USA > Nebraska > Furnas County > Pioneer stories of Furnas County, Nebraska > Part 13
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I will tell you a little of my experience hauling corn from Egypt. B. Il. Reed and Jay Clayson and myself and H. Bronhard started sometime in December, 1874. We went as far east as Cuide Rock, where we camped out. Harve had a light team. One was a pony mare and she was a cripple, and the other a little horse. We had just traded a day or two before we started and every time we went down a little hill he would kneel down. We kept laughing at Harve. He said, never mind, he would trade him off, but he would not trade with a preacher. The second night we were out we camped close to the river in a patch of willows. We cleaned off a place large enough for our blankets and built a big campfire that warmed the ground, then we put some straw and all rolled in together. About 12 o'clock it began to snow, but we kept covered head and heels. We did not dare to move or the snow would blow in on us. We slept quite warm. I guess Harve began dreaming. for he yelled out, "Boys. that little mare is a dandy, but I will trade that horse for any- thing before we start home." After we got through laughing at Harve, we all went to sleep again and pretty soon he began dreaming and this time he yelled out, "Well, boys, if you want corn for that watch, haul it out, it belongs to the crowd." One of the boys had a watch. Harve wanted to know what we were laughing at. Just say to HIarve, "If you want corn for that watch, just haul it out, it belongs to the crowd," and he will isnow what you mean.
I believe I have written enough of this, so will draw to a close, for fear it will be monotonous. I want to say this for Fur- nas county. I will stand up for Nebraska. I have lived here 41 years and I never saw one year just like this. Everything, last spring, indicated a big crop of corn, but it doesn't look it now. The Sappa is almost dry at this writing, the 30th of July, 1913. It looks as though feed would be pretty scarce, but I still think there will be a good fall pasture. It has got to rain pretty soon.
Will close, with best wishes to everybody.
F. P. BROUHARD.
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CHAPTER XXII
J. W. Turner Gives Interesting Account of His Pioneer Experien- ces, and Tells of the First School Held in Furnas County
On or about the first of September, 1872, father, with his family of six children, left Winterset, Iowa, for Nebraska, in cov- ered wagons, crossing the Missouri river at Plattsmouth. and father, thinking perhaps it would be better, left the family at Plattsmouth, while he went and found a location. So, after renting a house and getting the family comfortable, he, with the writer and a man by the name of Ballard, set out in a prairie schooner for southwestern Nebraska, stopped a short time in Lin- coln, then followed the B. & M. railroad to Lowell, where the United States land office was. After getting some maps and mak- ing some inquiries about our route we started south for the Re- publican river. My! This was a desolate trip, over forty miles with scarcely any settlement. About half way across this des- ert was "Walker's Ranch." Here we paid ten cents for a bueket of water. Mr. Walker hrad not yet finished his well, and had to · haul water from the Blue river, many miles away. We camped here all night and started out early the next morning for Repub- lican City, arriving just before sunset. The next day being Sun- day we drove a few miles west of town where we stayed until Monday, camping near a man by the name of Friday. Along about eleven o'clock, Mr. Friday eame down to the wagon and invited us to take dinner with him. We accepted his invitation without an apology. After entering the house. I noticed a large kettle sitting over the fire in the fire place. A little later Mrs. Friday came in from an adjoining room and with a large spoon vas putting dough in the kettle, and then I knew what was com- ing, my mouth fairly watered, for if there is anything } do like it is chicken dumplings. Soon it was put on the table steaming hot, and we were asked to sit up. We certainly did cat our fill. 1 shall never forget that dinner. I was a lad of only fourteen years and had a boy's appetite. After we were through eating. Mr. Friday asked each of us how we liked our stew, as he called
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it, meaning the dumpling dish. All praised it highly. He then asked us what kind of meat it was. Father said it was squirrel, Mr. Ballard thought it was rabbit, and I said I knew it was prairie chicken. "Well" he said, "you have not guessed it, it is prairie dog." Well, that is the first good dog I had ever eaten.
