The Fritz Family
of Dickinson County


Henry Clay Fritz

Date	Event	Place
8 July 1842	Birth	Williamsport, PA
24 Apr 1861	Civil War	Joined Co A, 11Reg. PA Vol
31 July 1861	Civil War	Mustered out.
24 Dec 1863	Marriage	Rocktown, PA
21 Feb 1865	Civil War	Joined Co. G 192 Regiment of PA Infantry Volunteers
24 Aug 1865	Civil War	Mustered out at Harpers Ferry, Va
1871	Migration	To Dickenson co., KS
1881	Moved	To Abilene, KS
12 April 1916	Death	Abilene, KS died at 3:30am

Mrs. Phoebe Hurr Fritz
Wife of Henry Clay Fritz

Mrs. Phoebe Fritz was born in 1847 in Jack's Hollow, a mountain valley in the region of the Alleghenies in Pennsylvania. Her parents had been immigrants from Germany. Her maiden name was Hurr. Berries, nuts, fruit and vegetables grew abundantly on the little truck farm. Her older brothers trudged over the mountains, through the snow, and went to school in Mosquite Valley. The girls were unable to make the journey; so they remained home, playing and working together.

Pheobe Fritz was the youngest of six children. When she was five months old, her father was accidentally shot. For eight years the mother kept the family together, but at the end of that time the children were put in homes to care for themselves.

A sister took Pheobe. There she did all of the work a child could do. A large Pennsylvania farm, a family of many tiny tots found many tasks for an eight year old girl. There was little time to go to school and little to learn there, but she was permitted to attend a short while. At twelve, Pheobe felt quite mature and began to work for people at her own responsibility. She felt prosperous and independent.

In 1861, she was working for a family in Rocktown. At this time she had developed into a buxom German lassie with the glow of health gained from work in the garden, and deep blue eyes that spoke of her genial spontaneous nature. Henry Fritz, a recruit of the Civil War, handsome in his blue uniform, met her there. A year later, on his leave of absence, they were married. When the war was over he came back to a baby daughter and a wife anxious to begin a true home.

They lived in Rocktown during the Rocktown flood, when people were taken in boats from their two story homes. Pennsylvania with its old world civilization, its scenic mountains and wild flowers, was a State of substantiality, but not of opportunity.

Tales of the Eden of Kansas weaned their way to Old Williamsport, Pennsylvania. Henry Clay Fritz and Pheobe intent on giving the utmost advantages to their children felt the challenge of the pioneer spirit. The promoters proclaimed Kansas to be a country of luxuriant warmth during all four seasons, grain grew marvelously, and cattle fed on the abundant buffalo grass. In 1869, Henry Fritz ventured out into the paradise, Abilene was a flourishing little town. A claim of one hundred sixty acres was taken near Abilene in 1870.

Unknowing of the terrible winters of early Kansas, he made ready to bring his little family to this desolate tract of land in 1871. They left Williamsport on Monday. Chance took them thru Chicago, the night after the great fire. A cindered bridge kept them in the station a long night. Fearing people crowded the station. The mother put her babies on one of the benches and sat on the floor beside them.

The next day they were able to take up their journey. The train seats were straight backed, the food for the entire trip and been taken from Pennsylvania. It was Friday before the tired family reached Abilene, Kansas. Many were leaving the East for the new West and the cars had been very crowded.

The train ride over, they spent the night in Sibyl's Hotel. The next morning, Henry Fritz went to the tract of their claim. A day or so later, the mother and children started out in a lumber wagon. The driver only possessed a vague idea of the whereabouts of the place. Kansas was a vast plain of burned grass. No trail was made as yet, and the lumber wagon bumped along over the charred hills, swinging from one homestead to the next, the driver guessing his way. Twenty miles was no pleasure journey in the mid nineteenth century in an unclaimed land.

Their claim was just a space of land. During the six weeks in which they were building their little home, they boarded at near neighbors. It was sharing but not sharing much, for early Kansans were destitute of the common decencies of civilization. Without chickens and cows of your own, milk and eggs were too expensive to have. People were truthfully hungry many times.

The lumber for the home was hauled from Abilene. By Christmas they were able to move into a shell of a house. There were no plastered walls to keep out the cold wind. Firewood was brought from Turkey Creek, eight miles away. It was a continuous talk to keep the wood ablaze. They carried their water three quarters of a mile. Pheobe Fritz became so thirsty one night that she started out alone for fresh water. When dusk settled its blue dense self over the sameness of black land, directions were a mystery. It was several hours before she could find her way back to her home. When a well was dug, they had to go eight feet before they found water. The water was alkaline and unpleasant to taste. In the winter they drank melted snow. Browned rye was used for coffee.

They money that seemed so sufficient in the East soon was consumed. Additional funds were difficult to obtain. Expense showed itself everywhere. It was necessary to go to Salina to complete transactions for the homestead. Trips of the father away from home made life strenuous for the mother and babies.

Wild life was quite abundant, finding food along the streams. Snakes frequently found their way into the cellar and sometimes secretly came into the house. One was killed by the mother, who found it on the kitchen floor by her sleeping children. Coyotes made their homes on the raised pieces of ground and mournfully howled at dusk; prairie chickens came into the barn yard, rabbits and quails were homemakers on the plains. Meadowlark poured forth their melody on the lonesome land.

