Homestead act of 1862

It certainly was a great opportunity, but feelings were mixed in the Chamberlain house. On May 20, 1862, President Abraham Lincoln signed the Homestead Act to encourage Western migration. Under this act, settlers were provided 160 acres of public land for a small filing fee. Homesteaders who met the requirement of five years continuous residence, received ownership of the land. When young Harry turned 21 in July 1870, he qualified to apply for his own land.

Alonzo and his son Harry were considering another pioneer adventure, homesteading in Jewel County Kansas.  However, a neighbor in Illinois received some “boom” issues of the Clay County News from his brother George Huggins. Their neighbor’s hot tip convinced them that Clay County, Iowa was their new “El Dorado”!

Harry’s step mother Lydia was skeptical.

On April 18, 1871, the Chamberlains packed up their belongings into two prairie schooners. Harry brought his only property, a horse and buggy. They headed west traveling along side of the Illinois Central railroad through Dubuque. After they were 100 miles into Iowa it began to rain.¹

There were no roads or bridges and travelers faced danger crossing the wet marshy swamps that mired down their wagons. A couple of areas became especially note worthy, Hell Slough and Purgatory Slough. According to rumor, a wagon and team of oxen disappeared from sight as its driver attempted to cross Purgatory Slough, and were never seen again.²

“It rained almost every day,” Harry later recalled. “It was just out of one mud hole and into another… by the time we got to Pocahontas County we were well qualified to tackle Hell Slough and the two Purgatories.”¹

Arrival at the county seat, Peterson, Iowa.

After three weeks of travel through dust and mud they arrived in Clay County where they spent their first night sleeping under a cottonwood tree.³ Their first sight of Peterson did not impress them. There was one store, a small hotel and a blacksmith shop. No problem. They came to homestead the land.

The next morning they drove five miles northeast to see Mr. Huggins. “He gave us a real pioneer welcome.” This apparently included the notice that there were no land claims available.

What? No land claims? All they could see was land in every direction. Nevertheless, all the claims had been filed. They found that “land sharks” had covered up all the vacant homestead claims by putting fictitious filings on them. These filings were good for six months. Then they would relinquish their claim and immediately slap on another bogus entry until they could find some immigrant to sell it to.¹

At this point in his story Harry begins to use the personal pronoun “I” instead of “we.” Alonzo and Lydia came to Clay County with him, but apparently they were now on the road back to Illinois. Alonzo eventually settled on Harry’s homestead, but Lydia returned to, and remained in Shirland.^4,5

The Last Indian Scare

Harry went out, and for the next few days he explored the country to look for land locations. One night at about midnight, when Harry was sleeping alone in his prairie schooner, he was awoken when he heard someone shouting, “Fly for your life, Indians are upon us!”

He poked his head out of the covers and saw a man on a white horse armed with a rifle, knife and ax. “Where are they?”

“No time to visit,” came the reply. “You may be scalped in ten minutes, get on your best horse and go!”

He knew his farm horse would not stand a chance against a horde of Indian ponies. Also, according to family tradition, he was a direct descendant of the Chamberlain who had killed the Indian Chief Paugus at the battle at Lovewell’s Pond. Therefore, he figured, he would get his rifle and shot gun, hide under his schooner and wait for the Indians. The long night wait was tense, but the Indians never came.

It was with feeling of great relief to see the bright and glorious sunrise welcome a new day. He climbed upon his wagon and looked over the horizon. Nothing living or moving could be seen on that whole expanse of prairie. Some homestead seeking families left that night, he was told, and they never returned. He cooked up a pioneer breakfast and continued looking for land.

Finally, he traded his horse and buggy for a claim in Clay Township on section 29-95-ZS.¹

About a year after the Chamberlains arrived, William Warren and Amanda Chamberlain Warren brought their three young daughters, Elnora 5, Florence 4, and Clara 1 to Clay County. They settled on a homestead in Clay Township about seven miles NE of Peterson.⁶

Living off the land

In the Spring of 1871, 2600 emigrants came in to settle Clay County. Six hundred houses were built and 18,000 acres were turned over.⁷ The land only offered the homesteader a place to camp and grass for their livestock. There were no railroads within about 50 miles.

