USA > Nebraska > Hamilton County > History of Hamilton and Clay counties, Nebraska, Vol. I > Part 10
USA > Nebraska > Clay County > History of Hamilton and Clay counties, Nebraska, Vol. I > Part 10
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As it is the desire of the compiler of this historical review of Nebraska to preserve somewhere within its pages something of the many contributions to Nebraska historical records and lore, prepared by Hon. A. E. Sheldon, who has devoted many years to the preservation of Nebraska historical facts, it is believed that his brief but comprehensive recital of the "Overland Trails," in his "History and Stories of Nebraska," will appropriately serve this purpose. At the same time it is short enough to fit into our work here, yet cover the proportionate spaee we can devote to this particular subject.
Each of the old overland trails which crosses Nebraska from the Missouri River to the mountains had a story. It is a story written deep in the lives of men and women, and in the westward march of the American people. The story of these overland traits was also written in broad deep furrows across our prairies. Along
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these trails journeyed thousands of men, women and children with ox teams, carts, wheelbarrows, and on foot, to settle the great country beyond. Over them marched the soldiers who built forts to protect the settlers. Then the long freighting trains loaded with food, tools and clothing passed that way. So there came to be great beaten thoroughfares one or two hundred feet wide. deeply eut in the earth by the wheels of wagons and the feet of pilgrims.
The Oregon Trail was the first and most famous of these in Nebraska. It started from the Missouri River at Independence, Missouri, ran across the northeast corner of Kansas and entered Nebraska near the point where Gage and Jefferson counties meet on the Nebraska-Kansas line. It followed the course of the Little Blue River across Jefferson, Thayer, Nuckolls, Clay and Adams counties, then across the divide to the Platte, near the head of Grand Island in Hall County ( missing Hall County by about two miles ), then along the south side of the Platte through Kearney. Phelps, Gosper and Dawson to a point in Kieth County about seven miles east of Big Springs, where it crossed the South Platte and continued up the south side of the North Platte through Kieth, Garden, Morrill and Scotts Bluff counties, where it passed out of Nebraska into Wyoming.
The beginnings of the Oregon Trail in Nebraska were made in 1813 by a little band of returning Astorians as they, leading their one poor horse, tramped their weary way down the Platte Valley to the Otoe village, where they took canoes for their journey down the river. These first Oregon trailers left no traek deep enough to be followed. They simply made known the way. After them fur traders on horseback and afoot followed nearly the same route. On April 10, 1830, Milton Sublette with ten wagons and one milch cow left St. Louis and arrived at the Wind River Mountains on July 16th. They returned to St. Louis the same summer, bringing back ten wagons loaded with furs and the faithful cow which furnished milk all the way. Theirs were the first wagon wheels on the Oregon Trail across Nebraska. The track they made from the mouth of the Kansas River up the valley of the Little Blue and up the south side of the Platte and North Platte was followed by others, and thus became the historic trail. Their famous cow, and the old horse, which seventeen years before carried the burdens for the Astorians are entitled to a high place among the pioneers of the West.
In 1832, Captain Bonneville, whose story is told by Washington Irving, followed over Sublette's trail from the Missouri River to the mountains. In the same year Nathaniel J. Wyeth following the same trail, pushed through the South Pass in the mountains and on to Oregon, thus making an open road from the Missonri River to the Pacific Ocean. With slight changes, this road remained the Oregon Trail through the years of overland travel. Every spring in May, the long emigrant wagon trains left the Missouri River and arrived on the Pacific Coast in November. It was a wonderful trip. Every day the train moved fifteen or twenty miles. Every night it eamped. Every day there were new travelers. Children were born on the way. There were weddings and funerals. It was a great traveling eity, moving 2,000 miles from the river to the ocean.
There are five periods in the story of the Oregon Trail. The first was the period of finding the way and breaking the trail and 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 California in 1849. The third period was that of the rush for gold and extends Vol. 1-6
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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 effacement.
