Obrien County IA Archives History - Books .....Chapter XV Reminiscences 1914
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Book Title: Past And Present Of O'Brien And Osceola Counties, Iowa
CHAPTER XV.
REMINISCENCES.
By Mrs. C. V. Van Epps.
It has been my privilege to live in Carroll township, or near it (in town of
Sheldon), for over forty-one years, and when requested to write up the history
and give experiences as one of the earliest settlers, I gave reluctant consent
and felt I was not equal to the task. When I look back and think and see of the
changed conditions that have taken place in that time, it seems more of a dream
than a reality, and in looking back, trying to recall some of the events of the
early settlement period, I am at a loss to think of things that would be of
interest in this historical book, but was to tell how I came to the township and
who were the early settlers and some of the events which transpired at that
time, and as some of these events come up in my mind I will try to write
something which I hope may prove interesting.
When the writer came to the county, September 12, 1872, there were no
railroads in the county and her husband met her at Marcus (which then consisted
of just a shanty for a depot), with what you call a "prairie schooner" to drive
across the country twenty-two miles to Carroll township to their claim. In all
that ride there was nothing to be seen until you got to the Amos Sutter and
Harley Day ranch-just a dug-out-and when the men saw the "schooner" they ran
out
waving their hands and hurrahing for the woman, as they were a sight in that
part of the township then. As we drove on, a jack rabbit bobbed up on the
prairie and stopped and looked, as much as to say, "Who are you, treading on my
domain?" That was all the life seen on that twenty-two-mile drive. The first
settler of Carroll township was Patrick Carroll, who came from Illinois and
brought his wife and eight children with him in the spring of 1870, not knowing
when he started just where he was going-only to find and make a home for himself
and family. Northwest Iowa was about the limit and nearest place where
government land could be found at that time. So Mr. Carroll headed for northwest
Iowa and landed in Cherokee, when he began to enquire of the land-and he was
referred to "Waterman," Mr. Carroll supposed it was a town and started to drive
and kept watching over the prairie to see a city. After driving a long while and
seeing no signs of a town or anything else but vast prairie, he arrived at Mill
creek, where he met two teams and stopped to chat and inquire for Waterman.
Imagine his surprise when he was told there was no town of that name, but there
was a man by the name of Hannibal Waterman holding down a claim and had a shack
built on it a ways back. Mr. Carroll turned round his team and drove back and
found the Waterman place and they camped there for the night and had to dig to
get water for his teams and family to use. The next morning they drove northwest
and came to a shack in Baker township. These shacks were the signs that the
claim was taken up. This proved to be Wallace Rinker's and Austin Sutter was
there and was starting out with several teams of oxen to find breaking to do for
settlers, and when Mr. Carroll enquired for land he was told of section 34,
where no one had located, and so he located the family on the south half of the
southeast quarter of that section. The first thing was to dig to see if water
could be found, as the cry then with the few settlers was so little water and
hard to find. About the first thing was to dig in some slough or low piece of
ground and if you found water then the settler was happy. Mr. Carroll found
water and so took off his wagon covers and used that for a habitation until he
got a dugout or shack built, into which he moved his family that fall.
When we think of those dugouts or shacks now, it is hard to realize how one
lived. There was a hole dug down three feet or more in the ground and then a
frame of whatever you could get made over that and sometimes only the sod (which
was very tough) cut in squares and built up. There were no floors, or
partitions, unless made of bed quilts. The writer has stood on six inches of
snow in one of these dugouts and done washing for the sick who owned it. But I
can not help but say there was more general happiness to be found in some of
these shacks than was found in their more pretentious homes afterward, when so
many began to feel, and showed it, that "I have a better home now than you
have."
