Chapter IV
John H. Douglass came to Osceola County
in October 1871, driving through by wagon from Wisconsin. He had
with him his wife and daughter, now Mrs. Henry Newell, and son.
Mr. Douglass filed on the southwest quarter of Section 14,
Township 110, Range 42, and made the usual settlement and
improvements required of a settler, and in November of that year
went to Allamakee County, Iowa for the winter. In the spring of
1872 Mr. Douglass and family returned to their claim, and got
here toward the latter part of March. He started before the frost
was out of the ground and while the roads might be fit for
travel, but when he reached Osceola County, it was breaking up,
and the Spring weather had thawed the snow away and the rivers
and creeks were running with water. Mr. Douglass came to the
Ocheyedan, that treacherous stream with which every incoming
settler seems to have had an adventure, and the prospect of
getting over was unfavorable, for the appearance of the stream to
cross it was neither promising nor inviting. Doglass arrived at
the bank of the Ocheyedan at the Buchman place on the evening of
March 7, 1872. The river was narrow at this point but was yet
filled with snow, but soft and watery on the surface. He first
assisted his family across, and after this was done together with
the transportation of a few articles, he was making arrangements
to get the horses and wagon over, when the water began to pour
down the river over the snow, which startled Douglass with
surprise, and confronted him with a difficulty entirely
unexpected. He unhitched the horses, tied them to the wagon and
then started across, wading in the water on the snow, treading
lightly; knowing the danger of being completely submerged. But it
seems that he was not to escape so easily, for when about midway
down, in he went, and when the bottom was reached his head was
just above water. There happened to be at the Buchman shack, H.
G. Doolittle and his brother. These, with the Douglass family,
rescued the venturesome settler and brought him out on the bank,
but in a deplorable condition of wet and cold. The next morning
the river was still worse, but the Douglass effects were divided
and something had to be done. The horses and the wagon with the
household goods, including a barrel of pork and two pigs in a box
strapped on behind, were on the other side, and they must be
brought over, let the sacrifice be what it may. Douglass, with a
board or two, a rope and such other devices as the ingenuity of
man will bring into requisition under such circumstances, was
enabled to get over to his effects, and, finding them all right,
the troublesome question again arose as to how to get them over.
Douglass on one side and his friends and family on the other,
discussed the difficulty in all its bearings, and the task seemed
to be hopeless, and the question without any probability of a
solution. Finally Douglass was seized with an idea. He had tied
to the wagon a red cedar bedstead, which had come down as an
heirloom in his wife's family from the old Knickerbocker days in
New York State, and which had been prized from generation to
generation. It was of the old-fashioned kind, about enough
material in it to have absorbed a lumberyard, and with posts of
enormous length and size. Douglass got this out, and by a system
of mechanical contrivance formed a raft that seemed capable of
greater navigation than that for which it was intended. Mrs.
Douglass protested, but had to look on while this sacred relic
from her ancestors was fast being transformed from its original
construction, into nothing but a float for the purpose of
ferrying. John succeeded, however, with the help of the others,
in taking over the barrel of pork and the other household goods,
until all was over except the horses and wagon. He tied a rope to
one horse and this to the other and they were led single file,
and by swimming and clambering they were soon on the other bank.
Then came the wagon. With this, they tied a rope in the end of
the tongue and hitching the rope to the horses started with the
wagon across. When the hind end of the wagon went down the bank,
the box with the pigs in struck the bank and broke off, letting
the pigs loose, and they went squealing away, glad to escape. The
tongue stuck into the opposite bank, but this was soon pulled
loose and the wagon drawn out. The pigs with the aid of the
family dog were soon caught and got over, and Douglass heaved a
sign of relief. It took all day, however, to do the crossing, and
the next day he started on northwest to his claim, and came near
having the same experiences in crossing the Otter that he had at
the Ocheyedan, but he finally landed at his shack and soon was
set up in the usual style of homesteader housekeeping.
