Geary County History
"Sixteen Years on a Kansas Farm"
Anne E. Bingham
Anne Northrop Bingham (1840-1932) and her husband Charles H. Bingham started their life in Kansas on a farm in Lyon Township. They were both born in Onondaga County, New York, and were the parents of two daughters--Minnie, who died in infancy back in New York, and Fannie, born 1871 in Kansas. The family moved from the Lyon Township farm in the late '80s to a home in Junction City. Fannie died in 1898 of typhoid fever; her father had preceded her in death in 1893. The cousin who was waiting for the Binghams at Fort Leavenworth was Elizabeth "Libbie" Bacon Custer, wife of Gen. George Armstrong Custer, who was also a writer, publishing three popular books about Gen. Custer and their life together.
This is just a simple narrative of events in our home life on a Kansas
farm in the early settlement of the state, covering the intervening years
between the very earliest settlers and the beginning of the Kansas as it is now
after its refining process. My only reason for writing it is because I have been
urged to do so, as early Kansas history, though commonplace, is cherished
for future generations, who will be interested in how people lived in "older
times," as we now like to hear or read about our ancestors.
My husband and I had been fired with an ambition to take Horace Greeley's
advice and "Go west, young man"; so when a cousin in Kansas wrote us that
the Kaw Indian reservation near Americus was to come on the market, we
decided for Kansas. One lady upon hearing of our decision held up her arms
in horror at the idea of our selecting such a terrible place to live as "bleeding
Kansas."
After being entertained with gifts and dinners and farewell visits, we left
central New York, near Syracuse, on November 20, 1869. We stopped at
Canandaigua until the 23d, when we started for Buffalo; there we visited until
December 1, leaving there at 12:15 p.m. on the Lake Shore route. We passed
the state line about four o'clock, bidding good-by to New York � perhaps for-
ever � and, thinking that "fortune favors the brave," we were on our way to
the great West.
There were three of us, a young man cousin of twenty years joining us at
Buffalo. At Danville, Ill., my husband went into the station, where he was
surprised to find in the ticket agent an old acquaintance who had lived where
we lived in New York. He inquired where we were going, and when my
husband said "Kansas," he said, "Oh hell." We stopped at Bement, Ill., over
two nights, where we saw the first prairie fire we had ever seen.
Renewing our journey on December 3, we sped on, passing through Springfield, the capital of Illinois, arriving at Quincy about eight in the evening, and
changed roads there, taking the Hannibal & St. Joseph railway. At Quincy
we crossed the Mississippi river. I was greatly interested to. see the longest
river in the world, remembering early lessons in geography. We could see it
quite plainly by starlight. Great pieces of ice were floating down from colder
regions. The train being delayed, we did not get to St. Joseph until ten
o'clock a.m., too late for the morning train for Leavenworth.
Waiting at the depot at St. Joseph, a lady, also waiting, told us we should
settle at Kansas City, Mo., which was the most promising and growing place
in the West. We missed a fortune by not taking her advice. .At one o'clock
p. m. we were again on the way, this time on the Missouri Valley railway.
I must mention that at Hannibal, Mo., on the outskirts of the city we saw
some naked Negro children playing about. A man who sat behind us, evidently a southerner, remarked, "A man and a brother" � referring probably to
the much-discussed question of the colored race and equal citizenship.
We were delayed toward evening by an accident to the engine. After the
arrival of another one, which had been sent for, we were soon opposite
Leavenworth, where we left the train for our omnibus, which took us onto the
ferry boat to cross the muddy Missouri river. We were driven on the boat
without alighting from the omnibus, and as soon as we crossed we were all
ready to proceed to the city. It was then after dark. We were taken to the
Planter s hotel, and I waited there until the boys could find a conveyance to
take us to the fort.
While waiting a lady came in, and as we were the only persons in the parlor, we got into conversation. It seemed that she was a woman-suffrage
worker, and asked my opinion on the question. At that time it was an uneducated question and women in general were not inclined that way. I was
like others, and so I answered that I thought voting had better be left to the
men, for a woman's place was at home. She rang for the proprietor of the
hotel and was trying to trade some literature for her keep at the hotel when
the boys came for me.
It had been difficult for them to find a conveyance, it was late and the night
so dark, and, as we found on the way another reason � the awful Kansas mud!
That was the evening of December 5, 1869, when we first set foot on Kansas
soil. Our cousin knew we were coming, but did not know the day, so we
surprised her. Here we were at Fort Leavenworth, Kan. We had piled into
the "one-hoss shay" our three selves with our hand baggage, and it seemed
like hours going through the mud the three miles to the fort. We had finally
arrived! At that time General Sturgis was post commander. General Custer was second in command, but was then absent in Michigan. We were
very much interested while there in seeing the fort and parades and buildings
connected with the place, as all army doings were new to us. However, we
were so much more interested in the home-seeking problem that it over-
shadowed all other things, so the boys with the addition of my husband's
brother from Washington, D. C, Col. B. F. Bingham, left in a few days' time
for Emporia by way of Junction City. I stayed on at the fort until I should be
sent for.
On Christmas day Captain Yates called to take my cousin and myself over
to the soldiers' quarters to see their preparations for Christmas dinner. When
we went in a soldier had just lifted the turkey from the oven to baste it. He
had to stand at attention while an officer was in the room, and the contents
of the pan on top of the stove sputtered and set the stove smoking with
grease � all for army discipline. The tables looked very neat, and the ceiling
over them was decorated with rosettes and festoons of different-colored tissue papers.
The people of the post seemed like one large family. The officers used to
come in any time of day, before breakfast or just before bedtime, and lounge
around on the couches and make themselves quite at home. My cousin
seemed greatly beloved by all, and I had to notice that each officer appeared
to feel that he was being specially entertained by her; such was her charm.
Many of them were later killed in the massacre of the Little Big Horn.
I had the honor of a serenade by the famed Seventh Cavalry band,
through the courtesy of General Sturgis. One evening Gen. G. A. Forsyth
came in � he of the battle with the Indians on the Arikaree river, a tributary
of the Republican, which came near wiping out the whole command. He was
familiarly called "Sandy" by those who knew him. My cousin asked General
Forsyth to relate to us how he was wounded in a "hand-to-hand" fight with an
Indian. I think it was not generally known that he had such a close encounter. He walked quite lame as the result. He was on a visit to the fort
and came in unexpectedly.
Col. Tom Custer very frequently came in to dine with his sister-in-law. He
was boyish and quite green-looking to have the rank of colonel.
On New Year's day, 1870, my visit ended, and I followed on after the boys
to Junction City. From Wamego the country as far as Junction City was
desolate-looking and brown from a prairie fire which had swept over from
many miles south of the Union Pacific. It did not look very encouraging to
the newcomer for a home.
My husband met me at the train and I walked up through the town to the
extreme south of it, to the residence of Rev. Mr. Gage, where the boys had
found rooms. The town, with a house here and there, looked like "all out of
doors" to me. An English couple who had always lived in London before
coming to the United States, and who lived for a time in a large city in the
East, came to Junction City the same year we did. They walked up from
the train through the town, and after wandering around some time finally inquired:
"Where is the city?"
"What city?" was the reply.
"Junction City," they said.
"Well, you are right in it here."
They had expected to see a city, not a collection of stray buildings.
