Fred Mahrt Homestead Quarter (SW ¼ Section 20)

This article is part of a series. To find other articles, see Some South Reardan Homesteads.

Fred Mahrt was born in Wisconsin, on May 20, 1860, being the son of John and Margaret (Jaeger) Mahrt, natives of Germany. They came to the United States when they were young and settled in Wisconsin, where they were married. To them, eight children have been born, three boys and five girls. Margaret suffered a brain injury when Fred was born and she was not to be trusted afterward. His father, John, died when he was 14. Fred was raised by his grandparents, John and Catherine Jaeger.

Fred received his education from the public schools of Wisconsin. When fourteen years of age, he quit the school room for the farm and labored three years in Wisconsin for an uncle. Then he journeyed to Sabula, Iowa, where he farmed for three years. [it is possible that he was farming with one of his Jaeger uncles, John??]

According to William and Leah Mahrt:

Fred came west from Iowa in 1880 with the Immigrant Train, which went from Omaha, Nebraska to San Francisco. The train was the only train coming west at that time and this was a special immigrant train. The train was so slow that Fred could get out and walk beside it. The trip took two weeks. From San Francisco he went by boat to Portland, Oregon and then by another up the Columbia River to the Cascade Locks. From there he took a stage around the Locks to the Dalles and then took another boat up to Wallula. The he took Cook's train from Wallula to Walla Walla. They had wooden rails covered by rawhide and the coyotes used to eat the rawhide. From Walla Walla he took another stagecoach to Spokane. A blind woman on one of the stages could tell a person's age by their voice. She guessed that Fred was 20 and he admitted that he was that age.

This story needs a little debunking. Robert Louis Stevenson described the “immigrant train” in his book, Across the Plains. In this account he describes traveling from England to San Francisco to visit a sick girl friend (who unfortunately is married to someone else). He calls the train an emigrant train as it mainly moved Americans west, not newcomers to America. He took the train in 1879, which is nearly the same year that Fred took the train. His description of the trip took a little less than a week to go from Omaha to San Francisco. There were a lot of stops for coal and water. From the perspective of a passenger, these were dinner stops. There were also stops to allow other trains to pass. At six and a half days traversing the 1,668 miles, the average speed is 179 miles per day or 7.4 miles per hour including all of the stops. At this speed, it is doubtful that this is the train that he could walk beside.

“Cook’s train” is probably Dr. Dorsey Syng Baker’s train. This 30-mile line, called the Walla Walla and Columbia River Railroad, was completed October 23, 1875. It ran from Walla Walla to Wallula. (Incidentally both names are derived from the same Indian expression for many waters.). First Baker tried to get public financing for the railroad. The railroad was needed, but the public did not want to pay for it. So he attempted to build it with his own money. After surveying the route and finding the cost beyond reach, he looked for ways to save money. He used narrow gauge engines and cars to save money. Unfortunately this prevented connecting with other railroads which used the standard gauge. Another cost saving measure was to use wooden rails with strap iron nailed to the top, a common practice in the day. The story that he used rawhide on the track and that crews had to keep rebuilding track as coyotes gnawed away the rawhide is complete fiction.

From the internet:

Once the roadbed was graded and ties and rails were milled, crews went to work laying track. They laid ties on the roadbed and then laid the wooden rails on top of the ties. Then they secured a strap of iron one-half inch thick by two inches wide to the top of the rail. They drove spikes through the iron to hold it to the wooden rails. Then they bent the ends of the iron over the ends of each rail to help prevent the iron from curling up from friction by locomotive wheels. This didn’t always work; sometimes the iron worked its way loose and sprang up through the floorboards of the train cars. To prevent such “snakeheads,” engineers traveled very slowly over the rails. …Don’t be surprised at travel-time for this Promethean express between Wallula and Walla Walla: twenty-eight miles: seven hours. …

Even so, he always looked for ways to save money. He did not build water tanks along the route, but instead crews had to take water from the river and streams with buckets. Frank Baker kept a sheep dog on the train to chase away cows that strayed onto the tracks. Initially he bought no passenger cars, so people rode on top of the grain sacks on flat cars. Eventually he had a passenger car built at the Wallula mill, nicknamed “The Hearse.” It had only small windows with benches along the sides.”

