USA > Nebraska > Congregational Nebraska > Part 10
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19
"Later on I preached at Wahoo, Cedar Bluff, Weston, and other places, and sometimes I would cover forty miles Saturday and Sunday riding to my appointments, but I never failed, blizzard or no blizzard. I encountered storms of wind and dust, rain and snow. I have been so cold that I had to be lifted from the buggy almost frozen. A brother said to nie once, 'Brother Gray, if I keep on preaching and give up farming I shall be as poor ten years from now as I am to-day, but if I give up preaching and go on farming in ten years I will be worth $10,000.' I said, 'Woe is me if I preach not the Gospel, I shall go on with preaching.' 'Well,' he said, 'I shall farm.' I saw him later on at York, and reminded him of what he said. 'I don't remember say- ing that,' he replied, 'but I have the $10,000.' 'All right,' I said, 'I am still preaching.
"When pastor at Columbus I often went to Neligh as one of the trustees of Gates College, and heard a great deal about the country west of Neligh, and that we were doing nothing there. So when I took iny vacation, I went up to the country reputed to be in the hands of Doc Middleton and Kidd Wade's band of horse thieves. Leaving the team at Atkinson I took the train to Ainsworth, where I found a student who had preached during the summer, and had gathered a few members ready to join a church. The pastor at Neligh came up for a Sunday and we formed a
169
PIONEER EXPERIENCES
council and organized a Congregational church. Monday I went on to Valentine, saw Indians, and looked over the prospects for work. I wrote to New York concerning the needs of the field. The next year Brother Bross was ap- pointed to take up that work which he so ably did. As I was returning from Valentine information came to me that led me, when I reached Atkinson, to write back to the stu- dent at Ainsworth and tell him to go out on the street and talk Congregational church building next morning, and that I could get $400 from New York to help erect the meeting-house. This he did. The result was that I re- ceived a letter at Columbus, asking me to come up and advise them how to proceed. So at a personal expense of $35 to $40 I went up and drew plan of building, wrote out specifications for workmen, and started the deacon out with subscription paper. They went on and built the church, and a year later were able to pay $400 toward the support of a pastor.
"I remember some of our early financial struggles. At one time I could not buy a postage stamp, but going to the post-office I took out a letter containing $3 which the writer said I should use. Then I had to go out eight miles to marry a couple New Year's day. It was grasshopper time, and the man gave ine $20 for a fee, the largest I ever re- ceived anywhere, and I never wanted it worse, as I had to feed my horse on straw, the rains having washed away my hay, some thirty tons. In some way the Lord provided for our wants."
REV. A. E. RICKER
Rev. A. F .. Ricker is one of our younger men in the prime of strong manhood, and the pastor of the Congregational church at Aurora. The following pages from his pen are like the fresh breezes from the northwest-full of life:
170
CONGREGATIONAL NEBRASKA
"It was in the year 1886 that I was directed to go to Crawford and begin work under the auspices of the Con- gregational Home Missionary Society. I was young and inexperienced, although the summer before, as a seminary student, I had preached the first sermon and organized the first Sunday school in Julesburg, Colorado.
"Taking the train at Chicago for Sidney, Nebraska, where I paid a short visit to my parents, I started by stage from Sidney to Ft. Robinson, 125 miles north. I think I shall never forget that ride. The stage was not a stage, but a stiff buckboard, with two seats, capable of carrying three passengers besides the driver. The company made two or three trips a week, and the principal business was the carrying of the United States mail.
"It was about 9:00 o'clock of a bright, cool morning in early May that our buckboard started for the long trip. It was twenty-four hours later when we rode down into the White river bottom, and finally stopped at the station near Ft. Robinson and Crawford. And that twenty-four hours ! The horses and drivers were changed at intervals during the journey, but the passengers sat through steadily from first to last. Didn't they stop? Yes, to feed the horses and get meals at the stage stations, perhaps pauses of an hour, and then on we went another weary expanse of prairie and along the interminable road. But such meals as those were at the stage stations! The best thing about them was the price, fifty cents-quite metropolitan ; but the meals !
