[Illustration: LOG CABIN
BUILT IN 1864
THE YEAR OF THE FOUNDING OF
THE VILLAGE OF LANCASTER.
THE FOUNDATION PIER UNDER THE
COLUMN UPON WHICH THIS TABLET
IS PLACED RESTS OVER THE DUG WELL
THAT STOOD BEFORE THE DOOR OF THE CABIN.
THIS TABLET IS ERECTED UNDER THE
AUSPICES OF THE LINCOLN CHAPTER
OF THE SONS OF THE AMERICAN
REVOLUTION.]
The name Luke Lavender seems inevitably to have been coined by some
feet-on-the-desk writer of westerns, perhaps as a brother in literature
to the outlaw Violet in MacKinley Kantor’s “Gentle Annie.” But Luke
Lavender was not invented. He was a rather important citizen of
Lancaster and Lincoln, often referred to as “Judge” and apparently also
a builder of carriages. He put up the first house in Lincoln, at what is
now the southeast corner of 14th and O—in 1864. It was a neat log cabin
with two leantos, and to the south and east stretched Mr. Lavender’s
farm.
Try, for a moment, to erase with one giant gesture all that now means
Lincoln. Visualize a bit of lonely prairie, hummocky and irregular. A
creek ran along the M and L street region. A hill of considerable height
rose where the postoffice now stands. The silence was rarely broken.
Light-footed antelope made no sound as their feet lightly trod the
grasses and their delicate ears pricked at the sound of an occasional
interloper. The night, however, was sharply punctured at intervals by
howls of wolves and coyotes. To the west was the illusion of perpetual
snows, for Salt basin was covered with an incrustation of salt about a
quarter of an inch deep.
Mr. Lavender was an Englishman who came here with Elder J. M. Young in
1863. Among the party were Jacob Dawson, who a little later built half a
mile to the west of Lavender, Dr. McKesson, Edwin Warnes, Thomas Hudson,
John Giles, Uncle Jonathan Ball and others. These settled elsewhere in
Lancaster county. It was Elder Young, leader of the colony, who laid out
the town of Lancaster and a little later started a female seminary at
9th and P.