ILLINOIS K1STO 
 
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 929.2 
 H289h 
 COP. 3 
 
 
 ANNIVERSARIES 
 
 HAUBERG HOMESTEAD 
 
 ROCK ISLAND COUNTY, ILLINOIS 
 
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IlliNOIS HISTORICAL SURVEY 
 
Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 
 in 2012 with funding from 
 
 University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/historymemoirsofOOhaub 
 
-:-■■> 
 $ 
 
 PRIVATE EDITION 
 
 PROPERTY OF 
 
 DESIGNED AND PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 
 BY WAGNERS PRINTERY, DAVENPORT, IOWA 
 
HISTORY and MEMOIRS 
 
 OF THE 
 
 HAUBERGS' 
 HOMESTEAD 
 
 Since the Indians Left 
 1851 • • 1941 
 
fJ*Ti ' * 
 
 ***&■,#■ 
 
FOREWORD 
 
 Iouis is having some folks in to help celc 
 ^ brate a double anniversary — the 90th 
 year since the farm was bought and the 75th 
 since the stone house was built. 
 
 These few pages are to show what the 
 people *were like who succeeded the Indians 
 on these premises. 
 
 "Haubergs 1 since the Indians left' 1 sounds 
 fanciful, but a title like that shows how new 
 this part of the New World really is. 
 
 John H. Hauberg. 
 
4 xi 
 
 t 3 
 
 First in possession of these acres, were the In' 
 dians. Next, and with no one in between, came 
 the Haubergs. One Hauberg has succeeded 
 another until ninety years have passed and they are 
 still enjoying possession. 
 
 It is traditional with the white man that he traces 
 his titles clear by means of an abstract of title, and 
 we will proceed accordingly: 
 
 Since we are not archaeologists — and also, since 
 even an archaeologist might not know the line of 
 title through prehistoric ages — we are obliged to start 
 our record of ownerships with the Sauk and Fox who 
 were in possession when history opened its eyes on 
 the scene. Black Hawk in his autobiography, dictated 
 in 1833 (p. 63) says: "Here our village stood for 
 more than a hundred years." He didn't say how 
 much more than a century, and since history agrees 
 that the Sauk and Fox were here about a hundred 
 years, we will give Black Hawk's statement credit for 
 101 years. Twenty 'nine years before Black Hawk 
 dictated his book, in 1833, his people ceded these 
 
lands, in 1804, to the United States. Assuming that 
 the suggested 101 years is correct, the Sauk and Fox 
 nation owned the land in question some 72 years. 
 
 After owning the country a dozen years, the 
 United States in 1816 ceded it to the Potawatomies, 
 Chippeways and Ottawas, and they in turn, after 
 an ownership of thirteen years ceded it back to the 
 United States, in 1829. Now the U. S. A. having 
 held the present Hauberg homestead lands for a per- 
 iod of twenty years, it deeded them, in 1849, to Elihu 
 B. Washburne, of Galena. Mr. Washburne was 
 speculating in lands and at no time did he come to 
 live on this farm. After two years of ownership he 
 sold the quarter section to John D. Hauberg under 
 date of October 17, 1851. 
 
 We have now traced the title through 209 years 
 — more than two centuries — which is a very long 
 time in this part of the world, as follows: 
 
 Washburne 2 years 
 
 Potawatomies et al 13 years 
 
 United States 32 years 
 
 Sauk and Fox 72 years 
 
 Haubergs 90 years 
 
 Total 209 years 
 
 The ninety years are divided as follows: 
 
 10 
 
John Detlev Hauberg, 1851 to 1862.. 11 years 
 Mark Detlev Hauberg, 1862 to 1918.. 56 years 
 Louis Detlev Hauberg, 1918 to 1941. .23 years 
 
 Total 90 years 
 
 All the above relates only to the eighty on which 
 the stone house and out-buildings stand. The rest 
 of the farm, now 340 acres all told, was added at one 
 time and another from various former holders of 
 title. 
 
 Nor are we making any claim to having been the 
 first of the white race to settle in the township. Fif- 
 teen long pioneer years had passed since John C. 
 Walker of Kentucky had made the record of being 
 the first settler, and Joseph Martin, born in Virginia, 
 who settled in 1837, boasted the honor of having 
 driven the first loaded wagon across the prairies from 
 Canoe Creek to Port Byron. He does not give the 
 date of this first penetration of the wilds of Coe 
 Township with a loaded wagon but it is possible that 
 it was fourteen years before our forbears in 1851 
 purchased their quarter section. 
 
 #• #• * -J6- •* ■& 
 
 What use the Indians had made of the present 
 Sugar Grove farm is not at all difficult to say. Speak' 
 
 11 
 
ing of the woods as they first found it, M. D. Hau- 
 berg in his "Memoirs," page 68 says: "Some of 
 the maple were three and four feet through and fifty 
 feet to the nearest limb. They were scarred as high 
 as you could reach from borings by people before 
 we came. I suppose the Indians used to boil sap there 
 before the white people came." And writing of his 
 first morning on the premises he says (p. 61), "After 
 breakfast we started to look over the farm. We had 
 not gone over thirty rods when the dogs chased up 
 a deer. We had not gone ten rods farther when they 
 chased up two more, and when we got up the hill 
 east of where our stone house stands now, they 
 chased out another deer." 
 
 Venison on the hoof; a creek serving as host to 
 a variety of fur bearing animals, bee trees, and Sugar 
 Maples of large size "scarred as high as you could 
 reach"! What wouldn't an Indian do here? 
 
 There were plenty of Indians in the old days. 
 Eight miles to the west, where Princeton, Iowa is 
 now, there was a village of Foxes, who belonged to 
 the United Nation of Sauk and Fox. Some sixteen 
 miles due east is today Prophetstown, Illinois. Form- 
 erly it was the town of the Winnebago prophet Wa- 
 bo-kie-shiek. His Winnebago brethren were none to 
 
 12 
 
particular where they got their subsistence. Down 
 where Rock Island is now — distant 25 miles from 
 Sugar Grove, there were some thousands of Sauk 
 and Fox. After 1816, the Potawatomies and others 
 owned this part of the country — "North of the 
 Indian Boundary Line," and their famous Chief 
 Shabbona was a frequent visitor in Rock Island long 
 years after all the other Indians had been removed 
 west. So it is anyone's guess who and when, in suc- 
 cession. 
 
