The Sunday telegram. [volume] (Clarksburg, W. Va.) 1914-1927, 1916-04-09
FORMER LOCAL MAN
WRITTEN UP IN WEST

places and slew them by the thousands
to get their feathers. which were used
for mattresses in early days.
Maple sap boiling down, was q
favorite pastime for the young people.
who would go to the camps and make
maple sugar and taffy and spend
many happy hours in the sugar
camps.
Mr.. Harbert taught in the district
and grammar schools Of his native
county for twenty-one years. excepting
three years. 1S76-T7 and 1873 during
which. he taught school near Well
ington. Sumner county, Kansas where
he had homesteaded 100 acres. 1t was
here that Mr.. Harbert met with sue
cess and failure, as in three years his
rich prairie farm developed wonder
fully, and the third year. he with
hundreds OF his neighbors who had
taken up homes in Sumner county
were hoping for q bumper crop OF
wheat, when October, 1873 came a
beautiful panorama spread out on
every hand, showing thousands upon
thousands OF acres OF wheat UP and at
height that presaged wonderful
crop-rumors reached the settlers that
the grasshoppers were coming in
myriad thousands like the sands OF
the sea. many placed no faith in the
rumors, while others ploughed fur
rows about their grain in an endeavor
to check the approaching hosts. In
few days the advance guard arrived,
followed by more and more until
at last the earth was covered every
where by mighty army Of winged
invaders. armed to the teeth and in
vincible. as the poor settlers soon dis
| them away from their grain fields.
They moved In reslstless wave across
the prairie, eating and destroying
every living plant and green thing as
they went. their rasping. whirring
noise deafened and distracted the
farmers. who at first made light Of
the few 'hoppers' that came as the adj
vance guard Of the host that followed.
A few days and the beautiful pas
toral scene Of beauty was no more.
! The waving fields Of grain were
! blasted. bare. and gave the appearance
OF having been swept clean by tor
nado; after the blackness OF the first
/ desnair. hope came again. and the poor
| settlers ploughed and resolved in the
hope that all would be we'll. but relent-
less fate held still another blow in
store for the inhabitants OF the prairie
| in its intensity. followed in the wake
Of the grasshoppers. and many farmers
did not even get back their seed Thou
sands. had reached the end OF their
slender resources. and feeling that
! Kansas was doomed to return to a
I desert, they Quickly gathered to-
gether the best Of their belongings
and left the state. many returning to
their old homes, few going up into
I the Northwest and a few to the Pacific
coast. Mr.. Harbcrt in recalling the
great rush 10 leave Kansas after the
drouth. said that money lending real
estate offices, were literally besieged
with people. anxious to borrow the
limit on their scorched and blasted
farms, with the loan they proposed
leaving Kansas forever. ignoring the
fact. that the small sums they were
able to borrow only represented an
eighth or tenth Of the value Of their
homestead and all intending to allow
the lender TO foreclose the mortgage
and seize the property, in many In
stances the bundles Of mortgages exc
cuted. Law in huge piles in the real
estate Offices md when the general
exodus was over II was found, that
some districts in Kansas had been
almost depopulated. Mr.. Harbert was
among the number whose farm was
doubly devastated bv the choppers.
and the drouth. and In discourage