Ballard family in Story County 1857

BALLARD

Posted By: Linda H Meyers (email)
Date: 5/3/2013 at 17:26:50

[This article was a series of photographs taken of the original 3 newspaper clippings. I believe that they were published in 1910 and the photos taken in 1970. I have used … as a symbol for places where the clipping's photo could not be read - whether it was shadow, a tear in the original, at the side of a column extending beyond the edge of the photo, or other problems. LHM]

PIONEERING IN 1857
H. D. Ballard of Primghar Tells of
the Coming of the Ballards.
Of the old families in Story County none has been better or more favorably know in its time than the family of old Dr. Ballard, who settled in the southwest part of Howard Township in 1857. To this family belonged Russell W. Ballard, who was twice supervisor of the county, Mrs. Harry Boyes, who yet lives in Howard township, Deville Ballard, who was a captain in the 23d Iowa and was once elected county clerk, others also less known in the county, and Henry D., who after residing at Radcliffe and Webster City is now located in a prosperous old age at Primghar in O’Brien county. There are few if any of the old-timers who are in better position than himself to tell of the early experiences of the settlers in story county in the ‘50s, and after quite a little persuasion we have from him a very interesting letter. The letter is long enough to be divided, and the first installment is given below, as follows: (handwritten “Published May 13, 1910”)

Editor Representative:--
Having promised you to write up some of the early experiences of my sojourn in Iowa I at last undertake to do so.
In the spring of 1857 my father left Frankfort, Will county, Illinois, for Iowa. He came on ahead of the most of us so as to get in some crop before the rest of us arrived. He came through with a horse team and heavy wagon bringing some household goods; and mother, and my three sisters, (Sarah, Martha and Ruth) came in the wagon with him. It was a long ride by the arrived in time to get in corn by June sixth and it was a very good crop that year. My brother Russell (R.W.B.) took charge of the balance of the outfit consisting of four yoke of oxen, two heavy wagons, thirty head of cows and heifers with a small flock of sheep, (about forty I think) and we started about the first of May overland. It was a long journey and took us about two months. We camped out nights wherever night overtook us, sleeping in our wagons among the household goods as best we could. We did our own cooking. We had one cow that gave mild for us and we enjoyed it. The other cows’ calves took what they had and did well.
We ferried across some streams and twice floated across on a raft we made. There were very few bridges in those days. We ferried the Rock River in Illinois, then the Mississippi at Davenport, the Cedar at Tipton. When we got to Tipton we heard the news of five horse thieves being hung there a short time before by a vigilance committee. In those early times the people formed such committees for protection and all had horses to ride and hunted the thieves down and when they caught one his trial did not cost the country as much as it does now. Our stock lived mostly on grass the first few days of our long journey and the grass grew so fast that soon we fed nothing and the stock got plenty to eat.
When we reached Iowa City Russell’s wife was there, she having come on the train that far with her one child, (now Mrs. J. W. Sowers of Milford township) and from there she lived in a wagon and camped with us the balance of the way. We came through Homestead, Marengo Indian Town, Marshalltown (that had just had a war with Marietta over the county seat) then Marietta, both small villages at that time, and on to Clemens’ Grove. From Clemens’ Grove there was not a house until we got to Indian Creek in Story county where a family lived named Pool. From Pool’s place to Nevada there were two houses, from Nevada to where father and the rest of the family were was ten miles, and not a house after we got out of Nevada. Nevada was all on the south side of town near were the park is now, excepting the Court House. From Nevada it was ten miles to where we stopped.
Father had bought an improved farm from a man by the name of Isaac Blade, paying eleven dollars per acre for 92 acres and 12 of it was timber that ran down to the river Skunk. I remember the prairie grass was much higher than I had ever seen before. The angling road from Nevada was made crooked by the sloughs we encountered. In coming along the route from Iowa City we had many times been asked where we were going; and when we told them to Story county, they informed us that Story was the wildest [? hard to read – LHM] test county in the state and that we could not get a living in that county. We did not have such experience although we seldom did see persons riding in anything but a lumber wagon. If a man had a spring seat on his wagon it was considered a luxury.
That year I with my brothers put up nearly 100 tons of wild hay for our stock and did jit with a common scythe. We did not consider it very great hardship to do this. Grass was fully three feet high and stood thick on the ground and often we cut grass more than four feet high. We let it lie in the swath one day and then piled it up into a “hay cock” as it was then known. How many young men would now undertake to put up 100 tons of hay with a common scythe? With the amount of work we had on hand that summer soon passed and when the autumn came corn in the field had to be husked. Father was an eastern yankee and he insisted that every husk and silk should be taken off from every ear and this was done, quite in contrast to the way corn is husked now.
