History of Hall County, Nebraska, Part 10

Author: Buechler, A. F. (August F.), 1869- editor
Publication date: 1920
Publisher: Lincoln, Neb., Western Pub. and Engraving Co.
Number of Pages: 1011

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HISTORY OF HALL COUNTY NEBRASKA

came the antelope drifted back to us onto the great level prairie countries along Prairie Creek. Great numbers of them could be seen. You couldn't help but admire their beautiful, graceful bodies, their brilliant, large, lustrous dark brown eyes, their horns sticking out of the head very prominently and their ability to see back of them. This accounted for their being so difficult to catch, and very hard to hurt.

FEATHERED GAME

The many lovers of feathered game of today may be interested in a word about the feathered game we hunted then. We killed prairie chickens in unlimited numbers. Often we bagged 60 or 70 chickens in a day, and have marked up 70 chickens, 7 jack rabbits, 7 mallard ducks and one fine antelope in a day's record. The numbers of all feathered game was so tremendously large that nobody had the slightest idea of living to see them so nearly extinct as they are today. A word con- cerning the wild geese. In early days, I have come from Merrick County, starting west of Charley Schertzbergo's place on horseback along the Platte River and for a solid two miles and as close up to the banks on both sides you could see hardly any water at all. All this space of about two miles square was literally covered with gray geese as thick as they could set together, countless in number. Where have they gone? Most certainly, the same route as the buffalo. Before the decoy geese and ducks and fine guns of the hunter they have perished.

Our extinct esquinan curlue might be of interest to the younger generations of this day. This bird belonged to the snipe family. It came on its migrations through the country in the spring-time going north about May 1st.

This was one of the most admired game birds in the world, beautiful, brown plumage, as large as a quail. It was the finest eating. Its habit was to congregate in very large flocks, sometimes five hundred or a thousand going together, swarming over the farmer's fields, and their favorite places to feed was on newly ploughed corn land. Great numbers were easily taken on account of their offering splendid pot shots on the ground or on wing. One of their habits was to rise to their wings, from 2 to 4 p. m. and go so high into the blue skies, so high you could barely see them, circling round and round and at the same time whistle a whirring plaintive call, somewhat like a plover.

Only the coyote has survived in increasing numbers. Why not hunt him? But he is superior in wits to all of the game, and the decoy does not tempt him.

THE INDIAN PIPE

The Indian pipe and kille lanick tobacco was gathered from our red dogwood growing along the streams, creeks and in groves. The part of that bush used for tobacco was the outer fine bark. The peelings were dried in the sun and were there ready for use. The Indian pipe was made out of a soft red stone, sometimes their tomahawk being arranged for a pipe. The head was hollowed through the handle to draw the smoke. In the act of smoking the Indian inhaled his smoke, deep down into his lungs and held it there by sucking it still deeper and deeper and then he closed his mouth and blew it out through his nose in great clouds with the greatest of en- joyment. The dogwood tobacco had a wonderfully fine aroma that I always loved to smell.

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CHAPTER IV

OTHER PIONEERS- AND FIRST SETTLEMENTS

THE TREAD OF PIONEERS - EARLY TRAVEL AND TRANSPORTATION - "HAVE YOU AN EYE?"_ THE OREGON TRAIL - ITS EFFECT ON HALL COUNTY - THE OVERLAND TRAIL - THE FORT KEARNY AND NEBRASKA CITY ROAD - THE DECLINE OF THESE TRAILS - THE STAGE COACHES - THE PONY EXPRESS SYSTEM - LAND HIGHWAY AND RIVER NAVIGATION - THEN AND NOW - THE MORMONS - THE GOLD HUNTERS - ARRIVAL OF PERMANENT SETTLERS - THE COWBOY REGIME -THE MITCHELL-KETCHUM AND OLIVE TRAGEDY - LIFE ON THE PLAINS PASSES - THE EARLY HISTORY OF THE WOOD RIVER VALLEY - EARLY SETTLE- MENT - THE FIRST POSTOFFICE - OLD WOOD RIVER STATION - PRESENT WOOD RIVER STARTS - WOOD RIVER VALLEY SETTLED - THE "JIM BOYD" RANCH

"_Hear the tread of pioneers Of nations yet to be The first low wash of waves, where soon Shall rest a human sea."

