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VOL. XII.
April, 1896. No. 2
A WINTER NIGHT ON THE OPEN PRAIRIE
BY CHARLES ALDRICH
It was not an infrequent
thing for men during the early years of settlement in Iowa, to
be frozen to death by exposure at night on the bleak, open
prairies. One reason for these casualties was, that so many
came west from sheltered, timbered regions, where most people
had good houses, and were not exposed to severe and protracted
storms, and, therefore, were not schooled in the vigilance
necessary to contend with western blizzards. They wore lighter
clothing, and carelessly ventured out long distances with very
few wraps to keep out the cold. Many of our winter days were
so pleasant and mild that we took these chances with little
expectation that the weather would change. But it often
occurred that when the forenoons would be so mild that a flake
of snow would melt as it struck the ground, the same
afternoon, and perhaps three or four days in succession, would
see a wild, tumultuous storm from the northwest howling and
careering over the prairies, leaving deep snow drifts and low
temperature throughout its course. In such cases woe to the
unfortunate wayfarer who found himself a few miles from home
when darkness fell upon him, or the storm became so thick as
to hide his path and obscure his vision! I had one experience
of this kind—though fortunately not in a storm—which opened my
eyes so wide that I never afterwards took any chances in
venturing out upon the prairies. If necessary to travel some
distance in the winter, I always went prepared to "camp
out"—with abundant food and blankets for myself and the
horses—wherever night should overtake me, with no fear of
freezing.
I was publishing
The Freeman
in Webster City in the autumn of
1859. There was no paper north of me to the State line, nor
anywhere else northwest of our town. I used to visit the
county seats where no newspaper men had yet ventured to
settle, for the purpose of soliciting the official printing of
the counties. Among other trips I started on the third of
December, to visit the counties of Cerro Gordo, Worth,
Winnebago and Hancock. The outfit, when I tell what it was,
will be seen to have been a very poor one for such a trip. I
had for a traveling companion, Sam. H. Lunt, soon after Deputy
Register of the State Land Office, who later on died in the
military service. We had a single buggy, with a poor old "Rosinante"
of a horse, and only one worn buffalo robe and a blanket. I
wore an overcoat of medium weight and had a heavy shawl, but
Sam had only a single coat. The weather had been surpassingly
mild and beautiful, and that is what deceived us. We had many
of those winter days so poetically described by William Cullen
Bryant, which "tempt the squirrel and the bee from out their
winter home." The morning we started there was hardly even a
suggestion of frost. The snow was scarcely an inch deep
anywhere, and in most places was disappearing in the warm
sunshine. Our trail, for there was not much in the line of
roads, led in a northeasterly course across Wright county.
There was still open water in some portions of Wall Lake, so
mild had been the weather. By the time night overtook us we
had reached Belmond, which was, or had been, one of the
oscillating county seats of Wright county. We stayed all night
at a very primitive hotel, kept by an eccentric gentleman by
the name of Kent. He was sometimes called "Chancellor Kent,"
from the claim he made that he had been Chancellor of New
Jersey or some other eastern State. He was a great story
teller, and it needed more credulity than I possessed to
believe some of his yarns. He claimed acquaintance with almost
every distinguished living man in the nation, and was in the
habit of calling them by "nicknames." When speaking of
President Buchanan, he called him "Jim." Mentioning Stephen A.
Douglas, "the Little Giant" of Illinois, the great ideal
Democratic statesman of the West, he called him "Steve." Said
he, "I was walking down Pennsylvania Avenue one morning with
Jim."
I inquired, "Jim who?"
"Why," said he, "Jim Buchanan, of course. Pretty soon we
met Steve! "
"Steve who? " I asked.
"Why Steve Douglas," he said. And he spoke of General
Samuel Houston, of Texas, as "Sam," General Benton, of
Missouri, as "Tom," and so on through a long list of American
statesmen. He also professed great familiarity with European
capitals, as St. Petersburgh, Berlin, Rome, and I suppose, if
the conversation had been protracted enough, he would have
swung around the circle of the whole world in a similar way.
The next morning was quite as pleasant as the first, with
the exception that the snow was now two or three inches deep.
Our trail lay up the Iowa river, to the county seat of Hancock
county. This consisted simply of the residence of Mr.
Rosecrans, a cousin, or nephew, I believe, of General W. S.
