Chapter XII
There ought to be the strongest ties of feeling
between the old settlers of a country who have remained with it
and borne the burden and heat of the day, and there is. By reason
of the weakness of human nature there may be sometimes a hostile
feeling over some petty and insignificant affair between
neighbors, but, as a rule, the surviving settlers of a new
country whose experiences run back a quarter of a century, are
attached to each other; it would be unnatural to be otherwise.
Age may bring upon us its infirmities; it may palsy the limbs,
and gather the crows' feet insidiously about the eyebrows, but as
long as the faculties remain we shall ever retain a feeling of
fond recollection of the scenes and incidents of other days, and
of those who shared with us its experiences, its joys and
sorrows. And then again, people who bear the same misfortune
together become united in each others interest and are bound
together.
Every new County has to wrestle in the throes of doubt and
difficulty. The incoming population are generally of moderate
means, and come for the purpose of building a home and acquiring
a competence. The first acts of settlement are liable to absorb
the little that was brought with them, and for a time it is a
struggle with hardship, and sometimes for the necessaries of
life.
Their manner of living was not in commodious dwelling houses, but
in what was called a shanty or a shack. A settler's shack, or
shanty, was an exclusive western institution. It was the first
castle of the settler, was of generally uniform size, 8 x 10,
with a shed roof and tarpaper covering. If anyone doubted the
continuous residence, the shanty was referred to as the mute but
standing witness and the doubter became silent under this
avalanche of proof. There was also provided a stovepipe,
projecting through the roof, and this, added to the shanty,
emphasized the good faith of the settler. Occasionally when the
shack was left too long to itself, some mischievous, or malicious
fellow carried away some part or all of it, and the place that
once knew it, knew it no more forever but among settlers
themselves it was regarded as the sacred habitation, the legal
improvement, and everybody was warned neither to disturb nor
molest it. Sometimes, instead of this kind of a habitation, the
settler had a dugout or a sod shanty. A dugout consisted of an
excavation in the ground, a hole large enough to live in, with a
covering to it of some kind, sufficient to shed the rain and
enclose it; or, if the opportunity was had, it was built into a
knoll or the side of a hill. One room served all the purposes of
the homesteader and his family. If he prospered for a season he
would add to the front of his abode by erecting walls of sod on
the sides and putting in a new front; the old would serve as a
partition between the two rooms. You would often, upon entering
such an abode, be surprised, for once you got through the narrow
hole, called a door, to get into it, you would find elegant
furniture, left over from the former residence, and an organ with
an imposing cathedral back, towering high in one corner of the
room.
Sometimes a settler's claim would be jumped, as they called it,
but jumping claims was a very disreputable and sometimes a
serious business. It was expected in those cases where a party
entirely neglected his duty as a settler and paid no attention to
the requirements of the homestead or pre-emption law, that some
one who could comply would take the land and earn it with a
continuous residence. But where the settler was performing his
duty to the best of his ability, and was faithful to his claim,
with good intentions, that he who undertook to deprive him of it
was a miscreant, and the neighborhood would sit down on him with
a determined vengeance. Any person of character and
respectability would not jump a claim without the surest and
safest of reasons, and where a claimant abandoned his claim
without actual settlement, and with continued neglect, then it
was the duty of any seeking government land to take it, and let
the other party lose his rights by his delay. They did not blame
anyone for jumping a claim where the claimant showed bad faith,
but where good faith was exhibited, then the act was
reprehensible.
We will conclude this chapter with an experience of W. R. Boling:
Mr. Boling came to Osceola in the fall of 1872 and left papers
for filing on his claim in Horton Township where he now resides.
He returned and remained that winter in Poweshiek County, and came
back to Osceola in the spring of 1873. While traveling out, he
was joined by O. l. Hemnenway and John Wood, who were pointed for
Sheldon and settled there. Boling's trip was uneventful until he
reached the Little Ocheyedan, about ten miles south of now
Ocheyedan Town, and was then on his way to Sibley. The river from
heavy snows that winter had become quite a stream, but the ice
was still underneath in some places. Boling had a span of mules,
a covered wagon filled with the requirements of a settler, and
the difficult task of crossing the Ocheyedan was before him. He
took a long pole, walked in sounding the bottom to decide the
question of safe crossing, and satisfied himself that he could
make it. He got aboard the wagon, started up the mules and
ventured to cross. When he was about eight feet from the opposite
side, the mules went into the water out of sight, also one of the
front wheels, leaving the wagon partly tipped. Boling jumped into
the stream to try and right things, but had a narrow escape from
drowning and only by desperate effort reached the other side, and
without time to worry over the fix he was in, went to work at
once to save the outfit. One mule was completely under water, and
the other had his head just out of it; finally Boling got one
mule out and hitched on the other one and pulled him out upon the
bank more dead than alive. A mule's existence does not always
require soft bedding and a palace barn, and this one's experience
demonstrates the fact that a mule can be pretty well drowned and
still life. Boling waited until both of them got life enough to
travel, then rode one and led the other about eight miles to a
settler's cabin, where he staid all night, and, returning next
morning with assistance, rescued the wagon and its contents and
renewed his journey.