USA > Nebraska > Antelope County > A history of Antelope County, Nebraska, from its first settlement in 1868 to the close of the year 1883 > Part 8
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"In those days hospitality was known and practiced. The stranger was never turned away. The land-seeker was kept without charge and told where to go to look for the best vacant land. If a house was to be built, the whole community for miles around turned out and did the work in a day. The settlers of a neighborhood helped each other in harvesting, threshing, and making hay. In going to mill or to market they went, two or more neighbors in com- pany, so as to assist each other in fording streams and drawing loads up steep hills. Occasionally it was neces- sary to go to Sioux City or Fremont for supplies, there being as yet no road to Columbus or Yankton, and on such occasions several would go in company, camping out at night and sharing each other's beds and rations. Prior to the establishment of a post-office in the county, the mail was brought from Norfolk for the whole county by any one who happened to have business there. This was dis- tributed along the way, and what remained on reaching Judge Snider's was left there for future distribution. At first one's coat pockets sufficed for a mail sack, but later, as the population increased, a grain sack was used. When- ever two or three made a trip to a distant town or to mill they took pleasure in transacting business and doing er- rands for their neighbors. Sometimes hunting parties
were formed both for pleasure and profit. The proceeds of the chase were commonly distributed throughout the neighborhood. When there was a meeting or a Sunday school, everybody went. If in warm weather, boys and girls were barefoot, as were some of the men. The men
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were dressed in jeans or blue or brown denims, the women in calico. People listened to the sermon and were glad to hear it. Everybody was invited to sing. The congrega- tion was the choir; there were no jealousies, and no one felt slighted. What was a joy to one was a pleasure to all, and what was a grief to one family was a sorrow to the whole community.
"When on the 14th of August, 1869, the first wedding was celebrated, at which Mr. Allen Hopkins and Miss Fran- cis L. Riley and Mr. Elias Ives and Miss Nancy Freelove Hopkins were united in wedlock by C. P. Mathewson, Esq., of Norfolk, the few settlers then in the county looked upon it as a family affair in which all were interested. And again, when in the early part of May, 1870, Mrs. L. A. Kimball of Cedar Creek gave birth to a little girl, the first child born in the county, it was a happy event for the whole settle- ment. And then again, when on the 6th of October, 1870, death for the first time invaded the ranks of the little band of pioneers and Fanny Snider was laid away to rest in the one lonely grave near her father's house, the whole community was present to weep with the stricken family."
The early pioneers showed a commendable spirit of brotherly love and helpfulness. It might be better if more of this spirit prevailed to-day.
CHAPTER XVIII
THE STORMS OF APRIL, 1873, AND OF JANUARY, 1888, COMPARED - STORM OF 1873 DESCRIBED - WILD ANIMALS AND BIRDS KILLED BY STORM - CAPTAIN MIX'S COMPANY OF CAVALRY - ART. MERRIMAN'S STORY
T HE great storm of 1873 was the worst ever known in this part of the state. It is yet spoken of as "the April storm" or the "Easter storm," as it began on Easter Sunday and continued without abatement for three days. The terrific blizzard of January 12, 1888, was worse for a short time, by reason of the intense cold, but it was of short duration. This January storm came without warning at about one o'clock P. M., and continued for about twelve hours only, when the wind died down, but the severe cold continued.
In 1888 the county was well settled in every part, houses were much nearer together, planted groves, cornstalks, and stubble fields caught the snow and prevented such tremendous drifts as came in 1873, and besides, the prairie had not been burned over. Then, too, people were well prepared, with better houses and good stables and sheds to shelter the stock. The next morning, too, the wind had gone down, and the farmers could get out to look after their stock. Everybody had plenty of hay and grain on hand and were more or less supplied with fuel. The storm of 1888 was much less destructive in this part of the state than that of 1873.
The storm of 1873 commenced on Easter Sunday, April 13, about four o'clock P. M., with a strong wind from the northwest and a light rain. The rain soon turned to sleet, and the wind continued to increase in violence until it be- came almost impossible to face it. In an hour or two it began snowing and continued to snow for the greater part of two days. It was not easy to tell, the second day of the
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storm, whether snow was falling or not, as the air was so filled with drifting snow that one could not see the distance of a few rods, and at times objects a few feet away were not discernible.