William Anderson came with Douglass in 1871. He also settled on a
claim and lived here, we think, until 1877, when he returned to
Wisconsin, and now lives at Sparta.
The spring of 1872 was a troublesome one in Osceola County for
traveling. Then the streams had no bridges, and the treacherous
snow underlying the surface water was no inviting to venture in.
After a limited thaw in the forepart of March there was part of a
brief winter again, and it seemed to the people then that an
actual spring was never coming.
Quite a number of the early settlers came from Grant County,
Wisconsin, so that even if they didn't know each other there,
when acquaintance was made between these Wisconsin people it
established a mutual feeling of interest in each other, for there
is always an attachment arises between people of the same
nativity, where the same sights and scenes were familiar to them
all.
D. D. McCallum also came from Grant County, Wisconsin. he started
from there the forepart of May and drove to Clayton County, and
soon after on to Osceola County, where he arrived about the
middle of June, and on the 25th day of June 1872 filed on
northwest quarter of Section 14, Township 99, Range 40, what is
now West Ocheyedan. McCallum drove in with three horses and a
lynch-pin wagon; had with him his wife and one child (now Mary
McCallum); had a few household goods, pork enough to last several
years and $105 in money. He first struck the Ocheyedan River at
what was called the Lone Tree ford, drove northwest until he came
to Mandeville Homestead, on Section 26, Township 99, Range 41,
and there he camped for the night. The next day he went to
Buchman's, riding one horse and leading another. Buchman mounted
the other horse and the two men rode over the country looking for
a claim upon which McCallum could settle. He finally selected the
one before described, went to Sibley the next day, borrowed a
saddle from Ward-leaving his revolver as security-and started for
Sioux City, where he arrived safely and did his filing.
McCallum's first habitation after settlement was his wagon cover,
and once installed in this he went to work breaking, and planted
some potatoes. He soon after put up a sod house; lived on the
claim until 1878, when he moved into Sibley. McCallum, like a
great many others in those early days, had a hard time of it.
Soon his money was gone, no income was in sight, and only those
of the McCallum pluck were able to see it through. His house,
lumber and furniture, and all its belongings, cost about $20; so
that in those days of settlement, our ex-Judge was not in shape
to entertain any of the kid glove or swallow-tail-coat members of
fashionable society.
In the winter of 1872 and 1873 McCallum was in Sioux City
chopping wood, and remaining there until the memorable blizzard
in the spring of 1873, when feeling alarmed about his family, he
returned home. Soon after this in the summer season Elder Dean,
while burning the prairie grass around his property, carelessly
let the fire get away from him, and it swept, as a prairie fire
will when turned loose, all over the country. This fire swept
away all McCallum's hay and all other loose property, except the
house.
The Elder, in spite of all his religious graces, his Godly ways
and good intentions, was very much blamed for his carelessness,
and had he been a layman it is hard to tell what might have
occurred as a penalty. As it was, McCallum had the Elder
arrested, brought before a Justice, who found the accused guilty
and fined him $5 and costs, which he paid. The Board of
Supervisors had offered a reward of $50 for the apprehension and
conviction of a party who was the cause of a prairie fire.
McCallum in this case was entitled to it and got it. This affair
did not cause any hard feelings between the Elder and McCallum;
indeed, the Elder had not the slightest animosity, for he was a
man of broad views, kind and charitable, as well as a sincere
Christian. McCallum rode home with the Elder and staid all night
at the Elder's house, and out of the $50 McCallum magnanimously
reimbursed him for all the outlay and trouble he had been put to
through brought about by his own carelessness. In other words,
McCallum whacked up with the Elder.
Prairie fires then in this sparsely settled country were very
much to be feared. Whenever they occurred but few were prepared
for them. They were not set maliciously, and with any intention
to do harm, but were always the result of carelessness or
inability to hold them against sudden puffs of wind unexpected,
when the burning around was done without still atmosphere.