History of Richardson County, Nebraska : its people, industries and institutions, Part 27

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

USA > Nebraska > Richardson County > History of Richardson County, Nebraska : its people, industries and institutions > Part 27

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disappeared in a nearby clump of redroots or weeds. The redroot was a familiar weed in those days, and I often heard the judgment of a piece of ground placed on the number of redroots that infested it. But as a boy I considered them only a plow-duller that forced me oftener to pound out the clay. They were helped in this by the shoestring, a lowly plant that sent long, stringy roots through the soil and the sound of their cutting was disquieting to the driver and discouraging to the team.

The plover were so plentiful that I have often knocked them over with a handy redroot or the whip I carried to urge the team. The chicken of the prairies crowed and strutted within a rod of me as I hitched and began the morning work. The quail was more plentiful than today and many deplore the passing of those splendid fowl of the prairies. I have often noted the great green-headed mallards as they sank into some nearby pool and at noon, while the team rested, it was common sport for the pioneer to crawl up to the slough-grass border and with his old shotgun, drop a couple of the fine birds.

The pioneer had no modern disc and no harrow of sufficient cutting power to pulverize those sods, hence he was compelled to let them rot through the long summer, stopping his plowing on that account about the first of July or at least by the middle of that month. Then in September, or pre- ferably August, he backset the sod, cutting a little deeper and throwing up an inch or so of fine soil on top of the sod. Then with a wooden harrow with perfectly round teeth, he harrowed the field and sowed his wheat. broadcasting in the earlier years and sowing with a hoe-drill later on. I can remember the stir the first press-drill made some thirty years ago.

The big-header was the instrument of harvesting. We had three long header-boxes on wagons. These boxes were sided with house siding, and had the off side some two or three feet the higher ; and woe be to the driver who piled the wheat too high on the high side, as the whole wagon would upset with ease. This heading-machine was propelled by six or eight horses that walked side by side behind the machine and pushed it through the fields. a long sickle cutting the grain that fell on the carrier and was elevated to the wagon. The Marsh harvester came about 1881, the wire binder a little later, but it was not a success, and but few were used: the Marsh harvester lasted but a few years and was driven from the field in short order by the twine-binder.

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FAVORED SITES OF EARLY HOMES.

Along the Missouri bluffs there were nooks and corners among the hills that afforded sites for some of the first pioneer homes. The timber provided the logs and the old log house of the Eastern states was common as well as dug-outs in the hills. The hunting was good and helped won- derfully in the agricultural development, as the sale of furs often was the largest money income the pioneer had. In those sheltered nooks he could raise corn and vegetables, and the tobacco patch was no uncommon sight. The plums, grapes, choke-cherries, gooseberries and wild raspberries afforded a fair fruitage. The fish was plentiful, but the real agriculture never started in that locality. Among the native fruits we must not forget the pawpaw that appealed to the emigrant from Indiana as no other. There are still groves of this tree along the bluffs and I have many times dined on the pawpaw.

Perhaps we should not forget the old water-mills that helped forward the agricultural progress of this country. They sprang up along the Nemahas and afforded the pioneer a chance to secure flour and meal at home; here he could go with his grist some three or four times a year and get his grain ground. I have often driven to Luthy's mill west of Humboldt, on the Nemaha, and stayed until my turn came to get a grist ground.

The tree-fringed streams were enticing to the first settlers and along their banks we saw the first homes established. It was not the best land. but the wood, shade, protection and home comfort of these natural groves appealed to the settler. And many of the great farms of Richardson county still have the home upon the site of one of those pioneer-day spots. When the owner found that his land was not so convenient and valuable to farm, he did not sell the old home, but bought some of the uplands of the open prairies and adding this to the old homestead, went on with grain farming on the open land and caring for the stock on the old timbered homestead. The Corwin Fergus home, the old Barney Mullen estate and many other such farms still attest to the wisdom of this plan and are monu- mental examples of mixed farming that brought comfort and plenty.

