James and Mary Mansfield McFarland

The Pleasant Valley and Morris Creek Years

Jim had established a second place at the mouth of Pleasant Valley Creek on Morris Creek the summer before the murder. On 15 August 1879 he filed for the first time on the land, and again on 1 November 1881. He eventually earned the patent for it in September, 1884. The property remains in the family. Several other family members applied for homesteads in this locale. All of Jim's and Mary's sons, their daughter Libbie, plus their sons-in-law, Monroe Ferguson and Captain Smith had homesteads nearby. All of their children except Alice lived in the Morris Creek-Pleasant Valley vicinity. Jim's brother, John, moved instead to north of Rapid City on Box Elder Creek.

Monroe Ferguson arrived in Deadwood on the Sidney Stage the evening of 11 April 1880. He spent most of the week in Deadwood, and applied for a homestead adjoining Jim's and Mary's place on Morris Creek on 15 April 1880. Jane joined him later. She took the train as far as Sidney, Nebraska with her two small children, Charlie and Wesley. From there they took the Sidney Stage to the Hogan Station. Problems had flared up with the Sioux again. The passengers worried that they would not make it to the Black Hills, but Jane and her sons made it without mishap.

Schools hadn't been organized in their sparsely populated community yet. George, Libbie, and Maggie often stayed with one of their sisters, Hattie or Alice, so they could attend classes in Spearfish. In the spring of 1880 a diphtheria epidemic was rampant in Spearfish. It was fatal to many. When the McFarland children returned to Spearfish that fall for school, nearly half of their classmates had died. Albert Alfred (Allie) Tonn, Michael Tonn's son from his first marriage, died 18 April 1880 of the disease. They buried four-year-old Allie the next day in Mount Moriah Cemetery in Deadwood. Fortunately, all of Jim's and Mary's family were spared.

George recalled that while with the Tonn family, Michael offered him a garden spot for his own use one summer. George decided to plant the entire plot to onions. The crop was substantial and the onions sold well that fall. His uncle forgot his promise and all the work George put into the project when it came time to sell the harvest though, so George was left without anything to show for his summer's labors. Michael also ran a truck garden. George, Libbie, and Maggie worked in the gardens for him. If they didn't get every potato, their uncle was sure to yell at them.

Initially, Jim and Mary lived in a trapper's cabin when they stayed on Morris Creek. The cabin was already old by the time they used it. Trappers who came several decades before the settlement of the Black Hills probably built it. Generations of McFarlands found numerous artifacts around the site, including ivory dominoes and pottery. They donated some of these pieces to the Smithsonian Museum.

Jim and the boys built a one-and-a-half story, square-cut log house that was twenty-eight by thirty-two feet. They hauled the logs, which Jim had received in payment for a debt, from Spring Valley. The house very much resembled the MacFarlane home at Landhead in Ireland. After Jim received the patent for his preemption, he filed a homestead application on 18 September 1884 for land next to the preemption. He had farmed the tract since 1882, even though he didn't have a title to it. He grew corn, oats, wheat, and vegetables, plus he raised cattle, horses, and a few pigs. Jim, Will, and George dismantled the house that they had built five years before on the preemption in September, 1884. They numbered each log as they did so. They then moved them twenty rods away to Jim's homestead and rebuilt it in the very same way, using the numbers as guides. Over the years Mary covered the walls with newspapers, but to discourage idleness she hung the papers upside down. They also built a milk house and root house. To help supply drinking water, Jim and the boys dug an eighteen foot deep well that produced very hard water.

Jim teamed the blind mare he and Frank recovered at Sevey Lake with an ox to put up hay. One day, while Jim was out mowing, either the mare or the ox decided it was time to get a drink. Before Jim could stop them, they walked into a nearby water hole and pulled him and the mower into the pond with them. Later, when the family again had a team, Frank and George used them to haul with a wagon without a tongue. Jim noticed the danger from the house and warned the boys that the horses would run away. The team promptly did so, and Frank and George both unjustly felt it was their father's fault.

John came from Pecatonica to join his parents on Morris Creek. He filed for land just to the east of Jim and Mary on 1 November 1881, but he later relinquished his claim to it. Frank decided to go to Montana during the following summer of 1882. Jim was helping his brother John at his place, so Frank rode the ten miles to tell his father good-by. He did not return for three years. George used the new team to haul poles to the Cheyenne River for the telegraph line being built between Pierre and Sturgis. He camped out by himself at night. In the rugged Cheyenne breaks nearby wolves howled and wailed throughout the night as he tried to sleep. It was the loneliest night of George's life.

