USA > Nebraska > Douglas County > Omaha > History of the city of Omaha, Nebraska > Part 23
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CHAPTER XV.
INCIDENTS AND EXPERIENCES-THE GREAT FLOOD -OLDEN TIME BUILDINGS -PATTEE'S LOTTERY, ETC., ETC.
The first issue of the Omaha Arrow, dated July 28, 1854, printed the following edito- rial:
" The Indians require ten dollars from each settler for the right to build and make improvement upon the lands for which they have not yet received payment nor relin- quished their rights. We consider this a just demand and have, ourselves, fully com- plied. The amount should only be paid to Logan Fontenelle (the chief), H. D. John- son or ourselves."
When Nebraska's first election was held, in the fall of 1854, there were but two vot- ing places in Douglas County, which included the present Sarpy County, one being at Bellevue and the other designated in Gov- ernor Cuming's proclamation as " the brick building in Omaha," otherwise the State House, the first brick building erected in the Territory.
Under the heading, "The Future of Omaha," the Times of June 7, 1857, presents these facts and figures :
" The growth of Omaha astonishes-is a fact few can comprehend. Look at its chronology :
1853, June-Town claim made by the company and kept by them by paying tribute to the Indians, whose title had not been extinguished.
1854, June-No settlements but a single house, the old St. Nicholas, of round logs, sixteen feet square, built by the company as an improvement to hold the claim.
1855, June-Number of inhabitants 250 to 300. Best lots sold at $100.
1856, June-Number of inhabitauts about eight hundred. Best lots sold at $600.
1856, October-Number of inhabitants 1,600. Best lots sold at $2,500.
1857, April-Number of inhabitants 2,000. Best lots sold at $3,500.
1857, June-Number of inhabitants 3,000. Best lots sold at $4,000.
"Judging the future by the past, we can safely calculate upon numbering five thou- sand people by the first of October, and property will, on Farnam, Douglas and Har- ney streets, run up to one hundred dollars a foot. The rapidity of growth in the past establishes public confidence in the future and tends to run prices up partly in antici- pation. We were shamefully cheated out of our appropriation to finish the capitol, in Congress. The City Council has made the Mayor, Jesse Lowe, sole commissioner, in behalf of the city, to do this work of neces- sity to the honor and comfort of our Terri- tory, and an ornament to our place, by an expenditure of $50,000. The work has begun.
"Jesse Lowe and Thomas Davis, county commissioners, are in charge of the erection of a court house, at an expense of $35,000. G. L. Miller & Co. are building the finest hotel west of St. Louis, to cost $60,000. Fifty houses have already been erected here this spring, As many more are in course of erection; three hundred will be erected this year."
The first resolution offered in the House of Representatives at the first session of the Territorial Legislature was presented by A. J. Poppleton, and the second motion made in the Council, at the same session, convened January 16, 1855, was made by Samuel E. Rogers. Omaha men were then, as now, always prominent in public affairs.
140
111
LOOKING NORTHEAST FROM COURT HOUSE SQUARE-1886.
LOOKING SOUTHEAST FROM HIGH SCHOOL GROUNDS-1886.
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INTERESTING SKETCHES OF EARLY INCIDENTS.
The first marriage in Omaha was that of in 1854. was for the purpose of voting. He John Logan and Caroline M. Mosier, the was at that time temporarily stopping at Council Bluffs, and in 1857 removed to this ceremony being performed by Rev. Isaac F. Collins, Nov. 11, 1855. Mr. Logan died in city with his family. this city March 13, 1891.
W. J. Kennedy established the first watch- repairing and jewelry store in Omaha, in 1856.
Charles S. Goodrich, late city comptroller, and Charles Sherman, editor of the Platts- mouth Journal, set the type on the first regular daily paper printed here, The Tele- graph, the edition consisting of four hundred copies, half of which were distributed in Omaha, and the other half in Council Bluffs. Mr. Goodrich came to Omaha in 1860, with his father, S. J. Goodrich.
Mr. IIellman came to Omaha from Cincin- nati in 1856, driving a two-horse wagon.
David T. Mount, who came here in 1863, made the first light buggy harness and the first Shafto saddle made in this city. The former was for Dr. McClelland and the latter for Jesse Lowe.
Peter Windheim, who died March 14, 1891, was induced to locate here in 1857, by the great quantity of ducks which he saw in this vicinity, he being at that time on his way up the Missouri River, on a steamer. Mr. Windheim, with the Bruners, Henry A. Kosters, Chas. Behm and others of Omaha, were interested in platting West Point and Columbus.
