"A History of Western Murray County" by Robt. B. Forrest, Pages 30-43,
Murray Co., MN 
Published 1947
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Early W. Murray Co. MN Hist., pages 30-43

Prairie Mothers whose graves dot the western prairies after a life which 
was shadowed by more grief and worry than joy?

          May they rest in the peace they so richly deserve.

  WHAT THE PIONEERS LIVED ON

          It was a meager fare those first settlers had in the early 
days of the settlement of the prairies fare that few people in any 
land have had to endure, and, to the descendants of these people, 
the food that their forebears had to live on will be of interest.

          For the first meal of the day, there was bread when they 
had it; syrup or sorghum when they had it, and coffee when they had 
it. When these items were not available there was corn meal from the 
short flint corn. During the winter of 1877, the last of the 
"grasshopper" years, the settlement was close to starvation. Most of 
the cattle had been killed for food and the settlers existed mostly 
on corn meal that was sent out by the State.

          For the midday meal there was boiled fish and boiled 
potatoes and what few vegetables were saved from the grasshoppers.
Navy beans were not grown by the settlers but most of them had a 
patch of field peas and the peas made good filling material.

          Supper was a combination of the above food. There were 
no pumpkin pies nor any other kinds of pies, no sauce and no preserves. 
Many homes were compelled to go without cake, pies or cookies for years.

          The old milk cow, when it was giving milk, was the 
foundation of the filled stomach. From her they got milk, cream, 
butter, cheese, and when a critter broke its leg, there was beef 
to eat. Cattle were not plentiful. Many of the settlers had only 
one cow when they came, and when that cow was not giving milk, 
conditions were really serious. One pioneer told us that they had 
bought two pounds of butter at six cents a pound from a neighbor,
but it was so strong they could not eat it and they were out twelve 
cents—a lot of money to throw away in those days. No wonder the 
butter was rancid; a family of eight people was cooped up in a 
twelve by sixteen sod house, eating,

—30—

living, sleeping and doing all the housework. Ventilation was unknown. 
Every bit of heat was conserved during the winter months.

          The tea that we know was unknown to the settlers. They did, 
however, pick the leaves from a weed known as "wild tea" and brewed 
it. It was not tea but it helped.

          There was no lard to cook with the first two or three 
years. It seems strange, but remember they were two weeks and some 
times more on the trail from Fillmore County. Carrying a crate of 
pigs alongside the covered wagon was unthinkable. Some of the 
settlers brought salt pork with them and from that supply they were 
able to get a little fat to cook with and a little lard for the lamps.

          There were very few chickens. They had to be brought 
in small pens attached to the side of the covered wagons and 
naturally it took some time before the settlers were able to get 
enough eggs or a chicken to eat.

BREAKING UP THE RAW PRARIE

(Picture 031.jpg)

A sketch of the early settlers turning over the prairie so that a 
crop of grain could be raised the next year

          When the soil had been prepared, there were always 
plenty of vegetables. They all grew splendidly in the new breaking. 
Even in the grasshopper days, those dark days that tried the souls 
of men and women, the settlers were able to save some vegetables. 
The women took their dresses, nightgowns and everything else they 
had, including petticoats, to spread on the vegetables to keep off 
the ravenous grasshoppers.

—31—

        Fish were always plentiful, especially in the spring and 
after the heavy June rains. Pickerel, suckers, and buffalo fish 
were salted down, dried and smoked. (There were no carp here 
then.) Boiled fish was the main dish on the settlers' table. 
It did not take much fat and went well with boiled potatoes.

          Pete Thompson and L. J. Heimness had a longing for 
"Lutefisk." They caught a bunch of buffalo fish and pickerel, salted 
and dried them. Then they made a lye out of woodashes and old fat, 
tried them out and the "Lutefisk" was ready for eating, generally 
with a white gravy. While the Leeds township fish lacked the flavor 
of the "torsk" of the North Sea, they carried a lot of sentiment 
and a lot of bones.