The speed of this train would be four miles an hour, or just about walking speed. So it could have been this railroad line that Fred was describing, instead of the emigrant train.

Once in Spokan Falls, Fred went to work for the Northern Pacific Railroad making railroad ties for one and a half cents a tie. He made up to 100 ties per day or $1.50. Once he turned 21, he was legally able homestead a place for himself. He could have settled in Spokan Falls, but being a good farmer he thought the land west of town near the present day town of Reardan was much better. In those days there was only a stage coach route that went from Spokan Falls though Cheney, Deep Creek Falls (the present day hamlet of Deep Creek), and Capp’s Station (north of the present day town or Reardan) on to Camp Spokane which we know today as Fort Spokane or Miles. This was a U. S. Army fortification to protect the settlers from Indian attacks strategically located at the confluence of the Spokane and Columbia rivers.

Fred built a small house and began to break out the land. He received a homestead land patent in 1889 and a timber culture patent on adjoining land in 1892. There were very few settlers were in this area when Mr. Mahrt located and he is well acquainted with the life of the pioneer, its hardships and labors.

In an undated letter (although before he got married in 1888), he wrote to his sister Mary Mahrt Koeller in Wisconsin:

The grain tookey[?] good. I brok 32 acres this spring. I am plowing old ground now, but don't the dust fly. I look worse than a niger ever might. Why don't [sisters] Anna and Christina write. Is it because I am a bachelor and live in a dirty house and eat off dirty plates? I ain't got their address. I wrote a letter for Anna two months ago and I went over to John to get an address and he had none. Now if you sent me their address I shall thank you for it or give them my address so that they can write to me. This is all the news for this time and I wish you with my best respects,

Fred Mahrt
Capps P.O.
Lincoln, Co, Wash

Family tradition claims that Fred sold a half a quarter section of land to his brother John to finance the trip back to Wisconsin to find a wife in the fall of 1887. He got the homestead patent in 1887, so he could have sold the land to John, but this sale did not happen until 1891, three years later. Fred did take a mortgage on the property in December of 1887 for $600, so that is probably the money he used to finance his trip and to flash around young ladies to make prospective brides think that he was rich. Fred may have had to sell the land to John to pay back the mortgage.

In 1887 after his fall work was done, he went to Wisconsin and there married Miss Emma Steffen of Newburg, Washington county. They were married in Milwaukee and the ceremony was witnessed by two of his future brothers-in-law William Koeller (sister Mary’s husband) and Johann Wollerman (sister Anne’s husband). When he returned to Washington Territory, he sent the following letter to his new wife’s family:

Capps June 10th, 1888

Dear Friend

Since we left you we got on the Train at Cederburg and arived in Milwaukee. We only stayed their on the depot about 15 minutes and from their we took the C, M, St. P, R.R. [Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Paul Railroad] to St. Paul. We came to Lacross in the evening. the Missippi [Mississippi] River was very high and as we left their we had a thunder shower. We arived in St. Paul in the night at 12 o'clock. We stayed their until in the morning at eight o'clock.

And in the morning I was going to take a wash and I took my towell and soap and down stairs and washed and got my towell. It was raped up so nice I taught by my self this lookes like maried life, and I unfolded it and out on the floor dropded a nice little pair of baby socks. Now I can tell you Emma had her laugh. And on our way from their to Spokane Falls we seene a little snow throung Minisota but none in Dacota but lots of watter.

We arived in Spokane Falls thirsday Night at 12 o'clock. In the morning I found my Brother Henry on the Streets and we Started for home at wonce. and on our way home Emma seene a good many flowers and I had to stop and get some of them. We got home both in good helth and enjoyed the thrip very mutch. The next day we opened our thrunk. What do you supose Emma found in their. A pair of baby socks for her too. Then I had a good laugh at her too. She like it here purty well. She ain't been homesick yet.

