History of Richardson County, Nebraska : its people, industries and institutions, Part 9

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 9

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The purchase of Louisiana was negotiated under the administration of Thomas Jefferson and the price paid amounted to fifteen million dollars. France received in payment more than eleven million dollars in bonds from the United States and the remainder of the purchase price was paid by the United States to citizens of this country in settlement of claims held by them against the French government. No census of the territory had been taken, but estimates placed the number of whites as being no more than fifty thou- sand. James Wilkinson was appointed governor by President Jefferson, and Frederick Bates, secretary. St. Louis was made the capital. The judges were J. Meigs and John B. C. Lucas. Those, together with the governor, constituted the Legislature.

TERRITORY OF MISSOURI.

On June 4. 1812, an act of Congress changed the Territory of Louis- iana to the Territory of Missouri, included in the boundaries of which was the present state of Nebraska. This act provided for a governor and secre- tary, together with a Legislature composed of a council and House of Rep-

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resentatives. Under this arrangement the members of the House of Repre- sentatives were to be elected by the people and they, the House members, were to submit the names of eighteen other persons from whom the Presi- dent by and with the consent and advice of the Senate, would select nine to serve as a council or upper branch of the Legislature. Judicial power was vested in superior and inferior courts and justices of the peace. The judges of these courts were selected by the President. On the 19th day of January, 1816, the Legislature passed a law adopting the common law of England as the law governing the territory and it so remained until the later days, when Governor Richardson was called upon to serve the people of Nebraska in its more limited boundaries, and the repeal of the criminal code of this law by an act of the Nebraska Territorial Legislature, was one of the first troublesome features with which he had to deal upon his arrival to assume charge of his new post.

TERRITORY OF KANSAS.

Out of what was known as the Territory of Missouri the new Territory of Kansas came into being on the second day of March, 1819. Two years later, on the 2nd day of March, 1821, the state of Missouri was created. At first the boundary line on the west passed north and south at the mouth of the Kansas river. In 1836, when the title of the lowas, Sacs and Foxes was extinguished by a treaty, the boundary lines of Missouri was extended west to the river, as it now exists. The new addition was known as the Platte Purchase. On the west side of the river was what we now know as southeast Nebraska, Richardson, Nemaha and Otoe counties.

In 1825 the United States government made a deal with the Kansas Indians, whereby they got lands held by that tribe between the Kansas, Missouri, Nemaha and Nodaway rivers, and later, in 1834, the Pawnee Indians relinquished their holding to the government. Their lands were all located south of the Platte river in Nebraska. At about the same time most of the land held by the Otoes and Missouri Indians between the Little and Great Nemaha rivers passed to the government. In lieu of these concessions Congress passed an act on June 30, 1834, designating that all of the country west of the Mississippi, and not within the states of Louisiana and Missouri or the Territory of Arkansas, should be taken for the purposes set forthi in an act to be Indian country. This included what is now Nebraska.

During the years which followed until the erection of Nebraska as a territory, there was a flood of travel by gold seekers lured to the Pacific

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slopes, and before them the Mormon migratory movement and the military expeditions. Nebraska Territory lay in the path and must be crossed by all on the long journey westward. It was the grand highway then as now for western travel.

· NEBRASKA TERRITORY CREATED.

It required several attempts before Nebraska Territory was finally and definitely erected by an act of Congress. The first effort in Congress to make a territory west of the Missouri river was made in 1851, but this atempt did not get to the voting stage. At a meeting of Congress the fol- lowing year, 1852-3, a bill was introduced by Willard P. Hall, a member of the House from Missouri, organizing what should be known as the "Terri- tory of the Platte," which included much of what is now Nebraska. The bill was referred to the committee on territories, of which William A. Rich- ardson, of Illinois, later to be governor of Nebraska, was a member.

Mr. Richardson reported a bill organizing about the same territory into a territory which he desired should be known as the "Territory of Ne- braska". The bill met with strenuous opposition, but finally passed the house on a vote standing ninety-eight to forty-three, on February 10, 1853. It went to the Senate, where it also found opposition which prevented its passage, at that session. When the following Congress convened, on Decem- ber 14, 1853, Senator August C. Dodge, of Iowa, introduced a bill to organ- ize the Territory of Nebraska. His bill had reference to the same territory mentioned in the bills before former sessions of Congress, all of which contemplated the Platte river as the northern boundary line. Opposition to the entry of Nebraska as a territory turned principally upon the question of whether it should be lawful or not to hold slaves within the new territory. Those members from the Southern states desired that slave territory be extended while the Northern members were opposed to it.

