CHAPTER
2:
HE
TELLS HIS OWN STORY
Newton was a very competent writer, and he was writing
articles for the Leon Journal Reporter in the early 1900’s. One of them is very
interesting in that it talks about his early life plus that of his Iowa pioneer
father George Washington Machlan.
His father bought land in Franklin Township, Decatur County,
in 1854, and settled there in 1858. Joshua Newton was born in 1859. Here is what
J.N. had to say about his family, and the early years:
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Decatur County Journal, May 9, l907
EARLY FARM METHODS
J.N. MACHLAN Tells How it was Done in the Pioneer Days of Decatur County.
Through the kindness of the JOURNAL EDITOR we are permitted
to give to the young a glimpse of farm life in the early days of Decatur
County.
My parents erected a little cabin in the brush near the
present site of the county bridge (@ GPS 40.827 -93.7693), on Little River,
west from the Fairview School House (@ about GPS 40.827 -93.7473), and called
it home; e're long my father with a good team of horses and an old fashioned
sod plow began to cut and turn the virgin soil preparatory to raising a crop.
The plowman's necessary equipments for success were as follows: plenty of
patience, a whip, a plow file, a heavy hammer and a hunk of iron, to use as an
anvil on which to cold hammer the plowshare occasionally; the file to put the
finishing touch on with; and the patience came in good play when he encountered
a stone, a root, or some obstacle that jerked the plow, plowman and all clear
out of the furrow. There were also numerous snakes to contend with, the rattle
snakes, the bull snake, the hissing viper, the blue racer, the house snake, the
garter snake, the green joint snake, the blue black joint snake and a few other
species, besides the nasty lizzards that could be seen by the hundreds.
Now as the virgin soil had been turned bottom side up and
time had arrived for corn planting, we proceeded to plant corn by one of the
following methods; by axing it in, hoeing it in, healing it in or dropping by
hand following the plow every third round and dropping the grain on top of the
furrow, at such a place that the next furrow would barely cover it with its
upper edge. This would produce what we called a crop of sod corn either good or
bad according to the season and condition of the sod. Plenty of rain was
generally essential to a good crop. It was also essential for the sod to be
well rotted. Scores of snakes would be cut in twain with the plow every season,
among which a great many rattle snakes became victims
of the cruel plowshare. The early settlers did not have implement stores to which
they could go and purchase farming tools, but were compelled of necessity to
make them.
When the ground was in condition for harrowing, we set to
work with three sticks of timber some four or five inches square and perhaps
six feet in length and frame or bolt them together, which when joined, would be
a good representation of the letter A, next with an inch and a half or a two
inch auger we bored holes in the side pieces and cross section into which we
inserted huge pegs made from good hickory or oak timber, then sharpened the
lower end of the pegs and our harrow was completed. Our wooden harrow rotted
down in the fence corner after many years of good service. A few years later,
the sod tearer was invented, it was such a peculiarly
constructed implement that to the writer it baffles description, therefore, we
beg leave to not attempt it; however, it did pretty good work at that time.
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(Note from
Fred: Here's a modern "Pioneer Walking Plow with a Sod Breaker". You
can still buy these!)
Much of the virgin soil contained so many tough roots it was
not uncommon to see a furrow of sod one-half mile long without a break in it.
Some of the toughest roots were, the wild indigo, shoe string, blue stem, rosin
weed and some times a patch of hazel or buck brush. The rosin
weed above referred to produced a white gum which constituted the
chewing gum of the yough of the early settlers.
After a few months spent in the little cabin in the brush,
we decided to venture out onto the broad, bleak prairie and erect another log cabin which we did in course of time. A well was dug which
furnished water for the house, but for years our stock had to be taken across
the prairie to some creek or spring to quench their thirst and as for ourselves
when working in the field or on the prairie making hay, we have many times
drank from a puddle containing many angle worms, crawfish and bugs, the water
would often be warm enough for dish water.
