After the Civil War ended, Louis Hanson quickly took steps to move his family to Kansas. Homestead land was available in the Big Blue River Valley near Manhattan, and Louis was more prepared than most people to accept the challenge.
Louis had already made two huge moves in his life. At age 19, he came to America all by himself, surviving a dangerous two-month Atlantic passage in a sailing ship and apparently avoiding a cholera epidemic that swept through the party of immigrants he traveled with. Then two years later, he set out for the California gold fields by way of the dangerous overland route. He knew what it took to travel with wagons and livestock across open land. He probably thought this would be a piece of cake in comparison – it was a much shorter distance with no mountains or deserts to cross, and no Indian threats either.
His wife Lisa Stina would have to care for their two small children, Emma and Frank, as they traveled with their household goods and livestock. There was another baby on the way, too. That child, my great-grandfather Edward Hanson, was born on April 24, 1866 in Riley County, Kansas. I have the homestead application file on order but it won’t arrive for a few weeks. That will help flesh out the details of their arrival. If they traveled in the fall of 1865, they would have had to quickly build shelter and get provisions for a long winter on the tall-grass prairie. If they waited until spring, Lisa Stina would have been very pregnant and would have had to endure a very uncomfortable trip. I wonder, who was there to help deliver her baby?
Last week I came across a history of the first fifty years of Randolph. It was written in 1954 as a Masters Degree thesis by a student at Bethany College in nearly Lindsborg. The author’s father had been a pastor at a church in Randolph, and he had access to original materials and was able to interview descendants of the original settlers. The whole thing is available at archive.org and worth a read.
I don’t normally do this, but I’m going to reproduce an entire section of the 3rd chapter of Mr. Nyquist’s book. It is so relevant to our family and (spoiler alert!) Louis Hanson is even mentioned by name.
CHAPTER
III
HOW THE PEOPLE WORKED AND LIVED
The construction of the homes was one of the first tasks that confronted settlers upon their arrival in the Blue Valley. However, if they came during the planting season, their chief concern was to get some crops planted for use during the next year. Therefore, they lived in their covered wagons and cooked on an open fire out-of-doors until their homes were built. The first dwellings were made of logs or stone. Usually there was a great amount of cooperation among the neighbors in helping to build a newcomer’s home. Neighbors at that time were few and included anyone as far away as ten miles1.
A description of the building of a home in the early Randolph community was given in the following words:
Neighbors were called on and soon the four walls of the modest frontier home loomed up in the valley. The roof was formed of clap boards about three feet long, split or riven out of some straight grained oak. In the absence of nails the boards were weighted down by weight poles. Openings were saved for doors and small windows. Rough boards were secured at some distant saw mill for doors; after they were ripped with whip-saws. The windows came from the Missouri river one hundred miles away. Many settlers came without cooking or heating stoves so they built wide fire places out of native un-dressed limestone. Some of the people lived for years on a dirt floor, while others made puncheon floors, broad slabs of some easy splitting wood, four to six feet long, roughly dressed on the upper side and laid on sleepers2.
Some of the men who were handy with tools made most of the primitive furniture such as the bed-steads, trundle beds, tables, benches, and shelves. The ambition and aim of many of the early settlers was to own a quarter section of land in a free Kansas, where, they hoped, slavery would never exist and where the land would be forever dedicated to human freedom and the inalienable rights of men.
After the building of a home had been completed the settlers’ next chief concern was to plant crops and cultivate the land. The main crops that were raised at this time were wheat, corn, and barley. The soil of the valley was dark, loamy, friable, and easily worked which made for an ideal farming country. Finding this fertile land encouraged the settlers, strengthened their faith in Kansas, and made them more optimistic of her future possibilities. Some of the frontier farmers checked the corn ground with a home-made marker, then used hand planters to plant their corn. Others followed the eastern style, furrowed out the ground, planted the seed by hand, and covered it with a hoe.
The implements used at this time were very crude and relatively inexpensive but served the purpose very well. The plows used were of two kinds; the single shovel (bull tongue) to stir the soil, and the double shovel to cultivate the soil. The latter one was brought from the Illinois prairie to Kansas by an enterprising Swede, Louis Hanson. This implement had features of a double shovel plow and the modernized two-horse cultivator. This plow consisted of a wooden frame to which were attached two double-shovels, one on each side of the corn row. Fastened to the frame was a short coupling pole connecting it to the front part of a wagon.Two common plow handles guided the plow.
