Sac County IAGenWeb - 1914 History - Chapter IV

To have been a pioneer in western Iowa - to have set stakes in the early fifties and sixties in Sac county - was to have taken part in many interesting, as well as trying, scenes and transactions. Far removed from a thickly settled community, far from railroads and mills and postoffices and market towns, hardships were entailed which but few of today can comprehend. The sons and daughters hear their fathers and mothers relate the stories of those long ago, never-to-be-forgotten days, but even then this generation cannot begin to realize what the settlers of fifty and sixty years ago endured on the bleak prairies of western Iowa. The pioneer period has about passed away in America and cannot, in the very nature of things, ever return. When the virgin prairie sod has been once turned over to the sunlight, its wild state is gone forever. With it forever goes away the wild game so common at an early day. A few prairie chickens may still be seen, a few wild geese and sand-hill cranes, but, practically speaking, they have been numbered among the things of generations just gone.

The few pioneers who braved the dangers and hardships of early days in Sac county have nearly all been gathered to their fathers and sleep the long sleep that knows no waking. When the few remaining pioneers meet in reunion and family gatherings, their eyes sparkle and they grow young again, as the fading reminiscences of other days are recalled. As was well stated by a pioneer in this section, at a gathering of old settlers:

"You come together with varied emotions. Some of you almost at the foot of life's hill, look back and upward at the path you have trod, while others, who have just reached life's summit, gaze down into the valley of tears with many a hope and fear. You gray-headed fathers have done your work; you have done it well; and now. as the sunset of life is closing around you, you are given the rare boon of enjoyment, the fruits of your own labor. You can see the land won by your own right arm from its wilderness state, and from the savage foe, pass to your children's children - literally a land 'flowing with milk and honey'; a land over which hover the white-robed angels of religion and peace; a land fairer and brighter and more glorious than any other land beneath the blue arch of heaven. You have done your work well, and when the time of rest shall come, you will sink to the 'dreamless sleep' w ith a calm consciousness of duty well performed.

"In this hour let memory assert her strongest sway; tear aside the thin veil that shrouds in gloom the misty past; call up before you the long-forgotten scenes of years ago: live over once again the toils, and struggles, the hopes and fears of other days. Let this day be a day sacred to the memory of olden times. In that olden time, there are no doubt scenes of sadness as well as of joy. Perhaps you remember standing beside the bed of a loved and cherished, but dying wife - one who, in her days of youth and beauty, when you proposed to her to seek a home in a new wild land, took your hand in hers and spoke to you words like this: 'Whither thou goest, I will go, and where thou lodgest, I will lodge; thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God; when thou diest I will die, and there will I be buried; the Lord do so to me and more also, if aught but death part me and thee.' Or perhaps some brave boy, stricken down in the pride of his strength; or some gentle daughter, fading away in her glorious beauty; or some little prattling babe, folding its weary eyes in the 'dreamless sleep that kisses down its eyelids still.' If so - if there are memories like these, and the unbidden tear wells up to the eye, let it come, and today one and all shed a tear or two to the memory of the 'loved and lost.' "

In compiling this chapter the writer finds some difficulty in establishing the dates of coming and the locations first selected by the pioneer band in this county. Fortunately, there are in libraries of Storm Lake, Council `Bluffs and Sioux City copies of a work published in Sioux City by the journal Company, in 1882, the same being known as "Western Iowa,'' and in which is given an account of the .settlement of thirteen counties situated in western, and especially northwestern, Iowa. This work includes a brief history of Sac county, and its pages are verified by the history of Iowa by that splendid Iowa historian, the late ex-Lieut. Governor B. F. Gue, of Des Moines, who has seen fit to incorporate most of this historical data on Sac county in his four-volume work. The following are extracts from this work published in 1882 at Sioux City:

"The population of this county in 1880 was nine thousand three hundred, but in 1882 it is estimated at eleven thousand. This increase is partly accounted for by the Narrow Gauge railroad (a branch of the Wabash), which is in course of construction and which will run across the county, passing through Sac City, thus giving additional shipping and traveling facilities to the people of the county. Depot grounds for the road have been laid out near the court house." - Northwest Iowa History, 1882.

