Some Pioneers and Pilgrims on the Prairies of Dakota Part 2

But let us pause in the journey at this point, while still under the influence of the nearby majestic mountains, robed in evergreen and crowned with the snows of generations, so as to get acquainted with the individuals of this company and also to learn the causes which could lead these people to an undertaking so fraught with momentous destiny for all of them and for their descendants to the end of time.

As we have already surmised, these people were not light-minded adventurers or people who had nothing to risk or lose. On the contrary, they were deeply rooted where they were and they did not pluck up their life by the roots to be transplanted in a far-off, unknown soil without careful consideration and a great motive.

First we meet Berhaug Rise (later written Reese) who seems to be a leader in this particular group we have before us. He is a man of about forty-five, of spare build and medium height. He has a family consisting of wife and five children--four boys and one girl; also his mother who is nearly seventy years of age. The children's names were Ole, eleven years; Halvor, nine; John, coming seven; Sivert, five; and Mary, three years, and named after the grandmother.

Next we get acquainted with Halvor Hevle, a man also of about forty-five, but because of a terrible affliction of rheumatism, was bent over so that his face is toward the ground. He is accompanied by his wife, Marit, but they have no children.

Then there is Th.o.r.e Fossem with his wife, his mother and one little girl, Marie, named after the grandmother. It should be explained here that while this last named family was not present in the above group just at this point of the story but came a little later, yet because Mr. Fossem belongs by every other circ.u.mstance to this group, and in spiritual kins.h.i.+p and motive particularly with the above two, we include him here. With Th.o.r.e Fossem came Ingebricht Satrum with one of his boys, I believe, but most of his family came over a year or two later.

The above three men had all been owners of small or medium sized farms and had advanced money for transportation to most of the others in the party from the recent sale of their properties. The remainder of the party, as we shall see, was largely composed of middle aged tradesmen, young unattached men and girls, practically all of them without means of their own to make the long journey. Most of these middle aged men of trades had left large families behind and expected to earn enough money in the new land to repay their own pa.s.sage and also to send for their families as soon as possible. But more of this later, for the when and the how of the repayment of some of these transportations would be out of place here, tho not without some very interesting features.

One of these men who was master of a trade and who also belongs, in the sense of an absolutely kindred spirit, to the above three, was Iver Sneve. He left wife and five children, taking with him his two older boys, Ingebricht and Ole.

In much the same economic relation was Anders Ellingson Loe, a shoemaker by trade. Also Arne Loe, who was a mason and left wife and three children behind until he could send for them.

To this cla.s.s should also be added Ingebricht Brenden, having left his wife and five children--Ingebricht, Knut, Elli, Sigrid and Kjerstine.

Among the younger married men were John Lien with wife and one boy, Esten, as also his mother, who was another member of the considerable group of grandmas in the party.

Here should be mentioned also Lars Hansen Almen with wife and two boys--Hans and Olaus as also Mrs. Almen's mother, who makes the fourth member of the remarkable grandmother cla.s.s in this group of pilgrims to a faraway country.

Then there were the following young and middle aged unmarried men and women: Ildri Loe, now Mrs. Sneve of Inwood, Iowa; Kari Rathe; Marit Myren; Haakon Mellemsether or Haagenson; Sivert Aalbu; John Riskaasen; and Jens Rise.

In all there were fifty-two pa.s.sages bought on the same boat for the same place in America; viz., Yankton, South Dakota. One or two of the group, I believe, went to Brookings, South Dakota, including Mr.

Haagenson.

We left these people, while making this digression, on the king's highway severing forever the strong ties that bound them to the land and the people of their birth. As we now resume our journey with them, especially if we have not made the trip before, we are irresistibly attracted by the wild and rugged manifestations of nature along our route. Both the way and its surroundings were prophetic of the much further stretching way to be traversed, often with weary feet, by these people, could they have foreseen it.

