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Shelby County |
Home 1915 History Index |
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Shelby County |
Home 1915 History Index |
CHAPTER VIII - REMINISCENCES OF THE PIONEERS (CONT'D)
I first came to Shelby county in the latter part of 1880, buying land in section 35, Jefferson township. Among the persons then living on the stream known as Long Branch were J. C. Wooster, Samuel Hall, John Potter (father of T. H. Potter, of Harlan), the elder Mr. Shannon and a man named Marsh, the two last named persons residing in Polk township. Previous to my coming to Shelby county, I had farmed in Illinois. I heard of this county through L. C. Larson, who then resided northwest of Walnut and with whom I had previously been acquainted. My two brothers-in-law and I came west intending to go to Beuna Vista county. We arrived at Avoca and started out to see our friend Larson, who was then living in Monroe township. We walked out from Avoca and saw many wagons of corn in the ear being hauled to Walnut. An unusual sight to us was several thousand bushels of corn piled on the ground on one of the hills.
We left the road at a number of places and went into the hollows (or draws) to examine the corn. We then walked up to the top of several hills which were planted to corn, and were very much surprised to find good corn at the very top, as we had not known of corn being grown successfully in Illinois on the hill tops. We did not altogether like the looks of the country since we had been used to seeing nice lying land. We were told by Larson, however, that the land was all good, that occasionally a little gravel would be found on the hills and some brush and grubs, but that we could not go wrong buying land anywhere in the county. Arriving in Harlan, we went to the Wyland real estate firm, who sent one of the employees, Carl Peterson, out with us to the northeast corner of the county. In less than an hour Chris Schouboe and Albert Schouboe, my brothers-in-law, and I had selected the land which we wanted. I bought one hundred and twenty acres at nine dollars per acre. I saw a great many wolves round the cattle and hog yards and heard them at night. There were thousands of prairie chickens. One-third of my land probably was covered with oak grubs. Among the persons who came in about the same time I did, were Allen, Green, the Kneelands, and Shepard. I had been told by a resident of Illinois that this country out here was rough, that it would grow some wheat, but that it would produce but little corn. When I returned to Illinois, I reported what I had seen and later when some of my friends came out here and saw the cattle and horses being produced and found that we really had plenty to eat, they were surprised. Among the first persons I saw in the northeast part of the county were Peter Mortensen, and Chris Micahelson, who now lives in Harlan. Mr. Michaelson said that clover could not be grown here and that farmers were having great difficulty in growing timothy. I sowed timothy, however, soon after taking possession of my land and got a fair crop of hay and also a crop of seed. In sowing this I mixed it with the grain and worked it in. At the time I came to the county, although there was probably timothy and clover, I did not see any, although I did see some patches of blue grass. This grass seems to have come in naturally, early establishing itself by the roadside. I soon had timothy, blue grass and clover growing on my farm. In 1885 Jasper Groat, M. Kneeland and I tried to start some alfalfa. We got the seen in Auidubon for about twelve acres. I tried it on a twelve-acre hog pasture with flax, thinking it would make a fine pasture for my hogs. We did not know how to care for it, although there are some of the plants along the creek on my farm yet. Mr. Groat sowed the alfalfa on a high hill and Mr. Kneeland in a draw. I sowed my alfalfa seed on the ground neither very high nor very low. None of us had good success with the plant. I believe that Mr. Groat had been out in Nebraska, probably in southern Nebraska, and saw the plant growing there. We were, however, very successful with timothy and clover and thought that good enough. One of the early men to develop alfalfa successfully, although much later than our attempt, was Soren Sorenson, living in the northeast corner of Polk township. He had known the plant in the old country. The first pasture that I had was made up of a combination of oats, barley, rye, clover and timothy. The oats and barley made a rank growth and afforded very early pasture. The rye stooled out, which then afforded a great deal of feed, and later the clover and timothy came out splendidly. I shall never forget some experiences I had in the spring of 1881, remembered for the great floods which came as the very heavy snow of the preceding winter began to melt. Later in March that spring I returned from Illinois to go out to my place. Arriving at Harlan, I found that all of the bridges were out and it was three days before I had an opportunity to leave Harlan in the direction of my farm. It was then that a man named Snyder and his son, living near Irwin, came to town for farm implements. The Wylands sent me out with them. We left Harlan on a bitter cold day, crossed the prairie, following the ridges. When we arrived about two miles west of Irwin, Mr. Snyder told me to go straight east and that I would thereby reach the settlement where Irwin was. I came across a man slightly west of Irwin, named Whittier, living in a dug-out. He was carrying a kerosene can and I asked whether I might stay. He said that they always made room for people and that he could keep me over night, if I could put up with their accommodations. The night was becoming constantly colder and I was glad of a chance to be taken in. Whittier had plenty to eat, such as corn bread, etc. When it came time to go to bed, I was directed to the loft and mounted a ladder standing on the floor inside the dug-out. I