But, to come back to Mr. Carroll, the township was not named yet and, he
being the first settler and proving to be an honorable man, they named it in his
honor. This was in 1870. That fall Mr. Mennig and the Donovans came to the
township. Mr. Mennig brought his family from Davenport, Iowa, in the spring, but
had lived in Waterman township through the summer and had contested a claim on
the southeast quarter of section 18, in Carroll township, and it was decided in
his favor and he settled on this claim in the spring of 1871, and he or his boys
still own it, Mr. Mennig having retired to a modern home in Sheldon after a long
life of hard work. He has deeded his land of several hundred acres to his three
children and he and wife have moved to Sheldon, with a large competency to keep
them in their old age. In the year 1870 William Butterfield and Charles Albright
came out from Durant, Iowa, to spy out the land, of which its vast prairies and
wonderful sunshine had began to be noised about. Mr. Albright selected his land
in Highland township, while Mr. Butterfield homesteaded on its southeast quarter
of section 4, Carroll township. They then returned to Durant and told of the
wonderful country, where milk and honey flowed and gold was to be found for the
picking up. They were very much enthused over this wonderful land and tried and
did imbue this same spirit in others, so much so that in the spring of 1871
eleven men in all came to view this wonderful country and most of them settled
in Carroll township. The writer's husband, C. V. Van Epps, and M. G. McClellan
being two of the party that drove across the state in June from Durant, Iowa,
and homesteaded on the east half of section 10 in Carroll township, each
settling on one hundred and sixty acres, as both were soldiers and entitled to
that much. They hired Charles Butterfield and Johnie Miller to break twelve and
six acres respectively on each claim and then they traveled back home, and in
September, that year, had to come again to make some improvement, so as to hold
their claims. Arriving here, they went over into Lyon county, along the Rock
river, and got poles to make a frame for stables and covered them with prairie
grass, Van Epps leaving a corn plow and two stools in his and McClellan leaving
something on the same order to show the claims had been settled on. Then, in the
spring of 1872, all these men brought their families, and in that year the. land
in the township, or mostly all, was taken up. In the northern part of the
township the claims were inhabited with families and there was quite a colony of
settlers who had mostly come from or near the same place (Durant, Iowa). The
writer came September 12, 1872, her husband preceding her to get something to
live in. He had hauled lumber from Cherokee and got a home fourteen by eighteen,
twelve-foot posts, built, but as yet no windows or doors. Rag carpet hung over
the openings at nights to protect you from the cold air, the house being only
sheeted up. The writer helped weather board it and what a time we did have to
make a stair way so as not to have to climb a ladder. We lived seventeen years
in that home, with few improvements, as happy as any years of our lives. The
settlers thought nothing of driving ten or twelve miles in a day to visit or to
help each other when work was on hand.
The winter of 1872 and 1873 was the hardest of all for the settlers in
Carroll township, as they were not prepared for the cold winter, no houses being
plastered and the prairies being one vast plain of land, not a tree or bush to
mar one's vision as far as the eye could see. The bleak cold northwest winds
penetrated every crack or crevice of our homes and many had not even the
clothing they ought to have had to protect their bodies. Fuel was hard to get,
as the Omaha & St. Paul railroad, the first in the county, had only gotten as
far as Worthington and was blockaded so much of the time that they could not get
coal into the county; only a very few settlers anyway, had money with which to
buy fuel. So prairie grass (some few had a little corn) was resorted to as fuel.
The 9th of January, 1872, when the first blizzard raged over the township, nine
of the settlers in the northern part of the township had gone to Waterman creek,
near Cherokee, or to the Rock river near Rock Valley, to gather wood or chop
down green poles to bring home for fuel. O what aching hearts there were at that
time, for some of these settlers did not get home for a week, their families not
knowing whether they were frozen to death or not, for there were no roads and
when there was snow on the ground nothing to be seen to guide you.
So what dark days we did see, especially when the diphtheria broke out among
the children and the settlers' teams with the epizootic. No doctor in the county
and no one hardly to look to for help, as each family had all they could do to
help themselves. The writer has gone fourteen miles, when they came after her,
to help in sickness, the cold winds blowing a gale and the snow being two feet
deep on the level, with drifts four and five feet piled up, and no signs of a
road and the track being filled in as fast as you could get over it. Bedding was
taken along to keep you warm and a scoop shovel to dig out the horses when they
mired down in the snow.
The first school house in the township was built on the southwest corner of
section 3, and the first teacher in it was Mrs. Dr. Cram, of Sheldon. Rev. H. D.
Wiard had taught a school in the shack he lived in the winter before on the Will
Ridell homestead on section 10, the scholars, some of them, coming from nine to
fourteen miles and staying through the week with the settler. Rev. H. D. Wiard
preached the first sermon in Carroll township at the home of Dan McKay, who was
located on section 6, in August, 1872, and from the time of that first sermon
the first church that was built in O'Brien county sprang up and is now the
Congregational society of Sheldon. It sprang up from small beginnings, as large
trees from acorns grow. There were six members in the church; four of these in
Carroll township. In September, 1912, that church celebrated its fortieth
anniversary, which we will record in this history.
[The following reminiscent sketch of the history of the First Congregational
church, from its beginning, in Sheldon, Iowa, August 18, 1872, to September 29,
1912, was prepared by Mrs. C. V. Van Epps, and read by Mrs. F. E. Frisbee on the
fortieth anniversary of the church's organization.-ED.]
