1/4/2012:
On this date in 1875, one of the most prolific of North Dakota pioneers was preparing to introduce a bill to incorporate the City of Fargo. On passage, the newest city in northern Dakota Territory, named for businessman and NP Railway director William Fargo, became the Gate City to the Northern Plains.
The farsighted legislator that secured that bill’s passage was Andrew McHench. Although McHench’s name is in history’s shadows today, his contributions to the Red River Valley were prodigious.
After high school graduation, the New York farm boy studied at Antioch College under the leadership of America’s father of Public Education, Horace Mann. In 1870 McHench ventured up the Red River on a steamboat exploring land opportunities afforded by the Homestead Act. In April 1871, accompanied by his wife Sarah and two sons, Andrew McHench became one of the first three land owners with homestead claims in Cass County.
He planted his first wheat in the fertile Red River Valley in 1873, and was the first to bring a reaper into the valley where he also cut crops for other farmers. So, following this historic harvest, he decided upon a celebration and organized the first Cass County Fair in October 1873.
With his keen sense of horticulture, he also had the first Homestead tree claim in North Dakota. He would expand his horticultural aspirations the following year with the region’s inaugural attempt to grown fruit on an extended scale. With a carload of Minneapolis young apple and crab trees, he planted 7,500 root grafts. But as many frustrated folks have learned over the years, the Red River Valley climate, while welcoming to wheat, can be downright hostile to fruit. The trees were not successful.
However, the tree of knowledge and education, barely a seedling in those early days, was about to establish deep roots thanks to the visionary McHench.
Cass County and Fargo were in high growth mode, and its citizens wanted educational opportunities. The first school was a log cabin placed in Fargo’s Island Park where the dozen or so students met for a few months under the tutelage of a 14-year-old girl. Families built and operated the school under a subscription basis.
McHench, with his strong education background at Horace Mann’s Antioch College, was the ideal choice for Territorial Governor John Burbank’s appointment as Cass County’s first superintendent of schools.
McHench bought a building and opened the first public school in the winter of 1873. The three-month school year welcomed 63 students ranging in ages from 5 to 21, and Fargo School District Number 1 began.
Tomorrow, the legacy of Andrew McHench continues including his wife’s startling introduction of a modern lawn eyesore.
Dakota Datebook written by Steve Stark
Sources:
Did You Know? Ericksmoen, Curt McCleery & Sons Publishing (2006)
History of North Dakota, Robinson, Edwin Univ. of Nebraska Press, (1966)
Gateway to the Northern Plains, Engelhardt, Carroll, Univ. of Minnesota press, (2007)
http:// www.google.books.com Collections of the State Historical Society of North Dakota Volume 1
http:// www.google.books.com Cyclopedia of American Horticulture
http:// www.google.books.com Early History of North Dakota, Essential Outlines of American History