USA > North Dakota > Dickey County > History Of Dickey County, ND, 1930 > Part 28
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this trip with the loads and it was winter before they recovered.
Late in the fall it was discovered by some of the younger members of the family who were living at Ordway that the old people were still living in a tent on the ranch, and that winter was coming on and they were not pre- pared for it. Mr. James Hart loaded up a load of lumber at Ordway and hauled it out to the ranch and helped build a house for them. Then thinking that some one should be out there to take care of them it was decided for the James Hart family to move out too. It had been originally planned that they should stay in Ordway so that the children could be in school, but this was changed and all went out to the ranch for the winter and all lived to- gether in one house. This house was 12 by 14 with a lean-to on the west side. Katherine Hart (Weber) helped put the siding on that part of the house. They had built two dug-out barns in the bank, covering them with branches of trees and hay, so that the people and the stock were comfortable. They had located way up the ravine at a fine spring and in the shelter of the timber. There was no lack of fuel and Mr. Hart drew out a big pile of timber onto the flats where he proposed to take a homestead.
It is an actual fact that they had the mail only twice that winter. It came by way of Ellendale and was brought out by their neighbor, Peder Johnson, who lived in the "Big Elm" gulch. The mail was brought out in a two bushel sack and it filled the sack full. Mr. Johnson brought it over on his shoulder from his place a mile or two away. They did not get their Christmas presents until March 6th. Relatives in Minnesota had sent them boxes and they were two months past due. They remember having a fine time that winter. There were musical instruments in the house and they were kept in use.
They did not get out to visit much as they had only two neighbors, the Charles Johnson family and the Webers. Nels B. Nelson, an old neighbor from Minnesota came out to visit them that winter. He walked out alone from Ordway and stayed two weeks. It was quite an incident to hear his rap at the door one night, as they were not expecting visitors. Mr. Nelson made a fine sled for the children and cleared off a long slide on one of the hills where the sled would run down and out onto the ice from the spring. It was a fine open winter, with only one or two days when the weather was severe enough to keep the children indoors.
The Weber family came up from Aberdeen in the summer of 1883 and located in the township to the south. This placed them in South Dakota on the division of the territory, but they have always been identified with the people of Lorraine. Charles Johnson located out at the foot of the hills in 1883, taking the northeast of Section 8, 129-65. He had been out the fall before and located the claim and went back for his family. He was from Dunn County, Wisconsin, and had been in Dickey County about two months on his first visit while here he put in his time looking over the country and building claim shacks for the settlers-Wilson, Dahl and some others. He
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used to tell about taking a load of lumber out from Ellendale with a wagon and yoke of oxen, driving to where there was vacant land, where he would put up a shack and then sell it to some land seeker. Johnson came at a time when he could find land nearer Ellendale, but he and his friends wanted to be together and they thought the land was of better quality out by the hills.
Olaf Johnson, the son, came out and joined his father's family in 1883. The father bought a piece of land near Ellendale and farmed there for many years. They all had to work hard for a living. They put in 300 acres of wheat one year and threshed 300 bushels of wheat. Threshing wages were $1.50 and they worked at that as long as they found opportunity. When the farm no longer paid the family went out and started a cattle ranch at the edge of the hills. Olaf Johnson married Louise Anderson, whom he met in Ellendale, and located near the mouth of the "Big Elm" gulch where he ranched for about eight years. He then bought the northeast of Section 15 and lived there the remainder of his life, dying in 1928.
The Lynde family located in the early days in the south part of the township, and George Lynde is still living there (1928.) Ralph Lynde, another of the boys, farmed on the old location until 1911 when he re- moved with his family to Ellendale. Roy Lynde took a thorough course in medicine at the University of Minnesota and has been a practicing physician in Ellendale for a number of years. He now has his younger brother Guy associated with him in the automobile business in Ellendale, where one of his competing garages is operated by his brother Ralph and Nephew Llewellyn. The sister is Mrs. Will Phillips of Elm Township.
