USA > Nebraska > Hamilton County > History of Hamilton and Clay counties, Nebraska, Vol. I > Part 46
USA > Nebraska > Clay County > History of Hamilton and Clay counties, Nebraska, Vol. I > Part 46
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The Polander left the Little Blue and went to Columbus after his children were stolen. When his girl came back she told where the boy was killed and she and her father went and got the boy's bones and took them to Columbus. They stayed over night both going and coming at James Waddle's.
Jessie Campbell married Charlie Land and they visited us and she told us all about her life with the Indians.
When my mother died the last of August, 1867, we thought we would have to take a wagon box to make a coffin, but E. D. Copsey had come here and taken a claim and bought some lumber to make a door and some window frames. He let us have that and Mr. Henderson made the eoffin and my father and I lined it.
Mr. Waddle and Unele John Brown came in June, but they stayed at the Jack Stone ranch east of York. They had bought the improvements and had some crops in there.
We bought a cow down at Beaver Crossing, had her two months and she got in the sod corn and ate too much and died. There were no pigs or chickens to be bought at any price. We had been here a year and a half before we got hens, then we got four.
The first New Year's day we were here the settlers all met at Mr. Fairbanks and had a pienie dinner. We took the door off the hinges to make the table hig enough. The weather was like summer, the children were barefoot.
That winter small bands of Pawnees came and camped on the river to hunt and trap. They made us many visits and begged for everything they saw. In the fall of 1868 nearly all the tribe had been south hunting. They got in a fight with the Sioux. They came north and drove the buffaloes ahead of them. The whole country south of the Blue was alive with buffaloes. The Pawnees had killed a Sioux and brought his scalp with them, and had it fixed up on a long pole. The tribe divided when they got to the Blue. Part of them camped on the forks and the rest on a small creek east of us.
Mr. Bray caught a young buffalo about two months old. The Indians wanted to kill it, they said it was "their cattle." We kept it a year, when a man riding horseback from Lincoln to Kearney came up the Blue. The buffalo was used to
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following the horses and when the man rode along it followed his horse and he shot it. Ile said he thought it was a wild one.
In 1868 a man came riding from Grand Island aeross to the Blue. He said he had been chased by Indians and that they were coming down the river. Mr. Chaffee came down and told the settlers along the river. The men decided they would go and drive them back. While they were getting ready the women gathered up lead and molded bullets. Nine men started and rode up the river and on west but found no Indians, so camped until the next morning. Part of them came home and the rest went on to the Martin settlement west of Grand Island. They found that there had been Indians there and they had had an eight- hour fight with Martins and others, and had been driven away. Since we have wondered many times what we women and children would have done if the Indians had come in on us after the men had gone.
In 1869, if I remember right, government gave us a postoffice but would not give us a carrier, so the soldiers hired a carrier. We got our mail from Mc- Fadden, now called MeCool. Each year brought more settlers and by 1870 we began to think we were old settlers. By that time a number of families had settled on the Blue and on Beaver Creek, and it didn't seem so much like a desert. There were some things to be bought near home and we didn't have to go to Nebraska City for a paper of pins or a box of matches, as Lincoln was only 75 miles away.
In those first years we saw many hard times, and did without many things we would have been glad to have had. All were neighbors in every sense of the word. In 1869 and '70 we had preaching in the houses that were large enough to hold the people. A preacher from Turkey Creek came every two weeks. In 1870 we had our first Fourth of July celebration. D. A. Seovil had just come to Hamilton county and he delivered the oration. The settlers on Beaver Creek eame over and we had a jolly good time. I have the first flag staff used in Hamilton county. When my brother went to North Dakota he gave it to me. He said he didn't want it any longer I could put it in the historical rooms at Aurora.
Nearly all of those first old settlers have gone to the great beyond, but they left behind them a country to be proud of, one that more than compensates for the privations they endured in those early days.
Yours respectfully,
MRS. C. M. BRAY.
ON OLD TRAIL.
JOHN HARRIS ESTABLISHED DEEPWELL RANCH OLD SETTLER IN COUNTY ONE WHO WELCOMED SCOTCH COLONY 1867 RETURNS TO SCENES OF HIS YOUTH.
Many requests have come to the Republican during the past few weeks for a continuation of the oldl settlers reminiscences which proved so popular a feature during the summer. By a fortunate circumstance a contribution from John Harris, probably the first white settler in Hamilton county (surely the oldest survivor), is secured as the first installment of the new series.
