USA > Nebraska > Antelope County > A history of Antelope County, Nebraska, from its first settlement in 1868 to the close of the year 1883 > Part 3
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chiefs to visit us. They returned after two days' absence. Their first course was through an open prairie to the south, in which they crossed the Butterfly Creek. They then reached a small and beautiful river called Corne de Cerf, or Elkhorn River, about one hundred yards wide, with clear water and a gravelly channel. It empties a little below the Ottoe village into the Platte, which they crossed and arrived at the town about forty-five miles from our camp." The Butterfly Creek mentioned is now called the Papillion. The course taken by these two men was west- erly, across what is now Sarpy County, to the Elkhorn, five or six miles above where it enters the Platte. That the trappers of that day had accurate knowledge of the Elkhorn country is certain. Captain Lewis states in his narrative that one of his Frenchmen attached to the expe- dition had spent two winters on the Platte. M. Durion, his interpreter, a Canadian Frenchman who had married into the Sioux tribe, evinced accurate knowledge of all the streams tributary to the Missouri in this part of the country.
The Elkhorn was named by the French Canadians Corne de Cerf or Horn of the Elk, because of its resemblance in form, with its branches, to the horn of an elk. This resemblance is not wholly imaginary; it is real. The main stream corresponds to the main beam of the antler of an elk, while its branches, especially Logan Creek, North Fork, and South Fork, represent the prongs of the horn.
In the summer of 1838 or 1839 Theophile Brugier, a Canadian of French descent, who had been in the employ of the American Fur Company and who had spent most of his time in trapping on the tributaries of the Missouri and trading with the Indians, passed through what is now Antelope County, on a trip from the mouth of the Ver- digris to the Platte River. He crossed the county from north to south on an Indian trail that passed through range 7. This trail, like other Indian trails in a prairie country, was not of a permanent character; before the county had been settled it was nearly or quite obliterated.
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An Indian trail in a timbered country, or in the mountains, is likely to be permanent, but on a smooth prairie it is different.
The Indians, in moving their villages from place to place or in going out on the hunt, arrange the lodge poles on both sides of a pony, where they are securely fastened by straps attached to the large ends of the poles, the small ends being allowed to drag behind upon the ground. On these poles are packed the lodge covers and other articles. In traveling through a mountainous, rough, or timbered country, they move in Indian file and make a distinct trail, or road. In traveling over smooth prairie they spread out over the country to a considerable distance, and the trail made does not long show plainly, and is soon over- grown with grass. This trail through range 7 was no doubt used by the Pawnees and Poncas in visiting back and forth, and by the Poncas when going on their annual buffalo hunt.
In the year 1846 a colony of Mormons on their way to Utah, numbering about twelve thousand, reached the Missouri River in June. Some of them remained on the Iowa side, but others crossed over to Nebraska and located temporarily at Florence, just north of where Omaha now stands. These Mormon colonists built bridges over the Papillion and the Elkhorn preparatory to pushing on west, and a number of them did go that year to a point opposite the Pawnee village on the Platte. Then from the Platte they went northward and wintered on the Niobrara, near its mouth. Afterwards, probably in the spring of 1847, they left their camp on the Niobrara and struck out for Salt Lake, passing through Antelope County. Their trail entered Antelope County a little east of the northwest corner of section 2 in Bazile township, passed southwesterly through Bazile, and entered Crawford township near the center of the north line of section 5 and entered Ellsworth township on the east line of section I. It probably passed through the north tier of sections in Ellsworth township, but the plats on file at Lincoln do not show this. It then
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crossed Royal and Garfield townships, leaving the county near the southwest corner of section 30, Garfield township. Later, probably in 1851, a company of Mormons passed through the county on their way to Salt Lake, by taking the divide between the Elkhorn and the streams running north to the Missouri. This was done because of high water and the difficulty of crossing the Elkhorn and other branches of the Platte. The trail made by this party met the one previously made near the west line of Antelope County. The plats furnished to William B. Lambert by J. V. Wolfe, commissioner of public lands and build- ings, show only the first-named trail. These plats also show the Indian trail in Royal township, but the trail was not marked by the government surveyors in any of the other townships, probably because it had disappeared prior to the survey.
