USA > Nebraska > Furnas County > Pioneer stories of Furnas County, Nebraska > Part 5
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16
One morning after Christmas, the giving of a doll to a little
58
PIONEER STORIES
girl who said they were so poor Santa Claus did not come to their house, will never be forgotten of Jesse N. Hadley.
The first teachers' institute in the county, was held at Beaver City, E. N. Allen and Miss Nellie Rankin being instrue- tors. There were twelve teachers in attendance, and all boarded with me, paying $1.50 per week. Again the organ came into play to help in the exercises.
Our homestead is now owned by Henry Hester, and I had there my first exper- ience of living in a sod house. Its walls were plas- tered and it had a good floor. The erops being a failure that year, I took up my trade with a needle, walking 2 miles, cutting out my work, taking it home and finishing it and often return- ing it. This I did for two years and took anything that we could eat, drink or wear for pay-except alfal- fa. This came later by pro- gressive farming.
The first school in the district was taught by Miss Samantha Whities, in my THE LATE EUGENE W. HARVEY sod house. My breadboard, after being painted black, was used for a blackboard, and Wm. Robinson's older children received their first lessons in mathematics therefrom.
There was a large immigration of people to this country about that time. Some of our best citizens came. Among them were the Gareys. Ehromans, Hicks, Stubbs, Strattons, Inmans, and many others, who have lived here and raised families, who have graduated from our city schools, and are holding good posi- tions. They are Furnas county produets, and we are proud of them.
Among those who came to us at a later day was the editor of the Times-Tribune, who has spared no pains to keep us in touch
59
FURNAS COUNTY
with all that was good and little that was bad. And his father and mother who have been a help and an inspiration to all of the good enterprises of the city.
As I look back, it seems to me that there has been a great army moving steadily to the cemetery. There have been many changes. Where the sod house now stood, now ean be seen good substantial farm houses, and where the buffalo roamed, feeding on wild grass, the lovely alfalfa fields bloom in season.
I never had any experiences with snakes, and I never saw but one buffalo, and that was M. R. Hadley's tame one. My In- dian seare was when the cellar filled with water and the loose boards and canned fruit bumped against the floor.
As memory links us to the past, so hope binds us to the fu- ture. Our trials and hardships have made us more thoughtful, kind and tender. The experience of the past and the hope of the future are the strong pinions by which every life is up bourne to- ward the goal of its ambition.
Many kind regards to all who have helped to make the greater Beaver City.
MRS. O. A. HARVEY.
Lashley Mill Pond Near Beaver City
60
PIONEER STORIES
CHAPTER XI
John Keiser Came in 1872 and Has Seen the Beaver Valley's' Growth-and Has Been a Factor Therein
It is said by those who have studied the question that the early settlers in a country have the moulding of the character of that country in their hands. That generations after, a stranger could go into a locality and there read the responsibility of the men and women who had build- ed their homes and cultivated the soil of that place.
We question if there is an- other locality in all the mid-west where people are so knit to- gether in all the truer, deeper elements of life than are those of Furnas county. Friend- ships count above money-kind- ness to fellow way-farers is prized more than earthly ad- i vantage.
1
If it be true, and there is ! no reason to doubt it, that this present brotherhood spirit is but the fruiting of the early seed planted in Furnas county, then we shall give a large por- tion of our thankfulness to those early sowers who distri- buted the seed unstintingly in JOHN KEISER the rich soil of Furnas county and among those who scattered his priceless heritage of wealth there is none who was so lavish as John Keiser, one of the very first upon the new soil and one who
--
61
FURNAS COUNTY
has been faithful to all that is for the good and the uplift of the county during all the years since. He alone, of all the early pio- neers, is still living upon the original homestead and has continu- ously dwelt there since first he staked out his claim in the early part of 1872.
Changes have come to the country in the way of develop- ment. The Keiser homestead does not look to the eve as it must have locked forty-one years ago but still there is the same spirit of generous hospitality, the same "friendliness to man" pervad- ing the home, and will continue as its atmosphere so long as the true and staunch homesteader remains to bless with his presence.