          Then there was game, when they had powder and shot. There 
were plenty of prairie chickens, the best eating of all game birds, 
and lots of ducks. But the settlers were not after such small stuff. 
Their supply of ammunition was small and they went after the geese, 
brants and cranes. Food was what they were after.

          When there was sugar in later years, there were always 
wild plums along the creeks; chokecherries, gooseberries, and 
raspberries in the Bear Lake woods and the banks of the Beaver Creek 
were purple with the wild grapes in the fall.

          Jackrabbits, not cotton tails, were hunted in the winter
months. They were great big fellows and kept the pots and pans full 
of fresh meat.

  CHRISTMAS IN THE EARLY SEVENTIES

          Christmas was the one big day of the year. It was not 
observed with rollicking fun and pleasure as we know Christmas. 
On Christmas Eve the settlers would walk across the crunchy snow 
to a nearby neighbors where as many as the little home would hold 
(most of them were 12 by 16) would celebrate. Their observation 
of the day was deeply religious. They sang the old hymns, then 
songs of the home lands, songs that brought back memories of fjords 
and hills, the days of their youth, spent in a land they would never 
see again. There would be a modest lunch; bread and butter and a 
little fish or meat

—32—

and coffee. Grace was said before the humble repast by one of the 
elders. How earnestly these sturdy pioneers prayed. They had brought 
their families thousands of miles to a land of "milk and honey" 
which in the grasshopper days was turned to a desert. They had 
need of faith and they had it. When the party was over they would
start for their homes under the bright starlight, their hope and 
faith in God and their new homes renewed.

          There were no gaudily decorated Christmas trees, no popcorn, 
no candy of any kind, no Christmas program and no Santa Claus.

  SOCIAL ENTERTAINMENT

          The first few years the only social intercourse the 
settlers had was visiting their neighbors and then as more settlers 
came in there came family parties, where they played "Come Down 
this Way with Your Early Wheat" and "King William was King George's 
son," etc. Then there were also the games with forfeits and even 
the old postoffice game was a favorite with the youngsters. But these 
parties were few and far between as a majority of the homes had just 
room enough for the family.

          With the influx of the settlers, came the dances, the 
old squares and waltzes. The old square dance was always a favorite. 
Johnny Soules, a dark picturesque looking man with a black goatee, 
played the fiddle (there were no violins in those days). The rain 
water barrel had been emptied and upended and Johnny sat on top 
playing the music, keeping time with his big left toe, calling the 
changes with a big hunk of chewing tobacco in his mouth, and every 
once in a while when the dancers were mixed up in a new fangled 
change, John would come down from his lofty perch and straighten 
them out.

          The dancers and fiddler stopped at midnight for a lunch 
and then on with the dance until the sun came peeping over the hills 
to the east. Money was no handicap to the young men as many of them 
brought muskrat pelts under their coats which were passed over to 
Johnny for their dance ticket.

          The first sit down strike on record took place on the 
Ingal place, two miles north of the Leeds township line. The Ingals

—33—

had a dancing party at their home and invited all the gay blades 
and the bashful maidens. Some of the boys, inclined to be agitated, 
got some "Electric Bitters" in a nearby place. The girls, smelling 
the bitters, refused to dance with the boys and the dance came to a 
halt. The fellows went into the kitchen and told their tale of 
woe to the hostess. The hostess, being business-like inclined, had 
prepared a lavish lunch for those days, and the girls' refusal got 
her dander up. She went into the room where the dance was to be held, 
stuck her hands on her hips and delivered an ultimatum. "See here, 
girls, you either dance or you don't eat." The girls liked to eat 
as well as the men and the first sit down strike on record ended 
right then.

