USA > Nebraska > Nebraska history and record of pioneer days, Vol I > Part 6
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Father continued in business at Aspinwall until the town died, in the seventies. Then he moved to Kansas City.
In 1875, when I was eighteen, I married Martha Tidrow, daugh- ter of a storekeeper. I had quite a time getting the license. When I went to Brownville after it the county judge, Dr. McComas, looked me over and told me I was in the wrong place. Said I was too young to get married. This worried me, but I talked politics with the judge and told him politics at Aspinwall was all his way, so he concluded I was all right to get a license.
I worked in the store three years and then took up the real estate business in which I have continued to the present time. John L. Car- son had bought the Holladay land, and I took charge of it.
About 1888 I moved up to Nemaha. It was a poor town then, not so good as it is now. There were three saloons, but legitimate trade was light. There were no decent sidewalks. I came up here because of the schools, as I had two boys.
In the old days the liquor element was mighty strong in Aspin- wall. Dr. J. N. McCasland of Pawnee came down here to organize a Good Templars lodge, and they threatened to throw him in the river. When I moved to Nemaha the fight against the saloons was going on. I foolishly believed in the saloon system at that time. On the streets I had argued that, inasmuch as we were only getting ten cents a bushel for corn, if the country went dry we wouldn't get anything for it. But I got tired of liquor domination and helped to put it out of Nemaha after all. At that time the school district was $4,000 in debt. Without saloons it has built a good school build- Ing and has money In the treasury.
At Aspinwall, before the town died, I was on the school board. Weisenreder and another older man, Jerry Marlatt, were the other members. One day a young fellow came along and applied for the school. The two old members did not take to him because he was so young, but I liked him, and talked them into the notion of hiring hlm. The new teacher and I became great friends and have kept up that friendship ever since. His name is John II. Morehead, recently gov- ernor of Nebraska.
Morehead taught school in town a few months and boarded at Weisenreder's. It was noticed that one of the Weisenreder girls was his favorite. Next he taught a term out in the country and then came to town and married Miss Weisenreder. The parents of the Weisenreder girls were Catholics and objected to taking Protestants into the family. But the girls did not want to be Catholics, and they had their way when it came to marrying.
Weisenreder had made money and went out of the store business
when the town declined, and later went to California. I think he lost most of his wealth in unfortunate speculations.
We had two boys and one girl. Both boys are at Kansas City. Charles M. is on the board of trade and Leslie is a druggist. Marie is now attending school at Kansas City. My wife died in 1910.
I am loaning you some old pictures. One is of Ben Neal, part Indian, who first owned the land where Aspinwall was built. Another is of John S. Minick, who was very prominent in eastern Nebraska fifty years ago. Also pictures of Mr. and Mrs. Weisenreder taken in 1869, and Mrs. John L. Carson, taken in 1875.
WHEN A. M. MEDLEY CAME WEST
I came to Peru in 1855, when I was seven years old. My parents were Alfred and Mary Medley. We came from Crawford county, Ill., stopped one year in Atchison county, Mo., and then came here.
Father was a blacksmith. When he came here he opened a shop and also bought an interest in the ferry and put in a better boat. He took a preemption claim two miles south of town, where he raised sod corn and buckwheat.
In those early days we went to mill out on Camp Creek, where ~ Mormon by the name of Jimmison was the miller. The mill ground so slow that people had to wait a long time for a grist.
Jim Dewey worked for father in the shop. Dewey later went back east and. stayed. In a year or so father started a store down on the flat, where the town then was. It was called the O. K. Store. He sold calico, groceries, whisky and other stuff. The post office was up where the town now is.
Father went out among the Indians trading and then went to St. Joe and bought a stock of goods, after which he disappeared. The goods came, but he never was heard of again.
My brother Frank was four years older than I was and was a big help in everything. Mother sold the farm and came to town and finally sold the store stock at a sale. This was in 1859. We went to Mis- souri for a season and then came back. I commenced boating on the ferry and worked at it thirteen years. One season I whacked bulls across the plains to Fort Kearny and Fort Sedgwick, in 1863. I saw the stuff burning at Plum Creek after the fight there. Brother Frank had gone into the army in the First Nebraska and went down to Fort Donelson with Thayer. Once when I was on the plains he was with the soldiers there, but I did not see him. After the war was over he came back here and lives here yet.
