A story from the McLean County Independent dated January 4, 1940
History of the Engebrigt Holtan’s Pioneering in McLean County
Fifty-five years ago (1885), the Hudson Colony, from Hudson, Wisconsin of which J. P. Peterson was a member, came into the unsettled area near where Washburn now is and began to make homes on the virgin prairie for themselves and their families. Mr. Peterson had been one of a committee of three appointed to locate land either in northern Minnesota or the Dakotas. Leaving Hudson early in May of 1882 by rail, the three journeyed westward. No land in Minnesota suited the exacting trio so they pressed on farther west. The railroad terminated at Larimore at the time so it became necessary to finish their explorations by team.
An unseasonable blizzard, violent in its fury, overtook them and they were forced to overturn the wagon box for shelter. Even so, they nearly perished, and were glad to return to Larimore as soon as the storm abated.
Going then to Bismarck, they were directed to “King John” Satterlund who was the promoting agent for the Washburn area. At his request, they decided to look at the land in the Painted Woods area. Enthusiastic about the surrounding country, they decided to arrange for the filing on this land. Consequently, they requested that Twp. 145, R. 81 be held for the Hudson colony for thirty days. They then returned with their favorable report to Wisconsin.
Among the children of the Peterson family there was a little five-year old girl, Cora, who listened wide-eyed to the tales of the prairie land which her Dad told her when he came back from his long journey.
Washburn at that time was a city more of a promise than reality for when the Hudson colony arrived, two buildings marked the present townsite.
The Peterson family located on a claim five miles north of Washburn in a community named Sverdrup-in honor of the Norwegian prime minister, John Sverdrup. The Peterson place, being located between Dogden and Washburn, became the stopping off place for many a weary traveler, for in those days traveling was a cumbersome thing. The rumble of the wheels telling of the approach of a wagon was always welcomed by the Peterson children, even though it meant inconvenience and more work. Many and many a night the Peterson’s gave up their bed and slept on the floor.
Of course the children had their favorite visitors – what children have not? One evening while their mother was milking the cows some distance from the house, the children noticed a saddle pony approaching; thinking it was Martin Thompson, a special friend of theirs, the girls grabbed up the baby from the bed and rushed to meet him. Imagine their chagrin when it turned out to be an Indian? At that, it is hard to tell which was more surprised, the girls or the Indian brave.
Indians were frequent visitors, and were well-behaved, even though this was at a period when there was considerable unrest among the tribes. Of course their dialect was as foreign to the settlers as the English or Norwegian was to the Indians, so they had great difficulty in making their wants known.
One day an Indian came to the house and made repeated motions with his arm revolving in a circle. Mrs. Peterson was at a loss to understand what he wanted. The pointed at every conceivable object in the house, but still the red shook his head. Then it dawned on her – Coffee! He was imitating the turning of the coffee-grinder.
Mrs. Holtan’s grandfather, living in Minnesota at the time of the New Ulm massacre, was warned by an Indian that he had befriended to take his family and possessions and flee. This timely advice saved him and his household from certain destruction.
Many and varied were the experiences of these brave pioneers of our country, yet it is their testimony that none starved, nor froze, nor suffered. Times were hard, they saw few people, had few pleasures but they had a deep, true appreciation of family life, shared both its joys and sorrows, and made the most of every opportunity that came their way.
The young Hans Holtan’s, deciding that Norway held out little promise as a country to rear their family in, came to America. It was a momentous undertaking for a young couple with two tiny children, for they embarked on a sailing vessel.
Storms arose, the ship was blown off its course, and many weary weeks on the water passed before land was sighted. To make matters worse, an epidemic of measles broke out on board. During this time another child had been born to them, and the heartsick young mother saw her three youngsters sicken. Despite her loving care, the hand of Death descended, and her loved ones were buried at sea. The passage of time could not erase the memory of this voyage, nor her other children fill the void left in her aching heart. Perhaps she wondered what this “Land of Opportunity” could hold out to her – a mother with empty arms.
Finally reaching land, they made their way to Rochester, Minnesota where they stayed for a while with an uncle. They then moved to Forest City, Iowa, where they built up a home. Here Engebrigt was born, and here he lived until he was sixteen years of age.
