The Changing Landscape

Isaac's Pinnacle Hill

There was high ground on Isaac's homestead claim that he called "pinnacle hill."  Several years on the 4th of July, Isaac climbed his pinnacle hill to view the fireworks from towns as far away as Macksville, St. John, Iuka, and Stafford.

The photograph at right was taken of me standing on what I believe to be what is left of Isaac's pinnacle hill.  According to the current land owner, this was once the highest point on that quarter section of land, but over the years its elevation has been reduced, perhaps by as much as 40 feet.

It cannot be assumed that just because the land someone owned in the 1880s is still under cultivation, and has not been covered by buildings or roads, that it is still the same as it was more than a century ago.  The photograph at left shows the southeast corner of Isaac's homestead.  An older elevation can still be seen, but dirt removal has cut away around that elevation.  I avoid describing the higher elevation in the photograph as "original," since it is adjacent to the road and power line posts have been set, both of which might have altered the original terrain.

The photograph at right was taken from Isaac's pinnacle hill looking toward the north, and what is now an open field was in the late 1800s Isaac's timber claim.  His journal records how he planted thousands of trees from cuttings and seeds, growing not only cottonwoods but also catalpa, Osage orange, and maple trees.  (See "Isaac's Catalpa Trees," 5-30-2012; "Planting Osage orange Trees," 3-15-2012; and "Isaac Plants Cottonwood Trees," 12-2-2011, in the Blog Archives.

Generations come and go, and not even the land remains the same.  Very little undisturbed prairie remains in the community where Isaac homesteaded, and many acres are under circle irrigation.  The flat prairie land has been leveled even further, and the trees planted by homesteaders, and more planted in the "Dirty 30s" to reduce soil erosion, have died or been removed to enlarge the acreage devoted to crops.

Once Isaac knew the land so well that he could set out across the prairie on foot to walk to St. John.  Many of the landmarks he must have relied upon to find his way have changed.  I wonder if he would recognize his own claims today.

Mining for Gold at the Court House

On the southeast corner of the town square in St. John is the Stafford County Courthouse. It was built in 1929, replacing the one Isaac would have visited. I remember going there as a little girl with my father, and each time I enter the building, I am reminded of the echo of my father's leather soles on the marble floors. Today, as I create my own echoes walking the cool hallways, the building is filled with shadow memories that I experience as emotions. I suspect that the feelings inspired in me when I was a little girl had a great deal to do with my decision to study law. There was something unique about entering that quiet space in which people seemed to speak more softly, as if respectful of the business conducted there. I felt it then and I still feel it today. I suppose my sense of awe in entering what is a sort of people's temple of justice will always be part of me. The court houses I entered when I was actively practicing law were often busy and sometimes noisy, but for me there was always that special feeling about the honorable purpose of the building. My recent visits to the Stafford County Court House while doing research have not diminished those feelings, fueled by my childhood memories, my respect for the law, and my fondness for history.

Court houses are like mining for gold, the records filled with valuable information for a researcher to discover if she is willing to dig for it. Initially my research took me to the Deed Records to find information about Isaac's homestead and timber claim. Now, when I walk into that office, the women working there immediately ask about my progress on the book, research for which they have been so helpful.

Also in the court house is the District Clerk's Office, where one day I went to inquire about birth and death certificates. I was disappointed to learn that those old records are now kept in Topeka, the state capital. I must have mentioned that I was doing research on Isaac B. Werner, and while I visited with one of the women, the other lady seemed busy at her computer. Suddenly she asked, "What did you say the man's first name was?" "Isaac," I replied. "Well, there's no Isaac indexed in the Probate Records, but I have an I.B. Werner." "That's him!" I exclaimed. When she returned from the room where probate records are stored, she carried a thick probate file of Isaac's estate, from which I have learned so much about him.

