Chapter II
The intention of the writer is to confine these events
to the separate years as far as possible, and also to speak of
townships separately, but after all they will be more or less
blended. Having drifted into Ocheyedan Township by the location
of Mr. Buchman, it is perhaps best to finish this township for
the year 1871. Ocheyedan had no prospective railroad to cross it,
which, perhaps, may be the reason that this township was not
sooner settled, or its land filed upon as early as Holman.
Buchman's place, meager as it was, and not tempting to a traveler
for hotel accommodations, was nevertheless, a sort of
headquarters between Western Osceola, Eastern Lyon and Milford
and Spencer, and the boys had many a rollicking time at the
Buchman habitation. About the first of May 1871, Will Dunham and
Fred Frick settled on Section 8 in Ocheyedan Township. Frick
lived there about four years, and Dunham went to California in
1882. On Section 18, we think the southwest quarter, Ole Peterson
settled.
This same summer of 1871 also came A. B. Elmore, L. G. Ireland and
E. N. Moore; these came from Clayton County, also Elder Dean. Mr.
Elmore first filed on a part of Section 34, in Horton Township,
but afterwards settled on Section 2 in Ocheyedan, where he still
resides and is highly respected. E. N. Moore settled on Section 4,
in Ocheyedan as did also Elder B. D. Dean. Mr. Moore still owns
the same quarter-section, but resides now in the Town of
Ocheyedan is postmaster, and considered one of its best citizens.
Elder Dean is now in Exeter, New Hampshire, and left Osceola
County in 1878. L. G. Ireland, who was a very honorable and
conscientious man, left in 1879 with his family and moved to
Florida. They have since all died.
On the northwest quarter of Section 20 lived Fred Nagg. These
comprise the settlements made in Ocheyedan in 1871. Nothing was
raised that season by these settlers, and the summer was
uneventful, except a severe hail storm which swept this part of
the County and was unusually severe. Mr. Buchman lost a cow and a
calf in this storm; they probably went with it, as cattle will;
at any rate he never saw them afterward.
The winter of 1871 and 1872 was a disagreeable one, but most of
the Ocheyedan settlers wintered elsewhere. Those that remained on
their claims were Dunham and Frick, Ole Peterson and Fred Nagg.
The Nagg family had a hard time of it. They lived in a sodden
house, small and cold, and kept a yoke of oxen in the same room,
ground corn to live upon, and cut weeds and fed to the oxen to
keep them alive. Their lot seemed to be a hard one, and indeed it
was. Had they been there by order of some despotic ruler, as a
convict goes to Siberia, it would have been unbearable, but
thoughts of the coming spring time, and of the green grass and
wild flowers of the beautiful prairie which would return in the
summer before them, kindled the joyous feeling of promise and of
hope, and gave them a heart of sunshine, even amid the snows of
winter. But, alas, before the hoped for spring time had come to
this poverty stricken family that grim reaper Death, which stalks
unbidden alike into the palaces of the rich and the hovels of the
poor, sought out upon the bleak prairies of Ocheyedan during that
hard winter of 1871 and 1872 the head of the household Fred Nagg
himself, and this terrible affliction just then laid a burden of
sorrow upon the family which in addition to their abject
condition of poverty seemed greater than they could bear. Nagg
had started on foot for Roger's store during the latter part of
that winter, the only store then where Sibley now is, obtained a
few needed and indispensable articles, and left the store to
return to his family, but he never reached them. He had a hand
sled and was overtaken with a blizzard and sudden cold weather.
He was not sufficiently clad even for weather less severe, and,
becoming numbed and senseless by the cold and storm, lay down and
died. This blizzard, on February 12, 1872, lasted three days, and
at its commencement there were about sixteen men at Roger's store
in from their claims. They all started home. Some reached there
and others stopped with some settlers on the way. After the storm
was over word had been received that Nagg had not reached home,
and J. F. Glover, M. J. Campbell, C. M. Brooks, Al Halstead, F. F.
and Eugene White started out and followed Nagg's sled trail.
