History of Richardson County, Nebraska : its people, industries and institutions, Part 71

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

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For many years I traveled back and forward through the wild country, to my home near St. Louis, enjoying the excitement of a pioneer hunter's life, sometimes being in the company of accomplished gentlemen as well as of our wild Indian guide.

I have all my life been very fond of hunting, and the sports of the chase and the wilderness were my chiet pleasure, and have been accounted for many years as an excellent marksman and most successful hunter.

In 1830 in company with a French physician, who belonged to our party. I started out upon a hunting expedition, and as we arrived at a spot just above where Nebraska city now stands in Otoe county, we came across a buffalo. and after a vigorous and exciting chase for miles we succeeded in killing him, when a strife ensted between the Doctor and myself as to who should have the

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tongue of the buffalo, that being considered a particular delicacy ; and I came our victorious.

The oldest pioneer explorer of this country is Zephyre Rencontre, who at a very advanced age is now living in Dakota Territory, and I came next.

In 1856 I settled upon my present farm upon the precinct named after myself -- Barada precinct in Richardson county, Nebraska, lying between St. Stephens and Muddy precincts, and north of Ohio precinct, comprises town- . ship 3. north of range 16, east of the sixth principal meridian.

FIRST SETTLER OF BARADA PRECINCT.

Firmin Douville was the first settler in the precinct and I was next. When I look around me and see the smiling farms, expensive dwelling houses and comfortable homes that deck the prairies of Richardson county, I can hardly realize that it is the same territory I explored in 1816. At that time the whole region was designated upon the maps as the Great American Desert, in the then Missouri Territory, and it was supposed that it was entirely unfit for cultivation, while it now rivals, and even surpasses, in the amount and quality of its productions, the most fertile of the Eastern states.

I have before spoken of Zephyre Rencontre as being the oldest living pioneer through this tract of country. He passed through here and accom- panied Lewis and Clark on their tour of discovery to the Pacific ocean. His children drew land from the government as half-breeds in this county, where he resided for several years.

CHAPTER XXVIII.

MISCELLANEOUS MATTERS OF INTEREST.

EARLY CHRISTMAS DAYS. By Margaret M. Maddox.

The writer has been asked to write recollections of Christmas in the early days of this county, old Archer in particular. To a younger person this might seem a very small task, but to a lady almost eighty-three years okl. with shaky hands and shaky memory, it is quite an undertaking, and, except for those who have grown up in our own town with our own chiklren, I would hardly at this time undertake such a task.

I came with my father's family to Richardson county in March, 1855. There was nothing much here of importance except breaking prairie, building our log houses, and home work in general until midsummer, when my father. John C. Miller, with the Nuckols brothers, Colonel Sharp and son. Johnson, Robert Archer and others formed a town company and laid out the town of Archer.

Father began building a big hotel, or tavern, as it was called then. Building material, like everything else to make a comfortable home, was hard to get and the house was built largely of hewed logs. We moved into the unfinished structure in the month of September. At the same time Abel D. Kirk was building a little log store building, afterwards stocking it with groceries and general merchandise. This was a great convenience to us all, because we had had to go to Missouri for everything in that line. While building, some of the family camped on the ground to look after the work- mien, others stayed on the claims to do the gardening, make the butter, raise chickens and turkeys that were to grace the tables, and feed the hungry ones at our first Christmas in Nebraska.

On the 4th of October, 1855. I was united in marriage to Wilson M. Maddox and went to Nebraska City to reside. Therefore, my first Christ- mas in Nebraska was not spent in this county. We had a very pleasant Christmas, although we had no picture shows and theatres, but made our own amusements. We had nice dances occasionally, several lodges, societies of different kinds, temperance organizations, all considered social events then.

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Christmas day we had dinner with Rev. D. W. Gage and family, old friends of ours, Reverend Gage having performed the ceremony at our wed. ding. My brother's family was also present. Besides a wonderful roast tur. key we had baked catfish, the largest I ever saw cooked. It weighed twenty pounds and was browned and cooked to a turn. Among other good things we had a splendid plum pudding, such as only Aunt Sally Gage could make. We had a delightful time at Gage's, but to make the day more eventful, there was a Christmas wedding at our house late in the afternoon, when friends of ours, Melvina Blount and William Pound, came from Sidney, Iowa, to be married. To insure future prosperity the bride must wear something worn by a former bride, so she was arrayed in my wedding dress. . \ crowd of friends came in the evening and we had what we thought was a royal good time.

