St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1886-07-24
A TICKLE RIVER TALE.
How the Missouri's Shifting Currents
Changed Mans Politics as Well
as His Home.
His Farm Drifted From Nebraska to Iowa
and Back Again, and he
Lived
First in One State and Then in the
Other. as the Coquettfsh Cur.
rents Dictated.
Legal Complications as to the Pro-
prietorship of the Farm That
Loved to Travel.

Whatever soil is washed up on shore of
the old Missouri river belongs by law to the
owner of the shore. Sometimes a whole
farm gradually changes hands by crossing
the wicked river in solution. Then the
surveyors put little crook in the Missouri
on their maps and say that it has shifted its
course.
Maj. Dugro Buckhinge was born on a
little farm not far below Omaha. and the
pretty white farm house in which he first
saw light was not over 500 feet from the
river. Until two years ago the major had
lived happily on the farm. His father and
mother were buried on the side of a hill
close by, and he could see the red roof of
the school, where morality and modern
ideas were whacked into him, from his
doorstep. When the major was not out in
his cornfeld swearing at the hired man, he
was at home reading the Bible or playing
with his wife and little ones. He was
rough, but he was good.
When he was at home he complained that
the Missouri was the crookedeSt and the
dirtlest and the snaglest stream in creation,
but when he paid a visit to New York he
knocked a man down and jumped on his
chest for denying that it was the most
glorious waterway in the world. On Sun
days the major taught in the Sunday school
near his place.
Itwas two years ago that the river began
to wash away the farm and cast up the soil
on the opposite shore. which belonged to
Lawyer Deemng of New Orleans. The
major had not lived there ali his life not to
to know what that meant. Each week
foot or two Of land was gone. Then the
water seemed to double its thieviSh energy
and, as it undermined the soil. sometimes
ten feet would cave in and disappear. The
majors farm was a long, narrow strip of
land, and before year had passed there
was nothing left but the house and about
thirty feet of the farm.
The major knew nothing about law. but
he had very long head. One day he fast
ened ropes around his house, hired all the
horses in the neighborhood and had the
house hauled out into the stream. His
wife waded out with the little ones and
then the major poled the house into the
deep water and let it drift Mrs. Buckhinge
and the children sat in the parlor looking
back at the dim Nebraska shore and the old
red-topped schoolhouse, while the major
stood in the back door of the kitchen and
kept his eye on the great and growing state
of Iowa, to which his farm had been taken
ty the river.
wherever the durn house lands I'm
n-goin' to SETTLE" he said, for Pm drifting
just as my property did and Pm bound to
strike the same place"
In an hour the little house grounded on
point which had been newly made by the
river The major ordered his household to
forage, while he hustled around for horses
Before night the house was hauled high and
dry, and the major marked off with stakes
the amount of land which he considered his
own. Then he had his farming imple-
ments brought over, and in little while
erected good stout fence around his way
ward farm. Then the major got out his
Fife and declared that he was prepared to
defend his property against all Corners.