Collection of Nebraska Pioneer Reminiscences Part 29

REMINISCENCES OF FORT CALHOUN

BY W. H. ALLEN

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 Union Pacific 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.

REMINISCENCES OF WAs.h.i.+NGTON COUNTY

BY MRS. EMILY BOTTORFF ALLEN

I came to Was.h.i.+ngton 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 s.h.i.+pleys, 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 c.u.ming 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 c.u.ming 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 cla.s.ses, 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 a.s.sistance. 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 c.u.ming 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, with fourteen 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 c.u.ming City to teach. The population of this district had increased to such an extent that I needed an a.s.sistant, 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 pa.s.sengers 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 p.r.o.nounced the grandest affair ever held in the West.

The school funds of the c.u.ming 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 c.u.ming 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.

REMINISCENCES OF PIONEER LIFE AT FORT CALHOUN

BY MRS. N. J. FRAZIER BROOKS

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 gra.s.s 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.

REMINISCENCES OF DE SOTO IN 1855

BY OLIVER BOUVIER

Mother Bouvier, a kind old soul, who settled in De Soto in the summer of 1855, had many hards.h.i.+ps. 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.

REMINISCENCES

BY THOMAS M. CARTER

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, Was.h.i.+ngton county, and no ordinary offer could induce us to change our purpose.

We thought that with such an excellent steamboat landing and quant.i.ties 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 c.u.ming 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 Was.h.i.+ngton 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 c.u.ming 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 wors.h.i.+p. This building was moved under the supervision of Rev.

Jacob Adriance and by his financial support from c.u.ming 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 a.s.signed 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.