A shooting took place on Morris Creek, just down the creek from Jim's and Mary's place, in February, 1884 that caused considerable excitement in the neighborhood. The fracas involved the Walter Andrews family. Mr. Andrews had burned to death the preceding summer in a boarding house fire at Brownsville on Elk Creek. The blaze claimed the lives of thirteen men. Andrews's wife and his sixteen-year-old daughter, Ella, lived on their Morris Creek place after his death with the help of "Scotty" Connell. He was a longtime friend of the family and knew them in Michigan. Mrs. Andrews sometimes saw a Frenchman named Cacie. Evidently, Connell became jealous of Cacie, and it led to an argument between him and Mrs. Andrews. She told Connell that he would have to leave. Cacie had given Ella a gun to protect herself. She got the gun and shot Connell point blank in the head. Blood drenched his head and Connell was sure Ella had shot him through the skull. He escaped from the women. Connell found that the bullet had struck his forehead and spun across the top of his head instead of shattering the bone. His bizarre skull wound and the events leading to the shooting shocked his neighbors. The brouhaha slowly died away though, and none of them was noted as tried for any crime.

Hattie and John moved to Morris Creek in March, 1884. John filed for a homestead on 26 March 1884 and later converted it to a cash entry on 30 December 1884. Will also found some good land to homestead in 1884 and erected a claim shack on it. He planned to live on the tract to establish his squatter's rights until he could make a legal claim when he turned twenty-one the following year in January, 1885. His Uncle John asked Jim if Will could come over to his place for the year instead. Jim agreed, and Uncle John promised to make it right with Will. By the time Will had finished working the year for John though, his claim was taken by someone else. John only gave him a yoke of oxen for his year at his place. Will was very angry with his father for agreeing to the arrangement. "It is a fine thing you have done to me now Father," he said. Jim had trusted John to pay his son properly for the year, and felt he owed it to Will to get him a place. Jim mortgaged his own place and bought a cash entry claim for Will.

Jim and Will went to Deadwood just a week-and-a-half after Will's twenty-first birthday to complete the land transactions. They made their land applications on 5 February 1885. Jim applied for an eighty acre timber claim. He broke nine acres the summer of 1885 and cultivated them again in 1886. In 1887 he planted five acres of box elder trees. By the next year several of the trees had died, so Jim replaced them with black ash. The box elder could not tolerate the many years of drought. Jim planted several thousand seedlings, but by 1898 the tract was left with only about a thousand black ash that had grown to only about ten feet tall with trunks about one and a half inches in diameter. A few of the trees made it to twenty feet high. Over the succeeding years most of these trees died too.

One day as George was out working around his claim, one of Jane's small sons came running up to him. The boy was gasping for breath and holding his stomach. "Charlie shot," he moaned. George rushed to his sister's home to find that his nephew, Charlie, had shot himself while playing with his father's revolver. The bullet just grazed his stomach and he was fortunate to have no serious injury. Jane and Monroe did not keep their first homestead. On 22 September 1885 Monroe applied for a new homestead, just six miles northwest of their first home on Morris Creek.

1888 was an important year for Jim and his sons. Jim's father's estate was to be settled that year. The handling of the estate led to a permanent rift between Jim and his brother John. Will, Frank, and George were in a hose contest at Spearfish in July, 1888. Winning bets on the competition netted them the money needed to take advantage of opportunities for investment.

The Spearfish Hose Tournament was the second annual Black Hills Firemen's Association tournament and was to be run 4,5, and 6 July 1888. Spearfish was the uncontested host of the competition. It was the biggest event the town had ever planned. The Alerts team got Ryan's Hall ready to house the Lead team, and plays were given to raise money to benefit the local teams.

Four teams would compete in the hose contests; the Spearfish Hose no. 1, the Alerts no.1 (Spearfish), Spearfish Hook and Ladder no. 1, Lead, and Gate City (Rapid City). The hose match included several races. The McFarland boys were probably members of the Spearfish Hose no. 1 team. Their uniform had a red shirt trimmed with blue velvet, a white shirt showing, blue regulation caps, and bound belts with the company initials on a red background.