We passed our first winter in Nebraska City and moved back to Archer, in this county. the ist of May. 1856. and went on our claim. William H. Mann was here: soon the Goldsberrys came from Kentucky, also Mr. Frank- lin and John Kirk. They and several other families began to build and it looked much brighter and homelike.

COOKING ON A LARGE SCALE.

Then the Kansas troubles began, and old John Brown and Jim Lane, of later national fame, were continuously passing through to the north and back again, which kept up a constant excitement until late in the fall. . With my parents keeping the tavern I often had to go and help mother cook for three or four hundred of these men at a time. They sent a man ahead and when the word came everybody got busy. They killed beeves, hogs, chickens, pre- pared the best vegetables, everything in abundance, for these men wanted the best and were willing to pay well for it.

Cold weather set in early that year. It was severely cold, but I do not recall but one big snow before Christmas. In those days we did not make such a big festival of Christmas as we did the Fourth of July and holidays that came in warmer seasons, because it was pretty severe riding across the prairie in the biting cold and the settlers were not very close together.

That year father made a big dinner at the tavern and all the people residing in Archer were invited. We did not have many social functions in those days. nor many places where the ladies could "dress up," and Mrs. Goldsberry proposed that we make this dinner a real society affair, just as though we were back in a civilized country, instead of a frontier settlement.

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.Accordingly all were dressed in their best bib and tucker, the ladies in their best black silk dresses-or whatever color they might have happened to be. and even the men did not object to dressing up in their Sunday best. I was down helping mother, but work or no work, I managed to change to my one best dress, a black silk, of course.

If we did not have the fresh cranberries, celery and fruits of today, we had plenty of all that was available, for father would have the best. Our dinner included turkey, roast pork, spare ribs, baked squash, and sweet pota- toes, such as we seldom raise now, all such vegetables as could be stored for winter, pumpkin and mince pies, a big steaming plum pudding, a real old- fashioned pound cake, the "kind mother used to bake." There was little formality. Dinner was placed on the long table and the various dishes were passed. Everybody ate heartily and seemed to enjoy what they had. My mother was considered an excellent cook in those days.

About four o'clock in the afternoon most of the unmarried folks started for St. Deroin, to the northeast, in the edge of Nemaha county, to a dance. or ball, as it was then called, at Heath Nuckols. They had a two-horse wagon, plenty of buffalo robes and blankets. It was twenty degrees below zero and when they got home about noon the next day they were almost frozen.

Then came the news that Archer was on the half-breed tract. Huston Nuckols received the word first and before letting it be known to others, sold his big drug-store building to father at a big price. This with other losses in the townsite almost ruined father financially. He never recovered from the shock of those troubles. His health was completely broken.

COUNTY-SEAT STRIFE.

With the fall of Archer, many little towns sprang up and all were after the county seat, and such a struggle followed as you may never have heard. Why, looking back on it now after more than sixty years, it seems that if the people had tried to remove the national capitol from Washington to San Francisco, there could have been no more strife, fighting and bloodshed. according to the number of people, than there was over moving the county seat of Richardson county in those days.

The Christmas of 1857 we also spent at Archer, but I took little part in the festivities, as my first little boy was but a few weeks old at the time. We passed other Christmas days there also, and I remember that after Judge Dundy came, he was instrumental in getting up big dances at the tavern,

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which had been moved into the Nuckols store building. Judge Dundy was always one of the chief fiddlers and Julina Hutchins, later Mrs. Ferdinand Harlow, was one of the youngest and prettiest girls present.