It should be not only the delight, but the duty of every age and every generation, to pay grateful tribute to a noble and valiant ancestry. The annals of mankind have but meagre interest when stripped of the per- sonal element and confined to a bare narrative of events. Each generation looks upon the benefits and conveniences which it enjoys as absolute necessities, and absolutely fails to comprehend how any people could possibly live without them. We forget that our fathers and our grandfathers lived without automo- biles, telephones, electric lights, hot water carried through pipes to the point of use, and heating systems to distribute the heat where we wish to use it. It was the first generation of those who settled each community that made it possible for us to have these con- veniences where we now live. When vivified by the record of the lives of those whose heroic daring lifted them above the ordinary, common plane of living, we find history to be- come a most pleasing and instructive subject.

In a preceding chapter we have recorded the story of the arrival and struggles of the first colony of pioneers to reclaim Hall County

from the wilderness. That glorious little band was soon followed by other bands. In fact, they had been preceded by bands of pioneers who passed through this territory. While those travellers did not stop in Hall County, yet the efforts they made to go farther west played a part in preparing this Platte Valley for the settlers who were to come that warrants us in treating of their presence here.

Even after we have studied the interesting story of the first colony, we can again afford to turn from the thoughts of our comfortable and even luxurious homes, cultivated fields, our splendid groves, orchards, meadows ; our comfortable churches and schools, our thriv- ing towns, to consider further the other com- munities of pioneers who settled other parts of Hall County.

In our present state of prosperity and happiness, we must not be prone to forget the aspect that nature wore in those primitive solitudes to the wondering view of these first inhabitants of our county, and even more so, we must not yield to any fleeting temptation to hold as of trifling consequences the constant risk of life itself, of the physical suffering, privation, and actual danger which they en- dured in the exercise of the heroism and cour- age that kept them struggling on until lines of Digitized by Google

HISTORY OF HALL COUNTY NEBRASKA

civilization advanced to this great plains re- gion of the west.

EARLY TRAVEL AND TRANSPORTATION

It was not the search for a home, in this particular valley, that led those travellers to venture beyond the safety zone marked on the west by the Missouri River, or perhaps, even more accurately, the Mississippi River at that time. It was not until the little colony of 1857 arrived that those arriving on these shores of the Platte came with the intention of making this locality their home. But for a decade or more before then scattering bands had roved through the Platte Valley with another aim; pushed on by the impetus of travel and transportation; with trade or gold at the further end of the rainbow they were pursuing.

There is as yet but scant knowledge of Indian or prehistoric routes of travel through Nebraska. In the journals of the Lewis and Clark expedition, Pike's expedition, Frémont's expedition we find the accounts of the state of travel and condition of the territory then. Chroniclers of the frontier in the forties state there were then no well defined trails between the locations of the different tribes of Indians, but each tribe had its trails between the loca- tions of the several bands of its own tribe. There were no doubt prehistorical, natural routes of travel, perhaps miles in width, even if they did not show trails, roads or paths as we understand the use of these words today.

HAVE YOU AN EYE

Have you an eye for the trails, the trails, The old mark and the new!

What scurried here, what loitered there, In the dust and in the dew?

Have you an eye for the beaten track, The old hoof and the young? Come name me the drivers of yesterday, Sing me the songs they sung.

O, was it a schooner last went by, And where will it cross the stream? Where will it halt in the early dusk, And where will the camp-fire gleam?

They used to take the shortest cut The cattle trails had made; Get down the hill by the easy slope To the water and the shade.

But it's barbed wire fence, and section line, And kill-horse travel now; Scoot you down the canyon bank- The old road's under plough.

Have you an eye for the laden wheel, The worn tire or the new? Or the sign of the prairie pony's hoof That was never trimmed for shoe?

O little by-path and big highway, Alas, your lives are done. The freighter's track a weed-grown ditch, Points to the setting sun.

The marks are faint and rain will fall The lore is hard to learn.

O hear, what ghosts would follow the road If the old years might return.

Whatever the story of the Indian trails may be, as they are related in the first volume, that depicting the history of the state of Ne- braska, we know that a notable route sprang up across the country, that became the main artery of commerce to the northwest, pre- ceding the arrival of the transcontinental rail- road. This great continental highway was known to the traders, ranchmen, and overland stage drivers as the "Military Road," but more commonly and properly known as

THE OREGON TRAIL

The part of the Oregon Trail that concerns Hall County lay a fraction over a mile beyond the southwest corner of the county.