The settlers were not prepared for such a storm, and were not looking for anything of the kind. The winter had been mild, and for some days the weather had been warm and pleasant. The spring wheat was all in the ground, and some of the fields were beginning to look green. The oats were mostly sown, and people had begun to make garden; some had commenced to break prairie. Some of the settlers were located in sheltered places, where their buildings were protected by native timber, and others had good log stables and hay and grain convenient. These got through all right, excepting that in some instances their stock, if running out, drifted away with the wind and part of it perished before it could be recovered. The majority of the settlers had stables made of forked posts and poles, covered with hay or straw, which had been allowed to get out of repair, as the winter was supposed to be over.
Prairie fires had swept over the country the fall before, leaving the ground black and barren, with nothing to catch and retain the snow as it fell. As a consequence the terrific wind that continued to blow constantly, swept the hills and all high lands bare, carrying the drifting snow to the south slopes and filling up the ravines and all low and sheltered places with great snowdrifts. The snow was piled on the south side of buildings as high as the buildings themselves, stables that were out of repair were drifted full, and the horses were taken into the houses to be kept from perishing. In some cases cattle were taken into the houses, but generally only the teams, the cattle being left to shift for themselves. Cattle that were loose drifted before the wind until some sheltered ravine or patch of brush or timber was found, where they could have some protection. Many brought up in some deep snow- drift and perished from lack of food and exposure.
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The wild animals and birds alike suffered from this storm. The writer at that time was engaged in surveying and appraising land for the Burlington and Missouri River Railroad in Sherman County, Nebraska. After the storm was over and the snow melted sufficiently so that he could resume work, he found on the prairie numbers of antelope and deer that had been driven before the wind until, be- coming exhausted, they had lain down and died. Gen- erally, these were found lying with their legs folded up underneath, as if they had lain down to rest, but some were found stretched out at full length, as if they had run until entirely exhausted and had then fallen.
The birds had many of them already returned from the south, and great numbers of them perished, especially the larks and robins. Prairie chickens suffered very severely, and were not so numerous afterward.
The writer, during the storm, was stopping with a man by the name of Humes, whose house was built in a heavy body of timber about one and a half miles west of the present site of Loup City, Sherman County. The snow did not drift at all in the timber, excepting at the north side, where the drifts were at least fifteen feet deep. Neither did it get very cold, only a few degrees below freezing.
Loup City at that time consisted of about four log houses and two dugouts. Just after the storm had commenced Captain Mix of the United States Army came down the valley of the Middle Loup with his company of cavalry, having been in pursuit of a predatory band of Indians. They encamped under a low, steep bank near the creek, in the southern part of what is now Loup City. This bank at first afforded some shelter, but soon the snow began to cover the wagons and tents, and the soldiers were com- pelled to seek shelter in the houses and dugouts. The horses and mules had no shelter whatever, and most of them no feed, and thirty-seven of them perished. After- ward, a man by the name of Hayes was employed to haul the carcasses away, which he did by dragging them with
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teams about a half-mile up the creek and dumping them over a high, steep, clay bank. It was intended to cover them with earth from the bank, but before this was done a heavy rain melted the snows up the creek; the carcasses were brought down again by high water, and many of them were deposited along the bank of the creek within the present limits of the town. This gave the name "Dead Horse" to the creek, and it is known as such to this day.
These last incidents are related, not because they belong to the history of Antelope County, for they do not, but because they give the writer's experiences in the same storm that swept over all Nebraska, and that was especially severe in the central and northern parts of the state. Some of the snowdrifts formed during this storm did not melt away entirely until the next June.
A. G. Merriman, commonly known as Art. Merriman, was not only the first settler in Eden township but the first to take up a claim on any of the branches of Verdigris Creek. He was a member of Captain Jacob M. Miller's colony of old soldiers. Captain Miller himself, who was well known in Antelope County, settled just over the line in Knox County, but several members of his colony settled in Antelope County. In a letter from Mr. Merriman to William B. Lambert, dated Waterloo, Iowa, April 4, 1899, Mr. Merriman thus gives his experience in the great April storm :
ART. MERRIMAN'S STORY
"March 14, 1873, I left Independence, Iowa, for Ne- braska, with a small team of mules, in company with J. A. Davis and John and Isaiah Miller.
