Class ^ Book- COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT I» History of Gage County, Nebraska t "7 j^ ^. y/^^ (Z oS^tr-^-^^ HISTORY OF GAGE COUNTY, NEBRASKA A NARRATIVE OF THE PAST, WITH SPECIAL EMPHASIS UPON THE PIONEER PERIOD OF THE COUNTY'S HISTORY, ITS SOCIAL, COMMERCIAL, EDU- CATIONAL, RELIGIOUS. AND CIVIC DEVELOPMENT FROM THE EARLY DAYS TO THE PRESENT TIME BY HUGH J. pOBBS w LINCOLN, NEBRASKA WESTERN PUBLISHING AND ENGRAVING COMPANY / 1918 COPYRIGHT. 1918 BY HUGH J. DOBBS «cj ^^.m THE TORCH PRESS LINCOLN. NEBRASKA AND CEDAR RAPIDS. IOWA )ci> riufi3;i;{ DEDICATED This volume is affectionately dedicated to the memory of my parents and to the memory of the other pioneers of Gage county, living and dead, whose heroism called the county into existence and advanced upon its rolling prairie wastes the Hues of civilized life. PREFACE This volume is divided into historical and biographical matter. For the former I am wholly responsible, but for the latter my responsibility is lim- ited to a few biographical sketches — less than a dozen out of hundreds — the remainder having been prepared under the supervision of the Western Publishing and Engraving Company of Lincoln, Nebraska. The chief value of the historical part of this book lies in its fidelity to facts. It is not claimed, however, that all has been set down that should have been written for a work of this character nor that the narrative is as complete in every instance as could be desired. Time and the limitations as to volume, imposed bv mv contract with the imblishers, have both combined to set bounds to my work. Whatever faults the critical may discover in the following pages, this much can at least be truthfully said of this History — it constitutes an earn- est effort to give both to the subscribers and the public, a readable and reliable history of Gage county, something that has not hitherto been attempted. I am under personal obligations to many for assistance in the preparation of this history. Particularly do I wish to acknowledge my indebtedness to A. E. Sheldon, secretary, and Mrs. Clarence S. Paine, librarian of the State Histori- cal Society, Lincoln, Nebraska ; William Elsey Connelley, secretary of the State Historical Society of Kansas ; Hon. Charles H. Sloan, congressman of the Fourth congressional district of Nebraska; Major A. L. Green, Mrs. Charles F. Gale, Earl Marvin of the Beatrice Daily Sun, Mrs. Anna R. Mum- ford, William R. Jones, and Mrs. Oliver Townsend. Beatrice; John A. Weav- er and J. B. High, of the register of deeds ofifice; Mrs. Mabel Penrod, coun- ty clerk, and F. E. Lenhart, clerk of the district court of Gage county; Mrs. Minnie Prey Knotts, Lincoln, Nebraska; Mentor A. Brown, Kearney; Mrs. Aland ['ell, Tecumseh; A. D. McCandless and Charles ]\L ]\Iurdock, Wymore; ]Mrs. Elizaljcth Porter, Wilbcr; Mr. and Mrs. F. A[. Graham, William Craig, and Robert A. Wilson, Blue Springs; Homer J. Merrick, .Vdams; Aliss Ev- elyn P.rinton, Pickrell; Theodore Coleman, Pasadena, and Miss Benetta Pike, Los Angeles, California; Mrs. Lilian P. Scoville, San Juan, Porto Rico; Dr. James P. Baker, St. Louis, Missouri; Mrs. Julia Beatrice Metcalf, Portland, 5 6 PREFACE Oregon: Joel Thomas Mattingley, Condon, Oregon; Louis Laflin, Cral> Or- chard; Hon. Peter Jansen, Andrew S. W'adsworth, Leonard A. Emmeri. Clar- ence W. Gale, Beatrice; Robert H. Baker, Chicago; W. II. Brodhead, ]\IcKay, Idaho; and James II. H. Hewitt, Alliance, Nebraska. I desire to express my sincere appreciation to the many subscribers to this volume who by letter or otherwise have shown a kindly interest in the work. \'ery respectfully, Hugh J. Dobb? Beatrice, Nebraska, August 7, 1918 CONTENTS CHAPTER I — The Discoverers 15 Christopher Cohimbus — England and France — French Explorers and Missionaries — Robert Cavalier de La Salle — The New World — Louisiana. CHAPTER