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HISTORY OF HAMILTON COUNTY
Mr. Harris, whose present home is in Vollran, Colo., is here with his wife and granddaughter, Miss Esther Harris, on a visit to the seenes which he knew well when human habitations were few and far between. He is a native of Georgia, 77 years of age, a veteran who saw four years of hard service in the Confederate army, was taken prisoner at the siege of Atlanta and, when released at the close of the war, came west to grow up with the country and established the overland station known as Deepwell ranch in 1865. Minus the gentle southern accent which manifests itself, his story follows :
"I was born and raised near Atlanta and upon the outbreak of the war enlisted in the First Georgia Infantry for 12 months. After a short rest following my discharge I re-enlisted in the Thirty-sixth Georgia and served three years more, being captured by Sherman's troops when Atlanta fell. I was sent with other prisoners to Camp Douglas, near Chicago, where I was held until the war elosed in the spring of 1865 and then, with a comrade by the name of Alf Blue, came directly to Nebraska.
"We caught a wagon train at Nebraska City and decided to stop near the Platte river and establish a raneh, or station which was needed at this point. We built a big sod house and barn and dng a well 65 feet deep. For want of a better name we ealled it 'Deepwell ranch.' The barn was half dug-out and half sod and was capable of holding 165 head of horses. The men who accompanied the wagon trains generally camped outside but we often had twenty-five in the house at one time. We were never lonesome, for the trains were passing con- stantly between Nebraska City and Denver and Salt Lake City. One was nearly always in sight, either coming or going. Our nearest neighbors were the Milspaugh ranch, 14 miles east, and John Brown's ranch, 11 miles west, those being about the distanees of a day's drive for a heavily loaded wagon train. I have not yet been able to locate the exact site of Deepwell raneh, but hope to do so before I leave.
"We remained at Deepwell for two years and then abandoned it. I hired out to John Brown to put in a erop for him on Beaver Creek near the York County line in the spring of 1867. I did not take the trouble to plow but scratched the seed into the sod and raised 35 bushels of corn to the acre and a whopping big erop of oats. In June of that year the Scotch Colony, headed by James Waddle and James Cameron, arrived from Wisconsin. They stopped at the Brown place and the night of their arrival Jennie Waddle was born.
"Soon after I homesteaded what is known as the old Laurie farm on the Blue, but only remained there one year. 1 chopped wood two years for the Union Pacific Railroad, which had just been built through, and helped put up the first bank building in Grand Island for Koenig & Wiebe. There were only three or four houses in town at that time.
"I returned to Hamilton county soon afterwards and took a pre-emption near the present site of Stockham, remaining in that vieinity for about 30 years when I removed to Hitcheock county. Eleven years later I located in Colorado and am still there. I have raised six children, all living. My wife is a stepdaughter of Israel Gibbons, a well known settler who lived about 8 miles southeast of Aurora in the early days.
"The first election in Hamilton county was held at my house (a 'halfbreed dugout') on the Blue. I don't remember the year nor the number of votes east,
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but I gave every man in the county his dinner. Norris Bray, Will Young and Billie Worth were elected commissioners, J. D. Weseott county elerk, Joe Stoek- ham sheriff and myself county surveyor. I laid out the county seat of Orville shortly afterwards.
"Indians and buffalo? Lord bless you, the prairies were alive with them. My first experience with the redskins was when the Sioux raided the Campbell place about 25 miles up the Platte and carried off four children. Bob Henderson, (. O. Wescott and myself went up to help the settlers and were charged $1.50 each for a night's lodging by a man named Burgess. That made us so mad that we swiped half a dozen of chickens, some 'wagon dope' and a few other things that we could carry and came home.
"We had some exciting buffalo hunts, too. I well reniember getting lost within 300 yards of my camp on one of them. All kinds of game were plentiful and we never lacked meat.
"Just before we left Deepwell a Mormon wagon train of 83 sixmule teams passed through on its way to Utah under command of Brigham Young, Jr., with 500 Swedish converts who had just arrived from the old country. It was one of the most impressive sights I ever saw.
"No, I have never been back to Georgia, " concluded Mr. Harris in a response to a question as he arose to go. "Why should I? My home was in the direct line of Sherman's march to the sea and there was nothing left for me to return to. The only members of my family left when I last heard of them were my mother, a sister and brother, and I have never been able to locate them since the war. I suppose they are all dead long ago."