The early settler found a beautiful land. Larkspur gleamed in white and blue; the red phlox of the prairies and the blue phlox of the timber dazzled the eye; the yellow gold of the gumweed bent beneath the beam of the old breaking plow and the aster and lily swayed in the winds of the prairies. And as we led our cows out to the lariat ropes and tied the

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halter in the swivel, we crunched through thousands of violets. Many a wind-swept, sun-baked prairie home was sheltered by a wild cucumber or grape vine.

The first pastures were fenced in the seventies, with barb wire, and soon afterward farming meant stock raising as well as grain growing. We planted hedges on our own farm, bringing the seed from the old Illinois home. The early settler had no money to buy fencing, but could grow the osage and it was a great advantage to the country; it shut off the hot south- ern winds, tempered the northern blasts of winter and set the landscape of the prairies in frames of living green. We may deplore the osage hedge, but it had a wonderful part in the civilization of Richardson county.

Stock growing in those early days was discouraging, but many a settler soon saw his herd of cattle grow and become valuable. Today we sell our hogs at fifteen cents a pound. I remember when we bought three splendid Poland sows for three cents a pound.

I went into a modern farm home the other day. The electric light plant flashed out and every room was agleam; the steam-heating plant in the cellar gives it an atmosphere of summer all winter long; a splendid water system sends a stream of liquid all over the house, and toilets, lava- tories and every convenience lighten the burden of the housewife and make the farm home as modern as that in the city. In our early pioneer home we lived with only a ship-lap siding; the winds swept in the snows of winter. and I distinctly remember sitting by the stove all day long clad in the heaviest overcoat I could get hold of. Our barns were forks set in the ground, poles and brush laid on and all banked with straw and covered with slough grass. Today our horses stand in barns that are comfortable and commodious.

PIONEER USED CORN FOR FUEL.

Corn was so cheap and coal so high in those early days that the farmer burned corn, and we have carried in many a bushel of corn and thrust the big ears into the blaze and saw the kernels crisp, darken, and glow in the heat. Extravagant? No, it was economy, for the coal was dearer than the corn.

We raised that corn with walking cultivators and it was about 1886 betore we bought the first riding cultivators. In those early days we had one way of getting a little back from the railroads. Some adventurous farmer would hie away in the dead of night and the next morning a couple

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of teams would sweep across a big field of corn stalks and the heavy iron rail would do the breaking most effectively and quickly. It was strange how hard it was to discover who got that iron from the railroad premises. Everyone used it, but no one ever saw it brought into the neighborhood. It had no owner, but many users. All summer long it lay in the shelter of a weed patch and only in the dry frosty days of early spring did it come forth.

Alfalfa came into our agriculture some thirty years ago and it has largely assisted in the progress and development of the same, but clover was the first and perhaps the greatest factor in maintaining the fertility of the virgin soil. It is the great agent of rotation; it is the cheapest fertil- izer, it is the greatest combined grazing and hay plant.

Many a farm is today growing more grain, hay and stock than it could have produced in the pioneer days of its virginity. When I read or hear speakers tell of the wasteful depletion of the soil under the hands of the American farmer, I am sure that such a condemnation is not upon the farmers of Richardson county. Great train loads of meat animals, great warehouses filled with wheat, corn and oats, hundreds of cellars filled with fruits and vegetables and groaning tables loaded with the best living that any section of the world knows of, all attest to the tremendous production of the land today. Richardson county can, and does today, grow more tons of hay, more bushels of grain, more pounds of meat and more fruits. vegetables and poultry than at any period in its history. The stability of our agricultural development and future attainments are increased every decade.

SOCIAL CONDITIONS OF RICHARDSON COUNTY.

