USA > Nebraska > Dodge County > History of Dodge and Washington Counties, Nebraska, and their people, Volume I > Part 36
USA > Nebraska > Washington County > History of Dodge and Washington Counties, Nebraska, and their people, Volume I > Part 36
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For the organization and description of local history of the several township histories the reader is referred to the Township History section of this work. It may be added, however, in this connection that the pres- ent civil townships in Washington County include the following: Her- man, Sheridan, Grant, Lincoln, Cuming City, Fontenelle, Arlington, Rich- land, Fort Calhoun, De Soto and Blair.
AN ABSTRACT OF NEBRASKA AND WASHINGTON COUNTY
The present State of Nebraska and Washington County have been carved from territory located, bounded and possessed by countries as follows: Pioneer W. H. Woods, of Fort Calhoun, and correspondent of the State Historical Society, in a paper published in 1915, is our authority for the subjoined abstract of this county and state :
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Louisiana Purchase, 1803. Louisiana Territory, 1805. Territory of Missouri, 1812. Indian Territory, 1834. Nebraska Territory, 1852. Separated from Kansas, 1854. Nebraska State, 1867. Washington County, 1854. Reorganized Washington County, 1860. Cavillier History : Fur trading post, 1802. Lewis & Clark two camps; and one council with the Indians-"Council Point" and "Pumice Stone Camp," 1804. General Atkinson and the farthest military post in the United States-"Camp Missouri," "Camp Hook" and Fort Atkinson, Fort Calhoun, 1819-27. and Major Long's engineers' cantonment and outfitting station, 1819-20.
The oldest known cavalier in Nebraska, Captain Contal, who was brought by his parents to old Fort Atkinson, died in Blair, 1903. And old Rockport, in this county, claims Madame Lesa, 1819, the first white woman to settle on Nebraska soil. Fort Calhoun, Washington County, claims the first apple orchard in the state, the first county courthouse and the first church parsonage in Nebraska. Fontanelle the first seminary in the state, and Cuming City the first $20,000 college incorporation in the state. Blair holds a chip over her shoulder over her pioneer Jacob Goll who came to Washington County in 1847 and settled on his claim in 1849 and was buried in Blair in 1906. In 1854 the Fontanelle colony purchased twenty miles square from the Indians for $100 dollars in gold (some aver the amount was a $10 gold coin). The Lewis & Clark monu- ment was erected at Fort Calhoun in the school campus with military ceremonies August 3, 1904. The old fort was established here by Gen- eral Atkinson in 1819, 780 miles from St. Louis and 580 miles from a postoffice and abandoned in 1827. In 1822 they farmed 556 acres of land ; had a grist and sawmill, library and school. In 1823 the troops raised and gathered 8,839 bushels of corn. Antone Barada, the strongest man ever known on the Missouri River, was born near the mouth of Fish Creek in 1807. Fort Calhoun with its beautiful park, history and scenery is the finest place in the state for the gatherings of the pioneers and old settlers.
Fort Calhoun is one of the chief corner-stones in the history of the West, between St. Louis and the British possessions. Beside Lewis and Clark and old Fort Atkinson here at the fort is recorded the story of the first New Year celebration in what is now nine states, in 1821, and here too, the first white child born in that region in 1824. Here, soon after the great chief, Logan Fontenelle, and Mary La Fleshe, the wife of his successor, and here too is buried the first white girl that made her home in the present City of Omaha, and the very first mail route north of Kansas was established by act of Congress in 1854 to run from Table Creek and end at Fort Calhoun.
Ten miles southwest of Fort Calhoun was the winter quarters of the Mormons on their way to Salt Lake, who raised 300 soldiers for the Mexican war, probably in 1846 and probably one or two years after the famous Mormon Prophets Brigham Young and Oscar Pratt spent one winter in log cabins four miles northwest of Fort Calhoun. Brigham Young's cabin still remained in 1871. Previous to 1860 the north line of Washington County lay one mile north of Fort Calhoun and the south line two miles south of Florence. Florence or "Winter Quarters" was the county seat. Fontanelle was then the county seat of Dodge County.
Fort Calhoun was sixty years old in March, 1915, and celebrated her second pioneer centennial for Fort Atkinson September 19, 1919, to follow her Lewis and Clark centennial celebrated in 1904. Thus Washington County from 1804 to 1860 contained more real pioneer history than all the rest of Nebraska.