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 by him and his party of Indians from the 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 conceived a high idea of the countless white nations. They fancied that all had gone over that road and that an 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 Napoleon, Dan O'Connell, Old Kentuck, 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 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."
OTHER TRAILS
"The second important trail across Nebraska is the one which started from the banks of the Missouri 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 returning Astorians in 1813 and some of the early fur traders. The Mormons made this a wagon road in 1842 when their great company which wintered at Florence and Bellevue took this way to the valley of the Great Salt Lake. It was often called the Mormon Trail. Some of the immigrants to Oregon and California went over this route and hence it is sometimes called the Oregon Trail or California Trail. There was less travel on this trail than on the one south of the Platte River because there was more sand here. (This is in recent years more commonly called the .Overland "Trail.') This north side trail ran through the counties of Douglas, Sarpy, Dodge, Colfax. Platte, Merrick, Hall, Buffalo, Dawson, Lincoln, Garden, Morrill and Scotts Bluff." (It will be noticed that this very closely parallels the route event- ually selected for the transcontinental, Union Pacific, or Overland. railway.)
"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 Kearney. Near this point they united and followed up the south bank of the Platte to Denver. The route from Omaha to Denver was
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up the north bank of the Platte to Shin's Ferry in Butler County, where it crossed to the south side and continued up the river to Fort Kearney.
"There was also a road from Nebraska City up the south bank of the Platte, which was joined by the Omaha road after it crossed the river. It was called the Fort Kearney and Nebraska City road. A new and more direct road was laid out in 1860 from Nebraska City west through the counties of Otoe, Lancaster, Seward, York, Hall and Kearney. This was the best road to Denver. It was called the Nebraska City cut-off. It became very popular and during the years from 1862 to 1869 was traveled by thousands of immigrants and freighters. Over the Denver Trail went the Pike's Peak immigrants and the supplies and machinery for opening the mines in Colorado."
THE DECLINE OF THESE TRAILS
Upon the completion of the Union Pacific Railroad in 1869, the passage and decline of these trails started at a rapid rate. Short stretches from one town or settlement to another became regular roads, but remained no longer integral parts of a great through highway of travel. At many places through Nebraska, traces of the old wagon wheels or tracks remain visible.
THE STAGE COACHES
Before we pass entirely from this period, it would only be fitting to give short consideration to the conveyances and methods of travel used in the period we have just been discussing. Overland stages had been the main means of travel before the advent of the railroad coach. The great trails just recounted, across the State of Nebraska served as highways for the Overland stage from the Missouri River to the Pacific Ocean. The most commonly used vehicle for this work was the light Concord coach, so-called because they were first built at Concord, New Hampshire. They accommodated usually mne passengers inside and often one or two sat outside with the driver.
With the Overland Stage developed the Overland Mail. The first contract for carrying this mail was let in 1850 to Samnel H. Woodton, of Independence, Missouri. This was a monthly service on a route with terminals 1,200 miles apart, St. Louis, and Salt Lake City, with the service later extended to Sacramento, California. Through Nebraska, this service substantially followed the Oregon Trail. The hard winter of 1856-7 blocked this route for several months. The California mail coach was then placed on a southern route through Arizona, but with the Civil war it was brought north again and in 1861, the first daily overland mail began running from the Missouri River to California. This mail at first started from St. Joseph. After a few months it ran from Atchison, joining the Oregon Trail a few miles south of the Nebraska state line and following it as far as the crossing of the South Platte near Julesburg, where it diverted making a new road, called the Central Route, through the mountains to Salt Lake City. This was said to be the greatest stage line in the world. In 1859, the mail contract had been transferred to Russell, Majors & Waddell, who afterwards became the most extensive freighters in Nebraska from the Missouri River. The stages taking the Overland route usually followed the south side of the Platte River,
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while the Union Pacific Railroad was later built on the north side of that river. These daily stage lines ran from 1861 to 1866 both ways, except for a short period during the Indian depredations of 1864.
