hospitably entertained and at breakfast next morning we were greatly
surprised on being asked if we would have wild or tame sweetening in our
coffee, as this was the first time in all our travels we had ever been
asked that question. We were told that honey was wild sweetening and
sugar the tame sweetening. I cannot refrain from telling a little
incident that occurred at this time. When we had our team hitched up and
our sample trunks aboard, we asked Mr. Marks for our bill and were told
we could not pay anything for our entertainment, and just then Mrs.
Marks appeared on the scene. She had in her hand a lot of five and ten
cent war shinplasters, and as she handed them to Mr. Marks he said,
"Mother and I have been talking the matter over and as we have not
bought any goods from you we decided to give you a dollar to help you
pay expenses elsewhere"; and on our refusing to take it he said, "I want
you to take it, for it is worth it for the example you have set to my
children." Politely declining the money and thanking our host and
hostess for their good opinion and splendid entertainment, we were soon
on our way to pay our first visit to Fairbury.
We arrived about noon and stopped at a little one-story hotel on the
west side of the square, kept by a man by the name of Hurd. After dinner
we went out to see the town and were told it was the county-seat of
Jefferson county. The courthouse was a little one-story frame building
and is now located on the west side of the square and known as
Christian's candy shop. There was one large general store kept by
Champlin & McDowell, a drug store, a hardware store, lumber yard,
blacksmith shop, a schoolhouse, church, and a few small buildings
scattered around the square. The residences were small and widely
scattered. Primitive conditions prevailed everywhere, and we were told
the population was one hundred and fifty but we doubted it. The old
adage reads, "Big oaks from little acorns grow," and it has been my
privilege and great pleasure to have seen Fairbury "climb the ladder
round by round" until today it has a population of fifty-five hundred.
THE EASTER STORM OF 1873
BY CHARLES B. LETTON
Spring opened very early in the year 1873. Farmers plowed and harrowed
the ground and sowed their oats and spring wheat in February and March.
The grass began to grow early in April and by the middle of the month
the small-grain fields were bright green with the new crops. Most of the
settlers on the uplands of Jefferson county were still living in dugouts
or sod houses. The stables and barns for the protection of their live
stock were for the most part built by setting forked posts in the
ground, putting rough poles and brush against the sides and on the roof,
and covering them with straw, prairie grass, or manure. Sometimes the
bank of a ravine was made perpendicular and used as one side. The
covering of the walls and roof of these structures needed continual
renewal as the winds loosened it or as the spring rains caused it to
settle. Settlers became careless about this early in the spring,
thinking that the winter was over. The prairies were still bare of
hedges, fences, or trees to break the winds or catch the drifting snow.
Easter Sunday occurred on the thirteenth of April. For days before, the
weather had been mild and the air delightful. The writer was then living
alone in a dugout seven miles north of Fairbury in what is now the rich
and fertile farming community known as Bower. The granary stood on the
edge of a ravine a short distance from the dugout. The stable or barn
was partly dug into the bank of this ravine; the long side was to the
north, while the roof and the south side were built of poles and straw
in the usual fashion of those days. On the afternoon of Easter Sunday it
began to rain and blow from the northwest. The next morning I had been
awake for some time waiting for daylight when I finally realized that
the dim light coming from the windows was due to the fact that they were
covered with snow drifts. I could hear the noise of the wind but had no
idea of the fury of the tempest until I undertook to go outside to feed
the stock. As soon as I opened the door I found that the air was full
of snow, driven by a tremendous gale from the north. The fury of the
tempest was indescribable. The air appeared to be a mass of moving snow,
and the wind howled like a pack of furies. I managed to get to the
granary for some oats, but on looking into the ravine no stable was to
be seen, only an immense snow drift which almost filled it. At the point
where the door to the stable should have been there appeared a hole in
the drift where the snow was eddying. On crawling into this I found that
during the night the snow had drifted in around the horses and cattle,
which were tied to the manger. The animals had trampled it under their
feet to such an extent that it had raised them so that in places their
backs lifted the flimsy roof, and the wind carrying much of the covering
away, had filled the stable with snow until some of them were almost and
others wholly buried, except where the remains of the roof protected
them.
