A Pioneer Relates

(Translated January 17, 193? from the Norse language by Mr. I. A. Kampen, former County Superintendent of Schools, Griggs Company)

John P. Vangen, Binford, North Dakota, called at the "Tidende's" office while attending the church meeting in Minneapolis.  Vangen is one of the sturdy pioneers at Lake Sibley, where he has resided since 1883.

Vangen has much of interest to relate.  It was in 1871 he left his birthplace Hauesetera, Ullensaker, Norway, and came to America.  He crossed the Atlantic on the sailing vessel "Nordlyset".  It took 14 weeks to cross the ocean.  The worst of it was that the food and drinking water were running dangerously low.  For 14 days they had little or nothing to drink and eat: 

barely enough to keep alive.  Finally they landed at Newfoundland where they secured provisions and also tobacco.  It was the sweet English tobacco, which tasted so good that even the women liked to try it.

The first year and a half he spent in Minneapolis, and then moved to Northfield, Minnesota.  In 1883 he went to Dakota and came to Lake Sibley.  The soil appeared fertile, there was plenty of water and grass - in fact the land looked good to him, and he took a homestead and settled down.  But it was rather dreary to begin with, far between the neighbors.  The nearest white neighbor to the west was 18 miles away.  To make up for it, there were crowds of Indians who trekked from the Devils Lake reservation to the reservation at Sisseton.  On the trips the Indians generally remained at Lake Sibley several days, often an entire week.  There could be up to 30 Indian tents at a time.  But the Indians were honest and peaceable.  From Vangen they often borrowed one thing and another, but they always returned what they borrowed.  Once he gave them something they did not use.  He had just butchered and the Indians came and begged for some meat.  Vangen gave them a large piece, and he thought they needed salt with it so he threw in a bag of it.  The salt he later discovered left untouched.  Evidently salt was not a part of their recipe for cooking.

Lake Sibley is a historic place, and several things could be discovered around the lake.  The lake is named after the well known Minnesota governor and general in the Indian War, Henry H. Sibley, and here he built Camp Atchison, July 8, 1863.  At that time there were 4,000 men assembled and they had in the course of one day dug many long trenches and fully prepared to battle the Indians.  Most of these trenches were on land belonging to Vangen, but could not be considered as of any special value as instruments for farming, and in course of time he leveled them out.  But on the land of his neighbor, Nels Thune, there are still some remnants of the trenches.  Thune has deeded the trenches to the North Dakota Historical society and a fence has been put up around the place.  On the highest point of Thune's land there is also a grave.  For a long time people thought it was an Indian grave, but it has been established that a soldier of Sibley's forces is buried there.  George Brent is his name, and he lost his life over near the present village of Courtenay when his gun went off as he dismounted from his horse.  The government has erected a monument over his grave.

Vangen and Thune found many things that reminded them of the Sibley expedition against the Indians.  Vangen found a cook stove used by the soldiers.  At that time he did not think that old scrap iron like that had any historic interest and he dumped it on a stone pile where pieces of the stove has since remained.  He thought more of a sword that was picked up, and he gave the finder a dollar for it.  He sold it later for five dollars and considered it a good bargain.  but the buyer sold it again, receiving twenty-five dollars for it.

Big piles of buffalo skulls and bones lay scattered over the prairies.  Indian arrows in the skulls testified to the manner of death of the animals.  These bones were a source of income to the settlers.  They picked them up and sold them for as high as 18 dollars a ton.  It gave Vangen money to buy lumber for a frame house so he could move out of the sod shanty.  However, the bone piles did not last long when the Indians found out that the bones were worth money.  They swarmed everywhere over the prairie picking up the bones.

Vangen also has much else of interest to relate from pioneer days and later.  It was not always easy to get along.  There were few farm machines and implements in those days.  no modern threshing machines, only those operated by horse power.  Often it got late into the winter before threshing was finished.  Vangen recalled one time he threshed for Gabriel Gabrielson, at New Year's in bitterly cold weather.

Lake Sibley later became a rendezvous for hunters.  There was no fish in the lake, but an enormous lot of geese, and hunters came from far away places.  From Chicago there were many and those Chicago nimrods were anything but dry.  They brought large liquor kegs along and they drank firewater by the pail-ful.  It was not difficult to secure roast duck.  Vangen once fired a couple of shots into a flock of geese and then picked up 13 geese.  However, the birds did considerable damage to the crops, especially in the fall of the year.

Much has changed around Lake Sibley since Vangen came here in 1883.  His settler's sod shanty has long ago given way to a fine, modern two and one-half story dwelling and the virgin lands have become fields and meadows, the result of a long life of work and industry.  Vangen, as most farmers, is wondering how things will turn out if better times and more equitable conditions for the farmers do not come soon.  It was often difficult in the old days, but the farmers got along and forged ahead, while now many farmers lose everything that they have struggled to obtain these many years.

June 1932

Source: Griggs County History 1879 - 1976 page 178