Collection of Nebraska Pioneer Reminiscences Part 6

We stopped at Grand Island for supper, and in due time arrived in Plum Creek. Dr. Bancroft was waiting for me and after being introduced to many of his western friends, we retired for the night. Next morning feeling the necessity of visiting a barber shop, I asked the doctor if there was a barber shop in town. Judging from the accommodations at the hotel I had my doubts. "We have a good barber in town," he replied, "but I will go with you." On arriving at the corner of what is now Main and Depot streets we entered a building which I discovered to be a saloon.

I protested, but before I had had time to say much, the doctor asked the barkeeper where Ed. (the barber) was. "Why, he has gone south of the river to plaster a house," was the reply. Then I thought "what kind of a country have I come to, barber and plasterer the same person." Then my mind wandered back to the far East where I saw a comfortable bath room, and I thought "What can the doctor see in this country to deny himself all the comforts of home?" Before I had time to recover from my reveries, I was surrounded by cowboys who insisted that I drink with them. I protested and if it had not been for Dr. Bancroft I suppose they would have made me dance to the music of their six shooters or drink, but as I was a friend of "Little Doc" (as they called him) that was sufficient and the tenderfoot was allowed to leave. Then and only then I saw in the northwest corner of the room the barber's chair.

I accompanied Dr. Bancroft on many drives over the country going as far north as the Loup and Dismal rivers. We went several times south to Arapahoe; in fact it was but a short time before I was acquainted with most all the settlers in Dawson and adjacent counties. The population at that time was hardly 2,000 in Dawson county. In a very short time I began to feel more at home. The hospitality of the people was something I had never dreamed of; the climate and good fresh air so invigorating that I soon adjusted myself to surrounding conditions, and before I had been here a month I decided to cast my lot with the rest of the new settlers and became one of them.

While I have had many ups and downs I cannot say that I regret having done so. When I look back and think of the many friends I made in the early days and how we stood hand in hand in our adversities as well as in our good fortunes, I cannot help feeling that we are more than friends and belong to one big family.

RECOLLECTIONS OF THE FIRST SETTLER OF DAWSON COUNTY

BY MRS. DANIEL FREEMAN

I came from Canada to Leavenworth, Kansas. Mr. Freeman was a freighter to Pike's Peak, but was not always successful. He spent $4,000 on one train and came back with only a team of oxen and a team of ponies. The next spring, 1862, I bought a stage-coach and using the pony team, I took my three children, the youngest only two months old, and drove all the way to Nebraska. My husband was there and had started a little store just across from the pony express station on Plum creek. He bought buffalo hides of the Indians and s.h.i.+pped them east. The buffalo were in easy reach and we had fresh meat every day. We had a big sign with the word "Bakery" on it. I baked a hundred pounds of flour every day. I would make yeast bread over night and bake it in the forenoon, and make salt-rising in the morning and bake it in the afternoon. We got St.

Louis flour that the freighters brought from Denver when they came back.

I sold my bread for fifty cents a loaf and made as much as thirty dollars a day. I made cheese, too. We had seventy-five head of cows and milked twenty-five. We would take a young calf and let it fill its stomach with its mother's milk, then kill it. Then we took the stomach and washed and wiped it and hung it up on a nail to dry. When it was perfectly dry we would put it away carefully in a cloth and used it for rennet to make the cheese. I would put a little piece of it in new milk and it would form a solid curd. My husband made me a press and a mold. I got twenty-five cents a pound for my cheese, and sold lots of it. I got up fine meals and charged two dollars a meal. The people were glad to pay it. There was plenty of firewood. The trees drifted down the river and we piled the wood up on the islands, but after the settlers came they would steal it. There was no need of anybody going hungry those days, for anyone could kill a buffalo. One day a herd of thirty came within ten feet of our door, and our cows went away with them. The children and I walked three miles before we came up to the cows and could get them back home. We were near the river and it was not far down to water. We dug holes in the ground and sunk five salt barrels. The water came up in these and we always had plenty of water. Sometimes we dipped the barrels dry, but they would be full the next morning. There wasn't a pump in the country for years.