In the succeeding years, after my ferry work, I farmed a little, handled grain, was steamboat freight agent, ran a wood yard and did a lot of things. While doing some government work on the river I dislocated my knee, and it has made me lame ever since.
I married Lydia Smith, and we have four sons and one daughter, all alive. Frank is at Havelock, George is foreman of the machine department at Havelock, and Richard is here at Peru. Our daughter, Rainey May Medley, is a teacher at Dorchester. Mother died in 1900.
There are no people here now who were here when we came in 1855. Those who came in 1856 were Rev. Mr. Hall, Rev. Mr. Horn, Tate, Swan, Combs, Hedde, Simpson, Edwards and others. In 1857 came Dan Cole, Dustin, Carter, Steitz, Redfern, Lash, Daily and a good many others.
I will let you have for the Historical Society a flatiron and a steel- yard that my folks brought from New England to Illinois before I wa's born. Also an Indian ax which my son found here on the Peru town site.
DANIEL C. COLE AND PERU
I was born in Fulton county, N. Y., near Amsterdam, July 19, 1836. My father died when I was a young boy. Mother conducted a farm. In 1854 we moved to Fon du Lac county, Wisconsin. It was new out there then, and times were hard, There was very little money. I had learned to be a carpenter, along with the farm work.
A Wisconsin man named Bristol had traded for a piece of lanu in Nebraska, and his brother-in-law drove out to see it. Five of us young fellows took the trip with him, and we crossed the river at Brownville on June 3, 1858. We were in a covered wagon, though we mostly walked across Iowa.
I had brought my carpenter tools, and had $2.50 in cash when I got to Nemaha county. There was very little work here. Sometimes I got 75 cents a day for work, and paid 50 cents a day for board. In those times we all had ague. In getting work at my trade I walked up and down the country from Plattsmouth to Rulo. Land was cheap, but I never took any. Few of the first settlers who settled on land stayed with it.
Brownville was the principal town on the river and got the in- land trade. It was a steamboat town, and had a steam ferry, also the John L. Carson bank and the U. S. land office. It was a better town than Omaha. I was at Omaha when there was only one hotel and a lot of saloons. Brownville had two or three saloons.
At the same time Nebraska City was a flourishing place. A great deal of outfitting was done there. Majors, Waddell & Co., were gov- ernment freighters, and I have seen 2,000 cattle and 200 wagons there at one time.
In the winter of 1858-9 I taught school in the Fairview district, west of Brownville, and boarded around. It was a log schoolhouse about 14x16. 1 had about 20 pupils, and got $15 a month.
About the middle of January, 1859, I was boarding at Squire Ken- nedy's. I woke up early in the morning, and hearing a stir in front of the house I dressed and went out. There was a covered wagon with six mules hitched to it. Squire Kennedy was out there talking with a tall man with long whiskers. Kennedy introduced us. The man was Jolin Brown. He had seventeen young negroes in the wagon and was heading for Iowa. He had arrived before daylight, after a
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Nebraska History and Record of Pioneer Days
night drive. On the way to Kennedy's he had lost his way and stopped at the wrong house at about two o'clock. When he made him- self known, the man of the house said: "I guess it is Kennedy's you want. We are on the other side. We are Tennesseeans." The man, whose name was Skeen, directed Brown how to get back to the road to Kennedy's. Brown was a little worried at having made his erranc known to southerners, but nothing came of it. Skeen minded his own business and never said a word. All through the county it was well known that Kennedy was active in the underground railroad.
So that is how I happened to have a talk with John Brown. It was his last visit north. Soon afterward he was killed at Harper's ferry. When I saw him at Kennedy's he and his runaway slaves had just finished eating a breakfast which Mrs. Kennedy had got for them.
Squire Kennedy was a Missourian, but he came away from there because he was an abolitionist. He died here a good many years ago. His son, George, lives in the neighborhood now. The old Kennedy farm was later lived on by Judge McInnich, a brother-in-law of Ken- nedy's.
S. F. Nuckolls built the first store here at Peru. It burned down just before it was finished. That was in 1856 or 1857. The fire caused Nuckolls to change his plans and go to Nebraska City. The store was down on the bottom at the steamboat landing. There was a lot of bottom land here then. The river has since cut it away. Between here and Nebraska City the river swallowed two or three thousand acres. Now the river has gone over the other way. It has a mort- gage on the land on both sides.
I kept on carpentering. I was married in 1860 to Elizabeth A. Swan, whose folks had come to this county from Peru, Ill., in 1857. We have ten children living. Three others died in infancy. We have twelve great-grandchildren.
