JOHNNY WHALEN
PIONEER RAILROAD BUILDER AND FARMER

BY
FRANCES(WHALEN)CRUMMY

Johnny Whalen, second child and son of Murtha and Catherine Nolan) (1) Whelan,was born at Hudson, Wisconsin on September 8, 1861. He was always called always called "Johnny"by all who knew him, even his sons-in-law.

One spring day when Johnny was about 3 1/2 years old, he ran into his home and discovered a situation which shocked him so profoundly that he never forgot it as long as he lived. All of the grown ups were CRYING! When he asked his Mother what was wrong, he was told, "Mr. Lincoln has died". Somebody shot him" The name Mr. Linclon, meant nothing to the little boy, until he heard it years later in school, when he studied American History. Then he remembered the day the elders had cried and he understood why.

Another of Johnny's earliest , memories was of getting his hair cut. He was perched on a stool with a towel around his neck, getting "bowl and scissors" trim from his mother.Johnny hated to set still for very long, but he was not afraid of being cut His mother had told him that if, by any chance, she should happen to snip his ear or neck instead of his hair, he was not to cry, because she would give him a spoonful of sugar. Now if there was one thing Johnny liked all his life, it was a spoonful of sugar; so he sat very still hoping with all his might that his mother would cut him. She snipped and snipped around the bowl, all the while talking to a neighbor who sat nearby. Mother talked so much that she forgot to snip and just talked on and on, not noticing that the scissors had hold of Johnny's ear instead of his hair. Johnny sat still as a mouse and chuckled to himself, "Ha ha, she'll cut my ear and then I'll get a spoonful of sugar." Then, his mother finished her story and turned back to her task, she saw the scissors and the ear and gasped, "Lord save us! I nearly cut off the poor child's ear!" Poor Johnny began to cry because he knew he would not get the sugar after all.

Another incident of Johnny's boyhood which he loved to tell and retell to his grandchildren, occurred during his last term of school when he was about the age of thirteen. Knowing that his school days were numbered, he was old enough to go to work on the farm with his step-father (2), Johnny applied himself diligently to his books and didn't even stop to play at recess. On this particular day, some of the boys took advantage of the regular teacher's absence to upset the school with their horseplay. The substitute teacher, a young lady of about sixteen years, had tried several times to silence them, but to no avail. The young Johnny Whalen, looked up from his studies and said .to his boisterous classmates, "You fellows, quit that fighting If you can't be quiet and study, why don't you go outside and let us work who want to!" To his evident surprise and to the relief of the substitute teacher, both boys immediately left the school room

Johnny returned to his studies and the room was quiet for a while. Then the noise outside revealed that the pugilists had resumed their bout. Imagine feeling the pride swelled up in Johnny's chest when the teacher approached his desk and tearfully implored, "Oh Mr. Whalen, those boys are fighting again! Wont you please go outside and make themstop!". "Mr. Whalen!" Could any title have been more pleasing to a thirteen - year-old's ears? At that moment, JohnnyWhalen be came a man. Rising to his feet he strode with dignity from the school room. In the steelyard, Johnny found the antagonists locked in combat. Seizing each by the back of his collar and pulling them apart, Mr. Whalen spoke, "If you two boys {He dwelt on the word meaningfully. don't stop this at once, I'll crack your heads together and drop you in the rain barrel!"They evidently thought he could do just that, for wiping their perspiring faces of their shirt sleeves, both returned to the classroom and spent the rest of the day in silence .

In the fall of 1877, when he as 16 years of age, Johnny Whalen accompanied an older man on a hunting trip up into Northern Minnesota by train as far as New York Mills. Johnny shot two deer and had them shipped back to Hudson , Wisconsin. When Johnny returned home he learned that his family never received the meat, nor had the station master informed of its arrival. When he went to the station to inquire about his deer, he discovered the carcass had rotted, and the meat was wasted.

Johnny's second trip to Minnesota occurred the next spring, when he and his family moved from Wisconsin to what would later become Marshall County in the north-western part of the state. They arrived at the Tamarac River there, about the middle of May and staked out a quarter of section 19 in what would later become Wagner Township. There the family built a house and put in a crop.