I bought my old horses back from Henry agin and he went back on his rent and is working for me now. Besides them I bought three more horses.

They are working on the New rail Road (Branch of the Northern Pacific) two miles sought of me. I sold all my oats their $1.00 a hundred pounds. Wheat is 45 cents a bushell.

Now the flowers Emma got from your wife are in blosum now and is growing Nice.

It has been very drie this spring but we are having a good deal of rain now. The grain looks well. I have plowed 75 Acres since I have benn here and got 25 more too plow. I bought me a Sulkey plow this spring. It cost $65. It does good work. This is all the newes for this time.

And now I shall close my letter and send our best regards to you and your family.

Yours Thruley, Fred Mahrt, Capps P.O., Lincoln Co., Wash. T.
[Fred Mahrt, Capps Post Office, Lincoln County, Washington Territory]

Fred and Emmas Wedding

In Wisconsin where Emma grew up, they had a lot of fun with neighborhood parties. There was dancing and music. Emma learned to play the accordion and was very good at playing old German songs like 'Waltzing on the Rhine.' She was also a natural artist and could draw any animal from memory in such a way that you could recognize the animal. Later in life she was visiting the home of her sister-in-law, Mrs. Henry (Anna) Mahrt, and kept looking out the window at a cow. On a reciprocal visit, Anna saw the drawing and recognized the cow to be her cow. Emma knew how to make a lovely basket by folding a sheet of paper. The basket had four splits, which could be filled with Easter eggs, etc. She taught her son William how to do this. In turn he taught his wife, and she used it for years teaching primary school children, including Emma’s granddaughter, Leah.

Fred and Emma’s first babies were the twins Anna Louisa and Margaret Wilhemine Mahrt born 1 Jan 1889, probably on the ranch. Emma had eleven children. Seven of her children lived to adulthood: the twins, Annie and Maggie, Willie, August, George, Florence, and Alice. Two others died very young. Her third child, a little girl name Dora died at age four years from eating poisoned wheat. Wheat was commonly treated, or poisoned, with blue stone to deter birds and animals from eating the seed after being planted. Another tragic death was her youngest son Harry, who was killed when a farm wagon ran over him. He was not quite two years old. Emma lost at least two more and possibly as many as four babies soon after birth. Two babies with no names are listed on Emma’s tombstone. Lincoln County has a record of a baby girl that lived five days before dying in 1896. A letter from grandmother Anna Johannsen Meyer mentions a baby girl born Sept 1900 that lived only one night. This is a total of thirteen children that Emma may have had. However, the babies listed in the tombstone may be the baby girls born in 1896 and 1900.

Emma had her first three children baptized in the Reardan Lutheran Church in 1891, but Fred finally rebelled and decided not to take his family to church any more. He believed that the church was only interested in collection contributions. It was an unfortunate decision that prevented spiritual renewal for Emma and cut off an important social interaction for people isolated on a lonely farm.

Like most people in those years, Emma worked hard. Born to immigrant parents, she never learned to speak English and always spoke German. She didn't want her children to learn her broken English, so she insisted that they speak German at home.

As long as Emma lived, Fred insisted in having his dairy farm. Perhaps this was a life long dream for a man born in Wisconsin, the dairy state, and whose ancestors came from Schleswig-Holstein, Germany, which developed Holstein cattle, the primary breed used in dairies to this day. The dairy was located in the heart of some of the finest wheat fields in the world. Lincoln County produces more wheat that all other counties in the country, except nearby Whitman County. While all of his neighbors were growing wheat, Fred had his dairy, sometimes as many as 60 head of Holstein cattle. Work on a dairy never stops. Cows must be milked twice a day, everyday, rain, snow, or shine.

Emma worked hard and helped with the farm, milking cows, making butter, gathering eggs, feeding the hogs and delivering the butter and eggs twice a week. She raised a large family, did the laundry, sewed clothes, hand pumped water, prepared meals on a wood stove, tended the garden, picked fruit, and canned fruit and vegetables for the long winter. After all of this, housework was not a priority. Eventually her health was ruined. Her doctor told her to drink whiskey for her heart and that lead to still worse problems.