Rosecrans, who became distinguished during the civil war. This
was in the old county Judge days, when many of those officers
in northwestern Iowa stole their counties absolutely poor by
letting contracts to build bridges and court houses, in some
instances pensioning their needy relatives upon the county
treasury. In each county the Judge was a local autocrat, and
wielded irresponsible and almost absolute power. Judge
Rosecrans, however, was an exception to this class of judges,
and was an honorable, straightforward manager of the county's
finances. He was probably conservative enough in this
direction. He was "the county," and he could tell you without
mincing matters, what "the county" could afford. No scandal
ever attached to his official career. Our course lay thence
nearly due east across the prairie to Clear Lake. The third
morning we started for Bristol, the county seat of Worth
county, our route being along up Lime creek, a tributary of
Clear Lake. At noon we stopped for dinner at a farm house, the
uppermost one at that time on the creek. The snow by that time
was much deeper, but laid very lightly on the ground and
offered little obstruction to the buggy. Mr. Williams, the
farmer, told us it was twelve miles across to Bristol, but
that if we were unable to reach that town, we would pass near
the house of a man named Caswell—how well I remember the name
after the lapse of thirty-six years! —with whom we could stay
over night. He said it was but eight miles to Caswell's. It
was probably two o'clock in the afternoon when we started.
Now, the fact of the business was, that it was from sixteen to
nineteen miles to Caswell's, and some distance further on to
Bristol, with no intervening houses or settlements! With the
expectation, however, of not being compelled to travel more
than eight miles, we went along quite slowly. In those short
days it was but little time until nightfall, when we began to
strain our eyes to discover the light in the window. We did
not see it, but we traveled on and on. The snow increased very
rapidly, and when darkness set in, it was nearly a foot in
depth. Our ancient horse came to the conclusion that traveling
under such circumstances was a very nonsensical piece of
business, and finally refused to budge an inch, unless one of
us waded in the snow and led him. At last he refused to go on
any terms whatever. Sam remarked that "we would have to stay
there all night." The prospect for lodging was about as
forlorn and forbidding as can well be imagined. We unhitched
the horse from the buggy and tied him to one of the hind
wheels, buckling the buffalo robe round him, in order to
retain as much of his vitality as possible—for there was no
food for him, except as he pawed away the snow and munched the
dead and bleached grass. We sat down close together, on the
bottom of the buggy, putting our feet under the seat, and
placing our backs against the dashboard. We then drew the
blanket and my shawl over our heads, and by sitting close
together kept from freezing. Possibly we slept a little, but
many times during the night we were compelled to get up and
walk or run to warm our feet, otherwise I think they would
have frozen: In the morning a path led out from the buggy some
ten or twelve rods, which was smooth and icy from our constant
walking. We saw the full moon rise and make its circuit over
the heavens and go down. Our "camp" was on the top of a large
hill or ridge, elevated high above the surrounding country.
Morning came at last, when we expected to be able to see the
smoke rising from a log cabin off to the northwest. We waited
until after the sun rose, straining our eyes in vain to get a
glimpse of any human habitation. It was only a wide waste of
snow. Several miles in the distance a line of timber lay blue
and cold along the horizon, but there was no sign of life. We
had no means of determining how cold the night and morning had
been, but just where we were camping, the ground was covered
with weeds three or four feet high. These were decorated with
millions of frost-diamonds which sparkled in the sun. We
should have said they were very beautiful, indeed, if we had
been looking at them from our comfortable parlor window, but
under the circumstances they only suggested extreme cold. We
held a "council of war" soon after sun-rise, and came to the
unanimous conclusion that there was only one course for us,
and that was, to take ``the back track" and get a better
start. We, therefore, hitched our poor old horse to the buggy
and started southward. Being troubled with some affection of
the throat I had carried a bottle of medicine, the effect of
which, taken to excess, was very nauseating. That morning I
tasted it two or three times very moderately, for the purpose
of clearing my throat. Sam, however, thought I had something
in the way of whisky or brandy, and asked me for a drink.
Handing him the bottle, I told him that he must be cautious or
it would make him very sick. He disregarded my advice, and
took what I should say was rather a large "swig." In a few
minutes he became very sick, begging me to go forward and get
"help." I said everything I could to brace him up and induce
him to keep moving, and I would go on foot and lead the horse;
but he would listen to nothing of the kind. He was evidently
very much alarmed at his condition. and I was as much
concerned at leaving him there At last, I unhitched and
mounted the horse, and started off at a brisk gallop. In less
than an hour I was at the Williams' house in quest of help,
but there were no horse teams in that immediate vicinity. A
neighboring farmer had an ox team, and I employed him to go
out with his sled and oxen to bring in Sam and the buggy. Mrs.
Williams gave me an excellent breakfast, after which I had a
most refreshing sleep.
It was between three and four o'clock when I woke up. No
tidings had been heard from Sam or the man who had gone in
search of him. I therefore mounted the old horse, who, as well
as myself, was greatly refreshed by this time, and started to
learn what had become of my comrade. About a mile up the
country I met the cavalcade. They had taken the wheels off the
buggy, putting it all on the sled, and were coming along as
fast as the moping oxen could make their way through the snow.