In 1864 I was appointed postmaster, and also sold goods. There was one other store, and perhaps forty houses. There were two towns here. Mount Vernon was up on the hill where the cemetery is now. The post office was there, but I changed it to Peru, and started the store on what is now main street. The building was 16x24, and I built on a room 10x16 and lived there.
The Independent Order of Good Templars was organized here be- fore I came, in 1856, by John W. Hall and W. S. Horn, two Methodist ministers. It was started out on Honey Creek, south of here. I joined it soon after I came. Hall and Horn started a church here, too.
I have belonged to the Masonic lodge since 1867. I joined here at Peru. R. W. Furnas instituted the lodge, and it was No. 14. ] was worshipful master ten or eleven times.
The Methodists established a school here in 1866. Hiram Burch was a minister here and his brother-in-law, John Mckenzie, was at the head of a school at Pawnee City. He wanted to move to Peru and establish a Methodist school. So they got a charter from the legis- lature (Eleventh Legislative Assembly, 1866) for the Peru Seminary and College. The Methodist conference appointed the trustees. The people subscribed $10,000. Dr. John F. Neal gave 72 acres of land. Burch, Mckenzie and William Daily also gave land. Mckenzie came here in 1866 and opened the school in a shack in town that had former- ly been a saloon. In the fall they had a college building ready. The failure of the school at Oreapolis helped to turn attention here.
A. B. Fuller, of Cass county, who had once operated a normal school in Illinois, and William Daily, were members of the House of Representatives of the second legislature, which convened May 16, 1867. Daily and Tom Majors had a good deal of a pull. They wanted a state institution, and when they could get nothing else Fuller sug- gested a normal school. I guess they didn't know what a normal school was but they took the chance. The state gave $3,000 for start- ing the school and 20 sections of saline land, which has all since been sold. Seventy-two acres and the unfinished building of the Peru Seminary and College were given to the normal school. Brownville had a much better school and a building that cost $20,000, and would have been glad to get the normal school, but Majors and Daily were on the ground and secured the plum for Peru.
I was one of those who subscribed for the original building. I agreed to give $300, when I was not worth $250. I was a member of the board of the Methodist school, and a member of the state board for eight years following. Our incidental expenses for one term were $16. George E. Howard and Miss Morehead were the first graduates, in 1870. Howard, I think, worked his way through.
From that small start our Normal school grew up. The plant has cost now probably $800,000. It still owns sixty acres of the origi- nal donation for a site.
Early preachers in the conference here were T. B. Lemon, John M. Chivington, and D. B. Slaughter, father of Brad Slaughter.
(Mr. Cole, although in his eighty-second year, still lives in Peru, in a house he built over forty years ago. He retains his faculties, and is physically active. He goes out in the country two or three miles to superintend the cultivation of his farm.)
DR. JETUS RIGGS CONKLING
Dr. Jetus Riggs Conkling, one of the old residents of Omaha, died of apoplexy last March, at Dunedin, Florida, where he had gone to spend the winter. Dr. Conkling was born in Tompkins county, N. Y., October. 5, 1835, came to Illinois with his parents when he was a lad, worked on his father's farm, attended Salem academy, near Kenosha, Wisconsin, taught school, and graduated from Rush Medical college in 1859. He joined a wagon train bound for Pike's Peak that year, but stopped at Omaha. After a short time he went to Tekamah, and in the fall of 1859 was elected clerk, and the next year became treasurer of Burt county. In 1863 he was post surgeon at Fort Kearny, and a couple of years later, returned to Omaha.
JOHN Q. GOSS
JOHN Q. GOSS PASSES ON
Another old pioneer who has passed on is Judge John Q. Goss, of Bellevue, who at the age of 91 died on March 20 of this year. Judge Goss was born in Somersetshire, England, March 8, 1827, came to America in 1844 and settled in Ohio, where he taught school for nine years, in the meantime reading law. He was admitted to the bar at Mansfield, Ohio, in 1857. In the spring of 1859 he came to Nebraska and located at Bellevue. He represented the counties of Burt, Wash- ington and Sarpy in the Council of the seventh Legislative Assembly and held various county offices. He was quartermaster of the terri- torial militia, in 1862, enlisted in the Second Nebraska Cavalry October 15, 1862, and April 24, 1863, was appointed regimental commissary with the rank of first lieutenant. He was master of Nebraska Masonic lodge No. 1 in 1862-4, was a member of the grand lodge of Knights of Pythias when it organized in Nebraska, and was the organizer of the first Pythian lodge in Missouri. His wife and one daughter, Mrs. Emma Thompson, of Washington, D. C., survive him.
