2020 North Dakota - part 10: later changes for those around Cavalier - Travel With Us

As the farmers started moving to the Dakotas, the land and the people started really changing. Where we were looking in depth at a few topics, in this post and the next one we’ll be taking a brief look at a number of topics covering the people and their families that cover the 50 years from 1870-1920.

This center concentrates on the early settlers of this northeast corner of ND, but their experience is similar to those who settled the rest of the state using their wits and hard work to make life tolerable in this new land.

steamboats and stagecoaches

More people meant more traveling around. A challenge, competition, and an entrepreneurial spirit started the steamboat industry.

Let’s look at this information in detail.

While ox carts worked for early settlers, they weren’t the most efficient way to move more than 1000 pounds at a time, and they were slow.

Steamboats on the Red River were sternwheelers 15-30 feet wide and up to 100 feet long and could carry between 90 and 200 tons! Often they towed several barges loaded with freight and lumber; once unloaded, the barges were dismantled and the lumber sold. Many of the first lumber houses and businesses built with this lumber still stand today.

Here’s how transportation changed in northeast North Dakota:

Ox carts were in use everywhere up to 1858.
From 1858 to 1880, steamboats pushed the ox carts aside and took over the freight business in the region.
In 1880 the railroads put the steamboats out of business.

This engraving of the *Anson Northrup* is from June 1859.

In 1858-1859, the St. Paul Chamber of Commerce wanted to increase trade with Winnipeg/Fort Garry and so offered $1000 (almost $32,000 today) to anyone who would put a steamboat on the Red River. Anson Northrup from the Minneapolis area took up the challenge. Does the Northrup name sound familiar to you? The name has been around since the 1840s, so descendants may have started the company we know of today.

He ran his boat north on the Mississippi River to Crow Wing, Minnesota, and then dismantled it for portage to the Red River. It took 34 ox teams to haul the pieces across country during the winter of 1858. On the banks of the Red River, the boat he reassembled (with of course the help of others). Its successful launch ushered in the era of steamboating.

Why was Winnipeg such a destination? Because it was settled where the Red River and the Assiniboine River came together. The town was formally incorporated in 1873.

*left:* Old Post House stage stop (info following)
*right:* a stage coach that came through Pembina in 1875. The first stagecoach came to the area in 1859. They were used primarily for business and pleasure trips. Mail, business orders, and money orders were all delivered by stage.

Remember when we learned about Alexander Henry and his Park River trading post that he built along the Red River in 1800? This stagecoach stop we’re talking about now was just south of where this trading post was.

This stop was one of the more comfortable stopping places for weary travelers.

Stage stops were set up for the welfare of the horses, not the passengers. The stations were about 15 miles apart and were so well organized that it took only 10 to 15 minutes to change a team of horses. The type of coach used depended on the weather and condition of the road. By 1889, some 26 stage lines were serving 180 communities in the territory.

organizing the land

As farmers started moving in, they needed organization to settle the land.

Explorers, missionaries, and fur traders started the taming of the land, but it was farmers who changed everything.

The farmers established permanent settlements, accounted for erection of political boundaries, and ensured the future stability of civilization.

This map shows what the U.S. looked like in 1870.

The area in purple was the Dakota Territory from 1861-1863. Where we are is the little square in blue in NE corner of the territory.

In 1861, Congress organized the Dakota Territory that included the area of what is now both North and South Dakota.

Settlement was encouraged by the federal government, but before it was possible, the government had to take the land from the native peoples by military force or by purchase. Once secured, the government had the land surveyed. With the acts we’ll be looking at, the land became available to these new settlers.

Settlers secured their land through government land offices. Each transaction was recorded in an official plat book. The first land office in the area was at Pembina in the far NE corner of the territory (blue square on the previous map).

laws that opened up the land

3 federal acts opened up the land for farmers

Homestead Act was passed in 1862, Preemption Act in 1841, and Timber Culture Act in 1873; let’s look at these acts in the order they were passed.

