Chapter 12

Monday March 18, 1844

We finished unloading the wagon that held the tables and chairs and unloading a second wagon of handmade furniture as well. When both were empty, we headed for Lexington. By the time we headed home, we had three more wagons, each with a team of six mules, as well as six extra mules.

I paid half as much for the mules here as they sold for in St. Louis. I can’t even imagine what they’d sell for in Independence and St. Joseph. We filled two wagons with lumber. One was half-full of cast iron pipe and all the fittings that were available in town. I bought two copper stills since we were going to need a lot more alcohol for lamps, and we bought all the alcohol lamps we could find.

Tara, Emma, and Belle bought as much clothing as they could find for the slaves, as well as shoes, boots, and jackets. I bought more shotguns, longrifles, powder, lead, and caps. I also bought glass panes, three wooden crates, each filled with twenty 2’ X 2’ glass panes cushioned with sawdust. I made sure we had extra linseed oil I could mix with chalk to make the putty to seal the glass panes into the frames. Anything we bought in St. Louis would cost at least half again what it cost here.

I also stopped by a bank and had them weigh and assay the gold we had panned. Once they assayed it, the bank gave me $1638 for the gold. I bought twenty more gold pans, deciding to get them here so the guys from the trading post wouldn’t see them. When I saw three of the steel prairie plows, I eagerly bought all three.

On the way home, I saw four men installing an odd-looking contraption atop a tower about thirty feet high. It looked like a sideways waterwheel except that it was made from cloth, not wood. It looked like there were eight small sails at the top. They already had another one erected and the top was spinning in the morning breeze. Some sort of pipe ran down into the ground in the middle of the tower. Curious, I stopped to ask what it was.

“It’s a panemone,” the head guy replied, grinning.

“A what?” I replied.

“A panemone,” he repeated. “It was designed hundreds of years ago in a country halfway around the world. It’s a smaller version of the windmills they use in Europe.” Windmill I understood. I’d seen drawings of the windmills in Holland that they used to pump water out of low-lying areas. This sure didn’t look like one of those.

“What are you going to use it for?” I asked.

“We’ll use it like that one,” he said, pointing to the one in the distance already erected. “It’s attached to a pump and pumps water out of the well and into the water tower,” he added, pointing to a wooden water tower on a sturdy base about ten feet above the ground.

“When we want water, we don’t have to pump it. We just turn the ballcock at the end of the pipe,” he explained as he led me to a pipe about twenty feet away. There was an odd-looking fitting on the end of the pipe, a fitting just like several that I bought today, even though I had no idea what they were for. Turning the handle a quarter turn, water poured out of the end of the pipe.

I saw that he had the top portion of a third panemone complete and completed parts for the top part of a fourth one. “Any chance that you’d sell me those two?” I asked.

He looked at them thoughtfully. “Twenty-five dollars each,” he said. I was sure it was more than they were worth, but the money was worth not having to haul buckets of water for everything.

“Deal,” I quickly agreed, making him laugh. I also noticed that Jimmey was closely studying the tower the men were erecting. We loaded the two windmills atop the rest of the stuff in one of the wagons.

“You must want water badly,” the man chuckled.

“We’re leaving for Oregon in a few days,” I explained.

“I can have parts for another one done by Thursday,” he offered.

“I’ll come back for it,” I promised. I was in a good mood all the way home. I was thinking about not having to pump or carry water by hand anymore. When we got back, I was surprised that Wanda had already written letters of manumission for the eleven slaves who wanted to set out on their own. She had written two for each slave. One was to file in Lexington, and one was for the slave to keep.

My brothers, James and Nathan, approached me with a surprise. They were interested in going with me. Eventually, Daniel would inherit the farm, leaving them with just the ten-acre plot Dad gave each of them when they married. Ten acres was enough to live on, but it would have to be a frugal life.

