USA > Nebraska > Adams County > Past and present of Adams County, Nebraska, Vol. I > Part 39
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"We lived in our wagon a day or two till we put up a light frame structure 12x16 feet, for a temporary shelter; we moved into it Sat- urday, April 12. It had no floor and the frame was two by four scantling, running horizontally. Boards were nailed on perpendicu- larly and battened by one-inch stuff. The roof was made in the same way, only it was two-sided or a peaked roof, not a shanty. The next day was Easter Sunday.
"About 4 o'clock in the afternoon we noticed a very dark cloud coming up rapidly from the northwest. We saw plainly that a ter-
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rible storm was coming and we got our wagon behind a steep bank fifteen or twenty feet high, that gave good protection from a north- west wind. We tied our four horses to the wagon, two on a side, and awaited the storm.
"It came about 5 o'clock. We greatly feared when it first struck us that our frail shelter would not withstand the hurricane that ac- companied the rain, but it withstood the first onset better than we hoped and we went to bed and slept the first night undisturbed. When we awoke the next morning it was snowing at a fearful rate, and so blinding that it was impossible to face it and breathe. We made two attempts before we succeeded in getting to our horses. We found them in a fearful condition with the snow poring upon them in blind- ing sheets, driven with the wind over a burnt-off prairie for over a mile with no draw or obstruction intervening.
"To leave them there was certain death in a few more hours, and what to do in the circumstances was the question. We had besides our family two men who had been our companions a portion of the way. Our bed was in one corner and there were seven of us in the house. But we decided that room must be made for the horses, so we tied our bedstead up to the collar beams-it was a low one -- and we got it out of the way. We then brought up the horses, and as soon as the door was opened they went in with a rush, one at a time. We got three horses in line with the bed, the fourth horse standing behind then, giving barely room for passage between him and the stove.
"I never saw such suffering as the poor horses exhibited when we first got them in. Their tails were a foot in diameter, filled with snow so firmly packed that it was a difficult task to remove it. Every muscle in their bodies quivered like a man shaking with the ague. They were so hungry that they soon began gnawing at the two by four scantling in front of them. To prevent this we had to fill the scantlings with shingle nails. We had nothing but flour to feed the animals, but this seemed to satisfy their appetite in a measure, till my son and one of the men stopping with us ( Phillips by name) took one of the horses and made a trip to our nearest neighbor, a little over a quarter of a mile down the stream.
"This would have been impossible had it not been for the lay of the land and the trees and bushes skirting the stream. The direction of the storm gave them a side wind, both going and coming. thus en- abling them to keep their bearings. They got a sack of stove wood and a sack of corn. This was on Monday. On Tuesday they made another trip, getting the same as before, but the last trip was more
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difficult, as the storm had increased in its fury and it was at the peril of their lives that they came back.
"One of the worst features of the storm was its long duration. It reached its height on Tuesday night. We slept none that night and were in constant fear that our frail structure would collapse, and that would have meant death to all of us. We had a few pieces of scant- ling left, so I made stakes and notched them in such a manner that when driven in the ground they would prevent the building from sliding or lifting up. I also braced the shack with two long scant- lings at the north end, which made it much stronger. The structure would spring, the sides of it, like a basket and threatened every minute to give way. But the shack held out and we were saved.
"On Wednesday night the storm abated some and Thursday afternoon it cleared off. Many poor homesteaders lost their teams and cows and some lost their lives. I had two cows loose. I found them ten miles from home. They had drifted with the wind and had got behind a sod house and were saved. We had a coop of about a dozen white Brama chickens. The coop was drifted over and all were saved but one. This was our only loss.
"There was no snow on the ground after the storm, only in draws. and it was packed so solid that a team could be driven over it anywhere without denting it any more than the solid road. The snow covered the buffalo grass in the draws upon which many of the settlers de- pended for food for their cattle so that for a time they were deprived of this food supply, and this after effect was a hardship that con- tinned after the storm had cleared."