found a very comfortable bed and, being very tired, slept very well indeed. The next morning was very cold. Mr. Whittier had two teams, one a span of big mares, for which he had paid four hundred dollars, and the other a little team. The little team was tied at the granary without cover and their feet frozen in the ground, which had been soft where they were tied the night before. The large horses were tied to a wagon outside without cover. This seemed strange to me for we had much better shelter in Illinois, where I had been accustomed to farming. Mr. Whittier untied the two big mares from the wagon and we each rode one of them with the idea of crossing the Botna river. The bridge east of Irwin was gone, but the bridge to the south still remained. When we arrived at the south bridge we could see only the railing of the bridge and the ice was floating by in great chunks. Mr. Whittier said that he was sorry, but that it looked pretty dangerous. I agreed with him that we ought not risk ourselves and the mares, whereupon we returned and I went on to Irwin. There I was told that the bridge at Irwin was out, but that a bridge near a school house northeast of Irwin was still standing and that up there the water appeared to be going down. Although the day was very cold, I started out, wearing high boots, which the water many times almost covered. The wind was blowing from the northwest, and after crossing the bridge over the Botna, I struck southeast in the direction of Long Branch. I finally reached Sam Hall’s on Long Branch and found this stream greatly swollen and the bridge gone. Being unable to cross, I walked south to the home of John Potter, who brought out a long plank to see whether it would not be possible to use it in crossing, but, the stream being too high, I was obliged to go further down until I arrived at the home of the elder Shannon, father of E. E. Shannon, who told me that I could cross at the Marsh school house, that there was a good bridge there. I found this bridge and crossed. By this time it was night and the snow was driving hard. After crossing the bridge, I was then obliged to go northeast, and after walking what I thought was two or three miles, I heard a dog bark and also heard the repeated tap of a hammer, although I could see nothing. I kept walking in the direction of these noises and came upon my brother-in-law, Chris Schouboe, who was trying to put lath over the cracks of a little shanty on the side from which the wind was blowing, so that his family, including some little children, might not suffer too much by reason of the storm. I, of course, stopped there and we were all in this shanty. Mr. Schouboe succeeded in nailing lath over some of the cracks and the stove was kept as hot as possible all night, Mr. Schouboe fortunately having some coal. We managed to keep from freezing, although our backs turned away from the stove were very cold. I remained a week or so there, helping to build stables, etc., for horses and other live stock. I left on April 7 and was told that there was afterwards one of the worst snow storms ever known in this county. The spring was very late and grain could not be sown until in May. The frost was not out of the ground until April 20 or later, so that the breaking plow could not be used, even so late as that, except on the sunny side of the hills. Even so late as the middle of May there was a great deal of ice in the brush. Men in those days thought the bottoms had the only land worth farming and that I would never make a penny on the highlands and hills. These hills looked pretty steep to me and sometimes the women would insist on getting out of the wagons when we drove down the sides of some of these prairie mountains. In the early days we covered practically all of our buildings except houses with long slough grasses, which then was plentiful and which readily turned rain. This grass grew very rank in those days and was often eight feet or more in height. We stacked straw over our sheds. Of course, we had plenty of wild hay, which was easily procured and furnished good feed for those days. The lumber for building my house was hauled from Harlan, a distance of about twenty miles. In those days men would sit on the running gear of a wagon and ride twenty miles for lumber. I began at once to develop good Shorthorn and Durham cattle. I got some good bulls from T. R. Westrope, who, I think, is deserving of great credit for the vast amount of good that he did Shelby county in the matter of improving our cattle. I did not begin feeding for the market until later in the eighties and it was not until 1896 that I marketed especially good beeves. About the middle of October, 1896, I had on blue grass a carload of two-year-old steers coming three the next spring. I kept these on feed during the winter and sold them on February 17, 1897, at which time the carload averaged one thousand five hundred and eighty pounds in Irwin, and which I sold in Chicago at five dollars and thirty-five cents per hundred weight. George B. Blades, the well known stock buyer, said that these were the best cattle that he had seen in the Irwin yards up to that time. These cattle topped the Chicago market on the day on which they were sold. I was told my M. K. Campbell, himself a pioneer stock man, at that time, that this was the first lot of Shelby county steers to top the Chicago market. I started these cattle on snap corn and also fed them later oats and shelled corn with a little oil meal. I grew these cattle, and from the time that they were calves I kept them coming forward by good feeding. A good many inquiries came to me from agricultural schools and experimental stations in Ohio, Indiana and Illinois, asking as to the breeding of these cattle, the character and length of feeding, etc. We are just beginning to appreciate the staying qualities of Shelby county soil and the variety of her resources as a producer of crops and live stock.
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