Pre-Emption Act allowed a settler to buy 160 acres of public-owned land at $1.25/acre ($37.40 today) as long as he or she didn’t already own 320 acres anywhere else. The settler could live on the land for 6 months ahead of time and make certain improvements (a squatter as we know them today).
Homestead Act let a prospective settler buy 160 acres of land as long as he or she had lived on that land for at least 5 years and cultivated some of it during that time. Fees were required when filing and again when the purchase was completed. In 1880, Congress passed a law that allowed a homesteader to purchase land after living on it for only 6 months instead of the 5 years (known as commuting).
Timber Culture Act allowed settlers to gain land by increasing the number of trees on a prairie. Like the Homestead Act, a settler could acquire 160 aces of land if he or she planted 10 acres of trees. If after 8 years the settler could prove that 675 trees were on the 10 acres, the land would become his or hers after paying a fee of $14. (just over $303 today).

measuring the land

In 1775, Thomas Jefferson was involved in creatine the public land management system. Land descriptions that we use today are possible because of the rectangular measurement system his committee envisioned, promulgated, and then put to use.

A previous 21-year trial and error period in Ohio led to this workable system that was adopted as the U.S. land measurement system in 1805. Townships are divided into 6-mile squares. Sections are made from the townships. A section is 1-mile square. Sections are numbered from 1-36 starting in the NE corner. The numbers follow in order across to the west and then back and forth, east to west so that the final number 36 is in the most SE corner.

A section (640 acres) is subdivided into quarters (160 acres), which is then subdivided into halves (80 acres) and then into quarters (40 acres).

Pretty organized way to manage the land, I’d say.

settlement begins

Those coming for a new life on the prairie were motivated by immigration’s “push-pull” forces. They were *pushed* out of Canada, Europe, and the settled areas of the U.S. by overpopulation, religious persecution, poverty, crop failures, dissatisfaction with jobs, financial setbacks, military conscription, political reasons, natural disasters, and famine. The push was also internal since they were risk takers and were willing to go to a new land.

The pull came from the promise of good land for little or no money. Immigrants came by foot, wagon, rail, or steamboat.

In the fall of 1875, Icelandic agents from America went overseas with promises of good land and perfection. About 1200 people made the trip west thinking they were going to Nova Scotia. Instead they ended up even further west in what was known as New Iceland, the name of a region on Lake Winnipeg in Manitoba, which worked out to be better for them.

*left:* man wearing a buffalo coat and cap (known as yesteryear’s mink)
*right:* the early way of transporting supplies

Two brothers went west to start farms from the government land in the Dakota Territory. They encouraged their father to join them for the free land since it was “The land of opportunity. The soil will raise grass shoulder high, and there are no stumps or stones to contend with.”

“During the summer of 1878, almost every farm from the Pembina Mountains on the west to the Red River on the east and the Pembina River just south of the Canadian border was settled.” This is the northeastern area of the state.

coming from afar

Those who settled in northeastern North Dakota primarily came from Canada, Europe, and settled parts of eastern U.S.

This closeup map shows where the immigrants came from.

becoming Americans

So how did all of these immigrants become Americans? We might learn some good lessons from their experience.

Those living in immigrant communities mixed old ways with new. The old ways were preserved in the family, the church, and their social life. The main instrument of their Americanization was the public school where the children learned English and American history and passed it on to their parents.

36 different ethnics lived in this section of North Dakota

railroads changing the landscape

While steamships changed life around the rivers, railroads drastically changed life everywhere else.

The railroad came to this area in the *1880s*. When tracks were laid, some established towns disappeared and others relocated to sites along the railroad line.

In parts of the Dakota territory and further west that were not already settled, the government granted huge tracts of land to the railroads to get them to build across the empty prairies. The railroads selected town sites and advertised their land in the East and in Europe to encourage people to come and establish homes.

