USA > Nebraska > Furnas County > Pioneer stories of Furnas County, Nebraska > Part 16
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The next morning we followed up the Republican valley. reaching Red Cloud, there being only one house and a blacksmith shop there at that time and a few other houses in sight along the road, but I think the land was all settled along the river. When we came up the valley to Painter creek we met an old man living in a dugout, who kept a little postoffice, and when we reached the Old Stockade, there had been someone living there for the win- ter. but they had moved onto their elaim. There was a store kept by Bryan and Vihkins in a log house where old Melrose was later located. There we crossed the river and followed up the Sappa creek to the forks of the Beaver and Sappa. There we stopped for the night. Some time in the afternoon we found two dogs running along the dim road. We had no dogs so we thought we would get these. We called them up to the wagon, deciding they were lost dogs, we took them in and let them ride. One was a bird dog and the other was a big yellow chap. I guess he was just dog. I said I wanted the bird dog but we had not been in camp long when he started off. We called him, but no stopping him, so one of the men took a gun and followed him to the creek. He had crossed by that time and was going toward home. We learned later he belonged to Jim Lumney. As we were getting settled in camp a man came around the wagons and said, "Ilello, .Jawbone, you got home, did yon." and we found the dog was right at home with the stranger, who introduced himself as Galen James. so Lester loosened the dog and the others had the joke on us. said we were good ones to try and steal dogs and take them right home. We had to have a little fun as we journeyed along the lonesome road.
James told us of the vacant land near there and we wanted to get near where the center of the county would be when it was organized. The next morning we started up on Beaver Creek. and before noon we came to Keiser's camp. I think this was the first day of Mav. They had landed there the day before. We stopped and talked awhile and Danforth, Will Haney and Felix
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Lester decided that they would drive on up the creek and Philip and I would stay where we were, until they would see what could be found in vaeant land that suited our needs. They would mark their claims and also one for us. I think they were gone three days and when they came back and reported their find they had claims for all of us, as they supposed. The next day Philip went back with them to see the land, but the claim they had picked for us was on the school section. None of them had thought to look out for that. until they went back the second time. Danforth's homestead was very near the present townsite of Beaver City. Felix Lester's was what is known as the Tommy Williams' place. Will Haney owned the land where the depot now stands. Mr. French and I were a little disappointed when we found the choice for us was school land, but Philip then de- cided we would homestead joining Mr. Keiser on the east. We hitehed up and pulled our wagons across the line and set the bed of the wagon off for our bed room. Then we stretched the tent at the end of the wagon bed, and that was our kitchen and dining room for a while. We lived there until we got a little breaking done, or until the first of June. Then my brother, Will Haney came down and helped us build a little log house, just one room, one door and one window with four panes of glass and a sod roof.
Buffalo ranged the hills in great herds. In fact, it seemed at that time, that it would be impossible for the buffalo to have disappeared in less than forty years, as they have done. The hills were black with them as far as you could see. We had plenty of fresh buffalo meat all of the time. Sometimes when the men went out for a hunt they would hitch up the horses and oxen and drive over the hills. I would go with them quite often. One time Lester drove his oxen, and he and Philip and Dan were all going for a hunt so I said I would go too. We went up on the divide toward the Republican river, and when we got up there the buffalo seemed to be all on the move going sonth. Philip and Dan got down in the canyon out of sight so they could shoot as they came by. Lester and I stayed in the wagon. The buffalo were so thiek, and then they came on a run with their heads down. We thought they were going to run over the wagon. team and all. But when they got real close, they divided and some went in front and some behind the team and thus missed
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annihilating us. But they never halted. Another time I remem- ber I went with Philip and Will out in the hills for a hunt. They shot a buffalo and got it down and Will ran up to the wagon. took an ax and struck it in the head. It jumped up and ran away. Will followed for five miles, and then came back without any meat. We were all excited when the animal jumped up, for we thought it was going to fight. That fall there were flocks of wild turkeys and we could have a roast any time we wanted it. We thought we had found the garden of Eden, but later we de- cided it was Eden of the prairie dogs, rattle snakes and fleas. I remember one time we were talking about the country and Lester said, "I tell you folks, this is God's country, but He wasn't ready for us to settle out here yet. He hasn't finished it up." There are many more instances I could speak of, but I fear my letter would be too lengthy.
MRS. FRENCHI.
