Death Summons Mrs. M. Stewart --- Deceased was a native of Kansas and is survived by the following daughters: Mrs. Mary (Should read Viola Mae) Smith of Earlimart, California, Mrs. Cora Warner of Paradise, Mrs. Stella Hoffman of Hutchinson, Kansas and Mrs. Elma Holland of Long Beach. Sixteen grandchildren and nine great grandchildren also survive. --- Funeral services will be held at 2 o'clock Monday afternoon in the chapel of the Westfall funeral home and burial will be in the Paradise cemetery.----Published: October 18, 1935 Chico Enterprise Record, Chico, Butte County, California
Margaret Stewart Dies of Injuries --- Chico --- Mrs. Margaret Stewart, a resident of Paradise, died last night in a Chico hospital where she had been a patient for the last month. --- Mrs. Stewart fractured her right hip some time ago from a fall, and the injury was held indirectly responsible for her passing. --- She was a native of Kansas, born February 25, 1855. Survivors include a daughter, Mrs. P.L. Warner of Paradise. ---- Published: October 18, 1935 Mercury Register, Oroville, Butte County, California
The following is taken from the Autobiography --- LIFE OF O. H. PEED: I think it was during the spring or summer of 1873 that I became acquainted with Miss Margret Thornhill living in Barry County, Missouri. By and by as time sped by, she became my second wife. We were married at her father’s (Asbury Thornhill) I think sometime during January 1874, but am not sure as I have no record of our marriage. I guess it was in the following spring we located in Barry County, a mile or so from Mr. Thornhill’s, but in a few months we moved to Elk County, Kansas and settled on a tract of Osage Indian Trust land near Elk Falls. As I remember it, I worked by the day or month, just as I could get a job. Times were hard that year. (1874). It was known as the grasshopper year. I was down to bedrock as far as money matters were concerned that fall and winter, 75 cents a day was about all I could get. Part of the time during winter I chopped stove wood for Dick Roberts at 50 cents
-44-
a cord out of dead or down timber. One day I cut down a dead tree and by the limbs breaking up a good deal, I managed to put up two cords. When I told Dick about it, he said “Well I’ll have to cut your wages, you are getting too rich.” But it was the only day that I made a dollar. Part of the time that fall and winter we used “shorts” for making bread. It was an article between second grade flour and bran. At that time it was like the old saying. “Poor people have poor ways, and rich people mean ones.” For two or three months during the spring of 1875, I worked for a Mr. Archer, Margret and Frank were there also. She did the cooking and looked after household affairs while we were there. I guess it was about the first of June we went back home. On August 5th, 1875, the family was increased to four. A baby boy was born. After skirmishing around for a good name for the baby, we decided on Orlando Harvey Peed. I got plenty of work from different ones, but the pay ranged from 75 cents to a dollar, and by working about every week day, we managed to get along. Part of the time while living in that locality, I was Superintendent of two Sunday schools, one at the Border school house out on the high prairie, and the other at the Robert’s school house down in the Elk river bottoms. It should have been mentioned sooner, that the first house I built on the 40 acre claim was of slabs I got at the sawmill at Elk Falls. They were set upright with sawed surfaces overlapping, thus making comparatively a tight wall, spiked to the frame. Half of the slabs had bark side in the inside of the house. As there were plenty of sandstone scattered about in the vicinity I later on built a stone house at small cast. By and by I paid for my Osage Indian Trust 40 acre claim, which if I remember right was $2.50 per acre. I never cultivated but a small patch of it, as stock run at large, and I was unable to fence it in. Two more children were born while we lived at that place, Viola May, January 26th, 1878, and Cora Myrtle, November 4th, 1879.
