The Conquest: The Story of a Negro Pioneer

  CHAPTER XXX

  ERNEST NICHOLSON TAKES A HAND

  After completing the first survey, however, the surveyors returned, andmade another that struck Amro. This survey swerved off from the firstsurvey to the southwest between Colone and Amro and struck the valley ofa little stream known as Mud Creek, which empties into the Dog Ear atAmro. But being a most illogical route, I felt confident the C. & R.W.had no intention of following it, perhaps only making the survey out ofcourtesy to the people in Amro, or possibly to show to the staterailroad commissioners, if they became insistent, why they could notstrike the town.

  About this time Ernest Nicholson appeared on the scene, and purchased aforty acre tract of land north of the town, for which he paid fifty-fivedollars an acre, later paying ten thousand dollars for a quarter,joining the forty. Still later he purchased the entire section ofheirship land, belonging to a man named Jim Riggins, an Oristown cityjustice, and a former squaw-man, whose deceased wife had owned the land.For this section of land the Nicholsons paid thirty-five thousanddollars. The price staggered the people of Amro, who declared Nicholsonhad certainly gone crazy. They set up a terrible "howl." "What were thed-- Nicholsons sticking their noses into Tipp county towns for? Werethey not satisfied with Calias, where they had grafted everybody out oftheir money?" No, the trouble, they all agreed, was that Ernest wantedto run the country and wanted to be the "big stick." But they consoledthemselves for awhile with the fact that Amro had the county seat andwas growing. The settlers were trading in Amro, for Amro had what theyneeded. An indignation meeting was held, where with much feeling theydenounced the actions of Ernest Nicholson in buying land north of thetown and announcing that he would build a town such as the Little Crowhad never dreamed of, and that Amro should at once begin to move over tothe new townsite and save money; but they were hot. Old Dad Durpee, inhis shirt sleeves, corduroy and boots, his shaggy beard flowing,declared that the low-down, stinking, lying cuss would not dare to askhim to move to the town he had as yet not even named; but Ernest, at thewheel of a big new sixty-horse power Packard, continued to buy landalong the railroad survey all the way to the west line of the county. Infact he bought every piece of land that was purchasable.

  I watched this fight from the beginning, with interest, for I had becomewell enough acquainted with Ernest to feel that he knew what he wasabout. When the surveyors had arrived in Calias, Ernest had gone toChicago. In declaring the road could not miss Amro the people were muchlike inhabitants of Megory had been a few years before. While theyprattled and allowed their ego to rule, they should have been busy, andwhen it was seen that the town might not get the railroad, they shouldhave gone to Chicago and seen Marvin Hewitt, putting the propositionsquarely before him, and requested that if he could not give them theroad, to give them a depot, if they moved to the line of the survey. Bythat time it was a town with two solid blocks of business houses andmany good merchants and bankers. I often wondered how such men could beso pinheaded, sitting back, declaring the great C. & R.W. railway couldnot afford to miss a little burg like Amro, but from previousobservations and experience I felt sure they would wait until the lastdog was dead, before trying to see what they could do. And they did.

  In the meantime the promoters, who were nearly all from Megory orsomewhere in Megory county, had learned that Ernest Nicholson wasnobody's fool. They hooted the Nicholsons, along with the rest of thetown, declaring Ernest to be anything but what he really was, until theyhad roused enough excitement to make Amro seem like a "good thing." Thenthey quietly sold their interest to the Amoureaux Brothers, who raked upabout all that was left of the fortune of a few years previous, and paidsix thousand, six hundred dollars for the interest of the promoterswhich made the Amoureaux the sole owners of the townsite and placed themin obvious control of the town's affairs, and again in the white societythey liked so well.

