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 WASHINGTON COUNTY
BY MRS. EMILY BOTTORFF ALLEN
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, 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 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.
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 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.
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 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.
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,
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 Allen _nee_ Emily 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.
FORT CALHOUN IN THE LATER FIFTIES
BY MRS. E. H. CLARK
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 made them 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.
SOME ITEMS FROM WASHINGTON COUNTY
BY MRS. MAY ALLEN LAZURE
Alfred D. Jones, the first postmaster of Omaha, tells in the _Pioneer
Record_ of 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 was with 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. He finally 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."
COUNTY SEAT OF WASHINGTON COUNTY
BY FRANK MCNEELY
In 1855 an act was passed by the territorial legislature reorganizing
Washington county and designating Fort Calhoun as the county-seat.