Seeing my interest in the Probate Records, the women told me that they had recently finished indexing all of the District Court records, going back to the 1800s. Isaac was never a party to litigation, but several legal disputes are mentioned in his journal, so I was obviously thrilled to learn that those records were available. I periodically return to examine files, documenting litigation Isaac has mentioned, and both of those ladies have been terrific. In fact, they have shared suggestions about bits of history preserved in the records of the court house that would make wonderful stories for future writing.

Since Isaac died in 1895, the current court house was not the one he visited. In next week's post I will share a picture of the Victorian court house of Isaac's era, along with stories of how it came to be built, some of Isaac's visits there, and why it was replaced with the current structure.

I have lived most of my life in cities, and there are many things I enjoy about the urban lifestyle that cannot be matched in a small town. However, there is nothing quite like returning to the home of your childhood, where your roots go back a few generations, and experiencing the willingness of people to pause for a moment and invest their time and interest in you, something anonymity and the busy pace of city life rarely offer. Like Isaac, I enjoy doing business--and research--in a court house where people nearly always have a little time to chat.

Isaac's Years in Rossville, Illinois

On the spur of the moment, my husband and I decided to drive to Northampton, Massachusetts, for a Willa Cather Seminar at Smith College. With no idea what a great adventure we would make of our impromptu road trip, I left all of my research about Isaac behind, except for what was on my laptop. Only when we stopped for the first night did we look at the atlas and realize how close to Rossville, Illinois, we would travel. Of course, we had to make the detour to see the town where Isaac had lived in the 1870s.

During 1870 & 1871, Isaac had been the proprietor of a drug store, but he had chosen to sell that business when the railroad came to Rossville. Druggists in those days sold liquor "for medicinal purposes," and Isaac was concerned that an unsavory crowd would arrive in town along with the railroad and cause trouble for him as a respectable businessman, demanding liquor for reasons other than their health.

Deciding whether to bring the railroad to Rossville was a tumultuous time for the community. Isaac sided with those who opposed it, and for a time he was among the majority. Isaac wrote: "Voted about 5 to 1 against issuing Bonds and about same ratio repealing former obligations. It was rather interesting and ridiculous during all day, to notice all round humanity how much Rail Roads on their brains, Bulls and Bears out in Rossville Wall Street crowds on store porches, freely and liberally discussing...and cussing."

Eventually the idea of a railroad began to gain favor, and the Bonds passed. The dispute shifted to where the depot should be built. Isaac described the conflict: "Somehow no public certainty yet where Rossville is to have its Depot for R.R., on Gilbert's, Livingyard's or Henderson's. Some tugging by each, but I guess old Gilbert will about win the stakes...Seem being conducted rather quiet & reserved." Isaac sided with Henderson, but Gilbert had been an early supporter of bringing the railroad to town, and Isaac suspected that the railroad would reward him by giving him the site.

After Isaac had left Rossville, a friend had written him a long letter, describing how the village had changed, specifically because of two events in the 1880s--a tornado that had destroyed many buildings and a fire that had burned the wooden businesses. From my research I had learned that Rossville had become known as a charming tourist destination, with many antique shops, some of which had been destroyed by a fire in 2004 which burned the west side of Main Street. Therefore, I knew that the town Isaac had known was essentially gone.

We arrived in Rossville a few minutes after four o'clock, and because we had a schedule to keep in order to reach our destination in time for the seminar, we could not linger. Consequently, we only peeked through the windows of the closed Historical Society Museum and Railroad Station Museum, both of which looked very interesting. We also enjoyed driving some of the streets, although we found nothing that appeared to date back as far as Isaac's time.

