On June 11, 1919, Ellsworth and Pollie Derro were issued a land patent as a result of proving up on their homestead claim on 80 acres of land in Section 2 T40N R 7W, located just to the west of Moss Creek in Sawyer County. With homestead law stipulating that someone must improve and/or occupy their claim for at least five years before a land patent could be issued, the Derro family had to have filed their homestead claim and been occupying their land no later than June of 1914.
Ellsworth Francis Derro was born on October 4, 1877 in Caledonia, Minnesota to Thomas and Ellen (Cornelius) Derro. In 1900, Ellsworth worked as a servant for a family living in Saratoga, Minnesota. On March 30, 1902, he married Pollie York of Pierce County, Wisconsin, who was born on September 8, 1882. The newlywed couple settled in Rock Elm, Wisconsin where they had four children by the summer of 1911 (Elizabeth, Wenonah, LeRoy, and Orphia). In 1910, Ellsworth worked by hiring himself out as a farm laborer.
It was likely either during 1913 or 1914 when the Derros moved to their homestead property off the west shores of Moss Creek. With the middle section of their property made up of wetland, Ellsworth cleared the north and south portions of their parcel to build their home and operate their dairy farm on. The property just to their north had been recently purchased by the Norwegian family of Oluf Treland, where he had established a farm and sawmill.
The Derro’s nearest neighbors to the south were the Kavanagh and Worman families, located a good two mile hike away. Great change was soon on the horizon for these three pioneer families, however, as well as for everyone else who was living within the floodplain of the new, proposed Chippewa Flowage.
Although the Kavanagh and Treland families would lose some of their land to the coming flood waters of 1923, they were able to retain most of their land and remain living on their properties. Unfortunately, the rising waters of the new Flowage would leave the Derro land isolated on an island, so they decided to give up on their land and move back to from whence they came, Rock Elm, Wisconsin.
Pollie Derro happened to be pregnant with her fifth child at the time, so it made sense to their family to settle back in their former hometown before their son Marvin was born on January 8, 1922.
On April 24, 1924, the Northern States Power Company paid the Derros $500 for their 80-acre homestead property, compensating the family for being flooded out at a rate of $6.25/acre. This amount of payment per acre was actually on the low end of the typical range ($6 to $12 per acre) of payment that was given to each of the land owners (tribal and non-tribal people alike) who had their lands condemned and flooded out.
During the 1940s, Ellsworth & Pollie lived in the Town of Wilson in Rusk County, where he continued working as a farmer. By 1950, they were living in Barron County and Ellsworth was no longer physically able to work. He died there on September 8, 1958. His wife Pollie survived him by nearly 20 years, passing away at the age of 94 on April 17, 1977.
Today, the former Derro homestead property is located on the north end of the Chippewa Flowage, with the east portion of the property submerged beneath the Moss Creek bottoms and the remainder of their land silently stranded up on – what has long been known as – Darrow Island. The LCFRA has recently righted a grammatical wrong by “officially” renaming the island Derro Island on the latest 2023 printing of the Chippewa Flowage map, just in time for the 100th anniversary of the Flowage!
Share this Story
Other Historical Places
