AFTER the homesteader had paid the professional locater the fee of ten dollars for each location the pioneering was still ahead of him.  Not only the modern conveniences as now known were unavailable but it was a struggle for subsistence for a few years. The country was covered with a wild and tough sod which had to be "broken" and subdued before a good crop was raised, meanwhile there was the home to prepare and the family to feed. Hardship and poverty became well known to many, and the privations of life in a new country were borne with a courage that justifies a place for our Dakota pioneers along with those who crossed the Alleghanies and conquered the first frontiers in American expansion.

"It is only when time has cooled the hot sting of the poverty and dulled memories of the bitter hardships of pioneer days, that we are able to concede to them the picturesqueness which we could not see at that time, and to fully appreciate the hardy, kindly neighborliness, the resourcefulness which characterized those people, who coming from every state in the Union and representing every degree of society, toiled, endured and gave of their best." These words were written by Emily Kennedy who, as a school girl in the early days of Dickey County, participated in the experiences of pioneer life and carries a vivid memory of the joys and achievements of those early days. Her father was the mail carrier between Columbia and Ticeville, a distance of thirty miles which he traversed on foot and in all kinds of weather in a bleak, open prairie country.

The location of the claim shack was sometimes a real question, as in many cases there was no survey to guide the homesteader. Mr. Cortrite built his shack supposedly on the northwest quarter of the section, but when the government survey was made the shack was found to be ten rods over on the neighbors quarter and had to be hauled off. In some cases two settlers who knew they could live together in peace and harmony built a common shack on the line so that one occupant could sleep on his claim and the other in the far part of the house would be over on his homestead. As the shacks were not very large the locating had to be done with care, and the government authorities discouraged this practice.

The homesteader usually bought his lumber in town and hired some one to haul it out for him. Some of those who shipped in a car-load of emigrant goods brought their lumber with them. If the homesteader had his horses and wagons with him as many of them did, he could get himself and material out to his site without depending upon others. There were nearly always some carpenters or builders who could be employed to put up a shack.  John Keogh on the Elm river west of Ellendale, himself a homesteader, built many shacks for those who settled in his neighborhood. The standard price was fifteen dollars for the work of building a claim shanty. Many of the settlers built their shacks of lumber; many of them eight by eight feet, some a little larger and occasionally as large as eight by twelve. The M. H.  Puffer home at the place which afterwards became Guelph was sixteen by twenty-four and a story and a half high. It was thought to look like quite a castle in comparison with most claim houses.

Some of the settlers who were hardly able to afford lumber put up buildings of sod. With the tough sod of the first breaking this was not a difficult matter. The sods were cut into pieces about two feet long and laid up like brick in courses. Mr. Liimata who located in Ada township had bought 500 feet of lumber to build a shanty eight by eight feet, but needing a larger house he built one of sod after his first seeding was done. He de-scribes his new house thus: "It measured 12 by 22 feet inside and was built with thick walls. The sods for these were hauled from the plowing on a stone boat and laid two sods wide. Other pieces were then put on cross-wise to tie it together. When completed the wall was two feet thick for it was ceiled inside and then plastered. A pitch roof was made out of rough lumber, tar paper, and sod." This made a warm house, but as one of the pioneers said it was quite difficult to keep out the bugs if they once got established.   Mr. William Poykko built his first home as a dug-out. He dug a hole 14 by 16 feet and three feet into the ground and then put the top of the house over this. One of the settlers found this kind of house a little inconvenient when an unusually heavy rain furnished a lot of extra water.  There was some claim jumping but the settlers were too near together for much of this after the very first. Everett Gray and some friends had located claims over in Brown county and put up shanties in September, 1882. For the winter they went back to Michigan. They had an arrangement with the land man that he was to notify them if the land came onto the market, as it was un-surveyed when they located their shanties. But instead of giving them notice the land man put new men on four of the quarters on which he had located the group of which Mr. Gray was a member. When Gray and the others returned in the spring they had no claims.  Two of Mr. Gray's brothers had loaded a car and shipped to Ellendale.  With a yoke of cattle Gray went seven miles to his former claim, identified his shanty by the name of the contractor penciled on the door and dragged it over to Ellendale. The new squatter was not about so the others did the same and recovered their shanties. One of the brothers bought a lot in Ellendale on which to keep them until they could find a new location.  The new squatter made quite a fuss about Gray's reclaiming his shanty, but evidently considered he had little basis on which to cause trouble.  There were very few "bad actors" or bad men in these early days.

Most of the settlers were a god-fearing and church-going people and were anxious to build up clean communities. McGlynn's gulch was a sort of rendezvous for the rustlers who operated from the James river to White Butte, west of the Missouri. The rustlers once took a team and in order to conceal the horses from the officers who were on their trail hid them between two stacks of oats and built the stacks around and over them, keeping the team on the inside until the excitement cooled off, then took them out of the country.