Daniel W. Carpenter came to Bellevue in October, 1854, and assisted in the publica- tion of the Palladium, J. Sterling Morton and Thomas Morton being associated with him in that enterprise. In 1864 he came to Omaha and formed a partnership with Dr. George L. Miller, for the publication of the Herald, first printed as an evening paper. It has been generally believed that the Her- ald succeeded the Nebraskian, but such is not the fact. The paper was supplied with an entire new outfit, which Mr. Carpenter brought from Cincinnati.
James G. Megeath's first visit to Omaha,
Charles Childs established the first grist- mill in this vicinity. In May, 1856, he erected a steam saw-mill, six miles south of the city, and put in one run of stone to grind corn, farmers coming from as far west as Grand Island and the Wood River settle- ments to patronize his establishment, though he ground only on one day in the week. Afterwards he put in a flour mill and made the first flour manufactured in Nebraska.
The first saw-mill in Omaha was put up by Samuel S. Bayliss and Alex. Davis, his brother-in-law, on Otoe Creek, just north of the present site of the Union Pacific depot, and traded to Thomas Davis for a claim on four hundred acres of land. The explosion of the boiler of this mill, about 1856, cre- ated a great sensation. Mr. Davis after- wards built a large flour-mill in the same locality and for many years carried on a very extensive business. His residence, which was in the same block, is still stand- ing, at the corner of Jackson and Ninth Streets.
There has been some difference of opinion as to who was the first white child born in Omaha. On this point Mr. John Rush, city treasurer, says: " My father-in-law, James Ferry, came here with his family in the spring of 1854. He had no time to make proper preparations for his wife and children, so a 'dug-ont' was scooped in the bank at what is now Twelfth and Jackson Streets, where the family and several men that Mr. Ferry had working for him lived during the winter of 1854 and 1855. But even before this primitive excuse for a honse had been made, he had constructed a hay hut near where the Union Pacific depot now stands, the tall grass of the bottoms affording material for one of the first and certainly one of the crudest habitations in Nebraska. The first white child born in Omaha could,
142
HISTORY OF THE CITY OF OMAHA.
if she had lived, boast of having had this unique dwelling for her birth-place. It is contended that William Nebraska Reeves, son of the late Jesse Reeves, was the first white child born in Omaha, but this is a mistake. It is true that Mr. Reeves' son was born before Mr. Ferry's child, a month or so, but he was born outside of the eity of Omaha as it was then platted, his birth- place being in what is known as Park Wilde." Mr. Ferry's child was born in October, 1854.
Mr. A. J. Hanscom first located on what is now known as Shinn's Addition, in 1854. lIere he built a claim house and about the same time put up a frame house, at the southwest corner of Fifteenth and Farnam, which building was used as a printing office by the proprietors of the Nebraskian. When the land was surveyed he found that his claim was on the school section; and, fearing he would have difficulty in getting his title, accepted a proposition to trade, which was made him by Mr. Samuel Bayless, of Council BInffs, and exchanged the 240 acres he had claimed for a tract of four hundred acres southwest of town, a part of which, now known as Hanscom Place, is one of the choicest residence portions of the city. The land he had first claimed was finally entered by Moses F. Shinn, who secured the passage of a special aet of Congress in order to get possession of the land.
Elias L. Emery, who came here in 1862, lived for several years in the only building west of the Capitol Hill, a frame structure on the ground now occupied by Howard Kennedy's comfortable residence on West Dodge Street.
E. L. Eaton is the oldest photographer in the city. Locating here May 1, 1856, he opened a gallery in the old Pioneer Block the following year. In 1858 and 1859, he was engaged a considerable portion of the time in taking photographs, at Florence, of the Mormons and their outfits. During the war he spent four years in the camps of the
Union soldiers, following his profession, in various portions of the country. For more than twenty years he has occupied his pres- ent location, on Farnam Street.
When Thomas Riley was city marshal in an early day, it was a part of his official duty to at intervals drive the Indians away from their camps in the suburbs of the town. At times the original owners of the soil refused to recognize his authority and on those occasions he would be compelled to call the citizens to his assistance.
When Mr. St. A. D. Balcombe purchased the Hanscom homestead, the block bounded by Capitol Avenue, Davenport, Sixteenth and Seventeenth Streets, in 1865, for seven- teen thousand dollars, the old settlers told him he was throwing his money away, although the ground was covered with bear- ing fruit trees, shade trees and ornamental shrubbery, with a large house and barn, the contents of both buildings being included in the purchase price, the furniture being valued at two thousand dollars. The ground alone is now worth $400,000.
