At Medora

Once again we traveled to Medora for the occasion of the annual Dakota Cowboy Poetry Gathering, May 25 and 26. It was the 33rd time Bill and JoAnn Lowman have put it together, and it always rewards participants and audience with a good time. Upon entering Bill asks immediately, “Why aren’t you performing?” I told him I’m thinking about it for next year, and he responds, “I hope so, you’ll make everyone else look good.” I told him I’ll enter my name next year because you can use some young blood, “I’ll be 78 next year.” As we left on Sunday he urged me to come again and I said Mary has given me some ideas. Ever the quick jokester, he replies, “Good, and remember, behind every successful man is a surprised woman.”

The talent was good. Singers and guitar players outnumber the poets and personally I like that. They don’t need backup bands, they entertain with their talent. The pictures show a few of the performers. And yes, we have some plans to attend next time.

Visiting the Ancestors

Interested as we are with family genealogy, our thoughts naturally go out to those who have been laid to rest.  It is easy enough to go to their final home and place a flower at their graves, which we did the day before yesterday.

Unsung History

Since these columns began, I’ve looked at a lot of different characters from our home area who’ve caught my eye for their historical significance.  One not much discussed but one I’ve been wanting to cover is J. T. Hickey, an owner of a livery stable in Sheldon.  Over the last few years I’ve collected information regarding his life and times including relevant articles in the archives of The Sheldon Progress and other periodicals of the time.  Plus that, descendants of Hickey shared valuable information, too.  

Interest in him started at the time when I discovered his obituary in the April 12, 1923 edition of the Sheldon Progress newspaper.  The headline read, “J. T. Hickey, Reno’s Freighter Died Suddenly Last Friday.”  Now, I’ve always held an interest in 19th century history as it concerns the westward movement of settlement, and who among us has not heard of General Custer and his misdeeds during this time?  Well, that headline meant quite a bit to me in relation to the Custer story and I set about learning more about this J. T. Hickey who lived his latter years in Sheldon.

While in Sheldon he lived a mundane life for a time as the owner-manager of the livery stable located, as they often were, across the street from the railroad depot.  A demand for this service existed as salesmen or other people looking at business opportunities or land purchases could come off the train, walk across the street, and rent horses and buggies for their transportation needs.  

He shared “with much vividness” some stories of his exploits in and around the state while serving as a government freighter driving ox teams.  The obituary tells of his presence on the wagon train that supplied Fort Ransom’s construction and later the establishment of Fort Abraham Lincoln.  That was the train  owned and operated by Donald Stevenson with whom I’ve also gathered a lot of information, and just now in an “aha” moment realized the connection between the two men.   That further adds to my understanding of both.  

A grandson of Mr. Hickey wrote a brief, but engaging narrative that contains some choice items of interest about both his grandmother and grandfather.  Mrs. Hickey did not feel safe in Sheldon, especially when her husband and sons were away.  She fortified herself and her nerves by carrying an equalizer, a small Colt revolver.  Remember this was the time of periodic and large hobo infestations who migrated in to work as harvest hands, but even disregarding the hobo factor, Sheldon had its share of rogues the year round.

Students of Custer and his 7th Cavalry’s defeat at the Little Big Horn know of the predicament Custer found himself in after wading into this vastly superior force.   His last written words on earth were, “Benteen.  Come on.  Big village.  Be quick.  Bring packs.  P.S. Bring packs.”  The family lore in the Hickey family deals with their connection to this message saying, “Custer’s last note (a request for help) was dropped by the officer who received it, and my Grandfather picked it up and later sent it on to Custer’s widow.”  Will any corroboration for that be found?  I’d sure like to find it.  Recorded history says, “Then, early in 1923, Major Fred Benteen, son of the gallant officer to whom the message was sent, told me that all his father's papers were destroyed when their home had burned long years before.” 

I realize a third figure belongs with Hickey and Stevenson, William V. Wade.  He was in and around Fort Abraham Lincoln at the time of its construction, so again, chances are great they all knew each other.  Wade was the subject of the first book I published, and I know his  exploits mesh with those of the other two.  It’s going to be fun drawing the lives of three pioneers like this together.