The Great Northern Railroad was built in 1887. This work brought employment for many men who left home for work and depended on their wives and children to take care of each other and their farms.

Here’s a train in 1905 moving through the snow. See the snow fence next to a house in the top right corner?

The Great Northern used moveable bunkhouses to house their construction crews. We saw the use of moveable bunkhouses like these today close to the Bakken oil fields in northwestern North Dakota.

early homes

Homes on the prairie changed over the years.

When the settlers came, their first priority was a shelter that could be built quickly and inexpensively since they had to build the shelters themselves. Their first homes were sod houses that were made without mortar, square, plumb, or greenbacks (money).

Sod houses were cool in the summer and warm in the winter. But . . . the roof could leak during a heavy rain and unwelcome creatures could dig their way through the roof and walls.

Other early homes were tar paper shacks, log houses, and dugouts. Ethnic groups tended to build homes like what they had known in their homeland.

*top picture:* tarpaper shack, a well, and a grindstone
*middle picture:* a heat drum was their modern way of heating their homes
*bottom picture:* a family of 3 in front of their home with some square nails to the right

Sod shacks were around 12×16 feet with a small window and 1 door. The woman who wrote this description made the home as comfortable and beautiful as she could.

This drawing shows all that the settlers learned about constructing a sod home. Can you imagine how long it took these settlers to figure out how to successfully build these sod homes?

Sod blocks were 4 inches thick, 18 inches wide, and 3 feet long.

Sod roofs could be up to 16 inches thick and so heavy that they had to be supported by wooden upright poles that were forked to hold a ridgepole. Two lower beams parallel to the ridgepole supported the rafters, and horizontal rafters distributed weight of the roof onto the walls.

Short cedar poles supporting the roof were above the windows. Cloth wadding under the poles absorbed the settling of the sod walls. Windows were double-sashed but had no counterweights so would have to be propped open with sticks to allow fresh air to circulate inside. While appearing flush outside, the window frames are pegged into the walls.

An interior window well provided a dry spot to sit when the roof leaked.

The roofing was made of willow poles covered with layers of chokeberry and plum brush. This layer was topped with mown sod bricks that was then covered with the blocks of grassy sod that we just talked about. Eave boards kept the sod from slipping off.

Have you been wondering how the farmers were able to cut these blocks of sod? This drawing shows a farmer pushing his grasshopper plow to break through the grass roots and cut the sod into long strips that were then divided into blocks. The plow has adjustable rods that hold up the sod strip. So creative.

The floor was hard-packed dirt. After shaving the walls smooth with a sharp spade, they were coated with a plaster made of grey clay and ashes before being whitewashed to deter insects and make the room appear brighter.

Carts were the most common toy on the plains, probably because they could also be useful on the farm. At the bottom of the picture are a variety of styles for sod houses.

These replicas are of later homes. Now we know that the wood to build these homes was from the steamboats that were disassembled for the lumber after bringing supplies to the settlers.

work

Advancement in labor-saving devices, transportation, and communication eventually started making life easier for these early settlers as they gradually were able to take advantage of these inventions.

These pictures give us a look at some settlers at work.

top left: The pennant on the pole helped workers tell time. Halfway down meant it was the half hour. At the top meant it was the top of the hour.
left: Caring for livestock was a family affair.
top center: Mother and daughter washing clothes together.
bottom center: Grading a road using an elevating grader. Did you notice the 12 horses in front of the grader and the 4 horses behind it? These last 4 horses helped turn the grader at the corners of the field.
right: Women were able to handle the teams and wagons too,

*top:* men cutting ice for refrigeration
*left:* using a grindstone in 1897
*bottom:* men taking a coffee break and horses also resting

fun and fellowship

But life on the Plains wasn’t all work. The settlers also found time to play and spend time together.

