History of Custer County, Nebraska; a narrative of the past, with special emphasis upon the pioneer period of the county's history, its social, commercial, educational, religous, and civic developement from the early days to the present time, Part 3

Author: Gaston, William Levi, 1865- [from old catalog]; Humphrey, Augustin R., 1859- [from old catalog]
Publication date: 1919
Publisher: Lincoln, Neb., Western publishing and engraving company
Number of Pages: 1180

USA > Nebraska > Custer County > History of Custer County, Nebraska; a narrative of the past, with special emphasis upon the pioneer period of the county's history, its social, commercial, educational, religous, and civic developement from the early days to the present time > Part 3

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HISTORY OF CUSTER COUNTY, NEBRASKA

the nearest of these outposts and find there some protection in making a stand.

It is altogether probable that the Allen field was one of these outposts, and was probably attached to Fort Kearney. It will be noted in another place that State Surveyor Robert Harvey finds an old wagon trail coming out of Valley county through Mira valley and entering Custer county in the vicinity of Woods Park. This trail came from the north- east and led in a southwest direction directly in line with the rifle pits described. It is

in the battle was in evidence when the first settlers came to the country. A\ skull which belonged to an Indian was found by the Allen brothers near the battle ground, where it had probably been exhumed by wind or coyotes from a shallow grave.

As late as August 18, 1918, Judge A. R. Humphrey found on the ground within the circle the stock of an old carbine.

Excavations made in the bottom of some of the pits disclosed deposits of charcoal which. no doubt, was the remains of fires built in

RIFLE PITS ON THE WESTERVILLE BATTLE-FIELD Curator E. E. Blackman at right; Judge A. R. Humphrey stands in one of the pits; W. L. Gaston at the right

possible that this trail is connected in some way with the battle field.

THE SIGNS OF BATTLE

Accepting the theory that this was an out- post. it is also evident that it was the scene of a battle. Arrow-heads in abundance have been picked up. This would show that In- dians were the parties engaged on one side. while broken guns, bullets, and parts of a sabre, would indicate that white men and sol- diers were the occupants of the pits. A mound supposed to be a field grave for soldiers killed

the pits, and might indicate that the stand was made in the fall of the year. when the weather was cold, but before the ground had frozen.

This is all that we know positively. There is a tradition that in an early day a band of Indians attacked a party of gold miners, re- turning from the Black IFills, and robbed them of a large amount of gold dust, that the soldiers followed them to recover the gold and that here they overtook the Indians and made their stand. Tradition also has it that a large number of Indians were killed and

HISTORY OF CUSTER COUNTY, NEBRASKA

only a few of the soldiers engaged survived. But the tradition lacks confirmation.

A FORT IN CUSTER COUNTY

To guard against the depredations of In- dians, the citizens of Douglas Grove built, in 1876, a fort which. at first, they named Fort Garber, in honor of the governor, but later, because no Indians came and the scare did not materialize in war whoops, tomahawks, and scalps, it was called Fort Disappointment.

It was built with bastioned corners, so that the Indians could not scale the walls from without, and was large enough to hold all the settlers. A well was dug inside for water supply, forty stands of arms were obtained from the government, and a company of state militia organized, called the Garber County Regulars. W. H. Comstock was made captain and from that time forth the genial pioneer was known as Captain Comstock.

NEW HELENA FRIGHTENED

About the same time, rumors of an Indian outbreak and massacre further north fright- ened the people of New Helena or Victoria Creek. The Omuha Bee published an account of the massacre of settlers in the Middle Loup valley. J. N. Dryden, now of Kearney, then sent the following note addressed to the sur- viving citizens of Victoria Creek :

Douglas Grove, May 27, 1876. To the Surviving Citizens of Victoria Creek :

My Dear Friends: I send you all the in- formation relative to the movements of the Indians I am able to procure and think is reliable.

The clippings are from the late Omaha and Chicago dailies. Saw Mr. Merchant's folks off all right on the 6:45 train Thursday morning. They were very uneasy about Mr. Merchant. Truly. J. N. D.

This general uprising of the Sioux, who resented the intrusion of miners pushing into the Black Hills territory, so frightened the people of New Helena that when they re- ceived the Dryden note, they rallied the settlers and built a fort of cedar logs on the Forsythe place, but some of the families were so fright- ened that they fled the country. After the

fort was built Judge Mathews applied to the state for arms and received fourteen rifles and two thousand rounds of cartridges. Most of the people who had fled for safety returned to their claims. Their fears proved groundless. No Indians came. So it can be stated on the best authority that no settlers of Custer county were ever seriously molested by Indians.