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The weekly grind of writing and presenting acceptable articles for this column needs to be at rest for the summer.  If the editor can again find a space for me, I plan to return in September.  

Making Connections

              M. V. Wickersham

Mark Twain said, “The two most important days in your life are the day you are born and the day you find out why.”  My journey to Alaska had been a search for the “why” and in retrospect, I didn’t find many answers, but what an experience it was! 

When I boarded the M. V. Wickersham at Haines, Alaska to head back to the lower 48 in the fall of ’68, I knew nothing of the ship’s namesake, Judge James Wickersham, a federal judge appointed by President William McKinley.  It wasn’t important at the time, and it’s only recently that it’s become so.  At any rate, it was thrilling to stand on the shore and watch the ship, all 364 feet of it, glide into Port Chilkoot.  Then when it was tied up, I watched a deckhand feed my mud-caked ’66 Impala into the mouth of the cargo hold where I wouldn’t see it for the next day and a half.  A scrapbooked receipt reminds me that my ticket to ride was $33.25 and the car’s $96.00.

The Wickersham was one of the fleet of inside passage ferries operated by the state for the purpose of carrying passengers and freight between northern coastal cities of Alaska.   James Wickersham earned high regards for his work in Alaska and received the honor of having this modern vessel named for him.  But what of all this?  The saga of Wickersham starts in North Dakota during the gold rush at Lisbon in the year 1883.

 A railroad surveyor, Henry Griswold, saw his compass needle quivering when his crew passed over an area on the Sheyenne River by Lisbon.  He knew it might indicate the presence of minerals and returned the following year with a couple of partners to investigate further.  Little did they know their findings would unleash a chain of events filled with excitement that would lead to criminal activity in the territory of Alaska.

The partners dug samples and during the evening hours took them to their shack to assay them where, sure enough, traces of gold appeared.  But so did neighbors sneaking a peak through a grimy window to watch and gossip the strange goings-on.  On October 19, 1883 Griswold headed for A. H. Laughlin’s office of Register of Deeds and recorded a patent on that particular piece of land he’d purchased.  A curious Laughlin  started wheedling Griswold for some answers as to what was going on.

He disclosed their find, word spread, and in just a few days every incoming train on that new Northern Pacific rail line was crowded with gold seekers.  On arrival, they spread out along the Sheyenne river valley and began crawling around like ants with shovels and picks in their hands. Many claims were filed, and after looking at the names on that list, it will be assumed many of them did not intend to dirty their hands by digging in the dirt.  Take for example the names of H. C. Hansbrough, U. S. Senator; George B. Winship, the editor of the Grand Forks Herald; other familiar North Dakota names such as Steele, Grandin, and A. H. Noyes who will soon connect to my Alaska theme.  As Mr. Laughlin said, “No doubt this is where Judge Noyes took his first gold lessons, as a pursuit of the study of the mining craft gave him fame in Alaska.”

Gold fever didn’t last long here because it didn’t yield enough to cover the costs of recovery and refinement.  Newspapers around the country watched developments.  On November 2 the Bismarck Tribune wrote “Brick yards have been torn to pieces, gold having been found in the bricks, and the authorities are kept on the alert to prevent prospectors from ruining the few brick structures in the town.”   The Yankton paper reported already by December 1, 1883, “Lisbon’s gold craze has died away.”

No one got rich here, but A. H. Noyes headed to Alaska at the invitation of our infamous North Dakotan Alexander McKenzie who had headed there for gold riches. McKenzie knew Noyes drank a lot and had financial problems, so therefore could be exploited to do his bidding. McKenzie lobbied President McKinley to appoint Noyes as an Alaskan District Judge.  According to the San Francisco Call, Noyes arrived in Nome on July 21, 1900 and two days later named McKenzie the receiver of disputed gold mines.  Unimpeded, they stole and banked the gold in their name until the law finally caught up and stopped it.