In company with W. B. Bishop and B. F. Whitney, we left Ashland. Nebr., for the Republican valley on the 18th day of March, 1872. Our first stop was at the U. S. land office at Beat- rice, where we got platts of town 2, range 21. and town 2, range 22. W came through Jefferson and Thayer counties, crossing the Little Blue river at Hebron, and came into the Republican val- ley some distance east of Guide Rock.
Sammie Garber had a grocery store at Guide Rock and there were half a dozen other buildings, all made of sod. on the town- site. At Riverton there was an abandoned stockade, the settlers having moved onto their claims.
Tom Ashby had a small grocery store where Franklin is now located. In this store one could purchase tobacco or a limited variety of canned goods, and in the back, if you needed it, a bar- rel of "fire-water" was on tap.
McPherson held down all of Republican City, and there was a postoffice located about half way between where Orleans and Alma are now. At this place the first settlers on the Beaver and Sappa received their mail.
We met Eugene Dolph and Galen James near where Orleans now is, and James said if we came over on the Sappa he would show us a fine country.
It might be of some interest to some readers why one creek is called Rope creek and one Flag creek. Rope creek is so called because the first immigrants had to pull their wagons up the steep banks with ropes, and Flag creek was so named because a certain man became dissatisfied with the way things were done at the stockade and left its shelter to camp down on the creek, where he raised the United States flag above his camp and fired a salute
62
PIONEER STORIES
every morning to let the settlers know that he was still alive, even if he had abandoned the protection the stockade afforded.
The winter of '71 and '72 was a very cold winter. It froze up early in November with rain and sleet and snow on the ground several inches thick, and then one snow came after another lying on the ground till late in March.
That fall there were about 2000 head of Texas cattle driven in on the Republican valley between Arapahoe and Red Cloud and in the spring of '72 there were only a few remnants of the herd left, the rest of them having succumbed to cold and hun- ger. The valley was white with gleaching bones for many months afterward.
We passed the sod stoekade where Avers in his book "Build- ing an Empire," says they had to thin the bean soup the second time to make it last till the provisions got up the river.
-
-- -----
Alfalfa Field in Beaver Valley Where Buffaloes Formerly Roamed
We erossed the Republican river above the mouth of upper Turkey Creek. There were no fords and Whitney questioned the safety of crossing but I told him I would wade across and test the bottom of the river for quicksand and I thought there would
63
FURNAS COUNTY
be no danger if he followed me. In writing Pioneer stories for the Times-Tribune some years ago. Whitney said: "Keiser was a unique figure in piloting us through the river."
We crossed the divide that afternoon and camped on the Beaver that night. The next morning while eating breakfast, Old Man Sutherland came to our camp. He had a homestead not far distant and had seen the smoke from the camp fire and had come to investigate. He was a Scotchman. sixty-two years old, and the most courteous old fellow one could find in any of the old country houses. We gave him a big cup of coffee and he drank it with many thanks and went on his way literally rejoicing.
ill
JEMEDICIN POCHI
Present Home of John Keiser
In due time we found Galen James and commenced run- ning out seetion lines and locating our claims. James had been over the country the year before with the surveyors and knew the land.
The second noon we were here we camped near where the
64
PIONEER STORIES
B. & M. depot now stands in Beaver City, though we had no way of forecasting the future destiny of the spot where we ate our noonday meal.
We went back down the valley that afternoon and camped for the night on the Sutherland claim, where Sim Woodruff now lives. We went to the forks of the Beaver and Sappa the next day and re-located our claims. At this time there were only three claims taken on Beaver Creek. Galen James had the north- east of 23, Eugene Dolph, northwest of 13, and the Sutherland claim, now owned by Sim Woodruff.
Mr. Bishop said to me: "Keiser, you take your choice of these claims," so I re-located the two middle eighties of section 14. town 2. range 21 for my own and I want to say right here that I was not looking for a townsite, because there was a townsite and a future town located in the owner's mind on almost every quar- ter section in the whole valley as soon as the claims were lo- cated. Neither was I looking for a county seat. postoffice, or a county clerkship, but I was looking for a place that would make a home and I thought when I located my claims I had found that place, and I am still foolish enough to believe I was right in my selection.
We started back to Ashland the next morning, going back about the same way we came, except the stopping at the land office to put papers on our claims.
