Notes for James Franklin (Jim) Peterson

Notes for James Franklin (Jim) Peterson

!US Census 1900 (2 June) Kansas, Rice Co., Farmer Township, Page 226a, lines 98-100: James F. Peterson (b. Dec 1874 - 25 - in KS - Occ: Farmer - Fa: NJ and Mo: OH) married 1 year to Abbie I. (b. Oct 1880 - 19 - in KS - Fa: IL and Mo: PA) having 1 child born and still living. Child listed is: Vernie (son b. Feb 1900 - 4/12 - in OK)

!US Census 1910 (30 April) Kansas, Rice Co., Farmer Township, Series T624_454 Part 2, SD 7 ED 176, Sheet 1B, Page 40B, lines 86-90: James Peterson (b. 1875 - 35 - in KS - Occ: US Mail Carrier - Fa: NY and Mo: OH) married 11 years to Abbie (b. 1880 - 30 - in KS - Fa: IL and Mo: PA) having 3 children born and 3 still living. Children listed are: Abbie (dau b. 1900 - 10 - in OK); Blanch (dau b. 1902 - 8 - in KS); and Ada (dau b. 1904 - 6 - in KS)

!US Census 1920 (18 February) Kansas, Rice Co., Farmer Township, Roll T625_547, SD 7 ED 199, page 12A, lines 25-31: James F. Peterson (b. 1875 - 45 - in KS - Occ: Postal Mail Carrier - Fa: NJ and Mo: OH) married to Abbie J. (b. 1881 - 39 - in KS - Fa: IL and Mo: PA). Children listed are: Verna A. (dau b. 1900 - 20 - in OK); Blanch (dau b. 1902 - 18 - in KS); Ada (dau b. 1904 - 16 - in KS); Merle (son b. 1914 - 6 - in KS); and Ralph (son b. June 1916 - 3 7/12 - in KS)

Noted in records as being the first white child born in the community.