The first wells upon the farms of Richardson county were bored or dug and a long tin or galvanized iron pail was wound up at the end of a rope and the water poured into a half-barrel tub. Today the wind-mills assisted by the panting gasoline engines throw the pure steams through piping systems, to every lot, pasture, shed and barn about the premises; automatically the supply is regulated, it flows into the house and the water system is as complete as that of a city. Great standpipes hold barrels of water stored for stock and man. Deep cisterns and convenient tanks com- plete the arrangements.

The pioneer called every man his neighbor. There was a freedom. a charitable assumption, an equality and hungering desire for companion- ship that broke down every barrier of caste and clan.

GLENVIEW FARM, SHROYER HOME.

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The groveless prairies permitted the eye to wander for miles across the plains and some morning when we saw the white gleam of new lumber as a shack arose, perhaps many miles away, we knew another friend had come to our country. Many an evening as I have stood upon some rising knoll and seen the lights of the little homes flash out across the prairies, I would count the friends who clustered about those lamps. We met in the little white school houses and spelling bees "liter-aries," revivals, funerals and weddings were all well attended.

Our ways of traveling were primitive. If it was not too far we went afoot, otherwise we used the best we had. Sometimes it was a saddle on one of the old farm horses, sometimes it was a spring wagon, sometimes it was the old farm wagon. Then along in the eighties it became common for the top buggy to appear on the farm roads. About this time we saw the orchards and groves spring up until they hid the gleam of the evening lamps; the social life of the old communities became a little more limited, our neighborhoods a little more narrow. We beheld a little of the unknown caste begin to grow into the social life.

The grading of the schools threw the interest of the older boys and girls from the old school house; it no longer was a recognized center of sociability, it became too circumscribed for the religious life and as few of them were ever remodeled or rebuilt to keep pace with the community and farm growth, the agricultural society has been diverted largely to the villages, towns and cities. Even the country churches felt that progress had left them sitting by the wayside in many instances. The fact that fifty per cent. of the farms became the homes of renters also had its effect on the social life; it lost some of the stability that originally characterized it. But the automobile is again enlarging the social life of our county, permitting the establishment of larger business, educational and social activi- ties. The coming together of the rural people is now bringing about a new era. Cars drive miles to the school, the picnic or the business meetings of the rural people.

The Farmers Union has come into being and organized agriculture is now upon us. Numerous local organizations, each composed of from fifteen to one hundred members, are united in one county organization. These locals also unite in district organizations that own elevators, stores and exchanges; the farmer is demonstrating that he is a business man as well as a tiller of the soil. They have again enlarged the neighborhood

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bounds and today these bounds are even wider than in the pioneer days. The county organization is connected with the state union and through it to a national organization, in- twenty-seven states.

By this rural organization, the farmers , Richardson county have united into one community, one thousand homes; five thousand farm people that are working in a solid body for the uplift of the agricultural develop- ment of the community. This movement being just in its infancy, no hand may write the tremendous import of the awakening of the farmers of this rich agricultural land to the possibilities that lie before them. It is causing them to think and think hard and fast. We can easily predict that almost every farm home will be reached; the farmers will solve the social life, the economic distribution of their products and the soil maintenance far more effectively than it has ever been done by entrusting it to outside interests. Fully conversant with his working power, the strength of his will and the possibilities of organized effort, the future of this county is contemplated serenely by the farmer,

If working almost alone, we have reached the climax of the first half century ; that we see today, as the palatial homes beside our highways attest, the commodious barns testify and the well tilled fields beside the road dem- onstrate, how mighty will be the achievements of the united farmers of the next half century. The tractor turns the stubble with a rapidity and ease never known; the cars carry the farmer swiftly and comfortable on his way to pleasure and business; his organization will enable him to secure just legislation and effectively to study and practice economical distribution and marketing of his products, build and equip the best rural schools in the world, educate and entertain his children on the farm, extend the social vision of his neighborhood life and build an agricultural environment sur- passing the wildest visions of the most optimistic dreamer.

A TRIBUTE TO THE PIONEER MOTHERS.