About the first day of July. 1878, The St. Paul, Manitoba Railroad Company put to work a crew of men laying out tracks north of Crookston, Minnesota. Weeds and grass had to be cut where on land that had been graded up for tracks which were to be laid north to what is now Euclid. ( This track had one been nearly built to Warren, Minnesota, but had to be torn up in the 1870's and used to build another track from Crookston to Fisher's Landing.). Washouts made it necessary to rebuild the grade in some spots. Many men were needed to do the work When the Whalen-Hughes family heard that work was available on the railroad, Johnny and his younger brother, Will, left home and walked to Euclid, hoping to be hired. Johnny was taken on as a track worker. Will was hired to take drinking water to the men

The progress of railroad building was well systematized (3) Each day, the work pulled up by the St. Cloud or No. 7 Engine (so called because it was the seventh engine the railroad company had used) would go to the end of the finished track where the ties and up out of the way Men with ox teams loaded up ties and distributed them along the grade. Following them, came a crew of tie layers. They placed the ties along the grade about two feet apart. Next came two men .

with picks and shovels. They swung the ties around evenly stretched out four feet each way from the center of the track (One of these two men was Johnny Whalen.) The Iron Gang the loaded a pile of rails onto a horse drawn flat car, hauled it to the end of the track and let down two parallel rails. Two boys, called "spike peddlers" dropped two spikes at the end of each tie. The spikes were driven into the ends of each tie and in the middle. Two men bolted on the "fish plates" that joined the rails and others drove in the remaining spikes. The finishing touches were given by levelers who, straightened up the track. The horse drawn-flat car the moved ahead and the process was repeated until the supply of rails was exhausted and it had to be driven back down the track for another load. The track layers reached the Snake River about the middle of August. After that many of the men began staking out land claims for themselves with the intent of settling in the area once their work on the railroad was completed. The Middle River was crossed about 12 days later and the Tamarac River on September 8, 1878, Johnny Whalen's 17th birthday.

The camp three miles north of the Tamarac River was the last one in which the crew were all together. After that, the tie-handlers, including Johnny, lived in tents at the end of the track. They had a large tent in which they cooked and ate their meals, but were obliged to sleep on the ground most of the time. The end of September found them camped on the west side of the coulee that runs through the present site of Kennedy. The men noticed a fire to the northwest as they made camp about 6:30 P.M, but it seemed so far away that no one thought it would reach camp before morning. However , they were scarcely half finished with supper when someone shouted, "FIRE!" When the men rushed out of the cook tent the fire was not much more than a mile away. Great clouds of smoke filled the air and flames seemed to leap a hundred feet into the sky. Everyone hurried to pull down the tent and move everything over to the east side of the track. They were safe because the fire did not jump the high grade.

The tracks  were laid across the Two Rivers, the present site of Northcote, on October 15 , 1878. There, because of rain and snow that made work impossible, the track layers had their rest since crossing the Tamarac River in early September. After crossing the two Rivers , the tie-handlers slept in large tents. At siding no. 2, in what is now Humbolt, Minnesota, bunk cars were provided for their sleeping quarters. On December 2, 1878, the St. Paul, Minneapolis and Manitoba railroad met the Canadian Pacific Railroad in Canada and the silver spike was driven uniting the two railroads-

"Johnny Whalen" continued to work on the Canadian Railroad until it was 800 miles north of Fort Gary ( now Winnipeg, Manitoba" Then he abandoned his career as a railroad builder and turned to farming as his life's work. This was during his 20's.Johnny's life during the late teen years, probably alternated periods between railroad building in the spring, summer and fall and life with his family at the little settlement along the Tamarac River, where his mother, step-father, and his step-brothers and sisters kept busy running the "section house" belonging to the railroad. They provided meals and lodging for the workers.

No story of Johnny's youth would be complete without the mention of the "pledge" which he took, to please his mother, before he was 21. This pledge was to abstain totally, from alcoholic beverages, for life. Johnny and thousands of other Irish men of his day took it, encouraged by their families and parish priests, as a defense against alcoholism which many of their fathers before them. Those earlier immigrants, faced with all the burdens of poverty, illiteracy and prejudice which they met in the new land, often took to drink to escape the hopelessness in which they lived. Johnny's sobriety was a mark which set him apart from many neighbors in the new frontier, of Northern Minnesota and was responsible for many opportunities for leadership which came his way in the developing community

Before his twenty-first birthday, Johnnytook his first step in becoming a landowner, by registering a pre-emption claim on the north-east quarter of section 8 in Sinnott Township, Marshall County, Minnesota. His sister, Maggie, had a homestead claim on the south-west quarter of the same section. Maggie, who was a year older than Johnny, was eligible to become a land owner before he was.

