Gentlemen on the Prairie: Victorians in Pioneer Iowa

10. How the Game Was Played

CHAPTER TEN How the Game ~s Played URING the winter of 1880-1881, William Close in England learned of the duke of Sutherland's proposed railroad tour of western United States scheduled for the following spring. Not only was the duke an intimate friend of the Prince of Wales and therefore a desirable personage to connect with the Iowa colony, he was also the biggest landowner in Great Britain, holding title to 1,358,000 acres.1 Close persuaded the Sutherland touring party to route the trip from Chicago to Omaha by going north to St. Paul first. In St. Paul he would meet the duke and his entourage and escort them as far as Sioux City, passing through Sibley, Le Mars, and other points along the way. The duke of Sutherland loved trains. On the 1876 goodwill trip to India with the Prince of Wales, he frequently replaced the locomotive engineer, taking over the controls and emerging dirty but happy after a good stretch of track had been traversed. Queen Victoria, however, had never been pleased about his friendship with her son and was once heard to remark, "he does not live as a duke ought. "2 He was too often implicated in scandalous incidents, many of which also involved the Prince of Wales. He, too, had made love to the beautiful rich courtesan, Giulia Barucci, the "greatest whore in the world," as she called herself, and when the letters Sutherland had written her were made public he said he had hardly ever read "more innocent or worse written" letters.3 The Prince of Wales stuck with the cronies he liked, and Sutherland remained a favorite. At the time of his trip to the American West, the duke was fifty-three, more interested in Yankee railroads than in purchasing still more land, although William hoped to persuade him to buy, once he saw the fertile prairie. W. H. "Bull Run" Russell, the correspondent who had achieved fame reporting the American Civil War and the Crimean campaign, was in the ducal party. They were met in St. Paul by Gen. Henry H. Sibley and other dignitaries , including land agent Henry Drake of the Sioux City and St. Paul Railroad, and of course, William Close. General Sibley entertained the visitors with vivid tales of his campaigns against the Sioux Indians in 1862, "in which he destroyed the invaders and broke their power for ever," wrote Russell later, a little confused as to which side was the "invaders." Russell found it hard to realize that Indian fighting had taken place there only nineteen years before.4 129 130 GENTLEMEN ON THE PRAIRIE Early on 25 May, when the special train was due to depart from St. Paul, Russell asked Close where he might purchase candlesticks; the gaslights or petroleum lamps in hotel bedrooms were too dim for good reading. Together they set out to find an ironmonger's shop. " 'Don't lose your way; said the good-natured landlord as we left the hotel," Russell wrote, "No danger of that! Was I not in the hands of a local expert?" They entered a shop, found what they wanted, and leisurely strolled to the station. "We walked down to the platform and inquired for the special. The porter, pointing with his finger to a bridge far away across the river down below, said slowly, 'I guess she'll be about there. She went off five minutes ago.' Mr. Close tackled the occasion at oncethe station master was hunted down, the telegraph set to work, an engine and a carriage were prepared, and amid much abjuration from our friends, connected with imaginary dangers from collision, etc., we were delivered over to the conductor, who had never missed us, or thought we were in the train." In this way William, whom Russell describes as "our very arch guide," did not let the duke of Sutherland get away from him. The maps spread out before the visitors showed squares belonging to the railroad and now for sale. Russell described the terrain as "undulating plain covered invariably with thick, coarse grass and seamed with deep water-courses, which in England, indeed, would be called rivers, by the sides of which grew trees and dense vegetation. The houses and stations were of wood, and I do not think that I saw a stone or brick building for many miles." They drew to a halt in Sibley, where, Russell reported, the Closes owned 42,000 acres that they planned...