History of Richardson County, Nebraska : its people, industries and institutions, Part 10

Author: Edwards, Lewis C
Publication date: 1917
Publisher: Indianapolis : B.F. Bowen
Number of Pages: 1742

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are enabled to have instant and personal communication with distant friends, where they had to wait for weeks and months for the letter brought by the freighter or passing traveler.

But they came ; not because they had been actually crowded out at home -many leaving comparative comfort behind, and staked their all on the caprice of a bare, naked chance that they would be able to survive the rigorous vicissitudes that must come before such a world could be con- quered. They found arid ands of the prairie and conquered them; they built towns and villages where before had been a solitude.

WHITE RACE PIONEERS OF CIVILIZATION.

The white race, unlike their brethren of other peoples, have been pre- eminent from the dawn of history as the pathfinders who have migrated to the four corners of the globe and traversed the recesses of the darkest conti- nents in quest of adventure and excitement, with the consequent gain that has always followed in the wake of their undertakings. The stout hearts of this pioneering people have braved every danger, overcome every obstacle incident to travel or climate, conquered the savage wherever found, subdued the wild beast and the land, and prepared and made safe the sections visited for the host that followed. Leaving Europe, they played star parts in bringing dominion over the Americas. Our pioneers were the advance guard of the great movement, which has now penetrated every part of North Amer- ica. Those coming here were in advance of their time and because the title to the lands were still held by the aborigines, had to be restrained by the government from entering the territory until the spring of 1854. Those pioneers, many of them, had reached western Missouri a year or two previous and had taken up temporary residence there, pending such action by the government as might open the country for settlement to the whites. The Indian titles under the treaties made many years before were not extin- guished until 1854, and the act known as the Kansas-Nebraska bill, did not reach its final stage of passage until May, 1854.

This being the case when the settlers arrived in 1854. they found the season far too much advanced for the preparation of the land. so necessary for the successful growing of crops that year. Jesse Crook had taken a claim, included in which was the land now known as the William Nutter farin, the east half of the northeast quarter of section 2, of township I, north of range 16, and had succeeded in breaking up a part of it; to be exact, that part south of the present new home of Mr. Nutter; but what he or his few

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neighbors were able to break that year was very little, and the claim is made by some that not one entire section was brought under the plow that year. Under such conditions, those who came in that year, not being able to subsist on what could be produced in the new country, were obliged to rely on what they had brought, or were able to obtain, from the other side of the river. The following winter is said to have been mild compared to what had been expected, and with the coming of spring and the influx of a new crop of settlers, a real, earnest effort was made to break up the land. This was a tedious, difficult and slow task to be performed with the farming utensils at hand, but a good showing was made. We, of today, can scarcely gauge the intense interest that must have been manifest among those people, who had the honor of putting in the first crop ever attempted to be raised by white men in this unknown and untried region. But we know they must have had little time to moralize on what they were doing as, the while, their interest was quickened by the ever-present wolf of dire necessity, which stalked their foosteps, and then as now, there were mouths to · feed. Those people, with scanty stores, who had come long distances from friends or loved ones, expecting to wring an existence from the soil, watched those efforts with many misgivings; but the season of 1855 was on its good behavior and all conditions considered, the harvest was ample. What had been regarded in the light of an experiment, had now developed into a wondrous reality-the land properly handled had proved, as it has ever proved, the one best friend to its children. The story of the success of those who had come, quickly found its way Eastward to those who had waited for another to open the gate, and they came in ever-increasing num- bers to try their fortunes in the West. The press of the country was solic- ited in a campaign made to induce settlement in the new territory and the results were effective in the way of inducing many to join in the develop- ment of the country ; but the country was new and large and the settlement seemed slow to those from the more densely settled section of the East. Land was cheap; it seemed like all out-of-doors was lying here awaiting the hand of the plowman-but the market was not good and money was scarce.

LEGISLATIVE RELIEF.

It was at this period-in 1856-that the Territorial Legislature took a hand and thought to alleviate conditions in a financial way, by the intro- duction of systems of finance, calculated to make money easier to be had.

