Edmunds County Tribune -

From the Ipswich Tribune Thursday, May 30, 1935 edition

LIFE IN SHANTY ON CLAIM STORY OF PIONEER LADY

Part 1

Mrs. L. L. Caborn tells of Prairie Fires, Bad Blizzards and Frugal Early Life.

I was certainly a very young and inexperienced woman when I left my home in southeastern Iowa the latter part of March 1883, to come to Dakota Territory. My husband had come on ahead with our household goods, three horses, two cows and a few other things that we thought might be convenient in a new country, enough to fill one emigrant car. Aberdeen was our destination and I arrived there on Friday. I think it was the 29th of March 1883 and on Monday the first day of April we started for “Our Claim” which he had located. He had the lumber for our shanty, twelve by twelve, on the wagon all our household goods, in fact, about everything we possessed was on that wagon. The two cows were following behind. Their names were Pink and Reddy. Pink fell down and was dragged a ways before we knew it-dislocated her hip and was always lame after that. I will say for that load that I believe it was the highest load of its kind I ever road on. We left Aberdeen early in the morning got as far as Snake Creek at noon and there we found people stuck in the Creek and other people hauling them out. What we remember most clearly about Snake Creek was that shanty or tent over on the north side of the road where I got a good cup of coffee. We got by Snake Creek O.K. and came on. All the forenoon it had seemed to me we were going south although I knew better but when we made that turn at Snake Creek I somehow got the points of the compass straight again and that made me very happy. We arrived at our claim, SE1/4 18-123-67 just as the sun was setting and a most beautiful sunset it was. But what we were to do for shelter that night was a question in my mind. It was too late to build our home that night but fortunately we had a neighbor, a bachelor, who had a shanty 6 by 8 feet. He offered to let me sleep in his shanty and be bunked with my husband somewhere under the canopy in God’s great house. His name was Ben Kested no doubt many will remember him. I always had a warm spot in my heart for him. He helped us build our home the next day and by evening we were all settled in our new home, twelve feet square. We had a bed in one corner, a stove in another and a trunk in another. Then we had a little cupboard and table. I even put down a carpet but I soon found that was a foolish thing and it had to come up because it got to dirty.