Time rolls on and it becomes necessary to fence our farm;
the father proceeded to the timber some eleven miles distant and splits rails
and hauls them and a fence is built called a worm fence, which when completed
is from seven to ten rails in height; but soon a new difficulty arose, more
settlers were coming in, fires were started in the prairie grass; some were
started by accident, some purposely and on quite a few occasions, campers have
left fire where they had stopped for the night, the wind would rise and the
fire would be scattered. Soon a conflagration would be raging across the
prairies and perhaps hundreds or even thousands of acres would be burned over
before the fire went out. In many cases the fires would burn all night. It was
at such times that our rail fences would suffer destruction and how to prevent
the loss we soon grasped an idea. The fires of course, would do most of the
mischief in the spring, and at some convenient time we would plow a few furrows
around the farm near the fence then perhaps two or three rods farther from the
fence, we would plow a few more, the strip between we called a fireland. At the favorable time, when the wind was not
blowing (generally of an evening) father would say, "Well boys, this is a
good time to burn out those firelands." Of
course, this pleased the boys and after the day's work was done we equipped
ourselves with small boards and brush to fight fire with and on some occasions
we would take along from one to three barrels of water; in case fire should get
into the fence. All things ready, we commenced firing along the side so the
fire would have to burn against the wind, but it matters not how calm it was,
when the fire was started the hot air rising creates a vacuum and the cold air
rushing in to take its place would cause a breeze and sometimes the fire would
get beyond control, despite our best efforts and sometimes we would not reach
home until a very late hour in the night.
A weed, well known to early settlers, called the tumble weed
or careless weed, which grew in great numbers on new cultivated land, the tops
of which were almost spherical in shape and ranging in diameter from twelve to
thirty-six inches, when assisted by a breeze would carry fire for some
distance. They were so near round they would roll for miles without stopping
when a stiff wind was blowing.
When the soil had become well rotted and the corn big enough
to need attention, we plowed it with a cultivator having but one shovel which was made from a triangular shaped piece of
iron, with which it was necessary to plow two rounds to each row of corn. The
cultivator was used in the field more or less until the silk made its
appearance on the young ears of corn. The worst weed we had to contend with in
the corn field in those days, was a species of smart
weed, rarely seen except on new land. It grew down close to the ground and had a
firm grip upon it. Hoes were extensively used in those days in the corn fields. Another advance step was taken in the method of
planting corn, the cultivator referred to is used to draw a shallow furrow for
each row of corn, the corn is then dropped into the furrow about every three
feet, then covered either with a hoe or by cross harrowing. Three of us dropping and one furrowing off, planting as much as seven acres
in a day.
The time had come when we were raising a little spring
wheat, oats and flax. The method of threshing grain after it had been harvested
with the cradling scythe and is well cured was to prepare a circular piece of
ground usually from sixteen to twenty feet in diameter by taking a sharp spade
and shaving off the surface until it is quite smooth and level; after this was
done a pole some eight or ten feet high was set upright in a hole dug in the
center of the circular patch of ground, to this pole usually two horses abreast
are tied with long ropes and a lad mounted on one of the horses with a small
gad, the grain had been evenly spread upon the prepared ground and the horses
were started on a long tramp, tramping out the grain on the new tramping floor,
a process that was very monotonous to the horses, and speaking from experience,
the rider was very glad when the noon hour or nightfall had arrived. The grain
during the tramping process was turned over with a forked stick and as soon the
grain was tramped out the straw was removed and the grain gathered up and
winnowed out, a fresh supply was spread upon the floor and the tramping process
was continued.
The snowfall during some of the winters was very heavy. I
believe it was in the winter of l866, we arose one morning and discovered that
the snow had drifted to the eaves of the little cabin, our fences were all
snowed under and our stock scattered hither and thither and our enclosures for
stock were all under snow. After the snow fell the weather turned colder and
the snow froze hard. We could drive in any direction across the prairie over
high fences. We had just put out a washing before the snow and it was six weeks
before we were enabled to find it all. Heavy snows were common but this one was
the heaviest I ever saw. Our cabin was covered with clapboards, as was the
custom in those days, and the snow would blow between them and sift down
through the loft into our faces as we lay in bed during a snow storm. The last
thing the good mother would do before retiring was to see if the five children
were in bed covered up head and all so the snow would not lodge in our faces.