!Special Edition of "The Bushton News", published 29 April 1937 from an article written by James Franklin Peterson titled "Memories of Younger Days" sent by Elsie Marie Robinson daughter of Jack Clarence Robinson and Ada Iola Peterson (daughter of J.F. Peterson:
"My parents came from Carl Co., MO., to Kansas. Another family by the name of Ward drove through with them. They were on the road between two & three weeks. At Newton one of father's horses died. They had to lay over there four days. Father traded his remaining horse for a yoke of oxen. One of them proved to be balky - it would not pull but would lie down. It took them all day to make six miles. In the evening my brothers, Sam & Charley took them back to the man & asked him to give them back the horse, which he finally did. Brother Sam had a two year old colt which he traded for a lame horse. Then they started on again. Arriving in Ellinwood May 1st, 1874.
A short time afterward father filed on a homestead one-half mile east & three-quarters of a mile south of the present site of Bushton. This farm is now owned by Otto Habiger, Father walked from Ellinwood up here to look at the land. He saw a man in the field plowing with a yoke of oxen, stopped to inquire where the land was he was looking for, & found that the man was one he knew when in the army. William Carter was his name. He was a preacher.
The land office was located at Larned.
Father & the boys made a dugout on the east side of the place. It was sodded up a few feet above the ground. They got the ridge pole & other poles for the roof from the creek. It was soon ready to move into. As they had no well, they had to haul all their water from the creek. There were a few families here at that time that had settled close to the creek-Earls, Carters, Weavers, Schoonovers, Birches & a few others.
My folks planted some garden & potatoes shortly after moving here, which made a good growth. In September the grasshoppers came in great clouds that darkened the sun. They ate everything that was green, except the sugar cane. The corn was fine, with big long ears. The grasshoppers went right in at the end of the ears, leaving nothing but the cob. They ate the onions right out of the ground. They gathered so thick on the railroad track they stopped the trains. The wheels would mash them, making the rails so slick the train could not move.
They just stayed a short time.
My folks saw only three buffalo here, but the prairie was covered with buffalo bones. The people picked them up & hauled them to Ellinwood & sold them. They were graded & sold by the ton, so the price per load varied. There were a great many ricks of bones along the railroad tracks at Ellinwood that were from ten to twelve feet high & a quarter of a mile long, or longer.
There were a good many antelope here in 1874 but went farther west as the country settled. There were thousands of Texas cattle held here by the cowboys & occasionally they would stampede. One day a herd of them stampeded near our farm. They were getting pretty close to our dugout, their horns could be heard cracking together, & it looked for awhile like they would run right over our home. But the cowboys got them to milling, that is, going in a circle. This was done by riding ahead of them & shooting. They turned them just in time to save our home. During this first summer here a band of Indians stopped on the creek on the south side of the place now owned by Henry Bredfeldt. My father went over where they were & watched them cook their dinner. They cooked quite differently than the white folks. There were men & women in this band, they were all riding ponies & traveling north. One of the Indians spoke English & he talked to father.
I was born December 22, 1874, in the old dugout, (Elsie, from a letter to Abbie Peterson, "the dugout was 12 by 16 & entirely made of dirt"), the first white baby born in the community. I did not have nice clothes & blankets as the babies of today have. This was a very hard winter. Money was hard to get. There was no fuel to burn but cornstalks, a few cobs & buffalo chips. There was not much timber on the creek. The buffalo chips were of great value to the early settlers. The spring of 1875 father broke out more prairie & planted corn on the sod. He planted it with a hand planter. He farmed with horses. Two of my brothers farmed with oxen for several years. I can remember seeing them work the oxen.
I did not have many playthings when a small boy. My playthings were corn cobs, corn stalks, sticks & strings. Out of the sticks & strings I made fences, corrals, picket ropes & picket pins. The cobs were my horses & cows. Some I picket out & some I put in corrals & pastures. I spent much time playing with them. In those days most everyone had cows & horses on picket ropes. The corn stalks were my horses too. I picked out the largest, nicest ones. I rode many miles on these corn stalk horses. I always had a cat for a pet & we boys had a dog also that we thought a great deal of. Between the age of six & seven, we moved into a frame house on the west side of the farm. My, but I was proud of our new home. This house was moved from another farm to ours. I could hardly wait for the men to get there with it. I was so excited. My brother Si & I herded cattle two or three summers. Then two of my playmates, Alie & Pearl Thompson herded with me for several summers. We always went barefoot & there were a good many snakes on the prairie. We killed quite a few of them. One day we killed a rattlesnake that had seventeen rattles.
Some days we would take our lunches & be out all day. Each of us took a bottle along & just before we ate our lunch we would milk a bottle of milk for us to drink. We make a table out of sod to set our lunch out on.
I went to school at Eldorado. This school house was a frame building located on the southwest corner of the Thompson place. This place is now owned by Martin Shonyo. We also went to Sunday school & church at this school house. The first preachers I can remember were Mr. Wm. Carter, Mr. Swartz & Mr. Charles Montgomery.
Before this time my brothers (Bert & Si) went to a sod school house east of us. We had homemade seats & desks in our school house. My first teacher's name was Mrs. Alma Thompson. The first year I went to school Mother & I went to Chase to do some trading. I bought a big black lead pencil with a big rubber that fit over the end of it. It cost a dime. It was a beauty. I wanted to take it to school & show all the children my new pencil. I had never had one before. In getting through the fence on my way to school, I broke it in two pieces. Oh, how badly I did feel. It almost broke my heart. I well remember the first Christmas tree I ever saw. It was at the old Eldorado school house. It was a tree from the creek, trimmed with cotton & popcorn, with presents on it. Ben Shonyo, Bert Zirkie & I sat on the front seat where we could enjoy its beauty. There was a short program. There was no present on the tree for me, but what a wonderful time I did have. We boys always hung up our stockings on Christmas eve. We always found a big red apple & a little candy in them Christmas morning. I have never tasted apples since that are as good as those were or smelled like they did. One Christmas I found a little knife in the toe of my stocking. What a surprise it was to me. I got my first toy when eight years old. It was a little tin horse painted white. I surely did enjoy playing with it. When I was a boy corn shellers & threshing machines were run by horse power, much as the feed grinders of today are run. The wheat was pitched up on a table & a man fed it into the machine with a peg. There were quite a few small corn shellers that ran by hand, also fanning mills to clean the wheat.
I was twelve years old when the railroad went through. Johnnie Thompson & I walked almost to Frederick to watch the men lay the track. There I saw a train of flat cars loaded with steel rails. The engine & cars were much smaller than they are now. A box car held about 500 bushels. This is the first train I ever saw. I thought it was a wonderful sight.
I moved to Bushton with my parents in 1888. Father had built a new house in what then was the east part of town. It is the house in which Mr. E. J. Bruegger now lives. It has since been remodeled.
J. F. Peterson"