The boys got acquainted with a Mr. Beates on their journey up and he invited them to attend a Christmas eve entertainment given by the Presbyterians. A. P. Trott was Santa Claus. It was there that the boys were introduced to Rev. Mr. Gage, the Baptist pastor, and that explains how they found
rooms at his home. He was also the principal of the school, which was in a
building some two or three blocks south of him, but there were no residences
between. He had built a home on the corner of First and Jackson streets, I
think, and had at that time about twenty boarders. The Baptists and Congregationalists held services on alternate Sundays at the Congregational church
on the corner of Fifth and Adams streets. We were so crowded at Mr. Gage's
that the children, six or seven of them, slept on the floor, and the hired girl on
a couch in the kitchen. Cousin Bronson wrote home that, "Some of the children slept on the dining-room table, some under it, and the hired girl in the
oven," as the couch was by the side of the kitchen stove. A Methodist minister came down from Salina frequently, and always came to Mr. Gage's.
There was a piano in the house, and a music teacher. Miss Church, and a
school teacher were boarders. My husband and I had been choir members at
home, so that the four of us, with Cousin Bronson, sang in the evenings. In
our list of songs was one ludicrous one, the chorus of which ran �
When you belong to Gideon's band,
Here's my heart and here's my hand,
Looking for a home.
The melody was very pretty, and the Salina divine, knowing we were in
quest of a home, was so much taken with the song we always had to sing it
for him. He was in our room one day, and noticing the crowded situation � a
couch, bedstead, washstand, two trunks, a stove and two chairs � he remarked
that it was the way Kansas folks lived. The room was about ten by twelve
feet.
There was no choir at the church and Mr. Gage urged us to serve, which
we did, with some two or three additions, and Miss Church playing the organ.
We attended prayer meetings sometimes, and heard a young Englishman in his
supplications implore "the 'oly hair of 'eaven," to our discreet amusement.
One day Mr. Gage told us he had officiated at the funeral of a woman � a wife,
and the mother of six small boys. He expressed his sorrow, as they were
strangers recently arrived from England. That was the York family, so well
known ever since.
The Baptists had their society one evening at the residence of Doctor Hall.
A gentleman's dressing case was the prize for the one who held the prize
number. I was appointed to sell the tickets, which were one dollar each.
After a few tickets sold I came to a Mr. Brunswick, who handed me a twenty-dollar gold piece and took all the remaining tickets. I had not been accustomed to handling twenty-dollar gold pieces and I hesitated to take it; it
might be counterfeit; so I asked Mrs. Hall and she said to take it. Mr. Brunswick gave the case to a Miss Webb, a guest of the Streeters, and also a friend
of the Gages.
The Rev. John A. Anderson was pastor of the Presbyterians and preached
in what was called Brown's hall. We went down one evening to hear him. He
was very emphatic in his discourse and in his gestures he hit the desk so hard
the flame would jump out at the top of the chimney of the kerosene lamp,
and he swung his arms so near it I sat in fear that he would surely knock it
over, or off the desk. We also went away down to the Methodist church one
evening, and going home the south wind was so strong I had to turn around
to get my breath.
When we first arrived in Junction we tried to get a place to keep house,
but there was only one place we could find, and that was an upstairs room in
a new house, and unplastered; the rent ten dollars a month. The owner of the
home was a Mr. Todd, and the family lived in the lower part. The place
later became the home of N. F. Greene.
We decided to keep our room at Mr. Gage's until we could build. My husband bought two lots on the corner of First and Adams streets, and when our
house of six rooms was completed we moved in, in March, Cousin Bronson
living with us. We were still undecided about a farm, and knew we could
either sell or rent when we found a satisfactory "landing." We went out west
of town to look at some homestead sites and decided to go out there, but
cowardly Anne saw the wolves, and there being only one house between there
and town, she backed out. We heard of a place south of town with some
timber and a living spring on it, so my husband started out one day on horse-
back to see it. It was in May and very hot. He took the wrong fork of the
road, which led him on the one to Skiddy. He stopped to inquire the way,
but the woman at the house did not know it. He asked her for a drink and
she gave him a dirty cup and sent him down a few rods to a small spring.
There he found a place hollowed out where chickens and ducks waddled in and
out, so he concluded to go thirsty. He did not succeed in finding the place,
not knowing he had taken the wrong road, and so returned, hot, tired and
discouraged. He snapped his fingers, saying he "wouldn't give that for anything he saw on the. way." A few days later he learned of his mistake, got a
horse and carriage, and this time I went along. The Smoky Hill river was
then fordable, but the bridge collected toll. My husband was determined to
ford, but Anne herself again backed out, so she paid her toll by going over
the bridge while she saw her husband going through the water free. We
went on and came to a fence with bars to let down. A few yards farther on
was a house by the creek. We did not know what else to do, so let down the
bars, drove through, and replaced them. We inquired at the house and found
we were on the right road. We soon came to the creek ford, and this time
there was no bridge, so I had to help do the fording. At the next house we
again inquired the way, and the woman said her husband would go with us,
but she didn't know where he was. "He allowed for to go fishing," she said,
but he had not returned. We went on according to her directions and found
the place.
A widow, Mrs. Avleson, was the owner. The farm consisted of 160 acres,
part homestead and part railroad land. There was a quantity of timber on it
and a living spring. It was quite a settled part and neighbors not so far
distant. The timber and the spring were valuable acquisitions, and we made
the bargain by a trade of places. I said in the beginning our intention was
to go south as far as Emporia and look over the Kaw Indian reservation ; but
we heard that it was very unhealthy down the Neosho valley, lots of fever and
ague, which decided us not to go.
My husband had started a garden on our lots and set out trees. I hated
to leave the little home, but we had come West for a farm. Just before we
moved a terrific west wind blew for three days and took the dirt all off our
growing garden. My husband was downtown one of the days and heard a
stranger remark about the wind to Mr. McKenzie, who told the stranger it
was nothing to what it blew sometimes. The spring was extremely dry; no
snow since we had arrived in January, and no spring rains. In February or
March, I cannot recall which, there came a norther one Sunday forenoon.
From a mild spring morning, warm enough to be without fires, the norther
changed the temperature to freezing. That winter of 1869-70 was the mildest
winter in all of my experience in Kansas. Grasshoppers were hopping about
in the grass, which was high and dry all over the town. We could go any way,
anywhere, across or around and through back lots. There were streets, of
course, but buildings were so scarce except on business streets that one could
go a bee line anywhere. The air was so clear that at times we could see, from
Mr. Gage's, the flag floating at Fort Riley and distinguish the colors � not a
tree in the whole town to obstruct the view. Sanborn Clark came in one
Sunday afternoon and said to our cousin, "Come, Case, let's go down to the
river and see how it seems to feel of a tree."
On the last day of May, 1870, we moved out to our future home, seven
miles southwest of town. Cousin Bronson Case had gone up the road to
Abilene and Solomon shortly before, and afterwards settled in Abilene. He
was J. B. Case, and became a successful business man and politician.
From taking out the first load of things to the farm, my husband was late
in getting back to town. He said he must go back that night, as he had
bought the two cows of the woman and they must be cared for. I wouldn't
let him go back alone, although he objected. For him to stay out there in
that wild place alone scared me into going too. He had also bought a horse
and two colts of the woman, and what was called a "buckboard"; I called it
a fish wagon. He had brought in "Lucy," the horse, to go back for the night,
having had to hire a team for the moving. The new horse was lively and
frisky, and as I carried the clock in my lap it would keep striking, so I rode
in fear of a runaway. The little colt, too, was a little plague to get behind.
It was nearly dark when we got out to the farm. When I went into the little
one-room place, with a loft reached by a ladder, the tears came in my eyes,
thinking of the contrast with the neat new home we had left.
I had remembered the lamp, but found, to my consternation, that I had
forgotten the matches. I hunted about, thinking that perhaps I might find
some stray ones left behind by the woman, and very fortunately did find three.
I lighted the lamp, relieved of the fear of perhaps spending a dark night in
such a desolate region. You may believe that the lamp burned all night.
We had knives and forks and spoons, pans, pails and basins in the first
load, but the dishes were still to be moved next day. I had been sure to think
of bread and butter for supper. As we had no dishes, I cooked eggs in a pan,
and with bread and butter and milk and coffee we had supper and breakfast.
