Joe and Kiren Mulroney
>From the Emmetsburg Democrat, Wednesday, January 9, 1907: HEROES OF IOWA'S
WORST BLIZZARD
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Notable Adventure of Pioneer Days is Recalled.
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FOUGHT DEATH FOR HOURS
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It Swept Pariries of Northern Iowa, January 1, 1864
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In the Register and Leader Sunday, January 6, by T.W.Harrison. I have just
read in the Emmetsburg newspapers an account of the death of Joseph T.
Mulroney, one of the early settlers in Palo Alto county. In his death has
passed from earth the last of a trio of nature's heroes and prominent figures
in a notable incident of the early prairie days. January 1, 1864, was perhaps
the coldest day ever experienced in Iowa and adjoining states. In many places
of this latitude, men froze stiff and dead while sitting bolt upright in
their wagons, with the reins of their restless horses in their hands. In
northern Iowa the snow was deep and a fierce wind blew a terrific gale from
the northwest. It was so soon after the Indian massacres of 1862 in southern
Minnesota, that soldiers were stationed at Estherville and other towns to
protect the settlers and to prevent the Indians from commiting other
depredations. To furnish these soldiers with supplies was a difficult and
hazardous task. No railroads approached that locality within two hundred
miles. Food, clothing and ammunition had to be hauled on sleighs over a
trackless prairie where the gullies were drifted full of snow from two to ten
feet deep and pounded hard with the continuous winds. Joe and Kiren Mulroney
werethen mere boys living on a farm at old Soda Bar in the timber on the
Des Moines River and Henry Archer another young man, was living in Humboldt
county. That winter these three vigorous fellows volunteered for the
government service ofhauling supplies to these far away posts of boys in
blue. I knew all three of them intimately for years and heard from each the
details of their experiences. Mercury Frozen. On that historic day of
bitterest cold they were facing a terrific northwest blizzard with their
sleigh loads of shelled corn which they were taking from central Iowa to
those destitute troops. The mercury was frozen solid and the sp???
thermometers was down to half a hundred below, and the howling, cracking,
biting, whirling snow was so dense in the air that they could not see the
length of a sleigh and team. A winter blizzard on northern trackless prairies
is far more terrible than a hurricane at sea. At sea there is the shelter and
warmth of the boat. Just shut your eyes and pray and let her go, and if kept
in the wind's courses, she will be likely to outride the storm. But
in.......(line missing)....below zero and "the hissing serpents of the sea"
with all their fury and weird and racking terrors, will be there, augmented a
thousand fold by the lack of shelter and the indescribable frenzy of the
pinching, relentless cold. Since the countyr has been improved with
cultivated fields and fences and hedges and groves such blizzards have not
been known. On this perilous trip Joe was always in the lead with the others
close behind, each leading his horses with one hand and holding onto the hind
end of the preceding sleigh with the other so that they could not become
separated and lost for the horses were always determined to turn and go with
the storm instead of against it. Each carried a shovel in his sleigh and
sometimes for hours they would work like giants shoveling out a roadway
through some drifted gully which would fill almost as fast as they could dig
it out, but then the snow was soft so that they could pull through it. Their
progress was necessarily slow, for their road was as unmarked as the storm
tossed, trackless sea, and their wits had to be their guide as to direction
and course. The storm was so severe that Archer was in favor of pulling into
some settlement on the Des Moines river and waiting until the blizzard should
abate. But Joe was persistent, relentless and fearless. He said, "Those
soldiers are starving and the government is depending upon us to get these
supplies to them and I'll never stop as long as we can make a mile a day."
That day they were trying to cross Palo Alto county and intended to hit
"Mickey" Jackman's place in the timber on the east side of Medium lake for
the night. But night overtook them too soon and at dark they were still out
on the prairie and did not dare to proceed further for fear their horses
would give out and die in their tracks. So they decided to stop for the
night. They parked their sleighs in a semi-circle against the storm and tied
their horses to the sleighs within that circle. Then they took their shovels
and cut blocks of frozen snow and piled them up as a barricade six or eight
feet high on the windward side of the sleighs to shelter themselves and their
horses from the storm. They would remain inside this shelter with their
horses as long as they could endure the cold, then they would go out and
shovel snow as hard as they could against this wall until they got warm, and
this they repeated from time to time all through that long and dreary night.
Kiren was the youngest and they had a great difficulty in keeping him awake,
but they did, for Joe and Archer knew that sleep meant death. The cold was so
intense that hungry as they were the horses would not eat a kernel of that
shelled corn. The long and fearful night finally passed and daylight came,
but with no relaxation of the sotrm or cold. They knew that they could not
live there through another night. They could not see the sun and had no means
of telling the direction or distance to Jackman's place. They waited, hoping
that the sun might send a guiding ray of light through the dense clouds of
snow. They Kept on in Face of Storm. About noon they thought they could
discren a place that appeared to be a little lighter than the rest and
concluded it might be in the south and with that faint guide they determined
to start and take what they thought to be a westerly course each riding a
horse and leading another. Kiren was so chilled and frozen that they had to
help him on to the house and it was with great difficulty that he could
retain his hold there. But with Joe in the lead and Kiren in the middle and
Archer in the rear they plunged out through the blinding blistering snow and
in an hour they reached Jackman's timber. "Mickey" was out looking after the
stock and was as greatly surprised to see them as if they had dropped down
from heaven. In amazement he asked, "Where in the world did you boys come
from?" They replied, "Out on the prairie. We have been out on the prairie all
night." Mickey could not believe it and said, "My God, men, no none could
live out on the prairie through last night." They assured him that they had
and told him to take the horses while they went into the house to get thawed
out. Legs and Feet Were Frozen Mrs. Jackman was melting snow for soft water
with which to wash and had a washtub full of snow and water. The one room log
house was small and she told the men to take the tub outdoors to make more
room. Archer said, "No, we have need of that water." He knew that Kiren's
feet were frozen. They cut off his shoes and stockings and the legs of his
trousers and found that not only his feet but his legs to the knees were
frozen. They put his feet in that tub of ice water and bathed his limbs with
it until the frost was drawn out and ...(line missing)...probability saved
his life for no surgeon could have been reached nearer than Fort Dodge,
seventy miles away. As it was, the frost blisters caused the skin to slough
from his feet and limbs like a pair of hip boots and it was three months
before he could again wear shoes. In three or four days the storm subsided
but the bitter cold continued, and Joe and Archer, with the help of some
other men and teams, took the three loads of corn to the famishing troops at
Estherville. After the close of the civil war Joe and Kiren became prosperous
and wealthy farmers, always highly respected and greatly beloved by all who
knew them. Five or six years ago Kiren was accidentally killed by a kick from
a spirited horse he was leading to water. Archer moved to some point in
Nebraska where he prospered and became a wealthy banker and influential
citizen and he died there about two years ago. And now Joe, the strongest,
most resolute and most fearless of them all has died at a time when he ought
to have been in the full vigor of his mature manhood. And who can say that
the terrible strain of that awful experience in that prairie blizzard
forty-three years ago, while in the conscientious performance of unselfish
duty, did not shorten the lives of Archer and Joe from ten to twenty years?
And when the final roll of nature's heroes shall be called, their names will
be there, and not far down on the list, because they risked their lives in
the performance of duty and for the love of their fellow men. T.W. Harrison
Topeka, Kas.