DIVIDE Township was for forty years so closely connected with James River Valley Township that its history is largely interwoven with that of the other township. Divide lies in the northeast corner of Dickey County and was one of the first townships to be surveyed. Probably the surveyors were the first visitors to the region, as the Nicollet & Fremont expedition went up the James and therefore missed this territory. Bear Creek comes down through the township from the north, and the old stage line must have crossed a corner near the river.

In the spring of 1882, Mr. E. F. Stevens and Mr. Richard Fallon came up from Mediapolis, Iowa, to Fargo, with the intention of taking up some land in Dakota. Mr. Fallon had been in the Red River Valley the season before and thought that some good land was available, consequently they headed for Fargo where the land office was located. Some of Fallon's friends had told him that there was some fine land between the James River and Bear Creek that had not been taken. In order to secure good claims they preferred to go a long distance out from the established roads and take a chance that the railroad would be built to them later, for they wished to get good land and location at the beginning rather than take second choice in order to be near roads already established.

Some of the experiences of Mr. Stevens and Mr. Fallon are told in the chapter on Pioneer Experiences. They made filings at Fargo, taking the word of the man at the land office, after promising what would happen to him if he located them on poor land. These entries were made on March 9^th, 1882, then the two friends went to work on one of the big farms in Cass County for the spring. About the first of July they started for their claims, went by rail to Jamestown and then started down the valley trail for Grand Rapids on foot. They were fortunate to find a homesteader's shack where they secured something to eat and reached Grand Rapids on the evening of July 3^rd. They remained here for the Fourth, where the chief interest of the people was centered upon a conference with the officials of the Northern Pacific Railway about building a road to that town.

On July 5^th, the new settlers started for their claims. They had no roads to go by, except that the corners of sections in LaMoure County were marked with wooden posts. In Dickey County they could not read the markings on the stones at the corner locations and went back to Grand Rapids, where they bought some lumber and hired a man to take them to their claims. This man could not read the locations either so they unloaded their lumber on the prairie as near their claims as they could guess. After wandering around the country they found a man at Bear Creek relay station who could decipher the markings on the stones in Dickey County. They hired this man for $10.00, a lot of money for those days, to draw their lumber to their claims, three quarters of a mile away, and in this way Mr. Stevens got his lumber to the corner where his buildings are located. Mr. Fallon's claim was nearby. Here they built their shanties and stayed in them long enough to establish a residence, then started for the Cass farm near Fargo on foot in order to earn some money with which to improve their claims, and did not return until the following spring. Upon their return they walked on to the northeast along Bear Creek, as they had gone to the relay station with Mr. Mills who worked there. They passed within sight of their own two shanties but did not recognize them and were curious as to who could have located in that vicinity without their knowing about it.  They walked for twenty-two miles towards Lisbon before they saw another sign of civilization.

Most of the settlers had but little money and no help and were obliged to do without many of the actual necessities of life, for instance, the first wells were merely shallow pits dug in the border of a slough or stream bed, and though filled with frogs and pollywogs were used for drinking water.  Some of these holes were dug in ground so saturated with alkali that the water was too bitter to swallow, and beans cooked in it were harder after several hours of cooking then when taken from the bag. Coffee was ground by placing the grains in a tobacco sack and pounding them with a hammer on a wagon wheel.

Mr. Fallon now stayed on the claims most of the time while Mr.  Stevens worked out to secure the necessary cash. The latter made occasional trips to bring supplies until the fall of 1884, when he went to Iowa to pick corn and chop wood. He had just recovered from an attack of Red River Fever, a form of typhoid, when he arrived at the farm home of Mr. Gauss to secure board. The two young ladies of the home did not look on the travelers with any favor, but Mr. Stevens felt differently, and though until that time he had not considered really making a home for himself, decided that he would, provided he could secure the young lady of his choice for his bride. Miss Gauss evidently changed her mind very soon, for never having met Mr. Stevens until he came to her father's home December 1^st. she married him the following March and came with him to his claim. They lived in a sod shanty on Mr. Fallon's claim until Mr. Stevens, with the help of his father, a Baptist minister from New York who had come out to visit the newly weds, could erect a frame house.   Here they lived until the fall of 1892, when growing weary of pioneer life they decided to rent the farm and move to Iowa. They arrived there, however, during the dry years and were glad to return to their Dakota home a few years later and have remained there ever since.

When Mrs. Stevens came out to this country as a bride and had reached the homestead she said,  I looked for his house but saw only a shanty, 8 by 8, with a shed roof. There was also a sod stable. This was built wholly of chunks of sod piled upon each other while the roof was made by putting scantlings and other pieces of sticks across the top and covering it with straw.  The shanty house had no window and no place for a chimney, so we moved into Dick Fallon's sod shanty which stood just across the line from our homestead. This sod house was made of rough boards with a hole in the roof for a stove pipe. It had one tiny window with four small panes, and a door.  The outside of the shanty was sodded up to the roof, and the cellar was in the middle covered up with boards. All the furniture was home made.  There were no chairs. We used benches to sit on and had a home made cupboard to hold our dishes and food.