The beds were there, and without our bedsteads, piled in one corner on the
floor, we spent our first night on the farm. It did seem such a desolate place �
in a ravine, some distance from neighbors. In all the years spent there we
never could see a neighbor's light in the evening. I did wish so much we
could, to relieve the aloneness.
The next day saw all our things moved out, and we were now among the
settlers in a new country. That first day on the farm is still vividly remembered. The songs of the birds even, different from those in the East, set
themselves to notes of music in my mind, and the fresh scent of the weeds
filled my nostrils. I had heard stories of snakes and of seeing and hearing
wolves; droves of cattle and horses were running about, there being no herd
law; horses came close to the house and licked the windows with their tongues.
I was afraid to step out of doors. I might step on a snake � there might even
be one in the house � or some wild thing with horns might take after me. The
joy of seeing my husband returning home was inexpressible.
Our abode was built of cottonwood. It was unplastered except where the
woman had filled in, or tried to, the warped places in the up-and-down boards
of the sides. The shingles even were of cottonwood, and although they
warped, the roof did not leak, but during the rains the wind blew the water
in at the sides, making rivers of it across the floor, which was of wide boards,
rough and uneven. The floor of the room above, in the loft was even worse,
the roof coming down almost to the floor.
We finally got things in shape to live � a bed in one corner, the cupboard in
another, the stove in another, with chairs and tables between and around. My
husband drove pegs in behind the door on which to hang the harness and
saddle, as there was no shed or barn outside. He put up a fence of one length
of boards on each side of the house and across the front, so^that there would
be a place to set some things away from the animals and keep them from
coming so close. In that little plot he planted some tomato plants. It was
too late for us to have a garden. There were four or five acres which had
been broken, inclosed by a two-wire fence (barbed wire had not come in then),
and in that he planted potatoes and melons. It had to be watched to keep
cattle and horses out.
We also had a pig. There was no place to put him, so he had to be
picketed until a place was made. He was almost like a greased pig, for it
was difficult to tie him securely, and he objected so strongly that he did get
his freedom once or twice. He used his voice along with his efforts to get
loose, so that we had "music in the air" until his lodging was ready. There
was a very small "corral," as such a place � a new word to us � was called; it
was for the cows at night. In the daytime they had the run of the prairie, and
Lucy was picketed, with the two colts loose; they would not leave her.
One day my husband started for town on horseback. He tied the yearling
colt, and the little one was contented to stay with it. But my husband had
not gone out of sight before the oldest one thought it must follow. It broke
loose, and as I happened to see it, I did some following myself. I managed
to catch the long rope just at the top of the bluff, and around and around
we went, but I won and got them back to the house and tied the rope securely so it held. The grass was heavy with dew, my skirts were wet around
the bottom, and a pair of pretty slippers I had brought from New York were
cut by the rocks and spoiled. The first time I went to town both colts went
too, but it was the last time they had that pleasure. It was the general custom that colts were allowed to follow, and the time I went we saw a farmer
driving a team and five colts following. When there was a new colt, after
that year, my husband taught it to go tied to its mother, and there was no
bother.
As soon as we could after moving, we had a one-room addition with a cellar under it. The woman and her son of whom we bought the farm had got
water from a place dug down in the bed of the creek. As the weather grew
dryer the water almost disappeared and the hole had to be dug deeper; it
was not to be depended upon, and my husband had to go to the living
spring some way from the house to get water. By the time he had come all
the way back with it it was so warm it was not satisfying to drink, so he decided we must have a well. He engaged a German living about a mile away
to dig it, and when it was down about ten feet a slate rock was struck, too
hard to dig and too soft to blast, so the well had to be abandoned.
That fall a man came along drillng wells, and we engaged him. He went
down fifty feet without finding water; the machine broke in the hole and
could not be gotten out and the work had to be stopped. While the drilling
was going on I was quite interested in what came up in the buckets. Somehow I had it in mind that indications of coal might appear. I knew nothing
about such indications, but I began studying up the signs. You see I was looking and hoping for a Kansas bonanza coming to us for luck. If I had known
then that there were indications of something even greater than coal, I would
have been about sure of the bonanza. In these days, when oil is found in so
many localities, it would not be surprising, but at that time oil had yet to be
discovered in this region. On top of the dirt and bits of rock that filled the
buckets was an oily substance, and we commented upon it. Water had to be
used in drillng, and this oily substance floated on the watery dirt. I believe
to this day that there is oil under that farm.
My husband found a little place up the ravine a few rods from the house
that always looked green. He dug down and found water. He walled up the
place and we had good water. Later he laid a pipe from it to the hole that had
been dug for the well, and, walling the reservoir of ten feet, we at last had a
well, the slate rock at the bottom holding the water from soaking away.
There was a creek running through the farm. In years of frequent rains it
ran all summer, and other years there would be little ponds along, but often,
as it was in that first summer of 1870, the whole creek was dry. It was a
branch of Otter creek, and Otter creek a branch of Lyons creek. Sometimes
a sudden violent rain would make it a torrent in a short time, so that it could
not be crossed. Our chickens would get caught on the other side, or perhaps
would take refuge on a shrub and would thus be washed away. There was
timber all along the creek, though some of it was stunted by prairie fires.
Every freshet would take much of the soil away on both sides.
On Sundays we would take chairs and go down to the shade of the trees
and read, or write our letters home about Kansas. There was not a shrub or
tree about the house. We could look up from the shade and see our little
cabin standing in the broiling sun. We did not know of screens then, nor
even mosquito netting, and the flies had free entrance. The Kansas flies � I
thought they must have teeth. There was a large fly like a bee that would
follow a traveling horse a long way, and one had to alight to kill it and relieve the horse. The flies bothered the stock when they were driven home at
night, so the animals would rush into the timber for the limbs to scratch off
the flies. Many a time did Anne watch long after dark to hear her husband
come with the cattle, thinking harm might have come to him. It was so
hard to get them out of the timber.
In New York we never said "timber," but "woods"; we never said "ravine,"
but "valley"; we never said "bluffs," but "hills." The language was new to us in
many ways: "Allow for to go," "right smart," "light off," "I reckon," and
"ornery." That last word I had difficulty in mastering the meaning of. A
visitor and I were talking about cooking one day, and I said I made Indian
pudding very often. She said she didn't know of it. I happened to think,
and so said, "Perhaps you call it mush." She laughed and said she knew how
to make that well enough. I think that was her first visit to me, and she
rode over the prairie on horseback, although she must have been near sixty.
The first visit I had I thought was a call. Two ladies came about ten in
the forenoon. I was baking bread, and of course in my forenoon working dress.
As I though it was a call, I did not try to change; but they kept staying, and it
began to be time to think about dinner. Thinking they might consider it a
hint for them to go, I sat still, but when I knew my husband would come
expecting to find dinner ready, I had to go to work. They had come expecting
to stay to dinner, but as I had been used to making the first acquaintance by a
call, I did not understand the Kansas fashion. They stayed until late in the
afternoon. In New York we never visited on Sunday unless to run in to see
some relative, or our young cousins came to see us. But in Kansas, in the
country, we found that Sunday was the general visiting day, and very often
the whole family, even to the hired man, went.
One day while eating dinner I looked out of the window and saw a deer
emerge from the timber not far from the house. Only for a moment was it
in sight, for it went back and that was the last we saw of it.