Their scheming is too complicated to be explained here, but it ended with McKenzie being thrown in a San Francisco jail where he sat for only a few weeks until President McKinley pardoned him.  Noyes received a $1000 fine and was removed from office.  Their departure left the legal system with quite a mess.  Who straightened it up?  Judge James Wickersham.

lynn.bueling@gmail.com

An Array of Books

In my life as a book reviewer for the Western Writers, I continually receive books which is a fact that’s probably not interesting to anyone else.  The reason it’s mentioned here is that I’ll look at some of them this week instead of writing the usual article.  The editor of the magazine I write for doesn’t send many of the rootin’ shootin’ type of Westerns, but usually sends the “meaty” variety that deal with social values and environmental concerns in the West.   Recent titles received include “Basque Immigrants and Nevada’s Sheep Industry,” “Same River Twice: The Politics of Dam Removal and River Restoration,” and  “Land of Nuclear Enchantment: A New Mexican History of the Nuclear Weapons Industry.”

Johnny, the editor didn’t know who to hand the Basque story to but then remembered I’d been raised around sheep, therefore I’d probably be interested.  Well, yes, I liked sheep, but it sealed the deal for him when I said I’d eaten once at the Basque cafe in Elko, Nevada.  So I immediately became his resident “expert.”  From my reading of history, I’ve known of the Basque separatist movement,  those sometimes bloody actions where the Basques have tried to extricate themselves from Spanish rule and operate as an independent country.  So far Spain has retained control of the Basque region, but it’s an ongoing struggle which has caused some to migrate to this country.  

If my memory is correct, I believe a Basque herder came into the government pasture in the sandhills not so many years ago and tended a flock of sheep to control leafy spurge in the hard to reach grazing areas.  When Basques started immigrating here they were attracted to the wide open spaces and presently show the largest concentrations in the states of California, Nevada, and Idaho.  State-by-state, they are represented nationwide and a recent map shows North Dakota counting 39 Basques. 

“The Land of Nuclear Enchantment” brings back memories aside from the book’s narrative.  When they were testing A-bombs left and right in the 1950s, scientists came up with a way of measuring the radioactivity in the air telling us that its pollution was drifting across the country.  Being a young lad, I remember being quite disturbed by it all.  Some years later the Cuban Missile Crisis again shattered any feelings of complacency and scared the daylights out of this impressionable soul.  

News of uranium mining in the southwest filled the news and how necessary the mineral was to the manufacture of atomic weapons.  The book at hand concentrates on the upheaval the nuclear weapons industry brought to the state of New Mexico.  A blurb accompanying the book states “The history of nuclear energy in New Mexico is filled with dangers, secrets, ironies, and both positive and terrible consequence to the state and its native population.”

J. Robert Oppenheimer, the leader of the atomic weapon research team issued a stunning quote from an ancient text to describe the first atomic blast: “Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.”  Supporters of continued research and development of the nuclear industry still argue that the rewards are worth the risk.

The subtitle of “Same River Twice” states the book is about the politics of dam removal and river restoration.  About the same time I opened it, I ran into a quote from the famous environmentalist Rachel Carson.  “Your generation must come to terms with the environment.  You must face realities instead of taking refuge in ignorance and evasion of truth.”  

In the words of an organization called “American Rivers,” they say, “While dams can benefit society, they also cause considerable harm to rivers. Dams have depleted fisheries, degraded river ecosystems, and altered recreational opportunities on nearly all of our nation’s rivers. Today, many dams that were once at the epicenter of a community’s livelihood are now old, unsafe or no longer serving their intended purposes.  

For instance they reported California in 2018 removed 35 dams.  I look forward to getting into the meat of the the book.

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None of the three books I’ve mentioned is a review but merely impressions of them as I prepare to read and think about them further.  One other book was not sent to me for review, but is instead one I bought and today should be mentioned.  The subject of The Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett deals with the building of a cathedral during the same time period as the Cathedral of Notre Dame in Paris.  As the fire destroyed the cathedral, I was immediately reminded of Follett’s book.  It tells of craftsmen in the middle-ages building a similar structure without the use of any power tools or equipment.  It’s high on my list of favorites, and is not just about shaping rocks and putting them into place.  There is plenty of drama surrounding it what with births, deaths, loves, murders, and much more.  

lynn.bueling@gmail.com

Pigeon Pie, Anyone?