 In our mind's eye let us build up the scene: A 
 few families have for years had a sort of first chance 
 at this woods. The first warmth of spring had 
 started the sap a-running. Here they come, men, 
 women, children, dogs, and ponies. They have a 
 large roll of matting made of cat-tail stalks, a quan- 
 tity of corn which was boiled on the cob, then cut 
 off and dried; a lot of beans and perhaps some strips 
 of dried squash; kettles little and big, for family 
 cooking and for boiling sap. The men brought 
 weapons and traps. They have not come to loaf . The 
 first thing they do is to see about some venison. Bear 
 bacon is good too if they should be so lucky. Mean- 
 while the women are putting up a shelter — a wick- 
 i-up, to be roofed with the cat-tail matting. Here is 
 
 13 
 
a scene of contented life; maybe there are visitors; 
 now a wild turkey graces the kettle, now a raccoon, 
 a few stomach aches from eating too freely of the 
 newly made sugar, or a like ache from eating too 
 much comb honey for wild bees are to be found in 
 many a hollow tree. By and by they begin to stir 
 about, getting ready to break camp for home. They 
 are to be loaded down with all their sugar, honey, 
 deer meat, furs of the raccoon, mink, otter and doubt- 
 less some skunk. The frame of the wick'i-up is left 
 standing and will be used a year hence. 
 
 WW WW WW 
 
 John D. Hauberg at the time of his purchase was 
 living at Moline, Illinois, and was forty-three years 
 of age. Water and wood were the highly prised 
 qualities which a farm must have to be a good farm, 
 and this place was rich in both. It included Sugar 
 Grove, so called because it consisted largely of sugar 
 maples, and here was a plenty of prairie ready to be 
 broken without the stroke of an axe. Always a great 
 walker, it is easy to see him in our mind's eye, hiking 
 up to the farm at every opportunity. The autumn 
 coloring of the maples which have thrilled all of us 
 down to the present time, were at the time of his 
 purchase doubtless in their most brilliant coloring. 
 
 14 
 
Through the winter, in the spring and summer, we 
 imagine him walking, planning, admiring his pur- 
 chase. 
 
 Going into the woods with axe and saw was sec- 
 ond nature to the new owner for that had been his 
 work in the Old Country. He had been employed 
 to leave his work there and come to a large estate 
 in Tennessee to serve as forester, and there he 
 made acquaintance with the accepted style of dwell- 
 ing in almost universal use among the frontiersmen 
 — the log cabin. The building of one for his own 
 family was now next in order on his program. 
 
 For the details of the building of the cabin, read 
 "Memoirs 11 by M. D. Hauberg, pages 61 to 64. It 
 tells of scaring up some deer; of a log shelter for 
 sugar-makers which they used, and above all it tells 
 who helped at the "House-raising, 11 because the list 
 includes most of the families which had thus far 
 staked their fortunes about the "High Prairie 11 as 
 this part of the county was known. It was a notable 
 and striking array; a new community of Americans 
 gathered from different parts of the country — Vir- 
 ginians, Kentuckians, Pennsylvanians, New Jersey- 
 ites — all of them descended from earlier immigrations, 
 
 15 
 
and now, a family in which five out of its eight mem' 
 bers had been born abroad. "There was Isiah Mar' 
 shall and his four boys, Joe, John, William and Brice; 
 Joe Martin and his three boys, John, James and Dave, 
 John Walker and son Tom, Hiram Walker and son, 
 Sam; Hiram Cain, John Marshall, Alec Abbott, Tom 
 
 Fowler and Thurlow Garrison That house 
 
 raising created a friendship that lasted as long as they 
 lived." Missing from the list are the Tunis Quicks 
 and sons and son-in-law Wesley Cain; the Larues; 
 the Deacon W. C. Pearsalls and doubtless some 
 others. 
 
 It is mid- April, 1853. The little home on the side 
 hill, on 14th Street in the 700 Block, Moline, is all 
 excitement. The wagon is being loaded; the oxen 
 are being brought around to be yoked. Mark is now 
 sixteen years of age, Dave is fourteen, and upon them 
 the family leans heavily for the success of their new 
 venture. Then there are Doris, Elizabeth, Cather- 
 ine and little Margaret. The last three were bom in 
 Moline. The baby, Margaret is just four months old 
 and a bit young for the twenty-odd miles of jolting, 
 first, over the stage road as far as Port Byron, and 
 then the trek across no mans land to Sugar Grove, 
 but the trip would take only a single day. Besides 
 
 16 
 
the family there was poultry, and presumably the 
 pigs nailed up in a crate; stove, bedding, etc., etc. 
 and the things they had brought up from Tennessee 
 — the old iron kettle, a couple of chairs, and not 
 least, the dog. The most precious property were the 
 heirlooms which had been brought from across the 
 sea — the big, heavy old trunk which had belonged 
 to Mrs. Hauberg's great great grandmother; the spin- 
 ning wheel which she inherited from her parents; 
 the leather-bound Bible which had been her grand- 
 parents 1 ; and the Lutheran hymn book, in leather 
 with silver clasp, the gift of her brother as they were 
 leaving for the New World. Then there was the 
 old cane to be looked after. It had been John D. 
 Hauberg's grandfather's and was doubtless handed 
 to the departing emigrants with a wish for good luck. 
 Goodbye, Moline and the friends and acquaint- 
 ances of four years; Moline with its 1 500 population; 
 John Deere Plow Works with its 22 employes, Dim- 
 ock & Gould with 25 hands, Pitts, Gilbert 6? Pitts 
 with the largest payroll of all, 30 men, and other in- 
 dustrial plants with the total impressive figure of 
 $520,500.00 of manufactured goods annually! 
 
 * 
 
 17 
 
The father is probably prodding the oxen on as 
 they head up the road beside the Mississippi river; 
 the two sons bringing up the rear with the ten addi- 
 tional head of cattle, for the family had been thrifty 
 as well as industrious. Some years ago, Mrs. Eliza- 
 beth Bracker who was about aged four at this time, 
 said the only thing she remembered about the trip 
 up from Moline was that they got stuck in the mud 
 in a low spot in front of where the Henry Sadoris' 
 lived. 
 
 * * * * * * 
 
 First, three yoke, then five yoke of oxen to a 22- 
 inch breaking plow turned the virgin prairie into 
 fields after the mode of civilization. Only wild fruit 
 the first few years; children, but no school; Bible and 
 hymn book but no church; settlers here and there, 
 all of them driving 'cross-lots wherever fancy or ne- 
 cessity prompted — no roads; eggs and butter and 
 grain and pork with but little or no market. But the 
 air was wonderful, the finest of water from a spring 
 down by the creek; a place to grow strong and build 
 character; and to dream, and to build foundations 
 under the dreams, and in the short period of three 
 years, things began to take shape. 
 
 It was the year 1856 John D. Hauberg graduated 
 
 18 
 
MRS. JOHN D. HAUBERG, FIRST LADY OF THE HOUSE IN THE OLD LOG CABIN. 
 
 from oxen to horses for his farm work; Rev. C. A. T. 
 Selle, a missionary of the Missouri Lutheran Church 
 that spring started church services at the Hauberg 
 cabin and Bible study, i. e. a confirmation class was 
 organised. A "Singing school" also was started, and 
 the 14 x 18 log house was beginning to mean some 
 thing to the community. The same year the com- 
 
 19 
 
munity decided to start a public school. They elected 
 a school board of three members to proceed to build 
 and to hire a teacher. The move uncovered some 
 odd ideas about the value of book learning. Jim 
 Larue, for instance, was against it, and said he would 
 rather spend his money for whiskey for his boys than 
 put it into a school! Amos Golden, Tunis Quick and 
 John D. Hauberg were the directors, and they were 
 the originators of what today is known as "Bluff 
 School." 
 
