For thousands of years, American Indian tribes lived in what is now North Dakota with their own systems of government and economy. They were pushed out of their traditional lands as Euro-Americans began to arrive. The Homestead Act of 1862 attracted new immigrants with promises of cheap land, while tribes were confined to reservations as new settlers established their homes.
Getting to North Dakota was not easy for hopeful settlers. Once the railroads stretched across the plains, most new arrivals traveled by train. Earlier pioneers, however, did not have this luxury. They walked beside wagons pulled by oxen or horses, camping along the way. The wagons were loaded with household goods and necessities like food and tools, and only the sickest or youngest members of the group rode in the wagons. Everyone else had to walk. Young children were assigned tasks such as caring for small animals and collecting firewood.
Nellie Nicholls was one of those early pioneers. Born in Minnesota in 1866, she was seven years old when her family joined a group of five families heading west. The small wagon train left Minnesota on July 4 and took an entire month to reach Bismarck. The Northern Pacific Railroad had been extended to that point only two weeks before their arrival.
Nellie’s family settled on a farm three miles north of Bismarck. She lived on the farm until she married Charles Blunt in 1891. Charles was a steamboat pilot for the Benton Packet Company, working on boats along the Missouri River from St. Louis to Fort Benton. He piloted many different steamboats, including the famous Yellowstone.
Nellie lived long enough to see Bismarck grow from a small settlement to the capital of North Dakota. On this date in 1928, North Dakotans learned that they had lost another early pioneer when Nellie’s obituary appeared in the newspapers. Her husband had died two years earlier, and she had not been well since then. North Dakotans revered the early pioneers as a living connection to the earliest days of Dakota Territory. The obituary noted that “The death of Mrs. Blunt takes from Bismarck another one of its earliest pioneers who came here in covered wagons.”
Dakota Datebook by Dr. Carole Butcher
Sources:
- Bismarck Tribune. “Death Claims Mrs. C. Blunt, Early Pioneer.” Bismarck ND. 10/11/1928. Page 1.
- Find a Grave. “Nellie Nicholls Blunt.” https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/75706976/nellie-blunt Accessed 9/7/2024.
- Find a Grave. “Charles Wesley Blunt, Jr.” https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/75706964/charles-wesley-blunt Accessed 9/7/2024.
