"Life Story of a Pioneer" part two - Hattie Daugherty Place

Hattie and her brother Fred R. Daugherty.
I'm continuing a piece that Hattie wrote when elected as the Pioneer Daughter of the Wessington Women's Study Club in September, 1949. It was included in the Wessington Times (South Dakota).

William Henry Daugherty "filed on a homestead of 160 acres in Nance Township in the northwest corner of Beadle County. He filed, also, the adjoining 160 acres as a tree claim. He planted, according to the requirements of law, ten acres of trees. Some of these tree, in 1946, are still alive and growing.
My eldest brother (note: John William Daugherty) came the spring of 1883, bringing a carload of machinery, three horses and some feed. The next spring, in March 1884, the remainder of the family came; my mother, four brothers, a sister and myself. We brought a carload of household goods, live stock, which consisted of cows, hogs, horses, and chickens. Then, the farming was carried on in a much larger way. There were three boys able to run the farm machinery, my father working at his trade of carpentry.
At this early of settlement, every section of land, except tree claims and school sections, had a settler, some living in dugouts, some in sod shanties, or one room board shacks. These were mainly occupied by bachelors who had come expecting to amass a fortune in this most wonderful land of Dakota Territory. The pioneers who brought their families built more substanciel residences, some two story and many four and five room houses.
There were no fences; when one wanted to go any place, either near or far distant, they just took a 'bee line' across the prairie to the end of their journey.
Spring was, as is now, a very busy season. Nothing unusual to see yokes of oxen pulling the plows, harrows, and other farm machinery.
I recall my very first ride out to the claim from Wessington, where we landed, behind a heavily loaded, three-box wagon, pulled by two strong, well-behaved oxen. The distance was only 11 1/2 miles. My brother, Will, and I started as soon as the sun was up and reached the claim home just as the sun was going down. This was the latter part of March. The prairie was interspersed with lakes, many of which we needed to drive through. Our oxen pulled us through them all, but father, coming later in the day with the rest of the family, driving a team of horses, got stuck in the mud and had to go to a nearby settler for help."

Hattie's writings will continue in the next posting.