Charles and his wife, Elsie Bailey Glenn from Richland County, took charge of the home farm and for several years carried on the work of the father. The home was not only one of beauty from without but exemplified the beauty and worth of the typical American home of the better class. In the time of good prices at the close of the World War Glendale was sold and the Glenn family went west.
Many of the old established places in Potsdam were bought by new- comers of German stock. These people are hard workers and are getting out of debt. They maintain a community life in the township and have a Lutheran church near the center of the township. It is quite the practice for the young minister of this church to serve also as the public school teacher in the upper room of the two-room school which is located near the church.
The Milwaukee railroad built across the northeast part of the township in 1886 and established a siding which was named Potsdam, and an elevator has been built and maintained at this siding. At the time of the World War somebody seemed to object to the name of this siding and the railroad people changed the name from Potsdam to Potts. In 1891 the Soo Line built on to Merricourt and crossed Section 30 just at the side of Glendale farm.
As a mark of good progress in recent years two new school houses for the public schools have been built in Potsdam Township, these being the best type of the modern rural school house for one teacher.
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A HISTORY OF DICKEY COUNTY, NORTH DAKOTA
CHAPTER XXXIX
LORRAINE AND FORBES, 129-65
[The authorities for this account are the stories of George H. Ladd, G. F. Ladd, Mrs. G. F. Ladd, Katherine Hart Weber, Olaf Johnson, A. S. Marshall, James Hart and personal interviews with the pioneers.]
T HE territory of Lorraine Township lies mostly on the plains, with a rich black soil, but with its western side reaching up into the hills to include the eastern parts of the gulches made by the drainage from the coteaus. Weber Gulch is just within the state. A little north of that is Orm's Gulch, which originally was filled with a stand of timber of the trees native to the region. A little further north are Harts Gulch and McGlynn's or Johnson's Gulch which had the celebrated large elm tree. These gulches afforded playgrounds for the people and greatly relieved the monotony of the nearby plains. While Dead Horse Gulch was over the line into what is now South Dakota, in the early days there was no such boundary. This was named from a heap of horse bones which were found there by the pioneers when they came in the early eighties. The bones were in the bottom of the The Big Elm gulch and not very far from its head in the coteau. The bones were all grouped Photo by Robert Krause, Jr., July, 1919. In the picture are Mr. and Mrs. Robert Krause, Sr., Mr. and Mrs. Church and Miss Church, all of Fullerton. together as if the animals had been killed rather than having died of natur- al causes. A man knowing the Indian custom of killing their horses on the grave of a prominent member of the band, undertook to find the body of the dead Indian. A shallow excavation near the bones uncovered the body of an Indian wrapped in a beaded blanket the fabric of which had decayed, and only enough remained to identify it as a blanket. There was a large quantity of beads in the grave, also a razor and shears, some say a pailful of trinkets.
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The other Indian marking was a large burial place up on the high ground south of the Hart Gulch. The graves were all covered with stones, and the place of burial was 580 feet above the plain to the east. The old government road to Fort Yates passed over the southwest corner of this township, and along it in the early days of settlement bands of friendly Indians passed. Also the Red River carts with their squeaky axles helped to wear the grooves a little deeper into the sod.
In Hart's Gulch, on the southwest quarter of Section 19, there were the remains of an old fort, or of an old cellar hole which was old and grass grown in the days when the Harts came out to their ranch. It had evidently been there many years and no one knows who built it or used it. When it was first explored in 1883 it was a log pen about twenty feet square built of sound oak logs. There were no indications of there ever having been a roof, but that might have been of light poles or brush and may have blown away. There was an opening to the south where a door might have been. The logs were probably laid up from the level ground; then a trench was dug out on the inside about two feet wide and three feet deep and the earth placed on the outside of the wall. There was a layer of stone next the logs and the dirt piled up against it to a height of two or three feet. About on the level with the top of the earth banking was an opening between logs through which weapons could have been used. This building stood on a slight rise on the eastern slope of the coteau, and was about two hundred fifty feet north of the Hart Gulch and two hundred yards from the ravine to the north.
On the bank of the Hart Gulch, a little west of the straight line to the south of the old fort is a semi-circular trench measuring about fifteen feet from tip to tip and about five feet deep from the chord to the outer rim. This trench was made by digging the earth out from the inside and throwing it out to form a bank in front of a retaining wall of stones. These stones have tumbled down, the earth has fallen in and become grass grown. The trench overlooks the Hart Gulch and covers it for some distance and also protects the stream which runs down the ravine from the spring. The whole place may be the remains of an old trading post, or it may have marked the place where some white people had to make a stand against a band of Indians.
Orville Childs Hart was the first settler in this region. He was a man who liked to hunt and trap, and frontiers had no terror for him. Two of his sons had been out on this part of the hills for a hunt, and had been well pleased with the beautiful gully and springs and the timber in the moist places. The older people had come out in July and established their resi- dence in a tent. Mr. Hart was a good stock man and brought out some fine stock, a band of sheep and his poultry. He knew where he was going so brought all his belongings with him when he came. He lost fifty of his sheep in a prairie fire a little later. The oxen and horses wore out their feet on
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