 A year later, Mr. Hauberg took on another re- 
 sponsibility. The county decided to drop its commis- 
 sion form of government and adopt township organ- 
 isation, and the first election, 1837, gave him the 
 duty, together with Messers Henry Lascelles and 
 Edward McFadden, to lay out public highways. 
 They were Coe Township's first road commission- 
 ers. 
 
 John D. Hauberg now had plenty of meetings to 
 attend. Building a school house, choosing teachers, 
 conferring with the other commissioners about roads; 
 church, confirmation class sessions, etc., etc. Noth- 
 ing great or glorious, but simply things which had 
 to be done by somebody. 
 
 Meanwhile his wife was anything but idle. The 
 
 20 
 
spinning wheel was kept whirring at every oppor- 
 tunity. The daughters had as part of their evenings 
 the task of carding wool, and thus had their part in 
 it. But if a neighbor had illness in the home and she 
 could help, everything else was dropped. In fact, she 
 felt compelled to care for a woman who was down 
 with smallpox — the family lived on the adjoining 
 farm to the south, and in this way the contagion was 
 brought into her own home and the three younger 
 daughters were pock-marked for life — a rather severe 
 penalty for her good intentions. The older members 
 had been vaccinated before leaving the Old Country, 
 and came through this trial without damage. 
 
 Those were the days of large families, and with 
 four daughters and two sons married and all living 
 within reach, she was on hand for nearly all of her 
 35 grandchildren, to say nothing of the neighbors 
 who were not related. We have never heard of her 
 receiving anything more than thanks, and the good 
 will of the community. Knitting stockings, mittens, 
 wristlets and scarfs for all these grandchildren was 
 quite a contract in itself. She read a book or news- 
 paper as she knitted, and kept up with the times and 
 the political trends of the day. At the 1940 reunion 
 of the Hauberg Clan, Margaret Bracker brought as 
 
 21 
 
an exhibit, a fine old "Log Cabin" design quilt, our 
 grandmother's creation, and everyone present mar' 
 veiled at the needlework involved. Mrs. J. D. Hau' 
 berg was the writer's grandmother. They lived on 
 our way to school and needless to say, we stopped 
 regularly because we never failed to score on the 
 cookie jar. Her house was immaculate. When a real 
 hard thunder storm was on, her household would 
 stop all work, sit about the room, erect in their chairs, 
 with hands clasped in their lap; silent — as if to say, 
 if our time has come, we are ready. 
 
 As mentioned above, the age of large families 
 yielded 35 grandchildren, then the styles changed 
 and there were only 24 great grandchildren, and to 
 date, ten great great grandchildren. 
 
 Church work and community service have been 
 liberally infused into the veins of their descendants 
 — children, grandchildren and great grandchildren. 
 Whether one regards such service, all voluntary and 
 unpaid, as helpful or otherwise, the fact remains: To 
 a very large proportion, they load themselves with it. 
 
 Together with his neighbors, John D. Hauberg 
 thought that a railroad would greatly advance the 
 community, and, with them he subscribed for stock, 
 
 22 
 
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and, like them he swallowed his grief, for the par- 
 ticular railroad which they backed with their money 
 was never finished. His enthusiasm for the future 
 of the High Prairie, and Coe Township in general, 
 coursed strongly in his veins. 
 
 Tax receipts in the writer's possession show that 
 within a few years from the time he moved to Sugar 
 Grove, John D. Hauberg had owned over 800 acres 
 in Coe Township, besides having held his quarter 
 acre on 14th Street, Moline. He was evidently specu- 
 lating, for at no one time did he own so much land. 
 Two trips were made to the U. S. land office at Dixon, 
 Illinois, in 1853, one on August 13th, when he placed 
 a military land warrant for 80 acres, and again on 
 October 12th when he pre-empted a quarter section 
 (160 acres) of land. It was on one of these trips to 
 Dixon that he did a remarkable feat at walking. He 
 did the entire round trip, a distance of at least 45 
 miles one way, inside of twenty-four hours. Of 
 course, he was in a hurry that day. Someone else 
 was after the same piece of land, but he arrived just 
 ahead of his competitor. The late CO Opdyke told 
 the writer that Mr. Hauberg on one of these trips 
 hoped to enter the farm then occupied by Opdyke, 
 but that Jacob Marshall was just a few minutes 
 
 24 
 
ahead of him, so there was one time when Mr. H. 
 was not fast enough. 
 
 The walk of 90 miles in one day would seem in- 
 credible, except that we find that others have covered 
 distances equally great in a single day. Much later 
 in life, he was still walking from his home in Coe 
 Township to Rock Island to visit his daughter, the 
 distance being 25 miles. He, however, would not 
 return the same day. 
 
 # * * * * * 
 
 A new chapter opens on the log cabin beside 
 Sugar Creek. Mr. Hauberg has leased the farm to 
 his two sons, Marx and Dave, and the elder couple, 
 together with the rest of the family, take up their 
 abode on other lands nearby. Were the young folks 
 lonely, so far from the lights of the city? Here is the 
 testimony of one of the pair: "We had some of the 
 best times of our life in that old log house. After 
 Dave and I got to batching there, we had no old 
 people around, and would invite the young people 
 of the neighborhood, and we'd dance all night, with 
 someone playing an accordeon, or sometimes only a 
 comb. Then we had mouth organs also and jews 
 harps but we couldn't dance to a jews harp because 
 it wasn't loud enough." 
 
 25 
 
The batchelors' quarters became a rendezvous 
 for the young men who were employed by the neigh- 
 boring farmers. At the log house was left baggage 
 not needed at their work. Here was a place where 
 they could go in or out any time of the day or night 
 and no one would be disturbed. The testimony of 
 those who lived in it was that the log house never 
 in its history was locked. If all left it, the last out 
 would stick a peg in the door frame which held the 
 door shut. The Civil War came along and naturally 
 was a topic of earnest conversation among these 
 young men. It is quite a record that from this group 
 making the old log house their home, nine men vol- 
 unteered in the Union army, one of whom reached 
 the rank of captain. 
 