Perhaps no better, more accurate account of the beginnings in Sac county can be had than to quote from a well-written article published in the local paper, The Sac Sun, December 24, 1881, which reads in part as follows:

"The immense immigration from the Eastern and Central states has for the past two or three years rapidly settled up the lands of Kansas and Nebraska, but of late have been diverted to some extent to the more certainly productive agricultural lands of northwestern Iowa. Many more of these home-seekers might have been induced to settle in this section had the people of Iowa and the Iowa government sooner awakened to the fact that so many thousands of good citizens were passing through Iowa to lands farther from market, and by no means so valuable as those of Iowa, all because the Kansas and Nebraska lands were assiduously advertised, while those of Iowa were undefended under the slanders mentioned in the appended letter. The General Assembly, however, to remedy this evil, appointed Hon. George D. Perkins, of the Sioux City Journal, to the ofhce of commissioner of immigration for Iowa, and appropriated a considerable sum of money for the promotion of inuuigration to this state. Read what Governor Campbell says:

"Newton, Iowa, June 15, 1880.

"Hon. George D. Perkins,
"Commissioner of Immigration for Iowa:

"'Dear Sir - Your invitation to the immigration convention at Sheldon, June 22, received on my return home from an extended trip east. I fully realize the importance of the convention, and the great interests to be considered, and I assure you my hearty sympathy goes out toward any effort that will tend to direct public attention to your beautiful country and fertile soil, and point the tens of thousands of homeless ones to that fair country that offers such splendid advantages for permanent homes and prosperous futures. During my visit east I had occasion to 'talk up' northwestern Iowa in several localities and I found:

"1. In total ignorance of the fact that so large a territory in Iowa lies open yet to settlement, the impression having obtained that a state with over a million and a half of people must be well settled up.

"2. I found the old 'grasshopper still sitting on the sweet potato vine' in the prejudices of many and it was only the work of a moment to convince them that the 'grasshopper' was long since a dead issue in any portion of Iowa.

"3. The terrible storms and daily hurricanes of wind were held up before me, and I told them they were more a native of Missouri or even Ohio, than northwestern Iowa, and that the settlement of our state, the planting of groves, etc., had very materially changed the climate.

"These are only a few of the objections urged, but among the most weighty, and I name them that you may see the objections that obtain in various quarters. There are tens of thousands in the East who would be glad to find homes in northwest Iowa, were they fully acquainted with the true condition of things, climate, soil, prjces of land, terms, etc.

"With thanks for your invitation, and regret that I cannot be present, I am your well-wisher and friend.

"Frank T. Campbell"

"This sketch is intended principally as a pen picture of Sac county, as it now is, and will include a short outline of its history and a few incidents of the life of the early settlers.

"The soil of Sac county is a deep black loam, and in its nature is purely vegetable decomposition. Its depth is from eighteen inches to five or six feet. In some parts of the county the surface is almost perfectly level for long distances, but in general it is of the genuine 'rolling prairie' description. The inexhaustability of the soil is shown by the fact that farms which have been under cultivation for from twenty to twenty-five years are now as fertile and productive as ever. More than that - the land may be plowed here when it is so wet that it is almost impossible to do the work, and it will not bake.

"As regards the productiveness of Sac county, perhaps as efifective a way of showing whether the detractors of northwestern Iowa, mentioned in Governor Campbell's letter, are right or wrong, will be to give our readers the benefit of some of the observations of the Hon. Eugene Criss, a pioneer and resident of Sac county for more than a quarter of a century. Judge Criss says that his average yield of corn in his twenty-five years' residence has been from forty to fifty bushels per acre, and the highest vield was sixtv-five bushels. Average yield of oats, forty to fifty; highest vield. seventy-five; average yield of wheat, fifteen to eighteen bushels; this, remember, is his personal experience, and with only fair cultivation, no fancy farming, that he knows of at least two of his neighbors who have raised as high as forty bushels of wheat per acre. Others, too, have raised, in more than one neighborhood, from seventy to eighty bushels of corn to the acre, and this with no extra amount of cultivation. The principal agricultural products of Sac countv, and this section generally, are corn, wheat, oats, flax, barley, rye and grass. Timothy, clover and blue grass grow readily and will make Sac county, at an early day, one of the leading stock and dairy counties in Iowa. And Iowa is, with rapid strides, coming into the head of all states in dairy products. We will put Judge Criss on the stand again in regard to the advantages for stock raising.