STORM OF 1888
The great storm of January 12, 1888, was felt in full force in Adams County, but because of the advanced development of the community the hardship imposed was not so great as in 1873. Until about 4 o'clock the air was soft and hazy as in Indian summer, but at about that hour the wind changed suddenly to the north and grew rapidly to hurricane velocity. The snow began first to fall in large flakes and then changed to small, hard pellets, like shot. The air was so filled that drivers could not see the horses' heads. More than one hundred persons lost their lives in Nebraska in that storm and more than a thousand were reported to have perished in South Dakota. It is known as the school children's storm, because of the great loss of life among the schools. No loss of life was reported in Adams
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County. In Nebraska generally in that storm the wind reached a velocity of 56 miles an hour with the mercury at 34 degrees below zero.
PAULINE TORNADO
Sunday, May 24, 1903, a destructive tornado destroyed the six- room residence of John Mumma near Pauline. The storm started about four miles southwest of the Mumma home, where it destroyed the house of Charles Daum. Mr. and Mrs. Danm escaped from in jury by taking refuge in the cellar. The tornado missed the home of William Overy by about seventy-five yards.
At the Mumma home six were killed: John Mumma, aged 51; Mrs. Mumma, 47; Gertrude Mumma, 18; Florence Palmer, 19; John Palmer, 16; Ray Quigg, 21. Those killed in addition to the Mumma family were young people of the neighborhood who were Sunday guests of the Mummas. The party were at dinner when the house was struck, about 3 o'clock. The farm was the property of W. B. Sheldon of Hastings.
CHAPTER XXIX
OREGON TRAIL AND LONE GRAVE
The Oregon Trail, one of the historic trails of the world, enters Adams County a little south of the center of section 1 in Little Blue Township and leaves the county on the west side of section 18 in Kenesaw Township. The trail leaves Little Blue Township at the northwest corner of section 2. In Hanover Township it traverses sections 34, 33, 29, southeast corner of 30, and 19; in Ayr Township it crosses sections 24, 14, 15, 9, southwest corner of 4, south half of 5. northeast corner of 6. Crossing the southwest corner of section 31 in Denver it enters Juniata a little south of the center of section 36 and then crosses the southwest quarter of 25, the northeast quarter of 26. southwest quarter of 23 and then traverses northeast quarter of 21, 22, 16, 17 and leaves Juniata Township on the west side of the south- west quarter of section 7. The trail enters Wanda a little south of the center of section 12 on the east side of the section, it then crosses 11, the northeast quarter of 10, the southwest quarter of 3 and the northeast quarter of 4. It enters Kenesaw Township on the south side of the southeast quarter of section 33 and then crosses the south- west quarter of that section to the southeast quarter of 32 and then runs almost north through the northeast quarter of the section. It crosses section 29 almost diagonally, traversing the southeast and the northwest quarters. The course continues northwest, touching sec- tion 20 on the southwest quarter and running through 19 to the south side of 18, leaving the county on the west side of 18. After leaving section 1 in Little Blue Township the trail was a sharp trend north- westwards.
As the basis of striking tradition, the Oregon Trail is undoubtedly Adam's County's richest asset. It is interesting to remember that the stream of early migration westward, in the days before the railroads. flowed through Adams County along the trail outlined in the forego- ing. Writing of the beginning of the Oregon Trail, Addison Erwin Sheldon, lecturer on Nebraska history and institutions at the Uni- versity of Nebraska, places the beginning of the trail at 1813, when
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the Astorians returning from establishing a fur trading post, Astoria, in Oregon, went over the trail. These men were seven in number and led one horse. According to Mr. Sheldon, the first wagon wheels to go over the trail were those of Milton Sublette in 1830. Sublette with ten wagons went from St. Louis to the Wind River Mountains with one cow that furnished milk all the way. "The track they made," says Mr. Sheldon, "from the mouth of the Kansas River up the valley of the Little Blue and up the south side of the Platte and the North Platte, was followed by others, and thus became the historic trail."
In 1832, Captain Bonneville went over this trail from the Missouri River to the mountains and the same year Nathaniel J. Wyeth opened the road from the Missouri River to the Pacific Coast in Oregon. In 1850, monthly mail coaches began running over the Oregon Trail from the Missouri River to California. The mail at first started from St. Joseph and a short time later from Atchison. From 1861 to 1866 daily coaches ran both ways over the route. The pony express ran over the Oregon Trail for a year and a half beginning with April 3, 1860.