 * # * * * * 
 
 And now we come to another change. Marx be- 
 comes romantic. He is making eyes at a daughter 
 of Henry Frels, a well to do pioneer, on Hampton 
 Bluff. What chance would a young, ambitious man 
 have with a young lady living in what for that day 
 was a very fine brick residence with big barns and 
 wide prosperous acres, while he himself could offer 
 only a log cabin, plus love, hope and faith? One day 
 
 26 
 
in a burst of confidence — this was after the above 
 mentioned suitor had passed his four-score years — he 
 told the writer some of the details of how he wooed 
 and won her. After what he considered a fully ma- 
 tured courtship, he 'Topped the question" but he 
 received no favorable reply! He continued his quest, 
 and a second time got his courage up to the speak- 
 ing point. Again, nothing favorable! A number of 
 the young men of the neighborhood, including him- 
 self, were invited to a dance over in Scott County, 
 Iowa, back of Davenport. They walked there. It was 
 "only" 30 to 35 miles. It seems we are supposed to 
 believe that a little walk of 30 to 35 miles put a young 
 man in those days, into proper condition for an all- 
 night dance! There, a young lady took a fancy to 
 young Mr. Hauberg. She spent all possible time in 
 his presence. When ladies' choice was called, she 
 never failed to make straight for him. She confided 
 to him that never, never, would she marry one of 
 the local Scott County boys. They were too dumb! 
 etc., etc. This new flame in the young man's disturbed 
 mind and heart was soon the talk among the home 
 folks. It came to the ears of the Frels\ Which of 
 them was the first to speak, father or daughter we 
 do not know, but father Frels felt the urge to action. 
 
 27 
 
In the language of romance he orders his henchmen 
 to caparison the finest and swiftest steeds and see to 
 it that the equipage is made instantly ready. Then 
 with daughter under his wing, figuratively speaking, 
 he dashes up the Bluff Road, and over the hills and 
 hollows the long 14 miles to the Hauberg Castle. 
 Doubtless they were tremendously relieved when 
 they learned that the young lady's answer had not 
 come too late! 
 
 It was time she was being married off. She was 
 getting along in years — seventeen years old! In 
 fact, she was seventeen years, one month and five 
 days old when she faced the minister with her 24 
 year old fiance. 
 
 The wedding was on September 15, 1862. The 
 bride's mother had died the June previous, so a big 
 wedding was out of the question but the High 
 Prairie people would not be put off. A wedding 
 called for a dance, and while the log house at Sugar 
 Grove was large enough for church services, it was 
 too small for an occasion like this, so they chose the 
 senior Hauberg's new big barn for it. 
 
 John Winterfeldt called on the young couple 
 next day, at their cabin to express his regrets. He 
 and his wife had gotten well on their way to the 
 
 28 
 
MR. AND MRS. M. D. HAUBERG IN THEIR YOUNG MARRIED LIFE. 
 
 dance when a storm broke on them, lightning, thun- 
 der, rain and wind, and his oxen refused to go any 
 farther. There was nothing to do but turn around 
 
 29 
 
and go back home. Then sizing up the bride with 
 the eye of an expert — she was tall — he remarked: 
 "Well, Mark, if your wife ever gets lost you needn't 
 hunt for her in the straw sack" (mattress). 
 
 •* # * * * -Jf 
 
 Without any suggestion from any of us, Mrs. 
 M. D. Hauberg in later life wrote a brief account 
 of her early days. She was the second "Lady of the 
 House" in the old log cabin, and this attempt at an 
 introduction to this old-time primitive home, de" 
 mands, imperatively, that it be included here. 
 
 ■X- 
 
 "My father, Henry Frels, came to Rock Island 
 County in 1840. He had been a sailor on the sea 
 five years and was on the Ohio and Mississippi 
 rivers five years. He married Catherine Mantler in 
 1842 and I was born in 1845. Our log house was 
 about a half mile up the creek from where Friedens 
 Lutheran Church is now — near Barstow. It was 
 all timber through there then. 
 
 "I saw wild turkeys lots of times at my father's 
 corn crib and saw deer in droves near our old house, 
 and quail were as plentiful as our chickens, and 
 pheasants were seen in flocks. 
 
 30 
 
"One time I will never forget, a big Indian came 
 across our field and talked with my mother, but she 
 could not understand him. I hid myself. He had a 
 bow and arrows with him. 
 
 "At that time we lived in a one-room cabin, with 
 a cellar, and one room up-stairs. The cabin had only 
 one outside door which was on the south side; a full 
 window of two halves at each end of the room, and 
 a half window at the east end up-stairs. On the north 
 side of the room was the fire-place with the chimney 
 built of cross sticks, plastered together with a mix- 
 ture of straw and mud. Sometimes this chimney 
 would catch fire and someone would have to go out- 
 side and knock it over. This fireplace was built on 
 the outside. 
 
 "Mother and father's bed was at the southeast 
 corner of the room and had tall posts with curtains. 
 A trundle bed was kept under theirs during the day 
 and pulled out at night for the children. In the 
 southwest corner stood another bed, without the 
 curtain and there our guests slept. It was the 'Spare- 
 bed,' and Uncle Ira Wells and Aunt Elisabeth, and 
 others, slept in that bed. 
 
 "The ladder to the attic stood at the northwest 
 corner of the room. The roof was clap-boards about 
 
 31 
 
three feet long. 
 
 "One time we had a woodchopper sleeping up- 
 stairs and a snake got into his pocket. Next morning 
 when he put his hand in the pocket the snake was 
 there. 
 
 "Our big fireplace heated the house and was 
 where mother did her cooking also. All the utensils 
 she had to cook with was an iron tea kettle, an iron 
 kettle, and a three-legged skillet to bake bread in. 
 The skillet had an iron lid. It was set in the fireplace 
 and covered with ashes and hot coals. It baked good 
 bread. Then mother used the iron kettle to boil meat 
 and potatoes. It was hung on the crane in the fire- 
 place. 
 
 "My father would get a log on the fire, and some 
 big limbs and it would make a nice big fire. We lit- 
 tle ones would sit on the other end of the log, and 
 play jump over it. The fire was so bright mother 
 would sit and knit all evening without a candle be- 
 ing lit. 
 
 "Mother was a good hand at knitting. Father 
 kept sheep, and we had our cloth made. Mother got 
 the yarn spun through the year, all the spare time 
 she had she would spin and color the yarn blue, and 
 some brown. Then she would buy the skeins of warp 
 
 32 
 

 b»J 
 
 t HtSi\0 • " 
 
 DONE BY THE OLDER DAUGHTER, AMELIA, WITH ZYPHER YARN ON PERFORAT- 
 ED CARDBOARD. IN ITS DAY, NO HOME WAS COMPLETE WITHOUT THIS OR A 
 SIMILAR MOTTO DONE IN MUCH THE SAME WAY. THE WREATH OF FLOWERS 
 MADE OF COLORED WAX, HAS COLLAPSED, AND THEREFORE NO PICTURE OF 
 
 IT IS POSSIBLE. 
 
 and take it to Uncle John Frels whose mother-in-law 
 had a loom to weave goods on. When she had it 
 woven, mother made us dresses of it and she had 
 Uncle George Mantler make father's clothes of 
 brown cloth. Uncle George Mantler was mother's 
 brother. He was a first class tailor. 
 
 "The brown color was made with the use of 
 Brazilian-chips and a fast blue was made by using 
 chamber lye and indigo mixed with it. I remember 
 very well the old earthenware pot about a foot and 
 a half high, sitting in the kitchen so it would not 
 freeze. It did not smell very good but no one thought 
 anything about it, as everyone knew what it was. 
 
