Joseph Albert Wright Van Cleave Memoirs

By process of elimination and using the excellent clues provided in the manuscript, I have deduced that it was dictated/written by Joseph Albert Wright Van Cleave. He would have been Howard Oregon Van Cleave's 1^st Cousin, once removed, Stephan Alva Van Cleave's 1^st Cousin, and Lou Etta Van Cleave Wright's 1^st Cousin as well. Her Memoirs will be transcribed and posted as soon as I finish these.

Throughout the manuscript I have typed it just as it is - or can be deciphered. Where there are cut-offs or questions as to the word (due to poor placement of the page on the copier or due to sweat, smudges, tears, erasures, etc.), I have prefaced what I could make out with question marks (i.e. ???xx, with 'xx' standing for what was decipherable) and sometimes have hazarded a best guess as to what the word might be - that 'best guess' is set off by parentheses. Misspellings and incorrect grammar have been left intact. Where words are missing, I've inserted an underline - or copied the underline that was already there from the last transcription. My underlines are encased in parentheses. Original underlines are left to stand alone.

In some places (such as on Page 1 where the narrator says 'Uncle Saul' in one place (incorrectly - should be Sol) and 'Uncle Soll' in another, I've denoted that with a (sic), meaning 'everyone knows it's wrong, but that's how it is in the manuscript'.

The numbers were originally page numbers, the manuscript being on legal size paper instead of the standard size of this transcription. I've included them just to show the original page breaks. This is a work in progress - and has been since it was loaned to me in the summer of 2001 by Aunt Ann Cunningham... slowly but surely, I'll get the rest transcribed. These ol' eyes just ain't what they used to be!

~Jenny Dahl, 2003

1.

UNCLE NEAL

Uncle Neal lived on his claim at times, for all were required to preempt the claim - to do so much work - like to build a house, lay a foundation, ???cak about five acres of ground. The preemption cost several dollars, then the cost of 200 acres of ground was $200.00.

CLAIMS

Father had claimed all the section he was in, held the north quarter for Uncle Allen Moore, but some one came and jumped it; the man paid him ??? for the house foundation. So after Mr. Spencer took the claim, built a ?ank house on it, so father claimed the section southwest of our house, acrost (sic) the creek, this was called "river land". Given to a company to make the river navigable to Fort Dodge. This section had timber on it, so had all the river land, they had the best of the land.

LONGS

Out on the prairie north of us - the high prairie - lived Mr. Long. His wife was dead of died shortly afterwards (sic), I think I heard something of her sickness and death. He had 160 acres up on the high prairie. His family consisted of two boys and two girls. Mr. Long was a very good neighbor, all his family was ?ever and friendly. Mr. Long used to hawl (sic)wood from the bottom, the river land past our house and posts to fence his farm. Then there was an old man hand his wife out to the est of Longs. They had one daughter. She was at our house; she was very good looking. She had a smooth like face, dressed very well, medium height. Mother thought her pretty but Mrs. Thurnburg didn't.

OXEN

Along in the spring father bought a yoke of oxen of Bob Scott, giving a note for $100.00. Bob soon lost the note so father had to give him another. This spring the man that bought the land at Fort Dodge came up to Lizzard Creek to pay father what was due. Father was going to close the mortgage. The cattle yoke father got of Bob Scott were good cattle. One was called Paddy, the off one Mike. In the winter days we children would play around the fireplace teaching Tom to walk going around in a circle singing "Paddy and Mike" "Paddy and Mike". Tom learned to say "Paddy and Mike". Tommy's birthday came Aug. 4^th. Uncle Joe was the (there?).

VISITORS

Sometime during the summer came Uncle Saul and Ant Jane, his wife. ??? (We?) all went down to the creek where father was felling long (logs?). He was very glad to ???m (come?). He shook hands with us all, said he hardly knew us boys, had grown out of his knowledge, children grow so fast. We all went to the house, saw Aunt Jane, she had infant in arms, several months old. We had a good time. Then in a day or two ca?? (came?) ??d (Old?) man Hays with another man with a herd of cattle. They had stopped in Fort Dodge and sold some cows at a good price, then drove them out on the prairie to graze. They stayed at our house for about two weeks paying no board, they had plenty of ??iskey (whiskey) though. Father killed some fish which Hays and his partner ate very greed(y) (wh)en fried brown. Hays told a story of a man who could eat fish and let the bones (wo)rk out at the corners of his mouth. He came near doing it too. After selling (al)l of the cattle in that vicinity they could, they went forth but failed to pay f(or) (th)e cattle. Uncle Allen Moore, Mr. Harper and Uncle Soll (sic) were security for them (an)d had to pay for the cattle. It broke Uncle Soll up somewhat and damaged Mr. (Ha)rper and Uncle Allen. Uncle Allen sold out his land and settled his part of the ???ot. Uncle Soll went back home, settled in Redfield, went to keeping a hotel.

Later in the summer came Uncle Neal and Aunt Jane; Uncle Allen and Aunt ??? (Aida Anne). They stayed about two weeks, Aunt Jane had grown to womanhood, a fine looking (gi)rl. One Sunday we all went visiting Uncle Press and Aunt Mary. Uncle Allen was (ve)ry peculiar about us boys washing our feet clean, we went because forced to. Unc(le) (Pre)ss folks were very glad to see us. They lived in a small log house, the creek on the south so their stables were neared the creek. They had a fish, in the creek where they caught fish, Pike. The banks of the creek were very high. We saw where Uncle (Pre)ss ...

2.

... horses ran away with the wagon, ran into a tree and splintered the tongue all to pieces, the bark was scraped off the tree. Then late in the evening we all went to the house. We went home in the evening. I don't remember going there any more, though some of the boys came to our house now and then.

FISHING

In a few days after coming back from Uncle Press's Uncle Allen and Uncle ____ went to Fort Dodge. They took father's fishing spear, going horseback so we had plenty of fish to eat. Aunt Jane ____ the fish. Then when they went home took some of the fish with them to Grandmother was very fond of fish. One day Aunt Jane went down to Fort Dodge, she called on Mrs. Miller. Mrs. Miller had given up the house she first lived in, had taken another house. Uncle Allen, Aunt Jane and Aunt Ann went home, probably Uncle Neal stayed a while. At another time Uncle Joe, Uncle Neal and father went seining had a wagon cover that belonged to Uncle Joe for a seine. They went down below the lower fence. They took down the seine, but it held the water and the fish all ran away. They came up to the ford, thought to seine the ford but the wagon cover held back the water and they gave up fishing having caught none. When they went to the house Uncle Neal changed his clothes but father and Uncle Joe didn't, let their clothes dry in the sunshine. Uncle Neal said the laws of health said a man should take off his wet clothes and put on dry ones but father said that was some old woman's rule and let his dry on him.

WOLF HUNTING

Along in the later summer or early fall Uncle Joe's hired man went away and the men all went out wolf hunting one Sunday or Saturday maybe. They went out on the prairie north of the house. They found a prairie wolf out there and the dogs took it down towards the creek. The men on horseback galloped about the prairie keeping in the wake. They were Uncle Joe, Uncle Tom, Uncle Joe's men, and father. They had our dog "Nim" (see notes), Uncle Joe's dog "Rover", a yellow bulldog. The wolf ran in a den; they dug in the den. Rovern (sic) went in after the wolf and when he came out brought the lower jaw of the wolf along, so when they got the wolf out the wolf couldn't figh(t). Nim, our greyhound, having a wide mouth, severed the wolf thigh and through killing it. When the men returned home they brought home the wolf tail. Nim, our dog followed some of the men to Fort Dodge, got shut up in a store. The clerk thought he had him then, but the dog jumped through a window and came home.

AUTUMN 1855

On the first day or night of September came a frost that killed the see(d) corn, though much of it was green yet. The vines were all killed, so we went to cutting corn, Benny and I, we cut the most of it with a hoe. Fathe(r) made a thing out of small poles called a "reel", a kind of thing to set the fodder against, when the shock was finished the poles could be pulled out and set up for another shock. We did most of the field. Father was away most of the time. These were sunny days of autumn to us boys. Uncle Joe cut up his corn too and put his field in a low place. Some time in the winter or spring came a thaw and filled the low ground with water, then froze over so the shocks were half buried in water. We dug our potatoes and put them away under the sod so we had only to turn the sod over and pi(ck) them up. There were frozen ones too so we put them in the cellar under the house.

WILD FRUITS

We gathered some ____ that were up the creek and some walnuts and some acorns and put them away for the winter, but fed the acorns to the old so(w) and threw the crabapples away. They smelled very good but were awful sour.

UNCLE TOM'S CLAIM

Some time during the later part of the summer and early fall Uncle Tom built a cabin on his claim, just north of Uncle Joe's. There were some ____ between a log house. He had preempted the claim then prooved up on it.

BLACKSMITH SHOP

Father had a desire to be a blacksmith, to hammer iron, so he traded for an old set of tools or Mr. Hinton, who owned a sawmill on the DesMoin(e) River just south of the fork by a great rock. Father paid him the trade in logs and brought the tools home, consisted of an anvil, bellus (bellows) with a hol(e) in it, a vise, maybe a pair of tongs.

3.

Then started to build a shop of logs, built it some five or six rounds high, worked some in the shop that way, the rain rained on the tools. Finally Uncle Joe and Uncle Tom helped him raise the shop, finishing it. Father soon learned to sharpen plows, learned to weld, thought difficult to do. Then he got some steel, made a two tined hay fork which answered the purpose very well. He got a bar of cast steel to make a hammer. One day Uncle Joe and I and father went fishing with bows and arrows made from iron spikes for the arrows. Uncle Tom made one, his first weld. They went fishing up the creek, wading in the water.

WINTER

The autumn glided away, soon winter began, froze at first, then falling snow. Our principle business was to haul wood from the creek bottom for to keep up fires. Father made a sled to haul up wood on, a big ox sled. It seems Uncle Joe went back to Burlington, Iowa; got a barrel of sugar and a barrel of molasses. His wagon wheel came off the axle, the top having lost off. A blacksmith fixed it by putting in a pin. We got molasses now and then of Uncle Joe.

RICHARD VAN CLEAVE

One evening in the early winter Uncle Press came and his brother Richard with him. Richard was coming out in the wilds to seek land. They had a wagon which was rather hard pulling through snow. Richard was a school teacher back in Indiana, was a good reader. He had a novel with him of which he read much in. It was about Kit Carson and a band of robbers. Kit and his men had been out in the gold mines. Were returning loaded with gold. Some robbers saw when they hid it and dug it up. Kit returns, finds the gold and all is well. Father borrowed the book and read it through. Next morning they went up home. The book had much to say about the lynx eyed Kit Carson - he could see so well. Father bought the book "Prairie Flower" at Fort Dodge. He read it much; we were delighted with the story Black George told. Then he read another story, "The Court of Queen Anne", told of the brave Duke Muelborne (sic) of England, defeated the French. Then he bought a book, the "Orphan Children".

LITTLE AXE

Father bought me a small axe to chop wood with. I was very proud of the axe, soon as the handle was in it I tried it on the wood, Father tried it first. Then I took it up into the woods for it was keen and sharp. It went wherever I went; the first axe I ever owned. We caught a rabbit now and then in the brush.

DEER HUNTING

Father went hunting every now and then. He shot at many deer, killed some but never got them, they ran away and died. The wolves made a tremendous yelping, next day father would go out there and fine the bones of the deer, the wolves had eaten it up. Some times Uncle Joe and I would go with father hunting out south of Lizzard Creek and on to the river land. Uncle Tom put a white shirt on the outside of his garments, though he wouldn't be noticed so readily. He shot at one deer but didn't get it. Our calf died of colic-dew on the bottom, beyond the creek. That night the wolves came and devoured it. They made lots of noise yelping. The prairie wolf or coyote, and the Black wolf or timber wolf.. nearly every night we heard the wolves on the creek bottom. Next morning all that was left of the calf was its bones.

A PANTHER

One winter night we heard a panther, beyond the creek on the river bottom time; it could be plainly heard, it went up the creek. Father followed his tracks in the snow next day.

BEAVER

One night Father watched the creek at the beaver dam, saw a beaver swimming(g) along in the water. He shot it, brought it to the house and skinned it; we saved the broad tail and the teeth, the cutting teeth.

KILLS A DEER

One day father went out deer hunting and killed a doe, the dog found it for him, so he brought it home, skinned it in the yard, so we had plenty of deer meat to eat while it lasted. He gave Uncle Joe some of it. He hung the hams up and dried it. Some men came one day and saw the deer meat and called it "Venison", wanted to buy it but he wouldn't sell. Uncle Tom bought a book when he was back in Indiana at Uncle Crawfords called "Wild Western Scene".

4.

1856

The winter passed away and the return of warmer weather brought the breaking up of ice on the creek and the ice piled up on the banks. We went out to the bluff overlooking the stream and watched the cakes of ice float down the stream in the swift current.

UNCLE ALLEN

In early spring came Uncle Allen Moore, he took a claim on the south side of Lizzard Creek, southeast of our house. Built a house near the bluff of the creek, a spring below the house, soon he was installed in his new house hang (sic... might have intended 'having') sold out his land in Dallas County. He went to breaking the prairie and planting corn. As soon as it was dry enough to plant we went to plowing up sod soil, cross planting. Us boys did most of the planting. Then came the cleared ground, we planted it all in corn but a strip a few yards wide which we planted in wheat. Uncle Joe furnished the seed, he to receive a part of the crop for his share.

FORT DODGE

This spring the county seat of Webster County was moved from Hamen to Fort Dodge. There was an election held there. Father was elected "Squire - Justice of the Peace" and entered on the duties of his office. A man down the creek was chosen Constable. About this time a ferry boat was built at the ford. Richard Van Cleave was elected to ____ office came to father to be sworn into office. Soon everyone was calling father "Squire". Father wrote back to Indiana, to Grandmother McMullen about being a Justice of the Peace. He said Uncle Allen was elected County Cunstable (sic) in Dallas County and wrote back to his friends about his office.

TRIAL

It was not long before a civil case was brought up before father to be tried at his house about the "Whiskey Law", Many people came out from Fort Dodge. It took all day. There were three lawyers, two young lawyers and an old man. The first was Charles Dunkin and the other ____ Richards, a young man. Dunkin was the best man. The old lawyer was a Mr. Garras, most of the neighbors were there. John Williams and ____ were called for. John Williams was chosen, then the men began to scatter, going to the creek to fish but lawyer Dunkin wrote a subpoena for father and the cunstable (sic) soon served them on the men so they returned and took their seats on the jury bench. Then they were sworn in. Father's hand trembled as he stood up to administer the oath to the jury, then the witnesses were called, testified to the best of their ability "so help me God". John Williams, an old Justice asked several questions by permission - which were answered. Then came the pleadings from the lawyers. Dunkin made the best speech; Richards did very well. The old lawyer got up and talked some but did little pleading. Our house was low, so the door was low so that every one who came through the door had to stoop except the short ones. One tall man going through the door struck his head pretty hard against the logs above the door. The trial finally went a State Case so no body got anything. So after father was elected squire he was called on to put a man off a claim, up on the river near Fort Dodge.

JACKSONS

In the spring came Mr. Jackson and family and Mr. Fleenbury and family. They stopped at our house. Mr. Jackson was an old like man, came from Indiana, seemed an intelligent man; his wife was a talkative woman. Fleenburys family were all small had a little Dutch wife. The oldest son, Ammanvel, his father was named Hooper. Mr. Fleenbury married his mother. Mr. Jackson took a claim up on the creek above John Williams, built a house and commenced farming. Mr. Jackson had some fine chickens in a coop behind one of the wagons. Fleenbury took a claim west of our house about three-fourths of a mile, built a house with sheds on the side for his oxen, broke sod and raised a small crop. We visited much. The Jackson boys came now and then to see us. One time the old man stopped in to see us, he was talkative like.

JORDANS

The Jordan family came shortly after the Jacksons, stopped in at our house. Mrs. Jordan was a sweet, sensible woman, had a resolute will, dark hair. She had a...

5.

... daughter entering womanhood. They went up on the creek hunting claims. All the squatters claimed a section of land but Mr. Jordan said 160 acres was all he could hold and buy from the Government, they wouldn't try to hold more. They settled up on the creek above Jackson's, heard of them bding (biding?) there but think they went on farther north.

SUMMER OF 1856

The summe (sic) came on, the corn was to plow, the patches to hoe and work some fence building, felling of logs for fence posts. The summer was very warm.

One Sunday morning in company with father and Mr. Bredstone, were going fishing down on the creek, we were along the bluff below our house. The sky was clear, a find (sic) day. When all at once came a loud report off towards the south with many vibrations. Sounded like a loud report of thundre (sic) and finally rolled away. We were all surprised, there was no indications of a storm. We didn't know what it was. Mr. Breadstone (sic) talked about it, assigned several physilical (sic) speculations about it. We went home to the house. There was a much talk about the loud noise all over the country. Many theories were advanced by the people of Fort Dodge and other places. Some saw signes (sic) in it. Grandmothers folks said they heard the same noise there but it was out north of them, seemed as far as it was from us. I heard Grandmother speaking of it said there was a light seen out on the prairie for a long time but the settlers living out the way of Fort Dodge but I never heard anyone else say anything about seeing a light.

BIG SUSAN

(Previous transcriptionist, Evalu Van Cleave Stallings, writes 'I am unable to make out but it looks something like the following:')

This spring ____ some were of the Van Cleaves ____ some of the Sammy Van Cleaves. They first stopped in Wepalo County - there Sammy's (Black Sam) widow - Liddy ____ (died) ____ Silas and Big Susan, half brothers to Uncle Press and Richard. They settled on a claim near Uncle Press, below. Silas married one of the Broodstore girls, against the wishes of his kin, Richard and Preston. Amanda, Richard's wife said she would just a leave seen Silas lowered in his grave so to see him marry that Broodstore girl. I don't know what she argumented so much about.

HARVEST

In August the spring wheat was ripe and we cut it with a scythe, Uncle Joe helped us cut most of it, then we finished the ____ left, took us nearly all day. After that we stacked the wheat out near the stable putting it in one stack.

STAYING AT UNCLE ALLEN'S

It was in early June I went to stay with Aunt Ann while Uncle Allen was away. Went to Dallas County to get some things and settle some business. I had a very pleasant time there. Bettie and I had a nice time playing. I built play houses for her on the east side of the house. Aunt Ann came out there at times to see where we were at, had some quilts stretched for tent. The cow had a calf, his it (sic) out in the brush patch. Aunt Ann took it to the house. I helped her gather gooseberries. She had very nimble fingers but I couldn’t gather them so fast. One evening two men came they had an ox team and a wagon. and a plow. There were men Uncle Allen had hired to break prairie for him. I went home the end of the week. How the summer glides by. We spent some time in fishing in the creek. Father and Nate Moore and I went over on the south Lizzard fishing, but we hadn't the means of taking them. Father had to go to town very often on business to tend the Court. We visited the neighbors, Uncle Joe and Nate Moore's. Father traded for a double barreled shotgun of one of the settlers on the south of the creek. He did much hunting with it, killed chickens with it. One day a man came and stopped at our house, came from down the creek, said he saw a fierce black bear down there, that it showed fight, stood on its hind feet, he had only a pocket knife to defend himself with.

HAYING

We went to putting up hay for winter use, then came corn cutting and digging potatoes, a large crop, put in the cellar.

VISIT UNCLE ALLEN

Uncle Allen traded for a ____ a kind of a hand organ, it played by turning a crank, we thought it great. He let us play it some but we wanted to play it most of the time. It played several tunes. One time later we all went over there one evening , stayed all night, had a fine time, many children play, gold stories ect. (sic). So passed the hours away. Aunt Ann and Uncle Allen took active part. Some time in the fall Uncle Allen sold out his claim and went back to Dallas County.

6.

Father bought a yoke of his oxen, we had a cow and calf besides Paddy and Mike and the two horses. Uncle Allen gave his bob sled in the trade, so after that we used the bob sled instead of the long sled, gave the old one to Fleenburg (sic - should be Fleenbury) to use this winter.

ELECTION OF PRESIDENT

This fall came the election of President, 1856. The candidates were James Buckhanen (sic: Buchanan) and John C. Beckenridge of Kentucky.; John C. Fremont, the New Party or Republican party named Wm. W. Seward, Sept 26, 1854. Buchanan was elected. I heard some talk of the election. I heard some talk of the Nonothing (sic: Know Nothing) Party in 1854. Uncle Press read their papers and believed in them but they were overthrown. We had our usual work to do - cutting corn - digging potatoes putting them in our enlarged cellar, had as much as 40 bushels put away. We gathered some nuts, hazel nuts mostly, there being plenty on the hiss (sic: hill) sides and in the bottoms. Many birds flocked in to feed on the corn while it lasted; the black birds were most musical would light in the old oak out south of the stable and sing to their hearts content. The crows were numerous too and were very destructive of corn when green. We had to keep watch over the fields.

WINTER 1856

The autumn days doth glide away and we laid in a supply of provisions. The cold approached spitting snow for a month; then some pleasant weather and then the

SNOW STORM

One day father went to town, when he went away in the morning it was clear as one could wish; but in the afternoon it began to snow, the wind veered to the northwest. Then father started for home, the wind was blowing a gale, the snow falling thick and fast. Mother was alarmed at the threatening weather, called us children to getting in wood for the night, there was none chopped and it was getting night fast. We managed to get a few sticks out and carried into the house. Mother put some wood on the fire in order to keep it going. Concluded it best for all to go to bed to keep warm. Just then father drove up, came in all covered with snow told what a time he had getting home, how he couldn't see the way for the blinding drifting snow. The ____ wouldn't walk straight home. He finally stopped them and went around in front, saw the snow had formed over their eyes so they couldn't see. He knocked the snow and ice off their eyes, then they soon went home. He chopped wood and brought it in, soon there was a roaring fire, then he fed the stock, ate supper, Uncle Joe drove up, came in. Said he got lost and wandered about, finally saw the light at our house and drove to it. Father went part way with him, showed him the way home. He had horses and wagon. The storm lasted for three days. The ____ back of the house were drifted half full of snow, some ten feet deep. It seemed a dreary time, then came a cold sleet rain, then came more storms, more snows the snow getting deeper and deeper till at last the tops of the rasin weeds (see notes) out on the prairie were just above the snow. It was now four feet deep on the prairie all frozen no one could walk on the crust of the snow. The oxen couldn't get through the snow without cutting their legs on the ice they broke through; so we had to take axes and break out roads to travel in. These roads were made down to the creek to get water and out on the prairie intercepting the main road of travel. So each man had to break out a road to do his hauling in. We saw many people go by on the road going to town or returning. Some times Uncle Press went by and stopped at our house.

COLD WINTER

The winter was very cold, the termometer (sic) stood much of the time at 40 degrees below zero and some times lower. Several times we had snow storms, they came from the northwest; they would blow snow so thick one could not see 20 feet whirling in eddies drifting around the house and the stable and fences until they were covered over, only the stakes above the snow. We could walk over the fences on the frozen snow, yet the ground under the snow was not frozen although it was cold. We had commenced to make a shed for the cattle, covering it with the prairie grass but hadn't finished it yet when the drifting snows came. The drifts formed about the shed Father heaped the snow up on the north side, making a breaker out of the snow. Here the cattle stayed all winter, the horses stood in the stable. The snow was very deep in the hollow and one night it drifted across the hollow forming a crust we could walk across the hollow on the level. The drift ran through the top of a tree, we could walk right through the top of it. The snow was more than 20 feet deep in the hollow.

7.

A long the north side of the hollow the snow drift would form a projecting of a few feet extending over. I oftern (sic) would go along the crest and break the (illegible) loose to see it fall below; this was much fun. One stormy night one of Mr. Thornburgs oxen got out of the stable, wandered blindly about till at last roll over the big snow drift into the hollow below near our house; was found there next morning by Mr. Thornbury (sic: Thornburg); father helped them get out of the hollow. He might have perished only it stood in the warm spring water below.

JACKSON

Mr. Jackson some times came down to see us; he and Amnanvel came together and stayed all night. We were glad to have them come, were lively company. He used to tell many witch stories. He told one about a panther that came to a settlers house, tried to get in, climed (sic) up on top of the house and tried to scratch the boards off so he could get through and kill the inmates. The next day, Sunday, we had much sport on.

COASTING SLEDS

We had a sled Uncle Joe gave us and Amenvel had one, so we went down to the creek bluff and would slide down the hill on the snow drifts. We would get on the sled and let it loose, then away we would go swift as the wind, run out on the creek bottom. Then we would pull the sled up the hill, that was tiresome, but the swift ride down would repay us. It was alright as long as the sled ran straight but if it turned sideways it would spill in the snowdrifts. Some times the sled would run into a soft spot turning end up spilling us down the hill. There was a place south and east of our house where some springs came out. The water froze forming a great bank of ice; this was too rough to slide down with safety, not very soft to walk over but we slid down to the bottom. Those were golden days of sport. John Jackson was much older than I, he took an active part in coasting down the hills.

A CRAZY WOMAN

A short time after this, one Sunday, we went visiting the Thornburgs, one of Jackson's boys was there too. We spent the day coasting down the hills having lost of fun. A long in the afternoon we saw a woman coming down the creek, saw him (sic: her) on the hill-side. She had a sack or basque over her dress, she went on down the bottom, we thought it strange to see a woman traveling alone in the snow; but we afterwards learned that she was a crazy woman, had run away from her home. She was found down at Fort Dodge and belonged to a settler up the creek.

So the day passed and we went home.

SNOW CAVES

Often the keen winds would form snow covers in the hollows just above out house, formed a crest in the hollow, it was large enough to crawl in, several feet deep but the next storm would fill it up, the snow crusted hard enough to slide on with our shoes. One day it had been snowing and filled up the hole with soft snow. I was walking along there and dropped into the soft snow, going out of sight but I caught hold of some branches of a bush that grew there and got out of the hole. I was frightened.

A BEAR

One night we heard a curious noise down by the stable, we thought it some of the cattle, so we went out to see what it was, found everything alright. Next day we learned that a bear was passing down the creek. It went down past Uncle Joe's. Old Rover got after it, chased it down the creek. When mother learned that it was a bear she was much scared. "What if it had killed us"? In the fall a middle aged man stopped at our house on his way up the creek hunting, said he saw a large black bear down the creek, that it stood up on its hind feet, said he was from Pennsilvania (sic) and had seen bear in that state.

STAYING AT UNCLE JOE'S

Uncle Joe had gone away, think he went to ____ to get a supply of provisions, groceries, but he returned with a barrel of molasses and two barrels of sugar. One barrel of sugar got wet. I stayed a week at Uncle Joe's. Helped feed the cattle, Aunt Betsy did the principle part, she helped to throw the hay to the cattle, Rachael (see notes) didn't help much. I had a very nice time staying at Uncle Joe's, had plenty to eat, the fat of the land which we didn't have at home. I remember the barrel of crusty sugar. At the end of the week I went home and Benny went to stay a week. I thought our dogs very run down for Uncle Joe's dogs were well fed and fat, so I cut a slice of meat for each one of them which was devoured greedily. During the later part of the cold winter we heard of many people freezing to death, one man found frozen to death down by Fort Dodge. When they went to dig a grave, they found the earth frozen seven feet...

8.

...feet deep. Some men were killed by the famished wolves, the bones of one man were found with the carcass of seven wolves around him, there was his axe. It seems that he had been attacked by a hungry pack of wolves and defended himself with is axe killing seven ere he was killed by them. The deer too were in a famished condition on account of the deep snow, could get but little to live on, so they were killed by the wolves and their more cruel foes, the white man, so few deer were seen after that in that part of the country for the snow was so deep that they couldn't get out of the way of their foes, were nearly all killed. Many cattle froze to death. Some of our cattle had their ears frozen until they came off.

HAULING WOOD

It was the business of all the neighbors to haul fire wood. Mr. Long came every few days hauling wood, some times one of his sons. They stopped in to warm at our house. The old man that lived out by Longs often stopped in to warm. He was always wrapped up to keep him warm, then went down on the bottom to get a load of wood and returned with it, often I have seen them boy by, sometimes Mr. Long and one or two of his sons. The drifts were so deep between the yard fence and the field fence that the people had to go around it, so they all came through the yard.

SLED THORNBURG

Father had let Mr. Thornburg have our sled to haul wood on - they kept it, man a time they came by to haul wood from the river bottom on the south side of the creek, father had claimed the section. He sold some to Mr. Thornburg for work and fencing. We had the bobsled father got from Uncle Allen to haul wood on, though I liked the long sled the best. Sometimes we hauled loads along the ice on the creek.

RIVER LAND

There was a grant of land given by the State to a corporation called the "River Company". They got every other section of land extending on side of the river for three miles. The company was to clean out the river Des Moines for boats to run up to Fort Dodge, but never did it. The land was after ____ into railroad lands. Settlers had bought it of the river company only to loose it again. The section south of our house ____ up the creek. The "river lands" always were the best lands and had the most timber on it but the people generally helped themselves to it.

NATE MOORE

Nate Moore didn't build much of a house, shanty cabin. About the first severe snow storm that came the snow blowed into the loft filling that up until the pole joist began to crook, then he left, went up to John William's, stayed all winter. The next summer he built a new house, larger house, but put only one joist across in the middle of the house, it was a linn sapling (see notes), and when it got dry became brittle. Nate had some seed corn piled up in the loft and went up there to get some corn. The joist broke falling on his young dog and killing it instantly and the falling ____ scraped down the walls, broke some choice pieces of dishes, a keep sake of Jennie's. When she returned home found the cupboard smashed, the dog dead and things smashed up generally, she wished it had broke his neck.

RAIL MAKING

Father had hired Nate Moore to make so many rails, he made most of them down on the bottom, but some of the timber was hauled up the hill. He ate dinner and supper at our house. We boys watched him make rails. Then after that father loaned him $10. He was a long time paying it, taken out in dribs.

John Scott came over to see us every now and then bring his big deer dog "Old Harrow". We were always glad to see John come, loved to hear him talk as he had been a coal burner for the iron works, had many stories to tell of his burning coal. And as father had a shop and had to burn coal to blacksmith with, Scott told him how to set up the wood to make a fire and cover it to make a coal pit to burn it. Sometimes I went visiting Thornburgs, staying all night, generally had a good time I remember one time I went home with Mon___ to stay all night. It was rather a cold night, had a bed made of down on the floor. Munnel and I had a feather bed for a cover, slept very warm. Thornburg had two boys, small boys. Thornburg's house had a door in the east, a fireplace in the south built of stone. Benjamin H. Thornburg got in a racket with Ike Williams, John's older son, about some tobacco. He was only joking. Ike had come down to Nate Moore's house, helped himself to some tobacco found there. Thornburg one day joked Ike about it, which made Williams and Moores mad.

9.

Toonie talked to Mr. Thornburg, scolded him, about to drive him out of the house. This was John Williams.

STOLEN BOOKS

There had been a box of books stolen from a store in Fort Dodge. An old man found the box of books, the were water soaked somewhat. It was found out he had the books. Father was at Fort Dodge at the time, the man got a replevin (see notes) for the books, a search warrant. Father held court in Lawyer Dunkin's office. The lawyer helped him do the writing, the cunstable (sic) went down and demanded the books of the old man and wife. They gave them up. They were drying the books by the fire, so the box of books was recovered.

INDIAN MASSACRE, 1857

During the later half dreadful stories of Indian massacres came in to the effect that the Indians had broke out up north on the Big Sioux River and killed all the white settlers of that river. The Indians were at first provoked and also insulted by the men living on the Little Sioux River. The Indians got to drinking and were drunk, and the men took their guns and knives and hid them until they sobered up. This was an insult to the Indians. The men were afraid that the Indians would attack and kill them in their drunken rage. The Indians belonged to the Ti-tink-a-ta-ma-dhoe (see notes) band and there were about sixty of them, had broke away from the rest of the Sioux tribe, became a renegade band. They had sworn to have revenge on the "whites" for the depredations done by them and now the opportunity had arrived. The insulted Indians next marched to the settlement on the Big Sioux River, farther north. There the whites were afraid of the Indians. There Indians took everything away from them, scalped the people, took all the blankets and quilts in the houses; made the men hitch their horses to their sleds, took piles of plunder on the sleds and drove away. They took the feather beds out into the wind and ripped open the feather ticks and scattered the feathers into the air, laughing to see the feathers fly. Then they next attacked the men killing them. At one house they met a man who fought bravely, he used a broad axe on them. When dead they took the broad axe and cut him into (sic), and thus killed some of the women. The children they killed by taking them by the feet and dashing their brains out against the chimney jam (sic), scattering their blood and brains all over the floor. At one place they attacked a boy ran out of the house behind the wood pile and stretched out on a log. An Indian fired at him, but missed, and the boy rolled off behind the log, so they thought him dead, never looked for him. His father and mother were murdered with the rest of the family. Afterwards the boy made it to the nearest settlement and was saved.

MRS. THATCHER

The Indians attacked (see notes) Mrs. Thatcher, they knocked Thatcher on the head, stunned him and he ran out of the house - ran away - until he fell in the snow where he lay for a long time unconscience (sic: unconscious). In the meanwhile the Indians killed some of the family, took Mrs. Thatcher a prisioner (sic: prisoner), destroyed the house, then went away leaving the dead to be (de)voured by the wolves. The Indians had other prisioners (sic) they carried away. Then the Indians went to a settlement on Spirit Lake (see notes) and killed all the settlers at that place in a most inhumane manner, slew the children in the usual way; they took at that place many women prisioners (sic) and treated them in a brutal manner. I think the daughter of Mrs. Jordan was one of the prisioners (sic). The Indians took them to a cabin and outraged them as they liked; the victims unable to resist them. Then they marched away with their prisioners (sic), seven in number. Their last attack was at Mr. Thomas's. Mrs. Jordan was there, her daughter, a young woman and an Irishman. And old friendly Indian came up towards the cabin as he had before, but now he was sent as a decoy. The savage foe lay in ambush and had sent the old friendly Indian forward to decoy the family from the house. They saw the old Indian who had been at their house many times, had eaten salt with them, had slept before their fire. While he was singing and dancing going through his usual performance the son of Mr. Thomas went out behind the house to greet the old Indian, the rest of the family stood at the door. When the Indians that lay in ambush fired upon them, Mr. Thomas had his arm broken. His son was shot out behind the...

10.

... house where he had gone to greet the old Indian. Mrs. Jordan's daughter received a ball in her brest (sic), so all were disabled but Mrs. Jordan and the Irishman. They succeeded in barricading the door before the Indians rushed it. Then commenced a siege and the Indians fired upon the house. Then the Irishman did the firing while Mrs. Jordan loaded the guns, at last she succeeded faster than he shot and then seeing an opportunity she loaded an old musket by throwing in a hand full of powder and shot and taking aim at an Indian that stood out by a tree; she fired on him and he dropt, filled full of buckshot. Then the Indians abandoned the siege, carried away their dead. It was supposed that they killed nine of the Indians for they counted nine bloody places in the snow indicating where a dead Indian had layed (sic). The Indians tried to disguise the number killed by killing some pigs and dragging them around. Great was the praise bestowed upon Mrs. Jordan for help in defense of the house; many said the government should give her a quarter section of land. I saw Mrs. Jordan after that summer as we were going from Des Moines to Fort Dodge. She was moving south in a covered wagon her daughter was along. She seemed not recovered from the gun shot in her breast yet. Father talked to her, then she went on her journey and I saw her no more.

In the meantime a relief of men were marching to the aid of the prisioners (sic). A company was formed at Fort Dodge. Some of the men living on the creek insisted that father enlist his services for he had some acquaintance with the Indians; but he had to stay home to care for his family. Major Williams went, headed a company at Fort Dodge and upon Lizzard Creek. Silas Van Cleave enlisted, so they marched to the relief of the frontiersmen. Other companies were raised in other sections. The march was through deep snow and the snow got soft and there was slough (see notes) to wade through and the men had to camp out in the snow at bed time.

The Indians half starved the women prisioners (sic), they offered them but little food, they ate of the feet of the hares that were killed, by crisping them over the fire and eating them, eating the scraps after the Indians were done eating. So they were weak and half famished and urged along by the threat of death.

DEATH OF MRS. GARDINER

The Indians attacked Mrs. Gardiner's house (see notes) while he was away after provisions. He was returning home and was overtaken by the storm and deep snow and was delayed. When he arrived home he found the Indians had attacked his house, taken his wife prisioner (sic) and slaughtered his children and his house broke up. He went in pursuit of the Indians to liberate his wife. He was in sight of the Indians as they were crossing the Little Sioux River. The woman was heavily loaded and weak, famished like and she fell off a log in the river. She was swimming out when one of the treacherous Indians shot her and she sank away. Mr. Gardiner and friends found her body below the river. They took it out and gave her burial beside the river in the wilderness far from her native home.

DEATH OF TITONKA-TA-NACHEE

Mr. Gardiner swore to be revenged for the death of his wife and family. The perpetrators were Titonkatanachee and his son and some others of his predatory band. How well he kept his oath the sequel will tell. He as a very brave and fearless man. He kept on their trail like a sleuth hound until he came up with them. Afterwards he went out to Fort Dodge, Father saw him there. He was not inclined to say very much about his revenge but he told Uncle Press Van Cleave about it. He showed nine scalps. This larger scalp, said he, is Titonkatanachee's, so he was avenged of the murder of his wife and children.

PURSUIT ON THE MARCH

11.

The company from Fort Dodge marched along through the deep snow. Major Williams leading the men. Soon they found signs of the Indian depredations, where they had slaughtered the settlers, found their houses ransacked, the floors bespattered with blood and the dead lying around. Pursuing on the trail the Indian signs became more plentiful. They found the Indians had spies out watching their maneuvers. They had trimmed limbs from a cedar tree, all but the top branches, and would climb to the top of this in a kind of lookout. But the company was too late to come up with the Indians for a company of settlement men from Fort Ridgely - north - drove the Indians away. They pressed them so close that the Indians dropped their old squaws, the children and broken horses; but they succeeded in crossing the Little Sioux River before the soldiers came up with them. The Captain would go no further, so halted at the stream. The soldiers wanted to go on in pursuit, offered to go on half rations in order to come up with the Indians, but the Captain said he had no orders to fight the Indians, so ordered the soldiers to return to the fort.

When Major Williams and his men came up with them, saw that the Indians had crossed the river and that the soldiers from Fort Ridgely had driven them off and then retired, they felt like threshing the soldiers, for they were mad. They had trailed through the deep snow in order to come up with them only to find the Indians driven away and not punished for their hellish deeds. The men set about burying the dead, all they could find. Some of the men came upon a lone house at night - saw a dull glow in it. They went up and found several squaws in it huddled around the low fire in the fire place. The house belonged to a settler, but the savages had slaughtered the family, so it was occupied by the squaws while their men were out hunting up more victims. Major Williams' Company went to work getting up the dead and burying them. At one house they found a horrible sight, the family all slaughtered, laying around on the floor. It seems the man of the house had defended himself and family. He had used a broad axe in defense and when he had become subdued the Indians took the broad axe and chopped (illegible line), a ghastly sight. At one house the Indians had painted a head and face on the door in red paint indicating they would carry on the war to exterminate the whites. Finally all the dead were gathered up and buried. There seventy or more people perished in the massacre, nearly all the people living upon the frontier. They were nearly all from New England and Maine, unused to dealing with the Indians, and for the most part were cowards, but they were all slaughtered and buried in unmarked graves far from friends and relatives in the north-western wilderness. The greatest number were killed at Spirit Lake which is situated near the northern State line, some 80 miles from Fort Dodge.

There was nothing more for the troops to do, the dead were buried and savages driven away, so they took up their march home. There came up a snow of snows. The men had to camp out in the snow, some of them took off their boots ere going to bed, others left their boots on. Those that took their boots off found them frozen so hard next morning they could hardly get them on again, those that left their boots on their feet fared better. Some of the men got their feet frost bit. It was difficult to keep them from freezing, sleeping in the snow. But they finally all arrived home but dissatisfied that they did not get to punish the Indians, which they would have done had not the soldiers come down from Fort Ridgely and driven the Indians away.

Father had rented a stock field of John Scott and had driven his cattle and oxen over there, all but one cow. There came a thaw, the breaking up of the ice in the creek. The cow tried to get to where the cattle were, swam the creek, but mired down on the further bank so she couldn't get away and perished in the icy waters, drownded (sic). We were sorry to lose the cow, only one we had and the best milch cow we ever owned. We afterwards found her carcass a way below the creek, lodged on a riffle (see notes). I got the horns but they were eventually lost. It was the cow we brought from Indiana, but there was a yearling heifer yet.

12.

SPRING TRIAL

Some men living up the creek, northwest of us, got into a difficulty about something , so one of them sued the other, so he came to our house one cold day, the sloughs were frozen, the ground slick after the that. The man seemed to be an Irishman. He was telling about his horse shying "casted (sic) me off in the slough". It seems that the trial was moved to Fort Dodge and settled some way. Think Benjamin H. Thanbury acted as constable in the proceedings. I heard Mr. Thanbury say he made enough to buy a cask of flour for his services. Flour was $10 per hundred pounds by this time.

INDIAN SCARE AND FLIGHT TO FORT DODGE

Winter had now broken, the days grew warmer in early April. There were reports coming in every now and then that the Indians were coming down to Fort Dodge to kill all the people in it and burn the town and murder all the people in the vicinity. The people got scared and all fled to Fort Dodge. Mother was scared, always afraid of the Indians, so she wouldn't stay any longer. So one day father put what household things he could in the wagon and we started for Fort Dodge. We stopped at Uncle Joe's. Uncle Tom said that he would go too. He got what things he needed for the journey. He gave me his old boots, very good boots only too large for me. So we all went to Fort Dodge, some in the wagon and some on horseback. We arrived at Fort Dodge, was sent to the school house, a large brick building. Here we found the house filled with a crowd from the country north of the river who had fled for their lives. There were people there of all sizes, children, boys and girls, all the rooms were occupied by the people. We went up stairs taking our cook stove along to keep fire to warm by and also to cook by. Next day Uncle Joe and Aunt Betsy, and Willie came. Mr. Thornbury and famile (sic) and many others. Some brought food for their cattle and horses, loads of hay, their wagons standing around the school house. I was not afraid of the Indians coming; for I had heard two men talking as we drove up the hill into Fort Dodge. They asked me about the Indians, said they thought there was no danger. That some men had gone as spies, had seen other men in the same business, and had mistook them for Indians and so turned and reported that the Indians were coming. This weemed (sic: seemed) to be the case. We stayed a few days at the schoolhouse, mingling with the boys and girls, having a good time, sometimes running about the town. It had grown wonderful since I had seen it last time, some new houses had been built, many stores built and full of goods, new streets laid out. I could hardly find Mayor (sic: Major?) Williams store. There stores south of it, houses scattered all about, the town spread out south over the bottom and had advanced to the east, too. I saw many people there I had never seen. One day on a street running south I passed a house and saw a young lady sitting by the window having a novel in hand reading, glancing through the pages and turning over the page. I wished I could have read that fast, too.

SOLOMAN HAHN

Among the people at the school house was one man that deserved pity; he had lost both hands and both feet. Were frozen during the winter while out trapping and had to have both amutated (sic: amputated). It was a great loss to him. He was with another man trapping up on the Des Moines River. There were caught in one of the blizzards from the northwest. They drove down near the river where there was some wood and a sheltering bank and made camp. Mr. Hahn made a fire of dry things and told the other man to keep the fire buring (sic: burning) while he got more wood. "You just put the wood on the fire while I cut it and carry it up, that is all I ask of you". Said Mr. Hahn. But when he came back with a load of wood the man had gotten their bedding out in the snow and put some quilts over the horses, for he got scared that they would all freeze to death for it was a fearful time. The wind blowing and the snow falling in blinding showers, dark and blinding. The man had let the fire go out for want of attention, so when Mr. Hahn came with a load of wood the fire was nowed (sic: now) out and the man had spilt the matches in the snow so they couldn't make a fire. Were in the dark and dismal storm. The(y) went to bed the best they could. The man with Mr. Hahn was thoroughly demoralized, thought he was going to freeze to death, complaining much. Finally Mr. Hahn piled all the bed clothes on top of the man and then lay down on top of the man to keep the man from...

13.

... freezing and he kept grieving. "Good God" "O Lord, etc.: so they spent the nigth (sic: night). Next moringin (sic: morning) it was still snowing and blowing, very cold. They could have built a fire and fared very well it the fool hadn't spilt the matches in the snow and got them wet. They started now for home which was 12 miles down the river. Mr. Hahn's gloves were frozen so hard he could not get them on - leather gloves - so he threw them away. They started a foot down the river on the ice and snow. Mr. Hahn had a handkerchief over his head and ears, holding it on with his hands. He had a long walk far finally got home nearly frozen. His hands and fingers were frozen so he could not bend his hands; his feet were frozen in his boots. Tis probable that they were not property (sic: properly) taken care of when he arrived home - thawed out too soon - so the doctor both his hands and feet, making a helpless cripple of him, not ever able to feet (sic: feed) himself. He could walk around on his kees (sic: knees) with short crutches, about on the floor. He had to have some one put his hat on his head, said he could not get it to sit right on his head. He sat on a bench near the stove, talked to the men around him. He was an intelligent man, stout muscularly and seemed capable of any hardship.

WITH KIT CARSON

Mr. Hahn told of an adventure he had with Kit Carson in the Rocky Mountains a good whielago (sic: while ago) when he was a younger man. He as with Kit Carson and some other men in the mountains. The Copany (sic: company) of men were horseback, either scouting for Indians or making a journey across the mountains. While they were on the mountainside a dreadful snow storm came down upon them they were all snowed under many feet deep, their horses were all snowed under, too. They remained for several days. When they were about starved out Kit said they would dig out - they did so - taking their guns, blankets, ect. Then they stood on the crest of the snow. They couldn't go down only by sliding down the steep mountainside that was all made smooth by the hard crust of the snow, so they wrapped themselves in their blankets shielding their guns down the descent. Solomon Hahn then slid down first, ran about half a mile in a few minutes. Mr. Hahn said, "I was the first one that slid down the snow drift. I went so fast that it took my breath ere I reached the bottom. Then I got up, Kit Carson slid down, then in about a minute another until they all came down, all laying for moment to catch their breath ere the(y) got up." Then when all were down and had cleaned their guns they went down into the valley. They were starving and could find no game in the valley. Finally they killed a mountain lion. He was so strong they could not eat him. At last they reached th lower valley about on the point of famishing and found game, killed some. "So we were alright again and made south out of the mountains. I was in much worse circumstance then than I was when caught in the storm on the Des Moines River, but each man did his part, there were not cowards. Had the man that was with me done his part and kept up the fire I would not have lost my hands and feet. We could have rebuilt the fire - had plenty of material to do it with if he hadn't of got the matches wet in the snow." The man with him only lost a part of one foot crippling him but very little. The man was not used to these north'er winters had he been like Mr. Hahn he would have got along alright. I heard Mr. Hahn tell of his escape in the mountains; with Kit Carson - heard him tell it twice. He lamented his unfortunate condition; he was deprived of the use of a gun. He thought he might shoot a gun if he was fixed for it, with a wife on ( part of page cut off) his arm and the rifle fastened to a stick for a rest. He could take aim and pull the trigger with the wire hook and fire the gun. He was willing to go out as a spy to see if any Indians were about if they would fix him on horseback and go with him. Some men had reported that they saw Indians up t(he) river walking across the prairie and came in and so reported. Mr. Hahn aske(d) them how they walked, if they set the heel down first or the toe of the foot down first. They said the Indians put their heel down first. "Well, then the(y) are not Indians, but white men. The Indian never puts his heel down first when walking but always puts the toe of his foot down first and goes rather bent over, slightly leaning forward as though creeping up on something." Mr. Hahn had been out on the frontier much with Indian scouts like Kit Carson and was acquainted with the modes of the Indian.

14.

