Each wave of occupation of
the American frontier developed its own mode of migration
and settlement. For the Great Plains one of the serviceable
patterns was the mutual aid or cooperative colony. Everett
Dick in The Sod-House Frontier, 1854-1890, describes a
number of these colonies. Many had religious affiliations
such as the Mennonite settlements; others had special ethnic
or life style associations, as did the black community of
Nicodemus or the vegetarian colony near Humboldt.
More typical, however, was
that type of cooperative colony whose constituency was drawn
from a broader base within a single community or neighboring
area and was motivated by an obsessive land hunger. Caught
in the depressed economic conditions of the time and
conditioned to think of land as man's greatest source of
security, they tended to place an excessively high value on
land ownership. Certainly the promotional accounts by the
railroads describing the rich fertility of the soil and
other aspects of nature's bounty in the West and the
railroad's promise of assistance whetted the ambition of the
organizers, but in truth there was little need to entice a
people hemmed in by a growing population and embittered by
the narrow opportunities available to them. But above all
other motivations stood the hope of a better life secured
firmly on land personally owned. In the words of one, ". …
there was a prospect ahead: a prospect of owning a home some
day. What are their prospects in Zanesville?"
The mutual aid colony was by
no means a perfect colonizational system, especially the
single-community-based type. Its organization was at best
loose; at worst it was unplanned and chaotic. The motivation
was centered on personal self-interest, an exaggerated
understanding of the value of land, and an unrealistic
assessment of the hazards of a malevolent nature. As a
consequence, the number of failures exceeded the permanent
settlements. But beyond the failure to establish a
recognizable permanent community were the greater penalties
extracted from those individuals who attempted the
venture-penalties which Vernon Parrington described as, "The
cost of it all in human happiness--the loneliness, the
disappointments, the enunciations, the severing of old ties
and quitting of familiar places, the appalling lack of those
intangible cushions for the nerves that could not be
transported on horseback or in prairie schooner."
One such colony typifying
the unsuccessful effort was the Ohio or Zanesville colony
which settled in Meade county, Kansas, in 1879. The original
idea for the colony came from Daniel Dillon of Muskingum
County, Ohio. At his cell a group organized in Zanesville,
elected John Jobling as president, J. T. "Jed" Copeland as
secretary, and held regularly scheduled meetings every
second Saturday of the month. Eventually a constitution with
bylaws was drawn up and George H. Stewart, a cashier of the
First National Bank, was appointed treasurer to begin
receiving funds:
Whatever its later faults,
and contrary to many such projects, the colony was from the
beginning a carefully and thoughtfully planned operation, at
least through the talking stage. Money was raised through
"donations, fairs, festivals, etc. to pay transportation
charges to Kansas and buy a team for every fourth family."
The developers wisely brought into the organization, for
endorsement if not actual participation, some of the more
prominent men of the community and called upon established
service organizations such as the Odd Fellows Lodge and the
local churches for support. They also displayed considerable
ingenuity in devising fund raising projects; among the more
unusual were the scheduling of the Hon. Schuyler Colfax for
a benefit lecture and the soliciting of every farmer in
Muskingum County to contribute one bushel of produce.
Through several meetings the
members discussed and reported to the public possible sites,
various means of transportation, prospective cash crops, and
potential sources of revenue. Membership reached 60 families
at one point. Eventually Howard Lowery, one of the few
farmers to participate actively, was sent ahead to see at
first hand what Kansas had to offer. On his return a
committee of three was directed to go to Kansas "to spy out
the land" and make preliminary arrangements. This advance
committee chose a site in Meade County with the intention of
taking adjoining claims and establishing a town as a uniting
center. Since the county had not as yet been organized, the
committee hoped that the county seat would be located within
the limits of the 60 adjoining quarters it had selected.
