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 rule 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
O'BRIEN AND OSCEOLA COUNTIES, IOWA. 223
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 hav-
224 O'BRIEN AND OSCEOLA COUNTIES, IOWA.
ing 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 wrere 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
O'BRIEN AND OSCEOLA COUNTIES, IOWA. 225
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
(15)
226 O'BRIEN AND OSCEOLA COUNTIES, IOWA.
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; mv 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
O'BRIEN AND OSCEOLA COUNTIES, IOWA. 227
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 voting, 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
Strong's 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
228 O'BRIEN AND OSCEOLA COUNTIES, IOWA.
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. Butterfidd 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 rnte 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
O'BRIEN AND OSCEOLA COUNTIES, IOWA. 229
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.