Statement by Andrew J. Bottorff
I came to Nebraska at the close of the civil war, having served during the entire campaign with the Seventeenth Indiana regiment. I came west with oxen and wagon in the fall of 1866, bringing my family. We wintered at Rockport, but as soon as spring opened went to Stanton county, where I took a homestead. Here we had few neighbors and our share of hardships, but thrived and were happy.
One day I heard my dogs barking and found them down in a ravine, near the Elkhorn river, with an elk at bay, and killed him with my axe.
The first year I was appointed county surveyor. Having no instruments at hand, I walked to Omaha, over a hundred miles distant, and led a fat cow to market there. I sold the cow but found no instruments. I was told of a man at Fort Calhoun who had an outfit I might get, so wended my way there. I found E. H. Clark, who would sell me the necessary supplies, and I bought them; then carried them, with some other home necessities obtained in Omaha, back to Stanton, as I had come, on foot.
I am now seventy-five years old, and have raised a large family; yet wife and I are as happy and spry as if we had never worked, and are enjoying life in sunny California, where we have lived for the last ten years.
Statement by Sven Johanson
With my wife and two small children I reached Omaha, Nebraska, June 26, 1868. We came direct from Norway, having crossed the stormy Atlantic in a small sailboat, the voyage taking eight weeks.
A brother who had settled in Stanton county, 107 miles from Omaha, had planned to meet us in that city. After being there a few days this brother, together with two other men, arrived and we were very happy. With two yoke of oxen and one team of horses, each hitched to a load of lumber, we journeyed fromOmaha to Stanton county. Arriving there, we found shelter in a small dugout with our brother and family, where we remained until we filed on a homestead and had built a dugout of our own.
We had plenty of clothing, a good lot of linens and homespun materials, but these and ten dollars in money were all we possessed.
The land office was at Omaha and it was necessary for me to walk there to make a filing. I had to stop along the way wherever I could secure work, and in that way got some food, and occasionally earned a few cents, and this enabled me to purchase groceries to carry back to my family. There were no bridges across rivers or creeks and we were compelled to swim; at one time in particular I was very thankful I was a good swimmer. A brother-in-law and myself had gone to Fremont, Nebraska, for employment, and on our return we found the Elkhorn river almost out of its banks. This frightened my companion, who could not swim, but I told him to be calm, we would come to no harm. I took our few groceries and our clothing and swam across, then going back for my companion, who was a very large man, I took him on my back and swam safely to the other shore.
While I was away, my family would be holding down our claim and taking care of our one cow. We were surrounded by Indians, and there were no white people west of where we lived.
In the fall of 1869 we secured a yoke of oxen, and the following spring hauled home logs from along the river and creek and soon had a comfortable log house erected.
Thus we labored and saved little by little until we were able to erect a frame house, not hewn by hand, but made from real lumber, and by this time we felt well repaid for the many hardships we had endured. The old "homestead" is still our home, but the dear, faithful, loving mother who so bravely bore all the hardships of early days was called to her rich reward January 28, 1912. She was born June 15, 1844, and I was born October 14, 1837.
Fred E. Roper, a pioneer of Hebron, Nebraska, was eighty years old on October 10, 1915. Sixty-one years ago Mr. Roper "crossed the plains," going from New York state to California.
Eleven years more than a half-century—and to look back upon the then barren stretch of the country in comparison with the present fertile region of prosperous homes and populous cities, takes a vivid stretch of imagination to realize the dreamlike transformation. At that time San Francisco was a village of about five hundred persons living in adobe huts surrounded by a mud wall for a fortified protection from the marauding Indians.
Fred E. Roper was born in Candor Hill, New York, October 10, 1835. When three years old he moved with his parents to Canton, Bradford county, Pennsylvania, and later moved with his brother to Baraboo, Wisconsin. Then he shipped as a "hand" on a raft going down the Wisconsin and Mississippi rivers to St. Louis, getting one dollar a day and board. He returned north on a steamer, stopping at Burlington, Iowa, where his sister resided.
In 1854, when he was nineteen years of age, Mr. Roper "started west." His sister walked to the edge of the town with him as he led his one-horned cow, which was to furnish milk for coffee on the camp-out trip, which was to last three months, enroute to the Pacific coast.
There were three outfits—a horse train, mule train, and ox train. Mr. Roper traveled in an ox train of twenty-five teams. The travelers elected officers from among those who had made the trip before, and military discipline prevailed.
At nights the men took turns at guard duty in relays—from dark to midnight and from midnight to dawn, when the herder was called to turn the cattle out to browse. One man herded them until breakfast was ready, and another man herded them until time to yoke up. This overland train was never molestedby the Indians, although one night some spying Cheyennes were made prisoners under guard over night until the oxen were yoked up and ready to start.
Oregon Trail Monument, two miles north of Hebron Erected by the citizens of Hebron and Thayer county, and Oregon Trail Chapter, Daughters of the American Revolution, dedicated May 24, 1915. Cost $400Oregon Trail Monument, two miles north of Hebron Erected by the citizens of Hebron and Thayer county, and Oregon Trail Chapter, Daughters of the American Revolution, dedicated May 24, 1915. Cost $400
The prospectors crossed the Missouri river at Omaha, which at that time had no residences or business buildings. Enroute to Salt Lake City, the South Platte route was followed, averaging about twenty miles a day. Enough provisions were carried to last through the journey and as they had some provisions left when they reached Salt Lake City, they were sold to the half-starved Mormons at big prices.
Some perplexing difficulties were encountered on the journey. At one point in the mountains, beyond Salt Lake City, the trail was so narrow that the oxen were unhitched and led single file around the cliff, while the wagons were taken apart and lowered down the precipice with ropes.
When crossing the desert, additional water had to be carried in extra kegs and canteens. When the tired cattle got near enough to the river to smell the fresh water, they pricked up their ears, stiffened their necks, and made a rush for the stream, so the men had to stand in front of them until the chains were loosened to prevent their crazily dashing into the water with the wagons.
Mr. Roper worked by the day for three months in the mines northeast of San Francisco. While placer mining, he one day picked up a gold nugget, from which his engagement ring was made by a jeweler in San Francisco, and worn by Mrs. Roper until her death, October 28, 1908. The ring was engraved with two hearts with the initials M. E. R., and is now in the possession of their son Maun, whose initials are the same.