-45-
I think it was during the spring of 1880 I traded the place for a 3 or 4 year old mare and we moved to Cherokee county Kansas just across Spring river from Smithfield Missouri. On the 15th of July 1881 another baby came to us. We named her Alice. No second name was given her. It is said “a rolling stone gathers no moss”. And I guess that’s true, for it seems as soon as I had gathered sufficient funds the moving mania seized me again, and the fall of 1881 found us westward bound. That time it was Wilson county, Kansas. We stopped in the locality of LaFountain, just a postoffice, a store, blacksmith shop, and maybe a doctor. We were about 9 miles south of Fredonia, the county seat, and 7 or 8 miles west of Nodesha. The next spring (1882) I rented the Bossick place, just a small farm. On September 6, 1883, Baby Alice died from the effects of whooping cough caught from one of the Bossick children. In the spring of 1884 I rented the Dallas Ragland place, just across the road north from Bossick’s. As there was no house on it, I built one 16 x 16 using shiplap lumber, nailed up right to a staunch frame. On July 29th, 1884, the fourth girl baby arrived. We named her Estella Ordine. I am not sure but think it was in the fall of 1885, when 5 or 6 of us belonging to the G.A.R. post in Nodesha went to western Kansas on a home seeking expedition. We located homesteads on government land in Grant county, and filed our claims in the U. S. Land office in Garden City, Kansas. We were allowed 6 months time to get on the land and make permanent settlement. I believe we started on the move in the spring of 1886, traveling in a covered wagon. Besides my own little herd of 5 or 6 head of cattle, I took out 10 or 12 head for a neighbor who had located in Jewel county in the northwestern part of the state. He came down later on, paid me and drove them home. Our first dwelling was a “dugout”, covered with lumber, tarpaper and dirt. We lived in it about a year, until I built a sod house. While living in
-46-
the dugout a baby boy was born January the 7th, 1887. We named him Elmer Octavius. Buffalo grass was plentiful and made fine pasturage for the cattle, but they had to be looked after some. But by keeping one or two cows larioted the rest would not go very far away. I broke three or 4 acres of sod and planted old fashioned cane, raising enough feed for the stock during the winter. In the spring of 1888 broke about 6 acres of sod and planted corn. By doing some freighting from Lakin 25 or 30 miles north on the Santa Fe railroad and working for other people in the neighborhood, we got along pretty good. Ulysses was a mile and a half or 2 miles east of us was the county seat. The town was located on sloping ground, and contained two or three stores, a blacksmith shop, a feed store, one saloon, one hotel and a public well. I think it was in July 1888 that I and two or three of the neighbors went to Johnson City, Staunton county, to prove up on our claims. We had filed soldier claims and our term of service in the army deducted from the required 5 years of residence, enabled us to secure a patent sooner than a straight-out citizen’s filing would. And we could be witnesses for each other. The day I left home to go and prove up, my patch of corn looked fine. But two or three days later, when I saw it, it was just a patch of green stocks a foot or two high. A heavy rain and hail storm had ruined it. That settled the western Kansas farming question with me. As soon as I got my patent, we started on the move into Colorado. Got as far as Palmer Lake, and after a month or two camping out, we got all we needed of that part of the state, and started back east with no definite point in view. But the spring of 1889 found us in the vicinity of Catlin in Otero County, Colorado. Well we stopped and camped awhile and finally rented part of Joe Graham’s house and moved in. I got a job as section hand on the Santa Fe railroad at $1.25 a day. Before proceeding further I will state that during the spring of 1887, Frank, being in his 18th
-47-
year went to Colorado in search of employment. Arriving at La Junta he secured work in the Santa Fe railroad yards and later on in the roundhouse and from there was promoted to train service. By and by he left the Santa Fe and entered the Missouri Pacific railway service. The railroad work was something new to me, but I soon caught on. On December 4th, 1889, our last baby, a boy, was born. We named him Ernest. Later on and while we still lived in the Graham house, my wife became deeply infatuated with a married man, and nearby neighbor. I noticed the intimacy, but persuaded myself that nothing serious would come of it, and had faith in her up to the day they ran away, which was the 4th of July 1890. I asked her that morning if she wanted to go to Rocky Ford to the celebration, “No I’ll stay at home” was her answer, “But you can go and take Harvey, May and Cora.” I didn’t suspect a thing. She dressed the children and they and I got in the wagon and started for Rocky Ford, 9 or 10 miles east of Catlin. Soon after leaving the house the married man passed me in his wagon, he had been to Catlin I judged. I called to him, “Are you going to Rocky today?” “No.” he said without checking the swift trot of his team. I was just as blind as ever, no suspicion in my mind was aroused. The children and I put in a very pleasant day at Rocky Ford, returning home at four or five o’clock in the evening. No seeing Margret and the other children around, I asked Mrs. Garold, a neighbor, if she knew where they were. She said “Stewart got them in his wagon, and they run away.” The news was a blow to me. Why did he forsake his own wife, then ruin my home? The more I thought over the dastardly act the deeper became my grief. Sometime during the night I wrote a letter to Margret’s mother, telling her of the move Margret had made. With the aid of neighbors things with me began to move. I discovered their whereabouts and Joe Graham soon got busy, and on finding the guilty pair and by some means secured Elmer and Steller, without much
-48-
or any difficulty. I made application for a divorce which was obtained in due time with the proviso that Ernest be delivered to me when he was weaned. But he died July 12, 1891, while they were living in the vicinity of Monument Colorado.