We moved up here from Ashland that same spring, coming with ox teams, which was a very slow and laborous way of travel- ing at the best, but Bishop had a little herd of cattle which he brought along, and you can see this made the going even slower, as the cattle had to graze along the way. But we finally reached the Beaver on the 9th day of May 1872. and I at once hired a man to help me build a house, part dugout and part sod, 14x16 feet, which we completed in four days.
With a place to shelter the family, the next question was a erop. The weather was ideal and the ground in fine shape. I commenced breaking sod and planting corn as soon as we got moved into our new home.
We planted the eorn with an ax or a spade by striking the ax or spade into the sod and then dropping three or four grains of corn into the mark thus made and then setting our foot over the place to press down the soil into a covering. If anyone wishes to know one of the differences between that early plant-
65
FURNAS COUNTY
ing and the present system of corn planting, he has but to com- pare the machinery used. The ax or the spade, every grain dropped by hand and every hill firmed down with the foot, and the present four horse listers and planters with driving the most strenuous demand made upon the human. We planted, besides corn, beans, watermelons, tomatoes, pumpkins, and about two bushels of potatoes.
In June that year Elder Mayo and family camped with us while the elder put in some crop and built a log house on the claim he located just a mile west of me on the west end of sec- tion 15. Elder Mayo was the first preacher to come to the coun- try, but he was too busy for the first few months locating his new home to do much preaching. It was not till the fall of that year that he preached, and then there was a little sod school house in the Harman neighborhood, where the elder first held services, and he preached to a good sized audience at each service. I think that these were the very first religious services ever held in Furnas county. A little later than this Elder Mayo conduct- ed a revival over on the Sappa near where Dan West homestead- ed. One Sunday during this meeting the elder was baptizing some converts in the Sappa, and Dan West stood on the bank and laughed at him. The elder shook his finger at West and said : "Never you mind, I'll have you down here yet." And it was not long until the prophecy was fulfilled.
Mayo was a unique character. He said he did not preach to the man who had two coats. He preached only to the fellow with one coat.
So far as I know. this revival, conducted by Elder Mayo on the Sappa, was the first meeting of the kind ever held here.
Talk about buffalo! The spring of '72 they were late in com- ing on account of the hard winter and the lateness of the spring. We did not see many until about the 20th of May. We first saw some dark objects on the hills south and west and the immigrants said they were buffalo. One day while I was "breaking," the oxen I was driving threw up their heads and commenced to snort. I looked over toward the creek and there were from three to five hundred buffalo going east to a crossing on the ereek about a half mile from where I was.
One morning my little boy eame running to the house and said :
"Pa. Pa, there's a buffalo out here on the creek bank big-
66
PIONEER STORIES
ger than old Buek. ("Old Buck" weighed sixteen hundred pounds.) I went out to see and there on the bank stood a buffalo that looked as big to me, as a covered wagon. I walked out to- ward him and he scampered off north to where the main herd was feeding.
Elder Mayo returned from a trip to his homestead one day earlier than usual and he said :
"Keiser, the buffalo will take you. They are coming right down on your place five thousand strong, but if you will give me your needle gun, I'll go and kill one and we'll have some fresh meat, anyway.
He was gone till about noon when he returned and said he had killed a fine two-year-old. After dinner I hitched the oxen to the wagon and took the women and children along and we went and dressed the buffalo which we found to be as fine as the elder had said, and we had plenty of fresh meat.
The day we raised Elder Mayo's house we began work at 8 o'clock in the morning and the buffalo were crossing the Bea- ver on the Southerland place. crossing in single file, but as if they were being driven along all the time and in the evening, at sundown, they were still crossing and there seemed to be as many left on the divide as there had been in the morning. All these numberless herds that once covered the prairie are no more. The buffalo never became a part of civilization. With the wild freedom of the prairie disappeared the buffalo.
We put in the summer breaking out prairie and hunting buf- falo. I raised on my sod over 100 bushels of corn and some very good garden and a lot of melons. The Omaha and Pawnee In- dians, coming home from their annual hunt, helped themeslves to all the melons they wanted and fed their ponies on sod corn.