On February 18, 1879, with
plans complete and the timid souls separated from the bold,
the party with all its possessions boarded the train that
would take it as far as Dodge City. They had abandoned an
earlier scheme to travel by wagon since they expected the
railroad to make favorable concessions to them, and it did.
Still, when the fee of $52.00 for each family was collected
and all freight charges paid, "the ZANESVILLE COLONY left
with $000100.00 in the hip pocket of the treasurer!"
The send-off in Zanesville
was a gay one, with a large crowd at the station, tributes
published in the local papers for some individuals, and
expressions of the "heartiest good wishes of the
community." The colony was accompanied by an agent of the
railroad and was joined by another contingent from the area,
which was to locate in Saline county. In spite of meager
reserves, spirits were high; the euphoria of expectation
overwhelmed all sense of reality.
Arriving in Dodge City on
February 21, 1879, the party was met by reality at every
turn. The city itself was not as wild as its reputation, but
it was not peaceful Zanesville either. George Williams, one
of the colonists, wrote home:
Dodge City has about one
thousand inhabitants, but no very fine buildings.
The Sheriff's building, is
the best, built of brick, under which is the jail, holding
at present, seven Indians, the remains of Fort Robinson
Massacre. The most noted are Crow, Wild Hog, Big Man. Crow
is the father of Black Hawk. This place is bad enough, but
it bears a harder name than it deserves. I have no doubt,
but that its past history is as bad as its present name. The
gold and silver region West, have taken many of the
notorious characters away. We have seen no trouble yet, but
have been shown many marks of kindness, by the citizens.
Yet, we can hardly approve of dance houses and public
gambling houses, both of which go on on Sunday, as well as
any other day, but all a man has to do is to attend to his
own business.
The unexpected shock was not
the wickedness of "The Wickedest Town in the West," but the
boom-town prices, which the Ohioans estimated were 25 or 50
percent higher than in the East. The cost of overnight
accommodations for the entire colony was staggering. After a
lengthy conference it was agreed that D. W. "Dunk" Arter
should use $60.00 of the remaining funds to purchase lumber
for a shack sufficiently large to put a roof overhead and
secure the personal possessions piled along the tracks, For
the adults it was a portent of things to come; for the
children the whole affair was still something of a lark, a
kind of exciting and extended outing. Years later one of
those children, age 15 at the time, wrote of his first days
in Kansas:
Here they remained a few
days, all using but two stoves and occupying two beds. The
beds covered the whole of each side of the shanty-- the
goods piled in the center--each family in a group. About
midnight of the first night, a baby in the extreme rear of
the shanty took the croup. Then "there was hurrying to and
fro" in hot haste to get remedies. One small boy between two
grown persons remarked that he could judge of the weight of
each individual accurately [sic]. They in stepping over the
pedal extremities of the grown persons invariably stepped on
his feet. At last the baby got better and night came to an
end, as has every night since.
After several days,
arrangements for the move to the "promised land" were
completed. The new settlers followed the old Adobe Walls
trail out of Dodge City toward "Hoodoo" Brown's Road Ranche
to where their claims were. Carrie Schmoker's family was in
Dodge City when the Ohio colony arrived. Since they, too,
were headed for the same general section of Meade County,
her family visited their new neighbors. Her recollection of
the trip starting the next day from Dodge City could serve
as a description of the colony's experience.
When our car was unloaded, a
couple of freighters were hired, and their wagons and our
own were piled high with "goods and chattels." The whole was
topped by a not inconsiderable weight of human freight. We
left Dodge City and crossed the Arkansas River over the old
wooden toll bridge and to about three miles from the present
site of Meade we saw not a single home, fence, field, or
tree, nothing but the brown trail and on every side as far
as the eye could reach just grassy prairie land that was not
green for there had been no rain for many months. On the
high flats we saw a few prairie dog towns and we met a few
freight outfits going into town.
We camped that night and had
our first experience of sleeping on the ground and eating
food cooked over a campfire. Next morning we resumed our
slow journey and some time that day we reached our
homesteads where the wagons were unloaded and tents set up
for our new homes.
