Histories

David W. McCutchan is the tenth child of Samuel McCutchan and Sarah Reasor. His mother died when he was eight. His oldest brother is believed to have died shortly before her, and two older sisters also. Numerous aunts, uncles, and cousins lived nearby. We could assume they provided support for this motherless family, but there is no knowledge of any special relationships other than the father. As the sons reached adulthood, they all scattered to neighboring Crawford and Harrison counties, or to other states. Josiah, the surviving eldest brother, headed about 1855 to Wayne County, Iowa, probably with a group from Indiana. Many born in Floyd County, Indiana are found in the Iowa censuses. Later, David and possibly another brother (a Sam is often mentioned in Fanny's letters to Iowa, but he is not identified as the brother), joined Josiah, now married. Josiah-- or Joe as he was referred to in their letters-- was ten years the elder; he must have assumed a big brother- mentor role for David. A photo of Josiah and his family not included in this history shows the two brothers strongly resembled each other physically, down to the white beards. They maintained fond ties all their lives, although neither was a very frequent letter-writer, and they did not see much of each other after David left Iowa. In 1865 or 1866 (different sources give each year), both McCutchan brothers moved one county west to Decatur, for reasons unknown. These counties border Missouri, in the southwest part of Iowa. David helped Joe on his farm east of Leon, then worked for a family named Gammons in the same Eden township neighborhood. 

David met young Fanny Bassett, who shared his February birthday and had also lost her mother at an early age. They may have met at Eden Prairie Church, or through their mutual friends, the Gammons. They married in 1870, and lived on a Gammon farm. In the 1870s the new state of Kansas was opening for settlement. Railroads and the government offered cheap or free land to homesteaders. To qualify, one had to be over twenty-one, a U. S. citizen or show intention to become one, file a claim, live on it for five years, build a house and plow the sod. This was the best opportunity for a young man to obtain his own land. Owning property was the only way for a farmer to improve his economic status. In 1871 Dave (as his wife called him) went with his wife's step-mother's brothers, Ol (Oliver) and Ed (Edgar) Durham, on horseback to check out this territory. Rumors of the possibilities as well as Kansas' reputation as a desert wilderness had to be seen and verified. The Durham bachelors immediately homesteaded in Jewell County. David and Fanny set a goal to soon accept the challenge of homesteading. David taught school for two terms to save money for the essentials to get started. That list probably included horses, wagon, household goods, corn seed and farming equipment including a strong sod-breaking plow, and some basic food stocks. Everything had to be loaded onto only one wagon. Letters mention leaving good linens and clothes behind, at least temporarily. We can imagine the months of conversations and excitement mixed with sadness at leaving the known for the unknown hazards, taking suggestions of interested friends and relatives, absorbing letters from the homesteaders already there. The fact that David was qualified for teaching indicates he had at least an eighth grade education and an inclination for learning. At that time, an eighth grade graduate could teach common school if his or her test score was high enough. Eight years of formal schooling was the norm, especially in rural areas. Besides qualifying one for teaching, operating a store, working at a bank, or going on to college, an eighth grade certificate was enough to begin apprenticeships in many professions, including law, pharmacy, and medicine. It was a comprehensive education. In many ways it was the equivalent of today's high school diploma. The basics were thoroughly learned. Of course, not everyone was able or willing to regularly attend school for eight years. This was an agricultural-based economy. Most jobs required little skill beyond physical hard labor. 

At last, as soon as the five or six month school term was over, on March 27, 1872, Dave and Fanny loaded up, and began the journey to Kansas. They also took along her teenage brother George (the baby she cared for as a child) to help with the move, and a dog, Rover, for company and help on the farm. They camped along the way. At Pawnee City, Nebraska, they had to leave a lame horse. But by April 4, 1872, they were writing from Aurora, Kansas, where they were staying with the Durham brothers, then bachelors, in their stone shanty that had no windows or floor. Dave went a few miles south, into Mitchell County, and selected his homestead. "Every foot of it can be farmed," they were proud to report. And Fanny said a man they met bragged that anywhere in Kansas you "could get firewood by going no farther than twelve miles." This was evidently to reassure the Iowa folks that they would manage on the Kansas prairie. On April 12, 1872, at the Concordia land office, they applied to homestead the 160 acres of SE 1/4, Section 17,