About seven miles out southwest from Sibley they found the sled
and sack; wolves had clawed into the sack and eaten a part of the
contents. The party were unable to find Nagg's body, but went to
the house and consoled his wife as best they could, holding out a
hope that he might still be alive. His body was found afterwards
in the latter part of March 1872, by W. H. Lean, and it was
partially eaten by the wolves. Nagg was buried on his claim, and,
there being no clergyman to conduct the usual funeral exercises,
Frick read the burial service from an Episcopal prayer book. The
few that remained in Ocheyedan Township during that winter of
1871 and 1872 had nothing to break the monotony of pioneer life,
so far as mingling in society was concerned, but going to Sibley
occasionally, and trapping some, was all the diversion within
reach of these few settlers.
In the fall of 1871 Frick came near having serious trouble with
an adventurous immigrant pushing out into the wild and wooly
west. He had some cattle with him and one of them had strayed
away at night, and when Frick got up one morning he saw not far
off what he supposed was an elk feeding quietly on the prairie.
Frick was a hunter, and the sight of this supposed elk, thrilled
every inch of his stature, and he moved about with the stealth of
an Indian for fear that the slightest noise would frighten this
valuable game and send it fleet-footed out of rifle reach. Frick
got good and ready, pointed his rifle out of the shanty window,
took a good rest and deliberate aim and fired. The object of his
mark fell under the aim of the skillful hunter and he rushed out
to the bleeding body of his victim, but instead of an elk Frick's
surprised eyes and astonished senses gazed upon only a cow. It
was meat, however, if not venison, and Frick hauled the carcass
to his house and proceeded to do the usual carving into roasts
and steaks, when a stranger appeared upon the scene, who was no
other than the owner of the cow which had strayed away.
Circumstantial evidence, as the lawyers call it, was strong
against Frick, pointing to theft malicious and intended, and the
moving immigrant was about to paralyze everything in reach of
him. Frick explained, however, apologized, and scraped together
what loose change he had and gave it to the owner of the cow, who
went on his way again satisfied and contented.
A.M. Culver came to the County in the spring of 1871. He settled
and filed on the southeast quarter of Section 24, Township 99,
Range 42.
The previous year, in 1870, he had left the State of Wisconsin
and gone to Mills County, in Iowa, and from Mills County he drove
through to Osceola, bringing with him three horses, a wagon and
buggy, also two cows. His family came with him, consisting of his
wife, one son and a daughter. Mr. Culver and family did the best
they could with the shelter of a wagon cover, while his son,
Andrew, went to LeMars and got cottonwood lumber enough to build
a house, which they soon did, 12 by 14 in size. Mr. Culver broke
nine acres that year and put them into wheat and six acres into
oats, and raised an average crop on the sod. When Mr. Culver came
first without the family he landed at Huff's house, the first
settler and heretofore described, and there being quite a number
there that night, he was among the usual number laid out in rows
on the floor. Huff and Brooks located Culver on his
quarter-section. On the same section there was also located and
settled that year Andrew Culver, Geo. W. Bean and R. O. Manson.
John F. Glover landed in Sibley in the latter part of August
1871, and settled on the southwest quarter of Section 4, Township
99, Range 41. Mr. Glover's coming was by meeting Stiles and F. M.
Robinson at Sioux City. Glover put up the usual settler's shack,
and obtained his lumber from
Windom, Minnesota, going for it with a yoke of oxen and wagon.
After these incoming settlers had established a home, the next
thing was to find out who their neighbors were, and is this year
of 1871 they were few and far between.