Lead had earlier entered a runner by the name of Brennan in a separate running contest. The other contestants believed that Brennan was a professional runner who Patsy Riordan was training. It soon became obvious to the Spearfish men that Lead had set them up. Emotions were high. A race was arranged between Gregg and Brennan. Betting was high and Lead gave 2-1 and 3-1 odds in favor of Brennan.

A couple of weeks before the contest the Spearfish Hose no. 1 team brought in a man who they introduced as Harry Gregg. He was supposedly the nephew of John Gregg who lived a short distance down Spearfish Valley near the Tonns. Under Harry Gregg's expert training the Spearfish no. 1 team, which included Will, Frank, and George, improved considerably. Harry was obviously an exceptional athlete.

Lead's ruse with Brennan backfired, as Gregg easily won the race. The streets filled with angry bettors when one of the officials tried to call off all bets. Several men from Lead lost fortunes in the wagering. They learned later that Harry Gregg was also a professional runner. Gregg's real name was Harry Bethune. He had won the American Handicap in Philadelphia in 1885, as well as the professional championship of Canada in the same year. Just four months earlier, on 22 February 1888, he tied the world record for the hundred yard dash at Oakland, California. The McFarlands did well on their teams and in their betting. Each of them made several hundred dollars. It was one of George's proudest achievements to be on the team.

When George returned from Spearfish to visit his mother, the change in him dismayed her. "He was a fine fat broth of a boy when he left, and now he is skinny as a rail," she said. The competition didn't do him any real harm though, and he could use his winnings to buy stock and equipment.

On 12 January 1888 a terrible blizzard hit the prairies. Stockmen suffered terrible losses. It was so cold after the blizzard that when the family got the wagon out, the springs broke from the bitter iciness. Jim received a letter that same month from his sister saying that they were ready to settle their father's estate. She said that he should come back to Landhead to get his share and that some of them might come back to visit. Jim discussed this with his brother, John, who persuaded him that he would go back to Ireland instead. The plan was for John to leave in July and Jim would help take care of his place. The undertaking became more complicated. Mary became very ill the second week of July, and Jim was in the middle of building a large new barn. Even so, Jim took care of John's place for seven weeks that summer. He brought Will and another man over to stack hay for John. After John's return from Ireland, on 27 August 1888, a terrible feud developed between the brothers.

When John came back he brought a suit of clothes. The suit included their father's muffler that he said their sister sent for Jim. In addition, he told Jim that each of them was to receive 200 pounds sterling, in what John described as a trust arrangement in which they could only touch the interest. Jim wrote back to Ireland to get details. The answer said that the money was not in trust and that John should have delivered it to him.

Jim had tried unsuccessfully since the move to the Black Hills in 1878 to persuade John to pay him back the money he took to handle Jim's affairs that summer. On 7 November 1888 Jim confronted John over several issues that had passed between them the previous decade, including the inheritance, the embezzlement of Jim's money from the property sold in Illinois, John's failure to pay for a horse, the unfair trade of work between the two families, and the cattle John bought for Jim in Nebraska that never materialized. The two brothers ended up in a fist fight. John, who was much younger, beat his sixty year old brother to a bloody mess and nearly bit his thumb off. Jim escaped and made his way in the wagon to the nearby Gillis house. He looked so awful that he scared the lone women there. He finally reached the home of James Keenan, who took him to the doctor at the International Hotel in Rapid City.

While he was laid up at the hotel, Jim decided to bring charges of assault with intent to kill against John. He soon followed this with a civil suit against him to recover the money John handled for him in the land and property settlements in Illinois. The court found in Jim's favor, and a judgement of more than $2,400 was made against John for the unrecovered portion. By now, Jim rued his decision to leave Illinois. His farms in Pecatonica were now worth more than $30,000. Horse thieves, blizzards that killed livestock, hail that destroyed his crops, drought that dried up the creeks, and a corrupt brother made him sorry he ever came to the Black Hills.

Jim almost became involved in another lawsuit. He lent money to a Frenchman on Elk Creek, who put up a steer as collateral. When it came time for the Frenchman to pay off the loan, he told Jim that the steer belonged to his brother and that he would not pay off the debt. Jim responded by telling him they would ask the county attorney what he thought about using property that wasn't his for collateral. The Frenchman quickly decided to settle his debt.