*left:* a picnic in Cavalier in 1900
*right:* women sledding during the winter
*bottom:* young men playing his violin around 1910; the violin provided music for many festive occasions

The settlers found ways to have fellowship, recreation, and relaxation. The community hall was a place to meet together. Fun activities included dancing, skating, box socials, and team sports. Some get-togethers combined information with fellowship with Chautauqua and political speeches. Self improvement get-togethers included spell downs and community libraries. Fellowship needs apart from going to church was met through quilting bees, the butchering day, and barn raising that combined work with fellowship.

Do you know the word Chautauqua? I didn’t even though I had heard of it. Here’s the definition from Wikipedia. “An adult education and social movement in the United States, highly popular in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Chautauqua assemblies expanded and spread throughout rural America until the mid-1920s. The Chautauqua brought entertainment and culture for the whole community, with speakers, teachers, musicians, showmen, preachers, and specialists of the day. Former U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt was quoted as saying that Chautauqua is ‘the most American thing in America.'”

Young men organized themselves in football teams. This team was from St. Thomas in 1905.

*left:* the Bathgate opera house in 1907
*right:* a group of women enjoying an ice cram social
*bottom:* a Sunday afternoon pastime was enjoying pictures on a stereoscope

top left: a Svold baseball team
*middle:* playing a card game outside while a young boy is watching the horses
*bottom left:* at the Pembina County Fair in the early 1900s, settlers enjoyed a meal at the Presbyterian Eating House
*bottom right:* the Pembina County Fair in 1910

The Pembina County Fair is the oldest, continuous fair in the state in the town of Hamilton. This town was incorporated n 1894 and hosted the first county fair that October.

A band from the town of Mountain playing together in 1892.

Items used by the settlers for fun and recreation.

spiritual life

The settlers brought their faith with them.

In their churches, the settlers expressed their faith and preserved the language and customs of where they had lived. Social lives also centered in their churches where young people met and married, babies were welcomed to the community, and the older generation was laid to rest.

The ethnic ties that sustained those who came here were nurtured in the church.

Early private homes often doubled as churches. The Scottish family who came from Ontario in 1880 built this log house in 1884 and held Gaelic church services here whenever a speaker was available.

Cemeteries were built close to the churches. This picture shows a children’s grave where their names, dates, and ages were described on the stones.

Many children and young people died of such epidemies as smallpox, measles, diphtheria, and whooping cough. Tuberculosis was also prevalent for everyone. North Dakota established a sanitarium at San Haven (north central ND) around 1912.

In Walhalla, these Martyr’s Graves were for protestant missionaries who came to this area to reach out to the Metis and the local Indians. Two of the missionaries were killed by the Indians, and the third died of pneumonia.

*left:* a Lutheran Church in the town of Mountain. It’s the oldest Icelandic church in North America, built in 1884.
*right:* This Polish catholic church at the town of Warsaw (south of where we are) in 1901.

Did you notice that both buildings were made of wood? We know where it came from!

at home

The home was the center of life for the family, especially during the long winters.

While the home was a refuge from the weather and harsh realities of pioneer life, much work had to be done every day, and even the children had their assigned tasks.

Often grandparents and unmarried aunts and uncles lived with the family so that the children learned to respect their elders. The older generation passed on their old ways to the younger generation and helped install the timeless values of good character.

*left:* One young man helps another get ready to go courting.
*middle:* A young woman is waiting in the formal parlor for her beau to come. The parlor was only used for very special occasions. I remember that the sofa in the parlor at my grandfather’s small farm in southern Iowa still had plastic covering it so it would remain pristine for formal use.
*right:* A grandfather rocks his grandchild.

A mother and her 3 children are out in the citron patch. Citron was used to make sauces and jams, as well as was used as flavoring in baking.

Do you know what citron is? I had to look it up. Here’s Wikipedia’s description: “The citron is a large fragrant citrus fruit with a thick rind. It is one of the three original citrus fruits from which all other citrus types developed through natural hybrid speciation or artificial hybridization.” I feel smarter now; how abut you?