Douglas Lors magring

The surviving leitungen

His cuformationnet- ative to the movementi if the indians. Iam lable to? . procure. y Check this release. The cliff wing are from HE Pato Omaña vehib. .. Dailies- Jour Ar Ther- chauts folks off all nuny Van che 16.45 main Thursday mama-28 nem verdiunidad almir

Mr. M-

July

FACSIMILE OF LETTER OF J. N. DRYDEN

AN INDIAN BATTLE

On the 4th day of July, 1918, A. K. Holmes, editor and publisher of the Taylor Clarion, published the following account of an early battle, which took place in Custer county, between a surveying party of twelve men and

HISTORY OF CUSTER COUNTY, NEBRASKA

a marauding tribe of Indians. The article here appended has been submitted to the old settlers of the northeast corner of the county and, according to their testimony, the Clarion account is authentic. Mr. Holmes writes a personal letter in which he states that the William Stevens mentioned in the article is a very reliable and trustworthy citizen and ab- solute dependence can be placed upon his word. C. E. Gibbons, of Comstock, also bears testi- mony to the standing and character of Will- iam Stevens, and he, with others, locates the scene of battle close to the junction of Spring creek, which heads on Gibbons' place three or four miles southwest of Comstock and al- most directly south of Comstock forms its junction with the Middle Loup river. This locates the battle ground aproximately three and one-half miles south of Comstock.

THIE CLARION ARTICLE

The following article, under the caption "A no man's land of early days," is the one re- ferred to above:

Like all the pioneer settlers of forty years ago. William Stevens depended on Central City and Grand Island as his railroad points. The road down the valley, as then traveled. was long and wearisome. It was sometimes on one side of the Loup river, and then on the other, just as the exigencies of the breaks and soils and untamed wilds demanded. The trips were not always free from dangers, nor were the drivers always care free as to the safety of families and properties left at home dur- ing the week or more of absence. There was 10 rapid transit of message in those days, and the valley never echoed the chug of the auto bringing help in case of unanticipated dis- tress or Indian visitation.

But the trips were frequently enlivened by impressive incident, experiences relatedl, or tra- ditions and tales told over, which now stand out in the memory of the pioneer as a pleas- urable and cherished reminiscence. It has been so always, and everywhere. In taming the wilds of every country the pioneers en- acted the scenes which subsequently became the play puppets of the retrospective hour.

Mr. Stevens occasionally hauled loads of cedar posts to Central City. Small and few as were his financial transactions in those days, some were certain to come, and the posts of-

fered one of the very few solutions to the incoming revenue problem.

Stopping at nightfall with some lone settler on the endless prairie, who was trying to de- velop a home amidst the haunts of the coyotes, the owls, and the rattlesnakes, the driver could get his night's lodging and hay for the team for twenty-five cents. The quarter looked very big and very welcome to the owners of the soddies on the claims down the valley.

On one of those trips. Mr. Stevens found the bridge at St. Paul washed away, and so he proceeded to Fullerton, in the hope that he might be able to get across, perhaps over the ferry. It was while there that Mr. Stevens met a resident of the town who had in pre- vious years been a member of a United States surveying party of twelve which made the original federal survey of this country. And thence we get this little tale.

Like in many such instances, there are no positive means of identifying locations. Dis- tances were not accurately known. But from the surveyor's minute description of the creck. its bank, another draw to the southward. sep- arated from the creek by a level prairie, the upward slope to the south of the draw, and the hills and canyons beyond, - these, and other minutiae, enabled Mr. Stevens to feel satisfied that the location lay upon the land he had subsequently homesteaded. He has an- other proof - which is quite conclusive. In the field and pastured hills on the up-slope south of the draw, he has since picked up per- haps half a hundred of rifle balls, which had in the after years lain where they struck or fell. Their numbers indicated an old-time battle-field.

The surveying party was engaged along the creek near its mouth, one morning, when a band of Indians came out of the canyon to the south and advanced northward. It didn't mat- ter to what tribe they belonged, for they were warlike in manner and too numerous to justify a parley for negotiations. The sur- veyors dropped below the creek bank for shel- ter, feeling that such situation would offer means for an advantageous resistance. The government had provided them with the old- time, long-range "Needle-guns"-and it was now time to use them.

Before the Indians got to the draw the sur- veyors began to pick them off as best they could. So it was but natural that the red- skins should crouch in the draw for their own protection. Their guns were of the short- range class, and they could not reach the sur- veyors. They were safe in the draw, but they dare not venture across the level to-

HISTORY OF CUSTER COUNTY, NEBRASKA

ward the surveyors. Both parties were safe where they were, but neither dared to show itself in open, and neither cared to assert claim to the expanse between - for it was a "No Man's Land" of another day.