With my family growing up and living most of the time on the farm, several years intervened before I passed a Christmas in Falls City, or one that has fastened any particular incident on my memory, though. I know that after the town was fairly started, it at once became the central meeting place for all the county folks and many were the big dances and social affairs. Sometimes we had a grand Christmas tree and it seemed like nearly every citizen in the town was present. Such entertainments as we pioneers had at Christmas we had to plan and provide for well in advance, and there was great pleasure in the anticipation of such events. I sometimes think we enjoyed them more fully and the memory of them lingered longer with us than do such affairs now, when amusements are more plentiful. I recall little that was exciting or unusual,. but hold many pleasant memories of gather- ings of friends of the early Christmas days in Richardson county.

MAJOR STEPHIEN STORY.

The honor of having been the first white settler of Richardson county, has a number of claimants, and while there may have been others who could have pointed to the fact that they had visited Richardson county or this por- tion of the great West at an earlier period, there seems to have been none who coud have been classed as settlers at a time antedating the arrival of Stephen Story. It appears that he came alone first and took up a permanent abode on the banks of the Missouri, at a point where was the later site of St. Stephens in St. Stephens precinct, a part of which now joins .Arago pre- cinct, and it must be remembered that the St. Stephens precinct spoken of, which was in the northeast corner of the county, has now been joined bodily onto what is known as Barada. The south row of sections of east Barada, or St. Stephens precinct, were in later years joined to .Arago precinct and it was in the most eastward of this tier of sections that he took up a home. His home was about a mile north of the later site of Arago village.

Major Story was born in the state of Vermont on January 8, 1810, and passed away after a brief illness of pneumonia at his home in Rulo in this county, January 27th, 1882, at the age of seventy-two years. . At the time of his death he was the oldest white settler in the state of Nebraska. The par- ents of Mr. Story moved from Vermont to Montreal, Canada, in 1812, where

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they made their home for nearly twenty years and where he became acquainted with Joseph Robidoux, with whom he made a number of trips, the latter car- rying on an extensive trade with the Indians of the northern territory. His wanderings led him Westward and he made his way to this county in 1844 and located himself near the site of the latter town of St. Stephens, which he founded, named and made his home for a number of years and where he erected the first cabin for himself. The Indians, who had but a short time before been moved to reservations in this county, bothered him to such an extent that he returned to St. Joseph, Missouri, and there enlisted in the army sent to Mexico and where he was wounded in the battle of Monterey. On account of this disability he was discharged and made his way to Cali- fornia with the gold-seekers in "forty-nine." Tiring of the gold excitement. which had not proved profitable to him, he was seized with a longing for his old home and returned to St. Joseph, Missouri, in 1850, and then came back to St. Stephens, where he resumed habitation in his old cabin and built a ferry which he operated on the Missouri river for many years, at that place. Here he was found running the same by the first pioneers who entered Rich- ardson county with an idea of making it their home and it was his ferry which brought them across to the Nebraska shore. Here the first five fami- lies, so often spoken of, crossed to Nebraska. He, together with Gen. Ben- jamin F. Loan, who was the brother of a well-known pioneer lady, Mrs. William R. Cain, started the town of St. Stephens in 1857 and he later sold a portion of his farm to a company of Germans from Buffalo, New York. who started the rival town of Arago, one mile south of St. Stephens.

The coming of the steam ferry operated at many points later on the Missouri river displaced the methed he had in use and he then retired to his farm in section II, township No. 2, north, of range No. 17, where he resided until 1879, when he moved to Rulo to make his home for the remainder of his life.

He was united in marriage in 1846 to Mrs. Elizabeth Robidoux, a half- breed Indian, then the widow of his old friend, Ferron Robidoux. From this union thirteen children were born, of whom but three are living: Stephen Story, Jr., of Rulo; John Story, of Hiawatha, Kansas, and Mrs. l'eter Mur- phy, residing southeast of Falls City. Mrs. Story was born in the vicinity of Council Bluffs, Iowa, in 1823, and died at the home of her daughter, by her former marriage, Mrs. Dudley Van Valkenburg, at Rulo, on December 1, 1900. Mrs. Van Valkenburg, who is still living, was born on the site of St. Joseph, Missouri, a city founded by her paternal grandfather, Joseph Robi- doux. She and her first husband, Ferron Robidoux, entered a claim on the

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site of St. Joseph, and she figured as one of the early pioneers of Richardson county, living with her parents at St. Stephens when the first pioneers ar- rived, and has spent her life as a resident of the county.