Mr. George H. Keyes came up from Wisconsin with a party that was headed for Yorktown, but on reaching Ellendale Mr. Keyes decided that he prefered the country to the west and chose a location in Lorraine rather than going to the Yorktown territory. He built up a fine place and was a very active member of the community until he was elected to a county office, when he removed to Ellendale and has kept his home there since that time. He has been connected with the Baldwin Corporation for many years. His son, Norman is still (1928) living in the township near the old pioneer home. Among the other "old timers" may be named George Haggerty (later in Ellendale) Will Shoemaker, Ed Shoemaker, Ed. Mattick, Harry Weaver and Fred Countryman.
A family by the name of White located in the southwest part of the township and built up a large stock farm. This farm is now managed by Mr. Dewey Beaver, whose father was one of the pioneers of the Monango neighborhood. Among the other old timers was the family of James J. Hunt whose son Don is still in the township. Mr. Wickham and two or three McDonald brothers will also be remembered. One of the later comers was Mr. A. S. Marshall, who came in 1903. He was able to buy up a con- tested homestead and get a title in that way. He lived on the original home- stead for seven years, then bought a farm nearer the new town of Forbes.
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For the first four or five years he spent much of his time in building roads and teaching school. During the hard winter of 1906-07 he was teaching a school half a mile to the north of his home, and his place was drifted out of sight that time. As he was young and strong he did not mind the hardships. Like others of his neighborhood he had some financial straits but he thinks no more than others. He has represented his county in the State Legislature several times and is the only man to be elected senator the second time. He has a splendid stock farm, and has given his children an excellent education.
It was some time after settlement before the people had regular mail serv- ice. At first any neighbor who was in Ellendale would bring out the mail, then they got to leaving it at the home of some settler. The government estab-
Early Threshing Scene Near Riley Lake
lished a postoffice at a farm house, then the service was moved to another place and was discontinued for a time in 1897. Soon after this a regular office was established and Theodore Grey was postmaster at his house. The mail was brought by the mail stage from Ellendale to Ashley. When Forbes was started this postoffice of Lorraine was discontinued.
The agreement between James J. Hill and the Milwaukee Railroad, in which Hill was not to build a line west of the Milwaukee for twenty years, expired in 1905, and Mr. Hill remembered his early impressions of the country in the western part of the county and his personal scouting for his railroad. But by this time the Sco Line had built on to Bismarck and to Ashley and Pollock so there was not the incentive to build any long ex- tension. Appreciating the possibilities of the country in western Dickey and in McPherson County across the state line he built an extension to the west of Ellendale for fourteen miles stopping just north of the state line.
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At this place a town was established in the center of a rich farming region and near enough to the hill country to make it a good shipping point for live stock. It is eighteen miles by trail to Ellendale, twenty miles to Fred- erick, twenty-two miles to Leola and twenty miles to Merricourt.
A townsite was platted on the northwest forty of the southeast quarter of Section 35 of 129-65. Although the railroad ran west southwest the streets were surveyed by the compass rather than diagonally. In the original townsite there were 18 blocks, not all complete, and soon after this Ladd's addition was platted and added to include the remainder of the quarter section north of the railroad, and also Johnson's and Smith's Additions to include the territory south of the track to the state line. The streets running east and west were named First, Second, Third and Fourth Avenues. The center street running north and south was named Main Street and had lots twenty-five feet wide along it for two blocks, and Second Avenue for two blocks east and west of Main Street had lots twenty-five feet wide, in this way locating the business section on two streets. West of Main Street there were Ramsey, Lewis, Clark streets and east there were Sibley, Park, and Dakota.