George had invested his winnings from the hose competition at Spearfish in 1888 in a good Morgan team and haying equipment. He cut hay and then stacked it into boxes about the size of a cotton bale. The hay was tramped tightly into the box and made into a bale. He then hauled it to Deadwood to sell. George did not stay overnight like most of the others, but instead he headed back immediately. He made enough money to invest in some cattle. George and Frank got into an argument about who owned some of the hay. The two could not come to an agreement. Mary decided to solve the problem and went out and burned the haystacks.

Mary was a very devout Christian. When a church was not close enough to attend, she held services at home. In 1889 local families organized the First Presbyterian Church of Pleasant Valley. Mary made the six-mile trek to the church for Sunday services.

The Morris Creek area suffered from a terrible drought, which began in 1889 and lasted several years. To top it off, hail completely destroyed Jim's crops the last week of July, 1889. Reservation lands east of the Cheyenne River opened for grazing in the early 1890's, so Will and George decided to run their cattle there.

They had a dugout near Mix with Food Creek. Their brother, John, came down to visit them. A typical meal for Will and George was biscuits and syrup. They purchased the corn syrup in large tins. John poured the syrup over the biscuits, tasted it, and stopped eating after the first bite. "Glucose by God, I'm going back to the Hills." The range life wasn't for John. He went back that same morning to Spearfish where he could enjoy real maple syrup and the comforts of home.

In about 1892 Will and George became members of the Lime Kiln Pool. The Lime Kiln Pool involved several cowmen working together in handling their cattle, with each rancher owning his own herd. According to one of the members, Frank Huss, in his written reminiscences, they had a large general roundup in the spring. In the fall there would be another roundup so they could ship the cattle from Pierre to be sold in Omaha or Chicago. Members of the pool were Will and George McFarland, Frank Huss, William Borst, Ledger LaBrecque, A. D. Marriott, Ulrich and Albert Taddiken, Frank Rood, John Newcomb, Charles Haxby, George Poste, Elmer Hawks, James Braddock, Charles Shannon, A. L. Webb, Arthur Finnegan, and the Foley Brothers. After George married in 1897 he wasn't nearly as involved in running cattle on the reservation. Will continued business there through at least 1903.

Jane and Monroe also moved down to the Cheyenne area shortly after Guy's birth in 1893. According to Jane's daughter, Ada, Jane had an encounter with some Indian men there. Four men came by one day and asked for food. Jane only had some dry beans and salt pork for them. They were angry at being offered salt pork and threw it on the floor. The Indians decided to scare Jane. One sat down and began to sharpen his knife. He and the others would laugh and look at her. Jane thought she and the children would be killed, but the men gave up on the joke and went on their way.

As a young boy Walter helped his Uncle George with his cattle. It was the middle of the winter and a blizzard was coming. George and Walter were on the other side of Deep Creek only about a mile away from the dugout. The creek was frozen over and covered with snow. George decided to cross it rather than go around an extra ten miles to get home. Although his horse refused to cross George decided to risk it. He started across without any problems. Suddenly about half way across he plummeted through the snow and ice. Walter acted quickly and tossed out his rope to George. He hauled him out and helped get him back on his horse. George was completely drenched to his neck. His clothes promptly froze into rock hard sheets of ice. The two made it back to the dugout and pried George off his horse. Fortunately, George didn't suffer any severe frostbite and was indebted to his nephew for saving his life.

Libbie took a homestead on 20 November 1889, just west of Jim and Mary, where she raised horses and a few cattle. Prairie Dog Smith courted Libbie. He always remarked about her beautiful red hair. Libbie became seriously ill in 1891. Her condition worsened and developed into tuberculosis. Alice took her to Santa Barbara to stay with Hattie in October, 1892, in the hope that a more temperate climate would help her sister. The change did not help. Alice returned to California immediately after Maggie's marriage to Frank Cooper in Deadwood to bring Libbie back with her in April, 1893. Libbie continued to worsen throughout the summer and died 25 August 1893. She was buried at Rose Hill Cemetery in Spearfish that overlooked the surrounding countryside.

