A Hard, New Life in Dakota Territory

Morrisonians went to Dakota Territory to start a new life. Newspaper stories in 1881 told of various local people who had claimed land in Dakota and were going there to settle. In July of that year, Mrs. M. V. B. Smith, John Snyder, Mrs. George Guffin, James Brown, and Andrew Knox were ready and eager to leave for that “northern” climate.

A special train crammed with livestock, farming implements, household goods, etc. left for Dakota on March 15, 1883. The Whiteside Sentinel called it the greatest exodus that ever left Morrison.

The parties and number of railroad cars they loaded were as follows: John Domach, 1; O. M. Van Swearingen, 1; R. S. Laurence, 2; R. A. Garrison, 1; S. H. Hurlburt, 2; J. McDearmon, 2; R. Dillenbeck, 1; P. James, 1; L. D. Pratt, 1; F. H. Sperry, 1; L. A. Bennett, 1; E. V. Latham, 2; Mrs. E. R. Vroom, 1; Wm. Horning, 6; S. Sloan, 3; S. N. Brown, 5; Alfred Heaton, 2; F. Petitt, 1; F. Guyer, 1; C. Dolan, 1; R. J. Morser, 1; F. Babcock, 1; W. Dillenbeck, 1; J. Meyers, 1; T. Gaffey, 1; W. Thompson, 1; J. Mahan, 1; C. B. Hubbard, 1; J. A. Scotchbrook, 1; C. Hurless, 1; M. Belt, 1; John Larse, 1.

There were also 60 passengers who planned to settle at new towns named Columbia, Ordway, Clark, Raymond, and Washington.

Remember that South Dakota was not yet a state; that happened in 1893. In 1868, only 15 years before the Morrison emigrant train departed, President Ulysses S. Grant had signed a treaty with the Indians that declared no white settlers could settle west of the Missouri River, which is only about 100 miles from Clark. General George Armstrong Custer pretty well destroyed that treaty, however, when gold was discovered in the Black Hills. He let the miners settle wherever they wanted.

The Sentinel kept the folks back home well informed about this “Morrison” settlement. They ran excerpts from the Clark County Review as well as letters that were sent back home. Mr. O. W. Barlow, a former Morrison merchant, was opening a lumberyard. In 1886 F. F. Austin wrote that Dakota was the place for him: for cheap land and fair weather, it had no equal. On January 22, 1884, L. A. Lincoln reported that so far they had very little snow or cold weather, and on the 7th they had some rain, the first he had seen in this season for five years. It looked like a good year ahead.

However, on the other side of the ledger, on August 7, 1887, the following item appeared in the Sentinel. “The Dakota people who went from this section write back very discouraging accounts of the manner in which their crops have been destroyed this season by wind and hail.”

Mr. Earle Hubbard told it best in his book, My Seventeen Years With the Pioneers. Here are a few excerpts from it.

The winters of 1886 and 1887 were described as “hard winters.” In 1887 he said they had two or three blizzards a week with snow getting as high as the shed roofs. The young men were still able to hunt antelope and get together occasionally to play cards.

A blizzard hit on January 12, 1888. It got so dark that they thought it was a cyclone coming. Twenty people in the area became lost in the storm and froze to death.

They received lots of moisture in the spring and the crops never looked better. Sadly, on July 4 it turned hot and windy, and by July 10 the crops were burned.

For a lot of the settlers this was the end. Most had been living on borrowed money that they had used to buy new machinery and better horses. Now, the machinery was falling apart, and the horses were dying. Half of the people that were left were literally broke. Hubbard said, “They were the poorest people I ever saw.”

That fall he marketed his entire wheat crop, only 35 bushels. So much ground had been broken up, that the wind was creating dust storms almost as bad as the ones to come in the 1930’s.

The next four years were more severe. Farmers never reaped more than four bushels of wheat to the acre. They burned straw, slough hay, and cow chips for heat. People stole lumber from the abandoned farms for fuel or for building. Hubbard’s brother came in 1889, and they farmed together, but the crops were so poor that he left in 1891.

The crops were finally good in 1892, but in 1893 they had only half a crop. Dry weather and high winds fostered wildfires. It was about this time that the Russian Thistle, better known as tumbleweed, showed up. These dry, rolling bushes would pile up so thickly in some places along barbed wire fences, that they would break the wire. This tinder mass also gave the fires something to feed on.

The worst was yet to come! On January 4, 1897, a blizzard started at noon and lasted for two days. After that they had about three blizzards a week. The snow measured five feet on the level and lasted until April 1. There was a freeze in late May that killed most of the grass. Then they had no rain until late June. Those who harvested corn eked out a mere four bushels per acre that year.

The climate chaos continued. In 1899 it was very warm in January. Then in early February, they had two weeks when it got as low as –52 and seldom above –40 during the day.

By the start of the new century farmers were changing their ways of farming. They grew more grass, grazed more cattle, and raised less corn and more wheat and flax. I am sure there were many tough years ahead, but the climate became more moderate.

The population of Clark County, South Dakota today is 4,134, so it has undoubtedly stayed a farming county. Cemetery records show that Earle Hubbard died in 1959 and was buried in Clark. He was a survivor of this difficult period.

If you know more about this Morrison settlement and the courageous people involved, please let me know. I would like to add to our history file at Morrison’s Heritage Museum.

(by Orville Goodenough, Guest Columnist)