New news from 1890

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In 1890, Watertown area farmer S.A. Robbins’ house blew away. 

That sad situation wasn’t reported in the Watertown Public Opinion, or any other area newspaper for that matter.

You’re the first to read about it because it’s been hidden away all these years in Mr. Robbins’ little leather-bound logbook.

Robbins scribbled neatly and succinctly in his book that day. “House blew away.”

How this informative diary got to the Brookings County Museum in Volga isn’t known, but its tattered pages have languished there for years. We know it belonged to S.A. Robbins because one of his flowery calling cards is still tucked away in the cover pocket of the book, and a shadow of his signature is in ink on the leather cover.

There’s also a calling card of Emery Robbins, whom I assumed was his son. 

Robbins was faithful in recording in his logbook his bank loans and payments, what he paid for goods necessary to survive in those early days, and notes about when his cattle, hogs and horses birthed or were bred. 

Seventeen months after South Dakota became a state in November 1889, Robbins didn’t know about it, or had forgotten the presidential signing. He was still using “Watertown, Dakota Territory,” on his notations, indicating statehood wasn’t that big a deal for him.

His spelling was like mine. 

Terrible. 

I’m basing that on how he wrote some of the items on his shopping list. In 1891, he paid 15 cents for caro sene (kerosene), 50 cents for shugar (sugar) and got a deal on spenders (suspenders) at 25 cents a pair, or as he wrote, “pare.” 

He also bought “poster stamps” for a dime, a “spoll” of thread for his wife for a dime, invested $2 in a “raszor” and $1 for “one pare over halls.” Robbins also spent $51 for a “yoak of cattle.” 

On another of his infrequent shopping trips to Watertown, he spent 85 cents for “drows” (underwear), got a bath for a quarter and spent another quarter “stabling” his “yoak of cattle.”  

He also borrowed money for 1892 Christmas gifts, including $35 from the Fairmont Bank at 10 percent. That was a week before he signed a note to a neighbor for $14 plus 10 percent “for a bull.”

On a July 1891 shopping trip, he wrote in ink that he spent a dime on “2 glas bears.” Perhaps concerned that his wife would read of this “beers” indiscretion, he crossed it out.      

His cropping record for 1892 includes wheat bringing $2.65, barley $1.34, “sukhtash” $1.34, oats, $11.88 and flax, $1.50.

In September 1891, Robbins paid $5 for two hogs. In 1893, he hired a stud for his team, writing that “Bolly took the horse the 24th of May” and Fanny “took the horse the 19th of June.” 

In a notation in 1896, he wrote that his “sow took the bor the 23 of Jany.”

Thanks to Mr. Robbins, his notes jotted down when South Dakota was just a pup gives us insight into some of the costs and hard work of farming long ago. My apologies to him and his progeny for pointing out his spelling errors. 

He isn’t alone.

I make speling erors all the tim.   

If you’d like to comment, email the author at cfcecil@swiftel.net.