In 1858 and 1859 spring wheat was introduced as a crop. The people were getting tired of eating corn bread and mush and other foods made from it, therefore, they welcomed the variety that white flour would add to their diets. The first wheat crop turned out quite well, and was harvested in the following manner3:
A hickory limb was bent into a bow and fitted into holes bored in the heel of a common scythe. Then the grain was cut, bound and stacked. An area about 30 ft. in diameter was cleared and in the center a stake was driven. The wheat was then spread in even layers over- lapping each other. A pair of oxen were then yoked to the stake and were driven around the circle to thresh the wheat. The wheat was then taken to Manhattan and ground into flour; therefore by using the wheat flour a variation in the diet was realized.
Stock raising was developed rather early and was given its first impetus by August and Fred Winkler. They brought in a herd of cows and heifers as well as hogs from Missouri; and later they brought sheep into the valley4. The returns and profits contributed greatly to the prosperity of those who went into livestock raising. In the Mariadahl settlement the Johnson brothers also recognized the importance and value of the livestock development. As a result of greater crop yield and increased surplus of corn, many farmers turned to hog raising. This seemed to be the best and most practical solution to their problem of surplus corn, but it did not always prove to be smooth sailing for the industrious people. For example at the outbreak of the Civil War, the Johnson brothers with others hauled their bacon, hams, and shoulders to Leavenworth a distance of 120 miles and sold the meat for two to three cents a pound5. The Chester White breed was the first breed of hogs to be raised in this area. They were known for their frequent and prolific litters and general good health.
Half-bred horses were common. While many of the settlers brought fairly good horses, large numbers of light teams bred from crossing the cheap Indian iPony with scrub stallion prevailed for a long time. They were hardier, easier kept and acclimated while eastern horses frequently sickened and died.
There was some fruit growing, but early Kansas just as parts of Missouri and Illinois, proved to be a poor fruit growing country. The old settlers made the mistake of bringing eastern varieties of fruit trees with them, Much to the disappointment of the settlers these fruit trees did not grow well in Kansas. Many of the trees died and those that survived were barren for many years. As soon as home nurseries were begun and Kansas grown trees of western varieties were propagated, this situation changed. However, it was a long time before the rooted belief that Kansas was not a fruit state was eradicated. During this time the people took advantage of such wild fruits as grapes, plums, and wild strawberry. The prolific tomato was christened the “Kansas Apple.”
The social life of the people of the Randolph community was of a cordial, paternal, and neighborly spirit. There were frequent exchange visits across the divides and between the creeks and the river. Neighbors at this time lived far apart. The following description indicates sparse settlement of the region6:
There wasn’t a sign of human life along the road from lower Fancy Creek to the mouth of Coon Creek, a distance of sixteen miles. The same was true between Randolph and the head of Wildcat Creek, s distance of sixteen miles and then twelve miles to Governor Harvey’s. As late as 1861 you could mount your pony at or near the mouth of Fancy Creek and steering a little southwest, you could ride twenty miles as a crow flies without a sign of life, save perhaps the prowling coyote or the sudden noise of a flock of prairie chickens rising out of the waist high grass, or an inquisitive antelope encircling the passing stranger in graceful leaps to get to windward of him until you pulled rein on or near the forest fringed banks of the Republican River near the present site of Clay Center.
There were no marked roads into and early settlers simply loaded the family into an ox cart or lumber wagon and headed for the next settlement using the sun to keep their direction.
There was no shoddy aristocracy, no money master, no priviledged princes of wealth, no money madness on the frontier, no greed, grab and graft—it was a true democracy. There was no exclusiveness , pretentious hypocrisy or class rule. They lived a simple life and took advantage of what nature provided for them7.
The Swedes who came to the Blue Valley in the 1850′ s were devout and pious people8. They held informal religious services in various homes; the services consisted of hymn singing, reading of the Bible and Martin Luther*s book of sermons and prayers. They also assembled for the traditional festive early morning Christmas Service (Julotta). Later on the people organized singing schools, debate societies, and literary societies9. Corn husking and wood cutting bees were also part of the early community social life10.