Through July the heat was intolerable, but my husband would sow turnip
seed in the inclosed lot. I said to him one day, "Charlie, what is the use of
you're going out in this hot sun? It is never going to rain, and it will do you
no good." He said, "I'll try to have faith, anyway, that rains will come." On
the 6th of August a neighbor came in and said a woman had died in the
neighborhood and he was afraid they could get no minister to officiate at the
grave. He asked my husband to go and conduct the service by reading a
chapter and making a prayer. He went about two o'clock p. m. However, a
minister had been procured, so Charlie's part in the service was to hold an
umbrella over the preacher's head. When the funeral was over my husband
noticed a long cloud resting low on the horizon in the northwest. The cloud
kept spreading, and about six o'clock the rain came. It looked as if it was trying to make up for its long delay, coming down in streams. It is an easy
matter for it to rain in Kansas when it really makes up its mind. There is
no half way about it; it is dry or it is wet in Kansas.
My husband started to go out to set something to catch rainwater � a thing
we had not known in Kansas. I said, "You will get wet through." "Well, I'd
like to get wet once in Kansas," he said, so out he went and had his wish.
The shower lasted long and set the creek running, and all the little valleys
where water would flow ran into it like small creeks. It also set the turnips
and potatoes growing. And the turnips, like Longfellow's, "grew and grew"
and still kept growing. When matured they measured, on the average, a foot
in diameter, and by weight just a few would make a bushel. We had as many
as a thousand bushels. I used to go out and help cut off the tops. They were
a godsend to us, as there was very little corn that year, and we had none
planted anyway. The cows and horses learned to eat them by scooping them
out. They were cooked and fed to the hens. Our pig had his share and the
family theirs. My husband dug places to store them and we had our new
cellar full. The turnips lasted all winter. The potatoes also grew and we
had a fine crop. The crop of turnips by far exceeded in size any grown after
that year. The new land and the continued rains � for they came frequently
after getting started � no doubt made the turnip crop so large.
In September, when the weather was cooler, I went over to a neighbor's for
a visit. They had a well. My thoughts during the summer daily went back
to the nice cold water from the wells in New York; so on this visit the first
thing I wanted to do was to go right to the well and get a good drink directly
from it.
During that summer we got down to our last five dollars. My husband
asked one of the merchants in town if he would give him credit for a time.
The merchant said he would not trust anyone over thirty days. My husband
came home feeling quite downcast that his honor had been questioned for
the first time in his life. We understood afterward that some newcomers
would make prompt payments for a time, then ask for credit and leave without
paying. The merchant knew this, but after he knew my husband there was
never any doubt, and he sought our trade.
My husband had a brave and cheerful spirit under difficulties even, and
went about his work singing or whistling. The chorus of one Sunday school
hymn began, "Let us look above the clouds"; whereupon Anne would say,
"There are no clouds to look above" � with the need of rain in mind. He also
had a favorite, the air being catchy and easy, "Each one has a mission some
work to do." Then Anne would speak up again, commenting, "What our
mission is in coming to Kansas, this God-forsaken country, is a quandary."
That was before the rains came. Afterward the situation was more endurable
to me.
We took walks about our domain after the rains had freshened the earth.
The grass renewed its green, and like the broad ocean, the prairie for miles
spread out before us. With one or two exceptions, on the upland there were
no habitations in sight. Most of the settlers built in ravines out of line of
vision. Nor were there trees, either, to break the expanse of land. Later,
of course, the country became more settled. Groups of cattle or horses went
their own sweet way until a herd law was passed. Wild flowers grew plentifully
� the wild rose, the sensitive rose, honeysuckle or columbine, bluebells and the
yucca plant, with a tall stem on which hung lily-like blossoms, but with an
insipid odor too strong for the rooms. There was a purple "everlasting"
flower I found in the hay, which served for winter bouquets. Then the redbud
and sumac along the creek made pretty pictures in their season. We saw
hollows in the earth, which were called "buffalo wallows," where the buffaloes
had made a depression by lying down in wet places. These were grown up
to weeds, as the prairie grass will not renew itself when injured. There was
a small patch of buffalo grass on the farm. Along the rocky edges of the
bluffs there were ridges, serrated lines in the rocks, said to have been made
in the ice age by the thawing, moving masses of ice.
When writing of the flowers I should have included milkweed. Although
it was a weed in Kansas it was pretty enough for ornament. It had rather
long, pointed green leaves, striped with white and of a flower shape. It was
so entirely different from that in New York that it seemed a different plant.
Once when on a visit in New York I saw something among the flowers that
looked natural. I went out to find that it was just the Kansas milkweed.
My friend said they called it "snow on the mountain."
We had made the acquaintance in town of a young printer in the Union
office. He very kindly sent out to me exchanges from all over the United
States, which helped to pass away many hours through the dreadful heat of
that first summer in Kansas.
Our neighbors were of all nationalities � English, German, Irish, Scotch,
Welsh, and Americans, from Ohio, Indiana and Illinois. In New York the
states mentioned were a part of the great West, but in Kansas they were of
the East. Of the foreigners the Germans predominated. One German family had three young men in it; they had left Germany to escape military
service.
One day in the afternoon we saw smoke off to the South. We thought
little of it, not knowing the danger of prairie fires, until a kind neighbor,
understanding the situation, sent over two of his sons and another neighbor to
help guard us from it. They worked several hours in backfiring, and saved
us, perhaps, from being burned out and our timber from injury. After that
when my husband was away and I saw a smoke my heart jumped into my
throat. After a time, when there was more land broken and more settlers
to control fires, we did not worry about the danger. There was a Welshman
living a couple of miles east of us. He wanted to protect his neighbors and
save his own stacks of hay too, so he plowed some furrows about his stacks and
then set fire on the inside. It is easy to infer the result.
Our house was unplastered and heated only by our cookstove. When the
winter came we had to hang up blankets on the north side of the rooms. I
do not remember whether it was a severely cold winter or not; I think not,
for there were thunder showers, and I remember being out of doors on mild
days. The spring of 1871 was very early. One Sunday before the middle of
March I walked out with my husband over to the living spring. The grass
was high and waving in the wind. In February a girl acquaintance in New
York came out and promised to stay during the summer. We paid her four
dollars a week � a great price � but female help was hard to get. She was with
us sometime, but finally went to Junction, and later to Denver. The monthly
wages for men were from fifteen to twenty dollars a month, with board and
washing.
In March a baby girl came to live with us. That night a severe storm,
with terrific thunder and lightning, occurred, as if to celebrate the event. The
roads were almost impassable with the mud, and the doctor did not arrive
until an hour or so after the birth of the baby.
After the rains in the fall we had the old cottonwood siding taken off of
our house and new put on and battened over, new flooring put down, and the
inside walls covered over with wallpaper. My husband had not been idle
during the hot weather. He had built a stone stable, a henhouse and enlarged
and enclosed the corral with a stone fence. Now the spring had come, he
hired a man and dug out a cellar under the old part of the house, walled it
up, and then built a "lean-to" of stone, about ten feet in width, along the
length of the two rooms. That was my summer kitchen. When I had put
down my two carpets brought from New York I began to feel quite aristocratic. That summer more land was broken and trees were planted. We had
a garden, seven or eight cows and more hens. Returns began to come in. My
husband never went to town without taking something to market. In the
summertime, with vegetables, fruit, butter and eggs, he generally had fifteen
or twenty dollars' worth of stuff a week, and that was nearly all profit, for we
had our table supplies besides. In winter we always had our fresh beef and
pork, and throughout the year our own home-cured meats. No packing-house
products ever equaled these.
We had traded the two-year-old colt for a horse to match Lucy, and had a
lumber wagon. I think it was the next year that we had a pair of oxen to
help break the new sod, which was laborious work. When threshing time
came our man left to take advantage of day labor. In August a man came
along looking for work. He came from Clark's creek, and carried a bottle
with him and got water from ponds to drink. He had been with us but a
week when he became ill. The doctor said it was typhoid fever. The poor
man thought he was going to die, and handed me his pocketbook with a few
dollars in it, a photograph of his wife, and her address in England. Our baby
had not been well all summer and was then quite ill; therefore we could not
take care of him, so my husband took him back to some friends on Clark's
creek. We heard afterward that he died.