During those several years while Congress was haggling over the mat- ter, prospective settlers were gathering in the border states, desirous of being allowed to enter the state for the purpose of taking up land for homes. Those people were restive of the dilatory tactics in Congress and at a meet- ing held at Bellevue, Hadley D. Johnson, of their number, was selected and commissioned to go to Washington to explain their wishes in the matter. He was received by the committee having in charge the bill and given a hearing. His efforts in the cause of the settlers so impressed Senator Douglas that the latter secured the recommittal of the bill. On January 23, 1854, another bill was offered in the Senate, greatly changed in form, which

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passed that body on March 4th of that year. William A. Richardson, in the House again introduced a bill, which in its form was very similar to the Senate measure.

The final vote on the measure, and the one which carried it, was had on May 24th and the same was approved by President Pierce, May 30, 1854. The act, as passed, provided that Congress had no jurisdiction over the new territory as regards the status of slave holding, but granted that the people of the new territory should have the right and privilege of making laws suitable to themselves covering this question.

The new territory thus taken in covered an area of three hundred and fifty-one thousand five hundred and fifty-eight square miles and extended north from the fortieth parallel of north latitude (the line between Kansas and Nebraska) to the British possessions (the line between Canada and the United States), from the eastern boundary (the Missouri river, dividing Missouri and Iowa from Nebraska), west to the summit of the Rocky mountains. On the 28th of February, 1861, the Territory of Colorado was created and this reduced the area of Nebraska by some sixteen thousand thirty-five square miles. On March 16, 1867, the Dakotas were formed and further reduced Nebraska by two hundred and twenty-eight thousand nine hundred and seven square miles; and still later a tract of fifteen thousand three hundred and seventy-eight was taken from Washington and Utah, but this was later included in some forty-five thousand ninety-nine square miles, which now forms a part of the state of Idaho. The present area of the state of Nebraska is seventy-five thousand nine hundred and ninety-five square miles.

At the time the Louisiana Purchase was arranged between the United States and the government of France, in 1803, slavery was a legalized insti- tution, and many of the residents held slaves. In the treaty ceding the territory to the United States, Napoleon had incorporated an expressed stipulation that the inhabitants of Louisiana "Should be incorporated into the Union of the United States and admitted as soon as possible, according to the principles of the federal Constitution, to the enjoyment of all the rights, advantages and immunities of citizens of the United States, and in the meantime they should be maintained and protected in the free enjoy- ment of their liberties, property and the religion which they professed." The effect of this clause was to have much attention in later years when the Territory of Nebraska was formed and was much debated in Congress when the matter of slave holding in the territory was before Congress.

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RICHARDSON COUNTY, NEBRASKA.

KANSAS-NEBRASKA ACT.

This act passed by Congress in 1854, during the administration of Franklin Pierce, for the purpose of organizing the Territories of Kansas and Nebraska. It provided among other things, that the questions of slav- ery should be left to the people; that questions involving the title of slaves were to be left to the local courts, with the right to appeal to the United States Supreme court ; and that the Fugitive slave laws were to apply to the territories. Further, so far as this region was concerned, the Missouri Com- promise of 1820, which excluded slavery from the Louisiana Purchase north of latitude 36° 30' north, except from the state of Missouri, was declared repealed. This measure disrupted the Whig party, most of the Southern Whigs joining the Democrats, and led to the organization of the Republican party in 1856. It was also one of the prime factors in bringing about the Civil War.

CHAPTER IV.

EARLY SETTLEMENT AND EARLY SURVEYS.

"Now let us climb Nebraska's loftiest hill, And from its summit view the scene beyond ; The moon comes like an angel down from Heaven, Its radiant face is the unclouded sun, Its outspread wings, the overreaching sky, Its voice, the charming minstrels of the sky, Its breath, the fragrance of the bright wild flowers. Behold the prairie, broad and grand and free- 'Tis God's own garden, unprofaned by man." -"Nebraska:" A Poem, 1854.