Soon after the discovery of gold in Colorado, probably in 1859 or 1860, a company of men from Dakota County, Nebraska, as told by Judge Thomas L. Griffey, who was with the expedition, went with teams from Dakota City to Pike's Peak. They entered the Elkhorn valley near Norfolk, and passed on up the valley through Antelope County to a point not far above O'Neill in Holt County. There they cut down cottonwood trees and bridged the Elkhorn, thence passing on southwesterly to the Platte valley.
When the first settlers came here in 1868 none of these roads or trails mentioned were visible, excepting those known as the Mormon trails, which showed plainly in some places. There was no road found by these settlers leading up the Elkhorn, but according to the observations of Allen Hopkins, who located the first homestead within the limits of the county, there were evidences that heavy wagons had passed some years before across a wet tract of land on section 4 in Burnett township.
CHAPTER V
ERRONEOUS OPINIONS - OLNEY'S GEOGRAPHY - QUOTATIONS FROM IRVING, PARKMAN, BRYANT, SAGE - OPINIONS OF OTHERS - DOUBTS OF SETTLERS
M ANY of the first settlers came here with their minds filled with doubts as to the worth of this part of the country as a farming region. There was good reason for this feeling of doubt. The country was very fair to look upon and showed a good soil; from the char- acter of the soil, the growth of the vegetation, and the gen- eral appearance of the country there seemed to be plenty of evidence that this land would make productive farms. But the testimony of nearly all the early travelers and explorers and geographers was against it.
Olney's geography was in general use in the schools of the country during the years from about 1845 to 1860. This geography had been studied by many of the first settlers, and some of them who had been teachers had taught it in their schools and had become very familiar with it. It was a standard work. On the map showing the present state of Nebraska, together with all the country between the Missouri River and the Rocky Mountains, north of Arkan- sas and the Indian Territory, there was printed this legend : "GREAT AMERICAN DESERT"
in small capitals, and then beneath this, in Italics:
"Covered with stinted grass, and inhabited by roving tribes of Indians and vast herds of buffalo."
Then, to make it more impressive, there was here and there a picture of an Indian on horseback, and of a buffalo.
Washington Irving, in his "Astoria," Crowell edition, page 162, has this to say: " A part of their route would lay across an immense tract, stretching north and south for hundreds of miles along the foot of the Rocky Mountains, and drained by the tributary streams of the Missouri and
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Mississippi. This region, which resembles one of the im- measurable steppes of Asia, has not inaptly been termed the great American desert. It spreads forth into undulating and treeless plains, and desolate and sandy wastes, weari- some to the eye from their extent and monotony, and which are supposed by geologists to have formed the ancient floor of the ocean, countless ages since, when its primeval waves beat against the granite bases of the Rocky Moun- tains. It is a land where no man permanently abides; for in certain seasons of the year there is no food for the hunter or his steed. The herbage is parched and withered; the brooks and streams are dried up; the buffalo, the elk, and the deer have wandered to distant parts, keeping within the verge of expiring verdure and leaving behind them a vast uninhabited solitude, seamed by ravines, the beds of former torrents, but now serving only to tantalize and in- crease the thirst of the traveler. Occasionally the monot- ony of this vast wilderness is interrupted by mountainous belts of sand and limestone, broken into confused masses, with precipitous cliffs and yawning ravines looking like the ruins of a world; or is traversed by lofty and barren ridges of rock, almost impassable, like those denominated the Black Hills. Beyond these rise the stern barriers of the Rocky Mountains, the limits as it were of the Atlantic world. .