The homestead act required that homesteaders make improvements on the land. Fortunately, the government made an order accepting  the sod house and sod barn as an improvement. Otherwise, compliance would not be possible. The prairie was covered with an abundance of very tough sod.¹

Homesteaders would hitch up a plow and turn a furrow in the sod for a half mile or so. Then the sod was cut with a spade into about two foot lengths. The walls were made about two feet thick by alternately laying the pieces lengthwise then cross ways. They filled the cracks in the walls with grass and soil.

When the walls reached the desired dimension they covered the structure with poles and thatched them with slough grass. They then covered the roof with grass, sod or both. When they managed to get enough lumber they would make window frames, a door frame and a door. One or two small windows were framed and cheap windows were made that would swing on hinges.

The houses were very cheap but quite comfortable. Homesteaders had no other option, since there would be no money until they could raise a crop of wheat.^1,8

Harry related a story of the fuel problem they had the first couple of years on the prairie:

“The fuel question was quite a problem at first, but we so on—regardless of our religious training— learned to—  well, they would call it stealing wood. We did not call it stealing; we just went and took it. But when we were too busy to steal wood we twisted hay and got through that way. it was not a bad fuel. We had one preacher whose conscience hurt him a little to steal wood, and he said that he would either have to stop preaching or quit stealing wood, but I saw him down in the timber the next day just the same.”¹

The first school house in Clay County

There was no public money for a school but they had to have one. They built a respectable sod school house in the geographical center of Clay Township, section 26 about 18 miles southwest of Spencer. There were only three sod houses and two farm houses between Spencer and Peterson at the time. The neighbors came to Harry and wanted him to teach school the first winter.¹

Harry needed to have a certificate to qualify to teach. To take the examination, he traveled to Spencer and then went west down what later became Fourth Street past the cemetery. There he turned off the road and went up the river bottom northwest about a mile. He then forded the river where he found the county superintendent, Charles Carver, out in the field digging potatoes.¹

The school opened on a cold winter day. Harry had to dismiss class so that the neighbors could pile on a few loads of hay and add sod to the roof to keep out the wind.¹ “The school house where I taught had its stovepipe going right up through the thatch,” he later mused, “I don’t know why the roof didn’t burn off two or three times that winter.”⁸

Harry taught every thing from the ABCs up to and including Algebra. His duties for his thirty-seven dollars per month salary also included building the fires to keep the place warm. One morning after a fearful storm, he had to sweep out about three inches of snow. He built a wood fire in the stove and continued sweeping. In a few minutes, he looked over at the stove. The heat had melted the snow from the top and it ran down and froze in a fringe of icicles all around the edges of the stove. It was about twenty degrees below zero that morning.¹

One of the worst blizzards that Harry remembered came in January, 1874. It had been a beautiful forenoon, but the storm hit at about 1 o’clock. Soon people began to come for their children. They all had been picked up but two young men and three small girls. Harry knew that the girls’ father was out working in the timber. He took them out into the storm and somehow got them through to their homes. The young men made two attempts to get a mile to their home. Each time they got lost in the storm and were forced to return to the school where they stayed until the next day.^1,3

Harry later said of his pupils that he never saw any work as hard as they did, and as far as he knew, they did well in the world. One of his students was sixteen-year-old Mary Eva Ellis.⁹

Mary Eva Ellis

Mary Ellis was born in Rising Sun, Polk County, Iowa on December 15, 1855. There she obtained her early education in rural Polk County. She moved with her parents, Walter Ellis and Clarissa Nichols Ellis, to Clay County where they settled on their homestead in Clay Township section 6.