*left:* One woman is teaching the other women how to spin and card on on Icelandic spinning wheel.
*right:* An Icelandic man reading in the home; perhaps he’s reading out loud to the children.

*top left:* Eggs, chickens, and butter could be exchanged for other groceries; a summer kitchen was added to the home in this picture.
*top right:* A woman is drawing water from the well at her farm.
*bottom:* The women are being serenated while making a quilt together; see the sewing machine between them?

A family is dressed in the Sunday best, maybe just before going to church?

children

the country school

As soon as the Dakota Territory was organized, the people started organizing their schools. The first school districts were 9 square miles in size, and the federal government set aside land to support the public schools.

In each township, 2 sections were set apart for these schools: sections 16 and 36.

These early schools operated on the interest that came from selling the land for at least $10 (almost $296 today) an acre and then depositing the selling price in the bank.

In one-room schools, the teacher was usually a single woman whose conduct had to be above reproach and who boarded with a nearby family. Married women weren’t allowed to teach until after WWII.

These public schools for a great force for Americanization. Students had courses that encouraged good citizenship, and classes were only taught in English. The students learned this new language quickly and then taught their parents.

The first common school building was erected in Pembina (far NE corner of the state) in 1877. Did you notice that it’s a building made of wood?

an early school bus – this is one of the most interesting pictures I’ve seen

In the early years of settlement, farm children went to one-room schools. Eventually 4 or 5 schools were built in a township so children could walk to school. The automobile, school bus, and a road system meant children could be transported to larger schools, and many of these one-room schools were no longer needed.

My dad walked to his one-room school house about this same time (he was born in 1906) and taught in this same school after graduating and then attending a Normal School that taught men and women how to be teachers.

A teachers’ meeting in 1901 in Pembina County. With few diversions and little money to waste, many of these teachers spent their extra time and energy to meeting their students’ needs.

*top:* Girls are playing croquet some time during 1903 to 1913.
*bottom:* While boys hung out together and learned how to take on a bully.

“children” and their desk from a one-room school

beyond the one-room school

As students finished the 8th grade in the country schools, the settlers wanted more education for their children. Towns began offering 1 year, then 2 years, and eventually 4 years of high school.

The University of ND at Grand Forks started in 1883, and the ND Agricultural college at Fargo began to offer high school classes in 1890.

Some students came for only 1 winter; others finished high school in town. Some graduates continued their studies and earned a college degree. By 1888-1889, some 20 students were in college and 170 students were enrolled in prep classes at UND. The Catholic church had St. Aloysius Academy in Oakwood that’s along the border with Minnesota in the NE corner of the state. It had dorms and offered elementary and high school classes. St. Boniface, a private Catholic elementary school, operated in Walhalla.

Pembina public school was one of the first in the area.

The Mayville Normal School, now known as Mayville State University. opened in 1889. The school provided teacher training and then sent the secondary teachers to many of the county schools. My dad went to Normal School in southern Iowa before going on to college.

The state administered 2 special schools in this area of the state; this picture shows the gardens at the School for the Blind in Bathgate that opened in 1908.

The other special school was Grafton Developmental Center that was also established in 1908 for the feeble minded.

This is the Walsh County Agricultural and Training school opened in 1913. It had dorms for students from around the area.

The Grafton High School is on the left, and the Walhalla High School is on the right.

a high school graduating class from 1909

Phew, we learned so much about the early settlers and their families as they changed the landscape in northeastern North Dakota. Next we’ll look at society changes starting with statehood.

2020 North Dakota – part 10: later changes for those around Cavalier

Subscribe to receive notice of new posts

Catagories

Latest Posts

2023 Southeast Swing

2021 Quick Trips

2020 Northern Plains

2020 Covid Travels

2019 Canadian Maritime Provinces

2019 Southwest Swing