H — Territory of Louisiana 21 As part of New France — Attempted Settlement by La Salle — His Assassination — Effect of Extension of New France to Mississippi Basin — France loses her Colonial Possessions in North America — Retrocession by Charles V — American Opposition — Jefferson and the Treaty of Ildefonso — Jefferson's Aims concerning Louisiana and the Mississippi — Threat of Alliance with England — Alarm of Napoleon by Threat of War — Livingston Admonishes Talleyrand — Arrival of Monroe — Cession to the United States — Price — Population — Ignorance of America concerning New Purchase — Explorations of Lewis and Clark. CHAPTER HI — Nebraska up to 1866 29 Early Explorers in Nebraska — Coronado — Mallet Brothers — Lewis and Clark — Kansas-Nebraska Bill — Territory opened for Settlement — Area — Boundaries — Or- ganization — Census — Death of Governor Burt — Governor Cuming — The First Leg- islature — Statehood. CHAPTER IV — G.\GE County 36 Act Defining Boundaries — Name — Area — Seat of Justice — Whitesville — Prepara- tion for Election — Organization — First Meetings of County Commissioners — County Seat. CRAPTER V — Old Clay County 41 Act Creating — Organization — Austin — Settlements — Partitioning — John P. Cad- man — Joint Meeting Commissioners of Gage and Lancaster Counties. CHAPTER VI — Topography of Gage County 45 Location — Townships — Area — Hydrographic Features — Stone — Clay — Coal — Water Supply — Climate — Temperature — Soil — The Prairies. CHAPTER VII — Flora and Fauna 51 Grasses — Flowers — Forest and Stream — Animal Life — The Buffalo — Elk — An- telope — Native Birds — Fish — Insect Life — Grasshoppers — Effect of Settlement. CHAPTER VIII — The Public Domain 57 Nemaha Land District — Brownville Land OfHce — Registers and Receivers — Offered and L'noffcred Lands — Preemptions — Free Homestead Law — Agricultural College Land Grant .^ct — Operation of the Act — College Scrip Entries in Townships — Homestead Entries. CRAPTER IX — The Pioneers 63 First Glimpse of Gage Countv — Home Building on the Prairies — Food Supplies — Fruits — Fish — Game — The 'Buffalo — Clothes — Food Substitutes — First \\'heat Crop — Spring Wheat — Common Salt — Social Life. CHAPTER X 71 Poem by Edwin Ford Piper, "Have You An Eye" — Early Gage County Markets — Missouri River-Oregon Trail — Insufficiency of Local Markets — High Prices — Mis- souri River Points Best Purchasing Markets — Oregon Trail Best Selling Market — Its Early History — Great South Pass — John C. Fremont — Origin of Term, "Military Road" — Starting Point — Route — Marcus Whitman — Changes — Statistics of North- ern Route — An Emigrant Route — Freighting — Nebraska City — Overland Stage — Pony Express — Beatrice Route — General Description. CHAPTER XI — First Actual Settlers 85 Otoe and Missouri Tribes of Indians — History — Reservation — Relation of Pioneers to Indians — Plans to sell Reservation — Sale — Report of Lewis and Clark — Indian Village — Removal of Indian Tribes. 8 CONTEXTS CHAPTER XII — Xarr.\tive of Major Aliiert Lamborx Green ... 89 ClI.XrTER XIII — First White Settlers HI Indian ARents and Employes — Gideon Bennett — David Palmer — John O. -Adams, and the Shaws — The Petiiouds — The Kilpatricks and Others — Settlements in Rock- ford Township — In Grant Township — At Hlue Springs. CI I.\PTER XIV — Founding OF Beatrice 117 The Hannihal-N'ehraska .Association — Organization — Members — Locating Commit- tee—Its Report — Selection of Name — First Fourth of July Celebration — Assoaa- tion Meets on Townsite— Selection and Entry of Townsitc. CII.\PTER X\' — X.\RR.\TivE OF Mrs. Julia Beatrice (Kinney) Metcalf . 