Once settled in, the colony
began its first division. Some camped near Crooked creek,
going out to their claims to "prove them up"; others began
the process immediately, preferring to carry water to their
new homes. Addison Bennett spent his last cent in Dodge City
on supplies and lumber from which he and Howard Lowery, his
publishing partner, built a shanty 16 feet square and about
seven high in front sloping back to about four feet. This
served until a smaller but more solid sod house could be
constructed. With Lowery and William Mangold, Bennett began
what appeared to be a monumental task of digging a well. To
their amazement water was reached at eight feet; others were
less fortunate, needing to go to the depth of 50 or 60 feet.
But before the sod houses
could be built, the colony's first serious tragedy struck.
Both the Ed Thompson and Cyrus L. "Cibe" Atkinson families
had remained in Dodge City because of the illness of
children. After a few days Atkinson felt his child had
recovered sufficiently to bring the family down to the
claim. Bennett's reminiscences of what happened is one of
the more poignant descriptions of death on the prairie:
In the morning little Pearl
seemed worse, but the Atkinsons went on to their claim and
left Pearl and her mother with Mrs. Bennett and Mrs. Lowery.
Mrs. Mangold was also there. Pearl grew worse, and about
eight or nine o'clock that morning she died. This was a sad
blow. Poor Pearl! She was indeed a lovely child, aged about
sixteen months, and beloved by all.
When the ladies found she
was sinking rapidly, they called me and I ran rapidly down,
over a half mile, and called Cibe and Sam, but she was dead
before they arrived. Neighbors and friends were notified. A
rude coffin was made and neatly trimmed, and on the
following afternoon we laid little Pearl in the grave. I
never think of that funeral procession without a tear. I can
close my eyes and see it still, slowly wending its way along
the point of the hill…. AlI walked, men, women and children.
Four of us carried the coffin, which was covered with wild
flowers. No minister of the gospel was at hand but Robert
Lawson read a brief chapter from the scriptures, and
reverently and sadly we laid the remains of little Pearl in
her western grave.
The town, which had been
named with cheerful expectation "Sunshine" in Ohio was now
renamed Pearlette in memory of Pearl Atkinson, "the fairest
and brightest of our jewels."
Bennett had brought with him
a small press and enough equipment to set up a print shop
and to publish a newspaper. This gear along with five
members of his family shared the sod house. On April 15,
1879, he published the first newspaper in Meade County. The
lead editorial carried a bold announcement of the colony's
arrival: "Brethren of the Kansas Press, greeting!" But by
then caution had touched his enthusiasm and the editorial
reflected this new realism.
When we left Zanesville we
thought we could get out the first issue of the Call in two
weeks, but we found out different after our arrival here. We
found it took more time to build our house than we had any
idea of; for before we left Ohio we knew of mite meetings
building four sod houses in one evening, but some-how they
can't be built so fast out here; because here we build by
work, and there we built by wind.
The houses and dugouts were
eventually finished, and the few teams "traded around" to
plow the necessary strips for "proving up" the claims. Once
these essentials were underway the refinements of
civilization were ordered. On April 6, the Rev. Adam Holm
came out from the Methodist Episcopal church in Dodge City
to hold services in Robert Lawson's home. The congregation
he met was considerably sobered but still optimistic that
with the Lord's blessing and a fair amount of luck their
ambitions would be realized. The colony agreed to continue
the religious services in the various homes.
Other evidence of permanence
and stability followed. Captain Werth started a lumberyard
in April and to the south R. A. Milligan established a
grocery store. In May the colony members joined with others
in the area in manning a militia to defend against possible
Indian attacks. The adjutant general of the state, stirred
by Dull Knife's raid the previous year, distributed about 50
guns and the citizens organized under the captaincy of
MilIigan, who had Civil War service, with D. S. Gantz and
"Hoodoo" Brown, both old timers, as lieutenants. The one and
only drill held in June was strictly in keeping with
American militia tradition, ending in ridiculous shambles.