Margaret Stewart Dies of Injuries --- Chico --- Mrs. Margaret Stewart, a resident of Paradise, died last night in a Chico hospital where she had been a patient for the last month. --- Mrs. Stewart fractured her right hip some time ago from a fall, and the injury was held indirectly responsible for her passing. --- She was a native of Kansas, born February 25, 1855. Survivors include a daughter, Mrs. P.L. Warner of Paradise. ---- Published: October 18, 1935 Mercury Register, Oroville, Butte County, California
The following is taken from the Autobiography --- LIFE OF O. H. PEED: I think it was during the spring or summer of 1873 that I became acquainted with Miss Margret Thornhill living in Barry County, Missouri. By and by as time sped by, she became my second wife. We were married at her father’s (Asbury Thornhill) I think sometime during January 1874, but am not sure as I have no record of our marriage. I guess it was in the following spring we located in Barry County, a mile or so from Mr. Thornhill’s, but in a few months we moved to Elk County, Kansas and settled on a tract of Osage Indian Trust land near Elk Falls. As I remember it, I worked by the day or month, just as I could get a job. Times were hard that year. (1874). It was known as the grasshopper year. I was down to bedrock as far as money matters were concerned that fall and winter, 75 cents a day was about all I could get. Part of the time during winter I chopped stove wood for Dick Roberts at 50 cents
-44-
a cord out of dead or down timber. One day I cut down a dead tree and by the limbs breaking up a good deal, I managed to put up two cords. When I told Dick about it, he said “Well I’ll have to cut your wages, you are getting too rich.” But it was the only day that I made a dollar. Part of the time that fall and winter we used “shorts” for making bread. It was an article between second grade flour and bran. At that time it was like the old saying. “Poor people have poor ways, and rich people mean ones.” For two or three months during the spring of 1875, I worked for a Mr. Archer, Margret and Frank were there also. She did the cooking and looked after household affairs while we were there. I guess it was about the first of June we went back home. On August 5th, 1875, the family was increased to four. A baby boy was born. After skirmishing around for a good name for the baby, we decided on Orlando Harvey Peed. I got plenty of work from different ones, but the pay ranged from 75 cents to a dollar, and by working about every week day, we managed to get along. Part of the time while living in that locality, I was Superintendent of two Sunday schools, one at the Border school house out on the high prairie, and the other at the Robert’s school house down in the Elk river bottoms. It should have been mentioned sooner, that the first house I built on the 40 acre claim was of slabs I got at the sawmill at Elk Falls. They were set upright with sawed surfaces overlapping, thus making comparatively a tight wall, spiked to the frame. Half of the slabs had bark side in the inside of the house. As there were plenty of sandstone scattered about in the vicinity I later on built a stone house at small cast. By and by I paid for my Osage Indian Trust 40 acre claim, which if I remember right was $2.50 per acre. I never cultivated but a small patch of it, as stock run at large, and I was unable to fence it in. Two more children were born while we lived at that place, Viola May, January 26th, 1878, and Cora Myrtle, November 4th, 1879.
