Story Under a Stone - William Hutchings, Teamster

Story Under a Stone - William Hutchings, Teamster

Today,  drivers behind the wheel of those big trucks hauling freight can belong to the union named International Brotherhood of Teamsters. That word “teamsters” comes  from a time when freight was hauled by wagons pulled by teams of animals, whether they be oxen, mules, or horses. Of course, their driver became known as a teamster. 

     A man buried in the Sheldon cemetery, William Hutchings, was a teamster.   He was a member of a class of teamster nicknamed  “bullwhackers” who could pop their long whips over the heads of the oxen to encourage them to pull. He freighted long distances with a hitch of three yoke of oxen. We don’t know if he could crack a long whip, but most likely he could. 

Hutchings and his wife and family lived in the Coburn area, and later moved to Owego.

His father George had enlisted in the Union army at the age of 38 and rode in a cavalry regiment for the duration. He was the first veteran to enter the Old Soldiers Home in Lisbon in 1893.

   When the town of Sheldon started establishing itself, it needed lumber to build homes and businesses. The railroad hadn’t reached it yet, so teams and wagons hauled the lumber from a distance for construction. The newspaper ran this short piece from a  man named Frank Connelly: “In 1881 Lumberyard was started at Buffalo. From this yard I hauled the first load of lumber that started the building at Sheldon.”

     Many interesting stories come from that period. In these stories Under a Stone we’ve already featured one man, J. T. Hickey, owner of the livery barn, buried alongside his wife in the Sheldon cemetery, who made his mark as a teamster with the ill-fated Custer expedition. 

     A solitary stone setting apart from the others in the Owego cemetery interested me. The name James Kinney had been inscribed into it and informed he’d been a wagoner (teamster). A little research uncovered the fact he drove teams with General Sibley through North Dakota in 1863. The newspaper editor thought it remarkable that he walked 16 miles in less than six hours to Sheldon so he could catch the train to Lisbon and spend the winter at the soldier’s home.

     Teamsters lived in the open and slept under their wagons when they worked. This story illustrates their hardship. In 1880 a small party of land seekers headed for Fort Ransom in November with their wagons. They slept on the ground under their wagons. In the morning one of the men with very long hair could not get up because his hair had frozen fast to the ground. His companions cut him loose with their knives.

     Of course, the term teamster can be loosely interpreted to mean quite a broad spectrum. There was a time when everyone, men, women, or young people could take the reins of a team and drive to their destination. I’ve even held the reins of a team of workhorses, and maybe you have, too. Today, a different kind of horsepower powers our wheels.

     We’ll conclude with one teamster story that we find humorous today, but probably not so much for the actors. Two boys, Lou and Hans Sorenson, from the family of local flour millers, took a load of flour to Valley City. While there they bought some fireworks and thought they could speed up the slow walking oxen by shooting a rocket into their hind ends. These critters proved they could move, even gallop, and took off, wrecking the wagon and beating the boys home by several hours. 

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The pictures show a variety of types of wagons I used to build.  

RANDOM THOUGHTS - Friday, August 7, 2026

Random thoughts swirl about … A scribbler at the Forum wrote “put the dirt back in the hole” after the fund raising debacle stalled construction on a military museum in Bismarck … After writing a series of “Stories Under the Stone,” I find a lot of people like local history stories … U.S. Attorney  Pirro quick to cover her tail after acting on bad information fed her by Interior Sec Burgum about a pool of water… It was fun reading a 1970 edition of the local weekly newspaper with all its little community news columns … “Do unto those downstream as you would have those upstream do unto you,” Wendell Berry … Today in1782  George Washington ordered the creation of the first U.S. military decoration, the Badge of Military Merit, today called the Purple Heart … In a couple of weeks next “Stories Under a Stone” appears featuring George Hutchings  … The new Teddy Roosevelt museum in Medora has been popular … Football is back … Simple things still excite like butterflies coming to our flowers … To pay for Civil War people were taxed, hopefully, “proportionate to his ability to pay.” … And finally, some words of wisdom I found: find your happiness in what is available, not from what is promised.

 

Story Under a Stone: Frank Shaw

 Many of those interred in the Sheldon cemetery have gone to rest with a skimpily written record while leaving their parents’ life looking more significant. Only a few readers of this article will remember a man named Frank E. Shaw. I remember him as a portly figure with a shock of white hair as he hurried along the street, usually between the post office and his office. Frank lived a life of community importance as a lawyer and a board member of the Ransom County Immigration Association. 

But let’s step back and consider the life of his father, Alex P. Shaw, who fought and survived in many Civil War battles, most notably the Battle of Gettysburg. The casualties in this battle numbered over 50,000. We know the elder Shaw was in the thick of it. While attending a reunion of Gettysburg’s 50th anniversary he walked around the battlefield and found a little wall of stones still standing that he had hastily piled to provide protection from the bullets flying around. His life must have been charmed because after participating in 22 battles he never received a wound.  

Although the 140th New York was successful in assisting the defense of the Little Round Top, it cost the regiment 133 total casualties. On two different occasions I’ve walked on the summit of this hill where mature trees stood and dropped acorns. I picked up three to bring home and wrote a poem about them thinking they’s been nourished by the blood shed there. (More about that at another time). The encounter with Confederate forces interested me, and when I returned home I read about it.   

Now after seeing whom Frank descended from, we can turn attention to him. He sat as a board member on the Ransom County Immigration Association that was established in the latter 1890s at Sheldon. Its initial purpose was the promotion of immigration and the development of lands in the immediate locality of Sheldon. The Association succeeded in bringing over 200 families into the state from southern Minnesota and Iowa, and located them on lands in Ransom, Sargent and southern Cass and Barnes counties. A fire in 1921 destroyed their building. It was rebuilt looking much like it did originally.

Pictures include the following: Frank Shaw’s gravestone; three acorns picked from Little Round Top; a long shot from the old days of Sheldon’s main street; two buildings lifted from that picture as they appeared about 125 years ago (Note the wording “Ransom County Immigration Association” can be read.); and a recent shot of the two buildings still standing.