In 1885, attracted by the promises of good tillable land, Hans Holtan came to Washburn and homesteaded. His son Halvor and he brought out horses in the popular moving mode of that time – emigrant cars. In the car that Halvor was in charge of, one of the horses accidentally had its leg broken. In Jamestown, Halvor asked a man what he would give him for the horse. “Fifty cents” was the reply. “Yours”, answered Halvor and he had one less horse to bother with.
Mrs. Holtan and several of the children – Sarah, Martin, Gilbert, and Theodore – came to the prairies in 1886, leaving Halvor and Thomas in charge of the place in Iowa. The other four children came later, Ole, in 1887, Elsie and Engebrigt in 1888, and Henry in 1891.
It was the last of August when Engebrigt came – just in time to get in on the fall threshing, and though he hadn’t asked for it, he got the whooping cough. Imagine his misery as he pitched and whooped, whooped and pitched day after day.
In the fall of 1888, there was an early frost which caught the wheat in the lowlands at a critical time. It froze so badly that it was impossible to make flour of it and these farmers had to use hard-earned cash for their winter’s supply of flour. The Peterson’s were fortunate in having relatives who had their wheat in early so that it was ahead of the frost and they were able to get wheat for flour and feed.
It was a great event when Mr. Peterson took a load of buffalo bones and hogs to Minot in the fall and brought back groceries and clothing for his family. He would be gone nearly a week, and the children eagerly watched the road for his return, well knowing that he would have a treat for them. Among his purchases would be yards and yards of red flannel, which Mrs. Peterson made into indispensible articles of underclothing.
Engebrigt had learned to play baseball back at Forest City but in the moving his ball and bat had been neglected. If there was one thing he was homesick for, it was a baseball. Then his younger brother Martin made a trip to Bismarck and brought back a ball and bat. They invited all the interested fans out to the farm, and did they play ball? Engebrig was pitcher, Ole was catcher; other players were Al Flodin, Ole Brask, Lewis Bardson, Gilbert and Ole Sather, Martin and Gilbert Holtan – and still others whose names remain hidden in the annals of time.
Their most formidable rival was the Coleharbor nine. Much friendly rivalry existed between the two teams. Playing on the Coleharbor team was Mert Bastrom as pitcher, with Jack Nichols as catcher; Jim and Herb Bastron, Will Jones, Rance Jones, Robert Taquer, Ralph Ward and Walter Wells. The Coleharbor captain ordered a keg of beer on the stage one day and then approached Engebrigt with the proposition that the losing team pay for it. Though his team was not very enthusiastic about the idea, Engebrigt agreed to it, with the private admonition to his nine “to play so hard, boys, that Coleharbor will have to pay for its own beer”. And they did too! However, the time they played for a $50 dollar purse on the Coleharbor diamond, they lost as did they the time that Mr. Bergum at the Conkling Fourth of July celebration, offered a ball and bat to the winners.
Washburn city finally evinced interest in a “nine” and it was organized. This team really “went places” in a baseball way, accepting a challenge from Bismarck to play them at the Mandan State Fair. Other players were Geo. M. Robinson, Louis Bardson, William Allen, Al Floden, Byron Wild, Will Richards, C. T. Lange, and T. J. Hangeberg. At one time there were five of the Holtan boys playing on the team.
Engebrigt was also a member of the first band organized in Washburn. The director was Mr. Ekstrom who wielded his baton in the approved manner. Two other Holtan boys, also played – Henry and Martin. Mr. Holtan still regrets that he didn’t keep up his work with the bass drum. Sousa’s overtures and marches were their favorite selections and the thirteen members could really make that music roll. J. Lawrence Fritz, John Johnson, two of the Falconer’s, a Mr. Buckman, C. G. Forbes, Pat Burley (Burleigh?), Magnus Anderson, and Luke Eskes were the other members of this pioneer band. Only one has continued with his band work – the Falconer boy who is now a band leader in Canada according to Mr. Holtan’s recollection.
Although it was six long miles to Washburn from the farm home, the boys didn’t begrudge the time nor effort it took to get to practice. One evening, a new director was in charge; he made a mighty sweep with his baton. The baton, unfortunately, took off the top of the lamp chimney. Again, the baton swept out and descended. Another piece of lamp chimney went with it. The notes blurred, the band stopped. Oblivious of this, director demanded the reason for their stopping. “The chimney broke,” a brave musician ventured, not once referring to the baton’s wicked movements.