A "Palatial Residence" of the Early Days
1
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CHAPTER XXXI
Mrs. W. H. Vining Was a Pioneer Woman Who Endured the Early Day Hardships With Her Husband, Coming Here With Seventy-Five Cents in Cash
Stamford, Nebr .- Editor Times-Tribune-There have been a number of articles written by pioneers of Furnas county, but as none seemed to write about this part of the county except C. F. Wheeler, I will try to tell some of my experiences here in early days. My husband, William II. Vining and I came to Furnas county in November, 1877. We came from Scribner, Nebraska in a prairie schooner, and were on the road seven days. We stopped at Grandma Gapen's and stayed all night. The next day my hus- band came on to the dugout and cleaned the cobwebs and rat's nests out so we could move in. The next day we moved over. It was the first dugout or sod house I had ever seen, but I found a large room with one half window and a door, a dirt floor and a dirt roof. We put muslin overhead and it made a very nice abode. My husband laid up a log house but it had no roof on it yet, so we lived in the dugout that winter. Just before Christmas we had a three-days' rain and oh, how that dirt roof did leak! My husband wanted to take me over to Dan West's, as they had a log house with a shingle roof, but I said that I would stay with him. We set pans and buckets under the worst leaks, and we piled our clothing and everything else in a heap and covered them with a quilt. Then came the question of how to sleep without get- ting wet. We took one piece of a quilting frame and fastened it to the logs overhead. I put the bed slats on the chairs and then placed the bedding on them, and then we pulled the wagon sheet up over the piece of quilting frame and down to the chair backs, and we had a small tent right in the dugout. The water ran off' into the pails and pans and we were quite comfortable, even though we had to crawl into bed from the foot. as the head was against the wall and the sides tied to the chair backs. We had lots of wood and kept up a good fire in the fire place, so we were
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quite comfortable. The next summer we put a sod roof on our log house and got windows and a door and a floor, which made it somewhat better than a dugout.
My husband had 75 eents when we got to our claim, and he worked for 75 cents a day and paid 75 cents a bushel for corn. We lived on corn bread a good share of the time, but always tried to have some flour in the house. We got a cow from one of the neighbors to milk, as we didn't have anything to buy a cow with. We raised a good crop that summer and the next summer we raised a big wheat crop and we bought our first cow. We also had a good crop of potatoes, and it was lucky we did, for in 1880 it was dry and windy up to June 11,so there was but little raised. My husband liked to hunt and he kept us supplied with rabbits and we had our wheat for flour, so we lived through all right.
The first hogs we had I earned by doing some sewing for Eric Hanson, who was then a bachelor. I got two pigs but one of them died. The other one I would lariet out on the grass and with what slop we had I managed to keep it and raised seven nice pigs. That year we raised some corn, and we fattened our hogs and had our own meat. Usually a quarter of a beef a winter was all the meat we had, but beef was not so high priced then as it is now. People talk of hard times now, but little do they realize how the old settlers had to live. I had a neighbor come to me and ask for a meat rind to grease her bread pans with. That was in 1880. There were lots of people got aid, but we got along without it through all the hard years and never starved either.
The buffalo were nearly all gone when I came here, but I saw several. Finn Michel and Dan West each had one. I had a few encounters with rattlesnakes. One day in '78 I was going from the dug out to the log house, and in the path lay a big rattler. I called my husband and he soon made away with it. During har- vest time in the summer of '79 I went out to gather the eggs. I reached into a nest and got the eggs and something seemed to tell me there might have been a snake there. I looked and there he was. I got a stick and killed him and found that he was a rattler about two feet long.
I saw a number of prairie fires but never helped fight one. I used to always look around to see if there were any fires before going to bed. My husband helped fight fire at Erie Hanson's that came near taking his home. The young people of today don't realize how we had to bear with privations in order to stay with
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our homes, and many who have become dissatisfied with old Fur- nas county would be glad to be back on the old homestead. I have never yet been the one to say sell out and go somewhere else. Good health and a home is worth all the hardships we have to bear.
The first time I was in Beaver City was in '78. There was not a house in sight. If any one had a claim they lived in a dug out down out of sight. In all thirty-six years in Furnas county I have found good neighbors; but as I look around I find there are but few of us left. I can count but three living near, who were here when I came. They are John Brown, Eric Hanson and Eric Smith.
On March 3, my oldest and only child died of membranous croup. She was just one year old that day. I was lonely and my husband wouldn't leave me alone, so he got a little girl to stay with me. Her mother was dead and she was living with her sister, Flora Northrop. She had been here about a month when she took sick with diphtheria. We did all we could for her, but death claimed her. Then Mrs. Northrop's children took it and they all died. Mrs. Northrop also had it. but she was stronger and got over it. The Dan West's children took the disease and two of them died. Those were serious times for many of us.
