History of Richardson County, Nebraska : its people, industries and institutions, Part 64

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

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"Concurrent resolution providing for the appointment of a committee to investigate the official acts and doings of the commission appointed by the Legislature of this state (to locate the seat of government and provide for the erection of public buildings and to sell the unsold lots and blocks on the town site of Lincoln and to locate and erect a state university and state lunatic asylum. )

"Whereas. As it is currently reported throughout the state and publicly charged in certain prints of this state, that the commissioners appointed (to locate the seat) have violated the trusts reposed in them by exceeding the authority given them under the laws by which they were created. and by engaging in certain speenlations and frands:

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"And, whereas, We deem it but just that if these charges are false this commission should have the opportunity of vindicating themselves before the Legislature and people of this state, and therefore be it resolved by the Legislature of the state of Nebraska. that a committee of two on the part of the Senate to be chosen by the Senate, and three on the part of the House to be chosen by the House, be and are hereby appointed to investigate the official acts and doings of the aforesaid commission, and that said com- mittee have power to send for persons and papers, and that they be directed to make report of their investigation to the Legislature at its present session."

PIONEER POSTOFFICES AND POST ROADS.

Some of the first mail routes were established through this county in 1856 by act of Congress. An act of Congress passed in June, 1856. estab- lished one of these routes west from the Missouri river between the Little and Great Nemaha rivers, by way of Archer and Salem, and westward to the Big Blue river, in Gage county.

On March 3, 1855, a mail route was established from Oregon, in Holt county, Missouri, to New Ft. Kearney, on the Platte river, by way of Steph- en Story's on the Missouri river at St. Stephens (just north of the later site of Arago) ; and another which served the following .early postoffices between the Nemahas, at Mr. Purkett's, on Muddy creek, just north of the present site of Falls City, and at John A. Singleton's, near Rulo, on the Great Nemaha. At the same time a route was established from the Nemaha Indian Agency, in Kansas Territory, to the mouth of the Niobrara river. in the north part of Nebraska Territory.

By an act of Congress passed and approved June 14, 1858, a route was established starting at Brownville and coming south into this county and serving Archer, Falls City, Monterey, Salem, Pleasantville and Pawnee City, to Table Rock; Nemaha City via Salem, to points in Kansas; Brown- ville via Nemaha City. Winnebago, St. Stephens, Yancton and Rulo, to St. Joseph, Missouri; Archer to Geneva and Shasta, and St. Stephens to Archer.

Dudley Van Valkenburg. now a resident of Rulo: William H. Crook, now a resident of Falls City, and William E. Dorrington, now a resident of Falls City, were carriers on some of these routes. Jesse Crook. of Falls City, and O. J. Tinker, of Humboldt, 'were also carriers on the early routes. David Dorrington and Stephen B. Miles were well-known mail contractors in the early days and many of the early routes were served under their direc- tion. Mr. Miles was perhaps the best known of any, as his contracts not only covered routes in this county, but for many years he operated one of

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the longest routes in the country, extending from Independence, Missouri, to Salt Lake City, Utah. Joel T. Jones, for many years a resident of Hnm- boldt, was employed by Mr. Miles and for many years was engaged in the work of transporting mails from Missouri points across the plains to Salt Lake City, Utah. Mr. Dorrington's service in this connection was of lesser extent, covering, as it did, routes northward on the river from Kansas to Richardson county and extending over some of the routes in this county.

William H. Crook relates, in telling of his experience, that he com- menced the work when a lad not more than twelve or fourteen years of age, although the requirements listed sixteen years as the minimum. He carried mail from Falls City to Arago and St. Stephens and says that one day after arriving at St. Stephens he had the pleasure of seeing a herd of many thou- sands of cattle cross the Missouri river at that place. The cattle had been brought up from Texas, being driven the entire distance and were being taken to points in Iowa. The drivers had desired to have them ferried over the river, but were unable to agree with the ferrymen on the price and had ordered the herders to remove their saddles and prepare to swim the vast herd. This was done and some of the herders took the lead with their horses while others urged the cattle into the water. The current was swift and in mid-stream carried the cattle down stream and cansed the body of swimming cattle to spread out in crescent shape. The herd probably num- bered ten thousand and the sight of so great a number crossing at one time made an impression on the youthful mail carrier he has never forgotten.