Such work was slow and we did not crib half as many bushels per day as the ordinary man does now. Corn then was not nearly as large as it is now. A yield of 25 and 39 bushels was considered a good crop and it was often discussed and decided that we were on the north line of the corn belt which seems a laughable circumstance now. We raised wheat, oats, corn, potatoes, buckwheat etc., the next year and were happy.
The first winter after coming into Iowa, 1858, we attended school at what was known as the Griffith school house, (but often it was called the Poverty School House) because it was built of logs not hewed or flattened on the sides and it had what was called a puncheon floor, (split out of logs, hewed smooth on one side, laid with the flat side up and notched down at the ends so as to make it as level as possible). The seats were half of a log, split, with four straight legs to make it a sort of bench that we sat on very comfortably during the day. The winter passed with but little to recall only we had spelling contests (or spelling schools) that gave amusement as well as good drill. Our neighbors were H. L. Boyes and family, Joseph Broughard and family, both living about two miles away southeast of us. They went to school at the Poverty School House with us which was more than one mile north of where we lived up the Skunk River.
The families that patronized the school were Noah Griffith’s, John Smith’s, Jesse Smith’s, Burbam’s and a few others making up a school of about forty scholars. The next winter our teacher was R. C. McOmber from Plainfield Academy, Illinois, who afterward was the principal of the Nevada schools. I think however he spelled his name McComber. The poor fellow after he had been in Iowa about two years went back home and died of consumption. He was a brilliant fellow and intended to make the law his profession had he lived. The Letsons, Lockridges, Kelloggs, Webbs, Hawthorns, Prices and many other old settlers of Nevada can readily recall his effort as principal of their schools. We used to go to Nevada to attend spelling schools and at one time the Nevada school came up to the Sheffield school house to our spelling school and there were three sleigh loads of the young people. Such distance to attend such events were common in those days. In those days people who lived ten to fifteen miles apart were called neighbors. If a man was sick in the spring and did not get his plowing done so as to put in his corn in time. We turned out and with teams from the various neighbors plowed his ground, planted his corn and made no charge –which is quite a contrast to the way people neighbor now. Often we had what we called husking bees, took out 20 to 25 acres of corn in one day, had a good time and made no charge.
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Pioneering in 1857
H. D. Ballard of Primghar Tells of the coming of the Ballards.
Continued from last week.
Father and Russell got out logs and made a hewed log house,. They had a lot of lumber sawed at a saw mill then operated at Story City by George Prime and Nosh Hardin. This mill did a general business of sawing for a large scope of country about the little burg, the burg then consisting of about a half dozen houses and one store stocked with about $500 worth of goods I think. The only mill we had to grind corn was on Long Dick. It was run by James Smith and was a great convenience to many people. Its capacity Smith claimed was about five bushels per hour. We lived mostly on corn bread. When we wanted flour to eat we had to go to a mill above where Des Moines is on the Coon River, and often it took one week to go there, get a grist and get back home and we had to sleep on the ground under the wagon while waiting for our grist. Des Moines was a small village comparatively then.
In the spring or summer of 1857 Father and I went down to White Oak Grove in Polk county, below Cambridge, to buy some ear corn to feed. We found some splendid corn at a Mr. Woods’ at the east end of the grove. He had about eight or ten rail pens eight feet or more high full of good sound corn, and we got two wagon loads, paying him eight cents per bushel. I kept the count as we measured it in a basket by throwing out one ear for every basket emptied. Every once in a while Mr. Woods would say, “Hold on, boy, don’t count this, we will put it in for good measure. People do not sell corn that way now days. When Father paid him he gave him the gold and silver. Mr. Woods took the money in his hand and said, “Doctor, that is the first money I have seen for two years and I have not paid my taxes for three years. I want you to com e back and get two more loads and then I may have money enough to pay my taxes.”
The paper money of those days was what was known as “wild cat money” and often if a man had a five dollar bill he could not buy his breakfast with it. People used to take what was known as a Bank detector and it came to them by mail once a month. In that the banks which had failed were shown. The only paper money at that time in the state that was considered good was issued by Frank Allen’s “Nebraska State Bank” at Des Moines and by the Iowa State Bank at Davenport. The only reliable money in these days was gold and silver and after here was not much of it in to be had either. People often ask me “Why did you not buy lots of this land when it was so cheap?” Poor money and scarcity of it answers that question. We were in the fix the man was who had a farm of 160 acres offered him for a pair of boots and the only reason he did not take the farm was that he had no boots.