WIFE AND DAUGHTERS

Mr. Hahn seemed to have a good woman, motherly and kind. She was a little more than medium size, a little tall, stoutly made and dark hair. While Mr. Hahn was a little stocky she was a little the other way. She was very kind to him, waited on him, feeding him, for he was as helpless as an infant. The daughters - I remember only two - were young ladies, the oldest rather tall like her mother, only slimer (sic: slimmer) and had black hair. They seemed very fine girls. I saw them down town, they went to some of the stores. The merchant gave them a dress patern (sic: pattern) apiece which I heard talk of. They said their father was not now able to support the family it was their duty to assist him. I do not know whatever became of the family for they went away and I saw them no more. There was some boys but I do not remember them much.

WRITING

Among the many little boys there was a bright lad who could write. He had a pencil to write with. We all in a small room upstairs - the wrote on a board. He could write very fast. I wished I could write that well and fast, but couldn't at all. He was from the New England States, had gone to school, could read and write. While staying at Fort Dodge I saw many things - saw many people. Father went back to the farm to fix things up, the farm was rented out to Thornburgs. He also got father's rifle for $10 to defend himself against the Indians should any come.

DOGS

Our greyhound, Nix, had run off, had followed some one to Fort Dodge and strayed off. The doy Carle (sic: dog Carl?), the black face we got from Uncle Allen was left behind, at home, finally ran away and we saw him no more. The calf was left at Uncle Joe's also our pigs. We stayed over Sunday at the School house. At night a Methodist preacher came and delivered a sermon to the people. I was upstairs with mother, there was a woman there with her, and she had some children. The women were baking bread - biscuits. She greased the top of the bread. The preacher was preaching, we children were talking and laughing and the woman said we should not do that when prayers were being said for us all. She bowed her head in adoration.

FLIGHT TO DALLAS COUNTY

The next day we started south to Dallas County. Uncle Tom went with us but Uncle Joe went back home. There was something like three or four wagons, all told, Several boys and girls and some young ladies. We had two horses with us and two yoke of cattle. I walked with the boys that drove the cattle and we talked of many things.

FIRST CAMP

That night we camped by a house at the roadside. We went the road south and east from Fort Dodge. At this house, seemed to be kept by a widow - she may have had a husband. She had a family, some girls nearly grown. We slept in the house that night. Father paid for the privilege. This house was built of logs after the frontier style - huge fire place - the door to the south. The next moring (sic: morning) we went on our journey. We crossed Boone River, down a steep hill and up again. I was a big canoe, made of a hollowed out log, it was broad and flat at the bottom. We met a man ere we got to Hamen that had our dog Nix, or else a doy (sic: dog) just like him. We called him and the dog ran to us, seemed friendly. The man called him and drove off with him in a buggy. The man claimed to have bought the dog and had put a fine collar on his neck. We were confident the dopy (sic: doggy) was ours.

HAMEN

Beyond the river a few miles we came to the town of Hamen. We passed by a deserted house - a squaters (sic: squatter's). I found a freame (sic: frame) for a pitchfork head which I kept for many years. We camped at the house near the river, stayed all night at the house - clever people but when we went away next moring (sic: morning) mother left a box of things she had brought up to the house in the evening. I saw them there but was too tired to ask for them, so they were lost. We drove down to the river, crossed on a flatboat that was run across by oars. The Demew (sic: ???) rapids were below and made much of a racket running over the rocks. One wagon was all that could go over at a time. The families all went over, they took the double barreled shotgun, left it at a cabin on the west side, I went back and got it. We fell in with another man going south, I didn't like him, didn't like his...

15.

... disposition - too smart and too suspicious - head headed. As we drew near Dallas County fellow traveler left wnt (sic: went) on to their destination. The cattle grew weak - no grass for them, they often dropped down in the road from weakness for there was very little food to be had - It was scarce. One day we were camped by a slough, a house not far away. One of the oxen, the one we got from Uncle Allen, got in the slough and mired down, was too weak to get out, so we had to pull him out. Then we wnet (sic: went) on our way.

The fread (sic: bread) - that was bad. Mother tried to make some light bread but it soured and when baked was hard enough to knock a bull down with and it had a peculiar taste also that nobody liked yet we ate some of it. We were drawing near Dallas Count. Uncle Tom said Grandmother lived in that direction. Then Uncle Tom went ahead of us, he stopped at Uncle William McMullen's and told him about our coming. Uncle Neal came to meet with us with a wagon and horses. Uncle Will McMullen came with him. Uncle Neal met us as we were coming down a hill, then stopped. Uncle William McMullen and (sic) came and shook hands with all of us - we were glad to see him. He seemed change a little since we had seen him. Then we went on again, arrived at Adel, crossing the River Coon (Racoon) at Adel. I didn't like to cross the stream in the wagon, the water was deep and the oxen didn't like to cross the stream and I also was timid, so I crossed in a sciff that a boy was in. I thought it much better than crossing in the wagon. Adel had improved since we had seen it last. We went through the town noting many changes, some new houses, one called "The Plank House" - a hotel, a very plain affair. From there we went on to Uncle William McMullen's. There we met Aunt Catherine, she was glad to see us. So was cusin (sic: cousin) Jess Morgan and Mary. Mary was a considerable of a girl, black hair but blue eyes. We had much fun with Jesse, he had a yoke of calves. We hekel (sic: heckle) them and drove them about. Jesse was a very clerver (sic: clever) boy. So we had arrived at a haven of rest - having plenty to eat. Uncle William lived about a half of a mile from Adel, maybe three quarters. He had 80 acres here of prairie and some timber over on the Racoon River, or North Coon. His house was a frame house he probably built. We stayed here about two days. The next day Grandmother Van Cleave came. Uncle Neal brought her down. We were glad to see her. She came while we were away, coming to the house we could see her in the room with a boudiour (sic: boudoir) cap on her head. When we went in she greeted us very kindly laughing and talking to us. Now it seems that Aunt Jane was there and the odest (sic: oddest) thing was that she was nursing a baby. We had heard of that before. Uncle Tom came up to Fort Dodge and told us how Aunt Jane had met with a misfortune, had been criminally assulted (sic: assaulted) by a stranger traveling along the road. She was in the cabin, the house they first lived in. She was alone sponging herself off when a strange footman came to the door, came in, said she was the prettiest girl he had ever seen, made an indecent proposal to her, then suddenly grabed (sic: grabbed) her by the arm by a tight grip, leaving the print of his nails on her arm in black and blue spots and he accomplished his hellish purpose and then fled. When she came to he was gone. She was left alone to bewail her sad fate. When her mother came home she told her all about it, showed her the prints of the villain's fingers on her arm, now blackened. The villain was never heard of again. The family was very sad at the misfortune of their youngest sister, nothing of the kind had ever happened to any of the other girls. The family had so far got along remarkably well. We were glad to see Grandmother to see her kind and smiling face. That evening she returned home so we stayed until the next day. The oxen had recrapiate (sic: recuperated) much by their rest and having more to eat. We hitched to the wagon and started to Grandmother's We had not gone far until we came to two roads so father sent me towards a house where two men were talking telling me to ask the men which road lead to where Grandmother lived. I asked them which road lead to where Grandmother lived. They didn't know anything about "grandmother", but what was her name? I didn't know for "Grandmother" was all I knew. I pointed out a way I supposed she lived, out north, and told father this was the way. This was the way I thought Uncle Neal had pointed out as being the way, but I was mistaken. He knew that wasn't the way so he went to the men and asked they (sic) the road to widow Van Cleave's, they pointed out the right road and I thought I had learned a lesson I would not soon forget but had never heard father call her by any other name but "Grandmother", so I fell into the error.

16.

We arrived at Grandmother's ere noon, then we were very joyous, at the end of our journey at last. We spent the rest of the day about the housse (sic). Grandma was living in her new house, weather-boarded and shingle roof. The huse (sic) stood on the north side of the State road, a story and a half house, two rooms, setting room to the east - kitchen to the west, gables east and west, stairs went up out of the kitchen to the half story. The smoke house was on the north side, a fire place in the east end, the well to the south-west of the house. The garden and orchard to the northwest, being the yard fence, a slough back of the house and orchard. The stables were east or north-east from the house. The stable lot came up to the yard fence, most of the farm lay south of the road, here was the farm some of the south was good for grass. A slough ran through the farm, this slough almost amounted to a branch, pretty deep in places. It ran into a large shought (sic: slough?), then into Panther Creek. We next went to see Uncle Ben, living on Panther Creek. He was cleaning out a farm, had built a house, stables etc. Then we went to Uncle Allen's, saw Aunt Ann, Bettie, etc., had a nice time. Uncle Allen lived north of Redfield, a small town. He had a new frame house, had upper rooms, yard set in blue grass, stable to the north, Coon River to the west. Then we stayed at Grandmother's, we moved into the old house, the one Grandmother first lived in. It stood by the road, the orchard back of it. Then we helped plant the cour (sic) (corn?) - Uncle Sam, Neil and Steve. They had furrowed out the ground but a bad wind had filled up the furrows again with fine dust so they had to do it abain (sic). They had gathered the seed corn out of the crib and none of it came up but a piece of ground that er (sic) planted with corn gathered early in the fall and hung up in the loft and was black with smoke, the men thought it no account becamuse (sic) it was so black and smoky, but every grain came up. The boys wished they had planted all of it so they furrowes (sic) out the ground and planted it again. This time it came up. They had sown spring wheat and it was green and fine. We went to see Uncle Sol at Redfield. He had a hotel, We stayed all day having a fine time. We ran about a little; saw the coal bank, saw Panther Creek the same old places but the country had changed much to what it was when I first saw it. Uncle Allen's old house was torn down and we were living in it now on Grandmother's place. A new fence was built on the south side of the Creek, south side of the road. We would ride the ho(r)ses down to the creek to water them each day, would go past the white house on the south side of the road. The road had been changed some from where it crossed the creek - it went due east, the old road ran a little to the south, went past Uncle Tom's old house, ran by a _____ (sic) went to Adel. The coal bank was on the old road back from the creek a little ways. The old Hay's sawmill up the creek was deserted - dismantled - The Hays family had scattered.

PLANTING CORN

Bennie and I went to Uncle Will's to help him plant corn, we stayed nearly a week working, helping him. Then we went with Jesse about the prairie hunting the cows out south of Uncle Will's, going down in to Adel at times. Jesse was going to school at first, the school was nearly out, so I went with him, I sudied (sic) spelling a bit, at times went down to the store. One time I started down to the s(t)ore and went into a private dwelling by mistake, went through the sitting room, back to the kitchen where I found the women folks peeling potatoes for dinner - then I saw my mistake. One of the women was a young lady, the other some 33 years old. Then I went out. As I was passing the man cutting wood at the gate he wanted to know what business I had at the house. I told him I thought it was the s(t)ore. He said it didn't look like a store. I saw then that it didn't, there being a yard fence around the house and had I stopped to look at the house I would have known better, also if I had glanced at the interior I would have known it was not a store. It was a long, long time before I got over my mistake, but what it would occur to my thoughts magnified and intensified. I regretted the mistake, it was heedless on my part. Had I deatt (sic) with more caution it had not occurred. The lend (sic... last?) days of school I went with Jesse. We had much fun playing ball. We played "Auntie Over", a game with the school boys. In time of school the boys would be cutting out slate pencils from an old slate with a pen knife, idleing (sic) away their time. Then in the evening the school closed the teacher talked to the pupils and said he had not worn out many switches on them, that they had been pretty....

17.

.... fine boys to behave, so the school broke up and we all went home. Jesse gave me his old McGuffrey Second Reader, which I kept for many years. It was the only second reader I ever had, and learned to read from this old reader, but it was at last destroyed. So Benny and I went home when the corn was planted. Soon afterwards Uncle William came to see us, brought us some cloth to make pantaloons for us, of which we were very well pleased.

NAMING AUNT JANE'S BABY

Aunt Jane hadn't maned her baby yet, so they named him Tilgamane (afterwards called him Tillman) Uncle Neal wrote the name in the family bible. Aunt Jane went to boasting to her cousins, the Taylors in Indiana, that she was 'The Rose of Iowa'. When her baby came, they said, 'The Rose of Iowa has bloomed.' She was more humble now.

OUR HOUSE

We moved into an old log house of Grandmother's that stood by the edge of the road, the first house she lived in there. It was Uncle Allen's old house and Grandmother bought it and it was removed to her land east of Uncle Allen's. Here we lived all summer. It had been deserted and given to the bats and snakes. We killed some house snakes now and then. One eve at bedtime a big snake was seen in the house. It got away, but I did not sleep for a long time thinking of it.

RETURNING TO FORT DODGE

It was now about mid-May, the grass was green and the flowers were in bloom. It was necessary for Pa to go back to Fort Dodge to see to things. He had borrowed money of a man in Fort Dodge and owed some besides. He borrowed money - two hundred dollars - from Uncle Sam giving his note, I remember they were drawing up the note, asked about spelling two hundred, if it was too hundred or two hundred. I told them that it was two, so the note was drawn - thought I guessed at two, yet it was right. Then one morning we hitched two yoke of cattle to the wagon to go to Fort Dodge, by the way our horses had both run away, supposed they had both gone back to Fort Dodge. Mother cried when we went away, I felt sorry and thought it st(r)ange that she should weep. Then father offered to stay but she told him to go, not knowing what might befall - she might never see him again. So we went away. West to Adel, then on toward Des Moines, soon we were away beyond the Coon River. About noon we came up with two teamsters that had stopped out on the prairie to take dinner, and let the cattle feed. We stopped, also and ate a bite. The men were going to Des Moines too, so we traveled along together. I was driving along - father was back with the other men, I saw a vehicle coming, thought it was of of (sic) the peddler wagons and I wouldn't give the road. Then when it was near to me I discovered it to be the U.S. Mail Stage. I was on the wagon, hollowed (hollered?) to the oxen to turn out but they would not move so the stage driver had to turn out and give me the road. He sworn some, wanted to know why I didn't give the road, the stage loaded with passengers went by - nearly hubing (sic) my wagon. That night we camped by a small stream called Silver Creek, the waters were that clear and soft. Here we build a fire and made some coffee using creek water. The coffee had a 'flat' taste. I watched the men we were with eat their bacon raw, uncooked. I couldn't eat fat raw bacon at first but soon learned to like it. There was a shingle machine not far away, making out shingles of oak. One of the men went out there and got a block of wood to fix his hub with on his wagon, the hub block. That night I went to sleep to the music of the croaking frogs in the marsh nearby and the call of the night birds.

NEXT DAY

Next moring (sic) we were up bright and early, the cattle were up and yoked, breakfast over, we had coffee and then we drove away, pursued our journey and came to the forks of the road. I was nine miles by the upland road, we turned to the right and took the river road which ran along the bank of the river. Soon we came to a mill and a dam aboce (sic) (above). The space was rather narrow between the mill and the bluff, the River mde (sic) a bond (bend?) to the east or northeast. We went up out of the bottom into the town; went around to the warehouse and father found goods to be hauled to Fort Dodge for Major Williams so our wagon was loaded. The other men got a lad (load?) of....

18.

.... flour and meat and went back home.

MR. J.L. STOCKER

Mr. J.L. Stocker was a lawyer from Indiana, an eminent lawyer, had ??en (been) engaged in some heavy law suits. His most famous case was clearing a ??ng (young) man who had got into a scrape and killed someone. His parents were ??ch (rich) so gave Mr. Stocker a fabulous price to clear him. Mr. Stocker said he plead for nine hours right along, said when he was done his clothes were ??inging (wringing) wet with sweat. The young man was cleared and then he received an ??tra (extra) gift from the grateful parents, and so much honor that it fixed him ?? a noted lawyer. I think he got about one thousand dollars an hour for his ??eadings (pleadings). It seams he had a friend he called Bill and he got into a racket ??th (with) Bill's wife and it cost him $30,000. Finally he was broken down in he??th (health) so he went to traveling, had crossed the plains to California and back. ??d traveled 4,000 miles hadn't been home for four years. Seems that his ??fe (wife) were somewhat estranged. He was a good talker, well educated, smart man and generous. He was medium height, commanding broad face and ??ack (black) hair.

When the goods were loaded they had to be receipted at the warehouse. ??ocker (Stocker) signed his name very swiftly, when the clerk saw his name, saw how ??iftly (swiftly) he signed it, talking all the time to the men around him, they en??ired (enquired) about him and found that he was an eminent lawyer. Some of the lawyers had heard of him, came to see him, some of them had known him in Indiana. They wanted him to stay with them and were surprised that so eminent a lawyer should be ???uling (hauling) goods. He told them that he did it for his health. They offered him ? thousand dollars a year, then he reminded them that he had received that much for an hours work so they could not induce him to stay. By the time the wagon was loaded it was night and we drove out on one side of the street and the cattle were turned out to pass. I had to sleep in the wagon that night. Father slept somewhere about the wagon. I didn't sleep very well in a cramped position, I don't know where Mr. Stocker slept that night. At six o'clock that evening the whistles blew for dinner all over the City, the whistles, horns and bells all sounded so it was at noon that day, they made quite a noise.

THE NEXT DAY

The next morning we woke up early, ate some breadfast (sic) as best we could when father and Mr. Stocker went out to get the cattle and left me to take care of the wagon, out (our) wagon had a sheet over it but Mr. Stocker's had none. It had much the largest load. He had three yoke of cattle while we had two. The day wore slowly away, I was busy watching the things going on about the street, on the other side of the street were some me grading the street, they were Irishmen evidently, I heard them talking, they were rather playful, they had something to say to me now and then. There was an old dead shite poke bird (?) laying in the street, one fellow threw it over at me, then after a while I threw it over on their side, so it was tossed back and forth - we sassed now and then. The men were grading down the street, some men hauling it away on wagons, the shovelers seemed to have so many yards to take out, they measured it at all times with a tape line, getting the width of the gutter on the side. Then there were two carpenters at work on the west side of the store, they were fixing a board (plank) roof on a shed joined to the stable. They had on short linen coats, working in them, then further down the street was a sawy mill, I could hear the steam escaping - "Puff, puff." See the steam escaping. There were shops in the carious parts of the town. And then hard by, and on the same side of the street I was on was a bakery, crackers and bread. I saw a sign over the door, very new and then some one would drive up and get a barrel of crackers, sometimes it was several barrels of crackers. Every now and then the bakers would come out to get some wood to keep the fires going. They were dressed 'baker' style with caps, etc. The cases of wood seemed to be got at some factory or other, it was splitt (sic) up fine, somewhat like stavings from a stave machine. Then there was stores away up the street, but I didn't go in any. Noon came then all the bells and whistles sounded and the bell at the hotel hard by. They mad a din. Along in the afternoon father came with the cattle, so we hitched up and drove away, leaving Mr. Stocker's wagon there. He hadn't come yet, the cattle having strayed a way out into the prairie and woods. We drove out of town and crossed the river on a bridge made of boats.

19.

Our wagon was heavy and the boats sank down as we drove over them. We drove out to the edge of the prairie and stopped, then father drove back to town to get Mr. Stocker's wagon. I was left to watch the wagon. I had slept but little the last night in the city, so now was sleepy, I must have gone to sleep; for a man came along hunting horses, put his hand on me and awaked with a start and grabbed the gun. He seemed somewhat disconcerted when he saw me grab the gun; then asked if I had seen any horses go by. I had seen horses but could not tell much about them, thought that they had gone by seemed toward the sawmill - west - down the valley or a little farther. He went away. Next father and Mr. Stocker came up, he having found the cattle and came in as father showed up, so they drove out. We drove a little farther that evening and them camped. We built a fire and made some coffee, had a drink of coffee in tin cups, It was rather hot and dry. Father had got a side of fine bacon with a lean streak through the center, this we fried on the fire and had some bread to eat, too. We made our beds down on the ground and slept that night. I sleeping in the middle. I didn't like that very well for the men both used tobacco and their breath smelt pretty bad. Next morning we got up early and had freakfast (sic) on raw bacon which I finally learned to like and hot coffee. I helped drive up the cattle, helped yoke them. Then we hitched the wagons and drove on our way. As we moved out on the road Mr. Stocker drew our attention to the fact that one wagon making a smaller track than the other wagon. It was on account of them being loaded so heavy and didn't jar or run so light. Our course lay along the Des Moines River. There was coal all along the river but very little of it mined and at one place above the City there was a rock quarry where they were breaking out rock.

POLK CITY

Our course lay along the river all the way, no diverted to the upland - left the heavy timer - we came to Polk City. This was a small new town of thriving propensities - stores - where we stopped in. Mr. Stocker got something of them, paid them 50¢, which the men supposed was counterfit (sic) money. I told the men he was rich, cared nothing for money so the man said nothing more about it. Mr. Stocker was liberal hearted. I saw the harness makers at work; they worked very brisk jerking out the long waxed threads. Then we went down the street and saw a parrot bird at a house. It would talk and chatter, could say, "Poor Polly, Polly wants a cracter (sic)," then the bird bot (got) to swearing at a man that came by and (he) swore at it. I watched the bird for it was the first one I ever saw. It was beautiful in color - a beautiful green predominated in its feathers. Then as I was going away I picked up a stub of a cigar and threw at it. The bird cried out, seemed to drop down by its cracked bill then got back up on its perch again. The men got some oil to grease the wagon axles. There were some boys playing in the street with a rope - they were pulling at each end. One time the offish side was getting the better of their opponents when some big boys gathered hold and gave surge and soon brought the other boys over. This "tug at the rope" seemed to be their favorite play. Then we went on our journey. Camped that night near the timber, build a camp fire for the night, slipt (slept) on the ground. Next mor(n)ing we greased the wagons, cut a pole for a lever, prying up the wheels. The wagons were loaded very heavy, Mr. Stocker's wagon especially - was hard to raise the wheels. Then we journed (sic) on. Bad luck today, Mr. Stocker was driving along ran into a chuck which gave a sudden wrench to the hind wagon wheel which cracked two or more spokes, so we had to fix them by putting in some false spokes. Mr. Stocker borrowed a hand saw at a house nearby. The next adventure we had was at a slough. Mr. Stocker drove in following the road, his wagon mired down in the tough black mud. Father drove farther up and went over on the sod, so he unhitched and tried to help Mr. Stocker out but the five yokes of oxen couldn't pull the wagon out of the tough mud.

CALVIN MCDOWELL

About this time an other (sic) ox team and covered wagon with two men drove up. They had a horse and dog following the wagon. The men helped us pull put (sic) hitched their three yoke of oxen and gave a pull and the clevise (sic) broke, then they took off our two yoke of oxen and finished pulling out the wagon with six yoke of oxen. The strangers were going our way so we all journeyed along together and that night camped.

20.