In contrast to the winter of '71 the winters of '72 and '73 were exceptionally fine, scarcely a cold day during the whole of the seasons and we could work all through the winter if we chose.
I got out logs for a house and in the spring built a log house. The first of April I sowed about ten bushels of wheat and the 12th of April came the big April storm which all the early settlers have cause to remember. W. II. Harman had come down to my place that day for a visit. In the afternoon a thunder- storm came up and the wind blew a regular hurricane. It was almost impossible to see anything a few feet away, but Harman
67
FURNAS COUNTY
said he would go home by following the creek around to his place and would return for the family the next day, after the storm was over. But the storm was not over the next day and Ilarman did not come for the family till the afternoon of Wed- nesday. The storm was much more severe in other parts of the state, but we had as much of it in Furnas coutny as we cared about and enough to make it remembered by all.
The summer of '73 was a very fine growing season, and I raised a fine garden and a good erop of corn, and my wheat turned out well. This was, so far as I know, the first wheat raised in the Beaver valley. I hired a Mr. Marker to cut it with a Mc- Cormick self rake and we stacked it up in fine shape, but there was no threshing machine within a hundred miles and no chance of getting the wheat threshed. We cleaned off the grass and made a threshing floor on the sod and tramped out the wheat with horses and cleaned it in the most primitive way by throwing it up against the wind to allow the blowing out of the chaff and Hirt.
I told one of my neighbors. David Brown, if he would take a load of the wheat to the mill and get it ground, I would give him half the flour. He said he would do this, though it was some- thing of a journey to go to a mill in those days.
The nearest mill was in Thaver county at Meridian, and when Brown reached this, he found the mill out of repair and unable to grind the grist brought so many miles to its door. The next ยก laee vas Grand Island, where the wheat was ground into flour. Think of a 1913 housekeeper waiting while the good man made a trip to Grand Island for a grist of flour and forget about tele- phones and automobiles in connection with such a journey, too. Brown was gone just three weeks to a day. but we had flour all the same when he returned, and we appreciated it to the fullest.
The winter of '74 was also a fine winter and the spring opened up carly and the settlers were all in high glee and happy to begin the planting of erops in the new land. I sowed wheat again and there was a good deal of wheat sowed in the valley and a good yield realized. We planted corn and had a fine garden, but on the 6th of August, in the afternoon, a cloud came over the sun that darkened the earth, making it almost as dark as night for a time, and then the hoppers began to light and such an army that it was. Before morning there wasn't a green thing left - all had been devoured by the hungry millions of grass
68
PIONEER STORIES
hoppers. In twenty-four hours they completely changed the landscape and the prospects of the settlers.
Fortunately I had my wheat eut and stacked before the grasshoppers came and later some men came up from Clay county with a threshing machine and threshed the wheat in the valley. I had seventy-five bushels of nice, clean wheat that year. One of the men running the threshing machine was called home on ae- count of sickness and I took his place with the threshing crew.
We threshed at Beaver City and on up the creek above Hend- ley, then across to Arapahoe and on down the Republican valley to Oxford, when we crossed the river and threshed some on the south side of the Republican. I was with the threshers about eighteen days and received two dollars per day for myself and team.
The settlers were leaving the country pretty fast, two of my nearest neighbors going to Iowa and others to other points.
As I was going to Lowell for supplies, I took a small load of farming tools to the station for the neighbors who were going baek to Iowa and they gave me three hogs to pay for the hauling. Two of these hogs I fattened on wheat and the third I kept for a brood sow. Talk about wintering hogs on alfalfa. I wintered this hog on prairie hay and in the spring had a nice litter of pigs to pay for the keeping.
There are many stories told of the struggles and the vietories
-
Sod House formerly on the Buchanan farm in Maple Creek, now owned by D. P. West, at one time one of the best houses of its kind in that Community
69
FURNAS COUNTY
of those early pioneer days, but there was much happiness and many pleasures as well.
There is one story that will interest Bob Scott. It is told about the reason for abandoning the old stockade which was built near where Orleans now is and for the protection of the settlers in this part of the valley.
It is said that the whole country was in the midst of the greenback agitation at this time and everyone was discussing greenbacks, as to whether they should or should not be specie.