The baby was then six months old, and her teeth coming hastened the
illness. We called Doctor Horn from town, and he said if the trouble did
not go to the brain he thought he could save her. For five days and nights
someone sat by her side all the time to keep her head wet with cold water.
It was then haying time, but my husband gave up every moment, hiring his
work done, to help care for her, going to town every other day to report her
condition. Our thanks and gratitude went to Doctor Horn for his skill in
saving her life. It had been an anxious siege for us, intensified by the memory
of our firstborn lying in a little grave in a New York cemetery.
In April a cousin from New York, a sister of Cousin Bronson Case, and
her husband, who was a cousin of my husband, came to Kansas. They settled
in Abilene, the two men going into business together. We did not feel quite
so desolate then, with relatives in the next county.
Our county was then Davis county. The name was afterward changed to
Geary. The summer of 1871 there was plenty of rain, and I think the creek
ran all summer; the prairie hay made a good growth and we had feed for our
stock. I do not remember about the crops, but with my husband's energy,
he must have planted some corn to help along. The first year he had bought
corn, paying fifty cents a bushel in the ear.
We bad a substantial raise from some property sold, and this had helped in
our improvements and in buying more stock.
Mr. Edwards, who had several young people in his family, hearing that
we had been in the choir in town, asked us if we would give the young
people singing lessons. We consented readily, wishing to help the community all we could. A class of about twenty was formed, and they came
Sunday afternoons. My husband made a blackboard for note practice, as
they were all beginners. My husband, although he had a fine tenor voice
and could read music, did not understand the study of music as well as I
did, so I did the teaching. The young folks learned rapidly and made me
proud of them. Before the twelve lessons had been completed they were
quite independent readers. There had been no word about compensation
for my services, and I expected nothing, doing it gladly, and I enjoyed it as
much, I think, as they did. They made up a purse for me, however, and
insisted that I take it. Some of them never forgot, they were so grateful to
me, and one of them, after more than thirty years had passed, called on me
on a visit from his home in Oregon. With tears in his eyes he expressed
his gratitude for the pleasure and help from that singing school in the year
1871. One winter after that I had another class at the schoolhouse evenings,
which nearly cost me my voice, as I could not speak above a whisper for a
long time.
A man from Indiana who had bought a farm up Lyon's creek came to stay
in the family of Mr. Edwards until his own family could arrive. He died
in the winter following and a neighbor came over to ask my husband to go
to town for the coffin. At that time there was an epidemic called "epizootic"
raging among the horses, and people were afraid to expose them, keeping
them stabled and blanketed. My husband had not been more careful of ours
than at any time, and that was the reason he was asked to go for the coffin.
There was snow on the ground and the going was sloppy and hard. He went
in to Junction and returned to Mr. Edwards' place about one o'clock. He
was then asked to take the remains to the grave after the service, since he
had the team of horses. Oxen had been procured to carry those who wished
to go. Thick ice had formed on the creek, which had been broken up, but
the edges left a fall down to the water hard for the horses to get over. My
husband did not get home until late, and I had wondered what had become
of him. It was a very hard day, and the wonder of it all was that our
horses escaped the epidemic, while some of those so carefully cared for had
died. The man who died used to come over quite often to see us, for he
took a liking to my husband. When his will was read it was found he had
chosen my husband as administrator.
I do not remember, but I think the summer of 1872 was an average one.
We had a man for work and a boy to herd the cattle to keep them from
wandering far from home. The calves were turned out at night at weaning
time, and one wore a bell so they could be found easier in the morning, as
they were kept in during the day. Out of eight fine calves we lost four from
blackleg. Sometimes an animal would come home at night lame and be dead
the next day from blackleg. One year we had twin colts, the mother and
twins ran the prairie, but were brought in at night. My husband could not
find one of the twins one night, and the next day, searching for it, he found
it in a pond where they had gone to drink. The colt had slipped in and could
not get out. The tracks of the little feet were all around the slippery edges
of the pond; it could not get a foothold to get out, and was dead when
found.
At another time one of the cows was missing. Search was made for several
days, and on the eleventh day a man living on the upland came down and
said he had found the cow. He had heard a moaning, and, following the
sound, had discovered her in a hole � an abandoned well. She had been
feeding along and the high grass and weeds hid the place and she had fallen
in. The bottom was round and small and she could not get up. The weather
was very hot and the flies were thick upon her. The men dug her out and
gave her a good drink, but she was too far gone to live, and the side of her
body next to the ground was worn to the bones. It was a marvel that her
vitality kept her living eleven days without food or water and in the hot sun.
The hole was not very deep, and if she had been on her feet she probably
could have climbed out, but she was down and could not rise. I always felt
like crying when I thought of her suffering.
Another pathetic loss was several years later when one of the horses got
entangled in the picket rope. It caught on a rock and so shortened it that
the horse, Nellie by name, had wound it about her four legs, throwing her
down. In her struggle to get up she had injured her back. My husband
found her that way in the morning. She could not get up, so he built a screen
over her to keep off the hot sun, but she died in the afternoon. The loss
seemed greater because she was a favorite, one of a matched pair, and our
little girl had learned to ride her. The child was almost inconsolable. Another
animal, a heifer, used to stop at the yard gate every morning to be fed and
petted by the little girl. She, too, came to an untimely end. She got down
in a hole in the pasture one day and was found dead. Casualties would
happen and discourage our prospects, but we kept on doing the work that
came � and hoping and hoping.
Next year was the "panic of 73." I think it was a year of drought besides,
but am not certain. I do remember, however, that cows we had paid fifty
or more dollars for went down in value to twelve and fifteen dollars apiece.
It must have been a bad year, because we had to sell some cows to make up
the taxes. When our little girl was three or four years old her father asked
her one evening, when she was sitting on his lap, what money was for. She
very promptly answered, "To pay taxes with." We had discussed the question so much, in planning this way and that to be sure of taxes, that she
had remembered the everlasting question � as it was then, is now, and most
likely will be always!
In April, 1873, when our little girl was playing outside the house one afternoon I went out to bring her in. It was so easy for her to get out of sight
that I had to look often. That day I was doing some work on the sewing
machine which I was in a hurry to finish, and didn't want to be hindered.
As I went around the corner of the house I heard a rattle. I had been fooled
many times by a similar sound from grasshoppers, but I went to look nevertheless. I got a small stick about two feet in length and poked around the
dead leaves, and there in a hole I had uncovered lay a coiled snake with up-raised head, ready to strike. I called my husband from his work near the
house and he hesitated to come, remembering how often I had done the same
thing before, but I told him I was sure this time. He got a long pole and
knocked a stone out of the cellar wall, pushing the snake into the cellar. It
fell on a pile of potatoes and my husband killed it. All but two of its rattles
were broken off, but when the potatoes were cleared away we found five more,
making seven rattles. Just before I went out to find the child she had been
playing under the window right over the place. The next day we went in to
see Doctor Horn to ask him what to do in case of a snake bite. He prescribed whisky. He said to look out for its mate, but we never saw it; the
snake had probably wintered there. After that for a long time my nights
were restless, for snakes did get into the house.
The little girl was playing upstairs one day and called out to me, "Mamma!
a snate, a snate!" It had fallen down from a rafter. It coiled itself around
one of the studding and my husband couldn't pull it loose. A day or two
after, when I was moving the organ, I found a snake in the corner. I think
I did the killing that time. It was probably the one found upstairs. I jumped
and screamed, perhaps, but not nearly so much as once when I opened the
organ and a mouse jumped out.