The pony express was a man on horseback that carried mail only. Stations were made at distances of ten or twelve miles apart, or at such distances as horses could run at full speed. When pony and express rider arrived at a station, another rider was ready mounted and, taking the mail bag, dashed off for the next station at full speed. The quickest time recorded for the pony express was in March, 1861. President Lincoln's inaugural address was carried from St. Joseph to Sacramento in seven days and seventeen hours, the distance being 1.980 miles.
It was during the rush for gold in California in 1849, that the Oregon Trail became the greatest highway of its kind that the world ever saw. At that time it was wider than a city street. Thousands of people went West by the route. Great caravans with their horses and cattle and vast stores of supplies made it virtually the street of a city, but a street extending from the Missouri River to California.
There are places in Adams County where traces of the trail are still visible, but they are being rapidly effaced. The trail can some- times be seen where it crosses the section lines where the original sod of the road has not been broken. The trail can be seen quite plainly in the vicinity of Lone Grave on section 18 in Kenesaw Township.
EARLY RANCHES
Some of the ranches which were established for the accommoda- tion of the coaches during the coach stage, were located in Adams
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County, though not much evidence of them remains. The field notes of the surveyors, which are preserved in the office of the county sur- veyor, refer to "Clark's Ranch" as existing between 1858 and 1860. This ranch is located by these notes on the northeast quarter of the northeast quarter of section 6, town 6, range 10. Traces of an old stockade and well remain. Such evidences also are found on the northeast quarter of section 15, town 6, range 10. Another ranch was located 212, miles southeast of the present Village of Kenesaw, on the Frank Balhke farm. In one of the raids made by the Indians the keeper of this ranch is supposed to have been killed. The ranch was afterwards known as "Dead Man's Ranch." On the ranch near Brickton, that is the one located on section 15, town 6, range 10, old Minie bullets have been found from time to time by Adams County people. Deweese, in Clay Connty, was a well known ranch in coach days and was called "Liberty Farm." The period of decline of the Oregon Trail was from 1860 to 1869. At the latter time the coaches were discontinued entirely. In the declining days of freighting over the Oregon Trail "Bill Kress" drove a team over the trail as a freighter. Varying numbers of horses and oxen were used to pull the freight wagons. Six yoke of oxen to a wagon were not uncommon.
Regulation markers have been placed upon the Oregon Trail in Adams County by the Oregon Trail Memorial Commission as fol- lows: One near the Adams-Clay County line at the point where the Oregon Trail crossed. It is 140 rods north of the southwest quarter of section 6, township 6, range 7. Another stands on the school grounds of District Number 12, at the southeast corner of the south- west quarter section 23, range 11, township 7, and a third was placed at the northwest corner of section 17, township 7, range 11. Near Leroy, Niobrara Chapter, Daughters of the American Revolution, of Hastings, erected a marker on the main road south from Hastings to Leroy. This is forty feet north of the southwest corner of section 14.
In a letter to the compiler of this history the late Clarence S. Paine, of Lincoln, wrote: "There ought to be two or three more monuments erected on the Oregon Trail in Adams County, but we have never been able to get anyone to assume the responsibility of having them properly set, and while we have the monuments we have not had the means to erect them." Mr. Paine was the secretary of the Oregon Trail Memorial Commission. Apropos to the subject. Mr. Paine continued: "I believe that Dr. Frank Schaufelberger of Hastings knows more about the Oregon Trail in Adams County than anyone else living. I am sure that he knows more about it than I do." Vol. 1-27
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LONE GRAVE
The relic of the Oregon Trail in Adams County to which the most human interest attaches is "Lone Grave," located near the southwest quarter of the southwest quarter of section 18 in Kenesaw Township, just a few steps to the north of where the trail passes. Many ver- sions have been told of the occupant of Lone Grave, Mrs. Susan O. Hail, of La Fayette County, Missouri. The most widely credited ver- sion is that of Mrs. Peterson, of Holstein, who gives as her authority a Mr. McFarland, father of William Yoho. Mr. McFarland, who drove an ox team from Illinois to California, died in Kenesaw some years ago at the age of eighty-six. Mr. McFarland claimed to have known Mr. and Mrs. Hail and the circumstances of the death of Mrs. Hail. According to this narration Mrs. Hail died after having drunk water poisoned by the Indians at Dead Man's Ranch, six miles southeast of the grave. After burying his wife, in a coffin fashioned from the lumber of his wagon box, Mr. Hail went on with the train to the Pacific Coast. Later, he returned, and after procuring a slab in Omaha brought it back along the trail and erected it upon the grave.
