Chapter XVII
Horton township's first settler came in 1871. In 1871
Seymour Coyour, then under age, came to Minnesota with his
father, and lived just over the line of Horton in Minnesota. When
Seymour came of age he made contest of the northwest quarter of
Section 24 and succeeded in obtaining the land, which he filed
upon and still lives on the same place. The first settler in
Horton Township was L.G. Ireland, who, is elsewhere mentioned as
coming from Clayton County, Iowa with A.B. Elmore and E.N. Moore.
Mr. Elmore was also one of Horton's first settles, on Section 34,
but he did not long remain in Horton, as he soon after took a
claim in Ocheyedan. Mr. Ireland took the southeast quarter of
Section 34, and turned the first furrow of the soil of that
township. He was also a lawyer, but he was not a distinguished
member of that profession and did not claim to be. He was
politically ambitious, and was once a candidate for the
Legislature on the independent ticket. He has since died. His
claim is now owned by Dick Wassmann. So far as we can learn there
were no other settlers in Horton Township in 1871 except Mr.
Elmore and Mr. Ireland.
In 1872 there were many who settled in this township. N.W .
Emery, who is elsewhere mentioned, came that year. W.R. Boling,
mentioned also in another chapter, came in 1872. Mr. Boling had
two brothers, J.T. and E.W., who lived in Horton, but have since
moved away. E.W. moved from the township into Ocheyedan and
resided there until about two years ago, when he moved to
Powshick County, Iowa, where he now resides. J.T. was justice in
that township several years, and is now an evangelist and lives
in Illinois. In 1872 also C.M. Richards, W. Bisby, W.W. Herron,
Henry and Dan Gibson and Jacob Brooks settled in Horton, coming
from Butler County, Iowa. Richards left about eight years ago,
and now resides in Pipestone, Minnesota. Bisby went to Butler
County. Herron is in California. Mr. Brooks is now a merchant at
Sibley. Also H.B. Clemens came that year to the township, and a
few years ago went to Washington. During the residence of those
Butler County people Richards was one of the township trustees,
and in the fall went to Butler County and remained during the
winter. While thus away on a visit, the other trustees declared
his office vacant, and made an appointment. Richards returned in
the spring and was present at the annual meeting, when he was
informed that during his absence the office had dropped from
under him, and that another had been appointed to fill the vacant
place. Richards was not of that kind to surrender so easily--sing
a common expression-he was not built that way. He first gave vent
to his feelings, spoke his mind, and this, with the talking back,
culminated in an open fight, in which the other fellows got the
worst of it, and the affair finally drifted into court. Richards,
however, held the office until the expiration of his term. Samuel
Collett settled in Horton in 1871, he proved up on his claim and
moved to Montana, where he now resides. Jacob Brooks owned the
original quarter upon which he settled until recently, and it is
now occupied by Mr. H. Keith.
Since the earlier settlements in Horton Township quite a number
of German families have moved into the township and these Germans
are considered as some of its most substantial and industrious
citizens. In 1882 Henry Wassmann, with his son Dick, Charles
Griep and several others of the neighbors left Indiana and bought
tickets to Chicago, from there to Glendive, Montana. They were
simply going west as men do go, without knowing exactly where
until the looked it over. They got to Bismarck in North Dakota,
when the elder Wassmann thought that any more west was too much
for him, and told the rest of the party they could go on, but as
for himself he should look over a part of Iowa. This caused the
three parties above named to return to St. Paul where they bought
tickets to Sheldon. They drove from Sheldon to Bigelow, Minnesota
and not desiring to settle there were returning, when, by parties
at Sibley, they were induced to settle in Osceola County, which
they did. The Wassmann's bought several pieces of land, among
which was the L.G. Ireland place on Section 34, where Dick
Wassmann now lives. His correct name is Diedrich Wassmann, but is
commonly called Dick. There is no better farm in the country than
Dick Wassmann's, and no better place for a home than right there
among the large variety of forest trees, set out by the lamented
Ireland and later by Dick himself. About one hundred different
kinds of trees stand there in the gorgeous grandeur of their
green foliage and as the leaves rustle in the breeze, they seem
to whisper a voice of contentment, of thrift and independence
which mark the surroundings, and are expressed in the hospitality
of the occupant, for Dick Wassmann is no more diminutive in heart
and soul than he is stature. There are kinds of trees on this
farm that probably couldn't be found anywhere else in the state,
and fruit trees in abundance. Henry Wassmann returned to Indiana
where he still resides. Charles Griep bought the northeast
quarter Section 27 where he still lives and is a successful
farmer.
The coming of these parties here was the means of other Germans
following them and buying land in Horton.
Henry Pinkerburg took a part of Section 25, also did Conrad
Hattendorf; Henry Rusche the northwest quarter of Section 14;
Fred Glade a part of Section 23; William Lick a part of Section
21, and Conrad Oldendorf a part of Section 23 and 25. W.H.