Mary attended school in the little sod school house in Clay County, under the instruction of her 22-year-old teacher, and future husband. She also attended for a while at the private school of Mrs. Phoebe Lincoln in Spencer.⁹ After finishing her education, she was hired as a teacher at the Clay Township school.³

She married Harry Chamberlain on June 20, 1875, and they began married life together on the groom’s Clay County farm.

In 1876, Mary’s older brother the Reverend Dennis R. Ellis came from Des Moines to lead in the establishment of the first Christian Church in Clay County.⁵ Harry Chamberlain¹ and William Warren¹⁰ and others organised a Sunday School and built the Church. Mary Ellis Chamberlain became united at that time with this church being baptized by Rev. D. R. Ellis.⁹

Grasshoppers

It looked like a bumper crop of wheat during the spring of 1876. Harry Chamberlain was about to begin harvest in late July when a flight of grasshoppers clouded the sun in Northwest Iowa and Western Minnesota. They then began devouring every vestige of vegetation.¹¹ “We had a wonderful crop but they took it all“, Harry wrote, “They clustered on everything like swarms of bees. Even the dog and the chickens had to stay in the barn. The only thing we had left in our garden was a castor bean. They stayed eleven days. Then the wind changed to the northwest and they all left in two hours.”¹

This was a real disaster for Harry and his young bride. The future looked bleak. This year’s whole crop was destroyed and the grasshoppers had laid their eggs. It seemed likely that next year might be just as bad. There were some who believed that Northwestern Iowa would soon become a desert. On top of this, it was about this time when Mary realized that she was pregnant with their first child.

Political Intrigue

In the early days, Clay County was unified as Republican on national questions, but county politics was a fight between two factions, both of which claimed the name Republican. The main issue that divided the county was the location of the county seat. Peterson took it away from Spencer in 1860 by ten votes. One faction was led by M. E. Griffin. The other was led by Dr. Charles McAllister.

In 1871 Harry Chamberlain, Dr. McAllister and County Treasurer S. W. Dubois fought for Peterson. Generally, the south part of the county was with them. However, Mr. Griffin defeated Dubois for county treasurer, 359 to 200, and therefore, the treasurers office and county seat was moved back to Spencer on January 1, 1872.

The treasurers safe was small enough for one man to carry it, so security precautions were put in place for its transfer to Spencer. John Copper, a public spirited citizen who had been sheriff, was persuaded to guard the safe. After they brought it up from Peterson he vigilantly stood guard protecting the little safe all night. He did not know that it was empty.

Griffin and his associates started The Spencer Reporter in the late seventies because the existing paper, The Spencer News, was controlled by McAllister, and it would not print the Griffin faction’s political arguments. The first Reporter office was on the west side of Main street between Second and Third.

There was a county election every year and the recorder and clerk of courts were elected in the even numbered years. The elections for other county offices were held in odd numbered years. In 1876, after his devastating crop loss due to the grasshopper plague, Harry Chamberlain decided to run for the office of Clerk of Courts.

At that time ballets were not provided by the government. Instead, various party organizations printed their own tickets. It was up to any candidate interested in being elected to personally see to it that the ticket with his name on it got into the hands of the voters. The voters handed in the ticket of their choice as their ballot. They could “scratch” it by crossing out and filling in a different name if desired, but it was the fashion to vote a straight ticket.¹²

Harry Chamberlain explained his political strategy:

“I drove all over the county before election handing McAllster tickets to the voters. I also put barrels of apples and boxes of cigars at strategic points for the use of electors. They ate Chamberlain’s apples and smoked Chamberlain’s cigars and then they voted for Chamberlain.”¹²

Harry Chamberlain served as clerk of courts for ten years, 1877-1886. He began his first term on January 1, 1877.

Who voted for Alonzo?

