| A very
interesting account written by Margaret
Arbuckle-Strang in 1873, who seems likely to
be the aunt or cousin of Janet Dyer Arbuckle,
sheds a great deal of light not only on the
Scottish customs, but the settling of the
Scots in Minnesota. And so with this in mind,
a summary of her account has been included -
the original of which is in the possession of
the Wadena Historical Society. Margaret’s family
left Glasgow on the 29th of April, 1873, and
went to Quebec, up the St. Lawrence amongst
the ice and seals; then up to the Lakes to
Superior, which took them two weeks because
of the ice. From there, they arrived at
Brainard, Minnesota along the Northern
Pacific Railroad. Unable to find a place to
stay with hotels overflowing, they went back
to the railroad company who sent them to a
reception house along the line, which was a
"fine homey place."
They settled
there for some until their husbands had gone
to file on their claims which meant having to
go to Wadena to look up their land - a sixty
mile walk through the woods along a blaze
line which went through near Parkers Prairie,
Minnesota and then onto Alexandria to the
land office. After receiving their first
papers, they walked back to Parkers Prairie
where they rested for a day or two with the
store keeper, made friends, and got supplies:
a cow and calf, steers to break in, chickens
and general household supplies.
Two other
women besides Margaret and six children were
at the reception house at Brainard, without
their men folk when she heard Indians having
"a big pow wow over in the woods."
She had not known anything about Indians,
having never read or heard about them in
their homeland, and one night around midnight
while they slept upstairs, she heard
"the most unearthly yells." Looking
out of the window and seeing the Indians
putting piles of wood round and round the
house to burn them out, they began to pray
thinking their last hour had come. As if in
answer to these prayers, Margaret went to the
window to look out at the west side of the
house and saw a row of "fine strapping
chaps" standing with their rifles cocked
at "the devils" and saying in the
Indian language to them, "If one of you
are seen in five minutes, we will shoot you
down like dogs.
"They
thanked the brave men who would never forget
the three women who would always think highly
of them, assured that the Lord had sent them
to take care of them. Though the account had
happened 52 years ago she often lived it over
again and with good reason – saying it
had turned her hair gray.
Concluding
that the Lord had big work for her to do on
the prairie, they set out about the 17th of
June in 1873 in the afternoon, and arrived at
their land with no tent or house to go to,
but the wild flowers were a sight to behold
as the sun glinted out and in among a rainbow
of colors.
They dropped
onto a little claim shanty on legs and took
possession to get under cover for the night.
The little house was full of mosquitoes so
thick one could cut them with a knife and the
logs so open you could have thrown a cat
through. All the while it thundered and
lightening split the sky until, flooded out,
they lifted their beds off of the floor and
put Mrs. Stewart’s children up on the
table and sat the rest of the night working
out plans to build one of the houses. Bright
and early, we they were on their feet and got
the lumber to build. Jack Stewart and Mr.
Strang (as she addresses her husband) began
to dig the well. They got down about 20 feet
and thought there was plenty of water; but it
proved to be only sufficient for the time
being. They built one house first, which
housed all of them, and continued until they
each had their own house.
The Stewarts
and Strangs remained close friends. Jim Robb
was a neighbor on the other side, and the
Beach’s folks were about a mile across
the creek.
That summer
would stand out in her memory as "one of
the most cruelly home sick times that ever a
girl put in." She wrote that she would
sit by the hour and think of the dear ones
she had left at home. Her father and mother
had both "gone to their lang alma,"
but her brother Andrew had been both to them
and had filled their place for the other
children. She remembered her father telling
him to be good to the children (four younger
than he), and he was good and kind, and he
did the best he knew how and even though she
was married, he was none the less dear to
her.
She used to
sit and write by the hour and tell him about
her "wee, funny house on the prairie and
the stove sitting out under a tree." She
recalled how one time while baking bread in
it one day, a storm came up and the cattle
tore around and kicked the stove over, bread
and all.
By September,
she wrote that the wind across the prairie
was cold, and that Mr. Strang, having had
lots of escapades and experiences in New
Zealand and Australia before they were
married, knew of a good many ways to keep
warm; and he showed her how to "sod up
to the eves," while they sang the Psalms
of David.
They spent
many long winter days inside "that wee
shanty." Inside, everything was
homemade. While her husband was making chairs
and table and things they needed to get along
with, she was busy fashioning little garments
out of the many good clothes she had for
motherhood was upon her.
She helped
Mrs. Stewart with her sewing and the two
tried to comfort each other when a letter
from home came. It was like a sacred thing to
her, and she would cry for days, thinking and
dreaming of her mother at night till she
would be wakened up.
The winters
got colder and colder – 40 below zero
was quite common, as was the howl of the
coyotes at night which frightened her. They
spent their first Christmas and New Years
with the Stewarts and had dinner and on the
first day of January, their boy Robert,
"a fine healthy 10 pound boy," was
born.
Others of the
colony kept coming out until there were ten
families, all from the dear auld homeland.
She planted seeds from Scotland that her
brother Andrew had sent her, and had tatties,
corn, and the grandest ruttabagies, tomatoes
and onions in their roadside garden which was
also filled with the fragrance of flowers.
They always
went to church, were early risers, and
unafraid of hard work and as the first few
years passed, their stock grew and their cows
multiplied. Margaret made butter she sold in
town, raised chickens, sold eggs, and had two
more children by time they built the second
home and barn.
She talked of
how they walked the eight miles to church on
Sundays, and how she carried her butter and
eggs to her customers. She loved to walk and
would get home in time to have a good hearty
supper for the children coming home from
school. After supper, they would get the cows
home and Mr. Strang and the two eldest boys
would milk while shed did the dishes and saw
to the milk pans. After their chores were
done, she would read a story or they would
have a game, they’d put the babies to
bed and before long, all would be "in
the land of nod, then up early and into a
good, honest day’s work."
The colony of
which Margaret refers, was the Furness Colony
which was the result of a meeting of the
Northern Pacific Railway Company and a
Reverend Story and Robert Kerr. The railroad
had been interested in promoting migration to
its land holding and there were promoting a
group of temperance people, convinced the
sale of intoxicating drink was opposed to
community propriety.
A committee of
eight men had been appointed to go to
American and select a proper place for the
settlement of the colony. Included in the
group were James and Thomas Robb farmers of
Perth, Scotland, who chose Wadena and
intended for it to be settled up with small
farms. Other early members of the group
included James Strang, John Stewart an iron
moulder from Dumbarton, James Anderson a
clothier from Motherwell, David Murray a
craftsman, Ebenezer Thomson from Canada, and
other Scots including William Davidson,
Albert McLean, and William Wilson.
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