Mr. Roper was one of a company of three men who worked a claim that had been once worked over, on a report that there was a crevasse that had not been bottomed. The first workers did not have "quicksilver," which is necessary to catch fine gold, but Mr. Roper's company had a jug shipped from San Francisco. Nothing less than a fifty-pound jug of quicksilver would be sold, at fifty cents a pound. This was used in sluice-boxes as "quicksilver riffles," to catch the fine float gold, when it would instantly sink to the bottom of the quicksilver, while the dirt and stones would wash over; the coarse rock would be first tossed out with a sluice-fork (similar to a flat-tined pitchfork). In threeyears the three men worked the mine out, making about fifteen hundred dollars apiece.
With his share carried in buckskin sacks belted around his waist under his clothes, Mr. Roper started in a sailing vessel up north along the coast on a trip, hunting for richer diggings. Then he went on a steamer to the Isthmus of Panama, which he crossed with a hired horse team, then by steamer to New York and by railroad to Philadelphia to get his gold minted.
After his marriage in 1861 Mr. Roper returned to the West and in '64 ran a hotel at Beatrice called "Pat's Cabin." When Nebraska voted on the question of admission to statehood, Mr. Roper's ballot was vote No. 3.
Desiring to get a home of his own, Fred Roper came on west into what is now Thayer county, and about six miles northwest of the present site of Hebron up the Little Blue, he bought out the preëmption rights of Bill and Walt Hackney, who had "squatted" there with the expectation of paying the government the customary $1.25 per acre. In certain localities those claims afterwards doubled to $2.50 per acre. Mr. Roper paid only the value of the log cabin and log stables, and came into possession of the eighty acres, which he homesteaded, and later bought adjoining land for $1.25 per acre.
Occasionally he made trips to St. Joe and Nebraska City for supplies, which he freighted overland to Hackney ranch. At that time Mr. Roper knew every man on the trail from the Missouri river to Kearney. On these trips he used to stop with Bill McCandles, who was shot with three other victims by "Wild Bill" on Rock creek in Jefferson county.
The first house at Hackney ranch was burned by the Cheyenne Indians in their great raid of 1864, at which time Miss Laura Roper (daughter of Joe B. Roper) and Mrs. Eubanks were captured by the Indians near Fox Ford in Nuckolls county and kept in captivity until ransomed by Colonel Wyncoop of the U. S. army for $1,000. Si Alexander of Meridian (southeast of the present town of Alexandria), was with the government troops at the time of Miss Roper's release near Denver. Her parents, believing her dead, had meanwhile moved back to New York state. (Laura Roper is still alive, being now Mrs. Laura Vance, at Skiatook, Oklahoma.) At the time of the above-mentioned raid, the Indians at Hackney ranch threw thecharred cottonwood logs of the house into the well, to prevent travelers from getting water. Fred Roper was then at Beatrice, having just a few days before sold Hackney ranch to an overland traveler. After the raid the new owner deserted the place, in the fall of 1869, and in a few months Mr. Roper returned from Beatrice and again preëmpted the same place.
In 1876 Mr. and Mrs. Roper moved to Meridian and ran a tavern for about a year, then moved back to Hackney, where they resided until the fall of 1893, when they moved into Hebron to make their permanent home. Mr. Roper was postmaster at Hebron for four years under Cleveland's last administration.
The memories of the long hot days of August, 1874, are burned into the seared recollection of the pioneers of Nebraska. For weeks the sun had poured its relentless rays upon the hopeful, patient people, until the very atmosphere seemed vibrant with the pulsing heat-waves.
One day a young attorney of Hebron was called to Nuckolls county to "try a case" before a justice of the peace, near a postoffice known as Henrietta. Having a light spring wagon and two ponies he invited his wife and little baby to accompany him for the drive of twenty-five miles. Anything was better than the monotony of staying at home, and the boundless freedom of the prairies was always enticing. An hour's drive and the heat of the sun became oppressively intense. The barren distance far ahead was unbroken by tree, or house, or field. There was no sound but the steady patter of the ponies' feet over the prairie grass; no moving object but an occasional flying hawk; no road but a trail through the rich prairie grass, and one seemed lost in a wilderness of unvarying green. The heat-waves seemed to rise from the ground and quiver in the air. Soon a wind, soft at first, came from the southwest, but ere long became a hot blast, and reminded one of the heated air from an opened oven door. Added to other inconveniences came the intense thirst produced from the sun and dry atmosphere—and one might have cried "My kingdom for a drink!"—but there was no "kingdom."
After riding about nine miles there came into view the homestead of Teddy McGovern—the only evidence of life seen on that long day's drive. Here was a deep well of cold water. Cheery words of greeting and hearty handclasps evidenced that all were neighbors in those days. Again turning westward a corner of the homestead was passed where were several little graves among young growing trees—"Heartache corner" itmight have been called. The sun shone as relentless there as upon all Nebraska, that scorching summer.
As the afternoon wore on, looking across the prairies the heat-waves seemed to pulse and beckon us on; the lure of the prairies was upon us, and had we chosen we could not but have obeyed. Only the pioneers knew how to endure, to close their eyes to exclude the burning light, and close the lips to the withering heat.
At last our destination was reached at the homestead of the justice of the peace. We were gladly seated to a good supper with the host and family of growing boys. After the meal the "Justice Court" was held out of doors in the shade of the east side of the house, there being more room and "more air" outside. The constable, the offender, the witness and attorney and a few neighbors constituted the prairie court, and doubtless the decisions were as legal and as lasting as those of more imposing surroundings of later days.
But the joy of the day had only just begun, for as the sun went down, so did even the hot wind, leaving the air so heavy and motionless and oppressive one felt his lungs closing up. The boys of the family sought sleep out of doors, the others under the low roof of a two-roomed log house. Sleep was impossible, rest unknown until about midnight, when mighty peals of thunder and brilliant lightning majestically announced the oncoming Nebraska storm. No lights were needed, as nature's electricity was illuminatingly sufficient. The very logs quivered with the thunder's reverberations, and soon a terrific wind loaded with hail beat against the little house until one wondered whether it were better to be roasted alive by nature's consuming heat, or torn asunder by the warring elements. But the storm beat out its fury, and with daylight Old Sol peeped over the prairies with a drenched but smiling face.