What we were able to see, however, was the river at the edge of town. Isaac worked in his drug store six days a week. Naturally, he looked forward to the one day a week when the store was closed and he could be out of doors, often joined by a dog named Coally. "...took exercise stroll down the woods...[with] Coally to chase rabbits--started few out but Coally too fat to run, lost distance all time till rabbit out of his sight, but he yelped after them." Even during the cold winter months the river was a gathering spot: "Fine calm clear moonlight eve, boys again down on the creek ice skating and hollering about, enjoying themselves." Isaac's cousin Ezra played the accordion and Isaac described one late afternoon stroll: "...down the lovely woody acres to West bluff, there perched on an old stout log, struck up the music...never before heard in the woods--the eve with west landscape and water scape over the bottoms right before us, such lovely sunshine of declining Sol... lightly roaring on rushing stream, and few little snow birds, chirping lively about the brush. Who could avoid imagining more or less Venice and Italy surrounding us?"

The opportunity to lock his shop and relax with friends in the countryside was something to look forward to, but most of his time Isaac was a businessman, at work from early morning into the evening. He was in his mid-twenties and was proud of his friendships with older, experienced businessmen in town. He wrote of one of the early Rossville businessmen: "[You] do not find every day such enterprising men as W.J. Henderson, with corresponding capital in an inland town like Rossville. ...Others, of course, since his adventuring tried to follow him, but if he had not been here as a leader, who else would have dared to lead? And what would they have accomplished. No Sir, J.W.[sic] Henderson was so far the business pillar of the community."

Isaac's years in Rossville were good ones for him. After selling his drug store business, he was tempted by the possibilities of participating in the town being built near Hoopes Farm, prospering as the town grew. Instead, he stayed in Rossville to form a milling business with his cousin Henry and a man named Mr. Ross. He also bought two lots in the "New Town" development of Rossville, planning to build a home with a separate library for all of his books. Although like many others he was eventually drawn further West where he claimed a homestead on the Kansas prairie, for more than a decade and even during hard financial times when his need for money was desperate, he kept the lots he owned in Rossville, perhaps imagining he might someday return, or perhaps only unwilling to sell because of the memories of old friends and good times there.

Rossville is still a charming town, and the arrival of the railroad did not ruin it after all, despite the concerns shared by Isaac and many of the established merchants. Next week I will share our journey as we replicated Isaac's trip with friends in a borrowed buggy to see the location of the proposed intersection of two rail lines where "Hoopestown" was supposed to be built.

Isaac Plants Cottonwood Trees

Cowboy poet Larry McWhorter had a business building pipe and cable fencing in Texas, and his business card read "Fiddlestrings." He prided himself on building sturdy and beautiful fences with taut cable--like a well-tuned fiddle. Because he took such pride in his work, he took his time about it. That also allowed him to write poems in his head as he worked, and he didn't mind a bit of conversation when I stopped by. One hot day he noticed a little volunteer cottonwood tree growing on our property, and he walked over to remove a few leaves and slip them around the inner hatband of his cowboy hat. He laughed at my perplexed expression, saying, "That's an old cowboy trick to help keep a fella' cool when he's workin' in the sun."

I don't know if Isaac knew that trick or not, but he definitely knew how to grow cottonwood trees from cuttings. He explained the procedure he had perfected, writing on April 22, 1885: "...cottonwoods quite leaved [sic] out too much so to make reliable cuttings...I lately making my cuttings 15 inches long, 3 to stick out & 12 in ground, to better withstand droughty spells, and surer to grow." Isaac arrived to stake a homestead and a timber claim in 1878, when there were no trees on the prairie. On March 1, 1885, he wrote in his journal: "During middle of day counted the trees on my homestead alive & thrifty...on Homestead & Timber claim...total 3400 growing trees."

Among the trees on the prairie, the cottonwood towers above most of the others. The spade- or heart-shaped leaves have a smooth, shiny texture, and when the trees are stirred by a breeze, the leaves make a rustling noise like a lady's taffeta petticoats or that gentle sound of light rainfall on the roof. The shiny surfaces catch the light and reflect the movement of each leaf, a shimmering gold when the leaves turn in the autumn.