In the 1884 election, Harry Chamberlain the incumbent ran unopposed for the office of county clerk of courts. There were thirteen hundred and sixty-seven votes cast, of which Harry Chamberlain received 1366. A. Chamberlain received one vote.¹³

Post Office Box 31

When Harry became the clerk of courts he moved into Spencer. In February 1877 he rented Post Office Box 31 which was located in Post Master Jim Haskin’s “Justice of the Peace and Realty Office.”  He  held that box for many years with one slight interruption.

In the late 1880s the Post Masters owned the postal equipment including the boxes. Also, they were directly connected to the national presidential administration. Glover Cleveland won the US presidency in 1884. He was the first Democrat in the White House since before the Civil War. The new Post Master did not buy the PO boxes which were currently in use. Therefore, Haskin’s placed a sign on his PO Boxes: “THIS OFFICE CLOSED DURING DEMOCRATIC ADMINISTRATION.”

When Republican Benjamin Harrison won the presidential election in 1888, Haskins changed his sign: “OPEN FOR BUSINESS.” Thus, Chamberlain once again had his Post Office Box 31.⁸

Law Practice and Mayor of Spencer, Iowa

Harry was defeated in the election of 1886 and succeeded in by A. H. Cheney. However, he had been reading and studying law during his ten years as clerk of courts. He had prepared himself well and was admitted to the Iowa Bar in 1886. On January 1, 1887, Harry opened a law office on the second floor of the Hanson building in partnership with E. C. Hughes.^3,5

In 1892 Harry Chamberlain served his first term as Mayor of Spencer. He served as Mayor through 1896.

Spencer vs Emmetsburg

On Thanksgiving day in 1895 excitement was high in anticipation of the big high school football game between Spencer and Emmetsburg. The Emmetsburg boys arrived on the 10:45 train and were accompanied by a great crowd of Emmetsburg enthusiasts, among them was noticed a goodly number of ladies.

At 12 o’clock the boys entered the field. Spencer’s team captain Hirleman won the toss and judiciously chose the south goal to take advantage of the wind.

The teams prepared for the kick off. As the teams lined up, the superior weight of the Emmetsville boys was particularly noticeable. They were larger and heavier than the Spencer boys.

Freeman’s kick sent the ball flying into the air. It hit well down in Spencer territory, but it was at once carried back to the center and downed. The game was on and for the next twenty minutes the ball was forced back and forth near the center. It was now some fifteen yards into Emmetsburg territory.

Captain Hirleman called out, “x, y, z, c, b, m, n, o, p, q, five thousand, seven hundred and eighty-six.” That was it, the signal for the criss-cross. Eckley took the ball and feigned the left end then passed the ball to Chamberlain.

Chamberlain made a desperate run toward the right, and with the aid of interference made it around the right end. The field was now clear except for one man who was brushed off and Chamberlain made the most exciting run of the game carrying the ball over the line and behind the goal. It was the first touchdown of the game scoring Spencer 4 points. The ball was carried out ten yards, Chamberlain kicked a goal and the score stood at 6 to 0.¹⁴

Note: In 1895 the rules for football were different than today (2018). A touch down was 4 points, kick after touch down was 2 points, a safety was 2 points and a field goal was 5 points. The forward pass was not yet a part of the game. It is believed that the first forward pass occurred on October 26, 1895 in a game between Georgia and North Carolina when out of desperation, the ball was thrown instead of punted. It did not become part of the rules of American football until 1906.¹⁵

In the second half, Emmetsburg drove the ball down to five yards from the goal line. However, it was there fumbled and recovered by Spencer.¹⁶ SHS made two touchdowns in the second half, but the kicks after the touchdowns failed. “By this time the ball had become very wet and slippery, which, together with the strong wind made it no wonder Chamberlain missed the goal”.¹⁴

The Emmetsburg paper wrote of the action after the early 20 minutes of stale mate, “then Chamberlain, the star half back on the Spencer team was given the ball and made a splendid run of 35 yards around the end and made the first touchdown for Spencer”.

