USA > Nebraska > Lancaster County > Lincoln > Lincoln, the capital city and Lancaster County, Nebraska, Volume I > Part 13
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Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41 | Part 42 | Part 43 | Part 44
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nine inches thick. A part of this stratum was also unfit for use as cut stone. It had been hoped and expected that as the quarry was more developed. that the stone would improve, and an underlying bed of greater thickness be found, but this also turned out to be worthless. About the end of February about three thousand cubic feet of stone for cutting had been quarried, about two thousand only being fit for use, and this was used in the building. To get this quantity more than two thousand cubic yards of earth, bed rock and shale had to be removed. I have estimated the loss to the contractor upon this item to be at least four thousand dollars, whilst, in order to adapt one thickness of nine inches only to all purposes in the building entailed a further loss by additional cutting to the value of at least five hundred dollars more. On the 28th of February I received a letter from the contractor of which the following is a copy :
".Lincoln, February 28, 1868. "'John Morris, Esq.,
" 'Dear Sir: I have now spent four days in seeking for stone suitable for carrying on our works at the state house, and find none suitable for the purpose. Mr. Malcom opened the quarry near to Mr. Paley's lot yesterday. The stone is sound, but is so broken up in its bed that large stone cannot be obtained suitable for our purpose. I received forty-two feet of stone last evening from the old quarry ( Mr. Mill's) and this amount has cost me seven men's work of six days each, or at about the rate of ?-? dollars per foot. It will be totally impossible to procure stone at Mill's quarry to build the state house, and any further quantity we get from this source will be at a cost much above the price as stated. I think it absolutely necessary that you should see to making such arrangements from some other source so that the work may be carried on. 1 expect I will go with you to Beatrice to see the lot of stone quarried, and which I am told is for sale, or for such other stone as you may consider suitable for the purpose.
"'I am yours respectfully, " 'JOSEPH WARD.'
"Upon receipt of this letter I came to the conclusion that to continue the use of the blue limestone would only end in ruin to the contractor and consequently an abandonment of the contract, and would ultimately entail far greater cost in the erection of the building than would arise by any additional sum that may have to be allowed for a change of material, and also, render it impossible to complete it in the required time. I therefore, immediately, with the contractor, proceded to Beatrice to examine the nature and supply of the rock exposures there, of which I had previously heard. Upon my inspection of the Beatrice rock, I was exceedingly pleased to find an unlimited supply of an excellent material, which was in every way adapted to the nature of the works proposed to be done in the state house.
"I did not hesitate to direct that this material should be used instead of the blue limestone. I was more readily drawn to adopt this course by my knowledge that stone of this character was far better than the blue limestone, as being less liable to wear or damage from frost or fire or any other action of the elements.
"I could not but know my course in this matter would justly cause the con- tractor to make a claim for some compensation beyond his contract consideration,
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but I was then, and am now convinced this course would be found to be by far the most economical in the end, and would insure the erection by the time the general assembly would need the building. In my estimate of extras annexed hereunto, I have allowed some six thousand dollars for the increased cost by the adoption of this excellent building stone, but that amount does not cover the loss already then sustained by the contractor by using the limestone up to the period when the change was necessary. It is my duty therefore to respectfully submit for your consideration whether any and what compensation can be allowed to the contractor to cover his loss for work done under and included in the provisions of the contract. After some trouble in arriving at a just value of the extra cost of the haulage of stone from Beatrice, the works proceeded in the spring with vigor for a short time; about April, however, several of the stone cutters, brought here at considerable expense, left and returned to Chicago, and their places could not then be filled by others, and from those that then remained a demand for increased wages was made, and after some negotiation, was perforce complied with, or a complete suspension of the work would have resulted. The rate of wages demanded was greater than any previously paid in Nebraska, so far as I could ascertain, and greater than the contractor supposed he would have to pay when he made his estimate and contract. It was also found that about that time it would be impossible to procure ( sufficiently early) bricks for the internal walls, as contemplated in the design and contract for the building. I was therefore compelled, by the circumstances, to use sandstone and in some parts to increase the thickness of the walls, as a necessary precaution to insure the stability of the fabric. The increased cost I have allowed in my annexed account. As it was not known how the accommodation provided for the executive officers would be appropriated, no safes were provided and located in the original design ; two safes and some additional doors with other minor improvements, which, when the several rooms were specifically appropriated, suggested themselves during the progress of the erection, have been added, mainly according to your directions, and the costs thereof set forth in the annexed account.