Major Stephen Story was a true type of the pioneer, noble and generous, whole-souled and hospitable to the last degree. He lavished a princely for- tume in deeds of kindness and charity, and received in return but meager gratitude.

TYPICAL TALE OF THE PIONEERS.

While, in the very nature of things. the experiences of the early pio- neers of this section of Nebraska must have followed pretty closely along the same general lines-for all necessarily had much the same difficulties to face -there were certain outstanding cases which deserve more than mere pass- ing mention in a work covering the history of this county and in a general way the history of this section of the state. It manifestly would be impos- sible, within the limits of an ordinary volume. to give anything like a proper review of all such cases and the story which follows and which contains so many interesting points relating to pioneer days, is presented as perhaps typical of many such stories that could be related by the surviving pioneers of Richardson county. The late William MI. Jones, who was past one hun- (red years of age at the time of his death at his home in the precinct of Rulo, was a typical pioneer, as is his son, the Hon. Cass Jones, who is still living in that precinct, and the story of the difficulties and hardships they faced upon making a settlement in this state back in territorial days ought to be illuminating to those of the present generation who can have no adequate con- ception of what real "pioneering" meant to that brave band which brought about the development of the great state of Nebraska.

THE STORY OF WILLIAM M. JONES.

William M. Jones was a Virginian, born in the vicinity of Blue Springs, in the historic old county of Tazewell, in the Old Dominion, in the fall of 1812, and was but three years of age when his father moved to Jackson county, Ohio, pack horses being used to transport the family's household effects. In this latter county the father took up a tract of "Congress land." made a house of logs and went to farming. Amid these pioneer conditions, William M. Jones had little opportunity for effective schooling. but he hecame a practical farmer and early developed the true pioneering instinct. . At nine-

J. C. LINCOLN, OF SALEM, PIONEER MERCHANT OF RICHARDSON COUNTY.

STEPHEN STORY, FOUNDER OF ST. STEPHENS AND FIRST SETTLER OF RICHARDSON COUNTY (1846).

JOHN B. DIDIER, PIONEER OF 1853. MRS. J. C. LINCOLN, OF SALEM.

WILLIAM R. JONES, Pioneer of Rulo. Picture taken on his 100th birthday.

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teen years of age he married and started farming for himself, his plowing being done with a wooden plow made by himself, utilizing for this purpose a large hickory stump for a plowshare. When the point of the plow. became dull he sharpened it with a draw-knife. Ambitious to have a larger place where he could raise live stock and engage in farming on a more extensive scale, William MI. Jones three years later emigrated to Illinois, which was then beginning to be developed, and settled in Fulton county, in the western part of that state, establishing his home on a farm near the lilinois river, where he took a "squatter's" claim to a quarter of a section of land. He built a log house on that place and there lived for five years. He fenced in a considerable tract of land and engaged extensively in the raising of live stock. In 1840 he sold his place for seventeen hundred dollars, taking notes for the same. The purchaser shortly afterward took advantage of the bank- ruptcy law and Mr. Jones received nothing for his farm except one horse and a yoke of cattle.

.At that time the great Territory of Iowa was beginning to be settled up by farmers, as land could be bought from the government for little more than a nominal price, and Mr. Jones decided to move up into the Territory and make a new start. In 1840 he took up a claim to a quarter of a section of land in Johnson county, in the Territory of Iowa, and settled on the same, starting his farming operations with three yoke of cattle, five cows, one horse and six hogs, which he drove through from Illinois. In preparation for the trip through to the new land Mr. Jones made a wagon constructed wholly of wood, there being neither nails, bolts nor iron of any kind in its makenp. For this purpose Mr. Jones utilized a large sycamore tree, cross sections of the hole of which furnished the wheels for this lumbering vehicle. The creaking of these wooden wheels could be heard over the prairie for a long distance and it was no uncommon occurrence, during the journey, for Indians to come riding up over the prairie to find out what made such a noise. These inquisitive aborigines offered no molestation to the emigrants. however, for Mr. Jones had lived long enough among Indians to know how to get along with them. In their new home in lowa the Jones's neighbors mostly were Indians. There was plenty of wild game in that region and the family fared well, so far as keeping the larder supplied. Mr. Jones did well enough in his stock-raising operations and remained there for ten years, or until 1850, in which year he sold his place for eleven hundred dollars, gold, and moved to Cass county, in the southwestern. part of fowa, where he engaged in the milling business, paying seven hundred dollars, gold, for a saw- and grist-mill.