The road, tho well built, winds endlessly and often in sharp turns thru the narrow valley between the mountains which in places almost form a gorge. In many places the road is cut out of the solid rock of the mountain side so that on one side is the high and nearly perpendicular cliff; on the other, and only a few feet away, the almost perpendicular descent to the raging, roaring river hundreds of feet below. The sun is only now (April) beginning to reduce the eight months' snow on the mountains. This turns the river in the main valleys, as well as the hundreds of smaller streams coming down the mountain sides, into whitefoamed, tumultuous torrents rolling great stones before them and resounding thru the adjacent valleys and mountain sides with a deep and deafening roar--beware! beware!

Looking up the mountain sides we see pine and evergreen creeping up well toward the top. But while the sides are thus robed in beautiful green, the tops are crowned with the pure white of the "eternal"

snows. So here was both music and raiment fit for kings and the sons of Vikings, and these sounds and sights those people never forgot nor could forget.

After a two-day tramp thru the snow and slush we reach the railway station, Storen, fifty miles from our starting point. Here the drivers return and more sad partings and some tears. Fortunately the new sights and experiences now begin to crowd upon the consciousness of these people and help them forget for the time being, just what they most need to forget, what lies behind, if they are to successfully march forward. Most of these people had never before been out of the parish in which they were born or seen a railway or locomotive, not to speak of riding behind one. And being naturally intelligent and forward looking men and women, they took a deep interest in the new world which continually unfolded to them as they journeyed on toward their faroff destination, covering nearly a month of time.

We must now turn to the causes or motives which led these people to undertake this long journey, so full of perils and uncertainties, and also of hards.h.i.+ps which can better be imagined than described in detail. Transatlantic travel, forty years ago, was about as different from what it is now as the ox team was different from the automobile.

The causes of this emigration, as one might almost surmise, were both economic and religious. The religious motive was especially apparent as far as the leaders were concerned.

Some years before this migration, a traveling evangelist had come thru Opdal and had held meetings from house to house in the neighborhood where these people lived, the state church building not being open for that sort of religious exercises. His name was Hans Remen, or as he was often called, Hans Romsdalen. He was a giant in physical proportions and also had a moral courage and religious ardor to match his body. He denounced the dead forms of religion current in the Lutheran State Church as of no avail, and worse than nothing, in that they caused people to rest their salvation on a false foundation. He testified by reference to the Bible, and to personal experience, that the only basis of salvation for man was a personal, vital relation to Jesus Christ, entered into by faith; and that in Him alone could man find forgiveness of sin, peace with G.o.d, and a good conscience.

The ground was somewhat ready for this sort of seed in that there was a considerable number of people who had come to feel about the State Church, much as the evangelist expressed it. Among them were the leaders of these emigrants, Berhaug Rise (or as the name came to be spelled, Reese), Halvor Hevle, Iver Sneve and Th.o.r.e Fossem. A revival of religion resulted and there came to be a considerable group of people who sought a more vital religion than what was manifested in the State Church. Thru wors.h.i.+p and preaching in private houses, however, they could find an open door and they continued this movement. This religious movement thus gained more and more adherents, so that not only had most of the members of this exodus been touched by it but also many more who were left behind at this time.

It was a foregone conclusion that these lay preachers, especially the above mentioned leaders, would soon find themselves marked for persecution by the representatives of the established church and also by petty government officials who of course stood back of that church organization. Then, too, while looking upon the State Church not only as dead religiously but also as a positive menace to true religion, in that it led people astray, and persecuted those who were trying to lead the way back to the teachings of the lowly Nazarene, yet they were compelled to give a t.i.the of their princ.i.p.al farm produce toward the upkeep of this inst.i.tution.

There was much discussion and many clashes between the adherents of the old and the new. But as the chasm seemed to widen, and the hope of vitalizing the State Church from within to lessen, being backed as it was financially and otherwise by the whole machinery of the government, this religious situation and persecution became a strong motive for seeking a freer atmosphere.