-45-
I think it was during the spring of 1880 I traded the place for a 3 or 4 year old mare and we moved to Cherokee county Kansas just across Spring river from Smithfield Missouri. On the 15th of July 1881 another baby came to us. We named her Alice. No second name was given her. It is said “a rolling stone gathers no moss”. And I guess that’s true, for it seems as soon as I had gathered sufficient funds the moving mania seized me again, and the fall of 1881 found us westward bound. That time it was Wilson county, Kansas. We stopped in the locality of LaFountain, just a postoffice, a store, blacksmith shop, and maybe a doctor. We were about 9 miles south of Fredonia, the county seat, and 7 or 8 miles west of Nodesha. The next spring (1882) I rented the Bossick place, just a small farm. On September 6, 1883, Baby Alice died from the effects of whooping cough caught from one of the Bossick children. In the spring of 1884 I rented the Dallas Ragland place, just across the road north from Bossick’s. As there was no house on it, I built one 16 x 16 using shiplap lumber, nailed up right to a staunch frame. On July 29th, 1884, the fourth girl baby arrived. We named her Estella Ordine. I am not sure but think it was in the fall of 1885, when 5 or 6 of us belonging to the G.A.R. post in Nodesha went to western Kansas on a home seeking expedition. We located homesteads on government land in Grant county, and filed our claims in the U. S. Land office in Garden City, Kansas. We were allowed 6 months time to get on the land and make permanent settlement. I believe we started on the move in the spring of 1886, traveling in a covered wagon. Besides my own little herd of 5 or 6 head of cattle, I took out 10 or 12 head for a neighbor who had located in Jewel county in the northwestern part of the state. He came down later on, paid me and drove them home. Our first dwelling was a “dugout”, covered with lumber, tarpaper and dirt. We lived in it about a year, until I built a sod house. While living in
-46-
the dugout a baby boy was born January the 7th, 1887. We named him Elmer Octavius. Buffalo grass was plentiful and made fine pasturage for the cattle, but they had to be looked after some. But by keeping one or two cows larioted the rest would not go very far away. I broke three or 4 acres of sod and planted old fashioned cane, raising enough feed for the stock during the winter. In the spring of 1888 broke about 6 acres of sod and planted corn. By doing some freighting from Lakin 25 or 30 miles north on the Santa Fe railroad and working for other people in the neighborhood, we got along pretty good. Ulysses was a mile and a half or 2 miles east of us was the county seat. The town was located on sloping ground, and contained two or three stores, a blacksmith shop, a feed store, one saloon, one hotel and a public well. I think it was in July 1888 that I and two or three of the neighbors went to Johnson City, Staunton county, to prove up on our claims. We had filed soldier claims and our term of service in the army deducted from the required 5 years of residence, enabled us to secure a patent sooner than a straight-out citizen’s filing would. And we could be witnesses for each other. The day I left home to go and prove up, my patch of corn looked fine. But two or three days later, when I saw it, it was just a patch of green stocks a foot or two high. A heavy rain and hail storm had ruined it. That settled the western Kansas farming question with me. As soon as I got my patent, we started on the move into Colorado. Got as far as Palmer Lake, and after a month or two camping out, we got all we needed of that part of the state, and started back east with no definite point in view. But the spring of 1889 found us in the vicinity of Catlin in Otero County, Colorado. Well we stopped and camped awhile and finally rented part of Joe Graham’s house and moved in. I got a job as section hand on the Santa Fe railroad at $1.25 a day. Before proceeding further I will state that during the spring of 1887, Frank, being in his 18th
-47-
year went to Colorado in search of employment. Arriving at La Junta he secured work in the Santa Fe railroad yards and later on in the roundhouse and from there was promoted to train service. By and by he left the Santa Fe and entered the Missouri Pacific railway service. The railroad work was something new to me, but I soon caught on. On December 4th, 1889, our last baby, a boy, was born. We named him Ernest. Later on and while we still lived in the Graham house, my wife became deeply infatuated with a married man, and nearby neighbor. I noticed the intimacy, but persuaded myself that nothing serious would come of it, and had faith in her up to the day they ran away, which was the 4th of July 1890. I asked her that morning if she wanted to go to Rocky Ford to the celebration, “No I’ll stay at home” was her answer, “But you can go and take Harvey, May and Cora.” I didn’t suspect a thing. She dressed the children and they and I got in the wagon and started for Rocky Ford, 9 or 10 miles east of Catlin. Soon after leaving the house the married man passed me in his wagon, he had been to Catlin I judged. I called to him, “Are you going to Rocky today?” “No.” he said without checking the swift trot of his team. I was just as blind as ever, no suspicion in my mind was aroused. The children and I put in a very pleasant day at Rocky Ford, returning home at four or five o’clock in the evening. No seeing Margret and the other children around, I asked Mrs. Garold, a neighbor, if she knew where they were. She said “Stewart got them in his wagon, and they run away.” The news was a blow to me. Why did he forsake his own wife, then ruin my home? The more I thought over the dastardly act the deeper became my grief. Sometime during the night I wrote a letter to Margret’s mother, telling her of the move Margret had made. With the aid of neighbors things with me began to move. I discovered their whereabouts and Joe Graham soon got busy, and on finding the guilty pair and by some means secured Elmer and Steller, without much
-48-
or any difficulty. I made application for a divorce which was obtained in due time with the proviso that Ernest be delivered to me when he was weaned. But he died July 12, 1891, while they were living in the vicinity of Monument Colorado.