The people who kept the Pony Express station were named Humphries. These stations were about fifty miles apart. There would be lots of people at the station every night, for after the Indians became troublesome, the people went in trains of about a hundred wagons. There were many six oxen teams. The Indians never troubled anybody until the whites killed so many buffalo and wasted so much. There were carca.s.ses all over the prairies. The Indians used every part, and they knew this great slaughter of the buffalo meant starvation for them, so they went on the warpath in self-defense. They would skulk on the river bank where the trail came close, and would rush up and attack the travelers. The soldiers were sent out as escorts and their families often went with them. One night at Plum Creek Pony Express station twin babies were born to the lieutenant and wife. I went over in the morning to see if I could help them, but they were all cared for by the lieutenant. He had washed the babies and had the tent in order. I do not remember his name now. We often saw tiny babies with their mothers lying in the wagons that came by. They would be wrapped up, and looked very comfortable. Water was so scarce that they had to pay for enough to wash the babies.

Brigham Young made trip after trip with foreign people of all kinds but blacks. Most of these could not speak English, and I don't think Brigham bought any water for them, as they were filthy dirty. Brigham was a great big fat man, and he kept himself pretty neat. He made just about one trip a year. One company of these immigrants was walking through, and the train was a couple of miles long. They went south of the river on the Oregon trail. There was no other road then.

On August 8, 1864, the Sioux people killed eleven men at 11:00 o'clock in the morning, on Elm creek. I was afraid to stay on our ranch, so I took the children and started to Fort Kearny. On the way we came to the place of the ma.s.sacre. The dead men were lying side by side in a long trench, their faces were covered with blood and their boots were on.

Three women were taken prisoners. I heard that there were two children in the party, and that they were thrown in the gra.s.s, but I looked all around for them and didn't find any signs of them. Friends of these people wrote to Mr. E. M. F. Leflang, to know if he could locate them.

The Indians never troubled us except to take one team during this war, but I was always afraid when I saw the soldiers coming. They would come in the store and help themselves to tobacco, cookies, or anything. Then the teamsters would swing their long black-snake whips and bring them down across my chicken's heads, then pick them up and carry them to camp. I think the officers were the most to blame, for they sold the soldiers' rations, and the men were hungry.

When the Union Pacific railroad was first built we lived on our homestead north of the river and the town was started on our land. We had the contract to supply the wood for the engines. They didn't use any other fuel then. We hired men to cut the wood on Wood river where Eddyville and Sumner are now. I boarded the men in our new big house across from the depot in old Plum Creek. The store was below and there was an outside stairway for the men to go up. That summer Mr. Freeman was in Was.h.i.+ngton, Philadelphia, and New York talking up this country.

Mr. Freeman was the first county clerk and his office was upstairs over the store. We rented some of the rooms to newcomers. We did a big business until the railroad moved the town to their section, a mile west. Mr. Freeman kept on trapping, and finally was drowned near Deadwood, South Dakota. I stayed by Dawson county and raised my family and they all are settled near me and have good homes.

EARLY DAYS IN DAWSON COUNTY

BY LUCY R. HEWITT

Mr. and Mrs. Thomas J. Hewitt, in June, 1873, journeyed from Forreston, Illinois, to Plum Creek, Nebraska. Their object was to take advantage of the offer the government was making to civil war soldiers, whereby each soldier could obtain one hundred and sixty acres of land. They stopped at Grand Island and Kearney, but at neither place could they find two adjoining quarter sections, not yet filed on. They wanted two, for my grandfather, Rockwood, who lived with us was also a soldier. At Plum Creek, now Lexington, they were able to obtain what they wanted but it was six miles northwest of the station.

Plum Creek at that early date consisted of the depot. The town was a mile east and when my parents arrived at Plum Creek, they were obliged to walk back to the town, in order to find lodging for the night. Rooms seem to have been scarce for they had to share theirs with another man and his wife. They found a place to eat in the restaurant owned by Mr.

and Mrs. E. D. Johnson.

In August of the same year, they made a second trip to Nebraska, this time with wagon and carriage, bringing with others a carpenter who built their house upon the dividing line of the two homesteads. This house had the distinction of being the first two-story house in the neighborhood.

All the others were one-story, because the settlers feared the high winds that occasionally swept over the prairies. For a few months it was the farthest away from town.

In the three months between the two trips the town had moved to the depot, and had grown from nothing to a village of sixty houses and stores. The Johnsons had brought their restaurant and placed it upon the site where a little later they built a hotel called the Johnson house.

Mr. T. Martin had built the first hotel which he named the Alhambra. I have a very faint recollection of being in this hotel when the third trip brought the household goods and the family to the new home. It was in December when this last journey was taken, and great was the astonishment of the older members of the family to see the ground covered with a foot of snow. They had been told that there was practically no winter in Nebraska, and they had believed the statement.

