After learning so much from the Icelandic State Park’s museum across the highway, we went to Pembina County’s museum to fill in the blanks and add to what we’ve learned. The museum also had a display on the amazing hardy women who helped settle the state that we’ll include in a separate post. Now, let’s go exploring.
The lean, flesh parts of the buffalo/bison were dried, smoked, and pounded into “beat meat.” About 40 pounds of melted buffalo fat was poured over 50 pounds of beat meat to make 90 pounds of pemmican. Then it was tightly packed in buffalo hide bags that still had hair on them. Dried berries were mixed in for more flavor. Pemmican could be kept indefinitely and was wholesome, tasty, and nutritious, affording the least possible bulk and weight for the trappers as they moved around.
ox carts
Here’s how the carts were made. Elm was used for the wheel hubs because it didn’t split easily, white ash or oak were used for the rims, and hard maple was used for the axels because it could be boiled and bent. Implements to build a cart included an ax, saw, screw auger, and a draw. The cart’s wooden hubs and axels were never greased, so the squeak of the wood grinding between the axel and the hub could be heard from as far as 6 miles away. The sound was so distinctive that folks said it would make their blood run cold.
In 1845, carts carried about $15,000 in buffalo hides and furs to St. Paul and returned with $10,000 worth of such trade goods as tobacco, salt, tools.
In 1844, just 6 carts made this trip; in 1851, just over 100 made the same trip. In 1858, the number had grown to 600, and by 1869, over 2500 carts traveled these routes.
The end of the ox cart being used for freight was brought on by 2 factors: wheat replaced furs as the farms grew in number, and the railroad arrived that could handle so much more weight.
Starting when he was only 17, he went every year. “We had an average of 80 to 120 carts in the train and usually sold our goods in St. Paul” to wholesale men from New York, Chicago, and Boston. “We usually left Walhalla about the 20th of May and would reach St. Paul by July 4. We rested our oxen for about 3 weeks and loaded supplies for the store, getting home the last of August if the weather and roads were good.”
bears, buffalo, and skunks
town namesake
tar shacks on the prairie
I could see a man living here by himself, but a family?
early machinery
Mankind has always tried to figure out how to do hard work easier and faster. The following machines show how the settlers worked on the prairie.
A separate plow is on the floor in the middle of the previous picture.
When we were in Iowa during our Northern Midwest trip in 2018, we went to a John Deere Museum. If you’re interested, it’s in part 5 of our time in my home state.
After making the plow, he had to test it out. One farmer decided to let him try on a plot of land that had never been plowed. Hitching the farmer’s horses to his plow, Deere took hold of the handles made from sapling roots, the farmer slapped the reins and clicked to get the horses moving.
After only an 0.8 of a mile, the other farmers realized that none of the gummy soil was sticking to the steel. One said, “She’s clean! No need for a paddle with that plow. She moves right along and polishes herself as she moves!”
It’s doubtful if any of them knew the importance of what had just happened in the history of American agriculture and in the history of America itself.
The next year Deere made 3 more plows, and then 10 plows the following year. By 1842 he was building 2 a week to supply the demand. By 1846, Deere and his partner were turning out 1000 plows a year.
In the fall of 2019, we went to a potato museum on Prince Edward Island in the Maritime Provinces of Canada. If you’d like to learn more about growing potatoes and how these potato cutters were so important, check out parts 3-5 of the PEI posts.
right: A 1904 Aultman & Taylor steam portable engine that could be built with 8 to 12 hp
Sometime around 1850 steam engines started being used for farm power. Before then, sweeps, treadmills, and even sometimes windmills had been the only improvement over hand power to operate such stationary machines as threshers, feed mills, and wood saws.
While the early steam engines were stationary, in the late 1850s and early 1860s, portable models were introduced. At first horses pulled them from farm to farm, but later models propelled themselves and pulled the threshers. Since these later models didn’t have a suitable steering gear, horses were still used for guidance.
feeding the nation
Later the mill was sold, enlarged, and installed with roller equipment so that the mill could produce 100 barrels per day. The business changed hands many times over the years.
Lily of the Valley flour was made and sold locally in the early 1900s, with some being sent to England during WWI.
From 1928-1938, over $3,500,000 in farm products was processed by the mill. As many as 19 men were on the payroll at one time, supporting 13 Cavalier families. It was finally sold in 1938 to the Cavalier Grain Company whose headquarters are still here.
You’re right, this is a much smaller museum, but we’re only in 1 building. We thought we’d be able to tour the other buildings on another day when it was warmer, but my broken foot stopped that idea. But the next post is about ND women who made a difference in this area. Their stories give us a first-person look at how people lived then.
Next we’ll get to learn about some of the hardy ND women from the first half of the 20th century who came from even hardier stock.