It is also narrated that it took about all the money that Mr. Hail had to procure the słab, and that he was forced to wheel the monument from Omaha to Kenesaw in a wheelbarrow. Nothing definite, how- ever, seems to be known of these details.
The township survey of Kenesaw Township was made by James Cozzad between July 25 and August 4, 1859. The surveyor used the grave as a witness to a corner established, and in his notes refers to the grave. The inscription upon the slab as quoted in his notes by Mr. Cozzad read as follows: "Memory of Mrs. Susan O. Hail, of La Fayette County, Missouri, who died June 2nd, 1852, age 34 years. 5 months and 12 days." That this is the true record as to the time of death and age and name of Mrs. Hail is probable, in that only seven years would have elapsed between the date given for her death and the reading of the inscription by the surveyor the inscription would prob- ably be clear.
In after years, the slab was entirely carried away, piece by piece, by relic hunters. The present monument was afterward placed upon the grave by the children of the Waterhouse Sunday School and much of the second monument has been carried away by relic seekers. The iron fence around the grave was also placed by the Sunday School.
While the Oregon Trail came into use by the white man in the periods as narrated, the investigators of Indian history generally agree
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that it was used piecemeal by the red man from time immemorial. By 1843, it was a well defined route for trade and traffic between St. Louis and the mouth of the Columbia River. The real trail began at Frank- lin, Missouri, 205 miles above the mouth of the Missouri River. Franklin continued to be the fountain of trade over the trail for about ten years and then was superseded by Independence. The length of the trail up the Little Blue Valley was about seventy miles. It left the Blue at a point near Leroy and proceeded to the Platte, which it reached at a point about twenty miles below the western end of Grand Island. The extreme length of the trail from Independence to Van- couver was 2,020 miles.
INDIANS OF THE SECTIONS
Students of Indian history consider that the first authentic record of the Indian occupancy of Nebraska is that of Coranado's relations with them in 1541, although the Pawnee are believed to have emi- grated to Nebraska some time prior to 1500, coming, probably, from the Red River of the South. The present Adams County was within the territory claimed by the Pawnee, and was ceded by the four bands to the United States in 1833, who ceded the North Platte country in 1837, with the exception of their reserve in Nance County. The latter reserve was ceded in 1876 and the Pawnee were transferred to Indian Territory, now Oklahoma. The number of Pawnee in Nebraska was estimated in 1861 at 4,000. The Indians in the territory of which Adams County is a part usually made two great hunts each year. Old and young participated. From the summer hunt they made jerked meat and lodge skins and from the fall hunt robes, furs, tanned skins and dried meat.
LOUISIANA TERRITORY
Inasmuch as Adams County was a part of the Louisiana Terri- tory, it is germane to recall some of the facts which have been compiled about the territory. It contained 890,921 square miles, land and water. Of this area 878,641 square miles were land, containing 362,- 330,240 acres. The price paid for it was 2 3/5 cents per acre. Out of the territory states were formed as follows: Louisiana, 1812: Mis- souri, 1821; Arkansas, 1836; Iowa, 1846: Minnesota, 1858; Kansas, 1861; Nebraska, 1867; Colorado, 1886; Montana, 1889; South Dakota. 1889; North Dakota, 1889; Wyoming, 1890; Oklahoma. 1907; Idaho, 1890; Washington, 1889; and Oregon, 1859. Of Colo-
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rado, however, about one-third of the state was formed from the Louisiana Territory; and of about three-fourths Wyoming.
HUNTING AND FISHING
Looking out over the magnificent fields of waving grain, dotted here and there and everywhere with fine large farm homes, schools and churches, towns and city, one can hardly comprehend that what is now Adams County was a hunter's paradise less than a half century ago. But such is the truth, and be it said to their credit that it was the early hunters who made it possible for this country to settle up so rapidly.