          Then came the spelling bees that were always a big 
favorite. They were followed by the debating societies. The settlers 
met at the neighbors, those that had homes large enough to hold a 
crowd. Such weighty subjects as "Is single life happier than married 
life," "Do you get more benefit from education than from experience" 
were discussed. At times these debates got very personal. These old 
timers had a lot of pep and zip that they just had to get rid of and 
the bitterness of several debates lingered for years. In later years 
came the singing school, when some old guy with a tuning fork would 
get the use of a schoolhouse, spread the news around that he was 
going to have a singing school, generally starting off with 
"Merrily on We Go," a sing song ditty easy to learn and easy to 
forget. It was more of a meeting place for the young folks than 
it was for the development of opera stars. School ma'ams and budding 
young women were always there, a big attraction to the lads both from 
village and farm; many a budding romance started in the old singing 
school. Some of the romances ended abruptly and others still last. 
The fee for a complete musical education was $2.00 for the term.

          There were no planes, no autos, not even top buggies in 
those days, but youth was youth, just as it is today. Norman Jones 
who was "going" with Pet Ingalls wanted to attend a dance at the 
Mike Mihin log cabin. He had the running gear of the wagon, but 
no wagon box. He did have an old row boat and he mounted that on 
the running gear and yoked up the oxen. He sat in front prodding 
the beasts with a pitch fork; no doubt Pet was singing "Pull for the 
Shore." Anyway they got to

—34—

Mike's, danced till morning, then pulled anchor and started for 
home. Norman lived on the tree claim just south of where Charley 
Olson lives in Lowville township.

  THE FIRST PREACHER IN WESTERN MURRAY COUNTY

         The first preacher to hold services in the settlement, 
was a Reverend Lund, who came in the winter of 1874. He made regular 
trips, coming every five months from old Westbrook, driving a yoke 
of oxen attached to a wagon. Naturally services were held at the 
homes of the settlers until a church was built. A full account of 
the church activities will be found in another article in this book.

  THE FIRST SCHOOLTEACHER IN LEEDS

          The first school was held in the winter of 1874, when 
Miss Ida Peterson went from home to home, spending a week at each 
place. For this she received one dollar a week and sometimes less. 
Of course, she had her board.

          The first regular school was held south of the Clauson
place. This school had perhaps as much variation in ages as any 
school ever had. The pupils ranged in age from six years to thirty-
four years. The Scandinavians craved education and wanted to learn 
the English language; they did and what wonderful citizens they made! 
No nation became Americanized as fast as the Norwegians and the 
Swedes, and history shows that they remained real true, loyal 
American citizens.

          In later years this school house was moved to Hadley, 
where it was Hadley's first school house and was used until the 
present one was built. Alex Lowe, with a yoke of oxen, and Ed 
Christensen, with a team of horses, did the moving of the building.

  LIGHTING

          For light during the long winter months, the settlers 
depended upon coal oil when they could buy it. After that they 
used the lard from salt pork, placed in a saucer with a little rag 
in it. The rag was lit and a very small amount of light was had. 
Very small, but enough to see sometimes to read by. There were no 
newspapers, but they kept up with their reading by exchanging books 
with the neighbors.

—35—

THE PRAIRIE FIRE

          Another menace to the settlers was the prairie fires. 
They generally came from the southwest, although a few came in on 
a northwest wind. These fires, terrific as they looked, did not do 
much damage to the settlers who had made preparations, but the 
settler who had not taken proper precautions suffered.

          For protection, every farm house and barn, and every hay 
stack, school house and every setting of grain was surrounded by 
fire-breaks. Around the buildings the fire-breaks were wider than 
around stacks, etc. The method used was to plow three or four rows 
about a hundred feet from the stacks and then a hundred feet further 
out, plow another two or three furrows. The next still day the farmer 
and his boys would set fire to the grass between the plowed furrows 
thus making a perfect fire break, except for the tumble weeds which 
were sometimes carried forward, burning and rolling, by the blast 
of hot air behind them. Many farmers who were caught on the prairie 
on the way to town or to the mill, just waited until the prairie fire 
got near them and set one of their own. After that had started, they 
drove their team and wagons onto the burned prairie and stayed there 
until all danger was past.