"We have stated that the tame grasses grow rapidly. Besides that fact, it is also true that Kentucky blue grass is rapidly coming of itself in places where it has never been sown. Along fence corners, along paths made by cattle through the lirush and in the pastures, in spots where the timber and underbrush have been cleared, in door yards and other places, in some mysterious way that sweetest and best of feed for stock is rapidly making its appearance. It is a matter which the writer does not understand, but it is a good thing, and we are glad to see that this section is so fortunate. Grass is alwavs sufficiently high to turn stock out at a date varying in the different years from April 1st to April 30th. And now we produce Judge Criss's testimony. The Judge is a Virginian by birth, but has had some years' experience farming in Maryland. After many years' experience in the two states, it is his firm belief that both cattle and horses do better 'running out' during the winter months in this part of the state than they do in Maryland. This, our readers will observe, is not guess work or the dictum of a traveler or chance observer, but the carefully considered verdict of experience.

LOCATION OF SAC COUNTY

"Sac county is on the Great Divide, as the water-shed between the Missouri and Mississippi is called. It is in the northwestern part of Iowa, being the fourth county from the north line, the sixth from the southern and the third from the Missouri river, while it is tenth from the Mississippi. Sac City, the center of government, and not far from the geographical center, is about fifty miles by wagon road west from Fort Dodge and eighty-five miles southeast from Sioux City.

"Sac county contains sixteen congressional townships, west of the Des Moines river. It contains three hundred and sixty-nine thousand six hundred and forty acres, nearly all of which is desirable land for either grain or stock purposes, and the larger part for either or both combined. The larger part of these lands are railroad property and these can be purchased by homeseekers, who will occupy them at once, on the most liberal terms. Many of the private holders are also selling on nearly if not quite as easy terms as the railroad land companies. And as for the grasshopper and tornado bugbears, it is perfectly safe to say that the farmers of Indiana and Ohio are as much annoyed by them, and have as much prospect for annoyance from them, as the Sac county grower of grain and stock. Sum up these advantages, and the reader will readily see why the population has been rapidly increasing ever since the opening of the railroad communication. Let those who have doubts give the county a visit and they will hesitate no longer. Sac county has not even the drawbacks so common to these fertile counties of northwest Iowa. What this is, is too well understood by the settlers who early located in the extreme northwest part of this state, before there were railroads to deliver coal at every man's door. Many counties in this section had little or no timber. Ida county, for instance, had less than a thousand acres within its borders. Sac county had many thousand acres of oak, black walnut, hickory, ash, elm, maple, box-elder, cottonwood, linn (basswood), and many other varieties native to this soil. The Coon river, that traverses the east part of the county, lies buried in woods for almost its entire length. Cordwood is delivered at from four to five dollars a cord, according to quality. The timber culture laws of the state - relieving land from taxes for ten years in consideration of the culture of a certain portion of forest trees - have also caused so extensive a growth of forest trees that there is probably more timber now in the county than before the first axe was struck on the banks of the classic Coon.

EARLY SETTLERS AND FRUIT-GROWING

"The early settlers of Sac county, though they had the advantage of being able to try fruit culture under the protection of [a] considerable belt of timber, had small faith in the country as adapted to the growth of fruits. Hence, little was done ten or twelve years after the county was first settled. When proper attention was given to the matter, it was speedily demonstrated that Sac county was really well fitted for fruit growing, and there are now many fruit orchards, vineyards and small fruit gardens growing on the fair surface of Sac-shire. Apples, grapes, plums, cherries, strawberries, raspberries, blackberries, currants, gooseberries and other fruits grow rapidly and yield surely and abundantly, while the quality is unsurpassed anywhere. This section is the garden spot of Iowa, as Iowa is the Garden state of the Union. The dry, pure air of our unexcelled climate gives to trees and plants a healthy growth, and the fruits and vegetables are solid and delicately flavored and handsomely tinted. You can say the California fruit is larger; so you may say a pumpkin is larger than an apple, but how about the taste of the two? Our western Iowa apples are of a medium size, of the finest flavor and will keep much longer than any apple grown in a warmer climate. Therefore, the Iowa apple is in the near future the apple of commerce, and it is not unlikely that the principal future industry of Iowa may be fruit growing. But not apples alone. Nowhere does the Concord grape come to such perfection as in Iowa."