"We came into one station just as the gray streaks of morning struggled feebly up the eastern horizon. The family-it was the home of our driver-were just begin- ning to stir. It was a lone log house, meanly built, with various sheds and pens round about. On one side the tim- bers that supported the roof projected four or five feet from the eaves, and were covered with brush and earth, as was
Rev. S. I. Hanford Rev. A. E. Ricker
Rev. John Doane
Rev. W. J. Turner Rev. E. Cressman
172
CONGREGATIONAL, NEBRASKA
the whole roof. This formed a sort of piazza. A stove- pipe had been run up through this extension of the roof, and the cookstove was out on this veranda. The process of getting breakfast was going forward. We were both cold and hungry, and it was natural for the travelers to gather about the stove and watch the preparations for our regalement.
"I think the chicken house must have been near, not sim- ply because chickens were present, but because they dis- played such fearless familiarity with the other members of the family, and such interest in what was going on. The cook and hostess was busy frying potatoes on the stove, for one item in our bill of fare. She was also setting the table in a room in the house. When she bestowed her attention on the potatoes she turned them with a knife. When she went into the house to the table, she laid the knife on a low bench, and the chickens jumped up on the bench, walked over the knife, and picked off bits of potatoes that adhered to its blade. The hostess came out, shooed the chickens off, picked up the knife they had walked around on, and turned over the potatoes with it some more. Now we like our potatoes turned and fried on both sides, but we did not feel much like eating these potatoes.
"When I sat at the table in a dark room dimly lighted with one small, dirty, smoky chimneyed kerosene lamp, I wondered what articles of food would be most likely to have least dirt in them. I was desperately hungry. I had to eat something. I thought there was as little risk about the coffee as anything-maybe any unnecessary ingredients would settle to the bottom of the cup. I drank about half of my coffee as quickly as possible, and then concluded I had made one mistake anyway. I thought it would be·run- ning great chances trying bread-it looked of a tremen- dously questionable color. I know I did not want any of
173
PIONEER EXPERIENCES
those potatoes. I selected a little that seemed to promise as small amount of risk as anything and swallowed a few unrelished mouthfuls. After paying my fifty cents 1 . thought to myself that I had never yet paid more money for less value received in my life's previous experiences.
"The morning was crisp and cold as we rode down from the table-land into the valley of the White river. At one point we passed a freighters' camp. The horses were pick- eted near at hand; the wagon with its canvas top stood be- side the road, and under it, wrapped in their blankets, the freighters were still asleep.
"The scene as we wound down into the valley was indeed beautiful in the early morning light. Beneath us the deep winding valley, and beyond the strange rugged bluffs, just north of Ft. Robinson, their bare rocks like the turrets of some vast castles, lifting themselves against the sky, while at their base grew the dark green pines. Away off to the right -- that is, the east -- extends the uneven line of the Pine Ridge with 'Crow Butte' standing out, prominent, against the morning sky like a giant captain of a giant hiost.
"Presently the driver turned the heads of his horses into a yard in which was a long, low log house, with sheds for horses. A woman stood in the door. Children and dogs and domestic animals of various orders uttered for us each his peculiar greeting. Here our horses stopped, and our journey was ended, so far as staging was concerned.
"I could see nothing but open and apparently uninhabited prairie. and I looked around with some interest, not to say foreboding, for the town in which my missionary labors were to be. After scanning the landscape with some care in silence I asked the driver, 'Where is Ft. Robinson ?' Pointing off across the valley and toward the buttes, he said, 'Just over th' hill an' th' trees a little ways ; yer can't see it f'm here.' I gained a little encouragement and asked.
NORTH FACE OF PINE RIDGE, NORTHWESTERN NEBRASKA
-
175
PIONEER EXPERIENCES
'Where is Crawford?' 'Wall th' aint much Crawford now. 'T's goin' to be over thar. Yer ken go out t' thet ridge thar an' see all ther is.'
"I went as directed. I could see a small, clear stream winding along under cottonwood trees and brush. I could see a line of embankment, evidently a partial grade for a railroad, and where the grade approached the stream a pile- driver was sending down the heavy posts for a bridge. That was a sign of coming life, but it wasn't a town. Over a little farther I could see a tent, and beside it a few pieces of timber sticking up in the air. Evidently some one had begun a building of some sort. That was all I could see. That was all there was to see. That tent contained the first stock of goods that was ever brought upon the site of the present city of Crawford, and those pieces of timber were the posts of the first frame building-a hardware store-erected in the town. That was Crawford as I saw it first in May, 1886.