  EARLY FARM IMPLEMENTS

          The first farming implements were pretty crude. The 
settlers brought with them only the real essential tools  — the 
scythe which they used for mowing hay and the cradle, a scythe with 
a rack on it that was used for harvesting small grain. No corn was 
planted the first three years. A walking plow or rather a breaking 
plow was brought by most of the settlers, as it was needed to tear 
up the tough prairie sod. A section or two of a drag was also brought. 
These drags had wooden teeth made of oak. Grain, that was cut by hand 
was bound by hand and threshed by hand. The old fashioned flail was 
used to thresh the grain which was afterwards thrown high into the 
wind to get rid of the chaff and short straw. The grain had to be 
hauled to New Ulm, when there was enough for sale, as the mill at 
Currie did not start until later.

—36—

  THE GRASSHOPPER DAYS

          The grasshoppers were the worst set-back for the new 
settlers. These insects arrived in Murray County in 1873, but they 
were not as damaging as they were in the three years following. 
They arrived in huge swarms and settled upon the green vegetation. 
About ten o'clock in the morning they started to fly and about noon 
they started coming down to the ground. Nothing green escaped them. 
Wheat fields over four feet high would be bent over with the weight 
of the grasshoppers. There were from eight to ten grasshoppers on 
every stalk, and the flint corn fields would have as many as fifty 
on each stalk. They spared nothing—wheat, flax, potatoes and garden 
vegetables were bare stalks when night came. Farmers tried roping 
their grain. They did this by tying horses at each end of a long rope

(Piture 037.jpg)

The Grasshopper Days

  The Gloomiest Days in the History of western Murray County. For four years the 
  settlers lost their entire crop. They were ready to give up when the 
  grasshoppers left in 1877

—37—

and dragging it over the grain to dislodge the insects. As the 
hoppers got back from the ground and onto the stalk again, the 
roping process was continued. In many instances, this method 
saved a lot of the growing crops.

          The grasshoppers left as suddenly as they came, and 
there has been no grasshopper threat since 1875, except in 1877 
when the hoppers formed in great numbers. They were so thick at 
times that one could not see the sun. They swarmed all forenoon, 
but did not come down to the ground.

  FUR STARTED THE DEVELOPMENT OF THIS SECTION

          It was not gold, fertile lands or homes that brought 
the white men to Murray County. It was fur. England, France and 
even far off China wanted fur and North America was the most 
fertile field known in the world.

          Just when the first trapper came to this section is 
not known. The first official visit of the white man was in 1834, 
when the American Fur Company erected a post at the Bear Lakes. 
This post was in existence until late in 1838, when war among 
the Indian tribes and an epidemic of smallpox caused the fur 
company to discontinue the post.

          After the post had been discontinued, adventurous young 
white men from central Iowa visited this section for several years. 
They followed the Des Moines to Lake Shetek, then westward over 
Poverty Hill. They came early in the fall, built a log house, put 
up sheds for their horses and cut hay for feed. They spent the 
entire winter trapping beaver, coon, mink and taking fifty thousand 
muskrats. Seems like a lot of rats yet there were men living here who 
took out nearly twenty thousand in a winter. While the fur supply 
had dwindled in the l870's, there was enough left so the prairie 
settlers found in fur the main source to keep them alive. Fur was 
not always cheap as muskrats brought as high as twenty cents 
sometimes, and that was real money in the early days.

—38—

  EARLY FUEL

          The first fuel of the settlers was "Buffalo Chips," 
and many a youngster became tired roaming the prairies for them. 
When summer came, the scythes came out and the tall grass was 
cut and allowed to dry and for years twisted hay was the sole 
fuel in many a home. Some of the old settlers said it kept the 
sod houses nice and warm; others said one cooked on one side and 
froze on the other on very cold days. It was almost a continuous 
job shoving the twist of hay into the tiny stove, as on a real 
windy day, it went up the chimney almost as fast as one put it 
in the stove. With the coming of flax straw, many thought there 
would be an improvement in the heating conditions. Flax stoves 
were on the market. They consisted of an iron stove with a large 
circular hole in the top. This hole was covered by a huge round 
sheet-iron tank. This tank was taken to the flax straw pile and 
stuffed full of straw as hard as it could be packed. It was then 
carried into the house and slipped upside down on the hole in the 
stove and the other tank was taken out for re-filling. The heat 
from the flax straw was immense, and the odor was also. You could 
always tell what kind of fuel the settlers were burning by the odor 
on their clothes.