THE PONY EXPRESS SYSTEM
The pony express system began April 3, 1860, and continued for eighteen months until the completion of the telegraph line to San Francisco. This system was originated by William H. Russell, of Leavenworth, Kansas, and was the forerunner of the great fast mail (postal) system of the United States. The pony express was a man on horseback carrying a mail bag and riding as fast as the horse could run. As the horse and man, covered with dust and foam, dashed into a station another man on horseback snatched the bag and raced to the next station. So the bag of letters and dispatches rushed day and night across the plains and mountains between the Missouri River and the ocean. It is reputed that the quickest time ever made by the pony express was in March, 1861, when President Lincoln's inaugural address was carried from St. Joseph to Sacramento, 1,980 miles, in seven days and seventeen hours. The charges were originally five dollars for each letter of one-half ounce or less; but afterwards this was reduced to two dollars and a half, this being in addition to the regular United States postage.
THEN AND NOW
But in 1920. we can hardly realize the full force of the importance of these old roads. We now see our succession of thriving cities, towns and villages of Nebraska, connected by rail, by telegraph, in some places by paved roads and dotted all over the state, with the new, leveled, graded, smooth state highway. -
Then the road led across the naked prairie from the Missouri River-wide, hard, and bare, except in real dry weather, with its terribly wrathy ruts. It followed no general course, unless in a general northwesterly direction. It crossed bridgeless streams, traversed through localities of great beauty, where the traveler might un- wittingly scare away great numbers of antelope. buffalo, elk or deer, and even the worse, coyotes, wolves and animals of prey. Such a thoroughfare was traveled by as heterogeneous a mass of people as could be found anywhere-merchants, capital- ists, freighters, prospectors, hunters, trappers, traders, soldiers, adventurers, pleasure seekers, home seekers, emigrants, Indians, Mormons, gamblers, outlaws, tourists and even representatives of foreign nations. Here and there some enter- prising rancher supplied the freighters, soldiers, stage-drivers, emigrants and tray- elers with food and drink-especially drink.
Now the roads lead along well defined courses, generally well graded, often marked from mile to mile with plain directions as to course and distance. Not only is the road definitely defined but along its side traverse the poles with wires for telegraph, telephone and electric power transmission. Streams are well bridged. though once in a while one still stumbles upon the old rickety wooden bridge, not yet replaced with steel or concreto bridge. Where there formerly was only endless prairie, now to the vista appears magnificent farm mansions, and wonderful barns. even splendid garages, and machinery and stock palaces, innumerable sheds and smaller buildings, and many a farm with an automobile or two, a tractor, a power
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plant, and much power driven machinery around. Instead of travel by foot, by horseback and stage coach, the most usual vehicles to dodge now are fast automo- biles, chugging motorcycles, and occasionally a farm wagon or buggy of the type of a decade or two ago.
Out of it all is coming the permanently constructed highway. What the old national highway was to the plains, what the welcome transcontinental Union Pacific became, even now the great granddaughter of the old trail, the permanently constructed highway, bids fair to become-and very soon at that-unless the aerial highway for high-powered aeroplanes, and passenger balloons, overpowers it.
"There are highways born, the old roads die- Can you read what once they said, From the way worn ditch and the sunflower chimp, And the needs of folk long dead."
CHAPTER IV
THE GRADUAL SETTLEMENT OF THE STATE
COUNTIES IN THE ORDER OF SETTLEMENT-SETTLEMENT OF INDIVIDUAL COMMUNITIES -1810-1819-1826-1844-1846-1853-OMAHA - BROWNVILLE - NEMAILA CITY-PLATTSMOUTH -- NEBRASKA CITY-1854-1855-1856-COLUMBUS-FRE- MONT-BEATRICE-GRAND ISLAND-1858-1860-1863-1866-NORTH PLATTE- 1867-1868-1869-SCHUYLER-WAHOO-BLAIR-FAIRBURY-NORFOLK - 1870 -1871-2-KEARNEY-1873-1877-1880-1881-2-1883.