Water was necessary and getting a well was one of the improvements that a settler could make to prove his intentions to make a home. In some parts of the county a well was hard to find. It was before the days of artesian wells and most of the settlers dug their wells by hand. At first many of them used the seepage into holes that they had dug near the edge of a slough. The water was somewhat filtered and by boiling it could be made safe to drink. The usual method was to dig until water was found then make a curbing of boards. Frequently this meant the filling in of much of the dirt around the curb. The hills in the west part of the county have always had abundant good water; if not from natural springs a little digging has usually afforded a good supply.

The houses had little furniture, there was hardly room for more than they had. The chairs were for company. Benches of lumber, dry-goods boxes and empty kegs served for seats. A stove was an essential both for cooking and heating in this cool country.   Before the conventional cook stove and heaters became common there were several types which served the family with a small house. "There was a board along the wall for a table and some grocery boxes for seats, the bed was a pile of hay on the floor." This is the description of Mr. Liimata's house before his family came on from Minnesota. The "homesteader's stove" was a sheet iron affair made to sell to claim shanty settlers. It had one lid on top on which to cook. It had to be taken outside and dumped when the ashes had to be cleaned out.

They had to burn hay in these stoves as there was nothing else.  Timber for fuel was very scarce and coal was expensive. The sloughs were filled with a luxuriant growth of grass and the prairie afforded abundant hay. As a matter of necessity the early settlers turned to hay as a fuel.  Several ingenious devices were tried with more or less success. Loose hay burned rapidly and was hard to handle so some of the family who had the time twisted the hay into hard bundles, sometimes tying these bundles with a string, and fed the sticks of twisted hay into the stove. One fire might last half an hour or more for heating purposes, a good firing might cook a dinner and bread could be baked with a good degree of attention.  When the German settlers came a little later in the settlement of the county they brought with them their own formula for making fuel, the "Mist" as it is called in their language. One of the settlers described this fuel as follows; "They prepared the "mist" for fuel from barn-yard manure as did all the German people. The manure was allowed to accumulate in the barnyard during the spring and summer, the animals tramping it down to a depth of nearly a foot. If it was to be used the same year it was best not to have much straw in it, otherwise it was best to leave it in the yard over a winter so that the straw would be well tramped and packed down.  The blocks were then cut with a spade and turned up on edge to dry. As soon as they were cured they would be placed in big stacks or piles, plastered over with manure to turn water and then left for further drying till they were used. The secret was to get the material well packed and thoroughly cured before using." A great many people on the plains have used buffalo chips and cow chips but "mist" is a prepared article which has proved its efficiency and is still used by those who know how to prepare it and are willing to take the time to prepare it well. It makes a fuel that can be used in the modern stove or in the ovens still used by some people.

Many of the pioneers made their own equipment including stoves to do the baking in their accustomed way. Out-door ovens were not uncommon in the early days in the western part of the county but they have mostly disappeared. The German-Russian immigrants brought with them a practical plan for an out-door oven which is shown by a drawing furnished by John Wirch of Spring Valley Township.

These stoves were made of small stones laid up in clay mortar. The walls were laid up to the level of the oven bottom across which iron rods were laid.   Homemade brick, were placed on these which were covered by a sheet iron plate. The walls were then carried up till they were about three feet high when a top was put in similar to the oven bottom. The oven bottom was not carried back to the rear of the stove, so there was an opening for heat and smoke to pass from the fire box or bottom of the stove over the top of the oven and then out the chimney.

A side door was provided in which food was placed in the oven or cooking chamber. The oven was heated with a fire of straw or "mist"; when the stove was well heated the fire was drawn and the food placed on the heated plate or oven bottom and left till cooked. Sometimes the metal plate on the oven bottom was covered with sand to hold the heat. This would become red hot with the heat from the furnace below and would retain it for a long time.

Ovens for baking were usually separate; sometimes they were built indoors, but in warm weather they were out in the yard. They were on the "Dutch oven" principle. In some cases they were made by making a mound of well tamped hay of the proper size; this was covered with a cloth and then a mound of clay mortar built over it. When well covered the hay was fired and burned out. This burned the clay to brick and made a conical oven in which the baking was done. The cloth was spread over the hay to prevent the stems from sticking in the moist clay.

Another pioneer from the west part of the county says he built his stove of lime stone fragments and clay mortar. It was about five feet long, was fired from the end and had a return flue which brought the gases back to a flue in the partition where the combustion was completed. When well heated this heater would throw off heat for a long time.