The boys liked to wrestle and many a noon hour they spent in the shade deciding by force who was the coming champion of McLean County. They liked practical jokes – woe to the person who was the object of them: Even yet Mr. Holtan smiles when he thinks of the peddler, specializing in suspenders, buttons and such novelties, that came to call. The boys, looking for fun, decided to see how this spring wagon would roll with the hind wheels foremost. Accordingly, one of the boys was dispatched to the house to keep the peddler out of the way and the rest hurriedly set to work to switch the wheels. Whether he made a sale or not has been left out of the record, but when the boy’s interest terminated, the peddler departed. The boys were conspicuous by their absence – they decided to enjoy the spectacle from another vantage point. A short distance down the trail, the itinerant seller began to scratch his head to figure out what was wrong with the vehicle. Calling his horses to halt, he laboriously climbed out and began to lift up the rear of the wagon. Every movement was watched by the boys. Again, he started; still the wagon didn’t roll as it should. Now anger was getting the upper hand, and with a mighty toss he grabbed his cap and sailed it through the air. This convulsed the boys – lucky for them, the peddler was no longer in hearing distance. A minute later he climbed down, and slowly walked after his cap. Whenever the boys got together after that, all it needed to bring a laugh was for one to make a motion of pitching his cap toward the distant horizon. To make a long story short, the wanderer discovered what was the matter with his wagon when he started downhill, and he soon borrowed a wrench and set matters (or wheels) right.
Prairie fires were a common occurrence. The plowing for the fire guard was a duty that was never omitted, yet even with a guard there was often times of danger. Many and many a time the threshing crews were forced to quit threshing and fight the demon fire.
One fall, the tenth of October, a prairie fire destroyed the grain in the stacks and the farmers’ spirits sank as their labor went up in smoke. Gophers who had been through a prairie fire were a gruesome sight – their legs horribly charred by the hot embers. It was an act of mercy to kill them.
Fires in spring and fall – blizzards in the winter. Surely these hardy souls had much to try their mettle. The Thanksgiving storm of 1896 lasted three days and in that time, it was impossible to go out to the barn to do chores. Mrs. Holtan, attending high school in Bismarck at the time, speaks of the storm having so much force that it was nearly impossible to open the doors in the face of the wind.
One stormy night Engebrigt and Gilbert were returning home from Washburn, and though it took three hours to go six miles, they finally reached the shelter of the farm home, exhausted.
However, in the winter of 1899 there was no snow in February and Mr. Holtan made the 60-mile trip to Elbowoods with 7500 pounds of flour, with two wagon and five horses. It took a day and a half to make the trip to Elbowoods and about that to return. He remembers Mrs. Guy Packineau when she was a baby in the highchair.
Wheat in those days was hauled in sacks. Each farmer sacked his own and took it to the boat landing where it was re-sacked in sacks owned by the boat company. The sacks were then dropped down a chute to the boat’s deck. Some having more impetus than others, would land in the river. Barricades of sacked grain would halt the wayward ones.
The sacked grain was kept in the houses of some of those who didn’t need all the room for living purposes. Mrs. Holtan remembers visiting as a little girl, some of their nearest bachelor neighbors. She and her sisters couldn’t understand where the ladies of the house were and would crawl over the sacked grain looking for them.
Wheat, in those times, was even cheaper than it is now. In 1894 it sold in Washburn for 27 cents a bushel but by 1895 it had raised to 35 cents.
There was little livestock in the country. Of course, all farming was done with horses – power machinery was unheard of. Each family kept a cow but since there were no fenced pastures, the cow had to be kept on a picket line.
Mrs. Holtan taught school in McLean County five or six years. This was an interesting and novel experience to say the least. Institute was a one-week affair at Washburn looked forward to by all the teachers – and perhaps by the bachelors of the Washburn vicinity also since the last night of the Institute was a party attended by the entire community.
Each teacher drove a cart and horse back and forth to school – although the young gallants of the neighborhood would always obligingly escort the “school-ma’ams” on business and pleasure jaunts among their patrons. Libraries were unknown and school supplies of the simplest. Due to weather and road conditions, it was impossible to have a winter term.
