3/17/2005:
Today is a big day for the Irish, with St. Patrick’s Day. It was also an important time in the lives of several Irish homesteaders back in the early 1900s.
Edith McGuire was born on this date in 1881 and was just 20 years old when she came to Renville County to stake her claim in 1901. Edith did a lot of her own sod-busting, using a breaking plow hitched to four horses, but she wasn’t as alone as many other women homesteaders; her father and uncle were also homesteading and were able to help her with some of the grueling work of breaking the sod.
Maggie O’Connor was 25 when she began homesteading in Eddy County in 1891. It took her nine and a half years to do it, but she fulfilled her obligations and proved up on this date in 1900. Maggie came from Cork County, Ireland, sometime in the 1880s. She was a nun but, as Sister Anita, she stayed on her claim often enough to comply with the residency requirements. Once she proved up, however, she sold the land to her brother, Tim, and gave the proceeds to her community, the Sisters of St. Joseph of Carondelet in St. Paul.
Sarah Jane Lynch, an Irish woman born in 1870, had several milestones in the month of March. Yesterday was her birthday. She was 33 when she filed her claim in Burke County on March 30, 1903, and she proved up almost exactly three years later, on March 27th.
And, tomorrow is the birthday of Margaret McDermott Jennings, who was also 33 when she filed her claim in Stark County in 1907. Margaret had a tough time of it, arriving in Dakota Territory as a widow with a seven-year-old daughter.
In her book, Land in Her Own Name, author Elaine Lindgren writes, “(Margaret) and her daughter loaded their belongings from the freight car to a wagon and trusted the driver to take them to their claim near South Heart. Toward dark, the driver informed them that he was lost. He managed to find the home of some of his relatives who lived nearby, and there they spent the night. The next day they located the claim only to find the house was not finished as expected but was still being built.”
Jennings’ daughter, Mary, later said her mother kept a loaded revolver under her apron whenever men came to the door. Lindgren says, “Many women were proficient with guns. Their targets were usually gophers or snakes, but skills developed through hunting could also be used for defense.”
A good example is Hattie Jones, who, on her twenty-first birthday, staked her claim in Ward County. “A man came to (Hattie’s door) late (one) night and wanted in,” Lindgren writes. “She told him to leave or she would shoot through the door. She had a small colt revolver. He would not leave, so she shot.” Hattie said there was no one there the next morning, so he must have left.
Among other Irish homesteaders were two sisters, Amelia and Lena Brennon, who in August 1907 staked claims near each other in Mountrail County. Each had their own sod house, but they often helped each other with chores and spent the night with one another. Lindgren writes, “Together the two of them survived a winter on their claims. Their diet was limited, often consisting of peanut butter, biscuits and tea. Neither woman cared much for peanut butter in later life.”
(Source: H. Elaine Lindgren, Land in Her Own Name: Women as Homesteaders in North Dakota, 1996)
Dakota Datebook written by Merry Helm