"For a few days I was kindly entertained in the home of an officer at Ft. Robinson, and then I met Mr. Bross and a company of three of my fellow students from the semi- nary. They were traveling with a wagon, in real emigrant style, on their way to points' still farther up the line of the projected railroad. After a pleasant dinner about the camp- fire with them, and consultation with the General Mission- ary, which gave me a notion of what he wanted me to do, I bade my companions farewell and saw them move out of sight on the trail to Wyoming. Then I turned to the task before me.
"The town of Crawford had not come yet, and there was nothing to do at that point. But down the valley twelve miles farther was a little hamlet called then Eartlı Lodge. There my work was to begin. That same afternoon the ambulance, at the generous command of the officer who was
176
CONGREGATIONAL NEBRASKA
my host, took me to the settler's cabin at the foot of Crow Butte, to which Mr. Bross had directed me. There I found a Christian brother and a Christian home, housed in a log cabin. That evening was pleasantly spent in conversation, in singing gospel hymns, for this brother was a singer, and after the season of worship came rest and refreshing slumber.
"And there was sort of a weird, poetic charm about it. The slight shelter of that frail cabin, on the utmost rim of the regions inhabited by man, the mighty and desolate plains everywhere, and the great buttes, shadowed with pines, lifting swarthy shoulders into the night close at hand, and the silence of the great plains that stretched darkly beneath the starry heavens-all these spoke a mystic lan- guage, oppressive, yet enchanting. saddening, yet delight- ful. But the stars looked through the cabin window from their mighty heights and thoughts of home and thoughts of God sang a glorious lullaby.
"Early the following morning the brother took me to the corner of his farm and pointed out the location of Earth Lodge, and directed the way to it. Taking my grip from his hand, I trudged along afoot and finally found my way to Earthı Lodge. Ten or a dozen small houses huddled to- gether on the banks of the White river constituted the hamlet.
"Then I sent out the announcement of preaching for the next Sabbath, and began the work of getting acquainted with the people. I found Christian men and women, started a Sunday school, and kept up a preaching service during the summer. One thing may be of interest, and that is the straits to which I was put to find a place to study and prepare my sermons for Sunday. There was a 'hotel.' It consisted of three rooms and a shed kitchen. There was no room in which I could be by myself day times. A few hundred yards away ran 'Ash creek,' a small
177
PIONEER EXPERIENCES
stream whose banks were quite steep, and in the creek bot- tom were some trees. Under one of them was a log, quite well shaded by foliage. That shady nook I appropriated for a study, and during the most of that summer what reading I could do and the work of preparing my Sabbath sermons were done almost wholly in that outdoor study. My Bible and the commentary of nature were all the helps I had.
"Sabbath services at first were held in an empty store- room, in one corner of which was a land office, and boards with such supports as could be appropriated served as pews. Later in the summer, after the railroad came through, the town was removed to a site near the station and the name changed to. Whitney. A 'tabernacle' boarded up to the eaves, the roof covered with canvas, served the purposes of a sanctuary. The work at Whitney was kept up during that summer, but the town failed to develop, Congregation- ally speaking.
"Within about two weeks of the beginning of my work at Earth Lodge, nee Dawes City, nee Whitney, a rumor came that people were coming into Crawford. Promptly securing a pony, I rode down to investigate. Imagine my surprise when I came in sight of the place where I had seen, a few days before, a solitary tent and a part of a frame building, and beheld a village of at least two hundred inhabitants. The railroad graders were at work in the immediate vicinity of the town and things were 'booming.' There were two or three frame business houses of the fron- tier sort-light frame, rough boards, battened over cracks, no paint, no plaster, no finish,-the rest of the town con- sisted of tents, some of them stretched over a frame of two by fours, some with walls of wood; in fact every sort of a contrivance to make a temporary shelter for goods or workmen.
12
178
CONGREGATIONAL NEBRASKA
"It was a strange looking town. It was a motley col- lection of people. It was humanity in epitome. Business men, American and Jew; workmen, mostly carpenters, blacksmiths, and day laborers; frontiersmen of every stripe, hunters, freighters, cattlemen, land agents, railroad men of the various 'gangs'; negro soldiers of Ft. Robinson close at hand, and the floating population that infests a new town, toughs, gamblers, saloonkeepers, lewd women, and various other grades and sorts of degenerate humanity.