FIRST U. P. MILEAGE BOOK
When the Union Pacific Railroad Company issued its first mileage tickets, No. 1 was bought by a Nebraska man, who did not use up all the mileage. The son of the original purchaser has that ticket. He lives at Auburn, and he has so far warded off all efforts by the company to gain possession of the interesting souvenir.
JOHN BRATT, NORTH PLATTE PIONEER
John Bratt, pioneer, and one of the most widely known men in western Nebraska, died at his home in North Platte June 15, in his 76th year. He was born at Leek, England, August 9, 1842, and came to America in 1864. The next year he invested all he had in a cargo of goods, consigned to New Orleans from New York, but which was lost by shipwreck in the Gulf of Mexico. In 1866 he came to Ne- braska City, and went on, as a bullwhacker, to Fort Phil. Kearny where he engaged in furnishing supplies for, the post and in suttling. In 1869 he entered the cattle business and settled at a point four miles south- east of North Platte, south of the river. His wife was a daughter of John Burke, also a Platte valley pioneer. He was a prominent Mason, an enthusiastic member of the State Historical Society and contributed valuable articles to its museum.
MRS. ADA BUCK MARTIN
Mrs. Ada Buck Martin died at her home in Denver on June 1, 1918, and was buried at Indianola, Red Willow county. Her father, Royal Buck, established the first colony in that county in 1872. A full ac- count of that enterprise will be printed in volume XIX of the publica- tions of the Historical Society which will be published soon.
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Nebraska History and Record of Pioneer Days
Nebraska in 1864-1867
Time of the Sioux Indian War and Building of Union Pacific
THE OAK GROVE MONUMENT
On June 14 there was an important celebration in Nuckolls county near the town of Oak, the occasion being the unveiling of the monu- ment commemorating the Indian fight at Oak Grove station.
Oak Grove was one of the stations on the old California tran, and was attacked by Sioux and Cheyenne Indians on the 7th of August, 1864. On the same day all of the stations between Fort Laramie and the Big Blue were raided and most of them burned.
At Oak Grove station people and the travelers taking refuge there put up a spirited fight and drove the savages off. Two of the whites, J. H. Butler and M. C. Kelley, were killed. There was no way of knowing the losses among the Indians.
An exciting incident on that day was the attempt of the stage coach from the east to reach safety at Oak Grove. There were ten passengers, and the driver was Robert Emery, with John Gilbert, an- other driver, on the box. They were intercepted by the Indians two miles east of Oak Grove and turned back. There was a running fight for several miles, but the appearance of a large wagon train saved the fugitives. The coach was hit many times by bullets and arrows, but none of the passengers were injured.
At the recent celebration John Gilbert was present, also J. M. Comstock and Mrs. James Dudley (Ella Butler), who were with the party that took refuge in the station building during the fight. At that time Ella Butler was a little girl, and along with other noncom- batants crouched behind a barricade of boxes and barrels during the siege. Comstock was old enough to do his share of the shooting and believes that he accounted for two of the Indians.
The celebration was under the direction of the D. A. R., of Superior, and was attended by a good crowd of people. The monument is in a box elder grove, and is surrounded by an iron fence. It is on the loca- tion of the old stage station, and also on the spot where the first meet- ing was held to organize Nuckolls county. The county commissioners appropriated the money to pay for the monument, and their names appear at its base.
The program of the celebration was as follows:
Invocation-Rev. A. C. Bates.
America-M. E. choir and assemblage.
Unveiling of the monument-Miss Katherine Follmer.
Flag salute-Superior Chapter D. A. R.
Presentation of the monument on behalf of the State Historical So- ciety-A. E. Sheldon.
Acceptance of the monument-Mrs. Harry Nelson.
Music, solo-Miss Sylvia Acher.
A Tribute to the Pioneers-Mrs. W. S. Young.
Reminiscences-old settlers.
Address-Charles H. Epperson.
Benediction.
Inscription on Monument
The monument bears this inscription chiseled in the stone: Monument Erected On The Oregon Trail By Nuckolls County, Neb. In Memory of Those Who Were Killed And Those Who Escaped at The Oak Grove Ranch In The Indian Raid Aug. 7, 1864.
