USA > Nebraska > Hall County > History of Hall County, Nebraska > Part 30
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One more excerpt might be borrowed from Prof. Foght's work, because his description of that terrible week and the succeeding efforts to prevent a recurrence of blasted hopes fits
Hall County, every word, as true as the Loup Valley to the immediate north :
The month of July (1874) was about half spent when the locusts reached the North Loup Valley (Hall County about the 24th). Corn was "laid by" and in tassel; the small grain was heading and full of promise. Then dawned the fatal day. By noon a strange haziness overspread the clear, blue sky, and the bright sunlight took on a sickly, yellowish tint. Had anyone taken the trouble to look at the sun through the proper medium he would have discovered the cause of this grad- ual transformation in the day. Myriads of insects were flitting by the disk of the sun. But people were not looking for trouble and so allowed the phenomenon to go unnoticed. In a short time, however, everyone had cause to become wide enough awake. The clouds of locusts suddenly began to settle over the earth. With a strange whistling sound of wings and myriad bodies they came on, pelting the appalled earth ; hustling and tumbling they came, clinging to whatever they happened to strike, devouring every planted thing from Indian corn to garden truck.
At first some of the settlers made vain attempts to scare the pests from their fields, but this was usually rewarded by having the clothes literally eaten from off their limbs. As time advanced the number of insects grew. In places branches of trees are said to have been bent almost to the ground under their living burden. The corn fields were speedily stripped of their leaves, and soon all but the toughest portions of the stalk were devoured. We hear of thrifty housewives attempting to save flowerbeds by spreading over them bedquilts and carpets for protection, who to their chagrin found the locusts as eager to devour the spreads as they were the flowers.
Ah, those were sad days in the settlement ! Gone were the hopes and day dreams of many a sturdy pathfinder! The last dollar had with many been spent in the hope of speedy returns from good crops. What would now be the future? How to span over the coming winter and eke out an existence till another crop could be gotten became serious questions. Had it not been for the abundance of game in the adjacent hills and the logging industries, many would perforce have left their farms and returned to older settlements.
We have handled the grasshopper entomo- logically, scientifically, historically, etc., so we may close by letting the poet have a chance at him.
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HISTORY OF HALL COUNTY NEBRASKA .
THE GRASSHOPPERS
EDWIN FORD PIPER
Down by the orchard plot a man and boy, The boy's hat just above the whitened floor Of oats half hiding the young trees and swaying Under a strong breeze in the blazing noon. The man looks upward, blinks with dazzled eyes, The shading face with hand peers painfully; Little winged creatures drive athwart the sun, High up, in ceaseless, countless flight to the north. His mood runs hot envisioning the past. It was three years ago this very day.
Three years ago that clinging, hopping horde Made the earth crawl. With slobbery mouths, All leafage, woody twig, and grain, and grass, They utterly consumed, leaving the land Abominable. The wind-borne plague rained down On the full-leaved tree where laughter rippled light To answer odorous whispers of the flowers, Soon, naked to the blistering sun, it stared At the bones of its piteous comrades. Afterwards, A jest to strangers-charity-cattle hungering- Women and children starving! But the power of creatures!
The daughters of the locust, numberless, numberless! Jaws bite, throats suck, the beauty of lovely fields Is in their guts, the world is but a mummy!
Man and boy turn from the oats and the vigorous orchard;
But as they go the lad is looking, looking To see, high up, like gnats, the winged millions Moving across the sun. May God rebuke them.
Now the impending march of civilization had driven onward the wild animals of the prairie and the forest; the beaver, otter, and their comrades of the streams have disap- peared; even the fishing has deteriorated until to the pioneer it would be considered neg- ligible ; only an occasional coyote reminds one of the band of wild animals, and the domestic animals have taken their places. But the guesses of Major Long and others who sur- mised that this part of the Great American Desert would never be anything but the home of the red-skin and the shrieking coyote and his brethren would find a most pleasant sur- prise in the fields, gardens, and orchards now thriving in Hall County.
