The Conquest; the Story of a Negro Pioneer/Chapter 32
eople began forming into line immediately after luncheon, on the afternoon of the last day of September and continued throughout the afternoon. When I saw such a crowd gathering, I got my folks into the line. When it is taken into consideration that the land office would not open until nine o'clock the next morning, this seemed like a foolish proceeding. It was then four o'clock and the crowd would have to remain in line all night to hold their places (to be exact, just seventeen hours). Remaining in line all night was not pleasantly anticipated, and nights in October in South Dakota are apt to get pretty chilly, but the line continued to increase and by ten o'clock the street in front of the land office was a surging mass of humanity, mostly purchasers of relinquishments, waiting for the opening of the land office the next morning and to be in readiness to protect the claim they had contracted for. Hot coffee and sandwiches were sold and kept appetites supplied, and drunks mixed here and there in the line kept the crowd wakeful, many singing and telling stories to enliven the occasion. I held the place for my fiancee through the night, and although I had become used to all kinds of roughness, sitting up in the street all the long night was far from pleasant.
About two o'clock in the morning, squatters, who had spent the early part of the night on the prairie in order to be on their claims after midnight, began to arrive and took their places at the foot of the line. All land not filed on by the original number holders was to be open for filing as soon as the land office opened, and squatters had from midnight until the opening of the land office in which to beat the man who waited to file, before locating on the land, a squatters right holding first in such cases. Many had hired autos to bring them in from the reservation immediately after midnight, or as soon after midnight as they had made some crude improvements on the land. Many auto loads arrived with a shout and claimants leaped from the tonneaus, falling into line almost before the vehicles had stopped. The line wound back and forth along the street like a snake and formed into a compact mass. Until after sunrise the noisy autos kept a steady rush, dumping their weary passengers into the street.
By the time the land office opened in the morning, the line filled the street for half a block, and fully seventeen hundred persons were waiting for a chance to enter the land office. An army of tired, swollen-eyed and dusty creatures they appeared, some of whom commenced dealing their positions in the line to late comers, having gotten into line for speculation purposes only, and offered their places for from ten to twenty-five dollars, and in a few instances places near the door sold for as high as fifty dollars.
Under a ruling of the land officials, no filings were to be accepted except from holders of original numbers until October first, and this ruling made it expedient for holders of relinquishments of early numbers to get into line early, as the six months allowed for establishing residence expired for the first hundred original numbers on that day, and in cases where residence had not been properly established, the land would be open to contest as soon as this period had expired. Many hundreds had purchased relinquishments, hence the value placed on the positions nearest the land-office door. It was three o'clock by the time the line had passed through the land office and received their numbers. The land office closed at four o'clock for the day, which left but one hour for the protection of those who must offer their filings that day or face the chances of a contest.
Some had protected their claims by going into the land office before the ruling was made and filing contests on the claims for which they held relinquishments, but most of the buyers had not thought of such a thing, and land grafters had complicated matters by filing contests on various claims for which they knew relinquishments would be offered and then withdrawing the contest, for a consideration. This practice met with strong disapproval as most of the people had invested for the purpose of making homes, and the laws made it impossible to change the circumstances. These transactions had to be completed before the line formed, however, as after the line formed no one could enter the land office to offer either filing, relinquishment or contest, without a number issued by the officials. The line was full of such grafters, and as not more than one hundred filings could be taken in a day, it can readily be seen that some of the relinquishment holders were in danger of losing out through, a contest offered before they had an opportunity to file.
The crowds that flock to land openings, like other games of chance, are made up in a measure of speculators, people who journey to one of the registration points and make application for land, figuring that if they should draw an early number (that is, in the first five hundred) they would file, no thought of making a home, but simply to sell the relinquishment for the largest possible price.
When the filings were made, about sixty had dropped out of the first five hundred and even more out of the second five hundred, evidently thinking they were not likely to get enough for the relinquishment to pay them for their trouble and original investment, since it cost them a first payment of two hundred and six dollars on the purchase price of six dollars per acre and a locating fee of twenty-five dollars, and in some cases the first expense reached three hundred dollars. If the relinquishment was not sold before the six months allowed for establishing residence expired, it was necessary to establish residence making sufficient improvement for that purpose, or lose the money invested.
Out of the first four thousand numbers some two thousand had filed, and practically half of this number had contracted to sell their relinquishments. The buyers had deposited the amount to be paid in some bank to the credit of the claimant, to be turned over when the purchaser had secured filing on the land, the bank acting as agent between the parties to the transaction.
I shall long remember October 1, 190— in Megory—called the "Magic City," and claiming a population of three thousand, but probably not exceeding one thousand, five hundred actual inhabitants, though filled with transients from the beginning of the rush a year before, and had at no time during this period less than two thousand, five hundred persons in the town.
My bride-to-be and my grandmother had received numbers 138 and 139 which would likely be called to file the second day, while my sister received 170. On the afternoon of the second, Orlean, and my grandmother, who had raised a family in the days of slavery, and was then about seventy-seven years of age, were called, and came out of the land office a few minutes later with their blue papers, receipts for the two hundred six dollars, first payment and fees, which I had given the agent before they entered the land office. Their agent went into the land office with them to see that they got a straight filing, which they received. My sister, however, was not called that day and the next day being Sunday, she would not be called until the following Monday.
The place my grandmother had filed on had been bought by a Megory school teacher, who had paid one thousand, four hundred dollars to a real estate dealer for the relinquishment of the same place. The claimant had issued two relinquishments, which was easy enough to do, though the relinquishment accompanied by his land office receipt was the only bona fide one and we had the receipt. The teacher had stood in line the long night through, behind my sister and then lost the place. The dealer who sold her the relinquishment was very angry, as he was to get six hundred dollars in the deal, giving the claimant only eight hundred. When I learned this and that the teacher had lost out I was very sorry for her, but it was a case of "first come first served," and many other mix-ups between buyers and dealers had occurred. I went to the teacher and apologized as best I could. She looked very pitiful as she told me how she had taught so many years to save the money and her dreams had been of nothing but securing a claim. Her eyes filled with tears and she bent her head and began crying, and thus I left her.
The next morning I sent Miss McCraline and Mrs. Ewis back to Chicago and proceeded to the claims of my sister and grandmother, which I found to be good ones. I had whirled around them in an auto before I bought them, and though being satisfied that they laid well I had not examined the soil or walked across them.
In a week I had two frame houses, ten by ten, built on them and within another week they had commenced living on them. Shortly after they moved onto the claims came one of the biggest snowstorms I had ever seen. It snowed for days and then came warm weather, thawing the snow, then more snow. The corn in the fields had not been gathered nor was it all gathered before the following April.
Most of the settlers in the new county were from twenty to fifty miles from Calias and winter caught many of them without fuel, and the suffering from cold was intense. The snow continued to fall until it was about four feet deep on the level. Fortunately I had hauled enough coal to last my folks through the winter, and they had only to get to Ritten, a distance of eight miles, to get food. I had just gathered two loads out of a ninety-acre field. Being snowbound, with nothing to do, I watched the fight between Amro and Victor, with interest.