CONDITIONS OF PEABODY IN THE EARLY DAYS Transcribed from the 19 June 1901 edition of the Peabody News by: Charmaine Keith (charmain@southwind.net) 09 October 1998 --------------------------------------------------------------------- KSGENWEB INTERNET GENEALOGICAL SOCIETY COPYRIGHT NOTICE: In keeping with the KSGenWeb policy of providing free information on the Internet, this data may be used by non-commercial entities, as long as this message remains on all copied material. These electronic pages cannot be reproduced in any format for profit or other gain. Copying of the files within by non-commercial individuals and libraries is encouraged. Any other use, including publication, storage in a retrieval system, or transmission by electronic, mechanical, or other means requires the written approval of the file's author. --------------------------------------------------------------------- THE PEABODY NEWS 1901 By T. C. Thoburn In the autumn of 1870 the Atchison Topeka & Santa Fe Railroad Company had their road located as far west as where Newton now stands, had set the grade stakes and let the contracts between Emporia and Cottonwood Falls, and men were at work on their contracts. Leaving the Cottonwood at Florence and following up the Doyle eleven miles, brought us to where Peabody is now located, from which point the rich and fertile prairies spread away in every direction, and where the writer made a circuit of forty miles without seeing a tree or finding an acre of untillable ground and in all this vast expanse not an acre had been sold to a land speculator. In many localities east of this land could be found; but speculators had picked up the best of it and held it for sale at double or triple the original value. But here was a splendid body of rich land within the reach of the honest toiler; by a recent act of congress it had been taken out of the market and the alternate or odd numbered sections given to the railroad, embracing a twenty-mile strip all along the line. The even numbered sections were opened to homestead, or by filling. All honorably discharged soldiers were entitled to a homestead of 160 acres, and all other citizens of 21 years of age and upwards, were entitled to 80 acres inside the railroad belt. A filing could be placed on 160 acres and by living on the land and improving it for two years, would then entitle the holder to a patent from the government by paying $2.50 per acre for it. The homesteader could prove up and get his patent in five years. A few settlers pushed out late in the fall hauling material and supplies from Emporia, located claims and erected houses, or shanties rather. Those who could went to freighting with their teams from Emporia. In the spring of 1871 the work commenced in earnest. Claims were located on all sides, and before the snow flew all the government lands were taken. Houses, some of them of sod, were built. They were mere shacks with board roofs. As soon as the frost was out of the ground in the spring the plows were set to work breaking the virgin prairie and garden vegetables were planted in the rough upturned sod. About this time Col. D. McKercher raid to the writer: "I am going down to Kansas City in a few days; if you can find enough settlers to take the potatoes I will buy a carload and furnish them at cost at Florence." The amount was soon subscribed. The potatoes came and were a godsend to many a poor, hungry family and lonely bachelor homesteader. They cost $1.25 per bushel. One poor fellow of the latter class remarked that "they were a good thing to fill up on." I trust if any of the recipients of that car of potatoes are still living they will cherish the memory of the man who befriended them in their time of need. A few weeks later corn sold for $1.50 per bushel and potatoes $2.50. The cheapest bacon brought 22 12 cents per pound, and other things in proportion. The rains were exceedingly abundant that summer, and although there was nothing but sod to plant in, yet we had an unusual abundance of lettuce, radishes, peas, beets, onions, cucumbers, sweet corn, sweet and Irish potatoes, melons, pumpkins, and cod corn, that yielded from 10 to 20 bushels per acre. During the long summer every thing was done to make ready for the coming winter. Wells to dig, stone to haul, houses to fix up to keep out the cold, etc. Money was scarce, lumber and building material high; all kinds of domestic animals were high; milk cows could not be had-for there were none; there were no hogs, unless some one shipped them in from the east, and if they did there were no enclosures to put them in, and nothing to feed them with, either. For miles and miles there was not to be found an old settler. We were all new alike, and all facing a new situation; three fourths of the settlers brought no teams with them and there were none here to buy. The result was that ox teams were the only available teams. In June the railroad was completed to Peabody, wagons and farm implements were shipped in, and the men who owned a yoke of cattle and a wagon was counted independent. The first Fourth of July was a grand affair with us. Everybody turned out. One common interest bound us together. Young bachelor homesteaders were very numerous, and a free dinner on the 4th, was to them a wonderful treat. A long table was erected and filled with the best the land could produce. There was not a stranger in the crowd. If one was seen approaching he was quickly interviewed, and then taken and introduced and greeted so warmly that he was a stranger no longer. One young bachelor (who is now a gray-haired sire) was heard to say, as he finished his dinner "That is the first square meal I have had sinc3e I came to Kansas." All the bachelors did their own cooking and laundrying. And the young ladies had plenty of suitors. It was not an unusual thing to see half a dozen bachelors trying to win the affection of the same lady, and no sooner did she show a preference for any particular young man than the preliminaries were speedily adjusted. We did not draw denominational lines very closely. After the first church was built we had a union Sunday school; but two preachers, who occupied the alternated Sundays, and represented different denominations attended, yet we had harmony and prosperity. The people gathered from the east and west, north and south, and sat down in the same church. But none of them said, "I am of Paul, or I am of Apolis." We all got there; but the manner of coming was never questioned. Some came afoot across the almost trackless prairie, a few came in farm wagons drawn by horses, but the great mass of them come with ox teams. Such a thing as a carriage, phaeton or buggy could not be found among us. It was no unusual thing to see homesteaders walk six or seven miles to church, and do it regularly. And the man that could rig up a good ox team and wagon usually gathered up a good load of churchgoers before he had driven very far. Trees and fences were an unknown quantity, consequently when anyone in the county wanted to come to Peabody they struck out