Monday morning we started up the river, crossing at Mel- rose. We went west, camping near the forks of the Sappa and Beaver. Next day we drove up Beaver Creek to W. B. Bishop's. to whom we had been directed from the land office at Lowell, as a man who would show us land. After getting numbers on several pieces of land we went back to the land office where father home- steaded the se1/4 of section 18, township 2, range 21, on November 2, 1872. The next spring after the Easter snow storm was over and the roads were good again, father, with his family loaded in two nagons. left Plattsmouth for the new home in Furnas county. All went well until we got to Juniata. Here father was taken ill and we had to lay over two weeks. As soon as he was strong enough we went on. The roads were muddy and traveling slow, but finally we reached the Republican river, where we found the river banks full and fording impossible. The only way we could cross was with a small skiff, so everything was taken out of the wagons and a little at a time was taken over in the skiff. The wagons were taken apart, the running gear was taken over a piece at the time, and the wagon beds were floated over. The horses had to swim, one at a time. behind the boat. but all got over safe after a hard day's work. We had supper, then loaded our wagons again and we pulled out for our land, arriving there a little before midnight. May 12, 1873. Here we camped until morning. Early the next morning all were up scattered over the prairie, viewing our new home.
After getting a place to live in and doing some breaking the next thing was a school. Father, with William Harman, W. B. Bishop, John Keiser and others got together and found where they could get a person to teach and take the pay in breaking. This was Mrs. Lucy Brown. The first school was held in Ben Reynold's sod house, which was located in the northwest corner of the ne 1/2 section 17. town 2. range 21. We had a three months term. The scholars at this school as near as I can remember were : Allie and Rhoda Harman, Margaret and Blanche Martin, Minnie Paul. Alice Tompkins. Mollie Tompkins, Josie Prewett, James Prewett, Charlie Martin. Lulu Brown. David Brown, Bud Crittle-
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bough, Prior French and the four Turner boys, Gilbert, George, Lewis and the writer. There may have been others that I can- not recall. There were several more in the neighborhood but they did not come to this first school, which was a fall term. After this school closed, Mrs. Brown was engaged for a winter term. Before the next school commenced we had built a new sod school house just across the road from the Reynolds house. The new building was 14x24 on the inside. There were two half windows on the east and west. a door in the south and a fire place in the north end, with a large post in the center of the room to hold up the ridge pole. no floor and covered with a dirt roof.
The seats were made of slabs with holes bored and sticks driven in for legs. These seats were put against the wall around the room. Books were searce and often two or three pu- pils would study out of one book at the same time. There were only two spelling books in school. (McGuffey's). two Ray's third part arithmetics. one geography and several odd readers. Imagine a teacher now a days trying to teach under these condi- tions. At this term there were added to our school several new scholars. Among them were: Park Mathew. Millie Reynolds, Aliee and Frank Keiser. Odell and Maud Therwechter. George and Jennie Hatfield. In this old sod school house we held literary society and spelling schools. Such times as we did have at on spelling matches. We made it a rule that no one should come J. W. TURNER who would not spell and they came from Beaver City on the west to below Carrisbrook east, and from the Sappa on the south, and everyone must spell or get out, old or young. I wonder if John Keiser. Wm. Harman,
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and Billie Sturtevant remember these spelling matches. It is all fresh in my mind, although it is nearly forty years ago.
Our first Sunday school was organized early in the fall of 1873, in Alex Paul's dugout down on the creek bank east of Mrs. Eldred's house. The first officers were E. B. White, super- intendent ; Mrs. Paul, assistant superintendent ; Mollie Tompkins, secretary ; J. W. Turner, treasurer ; and Wilber White, chorister. The Sunday school was kept up for over twenty-five years contin- uously, but was moved for room to David Brown's sod house near where Mrs. Eldred now lives. Here it stayed until taken to the school house. We also had preaching. The first preacher was old father MeDongal, who lived near "Sappa Peak." He came onee a month at first, then every two weeks, and finally organized a class that met for services every Sunday.
