Snipe-hunting at Zero and other tales from 1887

It may be that as a society we've moved beyond the classic snipe-hunting ruse --- a very old trick played upon innocent newcomers to rural areas. 

First you find a dude dim enough to trust you and convince him that there are tasty snipe out there among the game birds in the brush and tall grass. Then you arm him with a sack and a lantern with too little fuel as evening falls, and instruct him to sit still for about an hour while you and your companions go out, round up the snipe and drive them toward him. Leave him convinced that once the snipe have sighted lantern light they'll be transfixed and easily captured --- and then run for home leaving the victim stranded in the middle of nowhere.

Here's a classic retelling of the story apparently based upon fact and set near Zero, a coal mining town that flourished very briefly east of Russell on the Lucas-Monroe county line. As it turned out, it was impossible to keep water out of the Zero mine, so it closed and the village vanished. But when The Chariton Democrat of Sept. 29, 1887, was published there was considerable optimism about its future.

Here's the story, published under the headline, "Sniping at Zero."

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Did you ever go sniping? Well, a young Knickerbocker who was sent down from headquarters at Omaha to aid in the clerical work at the mines did. When far enough away, a suitable place was picked out to set, and a lively dispute arose as to who should hold the sack --- all wanted to. As expected, the Omaha young man grasped the sack and said, to settle the dispute, that he would hold it, and took position in the path and demonstrated how the birds, allured by the light, would "fly into the sack like boys into the back door of an Omaha saloon." This comparison created an laugh and showed just how thoroughly he had mastered the plan. 

"Just so, just so," responded the crowd and started off on the roundup with the admonition that he was not to shift his position until they closed in, which would be in the course of an hour, as they intended to encircle a mile or two. Of course when once out of sight they took a straight shoot for home and left young Knickerbocker sniping.

He manfully stayed at his post for two solid hours; then his light went out. He was so benumbed from cold that he could hardly move. Then his fancy pictured large forms of wild beasts with jaws extended ready to devour him. He shouted, but the echo was his only response, which resounded through the woods like hollow mockery. He fell on his knees and tried o pray, but all that his benighted nature could utter was, "Lord, I'm sniping." "Then," as he afterward said, "it would have dawned on the dullest mind I was forsaken."

He started for home as fast as his benumbed limbs would carry him. He fell into the slimy beds of creeks, tore his flesh on briar bushes, lost his hat, split his fit-me-tight pants, and finally brought up at his boarding house in the very much dejected air of a snipe hunter that holds the sack. He now says he would much prefer shooting jack snipes back east.

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Here's another bit of humor, this item found among "Derby News" in the same edition of The Democrat:

A number of gentlemen are trying the beauties of housekeeping without their wives, they being gone for a visit of a few weeks. Oh, how dejected some of these men look. We saw one of them last week who, while sitting in his home one evening brooding over the dreariness and desolation around him, was suddenly requested to go and sit up with a corpse near by. And he consented, too, so great was his desire for company.

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Finally, here's a political anecdote from The Democrat of Sept. 29 about Harvey L. Byers, who at age 26 was seeking a seat that fall in the Iowa House of Representatives. A teacher by trade, he had left his home territory at Belinda behind by 1884 and settled at Lucas where he had taken charge of the schools --- and developed a taste for politics. The general consensus among his elders was, of course, that he was far too young. Here's what The Democrat had to say:

Our genial young juvenile friend Byers is a good teacher, and differs with about all of Lucas county in thinking he would make a good legislator. He is now teaching five days in the week and running politics on Saturdays and Sundays. His main effort is to convince farmers that he is a farmer. Last Saturday at Lucas he struck a couple of republican farmers from Ottercreek who were a little opposed to him. "Why, gentlemen," he said, "I am a farmer. I was born and raised between two rows of corn." And one of the famers remarked, "a pumpkin, b'Gosh!"

"Pumpkin" it may have been, but when Harvey was sworn in to represent Lucas County in the Legislature the following January he was the youngest man serving that term in either the House or the Senate. He would later run successfully as senator and not end his career in the Legislature until 1900.