Then strongly re-enforcing the religious motive were both the general as also some special economic conditions at this time, which pressed upon these people. As aforesaid, the leaders of this movement had been owners of small and medium sized farms, but with debts on them. Yet under ordinary conditions they could have managed to take care of these obligations, as they were long-time loans and at low rates of interest. But worse than these larger obligations was the fact that some of them had somehow fallen into the hands of the professional loan sharks and usurers of the place. The method of procedure of these parasites was to make short time loans, generally becoming due in the fall of the year, and taking security in the milch cows or grain crop of the small farmers. On the very day of maturity they would demand immediate payment or threaten foreclosure with its attendant expense and annoyance to the borrower. Having bullied and scared their victims into the suitable state of mind they would, with hypocritical pretense of graciousness, offer to compromise by buying the mortgaged property, usually milch cows and seed grain, themselves, thus saving the expense and disgrace of going to law. This was generally accepted and the sale made, but of course at the lender's price. Then in the spring the farmers had to have cows and seed grain to do any business and usually had to buy both back again from these sharks, thus getting into their hands again, and thus the vicious circle continued until the poor borrower was finally worn out and had to give up the struggle.

However, the final blow, economically, which brought the leaders of our party to the great decision of emigrating, was a certain cooperative mercantile enterprise which they had helped to form supposedly for the economic benefit of the community. This was in the early dawn of the cooperative movement in Norway, and these people were quick to see its economic possibilities, but had not yet learned to know and to guard against the many pitfalls which such enterprises have to face and avoid if they are to succeed. And dearly did they pay for their first lesson.

The shares of the company were a.s.sessable with unlimited liabilities on the part of the share holder. Thus, of course the business had almost unlimited credit with wholesalers. For a time the organization seemed to prosper. After a while, however, suspicion began to form in the minds of some that things were not just right. An investigation was eventually made. The manager immediately disappeared. The government now stepped in and declared a bankruptcy. The manager, having gotten away beyond recall, the wholesale houses presented bills of all kinds and large amounts for goods which the directors felt certain had never been received. But with the manager absconded the company could not disprove these claims, and the court, belonging socially and politically to the big business cla.s.s, naturally held the scales of justice, socalled, in favor of the wholesale creditors. The result was that these poor pioneers in the field of economic cooperation found themselves liable and their property attached for as much as 6000% of the face value of their shares. It goes without saying that the government officials saw to it that they themselves got their utmost limit out of the general slaughter. Berhaug Rise and a couple of other victims appealed to the courts against the high handed work of the big business concerns, and the petty government officials involved, but lost the case, and all that they had was attached and ordered sold.

Finding revealed thru all this procedure the persecution both of the civil and the ecclesiastical authorities, and seeing no chance at that point of either religious or economic betterment for themselves and their children, they came to the great decision to try their fortunes in the far-away land of which they had heard many and strange tales.

For them, as for so many others of every race and tongue, this far-away land was the land of their dreams; the land of the true where they could live anew; where the song birds dwell; the land of promise, and also of fulfillment, of hitherto crushed hopes and thwarted aspirations.

Returning now to follow our party from Trondhjem, where we left them, to Yankton, South Dakota, we find that the journey was mostly the uneventful, uncomfortable one which was the lot of immigrants of forty years ago, or early '80's. There was much sea sickness and much loathing and disgust with the food and accommodations, both of such a quality as they had never experienced before. Fortunately most of them had food of their own.