The first summer we were in Furnas county, Indians were quite numerous. A band of fifty or more Pawnees were eamp- ing on the creek on the land now owned by Frank Coleman. They were friendly and never did us any harm, but they were a nui- sance begging, especially the squaws. It was interesting and ex- ating to see a bunch of fifteen or twenty bucks kill buffalo. They would get the buffalo to running in a circle, then they yould pick out the ones they wanted to kill and make a dash for them Mr. Buffalo was pretty sure to come down. Often he would have sey- eral arrows in him and sometimes a spear or two. They would only kill each day what they would use. They kept this up for about two months, drying the meat and tanning the hides. The young Indian boys taught us how to make and shoot the bow and arrow. They were so accurate that some of them could hit a pen- ny every time fifty feet away. The Indian was not like the white man with the buffalo, as they killed only what they could save while many white men killed them for sport. I remember one time seeing Jim Labar kill six in less than half an hour and only one was a knife put into. At times in the summers of 1873-74, the buffalo were so thick that we had to keep them off our corn fields or they would have trod it down, but it was only a few years until they were all gone, much to our regret, as we always wel- comed a quarter of a buffalo. Buffalo meat, at one time, was the "staff of life' to us as we never tired of it. At one time we had two buffalo calves which gave us much sport.
Game was quite plentiful the first few years and we boys spent much time hunting while not busy on the farm. There were
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iots of quail, grouse, some wild turkey,deer, antelope, a few elk and the buffalo, all of which helped to sustain life. Then we had the coyote, a few gray wolves, and occasionally a mountain lion would come down from the mountains and make his presence known by killing young calves and sometimes eausing our stock that was lariated ont, to break loose. Then there was the wild cat, which was hard on the chicken house. There were quite a lot of beaver and coon along the creeks. All of which made sport and helped to take away the monotony of life.
After we had lived a few years in a dug-out, father built a new sod house and fixed up to keep travelers, built stable room tor twenty horses and put up hay. He turned the old dug-out over to immigrants to cook and sleep in and dug a well near the camp grounds. Here many a traveler has eamped for the night.
I doubt if there are many old settlers in Furnas and Red Willow counties in Nebraska, and Decatur and Thomas counties in Kansas that have not stayed over night in this camping place. I have known twenty teams to be camped on this ground at one time, all going west. Other times I remember when all were go- ing east to visit "wife's folks."
For fear I may tire the readers, I will close, but want to say in conelusion that the ties of friendship formed among the early settlers of Furnas county are not easily broken. I wish to say also that the first five years in Furnas county was the happiest period of my life, and the most sacred spot on earth to me is the old homestead in the Beaver valley.
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CHAPTER XXIII John T. Brown Writes of His Early Days as a Pioneer in the Beaver Valley-Forty-two Years in Nebraska
Editor Times-Tribune :- As nearly all of the old settlers have told of their trials and troubles in coming to and living in this county I guess it is about my time. I left Illinois on the 6th day of December. 1870, in company with a friend named Harry Wink- ler. We made our first stop in Missouri at his uncle's. I left him there and came on to Thayer county, Nebraska, where I had a sis- ter living. After visiting with her a few weeks I started on a buffalo hunt up the Republican river, but got only as far as Red Cloud, when it snowed and turned so cold that we turned back.
I stayed in Thayer till the last of June, and then my friend came out and we went down to the eastern part of the state. We walked nearly all over the country south of the Platte river. There was not much work to be had so we returned to Thayer county. We decided to take homesteads if we could find some to suit us. About the middle of August, in company with Charley Rosenberger and a man by the name of Frank Anson, we started for the Republican valley. Red Cloud was the first town we came to. It was not very large, having only three buildings. Then we went up to Franklin Center. It had one frame store building, that was all. Republican City and Alma were not started yet. We crossed the river east of where Orleans now stands, at what is called the Rock ford. All of the good claims along the river were taken, so we came up the Sappa valley, and the first man we met was a tall German whose name I have forgotten, and the next was the late Judge Robbins. He and J. A. Palmer. of Stamford, had selected claims close together and were living in tents, not having had time to build houses. We asked about the show for getting claims and they said there was no one living west of them, but the claims on the main streams were all selected and would be settled as soon as the people could get there. At that time the only way you could
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hold a claim was to move onto it, as the county had just been surveyed and the office at Beatrice had no record of the survey yet. Mr. Robbins went with us up to the line between Harlan and Furnas counties, at the northeast corner of scetion 25, town 2. He showed us how the corners were numbered and then went
The Brown Residence Replacing the Old Sod Shanty
home. We drove over to about the center of section 25 and camped for the night. it being nearly sun down. We had wild turkey for supper and breakfast. The next day we hunted buľ- falo and I killed one on the place John Keiser now owns, on the south side of the creek. The buffalo were searee as the survey- ors and soldiers had run them out. The country was covered with the carcasses of dead buffalo.