Later someone sent Milligan a tin sword and paper cocked
hat. He never recalled the defenders.
Of far more importance to
Pearlette was the designation of Bennett as postmaster of an
official post office receiving delivery once a week. The
area around Pearlette continued to attract settlers,
although the country was still sparsely settled. In May,
Bennett reported about 20 new families had located in the
immediate vicinity since his last issue. Finally, as a solid
symbol of permanent establishment, Ed Thompson completed the
colony's first frame house.
Even with the new settlers,
the region remained largely a raw, open prairie. The bleak
vastness of the country was one of the unexpected conditions
of their venture, which the city folk from settled
Zanesville found most disturbing. The story of the first
child born in the Ohio colony illustrates the point:
About one o'clock on the
morning of Monday, April 7th, Dunk Arter sent Billy Bunshuh,
his nearest neighbor, in great haste after Mrs. Robt.
Lawson.
Billy arrived at Lawson's
safely, and a moment after he started back, accompanied by
Mrs. L. They had before them a walk of half a mile, due
west.
An hour later they had not
arrived at their journey's end, and Dunk began to get
uneasy; so he built an out-fire, and started in search. Not
being able to find them, Dunk started after Mrs. Billy
Heinz, who lives about a mile south.
About four o’clock Mrs.
Lawson and her escort, after wandering all over the
township, brought up at the CALL office, about two miles
south of Arter's. Here they were joined by Mrs. Bennett, and
taking new bearings made another start.
All this time Mrs. Arter was
alone, if we except her little children, who were all
sleeping.
It was well after four
o'clock when Dunk (who had also been lost) arrived with Mrs.
Heinz. And there sat Mrs. Arter, holding in her arms Master
Wm. Bennett Arter, a lad nearly three hours old. Mr. Bunshuh
and party arrived shortly after Dunk.
Bennett's account of his own
first "delivery" of the Pearlette Call is as traumatic as
Mrs. Arter's issue and both illustrate the kind of optimism
and willingness to gamble that mark those early pioneers. It
also serves as a reminder of the sanity-saving humor
essential to cope with the seemingly impossible odds the
colony faced. After running off his first issue, Bennett
packed his papers in a satchel and started on foot the
30-odd miles to Dodge City. At that point his major concern
was the few cents cash he needed to cross the toll bridge at
the Arkansas River. On the way out he sold three papers to
neighbors and so had his toll, but once beyond Crooked creek
valley he met no one. By midmorning the wind was so strong
was forced to lean backwards against it, the heat became
nearly intolerable, and his feet so blistered he was forced
to remove his boots. The one respite on the trip was the
chance meeting with one of the local old-timers. In
Bennett's words:
Going down to Mulberry I saw
a strange sight: a team coming at full speed along the
trail, the driver standing up in the wagon lashing the
horses. I sat down on the bluff and looked and wondered: It
approached and swung up under me at a gallop. I knew at once
it was Cap French, as he had been pointed out to me,
although I did not know him personally. As he stopped I said
to him "what are you doing down there?" He replied, "I
wanted to see what dammed fool that was up there." This was
our introduction and I called on him for water but he had
none; I gave him a copy of the Call, and told him I must
pull on. He wanted me to get in with him and return; but no,
I would not turn back. Soon I said, "Well as you have
nothing to drink I must go one." He promptly said, "I didn't
say so; I said I had no water, and I never use it; here, try
this," and he produced a three gallon demijohn. I drank it
as a child would milk, and of coarse in a moment I felt it.
