Section 4: Bonanza Farms

In 1873, the Northern Pacific Railroad declared bankruptcy. All of its investors, the people who had put up the money to build the tracks and purchase the engines, were about to lose the money they had put into the company. They had one last chance to see some return on their investment.

Image 7: Plowing took place in the fall after the harvest work had been completed. Horses pulled single bottom plows in staggered rows across the field. A manager or foreman observes the work while one driver repairs harness behind him. SHSND A5811

 

 

Image 13: North Dakota Governor Jack Dalrymple is the great-grandson of Oliver Dalrymple. Oliver’s son, John S. Dalrymple, predicted Jack’s rise in politics when he was just a little boy. SHSND 31843.

 

Image 8: Oliver Dalrymple devised a careful system for farming thousands of acres economically. The Dalrymple Farms became famous throughout the United States for their size and productivity. Image courtesy Dalrymple Family. SHSND 2012-P-039.

 

Some of the investors decided to purchase railroad land at a very low price. Those who held railroad bonds simply exchanged their bonds for railroad lands. The Northern Pacific Railroad was a land-grant railway. The company had received 20 sections (640 acres per section) of land per mile of track. Much of this land, especially in the Red River Valley, had a deep layer of rich topsoil perfectly suited for growing wheat. The treeless, rock-free prairies of the Red River Valley gave men like Oliver Dalrymple the idea that farming on a grand scale could be very profitable.

These large farm operations of 3,000 to 10,000 acres became known as bonanza farms. (See Image 7.)These were not family farms; they were usually owned by one or two individuals who lived “in the East” or wherever home was. The farm work was overseen by a local manager. (See Document 1.)

Oliver DalrympleOliver Dalrymple had a son named John Stewart Dalrymple, who was known as Jack. Jack had a son, John Stewart Dalrymple II, who was called John. John had a son named John Stewart Dalrymple III, who is known as Jack. Today (2014), Jack Dalyrymple (J. S. Dalrymple III) is governor of North Dakota. (See Image 13.) His home (when he is not living in the Governor’s Mansion) is the same house that Oliver Dalrymple built for his family in Casselton. When the first Jack Dalrymple wrote a book about his father, Oliver, Jack addressed 6-year-old grandson, J. S. Dalrymple III (Governor Jack Dalrymple), at the end of the book: That’s it, Jackie. Maybe you’ll want to be a farmer, maybe not. You’re more of a talker than most of the Dalrymples and maybe you’ll be a lawyer or even a politician. But there’ll be days when you’ll go up to the old house and look out across the prairies and think what your father and your grandfather and your great-grandfather did there. Oliver Dalrymple was a man with a dream, and it came true. You can’t ask for more than that. From No. 1 Hard, Oliver Dalrymple, Bonanza Farmer by John S. Dalrymple, 1960, pg. 57. (See Image 8.) was one of the first farmers to see the potential of bonanza farming. He managed the bonanza farms belonging to General George Cass, P. B. Cheney of Boston, and the Grandin Brothers of Pennsylvania.

The farms belonging to Dalrymple, Cass, and Cheney together amounted to 70,000 acres. Dalrymple  was paid in land and also purchased land and became one of the state’s largest landowners. In 1874, the first year of cultivation, the farms raised wheat on 1,280 acres. Dalrymple’s men harvested 32,000 bushels, or 25 bushels per acre. News of this crop was “heard of ‘round the world' ” and created a lot of interest in North Dakota farm land. (See Image 9.)

Dalrymple developed a system of economy (See Document 2.) on the bonanza farms that made them very profitable. He purchased the newest most efficient machinery, he only employed men when he had work for them to do, and he managed his fields for maximum fertility. He also developed systems of feeding and housing his workers and livestock at the lowest possible cost.

Image 9: The readers of national magazines and newspapers were interested in Dakota bonanza farms. This drawing of plowing on the Dalrymple Farm was published in Harper’s Magazine in 1880. SHSND Harpers vol 60 p531

 

Document 2: Oliver Dalrymple’s Rules for an Economical Bonanza Farm

Oliver Dalrymple managed 10,000 acres of Cass County wheat farms and hired dozens of men to do the work. The Rules cover all of the work including how the horses were to be fed, the weight of market pigs, and each man’s wages. In establishing the rules, Dalrymple let each manager know exactly how to make the decisions which made the farm profitable. Source: John S. Dalrymple, No. 1 Hard, Oliver Dalrymple, Bonanza Farmer, 1960.

Image 10: Reaping wheat on the Dalrymple Farm in 1890. Binders were operated by one man who used several levers to cut and bind the wheat into bundles. In this scene, 40 binders are at work in one field. SHSND 0063-14.