“You’re welcome to join us, but it’s much, much colder in the winter. I don’t think the temperature got above zero during the day more than a handful of times in January. The growing season is barely sixteen weeks, and you’ll have to hunt buffalo, learn Indian sign language, and get along with the Indians. Oh, you won’t be able to buy land. You can get permission to use it, but it still belongs to the Indians,” I warned.

“You seem to have made it work,” James replied.

“The wife that stayed behind is the daughter of the Chief of the closest Sioux village. She helped guide us in our dealings with the Indians. We trade goods to them that the trading posts don’t like to trade to them, especially longrifles, powder, caps, and bullets. We grow tobacco, wheat for flour, as well as LOTS of corn, beans, and squash that we trade to the Indians. They usually trade us furs for the goods and we bring the furs to St. Louis in the spring to sell. We also sell flour, tobacco, and cornmeal to the trading post and they sell it to the trappers. They pay us double what they’d pay in St. Louis, or nearly triple what they cost here.

“Our little valley is almost two thousand acres, not counting the ridges. There is a second valley connected to the northeast corner of our valley that’s about the same size. We can grow a heck of a lot of corn, beans, squash, and tobacco on that much land, in addition to raising beef cattle, dairy cows, horses, mules, and oxen for pulling wagons.”

“You do a little of everything,” Nathan commented.

“We have to. We can’t make a trip into town to buy something. If we don’t have it, grow it, raise it, mine it, hunt it, or make it, we do without,” I replied. “Warn your wives what they’re getting into before making a final decision. I’d love to have you there with us, but I want you to make an informed decision.”

Dad and I talked to his two neighbors that were interested in moving to Oregon. He figured that one more farm would be sufficient if nine of the slaves stayed with them. I bought both farms anyway. He could always sell one, and he decided that they might start growing hemp on some of the extra land. I talked to the two families, giving them advice about what to take and what not to take. Since they planned to make the trip all the way to Oregon, I suggested that they use oxen instead of horses or mules and to make sure the oxen were shod. I also suggested that they take bundles of tobacco leaves to trade with the Indians.

I told Dad to hold onto my share of the $30,000 and to use if he or the plantation needed it to buy tools, food, or to pay his new employees before their first harvest. I also told him how much better the new steel prairie plows were. Tara, Emma, Belle, and I spent the rest of the day writing out letters of manumission for the slaves who would be staying with my parents as well as the ones who would be working the tobacco plantation if I bought it.

At dinner, I addressed everyone who was going with us. “Each of you needs to think about things you will want or need for the next year and a half. Think about food, tools, weapons, clothing, shoes, seeds, medicines, medicinal herbs, and anything else you can think of. When we leave St. Louis, if we can’t grow it, hunt it, or make it, what we have with us will have to last for a year and a half.

“Do we need to acquire seeds for special food crops, herbs, or fruit and nut trees? Do we have enough clothing and enough material to make new clothing as our current clothing wears out? Do we have enough to make warm enough clothing for everyone? Do you have the tools you need to perform the jobs you know how to do? Think about these things and speak with Tara so she can determine if we need to buy something we haven’t thought about yet.” I showed them the heavy furs we wore on our way to Council Bluffs.

“I intend to gather chestnuts, black walnuts, and hickory nuts. They don’t grow naturally where we are going and I didn’t take nearly enough last year. I thought about buying sheep, but we will have eighteen wagons to deal with this year, as well as eight wagons belonging to the trading post. Last year, we only had five wagons instead of eighteen. The trip this year will take us longer because of the extra wagons. It means more mules to harness and hitch every morning, and to unhitch and unharness every evening. Last year, our overland trip took four weeks. This year it could take five or six weeks.”

Tuesday March 19, 1844

The slaves who would be going with us helped my brother Daniel with the work at the farm today. James, Nathan, and I rode shotgun for our small caravan of wagons and horses carrying the slaves who weren’t going with us as we headed into Lexington. We set out after a sunrise breakfast and spent five hours at the courthouse having the letters of manumission witnessed and one copy put on file at the courthouse.

Aside from being annoyed at having to do so much work this morning, the poor clerk thought I was crazy. I thanked him when I was done and quietly slipped him a gold eagle for his effort. When I exited the courthouse, sixty-two newly free citizens followed me.

I ate a trail lunch while I rode home. Half an hour after we got home, Dad, Willie, four more of the freed male slaves and four of the freed female slaves who hoped to work at the new plantation joined me and we rode over to look at the plantation and talk to the owner.

“What can I do for you Raymond?” The man in charge asked Dad.

“We’ve come to see about buying the place, Carl,” Dad explained.

“Feel free to look around, but I need to warn you that Pa’s will freed all but a dozen slaves. Several took off right away, but most still don’t know what to do with themselves. You might be able to hire them to work the place,” Carl suggested.

“That will work out perfectly,” Dad replied. “Lewis just sold a plantation that he inherited. He kept the slaves and just now got back from Lexington where he filed letters of manumission for each of them. Forty-two want a place of their own to work and we wanted to see if they liked your place.”

“Look all you want. Pa’s old slaves will probably beg you to let them stay and work for you. With that much help, you should be able to work the entire property. Pa didn’t want to buy any more slaves, so he only worked about three hundred acres these last few years.

I turned to the group with me and suggested, “Why don’t you guys look at the property and the outbuildings while the ladies look at the main house and the slave cabins to see if you think it’s what you want? You should probably talk to the freed slaves that are staying to see if they want to join you here and if they have any recommendations for the property.”

They did just that. Carl asked Mina, one of the Negro women watching us from the porch of the main house, to show the women around. Then he went with the men to show them around. Twenty minutes later the women exited the house, headed for the slave cabins, although I guess it would just be cabins now. They stopped in front of me and Mina looked me over thoroughly. “Are you really gonna buy this place and just give it to the slaves you freed?” she asked incredulously.

“If they decide they want it, and if Carl and I can agree on a price, I will. If we buy it, wait a month and ask Willie about the plantation I sold. You’ll understand better why I’m doing it,” I said. Still shaking her head disbelievingly, Mina led the women off to the cabins.

Dad and I sat on the porch and waited. “I’m really proud of you, Son,” he said emotionally. “You could have just kept the money you got from selling that plantation. In addition, you risked your life to help your original seven slaves escape. Jimmey says you’ve been teaching them how to do everything, telling them it’s just like I taught you to do everything you’d need to know.”

“It’s like I said in the letter,” I replied. “At the time, I didn’t realize that you were teaching me what I’d need to know. It wasn’t until I realized that I couldn’t ask you questions any longer that I realized that you’d already answered most of them,” I said.

“You learned a lot on your own, too,” he said. “I taught you the basics of hunting, but you went far beyond what I could teach you. You learned to stalk game and to trap. You learned that ‘hunting’ was more than finding an animal, shooting it for food, and bringing it home. You learned to search for resources while you were hunting. That’s why you always brought home one or two wild beehives each winter. You found dead oak and hickory trees to use in the smokehouse. You always brought home bags of chestnuts, hickory nuts, and black walnuts each autumn.

“Your brothers finally figured that out this winter when you didn’t bring any home and they had to go out and find them and gather them. They also realized how many rabbits you caught with your snares. We haven’t had rabbit stew since you left. We had to increase the flock of chickens and eat chicken stew instead. Your brothers had to spend sunrise and sunset guarding the garden, shooting all the rabbits that tried to eat what we grew. I remember you shooting rabbits with that small caliber rifle so it left enough of the rabbit to eat.

“You learned a lot from Mr. Wilcox’s Shawnee wife, even the sign language they used with other tribes. Your brothers thought you went over there to get out of doing work,” he laughed. “I told them you went over there to learn Indian ways. With all you learned about surviving outdoors, I knew you’d be okay when you left, especially with two good horses, two good mules, the trapping and camping gear, the tools, Wizzer, and the arsenal you had with you.”