Travel was rather difficult in the early days as there were no graded roads.   The trails went across lots, the shortest distance, except that the settlers' crops were respected if it was not too much trouble to go around.  The roads were trails and the streams at first were not bridged. In coming to the county several people were almost drowned in attempting to cross streams swollen by melting snows or heavy rains. Those living near the creek would know where to ford. Many used oxen for traveling as well as for work. The stage line carried passengers and mail between post offices and the larger settlements, but the general way was to come by rail and in case the railroad did not take him where he wanted to go the traveler went on foot. Many of the early homesteaders walked out from Jamestown and some from Lisbon, others from Columbia. Olaf Johnson of the Forbes neighborhood walked from Carrington to Ellendale on his first trip to the county. Herman Liimata and a companion walked from his claim south of Guclph to Milnor in one day and to Wahpeton on the next day. These are examples that could be duplicated many times. Sometimes high water delayed them for days or kept them at home.

In the winter time there was always danger from blizzards. These storms usually gave warning to the old-timer who was able to read the signs, but those who wanted to travel did not or could not always heed these signs.  A good sized blizzard greeted the settlers in 1882, but the severest one in the early years came on January 12, 1888. Several lives were lost in the county. A typical case was that of Mrs. Olson, a resident of Wright township. Her daughter, Mary, thirteen years old started out that morning to go to school a distance of three-fourths of a mile. This was just before the storm, and she intended to stop at the home of Louis Holms about a third of the distance to the school house and accompany the Holms children to the school. As the storm arose suddenly and violently, Mrs. Olson, whose husband was aged and feeble, started out for Holms intending to overtake her daughter there and prevent her from going further. The little girl reached Holms place in safety and remained there till Friday afternoon, the next day. The child's return home was the first intimation to Mr. Olson that his wife had failed in her mission and probably lost her life. The neighbors were notified and searching parties organized. The footsteps of the unfortunate woman were traced backwards and forwards, once coming within a short distance of her own home and then straying off again. A successful ending of the search occurred Monday noon when the body was found where she had finally given up the struggle and fallen about eighty rods from her own home and not very far from Mr. Holms house. There were only a few of these great blizzards.

The gophers were a nuisance that caused considerable loss to the farmers in the early clays. A bounty was placed on gopher scalps and they were sometimes used as a basis for exchange. They were accepted for con-tributions in the Sunday School at Ludden and one hundred scalps paid the subscription to the Ludden Times for a year in 1889. A systematic gopher hunt was organized in 1889 with the community divided into two teams.  A penalty of fifty cents was assessed upon any member who produced less than ten scalps and one dollar on any one who did not produce at least five.  It was determined by actual count that 17,113 gophers lost their scalps and it was estimated that about 3000 more lost their lives without the loss of scalp.

Times were hard but people had a pretty good time out of life in many communities. Church services and Sunday School meant much in the lives of the pioneers as these brought the people together. In Keystone they maintained a literary society and had spelling matches. In the Port Emma community they had neighborly gatherings around at the homes. In spite of their hard times they sang songs parodying their poverty and in this way cemented a friendship for their state and for each other that is one of the outstanding features of Dakota life. One of the young women of this time-(Who was it) has voiced the situation in a way that gives the real keynote of pioneer life:

There was nothing of the clannish custom in early days. Everyone was neighbor to everyone else.   Social circles were limited mostly by distance. A neighborhood gathering meant everyone as far as word could be gotten. Ten or twelve miles might be traveled usually by lumber wagon to attend one of these gatherings,

One winter a series of 'surprise parties' were distinctive in that the person at whose home the function was to be held was notified of the fact in advance, and perhaps helped plan it, and the other neighbors brought the refreshments. As a usual thing no committee was appointed, each family provided what they wished and as a natural result sometimes one party would be extra well supplied with sandwiches and perhaps there would be a scarcity of salads, etc. But usually there was an abundance of everything, doughnuts, cookies, layer cakes, loaf cakes, pie, baked beans, varieties of salad, pickles, so that when the refreshments were finally served everyone went off with a sense of having done his best to consume his share of it.  "Whole families participating together was the rule. Generally, the little children were in some room playing games, but often they preferred watching the older ones play. The fathers and mothers then unbent their dignity and frolicked about. "Ruth and Jacob" was a favorite game. One time Mrs. Lottie Connover who was quite tall was "Ruth" blindfolded and endeavoring to capture Jacob in the guise of Wm. Bateman. Mr. Bateman got down on all fours on the floor so that he successfully evaded the sweeping arms above him again and again. Finally amid much merriment Ruth was successful in discovering the ruse and gave her captive a good shaking. No wonder the children preferred to get in a corner somewhere and watch their elders.

"The pioneer spirit which pervaded society then included every settler and excluded no one. Later when increasing numbers made this impossible it was a real problem to draw lines. Generally this was done simply by distance. Perhaps everyone within two or three miles was invited if the affair was comparatively unimportant, the distance the invitations were given in-creasing as the importance of the occasion did."

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