The Conquest: The Story of a Negro PioneerMicheaux, Oscar
General
The Conquest: The Story of a Negro Pioneer
Micheaux, Oscar
African American pioneers -- Fiction; Autobiographical fiction; South Dakota -- Fiction; Western stories
In the meantime the promoters, who were nearly all from Megory or
somewhere in Megory county, had learned that Ernest Nicholson was
nobody's fool. They hooted the Nicholsons, along with the rest of the
town, declaring Ernest to be anything but what he really was, until they
had roused enough excitement to make Amro seem like a "good thing." Then
they quietly sold their interest to the Amoureaux Brothers, who raked up
about all that was left of the fortune of a few years previous, and paid
six thousand, six hundred dollars for the interest of the promoters
which made the Amoureaux the sole owners of the townsite and placed them
in obvious control of the town's affairs, and again in the white society
they liked so well.
All the Calias lumber yards owned branch yards at Amro and everybody
continued to do a flourishing business. The Amroites paid little
attention to the platting of the townsite to the north, nor made a
single effort to ascertain which survey the railroad would follow, but
continued to boast that Amro would get the road. About this time Ernest
Nicholson called a meeting in Amro, inviting all the business men to be
present and hear a proposition that he had to make, stating he hoped the
citizens of the town and himself could get together without friction or
ill-feeling. The meeting was held in Durpee's hall and everybody
attended; some out of curiosity, some out of fear, and but few with any
expectation or intention of agreeing to move to the north townsite.
Ernest addressed the meeting, first thanking them for their presence,
then plunged headlong into the purpose of the meeting. He explained that
it was quite impossible for the road to go to Amro, this he had feared
before a survey was made, but that he had ascertained while in Chicago
that the road would not strike Amro. He then read a letter from Marvin
Hewitt, the "man of destiny," so far as the location of the railroad was
concerned, which stated that the road would be extended and the depot
would be located on section twenty, which was the section Ernest had
purchased. Then he brought up the matter of the distribution of lots
which was, that to every person who moved or began to move to the new
townsite within thirty days, one-half of the purchase price of the lot
would be refunded. The price of the business lots ranged from eight
hundred to two thousand dollars, while residence lots were from fifty to
three hundred. "Think it over," he said, in closing, and was gone.
Needless to say they paid little attention to the proposition. The Amro
Journal "roasted" and cartooned the Nicholson Brothers in the same way
Megory papers had done, on account of the town of Calias.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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