The strangers were Calvin McDowell and Jim Dar(l)ing. Mr. McDowell was the proprietor and Jim Darling was driving for him, a stout like man full of fun. Mr. McDowell was evidently pretty well off - had been to California and had made money. Was now running about some. Was loaded with flour going to break prairie sod when he got there. The plow cut a hole in the flour sack so the flour ran out and he gave us some or the flour, very fine flour. Our campfires were more intertaining (sic) by the addition of the strangers. Mr. Stocker and Mr. McDowell were old Californians by travel so they had much to talk about, there adventures out there and on the way. He McDowell told how they were attack(ed) by Indians one night. The Indians came up on horseback and commenced riding around in a circle about their camp, kept narrowing the circle down. They began to fire on the Indians so they left. Next morning they found some dead horses and some badly crippled, but there (sic) were left by the Indians. The men had many stories to tell, some of them very rude. We still ate the bacon, ate it raw, but Mr. Stocker and I broiled the rines (rinds) in the fire and ate them - a tit-bit - He seemed fond of them. Mr. McDowell had a fine young horse he thought much of, also he had a fine rifle with globe sights on it, then he had a loading piece that went on the muzzle of the gun to start the bullets; it was a target gun - silver mounted. That evening we camped, Jim Darling gave the dog some whiskey from a bottle, pouring it down his throat, the dog got tipsey (sic) like, was very antic, to the delight of Jim Darling. Mr. McDowell had a fine gold watch with a broad gold chain. It had flat gold links. I oftern (sic) looked at it. Mr. McDowell went to California in the early days, washed gold from the streams, etc. Went into a speculation with some other men to lay pipe to carry water down to the washings; had they succeeded they would have made a fortune out of it, but it failed and the company fell through - disbanded. The night became rainy so we went to a house near by and stayed all night, sleeping on the floor. There was a girl in the family nearly grown. Next morning we ate breakfast by the campfire broiling the rines (sic) of the meat on the fire to eat. Mr. Stocker had a swell like pen knife, the larger blade was beveled on the back likes dirk (like a dirk?). It was heavy and strong. He cout (cut?) his meat with it. It was a favorite knife. I wished one like it. He said the knife had saved his life. I think it was over at Council Bluffs, Iowa. He told about having helped lay the town out, the first time down in the bottom of the Missouri River, and then came a flood and destroyed the town. A few shantys (shanties) were built. Then they went out on the hill and lay out a town there and called I Consell (sic) Bluffs which name is has retained ever since. Mr. Stocker had taken a claim somewhere near. Some man went and jumped the claim. Mr. Stocker went and told them that it was his claim and to get off. At that they came at him with knives determined to kill him. The pocket knife he now had was the only weapon he had to defend himself with. In the fight he stabbed two of the three. He had had an awful battle. He was cut with butcher knives in various places on his body, his arms were hacked to pieces, almost, the coat sleeve in strips. He was bleeding and weak. He was scientific boxer, under a master for five years, and this was what saved his life for the knocked their thrusts off. I think he left the claim. During the day I went up to a farm house to get a drink. A kind young lady brought me a glass of water. The mother was very talkative when the young lady asked me if I wanted another glass of water. I said yes to the mother and ere I had time to say no to the young girl she was gone and soon returned with another glass of water. The mother was a very kind woman, asked me about my mother, wouldn't I like to see her, and didn't I get tired of traveling being so young, etc.? So I went away. We had a whiskey jug, every now and then the men stopped and took a drink of whickey (sic) from the jug. I took a sip, too. One time I turned the jug up in "topler style", as I had seen them do and pertended (sic) to take a long pull. The men told me to hold on or I would be drunk. I wasn't a bit funny but acted a little that way, Jim Dar(l)ing said I was funny. I told them I had not drunk much of it, just a sip. That day of the next a man came riding up, asked if we had any whiskey, would like a drink. I got the jug for him. He drank feverfully (sic). The jug seemed to be much lighter when I put it away. The man declared he drank a pint. I guess he was an old sot. That night we camped besides a slough or branch. It had sloping banks. A man....

21.

....camped about a hundred yards down below. He was alone, had a wagon. Dar(l)ing got to hollowing (hollering?) at him, finally got a gun and went down there (as) though he ment (sic) to shoot the man. The man did seem a little dangerous, Jim laughed it off and they were friends. After supper the man came to our camp and sat awhile. The men vied in telling stories. Mr. Stocker give them a flowery like touch, lawyer like ability. The story telling lasted until good bedtime, then we all retired for the night.

BOONEVILLE

This was a small town just before we came to the river. Father and I fell behind the rest of the wagons, were going along slowly. Father gave me a light lecture about laughing too much at the stories the men told (around) the camp fire, thought I was taking too much interest in them. We arrived at the town of Boonesborough and saw nothing of the other wagons. They had been there. We drove to the high bluff on the river. We found Stocker laying halfway down the hill asleep and he wouldn't wake up. He as drunk as a "biled owl." He and Jim Daring had got to drinking in the village, drank whiskey and beer. That made them sick and drunk. Stocker had tried to drive down the steep hill and ran off the road, ?k (broke) a wheel against a tree breaking out the tongue of the wagon, so we all ?(went?) to work to make a new tongue for the wagon. Father ded(sic) most of the work, cut down a sapling of tough oak, splitting the larger end, fitted it into (the) wagon making a "stiff tongue". The cattle had drawn off in the bush. Father hitched the cattle to the wagon and drove down the hill for Mr. (Stock)er would not let Jim Daring drive for they had a drunken falling out. ??ing the creek or river Mr. Stocker rode over in his wagon but the oxen (stumbl?)ed at the steep bank going up from the water. Jim Daring offered assistance but Mr. Stocker swore at him, then he waded back across the river to father to help him, which he did. We all eventually got to the top of the hill. That night when the men had sobered up they made it up between – they were friends again. We camped for the night, and the next day on on (sic) ???. We stopped at the Widen's where we stppped(sice) as we went out to Dallas ???. The old lady had one or two girls about grown which Jim Daring seen through the window next to the road. He sat on the wagon and cracked his (whip?) many times and hollowed at the oxen, thought to attract attention from (the) girls. There was but little change about the place. We came ot a slough. ??? well team in the front. They drove on to a culbert (sic) and slid off letting the wheels down and broke both of the hind _____ shor (sic) off. The men pried up the ??? and took off the banister, straightened the _____ and put them back again ??? the axle so we had the wagon soon repaired and was on our way again. We now nearing Fort Dodge, passed hard by a bluff, saw a log some body had ???up the hill and left there with a chuck against the lower side. I tried to ??? the log down the hill. That evening we arrived at Fort Dodge, then came unloading the wagons, when the goods were all weighed out and delivered ??? Major Williams then we drove out. Old Paddy spread himself to start the ??? (pulling? Wagon?) thinking it as heary (sic – heavy) as formerly, and found it unloaded.

OUR LAST CAMP

After unloading the goods we drove a ways from the store. Went and camped near an alley. Here we built a fire to cook supper. We discarded the piece of ??? and got some mackerel fish. I thought them a little salty, if not pretty ???lty. The men boiled the salt out somewhat. We got some provisions and had a ???ter (better?) supper than usual and had a jolly time that evening. Telling stories, ???ing and laughing. A saloon was near by and the men got some whiskey there. (Fat)her drank some and said it came near to making him "tight", the neariest(sic) he was in his life. It was bad whiskey. That night we slept in the wagons.??? Moring we had breakfast as the evening before we had fish, bread, coffee, (and) some cookies. It was our last meal all together. Then we went to the sa-(loon) I taking a glass of beer with Mr. McDowell. We went to the bowling alley (to) see them play, saw the men roll the balls on a smooth raised floor, saw pins fly, then the man would set them again to be knocked down. We went to Williams store. I was rather free about the store going back of the Post (off)ice department for a man came to the window and a clerk hurried back there and handed out the mail to the man on the outside.

22.

I saw much broken glass back of the store. Saw the City, how it was improving the nuber(sic) of stores and the many new houses. Saw some fine knives in the store which I longed for.

SEPARATED – BREAKING CAMP

Mr. Stacker when he received pay for hauling the goods went to the store and bought a good pair of shoes for me, cost about $2. for the help I had been in driving the cattle. I was glad to receive the shoes, but was too modest to thank him for them which he seemed to expect. I was sorry afterwards that I didn't thank him for them, but the opportunity was gone. I intimated that I would rather have a knife, he said my father o?? could but that intimating he had bought enough for an unthankful boy. Mr. Stocker found some men going his way from Fort Dodge, so he hitched up his oxen to the wagon and drove away, bidding all good bye. I followed him to the brow of the hill leading down into the river bottom, there I had his good bye – he talked very friendly to me, said to be a good boy, then the last I saw of him he was driving down the hill, thus we departed forever. I never saw him again. In this far off time I can see him yet as he walked down the hill driving his oxen, dressed in his new suit, his new hat, talking and laughing with the men he was going with looking the gentleman. Never saw him again. Only heard of him again as being at Crawfordsville, Indiana pleading a case before the bar. Said to be a smart man.

Uncle Joe Van Cleave came down to Fort Dodge that morning so when he went home we went too, also Mr. McDowell to break some sod for Uncle Joe. I drove in rront(sic) hurried along with the empty wagon – came near Uncle Tom's house and the doy(dog?) came out barking at me. I suppose that some one had jumped Uncle Tom's claim, went in to see, but found a school there, taught by the daughter of the old man out on the prairie. I saw Willie Van Cleave and Rachel Chineth (Chenowith), spoke to Willie, sat down a little while, the school marm wondering all the time who I was, then drove over to Uncle Joie's (Joe's) saw Aunt Betsy. She was glad to see me, shook hands. Soon Uncle Joe, father Calvan McDowell and Daring came up and we had dinner, and a pleasant time. Then we learned that Mr. Will Cox had rented our farm, two men lived in the house, had lived on our potatoes, ate them all up and had planted the eyes. We didn't expect much of a crop. They had rented the farm to Nate Moer after they had put out a crop of corn, he had not tended it very well, full of weeks(weeds). Mr. Thornburg had used out(our) breaking plow to break sod. Took it home. These things we didn't like very well.

The next day I went to school with Willie but was unused to study and had no books. The school marm scolded me for coming into the school yesterday all dirty and travel staned(stained), clothes dirty, hair unkept. I stayed in the house a while and then went out and lay in the grass. Rachel came to hunt me up and I went in. I think I went to school for some two or three days studying but little, then I quit school, went home with Manuel Thornburg, went past our house. It seemed but little changed. Arrived at Thornburgs, Mrs. Thorbury(g) was sick, a baby, Mrs. Jackson was there, midwife she was. Here Manuel induced me to ask some silly questions about catching babies with silver hooks, of Mrs. Jackson. She asked if they caught any down in Dallas County, I thought they did, but hadn't seen the silver hook and line. She thought me awful rude, which I was, mislead by Manuel who was much older. It was very silly of me to be asking such questions, should have known better. I stayed all day and night at the Thorburg's. Next morning Manuel and I went to a new house way up the creek and on the west side up on the prairie. We went by Kate Moon's by John Williams' arrived at the house on the prairie at the top of the hill. The man gone, the woman clever, talkative. I noted her arms were rather hairty. She had a canary bird. The first I remember about seeing, a sweet yellow bird, the (cage) hung out beside the log cabin in the sum, sang sweet. Then Manuel and I separated, he went some where and I stared for Uncle Joe's. Came to Mr. Lumkin's (?) was gong(sic) down the steep path to the creeo- saw the Lumkins' boys to the left in the creek swimming. I dared them to come out. The boys threw rocks at me and I threw rocks at them. Mrs. Lukpkins' (sic) boy by her first husband was with them. He used to be a mild mannered boy…

23.

…when I knew him at Fort Dodge, but he was as rude as the rest of the boys, so I made my way to Uncle Joe's not very well pleased with my trip up the Creek.

WILLIE AND I

The weather was fine and Mr. McDowell was now breaking sod for Uncle Joe. Willie quit school and he and I spent the time about the place hauling Willie about in a little four wheeled wagon they had brought with them from Indiana. We also cracked walnuts that Uncle Joe had hauled up last fall and unloaded out by the yard fence, we ate them all in about three days. These were halcyon days of boyhood. Pa went to town at times, but he did not get me any knife which I fondly hoped he would do, but was very much disappointed. Didn't have the money to get it, he said. About this time a man from Fort Dodge, Mr. Petterson by name, took Uncle Tom's cabin as Uncle Tom was away. "Jumped it", as they called it. He was building a house out northwest of Uncle Tom's. I sat arond(sic) and watched the carpenters at work. They had three new hand saw files laying on the ground in the grass. I secreted one in the soft earth. They missed it but found it not, when they went home that evening I got it., which was rather mean of me, lost it in a few days. We didn't like Patterson(sic) much for jumping the claim.

HORSES

Father searched for the horses that had run away from Dallas County. Found them after a time wouth(south) of Fort Dodge. Some man had taken them up and father paid the man five dollars, though he said he should not have paid the man anything as he had worked them. They would have come home if let alone.

The Indian prisoners were all ransomed. Mrs. Thatcher was returned to her husband at last. The prisioners (sic) had been treated badly, half starved and abused. Patterson went on building his house. Uncle Joe thought Uncle Tom had better have been there attending to his claim than staying in Dallas County working for some old lady, as reported. About this time father received a letter from Uncle Will McMullen stating "Jane" (mother) had been confined, had a boy, his name Francis Lindsay, but that name was changed to Lindsay Francis by father.

RETURN TO DALLAS COUNTY

We had been at Uncle Joe's about a month, then we went back to Dallas County, Aunt Betsy baked us some bread to last us on the trip and e layed (sic) in a supply of provisions. We started on morning with the oxen hitched to the wagon, the horses in the lead. We moved along pretty good that day. We crossed the ford below Fort Dodge and went on the west side of the river and camped far out on the prairie. Next day we stopped at a house to enguire(sic) the road which was very dim. Saw a woman at the ??? her house that reminded me of mother, thinking matbe(sic) she had moved out there, but it wasn't her. She had a dress on such as women wore then made of calico. That night we were on the banks of a creek, the horses were fastened to the rear end of the wagon, got scared, jerked back, tore out the back end of the wagon sheet. I remember father sewed it on again. We met Uncle Tom and Uncle Neal going to Uncle Joe's in the light wagon. We stopped and talked a while, were glad to see them. Uncle Neal said they were traveling about four miles an hour, that was much faster. They said that mother had a back set, but was getting along very well. Then we went on again, along in the evening of the third day we came to Coon (Racoon) River, then to Adel, then four and a half miles more to Grandma's. As I drew near, riding on the back of Kit, I was anxious to go on home and see the folks, but father would not let me. As we came near Benny and Joe came running down the road to meet us. We very glad to see them, had never been separated from them before, or the family, for so long. They rode the horses up to the house I rushed in to see mother, found her in bed. That evening was a joyous time at hom.(sic) I had many things to tell my brothers and sister of my adventures of the last month, so we talked to late that night.

HARVEST

The seasons glide quickly by. One day I went with Aunt Jane berry picking. We went horseback, I riding behind Aunt Jane. Down the road we met Miss Francis, who lived beyond the creek. She had arranged to go with Aunt Jane, se we all went away, we went down Panther Creek, following the road. We came to the neighborhood of Uncle Ben's, there we stopped, hitched the horses and began picking berries goose berries that grew rather abundant in the woods. Noon came and Aunt Jane and Miss…

24.

…Frances had provided an ample lunch which we ate sitting on the luerous (luxurious?) grass. We were greatly pleased eating dinner in the woods. Miss Frances was a very nice young lady. We picked berries until in the afternoon, I was rather a slow picker but Aunt Jane was numble(sic) fingered like, waded right into the bushes and gathered the berries off. In the middle of the afternoon we went home having a pillow case full of fruit and a very pleasant day.

Benny and I had to ride the horses to water at the creek every day, some times we met the state on the road. There were two old plug hats about Grandma's house, she gave them to Benny and I. There cut down and made for us to wear. We were(wore) them for a while for the straw hat I spent my dime for, and besides father paid some, of the peddler was worn out, the hats were comical on us, subject to remarks at times.

WEDDING

There was a young man that stopped at Grandmother's at times. One time he had a cane, a stick he had out in the woods, had ornamented it by peeling the bark with his knife so it looked forcible. I took the cane, kept it a short time and Uncle Neal told me to bring it back, with(which) I did. A short time after that we were all invited to his wedding at Uncle Allen's. The bride was working at Uncle Allen's so the wedding took place there. I saw them come on the floor dressed in their best, before the preacher who united them in the holy bands of wedlock. The bride seemed a plain woman, not very large, seemed a working girl, evidently a good girl, the groom was named Elsbeniter (???). We all sat down to a sumpous (sic) repast, talking and laughing so the hours glided away till came evening, when we went home.

HARVEST

The harvest came on next. I helped to shock wheat at Grandmother's. Father helped, too. They commenced harvest with a sythe or cradle, cutting wheat with that. But ere we had finished some men came with a "reaping machine", the first one I had ever seen, cut the rest of the field. The machine was driven by two horses which they changed every now and then. One man drove the horses, another stood behind on a small platform and raked the wheat off in bunches with a pitchfork. They followed the binders and bound the shocked whet. We though it a wonderful machine. It was a "Buckeye Reaper". They went to another farm, south of Grandma's. Benny and I went to gleaning the wheat left by the machine. We were several days gathering up the wheat. I next saw the machine going over north of Grandmother's. They crossed the slough, out the tall heavy grass with a 'sicle' (sic) machine. Next I was at George Davis'. They were harvesting oats, the oats were in short so the men had to pull up the standing oats for the bands. Father was there helping. I was at the house, saw Mrs. Davis, she seemed a very kind woman, saw some of her daughters, some of the boys, supper came. They had chicken "poy pie" (sic), the first I ever ate. Then I saw the "chain pump", as it was called. I suppose that I pumped more water than was necessary just for the fun of the thing. Then we went home. Father worked about in the neighborhood harvesting, he and his brother, they worked out about Adel. Worded (worked) for Doctor Van Fassen who lived not far from Adel. This seemed to finish the harvest.

UNCLE SOL'S

Uncle Sol Van Cleave lived at Redfield, kept a hotel. One Sunday morning we all went over to see him, had a memorable day, saw many things and ate dinner at the hotel. Grandmother and Aunt Jane went with us, Uncle Neal also and probably Uncle Stephen, who was a half grown lad. Old man Hays was there. One of Uncle Sol's boarders had a sword, Uncle Sol got it and showed it to father. It was the first sword we had handled. There was a swinging sign in front of the hotel. Uncle Sol and Hays, I think, kept a fine horse – a stallion – he was of Morgan stock. From the amount of talk I heard about him from Uncle Sol, father and others, I judged him to be the greatest horse in the world. We went about in the town, Aaron Hays went to the grocery to get some flat brine, don't know what for now. In the evening we all went home.

THE NEGRO MINISTREL(sic)

A little later I went with Aunt Jane to George Daneer (???) to a ministrel(sic) show – home talent – Uncle Allen went along with us. I rode behind Aunt Jane on horseback. I had heard of these ministrel (sic) shows but hadn't seen any. They were gotten up by the clever young people in the neighborhood. Uncle Neal took part in them, so did Frank Frances he was a notable one. Heard Aunt Jane speak of him as…

25.

…being in the shows. Some times they were preformed at Grandmother's house. The show was performed in the barn, some curtains hung up around and made presentable appearance. A stage was erected in the southwest corner of the barn and the hall made an audiance (sic) room. A goodly number of neighbors were there. At first I heard the ministrels tuning their instruments, then the curtain was drawn aside revealing the Negro players consisting of three violins and a mock fiddle. One of the violins gave forth a very low sounds. The Negro with the dummy fiddle could never keep his fiddle in tune. They would all start in playing together then the dummy fiddle would get out of fix. The bridge would fall down and get the strings out of tune. The fiddle was sawed from a board - common twine strings-in place of catgut strings and a large bridge held them up The bow was heavy and had a piece of white tape for hair. The fiddle bridge would fall down and the other players would call out "put up that fiddle bridge", then they would go on playing and the man with the board fiddle would go playing with the other players, going through the same motions. Then a man came out on the stage and danced before the players, a white man, dressed in a southern suit – white. At times he would knock the board fiddle from the negger's(sic) hands, he would pick it up and go along playing. Then some dialogues would come in and then more fiddling and comic performance, dancing and "put up that fiddle bridge", the coarse sound of one of the violins and the fine tone of the others. The performance on the board fiddle -for it was shaped out from a board - all seemed weird in the lamp light. Then some of the other performance - the barber – a man came in to be shaved and a hair cut. He took the chair, then the barber commenced - first produced a large wooden razor, strapped it, then lathered his face all over, then seized the razor and scraped it, all off and wiped his face. Then commenced the hair cutting. The scissors were of wood, the blades 18 inches long. The barber started around the man clipping his hair, first walked around, presently got into a run leaping over the end of the box the man sat upon. Then the job supposedly finished they quarreled about the pay. It ended by the barber giving the man a kick and then dropping down the scuttle way below. Then some men reappeared on the stage dressed in curious suits, great big buttons on their coats, two great big buttons on their backs, they danced and sang and then went off. Then the closing scene, a man came on the stage having on a blue suit of light material, he had large buttons on his coat, but not as large as the men with goard(sic) buttons. He sang a comic song. The ending of the verse was something about "his long- tailed blue", flying his two coat tails around in a comic way. This closed the play which I thought very good, being the first I had ever seen, was new to me. Then we all went home. Frank Francis rode near Aunt Jane and they held an animated conversation, all the way. Think they thought very much of each other. Frank stopped when we arrived at Mr. Francis', his fathers', and we went on alone in company of Uncle Allen Moore the rest of the way, then went to bed.

The summer has gone, the summer has vanished another season has flown by. The farmers were preparing for the autumn, cutting hay and mowing it away. Uncle Neal had commenced to cut some grass out in the field and stack it up. We had gone to Uncle Will McMullin's at times roaming about on the prairie looking for the cattle with Jesse.

RETURNING HOME

The time drew near when we would return home to put up hay for the cattle, it was later August now so we loaded up our wagon and bidding our friends and relatives good bye we went to Uncle Will McMullens' and bade them all good bye, then journeyed on, we went back the same route that father and I came down on, we had two yoke of oxen and three horses, one being Uncle Joe Van Cleave's mare, that Uncle Tom and Uncle Neal borrowed. We went up the Coon River several miles and then left the stream near where the river divided, part coming down to or by Adel (Iowa)and the rest ran east of that. We got along very well until we came to Prairie Creek, as father drove down into the wagon went down and the hanch (?) broke short off and we are delayed here for a while. Drew the wagon out of the mud, for the creek was full of water then we went to the timber hard by and got a jack oak sapling and split the end and made a stiff tongue. I remember I had to wade into the water getting the wagon out of the creek. So we went on again. We passed Scollit Creek, saw the same deep hole in the creek, now partly dried up partly filled with sticks and a little beyond…

26.

…on the bottom, saw people making hay. There was a Yankee settlement there. All seemed to be at work, the women as well as the men, saw the women loading hay, saw the stacks of prairie hay they had put up, how even and smooth the sides were. They seemed an industrious set, had some houses built.

THE LITTLE DOG

We had a small she dog with us, I had traded for her, of Benny while in Dallas County. One day she jumped out of the wagon and the hind wheel passed over her, but didn't kill her, but came very near it, but she finally got well. We boys rode the horses along behind the wagon. The next day we arrived home, late evening we came to the Des Moines River, crossed at the old ford below Fort Dodge, then passed through the town and crossed the river again at the upper ford, then drove the remaining three miles and arrived at home. Didn't stop at Uncle Joe's. The dirt of the summer had accumulated, so we had to sweep out the house and fix things up before we could sleep for the night. The yard was grown with weeks(weeds) and grass. We all went to bed and slept soundly after our tiresome journey.

Next morning we were soon astir, getting breadfast(breakfast) and moving the things in the house from the wagon. Uncle Joe came down during the forenoon to see who was moving into the house during the night, for he saw the covered wagon and also saw the smoke from the chimney as we were getting breadfast(breakfast). I think Aunt Betsy came during the day to see us – Rachel came too. We were glad to see them again – had many things to talk about, the journey, the Indian war, the restoration of the prisoners, the death of Mrs. Gardener at the Sioux River. Then we went to see Uncle Joe's in a short time. Then the neighbors came in, Nathan Moore and Fanny, his wife, Thornburg and family. Then the Scotts living over the creek came as soon as they heard we had come home, and we saw other friends and neighbors. Manual Thornburg came to see us. Now that we were settled at home again, life went gliding by as of old, only a change seemed to have taken place. We had all grown older, had many experiences, saw more of the world. Soon the summer was over with so many incidents of Indian outbreakings, of bloody massacres and the young lives that had faded out forever had all gone by and the tents of the autumn were here. Soon we went to preparing for the Arctic winter. Cutting grass and putting it up for winter then September soon came. The frost nipping the corn and grass. Then came the digging of the potatoes, they didn't make much of a crop, not as good a crop as they should had they bend tended better and if they had been planted from potatoes cut up instead of the ring around the eyes. The corn was not very good, overgrown with weeks(weeds), especially "rolling weeds". Canny and I were cutting up our part of the corn, putting it in sacks. As soon as the weeks(weeds) were dry the wind blew them out of the field and they went sailing over the prairie, rolling swiftly the wind rolling them for miles drifting them against fences and buildings they were piled up near the top. Soon the grass is dry and prairie fires are seen in many directions.