The unsettled region of southeastern Nebraska presented an attractive and seductive picture to the pioneers of sixty years ago. The beautiful and fertile wooded valleys. the flowing streams, the vast reaches of the upland prairies-all provided an enticemeent not equalled anywhere else in this land. The early visitors to the country, from Coronado to the mem- bers of the Lewis and Clark expedition, were all united in singing the praises of the region which is now Richardson county, as being a fitting abode for the industrious white man. The country round about, was a paradise for the nomadic Indian tribes and the adventurous hunters and trappers. It was a veritable Garden of Eden, awaiting the advent of the hardy American pioneers, who would break the way for less venturous settlers. who were to figure in the development of the land. The Missouri river was an easy and comfortable method of reaching this land of plenty and afforded transportation for the necessities of life and the meager belongings of the first comers and homeseekers to the county.

The early American pioneer was a distinct specimen of humanity. He was different from his fellow Americans in many ways. In his veins flowed

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the blood of generations of forbears, who had lived on the frontier of civili- zation and were continuous homeseekers from both choice and necessity. The pioneer ever had his vision turned to the Westward and dreamed of wide ranges and far-reaching solitudes, where he could live free and un- molested far away from the trammels of civilization. It was his habit to be moving onward as each new section became peopled with followers, who came to reap the benefits of his early hardships and toil in hewing a home from the wilderness and prairies of the West. To the pioneer of the early fifties must be given the credit for proving to the world that man could exist and be comfortable in what was formerly called the "Great American Desert."

WHERE THE PIONEERS CAME FROM.

The first families to journey to the region which is now Richardson county, were of the real pioneer class, whose ancestors preceding then were pioneers for many generations. They were from the state of Ten- nessee, which had not yet reached its full development and has not done so to this day, and from Missouri. Virginia, the mother of presidents and the seat of some of the oldest families of the nation, mothered the progenitors of this pioneer class. The Carolinas,. no doubt, had a share in producing some of the ancestors of those venturous people who came to the banks of the Missouri in the early fifties, to found homes and cities for themselves and children. Their forbears were a restless and ambitious lot, who were continually, from generation to generation, moving onward to newer fields wherein to rear their families and find sustenance. From Virginia and the Carolinas this migration spread to Tennessee and Kentucky. The chil- dren of the Tennessee and Kentucky pioneers followed the river routes north- westward to the newer lands. The navigable streams which coursed through Tennessee to the Ohio, thence to the Mississippi and then up the Missouri river. afforded a safe and easy means of transportation for their goods and families.

Bevond certain sections, or more properly speaking, the eastern section of Nebraska. nature had placed difficulties in the way of the pioneer for founding homes that to this day have not been fully overcome. Richardson county, being situated in the basin of the Missouri river and its affluents, made an ideal place of residence and afforded a certainty of crop raising which the more western sections of the state do not furnish. Hence, we find that many of the earlier pioneers of this county remained and here reared fami-

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lies, who are at present the proud descendants of those who were the real pioneers of the county.

The first homeseekers in the early fifties chose the breaks of the Mis- souri and Nemaha rivers for their abiding places and avoided the high uplands of the fertile prairie section for good and sufficient reasons. The broken land in the region of old St. Stephens and Archer afforded two things which the settler must have to sustain life-wood and water in abundance, without the trouble of digging wells and carting the wood for his fireplace a long distance. The settler selected the site for his home in the vicinity of a forest and stream and more often near a gushing spring. He felled the forest trees with which to build his cabin; game was plentiful in the woods and fish abounded in the streams. His wants were simple and easily sup- plied; he was comfortable and well fed. The pioneer and early homeseeker passed by the marsh lands of the Nemaha and its smaller branch and sought the high breaks of the southwestern part of the county, where were beauti- ful and wooded valleys with flowing streams, which furnished ideal sites for primitive homes. Some of the oldest families of Richardson county, who are descended from these early pioneers, still reside in Speiser and Hum- boldt precincts. They have broad acres and comfortable homes and are prosperous and contented. The high hills and ranges afford pasturage for their herds and the wooded valleys afford homesites and areas of fertile, cultivated land. . This hilly country, which embraces the highest points in the county, bids fair to witness another important development at the present time. Geologists have stated that oil may be found in the depths of the ground and capitalists are already drilling for the coveted mineral wealth. Coal is found in the hills. Altogether, it is a desirable place of residence.