 "When I got old enough I was sent to school — 
 
 33 
 
a log house with desks against the wall, and the 
 benches were made of split log and smoothed off and 
 four legs fitted to it. Whenever we had to write, we 
 had to slip our feet around to the other side of the 
 bench. I wore my home-spun dress and my sister did 
 the same, and we wore good woolen stockings and 
 coarse shoes. The winters were very cold with deep 
 snow through which to walk to school. 
 
 "When I was about six years old, a preacher 
 came to our house and staid a week or more with us, 
 and I and brother Henry and sister Mary were 
 christened, and all our neighbor's children were 
 christened before he left. The years passed on and 
 finally they had a preacher come to give sermons in 
 a frame school house that had been built, so for years 
 we had church. Then the Germans together bought 
 a brick house in Hampton and had church there 
 every Sunday. By this time father had a carriage to 
 take us all in. 
 
 "Father had four and five men every summer to 
 cut wood which he hauled to Hampton, along the 
 Mississippi shore for the steamboats. 
 
 "We made our own molasses and had lots of 
 sugar maple trees tapped in the spring time from 
 which we gathered the sap for this molasses. 
 
 34 
 
"Mother would make her soap from the wood 
 ashes. All the people did this at that time. They 
 cooked their soap every year. We would have a big 
 barrel of soft soap. 
 
 "Daniel Holmes was with us for years. He made 
 all the shingles we used on our first brick house, and 
 made lots of them to sell. They were sawed off a log 
 in the length of shingles; split fine, then shaved down 
 to the right size; then were cooked in a big kettle 
 and then packed in a bunch. 
 
 "After father had lived in the log house for sev- 
 eral years, he took a notion he could have brick made, 
 so he looked at the soil. It was just the right kind 
 to make brick, so he got men to help. They made a 
 big kiln, then sold more brick than he used to build 
 the house. A two-story house was built. 
 
 "Mother had lots of men to cook for then. She 
 had a stove with two holes on it, and a small oven. 
 The fire-box was long. A two-and-a-half foot stick 
 could go in that stove, but this stove was too small 
 for so much cooking, so father got a real kitchen 
 stove. Mother had a lady to help her that summer. 
 They finished the brick house and we had a nice 
 house to move into, next to the log cabin. 
 
 "Father sold the timber farm of sixty acres where 
 
 35 
 
the new brick house was. Then he made another 
 brick kiln and first moved the log house to the new 
 prairie farm. Then he built a big barn the same year. 
 We lived in the new barn a short time and then 
 lived in the log house 'till the new twO'Story brick 
 house was built. 
 
 "The new house was built close to where there 
 was a good spring. The spring is still running. Many 
 a horse was watered there. All the farmers from up 
 above us would stop, and they watered there for 
 years and years. At first there wasn't anything there 
 but a couple of blocks so they could get to it but 
 father put up a little house over it and had a bucket 
 and a tin cup there. 
 
 "The stage used to always stop at our spring and 
 the horses and people got a drink. They passed there 
 on the way to the 'Docia'; to the Middle Crossing 
 or to the mouth of the Docia at Rock River. They 
 had regular coaches; the driver sat up in front and 
 the passengers were cooped up inside and they drove 
 four horses generally, but sometimes I think they had 
 only two horses. When they came up here from the 
 bottoms the mud was terrible. In Pleasant Valley 
 they had split rails laid over the swamp and had hay 
 on them — all through Pleasant Valley where they 
 
 36 
 
have farms now, and the stage would go thump, 
 thump over these rails. The stage did not run every 
 day, but once or twice or more per week. I don't 
 know where they stopped to feed horses and eat. 
 
 "Father and his brother John Frels were among 
 the earliest settlers in that neighborhood and there 
 old George Wildermuth and others came and as 
 they got a little clique together they built the Ger- 
 man Lutheran church. Adam Weigandt came, and 
 he was quite a churchman too. 
 
 "Old George Wildermuth was our neighbor but 
 he wouldn't have our fence join on to his, so he 
 made a seven-rail fence on his side of the line and 
 father made a seven-rail fence on our side with just 
 a cowpath between. This was back in the woods; 
 north, by the Mosher school, the whole forty from 
 one end to the other, he put up his fence, and father 
 put up his. 
 
 "I used to like to hear Grandfather Hauberg 
 talk. He was so earnest about it. He often got into 
 trouble when they got to talking about niggers and 
 the Dutch because he was always ready with his fists 
 if they didn't look out. 
 
 "Father in the first years of toiling on the farm 
 had men to cut cord-wood and hoop-poles and 
 
 37 
 
staves to make barrels, and spokes for wagon wheels. 
 Later on they had to cut ties for the railroad. These 
 were all hauled to Hampton and to Rock Island and 
 Moline. 
 
 "After the railroad was first finished father 
 would take one of us children with him to Moline, 
 when he drove down, to have us see the train go 
 along. He would stop his team so we could see the 
 train puffing along. At that time Moline was a 
 small town. Rock Island was a small town but it 
 was a thriving town. 
 
 "My father was a great hustler and good at plan- 
 ning things, and he would figure things out in his 
 head. He had no schooling whatever. His parents 
 died when he was so young he did not remember 
 them and he was brought up by different relatives; 
 first with one and then with another. Potatoes and 
 buttermilk was all he got to eat and no schooling. 
 When he was fourteen years of age he left them 
 and went to sea and for five years served on sailing 
 vessels on the ocean; then he came to America and 
 was in Virginia for some time, I don't know how 
 long, and then for five years he worked on steam- 
 boats on the Ohio and the Mississippi, and worked 
 in the lead mines at Galena, in winter. 
 
 38 
 
ANNA MARGARET FRELS HAUBERG, THE SEVENTEEN YEAR OLD BRIDE AND 
 
 SECOND LADY OF THE HOUSE AT THE OLD LOG CABIN, AND THE FIRST, 
 
 IN THE NEW STONE RESIDENCE. 
 
 "In 1840 father started farming on Hampton 
 Bluff, with five dollars. That was all the money 
 he had and there was hardly any money to be had 
 in those days, everything was traded. He made his 
 own wagon and sawed the wheels off of a big log 
 
 39 
 
and got it all complete except for a few parts made 
 by his brother, as he was a blacksmith. He lived 
 about a mile from our place. 
 
 "My mother was a good scholar from Germany 
 and after they were married they kept German 
 newspapers and my father got so he read very well. 
 
 "When he built the log house, the heavy end of 
 the trunk only was used. The rest of the tree was 
 burned up. They cleared up the place for the house 
 that way. The old log house was on the place father 
 afterward sold to Kleinau's, after he had built the 
 brick house on the new farm. 
 
 "Land was cheap in those times. They all made 
 their money by working in their timber and only 
 had a small place cleared to sow wheat and garden. 
 They would cut down big trees so they would fall 
 on a pile and they would burn them to get land 
 cleared for farming. A yoke of oxen was his team 
 to work and plow with. 
 