In the early days this was a great hunting ground for the white man as well as the Indian. Thousands and thousands of buffaloes roamed the vast prairies in great herds, while deer and antelope were in bands of from two to fifty. Beaver, mink, polecats, coyotes and prairie wolves were plentiful, as the trappers found to their delight : while the country seemed to be overrun with wild turkeys, prairie chickens, ducks, geese, grouse, quail, curlew, plover, snipes and wild pigeons. But today the sportsman who would hunt here must con- fine his shooting to snipes, plovers, prairie chickens, doves, ducks, geese and the ever present cottontail and long-eared jack rabbit.
Here the hunters used to pitch their tents and call it home. They made their money by trapping and hunting-it was a business, not an outing, for them. Hides were carefully gathered, and cured, and then hauled to the nearest shipping point where they were sold to hide buyers. And it was because of the value of hides that the Indians and white men fought to the death here on many an occasion.
It was in the latter part of the '60s that Stephen Nash. "Buck- skin Charlie," and a young boy named Littlefield started from here on a buffalo hunt along the Platte. The young boy had really forced himself into the party, as he was looked upon as being too young to undergo the hardships, but his mother consented so the young man shouldered his rifle, strapped on his hunting knife, and joined the hunters. The party was successful and soon had gathered hides that were valued at $1,500, which they carefully placed in a cache. A few days later when they returned to the place where they had hidden the hides they found that Indians had been there and stolen their pelts. They immediately took to the trail of the thieves and followed them up into Valley County where the Indians were located at camp in a small pocket in a coulee. In the battle that followed most of the Indians were killed. Young Littlefield became so en-
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boldened over the success of the fight that he arose from his hiding place just in time to become a target for the Indian's last shot. bullet struck him in the head and he died a few hours later. With such a sad ending to the hunt Nash and "Buckskin Charlie" saddled their horses and took the remains to the Littlefield home in Sutton.
Mortimer N. Kress, who was at that time better known as "Wild Bill," and who was the first settler on the Little Blue, has killed buffalo, deer and antelope on almost every important place in Adams County. Being a notable plainsman and fearless Indian fighter, he made a success of his hunting and trapping here.
In the spring and the fall the Pawnee Indians would come in large bands from their main camping grounds on Cedar River in Greeley County down through Adams County and establish a hunting camp on the Little Blue River. On all these occasions they made it a point to camp for at least one night on Pawnee Creek, one mile south of Hastings-and late in the '70s they were still making these hunt- ing trips.
The last buffalo shot in what is now the corporate limits of Hastings was killed in the fall of 1872 by Morris Alexander, who ran the animal up Hastings avenue and shot it where the water works plant stands today.
It was two years later that the last buffalo was killed in Adams County. In the fall of '74 a lone buffalo was seen on the C. F. Francis homestead, three miles south of Juniata. The news quickly spread to the little Town of Juniata and a party headed by .James Laird, George Brown and Ed Allen took up the chase. The hunt lasted for several hours but the buffalo was killed on the Francis place, and judging from the number of bullet holes in its hide every man in the chase had a hand in the killing. And so the passing of the bison from Adams County.
Prairie chickens and quail, and occasionally a few teal ducks, breed here-all the rest of the game birds found in Adams County are migratory. The flight of ducks and geese starts early in the spring and continues for about five weeks, during which time the birds stop to feed and water while en route south. About the first of September they start making this their feeding ground while making their northern flight. So there is still good shooting here during the fall months, as that is the only open season.
There are Wilson's snipe, jacksnipe, sandpipers and tattlers that are quite plentiful here, all of which may be found at any lagoon early in the fall, as well as the green-head and red-head mallards, blue and green-winged teals, pintails, spoon-bills and butter ducks. The
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brant, which is the smallest species of the goose, is much more plen- tiful than the Canadian goose, but sportsmen seem to find plenty of both here in season.
Adams County never has been overburdened with a supply of fish, for the reason that there is but one stream in the county that is habited by any fish to speak of, and that stream is the Blue River. In its blue-tinted waters are found channel cat, bullheads, whitefish, sun fish and carp. Many large channel cat fish have been hauled from the Blue, but the chief catch is bullheads.
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