This drink did me a wonderful sight of good, and gave me a
strength that helped me up several miles. When the reaction
set in I concluded that I could not possibly make Dodge, and
that I would lie down and take my chances of a wagon coming
along. But just then I saw ahead a large herd of cattle, as
I supposed, and I knew the herders would have water. This
gave me courage and hope, but alas! It was a delusion, as
the cattle turned out to be the sand bluffs between five
mile-hollow and Dodge. But when I got near enough to
discover this the lights of Dodge flashed into view, only a
mile distant apparently, and again hope was revived. But it
was a long, long way, and I was three hours I suppose,
making the last two miles."
All this positive activity
of the colony was deceptively optimistic and was undertaken
in the face of a nature, which seemed determined to thwart
their best intentions. John Jobling's son remembered the
summer well:
During the summer Crooked
Creek went dry from its head to where Spring Creek empties
into it; all the deep holes along the head of the creek
cracking open like frozen ground in the winter.
The wind blew constantly and
hard, a calm day was an occasion so rare that they were
celebrated that first summer.
In the fall there was not
more than 50 tons of hay cut between the head of Crooked
Creek and where Meade now stands and all the available crop
was put up.
Bennett confirmed Jobling's
recollection. He recalled: "I can not now remember a shower
during the year 1879 or up to July 1880 that was sufficient
to lay the dust. During 1879 the prairies never got green.
They did in the spring look a trifle like life, but it only
lasted a few days."·
Under the circumstances the
men were forced to seek day wages outside the colony. Ed
Thompson and John Bay found work in a brick yard in Dodge
City; William Mangold became a baker there; Dunk Arter hired
out shearing sheep on the Cimarron, and "Jed" Copeland
became a brakeman after being unemployed for 10 months. The
dream of land ownership freeing them from other men's employ
quickly withered in the Kansas sun. But there were still
more troubles. As in all resettlement there was to be a
physical "seasoning time." Some like Ed Thompson "came down
with the ague" which they couldn't seem to shake. The long,
withering summer stretched on endlessly. Fortunately, the
old ties with Zanesville had not been severed and appeals
for assistance were sent back "home." In June Bennett
gratefully acknowledged the first box of gifts from
Zanesville:
In July the first break in
the solidarity of the colony came when the Howard Lowery
family moved back to Kansas City' Once the ranks had been
broken, the continued disintegration followed a pattern
repeated in the history of many of the other mutual aid
colonies. Ed Thompson's health forced him to return with his
family to Ohio in August; the Muxlow family "removed to
Spearville" so the children could attend school under less
formidable circumstances; William Mangold's job in the
bakery developed into ownership. By midwinter some of the
appeals for assistance had become so desperate that railroad
tickets for the Arters and Lawsons were sent from Ohio.
Bennett did what he could to stem the tide of desertion,
reminding his neighbors that life in Ohio had not been
without its drawbacks also. In the edition marking the first
year of settlement, he wrote:
During the year many of us
have seen tough times, and owing to the drought our hopes
may not have been fully realized: but then some of our
number hoped for impossibilities.
Some of the disappointed
ones have gone back to Zanesville, and it does not require
much of a prophet to read their future. But some of us
propose to stick to Meade County, in preference to going
back to Ohio to live and die in poverty.
The disintegration was as
much psychological as physical. The early exchange of
kindnesses, the midnight missions of mercy on behalf of a
sick neighbor, shared goods, horses, and homes turned to
name calling, recriminations, and threats of violence. The
long summer with its unrelenting heat, boredom, and
disillusionment, eroded the concepts of brotherly
cooperation and mutual aid. In Bennett's words: the people
who had composed the colony, were about the most
dissatisfied, troublesome and quarrelsome lot ever heard of
a set of people never were before brought together who were
by nature, instinct, and education so well adapted to
quarrel and wrangle as the Ohio Colony . . ." "Cibe"
Atkinson, the father of Pearl, whom everyone had pitied and
aided at the time of her death, became in Bennett's words "a
bad man in his own estimations." At one point he called on
Bennett in his office and "quietly pulling out a revolver
told me he had come there with the express intention of
killing me." Even the individual appeals for aid resulted in
controversy which spilled over into Zanesville papers hack
home. G. M. Williams, who came with more reserve than the
rest and with some horses from his father's livery stable in
Zanesville, ridiculed the call for help and painted a
glowing picture of life on the prairie. He wrote back: "I
shall not disgrace Ohio's blood by accepting it." He did
concede that, "If I saw some lazy thin blooded Ohioian
passing by my rest, I might force him to bring me a pail of
water in charity, but no more," Others felt differently and
were publicly critical of "Preacher" Williams and "Our
'Worthy President" Jobling.