A FIRE AT NIGHT

One evening about dusk the fire came near. All day we could see the fire a way out on the prairie north of us and to the west, gradually making its way down the creek, volumes of dense smoke settled down on the face of the land, the air became dark as night and filled with heat. A while after dark, the fire made its appearance on the south side of the creek. We got the team up and hitched to the plow and plowed a few furrows south of the house and stables. The fire had blown across the creek, burnt the bottom over. We saw the flames and they ascended some trees that were covered with vines, the fire trailed up. That evening the stable across the creek on the Allen Moore place was burnt with two horses that were in it. The prairie was soon burned over leaving a blackened surface.

AUTUMN DAYS

The beautiful diversion of the year had come – the autumn. This was before the fire. After the first frost, the days were warm and pleasant, spider webs flying in the air, birds singing their farewell songs of the season. The little ground squirrel put away his winter store of nuts. We children laid up a store of nuts, too, walnuts and hazelnuts.

27.

Along in the golden days of the autumn Uncle Tom Van Cleave married Miss Martha Ann Fisher. They came up on a wedding trip to see us, brought his wife's sister along. Aunt Martha was a goodly like girl, a kind woman about 20 years old. Was dressed becomingly. Was friendly, seemed not very tall, plumpt(sic) made, hair rather auburn. I can see them now as they drove up to our house, Sunday, in September. They had come to Uncle Joe's first, staid(sic) all night. Then the next morning they all came Uncle Joe and Aunt Betsy, Willie and Rachel; Uncle Tom and Aunt Martha and her sister, Lottie Fisher. Lottie was young yet rather tall, slim like, black hair and eyes, a very fair girl, good looking. We had a nice time that day. After dinner we all went down to the creek and up the bottom west of our house, there we gathered some crab apples and hazelnuts that grew in a patch. The men were gathering nuts down near the hill, Uncle Joe and Father, Uncle Neal, too, all joked Uncle Tom. Then we returned to the top of the hill where the women were. There a pleasant autumn hour was spent, the children playing about on the grall(grass), all brown. Rachel was there too, played with the rest of us. So a beautiful day passed away. Next Uncle Tom and wife came to live on their claim. Uncle Tom had a law suit to eject the Pettersons from the claim. Father and Uncle Joe were witnesses for him. Then a little later Mr. Fisher and family came to live with Uncle Tom. They stayed all winter. We had some merry times. Mr. Fisher had two boys, Sammy the eldest and Johny quite younger, then some girls, Lottie and Sarah, then a smaller one Viola, auburn hair. Mrs. Fisher, she was rather large, above average maybe, talkative. She came to our house now and then and seemed a positive like woman.

Our calf had strayed away, was found below on the creek, hearded(sic) with some man's cattle all summer. Uncle Joe kept our pig and when fat gave us half of it. The winter was rather mild, yet plenty of snow and we had lots of sport as of old when the neighbors visited us. John Jackson came now and then.

CHRISTMAS

The merry season of the year had come – Christmas. Christmas Eve, what recollections it brought of good things, of cakes, of hanging up our stockings and th early getting up to find them filled with good things, so this Christmas Eve we boys went over to Uncle Tom's. We had lots of fun, we received some presents, all very joyously. We boys, Sammy Fisher at the head went out around the house beating on old tin pans ect. Making a racket. One time we extended our raid around Mr. Peterson's, they cheered us, was going to treat us but we went back to Uncle Tom's house, for we were all mad at Petersons, who though evidently were very nice people, especially the women folks. So Christmas glided by. Jim Daring was at Uncle Tom's much of the time, evidently to see the girls for I do not think he did much work. Evidently worked for Uncle Joe. This year closed with many incidents to us – Many adventures of travels.

1858.

The winter was gliding away, some time during the later part Lottie Fisher got married to Mr. Hall. Father and Mother went to the wedding, us older children didn't go, had to watch the house. But the wedding didn't take place. The wedding dinner was set and all things prepared, but the bridegroom came drunk, and the wedding didn't take place then, but some time afterwards. The groom was much older than the bride, but was supposed to be rich. They went to live in a town south of Fort Dodge. It seems that they didn't get along very well. He came near poisoning them one time. One of her sisters was staying with them. Jim Hall had a piece of meat poisoned to kill a dog, carrying it in his pocket. He laid it on a shelf in the kitchen. The sister was cutting up some meat to fry, picked up the piece Jim had laid down near the rest of the meat. She said to Lottie that she would cook that piece that Jim had been carrying in his pocket. "No," said Lottie, "throw it to the dog." She did and the dog died and they thought it a lucky escape. The dog belonged to Mr. Fisher, was a fine black dog much liked. The first part of the winter was rather open, so we visited some in the neighborhood. Now and then we went to Mr. Thornburg's to stay all day and all night, as the case might be. At times we went to see Uncle Joe, sometimes stayed all night with him. Many were the days we had with Willie. Some times we would tell stories or riddles. Rachel took part in telling riddles, so the evenings passed away. One time I remember, Mr. And Mrs. Fisher came to see us, sitting before the fireplace in a chair talking to Mother and Father. He was pleasant like man of commanding respect – high and broad forehead – but not a large man, rather active. He spoke of brother Joseph being cut out for a doctor or lawyer.

28.

John Jackson and Manual Thornburg came to see us now and then, stayed all night, spent the winter evening telling stories. We thought very much of John Jackson, he was a good clever fellow

Now the winter glided away and the snow began to melt away, the early birds began to sing and the early flowers to bloom and then the earth was carpeted with green sward, dotted with glowers, the birds singing their sweet songs and the soft wind from the south ladened (sic) with wild flower bloom. Now we were breaking up ground, sowing some wheat and breaking ground to plant corn.

SCHOOL DAYS

There was a subscription school taught this summer – Miss Adeline Hoskins was the teacher. She was young yet, medium height, not large, with black hair and abundant, dark eyes. Very good looking. We did not go to the first part of the school, had to help father get the corn in first. Joe and Martha started to school first, then Benny. In a few ady(day) I went to school. I was the largest boy coming to school. My studies were spelling and reading in the second reader, McGaffey's (sic) (McGuffey's Reader). The school prospered very well. There wee not many pupils, four from our house, 3 from Mr. Young's, Uncle Joe sent two, Patterson three, some others, two girls and a boy or two from Mr. Long's. I remember one, the elder budding into womanhood. One called Martha Long. She was very good looking, but I didn't like her very well. Our studies were not very hard, spelling and reading was about all. Some times I got rude one time the teacher went to dinner with one of the children, the house was out on the north-east. I climbed up on top of the school house, bellowed like a Comanche Indian because I had heard father say that when he went to school they all bellowed like Indians at play time, so I must do like wise. The school Miss heard me and came back thinking we were about to tear the house up, seemed we were, had one of the benches out side up against the side of the house for a ladder so as to climb up onto the roof. She was mad, took up school half an hour early. She scolded me, and I didn't do that way any more, it wasn't as popular as I thought. She went without her dinner in consequence of it. As I stated I had a second reader and I could read that, though the school marm generally read part of the lesson I could read nearly as well as she, for she was not a scholar, but suffice to teach the school. She was from the New England states.

BOARDING

It was agreed that the school marm should board two weeks with each of the patrons of the school. She boarded at Uncle Joe's mostly, because they had plenty to eat. At last she came to board two weeks at our house. She came of evening, it was in time of green corn. Mother had some prepared for supper, but off the cop and cooked in the stove. It was seasoned with butter and cream, very rich. I thought she had taken more pains preparing it than usually because the school marm came. She – the Miss – talked and laughed, told of her home away in the East, and so passed the evening. She slept in mother's spare bed. Father had some novels – "Prairie Flower" and others. The teacher read them. Sometimes father read from them, she was fond of telling stories about her eastern home. One about a man and a woman she didn't like – thought they were proud, one time they were returning from church on icey(sic) ground, slick and had to go down a steep hill, they both slipped and fell down and went sliding their backs to the bottom. This humiliated them good. Another story about a 'witch'. In the country dwelt a farmer, not far from his house was a spring where they got water for the house use, sometimes a large black sow was seen to come up out of the woods at twilight, up to the yard and take hold of the gate, take hold of the slats with her teeth, almost tearing it from its hinges. The long teeth could be seen curving around the slats like fingers, then it would go away when it got ready. One evening later than usual the old woman went to the spring house to take care of the milk and butter, the woman didn't return, so the people became worried about her and went to the spring and there they found her lying prone – dead. Seems she had fallen dead suddenly stricken by some unseen power. It was noticed that the black sow didn't come to the gate and shake it as usual that evening, so it was supposed that the sow was a with can saw the old woman go to the spring and followed her there had stricken her dead. Such it the purport of the story she told. Doubtlessly she believed it. It made quite an impression on my mind at the time.

29.

Another story she told made an impression on me. Miss Hoskins said that when she was attending school their teacher got sick one evening so she couldn't teach so the scholars were invited to the upper school to spend the time. The master was noted for being cruel and very strict about the class spelling each week. So the spelling came on – he was giving out the words – everything was going very well till at last one young man missed a word. The master ordered him out, took his hickory switch and roasted it in the fire, then commenced whipping the man in his shirt sleeves cutting the blood every lick. Then he went to pronouncing words as before until another one misspelled a word. This one refused to step out of line and take his whipping. The master struck him with the whip end the young man snatched the whip from him and struck him few licks, then broke the switch into(in two) and threw it away. Miss Hoskins said she was very frightened, was in a tremble and et the school room. There was a report made of this the Trustees dismissed him from the school not paying him for teaching, less the endignent(sic) patrons would have nabed (???) the human wretch.

Time glided on and soon the two weeks were up for boarding the school teacher, then she went some where else to board but often went to Uncle Joe's visiting now and then. She would go home Friday evenings staying with a family, related or only acquainted I don't know. At this time the family lived in John Scott's house south, across the creek. I had to ferry her over in the log canoe, I had some time getting her over. Then went with her to show her the way to the house which we found. Saw several children there. She came back next Monday morning to the school, had to wade the creek at the ford, Some time in middle August Mr. Peterson moved back to town, tearing his house down. I was there afterwards, found some relics, an old knife, a kind of butcher knife with a handle on it painted green. It was school time when I got back to the school house and I hid the relics until after school in the prairie grass, then I couldn't find them and they were never found.

THE LAST DAYS OF SCHOOL

The season glided on quickly, soon autumn came and we were not going to school, cutting fodder, I think. But the last day of school had come. We had moved to Uncle Tom's house, he and Aunt Martha having done to Dallas County. So school was held here for a few days. I stayed at school until noon, then some of the girls wanted to go over the creek to where the school Miss stayed to get something – books likely – so I went with them. They were some of Mrs. Long's girls. We were to get back before school closed but spent some time crossing the creek in the canoe and by the time we got back school was closed, the speeches all said. The school Miss was making the closing remarks as we entered. We were sorry that we had not come back earlier. The school Miss had some speeches to say and they were quite funny, so brother Joe told me afterwards and I should have liked to heard them. The school Miss asked "What kept you so late?" We told her so she dismissed the school and we all went home and we saw the school Miss no more. She afterwards sent us some cards of merit, with her name written on the back, "Adeline Hoskins – Teacher". What became of her I do not know, she parted out of our lives never to return. If living she is old now, the furrows have wrinkled her brow, here raven hair has turned another hue, her step so light is slower now, her eyes so bright are dim now. She may have become a wife and mother and told her children how she taught school away out on the western prairie in her girlhood days.

THE AUTUMN

The corn cutting, digging potatoes and putting up the hay were at hand, a busy season. While we were putting up hay – didn't get up very much – Grandmother came up to see us. Uncle Neal brought her and probably Uncle Tom. They stayed for some time. They came in the evening. Father wanted to go over to Uncle Joe's to see his mother, but mother made some remark about waiting for her to come not to be in too much of a hurry to go, that Uncle Joe would not stop his work. Father was mad and sulked about the rest of the day. Grandmother came to us several times. We had some pop corn, raised it, so we popped some for her, she was fond of it, but we had bad luck popping corn when she was there, so one time we popped a great dish fill ere she came. She smiled sweet when we told her and gave her the corn.

30.

The weather was no rainy – fall rains – so we didn't get out hay put up until some time afterwards. It cleared up and then we put up the hay. The autumn glided away and the winter came.

AUNT JANE AND UNCLE FRANK

Sometime in the early winter came Aunt Jane and Uncle Frank Francis. I think Uncle Neal brought them. Aunt Jane and Uncle Frank had got married that fall. They stayed a short time, went up to see Uncle Press and Aunt Mary and stayed at Uncle Joe's. They had not been married a great while. They were a nice couple, young like, fresh and smiling. The weather was cold, we had a roaring fire in the fire place, all sat around it. Aunt Jane had much to talk about as ever. I remember Uncle Frank talked and laughed as you people do. Uncle Neal, also, I can see him yet, talked as they all sat around the fire. I was listening to their conversation. Unlce Neal had a coat with red buttons on it, a pale red, half transpatent(sic). I was looking at them when he asked me what they looked like. I said, "They look like you red eye." Then I was sorry I had spoken so as I did not mean to affend(sic) him but he didn't like it, thought it a personal remark to his nisfit(???), for he had got one of his eyes put out when a lad playing ball on the ice, called 'shinny' with a club. The eye was red, inflamed like ever afterwards. My parents scolded me for making such a remark. After the visit was out they returned home again.

THE COW

After the death of our cow by drownding(sic) we did without one till spring. Mr. Thornburg that Mr. Rockaffellow that lived out east of us had a cow to sell or trade for rails so father got very early the next morning and traded for the cow. Gave five hundred rails for her, and drover her home by the time we children got up. We had saved up some pumpkin rine(rind) for feed for her which he are greedly(sic). In a short time she had a calf. She had been raised by the Yankees and when the calf was three days old they took it away from her and fed it on meal and milk so the cow was set to give it up and seemed surprised that the calf was allowed to suck her as long as we had milk and butter. When the young heifer's white face calf was weaned she was hard to break in to milk. Father put her in a pen some ten rails high and she could not get out of it. She tore at the rails but at last we broke her in and she became very gentle at last and we had plenty of milk and butter.

HORSES

Father traded his oxen off for some horses, two yoke of oxen for two horses. He hitched them to the wagon and drove them up the bluff, the horses balked, went backing the wagon back down the hill. Finally we got them to go forward again. One mare we called Fan, she was the best, was a cream color, was a good riding nag. Often I rode her across the prairie for the cows, went sailing through the air, was so swift as the wind. There was some disturbance about the cow father bought from Mr. Rockafellow. Father Moore had thought to get her but Mr. Thornburg and Moores were at outs in the families, so he told father about the cow, so father got in ahead of him and Mr. Moore didn't like it.

BUFFALO RUG

One incident occurred while Aunt Jane and Uncle Frank were on a visit to us. Grandmother had got two buffalo rugs, and Uncle Neal brought them along in the wagon to keep them warm. The rugs were a novelty to me and I rolled up in one and slept on the floor one night. Some time in the night I was partly awake and heard a mouse in the rug cutting away. I just rolled over on him and he quit his cutting of the rug. Next morning I unrolled the rug and there lay a large wood mouse flattened out dead. I had killed him.

Mr. Jackson's were going to leave in the spring and Mr. Thornburg was going with them. Part of the family had gone to Minnesota to build houses and prepare for the family they came. John Jackson returned in the winter, he came to our house with Manuel. He had grown much, was more manly and he talked about his life in Minnesota, what he saw , of the land, the timber was much taller than in Iowa, so we spent a pleasant evening, the last evening he was ever at our house.

1859

It was an eventful year to me, the separation from old friends, the…

31

…breaking up of boyhood scenes, never to behold again. Little children became men and women, some were married and raised families, but where they live we do not know. So lefe (sic) glides away, its rough and soft side.

The winter was less severe than common. We had our usual on the deep snow drifts. Mr. Thornburg went in the latter part of the winter to Minnesota with Mr. Jackson. He left his family to care for themselves while he was gone. Manuel worked about in the neighborhood, for Mr. Rockafellow mostly, made some money and spent it for groceries and so maintained the family. We didn't have any coffee, so Mrs. Thornburg sent mother a tea cup full once or twice, she was kind hearted woman. Later, toward spring Mr. Thornburg returned from Minnesota. He didn't bring his ox team, left them back out of the neighborhood because he was owing some store bills in Fort Dodge, more than a hundred dollars so he was afraid his cattle would be levied on. When he learned that his return was not known at Fort Dodge he drove his cattle home. He was at our house. Told father about the claim he had taken, about the timber being so much taller than in Iowa, that the snow was deep, layed on the ground much longer than it did in Iowa, then thawed out and that was the last of winter and they could go to plowing very soon and the climate was better than Iowa. The night Mr. Thornburg returned Manuel came to our house to stay all night, was mad at Ben Thornburg, so he wouldn't stay. We talked of old times. Soon after this Benjamin Thornburg went off to Minnesota. He sold out of gave up his land to someone, likely he let the mortgage close on the land. He got away without being pursued by his credit. I don't think we ever heard of them again, at least never saw them. Their house was torn down and the logs hauled away, a pile of rocks were left where the chimney stood. One day I went up there and found a shoe knife blade in the rubbish and kept it for many years but at last it was lost.

SELLING OUT

Father had gone in debt some- not able to pay very soon, so he finally sold out to Mr. Alcott of Fort Dodge. Soon Mr. Alcott and his son, that was grown but not quite, came out to plow ground and put out a garden. I watch him make garden thought he made it differently from what we always had, laying the rows off with a line and planting teas and beans, etc. One day Mrs. Alcott came out to see the farm she was a motherly woman, friendly. When she came mother was doing the washing, she had been sick, had a spell of fever late in winter and was not very stout, so us children helped her wash the clothes and scrub the floor. Mrs. Alcott was surprised to see us washing for mother, she praised us as being such good boys saying she would let us have her daughter. Mrs. Alcott brought her daughter along. The oldest was Mrs. Richards, the wife of lawyer Richards of Fort Dodge, the youngest girl was not more than 16 years old. She was a very nice girl, dark hair. They were dressed in nice clean clothes. We thought them great folks as they were from town. Mrs. Alcott talked of the kind of a life they would have out on the farm. They returned to Fort Dodge that evening but Mr. Alcott and son continued to plow the fields for corn, wheat, etc. Father sold out to Mr. Alcott for about $1400.00, received about 160 acres of land near Humbolt City in Humbolt Count and the rest in money. He arranged a mortgage on our land and paid the difference a land warrant and the rest in cash. Lawyer Richards paid out on the land, I think the 160 acres of land belonged to Richards, said to be a choice claim within half a mile of Humbolt City, the County Seat. We remained in the house for a few weeks getting ready to go away. Father traded one horse for a yoke of cattle that belonged to some lserrbergs (sic) up the creek. They were called Jack and Lem and a very fine yoke of cattle they were, too. Then we went down to Uncle Joe's and sayed (sic) there for some time ere we went away. Father went down below Fort Dodge and traded for another yoke of cattle and an old wagon – that seemed it was made long ago – The hubs were of black locust and full of cracks, hadn't any paint on it, some said it looked as if it came out of the Ark it was so old. The cattle were named Buck and Bright. In the meantime we boys were having lots of fun with cousin Willie, running about the hills and over the prairie. I think I went back to see the old house again. Sometimes we went down to Lizzard creek. Uncle Joe had a canoe. He put it in the bayou below his house, we took nice rides in it. There were many musk rats in the bayou, we ran the canoe among them. One evening we were all down there, the wind blew causing waves to ripple on the water, we put up some sails and ran it by the wind.

32.

It rained some and we got wet by the time we got out. Willie was in the (___) canoe enjoying it.

SCHOOL

By this time school took up. It was taught by Miss Smith from Spiret (sic) lake. She was a very fair woman, young like, tall above the average, rather compact made and rather talkative. She told many anecdotes of the life at Spirit Lake. Told of one woman who went to walk across the lake on the ice but the ice was rotten and broke with her after she had gone a few hundred yards. The people of the town rescued her. They took planks from the sawmill and layed out a walk to her and she walked back on the planks. The teacher had black hair and a fair smooth face.

Miss Smith taught school in Uncle Tome's house, there was a fire place in one room, was very nice to warm up the room on cold rainy days. One day Willie and I went over there, there being no school – Sunday – we went up on top of there of and tore the top of the stove chimney down dropping some of the stones down the flue, they knocked out the arch below and the first thing we new the fire place was blocked up with stones, then we left. Monday morning it was cold and chill and the school ??? was going to build a fire but found the fire place in bad shape, the hearth full of stones where us bad boys had dropped it to see it fall. She cleaned the stones out and made a fire, but it smoked dreadfully so she layed a grievance complaint against us two. When asked about it we said we did do it, so for telling the truth we were spared a whipping which we well merited for our misdeeds. I had made up my mind if they whipped me after telling the truth, to tell stories after that. I had heard something about that or heard my parents speak of it. We didn't get whipped, was sorry for our mischief though Miss Smith didn't say anything more.

MOVING

Father went down below Fort Dodge and traded for the yoke of cattle and an old wagon giving $20 to boot. Then he repaired the wagon for moving, stretching a canvas over it. The blacksmith tools and other things were put in the wagon and part of the beds. In the other wagon mother and the children rode. All things ?? were ready so one day we bade Uncle Joe, Aunt Betsy, Rachel and Willie good bye and started our journey to Kansas. I think Uncle Joe went part way with us to Fort Dodge. We say the old home place for the last time and parted from Uncle Joe for the last time. We never saw him again. Death removed him from this vale of tears. We crossed the Des Moines River on the ferry boat. We spent some time in Fort Dodge, buying a few things at the tinners, some ten cups and plates. Something new to me. A man came in and bought a hoe. I talked with him. To get the best he examined them all and thn took the one I suggested, the price was 25 cents. Father paid the tinner for the ten ware, had to change a twenty dollar gold piece. The town had grown much since I saw it last, many ney (sic) buildings and business rooms put up. It was a City, fair and active. Then we journeyed on. We crossed the river at the loawer (sic) ferry without mishap and passed on our way southward. After getting up on the hight prairie we met John Heely, that we hadn't seen for years. He topped and talked then bade us a save (sic) journey left us riding on toward the City. That night we camped by the roadside. We had taken the west side route to Dallas County, that is we went on the west side of the Des Moines River. That night we camped near the timber and the next night we camped on a knoll. There was a ridge running east and west, rather a low ridge and the knoll rose up rather steep to the hight (sic) of a hundred feet. It was a wide prairie. I went to the top of it, the assent was rather steep covered with short grass. The apex was small and we had a good view of the surrounding contry (sic), a prairie extended west and north, we saw many ponds scattered about. Seemed rather a wet prairie. On the top was a place that seemed to have been dun (sic) into some time, seemingly by the Indians to bury some one there. There were bones in the cavity but they seemed to have been wold or doy bones. (sic – wolf or dog?) They might have been bones of a child as the bones were rather small. Then we went our way. I had a fist spear with a stout handle on it which father made ere we left home. I used to kill snakes with it, but I lost it, left it in a camp one morning. In the next day or two we arrived at Grandmother's there we stopped and stayed all summer, father working around in the neighborhood. We had many adventure there this summer. We helped to work on the farm, helped Uncle Neal and Steve in the corn field.

SNUFF BOX

I bought a snuff box of Uncle Frank Francis, one that he had picked up on the road, had been droped (sic) by some traveler. The box wasn't worth much but I gave him three day's work for it, uncovering corn and pulling weeks. (sic – weeds?) The box was black and shiny. I thought it was rubber, but it wasn't, only paper pulp pressed into shape with a spring lid that worked on hinges, but it was a great (________) with me. Uncle Frank and Uncle Neal said it was worth ?5 cents. I kept the box for many years. It had a perfume smell in it that lasted a long time. After that Ben and I worked for Uncle Frank, pulling weeds out of the corn field. The weather was bad and we sweat although we had but a shirt on. Worked on the north side of the slough. At every round we would plunge into the slough and cool off, then out again, but it did not hurt us. I got my wrist cut on the weeks by some means, left a scab there.