"As time was necessarily made an important item in the contract, it has become my duty, also, to take into consideration that as the new state house and capitol were located at a somewhat remote point from the most settled portion of the state and where the facilities for building on a large scale were comparatively few, and moreover, the additional time necessary to execute the added works before mentioned required an extension of time for the completion, I am obliged to recognize a principle ( already established in equity, in all places in my knowledge) that of extending the time proportionally for the completion of the contract works, -and I therefore recommend the extension until the first day of January, 1869. I believe it proper also to bring to your notice the effect that weather had upon the progress of the work, for a period of about five weeks in the spring and six weeks in the fall; the rain was so excessive as to prevent the employes making more time than an average of four and a half days each week. During the great heat of the summer, also, for a time extending over about seven weeks there was a great deal of sickness among the workmen; an average of seven men were absent daily. It was impossible in this new place to supply labor enough to compensate for the loss of time occasioned thereby ; a combined effect of these several causes was to drive the completion of the work into short days and
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inclement weather, so much so that for fifty days about thirty men could not work more than nine hours each day and the wages could not be proportionately decreased, but in some cases had to be increased. 1 believe from the causes the contractor lost about six hundred dollars, the principal causes of loss therefore to the contractor arose, first, from use of limestone before the change to Beatrice stone, $4,500.00; from excessive wages, $3,300.00; and by short days, $600.00. There were some other minor causes which it is difficult to estimate, but I cannot base the estimate of losses that could not be foreseen at less than $9.000. I desire earnestly to submit for your consideration, whether you can, with- out damage to the interests of the state, the integrity of the contract and the provisions of the constitution, ameliorate his loss. With the exception of the delays noticed, the work was pushed with vigor, the utmost progress was made in good weather by availing every hour that could be turned to account, and by employ- ing all the labor that could be commanded. By the first of June, 1868, the first story was up and in August following, a portion of the walls was up to the roof, and in September a part of the roof was ou and all finishings in an advanced state.
"In conclusion I think it is incumbent on me to remark that on a comparison of the bulk and stability of the building with several court houses, school houses and churches you will have (after all proper allowances and reliefs to the con- tractor are macie) the cheapest and most substantial edifice west of the Mississippi River, and also, to remark that the contractor by thoroughly identifying himself with the work, by the exercise of great energy, and by practicing a strictly watch- ful care over the expenditure is entitled to praise, that the works included in his contract were brought to completion.
"In view of the amount of work done and the time occupied and under such signal disadvantages, I believe there has been reached a financial result which is comparatively favorable to the state.
"I have the honor to remain, gentlemen, your obedient servant.
"JOHN MORRIS, Superintendent.
"Lincoln, July 30, 1869."
BILL OF EXTRAS
Increased thickness of foundation and walls $ 902.27
Providing for sewer
15.74
For fireproof safes. 771.82
For limestone pillars in halls instead of sandstone. 1,853.71
For chimney shafts
473.37
Provisions for extension of library
20.00
For three additional windows
315.00
For additional doors, internal
290.00
For two additional closets.
59.59
For ceiling ventilators.
53.20
For two ventilating windows.
42.00
Extra plastering
739.75
For flag staff
43.64
For angle staffs.
34.19
Looking northeast from the Capitol. about 1870
View from Capitol showing Episcopal Church, Twelfth and K streets, about 1970
View showing high school, looking north of Capitol, abont 1871
View from Capitol grounds looking south- east, showing homes of T. P. Kennard and John Gillespie, about 1871.
EARLY SCENES IN LINCOLN
[From Clement 's Collection of Early Nebraska Photographs. Propcity of and used by permission of Nebraska History Seminar, State University ]
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Extra on water closets.