The family advised her to speak for that quarter and then began to look covetously at the adjoining northern quarter which would be so handy if Johnny could get it. The story is told (4) that Johnny could not qualify because he was only twenty. A year later might to late, as someone might claim that land in the meantime. Johnny wrestled with his conscience for some time and finally he (or perhaps someone older in the family) came up with a plan which satisfied both his desire to own the land next to Maggie's and to retain his natural sense of honesty. He wrote "21" on two slips of paper and put one in each oh his boots. Then he went down to the land office and apply for a "pre-emption" claim. When the official asked the fateful question,

"Are you over twenty one?" Johnny stepped down hard upon the numbered slips of paper in his boots and answered firmly that he was indeed over "21"

One of the requirements for "proving up" was that the persons must live on the land for five years. (This was on the homestead such as Maggie's.) (The pre-emption claims were satisfied by living on the land for a shorter period of time and later buy it at $1.25 an acre) Johnny and Maggie satisfied the living requirement by building a frame house or shanty right on the dividing line between the two quarters. That was were the combined kitchen-living room was built. The bedrooms were built on each side of side of the main room, each one's room on his/her own land. There they lived together, Johnny farming the two quarters and Magi keeping house for him. They were approximately twenty-one and twenty at the beginning of the arrangement.

A few years later, probably about 1885, when Mrs. Thomas McCullogh, as neighbor died and left a large family of small children, Johnny and Maggie attended her funeral and heard the other neighbors plans to help the bereaved husband and father.

Each decide to take one of the small children to raise for him. When they heard the plan,Johnnyand Maggie offered to help out too.They were given little RossieMcCullogh, who was then about four years old. His older sister, Bertha stayed with them for a while too, so that Rossie would not be lonely.

Maggie proved up her claim in 1886 and then moved back into town, Stephen, Minnesota, where she lived with her mother and step-father. Then Johnny and Rossie were alone on the farm. At times the boy was alone most of the time, while Johnny was busy in the fields.

During his brief periods of leisure time, Johnny would entertain the boy with songs and stories. (5) Two of his favorite songs were ballads about "Paddy Haggerty's OLd Leather Britches" and"A Soldier of the Legion" who lay dying in Algiers, where there here was lack of women's nursing and a dearth of women's tears Another song Johnny sang frequently was "The Vacant Chair".

 Rossie recalls that Johnny loved to hunt and camp out. On one occasion he took a knapsack full of provisions and a small tent which he had, and his brother, Jim Whalen, drive him east towards the woods until noon. Then Johnny went on alone, a foot .He was gone for two weeks, but shot no game in all that time.

Rossie also recalled that Johnny kept an old white cow which made life miserable for the boy. She took a dislike to him, he said and used to chase him whenever he came near. The other livestock on the farm were three horses.

During the winter of 1886 - 1887, Rossie's older sister, Bertha, who was then eight years old, stayed with him and Johnny. The two children often left alone when Johnny had driven into Stephen for supplies. One such day, a blizzard arose during his abcense, making his return impossible, until the next day. Rossie and Bertha were aloe all night and part of the next day, while the blizzard raged around their little prairie home. When the morning came they opened the door and found that they were prisoners, for the snow had drifted completely over the house. They had to endure more long lonely hours until Johnny returned and shoveled a tunnel to the door.

Another time, Johnny returned from town and asked Bertha for his supper. She brought him a bowl of bread and milk and nothing for herself nor for her brother. When Johnny asked where their supper was, they replied they were not hungry. Bread and milk for her - self nor for her brother. When Johnny asked where their satisfy, Johnny asked for the "rest of the meal". Bertha hedged a bit, then began to fix more bread and milk. Becoming more suspicious Johnny questioned the children and uncovered a tearful tale The children had a quarrel during the day, during which they had accidentally tipped over the table and broken all the dishes except one bowl, hence the supper of bread and milk for one!

When Rossie was old enough for school, Johnny sent him to the District 22 (or Sinnott School ) which was a 3/4 mile walk each way. Later, the school was moved and the distance was a mile less. For two or three summers, the boys teacher was Johnny's future wife, Miss Mary Ann Hughes. Rossie remembered that one summer, he and a girl Mary Ozmun were the only pupils in school.

During the winter of 1887 - 1888, Johnny's aunt and uncle, Mr. and Mrs. Timothy Hayes, came from Wiscconson and stayed with him and the boy. Mrs. Hayes, was "Aunt Mary" who had visited Johnny's family in Wisconsin, after his fathers death. She was a woman with a vast store of interesting stories to tell, which helped shorten the winter.

Aunt Mary Hays came to America from Ireland as a young woman. She could speak the Gaelic language and most of her stories were of persons and places in old Ireland. She it was who told Johnny about his late father's family, of his six beautiful aunts who lived in Springfield, Massachsettuts and of his uncles who lived in Ireland and in Italy. She also filled Johnny's head with tales of his Mother's (and her own) . the mighty Nolan Clan, all great fighters and a family to be reckoned with through out Irish history. She used to say, "When your Uncle, Billy Hessian, came upon the green with his shillelagh, at the fair at Balensthoe, and gave his battle cry, " Hi, at Balensthoe, and gave his battle cry, " Hi, for Nolan, there was not a man in all Ireland who dared stand againsthim."

