Chapter1: Homesteading Heroes
Homesteading Heroes
This update has a lot of stories. I didn’t expect it to be so long when I started writing it, but then it ended up being huge. Hope you enjoy it anyway. Some of these people are going to be important in the future of the region, so maybe it is cool to have a record of where they came from.
Since the founding of Inakaye homesteading has been an official and encouraged practice by the Inakaye government. In the beginning, the Inakaye government granted homesteads of 175 acres and then allowed the settlers to claim any 175 acres they wanted so long as it was at least three miles from any already established towns. Any land within the three mile radius of a town (any federally chartered community of people) or ten mile radius of a city (at least 12,000 residents for a town to become a city) had to be purchased through the usual process of deeds etc. another condition of homesteading in Inakaye was that you had to agree to develop the land in some way. This was largely up to interpretation but essentially meant you had to live on the land, you couldn’t just buy a homestead and then live in Mariston, for example.
In the 1890’s the Inakaye government went through the enormous task of mapping the entire continent and recording the locations and sizes of all the current properties. This took almost 6 years to accomplish, but it allowed the government to grant specific parcels of land to homesteaders. At this point in history, land in Inakaye was pretty worthless and often settlers would just trudge off into the wilderness and set up homesteads without going through the government. While this was officially illegal, it was not strongly enforced except in the higher density areas where most of the land was already owned.
Homesteads played possibly the most important role in settling the continent. Many important settlements started as homesteads. Mariston started as a homestead, and Robert and James Wyant, Owners of the Solace Bay Company were homesteading when they founded the Solace Bay company.
Today we will look at some homesteads near Solace Bay and talk briefly about their owners. Here is a region map focused around the Cape Winston Area. Here you can see four homesteads that have been present in the area for at least a generation now.
Coolidge
The first we will look at is the Coolidge place. This is the “newest” homestead that was not associated with the growth of the Cape Winston settlement.
David Coolidge moved to this homestead In 1875, when Cape Winston was merely a fishing village of about 30 residents. He came alone a young man, leaving his family in the small Allegheny River Valley town of Holbrook for Duluth. He spent all of three weeks in Duluth before he realised that city life and factory work were not for him. He then bought a homestead permit from the Duluth city hall and set out with a group of fur traders into the vast lake Audra. When they reached the Ribcage Isles, he was amazed at their beauty and decided to settle in the bay he currently lives in (now known as Coolidge bay). He began by clearing land and planting potatoes, which was a good staple food and sustained him along with a diet of fish and hunted animals.
As Cape Winston grew, he was able to trade and expand his crops to apples and some livestock, which was impressive given the amounts of predators in the region. He still makes a trip to Cape Winston at least twice a year by boat where he’s known affectionately by the townsfolk as “Grizzled Dave.” He never married and has no children, but his steadfastness to his farm and his kindly demeanor earn him respect to the point where people don’t question his decision to stay a lonely dude.
Hudson and Nelson
The next two Homesteads are interesting because they were the site of one of the first tragic disputes in the area. Below you can see Roland Bay, the bay that lies south of Cape Winston. The homestead on the left is the Nelson Homestead, and the one on the right is the Hudson Homestead.
These two families moved to the area around 1871. They were quite friendly to each other and were always willing to lend a hand when one family needed help. They would travel together to Cape Winston when they wanted to trade, and they would often celebrate holidays together. However, the two patriarchs of the families, Earl Nelson and Lyle Hudson died within months of each other in the summer of 1893.
The new patriarchs were Paul Hudson and Jeff Nelson, and by the end of 1893, things had already begun to go sour. Growing up, Jeff had always picked on Paul, and Paul never forgave him for it. So now that he was in charge, he gave the Nelson family the cold shoulder. The Hudson’s would “forget” to celebrate birthdays with the Nelson’s, and the Nelson’s wouldn’t take things to Cape Winston for the Hudson’s like they used to. Pretty soon, there was absolutely no interaction between the two families. And, in 1899, something happened that made the families bitter enemies.