Death Summons Mrs. M. Stewart --- Deceased was a native of Kansas and is survived by the following daughters: Mrs. Mary (Should read Viola Mae) Smith of Earlimart, California, Mrs. Cora Warner of Paradise, Mrs. Stella Hoffman of Hutchinson, Kansas and Mrs. Elma Holland of Long Beach. Sixteen grandchildren and nine great grandchildren also survive. --- Funeral services will be held at 2 o'clock Monday afternoon in the chapel of the Westfall funeral home and burial will be in the Paradise cemetery.----Published: October 18, 1935 Chico Enterprise Record, Chico, Butte County, California
Margaret Stewart Dies of Injuries --- Chico --- Mrs. Margaret Stewart, a resident of Paradise, died last night in a Chico hospital where she had been a patient for the last month. --- Mrs. Stewart fractured her right hip some time ago from a fall, and the injury was held indirectly responsible for her passing. --- She was a native of Kansas, born February 25, 1855. Survivors include a daughter, Mrs. P.L. Warner of Paradise. ---- Published: October 18, 1935 Mercury Register, Oroville, Butte County, California
The following is taken from the Autobiography --- LIFE OF O. H. PEED: I think it was during the spring or summer of 1873 that I became acquainted with Miss Margret Thornhill living in Barry County, Missouri. By and by as time sped by, she became my second wife. We were married at her father’s (Asbury Thornhill) I think sometime during January 1874, but am not sure as I have no record of our marriage. I guess it was in the following spring we located in Barry County, a mile or so from Mr. Thornhill’s, but in a few months we moved to Elk County, Kansas and settled on a tract of Osage Indian Trust land near Elk Falls. As I remember it, I worked by the day or month, just as I could get a job. Times were hard that year. (1874). It was known as the grasshopper year. I was down to bedrock as far as money matters were concerned that fall and winter, 75 cents a day was about all I could get. Part of the time during winter I chopped stove wood for Dick Roberts at 50 cents
-44-
a cord out of dead or down timber. One day I cut down a dead tree and by the limbs breaking up a good deal, I managed to put up two cords. When I told Dick about it, he said “Well I’ll have to cut your wages, you are getting too rich.” But it was the only day that I made a dollar. Part of the time that fall and winter we used “shorts” for making bread. It was an article between second grade flour and bran. At that time it was like the old saying. “Poor people have poor ways, and rich people mean ones.” For two or three months during the spring of 1875, I worked for a Mr. Archer, Margret and Frank were there also. She did the cooking and looked after household affairs while we were there. I guess it was about the first of June we went back home. On August 5th, 1875, the family was increased to four. A baby boy was born. After skirmishing around for a good name for the baby, we decided on Orlando Harvey Peed. I got plenty of work from different ones, but the pay ranged from 75 cents to a dollar, and by working about every week day, we managed to get along. Part of the time while living in that locality, I was Superintendent of two Sunday schools, one at the Border school house out on the high prairie, and the other at the Robert’s school house down in the Elk river bottoms. It should have been mentioned sooner, that the first house I built on the 40 acre claim was of slabs I got at the sawmill at Elk Falls. They were set upright with sawed surfaces overlapping, thus making comparatively a tight wall, spiked to the frame. Half of the slabs had bark side in the inside of the house. As there were plenty of sandstone scattered about in the vicinity I later on built a stone house at small cast. By and by I paid for my Osage Indian Trust 40 acre claim, which if I remember right was $2.50 per acre. I never cultivated but a small patch of it, as stock run at large, and I was unable to fence it in. Two more children were born while we lived at that place, Viola May, January 26th, 1878, and Cora Myrtle, November 4th, 1879.