G. F. Ladd had come to Hudson with his father in 1883, and when that town was moved he went to farming in Hudson Township, In 1897 he stop- ped farming and went into the railway mail service out of Minneapolis. In September, 1905, he went out to the new town at the end of the Great Northern extension. The Ladds decided to start a store in Forbes and were anxious to get the enterprise started as soon as possible. The track was not yet laid from Ellendale, so the lumber had to be hauled out with teams. By the time the store was completed the trains were beginning to run and their supplies were shipped in, in December of that year. However, R. E. Sager had completed his store building and was actually selling goods sooner than the Ladds. Mr. Sager was in business for several years and then went to farming a short distance out of Forbes. The Ladds were in the store business until 1914. Mr. Geo. Ladd was the first postmaster.
The winter of 1905-06 was bad on account of the snow. The Ladds tried to drive to Ellendale on the track one day but the snow was too deep. They broke the whippletrees of the sleigh and had to give up the trip. The first grain elevator was built the same winter the railroad was built, but on account of so much snow the trains were uncertain and the lumber for the elevator was brought out by team from Ellendale.
There have been two newspapers in Forbes but both have been moved to Ellendale. One of these was the Forbes Republican and was a sort of a community affair, as the money was raised among the business men and they hired a man to run it for them. This paper later bought out the Forbes Times, and then the Farmers Sentinel took over the business of both. The Sentinel was started by a stock company of the farmers and business men, and later was moved to Ellendale.
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Forbes was so close to the state line that the saloon people, when South Dakota permitted saloons, located just across the South Dakota line and did business. Some of the North Dakota people would patronize the saloons and sometimes trouble would brew. The town authorities had no control of business in another state, but on the whole the Forbes community was very orderly, and in a few years the saloons had to go out of business.
Fred McCartney came over from Oakes and started the first bank. The Farmers and Merchants Bank was organized and bought out Mc- Cartney. Later two banks were in business but the Farmers Bank consoli- dated with the Forbes State Bank and the one bank is now (1929) serving the community, although there are two very good brick bank buildings just at the center of the business section.
A Presbyterian church was built in the early days, also a Catholic church was built in the east part of town. In 1926 a group of Lutherans built a neat church building in the southwest part of town, and three church services were regularly held in 1928; the Presbyterian and the Lutheran churches being supplied by pasters from Ellendale.
A good substantial school building of brick was erected in 1910 and a five room school is conducted by a competent staff of teachers. For several years there was a feeling on the part of some of the residents of the school district that those who could not send their children to the Forbes School should not have to pay the extra taxes for its support, so in 1922 a petition was presented to the County Commissioners and the County Superintendent to divide the district. This petition was granted on July 8th, 1922 to take effect at once. The new district including the north half of the township was named Slope District and was numbered 34. The arbitration on div- ision of property was made in August of that year and since then there have been two school districts in the township.
Mr. Sager's store was burned, but a good brick block was built on the same site. A stock company was organized and the upper story was built by this company and is known as Forbes Society Hall. There are four fraternal orders who have lodge room in the building and their public hall is known as the Opera House. Many of the residents of Forbes and Lorraine are members of the Elm Community Club and for their social gatherings go to the Community House in Elm Township.
Mr. Ole Delager was one of the first business men of Forbes and after some years of partnership with Mr. Sager he now has a store of his own on Second Street. The Kingery family was also one of the first in town, and Mrs. Kingery is now (1928) the postmaster, having the office in the Drug Store. The Sager store is now in the hands of the Forbes Co-operative Company and the store is managed by John Martin, a young man who is making good in his chosen work. The Forbes Hardware Company is now owned and managed by Mr. and Mrs. S. O. Henderson. Handleman & Netzke have a large general store. Jack Barrett is another old resident, who
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is now janitor of the city schools having turned the poolhall over to a younger man. A harness shop, two garages, McGannon's restaurant, the Thompson Yards for lumber, two blacksmith shops, a good machine shop, three grain elevators, a barber shop and two cream stations show that the community of fifty families, and a prosperous region in the two counties in different states are well supplied by business houses. Mr. F. A. Mizen has been the agent at the Great Northern for a number of years and transacts a good sized business for the railroad in the shipping of grain and the many loads of fine cattle raised in the community.