We of the Congregational church extend greetings to all the dear people who
meet here tonight, to help us celebrate this the fortieth anniversary of our
church. The Lord made the mountains and the hills; He made the oceans and the
dew drops; He made nature's garden to blossom as the rose; He also made the
prairies of O'Brien county, Iowa, for its first settlers to live in.
We also knew, that in order to prosper, there must be a place for these
people to worship that God who had done so much for them. So, in the year 1872,
when there were only a few straggling settlers on these prairies, there was a
young minister, Rev. H. D. Wiard, who had come from Michigan, with his young
bride, and, you might say, who had come to prepare the way for this, our
beautiful church of today, since it was through his untiring energy and
faithfulness that the first church of northwest O'Brien county, Iowa, was built.
The first church service was held on the 18th of August, 1872, at the Dan
McKay ranch, which is now the Louis Younger place, one mile south of Sheldon.
The building consisted of a room fourteen by sixteen feet, without plaster, and
with no cupola or porch. There were six Congregational members present and, I
believe, were all the church members in these parts at that time. These members
were Rev. Wiard and wife, M. G. McClellan and wife, and William Butterfield and
wife. The writer and husband did not belong to this church at that time, and, in
fact, the writer was not at that first service, though her husband was. I had
not yet arrived at my lovely prairie home; my husband was ahead of me at the
home and at this service, as the men always try to be ahead of the women, and
perhaps for our good.
From that time on the work of the church was in the hearts of the people,
but there are only a very few of the dear people of today who know and can
realize the hardships the settlers of that time had to endure. When the seeds
were planted and began to grow, and we began to think, now we will have gold to
pick up, King Grasshopper would appear and always took first choice. But Brother
Wiard stood by us, and, with prayer and words of encouragement, ever kept the
need of a church before us. In the winter of 1872 three prayer meetings were
started and kept up weekly, the first being held at the M. G. McClellan home,
the next at Butterfield's, the next at Van Epps', and so on. On May 10, 1873,
there were seven other names added to the church roll. The church was
incorporated January 29, 1874, with the name, the First Congregational church of
Sheldon, Iowa, and from that time on, you might say, the word was, Go! On the
21st day of September, 1874, a building committee was appointed, and on the 10th
day of September, 1875, a contract with builders was signed. The carpenter work
was done by Mr. Walker and the masonry by George Berry. The first work was done
on the church September 24, 1875, and on December 20th, of the same year, the
church was completed, lacking but the seats. The first seats used were simply
rough boards, supported on nail kegs. In spite of the backache that came from
sitting on these seats, it really seemed harder to get new seats than it was to
build the church. In the building and furnishing of the church many sacrifices
were made and much hard work done, every honest method conceivable being used to
get money for this purpose. I recall a mush and milk social given at the
Benjamin Jones home, when each one dipped in a spoon, at so much a dip. The
first money raised to build the church was in the winter of 1874. It was by a
social held upstairs, where the Hollander drug store now is. Mrs. M. G.
McClellan and myself baked two large cakes and brought them to the social and
succeeded in selling them for sixty dollars. This was the way it was done. A
beauty contest was made over the cakes, and the contest lay between a newly
married woman, Mrs. J. A. Brown, and a young, unmarried woman, now Mrs. Dr.
Cram. The decision of the contest was left to the vote of the people, a stated
sum being charged for the tickets used in voting. The (infatuated) husband, of
course, looked after his wife's interests, and in this was supported by other
married men. The young men undertook the care of the maiden, but from lack of
experience or money, or both, they fell down in the undertaking, and the married
men got the cakes.
The Congregational Church Building Society furnished four hundred dollars
toward building the church, providing the members and friends would do the rest.
The lumber for the church was bought of Mr. Wycoff, who then had what is now
Strongs lumber yard. The first marriage in the church was a double one, July 2,
1876, being Frank Piper and Miss Eva Bronson, and M. Cook and Miss E. Brush.
There was no friction in those days between the members and the pastor of the
flock and harmony was the rule, and the people were justly proud and much
pleased with their new church, which had sprung from such a humble beginning. It
was unpretentious, but quite comfortable, and was built on the surface of the
ground, and heated by stoves, but in 1888, through the generosity of Mr. Aborn,
a lecture room with basement apartments, including furnace and stone foundation
was added, and then we were a much pleased people.