A NEW STAGE LINE IN 1870.

The postoffice department has established a daily mail service between this place and Craig Station, Missouri, via Arago, and awarded the contract to Dudly Van Valkenburg, of Arago, and D. V. Stephenson of this place. This puts Falls City and the enterprising town of Arago in daily communi- cation, besides furnishing shorter. better and more reliable connection with trains on the Kansas City, St. Joseph & Council Bluffs railroad than here- tofore established. Messrs. Van Valkenburg and Stephenson, the gentle- manly proprietors of this line, will rim a daily coach in connection with both the up and down trains and at Falls City with the daily stages for Rulo, Salem, Pawnee City, Hiawatha and Hamlin .-- From the Nemaha Valley Journal, Falls City, October 6, 1870.

CHAPTER XXV.

SOME PROMINENT PIONEERS.

JOHN B. DIDIER, PIONEER,

The distinction of being the oldest living pioneer of Richardson county, without question, belongs to John B. Didier, of Barada precinct, who may also have a claim as just, covering southeastern Nebraska. He came to this locality, settling on his farm in section 3, in township 3, north of range 16, sixty-three years ago, or in 1854, when it was only a vast stretch of wild plains, inhabited only by Indians and wild animals. There were a few others who came to this county as early, but they have long since died. He has lived to take part in the many wonderful changes here and talks interestingly of the early days and hardships incident thereto. Mr. Didier is a native of France, where he was born on December 25th, 1827. He was a son of Prof. John B. Didier, a man of learning and for many years a professor in the schools of France.

The younger John B. Didier grew to manhood in his native land and there received a good education. He crossed the Atlantic in a sailing vessel in 1847 and located in the city of Cincinnati, where he was employed as a clerk in a large store for a time. In 1849 he came to St. Louis, Missouri. carrying with him a letter of introduction to one of the leading merchants there at that time. He was given a position by this firm for whom he worked for a year, when he was sent among the Indians of Missouri, with whom he traded for a year. In 1852 he was sent to take charge of a store owned by the firm on the North Platte, three miles south of Ft. Laramie, Wyoming. which store was established by P. Chouteaux, one of the most prominent mer- chants in St. Louis in the early days.

Later, on account of trouble with the Indians, the post was discontinued, but not until a battle took place between the United States soldiers and an immense band of Indians. The soldiers were nearly all exterminated as the odds were greatly against them, there being only forty-seven of the soldiers against some three hundred of the redskins. All of Mr. Didier's assistants

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fled from the post at the first sign of trouble, he alone remaining, notwith- standing the danger. He considered his first duty was to guard the property of his employers and, returning, reported the loss of the store, for which the company was later reimbursed by the government in the sum of thirty- seven thousand dollars. After settling up with the company he left St. Louis some two months later, coming to St. Joseph, Missouri, on a steamboat, and from there made his way overland to Richardson county, where he took one hundred and twenty acres of land, which place still constitutes his home. It was wild land, upon which no white man had ever trod and to be of service had to be cleared and broken up and in due time made into the well- improved, comfortable and productive home he now enjoys in his declining years. He had no neighbors and endured all the privations incident to life on the then frontier, when neighbors were few and trading centers remote. His closest trading point was St. Joseph, Missouri, which he must reach by an overland journey and as he says, when he came to it there was but one place on the townsite and that owned by a fellow Frenchman, Joseph Robidioux, where he could obtain supplies, the latter being the founder of what is now a metropolis. Mr. Didier was six years in the county before he saw a steam- boat on the Missouri and seventeen years before the railroad made its appear- ance in the south part of the county. He has remained on his place continu- ously until the present time, witnessing all the changes, the erection of Nebraska as a territory, the first attempt at a county government, the scramble and bitter fight of fifteen years' duration over the location of the county seat, which embittered many of the early settlers for years afterward. the use of oxen in the fields in this county, the cradle for harvesting the grain, the coming of the steamboat, the prairie schooner, the railroad, the building up of towns and now the automobile and aeroplane. He left his native home twenty-three years before the war of 1870 and has lived to see it again engaged in a death grapple with its ancient enemy, Germany. He has resided as long continuously on one farm as any man in the state and, in fact, was one of the first white settlers in Richardson county.