The pioneers who settled the eastern part of the county and made homes · in the Missouri river breaks, were the town builders and took an active part in the early organization of the county. Their descendants at this day are among the most prominent of the county citizenry and have accumulated wealth and position through the foresight of their parents and their own ' inherent ability, in taking advantage of the opportunities affordled by the development of a new country.

FOUR EPOCHS IN SETTLEMENT PERIOD.

For purposes of classification the settlement of Richardson county may be divided into four distinct epochs, which include well-defined classes of settlers. These epochs are as follow :

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First. The real pioneer era, which dates from the year 1854 to 1860 or 1861. The men who came during this era were the hardy and adventurous homeseekers, who left friends and relatives and old home ties behind them in the older states in order to be the first to assist in building up a new state. Too much credit cannot be given this class, inasmuch as they bore the brunt of the solitude and the lonesome life and hardships incidental to living in an almost unpeopled wilderness.

Second. The old settlers, or early settlement period .- The people who came during the years from 1860 to 1869 or 1870, were of a class who came after the way was broken and while the population of the county was yet sparse. They traveled overland from the older states and followed the Missouri river as had their predecessors, found the land inviting and remained to make a home and grow up with the county. While these people are pioneers in a certain sense they can be better classed as "old settlers of the second era of settlement." This era included 1866-1870.

Third. The homesteaders. After the enactment of the Homestead Law. there was a rush of Civil War veterans and people from the older Middle West states to the county. to take advantage of the free homesteads provided for in this act. The settlers came from Ohio, Illinois, Indiana. Kentucky and Missouri during this era and settled upon the uplands or prairies. The early part of this period was a trying time to all classes of settlers on account of the dry years. Many settlers and homesteaders were forced to relinquish their homes and return to old home places. Those who stayed and fought the good fight, reaped the rewards in later years of abundant crops and prosperity which followed.

Fourth. The era of building and development, and permanent settlers, 1870-1890 .- The free lands having all been taken up during the homesteading era, another influx of settlers came to purchase the lands of their predecessors and make permanent homes in the county. This class came from the older states to the Eastward and from foreign lands. Many of these came with funds with which to buy their farms and live stock. They were the builders and developers of the county in a certain sense and the greatest industrial progress which the county has made dates from this influx.

RICHARDSON COUNTY PIONEERS.

The following is a list of those who settled in Richardson county before 1860, as near as can be ascertained :

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FALLS CITY.

1854: Wilson M. Maddox, Fred Harkendorff, Jesse Crook, Mary Harkendorff, Mrs. Jesse Crook, Mr. William R. Crook, Mrs. J. R. Wilhite, D. L. Thompson, Elias Minshell.

1855: Benjamin F. Leechman and family, Lucinda Crook, James Forney, W. H. Keeling.

1856: James Stumbo, G. J. Crook, John Crook.

1857: Frank Crook, J. R. Dowty, Polly Wamsley, Chris Wanisley.

1858: W. R. Goolsby, A. P. Forney, Mrs. Rose A. Allison, William E. Dorrington, Isham Reavis and family, Mrs. Sarah Goolsby.

1859: John Fallstead, William McK. Maddox and family; Mrs. Daniel Gantt, Anderson Miller, George W. Marsh, Margaret Miller, S. T. Miller. Ike Allison, Elias Firebaugh.

VERDON.

1855: George Goolsby, A. D. Goolsby, A. H. Sloan.

1856: J. F. Cornell, W. H. Cornell, Lavina Cornell.

1857: C. F. Peabody, Isaac Clark and wife; T. C. Cunningham.

1858: George D. Clark, J. W. Patterson, C. C. Parsons. 1859: W. H. Mark, Emerson Smith, J. M. Dietrich, John Hossack, W. S. Marsh, K. L. Marsh, J. S. Marsh.

SALEM.

1854: Abner Boyd, Mrs. J. T. Adams, W. H. Whitney. 1855: S. H. Roberts, Joseph Hare, Mrs. W. W. Spurlock, daughter of J. C. Lincoln; S. P. Gist, J. C. Lincoln and wife.

1856: W. A. Crook.

1857: William Kinsey, and family; Will Whitney.

1859: Ester Waggoner. H. C. Jennings, Morris Malone, J. H. Cum- mings, Stewart Russell.

STELLA.

1856: J. Robert Cain. 1858: William C. Hall, Mrs. Kate Messler.