Efforts toward organizing a
more orderly government on the basis of a municipal township
only resulted in greater friction. The summer of 1879 turned
into one of discord and strife. Still, hope was slow in
dying. As late as May, 1879, the colony was still attracting
new members from Zanesville. Mrs. L. D. Copeland, "one of
the oldest citizens of Zanesville," moved with the rest of
her family to Meade County, as did George Thompson. Dr.
William Ward came out with the hope of settling a son-in-law
and to find a spot where the Doctor "might pass his
declining years." Even the bitter letter to the Courier that
had sparked the taunts by Williams had ended with a
half-hearted reaffirmation of the future:
I hope some day to own a
good comfortable home here, and see my 160 acres under
cultivation to the last foot. I read in the papers of home
of how your markets are loaded with de1icious vegetables and
fruit, but right here I must stop. It makes me hungry to
think of peas, beans, lettuce, onions, cabbage and
strawberries so plentiful there, and we have not tasted for
so long. Another year at this time, perhaps I will have a
different story to tell. Let me hope so, at all events.
It was a forlorn hope. The
rains did not come and the few packages from Ohio did little
to alleviate the situation. Bennett toughed it out through
that first miserable year, but when the drought continued on
through 1880 even he, Pearlette's strongest and most
optimistic booster, moved on to organize the firm of Bennett
and Smith, Land Attorneys, at Garden City.
Only the John Joblings and
Silas Ayers of the original families remained. Born in
England, Jobling had married a Zanesville girl and had eked
out a living driving a "peddling wagon." Now in his mid-50's
he felt he had made his last move. He had brought his wife,
two sons (John Jr. and William), and his mother-in-law,
Eliza J. Elwanger, who was 80 years old, on the move and
they were determined to stick it out. In the winter of 1879
he had become Bennett's partner in establishing a grocery
store in connection with the post office. When Bennett moved
on Jobling took over the position of postmaster and added to
the line of groceries. John Werth had by then sold his
lumberyard and Pearlette had dwindled to one store and two
houses. By October,' 1880, most of the colony had left. In
1885 Jobling reported: ".
from July 1880 to the spring
of 1884, almost four years, I had but one permanent neighbor
within three miles of Pearlette. "
By 1885 the worst of it was
over. The settlers who had endured were seeing the
benevolent side of Kansas' quixotic weather. B. F. Phillip,
who lived near Pearlette, reported his wheat that year
averaged 20 to 25 bushels an acre with "the heads large and
well filled with a perfect grain." With improved weather
conditions came the greatest land rush that section of
Kansas had known. The press to file claims reached a fever
pitch. The officials in the land office in Garden City
reported it was necessary to enter and leave by ladder
through a second story window over the heads of a constant
crowd jamming the doors.
There was always a great
deal of loose interpretation of the improvement necessary to
establish a claim, and with the influx of new settlers there
was considerable contesting of old claims and much
resentment of "claim jumpers," It was only natural for the
old settlers to band together to protect their holdings. On
July 20, 1885, at midnight, 14 armed and mounted men visited
O. S. Hurd of the Hurd & Strauss Real Estate Company in
Fowler City, warning him to relinquish claims near Pearlette
which he was contesting. The Fowler City Graphic was
incensed by the vigilante action and charged that it was
common knowledge that large bodies of land in the vicinity
of Pearlette were being "held in fraud" and had "no more
improvement than it had in the day of the buffalo and the
wild Indian.'" Fortunately, the quarrel moved from night
raids to the press with John Jobling and Oliver Norman, one
of the early homesteaders, taking up the defense of the
established claims. There was in fact little reason for
quarrels, for there was more than enough open land in the
area to satisfy the settlers. No further vigilante action
was reported.