During the war J. C. McBride was given a lot at the southwest corner of Thirteenth and Jackson Streets, by the city, in consid- eration of his taking care of certain small- pox patients which the city officials were burdened with. This he afterwards sold and with the proceeds purchased a good farm in Sarpy County. The lot is now worth forty thousand dollars.
Thomas O'Connor was the second register of deeds, being first elected in the fall of 1855, and for two years thereafter was re- elected. He crossed the river November 28, 1854, in a canoe, and since that date has never been outside the city limits for a period of three days at a time. He had for fellow-passengers, on the occasion referred to, General John M. Thayer and an Irish- man known as General Boyle, who had views of his own on the important topics of the day. These two became engaged in a violent discussion and Mr. O'Connor says that he
143
PASSAGE OF A BILL PROHIBITING SLAVERY.
was impelled to call out: "For Heaven's sake keep still, gentlemen, or we'll all go to the bottom of the river with this rickety old dug-out!" clutching, meanwhile, both sides of the craft in his endeavor to pre- serve the balance.
Acting Governor Cuming came to Nebraska from Keokuk, Iowa, and most of the Irishmen who located in Omaha in 1854 and 1855 were induced to do so by that official. Governor Cuming was a private, during the Mexican war, in the company of the Second Michigan Infantry which was commanded by A. J. Hanscom. The latter and A. J. Poppleton were schoolmates in Michigan in their boyhood days.
Major George Armstrong won the life- long esteem, in 1855, of Colonel Sarpy and Commodore Decatur, by exposing the char- acter of supplies then being furnished the Indians by an agent who made his head- quarters on the Iowa side of the river, opposite Bellevue. In coming to Nebraska, in the fall of 1834, Major Armstrong jour- neyed for some distance by stage with Colonel Manypenny, then Commissioner of Indian Affairs, in whose newspaper office in Ohio Major Armstrong had acquired a knowledge of the art of printing. Samples of the supplies being shown him after his arrival here, Major Armstrong wrote some sharp articles on the subject for the Nebras- kian, and also addressed a communication to the Indian Commissioner, the result being that the agent was promptly removed and the father of T. II. Robertson, editor of the Nebraskian, appointed in his stead. Major Armstrong removed with his family to Omaha in the spring of 1855, driving all the way from Chilicothe, Ohio, in a carriage. His firm, Bovey & Armstrong, built the Territorial Capitol, the Congregational Church, Pioneer Block and many other buildings of the ante-bellum days.
Law and order were not as closely observed in the carly history of Omaha as at present. At the session of the Territorial Legislature
of 1858, a resolution was adopted in the House, providing that the speaker and mem- bers of that body should "be exempt from arrest during the session."
Christmas day, 1860, a Dr. Vincent, of Tabor, Iowa, then famous as a station of the "underground railroad" for assisting run- away slaves, called at the residence of Colonel Gilmore, the brick building owned by Aaron Cahn, on the south side of Dodge, just west of Fifteenth Street, recently torn down, and in the course of a conversation was asked by John A. Parker, Jr., a hot-blooded young Virginian, where he lived, to which Vincent replied " Tabor, Iowa," whereupon Parker inquired if he " was one of those men who stole niggers?" Vincent responded: "When a colored man comes there hungry we feed him; naked, we clothe him; foot-sore, we take him in a buggy and carry him on his way rejoicing." Thereupon Parker jumped up in a rage, drove the visitor from the house, striking him as he left the door and then fired at him twice with a revolver, but fortunately failed to hit him.
A bill prohibiting slavery in Nebraska was passed by the Legislature of 1861, vetoed by Governor Black and passed over his veto by a vote of ten to three in the Council, and thirty-three to three in the House.
In one of the early sessions of the Legis- lature a bill was introduced " prohibiting the settlement of free negroes and mulattoes in the Territory of Nebraska." It was referred to the House judiciary committee and, in the rush and hurry of business, was evidently lost.
Referring to the appearance of Omaha in 1860, Mrs. Silas A. Strickland, who removed to the city from Bellevue with her husband in that year, says that Farnam was then the only well-defined street in the place. From her residence, at the corner of Eighteenth and Capitol Avenue, then the outskirts of town, she had an unobstructed view of the river landing, where she could see boats loading and unloading.
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HISTORY OF THE CITY OF OMAHA.
E. F. Cook, who came here in September, 1856, and managed the Omaha Branch of Milton Rogers' store business, the main store being in Council Bluffs, found no town to speak of, but a community full of hope and enterprise, with a lively real estate market. The winter following, vegetables, eggs and apples were received and sold in a frozen condition. Prairie wolves could be seen skipping about over the town site. On the Council Bluffs side of the river, he saw the, dead body of a man hanging to a tree, placarded: "Ilung for his many crimes!"