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Nebraska Territory in 1852 contained all the lands belonging to the United States for 800 miles west of the State of Missouri and north to British Columbia, now seven states and territories, and in that entire region there were 300 white men, each holding a license from the govern- ment at Washington, and the soldiers were ordered to see that no more white men be permitted to make homes in this territory now peopled by millions.
COUNTY SEAT OF WASHINGTON COUNTY
The following is a concise description of locating the various county seats of Washington County, the same is by the pen of Frank McNeely and may therefore be relied upon as correct :
"In 1855 an act was passed by the Territorial Legislature reorganizing Washington County and designating Fort Calhoun, as the county seat.
"De Soto, a small village five miles north of Fort Calhoun, wished the county seat to be moved there. In the winter of 1858 a crowd of De Soto citizens organized and with arms went to Fort Calhoun to take the county seat by force. Fort Calhoun citizens barricaded themselves in the log courthouse and held off the De Soto band until the afternoon of the sec- ond day when by compromise the county seat was turned over to De Soto. One man was killed in this contest in which I was a participant.
"The county seat remained in De Soto until an election in the fall of 1866, when the vote of the people re-located it at Fort Calhoun where it remained until 1869. An election in the latter year made Blair the county seat.
"A courthouse was built in Blair, the present county seat of Wash- ington county, in 1889 at a cost of $50,000.
"In the early days every new town (and they were all new) was ambitious to become the county seat and many of them hoped to have the honor of becoming the capital of the territory. Washington County had its full share of aspiring towns and most of them got beyond the paper stage. There were De Soto, Fort Calhoun, Rockport, Cuming City and last but not least-Fontanelle then in Washington County, now a deserted village in Dodge County. Of these only Fort Calhoun remains more than a memory. De Soto was founded by Potter C. Sullivan and others in 1854 and in 1857 had about five hundred population. It began to go down in 1859 and when the city of Blair was started its decline was rapid. Rock- port, which was in the vicinity of the fur trading establishments of early days, was a steamboat landing of some importance and had at one time a population of half a hundred or more. Now only the beautiful landscape remains. Cuming City like De Soto, received its death blow when Blair was founded and now the townsite is given over to agricultural purposes."
CHAPTER II INDIAN TREATY AND EARLY SETTLEMENT
LEWIS AND CLARK EXPLORERS HOLD COUNCIL WITH INDIANS IN 1804- BURIAL OF BIG ELK, LAST CHIEF TO DIE IN WASHINGTON COUNTY -BURIED NEAR FORT CALHOUN IN 1854-EARLY SETTLEMENT BY WHITE MEN-FORTS ATKINSON AND CALHOUN-SETTLEMENT IN VARIOUS PARTS OF THE COUNTY-AN INTERESTING REMINISCENCE ON EARLY DAYS-WHERE THE PIONEERS EMIGRATED FROM-THE MORMON'S SOJOURN-THE QUINCY COLONY-CLAIM-JUMPING AND EARLY MURDER.
FIRST WHITE SETTLEMENT
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The first white settlement to be effected within what is now known as Washington County was that made about old Fort Atkinson-later called Fort Calhoun, hard by the west bank of the Missouri River in the south- eastern part of the present limits of the county, in about 1819, when Fort Atkinson was constructed by the United States Government, and which event was made the subject of a well-attended centennial celebration at Fort Calhoun in 1919. Some time after Lewis and Clark made their report on this section of the country, and prior to 1818, the first white men commenced to invade this territory as traders and explorers. The reader is referred to further articles on the settlement as shown in the various township and village histories of this work, wherein names and dates are entered into more in detail than is necessary in this connection.
THE SECOND SETTLEMENT
After the settlement by army families and traders at Fort Calhoun vicinity, came the Fontenelle settlement in the western portion of the county, by the Quincy Colony, who settled under the auspices of the "Nebraska Colonization Company," in 1854. The account of this noted settlement is found in this work in the township history section. (See Fontanelle Township.)
THE DE SOTO SETTLEMENT
The settlement made at and in the vicinity of De Soto, was made in 1854-55, and within a few months more than thirty log cabins were erected and soon occupied by newcomers. Just below that point the fleeing Mormon band (Latter Day Saints) in their flight from Nauvoo, Illinois, had stopped about 1846 and remained several years before going on to the Promised Land-Utah. Near De Soto lived their illustrious leader-Brigham Young and Orson Pratt, on land where later the De Soto flouring mill was built. The early gentiles found many brick- bats left from the brick kilns burned by the Mormon settlers. (See De Soto history.)