She builded the greatest achievement of them all-mother, the archi- tect of "home, sweet home." With a courage born of the love and hope of a parent she stepped across the gangplank of the ferry and turning reverently she gave .one last, longing look toward the Eastern horizon, where far away in the dimming distance lay the home of her youth. Tender and strong were the chords that bound her to the past.

Perhaps a tear fell into the surging waters as she placed her foot upon

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the Western sands. But no tear, no tide, no wave of rushing flood can ever wash out the imprint of the footsteps of mother.

Hope, love, ambition for the children and the instinct that bade her rise above selfishness, were stronger than any chain that ever clanked from the forge. Upon this hope and love she saw the rising vision of a million homes.

The past was but a memory, the future a stern but beautiful reality; the heart of our nation bows reverently upon her hearth-stone. Not with the martyrdom of an hour did she lay her life upon the altar of home, but with an everlasting self-abnegation she faced the blizzards of a score of years and the droughts of their summers. Self-ambitions and the anticipa- tion of her youth she gently, but firmly, laid away and drew the curtain of hope and love before them. Let them lie in the secret place of her heart. Her God alone knows the sacrifices she made that day, and when the hands of the recording angel shall write the last record of her life, they will be emblazoned upon the unsullied page and we shall behold a tremendous sacrifice.

She brought the flowers and fruits of that Eastern home and planted them upon the sun-baked, wind-swept prairies; she watered and cared for them, shaded them from the sweltering sun and protected them from the blasts of the blizzards until she saw the splendid groves, the flower-adorned lawns and the fruitful gardens throwing their shade and colors across the plain. The footsteps and achieved ambitions of the pioneer mothers have marked an impress upon our empire that time and eternity cannot efface. It shall ever grow grandly and sublimely in our appreciation.

The mothers of Nebraska need no towering monuments to remind us that they lived and loved: no tablets of bronze or stone, as every fireside within our domain stands as a tribute to her memory. As the vine entwined and embowered the home that she built, her love entwines our lives.

Ungrateful the heart that forgets the pioneer mothers of Nebraska, the architects of "home. sweet home."

CHAPTER XII.

EARLY TRANSPORTATION, NAVIGATION AND RAILROADS.

Richardson county, lying in the southeast corner of Nebraska and first from the south of the river counties of the state was at once effected by the volume of travel coming up the river from the South and East.

At the time men first began to look toward Richardson county with an eye to making settlement here, no railroad was within hundreds of miles of it and the only means of reaching this country was either by making the journey hither overland through a wilderness as yet without well-defined wagon trails, or up the river by boat. This latter method most appealed to the early adventurer and many no doubt had journeyed up the river long before any thought of settlement in this part of the West was entertained. Bordering on the river was of immense advantage to the early peoples and caused the river counties to be first choice of the pioneers.

In those days the railroad was by no means a new thing in the older and more thickly settled parts of the East, but necessity had not caused its extension to any great degree in this direction.

In these days when capital is more easily available, the railroad very often goes into the fastnesses of the newer countries in advance of immi- gration and is the first cause of its settlement ; but in the days of which we speak, the people were pushing out in advance of transportation facilities and were dependent on the hope that at some future time there might be a rail- road-but to many, as we of later days know, the railroad was only a dream, which held many of them here.

Being forced to use the river, which was then as now, full of snags and sand bars and subject to overflow and with the low water stages, the early navigator was not without his troubles; but under such dire neces- sity the obstacles were overcome and navigation had reached a high state of development. In those days the steamboats, both for the carrying of all kind of freight and passengers, were numerous and while slow and tedious served remarkably well until at last the coming of the railroad made that mode of travel obselete.

The tremendous subsidies in the way of vast land grants by the gov-

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ernment, given as aid to railroad building and intended to stimulate this line of industry, coupled with the big profits in the projection and operation of new lines, had its effect in turning attention to this speedier mode of transportation to the great detriment of our inland waterways. While they have in the past and do still receive government aid, the same has been used for most part in restraining the encroachment of the river and not with any idea of preserving it as a navigable stream.