 "Father worked very hard and at the time of his 
 death he owned three-hundred-eighty acres of good 
 land, besides he had several lots and a house in 
 Hampton and other property. 
 
 "When I married in September, 1862, I moved 
 into a small log house a good deal like the one I was 
 
 40 
 
born in and there I had to climb a ladder again to 
 go upstairs. This was the log house Grandfather 
 Hauberg built in 1853 at Sugar Grove. 
 
 "This log house had shingles of split wood, 
 home-made but not what they called clapboards. 
 You could see the stars through the roof. There was 
 no fireplace, but a stove to cook on and to heat the 
 house. The cellar was a dugout back of the barn. 
 When Amelia was born we couldn't buy a cradle 
 in Port Byron; they were sold out so Pa got the big 
 rocking chair that we still used in our home. The 
 lower log of the house got rotted and it started the 
 house to lean and each year it leaned more. The 
 neighbors said it would fall down on us if we didn't 
 look out. The stable had room for four horses and 
 had a roof of slough hay. We had a half dozen of 
 bearing peach trees and a half dozen of apple trees 
 that bore good. We got all our water for house use 
 at the spring down in the creek. They dug the 
 spring down about six feet but after every rain they 
 had to dig it out again. A lean-to at the southwest 
 corner of the house was used for storage and sum- 
 mer kitchen. 
 
 'The house was one full story and an attic with 
 one full window and a half window downstairs and 
 
 41 
 
a half window upstairs. Both half windows were 
 at the east end of the house. The full window was 
 on the north side. There was only one outside door 
 to the house and that was on the south side. There 
 was a partition made of wide boards toward the 
 west end of the room and that made our bedroom. 
 It had no window in it. A plain ladder led to the 
 attic where the side walls were about two feet high. 
 Here the hired girl, and the hired man slept; their 
 rooms being separated by quilts hung up. 
 
 "Eggert Hauberg was staying with us during 
 the fc cold winter' and it kept him busy chopping 
 wood. Amelia was the baby then. I don't think we 
 had Emma then. This 'cold winter' Mrs. Fields and 
 family fired their stove too hot and it set the house 
 afire and they had to run to the neighbor's some 
 distance away. The exposed arm with which she 
 carried the baby froze and it had to be amputated; 
 the baby's arms also were frozen and had to be am- 
 putated and Levi Fields, a son, had both ears frozen 
 off. 
 
 "We did well and Pa started building up a nice 
 big home. He had the present horse-barn built, and 
 had also put up a stone smokehouse, and they were 
 hauling rock for the new stone house, when Kaelv 
 
 42 
 
ler came over and told Pa he had no right to build 
 there. Grandfather had sold that eighty to Knock 
 and for some reason they failed to make any reser- 
 vation in the deed for the ground that Grandfather 
 had built on. Pa thought that it was in the deed, 
 but it wasn't. Then Pa and the hired man went 
 over the hill and selected the site where the present 
 stone house is. At that time you could see over the 
 entire farm as there were no trees there. The log 
 house was down where you didn't have such a view. 
 Every tree on this place was set out by your father. 
 It was an oats field without any trees anywhere near 
 when it was selected. It was just eighty rods west 
 of the log house. The new stone house was built 
 in 1866. 
 
 "One time when your father was away and Aunt 
 Maggie was with us, two Indians came to ask for 
 something to eat. One was an old man. He wore 
 a woman's knit hood, close fitting, and he wore a 
 pair of old shoes. The other was a young fellow 
 and he carried his shoes on a stick over his shoulder 
 and walked barefooted in the snow. It was winter 
 time. Both had blankets and feathers. Our Anna 
 was a little girl then and she was hungry, and sat 
 at the table with the Indians to eat." — and here 
 
 43 
 
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ends the account of the early days as written out 
 by Mrs. M. D. Hauberg. 
 
 * * * * * * 
 
 The year 1866 saw two stone houses being built 
 within a mile of each other. One by the Amos Gol' 
 dens, the other by the M. D. Haubergs! 
 
 We have seen above, that when the log house 
 was raised, the men of the community for miles 
 around were present to help — all of it as a friendly, 
 neighborly gesture. Of course they would be there; 
 what tools do you want me to bring? So too, when 
 the stone house was in prospect. Hauling rock for 
 a sizable house would be a long, not to say dismal 
 undertaking for one man and team, so a "Hauling 
 bee 1 " was called into action. They hauled two loads 
 each that winter day, and in all, 70 loads of rock 
 were brought from the quarry in Section 3, Coe 
 Township. The other building material was white 
 pine from the northern forest. An enterprising lum- 
 ber merchant would bring a lumber raft down the 
 Mississippi river, tie up somewhere along the bank, 
 and send his salesmen inland to take orders among 
 the farmers. Building material, fencing, lath, shingles, 
 etc. made up his stock in trade. The lumber was 
 direct from the saws, and unplaned, and sold at a 
 
 45 
 
price sufficiently lower, to make it attractive to the 
 farming community. In this case, Mr. Hauberg's 
 lumber was landed about the center of Section 33, 
 Cordova Township, making it a haul of about ten 
 miles from the river to the building site. 
 
 Three days were spent with team and scraper, 
 by Mr. Hauberg and a hired boy, to excavate the 
 cellar. Messers John Hofer and George Bryant, both 
 of Cordova, did the masonry, starting about May 
 1st, 1866, and on June 30th of that year they had 
 the walls up to the top of the first story and placed 
 a stone, bearing that date over the front door frame. 
 John Spaeth and Henry Oppendike did the carpen- 
 ter work, having to do all the dressing — the shap- 
 ing of the lumber — mouldings, frames, doors, the 
 planing and tounging of the flooring, etc., with hand 
 tools, and all of it from raft lumber. That all the 
 work was of the best can be seen today, for one looks 
 in vain for defects which might reasonably be ex- 
 pected after a three quarters of a century of service. 
 
 The rock walls are as plumb as the day they were 
 put up, and no re-pointing of mortar between the 
 stones has been necessary — as is often the case with 
 present-day jobs. 
 
 * * * * * * 
 
 46 
 
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Nine children were born to Mr. and Mrs. M. D. 
 Hauberg. The youngest, Walter Mark, was a 
 healthy, vigorous youngster, but was carried off with 
 cholera infantum in his second year. The others 
 have remained active to this day. 
 