OTHER SETTLEMENTS
An account of other settlements in this county will be found in the several township and village histories in this volume. (See index.)
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DEPARTED PIONEERS
In August, 1920, historian W. H. Woods of Fort Calhoun, of the Old Settlers' Association, reported the following persons who had passed from earth's shining circle since last year, the same being Terri- torial pioneers, those who resided in Washington County when it was yet in the Territory of Nebraska :
Ephriam Gilliam, Herman Stork, James R. Hastings, George N. Weise Oliver O. Fox, Mrs. Anna Ruwe, Mrs. Soren Asmussen, Anna H. Web- ber, Mrs. J. P. Wishart, Carl Otto Jensen, F. N. Gilliand, Oliver Bouvier, Mrs. Mary Teats, George Sutherland, Charles Osterman, Mrs. Cornelia Olsen, Mrs. J. W. Newell, Sr., Mrs. Mary E. Parker, W. G. Cunningham, Duane Brown, A. C. Jones, I. N. Branhall, Thomas P. Kennard, George W. Watson.
HISTORIC ITEMS OF WASHINGTON COUNTY
Mrs. May Allen Lazure, well-known to the people of Washington County, a few years since made this historic record of some interest- ing items on the early day history of the county, and from such writings we are permitted to quote freely :
Alfred D. Jones, the first postmaster of Omaha, tells in the Pioneer Record of the first Fourth of July celebration in Omaha and Nebraska, as well.
"On July 4th, 1854, I was employed in the work of surveying the townsite of Omaha. At this time there were only two cabins on the townsite, my postoffice building and the company claim house. The latter was used as our boarding house. Inasmuch as the Fourth would be a holiday, I concluded it would be a novelty to hold a celebration on Nebraska soil. I therefore announced that we would hold a cele- bration and invited the people of Council Bluffs, by inserting a notice in the paper, and requested that those who would participate should prepare a lunch for the occasion.
"We got forked stakes and poles along the river, borrowed bolts of sheeting from the store of James A. Jackson, and thus equipped, we erected an awning to shelter from the sun those who attended. Anvils were procured, powder purchased and placed in charge of cautious gunners, to make a noise for the crowd. The celebration was held on the present high school grounds.
"The picnickers came with their baskets, and the gunner dis- charged his duty nobly. A stranger in our midst was introduced as Mr. Sawyer, an ex-congressman from Ohio."
I had a life-long acquaintance with one of those early picnickers, Mrs. Rhoda Craig, a daughter of Thomas Allen, who built the first house in Omaha. She often told the story of the first Fourth of July celebration there. Their fear of the Indians was so great that as soon as dinner was over, they hurried to their boats and rowed across to Council Bluffs for safety.
Another pioneer woman was Aimee Taggart Kenny, who came to Fontanelle with her parents when a small child. Her father was a Baptist missionary in Nebraska, and his earliest work was with the Quincy Colony. I have heard her tell the following experience :
"On several occasions we were warned that the Indians were about to attack us. In great fear we gathered in the schoolhouse and watched all night, the men all well armed. But we were never molested. Another
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time, mother was alone with us children. Seeing the Indians approach- ing we locked the doors, went into the attic by means of an outside ladder and looked out through the cracks. We saw the red men try the door, peep in at the window, and then busy themselves chewing up mother's home-made hop yeast, which had been spread out to dry. They made it into balls and tossed it all away."
John T. Bell of Newberg, Oregon, contributed the following :
"I have a pleasant recollection of your grandfather Allen. My father's and mother's people were all Southerners and there was a kind- liness about Mr. and Mrs. Allen that reminded me of my own folks back in Illinois. I often stopped to see them when going to and from Calhoun mill.
"I was also well acquainted with Mrs. E. H. Clark, and Rev. Mr. Taggart and his family were among the most highly esteemed residents of our little settlement of Fontanelle. Mr. Taggart was a man of fine humor. It was the custom in those early days for the entire com- munity to get together on New Year's Day and have a dinner at the 'College.' There would be speech-making, and I remember that on one occasion Mr. Taggart said that no doubt the time would come when we would all know each other's real names and why we left the States.