753.64
Difference for patent thimbles, etc. 127.00
For change of facing stone.
10,822.39
Safes fittings. 62.75
Library fittings.
537.00
Speakers' platforms and desks
126.85
Two dressers.
39.00
Supreme court platform, ete. .
60.40
Wood boxes and ash well curb.
75.00
Gallery benches. 57.10
Shelves on clerks' desks and letter boxes 23.95
Two stepladders 14.00
Hat rails and pegs. 20.00
Five days labor jobbing.
17.50
Four washstands for offices
44.50
Copying press stands.
8.20
THE FIRST STATE CAPITOL
By Thomas Malloy
NOTE: The following paper was prepared for the Nebraska State Historical Society by Mr. Malloy in 1899.
In the month of November, 1867. I was hired in Chicago by contractor Joseph Ward, who had the contraet of building the first state capitol. There were also twelve other stone-cutters who came West to Lincoln, Nebraska, with me. We were to receive $4.50 per day as soon as we began work. He paid our way as far as Omaha, and then transferred us back to Council Bluffs, from which place we went to Nebraska City. Here we rested for a day and a night. There were two teams hired to bring our tool chests and trunks from the depot on the Iowa side aeross by ferry to Nebraska City. We had guns and revolvers to protect our- selves from the Indians. Before we left Nebraska City we were advised to get blankets and moccasins, as it looked as if there was a storm coming. Sure enough the storm did come after we left for Lincoln. We had to walk and run all of the way behind the wagons to keep ourselves from freezing the first day. I believe the moccasins we bought saved our lives on the road. The first day we came as far as a place where there was one shanty on each side of a creek. One was occupied by a man by the name of Wallen and the other by a man named Luff. old pioneers on the Nemaha near Unadilla. The owners of the houses were scared of us until we told them where we were going. Then they divided us between the two houses. One house kept seven men and the other five. Lucky enough they had some bread, coffee and bacon. They did the best they possibly could for us, but such sleeping apartments! A loft in the peak of each shanty, with loose boards for a floor, on which we slept. And such a night ! We lay on the floor with our lucky blankets rolled around us and kept ourselves as warm as we could. Next morning we had breakfast of the same variety of food as the night before, paid our bill, and thanked the pioneer gentlemen for their kind treatment. Then we started for Lincoln and arrived at the Pioneer Hotel at 9 o'clock that night. Vol. I- 7
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This hotel was owned by Mr. Scroggins and was north of where the State Journal building is at present on Ninth Street. The number at the hotel that night after we signed our names on the register was sixty-five. The hotel was well filled with lodgers, consisting of laborers, mechanics, doctors and a few lawyers. The next morning we went to see where our job was to be. A few men went with us and pointed out the place. To our great surprise there was nothing for us to see but the trenches dug for the foundation. There was no material in the way of stone. So we were badly discouraged. What could we do, out in the wilderness of Nebraska and our families in Chicago? At this time the contractor was on his way from Chicago to Lincoln, three days behind us. We patiently waited for him to come and when he did come we met him determined to do something desperate. In fact we were going to hang him. When he saw the material was not on hand for us to go to work, he there and then told us not to be uneasy, that he would see that we got our wages, work or play, according to the agreement as the state was good for it. So that pacified us. We were idle two weeks before the rock came in. He paid us full time. We then built a sod boarding house on the capitol grounds and boarded all the men working on the building. A man and team were hired to haul all the things required for the table from Nebraska City. That was good board at $5.00, so we were all well satisfied up until the first of April, 1868. At that time a man by the name of Felix Carr came from Omaha with a letter from Governor Butler to the contractor, Mr. Ward. This man made a deal with Mr. Ward. who rented the boarding house to Mr. Carr. Then Mr. Carr went back to Omaha and brought out his wife and family to run the boarding house. He also brought out two big barrels of whiskey. Then we saw what was up. We held a meeting and resolved to boycott the whiskey, as the boys were all saving their money at this time. A few days after he invited some of the men to have a drink, but they refused, and he was greatly surprised to see such a large number of men in a big building like a state capitol all sober. But one wet day came, and some of the masons broke the boycott about a month after the whiskey came. This continued for a week. I watched an opportunity at night when they were all asleep and crept to the barrel and turned the faucet. I then went back to bed. The whiskey kept running all night on the floor and down the cracks, until the barrel was empty. In the morning the smell of whiskey was all over the boarding house. The man Carr became tearing mad. He carried a brace of revolvers at the breakfast table and threatened the man or men who committed the crime of emptying the barrel of its contents. But he did not shoot. A few days after all the stone-cutters left the boarding house and went to Mr. Lane's new boarding house on O Street. He was foreman carpenter.
