St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1888-03-03
A Spicy Chapter in the His
tory Of the Reeve
Family.
How Dad Came to Leave New
York With Fourteen
Young Reeves.
The Forty Days Journey and
Life at Sock Town,
Injeany.
Dad Failed There Farming,
and Budd Came to the
Dakota Land.
Special Letter to the Globe.

Special Letter to the Globe.
BUXTON, OAK. March. How every
thing has changed since dad went
West. Dad left York state in lumber
wagon, and, like most wagons fixed up
for the purpose of moving, there was
cover Oh it. 1t was a coach by day, a
family bedroom by night. There is one
thing the reader is asked to note as an
letter; he is not going to be bored by
long, dreary chapter on the inmates and
contents of that wagon. A brief his
tory will describe all there was
in it and following behind it.
1t is sufficient to say, like most men of
his time, dad had family. That is the
principal thing he did have. 1t was
more fashionable to have large family
when dad was young and on the carpet
than it is now.
1t was nothing unusual OR startling
then to see dozen or fifteen youngsters
roll out of one Shanty. 1t is different
now. Ii an American woman gets up
to five or six, she is looked upon as
curiosity. and is considered entitled to
the sympathy of all the neighbors. The
latest whim and freak OF fashion in
family matters is one young one and a
fortune. Or fortune and no brats at
all is still little more bon ton. This
doctrine would have
BANKRUPTED DAD
and cleaned him out of all he had. If
his family had been subtracted from
the balance of his possessions the re-
maInder would have been so small the
posse comitatus would have to have
been ordered out to look for it. No for
tune. but fourteen children, was the
happy fix he found himself in. Every
honest man and woman who have fol-
lowed the star of empire in a covered
wagon, with a greater or less number of
jewels in their crown than dad had in
his, can appreciate this part of the fam
lily history.
For moment go back with me and
linger around that wagon and see it as
it started. Dad sat III the front seat
with new buffalo robe over his legs.
He did not sit behind an iron horse
breathing breath of flame, painting for
q long Journey. No bell-rOpe was pulled
to signal the starting. But he
pulled pair of rope lines over
as poor a pair of raw-boned horses
as were ever pulled upon. The harness
on these horses had leather enough in
one breeding to clOthe fcur-hOrSe
team as harnesses are now made. 1t
was not until had reached a more adj
yanced and experienced age that L was
able to appreciate the philosophy and
Importance of the Old-faShioned breech-
ing used in York state and PennSylva-
MIA. Tie principal safety and success
of all business and travel was supposed
to lie wrapped up in the con-
struction of this part of the gear.
1t was nearly all hills where we
lived down East, and on the road we
travelled when we moved away the
wagon was either going up or coming
down or standing on one end OF the
other about all the time, and the only
way to get along was to have a col
lar on
BOTH ENDS OF TIE HORSE,
one in which the beast could push
ahead, the other in which it could push
back. There was time when people
living among these HILLS put slight de-
gree of trust in Providence and
less leather in the breeching;
but after picking themselves UP
at the bottom of a hill
a few times, they became so skeptical
as to the care of Providence over them
when the breeching broke, that they
concluded it would be better to put a
whole side Of leather in this part of the
harness rather than tempt Providence
or take any chances of having their
faith shaken in prayer. The weight
and width of the thing was considered
as important in some cases as the
strength of it. For instance, take it on
hill where it was so steep the
horses head stood nearly straight down
in descending. 1t was supposed
ina critical descent of this kind, that
the weight acted as ballast, or served as
balance to keep the elevated end of
the animal from going clear over and
reaching the bottom of the hill first.
While the breeching is an important and
interesting subject to write upon, it
will not do to let it take up too much
space to the exclusion of other matter.
Mother sat on back seat clear out of
sight. and took last view of friends
and native land through peep-hOle in
the back end of the wagon cover. 1t
was q
SOLEMN AND SERIOUS
thing to go West when dad started-es-
pecially for a woman. Goodbye as
often meant farewell forever as any
thing else. Out of sight was about the
same as out of the world. There were
no daily mails or telegraph to report
progress or landing. But more like
Jacob. when he went forth to seek a
new home, and rested his head on stone
for pillow, dad journeyed out of York
state, through Pennsylvania over into
Indiana. Indiana was the Far West"
then. Here he pitched his tent and
hung his buffalo robe out to dry. Just
why'he stopped there, shall not under
take to say. In fact, he never took the
younger members of the family fully
into his confidence Oh this point. There
is one thing certain, he had strong rea-
sons for stopping or he never would
have stopped. The wagon was threshed
around over 1000 miles of road, which
was so rough that dads knees sawed a
hole through the new buffalo robe, and
were sticking out bare and eX-
posed when he halted. Then the
horses played out, and as time wore on
| gathered from one circumstance and
another that dads pocketbOok might
have been in about the same fix as the
horses. This, however, is simple sur
mise. for he never told me anything
directly about his pOcketbOok. In fact,
| never saw it. 1t makes no difference
why it was, or how it happened, facts
are facts and history is history. That he
stopped and lived there is a dead sure
thing. More than a dozen stOrekeepers
could swear to that. The In
diana homestead was Oh Still
we'll prairie, in La Porte county.
1t was modest, unassuming eighty
acre tract, twenty acres of which were
marsh, ten acres gravel field and the
remaining fifty acres were nothing to
brag of. 1t was not only poor land. but
turned out to have poor title-and it
was not in the indemnity limits either.
The exact location of his farm was:
Eleven miles west of Sock Town, five
miles south of Bald Hill, and nine miles
north of the great Kankakee marsh,
crossed by the Yellow River stone road.
Perhaps you would like to know why
Snoly Town