Adieus were made and the party started homeward. After a few miles' travel the unusual number of grasshoppers was commented upon, and soon the air was filled with their white bodies and beating wings; then the alarming fact dawned upon the travelers that this was a grasshopper raid. The pioneers had lived through the terrors of Indian raids, but this assault from an enemy outside of the human realm was a new experience. The ponies were urged eastward, but the hoppers cheerfully kept pace and were seen to be outdistancing the travelers. Theyfilled the air and sky and obliterated even the horizon. Heat, thirst, distance were all submerged in the appalling dread of what awaited.
As the sun went down the myriads of grasshoppers "went to roost." Every vegetable, every weed and blade of grass bore its burden. On the clothes-line the hoppers were seated two and three deep; and upon the windlass rope which drew the bucket from the well they clung and entwined their bodies.
The following morning the hungry millions raised in the air, saluted the barren landscape and proceeded to set an emulating pace for even the busy bee. They flew and beat about, impudently slapping their wings against the upturned, anxious faces, and weary eyes, trying to penetrate through the apparent snowstorm—the air filled with the white bodies of the ravenous hordes. This appalling sight furnished diversion sufficient to the inhabitants of the little community for that day.
People moved quietly about, in subdued tones wondering what the outcome would be. How long would the hoppers remain? Would they deposit their eggs to hatch the following spring and thus perpetuate their species? Would the old progenitors return?
But, true to the old Persian proverb, "this too, passed away." The unwelcome intruders departed leaving us with an occasional old boot-leg, or leather strap, or dried rubber, from which the cormorants had sucked the "juice."
The opening of the next spring was cold and rainy. Not many of the grasshopper eggs hatched. Beautiful Nebraska was herself again and "blossomed as the rose."
Statement by Mrs. Gertrude M. McDowell
When I was requested to write a short article in regard to woman's suffrage in Nebraska I thought it would be an easy task. As the days passed and my thoughts became confusedly spread over the whole question from its incipiency, it proved to be not an easy task but a most difficult one. There was so much of interest that one hardly knew where to begin and what to leave unsaid.
This question has been of life-long interest to me and I have always been in full sympathy with the movement. When the legislature in 1882 submitted the suffrage amendment to the people of the state of Nebraska for their decision, we were exceedingly anxious concerning the outcome.
A state suffrage association was formed. Mrs. Brooks of Omaha was elected president; Mrs. Bittenbender of Lincoln, recording secretary; Gertrude M. McDowell of Fairbury, corresponding secretary.
There were many enthusiastic workers throughout the state. Among them, I remember Mrs. Clara Bewick Colby, of Beatrice, whom we considered our general; Mrs. Lucinda Russell and Mrs. Mary Holmes of Tecumseh, Mrs. Annie M. Steele of Fairbury, Mrs. A. J. Sawyer, Mrs. A. J. Caldwell, and Mrs. Deborah King of Lincoln, Mrs. E. M. Correll of Hebron and many more that I do not now recall.
There were many enthusiastic men over the state who gave the cause ardent support. Senator E. M. Correll of Hebron was ever on the alert to aid in convention work and to speak a word which might carry conviction to some unbeliever.
Some years previous to our campaign, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucy Stone on one of their lecture tours in the West were so impressed with the enthusiasm and good work of Hon. E. M. Correll that they elected him president of the National Suffrage Association, for one year. I also recall Judge Ben S. Baker, now of Omaha, and C. F. Steele of Fairbury, as staunch supporters of the measure. During the campaign, many national workers were sent into the state, among them Susan B. Anthony, Phoebe Couzens, Elizabeth Saxon of New Orleans, and others. They directed and did valiant work in the cause. We failed to carry the measure in the state, but we are glad to note that it carried in our own town of Fairbury.
Thanks to the indomitable personality of our Nebraska women, they began immediately to plan for another campaign. In 1914, our legislature again submitted an amendment and it was again defeated. Since then I have been more than ever in favor of making the amendment a national one, President Wilson to the contrary notwithstanding—not because we think the educational work is being entirely lost, but because so much time and money are being wasted on account of our foreign population and their attitude towards reform. It is a grave and a great question. One thing we are assured of, viz: that we will never give up our belief in the final triumph of our great cause.
It is a far cry from the first woman's suffrage convention in 1850, brought about by the women who were excluded from acting as delegates at the anti-slavery convention in London in 1840.
Thus a missionary work was begun then and there for the emancipation of women in "the land of the free and the home of the brave." We can never be grateful enough to Lucretia Mott, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and other noble, self-sacrificing women who did so much pioneer work in order to bring about better laws for women and in order to change the moth-eaten thought of the world.
Many felt somewhat discouraged when the election returns from New Jersey, Massachusetts, and New York announced the defeat of the measure, but really when we remember the long list of states that have equal suffrage we have reason to rejoice and to take new courage. We now have Wyoming, Kansas, Utah, Idaho, Colorado, California, Oregon, Washington, Nevada, Montana, Arizona, New Mexico, Alaska, and Illinois, besides the countries of Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Iceland, Finland, New Zealand, Australia, Nova Scotia, and some parts of England.
In the future when the cobwebs have all been swept from the mind of the world and everyone is enjoying the new atmosphere of equal rights only a very few will realize the struggle thesebrave women endured in order to bring about better conditions for the world.
Statement by Lucy L. Correll
Hebron, Thayer county, Nebraska, was the cradle of the Nebraska woman suffrage movement, as this was the first community in the state to organize a permanent woman's suffrage association.
Previous to this organization the subject had been agitated through editorials in the HebronJournal, and by a band of progressive, thinking women. Upon their request the editor of theJournal, E. M. Correll, prepared an address upon "Woman and Citizenship." Enthusiasm was aroused, and a column of theJournalwas devoted to the interests of women, and was ably edited by the coterie of ladies having the advancement of the legal status of women at heart.
Through the efforts of Mr. Correll, Susan B. Anthony was induced to come to Hebron and give her lecture on "Bread versus the Ballot," on October 30, 1877. Previous to this time many self-satisfied women believed they had all the "rights" they wanted, but they were soon awakened to a new consciousness of their true status wherein they discovered their "rights" were only "privileges."