Mr. Felix Carr left in a few weeks and never paid Mr. Ward a cent of rent ; took his blankets, dishes, even the stove, spoons, and knives. He was never seen in Lincoln again.
In the spring of 1868 the prairie was covered with camp wagons, consisting of bull teams, mule teams and horse teams, all seeking out section stones and taking up homesteads and preemptions in Lancaster County. The land office was in Nebraska City at this time. All available teams were employed hauling lumber from Nebraska City and stone from Beatrice for the state capitol. Frame houses were springing up in all directions. Carpenters, masons and plasterers were in demand. Auction sales were conducted by Thomas Hyde, auctioneer, selling city
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lots at that time to pay the expenses of building the capitol. The money in circula- tion at that time was known as greenbacks, and was casily carried in one's pocket, not being so heavy as gold.
In the fall of the same year, 1868, politics were getting lively. There were two liberty poles planted on top of a hill called Market Square at that time, north of where the postoffice is now built, between O and P streets. One was a democratic pole and the other a republican, both with the Stars and Stripes flying from the top. The republican pole was taller than the other, being spliced. But some wicked villain came around one night, threw a rope around the top of it and kept pulling at it until it cracked, and broke in two pieces across the top of the hill. In the morning when the men were going to work, they only saw one pole with the Stars and Stripes flying and that was the democratic pole. When the report went around town the people gathered in swarms to see the broken liberty pole. There was nothing but weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth among the old veterans of the late war. Finally there was a colored barber by the name of Johnston who lived west of the hill on Ninth Street reported that he heard the crack of the pole when it fell and that he saw a man running toward the livery barn of Dunbar and Jones on west O Street. Suspicion fell upon young Jones because he was a southern democrat, and he was taken and a guard placed over him. The Moore brothers and other veterans of the war went to George Ballen- tine's lumber yard, got lumber and built a scaffold on top of the hill where the pole lay. The scaffold was built on which to hang Jones and his trial was to be held that evening before Judge Cadman. The democrats got very uneasy and sent word out toward Salt Creek and other places around Lincoln to be in at the hanging. Many of them came in and waited until the trial commenced. Judge Cadman called the case and the witness appeared. He said he heard a loud noise of something cracking, and he looked out and saw a man running toward the barn. "Did you know the man?" "No, sir." "Any more witnesses?" There were none. "I discharge the prisoner for want of further prosecution." So there was no hanging on the scaffold in 1868.
In 1868 Robert Silvers got the contract for the building of the state university. The first thing he did was to start a brick yard. He bought all the wood he could find in the country and had to haul it with teams, as there were no railroads here at that time. He hauled the foundation stone from Yankee Hill, which was of sand rock. This was of little account. There was no other stone around Lincoln at that time with which to build foundations. The first bank at the corner of Tenth and O streets was built of it. At that time Mr. Silvers did not know how to find stone for the steps at the three principal entrances, south, east and west, to the university. He told me to search the county, as he hated to put wooden steps in a state university. I started out on my pony and the first day I could find no stone which would suit. The second day I went east and found stone located south of Bennett in a ravine. I returned and told Mr. Silvers that I had found the stones that would make the steps. I got all the stones that had been long exposed to the sun and frost, dressed them, and there they are today. The three landings cost $1,000.00.
787162
CHAPTER IX
THE CAPITAL QUESTION IN NEBRASKA AND THE LOCATION OF THE SEAT OF GOVERNMENT AT LINCOLN
By Hon. C. H. Gere
NOTE: The following paper was read before the Nebraska State Historical Society by Mr. Gere on January 12, 1886.
