ORISTOWN, THE "LITTLE CROW" RESERVATION
When I left St. Louis on the night of October fourth I headed for
Oristown to buy someone's relinquishment. I had two thousand, five
hundred dollars. From Omaha the journey was made on the C. & R.W.'s one
train a day that during these times was loaded from end to end, with
everybody discussing the Little Crow and the buying of relinquishments.
I was the only negro on the train and an object of many inquiries as to
where I was going. Some of those whom I told that I was going to buy a
relinquishment seemingly regarded it as a joke, judging from the meaning
glances cast at those nearest them.
An incident occurred when I arrived at Oristown which is yet considered
a good joke on a real estate man then located there, by the name of
Keeler, who was also the United States Commissioner. He could not only
sell me a relinquishment, but could also take my filing. I had a talk
with Keeler, but as he did not encourage me in my plan to make a
purchase I went to another firm, a young lawyer and a fellow by the name
of Slater, who ran a livery barn, around the corner. Watkins, the
lawyer, impressed me as having more ambition than practical business
qualities. However, Slater took the matter up and agreed to take me over
the reservation and show me some good claims. If I bought, the drive was
gratis, if not four dollars per day, and I accepted his proposition.
After we had driven a few miles he told me Keeler had said to him that
he was a fool to waste his time hauling a d---- nigger around over the
reservation; that I didn't have any money and was just "stalling." I
flushed angrily, and said "Show me what I want and I will produce the
money. What I want is something near the west end of the county. You say
the relinquishments are cheaper there and the soil is richer. I don't
want big hills or rocks nor anything I can't farm, but I want a nice
level or gently rolling quarter section of prairie near some town to be,
that has prospects of getting the railroad when it is extended west from
Oristown." By this time we had covered the three miles between Oristown
and the reservation line, and had entered the newly opened section which
stretched for thirty miles to the west. As we drove on I became
attracted by the long grass, now dead, which was of a brownish hue and
as I gazed over the miles of it lying like a mighty carpet I could seem
to feel the magnitude of the development and industry that would some
day replace this state of wildness. To the Northeast the Missouri River
wound its way, into which empties the Whetstone Creek, the breaks of
which resembled miniature mountains, falling abruptly, then rising to a
point where the dark shale sides glistened in the sunlight. It was my
longest drive in a buggy. We could go for perhaps three or four miles on
a table-like plateau, then drop suddenly into small canyon-like ditches
and rise abruptly to the other side. After driving about fifteen miles
we came to the town, as they called it, but I would have said village of
Hedrick--a collection of frame shacks with one or two houses, many
roughly constructed sod buildings, the long brown grass hanging from
between the sod, giving it a frizzled appearance. Here we listened to a
few boosters and mountebanks whose rustic eloquence was no doubt
intended to give the unwary the impression that they were on the site of
the coming metropolis of the west. A county-seat battle was to be fought
the next month and the few citizens of the sixty days declared they
would wrest it from Fairview, the present county seat situated in the
extreme east end of the county, if it cost them a million dollars, or
one-half of all they were worth. They boasted of Hedrick's prospects,
sweeping their arms around in eloquent gestures in alluding to the
territory tributary to the town, as though half the universe were
Hedrick territory.
Nine miles northwest, where the land was very sandy and full of pits,
into which the buggy wheels dropped with a grinding sound, and where
magnesia rock cropped out of the soil, was another budding town by the
name of Kirk. The few prospective citizens of this burg were not so
enthusiastic as those in Hedrick and when I asked one why they located
the town in such a sandy country he opened up with a snort about some
pinheaded engineer for the "guvment" who didn't know enough to jump
straight up "a locating the town in such an all fired sandy place"; but
he concluded with a compliment, that plenty of good water could be found
at from fifteen to fifty feet.
This sandy land continued some three miles west and we often found
springs along the streams. After ascending an unusually steep hill, we
came upon a plateau where the grass, the soil, and the lay of the land,
were entirely different from any we had as yet seen. I was struck by the
beauty of the scenery and it seemed to charm and bring me out of the
spirit of depression the sandy stretch brought upon me. Stretching for
miles to the northwest and to the south, the land would rise in a gentle
slope to a hog back, and as gently slope away to a draw, which drained
to the south. Here the small streams emptied into a larger one, winding
along like a snake's track, and thickly wooded with a growth of small
hardwood timber. It was beautiful. From each side the land rose gently
like huge wings, and spread away as far as the eye could reach. The
driver brought me back to earth, after a mile of such fascinating
observations, and pointing to the north, said: "There lays one of the
claims." I was carried away by the first sight of it. The land appeared
to slope from a point, or table, and to the north of that was a small
draw, with water. We rode along the south side and on coming upon a
slight raise, which he informed me was the highest part of the place, we
found a square white stone set equally distant from four small holes,
four or five feet apart. On one side of the stone was inscribed a row of
letters which ran like this, SWC, SWQ, Sec. 29-97-72 W. 5th P.M., and on
the other sides were some other letters similar to these. "What does all
that mean?" I asked. He said the letters were initials describing the
land and reading from the side next to the place we had come to see it,
read: "The southwest corner of the southwest quarter of section
twenty-nine, township ninety-seven, and range seventy-two, west of the
fifth principal meridian."
When we got back to Oristown I concluded I wanted the place and dreamed
of it that night. It had been drawn by a girl who lived with her parents
across the Missouri. To see her, we had to drive to their home, and here
a disagreement arose, which for a time threatened to cause a split. I
had been so enthusiastic over the place, that Slater figured on a
handsome commission, but I had been making inquiries in Oristown, and
found I could buy relinquishments much cheaper than I had anticipated. I
had expected the price to be about one thousand, eight hundred dollars
and came prepared to pay that much, but was advised to pay not over five
hundred dollars for land as far west as the town of Megory, which was
only four miles northwest of the place I was now dickering to buy. We
had agreed to give the girl three hundred and seventy-five dollars, and
I had partly agreed to give Slater two hundred dollars commission.
However, I decided this was too much, and told him I would give him only
seventy-five dollars. He was in for going right back to Oristown and
calling the deal off, but when he figured up that two and a half day's
driving would amount to only ten dollars, he offered to take one hundred
dollars. But I was obstinate and held out for seventy-five dollars,
finally giving him eighty dollars, and in due time became the proud
owner of a Little Crow homestead.
All this time I had been writing to Jessie. I had written first while I
was in Eaton, and she had answered in the same demure manner in which
she had received me at our first meeting, and had continued answering
the letters I had written from all parts of the continent, in much the
same way. For a time I had quit writing, for I felt that she was really
too young and not taking me seriously enough, but after a month, my
sister wrote me, asking why I did not write to Jessie; that she asked
about me every day. This inspired me with a new interest and I began
writing again.
I wrote her in glowing terms all about my advent in Dakota, and as she
was of a reserved disposition, I always asked her opinion as to whether
she thought it a sensible move. I wanted to hear her say something more
than: "I was at a cantata last evening and had a nice time", and so on.
Furthermore, I was skeptical. I knew that a great many colored people
considered farming a deprivation of all things essential to a good time.
In fact, to have a good time, was the first thing to be considered, and
everything else was secondary. Jessie, however, was not of this kind.
She wrote me a letter that surprised me, stating, among other things,
that she was seventeen and in her senior year high school. That she
thought I was grand and noble, as well as practical, and was sorry she
couldn't find words to tell me all she felt, but that which satisfied me
suited her also. I was delighted with her answer and wrote a cheerful
letter in return, saying I would come to see her, Christmas.