PIONEER EXPERIENCES OF MRS. LIBERTY PEASE
Pioneer in Two States—A Friend in Need—Life Forty Years Ago— Keen Interest in Affairs


Halfway between Shenandoah and Farragut, on the Pease homestead, lives one of the quaintest and most interesting old ladies it has been our fortune to meet. Her name is Mrs. Liberty Pease and she is a pioneer in two states, having come from Massachusetts to Illinois in 1856 and on to Fremont county, la., in 1868.   She has lived there ever since and has been a factor "in the development of the southwest country.
Mrs. Pease's maiden name was Philena Field. She was born in Massachusetts in 1826. In 1850 she married Liberty Pease and six years later they moved to Kewanee, Ill., to found a home. Kewanee was in the frontier country then and they watched the early growth of that city. Both Mr. and Mrs. Pease were charter members of the Baptist church at Kewanee, having been converted at "meetings" held in the district school house. Later they were charter members of the Baptist church at Shenandoah.

Her brother, S. E. Field, familiarly called "Uncle Sol Field", who followed her to Illinois and later to Iowa, ever found her home a true haven of rest. Back in Illinois he taught school and also conducted singing schools and would come twenty miles or so to stay over Saturday and Sunday with his sister's family. He was her children's Santa Claus. One especially hard winter Mrs. Pease, who always gave her children, a happy Christmas, had little time and no money, to spend on gifts and was feeling a little sad as she tucked ginger­bread dolls and apples and nuts into the little stockings hung by childish hands in full faith that Santa Claus would fill them. She had about completed her task when in bounced her brother, Sol, with his pockets full of all sorts of things for the children. He had been to a church fair, where the pretty girls had found the young school master a ready victim in the sale of their various articles. He turned in and helped fill the stockings, then went to bed on a big lounge in the same room, and in the dim light of Christmas morning watched the children who were so intent on their treasures they did not discover him till little John, coming to the lounge with his fat stocking, was lifted in strong arms and a hearty voice rang out, "Old Santa Claus has caught you now."

During the hard times in Illinois Mr. Pease's brother came from the east to see him and in the night it rained and the roof leaked above the guest's bed. He called for an umbrella and in the morning drew from his pocket the price of a new roof and gave it to the struggling pioneers.

They had heard many stories of the wonderful richness of the Nishnabotna valley and when Mr. Pease came in June, 1868, to investigate, he was so well pleased that he insisted upon moving at once to Fremont county. He declared that there could be no richer country in the United States than this. Mrs. Pease was reluctant to leave their Kewanee home, for she had many friends there and had no desire for further pioneering. She succumbed to her husband's entreaties and says she has never regretted the move. Mr. and Mrs. Pease were the first to come from Kewanee and settle in the vicinity of Farragut and Shenandoah and did much to induce others to come, entertaining land seekers at their home and helping them to good locations. They were two weeks on the road from Kewanee to Fremont county. The trip was made with two covered wagons. Some heavy household goods were shipped to Afton, then the terminal of the C. B. & Q. railway, and after a house was secured Mr. Pease drove back to Afton after the goods.  They moved into the house on the hill west old Manti school house, known as the Old Tavern, and lived there until their own house was built that winter. Their tract of 320 acres of land was bought for $5 an acre, with the exception of 40 acres for $3 and later the 40 where the house now stands for $11 an acre.

Material for the new house, which was built in the winter of 1868-69, was hauled from an island in the Missouri river, ten nliles below Hamburg. Mr Pease and son, George, hauled the timber.    They took two teams and hauled two loads in two days, camping out by the way.   It was cotton-wood lumber.   The house was built by Mr. Weech and Mr. Goodrich, asisted by Egbert White, who came from Kewanee and bought a large farm a month or two after the Peases. Mr. White brought his three boys and they made their home with the Pease's until their own home was built. The new Pease home was boarded up and down and was not plastered or weatherboarded for five years. Since then the house has been remodeled, enlarged and many modern conveniences added.

Manti was then, the only post office between Sidney and Clarinda. A stage ran between Sidney and Clarinda once each week and carried the mail. A lady was postmistress at Manti and kept the mail in her bureau drawers, along with a conglomeration of feminine apparel.

Six of their seven children attended school at Manti when they first came to this country. The first school in the Pease district was taught in a small, rude, frame building erected by Mr. Pease and rented for school purposes till the district built the present school house. Miss Blackburn, sister of Mrs. Frank Alden and John Blackburn, taught here and boarded with Mrs. Pease. Later a Miss Minnick taught the school. Both these ladies were from Kewanee.

When the Peases first settled here there were no trees except a fringe along the river. The farmers went to the river banks to gather seeds to start the groves. There was no herd law for several years and it was necessary to fence the crops for protection against outside stock. The farmers had free range for all their stock and free wild hay. Cutting one swath around a piece of hay established the ownership, and it could then be cut at any time. Prairie fires were numerous and dangerous. All the settlers had to plow around their buildings and burn strips one hundred feet wide between the furrows for fire guards.