-45-
I think it was during the spring of 1880 I traded the place for a 3 or 4 year old mare and we moved to Cherokee county Kansas just across Spring river from Smithfield Missouri. On the 15th of July 1881 another baby came to us. We named her Alice. No second name was given her. It is said “a rolling stone gathers no moss”. And I guess that’s true, for it seems as soon as I had gathered sufficient funds the moving mania seized me again, and the fall of 1881 found us westward bound. That time it was Wilson county, Kansas. We stopped in the locality of LaFountain, just a postoffice, a store, blacksmith shop, and maybe a doctor. We were about 9 miles south of Fredonia, the county seat, and 7 or 8 miles west of Nodesha. The next spring (1882) I rented the Bossick place, just a small farm. On September 6, 1883, Baby Alice died from the effects of whooping cough caught from one of the Bossick children. In the spring of 1884 I rented the Dallas Ragland place, just across the road north from Bossick’s. As there was no house on it, I built one 16 x 16 using shiplap lumber, nailed up right to a staunch frame. On July 29th, 1884, the fourth girl baby arrived. We named her Estella Ordine. I am not sure but think it was in the fall of 1885, when 5 or 6 of us belonging to the G.A.R. post in Nodesha went to western Kansas on a home seeking expedition. We located homesteads on government land in Grant county, and filed our claims in the U. S. Land office in Garden City, Kansas. We were allowed 6 months time to get on the land and make permanent settlement. I believe we started on the move in the spring of 1886, traveling in a covered wagon. Besides my own little herd of 5 or 6 head of cattle, I took out 10 or 12 head for a neighbor who had located in Jewel county in the northwestern part of the state. He came down later on, paid me and drove them home. Our first dwelling was a “dugout”, covered with lumber, tarpaper and dirt. We lived in it about a year, until I built a sod house. While living in
-46-
the dugout a baby boy was born January the 7th, 1887. We named him Elmer Octavius. Buffalo grass was plentiful and made fine pasturage for the cattle, but they had to be looked after some. But by keeping one or two cows larioted the rest would not go very far away. I broke three or 4 acres of sod and planted old fashioned cane, raising enough feed for the stock during the winter. In the spring of 1888 broke about 6 acres of sod and planted corn. By doing some freighting from Lakin 25 or 30 miles north on the Santa Fe railroad and working for other people in the neighborhood, we got along pretty good. Ulysses was a mile and a half or 2 miles east of us was the county seat. The town was located on sloping ground, and contained two or three stores, a blacksmith shop, a feed store, one saloon, one hotel and a public well. I think it was in July 1888 that I and two or three of the neighbors went to Johnson City, Staunton county, to prove up on our claims. We had filed soldier claims and our term of service in the army deducted from the required 5 years of residence, enabled us to secure a patent sooner than a straight-out citizen’s filing would. And we could be witnesses for each other. The day I left home to go and prove up, my patch of corn looked fine. But two or three days later, when I saw it, it was just a patch of green stocks a foot or two high. A heavy rain and hail storm had ruined it. That settled the western Kansas farming question with me. As soon as I got my patent, we started on the move into Colorado. Got as far as Palmer Lake, and after a month or two camping out, we got all we needed of that part of the state, and started back east with no definite point in view. But the spring of 1889 found us in the vicinity of Catlin in Otero County, Colorado. Well we stopped and camped awhile and finally rented part of Joe Graham’s house and moved in. I got a job as section hand on the Santa Fe railroad at $1.25 a day. Before proceeding further I will state that during the spring of 1887, Frank, being in his 18th
-47-
year went to Colorado in search of employment. Arriving at La Junta he secured work in the Santa Fe railroad yards and later on in the roundhouse and from there was promoted to train service. By and by he left the Santa Fe and entered the Missouri Pacific railway service. The railroad work was something new to me, but I soon caught on. On December 4th, 1889, our last baby, a boy, was born. We named him Ernest. Later on and while we still lived in the Graham house, my wife became deeply infatuated with a married man, and nearby neighbor. I noticed the intimacy, but persuaded myself that nothing serious would come of it, and had faith in her up to the day they ran away, which was the 4th of July 1890. I asked her that morning if she wanted to go to Rocky Ford to the celebration, “No I’ll stay at home” was her answer, “But you can go and take Harvey, May and Cora.” I didn’t suspect a thing. She dressed the children and they and I got in the wagon and started for Rocky Ford, 9 or 10 miles east of Catlin. Soon after leaving the house the married man passed me in his wagon, he had been to Catlin I judged. I called to him, “Are you going to Rocky today?” “No.” he said without checking the swift trot of his team. I was just as blind as ever, no suspicion in my mind was aroused. The children and I put in a very pleasant day at Rocky Ford, returning home at four or five o’clock in the evening. No seeing Margret and the other children around, I asked Mrs. Garold, a neighbor, if she knew where they were. She said “Stewart got them in his wagon, and they run away.” The news was a blow to me. Why did he forsake his own wife, then ruin my home? The more I thought over the dastardly act the deeper became my grief. Sometime during the night I wrote a letter to Margret’s mother, telling her of the move Margret had made. With the aid of neighbors things with me began to move. I discovered their whereabouts and Joe Graham soon got busy, and on finding the guilty pair and by some means secured Elmer and Steller, without much
-48-
or any difficulty. I made application for a divorce which was obtained in due time with the proviso that Ernest be delivered to me when he was weaned. But he died July 12, 1891, while they were living in the vicinity of Monument Colorado.