They found that the thermometer could drop almost out of sight with the cold, and yet the greater part of many winters was very pleasant.

My father opened a law office in the town and T. L. Warrington, who taught the first school in the village, read law with him, and kept the office open when the farm required attention. The fields were small at first and did not require so very much time.

The first exciting event was a prairie fire. A neighbor's family was spending the day at our farm and some other friends also came to call.

The day was warm, no wind was stirring until about 4 o'clock, when it suddenly and with much force blew from the north and brought the fire, which had been smoldering for some days in the bluffs to the north of the farm, down into the valley with the speed of a racing automobile. We children were very much frightened, and grandmother who was sick with a headache, was so startled she forgot her pain--did not have any in fact.

Mother and Mrs. f.a.got, the neighbor's wife, were outside loosening the tumble weeds and sending them along with the wind before the fire could catch them. In that way they saved the house from catching fire. My father, who had seen the fire come over the hills, as he was driving from town, had unhitched the horses and riding one of them as fast as possible, reached home in time to watch the hay stacks. Three times they caught fire and each time he beat it out with a wet gunny sack. I think this happened in March, 1874.

That same year about harvest time the country was visited by gra.s.shoppers. They did considerable damage by nipping off the oat heads before the farmers could finish the reaping. My aunt who was visiting us suggested that the whole family walk through the potato field and send the hoppers into the gra.s.s beyond. It was a happy thought, for the insects ate gra.s.s that night and the next day a favorable wind sent them all away.

The worst gra.s.shopper visitation we had was in July, 1876. One Sunday morning father and mother and I went to town to church. The small grain had been harvested and the corn all along the way was a most beautiful, dark green. When we were about a mile from town a slight shade seemed to come over the sun; when we looked up for the cause, we saw millions of gra.s.shoppers slowly dropping to the ground. They came down in such numbers that they clung two or three deep to every green thing. The people knew that nothing in the way of corn or gardens could escape such devastating hordes and they were very much discouraged. To add to their troubles, the Presbyterian minister that morning announced his intention to resign. He, no doubt, thought he was justified.

I was pretty small at that time and did not understand what it all meant, but I do know that as we drove home that afternoon, the cornfields looked as they would in December after the cattle had fed on them--not a green shred left. The asparagus stems, too, were equally bare. The onions were eaten down to the very roots. Of the whole garden, there was, in fact, nothing left but a double petunia, which grandmother had put a tub over. So ravenous were the pests that they even ate the cotton mosquito netting that covered the windows.

In a day or two when nothing remained to eat, the gra.s.shoppers spread their wings and whirred away. Then grandfather said, "We will plant some beans and turnips, there is plenty of time for them to mature before frost." Accordingly, he put in the seeds and a timely rain wet them so that in a very few days they had sprouted and were well up, when on Monday morning, just two weeks and one day from the time of the first visitation, a second lot dropped down and breakfasted off grandfather's beans. It was too late in the season then to plant more.

My mother had quite a flock of turkeys and a number of chickens. They were almost dazed at the sight of so many perfectly good insects. They tried to eat them all but had to give up the task. They ate enough, however, to make themselves sick.

This time I believe the gra.s.shoppers stayed several days. They seemed to be hunting some good hard ground in which to lay their eggs. The following spring the warm days brought out millions of little ones, which a prairie fire later destroyed.

The corn crop having been eaten green and the wheat acreage being rather small, left many people with nothing to live on during the winter. Many moved away and many of those who could not get away had to be helped. It was then that Dawson county people learned that they had good friends in the neighboring states for they sent carloads of food and clothing to their less fortunate neighbors.

A good many homesteaders were well-educated, refined people from Pennsylvania, New York, and elsewhere. They were a very congenial company and often had social times together. They were for the most part young people, some with families of young children, others just married, and some unmarried. I remember hearing my mother tell of a wedding that she and father attended. The ceremony was performed at a private house and then the whole company adjourned to a large hall where everybody who wanted to, danced and the rest watched until the supper was served by Mr. and Mrs. Johnson in their new hotel. The bride on this occasion was Miss Addie Bradley and the groom was W. H. Lingle, at one time county superintendent of public instruction.

For some time after the starting of the town of Plum Creek there was no church edifice but there was a good sized schoolhouse, and here each Sunday morning the people for miles around gathered. One Sunday the Methodist preacher talked to all the people and the next week the Presbyterian minister preached to the same congregation, until the courthouse was built, and then the Presbyterians used the courtroom. I have heard the members say that they received more real good from those union services than they ever did when each denomination had a church of its own. The Episcopalians in the community were the most enterprising for they built the first church, a little brick building that seated one hundred people. It was very plainly furnished, but it cost fifteen hundred dollars, due to the fact that the brick was brought from Kearney and freight rates were high. It stood on the site of the present modern building and was built in 1874. My grandfather, an ardent Churchman, often read the service when there was no rector in town.

Speaking of the courthouse reminds me that it was not always put to the best use. I cannot remember when the following incident occurred, but I do remember hearing it talked of. A man who lived on the south side of the Platte river was accused of poisoning some flour that belonged to another man. He was ordered arrested and two or three men, among them Charles Mayes, the deputy sheriff, were sent after him. He resisted arrest and using his gun, killed Mayes. He was finally taken and brought to town and put into the county jail in the bas.e.m.e.nt of the courthouse.

Mayes had been a very popular man and the feeling was very high against his slayer, so high, indeed, that some time between night and morning the man was taken from the jail, and the next morning his lifeless body was found hanging at the back door of the courthouse.

One of the pleasures of the pioneer is hunting. In the early days there was plenty of game in Dawson county, buffalo, elk, deer, antelope, jack rabbits, and several game birds, such as plover, prairie hen, ducks, geese, and cranes. By the time we arrived, however, the buffalo had been driven so far away that they were seldom seen. There was plenty of buffalo meat in the market, however, for hunters followed them and shot them, mostly for their hides. The meat was very good, always tender and of fine flavor. My father rushed into the house one day and called for his revolver. A herd of buffalo was racing across the fields towards the bluffs on the north. Father and some of the men with him, thought possibly they might get near enough to shoot one. But although he rode as fast as his pony could carry him, he could not get close enough and the herd, once it reached the hills was safe. The poor beasts had been chased for miles and were weary, but they did not give up. The cows huddled the calves together and pushed them along and the bulls led the way. Father learned afterward that his pony had been trained by the Indians to hunt; and if he had given him the rein and allowed him to go at it in his own way, he would have gone so close that father could have shot one. But he did not know this until the buffalo were far away.

PIONEER JUSTICE

BY B. F. KRIER

In the early history of Lexington, Nebraska, as in all western states, there was no crime committed more reprehensible than that of stealing a horse. One might kill a man and it would be overlooked or excused, but the offense of stealing a horse was a crime that nothing could atone for but the "wiping out" of the thief. And generally when the horse thief was caught the nearest tree or the upraised end of a wagon tongue was immediately brought into use as a gallows upon which the criminal was duly hanged without the formalities of courts or juries. It was amply sufficient to know that the accused had stolen a horse, and it mattered but little to whom the horse belonged or whether the owner was present to take a hand in the execution. The culprit was dealt with in such manner that he never stole another animal.

This sentiment prevailed among the first settlers of Dawson county, as was shown in 1871, shortly after the organization of the county. Among the officials of the county at that time was a justice of the peace, a st.u.r.dy, honest man, who had been a resident of the county several years before it was organized. One day in 1871 a half-breed Sioux came riding from the east into Plum Creek (as Lexington was then called). The Indian stopped in the town and secured a meal for himself and feed for his horse.

While he was eating, two p.a.w.nee warriors arrived at the station on a freight train, from the east. They at once hunted up the sheriff, a broad-shouldered Irishman named John Kehoe, and made complaint that the half-breed Sioux had stolen a horse from one of them and had the animal in his possession. Complaint was formally made and a warrant issued for the half-breed's arrest upon the charge of horse-stealing, the warrant being issued by the aforesaid justice of the peace.

The Sioux was at once taken in custody by the sheriff and brought before the justice. One of the p.a.w.nees swore the horse the half-breed rode when he entered the town was his property, and the other p.a.w.nee upon oath declared he knew it was. The prisoner denied the statement made by the p.a.w.nees and vehemently declared the animal was his property; that he came by it honestly, and that the p.a.w.nee had no t.i.tle whatever in the horse.

There was no jury to hear and judge the evidence, and the justice was compelled to decide the case. He had had some experience with redskins, and entertained but small regard for any of them, but as the preponderance of the evidence was against the Sioux, he decided the latter was guilty, and after a short study of the matter sentenced the culprit to be hanged.

There were no lawyers in Plum Creek at that time, a condition that has not existed since, and each side did its own talking. The Sioux at once filed a vigorous complaint against the sentence, but was ordered by the court to keep still.