On April 15, 1879, Mrs. Elizabeth Cady Stanton, upon invitation, lectured in Hebron and organized the Thayer County Woman's Suffrage Association. This society grew from fifteen, the number at organization, to about seventy-five, many leading business men becoming members.
Other organizations in the state followed, and at the convening of the Nebraska legislature of 1881, a joint resolution providing for the submission to the electors of this state an amendment to section 1, article VII, of the constitution, was presented by Representative E. M. Correll, and mainly through his efforts passed the house by the necessary three-fifths majority, and the senate by twenty-two to eight, but was defeated at the polls.
During that memorable campaign of 1881-82, Lucy Stone Blackwell, and many other talented women of note, from the eastern states, lectured in Nebraska for the advancement of women, leaving the impress of the nobility of their characters upon the women of the middle West.
The Thayer County Woman's Suffrage Association was highly honored, as several of its members held positions of trust in the state association, and one of its members, Hon. E. M. Correll, who was publishing theWoman's Journal, at Lincoln, at the time of the annual conference of the American Woman's Suffrage Association, at Louisville, Kentucky, in October, 1881, was elected to the important position of president of that national organization, in recognition of the work he had performed for the advancement of the cause of "Equality before the Law."
This association served its time and purpose and after many years was instrumental in organizing the Hebron Library Association.
The constitution and by-laws of this first woman's suffrage association of the state are still well preserved. The first officers were: Susan E. Ferguson, president; Harriet G. Huse, vice president; Barbara J. Thompson, secretary; Lucy L. Correll, treasurer; A. Martha Vermillion, corresponding secretary. Of these first officers only one is now living.
In 1869, Fayette Kingsley and family resided on the Haney homestead at the southeast corner of Hebron, where Mr. Haney had been brutally murdered in the presence of his three daughters in 1867, the daughters escaping and eventually reaching their home, "back east."
On May 26, 1869, "Old Daddy" Marks, accompanied by a young man for protection, drove over from Rose creek to warn Kingsley's that the Indians were on a raid. While they were talking, Mr. Kingsley heard the pit-pat of the Indian horses on the wet prairie. From the west were riding thirty-six Indians, led by a white man, whose hat and fine boots attracted attention in contrast to the bare-headed Indians wearing moccasins.
In the house were enough guns and revolvers to shoot sixty rounds without loading. When Mrs. Kingsley saw the Indians approaching she scattered the arms and ammunition on the table where the men could get them. There were two Spencer carbines, a double-barreled shotgun, and two navy revolvers, besides other firearms.
Mr. Kingsley and Charlie Miller (a young man from the East who was boarding with them) went into the house, got the guns, and leveled them on the Indians, who had come within 250 yards of the log-house, but who veered off on seeing the guns. One of the party at the house exclaimed, "The Indians are going past and turning off!" Mr. Marks then said, "Then for God's sake, don't shoot!"
The Indians went on down the river and drove away eleven of King Fisher's horses. Two of Fisher's boys lay concealed in the grass and saw the white leader of the Indians remove his hat, showing his close-cut hair. He talked the Indian language and ordered the redskins to drive up a pony, which proved to be lame and was not taken. The Indians continued their raid nearly to Meridian.
Meanwhile at Kingsley's preparations were made for a hurried flight. Mr. Marks said he must go home to protect his own family on Rose creek, but the young man accompanying him insisted that he cross the river and return by way of Alexander'sranch on the Big Sandy, as otherwise they would be following the Indians. Mr. Kingsley, with his wife and three children, went with them to Alexander's ranch, staying there two weeks until Governor Butler formed a company of militia composed of the settlers, to protect the frontier. A company of the Second U. S. Cavalry was sent here and stationed west of Hackney, later that summer. The Indians killed a man and his son, and took their horses, less than two miles from the soldiers' camp.
On returning to the homestead, two cows and two yoke of oxen were found all right. Before the flight, Mr. Kingsley had torn down the pen, letting out a calf and a pig. Sixty days later, on recovering the pig, Mr. Kingsley noticed a sore spot on its back, and he pulled out an arrow point about three inches long.
The Indians had taken all the bedding and eatables, even taking fresh baked bread out of the oven. They tore open the feather-bed and scattered the contents about—whether for amusement or in search of hidden treasures is not known. They found a good pair of boots, and cut out the fine leather tops (perhaps for moccasins) but left the heavy soles. From a new harness they also took all the fine straps and left the tugs and heavy leather. They had such a load that at the woodpile they discarded Mr. Kingsley's double-barreled shotgun, which had been loaded with buckshot for them.
Captain Wilson, a lawyer who boarded with Mr. Kingsley, had gone to warn King Fisher, leaving several greenbacks inside a copy of the Nebraska statutes. These the Indians found and appropriated—perhaps their white leader was a renegade lawyer accustomed to getting money out of the statutes.
In 1877 Mr. Kingsley's family had a narrow escape from death in a peculiar manner. After a heavy rain the walls of his basement caved in. His children occupied two beds standing end to end and filling the end of the basement. When the rocks from the wall caved in, both beds were crushed to the floor and a little pet dog on one of the beds was killed, but the children had no bones broken. Presumably the bedding protected them and the breaking of the bedsteads broke the jar of the rocks on their bodies.
Mr. Kingsley has a deeply religious nature, and believes that Divine protection has been with him through life.
In September, 1884, Rev. E. A. Russell was transferred by the American Baptist Publication Society from his work in the East to Nebraska, and settled on an eighty-acre ranch near Ord. Mr. Russell had held pastorates for twenty-six years in New Hampshire, New York, and Indiana, but desired to come west for improvement in health. He was accompanied by his family of seven. Western life was strange and exciting with always the possibility of an Indian raid, and dangerous prairie fires. It was the custom to plow a wide furrow around the home buildings as a precaution against the latter.
The first year in Nebraska, our oldest daughter, Alice M. Russell, was principal of the Ord school, and Edith taught in the primary grade.
On the fifth of August, 1885, late in the afternoon, a terrific hail-storm swept over the country. All crops were destroyed; even the grass was beaten into the earth, so there was little left as pasture for cattle. Pigs and poultry were killed by dozens and the plea of a tender-hearted girl, that a poor calf, beaten down by hailstones, might be brought "right into the kitchen," was long remembered. Not a window in our house remained unbroken. The floor was covered with rain and broken glass and ice; and our new, white, hard-finished walls and ceilings were bespattered and disfigured.
