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

Learning About Nebraska Homesteads

To learn about Nebraska homesteads, I had to learn something new from Towner County, North Dakota's Clerk of Court, Jolene Hoffert.  Her office was terrific in looking up all kinds of land records for my McGee ancestors.  When they found everything they could, Jolene told me to use the homestead paperwork she pulled to get more information at the National Archives.  I thought the paper I got from the Bureau of Land Management (for the states they have scanned) and the ones from Towner County was all the information there was.  Jolene told me to contact the National Archives and pay a fee ($5 when she last did this), and you could get all the information that was collected to "prove" the homestead.  Well, that was interesting, but when I first checked at NARA, I saw that homestead packages were $50. Indeed a rise in price since Jolene last pulled data from them on homesteads!  But the data is tempting. So I recheck the NARA website and pay a little more attention -- there is a notice that some of the homestead packages are on Fold3.com.  Since I already have a subscription to Fold3, I took a look.  They only have homestead records from Nebraska, but since I have ancestors who homesteaded in Nebraska, this was a big bonus.

I pulled the records for Enoch Parr's homestead in Oak Grove Township (between Bloomington, NE, and Kansas state line).  There were 34 pages of documents - routine, confusing, fascinating.  I had to study history again to figure some of it out.

So we have the Homestead Act of 1862, which allowed pretty much any adult the opportunity to earn 160 acres of free land by building a house on it, living there, and then farming some portion of it for 5 years.  If you succeeded, Uncle Sam gave you the deed to the land for a fee of about $18.  Well, in Nebraska, there were multiple governing Acts.  In addition to the Homestead Act, there was the Preemption Act of 1841.  I don't know what they did in other states, but those Nebraska homesteaders worked every angle.  The Preemptive Act of 1841 allowed people to "squat" on public land and attempt to build a home and farm. Before the government could offer the property for sale to someone else, they had to offer it first to the "squatters" for $1.25/acre.  So if they staked a claim under the Preemptive Act and couldn't meet all the Homestead Act requirements, they could buy the land.  If they could meet the Homestead Act requirements, they would file a "Pre-emption-Homestead Affidavit" that converted the claim from Preemptive to Homestead and only pay filing fees.  Enoch Parr did convert his land from Preemptive to Homestead, but more on that another day.

Cando Cemetery Mystery

The Sacred Heart Cemetery in Cando, North Dakota, holds the graves of my great-great-grandparents, William Michael McGee and Isabel/Isabella Carney.  In 2008, my 3rd cousin, Rita Matejka, went to Cando and cleaned up the gravestones and chopped away at the bush that was covering the headstone and took some pictures.  She posted the images on Find A Grave.  So when I went to the cemetery, I was expecting to see what I had seen on Rita's pictures.  But no such thing -- the gravestone looked very new and very, lovely and the bush was covering the stone.  But I didn't have my computer with me so I couldn't really examine the differences. With help from our new friend, Gerald Maurseth, I chopped away at the overgrown bush so my husband could take pictures.  The next day, I contacted Rita's aunt, Betty Teichmann, to see what she might know about a new gravestone.  Betty gave me her brother Gary's name and phone number to see what he knew.  I had a lovely conversation with Gary as we drove across North Dakota.  We didn't solve the question of what appeared to be a new gravestone, but did solve two other family mysteries!
Mystery #1: Who was the McGee that my uncle John met in Minnesota right before he was transferred to Florida?  Well, it was Jerry.  Someone Jerry worked with decided to introduce the two McGees and what a surprise to all of them to find out Jerry and John were cousins (2nd - meaning their grandfathers were brothers).  Before they could meet up again and talk, John was transferred.
Mystery #2:  Why did Aunt Tress visit "strangers" in Minnesota and not her own nephew, John McGee?  Jerry had the answer to this also.  Jerry's parents had gone to Cando for some event, and my grandfather's sister, Theresa Irene McGee Lampman (aka Tress), was there also.  At the family event, Jerry's parents invited Tress to come home with them for a visit.  So Tress made an unplanned visit to Minnesota to spend some more time with her cousin.
Now back to the gravestone.  After looking at the pictures my husband took and comparing them to Rita's images on Find A Grave, I realize that the tombstone is not new but maybe has a new face?  Here is the link to William McGee on Find A Grave - http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=29228651
My new pictures have pushed Rita's pictures off the front page, but if you click on the photo tab, you can see both of our images.  Is it possible to "polish" up granite and bring back that kind of detail?  Or did someone come in a do a more elaborate refinishing? Who is the person who spent the time and money to do this?
Strangely enough, while I was talking to Jerry, he told me that his daughter Rita was in Orlando, Florida, on vacation -- very close to where John McGee and most of his family now live.

