'The First Settlers' Part 2

BRANDON

Posted By: Deborah Brownfield - Stanley (email)
Date: 1/2/2005 at 16:33:16

In the fall of '44 there were a couple of families moved in north of us, about six miles, one by the name of INGHAM and another by the name of SEARCY. That winter, December I think it was, MR. INGHAM went to Missouri to get some corn for his team and meal to eat. There were no roads in the country at that time, and if there had been, we could not have found them from the fact there came a snow almost knee deep. Instead of going the way he should by where Moravia now is, he came farther west around on the main ridge not far from where JOHN BALLARD lived, and not very far from where we lived on the north side and MR. BALLARD on the south side of the ridge. The water that fell on my father's side of the ridge ran into the Cedar and then into the Des Moines River. MR. BALLARD lived on Honey Creek, and that creek emptied into the Chariton River and thence into the Missouri River, so MR. INGHAM had to pass between MR. BALLARD's and MR. BRANDON's. MR. INGHAM must have been badly lost, as the weather was cold and the snow drifting and cannot understand how he lived through the storm; he must have turned north a little east of where the Russell Depot now stands. We did not hear any more from him till he got down near English, near where JOHN BALLARD finally moved. Someone lived there as he saw a smoke, and unhitched his team and started towards it; he either got to the shanty, or they saw him and helped him in, as his feet and hands were badly frozen. They had to keep him there several days before he was able to go home. I would be pleased to know who took care of him, and who took him home when he was able to go. If there is any man here today that knows anything about this case, I would be pleased to meet him.

I was only up to Chariton Point a couple of times during '43, the first time in June and the last time in September. We had no road from our place to Chariton Point, neither did we have any stream, not even a slough to cross. We followed the main ridge from where we lived to Chariton Point. I still own a portion of the land that father took for a claim, May 10th, 1843.

In the fall of '45, the Mormons viewed and established what they called the Mormon trace from Ballard's Point, afterwards called Dodge's Point, to Chariton Point. That winter, if I am not mistaken, Iowa was admitted into the Union. Late in the fall of '45 three Mormons and their families got snowed under at Chariton Point. They drove down on Chariton River and wintered there. They cut elm and lynn for their cattle to browse on it; it was all they had until the snow went away; then they found quite a bit of winter grass in the bottoms that helped them through. I don't believe they lost many cattle, but they got very thin. In the spring of '46 they came up to the edge of the prairie and built them each a shanty as their stock was too poor to travel. Some time in June '46 I heard they wanted to sell their claim as their stock had got able to pull their wagons and they wanted to go on. The prairie was covered with covered wagons, mostly going west so I had no trouble in sending the three Mormons word at Chariton Point that I would buy their claim if I was able. In a few days the most business one of the three walked down to where we lived, that was near Ballard's Point. His name was MCGUFF. I showed him what stock I had, which was two heifers and a three-year old cow, that was all I had excepting a horse. He agreed to take the hiefers provided his two partners were willing. I took my horse and went home with him, he being on foot, and stayed all night with him that night, and traded for his claim. They were to give possession in a week or ten days. This was on or near the middle of June '46. So I went back down to father's and got my brother to hitch up a yoke of oxen my father had. We hitched them to a cart and moved me to Chariton Point, taking a straw bed, some cooking utensils, a little meal and a blanket, and set up house-keeping. During the summer that I bached at Chariton Point, Gen. A.C. DODGE came through on horse back from Garden Grove, which place was settled by the Mormons in the fall of '45. MR. DODGE had got off his road and in crossing a creek had lamed his horse. He got up to my place and stayed about a week, he and I doctoring his horse. Also the same summer MR. JOHN BROPHY had an appointment from the State to select so many sections in the different counties -- saline land. He stayed with me about two weeks. He and I rode over the country hunting where we could find any meshes that the deer would visit.

About the 15th of November WM. S. TOWNSEND, a man I was very well acquainted with, came up from Appanoose County, and I let him move in with me. I remained with MR. TOWNSEND, as he had a family, and I was not nearly so lonesome. I stayed with him at Chariton Point until the next spring. I hardly know how we managed to get along as neither of us had any money, and he had four or five of a family.

In the spring of 1847 I sold out to MR. TOWNSEND for a horse and a two-horse wagon and went back to father's and took a claim joining him, and my brother younger than I went in with me. We bached there till the fall of '48, when we quit baching, my brother going home, and I went down and stayed with a man by the name of NOWELS that had settled in the fall of '44 about four or five miles southeast of our claim. He had a wife and one child, and I stayed with them from the fall of '48 to the spring of '49. That was the winter we had the big snow. If there is anyone here today that was in the country at that time they will remember the winter of the big snow.

In September 1849 I was married and went back on my claim and lived there until April 6th, 1853, when with a couple of ox teams I, with wife and two children, my brother GEORGE, 16 years old, and my wife's brother about 17 years old, started for California, landing at San Jose about the 22nd of September, 1853. I remained there until the 16th of February 1854. We all went down to San Francisco and shipped for New York, crossing the Isthmus of Panama on mules to Aspinwall, where we took passage on a boat for New York. After resting up a few days we bought tickets to Chicago and then bought tickets to Rock Island, thence down the River to Fort Madison by steamboat. There we hired a liveryman to take us out to Salem where my wife had a sister living. We hired a man to bring us up to her mother's. Her father was the man that built the mill on South Chariton, in Wayne County, south of where Confidence now is.

-- THOMAS BRANDON.

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Copied by Nancee(McMurtrey)Seifert
September 2, 2004
http://www.rootsweb.com/~ialucas/Main.htm
posted at this site with Nancee's permission