Mr. Didier was married in Brownville. Nebraska, in 1855 by Judge Whitney, to Marie Pineau. a half-breed Indian maiden, the daughter of Louis Pineau, a French-Canadian, who was a post trader at Ft. Laramie, where his death occurred. The death of Mrs. Marie Didier occurred in 1908. She was the mother of eight children. Mr. Didier is now in his ninetieth year, and is still hale and hearty, having lived an abstemious and upright life-one calculated to lead to longevity. He is widely known throughout the county

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and his record is that of a public-spirited, industrious and honorable citizen. Politically, he is a Democrat, but he had never sought public office or leader- ship, being content to live quietly in the Barada hills he loved so well.

DIDIER WITNESSED INDIAN BATTLE.

Besides being the oldest living pioneer of this county, John B. Didier can lay claim to being the last of those still among the living who witnessed the Indian fight at Ft. Laramie in territorial days.

The clash between the soldiers and the Indians occurred on .August 19th. 1854, and was the result of a dispute which arose over a lame cow, which was the property of some Mormon immigrants, a large number of whom thronged the Oregon trail en route to Utah at that time.

The Indians, who were a part of the Brule, Ogallala and Miniconjon Sioux, numbering between a thousand and fifteen hundred, were encamped south of Ft. Laramie, between the trading posts of the American Fur Con- pany which at that time was in charge of James Bordeaux and that of l'. Chonteaux, Jr., & Company, which was in charge of John B. Didier.

In relating the story, Mr. Didier says the Indians, with whom he was on the best of terms, claimed that the animal in question had strayed from the immigrant train and had wandered into their camp, where it was killed by one of the young members of the tribe. The owner of the cow, a Mormon, upon learning what had happened, at once appeared at the post at Ft. Laramie and calling upon the commandant in charge, made claims for the loss of the cow.

On the following day, Brevet Second Lieutenant John Grattan appeared at the Chouteaux trading post with, as Mr. Didier says, a company of forty- two soldiers belonging to Company G of the Sixth Regiment of Infantry, having with them two howitzers and small arms, and were on their way to demand satisfaction from the Indians. Mr. Didier. well knowing the dispo- sition of the Indians, pleaded with the officer to desist from attack, pointing out how greatly the Indians outnumbered his little band. The undertaking seemed foolhardy to Mr. Didier, and he says he can explain it in no other way than that the officer and his men were drinking, or might have been under the influence of liquor. He inquired, asking Grattan, what he intended to do, and the latter replied that he "was going to give the Indians h-11." Mr. Didier says he knew it would be suicide for the soldiers and advised as much, but was powerless to interfere.

A demand was made upon the Indians to surrender up the members of

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the tribe responsible for the killing of the cow, which they as promptly refused to do. Receiving this reply, the howitzers were brought into play as well as the small arms, resulting in the killing of one of the Indians. It the demonstration had been planned to cower the Indians, it failed most signally of that purpose, for they at once fell upon the small detachment in force and in a few moments the entire band was wiped out with one excep- tion, and this one shortly after succumbed to his injuries.

Word of the extermination of the soldiers was quickly carried to the fort, and a lone messenger was at once dispatched to the trading posts, advis- ing those in charge to repair to the fort for protection, as it was thought the Indians would kill and pillage the French traders. Mr. Didier received the message, but like the other French traders, from long association, had no fear of violence from the Indians. He says they did appear at his post within a short time and helped themselves to whatever they cared to remove, but in no way molested his person.

Mr. Didier was an eye-witness to the fight from first to last and says it was most unnecessary and should never have happened; that the soldiers bungled the affair badly, and that from his conversation with the Indian chiefs the affair could have easily been settled without resort to arms, if the soldiers would have accepted remuneration for the dead animal and not have demanded that the Indians guilty of the slaughter and theft be turned over to them. In this position he is borne out in a similar report made by the other French traders. It is not recorded that the Mormon ever got any return for the cow, which had been the cause of so much trouble and the loss of so many lives.