A good county highway runs north to Merricourt and Edgeley and con- nects with a highway to Leola and other towns in South Dakota. A great territory is served by rural delivery routes out of Forbes Postoffice.
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CHAPTER XL ALBERTHA TOWNSHIP, 129-66
[For this chapter the society is indebted to T. R. Shimmin who is one of its earliest pioneers, and who from his own memory and that of his old neighbors has given the facts of the story.]
A LBERTHA Township lies in the southwest corner of Dickey County entirely within the hills, and for that reason is one of the most interest- ing places from the geological standpoint in the county. A hilly country with its mysterious gorges, its pretty dells of native bush and its bold out- looks from the higher hills is always the place of romantic tradition and mystic interest. The stories written by the finger of nature in the landscape, the markings left by the redman, and the experience of the white people who have lived in its borders all testify that Albertha has proved itself a typical hill country of tradition and interest.
Away back in the days of the ice age the Altemont Morraine was spread over the land where Albertha township is located. This great land mark on the western edge of the ice sheet seems to have reserved some of its most intricate cunning in design and markings for this part of the country. Over this morraine from the northeast came another sweep of waters and ice to reach the northwest part of the township with immense beds of the finest kind of gravel every pebble nicely smoothed and rounded by the polishing mill of the glacier. Great ice cakes wrote their story on the hills and melting left many lakes so characteristic of glacier regions. High hills lift their heads to twenty-two hundred feet above sea-level to look down into narrow wooded ravines and many little brooks starting their journey to the sea.
As ever, Nature was kind in its endowment of these hills with an abund- ant supply of spring water. Native trees of Bur Oak, Green Ash, Elm, Box Elder, River Willow, Sand Willow, White Willow, Fishpole Willow, Quaking Asp, were found in the township, and then Mother Nature to make the measure complete put in one red cedar tree. Wild flowers were scattered over the land from tiny little ones of all colors to the big Plums, Cherries, June Berries and Hawthorne that make such a splash of color at different seasons of the year. The animal life from the field mouse to the antelope and the buffalo abounded.
Into this place in the long unrecorded past came people of whom we know little except that they knew how to build mounds, but whether as altars for worship and burial places for their dead, or for some purpose con- nected with their dwellings, we hnow not. There are many mounds found
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in this township but so far they have kept their secret from the inquisitive white man. These early comers may have been ancestors or forerunners of an Indian or they may have been of a different race.
That the Indian lived in the territory of the township is shown in stories that can easily be read. The numerous tepee rings that are found all over the land show that these parts were frequented by Indians. On many of the hills there are piles of stone that have been put up by the hands of man. Near these lookouts were found other little groups of stones arranged in the direction of the water springs, perhaps indicating that the Indians were periodic visitors and had left these indications to guide themselves or others to fresh water. The relative distance to the spring was indicated by the distance of the guide mound.
There is evidence that white people were across this region before it was settled. The old military road from the Big Stone Lake and Fort Sisseton across to Fort Yates on the Missouri entered the township on Sec- tion 36 and passed across to the north of west to the middle of Section 18 was used by many government trains and paved the way for early settlers to come into the hills by giving them a well worn trail to follow. Some burned wagon irons on the northwest part of Section 26 are mute evidence of some trouble; probably a party were surprised by a hostile attack and burned their wagons to keep them from falling into the hands of the enemy, or perhaps a party was massacred and their outfit burned by the captors who had no means of taking their plunder away with them. The true story will ever remain a sealed book, or at least until some hidden evidence to account for the finding of such things in a country where no white people had lived before is found. .
The preliminary survey of the Dakota Midland Railroad crossed this township from the northeast corner of Section 13 to the northwest corner of Section 7. James J. Hill with a survey party looked over the region care- fully. The first mail route to Hoskins Lake and Bismarck crossed to the south of Shimmin's Lake and the second route came into the township from the northeast corner and entered the former route in Section 5. The little family cemetery for the Weber family in the southeast corner of Section 36 has been a landmark, also the church on the southeast corner of Section 30.