At that time what the farmer had to sell did not bring much. D….d hogs hauled to the end of the railroad at Iowa City brought … dollars per 100 pounds if the … equaled 200 pounds; if 225, two and three year old fat hogs off the grass in the autumn brought from $18 to $19.00 per head, and milch cows, from ten to $12.00 per head. Butter brought four to five cents per pound and eggs three cents per dozen, and no cash for either, but trade only. Tea sold for $2.00 per pound, coffee, 2-1/4 lbs. for a … and other things in proportion. These are the reasons that farmers did not make any more than a bare living in those days. The ordinary coarse plow boot that can be bought now for about $3.50 sold in those days for $7.00 per pair and other things in proportion. What we had to sell was cheap and what we bought was high. Wheat then sold in trade for 25 cents per bushel. There being no way of shipping it then, what sold was for seed or bread only. We used to do our trading in Nevada and the men in business at that time were Theodore Alderman, Otis Briggs, Hawthorn & Talbott and after a short time came Doctor Sinclair and others. To dodge the sloughs made it a long trip to go to Nevada, and took the most of a day. People seemed just as happy in those days as now and I am not sure but they were more contented than now. It is not our necessities that worry us, but our imaginary wants. We did not … as much then as now.
…Prairie Fire.
In the autumn of 1859 a frightening circumstance occurred. John Swarengen, his wife and four children stopped at Nevada (he stated) and bought ten pounds of cotton batting for use in their new home which they expected to reach in a short time a few miles west of Webster City. They tied this cotton batting on top of the cover of their wagon under which was their household goods. Their way from Nevada to Webster City led over the same road we used to travel to town. They being from the East knew nothing about what a prairie fire was and they kept along unsuspectingly until they reached what was known then as the big rock in the north part of Milford township within two miles of where D. Stultz afterward made his home. Just as they were driving out of a low place or swail where the grass was high, the prairie fire from the south west struck them, the team turned out on the right hand side of the road and the whole wagon was on fire instantly. Mr. Swarengen stated that he immediately jumped out of the wagon helping his wife out. As soon as she reached the ground she said, “Oh, John, my baby!” She at once climbed back into the wagon, got her baby, and returning to the front of the wagon, he tried to assist her to the ground again but the horses flounced and kicked so she fell with her baby in between the horses and in trying to get her out of there Mr. Swarengen received a kick from one of the horses that laid him out unconscious for a short time and when he came to, his clothing was nearly burned off and his face, hands and arms were a crisp. He went to the back of the wagon, he stated, and tore off the feed box thinking he could get the other three children out in that way; but the fire soon drove him back in despair and he stood there and saw his whole family perish in the fire unable to do any more to save them. After he could do no more and all were dead, he started to find some place where he could tell some human being what had happened,. In his wanderings he finally landed at J. E. Hoover’s home and farm about three miles from where his family had perished and told his story. Men of the neighborhood were notified as soon as a horse could make the rounds and soon were at the scene of the terrible disaster. They found one horse dead and the other wandering about the prairie, burned so that he had to be killed, and the dog about fifty feet away also burned all over and dead.
Quincy Boynton of Nevada was up in that region after some fat cattle that father had sold to T. C. McCall and I was with him on horseback rounding up the cattle to drive them to Nevada. The prairie fire scattered our bunch of steers and cows so that we did not get them rounded up until the next day. When the cattle scattered we also made ourselves safe out of danger from the fire and rode toward Mr. Hoover’s place where we learned of the frightful accident, so we rode down to the place to see what it looked like. Before we got there the bodies, all that could be found of the four children and the wife had been picked up and placed in the feed box which Mr. Swarengen had taken off the back part of his wagon, and the box was hardly filled with the bones of those four children and the wife. These bodies were buried in the Sheffield Cemetery where Mr. Swarengen was buried also after having suffered about ten days. The fire was so intense that it melted the dishes they had packed in their wagon, and burned all the wood work out of the irons of the wagon. The cotton batting being on top of the wagon no doubt made the flames envelop the whole wagon instantly and smothered the children back inside of the wagon cover under the wagon bows. The family bedding, clothes and keepsakes were all stored in the wagon and all helped to make the fire intense. This terrible thing was the talk of the country for many months after. Mr. Swarengen was conscious most of the time while he lived and told the terrible experience many times to callers, saying they had just been talking about how soon they would arrive at their destination. In less than one week they would be in their prairie home between Webster City and Fort Dodge. How true it is that in the midst of life we are in death. This family had no doubt fond hopes of making a future home and surrounding it with comforts and happiness with congenial neighbors, in the then new state.
