This post and the next one take us back in time to when Laura Ingalls Wilder lived as a child, had her first teaching position, met a beau and enjoyed being courted, got married, and her family moved from the farm to their house in town (the tour guides said Laura’s mother was tired of always moving around). These stories also give us a picture of what the country looked like after Lewis and Clark’s trip opened it up to people moving west past the Mississippi River. A young friend of ours loves these stories, so we enjoyed learning more about Laura and her family. Remember, Laura’s final home with Almanzo was in Missouri, and we saw it as we started out on this trip.
Laura Ingalls town
While I’m showing you the Ingalls homestead first, it really should come after their winter in the surveyor’s house.
surveyor’s house
Pa had been working for the railroad (more info. later), which was going to close down for the winter. He was asked if he wanted to stay and live in the surveyor’s house over the winter and keep everything safe. He brought his family here by train, and they moved in. He wasn’t paid for staying here, but house and all the food that was stored in the house were theirs.
The house originally stood on the north shore of Silver Lake until it was moved to town in 1884.
From her book, Laura opened the middle door and saw steep stairs in front of her that were just the width of the door. When she went up, she saw a big attic open on both sides of the stairs that was twice as big as the large room downstairs.
The third door opened up to a little store that held shelves of dishes, pans and pots, boxes, and cans. The first barrels on the floor was nearly full of flour; the second held corn meal.
For supper on their first night in the surveyors’ house, the Ingalls family ate sour cucumber pickles from a jar, warmed over roast duck, and fried potatoes.
The house originally would have been covered with board and batten, which is vertical boards with batten covering the cracks.
Originally the house was built by the surveyors of the Dakota Central Railroad, which was a division of the Chicago North-Western Railroad; they were to live here and store their tools. The building was moved to this site in 1884 by lifting it onto large wooden skids so it could be pulled to town by horses.
We looked for this lake while we were in town but couldn’t find it. I was glad to find out that the surveyor’s house had originally been by the north side of the lake but was then moved into town in 1884.
Fifty years after the Ingalls had moved to De Smet, a local church had its 50-year anniversary, and the Ingalls daughters were asked for memories of their time here and at the church. Laura and Carrie remembered Silver Lake and wrote about their memories.
“Later in the summer as construction work moved west, we drove from Brooks to the railroad camp on the banks of Silver Lake, which was then a wild, beautiful little body of water, a resting place for the wild water birds of all kinds, many varieties of ducks, wild geese, swans, and pelicans.
making a life here
President Lincoln signed the Homestead Act into law in 1862, and it went into effect the next January 1. This act profoundly influenced the settlement of the Dakota Territory and the entire Great Plains. It allowed adult heads of families or individuals over 21 years old to claim 160 acres of surveyed public land for a small fee, provided they lived on and improved the land for five years. Improvement evidence would be a livable home, cultivated land, wells, fences, etc. Settlers had to live on the land for at least 7 months each year. An absence of over 6 months within 1 year was not allowed.
This act aimed to encourage westward expansion and settlement in the United States.
Laura talked about how hard it was for Pa to get his land.
In addition to a homestead claim, settlers were allowed 160 more acres for a tree claim. To get this extra land, they had to plant trees on 40 of the additional acres. The number of acres of trees to be planted was later reduced to 10.
Trees were so important that homesteaders spent numerous days traveling to water sources, digging up the valuable seedlings, and transporting them back to their claims. Prairie winds and dust storms provided substantial proof of the trees’ importance.
There was only one tree on the prairie when the Ingalls family came to the Dakota Territory, and it became known as the “Lone Tree.” It was located on a divide between 2 lakes.
building a railroad
To build the railroad, teams of horses pulled blades that scraped the earth and made a level roadbed for the tracks to be built on. On one special day, Pa took Laura out to watch the work. Laura wrote that she “would never have tired from watching that.”
At the railroad camp, Pa worked as timekeeper and paymaster for the Sioux River and Silver Lake railroad camps in the summer of 1879. He also sold goods for the A.I. Wells Company, keeping accounts of goods the railroad men charge.
In 1879, the job of the surveyor was important. A vast amount of land had to be surveyed, maps needed to be drawn, and records kept. They started their work by dividing the country into townships that were 6 by 6 miles square. Then they divided the large squares into 36 sections, or partial sections, depending on the locations of streams or lakes.
The railroad and the farmers had a very intertwined existence. Farmers needed a way to move their produce from location to location. Here in De Smet, the Chicago/Northwestern Railroads sprawling 11,00-mile route across the upper Midwest provided that.
Laura’s school
At Laura’s school in 1880-1881 was described in The Long Winter. “All the desks were patent desks, made of wood varnished as smooth as glass. They had black iron feet and the seats were curved a little, with curing backs that were part of the desks behind them. The desk-tops had grooves to hold pencils and shelves underneath them for slates and books.”
[My dad went to a one-room schoolhouse in Iowa in the early 1900s, and the desk that he brought to our home looked like Laura’s desk.]
“There were twelve of these desks in a row up each side of the big room. A large heating stove stood in the middle of the room, with four more desks were in front of it and four more desks were behind it.”
This first public school in De Smet was built in 1880 by the citizens [who must have really wanted education for their children]. They not only furnished the materials for the building, but they also did the work. In 1885, the building was sold to be remodeled into a home, and many different families lived here.
In Laura’s book, she writes about a school day when a winter storm comes in and the teacher doesn’t feel that he needs to let his students leave school before it starts. On the following map, the blue line shows the direction Mr. Foster, a local farmer, thought he was taking to get the teacher and the students safely home.
“Now, just follow me”, said Mr. Foster, taking Teacher’s arm. “And keep close together.”
“Laura felt that she was smothering. The icy particles of snow whirled scratching into her eyes and smothered her breathing. Her skirts whipped around her, now wrapped so tightly that she could not step, then whirled and lifted to her knees . . . . She held tightly to Carrie, and Carrie, struggling and staggering, was pulled away by the wind and then flung back against her.”
“There was nothing to go by – no sun, no sky, no direction in the winds blowing fiercely from all directions. Then, out of the whirling whiteness, something hit her. The hard blow crashed against her shoulder and all through her. She rocked on her feet and stumbled against something solid. With all her might she yelled, ‘Here! Come here! Here’s a house!'”
wagon train
Laura Ingalls Wilder’s family primarily used covered wagons during their journeys across the Midwest. Conestoga wagons were typically larger and used for freight transport, while the Ingalls family traveled in smaller, more practical wagons for their needs.
The following picture shows what was going to be needed on the road.
Here are some of the adventures that the pioneers would face:
- They would need clothes that could handle rough journeys, especially strong boots.
- They would carry some food with them, like flour, cornmeal, bacon, potatoes, salt, coffee, sugar, dried fruit, eggs, beans hardtack, and milk if they had a cow.
- They faced a rugged journey, battling sickness, treacherous trails, river crossings, severe weather, wagon malfunctions, and encounters with wild animals.
- They would transport a water keg on their wagons since they were never convinced of finding good water.
- They did not sleep in the wagons because they were too full They would use tents, sleep under the stars, or under the wagon, depending on the terrain and the weather.
- They could travel only 10-15 miles a day if the terrain, the climate, and their wagon were in good conditions
- They brought with them such items like guns and knives to protect and feed themselves; tools to cook, heal, and fix things; lanterns to light up the night; cherished items to remind them of home, a little stove to cook on; blankets; and tents to sleep in.
The next post takes us to Laura’s later life in De Smet and her parents’ final house on the prairie.
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