The first settlement in the township was made in the spring of 1882 by Orville Childs Hart, who together with his family and that of his son James, moved to Dakota Territory from Lake Lillian, Minnesota. He built a rude cabin in one of the gulches still known as Hart Gulch, and lived there until his death in 1896. Three granddaughters and a grandson with a number of of grandchildren still live in the county, but none are now in the township. Thomas R. Shimmin and Peder Johnson also came in the spring of 1882, Mr. Shimmin coming from Lancaster, Wisconsin, and Mr. Johnson from Minnesota.
Peder Johnson and his wife built their cabin in the gulch under the
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Big Elm, said to be the largest elm tree in Dakota. This tree had been used as a burial place by the Indians and was filled with bleached skeletons. The bones rattled down upon the roof of the cabin during wind storms and frightened Mrs. Johnson, until at last her husband and Mr. Shimmin climbed up and pulled them all down; later burying them. Many buffalo bones were found around the tree and were picked up and sold. This picking up buffalo bones was an important means of earning money during the early days, as the sugar refineries back east were glad to get them. Bones covered the prairie in all directions and were easily gathered by those who were fortunate enough to have a team, especially after a prairie fire had burned away the grass. They were hauled twenty-two miles to Ellendale and sold for cash at twelve dollars a ton.
Mr. T. R. Shimmin did not permanently locate until April 26th, 1883, when he built his shanty on the homestead where the family still lives in a fine farm home which later replaced the earlier buildings. Mr. Shimmin is a man much interested in historical matters and in the collection of historical material for his county and state. His wide travels have resulted in a splendid collection of specimens, enough to stock the fine museum which his home maintains and to send to other collections. He has sent many to the Smithsonian Institute, for considerable of his traveling was done for them. At the time of his location his home was the farthest west settlement in the county, and the last permanent one between there and the Missouri River ninety miles away. There were, however, two temporary shanties be- longing to trappers on Beaver Creek about half way to the river.
Others of the old settlers of Albertha that will be remembered are; Mark Hambrook on Section 5, John Kosel his neighbor, James Mosher, John, Jacob and Chris Wolff in the southwest corner of the township, Jacob Rau, Christ Traagesund (known as Ole Olson), George Filvie, Harding Parks, Wm. Burnett, R. Mckinney, the McCabe family, Ed Wicks, a Mr. Heller, and several others. E. M. Saunders and his brother C. L. Saunders came out from Ellendale Township and have built up good cattle farms.
One day when Mr. Shimmin happened to be in Ellendale when Mr. M. M. Cook brought in a load of bones which had been gathered near the site of Whitestone Battlefield, which had not been discovered until then. He says, "Mr. Cook's description of the place interested me so much that I rode my pony up there the next day. It surely did look as if there had been quite a scrap for the dry grass had been burned off a short time before so that the skeletons and other bones and material could be seen very plainly." He picked up what he could carry on the pony and has the articles for the Dickey County Historical Society.
The settlers endured many hardships those first few years, for most of them were poor and unable to buy stock or implements. Many had to carry their food supplies on their backs from Ellendale more than twenty miles
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away. This difficulty in obtaining new supplies of feed led them to prepare a large supply of meat in the fall. Barrels of wild duck, geese, and other wild fowl usually made up the supply.
In a few years the settlers were able to buy some stock and implements. Teams were frequently made up of oxen, a horse and an ox, a horse and a cow, or other combinations. The first instrument to be purchased was a plow with which the prairie sod was broken and farming began. The first grains were gathered through the use of the sickle and were threshed by the flail or by trampling it out on the ground by driving horses or cattle over it. It was then winnowed by allowing the prairie winds to blow away the chaff. On account of the abundant feed and water the settlers got to raising cattle and it has always been a good stock country.
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