Some other things to think about, and among these something to
eat. Glover made frequent trips hunting, but seemed to be
unsuccessful. While in McCausland's neighborhood Mc returned from
a trip to Spirit Lake and reported that Rush Lake, near
Ocheyedan, was alive with ducks, and Glover became so excited
over the pictured description of vast lakes and ponds covered
with game, that he organized a hunting party, consisting of
himself, McCausland and Luther Webb who started the next day with
oxen and a wagon, with which conveyance the ducks and geese were
to be carted home. They arrived safely at Rush Lake, and sure
enough McCausland had not overdrawn the amount of game. They had
no boat, and anyone who knows Rush Lake, knows the difficulty of
getting game there without a float of some kind. Before the boys
had hardly appeared at the edge of the water on one side, the
entire army of ducks had moved to the other side out of reach,
and by running around from one side to the other, the boys became
about exhausted. Finally Glover gathered pieces of the wagon,
some brush, and a decent sized tree or two and formed a raft
sufficient, as he believed to float himself out on the lake, and
on it started. When out about twenty feet the frail craft, like
many an air castle, fell to pieces, and its only passenger went
reluctantly into the water. He soon got out, however, and this
dampened all the ardor of hunting on his part, and the other two
were tired and discouraged. Webb then started with his oxen to
Milford and left McCausland and Glover to tramp twelve miles
home, which they did. Just as they were starting McCausland
brought down a brandt, and, this being the only game they got,
with it they started home, and it was near night. They had
brought with them some cooked beans in an iron pot, and a loaf of
bread; when the brandt was secured it was decided that bread and
beans were nowhere in comparison with a roasted fowl, so that,
hungry as they were, their appetite was reserved until they could
get home. At last they reached McCausland's house, and Mc sent
Glover to Roger's store, three miles, for some necessary articles
for the square meal, and to a settler's shack for something else.
Glover returned with the articles and Mc had the brandt stuffed
and in the oven roasting, but himself was laid out on the bed.
The oily odor from the fowl on an empty stomach had sickened him,
and Glover was left alone until C. M. Brooks happened to arrive,
when he and Glover got the table set, the roast on, and two of
them sat down to a rich feast for homesteaders. But alas for the
dreams of fancy, the vision of bliss and the tempting measures of
delight, in which we too often indulge, that are at last turned
into the bitterness of gall in the round up of indulgence. Glover
and Brooks were soon laid out groaning in the agony of too much
brandt, and the oily condition of the fowl made them too sick to
hope ever to make final proof on a government claim, the taking
of which had been the leading ambition of their lives. Their
extreme sickness revived Mc and he ate the beans and the bread,
and towards morning Glover and Brooks got around all right again,
but like a victim of seasickness not a thing was left in them,
and as Mc had ate all the grub in the house, the three of them
started out for something to eat, and before they got through
they had nearly eaten the whole neighborhood out of house and
home, and that day there was a tramping to Roger's store for a
fresh supply. This sickened Glover for a while on wild fowl; his
hunting excursions after that were few and far between, but it
seems that another ducking was still in store for him. he
concluded that housekeeping was not well done without vegetables,
and nothing seemed to be in sight but potatoes, and the nearest
these could be had was thirteen miles, but Glover had been a
soldier and could walk like a professional. He started with a
sack and went southeast until he came to the Ocheyedan, and when
he got to that the water was well up and the difficulty of
crossing was before him. There was a small skiff there owned by
Ole Peterson, and soon Peterson himself appeared, and, after
reciting his experiences as a sailor and his capabilities as a
boatman, induced Glover to get aboard, and taking a wagon bow for
a paddle started out with the frail craft to ferry the now Mayor
of Sibley across the troublesome stream. Men are apt to make too
little margin for what might happen, often miscalculate in more
serious adventures than this, and often start out in the buoyancy
of expectation, but fall into difficult with sudden and
unexpected precipitation. When in the middle of the stream,
Peterson, who was standing up in the boat, fell one side of it,
and himself and Glover went suddenly into the water, and, having
no further use for the boat in the interests of navigation, they
struck out, Glover for one side of the river and Peterson for the
other, and when landed they stood dripping with the waters of the
Ocheyedan on opposite banks, gazing at each other, Peterson
filling the air with profanity, and Glover wondering if Peterson
hadn't overdrawn his experiences as a follower of the seas.