THE FLORA OF HALL COUNTY By J. M. BATES, RED CLOUD, NEBRASKA
The flora of any region is modified greatly by latitude, altitude, moisture, sunshine, shade, and the varying character of soils, clayey, sandy, gravelly, and rocky. The state
of Nebraska, having an altitude of less than 1,000 feet at the Missouri River and stretch- ing westward to the foothills of the Rockies over 5,500 feet altitude presents an opportun- ity for an extremely. varied flora. Our wooded steppes, moist river bottoms, innumerable creeks, ponds, and lakes with accompanying marshes, affords a shelter for almost every kind of plant that can flourish in one altitude. The catalog of 1889 contained the names of 990 plants above the lungi, lichens, and mosses. Numerous additions have been made since then to the number of several hundred. For example, the sedges 1 of the state were then enumerated as 36. In my paper on "The Sedges of Nebraska," published six years ago by the State University, I gave the localities of 106 species and good varieties. The studies in other lines of plant life have re- sulted in similar additions. I have no doubt that the species at present known will pass twelve hundred.
I have collected in Hall County, at Wood River, many times, especially four miles south of Grand Island and east along the railroad and in adjacent meadows, south to A. D. Searls' farm, also around Schimmer's Lake many times. I have also collectel around Doniphan on the south, and up toward St. Libory on the north. Thus I have obtained a fair conception of what Hall County has to offer to the botanist.
I find the flora quite limited by the lack of bluffs and other elevations, the whole land- scape being classed as level prairie and Platte River bottoms, broken by Wood River. which is very well named. It furnishes shelter. especially at Schimmer's Lake, and some charmingly rare species are there located that could not be found without the damp woods which there prevail.
I have gone carefully over the Nebraska list with this preparation of study and ob- servation to guide me and shall claim about five hundred and sixty-five species of plants for Hall County.
1 Sedge, defined in Standard Dictionary as "In a loose poplar sense. any coarse, rush-like or flag- like herb growing in wet places - any part of sedge family (Cyperacaæ)."
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It is quite useless to enumerate these by either their Latin or their English names in a volume of this character. The English names are so variable according to locality that they would not be recognized by many. It takes more time and leisure than any one individual among Nebraska people has yet had in the struggle for existence to fasten a name to these new western plants that shall gain the final approval and "stick to" the one kind or species.
We shall then speak of a few matters of general interest and importance. Nebraska is a grass state; that is, a grain growing state, for all of our cereals except buckwheat are grasses. . The state is covered from one end to the other in its wild condition with about 155 species of nourishing grasses, and as I said above, 106 species of grass-like plants called sedges, and every species pas- tured and cut for hay without any discrimina- tion. The growing and fattening qualities of these fodder plants are notorious in the stock centers of the nation. Hall County has her full share of these nutritious plants. I estimate the grasses as ninety species and the sedges as thirty-five. Many of them have been studied by chemical analysis es- pecially in the agricultural school of South Dakota, and have been shown to possess the supreme qualities of nutrition that character- ize the timothy, red-top, orchard grass, brome, and other highly prized grasses of the eastern states and Europe. We might enumerate three species of grama, buffalo grass, wheat grass several species, rye grass several species, but those who are getting their living from the soil and the intelligent land agent, banker, grain buyer, and many others are quite well aware of these facts without any further use of ink and paper.
The trees of Hall County are but few in variety. Cottonwood, box-elder, prairie ash, white elm, peach leaved willow are the only ones that attain much size. The diamond willow, sand-bar willow, wild plum, and wild cherry, commonly called choke cherry, but not the "choke" of the east, sometimes attain tree-like proportions, and together with dog-
wood (cornus asperiolia) make most of the "brush." The red cedar is native over most of the states, but I doubt if it can be found wild in Hall County today, if it ever was. It grows mostly on higher ground, such as bluffy river banks or in dry ravines and canyons. No other conifer is to be expected. The red (slippery) elm is not unlikely to be found, and possibly the burr oak, but I have not seen it.
RARE PLANTS
I wish to call attention to quite a few rare plants. Botriechium Virginianum, grape fern, at Schimmer's Lake, in the moist woods on the Wood River, is known in very few local- ities. Smilax hispida, greenbriar, seems to have its western limit at Red Cloud and Schimmer's Lake. Allium Cavandulare, the lavender-flowered wild onion, is a beautiful new species worthy of cultivation. It grows south and southeast of Grand Island, and at Havelock, Lincoln, and Weeping Water. I wrote it up as a new species a few years ago, finding it first at Grand Island.