One day I saw a silvery, shining thing glide across the floor and under the
cupboard. It went so swiftly I couldn't tell what it was. On putting clean
papers on the half window of the summer kitchen one day I found a snake
skin. The bright streak I had seen on the floor was no doubt the snake, which
had unrobed and hurried away to get out of sight. It must have disappeared
through a crack in the floor.
Another day our dog Zip was making a great fuss over something at the
fence. I went out and could see a small snake darting its head and tongue
at the dog. The men came and began to take down the stone wall. The
snake crawled out and Zip seized it, shaking it violently to death. When he
let go we saw it was a copperhead � the only one we ever saw. Zip sat back
on his haunches showing great delight in his victory.
Once the men killed a small rattler not far from the house. My husband
spoke of seeing bull snakes � a large kind � but we never saw but one near the
house, and that one was in a peach tree, watching a bird. Its head was moving sidewise, but the bird was still. Whether the snake was trying to charm
the bird or get to its nest I didn't wait to see, I was so alarmed for the bird.
My husband came and killed the snake. He sometimes plowed up snake
eggs; they were oval in shape, about the size of large beans, and I think were
attached together. The little snakes in them were about an inch or so long.
The hatched snakes ran into the mother's mouth when discovered suddenly.
My husband often plowed up Indian arrowheads. The soil of the bottom
land was so rich and deep he was enthusiastic about it, and in a dry season
would remark how wonderfully it held moisture. He loved to see things
grow, and Sunday afternoons always went over the farm. He kept setting
out fruit trees. We had our grapes, our strawberry bed, raspberry vines, and
as good a garden as the season would permit. He had to learn how to farm
in this climate; when to plant, to sow and to reap. He was fond of experiments, and one year planted peanuts as he had seen done in Tennessee before
the Civil War. One year he tried artichokes, and he also tried different crops
� spring wheat, barley; buckwheat and oats were raised some, but the staple
crops were winter wheat and corn. He sowed corn sometimes for the stock.
Alfalfa and kafir corn were not known until some years later, I think � after
the seventies. Two pear trees that were set in 1871 did not bear for twelve
years. When they did they repaid us for the long wait; they were so delicious; a small fruit, and I think its name was the Seckel pear.
The year 1874 we had a good wheat crop. Our peach trees had come to
their first bearing and hung full of fruit. One afternoon in August as I sat
sewing I heard a noise on the roof like hailstones. Stepping out I saw the
air full of grasshoppers. My husband just then came in sight with a load of
prairie hay. He called out, laughing, "Oh, see the grasshoppers." They got
down to business right away. The leaves began falling from the cottonwood
shade trees about the house. We saw, too, that our fine peach crop was on
the way to destruction. The peaches were about two-thirds grown and beginning to turn red on one side. My husband went out to gather them, and
I put the washboiler on the stove, filling it half full of water. I happened to
have the sugar, and I cooked the green peaches, canned them, and they were
even nicer than ripe ones, having the flavor of the pits. I spiced many of
them, and we saved our peaches, which lasted more than a year. The "hoppers" ate the ones left on the trees down to the pits. Our brother from Washington visited us in November. He broke off some twigs with the stones still
hanging on them to take home as evidence, for he said if he told his friends
they would call it a "fish story." The grasshoppers would alight in the middle of the day for their "siesta." The sides of the house and the walks were
covered with them. They flew up like a swarm of bees at one's step. They
had the most voracious appetites of any living thing. One or two would
begin on a melon; as the place grew larger others came, and the melon would
soon be eaten down to a shell. Onions and beets were a luxury to them, but
my husband saved ours by turning a furrow over them. The corn was destroyed down to the stalk, and farmers began cutting it to save it for fodder.
The crop was a poor one anyway that year, for lack of rain. The grasshoppers
stayed so long that they destroyed the newly sowed fields of wheat. My husband resowed wheat in November and we had a fair crop the next year. We
could get mosquito netting at that time, and we had the windows and doors
screened. The netting went, like other things, down the throats of the pests,
and I had to keep the windows closed. It was difficult even to save the
clothes on the line; anything on the grass would surely go. When the "hoppers" went they left destruction over the state. Kansas was always distinctly
erratic, like a child � happy and laughing one minute and hateful and contrary the next. She had attracted attention to herself, been made famous by
her eccentricities. It had been bleeding Kansas, droughty Kansas, the state
of cyclones, the state of cranks, the state of mortgages � and now grasshopper
fame had come! It seemed like a land of chance. I had come to think,
almost, that as everything appeared upside down I wouldn't be surprised to
see the people walking about on their heads. The situation was beyond expression, and Anne would shut her jaws tight and play the organ as loud as
she could make it go. I saw times through those years that I wouldn't have
given the snap of my fingers for the whole of Kansas. Everybody wanted
to sell and nobody wanted to buy. Few could leave, because they had not
the means to get away with. But one thing the people had, and that was
"grit." They had the "try, try again" spirit, and kept on regardless of consequences. I used to tell my husband that if any class of people deserved a
heaven in the future it was the farmers of Kansas.
One day we had a visitor from another county. He had a fine, new one-seated carriage, and he told us he had traded eighty acres of land for it. Land
was about the cheapest thing on the market and no market at that! Anne
did a good deal of grumbling, but fortunately for the husband, she had so
much work to do that she hadn't time to do it audibly. The husband never
complained, but went about blithely, always having faith. He worked hard
to make a home, and his cheerful spirit was an inspiration. It pained me to
see him work so hard with so little reward, and that hurt me more than my
own tired feelings. Steam threshing machines were not known until later
years. We always had at threshing time ten or eleven men to feed, and I
had to prepare for them before they came. I had visitors one day and had
twenty-two people to dinner. We had the milk of from four to eight cows
every year. One day a visitor from town saw the pans and pails on a bench
in the sun. She remarked how fine it was to see the array of shining things,
and congratulated me on having such a privilege. She looked at it as a
picture of the "milkmaid with her shining tin pail" we used to see. There was
anything but romance in skimming twenty pans of milk and churning every
other day. The butter had its first working with salt; on the next morning
it had to be finished for packing or made into rolls. There were all the pans,
the milk pails, the butter bowl and ladle to wash every day, and the churn
every other day. These had to have particular care, with scalding water.
There were the regular dishes three times a day, and milk pails again at night,
and perhaps milk to skim for weaning calves. Romance, indeed! The heat
and perspiration made large washings. I have rubbed the skin off my hands,
in places, many times. The Kansas mud was like paste to remove, and the
dust storms would undo the work of a day in five minutes. I did all the
sewing for the family besides knitting socks and stockings. Work was no
mere pastime in our lives.
Of course our experience was tame compared to the earliest settlers, when
the Indians and buffalo roamed the prairies. I never saw but one Indian in
Kansas, and that was in Abilene, and he was begging. In New York we saw
them every year from the reservation near Syracuse, begging and selling their
beadwork and baskets. There were some Indian raids in western Kansas after
we came, but none near Junction City. The Union Pacific was just completed
out of Kansas to Colorado, and the Missouri, Kansas & Texas was built from
Junction City south in the fall of 1869, I think the year we came. An aunt in
New York, in a letter to us, asked if we were not afraid of the Indians. I
had to answer that I had seen more Indians in New York than I had ever
expected to see in Kansas. We never wrote our friends of our hardships,
with the exception of one letter, when I wrote about the grasshoppers.
One night when my husband was in town on jury duty there came a sound
of moaning from the stable. I called the boy living with us to go out and
find the trouble. He called to me that there was a new calf and he was afraid
it would freeze, it was so cold. I told him to wrap it up in a horse blanket
and bring it in the house. We laid it on the floor by the stove and in the
morning when it was taken out to its mother for its breakfast, it was able to
stand on its own wobbly legs.