 What to name the baby was a question then as 
 now. Each in turn doubtless seemed to be better 
 than the preceding. Their first choice was Amelia 
 Maria Catherine; next was Emma Elisabeth — for in 
 these names one had to consider the godfather's and 
 godmother's names. Next was Anna Margaret, the 
 same as her mother's name. Then came John Henry 
 — John for grandfather John D. Hauberg; Henry 
 for Grandfather Frels. Rosena Henrietta — mother 
 had had a sister Rosena who died in childhood. Next 
 was Louis Detlev. The writer recalls mother fondly 
 talking about Louis Napoleon, so that is probably the 
 origin for the first part of the name. The "Detlev" 
 must have had some special meaning among the Hau' 
 bergs, but our family historian, M. D. Hauberg, who 
 seemed to have remembered everything else — in his 
 earlier days he kept a diary — definitely said he did not 
 know how it got into the family, but there was 
 Grandfather John Detlev H., his two sons, Marx Det- 
 lev and Jergem Detlev (always called Dave), our cou' 
 
 48 
 
sins John Detlev George Hauberg, Herman Detlev 
 John Bracker, and Dr. George Detlev Hauberg. Next 
 in line after due consideration, was named Elnora, 
 probably there was something catchy and pleasing 
 about this Irish name, and then came Ada Helena, 
 the last doubtless being borrowed from Helena Stils, 
 her cousin, but Ada was, we believe, out of a clear 
 sky. 
 
 Mrs. M. D. Hauberg, like all the farm wives of 
 the day, was of course, head of the nursery, head of 
 the cooking and all housework for the family and 
 hired men. In those days it was customary for the 
 hired men to live in the midst of the family, at the 
 table with them, in the sitting room in the evening, 
 with their own room in the house at night. As you 
 know, the children in those years were given respon- 
 sible places in the work of all kinds — milking, churn- 
 ing, dishwashing, hunting the eggs, bringing cows 
 from the pasture, taking care of the younger members 
 of the family and errands of every description. At 
 the breakfast table the boys at quite a young age, 
 were given their orders for the day's work the same 
 as the hired men. 
 
 But we were talking about mother's part in the 
 whole. She was the queen in the laundry; had full 
 
 49 
 
* < 
 IK £ 
 
 rri 
 
 -=] 
 
 ^ 
 
charge of every department of the dairy, and of all 
 the poultry, much of the vegetable garden and all 
 the flower garden. Flowers were among her hobbies 
 and we recall the large, white painted lyre which she 
 hewed out of boards to support the roses, and the 
 arbor, covered with grape vines, all her own work. 
 She always had a lot of secret contraptions in the 
 cellar, trying to work out patents. She insisted that 
 the day would come when farmers would have to be 
 more careful of the barnyard refuse, and she tried 
 to plan some sort of machine for scooping it up into 
 wagons. She never got through with it. Today, 
 with gas and electric engines, grab-buckets, etc., she 
 would have succeeded. She did however, succeed in 
 getting a patent on a dishwasher. You will find it 
 written up in the "Official Gazette of the United 
 States Patent Office" for October 26, 1909, page 842. 
 Many letters came to her with regard to the patent, 
 but practically all of them wanted money for advanc- 
 ing its sale. One, however, offered some lots, some- 
 where in Texas for it. 
 
 The write-up of her early years, which is included 
 in this sketch, was used by Mrs. K. T. Anderson, of 
 Rock Island, in her "Reminiscences of Pioneer Rock 
 Island Women." You will find it on pages 73-74, 
 
 51 
 
in Transactions of the Illinois State Historical So' 
 ciety, for the year 1912. 
 
 With the men busy in the field and the pigs 
 threatening her garden, she would dig post holes 
 and set posts to repair the fence; needing a new kitch' 
 en chimney, she secured the brick and sand; would 
 send us to Port Byron for a dime's worth of their 
 famous white lime. Dumping this into a shallow, rec- 
 tangular box, and pouring cold water on it, it would 
 soon be boiling violently, and, mixed with sand, made 
 the necessary mortar, and the chimney rose under 
 her work with the trowel, as good a job as many a 
 brick mason would do. 
 
 She sang at her work — a good soprano, and with 
 all this, found time, sometimes, to sit in the big rock- 
 ing chair and read the Bible! The big worry was the 
 mortgage on the farm. 
 
 * * * * *• *• 
 
 M. D. Hauberg was 29 years of age when in 
 1866 they built the new house. That was just 75 
 years ago. The site was in the midst of an oats field; 
 there were no trees, and they had an unobstructed 
 view to the north, away off to the north bluffs across 
 the 'Docia. They doubtless had to bank their house 
 
 52 
 
well, rock house though it was, to keep the winter 
 winds out, until trees could be grown for a wind" 
 break because the house stood on a hilltop. Through" 
 out this part of the Mississippi Valley, the prevail" 
 ing winds are from the west and the cold north, and 
 everywhere the settler planted trees to ward off 
 these winds. Always the north side and the west side 
 were planted. The east and the south sides you will 
 find open to this day. In later years as we grew up, 
 we would often be unaware of the biting cold winds 
 from the west, until we got out of the shelter of the 
 maples which father had planted — acres of them, 
 enclosing other acres of orchard. The well, we under" 
 stand, he dug with his own hands, though of course 
 he had to have hired help. The well was dug down 
 through earth some 70 feet, and then drilled through 
 rock another thirty feet. The water has always had 
 a "taste" which we thought to be iron — or "some" 
 thing" — but whatever it was, it must have been 
 healthy. 
 
 The occupant of the stone house fell heir to not 
 only the old farm — for a consideration, however — 
 but also to the public posts which his father had held: 
 road commissioner and school director and numer" 
 ous other responsibilities. Among his papers we 
 
 53 
 
found a scrap of legal cap which indicates some of 
 the problems which the school directors had to face. 
 In this paper the firstly to the fifthly are missing, and 
 it has only the 6th, 7th and 8th followed by the sig- 
 natures of the stern authority, as follows: 
 
 "6th, Any improper language while going to or 
 from school, or treating strangers with disrespect, 
 is an unpardonable offense. 
 
 "7th, Breaking the tree or 'shubry,' or tearing 
 off pickets is forbidden. 
 
 "8th, Eating during school hours, or sticking pins 
 in each other will not be allowed." 
 
 Signed, Marx D. Hauberg, 
 Jared Sexton, 
 James Guinn, Directors. 
 
 By and by father got mixed up in real earnest in 
 politics. He did have a genuine, determined purpose 
 to help the farmer out of his unprofitable situation, 
 and along with it, it seemed necessary or desirable 
 to run for office. First he was up for sheriff. The 
 "Rock Islander" for February 5, 1881 (report of a 
 special election) says: 
 
 "If Bowling and the 3d ward, Rock Island, had 
 been thrown out as they should have been, the vote 
 of the county would have been as follows: 
 
 54 
 
Ankrum 1775 
 
 Hauberg 1771 
 
 Ankrum's majority .... 4 votes." 
 
 On mature reflection, the writer regards this de- 
 feat as providential, because we were eminently a 
 farmer family, brought up to hard work — the wood 
 pile and woodbox, the cows and chickens and horses, 
 the weeds in the potato patch, the morning glory 
 vines in the corn. The Lord only knows what would 
 have happened to us in a city with none of these 
 things to occupy our time and attention. 
 