What they did, if viewed in the light of present conditions, seemed to

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have been the height of folly; but judged from conditions as they subse- quently existed, notably in 1896, when the entire country was aroused over the nation's finances-the mantle of charity might well be used in considera- tion of what was done by these embryo legislators, who had thought to ameliorate the condition of a handful of settlers in the western territory.

This wild-cat money period was initiated by the Territorial Assembly meeting at Omaha, in the winter of 1856, where it was arranged for the establishment of what was known as "banks of issue," which it claimed would accomplish the ends desired. Six of such banks were soon in opera- tion and represented one for each five hundred of the population in the territory at the time mentioned.

Under the charters given, they were allowed power to issue as many dollars of indebtedness as the circumstances of each individual shareholder might demand for themselves. This country had not, at that time, progressed so far as now, in a knowledge of correct financial methods, and the effect that followed the operations of these banks when they got into business. seemed at first to have solved the problem, and perhaps to a greater degree than was anticipated.

Undertakings, previously forestalled for lack of capital, were now under no such impediment, for money, such as it was, was plentiful. Under this stimulus, the wildest speculation was indulged in; cities sprang up as if by magic-townsites were platted and staked out. Beautifully lithographed stock shares in these townsite companies were bandied about, and everyone seemed engaged in boosting for some town which was sure to become the metropolis. Smooth dealers had agents in other states, where many of these lots were sold to unsuspecting purchasers at fabulous prices. Every man who had a claim, became obsessed with the idea that his was the location for the city of the future and interested himself in getting townsite companies formed and spent too much of his time in chasing such phantoms, when he might better have been employed in looking after the development of his lands.

SPECULATION AT FEVER HEAT.

The fever for speculation in all manner of schemes put afloat, possessed the people of all communities and had the effect of luring men away from the land, and in such a state of affairs, a less acreage, according to the population, was tilled than formerly. The boom thus occasioned, however, was characteristic of similar fluctuating inflations which have visited the state, but was temporary. There were a few far-sighted men in the territory

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at the time who could forecast the results sure to follow what was happen- ing, but they were so much in the minority that in 1857 the elections of the fall brought together another legislative assembly, which, instead of giving relief, was so thoroughly imbued with the spirit of the times that more of the wild-cat banks were given charters, and further aid was ex- tended those fostering schemes for making easy money.

Many new towns were mapped out and more agents were at work selling stock and lots. A period of the wildest speculation existed around those paper towns; but the bubble was soon to burst and carry down the usual crop of fools, ruined and bankrupt. Ruin, poverty and utter desolation were now the common fare of an entire population which had been seduced into strange paths in quest of easy money.

Those few not enamored by the glittering prospects so temptingly offered and who had remained with the soil as actual producers, were the ones best prepared to weather the storm. The long, dreary, cold winter of 1858 found the people but little prepared as they had produced little and had Exhausted the supplies they had. During this period a chance offered for study and reflection and many learned that the new country was more in need of producers and people to till the soil than of real-estate and town boomers. The experience thus gained was read into revision and improve- ment of the banking laws, which have ever proved beneficent to the people of the state.

The following year was none too good for the real-estate broker and town-lot hawkers, and they quickly disappeared as a class. With their going a renewed and rightly directed interest was manifest in the work of improv- ing agricultural conditions, which has since kept a continual flow of gold inward to the people of the state. Thus, for the first time the boats leaving for the South bore away cargoes of grain and live stock, which in turn brought back money to be used for the further development of the country.

COUNTY SEAT TROUBLES.

Right at that time the people became embroiled in one of the bitterest of contests-that of designating a permanent point for the county seat. In all new countries might makes right to a far greater extent than in those more fully systemized. The settlement of the river tier of counties. of which Richardson is the farthest south and of the first, so far preceded that of the counties lying further west, that much of what was endured liere was not repeated in the latter.

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RICHARDSON COUNTY, NEBRASKA.

From the date of the organization of the county in March, 1855, when Archer was designated as the county seat, there was a brief period of peace, but from the following year, when the county seat was removed to Salem, there was for nearly fifteen years a constant strife, which stirred the people from one end of the county to the other and the effects of which was felt in the community for many years.