This hail-storm was a general calamity. The whole country suffered and many families returned, disheartened, to friends in the East.
The Baptist church was so shattered that, for its few members, it was no easy task to repair it. But they soon put it in good condition, only to see it utterly wrecked by a small cyclone the following October.
The income that year from a forty-acre cornfield was one small "nubbin" less than three inches in length.
All these things served to emphasize the heart-rending storieswe had heard of sufferings of early pioneers. The nervous shock sustained by the writer was so great that a year elapsed before she was able to see clearly, or to read. As she was engaged on the four years' post-graduate course of the Chautauqua Literary and Scientific Circle, her eldest son read aloud to her during that year and her work was completed at the same time as he and his younger sister graduated with the class of 1887.
Some time later the writer organized a Chautauqua Circle, Ord's first literary society. Its president was a Mr. King and its secretary E. J. Clements, now of Lincoln, Nebraska.
During our second winter in Nebraska the writer did not see a woman to speak to after her daughters went to their schools in Lincoln, where one was teaching and the other a University pupil.
Of the "Minnie Freeman Storm" in January, 1888, all our readers have doubtless heard. Our two youngest boys were at school a mile away; but fortunately we lived south of town and they reached home in safety.
In 1881 Fort Hartsuff, twelve miles away, had been abandoned. The building of this fort had been the salvation of pioneers, giving them work and wages after the terrible scourge of locusts in 1874. It was still the pride of those who had been enabled to remain in the desolated country and we heard much about it. So, when a brother came from New England to visit an only sister on the "Great American Desert," we took an early start one morning and visited "The Fort." The buildings, at that time, were in fairly good condition. Officers' quarters, barracks, commissary buildings, stables, and other structures were of concrete, so arranged as to form a hollow square; and, near by on a hill, was a circular stockade, which was said to be connected with the fort by an underground passage.
A prominent figure in Ord in 1884 was an attractive young lady who later married Dr. F. D. Haldeman. In 1904 Mrs. Haldeman organizedCoronadochapter, Daughters of the American Revolution. Her sister, Dr. Minerva Newbecker, has practiced medicine in Ord for many years. Another sister, Clara Newbecker, has long been a teacher in the public schools of Chicago. These three sisters, who descended from Lieutenant Philip Newbecker, of Revolutionary fame, and Mrs. Nellie Coombs, are the only living charter members ofCoronadochapter. Thechapter was named in honor of that governor of New Galicia in Mexico who is supposed to have passed through some portion of our territory in 1540 when he fitted out an expedition to seek and christianize the people of that wonderful region where "golden bells and dishes of solid gold" hung thick upon the trees.
About all that is definitely known is that he set up a cross at the big river, with the inscription: "Thus far came Francisco de Coronado, General of an expedition."
And now, in 1915, the family of seven, by one marriage after another, has dwindled to a lonely—two.
The head of our household, with recovered health, served his denomination twenty years in this great field, comprising Nebraska, Upper Colorado, and Wyoming. He retired in 1904 to the sanctuary of a quiet home.
I reached Fort Calhoun in May, 1856, with my friends, Mr. and Mrs. John Allen; coming with team and wagon from Edgar county, Illinois. I was then eleven years old. Fort Calhoun had no soldiers, but some of the Fort Atkinson buildings were still standing. I remember the liberty pole, the magazine, the old brick-yard, at which places we children played and picked up trinkets. There was one general store then, kept by Pink Allen and Jascoby, and but few settlers. Among those I remember were, my uncle, Thomas Allen; E. H. Clark, a land agent; Col. Geo. Stevens and family, who started a hotel in 1856, and Orrin Rhoades, whose family lived on a claim five miles west of town. That summer my father took a claim near Rhoades', building a log house and barn at the edge of the woods. We moved there in the fall, and laid in a good supply of wood for the huge fireplace, used for cooking as well as heating. Our rations were scanty, consisting of wild game for meat, corn bread, potatoes and beans purchased at Fort Calhoun. The next spring we cleared some small patches for garden and corn, which we planted and tended with a hoe. There were no houses between ours and Fort Calhoun, nor any bridges. Rhoades' house and ours were the only ones between Fontenelle and Fort Calhoun. Members of the Quincy colony at Fontenelle went to Council Bluffs for flour and used our place as a half-way house, stopping each way over night. How we children did enjoy their company, and stories of the Indians. We were never molested by the red men, only that they would come begging food occasionally.
I had no schooling until 1860 when I worked for my board in Fort Calhoun at E. H. Clark's and attended public school a few months. The next two years I did likewise, boarding at Alex. Reed's.
From 1866 to 1869 inclusive I cut cord-wood and railroad ties which I hauled to Omaha for use in the building of the UnionPacific railroad. I received from $8.00 to $15.00 per cord for my wood, and $1.00 each for ties.
Deer were plentiful and once when returning from Omaha I saw an old deer and fawn. Unhitching my team I jumped on one horse and chased the young one down, caught and tamed it. I put a bell on its neck and let it run about at will. It came to its sleeping place every night until the next spring when it left, never to be seen by us again.
In the fall of 1864 I was engaged by Edward Creighton to freight with a wagon train to Denver, carrying flour and telegraph supplies. The cattle were corralled and broke at Cole's creek, west of Omaha known then as "Robber's Roost," and I thought it great fun to yoke and break those wild cattle. We started in October with forty wagons, seven yoke of oxen to each wagon. I went as far as Fort Cottonwood, one hundred miles beyond Fort Kearny, reaching there about November 20. There about a dozen of us grew tired of the trip and turned back with a wagon and one ox team. On our return, at Plum creek, thirty-fives miles west of Fort Kearny we saw where a train had been attacked by Indians, oxen killed, wagons robbed and abandoned. We waded the rivers, Loup Fork and Platte, which was a cold bath at that time of year.
I lived at this same place in the woods until I took a homestead three miles farther west in 1868.
My father's home was famous at that time, also years afterward, as a beautiful spot, in which to hold Fourth of July celebrations, school picnics, etc., and the hospitality and good cooking of my mother, "Aunt Polly Allen" as she was familiarly called, was known to all the early settlers in this section of the country.