“I guess I never realized how much I learned about surviving outdoors,” I commented thoughtfully. “Sometimes I’d ask Mr. Bartlett questions about trapping. He’s the one who taught me to save the castoreum from the male beavers I trapped. Mrs. Wilcox taught me which plants to use to make cording and how to use it to make snares. Mr. Bartlett taught me to use brass wire to make stronger snares. He also told me to look under hickory trees for wild pigs because they’d be searching for hickory nuts.”

It took about an hour and a half for the newly freed slaves to decide that this was their new home. Then Carl and I started haggling. I told him that the highest legitimate bid I had for a 1600-acre plantation was $42,500. At that rate, his place was worth about $16,000. When he asked about the twelve remaining slaves, I cringed mentally. The slaves in question were eight males and four females, all in their prime between the ages seventeen and twenty-five.

“I’ll be honest,” I began. “I have no use for slaves and don’t believe in slavery. If I buy them, I’ll just set them free. I’ll give you $20,000 for the plantation, as is, including the twelve slaves.”

He watched me intently for several seconds before replying. “You offered a bit more than I expected for the plantation, and a bit less than I expected for the slaves. Overall, it’s less than I hoped to get. However, considering that yours is the only offer I’ve received in half a year, I’ll take it.” With that, he stood and we shook on the deal.

“We can go into town tomorrow morning to complete the transaction and register the sale at the courthouse. If you’ll bring the twelve slaves, I can have them manumitted at the same time,” I suggested. He agreed and we shook hands again. Then he shook Dad’s hand and we headed for home.

James and Nathan broke the news at dinner that they had decided to go with us when we left. “Daniel will get the farm. Our plots are enough to live on, but we’d like to do more than subsistence farming. We spoke to Lewis about it, and he warned us about everything. We talked with our wives, and they agreed. If it doesn’t work out, we can always continue on to Oregon in a couple years. You’ll have plenty of help now, and you can use our homes for the freed slaves who decided to work here,” James explained.

“We used to think Lewis went hunting to get out of working,” Nathan laughed. “We quickly learned this last year just how much work he did that we never considered. Hopefully, he can teach us some of what he learned.”

“I can give each of you one of the two farms Lewis bought for us yesterday,” Dad suggested. James and Nathan looked at their wives for their opinion. They were smiling, but shook their heads.

“I think they’re as excited about going as we are,” James said.

“Are you coming back next spring?” Wanda asked me anxiously.

“As far as I know, although it probably won’t be for more than a few days,” I warned. “We won’t know when the trading post wants to make the trip to St. Louis until sometime around Christmas. It depends on how desperate they are for supplies, as well as what the weather is like.”

“Mark got Dad’s permission for us to get married after spring planting this year. His older brother will inherit his dad’s farm. We might want to join you next year. You know I love to hunt,” Wanda said.

“Wait until you see all the buffalo,” I said. “The one I killed and brought home that time was a small one. Some of the herds are so large that they can run full speed for a day and still not be done going by you. The Plains Indians follow the herds and hunt them for food. They used to grow corn, squash, and beans but they can’t now that they’re always on the move. They collect and dry edible plants, fruit, and nuts that they find during the year. They survive on that and dried buffalo meat during the winter. They trade us their furs for the corn, squash, and beans we grow.

“That’s the main reason they’re so happy to have us farming there. They don’t have to go as far to trade for corn, beans, and squash, and there’s a larger supply available. I think word will spread this year and I expect to see twice as many villages coming to trade. That’s why we’ll be planting two hundred acres of corn this spring. We plant beans and squash in the same field with the corn and get three crops from the same space. The corn harvest doesn’t suffer and once the squash plants get big enough, we hardly have to weed the field at all.