There are five periods in the story of the Oregon Trail. The first extends from the return of the Astorians in 1813 to the Wyeth wagons in 1832. The second period was that of the early Oregon migration and extends from 1832 to the discovery of gold in Cali- fornia in 1849. The third period was that of the rush for gold and extends from 1849 to 1860. During this period the Oregon Trail became the greatest traveled highway' in the world, wider and more beaten than a city street, and hundreds of thousands passed over it. The fourth period is that of the decline of the Oregon Trail and extends from 1860 to 1869. The fifth period, from 1869 to the present day, is witnessing its gradual efface- ment.

The best brief description of the Oregon Trail is that of Father De Smet, who knew it well and tells of its appearance when first seen

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HISTORY OF HALL COUNTY NEBRASKA

by him and his party of Indians from the the great trail. In 1842, John C. Fremont led Upper Missouri in 1851:

Our Indian companions, who had never seen but the narrow hunting paths by which they transport themselves and their lodges, were filled with admiration on seeing this noble highway, which is as smooth as a barn floor swept by the winds, and not a blade of grass can shoot up on it on account of the continual passing. They fancied that all had gone over that road and that immense void must exist in the land of the rising sun. They styled the route the "Great Medicine Road of the Whites."

In another place Father De Smet tells of the great government wagon trains he met on the Oregon Trail in 1858:

Each train consisted of twenty-six wagons, each wagon drawn by six yoke of oxen. The trains made a line fifty miles long. Each wagon is marked with a name as in the case of ships, and these names served to furnish amusement to the passers-by. Such names as The Constitution, The President, The Great Republic, The King of Bavaria, Louis Na- poleon, Dan O'Connell, Old Kentucky, were daubed in great letters on each side of the carriage. On the plains the wagoner assumes the style of Captain, being placed in command of his wagon and twelve oxen. The master wagoner is admiral of this little land fleet. of 26 captains and 312 oxen. At a distance the white awnings of the wagons have the effect of a fleet of vessels with all canvas spread.1

EFFECT ON HALL COUNTY

The fact that the Oregon Trail did not directly pass through Hall County did not deter its presence being a considerable factor in the county's early history.

The known history of this trail begins with the establishment of the fortified trading post known as Astoria, on the Columbia River, fifteen miles above its mouth, in 1811, by the agents of John Jacob Astor, head of the American Fur Company. It failed, and in 1813 was abandoned, but this dim trail was followed for another decade by hunters, trap- pers, and traders, and later by explorers, sur- veyors, Mormons, and emigrants. In 1832, Captain Bonneville passed over this route from Independence to California, and made what is claimed as the first wagon trail over

a surveying expedition from Independence, by way of the Grand Island in the Platte, to the South Pass and the Rocky Mountains. This expedition was accompanied by the famous Kit Carson, as guide. By 1843, it became a well defined route for trade and traffic between St. Louis, the base point, and the Columbia River. In 1847, the Mormon emigration to Utah had set in, but in 1849 came the high tide of traffic, when the rush to the California gold fields set in.

A fairly accurate itenerary of the trail has been made from notes of Frémont and other travellers as follows: From the point at Independence, Missouri, where the trail starts northwest, for a distance of 41 miles it is identical with the Santa Fé trail; to the Kan- sas River, 81 miles; to the Big Blue River, 242 miles ; to the Little Blue, 296 miles ; Platte River, 316 miles ; lower ford of South Platte River, 433 miles ; upper ford of South Platte, 493 miles ; Chimney Rock, 571 miles; Scotts Bluff, 616 miles. Adding the distance from the northwest boundary of Nebraska to Fort Van- couver, the terminus, yields a total of 2,020 miles. The trail crossed the present Nebraska southern boundary line at or very near the point of the intersection of the 97th meridian, about four miles west of the southeast corner of Jefferson County. It left the Little Blue at a bend beyond this point, but reached it again just beyond Hebron. It left the stream finally at a point near Leroy, and reached the Platte River about twenty miles below the western or upper end of Grand Island. Proceeding thence along the south bank of the Platte River, it crossed the south fork about sixty miles from the junction and touched the north fork at Ash Hollow, twenty miles beyond the south fork crossing.

Howard Stansbury, a captain of United States topographical engineers, in April, 1849, lead an expedition to the Great Salt Lake for the purpose of exploring and surveying that valley. With the clearness and precision of a trained engineer, his descriptions shed further light upon the great trail. He seems

1 The History and Stories of Nebraska, Sheldon. Google Digitized by

HISTORY OF HALL COUNTY NEBRASKA

to have left the Little Blue at the usual point, near the present Leroy, in Adams County, thence cut across to Thirty-two Mile Creek, seven and a half miles; thence to the Platte River, twelve miles, and to Fort Kearny, seventeen miles. He says he struck the Platte in a broad valley and that "this road has since (June 18, 1849) been abandoned for one on the left, more direct to Fort Kearny."