Spieranthes Romanzoffiana (strictum, of some authors), laides' tresses, is the only orchid likely to be found. The next most likely is sypripedium candidum, which grows at Callaway, Scotia, and I think at St. Paul. I found very fine specimens east of Grand Island, at the foot of the railroad embank- ment. Desmodium panieulatum, the round leafed beggars' lice, a stick-tight, grows at Schimmer's Lake, with the smilax and grape fern. Lippia lanceolata, on the north bank of the lake gave me the first collection of this rare plant. I have since found it at St. Paul and at two or three other stations. It belongs to the verbena family, and is a near relative of the lemon verbena, raised as a house plant. These rare plants are quite distinctive enough for one level prairie county in Central Nebraska.
CLIMATE
Hall County has a climate transitional be- tween that of the north-central Mississippi Valley and the semi-arid climate of the high plains. The rainfall is moderate, and fre-
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HISTORY OF HALL COUNTY NEBRASKA
quently low. The humidity is relatively low and the rate of evaporation relatively high. There is a wide range between summer and winter temperatures.
The mean annual precipitation is 29.45 inches. The greater part of the rainfall oc- curs during the months from May to August, inclusive, generally in the form of hard thunder showers. The annual precipitation when normally distributed is sufficient for successful farming, without irrigation or rigid adherence to dry-farming methods. In some years, however, crops have been almost com- plete failures on account of droughts, and they suffer some injury on certain soils nearly every year. There is rarely an excess of rainfall. The precipitation in the wettest year on record (1905) amounted to 45 85 inches, of which 24.98 inches fell during the months of May, June, and July.
The mean summer temperature is 73.6° F. The maximum recorded temperature is 110°, in September, but July and August are usually the hottest months. The mean winter tem- perature is 26.1º F. The temperature fre- quently falls below zero, and a minimum of -34° has been recorded in February. The region is occasionally swept by cold northwest winds in winter.
The average date of the last killing frost in the spring is April 26, and that of the first in the fall October 7, giving an average growing season of 164 days, which is ample for the maturing of corn and all the other crops commonly grown. Killing frost has been recorded as late in the spring as May 19 and as early in the fall as September 12.
There is a high percentage of clear and sunshiny days. The rate of evaporation is probably a little higher than that of most of the central Mississippi Valley region, being prob- ably a little above 40 inches. No record of the snowfalls exists, but it is probably a little less than that of Omaha, 150 miles to the east, viz, about 25 inches.
Climatic data from the records of the Weather Bureau station at Grand Island are given in the following table:
Normal monthly, seasonal, and annual temperature and precipitation at Grand Island
Month
Temperature
Precipitation
Mean
Absolute maximum ..
Absolute minimum ..
Mean
driest
wettest year
Total amount
December
28.7
80
-17
0.87
T. 0.00
January
24.7
72
-29
.51
.55
1.64
February
25.0
78
-34
.84
.20
1.55
Winter
26.1
80
-34
2.22
.75
3.19
March
36.6
91
-12
1.30
.23
.73
April
51.1
98
13
2.77
1.12
May
60.0
102
22
4.38
1.32
9.53
Spring
49.2
102
-12
8.45
2.67
14.27
June
71.1
113
36
4.78
2.94
8.97
July
75.6
108
48
4.10
.55
6.48
August
74.1
108
40
3.94
2.72
3.66
Summer
73.6
108
36
|12.82
6.21
19.11
September
65.3
110
25
2.72
1.27
5.67
October
52.7
98
8
2.46
.65
1.21
November
38.4
88
4
.78
1.05
2.40
Fall ..
52.1
110
4
5.96
2.97
9.28
Year
50.4
110
1-34
29.45
12.60
45.85
BAD STORMS
During the sixty-two years that have inter- vened since the arrival of the first colony of pioneers in Hall County there have been many bad storms and severe weather disturbances, but only a few stand out distinctly, noted for their severe effects and the loss of life and property entailed thereby.