In Richardson county, Rulo, Yankton, Arago, and St. Stephens were river towns and ports of entrance for many of the pioneers who either remained here or made their way on west into the interior or to the moun- tains. Yankton and St. Stephens were the first points touched by river boats. which discharged cargoes and the latter had the honor of being the first point in the county which had a ferry connecting with the Missouri shore, and the same was in charge of the elder Stephen Story, who gave the name to the latter village. Rulo came next, but Arago soon outdistanced all in position as a port of importance and continued to hold its supremacy until the coming of the railroad. These cities enjoyed trade from long distances inland, serving the country for hundreds of miles to the West. Arago, with its packing house, distillery, saw- and flour-mills bid fair to become quite a metropolis and was for a time a place of first importance in the county as neither of the other places in that early day had the same energetic boosters.

At the time of the very early settlement of the county, the only regular means of communication for mail, passengers and freight with the outside world, was by steamboat; although later, because of the railroad reaching Atchison, Kansas, in advance of any rail connection from other directions, the mail was sent first to Atchison by rail and thence north either by boat or carriers on regularly established postroads which came via Hiawatha, Kansas, or Rulo. In the matter of river transportation for all purposes, it must be remembered that amongst its other disadvantages to the early pioneer in the way of a dependable convenience, was the fact that during the winter months it was practically suspended because of the ice in the river for long periods, when the boats were obliged to tie up until the ice would go out in the spring.

The better river boats had a capacity for carrying as many as four hundred passengers and the fare from St. Louis, Missouri. to Rulo or St. Stephens would range about fifteen or twenty dollars, which, of course, included meals and state rooms. The culinary department of those boats was generally in good hands and the larder well supplied with the best that money could buy.

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The length of time usually required in making the up trip from St. Louis to this county was about seven or eight days, equal, if not longer in length of time, than would be required for modern liners in crossing the Atlantic in times of peace. Those having had the pleasure of such journeys in the old days generally described them as having been quite dull and eventless. Such an experience was very aptly described by the noted Mark Twain in his "Roughing It," when he said :

"We were six days in going from St. Louis to St. Joseph. Missouri, a trip that was so dull and sleepy and eventless, that it has left no more impression on my memory than if its duration had been six minutes instead of that many days. No record is left on my mind now concerning it, but a confused jumble of savage-looking snags, which we deliberately walked over with one wheel or the other, and of reefs, which we butted and butted and then retired from, and climbed over in some other places, and of sand bars, which we roosted on occasionally and rested, and then got our crutches and sparred over. In fact, the boat might have gone to St. Joseph by land, for she was walking most of the time, anyhow, climbing over reefs and clambering over snags, patiently and laboriously, all day long. The captain said it was a bully boat and all she wanted was more 'shear' and a bigger wheel. I thought she wanted a pair of stilts, but I had the sagacity not to say so."

In addition to passengers those boats carried from five hundred to six hundred tons of freight and the rates were as high as two dollars and fifty cents per hundred weight on merchandise that would not cost to exceed fifteen cents per hundred weight in these days. The crews consisted of from eighty to one hundred men and the value of these boats were estimated to be nearly fifty thousand dollars each. The river then as at the present time, was filled with sand bars and it required all the skill of the miost experienced river men to negotiate it in safety to his destination with the boat.

Government regulations concerning river traffic required two experienced river pilots on board of each boat employed as common carriers, and they readily commanded salaries of from two hundred and fifty to five hundred dollars per month. With the passing of river traffic on the Missouri many of these well-known river men, such as captains and pilots, were left with- out opportunity for further service while many, as in other lines of business, left for other fields, where they might continue in the same line of employ- ment. Thus it was our pleasure during the month of August in the year 1916 to meet on the steamer "Georgiana," on the Columbia river, while making a trip from Portland to Astoria, Oregon, and return, one who in

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History of Richardson County, Nebraska : its people, industries and institutions, Part 27

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