To found a city is a human ambition older than history. The name of the engineer that set the metes and bounds of the first block and street in Jerusalem, or Athens, or Philadelphia, or Minneapolis, may be obliterated by the tide of time, but his work endures to this day, and the man who would tamper with his records or shift his landmarks, is a miscreant by the unanimous voice of the nations. But there are other ambitions almost as exigent. Other than dreams of im- mortality nerve many a pioneer to make the fight for his rival site for the seat of government of a state. or of a county, or for a railroad station. It is a dream of corner lots, of speculation, of bonds and mortgages, and deeds and commissions, and sudden wealth.
The transformation of a rough pebble to a diamond, of a fragment of dirty looking carbonate, trodden under foot by a hundred prospectors, to a button of shining metal, are realizations of the fairy tales of childhood, no more seductive to the bearded son of the child than the transformation of a square mile of wilderness, for the present dear enough at the cost of measuring it with compass and chain, by the breath of a law or an ordinance into a realm worth a prince's portion.
Upon the area of a new commonwealth, therefore, are waged incessant con- tests. The larger armies fight for capital sites, lesser powers war for county seats, and finally small squads here and there struggle over the location of a postoffice or a sawmill, and wounds are given and received, and graveyards filled with the politically slaughtered on the field or in the skirmish line, with as much recklessness as if the fate of administration and the control of empires depended upon the issue.
The first governor of the Territory of Nebraska was clothed with imperial powers by the organic act and the appointment of the President in the matter of setting up his official residence. Empowered to select the spot for the political center of his virgin domain, he wielded for a time, in the minds of his fellow citizens, the thunderbolt of Jove, and guided the courses of Appollo. But hardly had he arrived in October, 1854, at the old mission house at Bellevue, the site of the first white occupation of the territory. before he sickened, and in less than a week he was dead. His last hours were troubled by the delegations on
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hand and forcing their way to his bedside, who came to urge the respective claims of Omaha, or Florence, or Plattsmouth, or Nebraska City for the seat of govern- ment. Bellevue considered herself safe, and the words of the dying Burt are often quoted by old citizens to this day as indicating that she would have won the crown, had the governor lived long enough to issue the necessary proclama- tion.
His secretary of state, who was his successor, Governor Cuming, unem- barrassed by the past, pledged to no one, because no one had dreamed of his approaching greatness, had an embarrassment of riches in the shape of eligible sites offered him at once. Bellevue had perhaps the first claim, because she had the largest settlement and the greatest prestige. But all along the muddy banks of the Missouri, above and below her, were other cities, mostly on paper, though some had arrived at the dignity of a few scattering log cabins and dugouts, that wrestled for the supremacy. Most of their inhabitants lived over in Iowa, but the fact that they intended to elect, and did elect, a goodly portion of the coming Territorial Legislature, was a sufficient excuse for their pleading, and they made the executive ears warm with their arguments.
By what pathways the acting governor was led to pitch the imperial tent upon the plateaux of Omaha is not our province to inquire. If the statesmen of Kanesville, later Council Bluffs, had a hand in the matter, that city soon had reason to mourn that the nest of the new commonwealth was lined with plumage from her own breast. From its very cradle, her infant despoiled her of her com- mercial prestige, and now scoffs at her maternal ancestor every time she glances across the four miles of dreary bottom that separates the waxing from the waning metropolis.
For the time being Omaha was the capital, and the first Legislature, with ample power to endorse or cancel the governor's location, was the next object of the executive attention, and it was his chiefest care to fortify and defend Omaha. A pretended enumeration of the inhabitants of the territory was made in Novem- ber, 1854, upon which the governor proceeded to base the representation of the members of the territorial council and house of representatives. Four counties were constructed north of the Platte, named Burt, Douglas, Washington, and Dodge. Four were assigned to the south Platte: Cass, Pierce, Forney and Rich- ardson. Douglas County extended to the Platte, embracing what is now Sarpy and Pierce, and Forney stood for what are now the counties of Otoe and Nemaha.
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