"Such is the nature of this immense wilderness of the far west, which apparently defies cultivation and the habita- tion of civilized life. Some portions of it along the rivers may partially be subdued by agriculture, others may form · vast pastoral tracts, like those of the East; but it is to be feared that a great part of it will form a lawless interval between the abodes of civilized man, like the wastes of the ocean or the desert of Arabia; and like them, be subject to the depredations of the marauder. Here may spring up new and mongrel races, like new formations in geology, amalgamations of the 'débris' and 'abrasions' of former races, civilized and savage; the remains of broken and almost extinguished tribes; the descendants of hunters
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and trappers; of fugitives from Spanish and American frontiers; of adventurers and desperadoes of every class and country, yearly ejected from the bosom of society into the wilderness. We are contributing incessantly to swell the singular and heterogeneous cloud of wild population that is to hang about our frontier, by the transfer of whole tribes of savages from the east of the Mississippi to the great wastes of the far west. Many of these bear with them the smart of real or fancied injuries; many of them con- sider themselves expatriated beings, wrongfully exiled from their hereditary homes and the sepulchers of their fathers, and cherish a deep and abiding animosity against the race that has dispossessed them. Some may gradually become pastoral hordes, like those rude migratory people, half shepherd, half warrior, who with their flocks and herds roam the plains of upper Asia; but others, it is to be appre- hended, will become predatory bands, mounted on the fleet steeds of the prairies, with the open plains for their maraud- ing grounds, and the mountains for their retreats and lurk- ing places."
Again, Irving's "Bonneville," Crowell edition, page 286, says: "An immense belt of rocky mountains and vol- canic plains, several hundred miles in width, must ever re- main an irreclaimable wilderness, intervening between the abodes of civilization and affording a last refuge for the Indians."
Francis Parkman, in his "Oregon and California Trail," A. L. Burt edition, page 57, says: "At length we gained the summit and the long expected valley of the Platte lay before us. We all drew rein, and gathering in a knot on the crest of the hill, sat joyfully looking down upon the prospect. It was right welcome; strange, too, and strik- ing to the imagination, and yet it had not one picturesque or beautiful feature; nor had it any of the features of grandeur other than its vast extent, its solitude and its wildness. For league after league a plain as level as a frozen lake was outspread beneath us; here and there the Platte, divided into a dozen sluices, was traversing it, and
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an occasional clump of wood rising in the midst like a shad- owy island, relieved the monotony of the waste. No living thing was moving throughout the vast landscape, except the lizards that darted over the sand and through the thick grass and prickly pear just at our feet. We had passed the more toilsome and monotonous part of the jour- ney; but four hundred miles still intervened between us and Ft. Laramie; and to reach that point cost us the travel of three additional weeks. During the whole of this time we were passing up the center of a long, narrow, sandy plain, reaching like an outstretched belt nearly to the Rocky Mountains. Two lines of sandhills, broken often into the wildest and most fantastic forms, flanked the val- ley at a distance of a mile or two on the right and left; while beyond them lay a barren and tractless waste - The Great American Desert - extending for hundreds of miles to the Arkansas on one side and the Missouri on the other. Before and behind us the level monotony of the plain was unbroken as far as the eye could reach. Sometimes it glared in the sun an expanse of hot bare sand; sometimes it was veiled by long coarse grass."
These quotations are taken from standard authors. Parkman's observations were made while on the south side of the Platte nearly opposite Grand Island. Irving got his information from Bonneville, Hunt, and dozens of others who had visited this country, and from the manuscripts of the employees of John Jacob Astor. But other authors of less note, and not so well known nor so generally read as Irving and Parkman, speak in the same strain as the quo- tations already given.
Edwin Bryant, an author often quoted in Morton's "History of Nebraska," and who in 1846 wrote a book entitled "Rocky Mountain Adventures," says on page 75 of that work: "Our route has been up the Little Blue which runs in a southeast direction. The soil of the bot- tom appears to be of a fertile composition, but that of the table-land or prairie undulations is sandy and gravelly, producing but little grass." On page 76 he says: "The
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soil of the prairie is thin, and the grass and other vegetation present a blighted and stunted appearance. I did not notice a solitary flower in bloom between the Little Blue and our encampment." And again on page 77 he says: "June 8 - The prairie over which we traveled until we reached the bluffs that overlooked the valley or wide bot- tom of the Platte is a gradually ascending plain. The soil is sandy, and the grass is short and grows in tufts and small bunches. I saw no flowers." After entering the Platte valley, he says: "The soil near the river appears to be fer- tile, but next to the bluffs it is sandy, and the grass and other vegetation present a stunted and blighted appear- ance. Small spots in the bottom are covered with a white efflorescence of saline and alkaline substances combined."