In 1903 Fred and Emma bought another adjacent quarter from the Northern Pacific Railroad giving them a total of 400 acres.

From the History of the Big Bend Country, 1904:

Mr Mahrt has improved his estate with first class buildings, fences, orchard and so forth. About one hundred acres are devoted to pasture and the balance is all first class grain land. He started in the Big Bend country with very little capital and he has been rewarded for his thrift and industry and has a large holding at the present time. In addition to the other industries mentioned, Mr. Mahrt is handling a fifty-cow dairy, probably the largest in the county.

Fred Mahrt milk cows and family about 1902

At the time of this picture the Fred Mahrt dairy farm consisted of about 60 head of Holstein dairy cattle, some of which are shown in center and right of picture. The area where the picture was taken was not the usual pasture area used by the dairy cattle, as they were kept in an area closer to the barns. Also the cows were not milked in the pasture as shown in picture, but were milked in the dairy barns. The milk was carried in buckets to the milk house (next to the main house), where the cream was separated from the milk to make butter. The skim milk was fed to the hogs. Twice a week (Tuesday and Friday) Fred and/or Emma took butter and eggs to Spokane to sell. This trip was 27 miles each way and was by horse drawn wagon, so this meant a very long day.

The central part of the storage barn (see below) was used as a granary to store hay and feed (bran and shorts) for livestock. This part also had room for a wagon to be driven inside through barn doors that divided into two parts from center and rode on rails above the doorframe. The picture shows the closed doors pushed outward a little. Attached to the side of storage barn is a horse shed that had “outlaw horses” purchased cheaply from neighbors who didn't want them. These horses were broke for farm use. On the other side of the storage barn another smaller shed housed horses and cattle.

Fred Mahrt barns about 1902

The new big red barn (built about 1903 [and still stands today]) was not yet built, but lumber for it can be seen in the barns picture.

To the left of the barns is a creek (part of the headwaters of Crab Creek, supposedly the longest creek in the world). The creek often ran dry in the summer, so the main water supply for the farm came from two wells. These wells were hand operated until 1906 when Fred started using a gasoline engine to pump water. Fred never did use a windmill. One well was by the barns and was used for livestock; the other well was located between the milk house and main house and was used by the family.

Fred Mahrt family members in the picture below, from left to right, are: Annie, Florence, William ‘Willie’ , Maragret ‘Maggie’, mother Emma Steffen Mahrt holding baby Alice, August ‘Gus’ (almost hidden by bush), father Fred, and George. (Try to imagine this house in the winter of 1896-7 when it was occupied by four adults and eleven children when Emma’a parents and half siblings came for an extended 3 month visit.)

Fred Mahrt home about 1902

There was a fence surrounding the main house, milk house, chicken house and orchard. The back of the house, where the family posed for this picture faced south and a county road. Fred's brother John Mahrt had a farm that was 1/2 mile east on this road and north one mile. From John's place you could go to Reardan by either of two directions. Between the house and road at Fred Mahrt's place were willow trees and maybe a few fruit trees.

On two sides of the house north and east was a large orchard, partially seen at right of picture. The orchard included: apple, pear, apricot, and cherry trees. They also raised raspberries, gooseberries, currants, black caps and strawberries. People used to come and pick berries by halves (half for themselves free, and other half they gave to Mahrt family). By this arrangement the Mahrts canned enough berries to last the family for a year. The Mahrts picked their fruit trees themselves.

A path led from the entrance to the main house (north side) east through orchard and on east through a gate in the fence to a large enclosed garden area where most varieties of vegetables were grown for family use. Seeds were planted with a hand operated planter. Fred grew lots of root vegetables and put them through a root cutter to make them into strips. These root vegetables were fed to the horses and cattle along with their hay, bran and shorts. Willie and others helped milk cows, churn butter and wash clothes by cranking a washing machine by hand.