An act approved by the Territorial Legislature on February 9, 1857. provided for an election to determine the county seat of Richardson county and appointed the first Thursday of April, the same year, the date of halloting. The election resulted in the defeat of Falls City and the choice of Salem as the county seat. The county offices were not, however, moved to Salem at once, and before their removal an election for a permanent loca- tion of the county seat had been held, the contestants receiving an equal number of ballots each, and the election was virtually undecided. Although the first election had resulted in the choice of Salem, many of the appurte- nances of the county seat had not been removed to that point and when the later elections finally determined that Falls City should be the county seat, they took up their final abode in this city.

THE EPIDEMIC OF 1860.

The early summer of 1860 was signalized by the advent of the most fatal and contagious disease which has ever visited the county. This was the bloody flux ; something resembling acute dysentery. The disease was supposed to have started at Rulo, having been brought there by emigrants on some river steamer. It was not confined to that town, but spread rapidly, until only the sparseness of the population prevented a strong likeness to the scenes of the great plague in London. In Salem as many as sixteen died from this disease in one week, but at the other settlements it was not so bad, Falls City having had scarcely any cases. In the newspapers of the time, it was magnified beyond all due proportions, but a careful investigation of the matter robs it of much of its terror. It was epidemic, and caused many deaths, yet ran its course rapidly and disappeared so quickly as to leave little impression on the memory of the busy pioneers.

CLAIM JUMPING.

The process of "claim jumping," or obtaining by means at least ques- tionable. the lands on which others had made settlement, was frequently

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in practice in 1857. The person who was "jumped." very frequently was a non-resident, and had simply made a claim as a speculation, intending to pre-empt if there seemed a probability of rapid increase in the value of his land, or to allow a lapse if it suited his convenience. Many of those who built claim shanties to hold the land for them until they could return with their families from Missouri or points East, returned to find the clain house demolished and some newcomer fully settled. An apt illustration of the state of things at that time is the case of Mr. Berry, who came to a point near Humboldt and located a claim by building thereon a log affair of legal size. Returning to his former home in Kansas, he loaded his wagons and started out on his return in the spring of 1858. When near Salem, his wife became so ill as imperatively to need rest, and Mr. Berry, accompanied by his son, proceeded up the Nemaha to the location of their claims.

The son's claim was the first visited, and here were found the ruins of the claim hut and evidences of calm usurpation on someone's part. This could hardly be called a surprise, for the son was unmarried, and had small hopes of retaining his claim in any event. Continuing their investigation in the dusk, which had already commenced, the father and son saw a light gleaming from the house, which had been put up on the preceding visit. Without attempting to dispossess the intruders, the Berrys turned to the cabin of a settler on the next claim, where they learned that a young married couple had thought the new nest just what they needed, and had taken possession without the formality of a lease.

It must be remembered that although the Berrys had put up a claim shanty, they had not a scrap of paper to show in proof of their legal right to the land. Armed, then, only with the unwritten code of those early days, young Berry entered the cabin and demanded of the wife of the "jumper." she being its only occupant, instant evacuation. This was as promptly re- fused, and after allowing five minutes for the removal of the household goods, Berry, with the assistance of a sister, who had joined him, deposited them in a heap on the ground, just outside the door. This done, the wagons of the settlers were driven up, and the goods unpacked and placed in the dwelling.

At about this time young Berry saw the man whose goods he had so summarily evicted, stealing along beside a pile of firewood. On reaching the chopping block he seized the ax, which was lying there, and rushed toward the house, pouring out vile epithets upon his enemies and apparently intending to drive them out again. Young Berry, however, caught up an old musket, and returned the attack of the ax man with a bayonet charge.

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It was ancient warfare against the modern-the battle ax against firearms ; and the latter won the day, the intruder being run down and forced to return and offer an ample apology for his scurrilous language.

Shortly after that young Berry was returning home in the afternoon, when he discovered the rudiments of an adobe hut on his claim, and near it was a boy guarding some tools. Inquiry developed the fact that his enemy was again attempting to gain a foothold on which to get a title to the land. The boy was dispatched to the owner of the tools with a lucid and laconic message to the effect that further building on that site would be unhealthy, and the hint was frankly accepted. In other parts of the county "claim jumpers" were much more harshly treated, and old settlers could probably tell many tales of the vindication of innate right. did not the sense of prudence forbid.