Game — deer, prairie chickens, ducks, geese and white brants (something like the ducks and less difficult to shoot) furnished meat for the table. Tomatoes, pie-plant [rhubarb], wild grapes and wild plums were vegetables and fruits greatly prized before the orchards, newly planted by the settlers, began to bear. Some years wild strawberries were gathered by great pailfuls. The first season the grasshoppers destroyed the vegetables, and potatoes were almost as scarce as hens' teeth. A few were procured and buried for planting and corn bread and fried mush were substituted for table use.

They had to go to mill on Mill creek, near Riverton, and as they could not exchange wheat for flour, it was necessary to start long before daylight in order to reach the mill, and wait for the wheat to be ground. It was late at night before, they could reach home.

No ready-made clothes were to be had during the pioneer days and Mrs. Pease made all the clothing for her boys as well as the girls.

Mrs. Pease used to bake bread for Egbert White and his gang of men when they were breaking prairie on the White farm. One of the men would come to the door and receive the loaves and toss them one by one to the man on the wagon fifty feet away. It was not unusual for them to hreak up a whole loaf of fresh bread and feed it to the dogs. All the land seekers from the Kewanee vicinity made the Pease home their stopping place when they came west. Shortly after Peases arrival Mr. and Mrs. Albert Blake came with two children, and, finding no home, the Peases gave them two rooms. In early manhood their son, Ernest Blake, was drowned in the Nishnabotna, one of the first tragedies of this community. Other land seekers soon came and were ever welcome. One man staid with them three weeks while waiting to hear from land owners living in New York. One old couple, traveling overland, pitched camp in the yard one evening. Mrs. Pease could not induce them to come in the house to sleep. They said they were going to visit their children in Nebraska. When they returned two months later they explained that they had carried with them in their wagon $5,000 in cash and preferred camping out of doors with it.

In the fall of '69 Mr. Pease fed cattle and in the spring of '70 sold them to a buyer from Osceola. The only scales in the community were on the farm of John Myers at Manti. The cattle were driven there and weighed and then were driven to Red Oak to be loaded for shipment. It took two days to reach Red Oak. They camped the first night where John Lingo's house now stands. Mr. Pease had a severe headache and lay down to rest under the wagon. He told the .boys to grease the wagon and to be very careful not to let any of the wheels slip off. Yet that is just exactly what they did and the corner of the wagon box falling, barely missed Mr. Pease's head. When they reached Red Oak, the man with the cash was lacking and Mr. Pease accompanied the cattle to Osceola to secure his payment from the buyer. He received eight cents per pound for the cattle.

The railroad was graded in the wet summer of 1870 and where the farms are reasonably dry now it was so wet that the dirt had to be carried in wheelbarrows, as the teams could not be used. The farmers were so glad to get the railroad that, excepting by two men, the right of way from Shenandoah to Farragut was freely contributed by the farmers. Those two received $200, or $300 damages each. For some time after Farragut was started the box car station was the only building in town.

There were few amusements the first few seasons of their residence in the west. A Mite society was organized at Manti and almost all the settlers for miles around belonged. The mites were used to swell a fund to fence the Farragut cemetery, which, however, was not completed till several years later. One young man and young lady met first at a Mite society meeting, fell in love and were married a few weeks later. They are still residents of this community.

The first break in the family circle was the death of little Kitty, the baby of the family. Two months later Mr. Pease died after a week's illness. As there was no cemetery at Shenandoah or Farragut then, they were buried in their own dooryard and later tenderly removed to the Farragut cemetery. Carpenters who were at work on the house at the time fashioned the caskets.

Since the death of her husband, Mrs. Pease has remained on the homestead. She has spent one summer in New England and one in California, but never has wanted to live anywhere but in the home her husband selected and the house he built. One winter four of the Pease children went to Colorado to recuperate their health and Mother Pease was left alone with John and the school teacher, George Shadle, who boarded there. The children all recovered and two of the girls became successful teachers. Jessie taught the home school four years and was married to W. H. Deming in the school house on the last day of school.

Mrs. Pease has a good time now with her quilts and flowers and books. Her lively interest in everybody and everything has kept her young at heart, and now, in her eighty-seventh year, life is sweet to her. She never feels the dreariness of days that sometimes oppress people much younger than herself, but often remarks, "The days go so swiftly". She has always been a great reader. Among her children's earliest recollections is their mother seated by table or stand busily knitting and reading aloud from open book or magazine. She still retains good eyesight and reads a library book each week. She will discuss a new book or current magazine article with much insight and interest. She sews beautifully and pieces quilts with the same love for the work as "Aunt Jane of Kentucky," but, unlike Aunt Jane, she does not hoard them but gives them all away. During the past ten years she has averaged two quilts a year and her children, grandchildren and nieces from Massachusetts to California are proud possessors of these splendid specimens of her handiwork. She enjoys a large correspondence and is a remarkable letter writer. She is much interested in the school work of her grandchildren and enjoys reading aloud their lessons to them.
Mrs. Pease's children, now living, are Mrs. Mary Latimer, Shenandoah; Mrs. Lena Coy, Farragut; John E.
Pease, on the old homestead, and Mrs. W. H: Deming, Fairmont, Neb. Mrs. Pease and S. E. Field, formerly of Shenandoah and now a resident of Redlands, Cal., are the only living members of a family of eight children.

[Sentinel Post, Shenandoah, Iowa, Apr 23, 1912]