          Wood was also used. Some of the settlers bought an acre 
of timber in Bear Lake and some "acquired" firewood from Lost Timber, 
until Doc Folsom took it for a homestead.

          Coal came in with the railroad in '79, but this did not 
stop the burning of hay, flax straw, etc. Coal meant money, something 
the settlers were not too flush with. Hay and flax straw were still 
used as late as the 1900's.

  THE RED MEN WERE STILL HERE IN THE '70's

          There were plenty of Indians in western Murray County in 
the early seventies. They were far from warlike and were more 
inclined to beg for something to eat than to do any fighting. They 
did do some petty pilfering but were different from the tribes 
of 1862. The sound beating administered to the Indians after the 
massacre of 1862 had taken all the fight out of them.

          The Indians were roving bands from the Dakota prairies 
and in western Murray County would pitch their tepees and

—39—
 
(Picture 040.jpg)

  An Indian Village at Hadley Lake in 1874. Ed Christensen played here with the 
  Indian boys. This village was on the same piece of ground where the Hadley 
  Creamery now stands


wigwams in Bear Lake timber or around the lakes and on the banks 
of Summit Lake. They camped there on the same spot where the Hadley 
Creamery now stands. The Buffalo ridge was a favorite spot for 
many bands.

          The tepees and the wigwams were made of buffalo hides. 
Some of the wigwams were large enough for two or three families 
and the settlers' sons used to visit the Indian youngsters and 
play with them. One of the boys now living, who used to play 
with the Indian kids at the Hadley Lake is Ed. Christensen.

          The Indians trapped, hunted and fished. The pelts they 
took were generally sold at the Lowville postoffice store on the 
west side of Bear Lake.

          They picked up everything that was loose and often 
things that were tied. Mrs. Theo. Knutson looked out of her little 
window one morning and saw that her cow had disappeared during the 
night. Her husband was away working on the rail-

—40—

road, so she awoke the children and with them started for the 
Hadley Lake. She saw her cow tied to a stake in front of a wigwam. 
She untied the cow in front of the bunch of Indians, put the rope 
over her shoulder and started for home with the children trailing 
behind. Those pioneer women were made of stern stuff.

  WHAT THE SETTLERS WORE

          All the clothes were homemade. Cloth was bought when the 
settlers made a trip to New Ulm and made into garments. It took two 
yards and a half to make a pair of pants for those husky 
Scandinavians. The men wore ready made "Scotch" caps. They were 
high in the crown and, when the cold weather came, they pulled 
them down over their ears. Shirts for the men, like everything 
else, were hand made. There were no neckties and there were no 
white shirts. The long woolen sox were hand knit at home. Nearly 
every home had a spinning wheel.

          The women also wore homemade garments. Garments were cut 
from prints and fashioned into dresses, aprons, petticoats, etc. 
They had hats for the summer which they had brought with them from 
Fillmore County and in the winter months they wore shawls and scarfs.

          Sheep were a necessity. They supplied wool for the 
clothing after it was carded, spun, and knitted. The pelts of the 
sheep were the only blankets many a family had during the winter 
months. A settler down near Badger Lake, who had been a tailor in 
the old country, sewed them together and then trimmed the wool down 
so that it would not be so itchy.