THE JAY-HAWKERS OF 1862.

All through the years of the War of the Rebellion, there were scattered bands of men who went by the name of "jayhawkers." Those bands were plentiful enough along the frontier line of the North and South parties, and although nominally under one flag or the other, had oftentimes a freedom from allegiance to anyone save themselves that was very convenient. Other bands, while fully as freebooting, were strong in their allegiance to their party. Such a band was raised near the Kansas and Nebraska line early in the war and made constant forays into the vexed and rebellious Missouri border. On one occasion, this band, passing eastward through Falls City and returning to a camp just west of town, were pursued by a force of Union soldiers, who had perforce acceded to the demands of despoiled Missourians for redress. Upon the arrival of the Federal troops at Falls City, the camp of the jayhawkers was in full sight; but while the troops were resting and giving a hearing to the various charges of the "secesh," who had accompanied them in the hope of getting extra advantages thereby, the marauders moved over to the south of the Kansas line. Here no engagement took place, for the simple reason that the jayhawking party had been increased to formidable proportions and the handful of soldiers were powerless. It is broadly hinted that the Federalists surrendered with very good grace and without any needless bitterness, and some old settlers make still stronger statements. The fact remains that the troops returned peaceably to their quarters in Mis- souri, and that the most serious result of their attack was the depleted larders of the Falls City citizens.

HON. JERRY FENTON. Dawson Pioneer.

FRANCIS WITHEE. Plainsman and Freighter.

JOHN D. SPRAGINS, Police Judge.

GUS DUERFELDT. One of the Founders of Arago.

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At the time of their first occupation of Falls City, many of the most pronounced Union men felt anything but easy, and undoubtedly there was considerable danger, as the charges preferred against them by the fire-eating delegation which accompanied the troops were of the most serious character. and had they been acted upon by the troops, would have made matters un- pleasant. Other jayhawking parties made their appearance from time to time, and executed their peculiar tactics, but none of these later forays were prolific of incidents worthy of remembrance. With the close of the war. fighting and jayhawking for a living fell into disfavor and later was entirely abandoned.

THE "UNDERGROUND" RAILROAD.

Old John Brown, who died just before the war in a futile attempt to hasten the "good time coming," which had formed so large a part of his life's hopes, spent a large amount of his time in Richardson county. One of his stations was located on the bluff near Falls City, and after a time in the city itself. Many of the older residents have vivid remembrances of the stalwart old hero and his eccentric ways of bringing sinners to book. A sample of his quality comes out in strong relief in the simple story of one of the last trips of his dusky train. On the route a child was born, and, with the grateful courtesy so natural with the race, was named "John Brown." Arriving at the station near Falls City, the refugees were overtaken by a band of South Carolina rangers, who proposed to reconvey their chattels, without loss of time. to the galling serfdom of the "sunny Sonth." In this, however, the proud Southerners reckoned wrongly, for John Brown's force surrounded them and forced submission to a superior force. What fol- lowed must have been a sight for the gods and men, for old John Brown, stepping to the front, delivered a scathing rebuke for the profanity which had been so freely heaped upon the colored folks, and then forced the rangers kneeling, to repeat the Lord's Prayer after him. Then depriving them of their horses and arms, he started them homeward. It is safe to say that the Lord's Prayer was fully remembered by them as they plodded wearily back to the coast, and that "nigger catching" seemed less amusing by half ere the trip was over.