After we had looked the country over on both the Beaver and Sappa we decided to locate on the Sappa, as our wagon was there, and it was a difficult matter to cross the streams in those days. Rosenberger selceted the one where we first camped in section 25, and the rest of us on up the Sappa. We then went back to Thayer county and Winkler and I decided to come back and work on our claims and keep the Indians off and the other settlers. We were young then and pretty green. We bought
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a team and camping outfit and provisions to last about three months. Anson decided to not come back and Rosenberger had corn to gather and could not come then, so he hired us to make a dugout on his place. We got back about the 10th of September and went to work on Rosenberger's place first. We made a dug- out to live in and one for the horses. I will say in passing that this was the first dug-out on the Sappa. John Gapen, Mrs. John Rea's brother, made the next one. After we got the stable done we saw that we would need some hay to feed our horses i we put them up during a storm. There was plenty of wild hay but we had no way to cut it, so we went down to Mr. Palmer's to see how he cut the hay that was staeked on his place. We borrowed a scythe and pitchfork and went to work. Neither of us had ever mowed hay with a scythe, so we did not cut many tons.
After we got the hay stacked we took a trip up the Sappa to see what the country looked like. We met three hunters up at the head of the creek and they were the only people we saw all the time we were in this country except Mr. Robbins and Mr. Palmer. We were gone on that trip about ten days and when we got back to our dugout, a prairie fire had passed along and burned our hay and all the grass for miles around. We never thought of fire, did not think the buffalo grass would burn, it was so short. The fire did not burn the dugout or stable as the loose dirt we had left lying around protected them. Now we thought that fire had about ruined our prospects, as we expected to make a small fortune trapping beaver and killing buffalo, but it was a good thing we got burned out. We went baek to Thayer county and had been there but a few days when there came the deepest snow I ever saw in Ne- braska, and it stayed on the ground until the last of February. The snow was just as deep in this county and the settlers had a hard time getting something to eat. That snow seared my part- ner and he wouldn't come up here any more, so I bought his half of the team, wagon and outfit. It took all the money I had ex- cept a few dollars, but I had a good supply of powder and lead, flour and bacon.
The 15th of March Rosenberger and I started for the Sappa with our wagons loaded with shelled eorn. After a hard trip we got to Judge Robbins place. We left our wagons there and went to our claims on horses. The country looked pretty bleak
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up there on the Sappa. We dug some pits large enough to hold our corn in Mr. Robbins' yard, and covered it with hay and dirt. We went back after Rosenberger's family and did not get back until the first of May. I helped Rosenberger build some more house and then went over on the Beaver to see if I could find a claim that suited me better than the one I had seleet- ed on the Sappa, but I did not find any but what had been filed on, so I went back to the Sappa, hitched onto my plow, and have never turned back. There was no one west of me on the creek. It will soon be forty-two years since I first saw Furnas county, and I have done all I could in my humble way to make it a county any state might be proud of. I have seen all the good years and all the bad ones and am still here.
This story looks pretty long, and this is my last sheet of paper, so I will have to stop just at the beginning of things in this county, but will write again if the editor will stand for it.
JOHN T. BROWN.
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CHAPTER XXIV
Charles A. Clark Was One of the First ... to ... Sense the ... Coming Glories of Furnas County, and He Tells of His Pioneer Days
I have been reading the stories of pioneer days in Furnas county, so I thought I would add my mite. My brother in law, Cyrus Trent, and I, started from Waterloo, Iowa, to Nebraska, in May, 1873. We got as far as Lincoln, where we met N. M. Ayers, who told us about Furnas county. Later we met Monell and Lashley. They were going out west to look up a location for a Houring mill and they wanted us to go along, so Lashley, Treni and I started for the Land of Promise. We went by train from Lincoln to Lowell, where we hired a pair of ponies and a bug- gy. and we drove to Republican City. There Mr. Lashley and John MePherson went on a scout for a mill site, but not finding any, we went to Orleans. There we met a man and his wife by the name of Dibert from Johnstown, Penn. They had a brother- in-law living west of Beaver City, so we took them along and all went to Beaver City. There Mr. Lashley found a mill site. We each found a claim just north of Beaver City and went to Lowell and filed on them. May 22, 1873 Lashley went to Lincoln to send lumber to build his mill, and I went to Waterloo for my family.