Yet neither could get away without taking chances. So they kept up their spasmodic ex- change of compliments through all that by- gone day, both waiting for the welcome cloak of the night-time to cover their strategic de- signs.

When darkness came, as an encompassing friend, the plans that were evolved during the day were set in motion, and the surveying

they came. That would have been the ro- mance of history.

The same hills that reverberated o'er the val- ley the desultory crack of the defender's rifle that day are still sitting guard at the valley's brink, but they now send back the echoes of agricultural and pastoral pursuit - for the "No Man's Land" of that pioneer day is a field in the "one man's land" of the present, sending its corn from the ditches and dairy products from the herd, -all as silent testi- mony of the changes of time.

The same creek (now known as Spring creek) wanders through the same crooks, and

[From Butcher History of Custer County]

AN EARLY WINTER SCENE

party began its "strategic withdrawal." Slip- ping along under the bank of the creek to the river, they were soon quietly going with the stream to surroundings that promised greater safety. But there was no further conflict.

Such is the story as it was outlined to us. The original relator went no further. The next chapter, if any, was not revealed. And why did the Indians not follow? It is every- body's guess. They could have harassed - but they did not. Possibly they, too, were strategists. Perhaps they also longed for the cover of darkness, in order that they might likewise resort to a "strategic retreat." and go slinking back to the canyon from whence

the same banks to-day afford tempting play- grounds for the romping children of anglers who cast hook or seine in the quiet little chan- nel.

More rifle balls lie plugged in the slope and the hill sides, waiting to be picked up by some wandering stroller who will stand and wonder. He may not have even the shadowy tradition of the two belligerent parties - each sneaking away in a strategic retreat - to give direction to his imaginative tread.

WHO WAS THE FIRST WHITE MAN ?

Coming now to the days in which men made records and wrote history - who was the first

HISTORY OF CUSTER COUNTY, NEBRASKA

white man that ever set eyes on Custer coun- ty? Who, among all the explorers of early days, had opportunity to camp in this re- gion ? Following Columbus came the Cabots, Vespucius, and Magellan, DeSoto, Balboa. Ponce de Leon, Coronado, Drake, and a dozen such kindred spirits. They tramped the con- tinent and sought for gold, for territory, for hot springs of youth and any form of wealth the new land might possess, but did they ever see Nebraska ? Did their expeditions ever ex- tend so far west or so far east, did any of them come up from the south or drop down from the north into our central Nebraska? Suspicion at- taches to none of them un- less it be to Coronado.

DID CORONADO FIND US

If we can be- lieve his biog- raphers, some of his explor- ing party may have been the first Euro- peans to have seen Custer county. In July of 1541 this Spanish [ Photo by S. D. Butcher] general and explorer, bent en exploring the country he called Quivera, came out of New Mexico from the south and west and penetrated into the region of Nebraska as far north as the Platte river, and how much farther we do not know. From the Coronado camp on the Platte, it is not unlikely that the hunters rode out in all directions and, if so, perhaps they might have touched the south part of our young domin- ion. If Coronado did not find us then, per- haps we were discovered a few years later by Padilla, a Franciscan friar, who was one of the Coronado party and who returned to do

missionary work among the Indians in the Platte region. According to tradition, Padilla not only labored for several months among a powerful tribe of Nebraska Indians, but it was here that he lost his life and in Nebraska soil. perhaps not far removed from Custer county, his bones went back to virgin dust. During his operations he had with him per- haps a dozen men, mostly friars and body- servants, and imagination need not labor hard to believe that some of them wandered far enough north to reach this county and to have been among the first, if not the first. to set foot on Custer county soil, or walk the green carpet of Cus- ter prairies.

PLENTY OF WILD GAME

AN OLD SETTLER ON THE SOUTH LOUP

Perhaps here they hunted the buffaloes or other deni- zens of the new land. The country then must have been a hunt- ers' paradise. Buffaloes ranged in such numbers that s tam peding herds made the ground tremble, while the sound of their treading resembled dis- tant thunder. Elk and deer were plenti- ful in those days. Antelope and wild tur- keys, with goose and grouse, added varie- ty to the hunters' menu and fattened the red man on savory meats that kings could not buy.

Since Coronado and Padilla may have found our location and looked it over full centuries before this generation fell heir to its posses- sions, we will list their advent as among the possibilities, and for want of better record, let it go at that.