 

Image 11: On bonanza farms such as the Bagg Farm, horse drawn plows lined up in a staggered row to plow the furrows across the wide expanse of the fields. There are thirteen plows in this photograph. SHSND 0355-09.

 

Image 12: Harvest hands at the Dalrymple farm pose by the dormitory during a quiet break from farm work. SHSND A4263.

 

 

Document 4: Assessed Values of County Property. Data is raw material for historians. It helps historians draw conclusions. This chart contains the data that helps us understand the importance of bonanza farms in eastern North Dakota. The chart titled “Assessed Valuation of the Several Counties of North Dakota” tells us what the total value of private property was in each county in 1897. If we look at Cass County (where the Dalrymple Farms, and the Amenia and Sharon Farm were located) we can see the economic impact of bonanza farms on the county’s wealth. The six wealthiest counties in the state are located in the Red River Valley. Source: Legislative Manual, North Dakota (later known as the North Dakota Blue Book), 1897.

 

At one time, Dalrymple’s bonanza farms owned 115 reapers – the machines that cut the grain and bound the wheat into bundles. (See Image 10.) So important was Dalrymple’s business, that when Cyrus McCormick invented a binder that used twine instead of wire, he traveled to Cass County in his private railroad car to see the machines at work on Dalrymple’s farms.

The reapers and other equipment were drawn by horses and operated by men. (See Image 11.) Both man and animal had a set amount of work to complete in a day. For instance, a horse pulling a plow that cut 2 ½ inches deep was expected to cover 24 miles per day; a horse plowing 7 inches deep walked 18 miles per day. A threshing engine and its team of operators were expected to produce 600 to 700 bushels of grain per day. Oliver Dalrymple knew the efficiency of every man, horse, and machine on the farm.

Each man was assigned to a portion of the farm. That division had a dormitory for the men to sleep in, a kitchen and dining room, and a bookkeeper and foreman. Each division had a barn and work horses, milk cows, and pigs. The horses were fed only by the hostler (a manager of horses), not by their drivers. The men were not allowed to drink or play cards. Dalrymple believed that these forms of relaxation interfered with the worker’s efficiency during the work day. Usually about 10 men were employed year round. The other workers, perhaps 1,000 of them, worked only during the seasons of seeding and harvesting. Pay varied with the work to be done. (See Image 12.)

The Bonanza farms had a huge financial impact on eastern North Dakota. (See Document 3.) The farms employed hundreds of people who contributed to the growth of Red River Valley towns. However, Bonanza farms grew smaller by 1900. Because of the success of the big farms, the value of land had risen and it was no longer profitable to farm in such large parcels. (See Document 4.) The era of the bonanza farms had passed by 1910, but they left their mark on the Red River Valley and North Dakota.

The Amenia and Sharon Land Company

There were many bonanza farms in the Red River Valley. One of the largest was owned and managed by the Chaffees, Eben W. and his son Herbert Fuller Chaffee, who was born in Connecticut in 1824, was a farmer and surveyor. Chaffee and his wife, Amanda, had two children. Their son, Herbert Fuller Chaffee, was born in 1865.

Around 1870, Eben and many of his friends bought shares of the Northern Pacific Railroad. They expected to make a good return on their investment until the company entered bankruptcy in 1873. About the same time the Northern Pacific declared bankruptcy, an early Cass County settler brought 1600 bushels of Scotch Fife wheat into Fargo. He had raised the wheat on 60 acres which he then sold for $1.25 per acre. That profit of $2000 on 60 acres caught the attention of many farmers and railroad investors around the country.

Chaffee and his friends (about 40 people from the region of Amenia, New York and nearby Sharon, Connecticut) formed the Amenia and Sharon Land Company to purchase 27,831 acres of Cass County land. Eben Chaffee was the single largest stockholder in the company with 82 shares.

The company originally intended to sell the land quickly. However, Oliver Dalrymple’s management of the Cass-Cheney farm indicated that the soil was fertile and farming could be very profitable. Chaffee decided it was better to hold onto the land and turn it into a good wheat farm. Under the direction of Eben Chaffee, the Amenia and Sharon Land Company began raising hard red spring wheat in 1877. Soon, a town called Amenia, grew up around the company’s headquarters.

Map 5: This 1893 plat map of Amenia Township in Cass County shows some of the land owned by or managed by H. F. Chaffee (shaded in light yellow.) Chaffee, his father’s estate, and the Amenia and Sharon Land Company together owned 10, 240 acres in Amenia township alone. The company owned land in four townships in Cass County. The dark shading to the southwest of the town of Amenia is probably a slough that has been drained and no longer shows up on modern maps or satellite images.