A little prior to this time, the "nigger catchers" had made a neat speci- lation out of the avarice of the Indians living nearby. Emancipation was breathed on every wind that blew from the South to the North, and the slaves could not wait for that great boon to come. They must reach out

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and grasp it for themselves. Thus it came about that the exodus of scatter- ing slaves was nearly constant, and the rewards of their exasperated owners placed at a high figure. It was hardly profitable for a white man to hunt negroes, for the whole sport had acquired a bad, in fact a villainous, odor in the nostrils of the community. Yet, many did not scruple to detain the fugitives under one pretext or another, until the owners could send for then, and some even employed the Indian braves, who were familiar with all the hiding places along the heavily timbered river bottoms, to bring in captives. On one occasion, Sewall Jemison, the editor of the Broad Axe, came upon two parties who were haggling over the price to be paid for a . runaway slave, who stood near them, apparently resigned to his fate. While the Indian buck was explaining that for so fat and large a prize a liberal price should be paid, Jemison captured the bone of contention, and sent him off by a special train of the underground railway. To record a tithe of the exploits of John Brown and his friends on the northern Kansas trail, through Brown county to Richardson county, Nebraska, and thence northward, would require a book of considerable size. Of these daring feats Falls City and points nearby were oftentimes the theater, but the history of the time so recent, and yet so old in the life of a Western town, has already drifted out of the memory of its witnesses, and is written nowhere so fully as in that ledger whose fast-filling pages are ever unfilled and whose balance sheet is perfect.

FIRST FRENCH SETTLEMENT IN RICHARDSON COUNTY.

To the French must be awarded the honor of having been among the very first of the white settlers of the county, and looking backward at this late date, it seems strange that it should have been so from the fact that there now remain so few of that nationality in the county and they but the descendants of those early pioneers.

The first settlement was made in the summer of 1855, when E. H. Johnson together with William Kenceleur, Charles Rouleau, Eli Bedard and Eli Plante reached the present site of Rulo, coming thereto from Sioux City, Iowa. This party stopped overnight, as they entered the county at the north, and were guests of John B. Didier, also a Frenchman, who then resided in what is now Barada township. It is worthy of note that Mr. Didier, who had preceded them as a resident of Richardson county, has outlived them all, and now at the advanced age of more than ninety years, is still among us and a resident of the identical farm on which these early pioneers found him.

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Their visit was made for the purpose of inspecting lands allotted to their wives under the treaty of 1831, made with the Indians at Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin. Under the terms of this treaty the wives of these men, being classed as partly Indian blood or mixed bloods, were entitled each to a half section of land in what is known as the half-breed tract, in the east part of the county, along the Missouri.

At the time of their arrival they found but two white men residing here, and they the husbands of Indian women. One of the two was F. X. DuPuis, the husband of the widow of "White Cloud," the noted old head chief of the Iowa Indians. "White Cloud," the last and most famous of the real and regular chiefs of this tribe had died but a short time prior to the arrival of this party and was interred in the Rulo cemetery, located a little to the north and west of the village. The other of the two "whites" was Charles Martin, than whom, there never lived a more picturesque or chivalric character of the old plains and mountains. Martin was a daring and wonderful hunter, who had spent years on the plains and Western mountains, before there had been any thought of settlement by the white people in this section of the country. He was possessed in full measure of distinguishing traits, which marked him well, even at a period and among a class of people not at all lacking in great personal courage. He was remarkable even in his person and appearance and is described like most of the great plainsman type, tall and straight, like the Indian with whom he had spent much of his life, and was of commanding figure, Roman-nosed and keen of eye. In his life on the plains he had spent many years in the tractless solitudes of the great prairies as a trapper and hunter. In the late forties he had, while hunting high up in the mountains of Utah, come accidently upon a camp of an Indian tribe, who had lately lost their chief in battle with another hostile Indian band, and had captured an Indian maiden of the enemy people. According to custom with them, the Indians were at the time engaged in the work of making a sacrifice of the dusky captive partly to appease the spirit of the departed chief and in retaliation for the great loss they had suffered. The ceremony, which was of a highly religious order had been viewed for some time by the hunter at a safe dis- tance, but when he realized the ghastly significance of it all and saw that they really meant to destroy the life of the maiden, who had already been bound to the pyre, he at once interceded and after much parley succeeded in effecting her purchase, explaining to them that the ends would all be served by her utter banishment from the land, as he would carry her away

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History of Richardson County, Nebraska : its people, industries and institutions, Part 10

Author: Edwards, Lewis C Publication date: 1917 Publisher: Indianapolis : B.F. Bowen Number of Pages: 1742

Author: Edwards, Lewis C
Publication date: 1917
Publisher: Indianapolis : B.F. Bowen
Number of Pages: 1742