A rare five-toed llama had been seen in the woods between the two homesteads. This species of llama had the finest coat of any llama save the rare northern Inakaye water llama (what initially made the Wales region so famous among fur traders). Certainly one pelt could buy a herd of lesser llamas. Thus, once it was spotted both families kept their rifles at hand and kept their eyes open for an opportunity to trap or shoot it. It was a warm fall day when Paul Hudson spotted the llama tramping towards the Nelson farm and slowly started following it to try and get a good shot at it. He followed it right on to the Nelson homestead and just as the Nelson’s had spotted it, he shot it and he and his sons came out to drag it back to their home. Well, Jeff Nelson was so furious that he came up to Paul and told him he would build a fence to keep Hudson scum off of his homestead, and that if he ever saw another Hudson on his property, he would shoot them for trespassing. This led to a fist fight so brutal that the two men had to be pried apart by their sons. Pretty soon two walls were built to permanently separate the families.
But, wouldn’t you know it, Paul’s youngest son Jake Hudson had caught the eye of the young Genevieve Nelson. These two kids developed a fervent love for each other in spite of the hostilities of their respective families. It was a Romeo and Juliet story to the core. The two would take to sneaking out at night to meet in the space between the fences. They became so preoccupied with each other that their families started to notice that something was different.
One night Jake Hudson’s brother, Rob, followed Jake and found out what he was doing at night. Rob Told his father Jake was meeting a Nelson and the next day, Jake was watched like a fox. His family kept close watch to ensure that he could not go and fraternize with their enemies. He began hatching a plan to escape. Before bed one night he rigged the pig pen to open should there be any significant wind. He figured that if some night the pigs could escape they would make a bunch of noise and everyone would wake up to herd them back and he could escape to go find Genevieve. Well, that night the pigs did not escape, but Jake began rigging the pen every night, and after a week of nothing happening, it worked. The family awoke to the chaos of pigs running wild around the property, and rushed out to collect them. Jake then grabbed a knife, a loaf of bread and a coat and ran as fast as he could to go find Genevieve. He found her sitting crying in the spot that they always met, it turns out that she had still come every night hoping so deeply that he just might come that night. When he found her they embraced each other with warm tears and Jake spoke of the urgency of the situation. Genevieve needed no convincing that they should to run away from this awful dispute, and make a new life together. So they hiked to the Nelson property shore where they stole a canoe and headed off north up the lake without any destination other than far from Roland Bay.
It was actually some time before all the pigs were collected. In fact the sun had just begun to rise on the new day when the Hudson’s noticed that Jake was neither asleep in the house, or out helping with the pigs. Paul knew immediately what had happened and went to the fence to try and find his son and scold him for associating with Nelsons. When he didn’t find him there, he feared that Jeff Nelson had found out and killed him, so he entered the nelson property and called out to the nelson cabin, where the Nelson family was currently in an uproar over the disappearance of their youngest and most beautiful daughter. Jeff Nelson seeing Paul outside his house and figuring that the Hudson’s had done something with their daughter, grabbed his rifle in a rage and stepped outside and shot Paul Hudson dead. It was a day before both families found out what had happened.
The sad truth, along with the murder of Paul hung like a dark fog in the air. And, once other settlers in the area heard about the murder of Paul Hudson, they held a camp meeting to discuss the fate of Jeff Nelson. They decided that he should be left alive, but be given food and money and a boat and exiled from the region. However, if he ever returned to the region then the people would have the right to kill him. Thus, the Hudson/Nelson feud ended in tragedy and the two families have decided to begin the process of reconciliation. Today there is a sad peace between the families that lacks all the joy of their former friendship. This story became something of a local legend around Cape Winston, and is noted as the first crime and subsequent judicial ruling of the Solace Bay/Ribcage Isles region.