One night, too, we were awakened by an awful bellowing among the cattle.
My husband went out to see what had happened, and found one of the cows
with her head wedged in between the hitching bars of a feed mill in the yard.
Every animal was standing close up and bellowing. My husband hurried for
a saw, and, sawing off one of the bars, released the cow.
Another time he had taken the hide from a dead calf. When the cattle
came home from the pasture they set up a bellowing and pawing at the smell
of blood. Finally they got to chasing one cow, and I think would have killed
her in their craziness if my husband had not succeeded in separating her from
the rest. They did not forget it for several days; if she was let out they
would chase her again.
All of such little scares from time to time gave me a nervous existence and
a fear of dreadful happenings. Terrific thunder and lightning, which lasted all
night without a drop of rain, frightened me one time. I begged my husband
to go to the bed in the other room, so that if the house was struck one of us
might escape. He often laughed about it, and said that I kept calling out to
him to find out "if he was dead." We lived a mile or so from the main road,
and I feared in case of accident it might not be known until some one happened to come to our place. The day after this electrical storm there was a
picnic at Morris grove. I think it was a political gathering, for John Davis
and his eldest son were the principal speakers talking on the Populist doctrine.
We had promised to take the organ down for me to play, but the clouds threatened so I wouldn't let it go. However, there was no rain after all.
In the spring of 1875 the late wheat sown in November was looking fine.
My husband felt quite encouraged at the prospect, but was greatly alarmed
when he discovered one morning that newly hatched grasshoppers were thick
in the wheat. The next day they were gone. We never knew when or where
they went, and that was the last of the grasshopper scare.
In the later seventies, when we went to Abilene to visit our cousins, people
would ask me, "Don't you wish you lived in Abilene; it is so much prettier
than Junction City?" Then they were also predicting that the state capital
would be moved from Topeka to Abilene. Still later they had their street
railway, fine residences were building, and the town was having a great boom.
I really did feel a little abashed that my home town was Junction City instead of Abilene. But their boom went out; the street railway was taken up
and their fine mortgaged residences were for rent. Junction City made no
great show, but it was solid. Most of the business men owned their store
buildings and residents owned their homes. The town itself had a solid look,
with its stone structures and sidewalks. It never had a boom, in my recollection, until one was forced upon it by the World War in 1917, from its
proximity to Fort Riley.
One menace to my peace of mind was the occasional overflow of Lyon creek
and the Smoky Hill river. In the years before the bridge over the river
was made a free bridge the ford was generally used. One time my husband,
driving Lucy to the little buckboard, saw a lumber wagon drive through. He
always said he could go where anyone else could, so he followed. The river
was high and the current very swift; he had to put his feet upon the seat and
hold some things from floating out. It was a wonder that the whole outfit
wasn't washed away, but Lucy kept her footing and they got through safely.
My husband never told me of the occurrence until months after. The creek
had a bend, which made two crossings necessary, and overflows often made
it impossible to ford. There was a road across the upland on our side of the
creek, and thence to the river, crossing over the free bridge near town, but it
was much further and a harder road; it was only taken by us when we knew
the creek was high. I used to tell my husband, "Now, don't be rash and try
to cross if there is the least danger." There never was a bridge over the first
crossing of Lyon creek while we were on the farm. The low bottom on the
south side of the river was always slower clearing up after any unusual flood.
Once my husband had to drive a long way there through deep water which
covered the road. The fence, posts at the sides guided him and the horses
kept the road.
We always observed Thanksgiving and never spent one alone, inviting some
one to eat with us who, like ourselves, had no relatives very near. We had the
regulation turkey, pumpkin pies and vegetables for the dinner. Mentioning
the turkey calls to my mind an occurrence. Our little girl wore a little red-and-white plaid shawl, and one day she was out in the yard at play when a
dozen or more gobblers, attracted by her shawl, surrounded her. I don't know
what might have happened if her father had not been near to hear her cries.
Saturday was the general day for going to town. During the week we could
write down what was necessary to get, and the child would frequently ask her
father, as he made ready to go, if he had his "rememberanda." Our mail came
to Junction City, and I could hardly wait to get through the work from dinner
to read our letters and papers Saturday afternoons.
When in the drug store of Hall & Porter one day, Mr. Porter saw our bundle of mail. He said that "looked like it"; he had often wondered what
farmers did on Sunday! He did not think that farmers had to eat, that the
stock had to be fed, that the cows must be milked twice a day, the milk taken
care of, and other necessary chores done. We tried to go to church sometimes,
but it made a hard day. It would be three o'clock, after getting home, before
dinner and the work was over. The horses needed rest, too. Through the last
part of the seventies a minister would come from town and hold service at the
Morris schoolhouse; a Sunday school was organized and we went there Sunday
afternoons. We had a fine Sunday school; the grown people took part, and
sometimes people came out from town to attend. The school kept up as
long as we lived there, and Mr. Templeton and my husband were superintendents, alternately. We collected money for an organ, which I played, and
for the most part I had charge of the singing, and we both had classes. There
was also a literary and debating society at the schoolhouse winter evenings,
in which we took an active part. The meetings attracted quite a lot of attention; people came from miles around and from town, and the building was
crowded every time. We also had a paper, edited by different members, containing articles on political questions and current events in the neighborhood,
and poems from contributors. We enjoyed these very much, being restful
variations from the routine of our daily labor.
One year we sent our butter to Washington, D. C, where my husband's
brother made a sale for it. It was June butter and packed in firkins. We got
forty-five cents a pound for it, and of course we were quite proud. It was advertised by the grocer as "Kansas butter." We thought we were doing well to
get a dollar a bushel for wheat, but the corn was never sold, it being kept for
the stock, and especially for the hogs.
When my husband went to town I always planned to have a busy day
to pass away the hours quickly. He never loitered in town; he did his business and came home. He was so prompt that I knew just about how long he
would be gone, unless there was something special. If he did not come at the
time expected I would run up to the top of the bluff, just behind the house,
where I could look a long way down the ravine. Zip, the dog, was just as
anxious to have the master come as I was. He would go down the road a way
and crouch down with his head upon his fore paws and listen for the tread of
the horses' feet; then off he would go and joyously bound up to their heads,
delighted as I was to have them all home safely. When the weather threatened I would ask my husband to wait until another day, when it might be
pleasanter. He said he never made anything by watching the clouds, and
unless a storm seemed very near he would not often delay going.
From the time our little girl could comprehend teaching, I taught her. It
was about three miles by road to the school, and cross-lots through a pasture
where there were cattle, so that I had to be the teacher, and I also taught her
music. Teaching, with the daily duties, was not altogether easy to do. We
had many interruptions also � people coming and our going away sometimes,
and other unexpected happenings. Any outside disturbance broke the study.
Many times I went about with a book in one hand and a broom in the other.
But I persevered and got her through the practical studies of her age until
we moved to town. I began her teaching so early she never remembered the
beginning. Like her father, she loved the outdoor life and the animals, and
was his trusty little helper. When he was obliged to be away he knew that
every animal in the stable was tied securely and every door and gate shut
properly. Of course we had a man or boy at such times, but she saw that the
work was done.
In the spring of 1878 we added one room to the house. It was built of stone
and was a very comfortable addition � cool in the summer and warm in the
winter. That was a good year, with a fine crop of wheat. The previous year
there had been a good corn crop to feed the stock. I have noticed that we
seldom had both good crops of wheat and corn in one season; either one or
the other would fail. The corn might promise a great yield, but the hot winds
of July, just as the silk was forming, would dash the hopes of the farmers in
a few days. The failure of the corn meant disaster. There would be no feed
for the stock except hay and straw and such poor fodder as was left of the corn.
