The Settlements on Turkey Creek, and Clay Creek, '70-71
The settlement in Turkey Creek was made in 1870. A man by the name of John Hovde, who had homesteaded in Union county some years previously, made a trip back to Norway and on his return the following people came over with him: Anfin Utheim and wife; Olaf Stolen; Haakon Hoxeng with his two sons, already referred to, and one daughter; Stingrim Hinseth with wife and one baby daughter, Mary; Halvor Hinseth; Ingebright Fagerhaug; and Marit Nysether, who later became his wife, and a number of other men and women who went to other parts of the country.
These people reached Sioux City May 18, 1870. There some of the men of the company found work on the railroad. The others, including S. and H. Hinseth and Miss Nysether, journeyed on by ox team toward their friends already described as settled on the South Prairie, i.e., north of the present Volin. Their baggage went by steam boat to Yankton. Mr. and Mrs. S. Hinseth, who had a little six-year-old baby daughter, went by stage as far as Vermilion and there transferred to the ox team, the stage going on to Yankton.
We will here quote from a brief narrative which Mr. S. Hinseth, at our request, prepared for this record just before his death (1918). As Mr. Hinseth was one of the outstanding leaders in this immigration movement and in the building up of the new country, both materially and spiritually, we are very fortunate in getting these memoranda directly from him. We regret that he was cut off before he could finish them.
"We reached our destination in Yankton county on a Sunday. That day there was church service at the home of Mr. and Mrs. O. Bjerke, conducted by pastor Nesse of Brule, Union county.
"There was no possibility of getting work in the neighborhood, so a number of us went up to Fort Randall, where we obtained work cutting cord wood for steamboat use. We remained there until fall, when Halvor Hinseth and myself homesteaded in Turkey Valley township and were the first to settle there.
"We lived in Iver Furuness' house that winter, and in the spring of 1871 we moved to the place belonging to Christian Marendahl, whose field we rented that season. That fall we moved onto our own homesteads on Turkey Creek.
"Life was often dreary for us in those first years, for neighbors were few and far apart. However, we had occasional visits from Rev. Elling Eielsen, whom we knew from the time he visited our part of the country in Norway, and we were very glad of those visits. We also had pastoral visits from Gunder Graven, whom we later called, and who served us for many years during our pioneer days. Throndhjem's congregation became organized, I believe, in 1871. We belonged accordingly to the Evangelical Lutheran Synod, or, as it was also called, Eielsen's Synod, and still later became known as Hauge's Synod. This in turn became merged, in 1917, in the Norwegian Lutheran Church of America.
"In 1877, I believe, Throndhjem's congregation became divided into what are now Zion's and Throndhjem's. This latter, in distinction from the northern congregation, which kept the name Throndhjem, at first took the name Throndhjem's Free Congregation and later Zion's.
"This division arose from a disagreement as to the site for the proposed church building. The site at first chosen was on Peder Engen's farm, or practically where the Zion's church building now stands. This seemed too far south for those living in the northern part of the original parish, so they formed the present organization of Throndhjem's and built on the present site in the early '80's.
"In 1901 a terrible storm swept over the whole state, and in this storm, in common with many others, these congregations lost their church buildings. Also the buildings of Meldahl's and Salem's, which congregations were organized considerably later than the above, were destroyed. This was a great loss. However, under the energetic leadership of Rev. C. Olberg, then pastor of all four congregations above named as also of Salem's, the people rallied with splendid loyalty and sacrifice so that soon the buildings were not only rebuilt but in a more modern and substantial form than the structures destroyed."
Mr. Henseth also tells of the makeshifts for stables and granaries in those first years. As lumber could not be afforded they would make a grain storage by laying a square of rails after the fashion of a rail fence, then they would line this with hay or straw to fill in the large spaces between the rails and put the grain inside.
Stables were made from a little frame work of rails, for roof at least, and this was covered with hay or straw. The walls were usually the same materials and were eaten up during the winter as a general occurrence and had to be restored in the fall.
We have heard Halvor Hinseth and other pioneers in these settlements tell of their experiences in going to mill in the first ten years or more. As the grasshoppers destroyed most of the small grain in '74 and '76 the settlers had barely enough for flour and a little seed. The nearest mill was three miles south of St. Helena, Nebraska. As this was south of the present Gayville they would either have to go by Yankton to cross the river or else cross on the ice in the winter. Mr. H. Hinseth relates one trip, vivid in his memory, when they with their loads got into deep snow out on the bottom; got lost in the brush south of Gayville; were refused shelter when they at last found a light from a cabin in the brush; how their horses gave out and the sleds broke down and the men themselves were about used up. Sometimes they would be overtaken by a snowstorm on their trip and be snowed in for several days, so these mill trips would often take a week's time and more toil and hardship than we can describe. But they managed to get back sometime and with flour for the family.