"The experiences of the Bell family with the early Nebraska days were ones of privation. We came to Nebraska in 1856, quite well equipped with stock-four good horses and four young cows which we had driven behind the wagon from Western Illinois. The previous winter had been very mild and none of the settlers were prepared for the dreadful snow storm which came on the last day of November and continued for three days and nights. Our horses and cows were in the stable made by squaring up the head of a small gulch and covering the structure with slough grass. At the end of the storm when father could get out to look after the stock there was no sign of the stable. The low ground it occupied was leveled off by many feet of snow. He finally located the roof and found the stock alive and that was about all. The animals suffered greatly that winter and when spring came we had left only one horse and no cows. That lone horse was picking the early grass when he was bitten in the nose by a rattle snake and died from the effects. One of those horses 'Old Fox' was a noble character. We had owned him as long as I could remember and when he died we children all cried. I have since owned a good many horses but not one equalled Old Fox in the qualities that go to make up a perfect creature.
"After the Civil war my brother Will and I were the only members of our family left in Nebraska. We served with Grant and Sherman and then went back to Fontanelle, soon afterward beginning the improve- ment of our farm on Bell Creek in the western part of the county. By that time conditions had so improved in Nebraska that hardships were not so common. I was interested in tree planting even as a boy and one of the distinct recollections of our first summer in Nebraska was getting so severely poisoned in the woods on the Elkhorn, when digging up young sprouts, that I was entirely blind. A colored man living in Fontanelle told father that white paint would cure me and so I was painted wherever there was a breaking out with satisfactory results.
"Later the planting of cottonwood, box elder, maple and other trees became a general industry in Nebraska and I am confident that I planted 20,000 trees, chiefly cottonwood. To J. Sterling Morton, one
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of Nebraska's earliest and most useful citizens, Nebraska owed a debt of gratitude. He was persistent in the advocating of planting trees. In his office hung a picture' of an oak tree; on his personal cards was a picture of an oak tree with the legend 'Plant Trees'; on his letterheads, on his envelopes was borne the same injunction and the picture of an oak tree. On the marble door step of his home was cut the picture of an oak tree and the words 'Plant Trees'; on the ground glass of the entrance door was the same emblem. I went to a theater he had built and on the drop curtain was a picture of an oak tree and the words, 'Plant trees'; today the body of this useful citizen lies buried under the trees he planted in Wyuka Cemetery, near Nebraska City."
CLAIM-JUMPING AND AN EARLY MURDER
Fort Calhoun was the scene of one of the earliest murders in Wash- ington County-the date was in the month of June, 1855. From the most reliable data concerning this unfortunate affair, and which has found its way into the annals prepared by the Daughters of the American Revolution, we are permitted to here give in brief its history :
In June of the year 1855, for the consideration of a one-ninth interest in the town, E. H. Clark contracted with the proprietors to put up a building on the town site for a hotel, said building to be 24 by 28 feet, two stories high and with an ell of the same dimensions, the structure to be of hewn logs and put up in good style. The con- tract was in writing and as soon as the building was completed each member of the company was to deed Mr. Clark by quit-claim, his proportion of the lots to be taken indiscriminately from all parts of the town. He immediately, with six men, commenced the getting out of the timber, boarding in the meantime with Major Arnold's family and laboring under many disadvantages, both for want of skilled laborers and teams. The men were newly arrived from Virginia none of whom had ever done manual labor but were out of money and must do something; so had imposed themselves on Mr. Clark as men from a timbered country and used to such work and as hands were not readily obtained in those days he had to submit, paying them $2 a day each, and their board. For teams he hired a yoke of oxen from the settlers as they could spare them from their own work. What lumber was neces- sary for the building had to be obtained from Omaha (where a mill had been started) at $60 per thousand and hauled in a circuitous route by the old Mormon Trail, a distance of eighteen miles.