range 6W, T65 in Lulu township of Mitchell County. Under the 1862 Homestead Act the settler paid $10 legal fees and half the commission ($4) for the land to be "held at $1.25 an acre." After living on the land and cultivating it continuously for five years, he had to appear within the next two years at the district land office to offer proof of settlement, pay the remaining commission, and receive the final certificate of title and patent. Because of weather and pressing tasks, he returned only three days before the time expired, and received the patent #8576, dated April 9, 1879, signed by President U. S. Grant. [information on homesteads at Kansas History Center]. If he had $200 cash, he could have bought his claim after six months of residence, provided suitable improvements had been made on one or more acres, but cash was always a scarce commodity on the frontier. Veterans received favorable time waivers. Someone else also filed on this property, and when David learned that, they had to stay in Beloit for several days to present his proof to the judge. They missed seeing some relatives passing through just then, but fortunately the land controversy ended in his favor. In 1872, the McCutchans found Mitchell County a sea of virgin prairie--buffalo grass waving in the wind, colored in season by sunflowers and other wildflowers, but not a tree in sight except along the rivers and creeks. Fanny commented about the amazing wind, so strong that a man couldn't even keep a hat on his head! Although the buffalo herds had already followed most of the Indians farther west, jackrabbits, lots of prairie dog towns, antelope, and many other wildlife shared the space. Just a few other homesteads were visible on the lonely horizon, still fewer roads. First, Dave plowed and planted corn. Fanny put in a garden. Then a dugout had to be made, and a well to replace the walk to the creek springs. Fortunately, the first year was decent weather wise, and a crop was harvested. The next four years were difficult. The threat of prairie fires was real, the weather unpredictable. The worst disaster was the dark clouds of grasshopper invasions in 1873, and again in '76-'77. The insect hordes ate tree leaves, flowers, vegetables, even potatoes underground. People were left without any food supply for the winter, or seed to plant for the next year's crops. Kansas had to have aid. Fanny wrote in 1873 that everyone was "to the bottom of their pocketbook. You cannot get work for money for no one has it." Newspaper accounts spread word of the disaster, and food and clothes were collected to help the Kansans, including Dave and Fanny, survive. Many had to return to where they came from and spend the winter with relatives. Some never came back. But Fanny and Dave persevered. It wasn't long before their temporary 10 x 12 dugout of prairie sod cut into blocks about 12"x 2" x 20" and laid like bricks for the walls, with a roof of twigs and soil (sod) placed over a central ridge pole, was replaced by a more comfortable and safer stone house. Here all four children were born. They lived in it until building a bigger, six-room frame house for their growing family in 1885.

Sometimes they felt all the bad luck those first years was like a judgment. In 1876 corn sold for 15 cents, wheat 50 cents, and potatoes, 30 cents a bushel. Many years David was holding on to his crop, hoping for the price to rise before he had to sell. They often traded produce for other needed purchases, like the span of mules he bought that year for $1.50; only thirty-five cents of it was cash, the rest was paid in wheat, corn, hay, and potatoes. Wolves ate the chickens. Then a horse died, and he had to borrow one until he could afford to buy another. Pigs died from a disease that caused the area problems for years. Always was the challenge of enough hours to do all the field work as each year he plowed and planted more acres. He planted 108 peach and 35 apple trees by hand. That task left his hands so swollen he couldn't write for a while! Tree planting was encouraged to hold the moisture and improve the soil. A certain number made it a timber claim, for which the government paid them. Plus trees provided shade and a break from the constant wind. Also, fruit to can for winter use, and to make cider, a popular drink, added much to the quality of life. They planted Osage orange hedge to try to herd the stock, but it sapped the ground nearby of moisture, and was difficult to trim. In the 1880's, when Dave could afford it, he finally began fencing some of the property with wire. That made Fanny happy as then her precious flowers and berries could thrive undisturbed by the free-ranging stock. At one time they owned the horses Cherry and Tanner, two cows, three calves, eight hogs, and three pigs. One year Fanny raised turkeys to sell so they could buy the children Christmas gifts.