It was a common occurrence after a snow storm had
subsided, for someone of the family to ascend to the loft and scoop the snow
out before it melted.
As we pass along it might be well to describe the bedsteads
installed in some of the cabins. One method of constructing a bedstead was to
place a log in the walls angling across the corner of the cabin at a convenient
height into which pegs were set about six inches apart, a small rope was then
procured and strung back and forth from the pegs in the lot to corresponding
pegs in the walls of the cabin. A later method of construction was to procure
two round poles to serve as side rails, set the pegs into them, fasten them to
corner posts, nail on end rails then string the pegs with rope and the bedstead
was completed.
No cabin was complete without the fireplace, the hearth of
which was laid of brick or stone and the chimney usually built of brick or
stone, or wooden slats built up in mud or lime mortar. In our cabin, the hearth
was made of flat lime stone under which the rats burrowed and made nests and
reared their young, and as their disgusting habits are nocturnal, the saucy
little rodents would emerge from beneath the hearth during the night,
especially in the winter, and skip about the fire evidently warming themselves
and eating such things as suited their taste. They would sometimes bite some of
the family or anyone who chanced to be there during the night. My brother, who
resides in Des Moines, was bitten on the great toe while asleep. A servant
girl, who was employed to assist with the household duties, was also bitten
whereupon she yelled out "murder," but as that was a common
expression with some people in those days when they were frightened, hurt or
alarmed, the family thought nothing of the expression, but someone proceeded to
make a light to ascertain how badly she was bitten.
The various kinds of lights used in those days were, first
the grease light, consisting of a saucer or pan containing grease with a rag
placed in it with one end standing above the grease, which when lighted served
to light the cabin. Next came the grease lamp, then the tallow candle.
When the sod had become well rotted, watermelons, pumpkins
and potatoes did quite well. Among the various kinds of potatoes grown were:
the calico, white meshanic, California peach blow,
long red and lady finger; the long red being the most
prolific of any grown.
For several years after Iowa became
a State, apples were hauled in from Missouri, many of them coming from what was
known as the famous crab orchard.
So called because the apple scions were grafted into the root of the wild crab.
The first apples the writer ever saw growing, were in the small orchard of
young trees planted on the old homestead. I think there were less than a dozen
of them, which were guarded very closely lest something befell them before they
matured.
After the chaff-piling threshing machine was introduced, the
threshing of grain was not so great a task as it formerly was, but as the straw
carrier had not yet been invented, it became necessary to remove the straw and
chaff from the rear end of the machine, either with horses or by some other
method, any of which were very disagreeable, as the chaff and dust would fill
the eyes, nose, ears and mouth, if you should fail to keep it shut; but being
as it was, it was quite an improvement over the tramping floor method.
_files/image004.png)
(Note from
Fred: Here's a "Horse Powered Chaff Piler"!)
Thinking there might be profit in sheep raising, we
purchased a flock of two or three hundred, with a guarantee from the owner that
none of them were more than four years old, but soon they began to die of old
age and we discovered we were beaten in the deal, however, we kept on trying.
We had plenty of range, but they must have a shepherd, which lot usually fell
upon the writer, and permit me to say it was a very monotonous, lonesome
occupation watching sheep on the broad prairie, and not a human being in sight
for hours at a time. For years we were compelled to lot the sheep at night near
the cabin, to prevent the wolves from killing them, but even then they would
get among them and kill the lambs. One day while the writer was tending the
sheep a short distance from the cabin, a wolf came into the flock and seizing a
lamb by the back of the neck and trotted off with it. I waved my stick that I
usually carried vigorously in the air and yelled with the force I could
summons, the wolf dropped the lamb and I took it to the cabin, but it was so
badly injured it only lived a few days. Our flock increased and the extremely
old ones died off and we had better success for a while. In our flock was a
large fellow with curled horns; he had been teased
quite a little and had become quite mischievous. On a certain occasion, by
accident the sheep became imprisoned in the smoke house; some member of the
family had closed the door, not knowing that he was in there. The servant of
the kitchen, who was commonly called an old maid, went to the smoke house for
something to serve for dinner meal and on opening the door, the sheep made a
dive for her, running between her feet, carrying her for a long distance,
bleating as if in great agony, while the maid was screaming and trying to
alight from his back. The situation seemed a critical one as the sheep did not
know how to unload his burden and the maid feared trying to let loose for fear
of getting hurt in the attempt, but finally by some kind of maneuvers they came
out of the fracas none the worse for wear, save being a little frightened.
