Late in September came Mr. and Mrs. William Marble from Linn County, Iowa. Having stopped temporarily on the Okoboji lakes, the Marbles after some prospecting decided to locate on the southwest shore of Spirit Lake--distant, in an air line, about six miles from the Gardners and perhaps a mile less from the Howes. Their cabin was the most isolated of all--which made it easily possible for events to transpire upon the shores of the Okobojis without the knowledge of the Marbles for days or even weeks.[105] Such was the chain of settlements of those pioneers who were to pass the frightful winter of 1856-1857 on this isolated frontier. As winter closed in upon them they felt reasonably secure, since Indians had only very rarely been seen. With little or no experience of frontier life on an American prairie, they believed their supply of provisions to be ample for the closed season. No one anticipated an unusual winter. During February a trapper named Joseph Harshman came to the cabin of the Red Wing people. Being a man of genial disposition he was encouraged to spend the remaining portion of the winter with them. Whence he came no one knew; nor did anyone inquire concerning his antecedents, since on the frontier such questions were regarded as discourteous to the stranger. About eighteen miles to the northeast, on the Des Moines River in Minnesota, was the newly formed settlement of Springfield. Here were to be found by the winter of 1856-1857 about six or seven families. The town had been platted in the summer of 1856 by three brothers--William, George, and Charles Wood of Mankato, Minnesota. For many years these brothers had been widely known in Minnesota and the northwest as Indian traders. By the winter of 1856-1857 they had concentrated their trading interests in a store in Springfield, which made the little village the meeting and trading place of the Indians and whites for many miles around. Indeed, Springfield was the only settlement of note within a radius of fifty miles.[106] Most of the settlers comprising the Springfield, or as it was sometimes called the “Des Moines City” settlement, had come from northeastern Iowa. The vanguard had appeared in August, 1856, and had located on the east side of the Des Moines River. The Wood brothers had come somewhat earlier and had established their post on the west side of the river, where they laid out the town which they planned to promote. As in the region of the lakes, the cabins were widely scattered up and down the river for seven or eight miles.[107] By the opening of winter the settlement had about seventeen able-bodied men and twelve adult women; but by March, 1857, the number had somewhat increased so that the settlement had about forty-seven people in all, living in seven or eight family groups.