This illustrates in a measure the trials of the pioneer who, going west blazes the road for others to follow, depriving himself and family of the comforts of life in the hope of making a home for them. The pioneer who braved the blasts of the winter and the scalping knife of the Indian paid dearly for his land in vitality … not in dollars. It took nerve, determination and staying qualities to hold out until more people joined the little bands that were scattered over the vast prairie here and there, miles apart. In 1857 the present Norwegian settlement was started by Paul Thom…son, Jones Dewey, Erick Sh…dall, and a few others, and … that vast prairie is all converted into farms excepting the town of Roland. The change seems more … like a dream than a reality when… look back.
More Neighbors.
In 1859 came more neighbors making homes. Hiram Ferguson and family came and settled near Mr. Boyes. Mathew Bates was soon there, Samuel Bates and others too numerous to mention dropped down and helped to build up a community that soon created demand for school houses and other things to change the wild nature of the country. Numerous families of Norwegians soon came and their industry soon made the wild prairie blossom like a rose, and yield up gold that was used to build the fine houses and barns which stand where the wolf used to burrow and roam unmolested. What a blessing foreigners have been to the country. They have made good loyal citizens, have subdued the earth and are benefactors because they have made two blades of grass and grain grow where there was before only one or none. They soon imbibed the spirit of the Republic and helped to make it great by civilizing and bringing forth from the earth something that benefits all nations as well as our own. The fruits of their patient persistent labor they now enjoy as they could never have hoped to had it not been for the American Republic. The rich soil they made better and dug out of its storehouse the things that make life worth living. It is the foreigners from all nations that make us great, for we have the spirit of every clime and the talent making a cross that the highest individual can spring from, and possessing the vitality needed to battle successfully with life. When the war of 1861 came, families who had sons were distressed to see their boys, husband, father or uncles shoulder the musket and go to the front to do battle for the life of this Republic. It was then that our foreign born population showed their loyalty to the country of their adoption. It cemented the whole as one family, with one purpose, under the same flag, making this Republic stronger than it ever was before. Long may they live to enjoy it.
H. D. Ballard.

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Pioneer Department – Contributions from Old Timers Invited
OLD TIMES IN STORY.
Some More Recollections by H. D. Ballard.
Primghar, May 23,
Editor Nevada Representative:--
I have received the papers that you printed by letter in and I wish to recall one thing in the first of my letter where I told about the first school we had after coming to Iowa. The first school was held in my brother Russell’s house that he built with native lumber sawed from logs hauled to the mill at Story City and his wife taught the school. The school I mentioned in my letter was one year later, it being the winter of 1858 and 1859 and the first school was in the winter of 1857 and 1858. I did not mention the school taught by my brother’s wife in my first as you will observe. I will now state that my brother Russell was a brother-in-law of Nathan Sheffield who came to this state in 1854 (I think) and Russell came out the next spring in a covered wagon with his wife, camping on the way and staid one year, took sick and returned to Frankfort, Illinois, and after recovering he induced Father to come to Iowa and Father sent Russell back to bargain for the Isaac Blade farm that he bought and then followed our advent into the state the next spring in 1857. We were acquainted with the Sheffield family before they came to Iowa and their being out in this state and Russell’s desire to come west caused him to seek the locality where his wife’s sister was.
The county of Story at the time we came to the state was strongly Democratic and all of its officers were democrats I remember; and after my brother Deville and L. Q. Hoggatt located in the county, politics waxed hot between them, Judge Kellogg, James Frazier, Webb, Lockridge and others, resulting in some Republicans being elected in 1859 and soon after the county went Republican electing all Republicans. We used to have long night sessions at school houses over the county, and joint discussions were had between the parties above named causing much amusement as well as excitement that was interesting. The school house campaigns in those days were poplar.At that time we had county judges and Judge Evans of Bloomington was judge before Kellogg, I think.
The families of Sowers, Arrasmith, Hughes, Eaglebarger, McLain, Young, Rich, and many others lived down the river from us, all considered neighbors even though several miles away. Jonah Griffith being quite a biblical student used to do much of the preaching for us in school houses until a minister who had nerve enough to brave deprivations and poor pay of the itinerants of those times came out and took up the work in 1859, after which there were quite regular services held at different places, and after George Sowers moved to “Pleasant Grove” he was instrumental in having a large school house built and preaching was had there quite regularly near his home until a plain building was erected for the work and it was known after as the “Pleasant Grove church.”