Another advance had been made in the corn cultivator which then had two shovels
instead of one and a row of corn was plowed every round of the horse and
plowman, which was quite gratifying to the farmer. But while this was true, new
and additional weeds were added to the farmers' list of pests among which were
the milk weed and the black eyed swan, both of which
are with us unto the present day. The black eyed swan
was introduced into this country as a garden flower by some English people.
Time rolls around and the rats under the old hearth having increased in numbers
and boldness, as well, they became almost unbearable and father set traps and
caught quite a number of them. The cabin all being in one room, we could watch
them by the light of the fireplace from all quarters of the room and I must say
it was amusing to see father spring out of bed, on hearing the trap spring, and
kill the rat, set the trap again and retire, sometimes only remaining in bed
but a short time when he would spring up and repeat the operation. Someone
prescribed a remedy for getting rid of the saucy rodents; it was as follows:
Catch a rat, singe it over the fire and turn it loose and the rats would all
take a leave of absence. Father caught the rat but his heart failed him when it
came to the singeing process and the rat never got singed. So
much for rat trapping around the old fireside. Other improvements had
been made to facilitate corn planting. A farmer a few miles distant had
purchased a two horse planter for about $75 and we
could hire it for about l5 cents per acre. The ground when ready to plant was
first marked off with a kind of sled, the first one to appear made two marks at
a time, in a few years someone made an improvement on the marker and it made
three marks at a time. About this time we thought we would cap the climax. We
made two wooden axles that would fit our wagon wheels, one short and one long
one, coupled them together and made four marks at a time, which was easy on the
team and by this improvement, forty acres could be marked off in a few hours.
The ground being marked, two persons, a driver and a dropper, a team of horses
and the new corn planter, would plant from ten to fifteen acres per day. The
most common variety of corn planted those days was the bloody butcher, although
more or less white corn was grown.
A threshing machine had been introduced with a short straw
carrier attachment known as the Buffalo Pitts, which was quite an improvement
over the old chaff piler. In connection with the
Buffalo Pitts thresher was introduced a system of tallying the number of
bushels of grain threshed. It consisted mainly of a board attached to the side
of the machine where the grain came out. It had a number of one-fourth inch
holes in it arranged in rows into which pegs were moved for each bushel of
grain threshed. The board would tally up to one thousand bushels, when it
became necessary to commence again at the first.
_files/image006.png)
By this time Osceola had a railroad. The Leon merchants had
their goods shipped to Osceola and hired them hauled in wagons across the
country. Engaged in the hauling of goods was a MR.
HUGHES, MR. GOINS, MR. LINDSEY and others, all of whom were residents of Leon.
MR. HUGHES was engaged at a certain time in hauling shingles. One day while enroute for Leon with a load of shingles his horses became
frightened and ran away, scattering shingles along the highway for some
distance. MR. HUGHES received the name "shingle sower".
Another step forward was taken and the two-horse cultivator
was being introduced to the farmers. We bargained for a Blackhawk walking
cultivator, with the firm of Richards & Close, whose ad appeared in the
Decatur County Journal of that time. The plow was delivered at our gate at the
old homestead by the MR. HUGHES referred to, while enroute
to Leon. The plow I believe cost $35 and was the first two-horse cultivator the
writer ever saw and pardon me for saying, it gives me pleasure still to look at
the old cultivator, the principal parts of which are in good condition, and
with some repairs it is still used by its purchaser in north Leon, to cultivate
garden truck or anything that needs cultivation.