In the spring of 1874, after the church was regularly incorporated, with
Rev. Wiard ordained as pastor, and before the building of the church, services
were held in the dining room of the new Sheldon Hotel. Mrs. Butterfield was
organist and Mrs. A. B. Johnson, Eva Bronson (afterward Mrs. Frank Piper) and
Charlie Kent composed the choir. The first Sabbath school was organized in the
room over where now is Kollander's drug store. I do not recall who acted as
superintendent but believe it was the Reverend Wiard.
I have forgotten just when the first Ladies' Aid Society was formed, but
think it was along in the eighties. At any rate it has always been of material
assistance in the upbuilding of the church.
Brother Wiard remained with us until 1875 and there came after him in the
following order these pastors: Rev. Palmer, 1876-77; Rev. Southworth, 1877-83;
Rev. Brintnall, 1883-88; Rev. Cole, 1888-90; Rev. Hanscom, 1890-93; Rev.
Cummings, 1893-99; Rev. Bray, 1899-08; Rev. Westlake, from September 1, 1908, up
to the present hour. In the year 1900 the members, seeing the need of a larger
church, secured subscriptions for that purpose and in May, 1901, work was begun
on this our present structure. The Ladies' Aid Society did splendid work toward
raising the money needed. and we now feel greatly pleased with our church home,
which is free of debt. Our membership numbers two hundred and forty-six resident
members, representing one hundred and forty-five families. During the present
pastorate upwards of ninety have united with the church, over one thousand two
hundred dollars improvements have been made in and on the building and paid,
while a parsonage has been purchased, on which there is still some indebtedness.
The records of this church, covering a period of six or seven years, were burned
in a fire which destroyed Mr. Wyman's house, where they were kept by him as a
church official. All we can make known concerning those years we must furnish
from memory, and there are but few of the old workers left who have recollection
of the doings of that period.
One thing comes to my mind, I must not fail to mention, as it shows a fine
record for a small child. In the summer of 1875 Maggie Jones, now Mrs. Eggart,
began playing the organ, when she was so small that she had to be held on the
organ stool. Mrs. Butterfield taught her to play the hymn tunes, and for six
years, until she started off to school, she never missed a Sunday in her
playing. I must also mention that Benjamin Jones and Mr. Parkhurst donated the
stucco for the plastering of the church, and some one donated an old chair for
pulpit use, and after a time Mr. Jones gave the cane seated chair now in use in
the lecture room, to take the place of the old chair.
Mr. and Mrs. Jones, although not enrolled as church members, have been with
us from the first and helped us in many ways by counsel and gifts. After the
addition of our lecture room to the first church, Mr. and Mrs. J. J. Hartenbower
donated our present pulpit. Among others who have had a share in our hardships
and today have the most reason for rejoicing are the Winslows, Mrs. A. D.
Johnson, Mrs. Frank Hollenbeck, the Bassetts, Mrs. Cram and Mrs. W. L. Avers.
Many, many of our most zealous workers have gone to their reward, but I feel
that their spirits look down upon us today and know the good they have done.
Other faithful ones have moved elsewhere, but are not forgotten. This paper may
contain some mistakes, since memory is not always reliable, some records are not
available, and those who could have aided my memory are in a better world. I ask
your pardon if this paper has seemed tedious to you, and express the wish that
you may find as great happiness in church work as I have found.
Every other section in Carroll township was what they called railroad land.
It had been taken as a right of way by the Omaha & St. Paul or the Chicago &
Milwaukee railroad. These sections were not open to the settlers, but many
squatted on them and made quite extensive improvements. Then when the land came
in market some of them could buy it, while others tried to hold on by their
squatter rights. In the meantime others would buy it over their heads and they
would have to give up and lose all their improvements. Carroll township land is
now worth from one hundred and fifty to two hundred dollars per acre, and in the
years of 1873-4-5 and 6, during the time of the grasshopper reign, I have known
men to offer their land and every thing they had for five hundred dollars, to
get the money to get out of the country with. There are not many of the first
settlers of Carroll township left, some having left the county and a few still
living, but the silent grave yards hold the most of them.
Additional Comments:
Extracted from:
PAST AND PRESENT OF
O'Brien and Osceola Counties, Iowa
BY
HON. J. L. E. PECK and HON. O. H. MONTZHEIMER
For O'Brien County
AND
HON. WILLIAM J. MILLER
For Osceola County
VOL. I
ILLUSTRATED
1914
B. F. BOWEN & COMPANY, Inc. Indianapolis, Indiana
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