We left Waterloo in September and got to Beaver City Octo- ber 10, 1873 We were like Trowbridge, we had some bad lue !: , but we got there. The first thing was a dugout. We slept in our wagon box till the dugout was finished. We needed some sod so we went down town and borrowed a breaking plow and start- ed to break sod. That is as far as I got as one of my mares would not work on a plow, so I took the plow back. I met Wayne Car- penter and agreed to trade my mares for two yoke of cattle. He thought I had to throw in the wagon box, but I told him I couldn't spare that as it was our bedroom. Trent and I made two rooms, he living in one room and I in the other. That winter I got out logs and built a log house.
Trowbridge said their daughter was the second white child
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porn in the county. I don't know who was the first, but our daughter, Maggie, now Mrs. Pixley, was born November 29, 1873, in the dugout. I will send you a photo of her two boys and me.
In March 1874 we moved into our log house. I had broken five acres the summer before. I stirred up and put in some wheat and corn and did some more breaking and planted some
st
4
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Mr. Clark and Two Grandsons
sod corn. I did pretty well that summer. I built a house for Adam Keith, 12 miles southwest of Beaver city on the Sappa, and I did most of the mill wrighting on Lashley's mill. Everything was looking well so we must have a Fourth of July picnic. We built a large bower on the square, and put down a dancing floor. In making arrangements we found that we had no flag, so the merchants furnished the material and my wife made the first
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flag in Beaver City. We had a first elass pienie and a good time. The orators were Lee Hobson, T. J. DeKalb, T. M. Williams, W. E. Crutcher and Mrs. Mallory.
Everything went all right until the 8th of August, when the grasshoppers came. They soon got away with the corn. I had a pretty good garden and the hoppers left that. Some time in October there was a camp meeting four miles east of Beaver City, On Sunday morning I took the family and went down there. When we left home in the morning there were 125 fine heads of cabbage, 40 or 50 fine squashes, about 6 bushels of rhutabagoes and a lot of other vegetables. When we got home at night there was nothing there. Ilobson's herder had lain down in the shade and gone to sleep and let the cattle eat up the garden, so a good share of our winter's living was gone. I had to work that winter at Lashley's mill. That fall Frank Caterton chased a buffalo onto our claim and killed it so we got a pretty good chunk of meat. We got through the winter fairly well.
In the spring of 1875 I put in a good erop of eorn and oats, and the grasshoppers were coming down thiek. They got all the grasshoppers cleaned up two acres of my late corn. I thought I would get the rest of my crop. On the 8th of August Captain and Mrs. Freas came to our house. Joe Postlewaight was there, and after dinner he suggested going after some jackrabbits. As we went by my corn I said, "I guess I will get the rest of my corn." We hadn't gone very far when the sun was darkened and the grasshoppers were coming down thiek. They got all the corn and the squash, melon and pumpkin vines. They left the squashes and melons, but they were not ripe. We had mighty slim picking that winter, but we got along some way. Some of our neighbors had some things left. They got together to talk up an old fashioned farmer's pienie, and invited all the neighbors but us. One night we had a pretty slim supper and expected to have a slimmer breakfast, but we were happily dis- appointed. Just after dark some of the neighbors from the creek came in with bushel baskets of potatoes and cabbage and other good things. Well, I want to tell you we had a feast and a glor- ious good time. Some of the neighbors are still there, Mrs. Freas and Jake Downing. Most of them are seattered, and some have gone to their reward.
We did not have any Indian scares, but we had something just as bad. The Texas cattle trail was a quarter of a mile east
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of our house. Three or four herds went up every summer. The cowboys were a rough set. They would come to the house and Jemand things and if we did not have them to give they would swear terribly and threaten to shoot. They camped three miles north of us and sometimes a heifer would get out of the herd and come down to our cattle and I would have to shoot it before I could get to my cattle.
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