Mr. Harris went to Stockham yesterday to meet his old friends in that vicinity but will visit Aurora again before returning to Colorado. Ile is. a remarkably well preserved man for his years, but his appearance and conver- sation bear indisputable witness to the fact that he has passed through a remark- able career.
REACHED BLUE IN 67.
MRS. CAMERON TELLS OF EARLY DAYS IN NEBRASKA BOB LAMONT'S COURTSHIP
MADE GOOD USE OF HIS TIME ON JOURNEY FROM WISCONSIN AND WON A BRIDE
Next Monday, June 14th, will be the 48th anniversary of Mrs. Anna E. Cameron's arrival in Hamilton county-and she still lives hale and hearty, in the village of Stockham one mile east of the homestead on which she and her husband then settled. Three pioneer women of that section, Mrs. C. M. Bray, Mrs. Martha Land and Mrs. Cameron, have furnished exceedingly valuable contribu- tions concerning the first settlement in Hamilton county, but Mrs. Cameron appears to hold the palm for being the oldest continuous resident. Her story told with marked Scotch aceent, loses much of its charm in the cold reproduction of print :
"We came from Dane county, Wisconsin-my husband, James Cameron, my right-months old baby, Thomas and myself-driving through with the James Waddell family," said Mrs. Cameron to the Republican recently.
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"Mr. Waddell and Unele John Brown had come out the previous January and arranged to put in a erop, leaving John Harris in charge of the place. We all made headquarters at the Waddell home until we could loeate our elaims, but it was not long until Mr. Cameron secured the southeast quarter of a section 26-9-6 and we went to ourselves. We lived that first summer in our covered wagon, but managed to get a dugout finished, in addition to raising a crop, before cold weather set in, and we lived underground for three years. We then built a log house which lasted us for a long time.
"We were many weeks on the road from Wisconsin to Nebraska, and the experience was as strange as it was delightful to us. We crossed the Missouri river on a ferry at Nebraska City, and I remember that one of our cows got seared and jumped overboard. A young man by the name of Robert Lamont was in the party and he paid marked attention to Mr. Waddell's daughter Mary during the trip. This romantic courtship was consummated in their marriage October 20, 1867, and the Lamont family became one of the most prominent in our neighborhood. Mr. Lamont was our first postmaster. Among our earliest neighbors I recall Cyrus Wescott, Jarvis Chaffee and 'Uncle Davey' Henderson. Mrs. Henderson and Mrs. Waddell were sisters. Our first Fourth of July was spent at Henderson's and the men celebrated by shooting an antelope.
"There was no railroad nearer than Nebraska City except the Union Pacific, and as the Platte was generally impassable supplies had to be hauled long dis- tances. Our hauling was all done from Nebraska City the first year or two and we paid $9.00 per hundredweight for flour, 5 dollars for corn meal and 40 cents a pound for bacon. Ilowever, there were plenty of buffalo, elk, deer and wild turkeys and we lived well. We had good crops in the first few years. Some of the finest potatoes I ever saw-and even got a thrifty orchard started. Every- body was friendly and we had many good times, always making it a point to share our game, even if it was nothing more than a wild turkey.
"There was an occasional Indian seare, but we were never molested. I remember partienlarly the raid of 1867, when the Sioux crossed the Platte near Lone Tree, killed a woman and baked her baby in the oven of the cook stove. This was the same time that they kidnapped four children from the Campbell home near Grand Island and shot a little boy because he eried. The other chil- dren were recovered through the assistance of the United States Government.
'Great herds of buffalo roamed the prairies when we first came, and I recall a terrible fright they gave Mrs. Lamont and myself one day when we were alone at home. I thought they would surely trample ns into the earth, but the herd divided before it reached the house.
"In the fall of 1868 about 4,000 Winnebagoes and Pawnees eamped about three quarters of a mile west of our place. They were returning from the war path and carried five Sioux scalps which had been taken in battle. They remained five days and had a war danee every night-one for each scalp. We were afraid of them at first, but soon found that they were harmless. One time Mr. Chaffee brought a party of 13 Indians to our house just after dinner was over. I set out some bread, butter and sorghum for them and then offered them some milk. One big warrior refused it with disgust, saying : 'Naw, me no calf.' They were always begging for 'firewater' but we were careful to see that they did not get it.
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"I think the first religious service ever held in the county was at the Robert Lamont home sometime in 1869. A United Brethren minister by the name of Caldwell preached. It was about that time I was converted. At an experience meeting recently I said that I was born in Scotland and gave my heart to God while in mortal terror of Indians in a Nebraska dugout."