THE FIRST TO MAKE SETTLEMENT

Coming down to the first settlement question in Sac county, the above authority continues:

"The first settlement was made by Otho Williams, who came from Michigan in the autumn of 1853, with his family, and took up a claim in the timber near Grant City, in the southeastern part of the county. He and his family were the first white inhabitants of Sac county, but during the two succeeding years quite a number of settlers made their homes either in the same neighborhood or in the vicinity of Sac City, and Otho Williams, at the end of about two years, complained that 'folks are gitten' too thick 'round yer,' and he and his family 'folded their tents like the Arabs, and silently stole away.' In other words, they sold their claims and disappeared in the direction of the setting sun. No one knows where they went or where their remains now lie.

"In the spring of 1854 Leonard Austin, F. M. Cory, William Wine and David Metcalf, with their families, W. A. Montgomery, with his mother and sister, and S. W. Wagoner and Harry Evans, single men, took up claims in the county. In August, 1855, came in Eugene Criss and family, locating near Sac City. A few days later William H. Hobbs located in the same neighborhood. During the autumn the population of Sac county was augmented by the arrival of John Condron, Joseph Lane, Joseph Williams and S. L. Watt and families, all of whom became permanent settlers. So far as can be now learned, this constituted the population in the county up to the close of the year 1855."

So much for the early settlement as given by those who have lived outside the county, but a more definite, and perhaps comprehensive, statement is the following gathered from such men as those now living in the county, who were among that pioneer band and ought to know:

In 1854, on the 4th day of September, there came a little colony from Jones county, Iowa, made up of the families of F. M. Cory, W. V. LaGourge and his family, David McAfee and family, Leonard Austin and family, and Joseph Austin, the first blacksmith in Sac county, who was a single man and who had a dog which troubled the Indians who roamed back and forth here, and they told him he must kill his dog or they would kill him. He refused at first, but seeing they intended to kill him unless he did, he wisely killed the dog, which doubtless saved the entire settlement from being murdered, for they dare not kill one and not the whole settlement.

The winter of 1854-55 was an open, mild season throughout. The winter of 1855-56 was without much snow, but quite cold.

The winter - the memorable "hard winter" - of 1856-57, was one of universal severity throughout the entire West. Snow was from three to four feet on a level all over western Iowa and many of the deer were lost by breaking through the crusted snow banks, which caused their slender little limbs to be snapped like pipe stems It is stated upon the best of authority that literally thousands were thus destroved.

The next settlement was that of 1855, when a larger number found their way to Sac county and became permanent settlers. Among these may be recalled the following: Along the Coon river, upstream from Sac City, as far as Lee's Grove, in what is now Douglas and Delaware townships, the settlers were the two Vetalls, William and Adam, who brought in a large herd of cattle from Illinois; William Wine, who operated the first store in the settlement at Lee's Grove; William Allen and family; James Davis, WilIiam Davis, Eugene Criss and family, and a Mr. Avers and a Mr. Joiner; also William Fulks and Judge S. L. Watt, who became the first county judge here in 1856. This doubtless made up all the settlement in this county up to the end of 1855.

In 1856 the additions to the settlement included the Tiberghiens, still residing here; Henry Evans, Asa Platt, Roliert and George Browning, Mr. D Wren, William lnpson, Messrs. Condron, W. H. Hobbs, George Stocker and D. Carr Early, with possibly a few more.

Hugh Cory and many others hereabouts verify the statement made above concerning the first actual settler, Otho Williams, the roaming trapper and hunter, who must have been here as early as 1852 and remained but about four years and moved on to a country where civilized life woukl not molest him. Nothing is known of him after leaving this county. While he was the first white man to inhabit this county, the first to set stakes with the intention of becoming permanent were those of the 1854 colony, the Corys, etc.