What happened to Jake and Genevieve you might ask? It turns out that they made it across the lake to the northern shore where they hiked to the then community of Lake Maureen,. There they worked on farms until they had enough money to buy a farm of their own. Because they desired to distance themselves from their past, they changed their name to Newson, as in a “New“ beginning. Neither of them knows what happened because of their actions, hopefully they never will find out . . . Here is a picture of the Newson farm near the southh shore of Lake Maureen in 1908.
Lastanksa
A common story in Homesteading is a homestead that is set up and cultivated for a time, but then due to the harshness of the lifestyle or some tragedy the homestead is then abandoned. Here is the abandoned Lastanksa Homestead, located just north of the Ribcage Isles. You can see how quickly nature is reclaiming the land.
Gordon Lastanksa set up this homestead in 1868. His son Harrison, born 1870 stayed on to keep up the homestead when he died in 1890. Harrison ran the farm well and married Vera Delzan whose family homesteaded several miles east of the Lastanska homestead. They had a wonderful family together until Vera and their three youngest children died of Influenza in winter 1903. The next spring, Harrison and his only remaining child Randall Lastanska abandoned the homestead out of grief and moved even further east into the eastern frontier settlements that were being founded at the time. It is a sad but very common story among homesteaders.
Burton
The last homestead to look at is The Burton homestead. This Homestead is the oldest in the region. Jaocab Burton was the first non explorer to come to this region. He brought his family from the very young Auen in 1806. It is very possible the Burton Homestead was the easternmost human settlement at the time. Burton Mountain was named so by Jaocab, and it is possible that he was the first human to see it. He settled on the shores of Lake Audra within sight of his mountain, and fought desperately to make the land produce.
According to family lore, it was twenty years before they saw another person pass the Homestead. Fur trading far and wide from Auen began in the 1820’s so it is very possible that this is true. Jaocab was an old man by this time, and his children had taken over running the farmstead. However, one by one they began to leave to start families of their own. It was only his middle son Jaocab Jr. who brought a wife back to the farm and continued to cultivate it.
Jaocab Jr. apparently left the farm and spent three years with the fur traders before he fell in love with a daughter of a homestead near where Arnett is today. One time while he was traveling by her homestead they decided to get married and move to the Burton homestead. It is Jaocab Jr’s grandson, Jeremiah, who now is the eldest Burton in charge of the farm, though he is getting ready to pass on the farm to his eldest son Elijah Burton.
Jeremiah is a slightly bitter man, though formally friendly. If you talk to him he will tell you how, in his youth, you could go months without seeing a boat pass by on the lake, but now that settlers have moved even farther east, you can hardly go a week, sometimes days without seeing a boat pass by the farm. And, he will tell you an anger tinged story of how just last month a group of men came through the forest with a pack llama looking for a good place to set up a lumber mill. Yes, things are changing in the whole region, people are crowding themselves in, and distances are getting much shorter. Jeremiah’s son Elijah met his wife in Cape Winston, she was the daughter of a store clerk there. This was a minor point of strife for Jeremiah who thought his son should find a good homesteader like every other Burton did (except all the ones who left for other places, but they don’t exist to Jeremiah anymore). Currently Jeremiah and his wife Carole, their daughters Karrie and Rebecca, Elijah and his wife and kids, and Jeremiah’s youngest son David live at the homestead in its two cabins.
You can also the massive barn that Jeremiah built when he was a young man. This building that houses their livestock and work animals was Jeremiah’s greatest achievement. We can only hope that the Burton family with all its rich history in the region will remain prosperous long into the future . . .
That certainly was a lot of reading. If you made it this far, thanks for reading! See you next time!
1 Comment
Recommended Comments
Sign In or register to comment...
To comment in reply, you must be a community member
Sign In
Already have an account? Sign in here.
Sign In NowCreate an Account
Sign up to join our friendly community. It's easy!
Register a New Account