LaMoure was our trading place and that was about fifteen miles from our home. Our wagon had only planks laid on the running gears and we would stuff a grain sack with hay and use that for a seat. I did not go to LaMoure often; it was such a tiresome trip. The oxen walked slowly chewing their cuds. Sometimes I would get off and walk. I could walk faster than the oxen.

"Sometimes I would not see another woman for weeks at a time. The winters were long and cold with much snow. The antelope would come up to our hay stack by the sod stable nights and eat hay. We could see them day times running across the prairie."

Blizzards, prairie fires and lack of wells were the chief menaces to life in those early days, but they survived them all, even though a prairie fire once came close as their yard and only by extreme exertion could they divert its course around their small buildings. At another time during the winter of 1886-87 a blizzard nearly robbed the little home of its provider, for one wintry day, Mr. Stevens and his younger brother Burt, a lad of eighteen years who had come from York State to visit but who stayed, went to Oakes, then a new little town for supplies. They walked dragging a small hand sled after them. While there a blizzard began, and they tried to get a wild train which was in town to bring them within three miles of their claims, for by that time the railroad had reached the new settlements.  They were refused, however, so walked up the track not daring to trust to the open country. The blizzard was so bad that they had to watch continually for the coming of the train for the roar of the storm would drown any noise it would make. They finally reached a deep cut where the snow had been shoveled away from the track and seeing or hearing nothing of the train decided to go through instead of wading around.   Traveling rapidly they soon reached a place where the wall of snow was shoulder high when Burt glancing around saw the headlight and yelled, "Jump." They threw the sled ahead of them and jumped after it with the engine so close that it just grazed Burt's shoulder as it swept by. They were then about four miles from home but decided to push on instead of stopping at a neighbor's house who lived near the track, although the blizzard was still raging.  Abandoning the railroad track they pushed on across the now trackless prairie and kept in the direction of home by noting the general direction of the wind.

In the meantime, Mrs. Stevens was alone with her six months old baby except that Mr. Fallon was still living in his shack nearby. She finally became so worried that she asked him to hang a lighted lantern high on the sheltered side of the house so that it might help her husband and his brother should they become lost, which is just what they did. Burt, who was several years younger than Mr. Stevens wanted to stop and rest for his strength was far spent, but since that would be fatal he was urged to continue. Finally, during a lull in the wind a light was seen in the distance and they decided to find it if they could, abandoning all thought of reaching home that night. They could see the light only at short intervals but continued on their way until finally they were both amazed and delighted to find that they had reached home. Their journey of four miles had taken five hours of time.

Practically all team work was done in those days by oxen and since improvements were, few the chores were light and the settlers, who had now come in numbers, had fine times visiting with each other during the winter season. Every one was poor in this world's goods and all were having nearly the same experiences, so friendships were near and dear, especially as most of them were young married people seeking to carve their homes out of the prairies. On one particular occasion Mr. and Mrs. Stevens were going to visit a neighbor, using their usual means of conveyance, a sled drawn by an ox. When they neared the home Mr. Stevens jumped off and seizing the animal by the head led it to the door and turned to help his wife off. Imagine his astonishment to find her sitting on the sled several rods back laughing as hard as she could. It had become unfastened as soon as he left it but she had said nothing.

On wintry days they found amusement playing with a pet ox. They would hitch him to a sled and Mrs. Stevens would ride while her husband would lead him to a considerable distance away from the buildings and then attempt to mount the sled. The ox, however, enjoyed the fun as much as they did for he would turn rapidly and run for the barn, never allowing Mr.  Stevens to get on. When he ran the ox ran and when he walked it walked. when it neared the barn it always entered at a dead run so that Mrs. Stevens always rolled off before it arrived.

In later years when the county was well settled Mr. Stevens became a member of the state legislature and still later county commissioner. He and his wife were interested in both church and schools and did much for the betterment of their community. They have seen their children, three daughters and one son grow to womanhood and manhood and all have been well educated. They have seen the county develop from raw prairie land to fine settled farms, and the schools from a few rural schools to a fine modern system, including several standard high schools and the State Normal and Industrial School at Ellendale, a situation which offers a complete education to the young people in their own county.