123 CI 1 A I'TICR X\I — FouNiiERS OF Beatrice 129 John Fitch Kinney — John McConihe — Albert Towle — Joseph Rutherford Nelson — Ohcdiah Brown Hewett ^ Gilbert T. Loomis — Oliver Townsend — Harrison F. Cook — Dr. Bayard T. Wise — Joseph Milligan— Bennett Pike — Jeflferson B. Weston — William H. Brodhcad^Dr. Herman >1. Re\nolds. CHAPTER X\II — A Roll OF Honor 149 Gage County Territorial Pioneers — Biographical Sketches: Nathan Blakcly, Charles K. Emery, Joseph Hollingworth, Hiram \V. Parker, Charles G. Dorsey, Fordyce Roper, .Mbert L. Tinkham, Horace M. Wickham, Isma P. and Elizabeth Mumford, James B. Mattingley, Samuel Jones, Algernon Sidney Paddock. CH.M'TER X\I1! — Narrative of George Gale with Biocr.-\phic.\l Sketch 166 CII.M'TF.R XIX — Growth OF Beatrice FROM Beginning to 1870 ... 181 .•\ Hard Winter — Company .Assets — Pap's Cabin — Mum lord's Cabin — Entry of the Townsite — Population in 1S70 — Coming of the Railroads — First School House — First Bridge across the Big Blue — The Government Land Office — Improved Condi- tions — First L'nited States Mail — The Stage Routes — Beatrice of the Sixties. CHAPTER XX — BE.VfRicE Continued 189 Incorporation of Towns by County Board — Petition to Incorporate Beatrice — Order Incorporating Beatrice — First Board of Trustees — Incorporation of Beatrice as a City of the Second Class — First City Council — Population of Beatrice — Incorpora- tion of Beatrice as a City of the First Class — .Additions to Beatrice — Changed to Commission Government — First County Court House — Location — Old "Public Square" — Description — Cost — .Abandoned — Demolished — .A New Court House — Court Hinise Bond Litigation — County Jail — The New Jail — First United States Postoffice — Present Postoflice Building — Postmasters — Beatrice City Hall — Fire Department — Lighting Plant — Sewers — Paving — City Water Works. CH.M'TER XXI — Beatrice Continued 208 The Free Public Library — First Board of Directors — Carnegie Librarv Building — First Librarian — Public Parks — The Old Stone Church — The New Methodist Church — The First Presbyterian Church — The Episcopal Church — First Christian Church — l'nited Brethren Church — Trinity Lutheran Church — First Catholic Church — First Baptist Church — St. John's Lutheran Church — German Methodist Church — LaSelle Street Church — Seventh Day .Adventist Church — First Church of Christ Scientist — First Congregational Church — Mennontie Church — Beatrice School Dis- trict-Old Frame School House— First High School Building— Second High School Building— Third High School Building — Grade School Buildings — City Su- perintendents of Schools. CHAPTER XXII — Bf..\trice Concluded Banks — Factories — VNholcsale Houses — Rawlins Post — Hospitals and Sanitariums — Newspapers and Newspaper Men. CM AI'Ti-:R XXiil — Blue Spri.n-gs CHAPTER XXI\ — Wv.MoRE CHAPTER XX\— Incorporated Vii.L.u-.ES Adams — Barneston — Clatonia — Cortland — Fillcy — Libertv — Odell — Pickrell — \ irginia. 228 249 260 CONTENTS 9 CHAPTER XXVI — Unincorporated Villages 290 Ellis — Hoag — Kinney — Lanham — Rockford — Holmcsville. CHAPTER XXVH — County Offices and Officials 294 First Election Law — Elections — Two Early Elections — Ofticial Roster of County Commissioners — Adoption of Township Organizations — County Clerks — County Treasurers — Clerks of District Court — County' Sheriffs — County Judges — County Superintendents of Schools — County Surveyors — County Coroners — Registers of Deeds — County Attorneys — County Assessors — Territorial Assemblies — House of Representatives — Members of the Council — State Legislatures — Members of the Senate. CHAPTER XXVni — Hospitals 303 Institute for Feeble Minded Youths — Hepperlin's Hospital — New Lutheran Hospi- tal — Fall's Sanitarium — The Mennonite Deaconess Home and Hospital. CHAPTER XXIX — Military History OF Gage County 310 Indian Raid on Little Blue River, 1864 — First Military Organization — A Stampede — Company C, Nebraska Militia — Sioux Indian War, 1891 — Gage County in the Civil War — The Spanish-American War — Roster of Companv C, First Regiment — The World War. CHAPTER XXX — The Bench and the Bar . . . . ■. . . 