Even if the Oregon Trail through Nebraska has been entirely obliterated and turned into a patch of sunflowers, weeds at points and glor- ious farms at others, it is an historical factor to Nebraska that cannot be ignored.

"As a highway of travel the Oregon Trail is the most remarkable known to history. Considering the fact that it originated with the spontaneous use of travelers; that no transit ever located a foot of it; that no level established its grades ; that no engineer sought out the fords or built any bridges or surveyed the mountain passes; that there was no grad- ing to speak of nor any attempt at metalling the road-bed; - and the general good quality of this two thousand miles of highway will seem most extraordinary. Father De Smet, who was born in Belgium, the home of good roads, pronounced the Oregon Trail one of the finest highways in the world. At the proper season of the year this was undoubtedly true. Before the prairies became too dry, the nat- ural turf formed the best roadway for horses to travel on that has probably ever been known. It was amply hard to sustain traffic, yet soft enough to be easier to the feet than even the most perfect asphalt pavement. Over such roads, winding ribbon-like through the verdant prairies, amid the profusion of spring flowers, with grass so plentiful that the animals reveled in its abundance, and game everywhere greeted the hunter's rifle, and finally, with pure water in the streams, the traveler sped his way with a feeling of joy and exhilaration. But not so when the prairies be- came dry and parched, the road filled with stifling dust, the stream-beds mere dry ravines, or carrying only alkaline water which could not be used, the game all gone to more hos- pitable sections, and the summer sun pouring

down its heat with torrid intensity. It was then that the Trail became a highway of desolation, strewn with abandoned property, the skeletons of horses, mules and oxen, and, alas, too often, human misery, tragedy, and death."

The settlement and development of the west produced many changes in the old trail as known to Frémont the "Pathfinder" and other early western travellers and explorers. Its deep furrowed tracks, often parallelled for a width of a hundred feet, gradually faded away, until today only small patches may here and there be found along its route to trace its course. As railroads spread forth from St. Joseph to Atchison, Kansas, and from Council Bluffs across Nebraska, the trail declined in use, but until after the construction of the Union Pacific railroad, in 1866-69, the Oregon Trail, with its cutoffs and numerous branches leading into and away from it, was the sole connecting line of travel across the continent from the Atlantic to the Pacific, and though it may have missed the present boundaries of Hall County by a mile or two, and its junction with the Platte River may have been a few miles west of Hall County's western line, it afforded to Hall County another means of getting provisions in and produce out and relieved the settlers of some dread and fear of being too far removed from food, and even then Hall County was on the main line of the transportation system of the plains.

THE OVERLAND TRAIL

The second important trail across Nebraska, now commonly known as "The Overland Trail" but in early days called the California or Mormon trail, was one that started from the banks of the Missiuri River near Bellevue and Florence, followed up the north side of the Platte and North Platte to Fort Laramie, . where it joined the older Oregon Trail. This was the route across Nebraska of the return- ing Astorians in 1813 and of some of the early fur traders. The Mormons made this a wagon road on their emigration of 1847, when their great company which wintered at Florence and Bellevue took this way to the valley of the Great Salt Lake. It was there-

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HISTORY OF HALL COUNTY NEBRASKA

fore often called the Mormon Trail. As some of the immigrants to Oregon and California went over this route it sometimes was called the Oregon Trail or California Trail. There was less travel on this trail than on the one south of the Platte, because there was more sand here. This north side trail ran through the present counties of Douglas, Sarpy, Dodge, Colfax, Platte, Merrick, Hall, Buffalo, Dawson, Lincoln, Garden, Morill, and Scotts Bluff.

THE FORT KEARNY AND NEBRASKA CITY ROAD

The third celebrated trail across Nebraska was from the Missouri River to Denver and was called the Denver Trail. It had many branches between the Missouri River and Fort Kearny. Its first course led from Nebraska City, across the present counties of Otoe, Lancaster, Saunders, Butler, Polk, Hamilton, Hall (on south side of Platte) to Buffalo, where but a short distance west of the Hall County line it joined the famous Oregon Trail from the southeast. A cut-off road, more direct than the first course, was laid out and surveyed by Chas. W. Pierce, Justus L. Cozad, and Nathan P. Cook, surveyors, in July and August, 1859, and was in use by 1860. This new Fort Kearny and Ne- braska City road led out from Nebraska City, west, through the present counties of Otoe, Lancaster, Seward, York, Hall, and Buffalo, and joined the first course of this third trail in southeastern Hall County and the Oregon Trail proper near the corners of Hall, Buffalo, and Kearney counties.