On November 6, 1857, Lorenz Barnard and Henry Joehnk, of Grand Island, and William Roberts and Billy Painter, of Mendotte, went over to Prairie Creek antelope and deer hunt- ing. When near the pond, due north of Grand Island, Lorenz Barnard and Roberts went up the creek, while the others hunted down the stream. In shooting ducks they crossed the creek several times, and when it began to rain that evening all started for the settlement. Soon not a vestige of dry clothes remained on them, the wind changed to the north, and a heavy storm set in; it grew colder and colder. Barnard and Roberts found their way home but Joehnk and Painter became lost in the storm, and after dark stacked their guns for the purpose of building up a shelter with the high slough grass. The
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year
Total amount for the
(1890)
(1905)
for the
4.01
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HISTORY OF HALL COUNTY NEBRASKA
wind swept away each bunch of grass, and to keep from freezing they had to walk around and around all night. Painter, becoming hungry, ate half a duck uncooked, but Joehnk would not touch the unsavory meal. At day- light the snow proved to be eighteen inches in depth and still falling heavily. So they set out for the settlement where some men had set forth in search of them, but were driven back by the storm. Early that morning Joehnk arrived, but so worn was he that he could only signify by signs where Painter was. The men went forth in search, found the hunter, brought him in, but the hardships of the night proved too much, and November 7, 1857, occurred the first death in Hall County among the white settlers.
Mr. Hedde narrates that after this storm the weather was exceedingly mild for the rest of that first winter season.
EASTER STORM OF 1873
Spring opened early in the year of 1873. The farmers had plowed and harrowed the ground and even sowed their oats and spring wheat in February and March. By the first part of April the grass was nicely green and by the middle of April the small-grain fields were bright green with new crops. The set- tlers were almost careless about such a spring; the prairies were, of course, bare of hedges, fences, or trees to break the winds and catch drifting snow. The whole scene was one of total unpreparedness for a severe snow storm at that time of the year. Easter Sunday came on the thirteenth day of April, following many days of delightful mildness. On the afternoon of that Easter a rain started up, with a heavy thunderstorm by 4 o'clock. This changed to a terrific snow-storm, which raged for three days without abating.
In writing in Nebraska Pioneer Reminis- cences of this storm, Judge Charles B. Letton of the Nebraska supreme court, who was then living near Fairbury, in Jefferson County, described it in part :
The fury of the tempest was indescribable. The air appeared to be a mass of moving snow, and the wind howled like a pack of furies. I managed to get to the granary for
some oats, but on looking into the ravine no stable was to be seen, only an immense snow drift which almost filled it. At the point where the door to the stable should have been there appeared a hole in the drift where the snow was eddying. On crawling into this I found that during the night the snow had drifted in around the horses and cattle, which were tied to the manger. The animals had tramped it under their feet to such an extent that it had raised them so that in places their backs lifted the flimsy roof, and the wind carrying much of the covering away, had filled the stable with snow until some of them were almost and others wholly buried, except where the remains of the roof protected them.
Throughout Hall County in the groves the snow drifted to from fifteen to twenty feet in height, orchards and groves were damaged, many trees destroyed, and farmers lost nearly all of their stock, some losing from ten to fifteen head, another seventy-five, and a third 100 head of cattle. Deer were found lying dead after the storm. and dead birds were seen everywhere.
The following description and conclusions by Judge Letton though written concerning our neighboring county of Jefferson fitted the conditions of Hall County as closely as if written by a Hall County survivor of the storm :
Many settlers took their cattle and horses into their houses or dugouts in order to save them. Every ravine and hollow that ran in an easterly or westerly direction was filled with snow from rim to rim. In other locali- ties cattle were driven many miles by this storm. Houses, or rather shacks, were un- roofed and people in them frozen to death. Travelers caught in the blizzard, who at- tempted to take refuge in ravines, perished and their stiffened bodies were found when the drifts melted weeks afterward. Stories were told of people who had undertaken to go from their houses to their outbuildings and who, being blinded by the snow, became lost and either perished or nearly lost their lives, and of others where the settler in order to reach his well or his outbuildings in safety fastened a rope to the door and went into the storm holding to the rope in order to insure his safe return. Deer, antelope, and other wild animals perished in the more sparsely settled districts. The storm lasted for three days, not always of the same in- Google Digitized by
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tensity, and freezing weather followed for a day or two thereafter. In a few days the sun shone, the snow melted, and spring re- appeared; the melting drifts, that lay for weeks in some places, being the only reminder of the severity of the storm.