"Hear the tread of pioneers Of nations yet to be, The first low wash of waves where soon Shall roll a human sea."
We have paid brief tribute in preceding chapters to the original inhabitants of Nebraska, the Indians, and to the intrepid, aggressive and determined explorers who found this fair state and opened it to the vista of the white settlers. We expect yet, in a chapter to follow, to pay brief tribute to the valiant pioneers who opened up the settlement of cach county in the state. But to gain a connected and com- prehensive conception of the gradual progression of the settlement of our state both in time and geographical scope, we may well pause and record a roster of the counties and communities in the order in which their settlement was perfected. before we attempt a separate consideration of each, in the usual course of alphabetical order.
COUNTIES IN ORDER OF SETTLEMENT
(No attempt has been made where settlements are attributed to several counties in the same year, to carry the event to months or days-but they are listed perhaps somewhat indiscriminately in that year. In most cases, a more definite date than merely giving the year is given in the separate consideration of the county, to follow in another chapter.)
Temporary Settlements
1810 and 1823. Present Sarpy County. ( Post at Bellevue.) 1819 to 1827. Present Washington County. ( Fort Atkinson.)
Permanent Settlements
Prior to 1844. Sarpy. 1811. Otoe, at Fort Kearney, later Nebraska City, and Douglas, at Florence.
1848. Kearney County, at new Fort Kearney.
1853. Cass County. Plattsmouth,
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1854. Nemaha County. Brownville
and Nemaha City. Dakota County. Richardson County. Pawnee County. Jefferson County.
Saunders County. Butler County. Nance County. Hall County. Clay County. C'edar County.
1855. Washington County, permanent settlement.
Burt County.
1858. Buffalo County. Saline County. Nuckolls County.
1856. Dodge County.
Colfax County. Platte County. Cuming County.
Knox County. Johnson County.
1859. Dixon County. Kearney County, for permanent settlement, outside of old Fort Kearney. Merrick County. Seward County. Lincoln County.
1857. Gage County, permanent settle- ment. Laneaster County. 1861. Dawson County.
It will be noted at this point that settlement of new territory was virtually halted during the Civil war period and the period of worst Indian depredations, centering from 1862-1864. It will also be noted that the names of counties used in this list are the present names of the respective counties. Those which were formed with other names will be so differentiated when the order of organization of counties is discussed.
1865. Stanton County. Madison County. York County. 1866. Fillmore County. Pieree County.
1862. Hamilton County. Polk County.
Keith County, embracing later Perkins County. Cheyenne County, along the line of the new Union Pacific, so embracing later Kimball County. Denel County. And in a way, Banner County and Garden County which set- tled soon after that time, for cattle ranch purposes.
1868. Antelope County. 1869. Thayer County. Wayne County. Hitchcock County, this proving somewhat temporary.
1820. Adams County. Webster County. Franklin County. Harlan County. Furnas County.
1871. Boone County. Greeley County. Howard County. Red Willow County.
1822. Sherman County. Valley County. Holt County, and from it Boyd County. Phelps County. Gosper County. Frontier County. Hitchcock County, permanently.
1823. Garfield County, and a little later into Wheeler County. Chase County and probably into Dundy County, and about 1880 into Hayes County.
1823-4. Custer Connty.
HISTORY OF NEBRASKA
1822. Sioux County.
In 1882. Cheyenne County included the present counties of Kimball, Deuel and Banner, which were partially set- tled : and the following counties, which received their permanent settlements at or shortly after that time.
Scotts Bluff County. Morrill County. Garden County.
In 1882, Sioux County covered an area now covered by sixteen counties. Of these, Holt and Sioux alone have been recorded. Between 1882 and 1886, settlements crept into territory now, Cherry County.
Brown County.
Rock County.
Keya Paha County,
Between 1886 and 1890. settlements crept into territory since formed into.
Blaine County.
Thomas County.
Grant County.
Hooker County. Dawes County.
Sheridan County.
Logan County.