"We arrived at Creighton on April I, and drove west to old Mr. Palmer's about four miles, which was the last or frontier house in the settlement. Creighton consisted of Bruce's sod house and sod store, and Quimby's log cabin, where he kept the post-office, and one or two more log or sod houses.
"The next day we hunted our claims, which J. M. Miller had filed on for us the previous year, partly in Knox and
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partly in Antelope County. Mine was eight miles from Creighton and four miles from Mr. Palmer's house (it was the northwest quarter, section 4, Eden township):
"In a few days we set our three wagon boxes, with covers, where Millerboro is now, to live in until we could get material to build a house. We had been to Yankton for lumber with two teams, and got back on the 13th of April. That night it began a drizzling rain and before morning it turned to snow. The weather had been very fine, and gardens were partly made. We had built a pole and hay stable, but had little hay on it yet, and we set up some boards on the north and west sides to break the storm and wind from our horses. The next day was bad and snowed all day and all night, and the next day in the forenoon it was storming and blowing so bad we could scarcely see anything outside. We got out from our wagon covers about eleven o'clock and found some of the horses loose, some down and nearly buried in the snow, and one had packed the snow and kept getting higher until his knees were up to the roof. He had climbed clear up through the roof and eaten what covering he could reach. We turned them all loose, but could get nothing to feed them, for what little grain and hay we had was buried so deep we could not get at it. The air was so full of snow that we had hard work to find our wagon covers again, which were about four rods from the stable. The storm kept up all night, but on Wednesday, the 16th, it was not so bad, so we dug out a harness and hitched up a span of horses to a wagon and started for the settlement, four miles away. We went about twenty rods, when both horses got down in the snow, and we had to unharness them there to get them back. We left the wagon there. This was some time in the afternoon. We had had nothing to eat but some bread and crackers since supper on Sunday. So we dug out some meat and potatoes and the stove, which were all buried in the snow, and cooked supper - the first warm meal in three days.
"The 17th was perfectly clear. We managed, by picking
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our way, to get our horses through the snow to the settle- ment and into a stable, where we kept them and hired our board for nearly two weeks. Then the snow melted and made high water and mud and very bad roads. I went to Yankton the first week in May to bring my wife and Fred and some goods. We had a hard time, though.
"I first made some garden on my claim, then I went to breaking, and planted about seven acres of sod corn; then broke out twenty acres more. Just after harvest I made a good dugout, thirteen by twenty feet inside, and moved into it; and made a good sod stable for my mules and cow. (Mr. Merriman and family lived in a house built by one of the Millers until the dugout was finished.)
"That winter the Millers all went away, so our nearest neighbor was Paul Thibadeau, about three miles north- east. West there were no settlers for about thirty miles, and south, for over twenty. The next spring the Miller boys came back and went to breaking and sowing wheat, etc. I sowed thirteen acres of wheat and planted about thirteen acres of corn. The grasshoppers came and dam- aged it, but I got sixty-four bushels of wheat and enough corn to feed.
"In 1875 I rented my land and moved to Neligh, leaving my dugout in very good shape; the settlers there used it as a schoolhouse, and on Sundays they had Sunday school and preaching in it.
"I proved up on my land in 1875, and in the spring of 1876 moved back to Independence, Iowa."