Mrs. Cameron is the mother of 14 children, 10 of whom are living (1915). Her oldest son, Thomas Scott, who came to Nebraska with her when 8 months old, is now employed by the street car company at Sioux City. Her husband died July 5. 1901. Mrs. Cameron still owns the original homestead and also 160 acres of railroad land which adjoins Stoekham on the west.
LAST PAWNEE IIUNT.
FORMER AURORA MAN FAMILIAR WITH THE FACTS. INDIANS EXPECTED FIGHT. WENT PREPARED FOR TROUBLE AND BOASTED OF WHAT THEY WOULD DO TO THE SIOUX
(Editor of the Aurora Republican, Aurora, Nebraska. )
Los Angeles, Calif., Feb. 14, 1916. Dear Sir :
I failed to get the Republican dated February 3rd, and would be pleased to have you send me a copy of that date, as I was very much interested in the story of the last buffalo hnut of the Pawnee Indians, and it was to be con- tinned in the February 3rd, number.
I well remember the time ( 73) when they passed my place, five miles west of Aurora on the state road leading to the Platte. Knowing they were on a buffalo hunt, A. W. Howard, Ed Cooper and myself concluded our only chance to get buffalo meat would be to beat them to hunting grounds. In a short time we were on the way and passed them encamped on the Platte in the vicinity of the old bridge, ten miles south of Grand Island. This bridge all old settlers of '72 and '73 well remember, as we had to eross it to get to Grand Island to do our trading in those early days. After driving well past them we eamped for the night. Quite a number of the young braves stayed around our campfire until late. We were on the road the next morning by sunup, but found a half a dozen Indians riding alongside our wagon on their ponies. Before long they offered to change places with us, which we did. They seemed to enjoy the wagon, but we soon asked them to ride their own ponies, of which we soon tired, riding without a saddle. We had a hard drive, but reached Lowell about noon (a station I think was discontinued ). We made a further drive of twenty-five miles in the afternoon to what was then ealled Walker's ranch, and eamped for the night. This was the second night. Whether the Pawnees crossed to the south side of the Platte we did not know, but it does not seem likely as there was no bridge short of Kearney. This being in June when the river was high. I think it very improbable, especially as there was a good road on the south side of the Platte to old Fort Kearney, and I think beyond. I see no reason why they should be on the north side and then cross at Phim Creek on the south again,
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when it would lengthen their route and not have as good a road to travel, but I positively know they continued on the south side of the river to Lowell.
The few that stayed with us were armed with bows and arrows, so they must have known there were Sioux in the neighborhood, for they were continually boasting how they were going to do np their old enemies, the Sioux. I suppose they had other arms, but I don't remember seeing any. However, as there was a large eneampment, and a great many tents, they may have had them inside. There were so many ponies we had to drive clear of them before we could lariat our horses without being interfered with by them. It seemed to me they must have had some 600 or 800 ponies, but as there was fine grass and water there was plenty for all.
After leaving Walker's ranch, we drove to Orleans and crossed the Republi- ean, where we nearly drowned our horses, the river being high and swift, we eould not keep their heads against the current to make a landing. We had a difficult time to get them out and up the steep banks, which we finally did alright, and found ourselves in the midst of buffalo, but as they were being chased by men on horseback we could not get near enough to get a shot on foot.
In the morning we drove toward the west, between the Beaver and Republican, where there were large herds and few hunters; they were comparatively tame and we certainly saw a thousand in one drove and ten or twelve herds on distant high points over the country.
While getting onr buffalo we met six Sioux Indians whom I suppose were scouts looking for the Pawnees. We did not know there were any considerable party of them in the vicinity. Upon our arrival home we first heard of the massacre of the Pawnees by the Sionx. On the same grounds traversed in our buffalo hunt this battle occurred. We wondered that they would permit them- selves to be surprised after bragging how they were going to get the Sioux, but they failed miserably and fought their last battle as a tribe. The government soon moved them to Oklahoma, where the remnant of the once prond Pawnee tribe may perhaps be found today.
L. Isaman, 1130 W. 7th St.
LIFE AMONG PLAIN INDIANS.
JAMES MOONEY TELLS ABOUT THEIR DAILY LIFE AND OCCUPATIONS. WHAT THEY ATE AND HOW THEY WERE AMUSED.