All the surrounding towns
were experiencing the same quickening pace and since Meade
County had been established officially and finally by the
state legislature in 1885, there was much speculation as to
where the new county seat would be located. Fowler City,
Meade Center, Odee, Spring Lake, and Pearlette made bids for
the honor. There was also much railroad talk. Pearlette's
hope for transportation and survival lay with the Denver,
Memphis and Atlantic railroad. Although Meade Center seemed
to hold the edge for both the railroad and county seat, no
one felt his town out of the race. Certainly John Jobling
had high expectations, and there appeared to be some reason
for his optimism. C. K. Sourbeer, from rival Spring Lake,
reported: "Within the last six months four or five
substantial business houses have been erected in Pearlette,
the largest being that of J. Jobling. We think Pearlette
will make a good town, county seat or not." In enlarging his
grocery stock, Jobling was still anticipating the prosperous
future he had envisioned in Zanesville. The post office
continued to attract customers to the grocery store,
although not as many since the Wilburn office, only a few
miles to the north, was established in mid-1885 and the
Fowler City and Spring Lake offices came shortly after that.
With the land rush a reality
and in anticipation of the arrival of the "D M. & A,"
Jobling and Robert Wright filed a plat for the town of
Pearlette on June 1, 1886. The town was to stand on a 1,460
feet square of the NE/4 Section 27, Township 30, Range 27. 
Business for a time did pick
up. T. J. Reed, who had moved in a year earlier, sold his
store and hardware stock to J. Snow and the "Hotel" spruced
things up a bit by planting trees on the grounds. Settlers
continued to fill in the unclaimed quarters and Pearlette
was enjoying a minor boom.
It was to be a short run
affair. In April, 1886, after considerable complaint by
Fowlerites about the erratic service, the mail to Fowler
began to come directly from Dodge City, bypassing Pearlette.
Then in February, 1887, two weeks after Fowler had been
designated a division town by the Rock Island railroad, mail
deliveries to Pearlette were discontinued altogether.
Without a post office, Pearlette was not even the proverbial
broad spot in the road. With the "D M & A" fading as a
speculative venture and with the post office gone, Jobling
finally was forced to abandon the vision he had seen in
Ohio. Since settlers were pouring in, however, and since
land was producing bumper crops, the choice was not to
abandon the country--only the town. Jobling's alternative
for continuing his store lay either with Wilburn or Fowler,
or, more correctly, with the Rock Island railroad or the
Chicago, Nebraska, Kansas, Southwestern railroad, both still
in the talking stage. He chose the Rock Island and, as time
was to prove, made a wise decision. In July, 1887, he moved
his store and home the six miles to Fowler, and Pearlette
was no more.
Pearlette and the Ohio
colony had gone the way of many other mutual aid colonies:
rising in hope, faltering on the heartbreaking reality of
the prairie, and disintegrating as individuals sought their
separate ways of adjusting to what life had dealt them.
There were, of course, many such ventures which did succeed.
Much depended on luck and timing. The Ohio colony chose the
wrong summer to bid for a new opportunity. Then, too, the
Zanesville settlers came with hopes too high. The story of
those colonies that did succeed is one of hardship,
privation, thwarted hopes, and sustained endurance. There
was for nearly all a period of mean, even squalid, poverty.
The price in the summer of 1879 and in the lean years
immediately following did not seem reasonable to the Ohio
settlers.