 

Though Eben Chaffee lived in Amenia, his family remained in Connecticut. Chaffee’s son Herbert, known as Bert, attended school in Connecticut and Massachusetts. He spent some summers in Amenia, Dakota Territory, and when he completed his schooling, he took an active part in the company’s business. At the age of 19, he demonstrated his business ability when he sold nine train carloads of wheat just before the wheat market dropped by three cents a bushel. With a strong start in the company, Bert married Carrie Toogood of Iowa, and brought her to Amenia. In 1888, Bert became the assistant treasurer of the company.

At the same time, the Amenia and Sharon Land Company was growing. It eventually included more than 42,000 acres, about 66 sections. (See Map 5.)

Eben Chaffee retired in March, 1892, and died a few months later. Without his good management, the other investors began to think of selling the land. By 1893, H. F. (Bert) Chaffee had acquired much of the Amenia and Sharon Land Company’s land and was general manager of the company.

Image 14: Herbert F. Chaffee died when the Titanic sank in the Atlantic Ocean on April 15, 1912. His wife, Carrie, survived the tragedy. She returned home to Amenia to continue managing the Amenia and Sharon Land Company farms. Courtesy, NDSU Archives.

 

H. F. Chaffee was, like Oliver Dalrymple, dedicated to efficiency in farming and utilizing all modern tools available. He bought a Cadillac automobile in 1903 and purchased new equipment for his farm. In 1892, he began to manage the land by a different method. Chaffee set up a lease system. Farmers could lease a 320 to 640 acres to farm on shares. The company would give a farmer the use of the land and the seed for planting. The farmer would work the land and provide the equipment and livestock. After harvest, the company and the farmer split the income fifty-fifty.

H. F. Chaffee was successful in managing the Amenia and Sharon Land Company. He added land, built an elevator and the Casselton Flour Mill, and brought railroad branch lines to Lynchburg and Chaffee. The Amenia and Sharon Land Company was in operation longer than most of the other bonanza farms because of H. F. Chaffee’s control of the company and management style.

In 1912, Chaffee and his wife Carrie traveled to England. (See Image 14.) They boarded the S. S. Titanic to sail home. On April 15, 1912, after the Titanic hit an iceberg, H. F. helped Carrie into a lifeboat. Herbert Fuller Chaffee remained on the ship as it sank into frigid waters. Carrie returned to her family in Amenia alone. When she died in 1931, she still owned 41 sections of good, fertile farmland.

African American Farmers

Small numbers of African Americans made their way to North Dakota to claim land for farms after the Civil War. By 1885, 13 African Americans had filed for Homestead land. They did not form rural black communities because the 13 were scattered over 10 different counties. Some of these farmers were never able to acquire more than 160 acres, but others found opportunities to become large landowners.

Isham Evans was a veteran of the Civil War. He most likely fought with the “colored troops.” Evans came to ND with A. F. Giddings who owned a 640 acre farm near Page in Cass County. Evans had been employed as Giddings’ servant, but In North Dakota, Giddings trusted the management of his farm to Evans. Evans with his wife and three children owned and farmed 160 acres which they later expanded to 320 acres. Evans spent the rest of his life on his Page farm.

Another African American Civil War veteran, William T. Montgomery put together a bonanza farm of more than 1,000 acres in Richland County. Montgomery had been born in slavery, but served in the Union Navy during the Civil War. After the war (during Reconstruction), he was elected constable and later treasurer of Warren County Missisippi. Montgomery was the first black man elected to public office in Mississippi. William’s father, Benjamin Montgomery, also a slave, had been encouraged to expand his education by his “owner,” Joseph Davis. He passed his illegal education on to his sons.

Map 6: Lithia was located in northern Eagle Township in Richland County. William Montgomery’s farm was located close to the railroad and to the Red River, an ideal location for good quality land and for transporting his crops to market.

 

By 1884, Montgomery had moved to Dakota Territory where purchased 640 acres (one section) from the Chicago, Milwaukee, and St. Paul Railway. The land was located in Eagle Township of Richland County. It was good land, two miles from Red River. Montgomery eventually increased his land holdings to 1,020 acres. He located his home near the northern boundary of his land holdings. He built a grain elevator nearby. (See Map 6. Lithia) A community grew up around his home and elevator which he named Lithia, after his mother. Montgomery’s substantial land holdings earned him notice from the territorial government as “commissioner for the colored department” representing Dakota at the 1884 New Orleans Industrial and Cotton Centennial Exposition.

By 1890, Montgomery was spending most of his time in Fargo, but continued to manage his Lithia farm. After losing money in some bad investments, Montgomery gave up his farm, but remained in North Dakota until at least 1897. He later returned to Mississippi which remained his home for the rest of his life.