In vain the experienced ranchers told the land-hungry homesteaders that Sioux County was "no farming country." There stretched the splendid smooth sections of gramma grass. There was the Pine Ridge covered with pine trees for log cabins. There were the canyons and valleys with gushing springs and clear flowing streams. And there was Uncle Sam offering a free homestead for five years' residence.

Nothing could stop the homesteader. He went for that land. And to crown his courage kindly Providence in 1889 sent rains the summer long. Such crops of wheat and corn and vegetables were harvested by the homesteaders where the ranch men told them it never rained after the Fourth of July. So the homesteaders captured the county government from the ranchmen and drove the cattle from the free range.

And then came the Drouth !

In this period the fame of Mrs. Bassett, the missionary merchant of Harrison, traveled far in the northwest. A letter written to secure certain early papers belonging to her husband's freighting experience brings the following letter from:

31 East 22nd Street, Portland, Oregon:

I am the daughter of a. Baptist minister, Rev. Gershom Buckley Day, who settled in Sturgis, Michigan, in the fall of 1836, doing pioneer missionary work.

Everybody was poor and a great deal of sickness made it impossible for the people to give needed aid to the missionary.

My mother was heir according to English law, of Sir Francis Drake through his senior brother Joseph. She with her needle supported the family for 13 years except the pittance contributed by the people.

In 1849 gold was discovered in California. At that time there was no machinery and only placer digging could be engaged in. Father said he could do as much good preaching to the miners as anywhere and could prospect for gold during the week. He decided to go to California in order to make money enough to support his family and educate his two daughters.

There were no church buildings and the California Indians saw the congregations who gathered in the open to hear him preach, thought him a white chief talking against them so they planned to watch when they might find him alone and killed him in 1852.

W. H. Bassett and I were married in 1867. In 1884 he contracted tuberculosis and died in 1886. His life was of much interest as he was engaged in freighting for the government for many years between Nebraska City and Pacific coast points.

His diaries were burned with all his effects in Nebraska City, thus losing the records of an eventful life. Though not converted until after our marriage he was a moral man and in hiring his men required them to sign a contract not to use vulgar language or profanity, nor to abuse their animals under penalty of discharge, which at that time would have been serious on the uninhabited prairie.

Mr. Alexander Majors, of the firm, Majors, Russell and Waddell, with whom he was associated in the freighting business came to see him just before he died and the meeting was a touching scene like the meeting of a father and son.

The streuous physical and nervous strain of his illness of twenty-three months impaired my health so that I was having night sweats and every indication of a permanent decline, when an estimable woman friend, Mrs. E. B. Graham, invited me to come to Nebraska and make my home with them at their ranch.

Nebraska offered good opportunities for loaning money and a friend in Sturgis, Michigan, wished me to loan a thousand dollars for her. I deposited it in the bank at Harrison until a favorable opportunity offered. The bank became involved, so the only way I could save the deposit was to buy the store with which it was connected. I secured two excellent helpers of ability and integrity, Mr. Conrad Lindeman and E. A. Weir, the latter a young man about nineteen.

In this new town when some of the cattlemen would return from having sold their stock in Omaha and have a spree they were determined that every man in town should join them. Those who did not drink were obliged to hide. One hid under the steps of the depot, another ran into my store through the back room, jumped out through the window and escaped through the darkness out on the broad prairie. If discovered they would be dragged to the saloon and compelled to drink.

One 5th of July morning one of the carousers got the hotel dinner bell and came ringing it vigorously to the store for my men. After he had persistently rattled the front for some time I got up and went to the door. When he saw me he ran as if an evil demon was trying to catch him.

On another occasion some one came to the west door. The store was on a corner and had two entrances. I was sleeping near the south door. I stepped out to inquire what was wanted. I went to the corner of the building and was surprised to find a man in his night attire. He, too, ran when he heard a woman's voice.

The bitter feeling of the liquor element expressed itself in threats, so my friends told me never to step out doors after dark alone, that I was in danger of bodily harm on account of my temperance principles. This was in the early days of free range when there were no fences and cattle roamed at will over the public land.

A short time prior to this a young school teacher was married and came to western Nebraska stopping for a little while at Hay Springs before settling in Harrison. Hay Springs if possible was then more wild than Harrison. At Harrison they took a claim and lived in a shack made of lumber with cracks that one could stick their fingers through, which was all right in nice weather.

A little daughter came to this house and the mother endured much suffering with bealed breasts. No milk could be secured for the baby who died of starvation. There was no cemetery and the little one was buried on the claim near Harrison. When an effort was made later to have the remains removed to the cemetery no trace of them could be found. Thus the little body rests beneath the wild flowers awaiting the awakening trump of the resurrection morn.

There was no doctor at Harrison at this time. Water was hauled in barrels for family use. A rancher from over twenty miles away saw the house, called for a drink and found the woman in this pitiful condition. He told her he had a brother who was a doctor and he would send him to her. The doctor relieved her greatly and a year ago the lady told me she thought Dr. E. B. Graham saved her life at that time.

Having been a Bible class teacher in Michigan I organized a class in Harrison and conducted religious services from time to time in the hall. At the close of one of these services the only cyclone that has ever been known in Harrison seemed to tart just west of the town. It consisted of two columns each about as large as a barrel, which moved slowly eastward until it came to Main street, when it turned south and followed the fleeing citizens who were running from it at a right angle from where they first saw it. Afterwards one of the men said: "I glanced back and the thing was just following us." In its path stood a small house made of lumber. It was torn into splinters. The cook stove was carried nearly half a mile and the stove pipe, table and chairs, broken and carried farther. The chickens were killed, their feathers picked off and scattered.

I had just concluded a religious service in the hall which was up stairs at the four corners of the town. There came a little dash of rain with large drops so I waited to see if there was going to be more rain. Everybody else had gone. I stood looking out of the west window when I saw it start and watched it progress and demolish the building above referred to, I said to myself, "The Lord can take care of me here just as well as anywhere." I watched it approach, there was every indication that the building I was in would be wrecked. Then it turned south. I did not experience fear. I seemed to have the assurance that the Lord would take care of me even if the building was razed. Many exciting incidents occured from time to time while the town was so new, viz. :

When savage Indians were reported on their way to Harrison. This was a night of terror everybody expecting before morning the horrors of a massacre. The rumor proved false and the tension was relieved the following day.

The Sioux tableland is fine. Good people have been attracted to Harrison, because of its healthful climate.

The better element prevails and now it is a pleasant town with modern homes, good lawns and beautiful flowers.