In 1885 my little boy died and I was made sad again. Then in 1907 my husband was ealled away and the home circle was broken.
Our first school was taught by Cassie Barber. I well remem- ber the big revival meeting held by Elder Mayo at the Carpenter school house. Then I hemember when the Congregationalists started a church at Precept, and when Scott and Wheeler started a store at Precept.
I just recalled the Indian scare of 1878. My husband was going to start to Kearney on Monday and had got a girl to stay with me while he was away. He had heard about the Indians but said nothing to me. Mrs. Hiram Barber had come that Sunday evening and she said something about them, but I said nothing to my husband about what she told me. About 3 o'clock Monday morning the father of the girl staying with me came to the door and knocked. My husband went to the door and they talked for a short time in low tones. Then my husband told us to get up and we would go to Grandma Gapen's. He said the neighbors were gathering there and the Indians were coming down the creek.
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When we got to Mrs. Gapen's we found a crowd of excited people. At daybreak the men mounted horses and started up the creek to see if there were really were any Indians. But when they got above Precept their hearts failed all except three. These were C. E. V. Smith, Dan West and my husband. They went up the creek until they met a preacher who told them that there had been Indians farther up the creek but the soldiers were after them.
I was not much afraid so Mrs. Barber, the girl and I went home. In a few days a big herd of cattle came through here. Many people thought that some one up the creek had seen the cattle and spread the word before there was really any danger. But it was certainly an exciting time at Grandma Gapen's. Ask Leva Rea of Beaver City about it. She had to work pretty hard to get anongh for all of us to eat and no doubt remembers it well.
This was written in 1913 but perhaps will be of interest to the old settlers.
MRS. W. H. VINING.
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CHAPTER XXXII
Nat In Ayers was one of the First rioneer's, and he is selected 10 Close inis volume of Keminscenses
Editor Times- Tribune :- i have been reading for months past with much interest the articles written by past and present rest- aents of ruinas county, and in these articles muen nas been add- eu to the written instory of the county and southwestern de- Draska. Nearly all the writers were early day sequiers with Whom we had a neignoorly interest and personal acquaintance and irienasip that can never be forgotten while the me blood flow's through our mortal veins.
And i beg pardon for referring to some of the articles, not to criticize them, but to call the writers' attention to the fact that they could have said more of historical interest. One of the articles of my old time friend, B. F. Whitney, was not complete, as he ought to have written of a trial he had while he was a justice of the peace of four parties who were charged with the murder of an orphan boy on the Sappa, where Lucas and Demp- ster of Republican City conducted the prosecution and Morlan and Harvey for the defense. The defendants were charged with the murder of an orphan living with a family on the Sappa, but the evidence produced at the trial came nearer convicting the prosecuting witnesses than the defendants. The trial was held under a big elm tree on the Seager place on the banks of the Sappa and was wittnessed by Dan West, Silas Clemmons, and came near resulting in a riot, which was only averted by strategy and cool judgment.
Mr. Whitney and the writer were members of the old Mel- rose Lodge No. 60, and I believe we are the only charter mem- bers living at the present time.
It has looked strange to me that with all these articles but very little has been said of the organization of the county, but as I have written of this subject in previous articles I will only mention the matter yet it was one of the important events of the early days, and in my book I have gone over the subject thor-
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oughly, and will now leave it one of the early important events in making a new empire.
Mrs. Freas wrote of the prairie fire and of hustling her fam- ily out to the plowed field, but perhaps she did not know that Judge Sumney, Ed Ayers, Frank Nicholson, and the writer whipped out the side fire east of the house while she, with her family, was out on the plowed ground.
Neither do I see in any of these articles anything about the stolen bonds which were issued under an act of the legisla- ture for the purpose of funding the indebtedness of the county, and of which so much has been said in years gone by, and on the subject of which Elder Mayo preached sermons, and John Man- nering dreamed dreams and had visions.
Billy McGuire speaks of Joel Collins and Sam Bass, who with four others, held up the Union Pacific train at Big Springs, in October, 1877, and will say that if he will get a copy of the August number of Will Maupin's Midwest Magazine he will get a complete story of the hold-up, the names of all six of the des- peradoes and a description of the men and their final capture. I was in the Black Hills that summer and lived close neighbors to the whole gang.