BREAKING SOD

Father bought a prairie sod plow of Mr. Brody who lived up towards the ?ead of Panther Creek, so we broke prairie sod for him to pay for it. Broke sod several days boarding there. I didn't like to stay very well. ,timid like. His wife was rather a fair woman, rather fleshy, plump figure, black hair. The house Mr. Brody lived in was rather new, that is not finished. We slip on the floor at night. Mr. Brody had been out to California in the early days digging gold, had made about $3,000 at it. Said he would have made a fortune if his two partners had stuck to their claims awhile longer. Another men took it up and worked it for a few days and struck a peck full of gold that made him rich. Mr. Brody saw him afterwards and talked to him and asked him about the abandoned claim and what he made. He said it played out for a few days, just as it had when they worked it, then he came to a peck of gold and he cleaned it out and quit. He told them he made about forty thousand dollars out of it. Mr. Brody and partners were sorry that they didn't follow the lead a little further. Mr. Brody used to tell about washing gold, said if he had a “Tam” he would show us how. He seemed to be pretty well read, talked of many things, of a missionary friend in Africa, and how the young missionaries did. The creek, Panther Creek, was very small up there, nothing but a branch, a few steps wide with a sandy bottom. At last we finished braking prairie for Mr. Brody and went home. The next place we went to work was at a place out south of Grandma's. We only worked there half a day, ate dinner. The man was talkative. He had a family, boys and girls. I think the groud (sic) was rocky and the ploy would not work, and it seems that we went home. Next I helped Uncle Tom break prairie for Mr. McClelland, he had sold his farm my Grandma's to his Son-in-law Davenport. Then we stopped to rest the oxen McCleland boy and I got to scuffleing (sic) and finally to fighting, but Uncle Tom wouldn't let us fight. We soon made up went off swimming in the slough together while Uncle Tom went to dinner – he came shortly. Mrs. McClelland said she was afraid we might hurt one another if left alone, but that was nonsense. Mr. McClelland had a blacksmith shop, too and dud sine wirj (“did some work”?). I helped Uncle Tom a few days there, then we broke prairie on his farm near Grandmother's. Uncle Frank had bought a swell track of land joining Uncle Tom, probably a part of Uncle Tom's land, and we broke prairie there, too. We had oxen, two or three yokes, and I drove. Sometimes we hitched in another making four yoke of oxen to the plow. Uncle Steve came over now and then, there were patches of vrush (sic) scattered about. Time glided along and the month of June soon went by.

FOURTH OF JULY, 1859

There was much talk in the neighborhood about the coming Fourth of July which was to be celebrated in the woods near Bilderback's mill. The young ?en (men) in the neighborhood were preparing a wagon, a decorated wagon. I was ?here (where) they were building the bed out of poles, then the sides build up with ?oles (poles) and brush framing a canopy overhead. Leroy McClelland, the blacksmith's son was helping. The boys were joking him about some trick they had played on him. He was growing into manhood, was taller and slimmer than he was the last time I had seen him. The wagon was finished, Uncle Neal and Uncle Steve helped on it. The important day arrived, the boys got their wagon ready and loaded with young girls and young men. Uncle Frank and Uncle Sam had set up a pole with a rooster on top of it. The people in the decorated wagon cheered when they came up. The wagon came from the west up the road covered with green bows. Joe McCully helped to build the wagon frame, Johnson and ???ers (others). / They were singing a song as they came up. They stopped for a few ???utes and I wat (sic) out there by the wagon. There was lots of talk by the boys (and) girls. The firls (sic) were dressed in gay attire, talking and laughing, young ______ hamsome (sic) . It seems that Uncle Sam got up in the back part of the wagon (and) went away with them, but probably not as he was married by this time (and) had children to take care of. There were farm horses to the big wagon ???orated (decorated) with flowers, a large flay (sic – flag) waved from the front of the wagon, they ???med (seemed) to have music, but I do not know what it was, then they drove away _____ Adel to get the rest of the crowd. Then we got into a wago(n) to go to the celebration. Grandma and Aunt Jane, Uncle Frank, father and mother, Martha (and) I, leaving Benny and Joe to take care of the house while we were gone. (I) don't know why they let me go. Uncle Frank drove the team. When we arrived we found many people there and more coming all the time. The celebration was in the shady woods back from Coon River. Here a stand was erected and many seats place around it. The decorated wagon came in from the east (hav)ing gone to Adel and thene up the creek to the celebration. Flags were (wav)ing, drums beating. The people went forward to see them come in. It was (the) only decorated wagon ghat came. Then came the reading of the Declaration of Independence and speeches by some of the local orators, then the singing a song with many girls up in the stand to sing. They sang the chorus as follows:

“We came to come, we came to come

We came to come to greet you.

We came to come, we came to come

We came to come again.”

Then when the singing was over the Marshall of the Day mounted on his white horse, Washington stu;e (sic – style?), rode out and the people fell in line and marched around through the woods and down the road, thence back to the grove. ____ drum and fife in front, the people following. Mr. Fister was the drummer. I also saw Sammy Fisher, talked to him. Two lng (sic – long) tables were spread out. There was a guard there to keep the people back from the tables, more especially the boys who were hanging around. The tables were heaped with good things to eat, light bread, pies and cakes and dishes put up in ame????nted style. I came in at the second table and ate my fill of chicken, roast beef, pies and cakes. I saw many boys about. I talked to them and learned some of their names. There was a constant mummur (sic) of voices all about the grounds, ______ talking, greeting each other, horses neighing ect. (sic) There was one man ??om Redfield, seemed to be prominent, wore a plug hat, many people spoke to him and talked with him. The all had a joyous time, plenty to eat and (dr)ink on the grounds. The dinner was splendid, all gotten up by Mr. Bildar???ck I heard but not certain he furnished everything. The dinner was as ???od as a wedding dinner. So the glorious day passed away leaving its impressions indeliblely (sic) fixed in my memory. We all returned home well pleased with the Fourth. Aunt Jane thought she might have been invited up on the stand to sing; “just as good as they that were up there,” This celebration (of) the Fourth was the best I was ever at, the most orderly, the best dinner, the most enjoyable time. It belonged to the antibelum (sic) days, when the nation was at peace with all the world, no internal descention (sic) save the political one, ____ negros (sic). The Nation carried but little debt, the people were happy, no ???vel (civil) war had arranged them against one another, threatening to cut one another's throats. It was the golden age of the American people. Their ships (of) commerce floated on every sea bringing the products of every nation to the harbors of the United States. The South was a prosperous people, they wanted the North and the Northern people wanted them, friends greeted friends, returned visits and all were happy and contented. But soon all was changed because war arrayed a brother against a brother.

THE STORM

One night during the early summer there came a dreadful storm, the lightening flashed and the thunder roared and the rain fell like a deluge. The wind blew very hard, shook the house, threatened to unroof (sic) it, but it passed by without much damage to human beings. Next morning we found that the wind had shoved our wagon about the lot. It was loaded and had a wagon ??eet (sheet) on it, I suppose that was the reason the wind ran it about. Blew in the front end which acted as a sail. Some of the goods were wet but nothing serious.

35.

One Saturday evening we went visiting Uncle Allen Moore. Think Grandma went. Uncle Neal drove, also Uncle Steve went along. We had a good time. Uncle Allen had built a new house by the wet side of the road. The front yard was sodded and looked nice. The barn was to the north of the house. The house was a sory (sic) and half, had tow (sic) rooms upstairs. His house was not far from Redfield, a village to the south. Uncle Allen had a boy staying with him. I didn't like him very well, too smart. Sunday morning we sent (sic) with Uncle Neal and Uncle Steve to the blackberry patch west of South Coon River. It was a fair sunny day. Betsy Moore and Rachel and sister Martha west (sic) with us. We stopped at a n old house, or a house partly finished standing in the woods. Uncle Neal hitched the hack and then they left us going on out into the woods. We didn't gather many berries but played in the old house. Climbed up on the joists killing bats that had made a roost near the roof. Betsy climbed up there too. Then we played in the back, then took a walk to pick berries. Then we returned home well pleased with our visit to the blackberry patch. Betty said she had been over to the patch before, her and Bazel and that boy. They waded the river and went in swimming. I learned to swim with Uncle Steve, went swimming (sic) in a race. We learned to swim in a short time and often went to Coon River, and we fished in Paint Creek and fished in it.

BUCKWHEAT

Father sowed some buck wheat on Grandmother's place,t he south field, we plowed the ground up and ________ in the buckwheat with the cattle. The bukwheat came up and grew well. It was in bloom, the bees were sucking on the blossom, but the crop didn't get ripe for the frost came and nipped it, so much expense and labor gone.

VISIT UNCLE SAM

Uncle Sam had got married, married a widow, a sister to Uncle Frank Francis. He had been married more than a year, maybe two, for the child was nearly old enough to crawl. His wife had a son by her first husband – a lad of a few years. His wife was a very clever woman, treated us all very well, never heard any complaint. We went to see Uncle Sam one Sunday. Uncle Sam lived well up Painted Creek, had a farm of prairie land up there, but I do not know how much. His house was plank and large. I do not remember visiting him any more.

BEE TREE

Uncle Ben was lucky in finding bee trees and having lots of bees about. He found one near his farm if not on it, invited us all to come and help cut the tree. Grandmother went with us, mother and Martha were along also. We cut the tree after dark. It was a rich tree, we got a wash tub full besides a bucket or two full. Grandmother told us not to drink water after eating so much honey, we got very dry but avoided drinking. We had honey for Breakfast next morning. Uncle Ben had improved his farm since we last saw it but had not built a new house yet. There was much brush around on the east side of his house. Father took his sod plow and cattle and broke up a patch of brush near the house, plowed up the hazel brush and scrub oak. Some of them pretty hard to plow up. Uncle Ben had a flax patch out west of the house.

MELONS, A HUNT

The melons were now ripe and the boys set a night to scout about over the farms to find some. So one night came Joe Cully, a clever fellow, full of fun and mischief, and said they were going to hunt some melons that night, so I insisted on going with them, so they let me go along. We went over south and east of Grandmother's. The first patch we came to we got into some ________? that an old woman had been raising fr (sic) some use. We then went away and searched about, found some melons, but not very good ones. Uncle Neal and Steve said if the owners of the patch came for us all to run, but not to run towards home, but away. I didn't know the way home, likely to run, towards home as away from it and get lost. Uncle Neal was taking a diarrhea that night and it bothered him a great deal and did him no good to be eating melons. We went to several patches that night, found some good melons now and then. Sometime in the night we went home to bed. My parents did not like for me to be out at night stealing melons.

36.

Uncle Neal didn't feel very well the next day after the melon hand but layed around (sic) for several day and finally went to bed. Dr. Frost, of Adel, was sent for and said he had typhoid fever, and a long spell of sickness followed. It seemed that he was annoyed by the racket of the children, was relieved when we went away. Uncle Frank had a melon patch at the back of his field, south field beyond the school. I was out there a few times. I had part of a case knife blade that I carried in my pocket and it came in handy to cut melons with. Uncle Frank accused me of taking melons, and asked if I didn't cut some of the melons, referring to his patch, I think some of the boys went to a farm out north of Grandma's and got some melons one night. They brought them home in a sack, hid some in the stable in the hay.

HAYING

The Autumn was now fast approaching and Grandmother's folks went to up hay. They had some meadow lands out in the south field up about the head of the slough. The ground was level and rich and the grass grew rant (sic) there. We helped Uncle Steve put up the hay with a revolving rake, with oxen hitched to it. We concluded to bunch to windrows with the rake. The hay was too heavy and broke the rake, but father made a new roller for it so it was as good as ever. Father had set up his blacksmith tools in the hen house, so they did what work they wanted there. They got coal down along Painter Creek to smith with. Uncle Steve wanted some too, so one day brought up some selected coal to smith with.

BETTY MOORE

Betty came on a visit to stay a week. Her parents came one Sunday and left her and we all had a fine time. One day Uncle Frank, Aunt Jane, Betty, Martha and I went in the light wagon up Painter Creek to gather grapes that grew on the low bushes. Grandmother went along also. We gathered some grapes. Betty was full of fun, wanted to tease Aunt Jane. We visited friends, relatives, at times, some times we went down to Adel to see Uncle Will McMullen and Aunt Catherine. We had some good times there. Went with Jesse Morgan to hunt the cows out on the prairie, now and then to Adel, some times we went to see Uncle Ben's folks, some times Uncle Tom's, ?e lived not far away. We went to Mr. Hoffman's some times. He lived out (___) Painted Creek. One time we went out to Uncle Allen's as we went home went beyond Redfield to see a man that owned some land that joined Grandmas on the East. Father was talking of buying the land but didn't make the trade.

FROST

The frost of autumn had come, nipping the grass and vines. All the watermelon vines were killed, so we helped ourselves to the melons that were left, excepting Uncle Frank's patch. Corn cutting commenced. The hay was put up.

GOING TO KANSAS

Mother had been anxious to start on our journey for some time but father was not ready yet. Uncle Frank owed him for work to be paid in flour but he hadn't got it yet. I think Aunt Jane said something about ?s (us) staying too long, too many in one house. Mother gave her to understand that we would go as soon as Uncle Frank got the flour for us, that we wanted to go. I suppose that she told Uncle Frank about it for he got the flour in a short time. So we were soon ready to go. We had spent the summer there, doing some work, had much fun, went visiting several times, seen all the relatives.

THE START

The frost had come and it was time we were going somewhere, so all things were ready, we hitched the cattle to the wagon and pulled out one morning. I don't remember about bidding any of them good bye, at least it was not very impressive, so we took our leave. I had read some that summer, There was a book at Grandmother's that was full of stories. I read the adventures of Jack the Giant Killer, how he overcame the great giant. He had a cup of knowledge, a coat of darkness and shoes of swiftness and a sword of sharpness, with all of this he could overcome the giant. It dealt in fairy stories of a people that were not one bit nice. But what interested me most was a story about a party of hunters in the wild woods. There was plenty of game of all kinds, bears, ect. (sic) One of the men set a bear trap and got caught in it and came ?ear being caught by the bear. He managed to shoot the bear and live on the carcass until relief came.

37.

We started one morning, went past Uncle Tom's place and entered the woods all the way to Balderbacks' mill. We crossed the river below the mill, a hill to go down and a hill to go up on the other side, then we struck the high level prairie. The we came to a crack, the road ran down between rocks, then a level prairie. One place there was timber, we saw a grand blackberry patch, but the berries were all gone, had all been gathered, we could see where the grass and weeks were broken down around them, saw scrubby oak trees scattered about, we were down in Madison County, Winterset the County Seat. The town was not very large. We passed through it going west, came in on the north side, One house on the north side of the street had met with a fire. We came out on a fine prairie, here the houses were scattered, farms out on the prairie with no houses.

TOMATOES

We were on a broad prairie now and beyond the line of frost. here summer had not faded yet, the leaves were green, some flowers yet blooming. The houses were scattered along the road, the country not much improved, some farms without houses on them. We passed one of that kind, near the road was a garden in the edge of the cornfield. There were many tomatoes on the vines, some were ripe and others were green. We got some of the tomatoes to eat. They were the small yellow kind, We next passed a town called Fontanelle, a village. The next town of Importance was Clarinda. This was a thriving village. There was some coal mining in this vicinity. The next town we came to was Bedford. We came to a river called “Three Rivers”, I think it was a pleasant stream with a gravel bottom. There was a company of movers on a head of us, so we learned from the people along the road. They were going to Kansas. We were rather anxious to overtake them. We found their camp ground on the opposite side of the river. Here we camped for the night. We found a pair of pants for a little boy that had been lost by the movers. We took them. They had to be washed. This was a nice place to camp. We traveled on Sunday. I went to a house to enquire (sic) the way and the man seemed very clever, asked were we were going, said if we were traveling we should rest on Sunday, but “I suppose, he said, you are in a hurry to reach your destination in order to put up hay for the cattle.” Below Bedford, many miles we camped, the water seemed getting scarcer, dryer. We were at the State Line. The road now ran between the two states. A house was there where we came up and a woman told us we were on the line of the states, then we rushed to see who could be the first in Missouri. I don't know which was first, Benny or Joe. We camped just below the house and father bought some wood to make a fire, no timber near and I think the woman's husband had gone after a load. Away to the west the timber lay. We camped that night on the prairie, built a fire and cooked our supper, getting water at the house for ourselves and cattle, driving the cows and calves along with us. The weather was warm and mild to camp out.

MARYSVILLE

By noon the next day we arrived in Marysville, the County Seat. We had met a mover returning from Kansas. They told us what a hard country it was, drouth (sic) killed everything, the water scarce, had to get water from ponds and sloughs that had a thick scum of green all over the water and many other drawbacks. It was so discouraging that father decided not to go to Kansas and would go back to Iowa. Then concluded to go back to Indiana. We stopped on the main street in front of some store. Father was in the store selling some of the flour. The building was two stories high, the lower floor was used as a store and the upper was a dwelling. There was a family living in it. A negro girl was nursing a white child for her mistress, could be seen from the window. The Negroes would look out at the wagons in the street. Little brother Lindsay had never before seen a colored person and every time he would peep his head out from under the wagon sheet to see the girl she would jerk her head back as soon as she saw he was looking at her. The Lindsay would cry our (sic – out) “Nigger, poke your head out again.” repeating this several times, as often as the girl would jerk her head back. Meanwhile Benny and I were back off the street where some men were plastering a house, some negros were mixing the lime and waiting on them. Benny and I talked sassy to them and they were sassy, too. We were putting on “airs”, as we were in a slave state we assumed to be the master and would be domineering over negros, but we soon learned that they could sass as well.

38.

Father having sold the flour to the merchants got us boys a new hat apiece. I remember that afterwards I went back to where the men were plastering the house and stood around and the men told us to stand back out of the way or we would get plaster on our new hats. Having sold the flour we drove out a mile or two south of Marysville and stopped near a house for two or three days. The family was friendly, sociable, consisted of some boys and maybe some girls. The eldest boy was about as old as I was. We wrestled now and then for pastime. He won a dime off me, or else he sold me some apples for the dime. He was showing it to his mother. She said he could spend it for some candy the first time they went to town. She placed the dime on her arm and pressed the dime down for a short time and it adheared (sic) to her arm. She said that was a sign money would stay with her, but it wouldn't stick to the boy's arm.

WATER

We hadn't gone but a short distance in Missouri and the water was getting worse all the time. The water that the man had at his house was a shallow well and the water had a flat taste. The man said that was the kind of wells they had here.

THE OLD COUPLE

An old lady and gentleman stopped at the house to stay all night. They were a sweet intelligent couple. The were quite talkative. Said they had a large family, had nineteen children. The woman at the house said, “You should have another and name it twenty.” She answered that she would not have another one else it would be bad luck. The boy, eldest – said he hoped to God she would have another and make it twenty. They were a hale and hearty couple, evidently in good circumstances. The woman siad her eldest daughter had been married five years, had two or more children. I remember the woman, she was of usual size, active temperament, had square forehead and talkative. The man was average size, active in mind as well as in body. They were not much past middle age. The next morning they went away.

THE STORM

About the next night there came up a dreadful strom of rain, thunder and lightening. The wind blew down the tent containing all the family but Benny and I. There they were in the dark and the lightening flashing continuously. The man of the house came out and invited them to the house. They went, also invited Benny and I but we remained in the wagon. It was a dreadful time, the thunder roared, the lightening flashed and the rain poured down and the winds blew very hard, almost shoved the wagon about but we managed to keep dry under the covering. It was a frightful night.

RETURN

The contry (sic) we were now in was prairie interspersed with timber. We had to drive the cattle down to a branch to water them and let them graze on the bottoms. After the storm was over and the sky was fair again and bidding out (sic – our) friends good bye as we took up our march north again, passing through Marysville, then through hill and dale over into Iowa. Here we were glad for we found good water which was a blessing. Next we came to Bedford, thence along the river, then passed Clarinda, then past the tomato patch, getting some more. There had been a little rest since we had seen it. Father had now concluded to turn east and go back to Indiana, the home of the blest. But we hadn't gone far on the road until we saw som movers going west.

THE KELLSEYS

The movers came up and we all talked awhile. They said they were from Indiana, Montgomery County, and father found out they had lived near his neighborhood in Indiana. They were an old man and woman by the name of Kellsey – Taylor Kellsey. Their son, Isaac Kellsey had married Martha Elrod, sister of Harden Elrod that married Ben McMullen's widow. Then John Redenborough that had married a daughter of Tayler Kellsey and Al Brathertan who drove a wagon load of goods for Dave miller, another son-in-law of Kellsey, and Jacob Surfice, a son of old George Surfice, - a United Brothern Preacher living in Montgomery County, Indiana. Jake had married Mary, daughter of Mr. Kellsey, making five wagons all together. They seemed to be well disposed. Father and mother had been acquainted with them back in Indiana. They were not near neighbors, but not many miles apart.

39.

Mrs. Kellsey did most of the talking, though they all talked. She said they were going to “Plum Hollow” down in the south-western part of Iowa, Freemont County. That it was a good place to live. That they had been there to live once or twice, that there was plenty of wild fruit, large patches of wild plums ans other fruit. Plenty of grizing (sic - grazing) for the cattle on the prairies, in fact she made it out a second Paradise of a place. And it was not more than three days drive to it. So father was so well taken with the description of the country that he turned around and went with them. Besides the Missouri River was not far away, plenty of fish in the streams and other game in the land. There were seven wagons in the train now and six families, or rather five families for Dave Miller and family had gone on before.

ELLEN BELL

This was the oldest girl in the set, probably ten years old. She was nice to Mrs. Kellsey, they had taken her to raise, had brought her up as their own daughter. She was an active and good looking girl. Isaac Kellsey was a son of Taylor Kellsey, only son. He had married Martha Elrod. They had no family as yet. John Kendenbough had married Jane Kellsey and Nancy, the youngest girl had married Dave Miller. She was the prettiest of the girls and got the worst husband. He did not provide much and loafed about the stores.

Our route now lay west, some to the country was rough and hilly and some of it was a smooth level prairie. Kellsey's had some cattle they were driving, we joined ours and helped drive them together. At one little town on the brow of the hill Isaac Kellsey got a strap of leather to make a whip lash to drive the cattle with.

ELLEN AND MARTHA

Sister Martha soon struck up an acquaintance with Ellen Bell, they walked together on the road, beside the wagons. They seemed to enjoy each other very much. Some times Ellen helped drive the cattle. Jake Surfice had two girls but they were too little to travel much on foot. The first night we camped in some woods where we built camp fires, having a jolly time. The next evening we crossed the Mishnabotna. This river ran in a south west direction and emptied into the Missouri River below Hamburg. We crossed on a bridge. This is a deep sluggish stream, the water seemed dead, moved very slowly, dirty looking. I think we camped on the bottom that night and had our camp fires, the blaze reflecting the trees. The next morning we renewed our journey Isaac Kellsey drove away and left us as he did not have much of a load. Mrs. Kellsey made many inquiries about him along the road, some had seen him and asked who he was. “Why, my son.” she replied and then they were interest (sic) in him.

SIDNEY

Sometime about noon we came to Sidney, the County Seat of Freemont County. It was a small town. We passedon through and wer enow going on to Plum Hollow. About night we stopped at a house occupied by Dave Miller's family. It was a small house on the hill side, south of Plum Creek and about a mile and half from Plum Hollow, east. Mr. Ewel had a small dam across the creek near here and ran a saw mill. We stayed here a few days and us boys had a delightful time running about the hills and hollows, climbing bushes and swinging in them and gathering hazel nuts that abounded everywhere. Father got a head of cabbage from Mr. Ewel for a dime and mother cooked it.

MOVED TO PLUM HOLLOW

After staying a few days at the Miller house, though the house belonged to Judge Greenwood, who was down the creek father (sic – farther?). Father rented a house in Plum Hollow and we went down there and moved into the house. The house had been, or was a store room. Isaac Kelsey had rented the west end of the store, a small room like, and father got the front part. The room was large and not very good to live in, little accomodations (sic) about it. The weather got cold and we got a stove. We stayed here a month. Father was going to build a house and traded for the lumber, but didn't build. He bought or traded for a small house and three lots and a blacksmith shop on the south side of the village, giving his land warrant, $200, and a yoke of cattle and the old wagon. Altogether I suppose $300. He made the trade with Jack Tomason a blacksmith. He had married Helden Daley's daughter.