One pioneer experience is related of the late Hon. D. Carr Early, who in about 1S56 came from Ohio by river to Burlington, Iowa, thence to Waterloo by stage coach and on foot to Fort Dodge, and on to .Sac City. He was two days coming from Fort Dodge, a distance of fifty miles. He preempted the northwest quarter of section 12, township 89, range 36, it being necessary to visit the land office, then at Sioux City, a distance of ninety miles, which he made in three days. On reaching Sioux City, Mr. Early (then a young man) was surprised to find that this "city," the headquarters for the United States land office, consisted of a one-story frame house, one log cabin and three canvas tents. The first named was the land office, and the log house was the "city hotel." Returning to his claim, he built a log cabin, completing it about June 1st the same year (1856), and he lived in it until the end of three months without either flooring or chinking it. The house was simply the bare logs laid together. He also raised an acre of potatoes that summer and also was compelled to raise a small amount of corn in order to make his pre-emption claim good. In January, 1857, pioneer Early sold his pre-emption of a hundred and sixty acres for six dollars an acre, netting him in cash nine hundred and sixty doljars. The land was not worth more than this sum in 1879. This gentleman was later known far and near as "Judge Early." He took the cash named above and had a load of flour brought from Anamosa, for which he paid seven dollars per hundred weight and had to sell the same at eight dollars, so did not make anything clear for his speculation. Worse still, he sold part of the load of flour to people on credit and never received the pay for it.

POSTAL FACILITIES

At that early day, 1856 and 1857, Fort Dodge was the nearest postoffice to Sac county. In the autumn of 1856, when Sac county was organized, there were but eighty-five votes in the county and at that date mail had to be carried by able-bodied men, taking turns in going to Fort Dodge. They had to swim or ford several streams and get through Hell slough and Purgatory slough on the way there and back. One pioneer who has gone through this experience describes a trip during which he had to swim Purgatory slough on a horse with the United States mail for Sac county in one hand and his clothing under his arm. Another pioneer states that not far from the same place, and at about this time, a man was hired to carry the mail at twenty-five cents a letter. Papers would be carried only when the roads were in suitable condition.

In the spring of 1858 the settlers in congressional townships 87, 88 and 89, in range 36, now forming the civil townships of Wall Lake, Jackson and Delaware, thought there was good reason to fear that all vacant land in those townships would be bid in by speculators at the annual land sale at Sioux City, thus preventing its immediate settlement. Nearly all the settlers, though not ready at the time to buy, wanted some of this land for their own use. They, therefore, met together and arranged matters, and when the day of sale came, the room in which the sale was held was filled with these settlers, and no others could force their way in. No bids were made, and the land was thus kept open for pre-emption - really a wise movement on the part of the pioneers of this county. While it was possibly a little "shadv" in its looks, it certainly worked to the bettermeut of Sac county and its first settlers, who had no use for "land speculators," who usually held lands for high prices and thus delayed advancement in all new countries.

The first mill in this county was erected on the Coon river, near Grant City, late in the autumn of 1856, the season that has ever since been styled in Iowa the "hard winter of 1856-57." The snow of that never-to-be-forgotten winter was fully three feet on a level, and in places it completely filled the deepest ravines and valleys, and when crusted after a February thaw, the crust was so hard that a team and heavy load could be, and was, drawn for miles without breaking through. That was the winter in which tens of thousands of deer perished by reason of having no grass to eat and because of broken limbs caused by breaking through the icy crusts of the snow. It was during that winter that pioneers in Sac City and its vicinity hauled grists of corn to Grant City to the mill just mentioned. Other provisions were usually hauled from Fort Des Moines, as our state capital was then known.

It is related by Asa Platt that he shot and killed a buffalo over the line in Buena Vista county, and that while several were seen in this county, it is not known now that any white man ever killed one in the county.

The Corys and others were compelled to split rails all one winter to secure sufficient rails with which to fence against the deer and elk which would otherwise have destroyed the growing crops. They seemed to be very numerous and not altogether as wild as such animals usually are. Great droves of them would congregate on the ice at Hell slough and other lakes in Calhoun county, and there browse upon the wild prairie grass of which muskrats had built their homes. During the latter part of August, 1857, a party of surveyors found a man dead in a slough on the prairie who was supposed to have been murdered, as a ball had passed through his back. The remains were not identified, and at the date of discovery the affair created great excitement.

The nearest postoffice was at Fort Dodge. The early settlers would frequently meet at Sac City and hire some one to go up after their mail, paying twenty-five cents for each letter or paper received. They also had to go there for their blacksmithing and much of their early milling.