The first crops made Kansas living seem more endurable. Oxen were needed to break the sod. Too, neighbors worked together and broke the crust unused to crops with a four horse team. Corn, watermelons, sorghum, calves, colts, young chickens, the joy bringers of spring, made health and a new spirit to burden the trials of a new West. A granary was made of mud and straw that gave splendid service for years. Seeds of summer vegetables grew to delicious food.

Sunday school was held at various homes. Pheobe Fritz was always deeply religious and her joy in these meetings was very great. The first school of this district had six scholars, they kept session six weeks a year. Two of the scholars were Fritz children.

Candles were all the light they had, but the daylight saving plan was expertly used, and dark nights found most farmers in slumber. Floors were bare, the furniture was homemade, yet, those mothers were not to be pitied, they were making a new country. Trees were brought from a nursery in Abilene. They grew rapidly in a new soil. The land was soon marked by rows of hedges. The culture of man began to be markedly visible.

Getting mail and shopping were exploits to Abilene. Neighbors took turns in bringing the letters to each other. Harvest time was a social time too. Many horses and men were needed to take care of the grain. Twenty-five men often worked at one farm at one time. The neighbors shared their labor. Women baked pies, cakes, and bread. Corn and young fries were fed to the workers. People were kind to each other in early days. Husking bees were held when the corn was yellow, again they enjoyed company of their friends. Corn was cooked in wash boilers. Dinner at another's home was a social event. After a bounteous meal, they danced to the old square dances. Fiddlers were gay and hearts were light and free.

An Indian tribe came thru the country, the father took his family to see the natives of the land. It was a long remembered event, for none of the children had seen the copper colored people living in their savage ways.

Prairie fires were scenes of evening beauty. Burning, the dry grass would light up the sky with a rich cerise and green gold glow. Moonlight and sunsets made the country into a fantastic beauty when unobstructed by slabs of civilization.

No story of Kansas is complete without a grasshopper tale. They came in dense black clouds to the Fritz home. Seeds were left bare on the peach trees; corn was only empty husks; wheat was only stalks; even onions were left a shaped skin in the ground. The bark was eaten off the trees. The next year, the pests came again, but the swarms were smaller.

Fruit tree seeds planted soon made an orchard, sorghum and popcorn gave a chance for a few of the nicities of existence. New machinery made farming easier; general acquaintance with their environment enabled the family to get the best from the state. Roads were made; windswept Kansas became a livable place.

Ten children were born to the Fritz family. Five of them have died. The others are living in Kansas, all but one of them having children of their own. There are twelve grandchildren and four great-grandchildren. Phoebe Fritz is now living in Abilene, Kansas. Though seventy-nine years of age, she is well and able to care for herself.

Those first pioneer mothers, who left a cool scenic land to break a new land for their sons, were the best heroines of our ancestry. Phoebe Fritz could never forget the beauty of the land of her childhood. Hot, dry, windy, withered Kansas demanded so much of her that her love for it never equaled that for her native state.

Her children, knowing Kansas best in its present prosperity, love it devotedly as the state made fruitful for them by ancestry. Especially, are they reverent to their mothers, who left most, gave most, and received only burdens.

Written by Averil Jeffcoat 1926 (Phoebe Fritz granddaughter who was a school teacher)

Phoebe Hurr Fritz (1847-1927))

Henry Clay Fritz (1842-1916))

{The reason why Averil Jeffcoat wrote this story of Phoebe Hurr Fritz was...Back in the 1920's a lady by the name of Lilla Day Monroe who came to Kansas in 1884 and settled in Wakeeney. She married a lawyer Lee Monroe and she herself helped him and she studied law and passed the bar. In 1902 they moved to Topeka and she edited her own magazine, THE CLUB MEMBER, to better inform women about the suffrage campaign. In Dec of 1921, she initiated her second newspaper, THE KANSAS WOMAN'S JOURNAL. It served as a statewide forum where women could freely express their views concerning pending legislation, women's rights, welfare issues and current political events. She then decided to chronicle the history of Kansas pioneer women and began to seek out the survivors of the frontier period. As more women heard of her undertaking, the collection grew. She died in 1929 and her daughter took the letters that her mother had received, indexed them and alphabetized them. Eventually they ended up in the attic of her home in Topeka. Lilla Day Monroes great grand daughter loved that attic with all of it's stuff up there. When she was in college and home for a visit she discovered the filing cabinet tucked under the eaves in the attic and the letters. The great grand daughter took the letters, read them and wrote a book, PIONEER WOMEN, Voices from the Kansas Frontier, by Joanna L. Stratton. The author read the letters and put together what it was like for the women who settled Kansas. Phoebe's story is not in the book, but in the appendix there is a list of everyone who submitted a letter and who the letter was about. It lists,

SUBJECT: Fritz, Phoebe Hurr (Mrs. Henry)

SOURCE: Pauline Jeffcoat (granddaughter)

EMIGRATION DATE: no date

AGE AT EMIGRATION: no age

also

SUBJECT: Jeffcoat, Emily Harrington (Mrs. Amasa)

SOURCE: Pauline Jeffcoat (granddaughter)

EMIGRATION DATE: 1870

AGE AT EMIGRATION: 32

Now we know the real reason why Averil wrote that story. I now wonder why Pauline submitted it. Averil didn't die until 1940.

Fritz Family Photo Album