40.

Our sojourn in Plum Hollow put a period to the old life; the even tenor seemed to glide away, was left behind with all its simplicity and sunny days that we remembered so well. Our lives took on a newness, changes, new associates, new scenes with stirring events.

PLUM HOLLOW

Plum Hollow, or Freemont City, as it was first named, was a small village on the east side of the Missouri River bottom at the foot of the bluff, along Plum Creek, a small creek flowing down from the east cutting its way down through the great bluff formed by the Missouri River. Where Plum Creek flowed out on the bottom it formed a level bottom, rich and productive land. Arond (sic) about the town were many plum thickets and the hollows were filled with brush of many kinds. In the rich soil grew plum bushes. The plums were of different kinds, some red, some yellow and some freestone. They were very good to eat when ripe and the people gathered them for their use, drying them for winter use. Plum Hollow was a village of irregular shape. There were two main streets in it, or rather two roads ran through it, one running north and south up the river, another came in from the east joining the south road in the center of the town following it around the shoulder of the hill, then past Hoffman's shop, past Dr. Crouch's, then west where it left the south road, going down on the river bottom. Part of the village was inclosed (sic) like between the hills formed by Plum Creek cutting its way down to the bottom.

THE FLETCHERS

Old Abe Fletcher was the principal man about the town. He was an old man, tall muscular, stoutly made, had been a very stout man in his time. He came to this place many years ago and bought much land around here. I do not know how much, but all of the bottom land along Plum Creek, west on the northside. He had divided much of it among his sons giving them 160 acres apiece. One piece lying east of the village, two other tracts lay west and north of the town. Then besides he owned a large portion of the town lots, then he had a field of one hundred and thirty acres lay west west (sic) of town, lay on the north side of Plum Creek. This he rented out every year taking grainrent. (sic) Uncle Abe, as we called him, was pretty well off. He had a store in the town, besides two other store rooms and several houses. He dwelt near the center of the village in a (s)tory and half house. Having two rooms, and a porch on the east side, a garden and stable on the south side. He was a widower and boarded with his son Duck Bill, as he was familiarly called. His wife had been dead for some time and Abe had lived on as a widower. He had a large family. The eldest living here was John Fletcher, lived on a farm east of Plum Hollow, had 160 acres lying on the north side of Plum Creek, part of the farm was rich bottom lands, and the east end ranup (sic) into the bluff taking in the edge of it. John had a family, he had been married some three times, his last wife was Catherine Daley, daughter of Aunt Hulda Daley, her maiden name was Hulda Redenbough. Her relatives lived in Montgomery County, Indiana. Catherine Fletcher was a very fair looking woman, medium height, black hair, white face. John had by his first wife a son, “Russ” he was called. He had dark rather rough features. It was hinted that his mother was some what of a negro. That John had married the woman down in Missouri, lived at St. Joe. He evidently was divorced from that wife for known cause. Then John came back home to Plum Hollow and married the Daley girl. Russ Fletcher was a friendly boy, talkative and fond of associations, making friends. We ofter (sic – often) went visiting Russ, staying all night, having a nice time generally. Catherine Fletcher was also kind and friendly to us. John was also friendly. He was half farmer and half barber, that is he shaved people in town on Saturday nights.

WM FLETCHER M.D.

He was a son of Old Abe Fletcher, he had studied for a doctor but hadn't practiced much yet. He was living in Old Abe's house and Old Abe was boarding with him. He had a son by his first wife named Thomas, or Tom as he was called. Then Dr. Fletcher married another woman named Talitha (,), by her had a son. She was a delicate woman, rather small, fair complection, ar(?)un hair, blue eyes. Had been a school teacher when he married her. Dr. Fletcher was of medium height and size, rather dark features, black eyes and hair, very clever man when he let whiskey alone. Tom, his.....

41.

...son was like his father, black hair and eyes of benevolent, friendly disposition.

JIM REEK TRICK

This was the name given to one of Old Abe's sons by his friends, probable became of his fondness of playing car(d)s and having a tricky nature. He was rather indolent, never married and lived on 160 acres of land his father gave him. There was a ridge or two ran through it north and south and a broad ravine. He lived in a shanty of a house on the hill side on the west 80 acres back about half way.

RHODA FLETCHER

She was a daughter of Old Abe, had been a comley (sic) girl once but didn't seem so now. She married Levi Shirley much against her father's wishes. Levi Shirley seemed to have been a showman, a gambler and traveler in wild lands ect. (sic) He was smart, intelligent, very talkative, could make himself agreeable in any crowd. Had traveled much on boats, followed gambling on the boats. This is how he became acquainted with Abe Fletcher. Abe Fletcher seemed to be about broke up so he followed gambling on boats and in gambling houses, so he met Levi Shirley seeing he was a manipulator of cards, employed him to gamble for him for so much a month, so at it they went, Levi to do the gambling and Abe to do the fighting if there was any to be done. In the course of time Abe made a lot of money and came up in Iowa and bought much land and started a town. As Shirley was with Abe much of the time, he became acquainted with the family and fell in love with Rhoda and she with him, but her father objected to his having Rhoda. Thought he was good enough to play cards for him and help him make a fortune,but not good enough for his daughter. So the up s hot of it was Shirley eloped with Rhoda and they were married. I suppose Old Abe got reconciled to the match for it seemed that he gave Rhoda 160 acres of fine bottom land, but as a farmer, Shirley was out of his element. He was a carpenter whenever he could get a job, farmed some with the help of his boys, made enough to (_____), ect. (sic) He had several boys and girls. His eldest son was John Simons Shirley, oldest daughter was called “Siss”. His next eldest son was named Robert Nuton, then there was a boy called Lewis or “Buck” for short, then there was two girls one called Brusilla the other one was a little girl. The house Shirley lived in was low like, built of logs covered with boards, faced the south, had two doors on the south end one on the north; a fire place in the west end and two beds in the east end of the house. The table was broken up so they had to use one of the doors for a table, placed it on two stools. The family were generally ragged, but one suit to wear at a time, yet they seemed to enjoy themselves.

In the mean while we were living in the old store building, we were preparing for winter, cutting grass on the bottoms for hay hauling it in, using the wagon father sold to Jack Tanson. We were cutting grass down on Plum Creek, a mile or more west of town. The tires were loose on the wheels so we would roll the wheels in the creek to swell the wheels. While living in the old store I made the acquaintance of Hyrum Fletcher. He was friendly, rather liberal, good hearted and I thought a good lot of him then. He was dressed in a new suit, a black flock coat that became him very well. He was just coming into manhood, some 17 or 18 years old. He always had some money to spend which he carried in a purse. He often visited us while we lived in the old store. He brought a book for us to read and look at the pictures. It was a large book, the history of animals, all the animals in the world with illustrations, of wood cuts. We spent much time looking at the pictures of lions, tigers, elephants, ect (sic) and reading the hunting adventures of Mr. Cummings in Africa. Hyrum said the book had the history of some 1600 or 1700 species of animals.

TOMMY

The next day after we moved to the store I saw little Tommy picking up many curiosities, old nails, bits of colored glass. It was a great curiosity shop for him, so many things to be found about town. He soon had his pockets full.

Soon as Jack Tomson, the blacksmith could get ready, settle up his affairs, he moved out of the house, went to Nebraska, we moved into the vacant house and father set up his blacksmith tools at the forge vacated by Jack Tomson. Tompson had a partner in the business with him by the name of William Hemphill. They had enlarged the shop by building an addition to the north end of it, where Hemphill built his forge there. This made the shop rather long run...

42.

...running north and south. The shop stood on the east side of the lots and the road came in from the south just on the north bank of Plum Creek. There was a bridge near by.

THE MILL

Above the shop, eastward, probably 300 yards stood a grist mill, run by water. The mill belonged to Burson's and Taylor. Old Seth Burson and his son, Henry Burson and John Taylor and his son-in-law. It was a water mill and did very good work grinding corn and wheat. They built the mill themselves, Henry Burson was a natural mechanic, could do almost anything he desired with tools. The mill was almost new when we went to Plum Hollow. The family of Henry Burson, eldest, Sith Burson, Rebecka Burson, Isaac Burson and a small girl. Rebecka had black hair, was a comley lass, frindly (sic) some 14 years old. Isaac was a chump of a boy, a better boy than Seth was.

FLANERY'S

We had some neighbors living south of our house, that is on the south side of Plum Creek at the next bend. Their name was Flannery. They owned a farm on that side of the creek. They were good neighbors. The family consisted of Mr. And Mrs. Flanery. They were getting old, then came the children. First James or Jim as he was called. He was married and had a family, lived on his farm some three forth of a mile down the bluff. His family was swell. His wife always reminded me of Aunt Jane Moore. She was a kind friendly woman, I liked her very much. Then cam Milly, a maid, though not very old, the next was Celia Ana and then Susan. She was the best one of the girls, about 12 years old, black hair. The youngest one was Jane, a little girl, not more than five years old. There was a little boy about Jane's age. He was a son of James Flanery by a first marriage. He had been raised by his grandparents and a spoilt child. He wouldn't stay at his father's house. Then came William Flanery. He was the youngest son of Mr. Flanery but not the youngest child. He was almost grown, was perhaps a very god (sic) fellow but rather independent, seemed rather peeved. He grew up to be a good looking man, rather fond of company up in town. This family came from Missouri where they had relatives living. They were very good neighbors the only fault they had was quarling (sic) among themselves. The younger girls had the habit of running about, they came to our house almost every day, especially Jane and Raz, the little boy.

We had moved into our house, were preparing for winter. Haulig wood, stacked the hay in the back part of the lots, we kept the cattle back there too. Father had rented the stable to Isaac Kellsey to put his horses in, so the cattle had to stay out side, tied to the fence. I tended the cattle all winter, feeding and watering them. We made one trip down on the river bottom, down the river to Stanten's mill to get lumber father had traded for. Ben and I went, drove the oxen, Mike and Lem, Bright and Benny were sold to Jack Thomson. Father sent a note explaining what we were after. We presented the note to Mr. Stateman (sic). He let us have the lumber and we hauled it home.

GATHERING GRAPES

Sometime after hauling the lumber we went down the river bottom, beyond Keg Creek slough to gather grapes. We went with Isaac Kellsey and John Redenbough and their wives. Sister Martha and Ellen Bell were along. We found an aboundance (sic) of wild grapes. The vines were spread out on the small bushes and werehandy to get. Some vines were on the mulberry bushes of which there were many. Also saw wild cat tracks. Isaac Kellsey and John Redenborough had their guns along. Isaac had borrowed father's rifle. They took a scout through the weeks hunting and found a flock of turkeys. They both fired at the same time and a turkey fell. They examined it and found one bullet hole in it. They didn't know who it belonged to, but later when they dressed it they found that bothells (sic – both shells) had struck the turkey at the same place and they divided it. After spending the day we returned home, some five or six miles across the bottom. The grapes were in abundance and hung on the vines until winter, and were of a good flavor.

The weather became too cold for a stove so we went to work building a chimney of stone. Pa built it on the outside of the house, on the north side. It was rather a small chimney but answered very well for the small house.

43.

SAM WOOD

Same Wood was the show maker for the vilage (sic) . He was an old like man. ?? called him Uncle Same or Old Sam Wood. His shop was a small room in a store room of Abe Fletcher, in the corner of the building. The building seemed to be in two parts, the front was occupied by a store and a saloon, and the back was a small narrow room occupied by Sam Wood. Sam Wood lived in a small room, had his bed there. Ald Sam was a medium ???ight, rather stocky. He was afflicted with rheumatism. Was rather fond of his money, always counting it, especially when drunk. He had been married, his wife had left him going with the Mormons. His two sons were with the Mormons. He had heard from them and pleased that they were doing well, they were preachers. Sam would get to thinking about his broken home and would try to drown his troubles in the flowing bowl. He would take to drinking, forget his sorrows and be as merry as you please. Have seen him complain all day of his rheumatism, stiff joints and in the evening get “tipsy”, forget his sorrows and complaints, would dance and sing and throw his arms about that were so lame, as active as a youth. He had pride in his hands, to keep them nice and clean. He would spread his hands out saying “I havin't (sic) washed for forty days and my hands are as white as a school marm's.” He boarded at Flanery's but didn't bother about coming after his dinner every day, so some themes (sic) they would send it to him. I went many times to get it for him. He first time he gave me a silver dime, then he gave five cents in silver. Ben and Joe often went, many five cents we made doing little errand for people.

CUTTING WOOD

Sam Wood had made a pair of boots for Dick Stanley (?) and he paid him in wood, oak tops and some logs in it cut up four feet long and corded up near his door. He had used some of it cutting it up with the new axe he got. He hired me to cut it up for 75¢ I think. There was about three cords of the wood. I was some time cutting it, a rather dear bargin (sic) for me. Father was not very well pleased with the bargin I made. I didn't take the money for it. Sam vouched for me at the store and got some cloth for pants, the cloth cost more than I thought for, running father in debt some seventy five cents left. I was sorry that I had taken the job so cheaply. Sam Wood remained in Plum Hollow for about two ears. He boarded at other places and moved his shop several places. After a time he went to a town up in Nebraska and was making $20 per month there.

GOING TO SCHOOL

I went to school some that winter at the school house up on the hill side. The room had been built for a store room, so it was said, then occupied for school purposes. It had a main door in the west with steps leading up to it, then a door on the south side. The front end was elevated off the ground and the back end rested near the ground. Here I went to school, a few days at a time, had but few books, a spelling book and a second reader. Part of the time I had to help in the blacksmith shop, so I didn't learn much. Mr. Algood taugh (sic) the school, was a very good man, but I didn't get along with him very well some times, my fault evidently. He treated me very well considering I wa(s) idle, not studying my book very well. He had young men finishing their education. There was James Mann, full of age, one of the Lucas girls that was about 20 years of age, Frank Reed was grown, then William Greenwood, a bright young man of 18 or 19 years, he had the highest studies of any in the school. Byrum Fletcher was studying grammer, (sic) reading and arithmatic (sic) . There were seceral (sic) young girls almost grown. I studied reading and spelling and figuring, that is learing (sic) to make figures on an old slate I had picked up some where.

WILLSON LAKE

Some time during the fall I went up to the lake, sometimes called Willson Lake. I shall never f(o)rget my first visit there. It was three miles out on the east side of the bottom, came up a lime stone bluff, where John Wilson burnt lime to sell. The evening was fair and pleasant and I stood upon the edge of the limestone rock overloking (sic) the lake on the east side. The placid waters stretched away to the west glinting in the sun. The waters were smooth and lovely dotted here and there by some tall bull rushes, their long green stems raising above the water. The lake was some three miles long and three fourths of a mile wide, had been a mile wide but had filled in on the north side. The lake tended to the west and had a shallow bottom, filling up, so the people said, had been deeper. Sam Shepherd was with me so we stood on the ledge together. He had a long barreled pistol with him, a favorite pistol. He fired several shots out in the lake, we saw where the balls dropped in the water a way(s) out in the lake. The pistol shot much further that we supposed it would. The bluff on the east was very high, one point was called “The Pinnacle”. It was the highest point along the bluff. It was something like a quarter of a mile high, so it seemed. From the top on this bluff gave a fine view of the country, one could see far out in Nebraska, could see the hills and hollows and the plain in the far distance. I remember one time seeing a prairie fire far to the north west, could see the black smoke raising up and drifting away to the south east. It was three days before the fire came down in sight on the Nebraska shore. The fire may have been set by the Indians, or hunters. After watching the fire burn to the lake we went home. There was a fine spring coming out of the lime stone bluff. There was a broad flagstone laying over the top, some 8 feet above the spring. Many times I have taken a drink from this spring. In going home we passed by the Holloway's farm. He lived in a good frame house standing against the bluff on the east side of the road. He had a lime spring here, a spring house built over it. The water was cold.

BLACKSMITHING

Father was in partnership with William Hemphill. Father did little beyond blow and strike, for Hemphill did the wood work about the shop. He was a good blacksmith, had served an apprenticeship at the trade. Commenced when seven years old, worked in a large shop. They made omnibuses, got $600 apiece for them. They did fine work on them. Father did most of the horseshoeing, Hemphill fitted the shoes and father mailed them on. In the meanwhile they had a schere on hands (sic). Next spring they were going to manufacture polows, breaking plows and shovel plows etc. so they were preparing for it. Father traded his wagon, the only one we had left for a large grinding stone and a horse power to run it and a pair of plow moulds (sic) and a press to shape the mould (sic) bends in, two heavy pieces of castings. The grinding stone and pulley on a large iron staff and used a rope for a belt. They were getting up timber for the plow beams and handles. So they were getting ready for spring and summer. I helped haul a load of lumber from the saw mill down on the bottom, Chamber's mill. The next year the mill and house burnt up. We had to borrow Seth Burson's wagon to haul fire wood.

BURNING COAL

Jack Thomson had begun getting up wood for a coal pit, so we hauled more wood and burnt a coal pit. We had to set up with it of nights, took some time to burn it, finally after many watchings the pit was burned. Then came the raking the charcoal from the pit and putting out the fire with dust, then it was put away in the coal house attached to the shop.

Some time late in the fall father took the fevers, was sick for some time. Dr. Fletcher attended him. Some of the children were sick with chills and fever during the late fall. We didn't have many rations to live on. Our neighbors, the Flanery's were kind, let us have milk every day for days, that was a great help to us. The winter glided away without any more incidents and Spring came around. The year had been very eventful to me. We came from northern Iowa to the southeastern corner like (sic), insight of Nebraska state, also in sight of Nebraska City and the Missouri River, that muddy stream from the far north.

THE YEAR OF 1860

The cold March winds were succeeded by the mild breath of spring and April showers. Vegation (sic) put forth every bud and May brought forth sunny skies and flowers and singing birds, flocks of geese and ducks.

FARMING

Father rented some ground of old Abe Fletcher, five acres for corn. We boys had to break up the ground with the cattle, had an o ld rusty plow left at the shop that would not scour. Then the man came and took it away.

45.

We planted corn but had no horse to tend it so we had to use the hoe. Father got old may Kellsey to plow the corn once, we boys followed up with the hoe but the morning glory vines were prolific and soon spread over the ground. The vines would run up the stalks and prevent it from growing. One day we were down there to hoe out the woods, the ground was covered green all over with the vines. We tried to pull them out and there was a blue racer snake there, it would follow after me, would run under the vines and then pop its head up and look at me. I got afraid of it, thought it meant mischief.

Old Abe Fletcher had offered a premium for the largest ear of corn. Offered a silk dress and the best dress in his store. Isaac Kellsey's was on the south end of old man Kellsey's farm north of him. Jack Surfice's was the best and joined ours. Our corn didn't amount to very much. Isaac Kellsey's was the best would have been better but a hot wind from the desert of Kansas struck when it was tasseling out and dried up the tassels, turned them white. So no one got the fine dress for their wife. We gathered the corn in the fall and put it in Uncle Abe's bin.

THE CAMPAIGN OF 1860

The summer glided away with its routine of work. I spent many days in the hills cutting wood. I helped drive a cow to Sidney to be butchered. The man (?) and I walked The man was going to try the butcher business in Plum Hallow. We arrived at Sidney about noon. We ate at Fletcher's hotel, all were strangers to me, save Uncle Abe Fletcher who was there. I was bashful but succeeded in eating a substancial (sic) dinner. They had pudding for desert. After dinner some men pitched horse shoes near the hotel. That evening I returned home, left the man to butcher the cow. Got a ride home with Uncle Abe in his buggy. I heard Old Abe talking politics. He thought the new party the Republicans would win that time. They had put up Abraham Lincoln of Springfield Illinois. The convention was held at Chicago. The Democrats held their convention in Charleston,N.C. They didn't nominate Beckenridge, then vice president? The other wing nominated Douglass of Illinois for president. Then another party, calling themselves the “Union Party” nominated Bell of Tennessee with Edward Everett of Mass for vice-president. The campaign was hostile. The people divided into four parties, the great Democratic Party was divided, the result Lincoln was elected. All the Republicans sprang into active life. Had the Democratic vote been united on one candidate, he would have had a majority of 400,000. Then there was talk of war. There was much excitement, both north and south. The election for President took place on November 6. On December (___) South Carolina Delegates met, five days passed an ordinance of secession and other states rapidly followed, till7 of the Southern States had seceeded (sic) from the Union. There was great excitement throughout the United States and the civilized world. The winter glided away with much excitement and talk of war. We heard that 4,000 men in the South had banded themselves together to prevent Lincoln (from) taking his seat as President.

THE REBELLION? BOMBARDMENT OF FORT SUMNER (sic)

Seven States declared ordinance of secession in the South. An army raised both north and south. On April 12 Beneral (sic – General) Beauregard, a Southern General fired on Fort Sumner, occupied by Major Anderson and a small garrison of men. They surrendered to General Bearegard (sic) the next day, the thirteenth. This attack and fall of Fort Sumner made a profound impression in the North and everybody was excited to a high pitch and Lincoln called for 75,000 volunteers to put down the rebellion in the South. A mob attacked some troops going through Baltimore and killed three soldiers. On June 10 General Buttle fought the first battle of the war at Big Bettal, and was repulsed. On July 21 was fought the great battle of bull Tun (sic – Bull Run), commanded on the Union side by Irwin McDowell, General, and on the Southern side by General Beauegard (sic – Beauregard). The battle lasted all day. The Union forces were routed and fell in disorder to Washington. This was a great battle and mich (sic – much) losses to both sides. Then there was a call for more troops to carry on the war, Lincoln called for 500,000 men. The Union Army, demoralized was placed in the hands of General George B. McClellan who began to organize the Army of the Potomac, over 150,000 men. So the war increased, many battles were fought, both east and west, Virginia and Missouri were battle fields. Missouri was torn up by conflicting armies. Many refugees fled to Iowa. The war scattered all over the South, Arkansas and Tennessee.

46.

Among the many refugees that flocked from Missouri to Iowa was one family, McKnight, son-in-law of Mr. Fletcher. He had a family of boys and girls, the oldest was a boy partly grown. Mrs. McKnight was named Ann, Ann Fletcher. They came on evening, the Fletchers welcomed them. Mr. Fletcher call the McKnight boy his "prodical (sic) son". They came in a wagon, mover style and lived in one of Old Abe's houses on the side of the street. He was an enterprising man. Mrs. McKnight was a tall like woman, rather took after her father, was clever. Next summer they moved to Sidney. The elder boy came down now and then on a visit to his grandfather and uncles. The last time I saw him he had come down on a visit. It was war times then. He had a bowie knife, a big knife in his boots and threatened to use it if he was attacked by the "sesish" (sic – Secessionists, I believe) from Missouri.

###

Thus ended Joseph's tale… and I offer up a heartfelt THANK YOU! to Terry Tully, another Van Cleave cousin, for her help in transcribing these memoirs. I don't think it would have ever gotten done without her!

Home

Acknowledgments

Dedication

Eunice Stith Dahl Memoirs

Clara Swanson Dahl Memoirs

Gene Robbins Memoirs

Sid Robbins Family Memoirs

Clarence Robbins Family Memoirs

Claude Robbins Family Memoirs

Joseph Van Cleave Memoirs

Stephen Alva Van Cleave Memoirs

Tales of the Van Cleave Elders

Family Cook Book Index

Links

Locations

Given below, alphabetically:

Des Moines River: Near Des Moines, Iowa; straight south of Fort Dodge, Iowa

Fort Dodge: Town in Iowa approximately 110 miles east of Sioux City, Iowa

History of Fort Dodge

In May of 1850 Brevet Major Samuel Woods and the men of Company E of the Sixth United States Infantry disembarked the steamboat Highland Mary at Muscatine, Iowa. They had been dispatched from Fort Snelling, Minnesota to assist with the removal of the Meaquakie tribe to reservation lands and then travel overland to the Des Moines River and begin construction of a new military post.