Two animals died while I was trying to extricate them and at night I was
compelled to lead two or three others into the front room of the dugout
and keep them there until the storm was over in order to save their
lives. It was only by the most strenuous efforts I was able to get to
the house. My clothing was stiff. The wind had driven the snow into the
fabric, as it had thawed it had frozen again, until it formed an
external coating of ice.
I had nothing to eat all day, having gone out before breakfast, and when
night came and I attempted to build a fire in the cook stove I found
that the storm had blown away the joints of stovepipe which projected
through the roof and had drifted the hole so full of snow that the snow
was in the stove itself. I went on the roof, cleared it out, built a
fire, made some coffee and warmed some food, then went to bed utterly
fatigued and, restlessly tossing, dreamed all night that I was still in
the snow drift working as I had worked all day.
Many other settlers took their cattle and horses into their houses or
dugouts in order to save them. Every ravine and hollow that ran in an
easterly or westerly direction was filled with snow from rim to rim. In
other localities cattle were driven many miles by this storm. Houses, or
rather shacks, were unroofed and people in them frozen to death.
Travelers caught in the blizzard, who attempted to take refuge in
ravines, perished and their stiffened bodies were found when the drifts
melted weeks afterward. Stories were told of people who had undertaken
to go from their houses to their outbuildings and who, being blinded by
the snow, became lost and either perished or nearly lost their lives,
and of others where the settler in order to reach his well or his
outbuildings in safety fastened a rope to the door and went into the
storm holding to the rope in order to insure his safe return. Deer,
antelope, and other wild animals perished in the more sparsely settled
districts. The storm lasted for three days, not always of the same
intensity, and freezing weather followed for a day or two thereafter. In
a few days the sun shone, the snow melted, and spring reappeared; the
melting drifts, that lay for weeks in some places, being the only
reminder of the severity of the storm.
To old settlers in Nebraska and northern Kansas this has ever since been
known as "The Easter Storm." In the forty-six years that I have lived in
Nebraska there has only been one other winter storm that measurably
approached it in intensity. This was the blizzard of 1888 when several
people lost their lives. At that time, however, people were living in
comfort; trees, hedges, groves, stubble, and cornfields held the snow so
that the drifts were insignificant in comparison. The cold was more
severe but the duration of the storm was less and no such widespread
suffering took place.
BEGINNINGS OF FAIRBURY
BY JOSEPH B. MCDOWELL
In the fall of 1868 my brother, W. G. McDowell, and I started from
Fairbury, Illinois, for Nebraska. Arriving at Brownville, we were
compelled to take a stage for Beatrice, as the only railroad in the
state was the Union Pacific.
Brownville was a little river village, and Tecumseh was the only town
between Brownville and Beatrice. It probably had one hundred
inhabitants. There was only one house between it and Beatrice. The trip
from Brownville to Beatrice took two days with a night stop at Tecumseh.
The scenery consisted of rolling prairie covered with buffalo grass, and
a few trees along the banks of Rock creek. We stopped for dinner at a
house a few miles northeast of the present site of Endicott, where the
Oregon trail stages changed horses.
On our arrival at Beatrice we found a little village of about three
hundred inhabitants. The only hotel had three rooms: a reception room,
one bedroom with four beds--one in each corner--and a combination
dining-room and kitchen. There was a schoolhouse fourteen by sixteen
feet, but there were no churches. We bought a few town lots, entered two
or three sections of land, and decided to build a stone hotel, as there
was plenty of stone along the banks of the Blue river, and in the water.
We then took a team and spring-wagon and started to find a location for
a county-seat for Jefferson county. We found the land where Fairbury is
now located was not entered, so we entered it with the intention of
making it the county-seat.
On our return to Beatrice we let the contract for the stone hotel, which
still stands today. We returned to Illinois, but the following February
of 1869 I came back to look after the building of the hotel. I bought a
farm with buildings on it, and began farming and improving the land I
had entered. In the summer of 1869 my brother came out again, and we
drove over to lay out the county-seat of Jefferson county, which we
named after Fairbury, Illinois, with the sanction of the county
commissioners. We shipped the machinery for a sawmill to Waterville,
Kansas, and hauled it to Fairbury with teams. Judge Mattingly bought it
and sawed all the lumber that was used for building around Fairbury.
Armstrong Brothers started a small store in a shack.
About 1870, I came over from Beatrice and built the first store
building, on the east side of the square, which was replaced a few years
ago by the J. D. Davis building. The Fairbury Roller Mill was built in
1873 by Col. Andrew J. Cropsey. I bought his interest in 1874 and have
had it ever since. In 1880 I came to make my home in Fairbury and have
watched its steady growth from its beginning, to our present thriving
and beautiful little city of 1915.
EARLY EXPERIENCES IN NEBRASKA
BY ELIZABETH PORTER SEYMOUR
In the spring of 1872, we came from Waterloo, Iowa, to Plymouth,
Nebraska. My husband drove through, and upon his arrival I came by train
with my young brother and baby daughter four months old.
When my husband came the previous fall to buy land, there was no
railroad south of Crete, and he drove across the country, but the
railroad had since been completed to Beatrice. There was a mixed train,
with one coach, and I was the only lady passenger. There was one young
girl, who could not speak any English, but who had a card hung on her
neck telling where she was to go. The trainmen held a consultation and
decided that the people lived a short distance from the track, in the
vicinity of Wilber, so they stopped the train and made inquiries.
Finding these people expected someone, we waited until they came and got
the girl. My husband met me at Beatrice, and the next morning we started
on a fourteen-mile drive to Plymouth, perched upon a load of necessaries
and baggage.
We had bought out a homesteader, so we had a shelter to go into. This
consisted of a cottonwood house fourteen by sixteen feet, unplastered,
and with a floor of rough boards. It was a dreary place, but in a few
days I had transformed it. One carpet was put on the floor and another
stretched overhead on the joists. This made a place to store things, and
gave the room a better appearance. Around the sides of the room were
tacked sheets, etc., making a white wall. On this we hung a few
pictures, and when the homesteader appeared at the door, he stood amazed
at our fine appearance. A rude lean-to was built to hold the kitchen
stove and work-table.
Many times that summer a feeling of intense loneliness at the dreary
condition came over me, but the baby Helen, always happy and smiling,
drove gloom away. Then, in August, came the terrible blow of losing our
baby blossom. Cholera infantum was the complaint. A young mother's
ignorance of remedies, and the long distance from a doctor, caused a
delay that was fatal.
Before we came, the settlers had built a log schoolhouse, with sod roof
and plank seats. In the spring of 1872, the Congregational Home
Missionary Society sent Rev. Henry Bates of Illinois to the field, and
he organized a Congregational church of about twenty-five members, my
husband and myself being charter members. For a time we had service in
the log schoolhouse, but soon had a comfortable building for services.
Most of the land about Plymouth was owned by a railroad company, and
they laid out a townsite, put up a two-story schoolhouse, and promised a
railroad soon. After years of waiting, the railroad came, but the
station was about two miles north. Business went with the railroad to
the new town, and the distinction was made between New Plymouth and Old
Plymouth.
Prairie chickens and quail were quite abundant during the first years,
and buffalo meat could often be bought, being shipped from the western
part of the state. In the droves of cattle driven past our house to the
Beatrice market, I have occasionally seen a buffalo.
Deer and wolves were sometimes seen, and coyotes often made havoc with
our fowls, digging through the sod chicken house to rob the roosts.
Rattlesnakes were frequently killed and much dreaded, but deaths from
the bite were very rare, though serious illness often resulted.
Prairie fires caused the greatest terror, and the yearly losses were
large. Everyone plowed fire guards and tried to be prepared, but, with
tall grass and weeds and a strong wind, fire would be carried long
distances and sweep everything before it with great rapidity.
Indians frequently camped on Cub creek for a few days in their journey
from one reservation to another to visit. They would come to the houses
to beg for food, and, though they never harmed us, we were afraid of
them. More than once I have heard a slight noise in my kitchen, and on
going out, found Indians in possession; they never knocked. I was glad
to give them food and hasten their departure.
In the summer of 1873, quite a party of us went to the Otoe reservation
to see just how the Indians lived. We had two covered wagons and one
provision wagon. We cooked our food by a camp-fire, slept out of doors,
and had a jolly time. We spent nearly one day on the reservation,
visiting the agent's house and the school and peering into the huts of
the Indians. At the schoolhouse the pupils were studious, but several of
them had to care for papooses while studying, and the Indians were
peering into the doors and windows, watching proceedings. Most of the
Indians wore only a blanket and breech cloth, but the teacher was
evidently trying to induce the young pupils to wear clothes, and
succeeded in a degree. One boy amused us very much by wearing flour
sacks for trousers. The sacks were simply ripped open at the end, the
stamps of the brand being still upon them, one sack being lettered in
red and the other in blue. Preparations were going on for a visit to the
Omahas by a number of braves and some squaws, and they were donning
paint and feathers. The agent had received some boxes of clothing from
the East for them, which they were eager to wear on their trip. Not
having enough to fit them out, one garment was given to each, and they
at once put them on. It was very ludicrous to see them, one with a hat,
another with a shirt, another with a vest, etc. At last they were ready
and rode away on their ponies. As we drove away, an Indian and squaw,
with papoose, were just ahead of us. A thunder storm came up, and the
brave Indian took away from the squaw her parasol and held it over his
head, leaving her unprotected.
Although the settlers on the upland were widely scattered, they were
kind and neighborly, as a rule--ready to help each other in all ways,
especially in sickness and death. One Thanksgiving a large number of
settlers brought their dinners to the church, and after morning services
enjoyed a good dinner and social hour together. That church, so
important a factor in the community in early days, was disbanded but a
few years ago. Pioneer life has many privations, but there are also very
many pleasant experiences.
PERSONAL RECOLLECTIONS
BY MRS. C. F. STEELE
Calvin F. Steele came to Nebraska, in March, 1871, staying for a little
time in Beatrice. He heard of a new town just starting called Fairbury.
Thinking this might be a good place for one with very little capital to
start in business, he decided to go there and see what the prospects
were. Nearly all of the thirty-three miles was unbroken prairie, with no
landmarks to guide one. Mr. Steele had hired a horse to ride. Late in
the afternoon the sky was overcast, and a storm came up. He saw some
distance ahead of him a little rise of ground, and urging his horse
forward he made for that, hoping he might be able to catch sight of the
town he sought. To his surprise he found himself on top of a dugout.
The man of the house came rushing out. Mr. Steele explained and asked
directions, only to find he was not near Fairbury as he hoped. He was
kindly taken in for the night, and while all slept in the one room, that
was so clean and comfortable, and the welcome so kindly, a friendship
was started that night, a friendship that grew and strengthened with the
years and lasted as long as E. D. Brickley, the man of the dugout,
lived.
I arrived in Fairbury the first day of May, 1871. The morning after I
came I counted every building in the town, including all outbuildings
having a roof. Even so I could only bring the grand total up to thirty.
That summer proved a very hot one--no ice, and very few buildings had a
cellar. We rented for the summer a little home of three rooms. The only
trees in sight were a few cottonwoods along the ravine that ran through
the town and on the banks of the Little Blue river. How to keep milk
sweet or butter cool was a problem. At last I thought of our well, still
without a pump. I would put the eatables in a washboiler, put the cover
on, tie a rope through the handles, and let the boiler down into the
well. In late September a lady told me as her husband was going away she
would bring her work and sit with me. I persuaded her to stay for
supper. I intended to have cold meat, a kind of custard known as
"floating island"; these with milk and butter were put down the well.
After preparing the table I went out and drew up my improvised
refrigerator, and removing the cover went in with milk and butter.
Returning almost instantly, the door closed with a bang and frightened a
stray dog doubtless attracted by the smell of meat. He started to run
and was so entangled in the ropes that as far as I could see, dog,
boiler, and contents were still going.
The whole thing was so funny I laughed at the time, and still do when I
recall that scene of so long ago.
HOW THE SONS OF GEORGE WINSLOW FOUND THEIR FATHER'S GRAVE
BY MRS. C. F. STEELE AND GEORGE W. HANSEN
_Statement by Mrs. Steele_
I have been asked to tell the story of how the sons of George Winslow
found their father's grave.
In April, 1911, it was my pleasure and privilege to go to Washington to
attend the national meeting of the Daughters of the American Revolution.
I went in company with Mrs. C. B. Letton as well as a number of other
delegates from different parts of the state. While passing around to
cast our votes for president general, an eastern lady noticing our
badges exchanged greetings with some of our delegates and expressed a
wish to meet some one from Fairbury. She was told that Fairbury had a
delegate and I was called up to meet Mrs. Henry Winslow of Meriden,
Connecticut. She greeted me cordially, saying her husband's father was a
"Forty-niner" and while on his way to California was taken sick, died,
and was buried by the side of the Oregon trail. In February, 1891, a
letter appeared in a Boston paper from Rev. S. Goldsmith of Fairbury,
Nebraska, saying that he had seen a grave with the inscription "Geo.
Winslow, Newton, Ms. AE. 25" cut on a crude headstone, and that he was
ready to correspond with any interested party as to the lone grave or
its silent occupant. This letter came to the notice of the sons of
George Winslow, and they placed Mr. Goldsmith in communication with
David Staples, of San Francisco, California, who was a brother-in-law of
George Winslow and a member of the same company on the overland journey
to California.
Mr. Staples wrote him about the organization of the company, which was
called the "Boston and Newton Joint Stock Association," and the sickness
and death of George Winslow; but after this they heard nothing further
from the Nebraska man.
Mrs. Winslow asked me if I knew anything of the grave. I did not, but
promised to make inquiries regarding it on my return home.
[Illustration: MRS. CHARLES B. LETTON
Eighth State Regent, Nebraska Society, Daughters of the American
Revolution. 1907-1908]
Soon after reaching home, Judge and Mrs. Letton came down from Lincoln
and as guests of Mr. and Mrs. G. W. Hansen we were all dining together.
The conversation turned to the trip Mrs. Letton and I had enjoyed
together, and we told the story of the talk with Mrs. Winslow. To my
great surprise and pleasure Judge Letton said, "Why, Mrs. Steele, I
remember seeing, many years ago, close by the Oregon trail, somewhere
near the head of Whiskey Run, a grave marked with a red sandstone, and
it is probably the grave you are searching for. I believe Mr. Hansen can
find it."
A few days after this Mr. Hansen reported the finding of the grave. He
said the headstone had been knocked down by a mower and dragged several
rods away, and that he had replaced it upon the grave; that the
inscription on the stone was as distinct as though freshly cut. I at
once wrote to Mrs. Winslow, giving her the facts, and telling her Mr.
Hansen would gladly answer any questions and give such further
information as she might wish.
The grateful letter I received in reply more than compensated me for
what I had done.
_Statement by Mr. Hansen_
Upon a beautiful swell of the prairie between the forks of Whiskey Run,
overlooking the charming valley of the Little Blue river, in a quiet
meadow, five miles north and one mile west of Fairbury, close to the
"old legitimate trail of the Oregon emigrants," is a lone grave marked
with a red sandstone slab, twenty inches in height, of equal width, and
six inches thick, on which is carved "Geo. Winslow, Newton, Ms. AE. 25."
Through this meadow untouched by the plow may still be seen the deep,
grass-grown furrows of the Oregon trail; and when George Winslow's
companions laid him at rest by its side, they buried him in historic
ground, upon earth's greatest highway.
To the honor of George Winslow's comrades be it said they loved him so
well that in their grief the feverish haste to reach the gold fields was
forgotten, and every member did what he could to give him Christian
burial and perpetuate his memory. They dug his grave very deep so that
neither vandals nor wolves would disturb him. They searched the
surrounding country and found, two miles away, a durable quality of
sandstone, which they fashioned with their rude tools for his monument,
his uncle Jesse Winslow carving with great care his name, home, and age,
and on a footstone the figures 1849. This service of love rendered him
that day gave to his sons their father's grave, and enabled us
sixty-three years afterwards to obtain the story of his life, and the
story of the journey of his company to California.
Of all the thousands of men who were buried by the side of the old trail
in 1849 and 1850, the monument of George Winslow alone remains. All the
rest, buried in graves unmarked or marked with wooden slabs, have passed
into oblivion.