I came to Washington county, Nebraska, with my parents in the fall of 1865, by ox team from Indiana. We stopped at Rockport, where father and brothers got work at wood chopping. They built a house by digging into a hill and using logs to finish the front. The weather was delightful, and autumn's golden tints in the foliage were beautiful.
We gathered hazel nuts and wild grapes, often scaring a deer from the underbrush. Our neighbors were the Shipleys, who were very hospitable, and shared their garden products with us.
During the winter father bought John Frazier's homestead, but our home was still in a dugout, in which we were comfortable. We obtained all needed supplies from Fort Calhoun or Omaha.
In the spring Amasa Warrick, from Cuming City, came to our home in search of a teacher and offered me the position, which I accepted. Elam Clark of Fort Calhoun endorsed my teacher's certificate. I soon commenced teaching at Cuming City, and pupils came for miles around. I boarded at George A. Brigham's. Mr. Brigham was county surveyor, postmaster, music teacher, as well as land agent, and a very fine man.
One day, while busy with my classes, the door opened and three large Indians stole in, seating themselves near the stove. I was greatly alarmed and whispered to one of my pupils to hasten to the nearest neighbor for assistance. As soon as the lad left, one Indian went to the window and asked "Where boy go?" I said, "I don't know." The three Indians chattered together a moment, and then the spokesman said. "I kill you sure," but seeing a man coming in the distance with a gun, they all hurried out and ran over the hill.
I taught at Cuming City until the school fund was exhausted, and by that time the small schoolhouse on Long creek was completed. Allen Craig and Thomas McDonald were directors. I boarded at home and taught the first school in this district, withfourteen pupils enrolled. At this time Judge Bowen of Omaha was county superintendent, and I went there to have my certificate renewed.
When all the public money in the Long Creek district was used up, I went back to Cuming City to teach. The population of this district had increased to such an extent that I needed an assistant, and I was authorized to appoint one of my best pupils to the position. I selected Vienna Cooper, daughter of Dr. P. J. Cooper. I boarded at the Lippincott home, known as the "Halfway House" on the stage line between Omaha and Decatur. It was a stage station where horses were changed and drivers and passengers stopped over night.
At the close of our summer term we held a picnic and entertainment on the Methodist church grounds, using the lumber for the new church for our platform and seats. This entertainment was pronounced the grandest affair ever held in the West.
The school funds of the Cuming City district being again exhausted, I returned to Long Creek district in the fall of 1867, and taught as long as there was any money in the treasury. By that time the village of Blair had sprung up, absorbing Cuming City and De Soto, and I was employed to teach in their new log schoolhouse. T. M. Carter was director of the Blair district. Orrin Colby of Bell Creek, was county superintendent, and he visited the schools of the county, making the rounds on foot. I taught at Blair until April, 1869, when I was married to William Henry Allen, a pioneer of Fort Calhoun. Our license was issued by Judge Stilts of Fort Calhoun, where we were married by Dr. Andrews. We raised our family in the Long Creek district, and still reside where we settled in those pioneer days.
I came to Nebraska in the spring of 1857 from Edgar county, Illinois, with my husband, Thomas Frazier, and small daughter, Mary. We traveled in a wagon drawn by oxen, took a claim one and one-half miles south of Fort Calhoun and thought we were settling near what would be Nebraska's metropolis. My husband purchased slabs at the saw mill at Calhoun and built our shanty of one room with a deck roof. For our two yoke of oxen he made a shed of poles and grass and we all were comfortable and happy in our new home. In the spring Mr. Frazier broke prairie, put in the most extensive crops hereabouts, for my husband was young and ambitious. We had brought enough money with us to buy everything obtainable in this new country, but he would often say, "I'd hate to have the home folks see how you and Mary have to live." Deer were a common sight and we ate much venison; wild turkeys were also plentiful. They could be heard every morning and my husband would often go in our woods and get one for our meat.
In 1859 he went to Boone county, Iowa, and bought a cow, hauling her home in a wagon. She soon had a heifer calf and we felt that our herd was well started. The following winter was so severe that during one storm we brought the cow in our house to save her. The spring of 1860 opened up fine and as we had prospered and were now making money from our crops we built us a frame house, bought a driving team, cows, built fences, etc. I still own this first claim, and although my visions of Fort Calhoun were never realized I know of no better place in which to live and my old neighbors, some few of whom are still here, proved to be everlasting friends.
Mother Bouvier, a kind old soul, who settled in De Soto in the summer of 1855, had many hardships. Just above her log house, on the ridge, was the regular Indian trail and the Indians made it a point to stop at our house regularly, as they went to Fort Calhoun or to Omaha. She befriended them many times and they always treated her kindly. "Omaha Mary," who was often a caller at our house was always at the head of her band. She was educated and could talk French well to us. What she said was law with all the Indians. Our creek was thick with beavers and as a small boy I could not trap them, but she could, and had her traps there and collected many skins from our place. I wanted her to show me the trick of it, but she would never allow me to follow her. At one time I sneaked along and she caught me in the act and grabbed me by the collar and with a switch in her hand, gave me a severe warming. This same squaw was an expert with bow and arrow, and I have seen her speedily cross the Missouri river in a canoe with but one oar. Our wall was always black and greasy by the Indians sitting against it while they ate the plates of mush and sorghum my mother served them. I have caught many buffalo calves out on the prairies, and one I brought to our De Soto home and tamed it. My sister Adeline and myself tried to break it to drive with an ox hitched to a sled, but never succeeded to any great extent. One day Joseph La Flesche came along and offered us $50.00 for it and we sold it to him but he found he could not separate it from our herd, so bought a heifer, which it would follow and Mr. Joseph Boucha and myself took them up to the reservation for him. He entertained us warmly at his Indian quarters for two or three days. I have cured many buffalo steak (by the Indian method) and we used the meat on our table.
In the spring of 1855, with my brother, Alex Carter, E. P. and D. D. Stout, I left the beautiful hills and valleys of Ohio, to seek a home in the west. After four weeks of travel by steamboat and stage, horseback and afoot, we reached the town of Omaha, then only a small village. It took us fourteen days to make the trip from St. Louis to Omaha.