Arriving near the mouth of Lizard Creek in mid-summer, the troops pitched their tents on a table of ground overlooking the river valley. The site had many advantages to offer including good water, plentiful timber, the appearance of coal, and stone for building. From the beginning the officers foresaw the growth of a city and laid out the principal fort buildings in a line which could someday form a city street.

Under the direction of Brevet Major Lewis A. Armistead, who would later die a hero's death leading the last wave of Pickett's Charge at the Civil War Battle of Gettysburg, civilian laborers were brought in to facilitate the construction of the new fort. By November 12 buildings had been completed and the troops were able to strike their tents and move inside for the winter. Originally christened Fort Clarke, the spring of 1851 found 21 major buildings completed and a name change to Fort Dodge.

Life at the frontier post was anything but exciting. Aside from a few minor incidents with the native population, the troops spent most of their time on guard duty, tending the post gardens, and chasing down deserters and whites encroaching on Native American lands. The height of the California Gold Rush may have accounted for an amazing 33 desertions by soldiers in only 30 months of the post's existence. All this out of an average post strength of 90 men.

Spring of 1853 brought orders for Fort Dodge to be abandoned and the troops sent north to establish Fort Ridgely, Minnesota and deal with mounting problems with the Sioux. William Williams, the post Sutler or civilian storekeeper, purchased the military reservation and buildings and in March of 1854, platted the town of Fort Dodge. A bronze plaque in downtown Fort Dodge marks the site of the original fort.

Documentation and History of Fort Dodge by the Fort Dodge Historical Foundation

P.O. Box 1798, Fort Dodge, Iowa 50501

Gardner Cabin: In Arnolds Park, IA

The Gardner Cabin.

Lizzard Creek: Actually 'Lizard Creek'... just west of Fort Dodge, Iowa

Spirit Lake: Northwest of Fort Dodge, Iowa

Booneville, Iowa (at the star):

Van Cleave Home, Adel, Iowa:

Definitions with Page References

Inkpaduta’s Revenge

The True Story of the Spirit Lake Massacre by David L. Bristow

This article first appeared in 'The Iowan' magazine, January/February 1999.

Inside the small cabin, the rifle blast must have been deafening. Shot in the back, Rowland Gardner fell and died without a struggle. Within minutes, Gardner's wife, daughter, son, and two grandchildren were dead--beaten to death with rifle butts and pieces of stove-wood.

Thirteen-year-old Abbie Gardner saw it happen. Sitting in a chair, holding her sister's baby, she watched silently as her mother and sister were dragged outside, as the cabin was ransacked around her, as her little brother, her nephew, and her infant niece were one by one torn away from her. "All this time I was both speechless and tearless," she wrote later, "But now left alone, I begged them to kill me."

Instead, Abbie was taken captive by the murderers, a renegade band of Sioux Indians under a chief named Inkpaduta. They would not kill Abbie, but they would kill others. Many others.

March 8, 1857 was the first day of the Spirit Lake Massacre, the most notorious crime in Iowa's history. When it was over, 38 victims lay dead.

Though his name can be translated "Red End" or "Scarlet Point," usually he known as Inkpaduta. Abbie Gardner remembered him as a "savage monster in human shape, fitted only for the darkest corner in Hades."

In fairy tales, the villains are ugly. So it was with Inkpaduta. At the time of the massacre, he was old--nearly sixty--and his face bore the deeps scars of smallpox, the disease which had killed so many of his people. In legend, he would be seen as a monster, a being more diabolical than human. In truth, Inkpaduta was a violent man who lived a violent life. But as every story exists within a larger story, so does the story of the Spirit Lake Massacre. In the larger story, Inkpaduta becomes more understandable, at least, if no less guilty.

When the Gardners came to the Spirit Lake vicinity in 1856, they were moving deep into unsettled territory. Abbie recalled that on the way from Clear Lake, "we frequently encountered ‘redskins’ by day, and were entertained at night by the howling of wolves."

These ‘redskins’ were called Sioux by the whites, but they called themselves Dakota. The names cause much confusion, for today the word "Sioux" conjures up images of the high plains Lakota--and of tipis and buffalo and the Battle of the Little Bighorn. The Dakotas, or Santee Sioux, were people of the woodlands as much as the prairie--and to complicate matters further, lived not in the present-day Dakotas but in Minnesota and northern Iowa. They had a history of friendly relations with whites, a history that went back more than two centuries by the time the Gardners built their new cabin near the shore of West Okoboji Lake.

But by then things were changing--had been for some time--and the Dakotas were on edge.

The Treaties of 1851 were supposed to solve everything. Growing pressure from white settlers in eastern Minnesota, growing hunger in the Dakota camps, and growing Dakota debts to white traders were all to be swept away by a great land sale. The various tribes agreed, under pressure, to sell much of the lands in Minnesota and northern Iowa, keeping a reservation along the Minnesota River. In return, the U.S. government agreed, among other things, to make annual payments of cash and food, and to allow the Dakotas chiefs to govern tribal affairs.

In practice, the treaties were a grand swindle. The Dakotas entered the agreement believing that their new income would help them maintain their hunter/gatherer lifestyle in a world of increasingly scarce game and plentiful settlers. But the whites saw the treaties as a means of destroying that lifestyle and making farmers of the Indians. To them, the reservation was a place where the far-flung Dakotas would at last be concentrated, where the tribal structure could be undermined and replaced with the values of the American farmer and capitalist. In short, it was to be a school of civilization, with hunger as the schoolmaster.

The new reservation was administered with a blend of idealism, graft, naiveté, and incompetence. The Dakotas’ money was diverted to the traders, who sold them goods on credit at exorbitant prices. The government food supplies arrived spoiled. In 1854, an army officer reported that upon removal of the staves of a flour barrel, the flour "stood alone and was as hard as a similar lump of dried mortar." It was distributed anyway, along with slabs of rancid pork. Often, there was little else to eat. Under these circumstances, many Dakotas began moving back into the ceded lands, especially to those areas that were as yet thinly settled.

Inkpaduta and his followers were one of those Dakota groups off the reservation. But unlike many of the others, they hadn’t been on the reservation to begin with, not in any permanent sense. Though Inkpaduta belonged to the Wahpekute tribe of the Dakotas--one of the groups which had signed a treaty--he hadn’t been present at the treaty councils. Had he been there, he’d have opposed the treaty, but he had long been at odds with his own people.

The turmoil had started with Inkpaduta’s father, Wamdisapa. Wamdisapa and another man were rival chiefs of a village; then the other man was murdered. Most people believed that Wamdisapa and Inkpaduta had been in on it. When Wamdisapa was murdered a few years later, the village splintered.

What was left of Wamdisapa’s following eventually moved to Iowa, near present-day Fort Dodge. At that time, the village was under the leadership of a chief named Sintomnaduta, thought by some to be Inkpaduta’s brother. In 1852, Sintomnaduta was axed to death by a notorious whiskey-trader and horse-thief named Henry Lott. Nearly all of Sintomnaduta’s family--nine women and children--died in the brutal attack.

Inkpaduta was now in the position of leadership. Surprisingly, he didn’t go on the warpath. Instead, he informed an army officer at Fort Dodge of the murder. Surely the whites would punish such a man as Lott.

At first, the court appeared to treat the case seriously. Though Lott fled, he was indicted in absentia. But in a flagrant act of contempt--performed in full view of the Dakotas--the prosecuting attorney nailed Sintomnaduta’s head to a pole over his house, and left it there. Lott never returned to Iowa, and no one tried to find him.

Then came the brutal winter of 1856-57. The Gardners and their neighbors huddled in their little cabins, rationing their meager food supplies. Inkpaduta’s village camped about ten miles to the north, at Loon Lake, Minnesota. His people were hungry that winter, and one of Inkpaduta’s grandchildren died of starvation before it was over.

To the north lay the reservation, where there was supposed to be food. There wasn’t any. That winter, the reservation Indians were reduced to begging from white settlers. Inkpaduta may have known this, or he may have guessed it. In December he began moving south along the Little Sioux, deep into Iowa.

By February, Inkpaduta’s village was encamped near the town of Smithland in Woodbury County. Here was hope of good hunting, for though the elk had been driven from the prairie by the bitter winds, they had taken shelter in a nearby grove of trees. Local whites, however, were alarmed that the Dakotas were so near, even though one local family was sharing a well with them without any trouble.

Soon, suspicion arose that the hungry Dakotas were stealing corn from the settlers’ cribs. Then came a heated dispute over an elk hunt. Finally, a group of armed settlers marched into Inkpaduta’s camp and ordered him to leave the area. Inkpaduta said he would depart the next day, promising to go downriver to the Omaha Indians. But the settlers feared a night ambush, and took away the Dakota’s guns, telling Inkpaduta he could retrieve them on his way out of town.

The guns were never redeemed. Instead of heading south, Inkpaduta immediately headed north up the Little Sioux. Perhaps he feared that the whites were planning an ambush. Perhaps he was just enraged. Passing through the settlements of Cherokee and Peterson, his people stole weapons and killed cattle as they went. Word spread--breathless tales of rape and plunder--and the frightened settlers let the angry Dakotas do as they pleased. None of the settlers were killed.

However, no word reached the cabins at West Okoboji. They were too remote. When Inkpaduta arrived there on March 7, he was neither expected nor feared.

They came to the Gardner cabin just as the family was sitting down to breakfast. It was Sunday morning, March 8. Crowded into the cabin, Inkpaduta and his people demanded food and ammunition. It was given to them. Even so, the situation grew tense. Two men, Dakota and white, struggled over a powder horn. The Dakota raised his gun; the other man pushed it away. Then two neighbor men arrived, and the Dakotas left the cabin.

It was nothing; it will pass, said one of the neighbors. Rowland Gardner thought otherwise. They will be back. He wanted to warn the other settlers, to gather everyone together. Only about forty whites were then living in all of Dickinson County, and their cabins were spread out, isolated from each other, vulnerable. But the neighbor men were unconcerned, and they went home.

Two men living with the Gardners went out to spread the word. About an hour later, at three o’clock, the Gardners heard shots fired. Then nothing. For two hours they waited anxiously in their cabin, till Rowland Gardner could stand it no longer. He went to investigate. The sun was setting; it would be dark soon.

He hadn’t been gone long when he rushed back into the cabin. "Nine Indians are coming," he said, "And we are all doomed to die!"

Gardner wanted to barricade the door and prepare for a siege. "While they are killing all of us, I will at least kill a few of them!" he said. But Mrs. Gardner protested. Maybe there was still hope; maybe a fight could still be avoided. So the door was left unbarred, and Inkpaduta and his men entered and demanded more flour. Gardner, turning toward the flour barrel, stood briefly with his back to the Dakotas. A moment later he was dead.

After her family had been killed, Abbie was taken back to Inkpaduta’s camp, about a mile away. It was dark now, but the camp was lighted by a burning cabin nearby. The men inside were still alive, screaming. Outside, on the ground, Abbie recognized the bodies of her neighbors--including the men who had thought there would be no trouble. Their rifles lay in the snow beside them. They had put up a fight, at least, though Abbie saw only one Dakota who had been wounded.

Inkpaduta held a war-dance that night. Twenty people had died that day. More would die tomorrow.

The next day’s victims were taken by surprise, cabin by cabin. Four families were destroyed, although two of the women--Lydia Noble, age 20, and Elizabeth Thatcher, 19--were taken captive. Mrs. Thatcher’s husband was away at the time; Mrs. Noble was not so fortunate: she witnessed the deaths of her husband and two children. A few days later, 17-year-old Margaret Marble was taken captive near Spirit Lake after her husband was murdered.

The four captives were given moccasins and told to braid their hair and paint their faces in the Dakota style. Eventually, they wore Dakota clothing as well. Like the Dakota women, they chopped wood, put up the tents, cooked the food, and carried heavy packs as they traveled. The men would do none of these things.

They headed north into Minnesota. Inkpaduta's warriors attacked the town of Springfield (now Jackson), then withdrew, heading west toward the Big Sioux River. Though it was March, the snow was still deep and the weather severe. A Fort Dodge company of militia, which started for the lakes on March 25, had to cross snow drifts fifteen to twenty feet deep. Fourteen militiamen suffered frostbite, and two others who separated from the group froze to death in Palo Alto County. So remote was the region that their bodies were not found for eleven years. Through such conditions Inkpaduta and his people traveled--men, women, and children--wading across icy streams, while the captive women often went two or three days at a time without food.

Mrs. Thatcher was the first of the captives to die. Shortly after her capture, she had become ill with phlebitis and other ailments. One limb swelled and turned black; veins burst; she was too weak to carry her pack. Remarkably, after six weeks of travel, she recovered somewhat. Then, while crossing the Big Sioux River, a young Dakota took away her pack and pushed her into the icy current. Somehow, she managed to swim to shore, but was clubbed back into the channel by other Dakotas. Finally she was shot. Horrified, Mrs. Noble tried to convince Abbie to go back to the river with her so they could drown themselves together. Abbie refused.

They continued westward through springtime, through present-day South Dakota. On May 6, two reservation Dakotas bought Mrs. Marble, taking her to the Minnesota authorities in St. Paul. About a month later, Mrs. Noble angrily refused to leave a tipi when ordered to do so by Inkpaduta’s son Roaring Cloud. He dragged her outside and bludgeoned her to death.

Abbie was now alone among her captors, traveling northwest across a prairie so vast that "I despaired of ever seeing a tree again." She had long since despaired of seeing freedom again.

In fact, her rescue was not far off. Inkpaduta had entered the territory of the Yanktons, to which Abbie had been sold. The Yanktons in turn sold her to three Dakota men who had come--at great risk to themselves--in order to rescue her.

"Our conduct shows the heart of the Indian toward the whites," said one of the rescuers, Hotonwashte ("Beautiful Voice"), upon Abbie’s return to St. Paul. "We threw away our lives to benefit the whites, in Inkpaduta’s camp; but the Great Spirit had pity on us and preserved us. It shows that the Wahpetons [the Dakota tribe to which he belonged] are good people."

Beautiful Voice knew that all Dakota people were being held responsible for the massacre. It was even proposed to withhold all Dakota annuity payments until Inkpaduta was captured. The plan was eventually dropped. Meanwhile, "friendly" Dakotas like Beautiful Voice found themselves in a tricky position, for many Dakota people, growing bitter about the treaties, sympathized with Inkpaduta. Meanwhile, in the white settlements, militia companies were being raised even as settlers fled eastward with their possessions. In the confusion, militiamen ambushed innocent Indians, but were unable to locate Inkpaduta.

Freed after three month’s captivity, Abbie Gardner lived a long and turbulent life, enduring a failed married, two house fires, the deaths of her children, and years of poor health. In 1891, she bought her parents’ farm and set up shop in the cabin, operating it as a tourist attraction from which she sold frontier memorabilia and copies of her book about the massacre. The cabin stands to this day.

After 1857, Inkpaduta became a legend among settlers, a storybook monster who was often rumored to be somewhere nearby, lurking. Relations between Dakotas and whites staggered on, finally exploding in 1862 with a massive uprising in Minnesota, which claimed the lives of nearly five hundred white settlers and an unknown number of Dakotas. Inkpaduta was there, but his role--if any--is unclear.

As the uprising collapsed, he fled westward onto the plains, eventually falling in with the Lakotas and becoming friends with Sitting Bull. Lakota holy man Black Elk lists Inkpaduta as one of the great men present at the Little Bighorn in 1876, when Custer was "rubbed out."

As Lakota resistance disintegrated the following year, Sitting Bull and his people fled to Canada. Inkpaduta, old and increasingly nearsighted, went with them. Unlike Sitting Bull, he never returned to the U.S., never surrendered, was never captured. He died in Manitoba in 1881.

^{________________________________________________}

Copyright ©1999 David L. Bristow.

Linn Sapling (page 10): American basswood common to the area

Preempt (page 1): To appropriate, seize, or take for oneself before others.

Rasin Weeds (page 7): AKA Compass Plant (Silphium laciniatum L.)

· Common names: Compass plant, rasin weed, gum weed, pilot weed.

· Member of Asteraceae (Sunflower Family): Silphium comes from the greek word "silphion" which means plant of carrot family and laciniatum describes the leaves which are "cut" in narrow strips.

· Description: The compass plant is a perennial 3-10 feet tall. The leaves are large, deeply divided, rough-hairy; aromatic, flowers yellow. July - September.

· Habitat: Open prairies and roadsides from Michigan to Arkansas and Oklahoma to North Dakota.

· Cultivation: Propagated by planting stratified seeds in spring. One year old plants may have only 1 leaf since most of its energy is involved in developing the root system. Grown from seed, it will bloom in the 2nd or 3rd growing season.

· Uses: The roots, leaves, and resin of the plant are used. Extract increases heal rate of burns. Leaf and root tea used for cough and asthma. Also used as a pain-reliever.

Replevin (page 10): Sometimes known as "claim and delivery", is an old-fashioned legal remedy in which a court requires a defendant to return specific goods to the plaintiff at the outset of the action. Although rarely used, replevin can be a very powerful weapon in a case where somebody is wrongly holding your property, because it deprives the defendant of the use of your property while the case is awaiting trial, which increases the likelihood of a quick settlement.

Riffle (page 13): A rocky shoal or sandbar lying just below the surface of a waterway.

Spirit Lake Massacre: (Hamilton County, Iowa; http://showcase.netins.net/web/marjned/hamco.html) This area was occupied by four different Indian tribes. The Ioway tribe, for whom Albert Lea named our territory, occupied mostly the banks of the Des Moines River to the south. The Sioux tribe was located to the north, the Sac and Fox tribes living in the southern part of our county. The Sioux were very warlike and constantly fought with the Sac and Fox. To effect a peace in the area, the government drew a line that ran to the north of our counties. It was called the "Neutral Line." The Sioux were to stay north of the line, the Sac and Fox to the south. This line was drawn in 1825. In 1830 two more lines were drawn, one 20 miles north of the Neutral line, the other 20 miles south of the line. This area was called the "Neutral Strip." The Indians were paid 3 cents per acre for this land.

In 1835 Major Kearney and a company of Dragoons were sent to the area to scout, map, and try to get the Indians to live in peace. As they traveled up the Des Moines River, they took an unnamed fork along a tributary to the east. This was named the Boone River to honor Capt. Nathan Boone, a nephew of Daniel Boone, and a member of the expedition. Lt. Albert Lea, another member of the party was the first to label and call this area Ioway.

We became a state in 1846 and as yet our county lines had not been drawn. Boone County was created as the settlers moved north. In 1850, the legislature decided to create two adjacent counties, just to the north of Boone County. The west county was called Yell, the east county called Risley. Both were named to honor captains of the Mexican War. The two counties had no settlement yet. Only about 12 families lived here.

Of note, one family was the Henry Lott family. Lott came upriver in 1847 and built a cabin at what became known as Boone Forks, on the north side of the the junction of the Des Moines and Boone Rivers.. He had come from the Red Rock area where he had a history of having problems with the Indians. He came trading firearms, whiskey, and other things with the Indians for furs. He also managed to steal horses and move them down river, keeping them in caves along the banks, to sell to settlers as far south as Missouri. One time, when Henry and his older son were across the Boone River, the Sioux came to his cabin looking for their horses. Mrs. Lott started screaming and when she stopped, Henry decided that she must be dead so he headed south with his son for Pea's Point in Boone County to seek help from his nearest neighbors. After the Sioux party had taken property from the cabin, they left. Mrs. Lott sent her young son, Milton, aged 12, to find his father. Milton ran 22 miles south along the west side of the Des Moines River in December without a coat. He fell exhausted and froze to death.

When Lott returned with the rescue party, he found Mrs. Lott delirious in the cabin. She told him to go find Milton. They found his body, but since it was winter they could not bury him so they placed him in a hollow log and covered the opening with rocks, returning in the spring to bury him where he was found. Mrs. Lott lingered until January, 1848 when she too died. She was the first white woman to die in this area. In 1911 a monument was constructed in Vegors Cemetery, but her body was never located. It is assumed that she was buried beside their cabin.

Lott and his older son left the area for several years. They returned in 1852 and tracked down the Sioux chief, Sidominadotah, and moved to be near him. One day they went to the chief and invited him to join them to track a huge herd of elk. After they went some distance from the campsite, Lott hung back and shot the chief in the back. Then he cut off the chief's head and hid the body and head in different places. Then after dark, dressed like Indians, they went to the chief's campsite and slaughtered the chief's mother, wife, and four of his children. One young girl ran away and hid. When the murders were discovered ,the Indians went to Major Williams in Fort Dodge for help. Williams declared that Lott had committed the murders. By this time Lott and his son were on their way to California, never to be found again.

Sioux Indian Chief Sidominadotah was murdered in 1855 by Henry Lott, which precipitated the Spirit Lake Massacre in 1857.

A hearing was held at Homer, conducted by the only lawyer in the area, Granville Burkley. He claimed to understand the Sioux language, but he didn't. No judgment was made, so the Indians left with the body, but Burkley kept the head as evidence. This he hung from a tree in Homer until the wind blew it down. Then Burkley nailed the skull above the door of his cabin, where it stayed for nearly a year. The Indians came back for the skull so it could be buried with the chief. The Indians discussed a retaliation raid on Homer but did not follow through. Sidominadotah had a nephew, a renegade Sioux, named Inkpadutah (sometimes spelled Inkpaduta) who decided to revenge his uncle's death - such act became the Spirit Lake Massacre of 1857.

People and Animals

Author: Joseph Albert Wright Van Cleave

Aunt Anne: Aida Anne Van Cleave Moore

Aunt Jane: (Rape victim from page 18): Margaret Jane Van Cleave, John Peyton Van Cleave's sister. She married Frank Francis and he adopted the boy born of the assault: Jonathan Tiljamon H. Francis

Bennie: Benjamin Warren Van Cleave, brother to author

Father: John Peyton Van Cleave

Grandmother: Martha Van Cleave McMullen, Margery Jane McMullen Van Cleave's mother

Grandmother Van Cleave: Matilda Davis Taylor Van Cleave, John Peyton Van Cleave's mother

Mother: Marjery Jane McMullen Van Cleave

Mrs. Gardner (page 12): Abbie Gardner, 13 year old victim of kidnapping. My best guess is that Joseph Albert Wright Van Cleave, our narrator, confused Mrs. Gardner and Mrs. Thatcher - for he says Mrs. Gardner was killed and Mrs. Thatcher lived - this is opposite historical records. I believe he also confused Abbie with her mother - who *was* killed in the rampage, along with the rest of Abbie's family.

Mrs. Thatcher (page 11): Mr. Joseph M. and Mrs. Elizabeth Thatcher. See picture of monument below. Located in City Park- 1 mile E. of Flandreau, South Dakota. My best guess is that Joseph Albert Wright Van Cleave, our narrator, confused Mrs. Gardner and Mrs. Thatcher - for he says Mrs. Gardner was killed and Mrs. Thatcher lived - this is opposite historical records. See 'Inkpaduta's Revenge' under Definitions category above.

Nate Moore: Uncle Allen Moore's brother

Nim (page 2): Family dog. Later listed as 'Nix' in the narrative.

Rachael (page 9): Rachel Chenoweth, lived with Joe Van Cleave and his wife (Rachel's aunt) Elizabeth Chenoweth Van Cleave from the time she was five years old. Eventually married Cornelius Johnson Van Cleave (Uncle Neal, Joe's brother, mentioned several times in the manuscript.)

Rachel Van Cleave

Ti-tink-a-ta-ma-dhoe (page 11): Probably a bastardization, both phonetically and in transcription from the original document, of 'Ink-pah-du-tah', the leader of the Sioux band responsible for the Spirit Lake Massacre.

Uncle Allen: Allen Moore, husband to Aida Anne Van Cleave

Uncle Ben: Benjamin Taylor Van Cleave
Uncle Joe: Joseph W. Van Cleave

Uncle Neal: Cornelius Johnson Van Cleave

Cornelius Johnson Van Cleave

Uncle Saul or Soll: Solomon Munson Van Cleave

Uncle Tom: Thomas T. Van Cleave

Uncle Will: William McMullen, Marjery Jane McMullen Van Cleave's brother