When the firm of Nave, McCord & Co .. wholesale grocers of St. Joseph, Mo., located a branch house in Omaha in 1861, then a village of but 3,000 inhabitants, it was con- sidered a very important event. Henry W. Yates, now president of the Nebraska National Bank, came np to assist in taking care of the business, being ten days in making the trip, by Missouri River steamer. The firm had previously established a branch house at Council Bluffs, in charge of Will R. King, but upon locating here Mr. King was transferred to Omaha. In the fall of 1863 Mr. Yates became identified with the banking house of Kountze Brothers, which was merged into the First National Bank, and remained with it until the organization of the Nebraska National Bank, in 1882.
It is a fact not generally known that the interference of the wife of President Lincoln prevented the appointment of an Omaha attorney to the chief justiceship of Nebraska Territory. The members of the bar of Omaha, Republicans and Democrats, with a single exception, joined in presenting appli- cations for the appointment of John R. Meredith, Esq., backed by the highest endorsements as to his character and profes- sional standing; but Mrs. Lincoln had her candidate for the place, in the person of William Pitt Kellogg, who afterwards achieved celebrity, if not distinction, as Governor of Louisiana, and he secured the appointment, though Mr. Meredith was the
President's choice. The position of associ- ate justice was then tendered him and afterwards that of collector of internal revenue for Nebraska, but both offers were respectfully declined by Mr. Meredith.
The first city directory of Omaha was published in 1866, by Charles Collins, a newspaper man of this city who was active in the publication of the Evening Times. Ile afterwards became identified with the press of Sioux City and took a prominent part in opening up the Black Hills mining region to white settlers.
The fact that St. Mary's Avenue runs at an angle is due to the desire of Harrison Johnson to get to and from the village of Omaha by the most direct route from his homestead, a log honse which occupied a sightly spot just west of Mr. Woolworth's present home. In time this private way became a county road and additions platted later on were conformed thereto. In recent years strong efforts were made to secure a change, so that the street might run directly east and west, but were not successful.
Elias L. Emery, who has been a continu- ous resident of Omaha since June 1, 1862, has borne a very active part in the improve- ment of cattle and swine in Nebraska. IIe was one of the first importers and breeders of shorthorns in the North Platte country, and in various sections of the State are now found entire herds of the direct decendants of Mr. Emery's importations. To this gentleman is also due the credit of estab- lishing pedigrees for hogs, now a feature of swine breeding all over the civilized world. In February, 1871, in a letter to the National Live Stock Journal, of Chicago, now the Breeders' Gazette, he called attention to the importance of this subject. The Farmers' Institute of New York at once took the matter up and appointed a committee to consider the subject in all its bearings. The leading breeders and dealers all over the land became interested and the result was the establishment of a swine herd book, as
11 ION
THE OMAHA PUBLIC LIBRARY . PI RESPEC TIVF
OLIBRARY
NEW PUBLIC LIBRARY.
145
OMAIIA LIBRARY LEGAL GIFT ENTERPRISE CONCERN.
accurately kept as are the records of horses and cattle. For many years Mr. Emery has been a contributor to the leading stock and horticultural journals of the country.
In August, 1871, a lottery was estab- lished in Omaha by J. M. Pattee, and styled " The Omaha Library Legal Gift Enterprise Concern," Lyford & Co. being the ostensi- ble managers, the alleged object being to provide the city with a public library. Just . what was done in that regard will be found elsewhere printed in this work, in the chap- ter devoted to "Libraries." The first drawing took place at the Academy of Music, on Douglas Street, November 7, 1871, in the presence of a large audience. The principal prize of $20,000 was announced as having been drawn by E. H. Dillingham, of Boston. The enterprise was carried on in a very successful manner for about two years, during which time Pattee trans- acted a large business through the post- office, his correspondence covering a large extent of country. In May, 1873, his mail in the Omaha postoffice was seized by Postmaster Yost, by order of the depart- ment at Washington, and forwarded to the dead letter office. The impression having been given out that the scheme had received the official endorsement of the City Council, the following resolution was adopted by that body, February 25, 1873:
" Resolved, That in the opinion of this Council the lottery now advertised by J. M. Pattee, in this city, is a fraud, and the same is not and will not be endorsed by any member of this Council."