CHAPTER XIX
THE APRIL STORM CONTINUED - WILLIAM A. SHEPHERD'S STORY - THE LOCATING OF THE OLD SOLDIERS' COLONY - D. V. COE'S STORY
W ILLIAM A. SHEPHERD, one of the early set- tlers of Cedar township, lived on the south bank of the west branch of Cedar Creek, on the south half of the northeast quarter of section 4. This west branch of the Cedar, unlike the main creek and the east branch, was devoid of timber, so that there were no groves to catch and retain the drifting snows, as there were in other places along the creek. Here, in the fall of 1872, Mr. Shepherd had built a little log house, which he finished up in good shape, having plastered up the cracks with clay so as to make it tight and warm. Mr. Shepherd was away most of the winter, and as the plastering was done late in the fall, freezing weather coming on had loosened it and much of it had fallen out, leaving the cracks open to some extent. Mr. Shepherd gives his experiences during the April storm as follows:
WILLIAM A. SHEPHERD'S STORY
"The April storm was very severe. The snow fall was considerable and the wind was terrific, but the weather was not very cold. I had not repaired the house, as I had lots of other work to do and supposed the winter was over. The snow drifted in through the open cracks and began to fill up the inside pretty fast. I had a scoop shovel, and with this I began to shovel up the snow on the inside of the house against the north wall until I had it banked clear up to the roof. This was packed solid and firm and made a complete wind break.
"I had not as yet built a stable, but had my two yoke of oxen tied to the wagon outside. The oxen soon became
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coated with snow and ice and I thought it the best way to bring two of them into the house. The house was too small for myself, the bed and stove, and all the oxen, so I brought two of them inside, leaving the other two tied to the wagon. There was a kettle of oats on the stove that was cooking for the oxen, and as soon as they were inside the house one of the oxen made a dive for the oats. I grabbed the broom to drive him away, and he at once be- gan to eat the broom; then he stuck his nose into a sack of flour. But at last I got them securely tied up. The storm growing worse, I thought the other oxen would be better off if turned loose to shift for themselves. Accord- ingly I untied them and let them go. One of them got through all right, but the other perished in a snowdrift. I had plenty of firewood and plenty of provisions, and so managed to get along all right myself, and of course the oxen that were in the house fared pretty well.
"Wednesday evening Will Wright and his father came to my house, bringing robes and blankets, and wanted to stay until the storm subsided. I told them, 'All right! If you can find a place to sleep.' They shoveled out some snow and got a place to curl down in one corner. They had begun to break prairie on Will Wright's claim, one and one-half miles west of mine. When the storm got bad they took their four oxen into their shanty, which was only eight by twelve feet. This, with two men and a stove, made it somewhat crowded and left the men no place to sleep; besides, as they were living on pancakes instead of bread, the ox hairs were too plentiful in the batter. So, as the drifting snow was not so bad by Wed- nesday evening, they concluded to pay me a visit. They thought my quarters very commodious and comfortable. By Thursday morning the wind had gone down a good deal and the snow had ceased to drift.
"We began to wonder how Al. Wolfe was getting along. A. H. Wolfe had a dugout just at the head of a ravine, across the creek from my house, and about a quarter of a mile away. We could see nothing of his dugout; and only
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a snowdrift where it ought to be. Will Wright then went up to Ed. Palmer's and got another scoop shovel, and we all went over to Al.'s place to dig him out if necessary. It was just one big snowdrift all the way, and we could not even tell just where the creek was. It was all drifted over and packed as hard as ice, so that we never broke through once. We could tell by the lay of the land about where the dugout ought to be, and selecting what we thought the right place, began to dig. After going down about six feet, we found it too much work to throw the snow out, and so made a platform, or bench of snow, and one would throw the snow up to this, and the other would throw it out. After going down about twelve feet we struck the chip pile. We knew that the dugout was just west of this. So we began to drift in toward the door. Just then a gun was fired inside the dugout and we knew Al. was alive.
"When we got to the door and pushed it open Al. was standing up, but as soon as the fresh air struck him he fell to the ground. He had fired the gun because he had not strength enough to call. Much of the time had been a blank to him. He had lain down on the bed, and that was the last he knew until he heard us digging. He had
fallen off the bed and come to himself again only just about the time we began to dig. Probably falling from the bed was what saved his life, as the air was not so foul near the ground as higher up. His face and head were con- siderably bruised and discolored, where he had lain against the ground. His dugout was very close and warm and admitted very little air even when not covered with snow. The snow, being so very compact and hard, had entirely shut out the air, which had become so foul and impure inside as to be unfit to breathe. He could walk with our assistance in a little while. We took him to my cabin, where he stayed three weeks before he was able to get out much. He never entirely recovered his health."