Stories like the following are found in dark corners and dusty shelves, and when brought to light they can entertain, inform, or even disgust us.  As crude as some of the activity was, isn’t it unfair to judge people of the past when using today’s standards?

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I’m sitting here drinking a cup of coffee, remembering, absent-mindedly looking through the window at the yellow finches flitting in and out of the trees in the backyard.  I’ve lived long enough now to where I watch old friends pass, and I’ve forgotten much, but some scenes still replay.  Like the time I accompanied Grandpa and his partner and watched then spread a large net and hang it under the overhanging branches of the trees.  

While they fastened some weights to its edge, I was given the job of scattering kernels of corn on the ground beneath it.   When everything met with approval, Grandpa picked up a short block of wood that he’d brought in the wagon and propped it up under the net.  Then he did something I could never have imagined.  He reached into a burlap bag and brought out a pigeon, flapping and struggling until his large hand cradled the bird and pinned its wings.

Grandpa lived a purposeful life with little wasted motion.  He took a needle and thread from a small box in his shirt pocket and slid his thumb and forefinger to the bird’s head to hold it steady. I  couldn’t believe it, but he started sewing shut its eyelid with three or four stitches.  And then he repeated the procedure on the other eye, and all the while I’m just standing there looking dumbfounded. 

But more was to come this day.  From his shirt pocket he unraveled a few feet of cord and knotted one end to the pigeon’s leg and the other to the wood “stool.”  When it was anchored to the block, he released the pigeon to flutter helplessly in repeated attempts to fly and escape its blind confusion.  Two more pigeons emerged from that bag  and received the same treatment. Three birds flopping and flapping around at the end of their tethers made for a lively scene under that net which I soon learned was the object.

Finally he explained what we were going to do.  “We’re all set up, so now we’re gonna hide in those bushes over there.   Don’t move or talk cuz we’re waitin’ on a flight of pigeons to come in.”  My heart was pounding so fast in anticipation of this unknown that I struggled to sit still and be quiet.  Well, the time arrived; we heard a loud drumming sound in the distance that grew in volume and intensity over the next couple of minutes.  With the sun glinting off iridescent feathers, a flock of pigeons filled the sky swirling and turning and continually changing direction to look like they thought with one mind.  They kept lowering to land amongst the three pigeons that Grandpa had set for bait, and soon the ground was covered with them, dozens, maybe hundreds.  It was hard to estimate how many.  When the time was just right Grandpa and his partner pulled ropes with their slip knots and released the net.  The weighted edges brought it straight down on the top of the grounded pigeons and trapped so many of them.  

You can’t imagine such a flurry of flapping wings and squawking birds, so loud and jumbled that I could hardly hear Grandpa hollering, “Grab those branches and logs and lay them on the edges of the net.  Some are trying to crawl out from under it!”

Dear reader, don’t stop reading yet, our day wasn’t over.  The catch needed to be killed and cleaned for market.  Pigeon heads were sticking out through the netting, and the men grabbed each one by the neck and squeezed them hard between their thumb and forefinger.  Grandpa looked at me standing there and said, “Go to the wagon and find a pliers.  You’re not strong enough to kill them with your fingers, you can use that.”  I held that pliers in my hand but didn’t accomplish much with it.  It seemed so cruel.

♢♢♢

This story is imagined along the Sheyenne River where local historical evidence places it, but it could have been almost anywhere.  Pigeons could be found in many parts of the country numbering in the billions and when trapped, dressed, salted, and packed up in barrels they shipped them by the boxcar load to Eastern cities.  Pigeons sold for about a penny apiece in such places as New York City.  Slave owners didn’t spend much money to feed the slaves when such a cheap commodity existed.  Excess amounts were thrown to the hogs. 

Different reasons have been given for their numbers to decline from the billions to a state of extinction.  Of course, they were hunted, but deforestation robbed them of habitat, and diseases were thought to have played a part.