While waiting at Kanesville or Council Bluffs as it is now called, we ascended the hills back of the town and gazed across to the Nebraska side. I thought of Daniel Boone as he wandered westward on the Kentucky hills looking into Ohio. "Fair was the scene that lay before the little band, that paused upon its toilsome way, to view the new found land."
At St. Mary we met Peter A. Sarpy. He greeted us all warmly and invited all to get out of the stage and have a drink at his expense. As an inducement to settle in Omaha, we were each offered a lot anywhere on the townsite, if we would build on it, but we had started for De Soto, Washington county, and no ordinary offer could induce us to change our purpose.
We thought that with such an excellent steamboat landing and quantities of timber in the vicinity, De Soto had as good a chance as Omaha to become the metropolis. We reached De Soto May 14, 1855, and found one log house finished and another under way. Zaremba Jackson, a newspaper man, and Dr. Finney occupied the log cabin and we boarded with them until we had located a claim and built a cabin upon the land we subsequently entered and upon which the city of Blair is now built.
After I had built my cabin of peeled willow poles the Cuming City Claim Club warned me by writing on the willow poles of my cabin that if I did not abandon that claim before June 15, 1855, I would be treated to a free bath in Fish creek and free transportation across the Missouri river. This however proved to be merely a bluff. I organized and was superintendent of the first Sunday school in Washington county in the spring of 1856.
The first board of trustees of the Methodist church in the county was appointed by Rev. A. G. White, on June 1, 1866, and consisted of the following members, Alex Carter, L. D. Cameron, James Van Horn, M. B. Wilds, and myself. The board met and resolved itself into a building committee and appointed me as chairman. We then proceeded to devise means to provide for a church building at Cuming City, by each member of the board subscribing fifty dollars. At the second meeting it was discovered that this was inadequate and it was deemed necessary for this subscription to be doubled. The church was built, the members of the committee hewing logs of elm, walnut, and oak for sills and hauling with ox teams. The church was not completely finished but was used for a place of worship. This building was moved under the supervision of Rev. Jacob Adriance and by his financial support from Cuming City to Blair in 1870. Later it was sold to the Christian church, moved off and remodeled and is still doing service as a church building in Blair.
Jacob Adriance was the first regular Methodist pastor to be assigned to the mission extending from De Soto to Decatur. His first service was held at De Soto on May 3, 1857, at the home of my brother, Jacob Carter, a Baptist. The congregation consisted of Jacob Carter, his family of five, Alex Carter, myself and wife.
The winter before Rev. Adriance came Isaac Collins was conducting protracted meetings in De Soto and so much interest was being aroused that some of the ruffians decided to break up the meetings. One night they threw a dead dog through a window hitting the minister in the back, knocking over the candles and leaving us in darkness. The minister straightened up and declared, "The devil isn't dead in De Soto yet."
I was present at the Calhoun claim fight at which Mr. Goss was killed and Purple and Smith were wounded.
The first little log school was erected on the townsite of Blair, the patrons cutting and hauling the lumber. I was the first director and Mrs. William AllenneeEmily Bottorff, first teacher.
I served as worthy patriarch of the First Sons of Temperance organization in the county and lived in De Soto long enough to see the last of the whiskey traffic banished from that township.
I have served many years in Washington county as school director, justice of the peace, and member of the county board.
In October, 1862, I joined the Second Nebraska cavalry for service on the frontier. Our regiment lost a few scalps and buried a number of Indians. We bivouacked on the plains, wrapped in our blankets, while the skies smiled propitiously over us and we dreamed of home and the girls we left behind us, until reveille called to find the drapery of our couch during the night had been reinforced by winding sheets of drifting snow.
E. H. Clark came from Indiana in March, 1855, with Judge James Bradley, and was clerk of the district court in Nebraska under him. He became interested in Fort Calhoun, then the county-seat of Washington county. The town company employed him to survey it into town lots, plat the same, and advertise it. New settlers landed here that spring and lots were readily sold. In June, 1855, Mr. Clark contracted with the proprietors to put up a building on the townsite for a hotel; said building to be 24x48 feet, two stories high, with a wing of the same dimensions; the structure to be of hewn logs and put up in good style. For this he was to receive one-ninth interest in the town. Immediately he commenced getting out timber, boarding in the meantime with Major Arnold's family, and laboring under many disadvantages for want of skilled labor and teams, there being but one span of horses and seven yoke of cattle in the entire precinct at this time. What lumber was necessary for the building had to be obtained from Omaha at sixty dollars per thousand and hauled a circuitous route by the old Mormon trail. As an additional incident to his trials, one morning at breakfast Mr. Clark was told by Mrs. Arnold that the last mouthful was on the table. Major Arnold was absent for supplies and delayed, supposedly for lack of conveyance; whereupon Mr. Clark procured two yoke of oxen and started at once for Omaha for provisions and lumber. Never having driven oxen before he met with many mishaps. By traveling all night through rain and mud he reached sight of home next day at sunrise, when the oxen ran away upsetting the lumber and scattering groceries all over the prairies. Little was recovered except some bacon and a barrel of flour.
Finally the hotel was ready for occupancy and Col. George Stevens with his family took up their residence there. It was the best hostelry in the west. Mr. Stevens was appointed postmaster and gave up one room to the office. The Stevens family were very popular everywhere.
Mr. and Mrs. John B. Kuony were married at the Douglas house, Omaha, about 1855 and came to the new hotel as cooks; but soon afterward started a small store which in due time madethem a fortune. This couple were also popular in business, as well as socially.
In March, 1856, my husband sent to Indiana for me. I went to St. Louis by train, then by boat to Omaha. I was three weeks on the boat, and had my gold watch and chain stolen from my cabin enroute. I brought a set of china dishes which were a family heirloom, clothes and bedding. The boxes containing these things we afterward used for table and lounge. My husband had a small log cabin ready on my arrival.
I was met at Omaha by Thomas J. Allen with a wagon and ox team. He hauled building material and provisions and I sat on a nail keg all the way out. He drove through prairie grass as high as the oxen's back. I asked him how he ever learned the road. When a boat would come up the river every one would rush to buy furniture and provisions; I got a rocking chair in 1857, the first one in the town. It was loaned out to sick folks and proved a treasure. In 1858 we bought a clock of John Bauman of Omaha, paying $45.00 for it, and it is still a perfect time piece.
