Seward County, Nebraska - Chapter 9, 1916

Chapter 9

One of the important matters for consideration after a homesteader had located a home on the prairie was to break a few acres of sod and prepare to raise something to "keep the wolf from the door" when he got a door, and frequently the breaking plow was started before there was anything like a dwelling place provided - the family living in a tent or prairie schooner while the breaking season lasted - generally during the months of May and June. And in those davs everybody wanted breaking done, thousands of acres of prairie being turned over in Seward county and made into crop producing land almost simultaneously with the rush of emigration to the county the first two years of the seventies. But prairie breaking was no child's play. While it is called and supposed to be plowing it is vastly different from any and all other kinds of plowing. The earth under prairie sod is solid and hard. The grass roots run deep and are so compact as to form almost a solid mass of very tough, woody fiber, requiring a sharp plow and one that runs under and cuts the whole mass together. The breaking plow must be skillfully adjusted or it will not run and do the work required of it any more than a clock or watch will run without proper adjusment. And the next reqirements after the plow is in proper shape are first a good, strong team to draw it, and then a file to keep the plow sharp, a hammer and an iron wedge, old axe or other solid utensil to keep the "lay" or shear bent in proper shape. After these requirements have been supplied the work may progress under difficultes.

forwad to facilitate the work and lighten its burdens. Many new inventions were put upon trial and had the breaking continued and with it the spirit of invention until the present time the sod might be rolling over by the force of electricty, and with an Edison attachment reproducing the music of Gilmore's band. But it was all cut short for the want of sod, and at the present time it would be difficult to find enough good prairie sod in Seward county to build an ordinary sod house.

In the first place the old fashioned steel moldboard was used, but many plowmen thought that the suction of the sod upon the long, solid steel surface caused the plow to run very heavy and the rod moldboard was brought into extensive use. Then a plow with a moldboard made of small rollers which were expected to roll under the sod and turn it over wEts introduced. But this plow was not a success as it was soon discovered that the fine sand worked into the roller bearings and cut them off. Still another invention for easier work was the box plow. It was made in the shape of a box without a cover. The bottom of the box was the shear and run under the sod upon a level and cut the roots while the sides were the cutters to part the sod up and down. This box was made of sheet steel, a rod moldboard following the box turned the sod. These plows were used by many people who pronounced them very good. And in their design the greatest burden in prairie breaking, the penetrating of the solid rock like earth and cutting the mass of tough roots in the most practicial manner was aimed at more directly than in any new moldboard invention.

The motive power in front of the breaking plows in the breaking period was the main object for consideration, but with all of the difficult and heavy tug for it the work went on steadily until it was finished. A majority of the settlers did their breaking with but two horses while others used three or four. And occasionally a team of three or four yoke of cattle would be seen drawing a large breaker, the furrow being so wide it would appear like wide top tables turning over. Those large ox breakers were so constructed as not to require guiding, the guiding of the cattle and keeping the plow sharp and in order being the principle part of the manual labor attached to the business.

Sod Houses And Dug-Outs

While the prairie section, covering more than one-half ot this continent, was handicapped in its early settlement by the lack of timber for fuel and building log houses with clapboard roofs and puncheon floors the difficuly was largely overcome by the use of sod instead of logs to make pioneer dwelling houses, covering them with dirt roofs and using the bare ground for floors. And the prairie land being generally of a dry nature, where there was a convenient hill, very comfortable dwelling places were made by digging what was called dugouts. It did not require much of a mechanic to make a sod house or dugout, and yet there was a difference in the skillfully made ones and those more carelessly and roughly constructed, both in appearance and the length of time they would last. Sod houses were short lived, becoming almost unhabitable in from ten to twelve years, but dugouts, with occasional recovering and repairing, were as perminent as the earth. The best sod to make houses of was found upon basin, or low land, where there was a kind of fiberous bunch grass, forming a lighter, tougher and more dureable sod than that found upon up-land. The sod was first turned over with a breaking plow, from twelve to fourteen inches wide, and three or four inches thick. It was then cut into three or four foot strips or blocks with an axe or a sharp spade. The walls were laid with these blocks of sod just the same as walls of brick, stone or cement, with the exception that the' sod house walls were made four feet thick, the windows and doors resembling railroad tunnels in a hill at a distance. The roofs were made by raising the end walls to a gradual pitch from each side to the center, placing heavy logs or timbers, one in the center and one on each side between the center and the side walls to support the roof and then laying poles close together, reaching from the timber in the center over the side walls to a sufficient projection for eaves, covering these poles with just enough straw or hay when pressed down to hold the dirt and not enough to give mice room to work in, laying a thin wall of sod along the eaves to hold the dirt and then covering the building with a coat of dirt about a foot and a half thick. While this was not a very handsome roof it was good to keep out the rain and was unsurpassed by any other roof made by the hand of man to keep out cold in winter and the hot rays of sun in summer. In fact sod houses and dugouts were very warm dwelling places in winter and cool in summer, their walls being almost impenetrable by cold or heat. Dugouts were missnamed. They should have been called dugins as thev were generallv dug in a hill, knoll or ridge of land. After digging the room the size desired the front of the dugout would be made of sod, logs or lumber in which all windows and doors were made. After the digging and work on the front of the dugout was completed the roof was made in the same manner as that of the sod house.

Although the sod house home may have been lonely to some people, its pleasures and enjoyments rank foremost among the rich rewards of memory, stored by ninety-nine out of every hundred of those who partook of its blessings. Although the sod house was not a handsome structure to look upon, it occupies a place among those things mentioned by the old adage as "handsome is that handsome does." It certainly did the "handsome" part with its ever ready place of comfort and the greatest contentment possible. It certainly must be remembered by many as "Home, Sweet Home" in the fullest sense of that sentimental term. It was the childhood home of many and the home where many spent their youthful days - the happiest days of their lives. In fact a majority of the early settlers were young people who making a start spent their happiest days in the sod house or dugout homes. And it is scarcely probable that many of the pioneers can look back upon the free and happy sod house period, now gone forever, without feeling a tinge of real homesick lonelyness. To understand the cause for the heartfelt regrets for the passing of those homely days of many deprivations we review the social equality, the ever present sense of independence and freedom from care together with the cheerfulness of the homes, made doubly so by the absence of other attractions. Every man, woman and child were as good as their neighbors and their sod homes were the abodes of cheer, good will and friendship, unsurpassed and unequaled in any day or age of the world.

Library

The above picture represents an oldtime residence in Seward county. The structure has the appearance of being ten or twelve years old and in a state of decay, but there were many such homes occupied during the pioneer period and their occupants were reluctant about giving them up to go to ruin - it seemed like parting with a dear old friend, which was about true. The last one of those early abodes to shelter a family in Seward county stood in -N- precinct and was occupied until about 1893. It was one of the closing scenes of the pioneer period, and might have been twenty years old. Looking at one of these grand old homtly things, one beholds one of the stepping stones to, and greatest assistants in the settlement of the wild west. No building - we care not how grand - had a greater mission in the upbuilding and settlement of any country than the sod house had in the settlement of Nebraska.