It was customary for the teacher to spend a night with each family of patrons and, as might be expected, this was one of the hardships of teaching, for the homes offered varied accommodations. One night she slept (or didn’t sleep, rather) in a sod house, on a bed, which although covered with white sheets, was also amply supplied with fleas.
The Soo survey located its stakes right through her schoolhouse yard when she was teaching near Wilton. It was an interesting and educational spectacle for teacher and pupils alike.
The schoolhouses of the community were the central meeting places- church services, political programs, dances – all were held in the schools.
Decoration or Memorial Day and the 4th of July were the two big community holidays of the year. There was usually a baseball game, a patriotic program – oh, how that band did play! – a big feast, and on the 4th the day’s events were climaxed by a dance. The dance would start at four in the afternoon and continue, with short intermissions, until daybreak. The big warehouse at Washburn was the scene of many merry revels but perhaps the favorite dancing place was the Courthouse. Engebrigt’s brother, Henry, was much in demand as a violinist at these dances.
One never-to-be-forgotten Fourth was celebrated in Coleharbor. Besides the customary program, ball game and bowery dance, the Sioux and Cree Indians put on a “sham” battle. It was an impressive sight as the two opposing tribes filed out in the form of a figure 8, and then lined up in battle array. The cartridges were blank, but Engebrigt was beginning to be a little uneasy for he was a tall man and would have made a good target for an Indian’s gun. When an Indian would fall, presumably fatally wounded, his squaw would move through the forces to his side and cover him with a blanket. It was the last sham battle that the Indians staged.
Going home from the celebration was a picnic in itself. It took some time to traverse the miles separating Coleharbor and Washburn so the two young couples topped enroute to make coffee. There was no cream for it but Engebrigt, the soul of ingenuity, saw some homesteader’s cow picketed not far from the road. Finding a pail was an easy matter and he proceeded to milk the bossy. The milk stool was handy – in fact everything was quite convenient. Going back to their vehicle, he procured a paper and pencil. On the paper he wrote, “For one quart of milk” and slipped it with a nickel into a crack in the milk stool.
The Holtan brothers were the first to turn a furrow with a steam engine in McLean County. They also were also a
mong the first to own a car in the county – and such a car! It was a chain drive – (the chain broke every few miles and had to be repaired), was built like a boat, had an old-fashioned cooling system which didn’t use water. The first time Engebrigt drive it, his brother Henry showed him how to start it but neglected the stopping part. Henry left so Engebrigt essayed to deliver a can of cream to the depot. The attendant was surprised to see the car going round and round the station with Engebret pulling and pushing every button, pedal and lever in an attempt to stop it. Going home with the flying machine, (it traveled twenty or twenty-five miles an hour) he experienced difficulty in keeping it in the road. Not knowing its powers, nor whether it was acclimated to the horse trails, he took the longest road home. Stopping it again proved a problem for when it was going, it was like trying to stop a stampeding cow. Mrs. Holtan wondered what ailed him as he excitedly encircled the house time and time again.
Engebrigt homesteaded in 1893, building a log house, which was his bachelor habitation. It was quite a house for those times, as most were one room shacks or sod houses. They were married the day before Thanksgiving in 1899 and lived on his homestead until 1912, when Mrs. Holtan’s health failed, and they were advised to move to town. They came to Ryder where they lived during the school months until their children had finished high school. They then moved to their farm on the reservation and have lived there since. They have four children: Mildred, a teacher at Walla Walla, Washington; Lyle, who with his wife and baby son live near them; Helen, Mrs. Fred Shigley, of Oklahoma City Oklahoma; and Thelma who died of Tuberculosis in 1924.
Only four of the Hans Holtan children are living: Gilbert, Auditor of McLean County; Martin, a merchant in Washburn; Dr. Theodore of Waterville, Minnesota and Engebrigt.
The J.P. Peterson children living are: Louis, who lives at Center, ND, Permelia, Mrs Henry Holtan of Big Timber, Montana; Ella, Mrs Hans Boe, Anaconda, Montana; Ruth a primary teacher at Miles City, Montana; Edward, a banker at Thief River Falls, Minnesota; Agnes, Superintendent of Night Nurses, Park View Hospital, Minneapolis, MN; Curtis, a rancher near Raub; and Mrs. Engebrigt Holtan. Clara, Mina and Roy are deceased.