Even a new country must keep up with national issues and the settlers of the valley were not behind in the question then be- fore the people of their country and knew all about the value and disadvantage of greenbacks, but it was not greenbacks. No, it was not the greenback question, but the grayback agitation.
Philip French took the claim directly east of us two days after we arrived here, and we soon got pretty well acquainted, as acquaintance and friendship develop rapidly in new lands. French had a horse team and when we saw buffalo on the hills south and west of us, French proposed that we get Mr. Bishop and that we go out on a buffalo hunt. We drove to Bishop's bright and early one morning and left the women and children there and, accompanied by Bishop, B. F. Whitney and one or two hired men, we struck out for the south divide. We found only straggling bunches of buffalo, but Bishop assured us that if we went down one of those long "draws" to the Sappa we would find plenty of buffalo. This we did and when we came where we could see over the valley, there was an even eighty acres of solid buffalo, and Bishop advised our following the draw farther down so we could get a closer shot. We did this and I was fortunate in singling out a fine cow. The first shot broke her shoulder blade. When we came near her she showed fight and came for us. Bishop said : "Don't shoot again, I'll finish her," and he began pouring the shell out of his Henry rifle and the buffalo soon lay dead on the prairie. We each cut a chunk out of a hind quarter, as much as we thought we could carry. strung it on our rifles and started for the top of the divide. When we reached the place where we had left our team, we found nothing but a few straggling buffalo, the team and the remaining hunters had vanished. We then con- eluded that we had twice as much meat as we could carry and so divided it, leaving part on the prairie. When we came back to the Bishop's, we found that Whitney and the hired man had
70
PIONEER STORIES
killed two buffalo and had taken the hind quarters home in the wagon and we had a fine dinner of fried buffalo steak. That was the first and last time I helped to lug buffalo meat for ten miles only to have more than we could use and then have to throw away the supply we had so carefully carried home.
The Carrisbrook postoffice was established in 1873, on sec- tion 24 in Lincoln precinct with James Lumley, unele of W. C. F. Lumley of Beaver City, as the first postmaster. The office was named after the Lumley estate back in England, Carrisbrook. In connection with the postoffice Mr. Lumley had a stock of mer- chandise such as the new settlers might need, and he did a very profitable business during the years of '72 and '73, or until the grasshoppers came and the settlers had to take aid, so there was no more need of a store.
The postoffice was moved south on section 36 and Mr. Mitchell became the second postmaster, with C. E. V. Smith as deputy. The Lumleys, the Mitchells and C. E. V. Smith were the first Englishmen to find homes in Furnas county and some of the original families, many of the children and a number of the grandchildren are still Furnas county citizens.
But the salary of the early postmasters was not very re- munerative. Mr. Smith informs the writer that in one quarter that he remembers the office took in 49 cents and paid ont 75 cents to get the report certified, but it would be hard to trace the influence of that 49 cents and to gather up its results today.
Carrisbrook was moved north to the southeast of section 13 some time in the fall of '75 and M. Z Schoff was the new post- master. Then we had a mail service three times a week, from Or- leans to Beaver City. This office was not abandoned till after the railroad camp came through. A. K. Crawford was the last postmaster at Carrisbrook, and in connection with the office, he kept a nice line of merchandise and groceries which was a great benefit and convenience to the settlers.
It was in 1887 that Carrisbrook postoffice was discontinued and the new town of Stamford, two miles east of it, became the postoffice for that section of the county, but Carrisbrook holds a unique place in county history as a point of contact between the new homes and the old.
The first school taught in Lincoln precinet, and so far as the writer knows, the first one taught in the south half of the county, was a subscription school, taught by Mrs. David Brown during
71
FURNAS COUNTY
the summer of 1873. The school house was located on the corner of the S. E. quarter of section 8 and was in dimension 14x16 and built of sod by volunteers who believed in starting out right in a new country. The school house had one door and two half windows of six panes, one window on each side of the house. There was a dirt floor and a dirt roof and the benches were made of cottonwood slabs sawed at Carl Boehl's sawmill in the mouth of Sappa creek in Ilarlan county. Mrs. Brown received $20 a month pay for her work and took most of her pay out in "break- ing" and from this humble beginning and the education of Furnas county's youth has been developed.
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.