The Indian is more than an Indian : he is a member of a tribe ; and each tribe is practically a small, distinct nation, usually with a distinet language. In North and South America we have nobody knows how many tribes, because they never have been counted. We have at least a thousand different languages, putting it in another shape, we may say there are a thousand ways to say "dog" in Indian. In Europe there are not more than fifty languages, each unintelligible to those speaking the others. Most of these languages are still in existence, but some of them have been wiped out.
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To go into detail of Indian life, as I have seen it, would take a long time. I might give you one or two days of the winter camp, and one or two days of the summer camp. It was customary, years ago, for the roaming tribes to stay out in the open prairie through the summer season. They seattered about, but generally camped near some convenient spring in the neighborhood of grass and timber. There parties from other tribes would come and visit them, sometimes hundreds together, and they would have a dance. The Kiowas now live in south- western Oklahoma. Anadarko, their ageney, has now about six thousand people. When I first knew it, it had about fifty whites-ageney employes, two or three traders, and a few missionaries-all the rest were Indians, but the Indians stayed there only a part of the time as a rule. Along late in the fall they would come down, one camp after another, all within a week or so, setting up their tipis close to Anadarko, in the timber along the bottom lands on the south side of the Washita river. Some of you have read General Custer's work, "My life on the plains," and will remember that he tells about the battles which he fought with the Cheyenne, Kiowa and other tribes in this part of the country.
In the winter tipis were set up and strung out from five to eight miles along the river. Sometimes around the tipi they would build a windbreak, made of interwoven brush. If the timber was pretty close, they did not need to make a windbreak. I first joined them in the winter eamp and remember distinctly my first night there. The head man was presiding at the supper and dishing out soup and he asked me if I did not think it was good; but I was wondering how it was possible for anyone to eat it. The soup was made of jerked beef, eut into small pieces and cooked in salted water. With the soup they had bread, made by mixing flour with water and frying it in a pan over a hole in the ground. In the Indian sign language the sign for bread was this :- (indieating the smooth- ing of the cake with the hands). They call coffee "black soup."
Our family had two tipis, each sat up with twenty poles and with three beds around the circle inside. The old man had been one of the war chiefs in his best days, which gave him a reputation outside of his own tribe. He was known as one of their best story-tellers and master of ceremonies, and he was also a "beef chief" or distributor of the beef rations. He was the grandfather, and after we became acquainted he ealled me his son. He had three daughters and a son, all married, who with the husbands, wives and children made a family of sixteen, besides myself. The Indians were constantly visiting from one eamp to another all the time, but we usually had one or two visitors to make up.
In the center of the tipi there was a hole in the ground for the fire, where the cooking was done, and the three beds were facing it. The bed consisted of a platform about a foot above the ground, covered with a mat of peeled willow rods laid lengthwise, and looped up at one end in hammock fashion. You may have seen some of these Indian bed platforms in museum collections. The bed is covered with buffalo skins and there is a pillow at one end. If you ever have a chance to see one of these beds and examine it earefully, you will find that each of the willow rods is fastened to the other in a very unique way, the narrow top end of one rod alternating with the thieker bottom end of the next rod, so as to preserve an even balanee.
After dark we have supper, and then, when they are through telling stories and shaking the rattle, we go to bed.
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In the morning one of the women gets up and, in winter, takes her bucket and ax and goes down to the river for water. If it is not too cold, she dips it up, if the river is frozen she has to break the ice. While she is about that her sister has brought in some wood and made the fire. They do not pile wood on as we do, but push the sticks endways into the fire. So arranged they give out a uniform heat. The tipi is very comfortable in winter, more so than most of the poorly built frontier houses. We had three women in our family besides the old grandmother. While one went after the water and the other after the wood, the third prepared the breakfast .. They made bread hot for every meal, baking it in the pan, with tallow for grease. The regular ration issue every two weeks consisted of beef, flour, coffee and sugar. A few days after the rations were issued the meat which is eaten with it gives out, and then there is only flour and coffee. They use the black coffee, which is always made fresh. Sometimes they have sugar, but never cream. The Indian woman is as good a coffee maker as you will find anywhere. When breakfast is ready they spread out a piece of canvas or something of the kind in front of the bed platforms and set out on it the dishes and eups. They formerly used bowls and spoons. The food is divided and handed around by the woman who is the head of the household. After the meal is over a cloth is passed around for a napkin. When they have nothing else, I have seen them use dry grass tied up into a knot.
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