 With so good a showing, it was thought that the 
 State Senate would be a good place to be. We chil- 
 dren didn't understand just how high that office was, 
 but the writer remembers that the hired man said 
 he thought it was next to president of the United 
 States. It is flattering that where he was best known, 
 father got the vote. He "carried" our own county, but 
 his opponent was equally successful in his own 
 county, i. e., Henry County, and just enough more 
 so, to win the election. 
 
 We had a mare, pure white. Her name was 
 "Gray." Father drove her all over the country elec- 
 tioneering, and, of course, wherever he met a man 
 
 55 
 
he stopped to talk. It was many months, after the 
 elections were over, before we could drive on the 
 road with old Gray, that she did not stop, short off, 
 every time anyone met us or was within hailing dis- 
 tance. 
 
 M. D. Hauberg would have made a good sen- 
 ator. He knew his politics; the problems; was deeply 
 interested and as it was his lifelong habit to be up 
 until midnight, or later, reading newspapers mostly, 
 he was very well up on public questions and the men 
 behind them. On the point of fear or hesitation to 
 speak his mind, there were no such words in his 
 vocabulary. 
 
 M. D. Hauberg was a great talker. He could go 
 to the County Court House and disorganize a half 
 day's work for a whole room of clerks with his yarns. 
 In our earlier years we would make the long drive — 
 25 miles to Rock Island by bob sleigh or in the old 
 buggy. He would stop in a store, perhaps to get some- 
 thing, and we would wait, wait — would he never 
 come? About the time we gave up hope, he would 
 come, bubbling over with enthusiasm about what- 
 ever the topic of conversation had been. He was 
 beyond all doubt the most widely acquainted farmer 
 in the county. This was because of his political in- 
 
 56 
 
HE READ THE PAPERS 'TILL MIDNIGHT. 
 
 terests and also from his buying of live stock for the 
 Chicago markets, and connections with a number of 
 county organisations. 
 
 The one nightmare in the family was the mort- 
 gage on the farm. Would it never leave them? Every 
 ounce of groceries was watched; never any cream in 
 anyone's coffee, only skimmed milk. Every member 
 of the family was in the harness to fight the old 
 demon and the interest on it. Notes had been en- 
 dorsed for others who probably meant well, but who 
 in the end left M. D. Hauberg to wrestle it out with 
 the note holders. For some years title to the farm 
 was placed in another's hands to keep it out of the 
 
 57 
 
way of judgment creditors until he could work them 
 off, and to his eternal credit, be it said, he did work 
 his way completely out. Aid was offered, but was 
 not accepted, from a certain member of his family. 
 
 One time in 1917 as the writer drove to the farm, 
 his father asked him: "Have you noticed whether 
 the release is recorded?" A "Release!' 1 He was talk' 
 ing about the release of the mortgage. It had been 
 fully paid. Yours Truly had a bit of a time of it with 
 his emotions. He wanted to weep! Down in the 
 recorder's office at the County Court House you will 
 be able to see one of the gripping dates in the his' 
 tory of the M. D. Hauberg family. It says the mort' 
 gage release was filed for record, March 7, 1917, and 
 it gives even the very hour — one o'clock in the after- 
 noon of that day — when the axe fell. Peace to its 
 carcass! 
 
 Now that the battle was over, we hoped our 
 parents would enjoy life with the leisure they had 
 so richly earned. But it was too late. They had 
 never learned to play or to be idle. Mother espe- 
 cially, could not change now. She had passed her 
 three score and ten. For father or "Pa" as we always 
 called him, it was easier. He could go about among 
 his old timers and talk. At the time the old task' 
 
 58 
 
ggSg 
 
 ti. < < < 
 
 « < < O 
 
master, the mortgage, was evicted, Pa was 80 years 
 of age. 
 
 After about ten years of prodding, we succeeded 
 in getting Pa to write his Memoirs, not because we 
 thought him unusual, but because he had all his life 
 taken notice of things, and especially because he was 
 of that c 'Peculiar " generation which broke the prairies 
 — turning the ancient hunting ranges of the Indian 
 into the civilised manner of life. His book of 200 
 pages is interesting from that point of view. Inci- 
 dentally, last summer we were visited by two col- 
 lectors of old and rare books. One of them said that 
 in New York City he had "picked up a book of 
 Memoirs by M. D. Hauberg, and that he paid fifteen 
 dollars for it." He made no complaint about the 
 price! 
 
 Mr. and Mrs. M. D. Hauberg celebrated their 
 Golden Wedding anniversary at the stone house, 
 September 15, 1912. John D. Hauberg and wife had 
 celebrated their Golden Wedding anniversary in 
 October of 1885, at which time they were living a 
 half mile west of the stone house. They were born 
 January 29, 1808, and July 26, 1811, respectively; he 
 
 60 
 
LOUIS D. HAUBERG, PRESENT OWNER. 
 
 was aged 27 when they married and she, 24. He 
 died March 24, 1886 at the age of 78, and his widow 
 passed on October 10, 1896 at the age of 85. Mrs. 
 M. D. Hauberg left us March 21, 1918 at the age 
 of 73, and her widower remained with us up to Jan- 
 
 61 
 
uary 4, 1928, having passed his ninetieth year the 
 September preceding. 
 
 * * * * * •* 
 
 The year 1941, completing nine-tenths of a cen- 
 tury of Hauberg occupation, finds the homestead in 
 possession of Louis D. Hauberg. Owning an auto, it is 
 possible, and doubtless true, that he attends more 
 "meetings" of one kind and another of church and 
 general civic interest, than did his father, M. D. 
 Hauberg, or his grandfather, John D. Hauberg. It 
 is in his blood as it is in the blood of most of the 
 descendants of the old log cabin proprietors, at Sugar 
 Grove. He purchased the farm from his father in 
 1918. He has sold off a forty which was off a couple 
 of miles from the main farm, and in its place has 
 purchased an eighty adjoining it, so that today the 
 farm is bigger and better than ever. Not only bigger 
 and better as to sise, but he is growing crops, partk' 
 ularly corn, with yields such as his forbears never 
 dreamed of. From hearsay only, he has some idea 
 of what a mortgage might be. 
 
 And, of course, he lives in the stone house which 
 is celebrating its diamond jubilee this year. A visitor 
 will find the house interesting — its deep window 
 
 62 
 
frames because of the thick masonry; the rafters of 
 unusual dimension for the purpose; pieces of antique 
 furniture handed down from grandparents and par' 
 ents; the old family photograph album; the large, 
 bulky Bible, a wonderful example of the printer s, 
 illustrator's, and bookbinder's art. Then there is the 
 great old trunk — his is the seventh generation in our 
 family to own it. There are the acres of maples and 
 orchard, the creek and Sugar Grove, and the far view 
 over the fields of the neighbors to the eastward, and, 
 the descendants of the Old Timers, still holding forth 
 as vital parts of the community, are good people to 
 meet. 
 
 * * * * * * 
 
 October 17, 1941. 
 
 63 
 
.