The term “stool pigeon”  is used today to identify someone who informs police of criminal activity and came from this era when pigeons were used to decoy others into a net.  At one time collecting pigeons in this manner for market became a cottage industry in which money could be earned by cash-strapped settlers.  

z1lynn.bueling@gmail.com

Rex the Red

At my mother’s funeral a lifelong friend of the family took me aside and told a story that interested me enough that I wanted learn more about it.  This friend, we can call him Charles, was a young boy at the time when he witnessed an incident he still remembers.  His parents were getting ready to leave the place and had vacated their house, but they decided to hold a little community dance in its empty rooms before moving on.  Some in attendance even danced on the chairs, but more about that later.  Now we’ll hear from a major player who set things in motion so people could relocate.

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So many years have passed that I wonder if my name Rexford Tugwell is remembered.  Some called me “Rex the Red,” an inaccurate tag that opponents hung on me because of actions I took.  I died in 1979 so you’ll have to suspend disbelief and imagine we’re visiting over a cup of coffee in this cafe.  My name was mentioned often during those hard times of the 1930s when I became involved with the establishment of the Sheyenne National Grasslands, commonly known as the government pasture southeast of Sheldon.

This country had been experiencing a long drought plus a severe economic depression when FDR took office in 1933.  We’ll just talk about the local area, the Sandhills region.  A local paper reported how cattle from adjoining counties were being crowded into its pastures.  Sandoun Township alone could handle 1,000 head with proper moisture, but now almost 4,000 grazed in it.  The over-pasturing weakened the turf, gave the strong winds a foothold and exposed blow sands which easily lifted to intermingle with the destructive dust storms of the “dirty thirties”.  

I was a university economics professor who received the “Rex the Red” label after visiting the Soviet Union in 1927 where I studied their central planning philosophy and recognized “the power of the collective will.”  Don’t read me wrong on this,  I am a true-blue American who never advocated communism for America, just greater control over the negative aspects of capitalism.  Ill will towards me because of that visit to the Soviet Union plagued me the rest of my government career, but I strongly believed in government economic planning.  When FDR took office he chose me along with four others to join his Brain Trust and advise him on his New Deal.

It might be hard to believe now, but in the 1930s, 70 percent of Americans earned their living from the land.  Needless to say, with no rain, no crops, and no money, farmers were forced to leave the land with no particular place to go.  FDR put me in charge of a program where I knew I could do some good - the Resettlement Administration.  We made the decision to have the government buy the land at a fair price and withdraw submarginal land from private ownership.  The object was to give the owners an opportunity to establish themselves elsewhere on more productive land.

The plan met with approval by some, but a negative response also developed.  A group in McLeod organized to oppose the purchase by saying this land was not submarginal, that with proper rain it would support cattle again.  Wyndmere merchants objected fearing the loss of business from too many farm families leaving the community.

We kept on in spite of resistance and prevailed.  A well-staffed office in Lisbon helped us identify the submarginal acres in this region which in your day totals 70,000 acres that’s been converted to public land.  Add an additional 65,000 acres of privately owned land and you have an area that comprises the Sheyenne National Grassland.  A grazing association operates that presently permits 60,000 head/months of livestock grazing shared among 56 allotments.

If you were to drive out that way in the summertime you’d see a beautiful countryside that’s environmentally sound with its green grass, rare wildflowers, and fat livestock.   The National Grasslands is under the U. S. Forest Service, a federal agency of the U.S. Department of Agriculture.  It was one of those programs that became identified as the 3Rs, i. e. relief for the unemployed and poor, recovery of the economy back to normal levels, and reform of the financial system to prevent a repeat depression.  The programs we established became known by their acronyms:  CCC, AAA, WPA, NIRA, TVA, FDIC, SSA, FERA, and others.  

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Rexford Tugwell’s tenure as head of the Resettlement Administration lasted only two years, 1935-1936.  He agreed with FDR’s philosophy of democratic capitalism that imposed regulations on business, instituted Social Security,  besides accomplishing much more.

As for that neighborhood dance held at an empty house, it was my parents who danced on the chairs.  They weren’t married yet but they were having fun, at least Charles thought they were.

…

lynn.bueling@gmail.com.