CRAWFORD, JAMES M. AND MARY M.(HARMON)
James Crawford was born on an Island in the Mississippi River, near Burlington, Iowa January 9, 1835 to parents John Crawford, born in Orange County, North Carolina, February 10, 1809 and Polly McCoy of North Carolina, born July 24, 1812. James was the 2nd child of a family of 9 children. The family settled near Winterset, Iowa. Mary Melvina was born March 17, 1848, the oldest of the John Harmon and Sarah Gobel (married November 7, 1846), family of ten children. John's birth, December 11, 1816 and Sarah's April 12, 1830. James Malachi and Mary Melvina were married August 25, 1867 at Winterset, Iowa. Their children were Albert O., born June 17, 1868; Arminda Clara, born May 6, 1874; Ida Myrtle, December 16, 1882. Each girl died suddenly about 2 years of age.
Albert did not have a gun or steel traps but he learned to make traps and snares to catch scarce game in Iowa, to supplement the meager meat supply.
Husking bees and quilting parties were social events. Three people worked at the same wagon, one man picked and removed shucks on the left of the wagon, one down the row the wagon straddled and the third worked on the right side. Some farmers who didn't have that much help available would harvest their corn with the husks on and later a husking bee would be held with neighbors husking the corn. Shucks probably would be saved and used to make mattress for beds.
In 1883 the James Crawford family moved to Boone County, Nebraska where they lived for 5 years. Albert liked it better there for there was game to hunt and trap and he was fortunate enough to get a muzzle loading shotgun. While living in this area, they became acquainted with the LeLaCheur family, who soon moved to a homestead north of Mullen, Nebraska. LeLaCheurs liked the Sandhills and persuaded the Crawfords to have a look at it. So in the fall of 1887 James and Albert started out with a team and wagon for the Sandhills. They followed the Cedar River to a point east of Burwell, then to Burwell, following the North Loup River west through Kent, Taylor, Brewster, Purdum and west to where Calf Creek enters the North Loup, then to a point north of Seneca, about two miles north of the Middle Loup River, north of Kelso, a siding on the railroad. At that time Hooker County had not been organized, which previously had been the western part of Thomas territory. Arrangem-ents were made to file on the land as a Tree Claim of 160 acres. Then they started on the long trip home ot Boone County, where they had to pick corn, get fuel for winter and get ready for the move to Hooker County next spring. Getting ready for the moved required much careful planning for they would have to bring everything they would need for all summer for there would be no place to buy it after they got there, also enough trees to plant ten acres, was a must.
The family arrived at the new claim April 20, 1888. This was their “free land'' they had been so anxious to have for so long, a real treasure to have their own land. They lived in a tent all summer while they planted cottonwood, ash and walnut trees and broke prairie with a sod plow and planted corn on it. They were bothered terribly with flying gnats any day the weather was warm and the wind not blowing. They used bacon grease on their ears and neck for a repellent and sometimes would tie a handkerchief over their nose and mouth to keep from inhaling them. All the water used was hauled from the river, two miles south. There was nothing to fence with so the three horses and two cows had to be picketed out with ropes so they could graze. Steve James, about six miles northwest, was the nearest neighbor at the time.
Late that summer they moved to the homestead in Thomas County, adjoining the Hooker County line and due east of the tree claim. They secured the services of John Carney, who lived about a mile east of Seneca, to help them locate the boundaries of this homestead. John knew where a section corner was at Rutland, the new railroad siding on the Hooker-Thomas county line. They measured north to where the southwest corner of the homestead would be.
A sod house, sod barn and sod corrals were built in time for use that winter. Corn fodder was hauled from the tree claim four miles west, to feed the stock and the few chickens. Corn fodder had to be used for hay the first 2 years, then a mower was obtained and Albert cut and hauled hay from the deserted Bar Seven Bull Ranch on the river 2 miles east of Norway. It is most difficult for people of today to realize at that time there was grass only in the valleys and small pockets in the hills and the hills themselves were all but bare of vegetation, which the early explorers before called the Sandhills “The Great American Desert''. The growth of grass on the hills did improve rapidly the next 15 years as did the number of different kinds of grasses.
Albert became old enough to be eligible to file on a homestead about 2 years after he and his folks came. He took land across the line in Hooker County, and built a sod house about 100 yards from his parents home. After the Kinkaid Act in 1904 he took land adjoining on the east and built a sod house a 1/2 mile northeast of his claim soddy making him 640 acres. He later built frame improv-ements there.
The railroad opened all freight trains for people needing to go to the north side of Seneca by footbridge. On December 2, 1905, at noon as James was passing between the cars, an engine pushed the cars together to make up a train, pinning him between the couplings. Death came soon afterwards. Mary lived in her home till her death in 1918, August 9th. Her many friends called her “Aunt Vine'', or Vine, short for Melvina. During WWI she knitted many pair of sox, mittens, and sweaters for the Red Cross, also did quilting for a hobby.