This last mentioned trail became very pop- ular with thousands of immigrants and freighters from 1862 to 1869. Over this Denver Trail went the Pike's Peak immigrants and the supplies and machinery for opening the mines in Colorado.

THE DECLINE OF THESE TRAILS

These overland trails fell out of use very fast after the completion of the Union Pacific Railroad in 1869. Short stretches leading from one settlement or town to another were used as roads but no longer as part of great

through highways of travel. At places through Western Nebraska, and in Hall County, traces of the old wagon tracks remain here and there.

Thus it will be seen that Hall County was either on the route of all of these great over- land highways, or within a few miles and within the radius of their use.

THE STAGE COACHES

Before we return to a consideration of the early travelers through this part of Nebraska, it is well to linger sufficiently to take up the Overland stages, which formed the means of public transportation prior to the advent of the railroad. As a highway for the Overland stage from the Missouri River to the Pacific coast the great trail performed a most inter- esting and a most important service to the American people. For this work the most commonly used vehicle was the light Concord coaches, so-called because they were built at Concord, New Hampshire. They accommo- dated, usually, nine passengers inside and often one or two sat on the outside with the driver. Sometimes an extra seat was built on the outside behind the driver, so not in- frequently as many as fifteen passengers rode in and on such a coach. '

With the "Overland Stage" developed the "Overland Mail." The first contract for carrying this mail was let in 1850 to Samuel H. Woodton, of Independence, Missouri. This service was monthly on a route between termi- nals twelve hundred miles apart, St. Louis and Salt Lake City, and later the route was extended to Sacramento, California. This service led through Nebraska substantially on the Oregon Trail. In 1859, this mail contract was transferred to Russell, Majors & Waddell, who afterwards became the most extensive freighters in Nebraska from the Missouri River. It will be remembered that the stage route followed the overland trail on the south side of the Platte River, while the Union Pacific railroad, which superseded it, was built on the north side of the river through central Nebraska.

Until 1863, the passenger fare by this stage

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HISTORY OF HALL COUNTY NEBRASKA

line was $75 from Atchison to Denver, $150 to Salt Lake, and $225 to Placerville. When the currency of the country became inflated the fare increased accordingly. The carrying of passengers and express packages formed important items of the receipts of this busi- ness. As remarked before, at first the trips were made monthly. This was shortly re- duced to semi-monthly, and finally - when the overland stage business fell into the hands of Ben Holliday, who in many respects was one of the most remarkable men of his day, perhaps he could be called the Hill or Harri- man of the stage-coach - a stage service was

evolved in which the stages ran daily on fast and schedule time from Atchison, Kansas, to Placerville, California, in the remarkably short period of seventeen days, carrying mail and passengers each day.

THE PONY EXPRESS SYSTEM

An important incident to the old highway transportation was the pony express, a move- ment which originated in 1860 with William H. Russell, of Leavenworth, Kansas. This system was the forerunner of the present great fast mail system of the United States. It was a system of mounted couriers, wholly

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MAP OF HALL COUNTY SHOWING RIVERS AND TRAILS

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HISTORY OF HALL COUNTY NEBRASKA

devoted to the private transmission of letter- mail, newspapers, telegraph messages, im- portant government dispatches, bank drafts, and the like. In 1854, Senator W. M. Gwin, of California, rode to Washington on horse- back, accompanied part of the way by B. F. Ficklin, superintendent of the firm of Russell, Majors & Waddell, and the idea of the Pony Express grew out of this trip. After Gwin made a legislative attempt to establish such a system and failed, Russell worked it out on a practical basis. The charges were originally five dollars for each letter of one-half ounce

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History of Hall County, Nebraska, Part 10

Author: Buechler, A. F. (August F.), 1869- editor Publication date: 1920 Publisher: Lincoln, Neb., Western Pub. and Engraving Co. Number of Pages: 1011

Author: Buechler, A. F. (August F.), 1869- editor
Publication date: 1920
Publisher: Lincoln, Neb., Western Pub. and Engraving Co.
Number of Pages: 1011