The Year of the Locusts

LOC http://www.bozeman-magpie.com/thebigmt-full-article.php?article_id=696

Making History Personal
This morning I happened to see a TV documentary program (Mysteries at the Museum on the Travel Channel) about the Locust Plague of 1874.  The locusts (grasshoppers on steroids) swept through the Great Plains, moving from North to South across Kansas, Nebraska, Dakota Territory, and on to Texas, covering a swath equal to the size of all of New England.*   It took a while to register, but I realized that this must be the story I'd heard from my mother which she heard from her father.  Since my grandfather wasn't born until twenty years after the plague, the story must have been passed down by his mother who was a born storyteller. I became curious to find out what my ancestors were doing in 1874.

Our Family Moves West
First of all, how did my ancestors end up on the western frontier and where did they live? The Great Western Migration in the U.S. was brought by several factors:  the Homestead Act of 1862, the end of the Civil War in 1865, and the completion of the Transcontinental Railroad in 1869*.  My family was a part of this migration from the east.

Locusts in Lincoln, Nebraska
Horace Calvin Crofford, my great grandfather, lived in Lancaster, Nebraska with his family after the Civil War.  His father, Calvin Crofford had received land by the Homestead Act of 1862 (his application can be seen on Ancestry).  In April 1874, a census was taken in Little Salt (Lancaster County). I believe Horace, at age 27, was one of the two males listed in the household of Calvin Crofford.  In Nebraska, the locusts had a devastating effect:

One report released in 1874 suggested that just one family in 10 had enough provisions to last through the coming winter. To avoid starvation, many desperate settlers, especially in western Kansas and Nebraska, abandoned their homestead claims and their dreams of a new life to return east.... Hoping to stop future infestations before they got started, Nebraska in 1877 passed a Grasshopper Act, requiring every able-bodied man between the ages of 16 and 60 to work at least two days eliminating locusts at hatching time or face a $10 fine. 

http://www.historynet.com/1874-the-year-of-the-locust.htm#sthash.QALcWMPa.dpuf

Watch the video:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=To48K5E4ULM

Locusts in Fargo, North Dakota
My great grandmother, Ada Hall, was a teenager at the time of the Locusts.  In the spring of 1871, Andrew and Olivia Hall, along with their three children, crossed over the Red River on a small flat boat ferry to settle in Fargo.  Ada tells that the "grasshoppers came that first year."  Though the impact on Fargo was not as devastating as in some other areas, the experience left a strong impression on Ada.  She wrote:

They darkened the sky, which, looked up at, shown like silver with their flashing wings. They ate the sides out of our tents, the linen coat off my father's back while he was mowing. Where the river stopped their eastward march, they piled up inches deep and crusted every little twig five or six bugs deep.  It was a regular nightmare.  We could not keep them out of our tents, our provisions, off our tables, or out of our beds.  Once, right at dinner time, a big old timer sat down in the middle of the table, beside the butter, and proceeded to crack open down the back, and to divest himself of his whole outer covering, before the boarders, who would not let him be taken away.  In that way they got a lesson in natural history with their dinner, at the price of one. Talk of nightmares!  Wow!

A mention of Fargo from a history of Canada:

It must not be supposed that all the crops were destroyed. No better wheat and potatoes can anywhere be found than were in 1875 harvested at Portage la Prairie, and along the Red River between Fargo and Pembina, and in the neighbourhood of St. Joe, at the south-west corner of the Province. All this is spring-sown, in rich well-drained soil. Efforts in the infested regions, made by settlers and their families during the few hours in which the locust rested, such as building fires, surrounding the field or garden with a ditch into which the insects fall and drown, beating with bushes, &c., have been successful in saving large parts of the crops.

http://canada.yodelout.com/the-canadian-prairie-province-the-grasshopper-plague-its-history-and-incidents/

Some amazing facts about the Locust Plague:

• the locusts looked like a great, white glistening cloud, and appeared to be a big snowstorm
• they blocked out the sun for as long as six hours
• they ravaged the fields and trees, devouring every plant and blade of grass
• they ate the wool off sheep, the paint off wagons, the handles off pitchforks, the harnesses off horses, curtains off the windows, and even the clothing off people's backs
• they ate anything not hidden away in wooden or metal containers
• they smothered fires that the farmers lit to ward them off
• they left behind nothing but the odor of their decaying bodies and excrement
• they fouled water supplies that were not covered or protected
• people resorted to eating locusts, even serving them in restaurants and feeding them to their animals
• most locusts died off before 1875, but they were a problem for farmers until after the turn of the century

*http://www.historynet.com/1874-the-year-of-the-locust.htm#sthash.QALcWMPa.dpuf
**Information obtained from Ada Crofford's personal account which can be seen on Ancestry.

Read more:
Civil War veterans in Fargo:  http://fargohistory.com/civil-war-veterans-in-fargo/
First settlers of Fargo, ND (A.A. Hall):  http://library.ndsu.edu/fargo-history/?q=content/first-settlers