making a straight line for their point of destination regardless of section lines. Deer and antelope were no uncommon sight; a few miles out from Peabody they could be seen within the rage of vision any day during the summer of 1871. Bands of Osage Indians passed through to the west and created some anxiety at first, and they sometimes camped for a few days on the Doyle near Peabody. The only complaint I ever heard about them was they were such inveterate beggars. In September, 1871, the first prairie fires made their appearance and were very destructive, and in the early years of Peabody's history the heavens were lighted many a night so that one would have no difficulty in finding his way in any direction that he wanted to go. In those early days there were much stronger winds than in these latter days, as well as more constant blowing. It was not an unusual thing to see a new house, with a good, stout prop on both the north and south sides to prevent it from being blown down; of course, houses were neither so large nor strong as in later years. The breaking up of the prairies, the planting of hedges, trees, orchards and groves, have all, no doubt, combined in the measure to produce this change. Thus the time passed, and the summer of 1873 come, and the rains were not so abundant as formerly. We had become familiar with the new surroundings, when the most dire calamity befell us that mind could conceive of. We had seen the prairie fires, fanned by the high wind, sweep across the plains with its fiery bellows enveloping hay stacks, hay sheds and stables; when we had to fight for our lives, as well as our homes. But this came unlooked for----an enemy that no human power could avert. Whence they came, or whither they went no one could tell. They swept over us like the clouds of heaven. The winged raiders were the voracious grasshoppers. They came down upon us from the north in the month of August, and could be seen like a dark cloud when they were yet miles away. They flew high and cast a shadow on the ground like a passing cloud; They would not eat prairie grass but were on the scent of something better. When half a mile high their olfactories scented the fresh bloom of the corn tassel and down they came, from the right and left to reach the growing corn. The tender blades and succulent roasting ears seemed to be just to their taste; they made short work of it, too, cleaning up a whole field in a few hours---everything green except the prairie grass. There was not a weed left. So complete was their work that even the chinch bugs starved to death. "Grasshopper on sweet potato vine" was no joking matter to us; they literally covered the ground as they had filled the air as they came down. On the roads many of them were crushed and bruised, and in all such cases the lives ones turned in and devoured them-not only cannibal-like did they devour their own kind, but they literally exterminated the native grasshopper. And it was years before they amounted to anything in numbers again. There was a difference in the nature, between the raiders and the native hopper-the native grasshopper would eat wooden handles of any tool, such as forks, rakes, hoes, etc., also coats or other garments thrown off in the field, while the marauders discarded everything of the kind. So complete was their destruction, or rather extermination, that the turkeys had to be fed after the raiders left, just as regular as if they had been cooped up. The hoppers come down on us from the north, apparently driven by the wind, and after they had cleaned up everything they could devour, they still stuck to the ground until the wind veered to the north again, when they rose and swept to the south, so that a grasshopper could not be found in a township. All this seems to be easily told, but it was a dire calamity to the new settlers. The rains were withheld; the heavens were as brass, and the earth as parched as if swept by a fire; starvation stared us in the face; a long and dreary winter was coming on; men's hears failed them as they thought of the children who had to be fed, clothed and warmed. Families who had never known what want was, were brought face to face with such a condition; they could see no ray of hope. Many deserted their claims, others sold out for such a miserable pittance, that it was equivalent to abandonment and went back to their former homes. A great many of them early settlers knew nothing regarding roughing it; had never lived on a farm, but took up claims but could not have made the two ends meet under the most favorable circumstances. There was a great falling off in the population, fortunately for those who remained, but still there were many mouths to fill. While one class of community moved out, another class, with pluck and courage, faced the situation and held the fort. A relief society was formed and supplies of provisions and second-hand clothing were generously sent in. Peabody was the distributing point for the county, and the work was systematically distributed, so that every family was looked after. Loads of provisions, consisting of flour, corn meal, bacon, and other supplies were sent regularly every week to the utmost limits of the county; no one felt above excepting and wearing second-hand clothing of every kind. Your humble servant wore an overcoat that had all the marks of having seen substantial service before it reached Peabody. The room now occupied as a music store in Peabody was used as a storeroom, and every Saturday was a busy day there, as the winter wore away the supplies continued to come. many came in for weekly supplies. In the spring, corn, potatoes and vegetable seeds were supplied for planting. During the winter it became the writer's duty to officially visit every family in Peabody and Catlin townships and make a personal examination of every family, and from personal knowledge I can say, that in some of the best, well to do families, I have found them at their noon day meal, consisting of ingredients that any tramp who ever visited Peabody would reject with scorn and contempt. There were only two articles of diet on the table, and nothing but water to drink. Such was the pluck of the men and women who held their ground and made Peabody what it is today-the prettiest and most progressive little city in the state. T. C. Thoburn --------------------------------------------------------------------- KSGENWEB INTERNET GENEALOGICAL SOCIETY COPYRIGHT NOTICE: In keeping with the KSGenWeb policy of providing free information on the Internet, this data may be used by non-commercial entities, as long as this message remains on all copied material. These electronic pages cannot be reproduced in any format for profit or other gain. Copying of the files within by non-commercial individuals and libraries is encouraged. Any other use, including publication, storage in a retrieval system, or transmission by electronic, mechanical, or other means requires the written approval of the file's author. ---------------------------------------------------------------------