HISTORY OF CUSTER COUNTY, NEBRASKA

OTHER EXPEDITIONS

The Lewis and Clark expedition of 1803 passed by so far to the north and east, that it is not likely that any side expeditions were made into the Custer county region. They followed the Missouri river from their Coun- cil Bluff's camp to where it crosses the state line, a route that missed the Custer portion of the state by nearly a hundred miles.

There is still another chance that we may have been exposed to the survey of an early expedition. A party of French Canadians, eight or ten in number, in charge of Pierre and Paul Mallet spent one winter at the junc- tion of the Niobrara and Missouri rivers and from there journeyed south until they dis- covered and named the Platte river. As the river course seemed to lead in the direction they wished to go, they followed it sourceward for seventy miles and then traversed a wood- less plain. Some of their side expeditions or hunting parties might have visited some of the places now in the confines of this county, and have been the first or second white party to behold it.

Zebulon M. Pike missed a mighty good chance to pay us a visit as long ago as 1806, when he conducted his expedition from east- ern Missouri to the Colorado mountains, where he nailed his name to the high, bald mountain now known as Pike's Peak. Some writers claim that he traveled through parts of south- ern and central Nebraska. But Kansas is sel- fish, and down four miles south of Hardy, Nebraska. and at least three miles south of the Nebraska-Kansas state line, it has erected a monument and marked it "The northern limit of the Pike route." Unless that stone comes as wide of the truth as tombstones often do, Lieutenant Pike never saw our territory, un- less he had unusually long vision when he looked north and east from the tip-top rocks of his mountain namesake.

In the winter time of 1812. one Robert Stu- art, a Scotchman, who went west in the year before. in an expedition headed by himself and Wilson Price Hunt, wandered back with a few of his party to the headwater of the Platte river, where they undertook to winter.

The Indians routed them out of their winter quarters, and they journeyed east three hun- dred and thirty miles down the river, when they were stopped by heavy snows and, not finding comfortable winter quarters, they turned back toward what is now Scotts Bluff county, where they remained for the rest of the winter. It may be that they invaded Cus- ter county.

Captain Henry Dodge, with an expedition of soldiers. came out of the southeast in 1835 and must have penetrated almost, if not quite, to the Custer county line.

GENERAL WARREN WAS HERE IN 1855

In 1855 or 1856 Lieutenant G. K. Warren, a major-general in the Civil war, conducted a military exploring expedition up the Loup valley in search of the most suitable route for a transcontinental railway. His route was along the north side of the Loup river, through the Pawnee Indian village, forded the North Fork and crossed the present townsite of St. Paul, as later shown by his wagon tracks, thence along the north side of the Middle Loup to its source. This road was very plait in 1872 when Robert Harvey made the govern- ment survey on the north side of the river. It was made by an old military expedition as shown by the uniform wide-gauge and grass- covered wagon tracks, and was the only wagon train in the Loup valley. There was also an old, wide-gauge, grass-covered wagon trail through Woods Park, leading out of Mira valley in Valley county. These trails cross each other on the north side of the Middle Loup river in the Woods Park vicinity. Mr. Harvey mentions in his surveyor's field notes the point where the trails cross.

JOHN WILMOUTH THE FIRST MAN HERE

One of the questions of burning interest for the purposes of this history is: Who was the first white man to come into the county on any pretext whatsoever, is now alive, and of whom there is a definite record? If information ob- tained is correct the question can be answered. In the hills seven miles northeast of Merna is the home of Uncle John Wilmouth. Uncle John lives on the same homestead upon which

HISTORY OF CUSTER COUNTY, NEBRASKA

he settled in the spring of 1883 and which has been his home continuously since that time. He has never mortgaged it nor offered it for sale. He lives in a sod house, which has been repaired as the occasion required, and as the years passed. His good wife lives with him and although they are advancing in years they are in comfortable circumstances.

If the story that Uncle John tells is cor- rect, beyond any doubt he is the first white man to have seen Custer county and who is still living.