Here is the view of the cemetery from the street.  The McGee tombstone is the one on the right with the big bush next to it.  I should have trimmed it down some more.

UPDATE:  Rita looked at the pictures and said the stone looked the same as when she saw it.  Her image was hampered by rain and bad lighting, and we had bright sunlight that made the stone really shine.

Homestead National Monument & Homestead ACT of 1862

In Beatrice, Nebraska, the National Parks Service has a National Monument dedicated to the Homestead Act of 1862.  The Homestead Act was signed by President Abraham Lincoln on May 20, 1862, after 11 states had seceded from the Union. Passing the act before that point had been delayed by fighting over slavery issues.  Homesteaders were required to sign an oath of allegiance to the United States, and if they violated that oath, they lost the homestead.  This prevented homesteaders from aligning themselves with the southern states that had seceded.  Also, the homesteaders had to build a house and farm the land to "prove" the homestead and get title to the property.  "Proving" a homestead took 5 years.
To prevent boundary disputes, the government surveyed all the public land and divided it all up into square blocks called "townships." These townships consisted of 36 "sections" that were 1 square mile each.  These sections were then subdivided down into square "quarter sections" and then again into square 40 acre lots.  Each homesteader was allowed 4 of these 40 acre lots.  Each lot had to have a common border with another lot in the homestead.  So a homesteader could choose a full quarter section and have a square lot or could choose a lot configuration that looked like a "T" or an "L."  My great-great-grandfather, Enoch Parr, picked a lot configuration that resembles a Tetris shape in the Oak Grove Township in Franklin, Nebraska.
Here is what the land looks like today.  Likely, the original homestead building was back near the trees and the creek that ran through the property.

Enoch & Harriet Fish Parr's Homestead

My great-great-grandfather William Michael McGee and great-grandfather John Carney McGee homesteaded in North Dakota near the town of Cando, in Coolin Township.
Here is what William's homestead looks like today.  His homestead was a standard quarter section.  There is nothing left that would indicate where the house was.

William & Isabella Carney McGee's Homestead

John's homestead was also a standard quarter section. Here is what it looks like today. Trees were not a natural part of the landscape in this part of North Dakota, so someone planted them there -- likely around a house that is no longer here.

John Carney & Margaret Callahan McGee's Homestead

My family homesteaded in the late 1800s, but the Homestead Act was still in effect until 1976 in the lower 48 states and 1986 in Alaska.  The Homestead National Monument of America has exhibits from the original homesteader all the way to the last homesteader.  It is worth a trip to see a piece of history that impacted how this country was settled.

Finding your family's homestead land can be quite tricky.  In North Dakota, the streets in the townships are not labeled.  We were fortunate to get help from Gerald Maurseth from Cando's Pioneer Foundation/Museum, who is also a retired Postman.

In Nebraska, we had help from Gary and Jaynette Keim, who are with the Franklin County Historical Museum.  In Nebraska the streets are labeled but wouldn't have been enough for us to find the boundaries of the homesteads.  Other members of the museum helped us find family records that the museum had stored.

http://www.nps.gov/home/index.htm