Going back now to the days and nights in the little cabin
where things had been moving along quietly for some time with a new house maid
assisting with the indoor work; until one night the family was startled by an
unusual noise in the house, a light was struck and we discovered that the maid
of all work had taken her departure. A member of the family was dispatched to
search for the missing maiden, after a brief search she was found a few rods
from the house taking a ride on father's old shaving horse. She was escorted
back to the cabin and persuaded to retire again and on being told of her
conduct, the following morning, she was horror stricken.
It was a bad case of insomania (sic) and for a long
time afterward the family was often startled in the night by her queer actions.
In the early days of Decatur County, considerable hay and
grain was stolen. Movers and travelers going across the country would often
steal their horse feed and take rails from the fences and make fuel out of
them. One farmer, however, got even with a mover. He had missed some rails from
his fence and mounting a horse, went after him and overtaking him before he
reached Osceola, made him pay 50 cents each for the rails he had burned. The
farmers would often see them in the act. The writer on one occasion caught some
young well dressed fellows stealing hay. I asked what
they did that for and they asked me to set a price, which I did. They said that
it wasn't any too much and paid the price and drove on.
Good blooded horses were very scarce, but at the same time
there were a good many good, serviceable horses on the farms, among which were
the Canadian horses, as they were called, that were excellent all service
animals.
The first hogs were the well known hazel splitters or razor
backs that were allowed to rove the prairie at will, and you might imagine
yourself among the brush or in the tall prairie grass, with a salamander in
your hand searching for a hog to butcher or one that might have a family of
pigs to care for, it was not uncommon to fail in finding a young litter of
swine until they were several days old. As to cattle, they were just cattle and
a conglomeration of colors and kinds. They all had horns and most of them good
long ones. There were some excellent milchers (sic)
and some expert kickers among them.
Now, one more happening in the cabin on the old homestead
and we will bring these very incomplete sketches to a close. One very cold
winter day as the family were seated about the old fireplace, a muffled rap was
heard at the door, someone of the family went to the door, pulled the string
that lifted the wooden latch, the door swung on its hinges and there stood a
gentleman of perhaps thirty summers, who asked permission to come in and warm.
The privilege being instantly granted he was proffered a chair by the fire
which he soon occupied, and immediately began to slip off a pair of new boots,
which seemed rather tight for him, but after a few hard pulls he succeeded in
getting them off. It was not long, however, until he was warm and contemplated
resuming his journey. He seizes one of his boots, gives it several vigorous
pulls, but as his feet had swollen while sitting by the fire, he fails to make
the boot go on for the time being, but he soon mastered the situation; he
called for some soft soap, which was soon given him, after which he proceeded
to grease his heels thoroughly, the boots went on and although the gentleman
was from Missouri, he didn't have to be shown, and we learned another Yankee
trick.
J.N. MACHLAN.
Copied by Nancee(McMurtrey)Seifert
September 7, 200l
MORE NEWTON MACHLAN ARTICLES:
Newton
Machlan wrote many articles, particularly where it concerned family:
Decatur
County Journal
March l,
l900
ROLLA ARNEY,
second son of J.S. ARNEY, weds an estimable young lady from Ft. Dodge whose
maiden name was ANNA CARROLL. Her girlhood days were passed in Ft. Dodge but
she has been employed at the Hotel Aborn, Des Moines,
for some time. The groom was reared in this county and is an excellent young
man belonging to one of our best families.
While
visiting at J.N. Machlan's, the happy couple were
remembered by the groom's chums who gave them a charavari
of the old fashioned kind with horns, bells and shotguns. The boys were invited
in and treated liberally and the incident closed with vocal and instrumental
music. The crowd demeaned themselves as
gentlemen, and seemed to enjoy themselves.
The future
home of the couple will probably be Valley Junction where MR. ARNEY will devote
his time to the business of a plasterer.
J.N.
MACHLAN.
Decatur
County Journal March l5, l906
J.N.
MACHLAN, of Franklin Township, kindly furnished the JOURNAL with a report of a
school taught by HELEN M. WHITNEY during the winter of l863 and '64. At that
time the school house was located on the NATHAN PERDEW
farm, afterwards owned by B.Y. WALKER and now owned by F.P. MORELAND. The
building was finally moved to W.A. MACHLAN's farm.
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