You just never know when you’re going to stumble upon new Laura information — but I certainly didn’t expect it at church.
Sunday morning, I sat in the family pew as usual, listening to the sermon. The pastor began to speak about the power of prayer, and then launched into a story.
“John Maxwell, in his book Partners in Prayer,” he began, “writes about the summer of 1876 when grasshoppers nearly destroyed the crops in Minnesota.” I sat right up and listened intently, feeling the gaze of my mother as she turned and gave me the same “can you believe this?” expression that must have been mirrored on my own face.
He went on to tell a story I’d never heard before. I’ve never really studied the grasshopper plague at all before; it seems to be a rather well-known story from what I’ve found since so perhaps some of you already know what I’m about to tell. He related that in the spring of 1877, following the devastation of their wheat crops the previous summer, the farmers were in great fear over all of the eggs laid in the ground, and what the grasshoppers were going to do to their crops again this year. So the governor of Minnesota, John Pillsbury, declared April 26, 1877, to be a day of prayer. He asked that everyone close their stores and dedicate this day to praying that they would be relieved of the scourge of grasshoppers that seemed sure to come. So on the designated day, the people prayed. They prayed and they prayed. And the next day dawned bright and sunny — and hot. And the next couple of days were also unseasonably warm. And the eggs hatched, and grasshoppers were crawling all over the place. Then suddenly on the next day came a deep freeze, killing all the grasshoppers.
This is the story as my pastor shared it in church Sunday morning, his source of course being the aforementioned book. His point was that there is power in prayer; but I must confess, my mind was too busy turning over this new information to hear much else he had to say after that.
My first thought was, “But… but…” Grasshoppers Walking.” What happened to the grasshoppers walking and finally flying up and leaving in a glittering cloud just the way they had come? That’s what Laura said! Who’s right, Laura, or this story?”
My next thought was to reconcile the dates. “April 1877…” thought I. “Why, the Ingalls family was in Burr Oak by then. The grasshoppers should have already been gone. Weren’t they?”
I did some scouting around when I got home, anxious to find answers to my questions, and found many different versions of the Day of Prayer story. Some say just what my pastor told, the grasshoppers froze. Others also mention the freeze but instead of saying the grasshoppers froze to death, they say the grasshoppers started walking and then flew away in a glittering cloud to get away from the cold, similar to the way Laura describes.
But remember again that we’re not even talking about the same year. Laura also writes of the heat hatching the grasshopper eggs, but doesn’t mention a frost — just that they all suddenly walked off and then flew off in a rising cloud. She says it was a hot July day when this miracle occurred — and it appears she’s referring to the summer of 1876 when you try to merge real life with the book (always a challenge, as you must consider the books are fictional, not autobiographical, and therefore some events were created, altered, or placed at a different time than they actually occurred so you really can’t reliably merge the books with real life. And yet something within us makes us keep trying.)
So my question now is, Did the grasshoppers fly away as Laura described in the summer of 1876, but left their eggs behind first, allowing the event in the spring of 1877 to occur as described in this Day of Prayer story? Or did Laura simply hear the story of how the grasshoppers flew away in 1877 and fit it into her story to tie up the story of the grasshopper invasion?
If I want answers to those questions, I’ll have to do some further research, I know. 
I did find this page interesting, with the maps showing grasshopper damage by county. (Walnut Grove is in Redwood County.) It answers another question I’ve had but not pursued an answer to until now — when Pa comments on Hanson’s thin wheat crop just after they arrive on Plum Creek, I had wondered if that meant that grasshoppers had already been there the year before, and from these maps, it appears that Redwood County did have grasshopper damage in 1873.
It really reflects poorly on the Hansons, who “traded” (for sake of the story) Pa their land that they knew was worthless without warning him, so that they could escape to greener pastures. Understandable… but selfishly cruel.
Any grasshopper thoughts? Anyone else ever explored the timeline, the damage, the weather conditions, to check Laura’s story? Or has anyone else ever had their Sunday morning church service abruptly interrupted by Laura?
That’s what I call a thought-provoking sermon.
Very interesting!
We just finished this book.
As usual, my thoughts are opposite of Rebecca’s.
I was actually thinking “How foolish Pa was to buy that land! No doubt he and everyone else had heard about the devastation.” But as you bring up, Mr. Hanson must have known what he was selling. Still, who’s to know what actually was said during the transaction? Maybe Pa got the land cheap because of the devastation; perhaps he figured the odds were against that happening again. Yet another conversation that makes me wish to be a 19th-century fly on the wall.