The country referred to by Bryant in the foregoing quo- tations lies in the counties of Thayer, Nuckolls, Clay, Adams, and Hall, which are now considered to be among the good counties of the state.
Another writer, Rufus B. Sage, who visited this coun- try in 1841 and who spent three or four years west of the Missouri River, and who wrote a book called "Adventures in the Rocky Mountains," thus gives his general opinion of the worth of this part of the country. On page 60 he says: "That this section of the country should ever become inhabitated by civilized man, except in the vicinity of large water courses, is an idea too preposterous to be enter- tained for a single moment."
It was generally admitted by authors, travelers, and explorers that a narrow strip along the Missouri, and ex- tending a short distance west up the valleys of its principal tributaries, was fertile, but that the country as a whole was a vast semi-sterile tract, wholly unfit for cultivation.
When the writer landed with his family in Omaha, in May, 1867, the second state legislature was in session, the state having been admitted to the Union on the first of of the preceding March. One of the members of this legislature, hailing from the South Platte country, advised the writer to settle south of the Platte River, saying that
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"There are not over two thousand inhabitants north and west of Washington County, and that the country is too poor and worthless to support a dense population." An- other man who had visited the Elkhorn valley country in- formed him that the country was pretty good as far west as the sixth principal meridian, but west of that it was sandy and poor.
Opinions like these were commonly held by the old set- tlers in the Missouri River counties, and it is not strange that the first settlers of Antelope County should have come here with their minds filled with doubts as to whether this country was fit to live in. Reports said that it was semi- desert. Its general appearance on examination showed that it was a fertile and productive country. The prevail- ing fear of the first settlers was, that the rainfall was fre- quently insufficient for the growth and maturity of farm crops.
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CHAPTER VI
TEMPORARY SETTLEMENT - MICHAEL J. HUGHES - GEORGE ST. CLAIR - CUTTING OF OAK TIMBER FOR THE NORFOLK MILL - CRANDALL HOPKINS LEAVES WISCONSIN - LEAVES ILLI- NOIS AND REACHES COUNCIL BLUFFS; HEARS OF THE ELKHORN VALLEY; ARRIVES IN ANTELOPE COUNTY; MAKES PERMANENT SETTLEMENT
I N the summer of 1867 J. G. Routson and J. W. Early of Columbus, Nebraska, being on an exploring trip through the Elkhorn valley, camped for a day or two on Al. Hopkins creek, about two miles north of the present town of Tilden. Just as they were finishing breakfast one morn- ing they were surprised to see a man approaching, carrying a gun on his shoulder. It was Michael J. Hughes, who told them that he had located with his family on a claim about a mile above the camp on the creek. He stated that they were out of provisions and that he was hunting to procure food for his family, but had not succeeded in killing any game. At this time Mr. Hughes was the only settler on the north side of the river west of the German settlement on the north fork of the Elkhorn. Messrs. Routson and Early supplied Mr. Hughes with such pro- visions as they could spare, and he returned to his family. Mr. Hughes came from Pennsylvania to Illinois, and in March, 1867, moved from Illinois to Nebraska, stopping for a short time at Columbus. During the summer of 1867 he moved with ox teams from Columbus to the head of Battle Creek, in Madison County, where he camped for a few days. About August 1, 1867, he came with his teams and covered wagon to Antelope County and located on the southeast quarter of section 36, in Elm township, probably not knowing at the time that it was school land. Here he remained with his family until about October I, when he moved to Cuming County, Nebraska. Mr. Hughes relates that they were visited several times during their
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temporary stay here by Indians, and that although they were friendly and offered no molestation, his wife and children were frightened and persuaded him to go down the valley to West Point. By his yielding to their entreaties Antelope County lost a good citizen and Mr. Hughes was deprived of the honor of being the first permanent settler in Antelope County. Mr. Hughes became a prominent citizen of Cuming County and of the city of West Point, where he died November 26, 1897. While living within the limits of Antelope County Mr. Hughes built a shack of poles and grass, for a temporary residence, and cut some timber, but he did no plowing, nor did he make any per- manent improvements. His shack was still to be seen when the Hopkins family located in August, 1868.