The nearest to any mishap to any of the party fell to the lot of the writer of this chronicle, who was a boy of six years. It happened in the awful throng and confusion of Castle Garden, the old landing place of immigrants at New York City. I was committed to the care of a certain servant girl of the family, there being four other children to be kept track of by father and mother. But in the noise and confusion of embarking on certain transports taking us to the railway on the main land, she seems to have lost her head as well as her charge, and I recall that I found myself wandering alone among the vast s.p.a.ces of Castle Garden and the docks. I was crying because of the loss of father, mother, and all my friends, and searching for them in vain. At length some sort of official discovered me and after some questioning he joined me in the search. We went out on some boats, I recall, where people were embarking, and he inquired everywhere if anyone had lost a boy. I recall very vividly how a woman at one place claimed me as her very own and how I protested with more vehemence than politeness. The official took my view of the case. We continued our search and at last we met Father, who by this time had discovered my absence and started out to search. Needless to say, there was more joy over my return than over the four other children who had not strayed away.

Thus the transportation company at length was enabled to carry out its contract of delivering the same number of heads at Yankton as it took on at Trondhjem. And they did it much in the same matter-of-fact and impersonal way as a railroad company undertakes to deliver so many head of cattle at the stockyards of Chicago.--All the honor to them that they deserved!

CHAPTER VII

LANDING AT YANKTON AND GETTING ON THE LAND

It may be of interest to take a look at the town of Yankton of forty years ago, where we finally landed. Yankton was the terminal of this division of the C.M. & St. P. Railway, or, as it was then called, the Dakota Southern. It was also the capitol city of Dakota Territory comprising the present states of North and South Dakota. Its buildings were mostly small wooden houses, but, as may be surmised, it commanded a large trade territory, for besides being the end of the railway it was touched by a considerable steamboat traffic up and down the river and had considerable Indian trade, besides that of the adjacent white settlements. So it was then the most important city in the Dakotas and had been decidedly so before that time.

Here the immigrants were given a cordial welcome and temporary shelter at the home of Mrs. Carrie Severson, a widow whom they had known from the old country. We do not know, of course, how our fathers and mothers felt about the enterprise by this time, but to us youngsters, who as yet were not loaded with the burdens of life, the green gra.s.s and the freedom to scamper about seemed good after a whole month's confinement in a crowded steerage and more crowded railway coaches.

Next day friends of the party, who had immigrated some ten years before, came with teams and wagons to help these newer comers to get on the land and make their start in the new and, to these people, strange land. For this was indeed a very different country from the one they had left and even from the picture many of them had had in mind. There was much to learn and many disappointments at first as we shall see.

Among the men who undertook to receive this large company in their homes and to help them get established in homes of their own, and who extended the glad hand of welcome that day, should be mentioned these: Stingrim Hinseth, Ingebricht f.a.gerhaugh, Haldo Saether, John Rye, John Aalbu and Halvor Hinseth. These men loaded into their lumber wagons the big blue chests and smaller parcels; deposited the pa.s.sengers as best they could and started out over the prairie on what was called "The Sioux Falls Trail". This trail angled all the way to their homes in Turkey Creek, over twenty miles to the northeast. Darkness soon overtook the travelers and the following circ.u.mstance created considerable merriment for the hosts, at least. The newcomers observed, as they journeyed on thru the darkness, very many gleams of light as it were from innumerable human habitations. These points of light were, of course, fire flies, so called, or certain phosph.o.r.escent bugs which at that time were very numerous because of the abundant gra.s.s prevailing everywhere. At length one of the pa.s.sengers remarked in evident astonishment! "This country must be very thickly populated, judging by the many lights we see"! When daylight came, however, the lights and most of the supposed inhabitants had utterly disappeared.

It may be of some interest to the new and coming generations to take a look at the country around Turkey Creek as it greeted the curious gaze of these new comers of forty years ago on that first morning of their arrival. Most of the friends who brought them out from town and distributed them for temporary shelter were settled on the Turkey Creek bottom and located about where they or their dwellings are now.

Farthest north up the valley was John Rye, then Halvor Hinseth, next Steingrim Hinseth, I. f.a.gerhaug, Ole Solem and Jens Eggen, in order as named. But back of the creek bottom where these earliest homesteaders had located was the far stretching open prairie--a sea of waving gra.s.s--with a lonely dug-out only here and there and vast stretches of "no man's land" between.