To old settlers in Nebraska and northern Kansas this has ever since been known as "The Easter Storm." In the forty-six years that I have lived in Nebraska there has only been one other winter storm that measurably approached it in intensity. This was the blizzard of 1888 when several people lost their lives. At that time however, people were living in comfort, trees, hedges, groves, stub- ble, and cornfields held the snow so that the drifts were insignificant in comparison. The cold was more severe but the duration of the storm was less and no such widespread suffer- ing took place.
ANOTHER DECADE AND A HALF OF STORMS
The winter of 1875-76 was mild and free from snow, and plowing was done in Decem- ber and January.
In May, 1878, three houses near Wood River were damaged by lightning. Rupert Schwaiger and Elias E. Boodry were killed by lightning while enroute to town.
On July 8, 1878, a hail storm originated in Sherman County and came over into Hall County, causing such loss that forty-two Hall County farmers who were insured reported $20,000 loss, while the uninsured lost around $30,000. The frame of the Lutheran church, .just raised in the southeast part of Grand Island, and the old building on Front street (P. Dunphy's) were levelled; several small buildings were blown down and the gardens generally wrecked. Though the hail-stones were not large, owing to their velocity their destructive power was terrible, and the quan- tity of water which fell in a few minutes was beyond the experiences of every one; and the torrent which swept the main street of the town was two feet in depth.
A hail storm in July, 1884, destroyed num- erous buildings and severely damaged crops through Hall County. The eastern wall of the Union Pacific car shop was blown in, destroying property valued at $10,000; a new building near the Burlington depot was moved three feet, and from a point north of Grand
Island to southeast of Doniphan, and even beyond that village, growing crops, trees, and small buildings were pounded into the ground, broken, or removed.
A storm in June, 1885, destroyed $1,500 worth of window panes - the window glass in the court-house, Koenig's block, and Schaupp's mills being almost all broken. The new agricultural hall was twisted so as to require rebuilding, the front of Hake's harness shop was blown in, and a strip about two miles in width, from the northwest to the southwest corner of the county, devastated.
There was a severe blizzard in January 7, 1886, but the worst storm between 1873 and the big storm of 1888 was in November, 1886. Men returning to their homes against that wind became dazed and almost breathless. David Alexander became lost and was nearly frozen before he found shelter. Judge Wilson also lost his way; a herd of cattle drifted be- fore the storm, the telegraph wires were torn from the poles, and several unfinished build- ings were damaged by the terrific icy wind.
THE BLIZZARD OF 1888
No other winter storm in the history of the plains, it may be safely said, was ever more destructive than this one. The states of Ne- braska and South Dakota were visited by the blizzard in all its ferocity, but for that matter the storm may be said to have been general throughout the whole country, and its chilling blast was felt from the Rockies to New Eng- land. Yet the wind swept plains of Dakota and Nebraska undoubtedly fared worse than sections east. Loss to human life and prop- erty on the plains, in places, was simply appall- ing, and the surviving residents of those sec- tions cannot speak of it even now without an involuntary shudder.
The storm burst with great suddeness and fury, and many there were who did not live to tell the story of their suffering. Stories with- out number could be told of narrow escapes throughout the plains.
The morning of January 2 dawned damp and gloomy. A mist had been falling during the night, and the wind, which blew gently
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HISTORY OF HALL COUNTY NEBRASKA
from the south, was just cold enough to turn the moisture covering all nature, into a light hoarfrost. Before noon the frost had dis- appeared and every indication pointed to an early clearing of the sky. Around the hour of noon a terrific storm blast came bearing down upon the open prairies and dotted val- leys. In a moment, heavy leaden clouds were blotted out. A bewildering, blinding sheet of dustlike snow was whirled through the air, and before evening the thermometer had sunk to 25 degrees below zero. The wayfarer, caught far from home, soon found his path- way obstructed by the drifts of snow and every familiar guidemark obliterated. His bearings once gone would mean certain death unless he should chance in his blind gropings to stumble upon some human habitation or friendly stack of hay or straw in his path. As the early part of the day had been so mild, many people had ventured from home. Scores of farmers were caught in the towns, where they had to remain for several days, chafing under the restraint, but absolutely snow bound. Others less fortunate, caught on the road, in the valleys or out in the hills, soon found themselves in a terrible predicament.
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