          Shoes were scarce articles, especially for the children 
who went barefoot from the time the snow left in the spring until 
real cold weather came in the fall. The girls who did a lot of the 
herding of the cattle, were compelled to wear their Dads' old shoes, 
which were full of holes, when conditions were real bad. The late 
John G. Johnson, in one of the early winters, had a pair of shoes 
or rather foot coverings from the hide from the knee joint of a 
heifer. They sewed up one end and had a piece shaped like a shoe. 
Holes were cut in the hide for the raw hide shoe laces to keep it 
as snug to the foot as possible and another

—41—

problem was solved. Some of the youngsters in the township wore 
wooden shoes.

          How they ever endured the winters was a mystery! There 
was not a pair of overshoes in the entire settlement. The men wore 
heavy boots with heavy wool socks and so did the women. The children 
wore whatever they could get. The winters were mighty long; yet 
the old residents will tell you there was less sickness than 
there is today.

          One of, if not the most important part of the women's 
list of apparel was the sun bonnet. They wore it in the spring, 
summer and fall. Some of them were re-inforced with cardboard and 
no woman would be seen out of doors without one. They were deep 
affairs, some of the young fellows said. They knew the girls wore 
them to keep their complexions from getting tanned.

  THE EARLY HARVESTS

          The first wheat of record was planted by C. Christensen 
in 1873. He broke up about five acres of prairie and sowed it to 
wheat. The wheat was cut by hand, bound by hand, and, after being 
in the stack for a while, was threshed by hand. Mr. Christensen 
used the flail. He was an expert flail maker and supplied many of 
the settlers. In two or three years, a machine, from the eastern 
part of the County, came up and did the threshing. It was a horse 
power outfit. Six teams of horses attached to sweeps would circle 
the big bull wheel, which supplied the power to the tumbling rods, 
and from there to the separator. The driver stood on a platform 
above the bull wheel and, with a long handled whip, saw that a steady 
motion was maintained. It took a lot of men for the horse power outfits.

          There were the driver, two separator men, four pitchers, 
two band cutters who cut the bands on the bundles of grain, a man 
who measured the threshed grain in half bushel measures, a sack holder, 
from two to four men in the strawstack, two grain haulers, and two men 
in the granary. The horse power machines would thresh about 1500 
bushels in a day and what long days some of them were! When steam 
power came in, the amount of help was reduced and the output upped 
to over 4,500 bushels a day.

—42—

          The threshing season was the big event of the year for 
the farmers' wives. Feeding a crew of that size in limited quarters 
was a real job and what wonderful meals they produced: Breakfast 
consisted of either oatmeal, (that is in the 80's) or corn mush, 
boiled potatoes, ham and eggs or steak and eggs, and they finished 
up with a stack of pancakes with syrup, not the maple kind, but the 
thick heavy sweetening and gallons of Arbuckles coffee.

  THE SOD SHANTY ON THE CLAIM

          The housing shortage held no terrors for the early settlers 
in the prairie section of western Minnesota. These men and women, 
when they reached their claim, took the plow from the wagon, hitched 
the oxen to it and started breaking up the virgin sod.

          There was only one door and one window in most of the sod 
houses in this section of Murray County. Both the window and the door 
were small, as the total size of the shanty was 12x14.

          The furniture was crude. Nail kegs and boxes and, most of 
the time, benches were used for chairs.

          The beds were home-made and some had wooden slats across 
the frame. On the slats were placed ticks filled with prairie hay, 
straw and later on, corn husks. Others had ropes across the frames 
in place of the wooden slats. The beds were made high enough so that 
trundle beds for the children could be pushed under them and most 
of the settlers needed the trundle beds. In many homes, two trundle 
beds were used and then some of the older children slept on a tick 
on the earthen floor. There were no wooden floors and keeping the 
floor clean during wet weather was a bigger problem than the 
housewives have in these later years. In dry weather, the earthen 
floor was as hard as a rock. The home was heated by a small cast-
iron stove. The tables were home-made, as was every other article 
of furniture. There were very few dishes and the younger element 
had to wait at every meal until the elders had finished. What was 
true of the dishes was also true of the linens, blankets and cooking 
utensils. One little light sufficed for the whole house. Life was 
a stern reality to those men and women who built western Murray County.

—43—