There were no regular highways, only some trails winding their way over the endless gra.s.s, in some general direction, but with many crooks and turns to avoid a hill, ravine or slough. These sloughs, or small lakes, were very numerous and of considerable size and depth in those days. There is today many a waving field of corn and grain where we boys of the first generation of settlers once launched our home made boats, hunted ducks, swam and occasionally came near drowning.

The best travelled of the trails in the part of the country we are describing was the old territorial trail called the Sioux Falls Road.

This angled in a north-easterly direction all the way from Yankton to Sioux Falls, and many a prairie schooner could be seen moving with stately slowness over this road, not to speak of other vehicles which were numerous. As a boy I have seen long caravans of Indians, perhaps twenty or thirty teams in a string, trekking over this road. When the ruts became too deep, by reason of much travel and the action of the water, another trail would be made close alongside the old. Thus in places six or eight pairs of ruts, made by many wagons and feet, could be seen side by side.

There were no wire fences to mark boundaries between farms or to form pastures in those days, and the cattle were herded far and wide. The people in the Turkey Creek Valley herded as far as Clay Creek. The writer of this, altho not of the earliest herd boys of the time, and living near Turkey Creek, has taken his herd many a day to the proximity of Clay Creek with practically open pasture all the way.

I am speaking for many boys and some girls, too, of those days, boys and girls who are fathers and mothers now, when I say that our pasture fence was Clay Creek on the west and Turkey Creek on the east. Not that we were not free to go farther but that the day was not long enough to get any farther and back again the same day.

There was at this time, when our pilgrims arrived, but very little of the ground broken up. What little there was broken was mostly on the creek bottom, but scarcely any on the upland. And when a little later patches of prairie were broken up in order to comply with the homestead law requirements for getting t.i.tle to the land, these patches were usually in a draw or low-lying strip between the hills.

Thus the fields of early days were not laid out with any reference to north or south, but their direction was determined entirely by the hills and valleys. The little breaking which was done was done with oxen and sometimes the direction of the field to be was determined by the oxen themselves more than by the driver. Some wheat, corn and oats was raised, but the main dependence of the farmer was cattle and milking.

The dwellings were of three main types. There was the dug-out, usually in a side-hill, with a sod roof, a few studdings and boards being used to support the roof. The walls and floor were usually the native earth. The sod house was a more advanced and perhaps more stylish dwelling. Closely related to the sod house was the mud house where the walls, about two or three feet thick, were made of well tramped mud and straw. These mud houses were at times whitewashed and were both comfortable and sightly. As for comfort in the cold winter the dug-out and sod house were not so bad when properly built. But do not imagine that they were equal to your furnace-heated, modern house. They were, after all, a temporary hole in the ground to preserve life until houses could be had. A house made of lumber was a luxury which many an early settler had to look forward to for many a hard, long year, and often he had to die in the dug-out or sod shanty. Finally, there was the story-and-a-half frame house of two or three rooms with a possible lean-to. This type of house put one in the cla.s.s of the most well-to-do; and such a habitation was the hope and dream of years for many a pilgrim mother of those days.

We have turned aside from our main narrative for a look at the country as it appeared to our band of pilgrims as they looked about them on that first morning of their arrival in the Turkey Creek Valley. And the view was not all that they had hoped for. What could these men--farmers and men of trades--do in this howling wilderness of gra.s.s, gra.s.s and nothing but gra.s.s? Yes, there was something else--mosquitoes--and oh, how they stung! Also flies, and how incessantly and mercilessly they attacked the fair soft skin of these pilgrims from the Norseland! Finally, there was the heat, which literally took the fair skin off their faces in flakes and put on a tan which made them almost unrecognizable.

Moreover, what could these shoemakers, masons, painters or even farmers do here? Shoes were bought; houses were of sod or earth and needed no paint; years would be required to make cultivated fields out of this sea of gra.s.s, and meanwhile they and their families must somehow live.