My father, Dr. J. P. Andrews, came in the spring of 1857 and was a practicing physician, also a minister for many years here. He was the first Sunday school superintendent here and held that office continually until 1880 when he moved to Blair.
In 1858 the Vanier brothers started a steam grist mill which was a great convenience for early settlers. In 1861 Elam Clark took it on a mortgage and ran it for many years. Mr. Clark also carried on a large fur trade with the Indians, and they would go east to the bottoms to hunt and camp for two or three weeks.
At one time I had planned a dinner party and invited all my lady friends. I prepared the best meal possible for those days, with my china set all in place and was very proud to see it all spread, and when just ready to invite my guests to the table, a big Indian appeared in the doorway and said, "hungry" in broken accents. I said, "Yes I get you some" and started to the stove but he said, "No," and pointed to the table. I brought a generous helping in a plate but he walked out doors, gave a shrill yell which brought several others of his tribe and they at once sat down, ate everything in sight, while the guests looked on in fear and trembling; having finished they left in great glee.
Alfred D. Jones, the first postmaster of Omaha, tells in thePioneer Recordof the first Fourth of July celebration in Nebraska.
"On July 4, 1854, I was employed in the work of surveying the townsite of Omaha. At this time there were only two cabins on the townsite, my postoffice building and the company claim house. The latter was used as our boarding house. Inasmuch as the Fourth would be a holiday, I concluded it would be a novelty to hold a celebration on Nebraska soil. I therefore announced that we would hold a celebration and invited the people of Council Bluffs, by inserting a notice in the Council Bluffs paper, and requested that those who would participate should prepare a lunch for the occasion.
"We got forked stakes and poles along the river, borrowed bolts of sheeting from the store of James A. Jackson; and thus equipped we erected an awning to shelter from the sun those who attended. Anvils were procured, powder purchased and placed in charge of cautious gunners, to make a noise for the crowd. The celebration was held on the present high school grounds.
"The picnickers came with their baskets, and the gunner discharged his duty nobly. A stranger, in our midst, was introduced as Mr. Sawyer, an ex-congressman from Ohio."
I had a life-long acquaintance with one of those early picnickers, Mrs. Rhoda Craig, a daughter of Thomas Allen, who built the first house in Omaha. Mrs. Craig was the first white girl to live on the site of Omaha. She often told the story of that Fourth of July in Omaha. Their fear of the Indians was so great that as soon as dinner was over, they hurried to their boats and rowed across to Council Bluffs for safety.
Another pioneer woman was Aimee Taggart Kenny, who came to Fontenelle with her parents when a small child. Her father was a Baptist missionary in Nebraska, and his earliest work waswith the Quincy colony. I have heard her tell the following experience:
"On several occasions we were warned that the Indians were about to attack us. In great fear, we gathered in the schoolhouse and watched all night, the men all well armed. But we were never molested. Another time mother was alone with us children. Seeing the Indians approaching we locked the doors, went into the attic by means of an outside ladder and looked out through a crack. We saw the red men try the door, peep in at the windows, and then busy themselves chewing up mother's home-made hop-yeast, which had been spread out to dry. They made it into balls and tossed it all away."
John T. Bell of Newberg, Oregon, contributed the following:
"I have a pleasant recollection of your grandfather Allen. My father's and mother's people were all southerners and there was a kindliness about Mr. and Mrs. Allen that reminded me of our own folks back in Illinois. I often stopped to see them when going to and from the Calhoun mill.
"I was also well acquainted with Mrs. E. H. Clark, and Rev. Mr. Taggart and his family were among the most highly esteemed residents of our little settlement of Fontenelle. Mr. Taggart was a man of fine humor. It was the custom in those early days for the entire community to get together on New Year's day and have a dinner at 'The College.' There would be speech-making, and I remember that on one of these occasions Mr. Taggart said that no doubt the time would come when we would all know each others' real names and why we left the states.
"The experiences of the Bell family in the early Nebraska days were ones of privation. We came to Nebraska in 1856 quite well equipped with stock, four good horses, and four young cows which we had driven behind the wagon from western Illinois. The previous winter had been very mild and none of the settlers were prepared for the dreadful snow storm which came on the last day of November and continued for three days and nights. Our horses and cows were in a stable made by squaring up the head of a small gulch and covering the structure with slough grass. At the end of the storm when father could get out to look after the stock there was no sign of the stable. The low ground it occupied was levelled off by many feet of snow. Hefinally located the roof and found the stock alive and that was about all. The animals suffered greatly that winter and when spring came we had left only one horse and no cows. That lone horse was picking the early grass when he was bitten in the nose by a rattlesnake and died from the effects. One of those horses, 'Old Fox,' was a noble character. We had owned him as long as I could remember, and when he died we children all cried. I have since owned a good many horses but not one equalled Old Fox in the qualities that go to make up a perfect creature.
"After the civil war my brother Will and I were the only members of our family left in Nebraska. We served with Grant and Sherman and then went back to Fontenelle, soon afterward beginning the improvement of our farm on Bell creek in the western part of the county. By that time conditions had so improved in Nebraska that hardships were not so common. I was interested in tree planting even as a boy and one of the distinct recollections of our first summer in Nebraska was getting so severely poisoned in the woods on the Elkhorn when digging up young sprouts, that I was entirely blind. A colored man living in Fontenelle told father that white paint would cure me and so I was painted wherever there was a breaking out, with satisfactory results.
"Later the planting of cottonwood, box elder, maple, and other trees became a general industry in Nebraska and I am confident that I planted twenty thousand trees, chiefly cottonwood. To J. Sterling Morton, one of Nebraska's earliest and most useful citizens, Nebraska owes a debt of gratitude. He was persistent in advocating the planting of trees. In his office hung a picture of an oak tree; on his personal cards was a picture of an oak tree with the legend 'Plant Trees'; on his letterheads, on his envelopes was borne the same injunction and the picture of an oak tree. On the marble doorstep of his home was cut a picture of an oak tree and the words 'Plant Trees'; on the ground-glass of the entrance door was the same emblem. I went to a theater he had built and on the drop curtain was a picture of an oak tree and the words 'Plant Trees.' Today the body of this useful citizen lies buried under the trees he planted in Wyuka cemetery, near Nebraska City."