On the 25th of April, 1868, George St. Clair came to Antelope County and put up a little shack on the east half of the northwest quarter and north half of the southwest quarter, section 21, Burnett township, and on June 30, 1868, made a preemption filing on this land at the Dakota City land office. This was the first tract of land filed on in the county. It lies on St. Clair Creek, and contained at that time the largest fine body of oak timber in the county. St. Clair was a Canadian by birth, but had lived several years in the United States, always on the frontier, and most of the time with the Indians, spending his time in trapping and hunting. He had trapped on the Elkhorn River and knew the country well before taking his claim. He was known among the frontiersmen as Ponca George, from the fact that he had lived a time among the Ponca Indians. He never proved up on his claim, but abandoned it in a few months, leaving nothing behind him but his name, which was transferred to St. Clair Creek.
As stated before, this St. Clair tract of land contained the largest fine body of oak timber in the county. There was another tract of oak timber equally good, but not so extensive, on section 16 in Cedar township. Both these tracts of land were stripped of their timber to be used in building flouring mills. Every stick on the St. Clair pre-
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emption, fit for building purposes, was cut, hewed, and hauled to Norfolk in the summer of 1869, and used to build the Norfolk mill, where it is still doing duty. That on section 16, Cedar township, was put into the first Oakdale mill by R. G. King about two or three years later. This mill has since been dismantled, and the timber used for other purposes. The appropriation of timber was not unusual in those days. Timber found on government land, or on state land, was common property. It belonged to everybody.
The fertile, inviting prairies of the Elkhorn valley were not long to remain without permanent settlers. In the early part of February, 1868, Crandall Hopkins of La- fayette County, Wisconsin, where he had lived for about eighteen years, decided to remove to Whiteside County, Illinois, near Sterling, with the intention of buying a farm and permanently locating in that part of the country. After a residence of a few months, not being well pleased with the location and having considerable sickness in his family, he decided to move on and seek a location somewhere west of the Missouri River, where he hoped to find government land that would suit him. About the first of August, 1868, after having taken several weeks to prepare for the jour- ney, he struck out west with horse teams and covered wagons without any very definite idea as to where he would locate, except that it was to be on the west side of the Mis- souri. In due time he had crossed the state of Iowa, and reached Council Bluffs. While being ferried over the Mis- souri River to Omaha on the steam ferry then in use, he got into conversation with one of the ferrymen, who appeared to be quite familiar with the country west of the river. In reply to the inquiries of Mr. Hopkins as to the best section of the country where government land could be found, this man advised him to go to the Elkhorn valley. He said that he had been all over this western country and he knew of no part of the country that excelled the Elkhorn valley in fertility of soil or healthfulness of climate. That there was an abundance of timber along the Elkhorn and the
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creeks emptying into it, for all present uses. He strongly advised Mr. Hopkins at least to go and see the Elkhorn valley before locating. He directed him to take the mili- tary road leading west from Omaha, to follow it to the Elk- horn river, and then follow up the valley until he found land to suit him. Mr. Hopkins had never heard of the Elkhorn valley before, but he determined to follow this advice and at least see the Elkhorn country. On reaching Dennie's Ranch he encamped for the night, and finding that Mr. Dennie was an old-timer and familiar with the country, he asked his opinion as to where the best vacant land could be found. Mr. Dennie, without hesitation, said, "Go to the Elkhorn valley, follow it up until you find land to suit you, settle down, and you will never be sorry for it." The next day he reached the Elkhorn, and, following the valley on the north side, crossed the west line of Madison County and encamped on the southeast quarter of section 1, Bur- nett township, about August 31, 1868.
It is not definitely settled as to the exact date, but Allen Hopkins is quite certain that they left Whiteside county, Illinois, for the west on August 3, and that they were just four weeks on the way. At this time Mr. Hopkins' family consisted of a wife and twelve children, two of whom, Allen and William, were grown men. They had no very near neighbors. George St. Clair was still on his claim in sec- tion 21, Burnett township, but he abandoned it soon after and left the country. East of them there were no settlers above the German settlement around Norfolk. Southeast there were settlers on Shell Creek, about twenty-five or thirty miles distant. To the west the country was all a wilderness, while north of them the nearest white men were settled along the Missouri and Niobrara rivers.
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