"One thing I soon noticed. There were no hotels and no residence houses. Every building was some sort of a business house, or shop, or office. Men, and their families if they had any, lived in their places of business. Restau- rants there were, but no rooms for lodging. Every man was supposed to have his own roll of blankets and find a place to spread them under his own or some one else's canvas. I soon discovered my former friend with whom I had lodged at Crow Butte on my way to Earth Lodge and covenanted with him for six feet of space on the floor of his wagon shop. My first step was to find a place in which Sabbath services could be held. After some inquiry, I learned of a large tent that was only partially occupied as a storeroom for a feed store, and from the owner I gained permission to use it for a preaching place. Then the an- nouncement was given out, and on the following Sabbath I preached the first sermon in Crawford. The tent was well filled. In one corner of it a young man had placed a barber's chair and was plying the tonsorial art Sabbath day. It was not until after the service had proceeded for some time that he ceased work.
"The audience consisted of representatives of nearly all the classes I have enumerated above as dwellers in the vil- lage, and were seated somewhat irregularly on boards and blocks; some on bran and meal sacks of various heights,
179
PIONEER EXPERIENCES
and many stood. But all were respectful and listened to the young and inexperienced missionary less critically, I am quite sure, than some much more highly favored au- diences would have done. I remember distinctly the text, Zech. 8:16-17, 'These are the things that ye shall do; speak ye every man the truth with his neighbor ; execute the judg- ments of truth and peace in your gates: And let none of you imagine evil in your hearts against your neighbor ; and love no false oath, for all these are things that I hate, saith the Lord.' Whatever may have been the tenor of the ser- mon, such a text certainly contained wholesome sentiment for such an audience and such a time.
"At the close of the sermon the question of Sunday school was presented. The blacksmith moved that we have a Sunday school 'to-day,' and the motion having carried, the audience resolved itself into classes, disposing itself among the planks and grain sacks to the best advantage possible, and an hour was spent in the study of the Sabbath school lesson.
"Preaching services were maintained from that day dur- ing the whole summer.
"In the earlier portion of my stay there we never knew one Sunday where the service would be held the next. Empty rooms in partially completed buildings were the favorite refuge, but the dining room of a hotel-when one was built-the waiting room of the depot are among the places which I remember served our purpose. Then I se- cured some posts and boards, set the posts in the ground, nailed the boards on, put up the frame of a roof, took some heavy ducking to the home of a lady and stitched the seams myself on her sewing machine, put this over the roof; my friend the wagon-maker assisted in making some benches, and we had a place to worship of our own. To be sure, the floor was mother earth, and our carpet the velvet grass,
Industrial scene along the Union Pacific railroad in Dawson county, Nebraska, show- ing a loess prairie under cultivation without irrigation. A timber claim may be seen beyond the stacks of grain. The loess soils of western Nebraska are as productive as those of eastern Nebraska under similar conditions of moisture. Photograph, Geological Expedition of the Hon, Chas. H. Morrill, University of Nebraska
18
PIONEER EXPERIENCES
but many worshipers among those whom the Father seek- eth to worship Him have lifted spiritual song and fervent prayer to the God and Father of us all in places less at- tractive and comfortable.
"Among the farmers who had settled in the country round about, and among the merchants, shopkeepers, and workmen I found Christian men, and also Christian women. A little band of these gathered each Sabbath, participated in the worship, assisted in the Sabbath school, and in a multitude of ways held up the hands of the young mis- sionary. Our superintendent, a young man from the east- ern part of Nebraska, would have done credit to any Sun- day school, and our teachers did faithful work.
"At the close of the summer a dozen names had been gathered for membership in the church to be organized, and a provisional organization was effected, and at that service one woman who united on confession was baptized.