The final score was Spencer 14, Emmetsburg 0. In Emmetsburg the newspaper headline read:

“A BIG GOOSE EGG- THAT IS WHAT OUR FOOTBALL TEAM GOT AT SPENCER”¹⁶

Alonzo W. Chamberlain, the son of Harry Chamberlain, graduated from Spencer High School in the class of 1896. He was known to all of his friends as “Lonnie”. Perhaps a sign of Chamberlain modesty, I have never seen a write-up of him where he was mentioned as a star high school athlete. My grandfather, Harry Ellis Chamberlain was only 5-years-old at the time and probably didn’t remember Lonnie’s high school days.

Harry Jr. wrote of his brother, “Alonzo belonged to the band and had different instruments he practiced on. Alonzo (Lonnie) was a wonderful brother to me and I love him very much”.¹⁷

1895-96 Spencer High School football, names and team positions: Dubois center, Bitsen right guard, Griggs left guard, Greaves right guard, Hendricks left tackle, Eckley right end, Tryon left end, Hirleman quarter back, Chamberlain right half back, Eckley left half back, Wiesen full back, and substitutes Verharen, Tayler, Crandall and Stokes.¹⁶

The grandchildren of Alonzo Chamberlain

Children of William Warren and Amanda Chamberlain:
1- Elnora Idelia Warren b. 18 September 1867, d. 2 October 1931
2- Florence Elmira Warren b. 15 May 1869, d. 8 February 1957,
3- Clara Edith Warren b. March 1871, d. December 1969
4- Betty Norris Warren b. 16 February 1874, d. 1941
5- Arthur Irwin Warren b. 2 November 1878, d. June 1974
6- William Roy Warren b. 16 August 1883, d. 5 July 1969
7- Nellie Warren b. 14 March 1885, d. 8 July 1979

Children of Harry Chamberlain and Mary Eva Chamberlain:
1- Alonzo Walter Chamberlain b. 6 February 1877, d. 15 November 1930
2- Myrtle Mae Chamberlain b. 22 January 1882, d. 20 January 1928
3- Ernest Clarence Chamberlain b. 2 October 1883, 21 September 1904
4- Harry Ellis Chamberlain, Jr. b. 21 December 1890, d 23 February 1973

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

To be continued…

Chapter 22- Mary Ellis Chamberlain: The Mormons Return to Iowa

If you got this far, please click Goodbye or Table of Contents. This will simply tell me that someone looked at this post. Thank you! Dennis Chamberlain

© Copyright Dennis D. Chamberlain, The Chamberlain Story, 2018. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of the written content of this site without express and written permission from the author and owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that credit is given to Dennis D. Chamberlain and direction to www.thechamberlainstory.com.

References:

1- Harry Chamberlain- Memoir of Harry Chamberlain. (Family copy) published in the Spencer Reporter, December 16, 1985.
2- Cheryl Mullenbach/Iowa History, February 25, 2017, http://www.iowawatch.org/tag/pocahontas-county/
3- Newspaper clipping from Spencer Iowa titled “Harry Chamberlain- Can Recall First Fair Ever Held in County Over Fifty Years Ago”
4- 1880 U. S. Census
5- The Spencer News-Herald, Spencer Iowa, February 1, 1935
6- Obituary Elnora Warren, October 8, 1931
7- The Philadelphia Inquirer, Friday, July 14, 1871
8- Spencer Reporter, Wednesday, December 17, 1924
9- Obituary of Mary Eva Ellis, Spencer Reporter, Wednesday, October 24, 1917.
10- Two Homesteaders of County Die, Spencer News Hearld, Thursday, February 25, 1926
11- The Gazette, Cedar Falls, Iowa, Friday, August 4, 1876
12- The Spencer Reporter, December 24, 1924
13- Clay County News Supplement, November 20, 1884
14- Spencer Herald, December 4, 1895
15- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_American_football
16- Emmetsburg Democrat, Wednesday, December 4, 1895
17- Life Story of Harry Ellis Chamberlain, (Given to Martin and Genene Chamberlain in October, 1972, Unpublished)