DAVID THOMAS BRINEGAR, PIONEER.

David Thomas Brinegar came to Richardson county in May, 1855, from Holt county, Missouri, which is just east and across the Missouri river, and pre-empted a fractional one hundred and sixty acre tract one and one-half miles southwest of where the village of Salem was later built. He paid the United States land office, in due time, one dollar and twenty-five cents per acre for the farm, on which he has made his home for the past sixty-two years. There were very few settlers in Richardson county when Mr. Brine- gar crossed on the ferry at St. Stephens in the northeast part of the county. How few there were was established by the vote for members of the Terri- torial Legislature in the fall of 1854, when John A. Singleton was elected.

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receiving five votes to four cast for Mr. Purkett. Quite a number of settlers came during that summer and each succeeding year, until the war broke out, which shut off all immigration from the east. However, there were a num- ber of Missourians who came across the river to get away from the bush- whackers and war troubles on the east side of the river, and many of these remained as settlers.

The first settlers came scantily supplied with farming tools, having usu- ally a breaking plow and a single shovel corn plow. Mr. Brinegar was no exception to this rule. He broke his land with an ox team, which was the motor power used almost universally. His house was built of logs, cut from timber along the Great Nemaha river, which bordered his farm. Shortly, Thomas Hare located a saw-mill on the North Fork of the Nemaha river at Salem and sawed clap-boards from walnut and oak logs which were used to build houses and especially for roofing, instead of shingles, of which there were none. The first crop attempted was corn; the second year some spring wheat was sown, but there was no inducements to go extensively into wheat, as there were no threshing machines in the county and the grain had to be threshed by flails. There were no railroads and no markets and the settlers had to make a journey of about forty miles to Missouri to get their wheat ground into flour. The good water power at Salem was soon utilized to crack corn and make a rough meal in a primitive sort of mill. This saved the set- tlers many weary trips to Missouri. The early-day farmer had his troubles with dry weather and chintz bugs, both of which appeared to be indigenous. The chintz bugs were more discouraging than the drought. They ate up the wheat and then moved into the corn field. Mr. Brinegar, like all the first settlers, took by preference a liberal slice of river-bottom land, which yielded better crops at that time than upland.

In August, 1867, about the highest flood that came down the Nemaha since the settlement notified the farmers of the danger of the river bottoni farming. This flood was brief in its stay and did almost no damage to the growing corn, which was far advanced in its development. There was very little money in circulation and especially during the war period. from 1861 to 1865, and the farmers swapped, traded and bartered and managed to get along, as their wants were restricted to absolute necessities. During the war coffee was not obtainable, and parched rye was used as a substitute, but there was very little hunger or suffering among the settlers, as, notwithstand- ing the drought and bugs, plenty was raised to supply the needs and there were thousands of prairie chickens and other small game and a few deer, but

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no buffaloes or jack-rabbits. The first jack-rabbits came to the country after farmers started to raise red clover and timothy and blue grass, perhaps fif- teen years after the settlement. Coyotes ran in droves and were a great annoyance to stock raisers: wild turkeys were along the Missouri river and in the timber, and a few were along some of the other streams, where there was brush. After 1860 the acreage of wheat increased and William Rieschick, a German farmer, of Arago township, brought in a threshing machine in 1863. This encouraged the growing of more wheat. The crop that year was poor. inaking only three to five bushels per acre. This was on account of dry weather and chintz bugs. Mr. Brinegar sold his first wheat that year at one dollar and ten cents per bushel at Sabetha, Kansas, to which point a rail- road had been built.

There was no railroad built into the county until 1871. hence the farm- ers had to drive their stock to the Missouri river and ferry across to the Mis- souri side, where there were older settlements and more established business. Mr. Brinegar and a brother sold about sixty head of three-and-four-year-old steers at two and one-half cents per pound, and drove them about sixty miles to a Missouri buyer. He drove the hogs on foot to Arago, where he sokl them to Peter Frederick, Sr., who ran a packing house. He received one dollar and ninety cents per hundred on foot in 1872. Another year, before that, he drove his hogs to White Cloud, Kansas, and crossed on the ferry there and sold to a Missourian, who was engaged in meat packing. receiving two dollars and fifty cents per hundred, after they were dressed. Schools were started in the town of Salem about 1857.