Noehren bought the northeast quarter of Section 22, and still
lives there. Mr. Noehren has been prominent in township matters,
and at present is a member of the Board of County Commissioners.
This township has a good class of people, and among its other
substantial farmers not otherwise mentioned are the three
Piscators, father and two sons, who we believe are on Section 8,
Gustav Johnson on Section 10, William Rehborg on Section 11, and
August Polinski on Section 13.
On Section 14, besides Henry Rusche, lives August Bremer on the
northeast quarter, and John Estabrook on the southwest quarter.
Conrad Bremer is on Section 15, William Filk and John Farragher
on Section 18, and Peter Wickland on Section 19. On Section 20 is
Vaclave Sixty, also John Maske, Joseph Rhomatko and Joseph Cload.
On Section 22 we find Chris Bremer and Henry Redeker.
John Robertson has the southeast quarter of Section 24, and John
Gielow and William Grave are on Section 26. On Section 27,
besides Mr. Griep, are Charles Schmidt and William Sehr. Mr. John
Thompson lives on a quarter of Section 28, and Mr. I.B. Titus
owns a part of Section 30, and is the only resident on that
section. Frank Engle is on Section 31, and William Maske on
Section 32. Chris Wassmann is on Section 35 and has recently
built there a house and barn. On Section 36 William Carney has a
quarter, also A.V. Randall, and on the same section Mr. Elmore
has a tree claim. Mr. Randall formerly lived on his quarter, but
is now in business in Ocheyedan. J.T. Boling's place is now owned
by Herman Bauermeister, who lives in Worthington, Minnesota.
GRASSHOPPER PERIOD.
The history of the great world itself recognizes
certain distinct periods which have marked the ages with their
different characteristics. Osceola County is but a small part of
this mighty universe, but its brief history has it periods which
are readily recognized by those of its citizens whose residence
here reaches back even for only a decade.
The first was its filing period, when settlers made record in the
government office, that they claimed certain pieces of land for
residence and occupation. The next was the grasshopper period,
and the last a period of general contentment and prosperity. This
part of the history is devoted to the grasshopper period, and
following this, the relief campaign which followed in the wake of
destroyed crops and destitution. The writer himself went through
this "reign of terror" and knows all about it by
personal contact and experience. The grasshopper itself was a
curiosity; we call it grasshopper because then among settlers it
bore no other name, while the books designate the pest as the
"Rocky Mountain locust.
The natural home of these insects was on the barren table lands
along the eastern base of the Rocky Mountains. There they
deposited their eggs every year. In Wyoming Territory, Western
Nebraska, Texas, the Indian Territory and New Mexico, the broods
were annually hatched. In their native haunts they attained an
enormous size, many specimens being three inches in length.
Scientific men, who have studied the habits of the grasshoppers
state that each succeeding brook degenerates in size, and after
three or four generations the weaker are obliged to swarm and
seek other quarters, being driven out by the larger and stronger
insects.
These exiles rise and go with the wind, keeping the direction in
which they first start, stopping in their flight for subsistence
and depositing eggs in a prolific manner during the incubating
season, which lasted from the middle of June to the middle of
September.
This region had been visited by grasshoppers before, but did not
excite a great deal of attention for the reasons that the county
was sparsely settled and but a small area of land under
cultivation, and they came so late in the season that small
grains were generally out of their reach, but extreme
Northwestern Iowa then was not settled, so that their ravages
were further east. Their first appearance at Sibley was on the
5th day of June 1873. The first seen of them was a huge black
cloud, which was none other than a swarm of grasshoppers, and
which sent out a roaring sound that terrified the ears. Where
there was any grain to cut even before its maturity, the settlers
went at it to save what the could, but the grasshoppers were not
bad reapers themselves, and the modern and latest improved of
agricultural machinery cut but little figure in the race, when
that swarm of grasshoppers came down and went to work. They were
possessed of great vitality and enormous appetites; their first
appearance was alarming and their devastations were appalling. It
introduced to the settles a serious problem; they were new to the
country, or rather the country was new to them, and this strange
visitation raised the question as to whether or not this
grasshopper business was a part of the country itself, and that
the pests would remain off and on indefinitely in the future.
This thought, aside from their coming and the destruction they
did in 1873, caused much concern and consternation.
These grasshoppers had crossed the Missouri River and commenced
foraging in the bordering Iowa counties. and devoured the crops
as they went to a greater or less extent. In this season of 1873
some of the Osceola County settlers lost what crop they had by
the grasshoppers, and others their crops were partially
destroyed. Some saved a small garden patch by means of
"shooing" them off and keeping the patch free from
them, although the task was tedious and difficult.