Sam had entirely recovered from his sickness, and, as he had
had a hearty lunch, expressed himself as being in very
excellent condition. We did not venture out again that night,
but the next morning I went down the creek a mile or two and
hired a settler who had a good team and a fine sleigh, to
carry me to Bristol and Forest City, sending Sam to Clear
Lake, where he remained until my return. I made a very
successful trip for a pioneer printer who was clear out upon
the frontier, and the third day was back to Clear Lake. More
snow had fallen, and Sam, had meantime improvised a sort of
sled with which he hoped we would be able to reach home. The
runners were made of green oak planks and very heavy. His sled
was about a foot wider than it ought to be for an ordinary
track. But expecting that we could get through with it he had
loaded the buggy upon it, and we started. The first twenty
rods convinced me that that sort of vehicle was impracticable.
Returning to the village I employed Mr. H. G. Parker to take
his horses and sleigh and carry us to Webster City, leaving
Sam's big sled by the wayside. Parker was then a new-comer—as
poor a young man as any of us. Since then he has not only
thriven so far as earthly possessions are concerned, but had
the well-deserved honor of a seat in our State Senate.
It was a very reckless piece of business to venture out
so far from home at that season of the year, with the
liability that any pleasant morning might be followed
immediately by a terrible blizzard. But we new-comers could
only gain experience by learning it. This taught me a lesson
which I never forgot during all the time that I had occasion
to go into those upper counties in the winter time; and, as I
have remarked above, I always so prepared myself for these
storms, that neither I, nor my horse, would have run any risk
of freezing, had we been compelled to sleep out of doors in
the fiercest blizzard.
About six weeks after this preliminary trip I returned
nearly over the same route for the purpose of delivering to
the county officers the blanks I had printed. Did I take
another such risk as on the first journey? By no means. This
is how I was equipped for the expedition, which seemed much
like starting for the North Pole. I had a stout span of horses
and a farm sleigh. The sleigh-box was nearly filled with
prairie hay, and I took two bags of corn. My traveling comrade
this time was Daniel D. Chase, afterwards District Judge and
State Senator. He was then a "briefless barrister," who had a
few months before settled in Webster City, fresh from the
State of New York. We were each clad warmly, with heavy
overcoats and shawls. We had two large buffalo robes, two
heavy bed-quilts, two blankets, with heavy blankets for the
horses. Then our good wives had provided about a bushel of
"bread and dinner," consisting of meat, bread, cakes and many
other comestibles. We had a quart bottle of Binninger's best
Holland gin, doubtless for "snake-bites." Two large blocks of
green hickory wood, which we roasted each night in a stove
oven, and which would hold the heat many hours, some small
ropes for possible repairs, an axe, hammer and nails, and
doubtless other items not now remembered, completed the
outfit. We started out with confidence that if we were
assailed by blizzards, or lost upon the prairies, neither
ourselves nor our faithful animals need suffer very
much—certainly, that we were undertaking no dangerous risks.
We were lost a couple of times and had to take our "back
track" to the cabin of a settler in order to learn "where we
were at," and whither we should go to get along on the
journey. We traveled over long reaches of country which, under
the deep covering of snow, were tedious and monotonous. We
were out in heavy snow storms; our cheeks were badly frozen,
for we could not wholly cover our faces; but aside from
feeling quite tired at night, our week's journey was without
especial discomfort. I received my pay in county warrants,
upon which I soon realized the cash, for there was no
organized ring of sharks in that region, as in some of the
counties, to keep them below par for the purpose of robbing
the original owners by buying them on speculation. Mr. Chase
secured his first considerable retainers, in fact, he dated
from this journey his entry upon a long and successful law
practice.
This narration may seem dull and common-place to many
readers, but it records real experiences of our pioneer days,
showing what travel was when the whole of northwestern Iowa
was one wide prairie, without the snug residences and
beautiful groves which are now found upon every section of
land.
From some of the higher points we could look out over
wastes of deep snow as far as the eye could reach. Trees there
were none, save the natural groves and belts of timber along
the streams. In the distance, these were deep dark blue in
color. They always carried a suggestion of shelter, and
possible comfort; even in the stormiest weather, for it was
there that the lone traveler would find snug nooks and
thickets which broke the force of the fierce winter blasts.
The log cabin of the ever- hospitable and kind-hearted
settler; where the wayfarer was always welcome was certain to
be nestled about them. The changes which have come over all
that region have been such that a traveler of pioneer days
would recognize few if any of the localities with which he was
then familiar. The prairie is dotted with handsome frame
houses, the rude shed made of aspen poles and prairie hay has
given place to commodious barns now "bursting with plenty"--
and long lines of trees, or thick groves, have broken 'up the
vast spaces which were then, so white and dreary in winter.
And even the blizzards and snows, strangely enough, are things
of the past. |