The following interesting narration of the locating of the Captain Miller colony in the southern part of Knox and the northern part of Antelope counties is given by
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D. V. Coe, one of the early settlers in Ord township. Cap- tain Jacob M. Miller and D. V. Coe both came from Buchanan County, Iowa, where they were acquainted.
D. V. COE'S STORY
"In the fall of 1871 Captain Miller, accompanied by his son John, came to my home in Ord township in a two- horse spring wagon. Captain Miller told me he had come out from Iowa to look up a location for a soldiers' colony, which would probably, in case they found a suitable loca- tion, grow to be a colony of a hundred families - that the colony then numbered about fifty families. He inquired of me if I knew of any such location where no claims had been taken and the land was good, adding that they all wanted to settle in a body. I thought over the matter until the following day. The best location I could think of was in the northern part of Antelope County. I had been over on the Verdigris and also on the Bazile and knew the lay of the land and quality of the soil. In going there I had followed the Indian trail from Hackberry Hol- low near Jim Smith's, to Walnut Grove, and felt confident I could go direct from my place to the land that would suit his purpose. I finally agreed to go with him and locate his intended colony for two dollars per day and expenses. When my wife had cooked and baked what we supposed would be sufficient in the provision line, we started out.
"We struck a bee-line for the Big Springs at the head of the east branch of the Verdigris, in what is now Royal township. After looking over the land in that vicinity and north of there for some time, we finally camped on section 22 in the present township of Verdigris, on the land subsequently taken by Jacob H. Hockensmith. Leaving both the Millers in camp, I started afoot directly east, as near as I could tell, to hunt up a government corner. I went nearly a mile without seeing a corner or seeing any object to attract my attention. Finally, on stopping to look around, I saw a stake and mound probably half a mile away to the east. Supposing it to be a section corner,
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I started for it with a view of reading the numbers on the stake so as to fix my exact location. When within a few rods of the mound I was surprised to see the corners of a red blanket sticking out from under the corners of the mound.
"When I got to the mound I did not know what it meant, still thinking it to be a government corner. I stooped over and pulled up one corner of the blanket and looked under it. The sight caused me to shudder. There, in a square hole, sat an old Indian with a red blanket. wrapped around him and as 'dead as a door nail.' He had a ring about three inches in diameter in his nose and a ring in each ear, and moccasins on his feet. A red pipe- stone pipe, nicely finished but not bored out, and another pipe with stem unfinished lay in his lap. The hole wherein he was sitting was about three feet wide by four feet long and four feet deep. He faced the east and his head came within about twelve or eighteen inches of the surface of the ground. The skull was smashed in and at the time I supposed that was what had caused his death. The mound over the grave was about three feet high, with a pole at each end, one at the east and one at the west. Sticks were laid crosswise over the grave and over these a red blanket, and on these the earth from the grave was piled to make the mound. This grave was on section 23, in what is now Verdigris township. I left him without dis- turbing anything.
"Some years afterwards, in company with others, I visited this grave. The sticks had rotted and the mound had caved in. The skeleton was exhumed, and we found that he had been shot with three arrows - one had pierced the thigh bone in front and two had entered the backbone. The arrow heads had entered the bones about three quar- ters of an inch and were still sticking there. These arrow heads were not of flint, but were iron or steel, such as the Indians used in those days. The skeleton, the last I knew of it, was in the possession of a Neligh doctor, and the rings were kept by some Neligh parties. I learned soon after that
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the Indian was a Ponca who had been killed just a few days before in a fight with the Sioux.
"After hunting around a while longer I found a corner stake with the numbers plainly marked. This gave a starting point. We followed the line north and finding
land to suit began locating claims for the Miller colony.' "
CHAPTER XX
THE NARRATIVE OF ANDREW P. BENNETT, ENTITLED "AN OLD SETTLER'S EXPERIENCES IN THE EARLY DAYS IN ANTELOPE COUNTY," AS PUBLISHED IN THE ELGIN CLIPPINGS, 1889
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