"So far as my connection with this Crawford work is concerned, it remains only to add some details, and some incidents that may be of interest to the friends of home missions. After the work was started at both Whitney (Earth Lodge) and Crawford my plan was to preach every Sunday in each place. After the morning service at Whit- ney, I put my Bible and gospel songs in a sack, and tied them on the back of my saddle and rode to Crawford- twelve miles. There I preached in the afternoon. At first I tried to take a hasty dinner before starting for my second appointment, but I found that the motion of the horse made it impossible for me to get to Crawford with my dinner. So, of necessity, I had to postpone my Sunday meal until after the afternoon service.
"Among the most blessed experiences of that summer's work were my rides back from Crawford to Whitney, on Sabbath evenings, after the messages of the day had been
182
CONGREGATIONAL NEBRASKA
delivered and its work done. Nebraska, especially in its western portions, is a land of beautiful evenings. As my horse sauntered leisurely homeward, the shadows would fall softly on the rolling prairie, the western heavens would be painted on cloud and glowing blue in colors delicate, bril- liant, glorious, as with pencils of light in the hand of God. Through skies as clear as those of Italy or Syria the stars would look down, and then, over the glorious pine-fringed outlines of the eastern hills, would come forth the silver moon, shedding her soft indescribable glory over a land- scape that seemed to tremble for joy in the mellow light. And how could such a symphony fail to impart itself to the heart of man? But through the waning moonlight and above the voices of nature there came oft to the missionary a higher communication. The consciousness of the Father's presence, the approval of the Savior whose message had that day been delivered, however weakly, the deep gratitude to Him who had guided and supported the weakest of His servants in situations where the strongest would have been as tow to the fire without His grace, the deep sweet delight of fellowship with God in that lonely road :- these and a myriad emotions no pen can write down made that ride of a solitary horseman a pleasant and a blessed part of his life's experiences.
"Another little incident of delightful memory is con- nected with the process of securing the little tabernacle at Crawford. To get the lumber it became necessary to make a trip to a sawmill. This was located well up among the hills east of Crawford, toward the head of a huge gully, or small canyon, that made down from the 'Pine Ridge' into the plain below. After a brisk horseback ride in the crisp morning air, I came to the edge of the canyon, the sides of which were timbered to the bottom, which was perhaps 150 feet below. The road or trail wound around among the
183
PIONEER EXPERIENCES
pines, and toward the bottom of the glen a perfect mass of roses in full bloom, in beautiful contrast with the somber evergreen, made a picture of surpassing loveliness, and loaded the air with fragrance. No one knows how lovely a diversified landscape with forests is save him who has lived until his eyes have become weary of it upon an un- timbered prairie, and then suddenly come upon a royal view of timber.
"I have spoken of the difficulty of securing lodging dur- ing those first weeks in Crawford. A striking experience is associated in my mind with that fact. Of course in that day the gambling profession was liberally represented. It was no uncommon thing to see a man walk out of a saloon, set up a little three-legged stand in the middle of the main street, cry out, 'Walk up here, gentlemen, walk up, bet your money and win your pile. This way, fellers, this way,' and go forward with his gambling business as unconcern- edly as though he were selling fruit or notions. One of the favorite devices of this gentry was the 'ball and shell' trick. With his little stand, or some board or counter before him, the gambler produced the half of a shell, as of a large wal- nut, and three balls, each about the size of a pea. These he would appear to put under the shell, and manipulating them with great skill, induce some one to bet that one or more of the balls were under the shell, or were not, when of course the victim was taken in, or his money was, by the professional.
"For some days we had noticed one of these men about town who appeared to be of rather quiet disposition for one of his class. In fact, I am quite sure that he was in the audience the first time that I preached in Crawford, and of course he knew who I was. One day he spoke to me : 'Where are you going to sleep to-night?' I said, 'Oh, I don't know, I shall have to find a chance to turn in some-
TOADSTOOL PARK, SIOUX COUNTY BAD LANDS
185
PIONEER EXPERIENCES
where.' 'Well, say, come and sleep with me, I've got a good tent, all by myself, and a comfortable bed; the tent is in a quiet place, too.' I was a little surprised, I knew he was a gambler and he knew I was a preacher. I knew he had no thought of making money from me. At any rate, whatever his thought was, I was perfectly safe on that score. He couldn't enrich himself through me. I gave him an indecisive answer, thanking him for his offer. Again before night he repeated the invitation, and the outcome was that when night came on, I went with him to his tent and slept with him.
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.