1859: G. W. Smith, M. H. Van Deventer.

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BARADA.

1854: John B. Didier.

1856: Charles Jenkins, Fulton Peters.

DAWSON.

1855: Ellis Goolsby.

1859: Daniel Riley.

HUMBOLDT.

1853: Joseph Zulek, Charles Zulek.

1854: Samuel Bobst.

1857: H. D. Tinker, O. J. Tinker. Edward P. Tinker, Franklin Ferguson.

SPEISER.

1854: Thomas F. Brown, Davis Speiser, Sr.

1856: George Riechers (now of Falls City).

ST. STEPHENS (NOW BARADA TOWNSIIIP).

1855: William R. Cain, and family.

1848: Stephen Story and wife.

Others who settled in the county before 1860, were: 1854. Rebecca T. Edwards, 1855; George Coffman, 1856; J. O. Stout, James Dedrich, Mrs. A. H. Cornell: 1857, Z. J. Parsons, L. A. Kinsey ; 1858, S. J. Harris, James Clark, William Colerick: 1859, William Parchen, William Rieschick; 1858, J. G. Wist. 1859. Mrs. George Linsicum; 1858, Mrs. J. B. Morton; 1859. Margaret Maddox; 1855, J. C. Miller; 1854, Christian Bobst; 1853, Con- rad Smith, Rulo; 1855, Mrs. Dan Van Valkenburg, Rulo; 1854, C. W. Roberts, Salem; 1856, J. R. Kelley, Salem: 1855, Mrs. Mary A. Hurley, Humboldt: 1855, Margaret Higgins Edwards, J. F. Shubert; 1859, Sarah E. Goolsby, Verdon: 1858, Mrs. Eliza Clark, Verdon; 1858, Mrs. Kate Thomas: 1855, Isaac Crook, Archer; 1854. Charles Rouleau and Eli Bedard. Rulo: 1857, Eli Plante, Rulo; 1854, William Level, Archer, and Frank L. Goldsberry.

HARDSHIPS OF THIE PIONEERS.

Surrounded as we are in Richardson county today with comforts in- numerable and attendant prosperity, so prodigal that its resources seem ex-

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haustless, many of us are inclined to scorn the achievements of the past, claiming, as we do, for ourselves the credit for what our county is today. We would not minimize what is being done nor what has been done, fully recognizing, as we do, the high standard of the present sojourner here; but while giving credit in fulsome measure, it is urged that it should not be carried to the point of forgetting our debt for this heritage from those who have gone before, and that they are responsible to a very large degree for the present happy condition.

While we 'have grown from a few scattered hamlets on the Missouri river bluffs to a county recognized throughout the state as one among the very first in wealth and importance, we must recognize that these blessings are but the ripened fruit from the sacrifices, privations, labor and forethought of the men, and women, too, who first came to the county and caught the vision of its possibilities. Through all the trials and adversities common to that period, their courage stood firm, and their spirit mounted to a vision that many lived to see in the fulness of its fruition. In the face of all the seemingly unsurmountable difficulties and obstacles, there was ever among them an indomitable spirit which did not falter, but was as proud and true as found in the peoples who have pioneered any country in the history of mankind.

It is almost impossible for us of this day and generation, to properly visualize the foreboding prospect which faced the pioneer who came here in the first, second and third decades of the county's settlement. Where we find paved streets, well-defined roads and good bridges, green fields and beautiful groves, they saw only pathless prairies and tangled grasses in the valleys-a part of the center and solitude of the Great American Desert or great plains. Land was the cheapest thing in sight; its expanse and vast- ness were appalling. The country was one open wilderness, trackless, un- known, and the home only of the wild animals and aborigines, whose habita- tion dates back of written history. Where we retire each night in comfortable, modern homes, protected by an established order of government, at peace with all mankind, they sought slumber under the starry canopy of Heaven, beside the trail, or in the dug-out or sod house, never knowing when their lonely shelter might be sought out by the Indian on the warpath, and their lives made to pay forfeit for their intrusion. Over the same country that they viewed from the heavy, ox-drawn, cumbersome wagon in long, weari- some journey, we speed in high-powered motor. with hundredfold more radius of travel.' With the telegraph, and the telephone in every house, we

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History of Richardson County, Nebraska : its people, industries and institutions, Part 9

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