Life was very difficult for some of the pioneers, such as the John Erickson family who had a place adjacent to Jim and Mary to the east. Erickson's crops were destroyed in the same hail storm that ruined Jim's crops in July, 1889. The Erickson's could not contend with the terrible drought that continued into the 1890's along Morris Creek. They eventually became destitute. Somehow the McFarland's cattle got into the Erickson's garden, and each family blamed the other. The McFarlands felt it was the Erickson's fault, as they did not keep their garden fenced well enough. The Ericksons blamed the McFarlands for not watching their cattle. The squabble led to a feud between the families.

In 1892, Erickson's wife, Julia, lost a baby in childbirth. A long period of postpartum depression followed, and in combination with the family's extreme poverty, she became completely deranged. In June, 1894 Jim decided something would have to be done, so he petitioned the Meade County court to have Julia Erickson committed to a mental institution. The judge agreed and ordered her to be sent to the State Asylum for the Insane at Yankton. In February, 1899 the sanitarium burned to the ground. Seventeen women inmates died in the inferno, including the unfortunate Julia Erickson. Her children never forgave the McFarlands for being instrumental in sending their mother to the asylum. The situation became so heated that Bessie Erickson shot Will as he was riding past the Ericksons during a blizzard. Bessie decided he was close enough to shoot and fired at him. Fortunately, Will had on several layers of clothing, including a heavy buffalo coat. The bullet lodged in the thick buffalo hide. When Jim's estate was settled in 1904, John Erickson still owed him $233 for a secured mortgage.

George married Mary (Mamie) Elizabeth McNinny on 27 November 1897. As Mamie was Catholic, they were married by the priest at her home on the Belle Fourche River. In August, 1898 their first child was born. They made plans for his baptism. When Grandma Mary discovered that the baby would be christened in the Catholic faith, she became very upset and caused a scene. George and Mamie reached a compromise and decided that none of their children would be baptized.

Leo Ashland remembers seeing Jim and Mary in their later years at a horse race. Jim believed the race was unfair. He stood by Mary, who was larger than he, shaking his head declaring "Let us have fair play, man!"

In 1900 Jim and Mary went back to Ireland to visit and to settle his brother Dan's estate. While in Ballymoney, on 7 November 1900, Jim sold his interest in all the Irish property to Jane and Margaret. This included three farms, two homes, and several cottages at Landhead and two town houses on Queen Street in Ballymoney. John McKeague presently lives on a farm that is adjacent to the former MacFarlane farms at Landhead. He remembers hearing stories that his family passed on to him about Jim. According to McKeague, the legend said that Jim took his family across North America by going from one friendly Indian tribe to the other. On their way back from Ireland, in January, 1901, Jim and Mary stopped back at Pecatonica, Illinois. They stayed for a couple of weeks to visit old friends and to do some horse trading.

Jim died the following year at his daughter Alice Tonn's home in Spearfish. He had gone to Spearfish the month before to get medical treatment. Father Wyllie came from Saint Thomas Episcopal Church in Sturgis to officiate at the funeral. Jim was buried by his daughter, Libbie, at Rose Hill Cemetery in Spearfish, South Dakota.

After Jim's death Mary went from one son to the other and stayed for a time with each of them. On 26 August 1903 she helped Mamie, George's wife, make plum preserves. After they finished, Mary decided to walk back to her son Will's. Mamie tried to persuade her to wait, but Mary was head strong and independent. She decided to make the three mile walk alone, and started home about four o'clock that afternoon with a jar of the preserves. As she walked back, Mary became confused and lost her way. During the night a terrible storm came through and Mary probably died from exposure. Unfortunately, each of her sons thought his mother was safe at the others' home. Nearly two weeks later, on 8 September, two of Cobe Eveleth's boys found the body of a dead woman laying by a fence in the Alkali Breaks, but they were afraid to go near the decaying corpse. Cobe went to Sturgis to inform Sheriff Jessie Brown, who took Coroner Sparks with him to investigate the scene. At the time Frank was in Sturgis laid up with rheumatism and heard the news. He became worried about his mother and contacted Will and George. To the brothers' horror, they discovered that their mother never reached home from George's. They immediately returned to Sturgis where they identified their mother by her clothes. They took the body to Spearfish for burial. Father Wyllie came to give the obsequies, and they buried Mary the next day beside her husband and daughter, Libbie, in Rose Hill Cemetery.

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