April 22, 1889, not a cloud in the sky, rushers lined up waiting for high noon. Wagons carrying their passengers and all their earthly possessions stood on the brink of history. A Captain from the 5thCavalry gave the signal. The bugle call sounded, and the rush was on.
For Sarah McNeil, the race began years earlier. After her marriage ended, she moved her family to Kansas to join other family members. Her ex-husband returned to the scene and they married a second time. It wasn’t long before he was gone again. Maybe a fresh start was what the family needed. With the west opening up, Sarah took the opportunity and was on the move again. The Homestead Act allowed single women and widows the right to claim land the same as men. She was among that number. This gutsy determined pioneer woman along with her sons, the youngest just three years old, and her fifteen-year-old daughter were among the pioneers who awaited the signal. With the bugle call, the Oklahoma Land Rush of 1889 was on and Sarah Brewer McNeil was right in the middle of it.
Grant Robinson and Sarah Ann Brewer McNeil Robinson
The ground shook as wagons and horses raced across the prairie as fifty thousand pioneers were caught up in the race. The thunderous noise of the wagons was joined by the sound of horse hooves and the whistle of the train that followed its tracks carrying homesteaders who had no horses or wagons. Furniture, pots and pans and other items tied to the outside of the wagons clanged and banged. Boiling clouds of dust and debris filled the cloudless sky shrouding the sun. Chairs and other possessions flew off wagons, some broken into pieces, and scattered across the prairie. A few wagon wheels and unfortunate busted wagons joined the scene.
My Great Great Grandmother, Sarah Ann Brewer McNeil, brought her wagon to a halt. The dust overtook the canvas bonnet that covered the skeleton of the wagon as she jumped from her seat and pounded the stake into the ground claiming her territory. Lingering dust that hung over Oklahoma Territory began to settle.
The work had just begun. As well as other homesteaders, Sarah and her family first made a house of sod until they could obtain the resources to improve their holdings and build a proper house, dig a well, and construct corrals and other buildings.
Towns sprang up overnight. Four years later, Sarah completed her application for Homestead Proof which included the testimonies of several witnesses, one of them being Grant Robinson who became her husband. Her claim was approved on February 1, 1895.
The Pioneer Spirit lived in the lives of our ancestors who dared tread the path of adventure. They were survivors.