Actually there was no Mr. Hanson at all, who sold the land with the dugout to Pa.
The land was a preemtion claim and it was relinquished before the Ingallses came to Minnesota. Pa filed on the land at the Land Office in New Ulm and after the required time he paid for it according to the law. So it wasn’t a bargain because it was infested by grasshoppers.
For further reading I highly recommend the booklet “Charles Ingalls an the U.S. Public Land Laws” by Nancy Cleveland and Penny Linsenmayer. These two ladies did a great job with their research. The booklet is available in the shop of the LIW-Museum in Walnut Grove.
You can also read Pa’s Land Patent online at
http://www.glorecords.blm.gov/patentSearch
(Search for Charles Ingalls and Minnesota)
As for the grasshoppers: As far as I understood the few pages I read about the plague, there were several big swarms of the locusts in the years between 1873 and 1877. So the “glittering cloud” appeared more than once as well as the hatching of the grasshoppers and their crawling away. I’m quite sure that Laura described her own experiences when she wrote about the grasshoppers. It’s just that the same things happened again in 1877.
Thinking of why Pa decided to stay in that area I tend to believe that he knew about the grasshoppers but he didn’t expect that they would come back and that it would be worse than before.
Of course, Nancy and Penny’s booklet! It’s such a treasure. The world of Little House needs more people like them to remind us of all this stuff we might speculate on.
Thanks for sharing all this information with everyone, Roberta. I know about the real land transaction and all, it’s what I meant by the aside of “for sake of the story” but that may not have been (and probably wasn’t) clear to everyone reading. I was speculating on the fictional storyline of the Hansons trading the land and trying to save space explaining all that in what was already a long post… it’s one of the frustrating things about discussing Little House — are you talking about the real life people, or about the book characters, or both!? It makes discussion confusing at times, especially when your commentary is considering both angles. Hope it’s all clearer now!!
Yes, I’m the speculator, Rebecca’s the fact-finder. I love these discussions — so much meat to all of it, isn’t there?
Sandra, it’s not that we were thinking oppositely, it’s just that I have a tendency to give everyone the benefit of the doubt.
I also thought, “What an idiot, to buy land in grasshopper territory — AFTER the grasshoppers had already struck!” Then I thought that surely Pa — or anyone, for that matter — couldn’t be so foolish and therefore he couldn’t have known until it was too late. Although I must admit I was still thinking that even if that was the case, how foolish to just go buy land somewhere without checking it out first. You know, ask the neighbors how the land is, how their crops tend to do, is the weather good for growing, any devastating conditions that have happened in recent years such as hail or drought… surely the grasshoppers would come up in such investigation!!!
I guess we’ll never know the details — what he knew, what he didn’t, why he made the decision he did…
And so, in deference to Laura’s obvious devotion to her Pa, I give him the benefit of the doubt, even though the evidence points to some very bad decision-making on his part!
Rebecca, I didn’t mean to criticize your text with my comment. I’m sorry if it conveyed this impression. Of course I assume that you know the facts.
It was just that what you wrote about trying to merge the book with LIW’s real life plus the mention of Mr. Hanson.
Actually when I notice familiar names like Oleson or Hanson in records with a LIW-connection, I often catch myself thinking ‘Couldn’t it be…?’ against better knowledge.
Well, after some pondering about it only the bare bones of my thoughts were left: Mr. Hanson didn’t exist.
Maybe Pa’s decision to buy that land was influenced by advertisements and posters advertising land that was “fertile, without a stone or a stump”. It would not be surprising to find that land advertisements left out the fact that there was a grasshopper invasion going on…just a guess!
Maybe all the versions could be correct?
Seen as these plagues reached as large as 100 miles wide by 2,000 miles long, I imagine there could be diverse experiences due to environment and weather conditions.
Besides, I don’t want to give up the parade through the window
Whenever I read On the Way Home, I’m reminded that people all over were looking for the “promised land”. Laura and Almanzo were driving to the Land of the Big Red Apple, hopeful that it would be better than Dakota. They met people coming from Missouri saying how bad it was and for them not to go. They took a risk and for them it paid off. Pa seemed like a risk taker, some would say foolish, but optimistic nonetheless.
Why would Pa travel all the way to Indian Territory, build a house, dig a well, plant a crop when he knew it was illegal? The lure of “cheap land” or “free land” was a strong one. He was a speculator.
There is a church in Hutchinson, KS that was built during the grasshopper plagues. The mortar between the bricks has bits of grasshoppers in it because they were so thick.