James Williams

    I have been asked many times why the early pioneers settled along the woods bordering the creeks, leaving the fine prairie lands to be settled last. I can well remember when anything like fair, timbered land would sell for $10.00 to $20.00 per acre, when at the same time, the finest land on the big prairies could be bought for $1.25 to $2.50 per acre, of the Government, and at one time it sold to actual pre-emptors for 12% cts. per acre.
    The cause of this inequality in price was,—it was nearly impossible to live out on those bleak prairies with the little means the poor settlers had. No water, away off from wood and stone (the wood to build houses and make rails to fence); stock all ran at large a good many years after war time. The only way to get water then, was to dig wells by hand and wall up with stone, and no stone nearer than the creeks.
    It took four or five yoke of oxen to plow that tough prairie sod, unreasonable as it seems now. Everything had to be hewed out by hand. Then, there was no shelter for stock on the high prairies, no stock water; in cold weather the stock would run off to the woods in a storm and stay there till they died, if not driven back.

    Then, with all these things to surmount, why would not the poor man (with one yoke of oxen, two cows, one or two horses, besides a lot of hazel splitter hogs that would winter many open winters in the woods with little feed, and less shelter) settle along the creeks near all these absolute necessities? He could plow bottom land with one yoke of oxen, and drive them himself; could plow the corn with one horse and shovel plow; could get fencing timber and fuel off the ground he plowed, and some times raise 50 to 75 bushels of corn the first year, and but very little on tough sod. Of course, every one would have grabbed the nice prairie if they'd had the wealth and facilities of this day.

Water for Stock

    And, after all, a great many of the wealthy farmers are descendants of these pioneers, and are yet living on the same spot they settled 60 to 80 years ago. There are many fine houses and big barns on these old farms, being near plenty of stock water and timbered shelter. [William James, Seventy-Five Years on the Border (Kansas City, MO: Press of Standard Printing Company, 1912), 183-84].