John Keiser's trip to Egypt to buy corn was characteris- tie in those days and many of us did the same thing; farther east in Nebraska and southeast in Kansas were called Egypt whither we often went to buy eorn. C. A. Danforth gives a fine description of the country and of the people who first in- vaded that portion of the Indian country.
The conditions now and when the first settlers came to the country are very different; then our associates were the scout, the soldier, the Indian, the frontier homesteaders; now the asso- ciations are the schools, the churches, the mingling of town and country people and hobnobbing with the politician and the states- man ; then a top buggy was a curiosity and when the first one was driven to Beaver City in April, 1873, by a Mr. Blackmar and A. E. Harvey, it was viewed with admiration and was as much of a curiosity at that time as the automobile was thirty or forty years later. Then to deliver a message officially or otherwise to a friend in another county or state, it must be carried by horse or wagon for many miles, requiring days for delivery, while now a flash of electricity elicks the wire or conveys the sound of your voiee for hundreds of miles and in an instant your mes-
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sage is delivered, while forty years ago it would have taken days or weeks to deliver the same message
The ox team that then traveled twenty miles a day has been succeeded by the automobile that travels ten times the distmne( in a very few hours. The doctor came with his calomel and quinine and called appendicitis inflamation of the stomach, and now a case of appendicitis calls for an operation with the sur geon's knife and all ordinary diseases are treated on the germ theory, and thus the practice of medicine has been revolutionized.
Then the immigration moving from one state to another went in covered wagons while now the conditions are so changed that one moving any distance load their effects in a car and go by rail. Then we burned wood, but now we patronize the coal trust and burn coal brought in from other states; thus through a succession of the years the conditions have been changed in many essentials, from an Indian country inhabited by buffalo and other wild game, together with the wolves, prai- rie dogs, rattlesnakes and other reptiles to a country of civiliza- tion.
One reason that there were so many snakes in this, as all other new countries, is that the Indian will never kill a snake. probably from some superstition, but it is a fact that no Indian will kill a snake of any kind. I learned years ago to believe any reasonable snake story, and many of them have never been told, but in the early settlement of the country rattlesnakes were almost as plentiful as fleas, and I can assure you that there were plenty of the latter, and the nights were made hideous by the howling of coyotes and wolves.
Individual experience of the conditions existing in No- braska in the early days that would fill volumes have never been told for there are stories and experiences of the early days vet untold, and there are but few of the early settlers now remain- ing to tell the story.
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MOVING WEST
When I decided to go west a homestead now in view Was just the thing for all young men, and with some neighbors few,
We fitted out in pilgrim style with wagons for our craft Propelled by weary ox teams, in this there was no graft. ! filed upon a homestead there and built a small log den, Where snakes and lizards by the score went in and out again, The prairie dogs outside the house would bark and run around, While buffalo and antelope in plenty could be found.
The hoppers came in right good will and ate up all in sight
A cornfield then was naught to them, they ate a field at night. And in the morning nothing left except a cornstalk stump. Homesteads then went down a bit and prices took a slump; Some went here and some went there for work of any kind, While Mayo went off preaching to ease his troubled mind; .Tess Hadley lost his horses to a thief from off the plains,
And rode them off no one knows where, the thief made all the gain,
Jake Young turned all his hogs adrift, and Danforth took a shot, He killed but three and wounded one and Jake got fighting hot ; Judge Jenkins of the probate court tried to case per slug : Cap Brown done all the pleading then, but Jenkins signed kerjng. Jke Myers bought a mower his neighbors for to please.
And Tommy Williams had one that mowed the grass with ease, But all this trouble's passed and gone some forty years gone by Some few abide to tell the tale, some in the church yards lie.
N. M. AYERS, Fairmont, Nebr.
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LOOKING BACKWARD
By Nat M. Ayers
The following article. Looking Backward, was left among the papers of the late Nathanial M. Ayers, addressed to the Times-Tribune. It is probably the last manuscript written by him for publication.
Turning backward to the western border of civilization, to scenes in Nebraska when it was younger than it is today : when travel was chiefly by the prairie schooner route, with an occa- sional pilgrim crossing the state on foot or on horseback ; when Texas beef and buffalo meat were more plentiful than packing house products are at the present time, and prices were so differ- ent that the high cost of living was not the vital importance. We are going to turn back to some of the holiday dinners and festivities that will not be forgotten so long as the vital spark of life shall animate the mortal part of those participated in the luxuries to be had when Nebraska was wearing its rompers.
