Follower

Dienstag, 5. Dezember 2017

Laura Ingalls Wilder and The Greatest Natural Disaster in American History: When a Trillion Locusts Ate Everything in Sight

In the fall of 1873, Charles and Caroline Ingalls sold their little house in the Big Woods of Wisconsin, the log cabin where their two oldest daughters had been born, for a thousand dollars. Perhaps they were struggling to pay back debts; perhaps it was simply an offer too good to refuse. Years later, Laura Ingalls Wilder would attribute the decision to the disappearance of game and her father’s distaste for the crowds piling into Wisconsin, where the population had swelled to more than a million. Charles Ingalls never seemed to realize that his ambition for a profitable farm was irreconcilable with a love of untrammeled and unpopulated wilderness. Whatever the motivation, selling a comfortable, established home with plowed fields and a productive garden was a leap into the unknown. It would be repaid with disaster and heartbreak.

In February 1874, the Ingallses headed west in their wagon across the frozen Mississippi River into Minnesota. Charles found a property on Plum Creek, a tributary of the Cottonwood River, and in June he filed a claim on 172 acres. To get title to the land, he would have to stay at least six months, establish a residence, and eventually pay $2.50 an acre—twice the price for ordinary public land, because this property was near the railroad. The land was two miles north of a not-yet-incorporated town, then known as Walnut Station, and later renamed Walnut Grove for its black walnut trees. ... [mehr] http://lithub.com/laura-ingalls-wilder-and-the-greatest-natural-disaster-in-american-history/

Keine Kommentare: