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ALLEN COUNTY PUBLIC LIBRARY
3 1833 01751 4545
GENEALOGY 978.2 N2642 1922
NEBRASKA AND RECORD OF
HISTORY PIONEER DAYS
Vol. V.
January-March 1922
No. 1
CONTENTS
Editorial Notes
1
Memoirs of Peter Jansen 2
Letter from George Bird Grinnell 3
Mormons on the Niobrara-Ed A. Fry 4-6
The First Brick in Lincoln-A. Roberts 6-9
A Letter From General Henry A. Atkinson on the Nebraska Region 9-11
Early Black Hills Expeditions
12
Early Recollections of Nebraska Granges-
T. N. Bobbitt
13-14
Nebraska in 1852
14-15
Beginnings of Minden
16
PUBLISHED QUARTERLY BY THE NEBRASKA STATE HISTORICAL SOCIETY LINCOLN
Entered as second class matter February 4, 1918, at the Post Office, Lincoln, Nebraska, under Act August 24, 1912.
Allen County Public Library 900 Webster Street PO Box 2270 Fort Wayne, IN 46801-2270
THE NEBRASKA STATE HISTORICAL SOCIETY
Founded September 25, 1878
The Nebraska State Historical Society was founded Sep- tember 25, 1878, at a public meeting held in the Commercial Hotel at Lincoln. About thirty well known citizens of the State were present. Robert W. Furnas was chosen president and Professor Samuel Aughey, secretary. Previous to this date, on August 26, 1867, the State Historical Society and Library Association was incorporated in order to receive from the State the gift of the block of ground, now known as Haymarket Square. This original Historical Association held no meet- ings. It was superseded by the present State Historical Society.
Present Governing Board
Executive Board-Officers and Elected Members
President, Robert Harvey, Lincoln.
1st V-President, Hamilton B. Lowry, Lincoln
2nd V-President, Nathan P. Dodge Jr., Omaha
Secretary, Addison E. Sheldon, Lincoln
Treasurer, Philip L. Hall, Lincoln Rev. Macheal A. Shine, Plattsmouth
Don L. Love, Lincoln
Samuel C. Bassett, Gibbon
John F. Cordeal, McCook
Novia Z. Snell, Lincoln
William E. Hardy, Lincoln
Ex Officio Members
Samuel R. McKelvie, Governor of Nebraska
Samuel Avery, Chancellor of University of Nebraska
George C. Snow, Chadron, President of Nebraska Press Association Howard W. Caldwell, Professor of American History, University of Nebraska
Andrew M. Morrissey, Chief Justice of Supreme Court of Nebraska Clarence A. Davis, Attorney General of Nebraska
NEBRASKA AND RECORD OF
HISTORY PIONEER DAYS
Published Quarterly by the Nebraska State Historical Soceity
Addison E. Sheldon, Editor
Subscription, $2.00 per year
All sustaining members of the Nebraska State Historical Society receive Nebraska History and other publications without further payment.
Vol. V. January-March 1922 No. 1
Miss Ruth A. Gallaher writes a good account of the Mormon hand- cart expeditions in 1856, some of which outfitted at Iowa City, in the Pa- limpsest, published by the State Historical Society of Iowa. One of these expeditions left Florence, Nebraska, August 18 of that year and passed beyond Fort Laramie in September. It was overtaken by snow storms and many of its number perished from cold and hunger before the main body reached Salt Lake City in November. Most of the members were immigrants from Europe. Men, women, and children pushed handcarts and walked from the Missouri river to Salt Lake. Miss Galleher says that the deaths in 1856 handcart columns led to acrimonious corres- pondence between Mormon leaders and discontinuance of handcart par- ties. Handcart Mormon expeditions were, however, still walking to Zion on the Nebraska City-Fort Kearny trail in the late sixties before the completion of the Union Pacific to the Salt Lake. There are persons living in Nebraska who remember these handcart and wheelbarrow com- panies.
Among the interesting souvenirs of early times in Furnas county is one received from the daughter of William Sweeney, of Arapahoe. This read thus:
August 25, 1874. The bearer Mr. T. G. Brown is empowered to col- lect from William Sweeney the sum of six dollars ($6.00) being money due me for use of cattle six days. John W. Gillmore. * *
* Paid this bill with four dollars ($4.00) Tuesday, November 24 to T. G. Brown at drug store. William Sweeney.
It would appear that the service of a yoke of cattle was valued by the owner at one dollar a day, but he compromised at four dollars for six days. This receipt is written upon a narrow sheet of note paper bearing a map in the upper left-hand corner showing Arapahoe as a great railroad center with lines of road reaching out in every direction.
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NEBRASKA HISTORY
MEMOIRS OF PETER JANSEN
Hon. Peter Jansen was born March 21, 1852, at the town of Berdjansk, on the shore of the sea of Azof in southeastern Russia. He came to Nebraska in 1874. He is still among us and publishes a volume of 140 pages entitled "Memoirs of Pe- ter Jansen." The reader wishes the book were longer. It is one of a number of books now being published by the pioneers of Nebraska, each one telling the story of the early days in a personal, vivid, interesting and truthful way.
Senator Jansen's sketch of his life has far more than the usual interest because it tells the story of the great "Mennon- ite migration" which filled vast areas of Nebraska prairies in Jefferson, Gage, Clay, Hamilton and York counties in the de- cade of 1870-80. It is time, even now, to do honor and give credit to those people in the settlement of our State. They brought to Nebraska a perfectly disciplined, religious, frugal, hard working people. Almost without a single exception they made a success of their settlements and of each individual home in them.
How queer and clannish they appeared to the eyes of the original American stock. Boyhood recollections of the writer emphasize this. The Mennonite houses, built of sod with a huge brick stove nearly filling one of the rooms, burning straw for fuel and used as a general bedstead for the family on cold winter nights. The housing of live stock in a section of the family home. The cut of the clothes. And all that.
The old American stock was inclined to scoff at these queer people from Russia, speaking German, sticking close to- gether and finding in the old fashioned religion of their de- nomination most of their culture as well as consolation. They certainly taught Nebraska some good lessons. First of all they brought Turkey red winter wheat from southeastern Russia. They brought that splendid hedge tree, fruit tree and bird shelter-the Russian mulberry. They brought stead- iness and devotion and showed how homes could be made upon the high prairies of central Nebraska. They brought also a deep, even if at times, irrational, belief and practice in peace doctrines, for they were Quakers. They had left Prussia a hundred years before to avoid military service. They had set- tled in southern Russia with solemn guaranty of exemption from that service. When the Czar broke the contract and be- gan to marshal all his subjects for the great war preparation in Europe which followed the Franco-Prussian war of 1870, these people left the fruitful farms they had made and came to Nebraska.
Looking back upon their almost fifty years of settlement in this state it can be said that they have proven themselves one of the most valuable of many valuable elements in our
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NEBRASKA HISTORY
population. It is time for those of us having the old American stock in our blood to say this now while some of the pioneer Mennonites are still among us. It will be said by all, and es- pecially by the future Nebraska historians in a century from now.
Senator Peter Jansen has not only given the people of his time a book of current interest, but has made a document which will be valued by the historian of the future as one of the most important contributions to the history of pioneer Ne- braska.
LETTER FROM GEORGE BIRD GRINNELL
Many thanks for the copy of Dr. Koenig's Study of Tu- berculosis Among the Nebraska Winnebago. The conditions which she pictures are shocking, but not new. In many tribes they have been noticed for years, though not described in de- tail as by Dr. Koenig. Her paper is most interesting and it is useful to have the matter again brought up now and in such form as to reach a new public.
The Indians are wholly ignorant of sanitation, of the communicability of tuberculosis, and of the dangers which fol- low the recent changes in mode of life. But perhaps the most fatal thing that the Indians have had to face is the absolute lack of an interest. In the old times the constant search for food, the excitements of the war path, the moving about from place to place, kept them interested and busy. These occupa- tions have all disappeared ; and where people are in receipt of some small income that will just support them, and so have no motive whatever for exertion, they are without any active in- terest in their lives.
What the outcome shall be of the difficulties the race is meeting, we cannot now tell; but to view the largely prevent- able suffering among many tribes of Indians, is discouraging and painful.
Dr. Koenig has done a useful piece of work in bringing to- gether her observations about this particular tribe. I am es- pecially glad that she has made inquiry into the use of peyote, and has published what she has learned. This testimony ought to be of some help in securing legislation by Congress against the transportation of this drug, the use of which I have always believed is enormously harmful.
I congratulate Dr. Koenig on her paper, and the Nebras- ka Historical Society on its energy in publishing this.
D. C. Young, rural route 1, Plattsmouth, writes:
Please send a few extra copies of Nebraska History from July to December, 1921. I want to send some of them to a son of Robert Stafford, mentioned as an early settler of Rock Bluff. I am acquainted with two men here that took part in some of the Indian fighting of the 60's. I will try to get some data of them. I will send you the picture of my father's log house that was built in 1855, a part of which is still standing.
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NEBRASKA HISTORY
THE MORMON MONUMENT NIOBRARR . NEB
THE MORMON WINTER CAMP ON THE NIOBRARA.
In the October-December (1921) number of the Nebraska History Magazine, I note the wish of Hon. George F. Smith, of Waterbury, Dix- on County, that a marker might be placed somewhere on the Old Mormon Trail that passes from Florence to Niobrara. As little seems to be known of the Mormons in this state and why they should have selected the mouth of the Niobrara for winter quarters on their way to their prom- ised land, perhaps I am in as good a position to reveal the facts as anybody.
The first white people, in any considerable number, to stop in the old L'Eau qui Court (Rapid river or Niobrara) county were the Mor- mons. The party comprised sixty-five families with one hundred and fifty wagons. It was the pioneer train to the land of promise, and it was at this point (or rather on the west bank of the Niobrara river op- posite the town of Niobrara) that they spent the winter of 1846-7.
Until 1901 it was believed by the founders of Niobrara, because of the numerous graves found in that vicinity, that these Mormons had perished at the hands of the red men, and their coming and their going was shrouded in mystery. In June, 1901, Isaac and John Riddle, the former from Provo, Utah, the latter from Crete, Nebraska, visited Nio- brara for the purpose of locating these landmarks and two mill burrs that had been left here by them in their departture.
5
NEBRASKA HISTORY
It was my good fortune to have an extended interview with these Mormons. Isaac, at the time of the Mormon camp here in 1847, was six- teen, and his return gave me an opportunity to straighten out history, and it is hoped that Captain North will, if he has not already done so, locate "Pawnee Station," the first stop.
Mr. Riddle said that in their start from Kanesville, Iowa, in July, 1846, they made the first wagon wheel mark up the Platte Valley. While in camp at Pawnee Station (presumably near Columbus or Genoa), where soldiers were stationed, they contracted with the government to harvest a crop of small grain and corn which had been put in by la- borers, but who, becoming frightened by the Pawnees, had fled. While thus engaged in the close of the harvest a courier from Kanesville ar- rived with orders not to proceed farther, as it was feared they could not reach their destination before winter set in, and they should seek winter quarters.
It was found that prairie fires had devastated the country west of Laramie and thereabouts. A band of Ponca Indians chanced to be vis- iting the Pawnees at the time, who, upon inquiry, reported that excel- lent winter quarters could be found at the mouth of the Niobrara river, and they volunteered to pilot them. Mr. Riddle said that his party had with them a small cannon which much attracted their attention and he thought that this was one reason for their solicitation, since the Sioux always annoyed the Poncas.
The Ponca had truly led them into a country of verdure-plenty of feed and timber and game. The young men of the party frequently ac- companied the Indians in their winter hunts up the Niobrara Valley, "going where the pine timber was quite heavy." The timber stretches were abundant with wild turkeys and the prairies alive with buffalo. "Where your town now stands," (Niobrara), said the aged patriarch, "there were Indian camps from the mouth of the Niobrara to Five Mile (Bazile) Creek."
During the winter of 1846-7 Newell Knight, a millwright, chiseled from granite boulders found in the neighboring hillsides, two mill-burrs, with which they had intended to grind their grain by horse-power.
Mr. Knight and sixteen others, principally women and children, suc- cumbed to pneumonia. The mission of the Riddles was to locate these graves for Jesse Knight, the Utah capitalist, whose father's remains lie here, that an appropriate monument might be erected in memory of that winter's sojourn. The graves had become extinct, but ashes from fire- places in the barracks were found.
In the spring of 1907 Jesse Knight, two daughters, and elder brother, the president of the Mormon University, and J. W. Townsend, of Crete, Nebraska, who also accompanied the Riddles in 1901, made final arrange- ments for the ground on which the present impressive granite shaft, surrounded by an iron fence, faces the public highway, telling its own short story thus:
Erected 1908 NEWELL KNIGHT Born Sept. 13, 1800, Died Jan. 11, 1847 A Member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.
Father
Who died during the hardships of our exodus from Nauvoo to Salt Lake City. "Blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness sake, for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven."
Matt. V ch., 10 vs.
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NEBRASKA HISTORY
Others Who Died at Ponca in the Years 1846-7:
Mr. Caval Mrs. Caval Lucy Brunson Ann Boyce Mrs. Rufus Tack
Mrs. Spicer Crandall
Mrs. Newell Drake
Mrs. Dame Gardurout Noble Benjamin F. Mayer
In the spring of 1847 these Mormons were called back to Florence by Kanesville church heads, returning by the Bazile Valley and over to the Logan Valley. A new start was made the spring following. This route was selected, Mr. Riddle explained, because of the heavy rains and consequent impassable condition of the Platte Valley. By taking the old trail via Waterbury and the head of the Bazile, they were enabled to head the Elkhorn that they might reach Laramie. The main business street of Creighton, Nebraska, is on the Old Mormon Trail.
EDWIN A. FRY.
These burrs were in existence when the first permanent white set- tlers came to Niobrara and were used in a small mill on the Red Bird, but no trace of them could be found when the Riddles and the Knights were here, nor since. It was supposed that the west channel that forms Niobrara Island Park had been used for power, and to this day that channel is designated as "the Mormon canal," but this was not the case, as these authorities advised me when inquiry was made.
FROM A YOUNG OCTOGENARIAN PIONEER
I think the following letter fully fits the title.
Mr. Roberts' statement that all of the bricks for the first university building were made in Nebraska City seems to be incorrect. "A Complete History" of Its (Lincoln's) Foundation and Growth. " by John H. Ames, printed in June 1870, hundred and forty thousand bricks are now on hand, and the brick-yard is furnished with one thousand cords of wood and two improved brick machines capable of moulding 28,000 bricks per day, with which brick may be made as fast as need- ed in the construction of the building. A sufficient amount of sand and lime is also on hand for the completion of the work, which is to be commenced on the walls during the present week This statement by Mr. Ames deserves credence. Furthermore, under date of June 22, 1870, David Butler, gov- ernor; John Gillespie, auditor; and Thomas P. Kennard, secre- tary of state, as "Commissioners of Public Buildings of the State of Nebraska," certify the correctness of the history.
Thomas Malloy, a stonecutter from Chicago who was em- ployed in the construction of the first capitol in Lincoln, in a short history of that enterprise referred incidentally to the construction of the university building, as follows: "In 1868 Mr. Robert Silvers got the contract of building the State Uni- versity. The first thing he did was to start a brick yard. He
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NEBRASKA HISTORY
bought all the wood he could find in the country and had to haul it with teams as there was no railroad in the country at that time."
The contract for the erection of the university building was dated August 18, 1869. D. J. Silver and Son were the con- tracting builders. The son, Robert D., was the actual builder. This scandalous agreement with David Butler, on the part of the state, was the gist of articles of the impeachment proceed- ings against the governor.
Mr. James Stuart Dales, who has been secretary of the board of regents of the university since December 1, 1875, says that some bricks, made in Nebraska City, were used for facing the walls of the building.
Dade City, Florida, March 23, 1922.
Mr. Albert Watkins, Lincoln, Nebraska.
Dear Sir:
Yours of the 20th instant received. It seems odd to be called upon to recite, as if it were ancient history, some facts that seem to me very recent. It may be true that I am get- ting old but where are the scores of younger men who knew as well as I or better all about the building of the first or Ad- ministration building of the State University. I arrived in Lincoln, February 20th, 1870, and on the 22nd there was an adjournment of the state legislature and all went out to view the site of the penitentiary which had just been located. It was a fine warm day and I and two friends were lying on the grass southwest of the capitol when we saw a cloud of dust and teams coming from the south. It was the legislators and citizens coming back from the Penitentiary site. They were in open lumber wagons mostly. (There was only one two-seated carriage in town at the time, that of Governor Butler), and all were engaged in a wild race whipping the horses and yelling like Comanches. That was my introduction to official Nebras- ka. But I am not answering your questions.
The brick for the University building came from Nebras- ka City. Part of them were on the ground when I came and the walls of the basement were more than half completed. The bricks were laid in that year 1870 and at that time no bricks had been made at Lincoln except one or two small kilns burn- ed by Luke Lavender. L. K. Holmes began burning brick in 1879 and that fall or the next spring Moore & Krone began burning brick. They had the contract for the High School building and burned their own brick. That was in 1872. I do not know who hauled the brick for the University or whether Nebraska City helped pay for hauling, but presume not. John M. Burks, if still alive, should know something about the mat-
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NEBRASKA HISTORY
ter but Nebraska City was not enthusiastically friendly to Lincoln in 1870.
It so happened that I had just made a call upon Mr. Silver the day his men fell through and two were killed. They were putting on the ceiling joists over the chapel and the roof trusses were not completed, only the stringers, or tie beams, were laid across and held up by shores of 2 x 4 pieces spiked together-30 feet long-and these swayed fearfully as the. men walked carrying the joists. I called Mr. Silver's atten- tion to this saying it was certainly dangerous but he only said, "Waite is running that and he knows his business." Before reaching home I heard the crash and looking back saw the dust rising and knew what had happened.
It was during the term of Gov. James that the founda- tion of the University building was repaired. Prof. Aughey first called my attention to the matter and after looking it over I called upon the governor and at my request he went with me to look it over. The walls of the chapel wing were in the worst condition and we entered this part through a window where the sash had been removed and a plank from the sill to ground inside furnished easy access. The walls were built with rather thin ashlar courses 17 feet high on the outside, backed with very poor rubble work inside, and not being properly bonded they were parting company. I picked up a barrel hoop and passed it through the center of a pier from one window to another, and I will never forget how frightened the governor was. Shouting Hold! Hold! 'till I get out he jumped through that window like a rabbit. At call of the governor the regents met and let a contract to John McFarland of Nebraska City to put new walls under the chap- el wing. Mac was a pretty fine old man, for one who had served a term in the pen. for murder, but he liked good whis- key and the work was left mostly in my care especially after an occurrence that I wish to relate because I have had men declare it could not be true. McFarland began work on the N. W. corner pier and had completed that and the one next to it and was getting ready to take out the next (on the west side) when it was time to quit work on Saturday afternoon, That evening it rained hard. Prof. Aughey was working in the laboratory when he heard a noise and on examination found that the pier next to the new work had fallen complete- ly out. He hastened to the residence of Chancellor Benton on H street and together they came to my home on P street and we all hurried to the building. On the way, however, I called at the St. Charles hotel where Mac and his men all boarded and got several of the men to go with me. We had only one lantern, and it was still raining. The brick pier three stories in height was still hanging, being supported by the brick that
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NEBRASKA HISTORY
extended across between the windows, but it was slowly giv- ing way, as we could tell by the chunks of plaster that kept falling inside, some heavy enough to crush the chapel seats where they fell. There was no way to save the pier but by getting a "needle" under it supported by heavy blocking both inside and outside. To send men inside seemed too great a risk and yet if the pier should fall it would probably bring down the whole wing if it did not wreck the building for it was a wonder to all who saw the condition of the walls that they stood at all. I asked the Chancellor what to do, but he would not say-nor would Aughey, but as the pier had stood thus for an hour I took a chance. Calling for volunteers I held the light and stood by to give orders, and there was where old King Alcohol helped me. The men sprang to the work at the first word and exactly followed my orders. In a few minutes the needle was placed and jackscrews tightened. The pier was safe. What the result might have been had the pier fallen and dragged down as it must the whole chapel wing, at a time when Omaha was raising hades to get the Univer- sity can only be guessed. But I have always thought if the men had not been well fired with corn whiskey, they would not have risked going inside that dark basement with the bricks crushing and plaster crashing down above them.
Yours very truly,
A. ROBERTS.
LETTER FROM GENERAL ATKINSON TO COLONEL HAMILTON
(General Henry Atkinson defeated the Indians at the bat- tle of Bad Axe, Wis., in 1832. Fort Atkinson, Nebraska, is nam- ed for him. He was born in North Carolina, in 1782, became Brigadier General in 1821, and died in 1842. Colonel W. S. Hamilton, U. S. A., Lieut. Col. Rifles, resigned in 1817. The let- ter is characteristic of the "Old Army" and shows the then geographical distribution of Indian tribes, some now extinct.)
Louisville, Ky., Dec. 21, 1825.
My Dear Colonel :
I had the pleasure a short time since, to receive your friendly letter of the 2nd, Sept., written at the Bay of St. Louis.
I will not attempt to describe the pleasure and the grat- itude I feel impressed with by your kind remembrances and more kindly sentiments.
Let it suffice for me to say that I reciprocate with them fully-yes as fully and as freely as you could wish in the heart of your old friend and Capt. I have, as you mention, for sev- eral years been called from point to point in discharge of var- ious duties assigned me on the frontier, at St. Louis and at
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