Ira A. Yale Writes from West, 1880

Ira A. Yale Writes From the Far West

Bainbridge Republican, November 5, 1880

 

Creighton, Knox Co., Neb., Oct. 26th

I presume you have had pretty general news as to the extent of the great storm which we have been so unexpectedly visited with.  Such a storm was never before known by the oldest settlers in this vicinity.  To describe a blizzard, as we call them, as they are on the broad prairie is impossible.  The difference between a severe storm of the East and a prairie blizzard, is as the burning of one or two buildings in your quiet village, and the great fire of Chicago a few years ago.  Imagine your most severe North western snow storm in mid-winter, with the wind unchained on leaving the British Possessions, driving the snow before it without a tree or  hill to impede or break its force, and by the time it reaches you in old Chenango, you would get a pretty good fortaste of what a blizzard is in the Northwest.  Happily for the comfort of man and beast they seldom occur here.  Our Falls are, as a rule, dry and peasant, very much like your Indian Summer, with very little rain, and not any snow until about the middle of November, and then cold for a few days only, Winter not setting in until about the first of January. This year is an exception.  Wednesday, the 13th inst., gave us a fine rain with some thunder, being the most rain known in Knox county from it's first settlement, nine years ago.  It cleared off in the night and was warm and pleasant Thursday. Friday morning was cloudy and it began to storm about half past nine with a strong wind from the North west.  At noon it was snowing quite hard, both wind and snow increasing in severity every moment. At half past two a team came for my scholars, releasing me from the necessity of staying at the school house (which is nearly one mile from a house) for I know not how long.  I enjoyed the hospitality for the night, of Mr. Montgomery (a former resident of Harpursville).  The wind and storm increasing until midnight, abated a little by morning, only to renew its force with increased energy the next day, and this continued for three days and nights.  Being somewhat anxious as to the comforts of my family, I decided about 11 o'clock on Saturday, to brave the storm and try to reach Creighton, a distance of nine miles, the rashest act of my life, and one I think I will never repeat.  Creighton lays in a South west direction from where I was to start.  Going to the door I selected the direction I wished to take, and struck out, as we sometimes say.  For the first mile I succeeded in keeping the road, when I lost my way, and it was with some difficulty and wanderings from bluff to bluff, I succeeded in regaining the right track or trail, as we call them. To turn back and reach the shelter I had left was of as much danger as to try and seek shelter beyond, a distance of four miles.  Farther to the South of us, persons have been known to perish in trying to go from their home to their barns and back, a distance of not more than thirty rods, during one of these severe storms later in the season.  My track for the next four miles was entirely obliterated except in places of a few rods, and in a section lately burned over by one of those devastating prairie fires, which I had never crossed but once before, I wound my way over bluffs and through ravines, sometimes on the burnt ground and again over snow drifts perhaps ten feet deep, until I reached the highest ground in Knox county.  Striking what is known as the dry creek road, which leads in a South east direction, when I became entirely lost.  So intense was the storm, at times I could not see to distinguish an object twenty feet from me, and could scarcely keep on my feet.  After wandering for some time in search of my road, and not finding it, I took a North west direction for the Bazzile creek, in hopes that by reaching that I could reach shelter, if not home.  I finally reached a section of country I knew, and also a house, and found I was about five miles from where I had started, and a little more than half way home, which I succeeded in reaching without any further trouble, except wind and snow, of which there was plenty.

 

I have given my experience in the storm that you might form something of an idea of what our storms are here, and the dangers with which we have to encounter in trying to travel during their continuation.  There has been a great deal of suffering during this storm.  Many families were living in their wagons while they were building their houses.  Others had just moved into their houses the night before, and were caught without provisions for three days or more, and without wood or fuel, except as they could get to a stack of hay, so unexpected was the storm. The stock men have suffered quite a severe loss from their cattle stampeding and perishing in the sloughs and otherwise.  It is impossible to state the loss yet, as many that were supposed to have been lost will be recovered.  Our weather at present is pleasant, the snow nearly all gone, and every appearance of Indian Summer.

 

Ira A. Yale.