OTHER SETTLEMENT DATES

At the fiftieth birthday anniversary of the twins, Lamont Lee and Mrs. D. B. Keir, children of Mrs. M. F. Lee, which occurred in the summer of 1913 in Douglas township, this county, the following roster of early settlers was made up, and from the large number mentioned as still surviving, it naturally finds a place in this "early settlement" chapter. It is as follows:

C. Everett Lee, editor, of Lytton, [1856 ?]
Mrs. D. Carr Early, 1856
J. W. Tiberghien, 1856
Mrs. J. W. Tiberghien, 1860
Mrs. Eugene Criss, 1855
Orville Lee, 1860
George I. Cory, 1854
Mrs. George L Cory, 1859
Mrs. George A. Heagy, 1856
G. L. Stocker, 1856
Asa Platt, 1856
Mr. and Mrs. James Staton, 1859
Mr. and Mrs. H. M. Cory, 1854
Mrs. Amos Comstock, 1856
S. L. Watt, 1855
Mrs. John Stocker, 1855
Mrs. William Conley, 1853
Elias Tiberghien, 1856
J. E. Austin. 1863
Abe Basler, 1856
C. Everett Lee, 1862
Mrs. W. G. Wine, 1855

Judge Samuel L. Watt, who died in 1878, was a settler in 1855. He was the first county judge of Sac county and was here at the organization of the county; he issued the first marriage license in this county to William Montgomery and M. E. Wine. He also issued the first naturalization papers in the county to a foreigner.

NATURAL RESOURCES

Concerning the natural resources, etc., of this county, the following was written in that well-known publication, the Western Rural, by their special correspondent at Wall Lake, in 1878:

"Our county is rapidly settling up, car loads of immigrants arriving almost daily. There are townships in the county already where the land has all been sold; still there is any quantity of excellent land still on the market in other portions of the county. To men in the East, who are living (or trying to live) on rented farms, we would say, sell what you have for cash and come West, buy a farm of your own, say eighty acres, at a cost of about five hundred dollars, or an improved farm at twenty dollars per acre. Our soil is of the very best quality, society good, educational advantages most excellent - no state in the Union being superior. We have pure water at from twelve to thirty feet; the climate is very healthful - we have never seen a case of fever and ague here yet. Every description of farm produce brings remunerative prices; stock raisers do the best here, however. Iowa ships more stock to Chicago in one week than all Illinois does in four. Cattle do well from being herded from May 1st to October 1st; the price for herding is seventy-five cents, and salt thrown in. Any amount of wild hay may be had by simply cutting it."

LIST OF HALF CENTURY SETTLERS

At the Fourth of July celebration held at Sac City in 1906 a call was made through the Sac Sun for all to report who had lived in Sac county fiftv years and more, and all who did so would be furnished free conveyance in automobiles to the grounds and given seats of prominence and honor on the speaker's stand. The following registered their names as having resided here fifty or more years:

J W. Wren
J. S. Tiberghien
Elias Tiberghien
J. W. Tiberghien
Mrs. J. W. Tiberghien
E. D. Whitney
Abraham Basier
Mrs. Anna Comstock
George I. Cory
W. G. Wine
S. L. Platt
James Basier
H. W. Cory
Mrs. Eugene Criss
G. L. Stocker
Asa Platt
Mrs. George A. Heagy
Andrew Impson
Mrs. George Hicks
John Condron
Mrs. Asa Platt
Mrs. W. A. Irvine
Wi!liam Impson, Jr.
Mrs. William Impson, Sr.
James Shelmerdine

PROSPERITY OF COUNTY IN 1880

The Sac Sun said of the prosperity of this county in 1880 - a third of a century ago - that "the most prosperous year in the history of Sac county is this year (1880). The vote has increased forty-three per cent over 1879. The population of the county has been added to the old number to the amount of two thousand. Many new farms have been opened up; a large number of buildings have been erected. In way of factory industries have been added this year a flax mill at Odebolt: a steam flouring mill, with four run of stones, by Henry Reinhart. Flour from these mills is sold all throughout this section of Iowa and as far east as Dixon, Illinois. Crops ranging from seventeen to twenty-two bushels of spring wheat; oats, from thirty to forty bushels per acre; corn, from forty-eight to sixty bushels; flax, eleven bushels. The average of wheat for the county was seventeen and a half bushels per acre; average of corn was forty-four bushels; oats, forty-one bushels; flax, twelve bushels.

"Land sales were reported by Schaller & Early and D. Carr Early amounting to more than fifty thousand acres - all to actual settlers - equal to two full townships, or one-eighth of the entire county.

