Go West, Young Man

This article originally appeared in the Buffalo News as part of a series of articles I wrote through the Niagara County Historians Office. Stay tuned, there will be new historical articles and photos coming out on East Niagara Post. 

The chugging of the train sounded like a heart beat; the cadence changing as the engine reduced speed.  Larimore, Dakota Territories, was not an official railroad stop so the train slowed to allow a group of men to jump off.  This new band of intrepid homesteaders was from Niagara County, NY, eager to try their luck on the western prairies.

Willard T. Ransom, George H. Webb, Hiram McNeil, E.H. Baker and Artemus Comstock had arrived in the area which became Grand Forks County, North Dakota, a community mostly settled by families from Niagara County.  On June 21, 1882, at the store of Ransom & Baker, it was voted to name the new settlement “Niagara.” 

Surprisingly, only 75 years earlier, Western New York had been the frontier.  British occupation of Fort Niagara until 1796 discouraged early settlement by Americans.  Niagara County, formed in 1808, also included modern Erie County.  Slowly, the area developed small, thriving communities, but growth was stunted by the ravages of the War of 1812.  At the time of its burning in December 1813, the village of Lewiston consisted of twelve houses, some warehouses and a Post Office.  Buffalo, the capital of Niagara County, boasted about 100 homes, stores, courthouse and a jail.

With the completion of the famed Erie Canal in 1825, settlers began to arrive in large numbers with cities like Lockport popping up overnight.  For some, feeling squeezed by this burgeoning population and bitten by the itch to discover what lay beyond the horizon, the lure proved to be too great and the westward trek continued.  In the late 1830s and early 1840s, many men and families pulled up stakes and headed west.  In 1838, Joel McCollum, a Lockport pioneer, bought huge tracts of land in Michigan and was instrumental in organizing the Village of Hillsdale.  Today, Hillsdale County boasts of the Townships of Cambria, Ransom, Somerset, and Wheatland – in honor of those New York communities left behind.

Still, for some enterprising souls, Michigan was barely far enough to satisfy them.  There was much more land farther west.  In 1880, a group of Niagara County men traveled to the Dakota Territories to homestead. 

In a series of letters, Artemus W. Comstock detailed the frontier life as he and his family moved into the Dakotas.  In February 1882, he and several others filed claims on 320 acres at Grand Forks for land nearby.  The weather there was harsh.  “When we first got to Grand Forks the railroad beyond was blocked with snow.  We stayed at hotel.  Early in morning, heard of train heading for Larimore, 30 miles west.”  When they arrived at Larimore, they still had 15 miles to trek through the snow and cold to their stakes.

Of the 320 acres they received, 160 acres had to be lived on and farmed.  The other 160 acres, by terms of the Homestead Act were to be forested.  Most of the time they planted wheat on their plots and they assisted other settlers when harvest time arrived.

While the winds whipped snow across the open plains dropping temperatures as much as 30 below zero, the settlers sought refuge in sod houses.  These structures were more prominent on the prairie than log cabins due to the lack of wood for building materials.  The thick roots of prairie grass were conducive to holding the sod together in the construction of a house.  Cut squares of sod were piled together to form walls with roofs of sod, straw, or in some cases timbers.  These homes were inexpensive and well insulated, but vulnerable to snow, rain and snakes.

According to Comstock’s letter, dated April 23, 1882: “Where our new house is located it is very dry and pleasant.  We can see many new houses in different directions, about a mile apart.  Our claim is quite level and I am pleased with most of it.  I don’t think there is more than a wagon-load of stone on it.  We can see prairie fires in most every direction.  At night they look beautiful.  Buffalo bones are scattered all over this country and well-beaten paths are in every direction, where they have traveled over, indicating it was a favorite resort.”

Some of the settlers, however, were disillusioned.  The Lockport Daily Journal reported on Comstock’s homesteading party merely a month after they left New York.  “Just four weeks ago a number of gentlemen of this city left for Dakota.  The visions of a mild sunny climate with milk and honey were prominent in their minds….A glance at the country and several weeks’ experience of a Dakota winter have tended to dispel the romantic picture and they determined to lose no time in returning to civilization.”

Artemus Comstock worked his claim diligently in Dakota Territory, but he died unexpectedly on April 27, 1882. Going out to plough his fields, he did not return at lunchtime as expected.  His daughter, Addie, went out to look for him and found him dead from a heart attack.  Artemus was a member of the clan who settled in Cambria at the corner of Comstock and Saunders Settlement Road in 1822 and was a man of some influence.  Before Westward fever hit, Comstock was a member of the New York State Assembly for Niagara County.  Upon his death, his body was returned to his native Cambria, NY for burial.

In 1898, the Niagara County Board of Supervisors, precursor to the current County Legislature, had a committee report on lands in Dakota owned by the county.  “Your committee on the Dakota lands owned by Niagara County report that upon investigation we find that the lands are mortgaged and are situated in one of the poorest sections of North Dakota and are unimproved and a source of no revenue to the county, and that taxes and interest are accumulating yearly.”

The government here in New York held a stake on 480 acres of land in Niagara, North Dakota after it was turned over by J.J. Arnold as “partial reimbursement for his peculations [embezzlement] from the county funds.” John Jacob Arnold, a manager of Merchants National Bank and Niagara County Treasurer, was convicted of embezzling funds from the bank where he worked and also from County funds while serving as Treasurer.  Arnold was sentenced to seven years and four months at Auburn State Prison, although it appears he served less than two years and moved to Ohio and Alaska after his release. 

From a population of nearly 400 in 1900, by 1910, the population dropped 60% to 157 people.  Although they showed a slight rebound in the 1920s and 1930s, the small North Dakota community has steadily shrunken.  The 2010 census shows only 53 people residing in Niagara. 

The names of Ransom and Baker, like the store where the settlement was named, live on today as streets.  Both Ransom Avenue and Baker Avenue serve as the major thoroughfares in and out of town. How many of those 53 people can trace their history back to a small county in Western New York, where the spirit of adventure propelled them West?