This was published in the city papers as an advertisement. Previous to this l'attee had purchased the Redick Opera House building (afterwards known as the city hall), corner of Farnam and Sixteenth, for thirty thousand dollars, and here was employed a large number of young ladies in sending circulars out all over the country. May 20, 1873, the fourth drawing occurred in this building, in the presence of a large andience. Considerable formality was observed, Judge 10
John R. Porter being elected president of the assemblage, General S. A. Strickland, vice president and J. M. McCune, city clerk, secretary; Councilmen D. C. Sutpben, John M. Thurston, A. J. Doyle and Henry J. Lucas, ex-City Marshals, Richard Kimball, J. C. Lea, ex-City Attorney, J. P. Bartlett, Colonel Saunders, Colonel Burke and L. P. IIale were chosen as a committee to see that the proceedings were fair and regular, Judge Porter administering an oath binding them to a faithful performance of their duties in that regard. A short address was made by General Strickland, who introduced Mr. Pattee. The latter made a brief speech, setting forth his honesty of purpose in the management of his gift enterprise. Two wheels were used, one a large one for the tickets and the other a smaller one for the prizes, a blindfolded hoy being stationed at each wheel to draw for the numbers. On this occasion the grand prize was $75,000, one John B. Duff, of Council Bluffs, being declared the winner thereof. A month later James Donnelly, who had been employed by Pattee as a clerk, swore out a warrant in the police court, charging the lottery proprietor with having carried on a fraudulent business by the issuance of duplicate and triplicate tickets. Pattee was then at Leavenworth, and Sheriff Grebe went after him and brought him to Omaha. Being taken before Judge Porter, of the police court, an examination was waived by the prisoner and he was bound over in the sum of three hundred dollars to appear for trial in the District Conrt, and there the case terminated. Mr. Pattee died at St. Louis, where he was then residing, a few years since.
In the summer of 1877, the great army of tramps was so largely represented in Omaha that heroic measures were resorted to to abate the nuisance. A vigilance committee of two hundred men was quietly organized and each member sworn as a special officer, with power to make arrests. Captains were selected and the force divided into squads
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HISTORY OF THE CITY OF OMAHA.
and assigned to the various wards. At a late hour at night this foree started out on a general "round-up" and by daylight had arrested nearly four hundred men, some of whom were able to give a satisfactory account of themselves and were released. The others were locked up until their cases could be investigated, box cars on the rail- way tracks being utilized for the purpose after the city jail had been filled. Sensa- tional disclosures were made, in which men of alleged respectability figured, and many dangerous characters were arrested. One of the incidents of the night was the finding of a pair of shoes under a window of the bishop's residence, on Ninth Street, and the discovery of the owner of the shoes inside the building in the act of burglary.
The spring of 1881 witnessed the highest recorded stage of water in the Missouri Valley. The flood reached Omaha April 6th, a heavy ice gorge at Yankton, Dakota, having given way, and soon the banks of the river were overflowed. The rip-rap, which had been put in by the government, and which protected the Union Pacific shops and smelting works, gave way, and the grounds and buildings were flooded so that all work was suspended. The coal and lum- ber yards in the vicinity were submerged and it was only by the most active exertions on the part of a large force of men that any of the material in the lumber yards was saved. The bottom lands lying between Omaha and Council Bluffs were covered by a rushing torrent, varying from two to ten feet in depth. Steamboats anchored in the neighborhood of the Transfer Ilotel, and, from that point eastward, the Union Pacific built a bridge, half a mile long, of flat ears. Steamers wended their way over the Union Pacifie grounds on the west side of the river and took on coal from the company's supply. For four days a steady gain of water was reported, the highest stage being reached at 6 o'clock P. M. of the 9th, when a depth of twenty-two feet above low water mark, two
feet higher than ever before known, was reported, at which time the river extended from the bluffs just east of the Union Pacific headquarters to the Northwestern depot in Council Bluffs, a distance of five miles, the surface covered with broken ice, trees, tim- bers, fence rails, lumber, logs, fragments of houses and all the debris which a sudden flood of such awful magnitude would gather in its restless course. The loss of property here was considerable but there were, fortu- nately, but two lives sacrificed. Thaddeus Wren, Michael Cunningham and Nicholas Keenan were coming in a skiff from a barn belonging to the Union Pacific Company and attempted to cross a stream some fifty feet wide which poured into the river through a break in the rip-rap, when they were whirled out into the river. Mr. Wren elung to the hoat and was rescued but the others jumped out and were drowned. Since that date immense sums of money have been expended by the government in protecting the river bank, and by the Union Pacific and Smelting Works people in raising the ground upon which their buildings are located, and they are now considered perfectly safe from dam- age by water. The increase in the value of the bottom lands on this side of the river has caused a general raising of the grade for a distance of two miles north of the Smelting Works, and the extension of the river pro- teetion system by the government adds to the security of that part of the city.
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