Pioneer Life - Minnesota to North Dakota

-After William McGee returned home from duty in the Civil War, he moved his family to High Forest Township, Minnesota, around 1866. High Forest is the township immediately south of Rochester City.

Olmstead County, Minnesota (current map)  High Forest Township south of Rochester (light green)

In 1883, John Carney McGee and two of his brothers left High Forest and went to Rochester.  It seems most likely that the two brothers who traveled with John were James Patrick McGee and Michael Emmett McGee.  From Rochester, they traveled by wagon to Minneapolis, which is about 77 miles if they could go in a straight line.  The US Department of Transportation states that wagons could cover between 8 and 20 miles per day.  So somewhere between 5 and 10 days travel. And although TV shows and movies would lead us to believe that the wagons carried people, that was not the case.  People walked unless they were injured or ill.  Only their possessions were in the wagon.

 In Minneapolis, John and his brothers took the train to Fargo, North Dakota.  (Today that would be about a 4.5 hour trip on the Amtrak "Empire Builder" route.)  From Fargo, they went by wagon again to Cando, North Dakota.  If they could have traveled in a straight line, that would be about 160 miles.  At 8 miles per day, that would have taken about 20 days.  When John was interviewed for a North Dakota pioneer historical project, he said that he spent 36 days traveling by wagon.  John said that he and his brothers arrived in Cando in August of 1883.  They brought with them a team of 3 (horses? oxen?), some farm implements, some kitchen utensils, an iron, and some tins.

Current Mapquest map with Fargo in bottom right and Cando in the top left

By June 11, 1884, John had built a sod house with the help of one of his brothers.  This grand house had two windows and one door.  The full dimension of the house was 10 feet by 12 feet.  So, why a sod house instead of a "normal" house made of wood?  And what was a sod house?

Well, the Library of Congress has some useful information.  In 1880, when pioneers were arriving in the Dakotas, they saw a sea of tall prairie grass -- and no trees!  Actually, there were a few trees along river banks, but none elsewhere. The only thing available to build a shelter with was sod.   They cut squares out of the ground, which included the prairie grass down to the roots.  They used them for the walls and the roof.  The only timber was used for the doors and windows.  The best part of sod was it was very energy-efficient -- houses kept cool in the summer and warm in the winter.  The bad part is that they were porous, so the rain came through the roofs and got everything inside wet.  It sounds like tent-camping.

The sod house below was built in the 1890s, somewhere in the Dakotas.  It looks a lot bigger than 10'x12'.  The grass growing on the roof seems typical of sod houses in that time frame.

 Fred Hultstrand History in Pictures Collection, NDIRS-NDSU, Fargo., Library of Congress

This second picture is somewhere in the Devils Lake area, and its size may look much like John Carney McGee's sod house did.  Can you imagine living there?

 Fred Hultstrand History in Pictures Collection, NDIRS-NDSU, Fargo. Library of Congress

John lived there four years before building a more permanent home.  His table was made of some boards, and the chairs were boxes.  He stored his food in a "hole in the ground."  When John was asked what type of stove he had in the house, he replied, "stone."  Well, that had me puzzled for a while as I was inhibited my idea of what a stove was.  A stone stove (or more frequently called a three-stone stove) consists of three stones arranged around a fire in a way that a pot could sit above the fire, supported by the three rocks.

Traditional Three Stone Stove

Now remember that there weren't enough trees to build a house, so you can imagine that there wasn't enough to use for fire either.  No, John used buffalo chips that he collected out on the prairies.

Water was carried from a stream.  The stream appears to have been at least a mile from John's homestead.  Here are the coordinates 48.4283952, -99.0142001 for the property.  You can plug them into Google Earth to see the land today.  John's homestead was the NW quarter of section 14.  The coordinates appear to put you at the NW corner of his property.  There is water on the farm now, but North Dakota is in its third year of flooding.

He bought food and clothing in Devils Lake, which is about 30 minutes by car but a lot longer by horse.  The prices are surprising.  He paid $4.00 for a hundred pounds of sugar and $5.00 for a hundred pounds of flour.  John said suits cost $4.00 to $15.00.

John's hobbies -- as he listed them -- were Dancing, Hunting, and Fishing.  For work, he recorded farming and stock raising.

Just for fun, here is an old song about sod houses.


Yodeling Slim Clark - Little Old Sod Shanty (1946).Pir