Mr. Brinegar was born in Boone county, Missouri, September 25. 1835. and is now approaching his eighty-second birthday and is quite strong and vigorous. He has resided in this county continuously since his first arrival in May. 1855. except for one trip he made across the plains to hunt for gold in the Pike's Peak region in 1860, remaining only part of a year. He was married three times and is the father of five children, two sons and three daughters, who are living. He was a justice of the peace in Salem township for about forty years and also served as constable. He served as member of the county board of supervisors from Salem township.

JONATHAN J. MARVIN, PIONEER.

Jonathan J. Marvin was born near the banks of the St. Lawrence river. in St. Lawrence county, New York, on the 23rd day of September. 1822. When he was about four years of age his father died, at Hammond. St.

RICHARDSON COUNTY, NEBRASKA.

Lawrence county, New York, of black fever, and his mother returned with her son to her former home at St. Albans, Vermont. In the fall of 1837 young Marvin was sent to a French college at St. Hyacinthe, in what was called Lower Canada. While there the insurrection commonly known as the Patriot or Papineau war ensued, and battles of St. Charles and St. Dennis were fonght and he saw from the college grounds at St. Hyacinthe the flames of the burning town of St. Dennis twelve miles distant. In 1844 he gradu- ated from the University of Vermont at Burlington. In 1846 he received a diploma as a lawyer, signed by Chief Justice Royce, and came West to the lead mines of Wisconsin, where he was elected county clerk and district attorney and county judge of Lafayette county for several terms. In 1859 he removed to Richardson county, Nebraska, and in 1860 was elected mayor of Salem. He volunteered in the Twenty-fifth Missouri Volunteers to serve in the Union army and served three years at the front. In May, 1865, he returned to Richardson county and in the fall resuscitated the old Broad A.re, which he published under the name of the Southern Nebraskan, at Falls City. In the fall of 1865 he was unanimously chosen as county attor- ney of Richardson county and soon thereafter was appointed postmaster of Falls City, which position he held for three years and resigned. He was mayor of Falls City for two years and held the position of justice of the peace at Falls City for over ten years.

JESSE CROOK.

Jesse Crook, whose name more than any other is associated with the first settlement of Richardson county and who opened the first farm and raised the first crop of corn grown on the banks of the Muddy. in this county, by a white man, was born in White county, Tennessee, September 12, 1826. At the age of twenty. in 1846, he was united in marriage to Eliza Whitaker and in a few years they began their pilgrimage to the far West in a wagon drawn by three yoke of oxen. To them, in the first years of their married life, were born three children: John, the eldest, now dead; Mrs. J. R. Wil- hite and W. R. Crook, both residents of this city.

They arrived at Newark, in Andrew county, Missouri, in 1852, where he left his family and the following summer ( 1853) in company with several friends, made a crossing of the Missouri near the present site of White Cloud. Kansas, and struck boldly out on a trip to visit this then unexplored region. They followed the Nemaha as far west as Salem and while on this visit lie took a claim near the later site of Archer on land now owned by Williamn

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Nutter. The following year, together with a few other families, he crossed into Nebraska to make his permanent home. He resided on this farm six years, during which time Falls City came into being and he then rented his land and came to town, where he erected the first hotel in 1858 which was known as the Crook or City Hotel. This hotel stood for years on the present site of the Richardson County Bank, just south of the court house and faced Stone street as does the bank. He successfully conducted the hotel for about three years, when he again returned to his lands and spent several years improving the same. He returned to the city in 1864, where he spent the remainder of his days. During his life he had been the owner of some twenty thousand acres of Nebraska soil, taken altogether. He purchased ten thou- sand acres of the Sauk reservation, having bought it from the government under sealed bids of from one dollar and a quarter to one dollar and forty cents per acre.

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History of Richardson County, Nebraska : its people, industries and institutions, Part 64

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