Early settlers had to contend with floods, prairie fires, grasshoppers, unfavorable weather conditions, tornadoes, and some menace from the Indians. During years and seasons of heavy rains, the rivers and the creeks went out of their banks and caused property and crop destruction and sometimes loss of human life. Prairie fires were also a hazard because of the tall grass that grew wild, it was easy for a fire to race across a large area in a short time. Every time one of these fires occurred, the settler worked as hard and as fast as possible to protect himself and his property. He did this by plowing a furrow or several furrows around his house and other property. If time permitted he would build a back fire to stop the oncoming fire. Indians were sometimes blamed for starting prairie fires but the greatest menace from the Indians came from contact while they camped in the area and hunted and caught fish. Once in a while the settlers would be bothered by the Indians begging food from them. On one occasion some Indian wanted to make a trade with a white settler for her baby girl11.
Some of the unfavorable weather conditions during those early times have been described by C. V. Dahlberg who came with his parents to the Blue Valley in 185712. He wrote that before they had time to complete their house it had rained so much and so hard they had to seek shelter under the table, but this did not help since the roof leaked so badly that it was dripping on them and there were several inches of water on the floor. In 1860 the opposite climatic situation existed and Kansas suffered from a severe drought. Many of the settlers were forced to go back to their folks in the East, but the majority stayed and survived this discouraging and depressing act of nature.
The grasshopper invasions at various times were of great destruction13. [Note: Louis and Lisa Stina would have experienced a later 1874 locust plague.]
The grasshopper invasion of 1864 came like a good sized snow storm or a regular Kansas blizzard. We were on our way to Ft. Riley, each with a load of corn, father and I, and toward 10 A.M., it began to get quite dark, although it was clear and warm. We began to look around and happened to turn our faces skyward to study the upper air, and lo, and behold, the sun was completely obscured by a rapidly moving mass not unlike snow indeed, was being driven straight toward the south. Whatever it was it was driving fiercely ahead as if impelled by a strong wind, though there was not a breath of air stirring below. Soon small objects began to detach themselves from the mass so that the eye could distinguish separate particles which looked not unlike scraps of silver driven with terrified force from the tail end of some gigantic machine. Drawing our hats down over our faces for protection, we again looked up. The whole moving cloud had lowered to a distinguishable distance. ‘Why they are grasshoppers we exclaimed almost at the same time’, and indeed, so true was our observation and so rapid were the grasshoppers settling that we did not know which way to turn to shield our faces from the storm. Our horses, also annoyed by the myriads of insects settling upon them, began to move restlessly swinging their heads from side to side, while they whipped their flanks with their tails and were almost unmanageable and had it not been for the heavy loads they were pulling would have gotten away. The ground and road and everything was soon covered several inches deep by the hoppers and on inclines where we would go a little faster they could not get away quick enough and were crushed by the wheels to such an extent that it made it muddy so the wheels slid sideways if it leaned over a little . Terror-stricken as we were we drove on to the Fort and unloaded and camped for the night. We started back some time the next day and found out that everything along the road had been devoured by the pests. Numberless scissors-like mouths were gnawing on sticks of corn stalks near the roadside, the tassel was gone, the edges of the leaves were eaten away, and line of hungry insects could be seen clinging to the center ribs of the blades. It was a desolate world to behold in midsummer. The trees, no matter how large, were stripped of their leaves, and every vestige of green ear eaten to the ground, which in turn was covered with a mass of offensive smelling substances almost unendurable. Although the pioneers were faced with these hardships through their determination they endured them and survived to take advantage of the many good things that presented themselves.
1Interview with Mrs. Katie Kunze, at Randolph, Kansas, May 25, 1954.
2The Randolph Enterprise , September 13, 1906
3Ibid.
4Ibid.
5The Randolph Enterprise,September 15, 1906.
6Ibid.
7Ibid.
8Emory Lindquist, op. cit., p. 256
9Interview with Mrs. Minnie Frederick, at Randolph, Kansas, May 25, 1954.
10Interview with William Secrest, at Manhattan, Kansas, June 3, 1954.
11Interview with Miss Ellen Johnson, at Salina, Kansas, May 18, 1954.
12C. V. Dahlberg, Settlement of the Blue Valley in the Vicinity of Randolph (n.p., 1921), p. 24.
13Ibid
