| Summary: | And Its Pioneers 121 Wells county had 185 children of school age in 1888. Woodward township, 147 north, range 68 west, was organized for school purposes by order of the county commissioners on February 25th, 1886. On December 27th, 1886, Sheard (Cathay) township, 147 north, range 69 west, was organized as a school district at the home of Joseph Sheard. Cottonwood Lake, township 147, range 70 west was ordered organized as a school district in December, 1887. The school board held their first meeting and perfected their organization at the home of R. R. Hughes on December 10th, 1887. On July 21, 1888, Fairview township, 148 north, range 68, was organized as a school district. Germantown township, 148 north, range 69 west, was organized for school purposes at the home of Chris Banik on August 3rd, 1888. Bowman school district, township 147 north, range 71 west, was organized on August 4, 1888. In breaking the prairie for opening up the farms the settlers generally used four horses or oxen with a 14-inch breaking plow and eight rounds in the forenoon and eight rounds in the afternoon or 16 miles per day was considered a good days work. There were many bird's nests on the prairie, some being in slight holes in the ground, and they were plowed up before being discovered. Flint and steel arrowheads were often found. Many old hunting knives were also plowed up, the Hudson Bay knife being the kind mostly found. Sometimes knives with notches on the handle would be found; this was said to indicate the number of scalps taken with that particular knife. On the new breaking rude outlines of birds or circles were often seen. I used to wonder why such a thing could be possible or what caused it, but have since learned that some tribes of Indians made totems in circular and rude bird forms on the prairie sod similar to the family totems of wood of the Alaskan tribes of Eskimos and which are carved on logs by them. When the settlers were picking buffalo bones on the prairies they would save some of the best preserved buffalo horns and Scanned with a Zeutschel Zeta book scanner at 300 dpi. Edited with Multi-Page TIFF Editor.
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