The early part of the season was extremely dry. No rain fell from
the first of May to the middle of June. Grain did not grow much,
but the grasshoppers did, and before the drought ended, the crops
were eaten and parched beyond all hope of recovery. About the
middle of June, however, considerable rain fell, and outside of
the before mentioned counties the prospect was generally
favorable for good crops. The young grasshoppers commenced to get
wings about the middle of June, and in a few days they began to
rise and fly. The prospect seemed good for a speedy riddance from
the pests. The perverse insects were waiting for an easterly
wind, but the wind blew from the southwest for nearly three
weeks, so they stayed and visited, and eat and continued their
ravages.
Early in the spring of 1874 the eggs deposited the season before,
commenced hatching, and the soil looked literally alive with
insignificant looking insects, a quarter of an inch in length but
of enormous eating qualities. As if by instinct, their first
movements were toward the fields where tender shoots of grain
were making their modest appearance. Sometimes the first
intimation a farmer would have of what was going on would be from
noticing along one side of his grain-field a narrow strip where
the grain was missing. At first, perhaps, he would attribute it
to a "balk" in sowing, but each day it grew wider and a
closer examination would reveal the presence of young
grasshoppers.
The settlers of Osceola County in the spring of 1874 did their
sowing and planting under a feeling of apprehension. They were
here and the work must go, even with the grasshopper difficulty
staring them in the face. Many got out of the country, owing to
the grasshoppers of 1873, but they who remained had naught else
to do but to work on. The grasshopper ravages were the worst in
1874 and 1875, and from then on the pests degenerated in size and
did less mischief each year, but were still here until 1879 when
they did but little damage and in 1880 the county felt itself
well rid of them.
All sorts of suggestions and devices were made with reference to
the destruction of grasshoppers during these years, and it was
much of a topic of discussion how to get rid of them. Judge
Oliver, in a communication to the Sioux City
Journal, said: "Farmers should not be
discouraged. Crops, especially wheat and corn, should be put in
as early as possible, so as to get a start while the hoppers are
small. Late potatoes and beans may be planted as late as is safe,
so as not to get up until the hoppers are gone. Young trees and
shrubs may be protected by a sack of thin cloth drawn over them
and tied at the bottom. I desire to impress on farmers, where the
eggs are unhatched, the absolute necessity of early seeding. One
weeks' difference in the time of seeding may make all the
differences between a good crop and a failure."
The Sioux City Journal
said: "The grasshopper deposits its eggs at the roots of the
grass in the latter part of summer or early autumn. The eggs
hatch out early in spring, and during the months of April, May
and June, according as the season is early or late; they are
wingless, their sole power of locomotion being the hop.
"To destroy them, all that is needed is for each county,
town or district to organize itself into a fire brigade,
throughout the district where their eggs are known to be
deposited.
"This fire brigade shall see that the prairies are not
burned over in the fall, and thus they will have the grass for
the next spring and to be employed upon the pests while they are
yet hoppers, the means of sure death. To apply it, let all agree
upon a certain day, say in April or May or at any time when they
are sure all the hoppers are hatched and none are yet winged. All
being ready let every person, man, woman and boy, turn out with
torches and simultaneously fire the whole prairie, and the work,
if well done, will destroy the whole crop of grasshoppers for
that year, and none will be left to "soar their gossamer
wings" or lay eggs for another year."
The Gazette of July
10, 1874 had the following: "Grasshoppers are being
successfully chased by many people in this county. There is
usually a slight wind blowing, and people take ropes one or two
hundred feet in length, and stretching them out, walk or ride
across the fields, the trailing rope disturbing the grain, which
causes the 'hoppers' to fly up, and then the friendly wind
carries them off the field.
"Mr. Dunton, who has been saving his wheat by the use of
ropes, finds it useful to tie rags, newspapers, etc., to them on
account of the greater rustle the rope makes as it trails over
the grain with these attached.
As the grasshopper years went on, the people themselves,
scientific men and even the halls of legislation were discussing
the important question of how to drive the "hoppers"
from the country. Many and varied were the experiments. They
tried smudging, burning the prairie, burning tar, digging ditches
and every conceivable thing that the ingenuity of man could
suggest, even to a huge trap in which to snare and catch them.
Minnesota offered a bounty of a certain amount per bushel for
them, and actually paid out quite a sum, which helped the people
along, but the idea of delivering a crop of grasshoppers for a
consideration, strikes us now as bordering on the ridiculous.
These pests lasted about seven years, and the latter years of the
seven they were much less troublesome than the first. The
grasshopper business, too, had its humorous side, there was much
wit grew out of it, and the eastern papers made much fun of us,
and not only that, but seriously charged us with being a country
liable to such things, and hence unfit to live in. The county
papers around in Northwestern Iowa would each claim that the
other county was the worst. The Gazette
said in one issue they were mostly in Dickinson County, and the Beacon
gives this assertion the lie and says they
are on the border of Osceola "peeking" over. Some
agricultural house printed a card bearing the picture of a
grasshopper sitting on a board fence gazing at a wheat field, and
underneath the words: "In this s(wheat) by and bye."
The poet was also at work, and the following one of the numerous
productions:
CHARGE OF THE GRASSHOPPER BRIGADE
Half a league, half a league,
Half a league onward,
Right from the West they came,
More than six hundred ---
Out from the forest and glade:
"Charge for the corn! they said
Then for the fields they made---
More than six hundred.
Fields to the right of them,
Fields to the left of them;
Fields in front of them,
Pillaged and plundered;
Naught could their numbers tell,
Down on the crop they fell,
Nor left a stalk or shell---
More than six hundred.
Flashed all their red legs bare,
Flashed as they turned in air,
Robbing the farmers there,
Charging an orchard, while
All the world wondered!
Plunged in the smudge and smoke,
Right through the corn they broke,
Hopper and locust;
Peeled they the stalks all bare,
Shattered and sundered;
Then they went onward--- but
More than six hundred.
Since these grasshopper days the old
settlers can see what they missed by the following, recently
published:
"Some very important uses for grasshoppers have recently
been discovered. There would seem to be no reason why they should
not be applied to commercial advantage in the event of a plague
this year. Not long ago four quarts of liquid, expressed from
half a bushel of "hoppers" under a cheese press, were
shipped in a glass from Spirit Lake, Iowa, to Professor William
K. Kedzie, of the Kansas State Agricultural College. He made a
complete analysis, and by distilling the juice with sulphuric
acid obtained a colorless, limpid solution of formic acid. Now,
this acid is very valuable, having a present market quotation of
sixty cents an ounce. It is not only employed in medicine to a
considerable extent, but it is also utilized in the laboratory to
reduce salts of the noble metals, gold, silver and platinum.
Hitherto it has always been extracted from red ants, but the
possibility of getting it in large quantities from grasshoppers
suggests a method for employing these insects to an unlooked-for
advantage. An interesting feature of the analysis was the
discovery of a certain amount of copper in the liquid. This metal
has been found in the blood of other animals, particularly in the
horseshoe crab, which always furnishes a trace of it. It is not
suggested, however, that grasshoppers would assay a sufficient
amount of copper to the ton to make it worth while to smelt them.
"A while ago, Professor C.V. Ripley, United States
entomologist, sent a bushel of grasshoppers, freshly caught and
scalded, to Mr. Bonett, a St. Louis caterer. The latter made a
soup of them, which was pronounced perfectly delicious by many
people who were afforded an opportunity of tasting it. It closely
resembled bisque. Mr. Bonnett declared that he would gladly have
it on his bill of fare every day if he could only obtain the
insects. His method of preparing the dish, as described by
himself, was to boil the hoppers over a brisk fire, seasoning
them with salt, pepper and grated nutmeg, and occasionally
stirring them. When sufficiently done they were pounded in a
mortar with bread fried brown; then they were replaced in the
saucepan and thickened to a broth, which was passed through a
strainer before being served. Professor Riley treated some
friends of his on one occasion to curry of grasshoppers and
grasshopper croquettes without informing them as to the nature of
the banquet, but an unlucky hind leg, discovered in one of the
croquettes, revealed the secret."
RELIEF.
In January 1873 there was organized at Sibley what
they called the "Citizens Farmers' Club." This was
before the "Grange" swept over the state, but both of
these had the useful conditions of existence. They had their
birth, maturity and death. The Citizen Farmers' Club was
organized December 7, 1872, and its object as declared by a
resolution was for the purpose of mutual protection, assistance,
encouragement, instruction and social intercourse generally.
Meetings were held every Friday afternoon at one o'clock, and no
doubt many an ambitious orator, after the fame of Cicero,
electrified and delighted the audience. This organization had
quite a number of meetings, but soon as the Grange was introduced
into Osceola County, the Citizen Farmers' Club began to decline
and last, in the language of the illustrious Cleveland, went into
"Innocuous desuetude." Following these and really as a
basis upon which to secure relief for the people by reason of
grasshoppers, the following announcement appeared in a September
number of the Gazette
:
"HOMESTEADER'S PROTECTIVE ASSOCIATION.-There will be a
meeting of the citizens of Osceola County, on the fair grounds,
near Sibley, at 1 o'clock p.m., September 25, 1873, for the
purpose of organizing a Homesteader's Protective Association, the
object and aim of which, will be to look after the interests of
all true homesteaders. It is hoped that there will be a general
turnout, that the organization may be permanent as long as it may
be needed in this locality. In union there is strength. MANY
HOMESTEADERS."
The meeting was held according to announcement and the following
is a report of it:
HOMESTEADER'S PROTECTIVE ASSOCIATION.