About August 10, the claim cabin of the town company having been vacated, one Charles T. Davis in a very unostentatious manner moved in and filed a claim on the town site and served a written notice on Mr. Clark to quit trespassing on the claim. The latter notified the company of his action and kept on drawing material on the ground for his building and after three days, Davis sued him for trespassing, fixing his damage at $100 for which he afterwards obtained judgment and Clark paid it. Mr. Clark then notified the company that he should sell his material and leave unless they took steps to put the title out of controversy. They returned word for him to go on with the work and they would guarantee the title. A day or so afterward, when engaged with all the neighbors in raising the building, a number of the company with some friends, ten or twelve in all, came up and wanted Clark to join them in removing Davis forcibly from the claim,
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which he declined to do. While parleying over the matter, a man was seen going at full speed on horseback from the claim cabin toward De Soto and as it was already known that the settlement at De Soto was to back Davis in his attempt to hold the Calhoun townsite (De Soto being a rival), Clark told the company the sooner they got over the better, if they were going, for Davis would soon have help from De Soto. They thought not and still insisted that all the settlers around Calhoun were interested and should go and assist. The talk was continued until dinner time and then the party went off to dinner and when return- ing they saw two wagon loads of armed men coming from De Soto and going into the house with Davis. It was thought by representatives of the company useless to attack them but they proposed that the entire party should go, so as to show as strong a force as possible in order to scare Davis off and that if he would not go that they would come again when he was not expecting it and put him off. To this the settlers agreed and all marched over to the house and were drawn up in line in front of the door which was closed. Col. Addison Cochran, as spokes- man, knocked at the door which was answered by Davis within, demand- ing what they wanted. Cochran told them he knew the claim belonged to the town company and they wanted him to leave peaceably and that if he did not, they should put him off by force. Davis' attorney, Potter C. Sullivan, replied claiming some legal ground for Davis' action and it was agreed that he should come outside and talk the matter over with Cochran. While they were talking, the door was opened and someone from the inside said he would like to "put a bullet through Thompson"-one of the party outside-whereupon some words passed when Thompson and the man making the remark, each drew their revolvers and fired at the same time but neither shot took effect. The line was drawn up about twenty-five feet from the door, and as soon as these shots were fired, a dozen guns were seen pointed from the cabin and shot after shot was fired upon Cochran and his retreating party, three of which shots took effect, one through the heart of John Goss, Sr., killing him instantly ; one through the arm of H. C. Purple, so shattering it that it was two or three years before he recovered and only after seven surgical operations had been performed by the most skilled surgeons of Chicago. Both of these parties were the proprietors in the town site. The third shot took effect in the thigh of Mr. Thompson, who had words with the man inside, but it was only a flesh wound from which he soon recovered. When Mr. Goss fell, Mr. Clark was still standing before the door and his escape was miraculous, as bullets whistled on every side. He immediately ran to Mr. Goss' assistance and while holding his head a number of shots were fired at him and after laying him down and going in search of his son who returned to the body with him, the occupants of the house kept firing at them but with no effect though not over fifty feet distant. The escape of the two men can only be accounted for by the excited condition of those who held the guns. The body of Goss was put in a wagon and con- veyed to his home in Iowa and there buried. This sad affair was a terrible blow to the community and none knew what would happen next as it was feared that such feelings were aroused that many more would be killed by being waylaid or otherwise.
The night after this affray, Davis sent his attorney, Sullivan, to Omaha, to compromise the matter, he doubtless fearing another attack. The town company agreed with Sullivan to arbitrate the right to the townsite, and that all hostilities on both sides, and all work on the
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site should be suspended until after the arbitration, which was to be by disinterested parties chosen, one from Bellevue, one from Nebraska City, and one from Glenwood. The time fixed was a month from that date and when the time came the arbitrators could not get together and in fact never did meet. Thus the matter rested till November when Davis, who all the time had not felt safe, made a sale, or pre- tended sale, to Major Anselum Arnold, Thomas J. Allen, Jesse Esttock, and James M. Taggart and they with Cassady and Test, John Goss, Mrs. John Goss, Sr., formed a new town company, taking Mr. Clark in as an equal proprietor, providing he should go on and complete his hotel building according to the original contract, which he did, and in March, 1856, gave Col. George Stevens, then in the Douglas House at Omaha, a one-half interest in the building on condition he would move into it and open a hotel. This Colonel Stevens did during that month and the house was long celebrated as one of the best kept hotels in the West.
(By Courtesy of Blair Tribune)
FIRST HOUSE IN WIIICH U. S. COURT AND DISTRICT COURT WAS HELD IN DE SOTO IN 1859 AS IT APPEARED BEFORE IT WAS TORN DOWN
(By Courtesy of Blair Tribune)
FIRST COURTHOUSE IN BLAIR AS IT APPEARED PROPPED UP PRIOR TO ERECTION OF PRESENT BUILDING
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