Burt Stevens came out to what is now Glover in 1886, and lived with his brother Fred for a time. In the spring of 1888 he went onto the northwest quarter of Section 20, 132-59. His live stock consisted of four oxen and a tom cat. The improvements on the place consisted of a shanty 8 by 10 which had been built the fall before; a well and a stable were also provided.  The well was not completed until the fall of 1888, and in the meantime water was hauled in a barrel from a well on the northeast of 20. The first barrel was one that had been used for kerosene and though it had been burned out it was still saturated with the taste and odor of oil. A batch of beans cooked up on Sunday was supposed to last all week but the flavor of the kerosene was too much and not even the animals would eat them.

Burt was married in the spring of 1888 and moved onto the place on Section 20 and made his home there for at least twenty-eight years, being there during the hard winter of 1896-97 when the snow was so deep. In October 1916, he moved into Glover from the farm and has since made his home in that town.

Pel S. Anderson first came to a location in Bear Creek Township south of where Oakes now stands, and his story is told in part under that township. He worked for Kinkle near the mouth of Bear Creek part of the time. In 1883 he got the pre-emption but he did not go onto it until 1884, when he commenced to make improvements and went there to live. About 1890 he moved up to his present location in Divide and has since made that his home.

Julius Dethlefson came over to America from Germany in 1883, and did a great deal of work for the Northern Pacific Railway. In the spring of 1886 he worked near Elliott and came to Glover after the summer work was over. He lived with his cousin, Mr. Syvertson, a mile or two southeast of Glover, in a dug out in a lake bank. In 1887 he was working for Kinkle near Bear Creek. Two years later he took charge of Syvertson's place after his cousin's death and in 1894 bought the farm, the north half of Section 24, and has made his home there ever since. The land on 24 was bought on an unusual contract as the price was 5,000 bushels of wheat to be paid as follows; one half of the wheat crop raised on the place was to be turned in as a payment each year until the total of 5,000 bushels had been delivered.  No interest was to be paid on deferred payments.

Mr. Dechlefson has described the dug-out and the winter spent near Glover. It was dug into a bank of a slough. There were two rooms in it with only one window. One apartment was used as a storeroom for straw, which was used for fuel. Up till the 12^th of January in 1888 we did not have much snow, but on that day we had a terrible blizzard. In the morning it was calm and pleasant until nine o'clock when it started to snow very heavy and in another half hour the wind commenced to blow very strong.   In fact it was storming so bad that both of us did not dare to go to the barn which was also a dug-out where we kept the oxen. I stayed at the door of our dwelling while Mr.  Syvertson went and fed the oxen. Every once in a while I would "holler" to him and he would answer. In this way he managed to get back to the dug-out.   The storm lasted three days and after the storm there was four feet of snow over our dug-out. Consequently we could not tell whether it was day or night. Nor could we tell when the storm had subsided only by digging a hole out through the snow at intervals. In order to get a hole through the snow we had to shovel it into our room first until we got a hole to the top of the snow and then we would throw the snow out of our house again.  These three days were the longest in my life.

After the blizzard was over we had to dig a hole in the snow down to the window in our home so we could get some daylight into the dug-out.  The next task was to dig a tunnel into the dug-out where we kept the oxen where they had been stranded for three days without food or water. We supported the roof of the tunnel with fence posts and hay. From this time until spring it stormed nearly every day, so we had a time to keep the hole in the snow to our window open.   Therefore in order for us to tell when it was day we had an old shotgun which we would stick up through the stove pipe on the dug-out.

From this time until spring our biggest task was to obtain dry straw to use as fuel. We could not get through the snow with a wagon and a sleigh we did not have, but we managed to drag the straw over the snow in a rope sling. Over the worst drifts we had to pull the straw by hand, and the balance of the way we hauled it with an ox. We did not have but a small amount of tobacco, so we mixed what little tobacco we had with some prairie tea and smoked the mixture. In the spring when the snow melted our dwelling was a sight, as the water seeped down through the roof and ceiling, and the water in the slough was only a short distance from the door.

For the election of 1884, the relay station at Bear Creek was made the official voting place for the four townships in the northeastern part of the county, what has since become Bear Creek, Clement. Divide and James River Valley. Upon the organization of civil townships this township was included with the one to the west as James River Valley and the combination was continued for nearly forty years. Glover, just across the line about: one-half mile was headquarters for all the people. But for some time there was a feeling that the old James River Valley was too large, so in 1921 a petition was drawn up and widely signed to organize congressional township 132-59 as a separate civil township. This petition was presented to the adjourned July meeting of the County Commissioners and the division was finally passed upon September 6^th, 1921.

When the question of a name for the new township was raised the petitioners had no name selected. Commissioner F. M. Walton suggested that Divide would be quite appropriate, and Stevens was made the second choice. It was found from the Secretary of State that there was no township in the state named Divide, so that was officially adopted as the name. The school district was given the same name. The division of property for the civil township was made on February 1^st, 1922, and the arbitration meeting for division of the property of the school districts was held on May 1^st, 1922, since which time the township of Divide and the Divide School District have had their own individual existence.

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