In 1872 a settlement along the 100th meridian was consid- ered as far west as a settlement along the 96th meridian ten years earlier, and it was in 1872 the first settlers located along the Beaver west from Orleans to where is now located the towns of Beaver City, Wilsonville, and other towns of less importance. and your correspondent with others located homesteads near where the town of Beaver City is now located. There was no town there then, no railroads, no telegraph. no telephone, no eler- trie light. no water works, no automobiles, no bridges, no houses. no stores. no mail routes. 30 miles to the Alma postoffice, and the early settlers were greatly delighted to learn that the B. & M. railroad had located a town on their line from Lincoln to Kear- ney, only SO miles away to be called Lowell, and here was to be located the United States land office.
All the first homesteaders were located along the streams where they could have plenty of timber and water. Wild meat. such as buffalo, antelope. and wild turkey could be had for the killing. The cattle trail had been opened from Fort Hayes to Fort MePherson and North Platte, and this afforded a little help for the homesteaders, as the herd usually dropped a few cattle in crossing the streams, they would hide in the brush and tim- ber and were often passed without being seen, but the homestead- er soon found them after the herd had passed, and of course
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NATHANIEL M. AYERS
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elaimed them unless the real owner called for them, but this nev- er happened.
Time dragged along, prairie sod was being broken for erops the next season, log and sod houses were being built, and people moved from their covered wagons to their new houses, hay was cut and stacked to provide for the stock during the winter months. and the holidays coming on to be celebrated in the new west. Neighbors visited back and forth. (mostly on Sundays) and much discussion was had as to how the holidays would be celebrated. and it was finally decided the Ed Ayers' folks would give a Thanksgiving dinner, Henry Moore's to give a Christmas dinner and T. M. Williams a New Year's dinner, and bachelors and all in the immediate vicinity should be invited guests at these din- ners.
The writer was not married then but was living with his brother Ed, and the responsibility rested on his shoulders of pro- viding some of the luxuries for the feast. We could not go to the store for turkey. cranberries, raisins, and such other Ixuries as could be had farther east in the towns and cities, for the reason that we had no store handy, and when a store was started its principal stock was bacon, flour, soda. and ammunition, but we had plenty of buffalo meat, both dried and fresh, and we had killed a fine Texas steer that we had picked up during the sum- mer, so to complete the list for the feast. Rob Armstrong and your correspondent went down in the timber and killed a fine Turkey gobbler, making three kinds of meat for our Thanks- giving dinner. Then we had potatoes hauled in from Grand Is- land in a wagon, plum pudding made from wild plums. dried peach sauce, dried apple and mince pies, plenty of milk and butter. besides such other articles as could be assembled from the cupboard and improvised cellar. There was plenty and let me say that no one on earth had better appetites than the carly settlers had in western Nebraska, and this feast was enjoyed by about thirty grown people and half as many children. The af- ternoon was spent in athletic sports and such other amusements as could be brought to mind, and this was the beginning of his- tory in the new west. Two men had come in the day before. one an old friend and the other from Chicago, who enjoyed the dinner hugely, and those two men located near by, and both became honored citizens and held positions of trust in the county for many years.
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Then came the Christmas dinner at Henry Moore's, which was about the same fare we had at the Thanksgiving dinner, consisting principally of buffalo meat and wild turkey. A small store had been started in the meantime, and the guests at this dinner decided to have a town started there, and petitioned for a mail route from Alma and a postoffice, the office to be named Creswell as first choice, and Beaver City as second choice. Cres- well was postmaster general at that time, and he turned down our first choice of a name, and gave us Beaver City. No doubt he thought it would be a joke to have a little office named for him away out in the wilds of Nebraska.
Then came the New Year's dinner a week later at Mr. Wil- liams,' but he had the others beat a mile. He had been to Grand Island, 130 miles away, and brought back a load of provisions, and in this load was a fine dressed hog. A nice piece of pork well roasted was a real luxury. It had been nearly a year since any of the party had tasted a piece of fresh pork, and this was certainly fine. The guests took to that pork as eagerly as a nigger at campmeeting would take to a con-pone and possum.
These were a few of the entertainments that were enjoyed on the frontier in the early days, and the way those three women worked and planned to make those three dinners presentable and palatable was enough to wreck the nerves of a savage, but they survived the ordeal and two of them are still living. It is seldom that any of the few now living who enjoyed those three dinners get together but something is said about those three dinners, and with all the trials and disappointments of a frontier life, there are a few happy recollections that help bright- en the path of the homesteader in his declining years.
NAT M. AYERS.
3713
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