"Stock has been shipped to the amount of one hundred and seventy-five car loads; E. Criss shipped eleven cars of wheat; Criss & Hanger, thirtv-five car loads of wheat, five cars of corn; five of oats; two of barley; eight of flax; three of rye; while J. E. Robbins shipped thirty cars of wheat and twentv-six of corn. Condron & Woodward shipped out thirty cars of wheat; thirty of corn; seven of oats; six of flax. The total of one hundred and six cars of wheat; ninety-one of corn; twenty-four of oats; two of barley; twenty of flax seed; three of rye, making a grand total of two hundred and forty-six cars of grain from Sac City.

"The total rainfall for 1880 was twenty-three inches; highest temperature, one hundred degrees; lowest twenty degrees below; mean temperature, fifty-six and one-half degrees."

BURNING CORN

The Sac Sun of Decemloer 6, 1872, said: "Several families in town, and we believe many more in the country, are burning corn for fuel. It is considered cheaper than wood, and it is almost impossible for those who do not own timber land themselves to obtain a supply of fire wood. The day for stealing timber from non-resident timber land owners is about gone forever in Sac countv, as most of the timber is now owned by actual settlers themselves and they don't care to part with much of it. It seems to us a good plan for farmers to burn corn and sell their wood if they have any timber. They can't sell corn for even fifteen cents in cash now and that is less than it costs to raise it."

LAND VALUES

After having gone over the early settlement question, in this connection it may be well to insert what prosperity had come to Sac county in 1912, as shown by a letter from Omaha by an early pioneer of this county, the same being published in the Sac Sun in October, 1912: "Having been a reader of your paper since 1872, I would like enough space to say a word concerning the present high priced lands in Sac county, which is now about two hundred dollars per acre. I saw this same land sell at from three to five dollars per acre in 1871. I sold two hundred and forty acres in 1902 for thirty-six thousand dollars, it being the first to reach so high a figure. I said at that time it would sell for two hundred dollars per acre in less than five years. The same fall I bought a two-hundred-acre tract in Washington county, Nebraska, for one hundred dollars per acre and only last week refused one hundred and fifty dollars for it, and I predict it will be worth two hundred and fifty dollars before it is transferred again. Only last week Arthur Brandeis, of Omaha, sold two hundred and ninety acres to an Iowa man for sixty thousand dollars. This is going some and the end is not yet.''

THE SWEDISH SETTLEMENT

The history of the Swedish settlement in the southwestern part of Sac county cannot be written without repeating a part of the history of the Swedish settlement in Crawford county, where, only a mile or two south of the county line, we find the first Swedish settlers in the year 1867, when C. J. Star, C. P. Frodig and N. F. Rodine, who had been living in Webster county, decided to locate here, after a trip to the Missouri bottoms, which land they thought too flat. They were joined by five of their friends in the fall of the same year and in 1868 Mr. Star wrote to his friend, A. Norelius in Minnesota, and told him of the rich country they had found. Mr. Norelius started across the country in a "prairie schooner'" (covered wagon), accompanied by H. Buller, E. Ward and J. Nordell.

Mr. Norelius informed the writer that the first settlers did not know to whom lo apply for deeds to the land they had selected until in the fall of 1868, when the enterprising and courteous agent of the Iowa Railroad Land Company, William Hamilton, appeared among them. He at once decided to reserve a number of sections for Swedish settlers, including the southwest corner of Sac and the southeast of Ida counties. Mr. Hamilton brpught Swedish landseekers to this locaHty from time to time. Being located so close to the less rolling and richer prairies in the western part of Sac county, it did not take the settlers long to cross into the new counties near by.

A postoffice was established in 1873 one mile south of the Sac county line, which Mr. Norelius and Lars Olson decided to name Kiron, which is an abbreviation of the scriptural name of a brook called Kidron.

Among the first to erect buildings in Sac county at this point at that time were the families of John Nordell, John Larson, Erick Olson and N. Lindblad.