On the north side of the house (see left in picture) the milk house doorway faced the doorway entrance to main house with a water well in between. The main industry of the farm was the dairy from which butter and eggs were delivered twice a week to Spokane. Carlo, the dog, sitting on the west side of house . There was a pathway that led from milk house down to the chicken house where a gate opened to the cattle barns. Sometimes Fred butchered 2 or 3 hogs and sold them to a butcher shop in Spokane. The hogs were fed the skimmed milk, plentiful on this dairy farm. They raised practically everything they ate on the farm.

Emma died in 1906 of typhoid pneumonia and heart failure at the young age of 36 years. Her death seemed to doom the farm. Emma died without a will, so half of the land was Fred’s and half went to the children. After a long probate, Fred bought the children’s interest and sold the homestead half quarter and the timber culture quarter to Albert C. and Louella Plaster in 1914 and the railroad quarter to his sister Mary and William Koeller in 1915. The land was reunited when the two buyers’ children, Irma Koeller and Robert Roy Plaster, were married in 1915 and began to farm the land. The land remains in the hands of Roy and Irma’s great grandson.

Fred moved to Sherman County, OR to a wheat farm and for some years during World War I made a lot of money, but eventually as the children became old enough he divided the money from the estate among them. Later during the depression he lost everything he had.

Fred lived with is son William from about 1925 off and on through 1929 or 1930. Some of that time they lived in Hardman, Oregon in Morrow County. They had a three-acre plot in this small village where there was only about two stores, a post office and a garage run by William. William’s wife Myrtle taught school there for about six years. Fred used to take care of a crazy cow and had some Leghorn chickens. He always had a wonderful garden and he loved to work with the soil. He grew wonderful cabbages, potatoes, carrots, rutabagas, anfees? beans, peas, and beets. At the county fair he received blue ribbons for his vegetables. At the time Fred didn't have to do anything he didn't want to do and he received a great deal of enjoyment from his garden, chickens, and cow. He had been sick in the hospital before coming to live with William and he said he never felt better than when he was with them. He was a big man—six feet with big square shoulders. He always had a beard. He never was very religious, but one time when William and Myrtle were away, he sent his granddaughter Leah to a Sunday school. He knew Myrtle would want Leah to go. He used to buy a big hog and process it and there was never such good eating. He surely knew how to fix meat. He also used to make sour bread and dill pickles.

Fred Mahrt family about 1915

Fred was broke and living with his daughter Florence in Arcata, California when he died in 1932. His brother, John Mahrt, paid to have his body shipped to Reardan, Washington where he was buried in an unmarked grave beside to his wife Emma and their infant children.

The twins Annie and Margaret married two Gillette brothers, Fred and Edward, who farmed immediately south of Reardan on the Davidson Homestead Quarter at the base of the Reardan Butte. These marriages did not last and both girls remarried. The older two boys August and George served in World War I. August served as an Army Private in the 74th Spruce Squadron. When the United States entered the war, their European counterparts had been in the war for several years and had advanced the science of flight to where it becoming a dominating force. The US had to play catch-up as they largely ignored the invention of flight. Aircraft of the day were built with lightweight wooden frames covered with fabric. The wood of choice was Sitka spruce, because it was a straight-grained knot-free wood, which resulted in a lot of strength and little weight. For the war effort the federal government created the US Spruce Corporation, a government agency, to run saw mills for spruce and hemlock. The government built a network of railroads to bring the cut logs from the forest to the sawmills. To provide the manpower, the government inducted draftees into Spruce Squadrons of the Army. August was a mechanic charged with keeping trucks in operation and he never left the states during the war. In a letter to one of his sisters, he wrote, “I have never seen so much mud.” After the war August continued being a mechanic in Oregon. He married Ida Bowen, and had one son, August Jr., before dying in 1922. Ida married his brother George and they raised August Jr. and two of their own children, Robert and Vivian. George also died young in 1937 due to respiratory problems, possibly from complications from exposure to poisonous gas attacks during WWI.

William moved to Oregon. He was an electrical contractor and ran a small electrical utility generating power with diesel generators. Alice became a nurse.

This article is part of a series. To find other articles, see Some South Reardan Homesteads.