319 Territorial Supreme Court — Territorial District Courts — Chief Justice Ferguson — Associate Justices — First Session Supreme Court — First Term District Court' — First Judicial Legislation — Gage County's First District Judge — First Term Dis- trict Court in Gage County — Second Term — First Grand Jury — First Embezzle- ment — First Murder — Third Term District Court — First Petit Jury — First Di- vorce Case — State Supreme Court — State District Courts — Act Admitting Attor- neys — First Lawyers in Gage County — Brief Sketches of Former Members of the Bar — Present Members. CH.\PTER XXXI — People Who have done Their Part in Making G.\ge County . . . .' 33S ILLUSTRATIONS William Clark . Meriwether Lewis . Bowlder Commemorating first council with QuivERA Monument . Stephen A. Douglas Francis Burt Thomas B. Cuming . Rev. William D. Gage Grasshopper Scene, 1874 First Claim Cabin in Nebraska Salt Basin and Salt Works, Lincoln, 1872 Mormon Encampment about 1846 . John C. Fremont Brigham Young Scenes at Ash Hollow .... Peter J. De Smet, S.J Freighting Scenes Along the Oregon Trail Concord Stage-coach .... Ar-k.\-ke-ta, Head Chiee oe the Otoes . Otoe Indian Village .... Old Agency Mill, Indian Reservation . Old Burial Place and Funeral Trees of th Medicine Horse's Village Log from John Pethoud's Cabin, 1857 . Original Cabin on First Homestead Daniel Freeman Julia Beatrice Kinney, 1860 . Julia Beatrice (Kinney) Metcalf, 1909 Julia Beatrice (Kinney) Metcalf, 1878 John Fitch Kinney Hannah D. (Hall) Kinney General John McConihe Albert Towle . Katie Towle Joseph Rutherford Nelson Oliver Townsend Harrison F. Cook Bennett Pike . William H. Brodiiead Herman M. Reynolds Nathan Blakely Margaret Constance Blakely Hiram W. Parker the E Otoes Indians ON N EBRASKA SOIL 26 26 28 30 32 33 34 37 53 65 69 73 74 75 76 77 80 82 86 92 95 99 108 113 115 116 120 124 124 131 131 132 133 134 135 137 138 141 144 146 154 155 157 11 12 ILLUSTRATIONS Elizabuth Mu.mi'ord .... Pio.sEEK Residence of S.xmuel Jones .Mr. .\.\u Mrs. George G.ale Court Street, Beatrice, in 1870 lilRDSEVE \'IEW OF BEATRICE, 1874 First Court House at Beatrice Federal Building .\t Be.\trice Gage County Court House Old County Jail New County Jail Carnegie Library, Beatrice City Water Works, Beatrice . Be.vtrice City Hall . \'oLu.\TEER Fire Station, Beatrice .Athletic Park, Be.xtrice . \'lE\VS IN and about BEATRICE . Beatrice Churches . New Congregational Church, Beatrice First High School Building, Beatrice Be.\trice School Buildings Beatrice National Bank Building Beatrice Banking Institutions Beatrice Steel Tank Manufacturing Company Beatrice Iron Works John H. von Steen Company . F. D. Kees Manufacturing Company Beatrice Cold Storage Company . S\viFT & Company .... Beatrice Creamery Company . Residence Streets in Be.xtrice Business Streets in Be.\trice Beautiful Homes in Beatrice Theodore Coleman .... Court Street, Beatrice, in 1908 Bridge and Mill at Blue Springs . Blue Springs High School William B. Tyler .... Mrs. Rebecca Tyler Robert A. Wilson .... Mrs. A.MEI.IA Wilson Solon M. Hazen .... Dr. Levi Anthony .... Francis M. Graham .... Mrs. Hannah Retta Graham . Niagara .Avenue, Wymore St. Mary's Catholic Church and Rectory Wymore First Baptist Church, Wymore First Methodist Episcopal Church, Wymore Two Rural Churches near Wy.more 161 164 167 185 192 195 197 197 199 200 20.3 203 203 203 210 211 215 221 224 225 232 233 234 234 236 236 237 237 237 238 240 241 244 248 251 252 254 2.=;4 255 255 256 257 258 258 263 266 267 268 269 ILLUSTRATIONS 13 High School, Wymore Main Street, Cortland . Public School. Cortland Views in Odell High School, Holmesville Cottages at Institute for Feeble Minded Youths Girls' Second Cottage, Institute for Feeble Minded Youths Hospital Building, Institute for Feeble Minded Youths Mennonite Hospital Dr. