belonging to Coronado and his band of precious-metal hunters died. At
that time all the horses on this continent had been imported. The loss
of this animal that day at that place was like the loss today of a
man-of-war for Spain in a great naval conflict with the United States.
It was discouraging and overwhelming and resulted in the relinquishment
of further exploration for the land of Quivera--the home of gold and
silver--and the return to Old Mexico. There was no use for saddles,
bridles and other equestrian trappings, for with no horse to ride even
stirrups were thrown away, and it has been the good fortune of Nebraska
to have them exhumed after a sequestration of more than three centuries.
And thus, after so many years of delay, I give you the story of the
first buffalo hunt and the last buffalo hunt in the Republican Valley
concerning which I am competent to make statement.
HOW THE FOUNDER OF ARBOR DAY CREATED THE MOST FAMOUS WESTERN ESTATE
BY PAUL MORTON
"The memories that live and bloom in trees, that whisper of the
loved and lost in summer leaves, are as imperishable as the seasons
of the year--immortal as the love of a mother."--J. STERLING
MORTON.
I suppose the story of a successful pioneer will always interest and
encourage people. The narrative of a strong, far-sighted man who makes
something out of nothing seems to put heart into the average worker.
That is why I am telling the story of how my father, J. Sterling Morton,
and his young wife, set their faces toward the West, one October day in
1854, and built them a home on the prairies.
Arbor Lodge as it stands today, with its classic porticoes, its gardens,
and its arboretum, the present country home of my brother, Mr. Joy
Morton, is not the home that I remember as a boy. That was a much more
modest edifice. Yet even that house was a palace compared with the first
one, which was a little log-cabin standing on the lonely prairie,
exposed to blizzards and Indians, and with scarcely a tree in sight.
My father was a young newspaper man in Detroit, only recently out of
college, when he took his bride, two years his junior, out to the
little-known frontier. Attracted by the information about the new
country brought out by Douglas and others in the Kansas-Nebraska debates
in congress, he conceived and acted on the idea that here were fortunes
to be made. Taking such household goods as they could, they traveled to
the new land, making the last stage up the Missouri river by boat.
Nebraska at that time was the Indian's own country. There were not over
1,500 white people in the entire state. All the country west of the
Missouri was called in the geographies the Great American Desert, and it
took a good deal of faith to believe that anything could be made to grow
where annual fires destroyed even the prairie grass and the fringes of
cottonwoods and scrub-oaks along the rivers. Today this section, within
a radius of some two hundred miles, includes perhaps the most fertile
soil in the world and has become a center of industry, agriculture, and
horticulture for the middle west. There was then no political
organization, no laws; men went about fully armed. There were no roads
and no bridges to speak of in the entire state; it was "waste land."
This was part of the land of the Louisiana Purchase, and my father
bought a quarter section (160 acres) from the man who preÎmpted it from
the government. The price paid was $1.25 an acre. Today the estate
comprises about 1,000 acres, and the land is readily saleable at a
hundred times this price.
On the spot where Arbor Lodge now stands, my father built his first
log-cabin. This was soon replaced by a modest frame house; there was not
then another frame house between it and the Rocky Mountains, six hundred
miles away. On the same place two succeeding houses were built by my
father, the present, and fifth, Arbor Lodge having been built by his
sons after his death. My father called these first four houses, "seed,
bud, blossom, and fruit."
The first winter was a mild one, fortunately, but there were plenty of
hardships for the young people. There were no very near neighbors, the
village of Kearny Heights, now Nebraska City, being then over two miles
away. The Indians formed the greatest danger. I can remember a day in my
boyhood when we had everything packed up, ready to flee across the
Missouri to Iowa from the murderous Pawnees and Cheyennes, who,
fortunately, did not come that time. A part of that first winter my
father and mother spent in Bellevue.
When spring came they set about building their home. Later on they had
young trees sent to them from the East, including some excellent
varieties of apples, peaches, cherries, pears, etc. Things grew fast; it
was only the prairie fires that had kept the land a desert so long, and
year by year these fires had enriched the soil.
The farm was located on the Overland trail, the favorite route to Pike's
Peak and the El Dorado. Many of the Mormon emigrants crossed the river
at that place. I can remember the big trains of ox and mule teams
passing the house.
My father's interests were always inseparably joined with those of the
community; he was in public life from the start, and Nebraska's fortunes
were his. His neighbors all had the same experiences, and many a farmer
who started with nothing is now wealthy. The farmers had to bring in
from Missouri and Iowa all the food for themselves and their horses and
cattle the first year. They were living on faith. During the first
spring and summer the anxiety was great, but they were rewarded by a
good harvest in the fall. The success of that harvest settled the
Nebraska question forever. It was a land that could support its
inhabitants.
But the end was not yet. The "get-rich-quick" fever struck the
community. Immigration was over-stimulated, and town lots were
manufactured at a great rate. In a few months they increased in price
from $300 to $3,000 apiece. Banks were created and money was made plenty
by legislation. My father never caught this fever, being always a
sound-money man and believing in wealth based on the soil.
At the end of the second summer the crop of town lots and Nebraska
bank-notes was greater than the crop of corn. But the lesson was not
learned until the panic of 1857 drove out the speculators and left the
farmers in possession of the territory. With the spring of 1858 sanity
came to rule once more, and there was less bank making and more prairie
breaking. The citizens had learned that agriculture was to be the
salvation of the new country. In 1857, two dollars a bushel had been
paid for imported corn, but in 1859 the same steamers that had brought
it in bore thousands of bushels south at forty cents a bushel, bringing
more money into the territory than all the sales of town lots for a
year.
The first territorial fair was held in Nebraska City in 1859, and on
that occasion my father made a speech in which he reviewed the history
of the new territory up to that time. I speak of these things because my
father was always a man of public interests, and his fortunes were
wrapped up in those of the territory. His hardships came when the
community went crazy, and his fortune grew when sanity was once more
restored.
I know of nothing that better illustrates my father's private character
than an editorial which he wrote and published in _The Conservative_ a
short time before the untimely death of my brother Carl. The fact that
both the author and the two loved ones of whom he so tenderly wrote have
passed to the Great Beyond, imparts to this beautiful passage a most
exquisite pathos:
"It was a bright, balmy morning in April more than a quarter of a
century ago. The sun was nursing the young grass into verdure, and the
prairie was just beginning to put off its winter coat of somber
colorings. Tranquil skies and morning mists were redolent at Arbor Lodge
of the coming resurrection of the foliage and flowers that died the
autumn before. All about the cottage home there was hope and peace; and
everywhere the signs of woman's watchful love and tidy care, when,
suddenly, toned with affectionate solicitude, rang out: 'Carl, Carl!'
but no answer came. Downstairs, upstairs, at the barn, even in the well,
everywhere, the mother's voice called anxiously, again and again. But
the silence, menacing and frightening, was unbroken by an answer from
the lost boy. At last, however, he was found behind a smokehouse, busily
digging in the ground with a small spade, though only five years of age,
and he said: 'I'm too busy to talk. I'm planting an orchard,' and sure
enough, he had set out a seedling apple tree, a small cottonwood, and a
little elm.
"The delighted mother clasped him in her arms, kissed him, and said:
'This orchard must not be destroyed.'
"And so now
"'I hear the muffled tramp of years
Come stealing up the slopes of Time;
They bear a train of smiles and tears
Of burning hopes and dreams sublime.'
"The child's orchard is more than thirty years of age. The cottonwood is
a giant now, and its vibrant foliage talks, summer after summer, in the
evening breeze with humanlike voice, and tells its life story to the
graceful, swaying elm near by, while the gnarled and scrubby little
apple tree, shaped, as to its head, like a despondent toadstool, stands
in dual shade, and bears small sweet apples, year after year, in all
humility. But that orchard must not be destroyed. It was established by
the youngest tree planter who ever planted in this tree planter's
state, and for his sake and the memory of the sweet soul who nursed and
loved him, it lives and grows, one cottonwood, one apple tree, one elm.
"'But O, for the touch of a vanished hand,
And the sound of a voice that is still.'
"The memories that live and bloom in trees, that whisper of the loved
and lost in summer leaves, are as imperishable as the seasons of the
year--immortal as the love of a mother."
EARLY REMINISCENCES OF NEBRASKA CITY
BY ELLEN KINNEY WARE
_Social Aspects_
As a girl graduate I came to Nebraska City from Virginia, at an early
day. It seemed to me that I was leaving everything attractive socially
and intellectually, behind me, but I was mistaken. On arriving here, I
expected to see quite a town, was disappointed, for two large brick
hotels, and a few scattered houses comprised the place. Among my first
acquaintances was the family of Governor Black, consisting of his
daughter about my own age, his wife, and himself. He was not only bright
and clever, but a wit as well, and famous as a story-teller. Alas a sad
fate awaited him. For leaving here to take command of a Pennsylvania
regiment, he was killed early in the civil war.
Those were freighting days and Russell, Majors and Waddell, government
freighters, made this their headquarters. Alexander Majors brought his
family here adding much socially to the town. Major Martin, an army
officer, was stationed here. He was a charming gentleman and had a
lovely wife. Dancing was the principal amusement with the young people.
Informal dances at private homes and occasionally on a steamboat when it
arrived, brilliantly lighted and having a band of music on board. At the
"Outfit" as it was called, where the supplies for the freighting company
were kept, dwelt a family, Raisin by name, who were exceedingly
hospitable, not only entertaining frequently, but often sending an
ambulance for their guests. At these parties no round dancing was
indulged in, just simple quadrilles and the lancers. Mr. and Mrs. J.
Sterling Morton, who lived on a country place, a short distance from
town, which has since become widely known as Arbor Lodge, were among the
most active entertainers, dispensing that delightful hospitality for
which in later times they were so well known.
And so we lived without railroads, without telephones, automobiles, or
theaters. But I believe that our social enjoyment was greater than it is
now. Instead of railroads, we had steamboats arriving almost daily
from St. Louis, St. Joseph, and other towns. In carriages we drove to
Omaha and back, and the social intercourse of the two towns was much
greater than it is now.
[Illustration: OREGON TRAIL MONUMENT, LOCATED AT THE POINT WHERE THE
LINE BETWEEN JEFFERSON AND GAGE COUNTIES INTERSECTS THE KANSAS-NEBRASKA
STATE LINE
Dedicated May 12, 1914. Cost $350. Trail crosses state line 1,986 feet
east, and crosses Jefferson-Gage county line 2,286 feet north of this
point. Erected by the citizens of Gage and Jefferson counties, Nebraska,
Washington county, Kansas, and Elizabeth Montague Chapter, Daughters of
the American Revolution]
Amateur theatricals took the place of the theater, and often brilliant,
undreamed of talent was shown. Literature also was not neglected, many
highly educated men and women were among our pioneers and literary
societies were a prominent part of our social life. We played chess in
those days, but not cards. This alone might be taken as an index of how
much less frivolous that day was than the present.
In 1860 Bishop Talbot arrived here from Indianapolis and made this his
home, adding greatly socially and intellectually to the life of the
community. In his family was the Rev. Isaac Hager, beloved and revered
by all who knew him, a most thorough musician, as well as a fine
preacher.
Remembering old times we sometimes ask ourselves, where now are the men
and women, equal to the ones we knew in those days, certainly there are
none superior to them, in intellect, manners, wit, and true nobility.
"Oh brave hearts journeyed to the west,
When this old town was new!"
SOME PERSONAL INCIDENTS
BY W. A. MCALLISTER
My father and family came to Nebraska in 1858, living two years at
Genoa. At this time the government assigned what is now Nance county, to
the Pawnee Indians, as a reservation. When the white settlers sought
other homes our family located eight miles east of Columbus, at
McAllister's lake. Every fall my father hired about sixty squaws to husk
out his crop of corn. Only one buck ever came to work, and he was always
known as "Squaw Charlie" after that. He spoke English quite well. They
were slow workers, husking about twenty bushels per day. They were very
gluttonous at meals, eating much bread, with meat soup containing
potatoes and other vegetables, cooked in large twenty gallon camp
kettles. This was supplemented by watermelons by the wagonload. It
required a week or ten days to harvest the corn crop. The Indians were
very thievish, stealing almost as much as their wages amounted to.
During these years I often witnessed their "Medicine Dances."
When fifteen years old I enlisted in Company B, Second Nebraska Cavalry,
and went to Fort Kearny. Our company relieved the Tenth Infantry, which
went to the front. In less than twenty days this company was nearly
annihilated at the battle of Fredericksburg.
While at the fort a buffalo hunt was organized by the officers, and I
had an opportunity to go. Our party went south to the valley of the
Republican. The first night we camped at the head of the Big Blue, and
the second day I noticed south of us, about eight miles distant, a dark
line along the horizon extending as far east and west as the eye could
reach. I inquired what it was and an old hunter replied "buffaloes." I
could not believe him, but in a few hours found he was right, for we
were surrounded by millions of them. They were hurrying to the east with
a roaring like distant thunder. Our sportsmen moved in a body through
the herd looking for calves, not caring to carry back the meat of the
old specimens. Strange to say this tremendous herd seemed to be
composed of males, for the cows were still on the Oklahoma ranges caring
for their calves, until strong enough to tramp north again. We noticed
an old fellow making good progress on three legs, one foot having been
injured. One of the party wished to dispose of him, but his wooly
forehead covered with sand, turned every bullet. Finally the hunter
asked me to attract his attention, while he placed a bullet in his
heart. In doing this, he almost succeeded in goring my pony, but I
turned a second too quickly for him. I was near enough to see the fire
flashing from his angry eyes. In a few minutes he fell with a thud.
Several years after the war being over, I worked for the Union Pacific
railroad company. At Kearney, in 1869, we met the Buck surveying party,
who had come west to lay out, for the government, the lands of the
Republican Valley. In this company was a young man from Pontiac,
Illinois, named Harry McGregor. He left a home of plenty to hunt buffalo
and Indians, but found among other privations, he could not have all the
sugar he wished, so at Kearney he decided to leave the party and work
with us. This decision saved his life, for the rest of the surveyors,
about ten in all, after starting south next morning, were never seen
again. They were surprised and killed by the Indians. Their skeletons
were found several years later, bleaching on the Nebraska prairie.
MAJOR NORTH'S BUFFALO HUNT
BY MINNIE FREEMAN PENNY
A party under the direction of Major Frank North set out with six wagon
teams and four buffalo horses on November 13, 1871, to engage in a
buffalo hunt. The other men were Luther North, C. Stanley, Hopkins
Brown, Charles Freeman, W. E. Freeman, W. E. Freeman, Jr., and Messrs.
Bonesteel, Wasson, and Cook. They camped the first night at James
Cushing's ranch, eighteen miles out; the second night at Jason Parker's
home at Lone Tree, now Central City, and the third night arrived at
Grand Island. On the way to Grand Island one of the party accidentally
started a prairie fire six miles east of Grand Island. A hard fight was
made and the flames subdued just in time to save a settler's stable.
Leaving Grand Island on the sixteenth they crossed the Platte river and
camped on the West Blue. From this point in the journey the party
suffered incredible hardships until their return.
About midnight the wind changed to the north, bringing rain and sleet,
and inside of an hour a blizzard was raging on the open prairie. The
horses were covered with snow and ice and there was no fuel for the
fires. The men went out as far as they dared to go for wood, being
unsuccessful. It was decided to try to follow the Indian trail
south--made by the Pawnee scouts under Major North. Little progress
could be made and they soon "struck camp" near some willows that
afforded a little protection to their horses and a "windbreak" was made
for man and beast. This camp was at the head of the Big Sandy, called by
this party the "Big Smoky" for the men suffered agonies from the smoke
in the little tipi.
For two days the storm continued in all its terrible force. The wind
blew and the air was so full of snow that it was blinding. The cold was
intense. The men finally determined to find some habitation at any price
and in groups of two and three left camp following the creek where they
were sure some one had settled. A sod house was found occupied by two
English families who received the party most hospitably. Charles
Freeman, older than the other men of the party, suffered a collapse and
remained at this home. During the night the storm abated and next
morning, finding all the ravines choked with heavy snow drifts, it was
decided by vote to abandon the hunt. They dug out their belongings from
under many feet of snow, sold their corn to the English families to
lighten their load and started back. The journey home was full of
accidents, bad roads, and drifted ravines. Reaching the Union Pacific
railroad at Grand Island Major North and Mr. Bonesteel returned to
Columbus by rail, also Mr. Stanley from Lone Tree. The rest of the party
returned by team, arriving on November 24.
Major North admitted that of all his experiences on the prairie--not
excepting his years with the Pawnee scouts--this "beat them all" as
hazardous and perplexing.
The foregoing is taken from my father's diary.
PIONEER LIFE
BY MRS. JAMES G. REEDER
It is almost impossible for people of the present day to realize the
hardships and privations that the first settlers in Nebraska underwent.
Imagine coming to a place where there was nothing but what you had
brought with you in wagons. Add to the discomfort of being without
things which in your former home had seemed necessities, the pests which
abound in a new country: the rattlesnake, the coyote, the skunk, the
weasel, and last--but not least--the flea.
My father, Samuel C. Smith, held the post of "trader" for the Pawnee
Indians under Major Wheeler in 1865-66. We lived in a house provided by
the government, near the Indian school at Genoa, or "The Reservation,"
as it was commonly called. I was only a few weeks old, and in order to
keep me away from the fleas, a torture to everyone, they kept me in a
shallow basket of Indian weave, suspended from the ceiling by broad
bands of webbing, far enough from the floor and wall to insure safety.
I have heard my mother tell of how the Indians would walk right into the
house without knocking, or press their faces against a window and peer
in. They were usually respectful; they simply knew no better. Sometimes
in cold weather three or four big men would walk into the kitchen and
insist upon staying by the fire, and mother would have hard work to
drive them out.
The next year my father moved his family to a homestead two miles east
of Genoa where he had built a large log house and stables surrounded by
a high tight fence, which was built for protection against the
unfriendly Indians who frequently came to make war on the Pawnees. The
government at times kept a company of soldiers stationed just north of
us, and when there would be an "Indian scare," the officers' wives as
well as our few neighbors would come to our place for safety. Major
Noyes was at one time stationed there. Firearms of all sorts were
always kept handy, and my mother could use them as skilfully as my
father.
One night my father's barn was robbed of eight horses by the Sioux and
the same band took ten head from Mr. Gerrard, who lived four miles east
of us. E. A. Gerrard, Luther North, and my father followed their trail
to the Missouri river opposite Yankton, South Dakota, and did not see a
white man while they were gone. They did not recover the horses, but
twenty years after the government paid the original cost of the horses
without interest. The loss of these horses and the accidental death of a
brother of mine so discouraged my father that he moved to Columbus in
1870.
One of the delights of my childhood were the nights in early autumn when
all the neighborhood would go out to burn the grass from the prairie
north of us for protection against "prairie fires," as great a foe as
was the unfriendly Indian of a few years before.
In the summer of 1874, which in Nebraska history is known as "the
grasshopper year," my grandmother, Mrs. William Boone, accompanied by
her daughter, Mrs. Mary Hemphill, and granddaughter, Ada Hemphill, came
to make us a visit. For their entertainment we drove in a three-seated
platform spring wagon or carryall to see the Indians in their village
near Genoa. Their lodges were made of earth in a circular form with a
long narrow entrance extending out like the handle of a frying pan. As
we neared the village we came upon an ordinary looking Indian walking in
the road, and to our surprise my father greeted him very cordially and
introduced him to us. It was Petalesharo, chief of the Pawnees, but
without the feathers and war-paint that I imagined a chief would always
wear. He invited us to his lodge and we drove to the entrance, but my
grandmother and aunt could not be persuaded to leave the surrey. My
cousin, being more venturesome, started in with my father, but had gone
only a few steps when she gathered up her skirts and cried, "Oh, look at
the fleas! Just see them hop!" and came running back to the rig,
assuring us she had seen enough. The Indians must have taken the fleas
with them when they moved to Oklahoma, for we seldom see one now.
EARLY DAYS IN POLK COUNTY
BY CALMAR MCCUNE