UNCLE JOHN'S STORY

Uncle John does not know his age but thinks that he was born probably in 1831 or 1832. His brother, George Wilmouth, who lives in Broken Bow, is sixty-six years of age, and George is the youngest of eleven chil- dren, while John is the oldest. Naturally that would substantiate the dates Uncle John gives for his birth. He says that when he was a boy of sixteen or seventeen he ran away from his home in Virginia, with another boy about the same age, and that they made their way down the Ohio and Mississippi rivers to St. Louis, where they joined a caravan of Mor- mons en route for Salt Lake ; that with them he passed over the Platte river trail through Nebraska in 1851. He claims to have spent nine very exciting years in Utah and the moun- tain region, during which he had many start- ling encounters with Indians. He claims to have been captured by Indians two or three times and exhibits knots and scars on his wrists and hands which show the Indians tied him with sharp thongs that cut through the skin into the flesh. In the carly spring of 1860, in company with twenty or twenty-five other men, he started on the return trip to the states. They made their way through Wyoming and into the region of the Bad Lands and the south line of the Dakotas. Here Uncle John gives a graphic description of a rendezvous of thieves whom they found in this locality and with whom he and one or two others of the party had an exciting adventure. From this place the party headed south in an cn- deavor to reach Fort Kearney. Members of

the party fell out along the route or were killed by Indians until there were only eight or nine left in the company that turned south through Nebraska. Uncle John thinks that his party struck the Middle Loup river and followed it down into the region of Custer county and that they were probably in Cus- ter county when surrounded by a band of Indians with whom they had a hard fight. Their horses got away from them but were not captured by the Indians, and after Uncle John and three or four of the survivors suc- ceeded in crawling away from the Indians um1- der cover of night they were fortunate enough to find their horses in a canyon pocket next morning. They succeeded in catching the horses and started south in the direction of Kearney with all possible haste. They crossed the South Loup river, Uncle John thinks, some- where near the present site of Oconto and in about a day's ride from that place they came in sight of the United States flag and in a short time after they sighted the flag they met United States soldiers. They were none too soon, however, for a cloud of dust rising from the plains back along the way they had come showed plainly that the Indians were pur- suing them.

This is Uncle John's story. It has to be taken, analyzed, and examined in the light of every possibility. Could it be true? Is it possible that it is true? Is it probably true ? All these are questions to be considered. It must be taken into consideration that Uncle John is old, and memory is treacherous. Uncle John's neighbors are inclined to believe that approaching old age makes suggestions and fancies personal realities. This is one of the caprices of old age and halting memory. On the other hand the story could have been true. The dates fixed make it all possible if not probable. Seven years ago Uncle Jolin recited to a creditable witness the same story, with the same details, which he recites now to Judge A. R. Humphrey and the recorder of this story. Uncle John's description of con- ditions in Utah and western Colorado is true to conditions that prevailed at the time he says he was there. His account of the thieves en-

HISTORY OF CUSTER COUNTY, NEBRASKA

countered in Dakota and description of their rendezvous tallies exactly with the under- ground railroad story related by Robert Har- vey in another chapter of this volume. The United States flag which he claims to have seen at or near Fort Kearney helps to cor- roborate his story, for there was at that time a tall flag pole from which the flag continually floated, standing on a prominence in front of the fort. A portion of this flag pole is now in the historical museum in the state library at Lincoln.

It is altogether probable that Uncle John's stimulated imagination may account for some of the details he recites, yet we think it al- together possible and probable that he made the trip he claims to have made, at or near the time he claims to have made it, and as none can dispute the story it becomes credit- able history and accordingly we make the state- ment that Uncle John Wilmouth is the first man to have seen Custer county who is still alive.

CHAPTER II

DESCRIPTIONS, LINES AND BOUNDARIES

TABLE LANDS AND VALLEYS - UNDULATIONS TABULATED - TOWNS AND RANGES - NO TECHNICAL TERMS - HARVEY'S CONTRIBUTION - BRIDGING CLEAR CREEK - A MUTINY - FIND RUINS OF OLD FORTIFICATIONS - AN IMPENDING INDIAN BATTLE - A CAMP FIRE - FIND AN ERROR ON FIFTHI PARALLEL - A LAME OX AND THE REMEDY - NAMES OF CREEKS - FOOLING THE COOK - GOVERNMENT SURVEYS - CUSTER COUNTY WEATHER - TEMPERATURE AND PRECIPITATION TABLES

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History of Custer County, Nebraska; a narrative of the past, with special emphasis upon the pioneer period of the county's history, its social, commercial, educational, religous, and civic developement from the early days to the present time, Part 3

Author: Gaston, William Levi, 1865- [from old catalog]; Humphrey, Augustin R., 1859- [from old catalog] Publication date: 1919 Publisher: Lincoln, Neb., Western publishing and engraving company Number of Pages: 1180

Author: Gaston, William Levi, 1865- [from old catalog]; Humphrey, Augustin R., 1859- [from old catalog]
Publication date: 1919
Publisher: Lincoln, Neb., Western publishing and engraving company
Number of Pages: 1180