Margaret Stewart Dies of Injuries --- Chico --- Mrs. Margaret Stewart, a resident of Paradise, died last night in a Chico hospital where she had been a patient for the last month. --- Mrs. Stewart fractured her right hip some time ago from a fall, and the injury was held indirectly responsible for her passing. --- She was a native of Kansas, born February 25, 1855. Survivors include a daughter, Mrs. P.L. Warner of Paradise. ---- Published: October 18, 1935 Mercury Register, Oroville, Butte County, California
The following is taken from the Autobiography --- LIFE OF O. H. PEED: I think it was during the spring or summer of 1873 that I became acquainted with Miss Margret Thornhill living in Barry County, Missouri. By and by as time sped by, she became my second wife. We were married at her father’s (Asbury Thornhill) I think sometime during January 1874, but am not sure as I have no record of our marriage. I guess it was in the following spring we located in Barry County, a mile or so from Mr. Thornhill’s, but in a few months we moved to Elk County, Kansas and settled on a tract of Osage Indian Trust land near Elk Falls. As I remember it, I worked by the day or month, just as I could get a job. Times were hard that year. (1874). It was known as the grasshopper year. I was down to bedrock as far as money matters were concerned that fall and winter, 75 cents a day was about all I could get. Part of the time during winter I chopped stove wood for Dick Roberts at 50 cents
-44-
a cord out of dead or down timber. One day I cut down a dead tree and by the limbs breaking up a good deal, I managed to put up two cords. When I told Dick about it, he said “Well I’ll have to cut your wages, you are getting too rich.” But it was the only day that I made a dollar. Part of the time that fall and winter we used “shorts” for making bread. It was an article between second grade flour and bran. At that time it was like the old saying. “Poor people have poor ways, and rich people mean ones.” For two or three months during the spring of 1875, I worked for a Mr. Archer, Margret and Frank were there also. She did the cooking and looked after household affairs while we were there. I guess it was about the first of June we went back home. On August 5th, 1875, the family was increased to four. A baby boy was born. After skirmishing around for a good name for the baby, we decided on Orlando Harvey Peed. I got plenty of work from different ones, but the pay ranged from 75 cents to a dollar, and by working about every week day, we managed to get along. Part of the time while living in that locality, I was Superintendent of two Sunday schools, one at the Border school house out on the high prairie, and the other at the Robert’s school house down in the Elk river bottoms. It should have been mentioned sooner, that the first house I built on the 40 acre claim was of slabs I got at the sawmill at Elk Falls. They were set upright with sawed surfaces overlapping, thus making comparatively a tight wall, spiked to the frame. Half of the slabs had bark side in the inside of the house. As there were plenty of sandstone scattered about in the vicinity I later on built a stone house at small cast. By and by I paid for my Osage Indian Trust 40 acre claim, which if I remember right was $2.50 per acre. I never cultivated but a small patch of it, as stock run at large, and I was unable to fence it in. Two more children were born while we lived at that place, Viola May, January 26th, 1878, and Cora Myrtle, November 4th, 1879.