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PAINFUL EXPERIENCE IN NEBRASKA.

For several years Mr. Jones continued engaged in the milling business in Iowa, with the help of his sons doing a good business; but in 1856 his pioneering "fever" prompted him to make another move in the direction of the frontier, so lie sold his mill property for seven hundred dollars, receiving two cows as "boot," and started out for the farther Northwest, settling west of Sioux City. It was on the afternoon of March 10, 1856, that Mr. Jones crossed the Missouri river on the ice with his family, household goods, two hundred dollars in gold, sixty head of cattle, two horses and three yoke of oxen. The night after he crossed the river, the river broke up and the ice went out.

It was in Dakota county, in the northeastern part of the then Terri- tory of Nebraska, that William M. Jones entered upon his fourth pioneering experience. He entered a tract of government land, built a log house and started farming, with the expectation of engaging extensively in the raising of live stock. He had been told that Nebraska was a good cattle country, but where he was the blizzards in the winter froze his cattle. and the high winds made high drifts of the snow. The second winter he was there the snow was so deep and the blizzards so fierce that all of his cattle froze to deatlı, except one yoke of oxen. This discouraged him and he decided to move. With that end in view he sold his land for one hundred dollars and moved south to Leavenworth county, Kansas, on the Missouri river, and settled on the Delaware Indian Reserve, where he stayed from the spring of 1858 to the fall of 1859, making rails during the winter months.

Texas was then considered to be a very desirable state, especially for settlers who wished to raise cattle, as the winters were mild, grazing good. and land plenty and cheap. Many sayings were current among the people as to its fertility and productiveness, one of these sayings, which Mr. Jones often repeated to his family, being that fritter, a kind of pancake then con- sidered a luxury, grew on the trees, over the honey ponds, and when they got there they would only have to shake the trees, when the fritters would fall in the honey and they could pick them out with sticks and eat them. He found, however, that the ponds were covered with green scum and abounded with tadpoles, frogs, alligators, mosquitoes and snakes.

GOT COLD RECEPTION IN TEXAS.

Mr. Jones took a good bunch of brood mares to Texas with him, hoping to raise horses on a large scale, and probably would have succeeded had the

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times been favorable, but that was in 1859, just before the breaking out of the Civil War, the South even then expecting and preparing for war, and feeling against Northern men was very bitter. The year after Mr. Jones's arrival in Texas the campaign for the Presidency between Lincoln and Doug- las was agitating the whole country, and the South was badly wrought up against all men from the North. The Texans got down on Mr. Jones ; called him an Abolitionist and warned him to leave the country, unless he would cast his lot with the South. This he would not do, and accordingly made preparations for leaving the country with his horses. On the morning he was to start, about twenty-five Texans came to him and told him they would not allow him to take the horses out of the country, but they offered to trade him Texas cattle and oxen for his horses. They took away the guns and revolvers owned by Mr. Jones and his sons, and they had to do as they said. Mr. Jones lost money on the trade, as horses were high there and cattle very cheap, but he could not help himself. He was glad to get away on any terms. He then had a bunch of about one hundred head of cattle. This was in the fall of 1860. In returning north the Joneses went west and made a circuitous route through the western part of Texas and Indian Ter- ritory, so as to avoid the more thickly settled parts of the country, and also to be among the Indians, with whom they always got along well. Cass Jones had learned and could speak the Indian language.

Mr. Jones went back to Leavenworth county, Kansas, and bought a claim of one hundred and sixty acres on the Indian Reservation from an Indian, for one yoke of oxen. This gave him all the land he desired on which to graze and fatten his cattle, as he could use all the Indian land he wanted for grazing. The Indians made the best of neighbors.

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History of Richardson County, Nebraska : its people, industries and institutions, Part 71

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