Even though we were in what eastern people called the wild west, people did not forget the Ruler of all things; and poor as they were, contributed of their small means to help the ministers live, although they had to work as well as pray, which was good I guess for their physical health and satisfaction although then as now the preacher was looked at as a gentleman of leisure who did not need much to live on. The absolute necessities of life were all that could be had in those times and we had no daily papers, just weeklies, and they came around in about one week after publication, if they came any distance. Editors then begged for money as now and always had a poor mouth until people got so used to it that they paid little attention to such things. We had no telegraph, telephone, express, railroads nor automobiles to get over the country. People paid their subscriptions to the editor when they got ready and considered that he should be satisfied that he got it in time to pay his deferred bills that depended upon these just claims for liquidation. Editors with great patience held out and did much advertising free that people want, but do not want to pay for, then as now, and felt thankful like the rest that they were alive.
The years of 1859 and 1860 were marked for the rapid emigration to this state and the prairie breaker could be seen in almost any direction as we traveled across the great prairies. Then was the advent of the mower and reaper that discharged the grain by main strength at the end of a big square rake that was almost a man killer, but it was more rapid than the hand cradle or hand scythe and was considered a great advancement and highly appreciated. Our corn plows were a single shovel plow until some man tried a double shovel walking plow that was considered much better. In those days boys rode a horse generally while a man held the plow until it was found out that a man could drive as well as plow at the same time. Finally the cultivator with two beams and four shovels came and we could plow one row every time we crossed the field which was a marvel In those days. Now men plow two rows at a time making four rows at one bout. We did not live at as rapid a pace as now.
In 1858 and 1859 many Norwegians came to the county, part of them settling in the southwest part of the county and others in the north part of the county. These families many of them could hardly speak the English language; but they soon learned and it used to be said the first word they learned was “scour”, a word always used when a man went to buy a plow, it being very important that a plow scoured so that it would turn the soil over and properly cover up the grass and weeks. In this as many other things the foreigner was apt and with his persistent industry he soon improved his farm by building a house, barn, and other buildings that were a great improvement over the pioneers’ huts that could be seen along the streams or among the earlier settlement of the prairie. The soil of Story county has some gumbo in it, hence the necessity of having a very hard plow that the muck would not stick to so as to do the farming properly.
We found the Primes, Brackens, Hardings, Andersons and Wilkinsons there and they lived up the river toward Story City, and some a little ways out on the prairie. At that time the prairie land was not considered quite as good as the land near the streams; hence settlements were mostly along the streams, and partly because the only fuel we had was wood, it being before the discovery of coal in the county or along the Des Moines at Boone. People at that time used wood stoves only, not knowing much about soft coal as fuel; but when it was discovered and came into use, coal was a boon to the small boy who had had to chop the wood morning, evening, and Saturdays during school days. I noticed it was also appreciated by the older once in the community who had no boy to send out after an armful of wood.
Soft coal and barb wire were a great thing in way of making it possible to settle and improve the great prairies of Iowa at that time and it cost four or five times as much per pound then as now. The posts used then were the native oak mostly, for no cedar was then to be had. Our desires were simple and few and our happiness I believe fraught with more contentment than in this day of rapid transit and hurricane movements for more and more. Many of the people went to town many miles with an ox team, taking all day and often into the night to make a trip for something the family needed. In those days the wife often milked the cows, fed the pigs and had all the chores done when the weary husband arrived home from the day’s journey and her deft hands had also prepared a warm meal that the husband, or brother ate with a relish which can only be understood by those who have experienced the trials. No ”Bullyon” or oyster stews were to be had then.
The wages of the pedagogue in those times would insult a teacher now, and I think some may turn up their nose when I say teachers in those times got the munificent sum of $14 to $20 per month as a rule in the district school. I taught my first school in 1860 south of where the College farm is now, near where the Wiltse family live, and boarded with them and received $17 per month, paying two dollars per week for by board. I felt that I was getting fair wages because at that time I had worked for Amon Hipsher for 50 cents per day at farm work and four days of the time I helped to deepen his well 28 feet down; but I got my board while there. Harvest wages varied from $1.50 to $2.00 per day according to how badly rushed a man was to secure his grain. Teaching was easier than physical exertion in those days and it was appreciated by those who worked at it sometimes. I hear people talk now day about hard time. What would they consider the experiences of the early pioneer? I often say the present generation knows nothing about hard times and would know less if they would curtail their desires to their necessities and save the difference in wages that exist between the two periods.
---H. D. Ballard. (Henry Deloss Ballard)
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[I have used … as a symbol for places where the clipping photo could not be read - whether it was shadow, a tear in the original, at the side of a column extending beyond the edge of the photo, or other problems. LHM]