Slowly but surely, David improved and increased his farming operation. By 1879, with a loan from Josiah he was able to buy another 80 acres. By 1882 he owned all 240 acres. Upon his death in 1916, each of his four children inherited 160 acres. As well as successfully farming, David spent a total of twenty-two terms teaching school, at considerable sacrifice for him and his family. But it brought in income, and he probably also enjoyed being a teacher. The first school in Lulu township was on West Asher Creek, in a dugout. It opened the same year he arrived. Because of the sparse population then, it was difficult to get the subscriptions to pay a teacher (the amount each patron paid sometimes depended upon how many acres was owned, and always "per pupil"). So David had to go where he could find a good position. He taught at West Asher, Riverside, Center, and Cross Roads schools, according to his obituary. Twenty-two terms does not necessarily mean twenty-two years, as some districts had two short terms squeezed between the seasons of farm work, when students could attend more regularly. A history of Mitchell County rural schools by Louise Dooley, who taught Betty and Carol at Solomon Rapids School, tells that the first school in the county was organized in 1869. It says in 1874 some teachers received about $30 a month for a six-month term. In their letters, Fanny reports Dave got $22 a month in 1874, and he had to walk or ride four miles across country to the school. The school district usually provided a place for the teacher to board. Then they could pay less in salary. The McCutchans also sometimes boarded a teacher, or preacher, or just a family passing through. Reference is made in some letters to the whole family moving temporarily to another place nearer his school for the term. Fanny was always very glad to get back to her own home. Texts used at school were McGuffey's and Wilson's Readers, Ray's Arithmetic, McNalley's Geography, and Willard's US History. Fanny's comment in writing to a friend in 1891 is interesting: "I suppose when your children go to school you will be surprised how much they will learn that is not in their books, that is the worst of starting little children to school."

Records show that the fifty school buildings in Mitchell County in 1875 were built ( in descending numbers) of post rock stone, log, or frame. By 1880 the majority of the 89 schools were frame or stone. A surviving example of post rock construction with extra embellishments is the District #3 school east of Beloit, built in 1883. Inside a school was a box grate stove which the teacher tended, and long benches for the students. If the teacher was fortunate to be in a supportive and well-off district, there might be a blackboard, writing slates, and adequate furniture. The school was also often used as a church and community gathering place, for evening spelling schools and singing schools. David taught singing school which people subscribed to, and also gave private singing lessons. He himself had perfect pitch and "a superior" tenor voice. For years he directed the community choir at Scottsville for special observances such as Decoration Day. He also sang solos and duets at church. A favorite solo was "My Mother's Bible." In the 1880s his home included a pump organ. Church was an important part of their lives, as a matter of faith and of community. At first there was no preacher, but David still went the four or five miles to the West Asher Christian Church for services. They were charter members there. As more people moved into the area, there were 10-day protracted meetings (evangelistic preaching and singing) three times a year.

By 1876 there were about 65 in the congregation. Fanny often had to miss church because of the weather and sick children. In 1891 they helped organize, and were charter members of, the Fairview Christian Church. The congregation met at the Fairview school, one mile west of their home, until building a church a few years later just across the road and a little south from their property. A devout man who often talked of his faith and wrote testimony of it in his letters, David and his family provided leadership in this church as long as they lived there. Their children and grandchildren attended this church. The railroad, that harbinger of advancing civilization, reached Lulu township in the late 1870s. It took a corner of David's land. The McCutchans boarded railroad workers as it was being constructed. The railroad also sparked the plotting out of the town of Scottsville. In 1879 it was incorporated, just nine years after the first settler arrived in the township. One source in the county museum's Scottsville room said it was probably named for a railroad official. Perhaps David was pleased for sentiment's sake to once again be near a Scottsville village, as he was in Indiana. Names did seem to follow him. The boyhood church was Mt. Eden, and in Iowa he was affiliated with Eden Prairie Church. For some time, the Kansas Scottsville thrived. The Scottsville Independent in 1886 told of immigrants still coming at the rate of a dozen prairie schooners a day. Daily trains provided not only an easier, faster route for passengers to and from Beloit and elsewhere, but freight service to markets for the farm crops and produce. Churches and a stone school that went through two years of high school were built. Advertising into the early 1900s were a local doctor, lawyer, bank, lumber yard, mill, and several stores. Parades, fairs, and entertainments were held. But later, major highways were laid elsewhere, the population declined, and the town faded. David was a member of the Fairview School board for thirty years. He also served on the board of county teachers' exam, was a trustee of Lulu township, and a justice of the peace, performing a number of marriage ceremonies. He was a county assessor and took the 1880 and 1890 censuses in

Lulu township. He was "an industrious and careful businessman" willing to do whatever was available to be a good citizen and provider for his family. Our mother always had a special bond with him, talking fondly of him, and proud of the photo of the two of them, when she was four years old. [see photo section] Perhaps he also had a special attachment to her mother, his firstborn daughter. Fanny's letters mention she can't recall that Dave ever

bought Christmas gifts for anyone but Cora, who received from him as a child a little rocker and as a young woman a "teacher's Bible." Both daughter and granddaughter shared his love of music. David remained on his farm after Fanny's death. His daughter Annie lived there also. He probably visited with the other adult children in turn, as was the custom then. On August 6, 1915, he suffered a stroke which incapacitated him for several months. He died January 3, 1916. He had prepared his own funeral arrangements. It was held at Fairview Christian Church. The minister was Rev. G.D. Sellers of Jewell, a family friend from boyhood days.