-45-
I think it was during the spring of 1880 I traded the place for a 3 or 4 year old mare and we moved to Cherokee county Kansas just across Spring river from Smithfield Missouri. On the 15th of July 1881 another baby came to us. We named her Alice. No second name was given her. It is said “a rolling stone gathers no moss”. And I guess that’s true, for it seems as soon as I had gathered sufficient funds the moving mania seized me again, and the fall of 1881 found us westward bound. That time it was Wilson county, Kansas. We stopped in the locality of LaFountain, just a postoffice, a store, blacksmith shop, and maybe a doctor. We were about 9 miles south of Fredonia, the county seat, and 7 or 8 miles west of Nodesha. The next spring (1882) I rented the Bossick place, just a small farm. On September 6, 1883, Baby Alice died from the effects of whooping cough caught from one of the Bossick children. In the spring of 1884 I rented the Dallas Ragland place, just across the road north from Bossick’s. As there was no house on it, I built one 16 x 16 using shiplap lumber, nailed up right to a staunch frame. On July 29th, 1884, the fourth girl baby arrived. We named her Estella Ordine. I am not sure but think it was in the fall of 1885, when 5 or 6 of us belonging to the G.A.R. post in Nodesha went to western Kansas on a home seeking expedition. We located homesteads on government land in Grant county, and filed our claims in the U. S. Land office in Garden City, Kansas. We were allowed 6 months time to get on the land and make permanent settlement. I believe we started on the move in the spring of 1886, traveling in a covered wagon. Besides my own little herd of 5 or 6 head of cattle, I took out 10 or 12 head for a neighbor who had located in Jewel county in the northwestern part of the state. He came down later on, paid me and drove them home. Our first dwelling was a “dugout”, covered with lumber, tarpaper and dirt. We lived in it about a year, until I built a sod house. While living in
-46-
the dugout a baby boy was born January the 7th, 1887. We named him Elmer Octavius. Buffalo grass was plentiful and made fine pasturage for the cattle, but they had to be looked after some. But by keeping one or two cows larioted the rest would not go very far away. I broke three or 4 acres of sod and planted old fashioned cane, raising enough feed for the stock during the winter. In the spring of 1888 broke about 6 acres of sod and planted corn. By doing some freighting from Lakin 25 or 30 miles north on the Santa Fe railroad and working for other people in the neighborhood, we got along pretty good. Ulysses was a mile and a half or 2 miles east of us was the county seat. The town was located on sloping ground, and contained two or three stores, a blacksmith shop, a feed store, one saloon, one hotel and a public well. I think it was in July 1888 that I and two or three of the neighbors went to Johnson City, Staunton county, to prove up on our claims. We had filed soldier claims and our term of service in the army deducted from the required 5 years of residence, enabled us to secure a patent sooner than a straight-out citizen’s filing would. And we could be witnesses for each other. The day I left home to go and prove up, my patch of corn looked fine. But two or three days later, when I saw it, it was just a patch of green stocks a foot or two high. A heavy rain and hail storm had ruined it. That settled the western Kansas farming question with me. As soon as I got my patent, we started on the move into Colorado. Got as far as Palmer Lake, and after a month or two camping out, we got all we needed of that part of the state, and started back east with no definite point in view. But the spring of 1889 found us in the vicinity of Catlin in Otero County, Colorado. Well we stopped and camped awhile and finally rented part of Joe Graham’s house and moved in. I got a job as section hand on the Santa Fe railroad at $1.25 a day. Before proceeding further I will state that during the spring of 1887, Frank, being in his 18th
-47-
year went to Colorado in search of employment. Arriving at La Junta he secured work in the Santa Fe railroad yards and later on in the roundhouse and from there was promoted to train service. By and by he left the Santa Fe and entered the Missouri Pacific railway service. The railroad work was something new to me, but I soon caught on. On December 4th, 1889, our last baby, a boy, was born. We named him Ernest. Later on and while we still lived in the Graham house, my wife became deeply infatuated with a married man, and nearby neighbor. I noticed the intimacy, but persuaded myself that nothing serious would come of it, and had faith in her up to the day they ran away, which was the 4th of July 1890. I asked her that morning if she wanted to go to Rocky Ford to the celebration, “No I’ll stay at home” was her answer, “But you can go and take Harvey, May and Cora.” I didn’t suspect a thing. She dressed the children and they and I got in the wagon and started for Rocky Ford, 9 or 10 miles east of Catlin. Soon after leaving the house the married man passed me in his wagon, he had been to Catlin I judged. I called to him, “Are you going to Rocky today?” “No.” he said without checking the swift trot of his team. I was just as blind as ever, no suspicion in my mind was aroused. The children and I put in a very pleasant day at Rocky Ford, returning home at four or five o’clock in the evening. No seeing Margret and the other children around, I asked Mrs. Garold, a neighbor, if she knew where they were. She said “Stewart got them in his wagon, and they run away.” The news was a blow to me. Why did he forsake his own wife, then ruin my home? The more I thought over the dastardly act the deeper became my grief. Sometime during the night I wrote a letter to Margret’s mother, telling her of the move Margret had made. With the aid of neighbors things with me began to move. I discovered their whereabouts and Joe Graham soon got busy, and on finding the guilty pair and by some means secured Elmer and Steller, without much
-48-
or any difficulty. I made application for a divorce which was obtained in due time with the proviso that Ernest be delivered to me when he was weaned. But he died July 12, 1891, while they were living in the vicinity of Monument Colorado.
Family Members
Siblings
Sponsored by Ancestry
Advertisement
Advertisement