“We also trade other items with them. We’re doubling how much tobacco we plant this year. We sell some to the trading post and trade the rest to the Indians. We trade powder, bullets, and caps when the trading post claims they’re out. We also trade the Indians for longrifles. The ones they were allowed to trade for before were crap. I can barely hit anything with one. We have dozens of other items they want, although we try not to take too much business away from the trading post,” I explained.

“How many furs did you have this year?” Dad asked.

“We had four wagons stuffed nearly full of buffalo hides and tied bundles of pelts,” Tara replied proudly. “The trading post also had four wagonloads of furs.”

“We even have a small amount of gold in our stream, although I can’t find where it’s coming from. Last fall, we panned about eight pounds of gold from the streambed and only had one pan to use. I bought twenty more pans, although I doubt we’ll use them all. I don’t want anyone else to find out and start a gold rush. I don’t think the Sioux would appreciate that. Besides, what we’ve found would hardly be worth someone going all that way just to pan for gold. They’d spend everything they made on food and tools.

“There’s also a seam of coal less than half a day’s wagon ride from our cave. We have rock and mortar coal bins that we fill before winter sets in. We didn’t even use half of it this winter.”

“What about the copper?” Dad asked.

“I don’t know what to do about it just yet,” I admitted. “Even if the Cheyenne give us permission to mine, we don’t really have time to mine the ore and then go through all the work you did the other day to get a little copper. We might do something with it once we get everything else built, but that could take a few more years.”

“You could sell the mine,” Dad suggested.

“No, there are two problems with that idea. First, it will bring unwanted attention and prospectors to the area. Second, even if I get permission to mine the copper, I won’t own the land.”

“Why wouldn’t you own the land?” Mom asked.

“The Sioux gave me permission to live and farm where I am. That would be like you giving some stranger permission to plant a small garden on the far side of the barn. You’re letting them use a small patch of land, but you didn’t sell it to them. The Indians don’t sell land because they believe it belongs to everyone in their tribe. Any Sioux village can use any area of land inside their borders. The same with the Cheyenne, Arapaho, and the other Indians around there,” I explained.

“Doesn’t that cause problems if two villages want the same spot?” Mom asked.

“No, whoever gets there first gets the spot. The other village may set up right next to them, though. We had two villages staying at our place at the same time last fall. The buffalo were nearby, and our place was a good location to camp. We had water, flat places to set up their tipis, and we even built smokehouses outside for them to use.

“The buffalo won’t bother them because we have a sturdy fence to keep them out. A prairie fire wouldn’t threaten them much because we’ve cut down wide swaths of prairie grass outside the fence. We dry the prairie grass and use it to feed the livestock during the winter. The remaining grass is short enough that we could put out a fire burning through it. In addition, there are thousands of berry bushes nearby along streams and beaver ponds. Some grow naturally but Nawaji’s trapper husband planted hundreds more. I planted a bunch of them even closer to our place. I built two large, sturdy wooden tables for the Indian women to use when they cut up the buffalo meat. It beats having to kneel all day while doing it.”

“You’ve got quite an operation going there,” Dad commented.

“We’ve also got chickens, pigs, and cattle, although most of our cattle are for milk. We make butter and cheese and sell some of the extra to the two trading posts. We bought several oxen from a wagon train that went through last summer. The oxen were having problems because their feet were too tender to continue. The wagon train couldn’t wait more than a few days so I got a great deal on the cattle and oxen that couldn’t continue. I intend to raise more oxen, although not too many. I imagine that we can sell replacements to wagons that lose one or more oxen or trade a good ox for ten dollars and the one with sore feet.

“Mr. Chouteau at the trading post expects more wagons to be heading for Oregon this year. He sold a lot of flour, corn meal, and tobacco to the wagon train that went through last spring. We have two sets of millstones and grind wheat into flour and corn into cornmeal. He’s only buying half as much flour and cornmeal as usual from St. Louis this year and we’ll supply the difference. Our flour and cornmeal are fresher, and he intends to use the extra space in his wagons to haul more and different items from St. Louis.