Fanny was the third child and first daughter of Jane Henry and Elias Bassett. Fanny lived in turbulent times of national movement and situations beyond one's control. Her life reflects both. Her father was evidently following the American dream of adventure and land and success by ever moving westward to better situations. Her mother was his second wife, by whom he had at least seven children. About 1854, judging by birthplaces of the children declared in the 1860 Iowa census, the family moved to Winneshiek County, Iowa. This is in the northeast corner of Iowa. When Fanny was nine, her mother died, leaving a three month old baby. Fanny's sister-in-law, Vina, said that Fanny took care of him until her father remarried two years later. Possibly someone, maybe the neighbor who became his wife, was hired to help, too. But a pioneer family was subject to hardships, and all in the household were expected to do their part of the work that had to be done. In 1860 Melissa Durham became her step-mother. She was only a few years older than some of the children. The Durham family influenced Fanny's life in a different way a decade later, leading the way to a particular area of Kansas. But in the 1860s it was the Civil War that uprooted Fanny's family. Her two older brothers joined the army, and never came back. For lack of labor, and perhaps to get away from sad memories of "might have been", Elias moved his family to a southwestern Iowa county in the mid-186os, when Fanny was a teenager. She made many dear friends in Decatur County, including the man who became her husband. They lived in the same neighborhood, and were active in the same church, Eden Christian, which she joined in 1867. David, like her father, had a desire to make a better life in new territory. They saved money for two years after their marriage and then put their belongings in a wagon, and headed for a homestead in Mitchell County, Kansas. Their first letter back home was sent from Aurora, a post office in Prairie township of Jewell County, one mile from the Mitchell County border. They were staying nearby with Melissa's brothers who had already built a rustic stone house on a Prairie township homestead, until their own dugout could be made. These were usually of half sod, and half dirt. They were quick to make, and good protection from the weather and prairie fires, but also dark, hard to keep clean, and shared by bugs and rodents--at best a temporary shelter. Once when Fanny was sick, she saw a snake crawling down from the roof. It was not long after (in 1873 or '74) that their small stone house was built, with one of the area's first shingled roofs, as a hindrance to snakes! She also suffered an accident while going back and forth over the prairie to their land: a shotgun in their lumber wagon went off from the jostling around, and Fanny was shot in the heel. She was laid up for some weeks and in pain when it became infected. The only medicine they had was wrapping it in a chaw of tobacco. Neighbors obligingly chewed. The juice was effective. David pitched in while she was ill and she tells of him getting up in the night to work and set yeast bread to raise for baking. It turned out well. 

We are fortunate that about two dozen letters have been kept and returned to our family, of many that the young couple wrote to Vina Gammon, a friend in Iowa who later married Fanny's brother, Obed. They reveal Fanny's personality and glimpses of life on the Kansas prairie of the 1870s-1890s. These hardy pioneers never really complained about their simple, rigorous lifestyle. Fanny sewed, scrubbed, gardened, cooked, milked the cow, everything but field work-- she said she wasn't stout enough for that. There were many long, lonely days when Dave was gone teaching or working in the

fields. The nearest neighbor was half a mile away, the nearest woman several miles away. Social occasions were few. Most revolved around church and school, which were often the same place. Singing was enjoyed, and sometimes oyster suppers. Christmas was not often a time of gift-giving; no one had money to buy gifts. Letters were written in this fashion: Fanny wrote, then if David had something to add, he turned the paper around and wrote between the lines. Sometimes they made apology for taking so long to reply, but they had no paper. The village of Scottsville was not established until 1879, the same year the railroad came through. Although rural free delivery of mail was not common until the 1890s, there was a post office and church and school at West Asher, which was located along what is now Route Nine, about three miles south of them. But for supplies those first years, they had to make a long all day trip by horse and wagon to Beloit, ten miles away. Fanny sent these lines one month after arriving in Kansas (am not sure if they are original or just appropriate lines of a selected poem):

True friendship based on mutual worth,

Survives the fleeting hours of mirth;

Outlives the dreams of youth;

In adverse hours more closely clings,

And to the heart new pleasure brings,

Of wisdom, faith and truth.