Migrational Tale This page last updated September 6, 2003
Sometime in the latter part of 1894 a covered
wagon pulled by a team of horses came to the hill at the
east side of Yates Center. The horses were thin and
very tired. The team, wagon and people in it had come
from Enid, Oklahoma and were headed for Nebraska. Some
of the hills between Enid and Yates Center were long
and steep, and in some cases the horses could not pull
the wagon to the top of the hill, so the people would
get out and walk up the grade to ease the load for the
faithful horses who were their only hope of reaching
Nebraska. By the time that the team got to the top of
the hill one of the horses was very sick. The people
had very little money - just $1.50. They spent their
last cent for medicine for the horse and to their
great sorrow the horse died the next morning.
The occupants of the wagon were Isaac Daniel, his
wife Matilda, and children, Homer, Elmer, Walter and
Clara. While they had not planned it and hard for them
to believe it, Woodson County was to be their future
home, and soon they established themselves here.
Isaac Daniel Barnes, in later years known better by
the initials I. D., was born October 21, 1859, in Owen
County, Indiana. He was the son of William Landrum and
Elizabeth Ellett Barnes. His wife, Matilda Jane
(Tillie) Taylor was born November 18, 1862, at
Spencer, Indiana. She was the daughter of Charles
Markley and Eliza Jane Clark Taylor. Isaac Daniel and
Tillie were married at Spencer, November 12, 1881.
Like many others the lure of the west had fired the
pioneer spirit and in the spring of 1883, I. D.,
Tillie and a year old son Homer, loaded their
possessions in a covered wagon and started west. In
time they arrived in Polk County, Nebraska, where they
soon engaged in farming for a couple of years. Here
their son Elmer was born, March 1, 1885.
Hearing homesteads were to be had in Colorado, they
again pulled up stakes and headed farther west in the
late fall of 1885. Accompanying them were old friends,
the S. G. Davis family from Spencer, Indiana. They
arrived in Sedgewick County, Colorado in the middle of
a blizzard. The only shelter available was in the home
of two bachelors who were living in one room twelve by
fourteen foot sod house. They stayed in the sod shanty
for three days as the blizzard was so fierce a person
could see only a few feet away. There were six adults
and four children in this one room. As soon as the
weather permitted, they dug a small dugout of their
own. This was their home until a better one could be
made. When spring came they built a new sod house.
Times were very rough in Colorado, it seldom rained
and the winters were very severe. During their eight
years in Colorado the Barnes family raised only two
crops. Sedgewick County is in the northeast corner of
the state. They lived south of Julesburg. Venango,
Nebraska was their closest trading place. In the late
spring of 1894, they realized the wheat they had sown
earlier in the fall had not sprouted as there had been
no rain for a long time. They sold out for $150.00 and
supplies and left Colorado in a covered wagon along
with the Davis family. In the meantime, there were two
more additions to their family, Walter and Clara
Dulcie.
This time they went to Oklahoma to find work and
establish homes. But Oklahoma was in a deep drought so
there were no crops and no work. Although discouraged
but still determined they left Enid and began their
trek to Nebraska.
For many years, I. D. and Tillie lived on the farm
along Owl Creek, five miles east and three quarter
miles south of Yates Center. After arriving in Woodson
County two more children were born, Emma Anna and
Otis.
Obituaries of Issac & Tillie Barnes
Submitted by Charlottes Barns Lewin
Source Material:
In The Beginning
Published By
The Woodson County Historical Society
Yates Center, Kansas
Vol. 11 - No. 41
1978
Website Coordinator
Issac & Tillie Barnes