The Zanesville colony in
many ways reaffirmed Everett Dick's contention that "the
greatest weakness in the Homestead Act lay in the fact that
it made homesteading too easy. The government encouraged
failure by not requiring more than mere minimum .... There
was no mention of personal qualification and equipment." The
Ohio settlers met only the "mere minimum." Judging from the
extant evidence, only Williams, who was associated with his
father in a substantial business, and Arter, who was a
skilled mechanic, had enough capital to support them through
the normal, nonproductive seasoning time. Although the
record is not always clear it would appear that only two or
possibly three of the heads of family had any farming
experience. Working in a "sash factory" or tending an engine
did little to prepare one with the hard, practical farming
sense needed to deal with the unresponsive Kansas prairie.
As for equipment, the proposed team for every fourth family
did not materialize, and most came without farm machinery or
even a saddle horse. The long and careful planning in the
end had turned out to be paper planning only. From our
vantage point, it seems incredible that a man of Bennett's
intelligence would bring his family to an unsettled prairie
without a cent of money to sustain him until he was
established, or without a team of horses to "prove up" the
land he was to claim. Blind optimism seemed inordinately
supported by buoyant ignorance. Yet, it must be remembered
that these were young couples, most of them married less
than eight years, who saw little prospect ahead of them in
Ohio." Meade County represented hope--a chance for a new and
better life with land, security, social position, and
perhaps even fame. G. M. Williams wrote back to the people
of Zanesville, half in jest, but only half:
If we had stayed in Ohio,
and still been poor, our names would have died before our
bodies were out of the hearse, but if we gain wealth here,
grow fat with honors, ages hence mothers will be naming
their babies after us, and I will prophesy that five hundred
years from now half the men in the United States will be
called Jed Copeland, because he was Secretary of the Ohio
Colony and whipped Lawson's dog when he drew him out of his
well because he was not an antelope.
The venture, however, should
not be considered all failure. It did shake the members
loose from the restraints that bound them to menial
positions in the East. In abandoning the colony, not many
returned to the old narrow opportunity. They scattered
across the face of the prairie and like Bennett, Mangold,
and Jobling escaped the dependency that had held them. Each
became his own man in the full realization of the dream that
first drove him to take the risks of coming to Kansas, that
is, the full realization of owning his own land.
Mr. And Mrs. John Jobling of
Zanesville, Ohio, who stuck it out at Pearlette until the
end. Mr. Jobling was president of the Ohio or Zanesville
colony that settled in Meade County, Kansas, in March of
1879. There were some 18 families from Zanesville in the
Pearlette community but most had not the means and will to
stay through the hard, droughty times in the years just
ahead. Mr. Jobling later reported that from July, 1889, “to
the spring of 1884, almost four years, I had but one
permanent neighbor within three miles of Pearlette….” A
railroad failed to reach Pearlette in the building flurry of
the mid-1880s. In July, 1887, Jobling “moved his store and
home the six miles to Fowler, and Pearlette was no more.”
Photos courtesy of Casey Jobling, Wilmington, Del.
The first edition of "Pearlette Call"
C. Robert Haywood 1921 - 2005
Bob Haywood grew up on his parents' farm in Ford County Kansas. In his lifetime
he served in the U.S. Navy and enjoyed a distinguished career as a history
professor and in the administration of several universities, eventually ending
up at Washburn University in Topeka, KS, until his retirement in 1988.
During his academic career Haywood published nine books and over a hundred
articles featured in academic periodicals. His writing style is meticulous in
detail as well as entertaining, and his contribution to Kansas history is
matched by few.
Haywood's book, Trails South
is of particular interest to historians from Meade County as
it is the definitive history of the Jones and Plummer Trail
that ran from one end of the county to the other in the mid
to late 1880s.
Read more about Carrie Schmoker Anshutz's experiences
with the people of the Ohio Colony in LaDonna Meyers' book,
Cimarron Chronicles.
Both these books are available at
www.prairiebooks.com