McPherson County and
Arthur County. ( Thurston n County formed from Omaha Indian reservation territory. )
SETTLEMENT OF INDIVIDUAL COMMUNITIES
The foregoing roster of counties in the order of their settlement is mainly of statistical valne. The real criterion of the time and rotation of settlement through the various parts of the state is best measured by a survey of the rotation in which the different towns, cities and small communities were projected, platted and incorporated.
On the 30th of May. 1854, when President Pierce affixed his signature to the Kansas-Nebraska Bill, the Territory of Nebraska was very sparsely settled. The white population of the territory at that time was a little less than 3.000 souls, scattered among the little settlements at Bellevue, Omaha, Brownville and other places along the Missouri River bottoms,
While Lewis and Clark in 1804 and Manuel Lisa in 1805 had made their ex- plorations along the east edge of the state it was not until 1810, that a permanent settlement was attempted in Nebraska,
1810. In that year. the American Fur Company. organized and controlled by the genius of John Jacob Astor, established a trading post at Bellevue. A French-Canadian by name of Francis Deroin was placed in charge. Deroin was succeeded by a fellow countryman, Joseph Robidoux, familiarly known as "Old Joe" and who was later the father of St. Joseph, Missouri. In 1816, his successor, John Carbanne came and stayed until 1824, when Col. Peter A. Sarpy took charge. Colonel Sarpy, for whom the county in which this post was situated was eventually named, was a splendid speciman of the hardy race of pioneers who laid the founda- tion stones of the wonderful structure of Nebraska. At the time of the formation of the territory, Sarpy was described as being fifty-five years of age, rather below me- dium in height, with black hair, dark complexion, well-knit and compact feature and a heavy beard that scorned the razor's edge for many years. His manner was com- manding. his address fluent. and in the presence of the opposite sex, he was pol- ished and fluent.
1819. The Government located a military post within the present limits of
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HISTORY OF NEBRASKA
Washington County. The post was then called Fort Atkinson, but afterwards the name was changed to Fort Calhoun. It stood on the spot where Lewis and Clark held their famous conneil with the chiefs of the Otoe and Missouri Indians. The fort was abandoned as a military post in 1827.
1826. Next to Peter Sarpy, John Boulware is believed to be the first white man to attempt a settlement in the yet unorganized Territory of Nebraska. He established himself at Fort Calhoun, in 1826, the year before the fort there was abandoned. A trading post near there had been moved to Bellevue in 1823. Boulware remained at Fort Calhoun for many years, but in 1846 he established, or rather was placed in charge of a Government ferry at Fort Kearney, at the present site of Nebraska ('ity.
1844. Next to Bellevue, the attempting of any settlement is attributed to the sojourn of the Mormons in 1844, at the location of what is now the town of Florence, recently annexed to Omaha. Driven out of Illinois, buffeted across the plains of Iowa, the Mormons believed they could rest in peace on the banks of the Missouri and established their colony about six miles north of Omaha, at Florence, The land within and surrounding their settlement was cultivated and soon fully 10,000 disciples of Joseph Smith were gathered near here. But they were not destined to remain any great factor in Nebraska's development, for as soon as it was determined that Salt Lake City was to become the permanent capital of their empire, within which their teachings and practices would not be interrupted, they migrated to their modern Zion. So in 1851 the Mormons at Florence abandoned their prairie homes and journeyed westward.
1846. The next move in the unorganized territory was probably the estab- lishment in 1846 of a small post called Fort Kearney, on the site of the present Ne- braska City, and a ferry across the river at that point. The American Fur Com- pany also in this year or perhaps in 1847, established a trading post at this point. This continued until 1854. The fort was used as a military post by the Government until 1848, when it was abandoned and the garrison moved to new Fort Kearney, in the present Kearney County, and below the present eity of Kearney on the Platte River. It might be remarked that the original spelling of the valiant soldier for whom these various places were named was "Kearny," but it has grad- ually by usage been changed to this word with the "e" in the last syllable.
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