Cottonwood trees are fast growing--seven feet or more per year, and long-living--up to one hundred years, and they tolerate drought better than most trees. Naturally, they were a popular tree with the early settlers. During the dust bowl years in the "dirty thirties" cottonwood trees were usually included among the other varieties of trees planted in rows as windbreaks to help control soil erosion. These strong, healthy giants are the trees of my childhood memories, their cottony seeds drifting down in late spring, their sturdy limbs great for climbing and building tree houses in summer, and their bright yellow leaves for raking into piles, jumping into, and raking again in autumn.

Today, many tree rows look like graveyards, the trunks of fallen trees bleaching white in the sun as aging neighbors await their turn to fall. Many old shelterbelts have been bulldozed to make more room for farming; others have been destroyed by tornadoes and ice storms; and even more are succumbing to old age, as few of today's farmers plant trees as Isaac and his neighbors did.

The actress Kim Novak wrote: "...when you touch these trees, you have such a sense of the passage of time, of history. It's like you're touching the essence, the very substance of life." I understand her feelings of connection with ancient trees, knowing that ancestors enjoyed standing in their shade. Perhaps that is why I find it so sad to watch the gradual disappearance of the prairie cottonwoods.

While their numbers may be declining and their vigor nearing an end, those that remain lift their golden crowns into the clear blue of the autumn sky with the same regal beauty that Isaac must have admired over a century ago.

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I can see Isaac's farm from my house

When I began transcribing Isaac's Journal, I did not know where his homestead and timber claim were located. Eventually, he included the legal description, identifying his land as being in Clear Creek Township. Since that is the township to the west of my childhood home, I was pleased to discover he had lived so near. Later, I learned that his home was even nearer, for the original Clear Creek Township had been divided in half, the west half retaining the name but the east half being given the new name of Albano Township. Isaac lived one mile straight east of my childhood home!

Standing at my front door, I can see the trees that are currently on what were Isaac's homestead and timber claim. While these trees may not be old cottonwoods that he planted, they are quite likely to have grown from seeds dropped by trees Isaac started from cuttings on the treeless prairie that existed when he arrived. The sunrise photograph, taken from my front yard, shows Isaac's trees to the right of the rising sun, bathed in a purple morning haze at the edge of the horizon. The mid-day photograph, also taken from my front yard, shows the same row of trees, located on the east edge of Isaac's old timber claim.

In 1878 when Isaac arrived, there were no trees on the prairie. A "timber claim" did not designate land covered with trees but rather land that could be claimed by planting ten acres of prairie in trees and keeping them alive for eight years in order to claim the title. If drought did not kill them, weeds did not choke them, pests did not destroy them, and prairie fires did not burn them during the required eight years, the settler could acquire 160 acres. As Willa Cather wrote about the hardy trees that managed to survive on the prairie, "I like trees because they seem more resigned to the way they have to live than other things do." In addition to acquiring land as a timber claim, 160 acres could also be claimed as a homestead by building some sort of dwelling, living in it for five years, and improving the land by gradually breaking the thick prairie sod and planting crops or grazing livestock on the prairie grass.

The land was divided into square mile sections which contained 640 acres. These squares were then divided into four smaller squares, each containing 160 acres and being one-fourth of a square-mile section, or a quarter-section of land. These were identified by the compass direction they occupied in the full section. Isaac's homestead was in the southwest quarter of the section; his timber claim was in the northwest quarter of the section. Other homesteaders claimed the quarters in the eastern half of that section.

Today there are roads around most square-mile sections, and fences or changes in the crop from one farmer's field to another's usually make it apparent where one quarter section of ground ends and another begins. In Isaac's day, there were not so many roads, although farmers did mow along the edges of their property for two reasons: to make travel easier and to create fire guards to slow prairie fires.

If you could have viewed Isaac's farm from the air in 1888, you would have seen neat tree rows around 30 and 40 acre fields and carefully maintained fire guards mowed or plowed around his property line. The view from the air is very different today, and I will share it with you in next week's blog.