We had very good luck in getting help for outdoor work, either by the
month, by the day, or exchange. One year we had a Mennonite from Dickinson county. He was one of the most faithful of all; he would work until after
dark and my husband would go to call him, thinking something might have
happened to him.
In 1880 some of the "exodus" from the South camped near town. Farmers went to the camp to find single men or women or families willing to work.
We had a family consisting of a man and wife and four children. We had no
tenant house, so my husband fixed up the granary until he could provide a
place for them. The man was a big, strong, burly Negro and fully able to do
hard work, and was a good worker. The wife was good, too, but I only had
her to do the washing and ironing. She would carry a pail of water on her
head with one hand to steady it, and something in the other hand, and carry
the clothes basket that way, too. They would close the door and window of
the granary every night, although the weather was hot, to keep out the "hants."
My husband built a place in the side of the bluff, of stone, with a good floor in
it, and made it comfortable for them, and I gave an hour of my time every day
to teach the children their letters. But the family got lonesome and finally
went to town.
One summer we had a Swede boy. He was good and faithful and a good
worker. I went to the field one day where he was at work and he asked me
if I wanted a "yob."
The herd law passed in the early seventies compelled farmers to take care
of their stock by herding or in pastures. My husband fenced a pasture of
forty or fifty acres as soon as he could. It was quite easy on the ledge of
rocks to lay a stone wall, but the rest of the fencing was of wire. The sides
of the bluffs were nearly all of rocks, and the stone helped immensely in
various ways. On the bottom land there was no stone at all to hinder the
plow. As the stock increased, and in especially dry years, it had to be driven
to larger pasturage many miles away. My husband drove our cattle twenty-five miles to pasture, on the very spot where the city of Herington now
stands. We kept the cows at home, of course, and the horses were generally
picketed.
The herd law was ignored in our vicinity for several years. There was so
much unoccupied upland, and none to say "nay," that even those who had a
herd boy trespassed on it. An eighty west of us, owned by some eastern
man, was especially prized, as there was some bottom land on it. My husband subsequently bought it for hay land, and even then cattle would be
driven there in the early morning. Zip would discover them and send them
running, with him at their heels, and maybe the owner following.
After buying this eighty our farm was long and narrow, mostly bottom
land, timbered along the creek, and running the length of the ravine and
over the tracks of the Missouri, Kansas & Texas railroad. My husband had
a small lot for the hogs to run in. I think he used to sow rye for green feed
for them; and one year he planted artichokes, but they did not prove a
success. One time I missed one of my silver forks. Two or three years
later my husband, putting in a new gatepost, found the fork, as good as ever.
It had been thrown out and the hogs had nosed it out of the trough, and it
became buried in the mud.
We lived so far from the main road that we never had but one tramp,
and he had killed a rabbit which he wanted to fry. I let him do it, giving
him the use of the utensils, and helped out his dinner with other things. He
thanked me and went on his way.
My husband was no hunter. He did not enjoy tramping the snow for
rabbits' tracks, and only killed one occasionally near the house. We had our
poultry for "fries." Our Christmas was always celebrated by ourselves, and
for the little girl. My husband was always wishing for a pair of striped mittens like those he wore when a boy; he said they would be so comfortable in
driving to town. I had never knitted any but plain mittens, but for his
Christmas gift one winter I decided to try and knit a pair such as he wanted.
They were a success and were finished in time! Christmas morning I slipped
out very early and slyly put a mitten in each sock. The surprise was complete and he was greatly delighted. I think he was more pleased with those
mittens than with anything I had ever given him. Our winter evenings were
passed by my husband in figuring up his accounts, reading, cracking black
waluts or popping corn. Popcorn was always included in the crops. I was
generally knitting. Sometimes when there was snow on the ground we took
a sleigh ride on a sleigh of home construction, covered with straw, in which
we buried ourselves with blankets. These rides on moonlight evenings were
reminders of the old days in our native New York.
My husband always went to the stable before going to bed, to see that
everything was right for the night. He said the horses always gave him a
welcoming neigh. I never went to bed until he came in, and I watched
at the window for the light of his lantern.
The months of January and February were my leisure months of the year,
when we had no hired man, the butchering was over, lard tried out, sausage
made, and I had only the ordinary family duties to attend to. In those
months I did my own sewing mostly. I neglected my husband by putting
him off with a light lunch at noon, and sometimes he would say, "Come, let's
have a Christian dinner to-day." The days were short and I wanted to improve the time. I had to be ready always for company, for some one from
town or from the neighborhood came unexpectedly, and always for the
day, staying for dinner. I kept fruit cake or cookies on hand all the time,
and in the winter I usually made several mince pies and had them frozen to
keep. With our fresh meats in winter, our home-cured ones in summer,
chickens and eggs always plenty and fresh, I had no difficulty in getting a
meal. Before our fruit trees came to bearing the wild grapes and plums were
made into jelly for the year.
What we called a "pail'' our western friends called a "bucket." Anything
from a small tin affair to a large wooden one was a bucket. Now we had
been taught that a bucket was like "the iron-bound bucket that hung in
the well" � a long, deep thing shaped like a barrel, iron bound, and with an
iron bail. Indeed, I remember the old well of my childhood, with the same
kind of a bucket raised by a well sweep, and a long, heavy pole to balance.
In the first year we got some of our housekeeping equipment of Mr. Patterson.
We inquired for basins; he handed over some wash basins. They were not
what we were after, and he was nonplussed until we pointed to the shelf;
then he wondered why we called a pan a "basin." I suppose that our "I guess"
for "I reckon" and some other ways of our speech sounded just as queer
to them.
In 1884 we repaired the old part of the house, and then we had a comfortable country home. We had a cistern and more conveniences to make
work easier. A two-seated spring wagon had long been the successor of the
buckboard and the lumber wagon for trips to town and other places. In
spite of all adverse circumstances, through hard years and losses, we were
beginning to see some reward for our labors. After the repair of the house
my fear of snakes creeping in was lessened, but one day when I was sitting
in a low chair by the front door sewing, something came down suddenly and
touched my dress in falling. I looked down and there was a snake. I pushed
the screen door open and he wriggled out. It all happened so quickly I
didn't have time to jump, or scream even. He came near falling in my lap.
I could only account for it by his crawling along the stone part of the house
and reaching over the screen door, which was slightly ajar, and there he lost
his balance and fell in. These house reptiles were harmless things � after mice,
no doubt � nevertheless we didn't want them to take up their abode with us.
Our farm was now in a good state of cultivation, and to save ourselves from
so much hard work we rented the land the last of our years on the farm.
Keeping up the place, with the care of the stock, the cows and the garden
was enough, and I was saved having men to cook for. My work through the
years on a Kansas farm would have been much harder if I had not had the
very best kind of a good husband. Before he went to work morning and noon
he saw to it that there was wood and water in the house. I never did any
milking and never took care of the poultry, and seldom did the churning.
Many women I knew did all these things besides their own housework. There
are those who could record a much harder life than mine, who endured more
privations in this new country. I have told only my own experience.
In those days we had no daily mail, no telephones, no electric lights and
no automobiles nor paved roads, and no paved streets even in the towns.
Those who come to Kansas now can see no traces of what Kansas was in
pioneer times. Early settlers leave their heirs the benefits of their labor; a
new environment succeeds the old, and new inventions and later knowledge
make life pleasanter and easier. Kansas is now a great state, but she is
great because of those who with grit and determination braved their way
through discouragements.
I regret that I have had nothing to call upon in this record but my memory.
I kept a record of our journey, and that is all the reference that I have had
to assist me. But it is a plain, unvarnished tale of true happenings, without
attempt at literary merit, embellishments or exaggerations. As E. W. Howe
tells us, "No flight of fancy equals what has actually happened; the story of
Aladdin is poor stuff compared with the true story of Father Time."
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