Sol Peterson, representing the Swedish people who worked in the coal mines of Boone county, built his house in 1874, and soon came in Andrew Dolk and family; also Henry Hanson and wife, from New York state. John Baker was one of the first to break the virgin sod and raise a crop. None of the first settlers were rich, but they had some means acquired by hard work either in the mines or on the farm. As a rule their earthly possessions were strong arms, good health, ambition to succeed and faith in God. They were of an intense religious temperament, having separated from the state church in Sweden after the big revivals which spread over that country in the middle of the last century. The community spirit was strong and after the building of the new railroad north of the settlement a society was organized called the .Swedish Farmers' Society. They bought and shipped grain and live stock at the new town of Odebolt. Henry Hanson was chosen as manager, and John A. Stolt as secretary. Another evidence of the progressive spirit of this community was the organization of the Mutual Insurance Association in March, 1879. A. Norelius was president; N. F. Rodine, vice-president; C. J. Johnson, secretary; and August Lundell, treasurer. This association has enjoyed a steady growth and at present time (1914) has twelve hundred members scattered throughout eight counties, including Sac. Andrew Norelius, after being secretary for many years, resigned in 1913, owing to old age, and P. G. Lundell was elected. August Lundell is president; John A. Pithan, vice-president, and W. J. Sandburg, treasurer.

The farmers of this locality were among the first to organize a mutual telephone company, which they did in 1901. Kiron has had two rural free delivery routes, a year before some of the older towns near by. Many of the farm homes are now lighted by acetylene or gas and heated by the most up-to-date methods. Automobiles can now he seen on most of the farms. No people from the continent of Europe are quicker to learn the language and adopt American customs than the Swedish people.

The first Swedish people of this community were Baptists. They organized a church in 1869, holding services in a school house until 1876, when a church building was erected two miles south of the Sac county line. Upon the completion of the Mondamin branch of the Chicago & Northwestern railway in 1899. The Baptist church was moved to the new town of Kiron, which the railroad company located one mile west of what is now known as old Kiron.

The influx of new settlers brought in many Lutherans, the state church of Sweden being of that denomination On July 28. 1875, a congregation was organized by Rev. J. Telleen of Des Moines, and in the fall of 1878 a church was built in the township of Wheeler, Sac county, one half mile north of the Crawford county line. The flrst regular pastor was Rev. P. A. Philgren, who came from Clinton county, Iowa, in 1881. He was succeeded in 1887 by Rev. S. J. Liljegren of Algona. He was remoyed by death in 1890. Then came in their order the following pastors: Revs. A. M. Broleen, Jules Manritzson, J. A. Benamler, E. C. Jessup and J. A. Christianson, present pastor in charge. The church edifice has been remodeled twice and enlarged, with basement and reception parlors. A twelve-hundred-pound bell was placed in the tower of the church in 1891. The present membership is nearly three hundred. Both the church and parsonage are lighted by acetylene and the church is heated by a furnace and the parsonage by hot water radiators. The value of the church property is eight thousand dollars.

In addition to the Baptists and Lutherans, there are the Covenant Mission and the Free Mission societies, which erected church buildings in the early eighties. The Covenant Mission built a church just across the Sac county line in Ida county. This was sold in 1908, the members uniting with the mission at Odebolt. The Free Mission church was moved to Kiron in 1899, from its location a mile and a half southeast of the new town. A Baptist church and also a Free Mission church were erected five miles north of Kiron in Hays township, Ida county, in the early eighties. This made six county churches in the settlement prior to the advent of the railroad.

Sweden was one of the first countries in the world to make education compulsory. All the first settlers could therefore read and write in their own language. And schools were erected among the settlers just as soon as districts could be organized and enough children located to attend them. The school houses were used on Sundays for public worship by the various denominations, until they were able to erect church buildings of their own.

Among the trials of these early pioneer settlers came the grasshopper plague in the late seventies, and the diphtheria epidemic at about the same time in which almost forty children perished, some families losing four or five of their members. A cyclone struck through the south part of this Swedish settlement in the spring of 1878, destroying considerable property and killing one of the settlers, John Larson. Three or four settlers in Wheeler township lost their lives during the small pox epidemic in the winter of 1881-82. which started at the house of Doctor Stevens in Levey township.

At the present date, from sixty to eighty per cent, of the papulation of the townships of Stockholm and Otter Creek, in Crawford county; Hays township, Ida county, and Wheeler township, Sac county, are of Swedish nationality. The people, as a general rule, are now thoroughly Americanized, the younger element using the English language, except at their religious services, in which both languages are used.

Many of the settlers have bestowed upon their children the benefits of a higher education. Ministers, lawyers, doctors and successful business men can be named who were born and reared in this Swedish community, now conceded one of the best and most prosperous in all western Iowa.

Chapter IV Pioneer Settlement of the County 1914

Chapter IV
Pioneer Settlement of the County
1914