 
Aunt Mary had another bit of Irish folklore to explain the fact that some of the family had been born with crooked little fingers. According to her story, this occurred during the long struggle waged when England attempted to subdue Ireland. One English Lord, who, had confiscated Irish lands and tried in vain to conquer his Irish neighbors, in battle, at last devised a scheme which seemed to guarantee success by cunning. Pretending friendship, he invited the chiefs of all the nearby clans to come to his castle and "bury the hatchet" so to speak. There was to be feasting and song, followed - by an end to the conflict His Irish neighbors responded with good will and on the appointed day, they arrived in a body, each riding his best horse and dressed in the colors of his clan. Across the moat from the Englishman's castle, they waited, while the great drawbridge was let down and the Lords heralds rode out with fanfare of bagpipes and trumpets

The heralds announced that His Lordship desired each clansman to ride alone across the drawbridge and give his name to the gate keeper, so that each might be individually be announced and received the proper tribute due to his noble clan. Several clansman had ridden, singly, in state across the drawbridge and their names were thundered out on the other side of the castle gates names were thundered out on the other side of the castle gates. Then rode out the leader of the mighty Nolan Clan, who sensed something was wrong with the proceedings; for after each man rode through the castle gates, not another sound came from the castle yard.

No shouts of welcome nor din of good-fellowship was heard. In truth it seemed a strange way for the festival to begin. Suspicious though he was, Nolan rode on through the castle yard where his eyes first fell upon a knight who rode out to greet him unarmed and with outstretched hands in greeting. The wary Nolan wasted not more than a glance on that one for to his right he perceived the shadow of another man who was hidden from sight behind a wall.

Reigning his horse about , Nolan spurred back across the drawbridge , shouting his battle cry, "Hi, for Nolan" as he rode. The rest of his countrymen, thus warned, galloped away to safety. Nolan, however, did not escape unscathed, for as he turned his horse to flee the castle yard, the hidden knight was beside him and struck a him a mighty blow with his battle axe, It was his intention to "bury the hatchet" in Nolan's neck as he had done to the unsusrp- pecting clansman before him. He missed his mark when Nolan turned, his axe did smash across his hands, holding his horses reins, breaking both of Nolan's little fingers. Ever since that time, child born with crooked little fingers, is said to bear the mark of the Nolan Clan .

Johnny's brother, and his sister-in-law, Will and Annie (Sinnott) Whalen, spent the winter of 1888 - 1889 with him. A year or so later, a crippled man named Ozmun stayed there. These winter time guests broke the monotony and dispelled the of the long cold months when most folks stayed close to their own firesides. Roads were poor in those days, and travel almost impossible.

From the very beginning of his farming years, Johnny was involved in community affairs. Sinnott Township, in which he live, was officially organized at a meeting in his step-father's home (John Hughes), on August 5, 1882. Johnny who would not be 21 for another month, was elected township clerk; John Hughes - treasurer- Pierce J. Sinnott, John Campbell, and H.H. Herried, supervisors.

He continued to serve on that the township board for most of his adult life. In later years he served on the school board of District # 97 (for 40 years) on the Farmers and Merchants Elevator Board, on the Marshall County Old Settlers' Association and many more

At the time Johnny and his sister, Maggie, began farming on Section 8 in Sinnott Township, they did have other neighbors nearby. They included S.P. Jenson, in section 1; Lars Jorgeson nearby. They included S.P. Jenson, in section 1; Lars Jorgeson, in the same section; Christian Paulson in section 2; John Damon, in section 4; Solomon Lundeen, in section 12; John Swanson, in section 32;, August Lundeen adjoining his brother in section 12; Henry Rogers, in section 23; and Sven Grandstrand, in the same section. All of these established claim to their lands in 1880 - 1882. Also lining in Sinnott Township at the time were Pierce Sinnott, on section 20 (the first settler in the township, who arrived in 1878) his step-father and mother Mr. and Mrs. John Hughes, who homesteaded on section ? A year or two later, Miss Annie Sinnott came from Ireland and homesteaded next to her brother, Pierce, in section 20. Another brother, James P. Sinnott and his wife, who first settled at Kennedy, Minnesota, later established a claim near Johnny and Maggie's land. His was on the south - west quarter of section 8. Johnny's brother Will married Annie Sinnott and they made their home on her land in section 20. Later, his youngest brother Jim established a claim on the south west quarter of section 10. In 1892 Johnny took a wife, but that's another story.

1.The spelling was changed between the two generations

2. This may be about the time his older step-brother, Jim Hughes met his death. He stood

up in a boat and fell out and drowned.

3. This is from n essay written by Mark Whalen, 1936.

4. This story was told by his son, William Hughes Whalen.

STELLAR COMPUTER CONSULTING
HAVRE, MONTANA
     FAMILY HISTORY INDEX MARY ANN