Killed
J. H. Butler M. C. Kelley
Escaped
John Barratt L. Ostrander N. Ostrander Tobias Castor Geo. A. Hunt Saralı Comstock Mary Comstock H. J. Comstock J. M. Comstock Mrs. F .Butler Ella Butler Samuel Morrill Etta Courtwright Co. Com .: P. Cronin Chas. Malsbury E. M. Wright
Mr. Sheldon's Address
In presenting the monument on behalf of the State Historical So- ciety, Mr. Sheldon said:
"Mine is a brief message here this afternoon. Monuments are made to mark heroic deeds and great achievements. This monument meets both demands. It marks the deeds of heroic Nebraska men and women who met a savage foe with high courage, resourceful minds and unflinching fortitude. It marks a resting place upon a great na- tional highway which united the Mississippi valley to the land beyond the mountains and made the Pacific coast a part of the United States of America.
"The Nebraska State Historical Society welcomes the spirit which gives visible form to the memories of these mighty achievements and these heroic deeds. The first historical monument raised in Nebraska was by the Nebraska State Historical Society on May 25, 1905, upon the high bluff which faces Fremont across the Platte river. Upon that bluff fifty years before General John M. Thayer met the Pawnee chief, Petalesharu, in his great council lodge in the midst of his people who occupied those heights with their village. General Thayer sur- vived fifty years of frontier fortune, of Civil War service, and of a sub- sequent career in the highest places within the gift of this common- wealth to share in the dedication of this monument a half century later.
"The movement to mark the Oregon Trail across Nebraska was largely the work of the Daughters of the American Revolution. The legislature of 1911 voted $2,000 for this purpose. This was supplement- ed by many local gifts and a chain of Oregon Trail monuments now stretches at intervals from Lanham, where the trail crosses the Ne- braska line, to a point near Henry where Nebraska and Wyoming meet.
"Two years ago this summer I drove along this trail from Fort Kearny to Fort Laramie, placing upon photographic glass and upon motion picture film historical persons and places upon the route and these granite monuments which now mark at intervals the great Ore- gon highway.
"There yet remains much more to be done before the worthy deeds and achievements upon Nebraska soil are fitly witnessed in these memo- rial monuments.
"The one we unveil this afternoon marks a site worthy of recogni- tion. Here on August 7, 1864, a little handful of pioneer men and wo- men held the log fort against an outnumbering enemy. Here also the first civil government of Nuckolls county was instituted and the first election held which made this a civil unit in our state. The fight for life and property and for the blessings of free political institutions went hand in hand across this continent.
"This monument we owe to the patriotic spirit of the Daughters of the American Revolution, to the organized energy of Mr. George D. Follmer and others of this community, and to the county government of Nuckolls county which so fittingly gave the money for the marking of this memorial stone.
"In the name of the Nebraska State Historical Society I present this monument to the community which has built it to be preserved, visited and remembered throughout all the coming years. May the memories which cluster about this monument be an inspiration in the lives of those who shall live after us on these plains through all the millenniums of time."
FIRST RAILROAD EXCURSION TO NEBRASKA
Fifty-two years ago a booklet was printed to record the exper t- ences and proceedings of an excursion party that came from the east to inspect the Union Pacific railroad, then building through Nebraska. Copies of that booklet are very rare, but one has just been added to the Historical Society library.
The party, consisting of a hundred guests and the entertainers, started out from Jersey City on the 15th of October, 1866. The ac- count says that they went west to Chicago in three "Silver Palace" cars and a superb director's car, and it is recorded as a remarkable fact that they went through to Chicago without change. At Chicago they were joined by others, so that the excursion party numbered one hundred and fifty, and two brass bands. Five directors of the Union Pacific company, one government director and three government com- missioners were along; also Grenville M. Dodge, chief engineer; and Silas Seymour, consulting engineer of the road. J. Carbutt was official photographier and Mr. Hein assistant. The music was fur-
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Nebraska History and Record of Pioneer Days
nished by the Great Western Light Guard Band of Chicago and Rosenblatt's Band, of St. Joseph.
The party included men from every northern state, among them a considerable number of senators and congressmen. It is noted that Rutherford B. Hayes, of Ohio, was with the excursion. Ten years later he was elected president of the United States. The Earl of Air- lie, of Scotland, Marquis Chambrun, of France, and M. Odillon Barrot, secretary of the French legation at Washington, gave the excursion an international flavor.
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