  All the Calias lumber yards owned branch yards at Amro and everybodycontinued to do a flourishing business. The Amroites paid littleattention to the platting of the townsite to the north, nor made asingle effort to ascertain which survey the railroad would follow, butcontinued to boast that Amro would get the road. About this time ErnestNicholson called a meeting in Amro, inviting all the business men to bepresent and hear a proposition that he had to make, stating he hoped thecitizens of the town and himself could get together without friction orill-feeling. The meeting was held in Durpee's hall and everybodyattended; some out of curiosity, some out of fear, and but few with anyexpectation or intention of agreeing to move to the north townsite.Ernest addressed the meeting, first thanking them for their presence,then plunged headlong into the purpose of the meeting. He explained thatit was quite impossible for the road to go to Amro, this he had fearedbefore a survey was made, but that he had ascertained while in Chicagothat the road would not strike Amro. He then read a letter from MarvinHewitt, the "man of destiny," so far as the location of the railroad wasconcerned, which stated that the road would be extended and the depotwould be located on section twenty, which was the section Ernest hadpurchased. Then he brought up the matter of the distribution of lotswhich was, that to every person who moved or began to move to the newtownsite within thirty days, one-half of the purchase price of the lotwould be refunded. The price of the business lots ranged from eighthundred to two thousand dollars, while residence lots were from fifty tothree hundred. "Think it over," he said, in closing, and was gone.

  Needless to say they paid little attention to the proposition. The AmroJournal "roasted" and cartooned the Nicholson Brothers in the same wayMegory papers had done, on account of the town of Calias.

  After thirty days had elapsed, the Nicholsons warned the people of Amrothat it was the last opportunity they would have to accept hisproposition, and when they paid no attention to his warning, he namedthe new town. I shall not soon forget how the people outside of the townof Amro laughed over the name applied to the new town, as itsapplication to the situation was so accurate and descriptive of laterevents, that I regret I must substitute a name for the purposes of thisstory, but which is the best I am able to find, "Victor."

  Instead of moving to Victor, taking advantage of choice of location andthe purchase of a lot at half price, the Amroites began makingimprovements in their town, putting down cement walks ten feet wide thelength of the two business blocks and walks on side streets as well. Aschool election was called and as a result an eleven-thousand-dollarschool house was erected, a modern two-story building, with basement andgymnasium. The building was large enough to hold all the population ofAmro if all the men, women and children were of school age, and stillhave room for many more. This act brought a storm of criticism from thesettlers, and even many of the people of the town thought it quite aneedless extravagance; but Van Neter, who was strong for education andfor Amro, had put it through and figured he had won a point. He was thecounty superintendent. Most of the people claimed the town would soongrow large enough to require the building, and let it go at that.

  People began drifting into Victor, buying lots and putting up goodbuildings. Nicholsons announced a lot sale and preparations began formuch active boosting for the new town. In the election to be held a yearlater, they hoped to wrest the county seat from Amro.

  When Ernest Nicholson saw the improvements being made in Amro and nosign of moving the town, he began to scheme, and I could see that ifAmro wasn't going to move peacefully he would help it along in someother way. However, nothing was done before the lot sale, which wasadvertised to take place in the lobby of the Nicholson Brothers' newoffice building in Calias.

  On the date advertised for the lot sale, crowds gathered and many whohad no intentions of investing, attended the sale out of curiosity. Itook a crowd to Calias from Megory, among whom was Joy Flackler, cashierof the Megory National Bank, who stated that Frank Woodring had loanedthe Nicholsons fifty thousand dollars to buy the townsite. Megoryitesstill held a grudge against the Nicholsons, and Flackler seemed to wishthey had asked the loan of him so he might have had th
e pleasure ofturning them down.

  The second day of the lot sale, a bunch of bartenders, gamblers andAmro's rougher class appeared on the scene and distributed handbillswhich announced that Amro had contracted for a half section on thesurvey north of the town and would move in a body if moving wasnecessary. The crowd styled themselves "Amro knockers," whose purpose itwas to show prospective lot buyers that in purchasing Victor lots theywere buying "a pig in a poke." The knocking was done mostly in saloons,where the knockers got drunk and were promptly arrested before the salestarted. The sale went along unhindered. The auctioneer, standing abovethe crowds, waxed eloquent in pointing out the advantages, describingSioux City on the east and Deadwood and Lead on the west, and explainingthat eventually a city must spring up in that section of the country,that would grow into a prairie metropolis of probably ten thousandpeople, and whether the crowd before him took his eloquence seriously ornot, they at least had the chance at the choice of the lots andlocations, and eighty-four thousand dollars worth of lots were sold.

  Bringing stock, household goods, and plenty of money.(page 177.)]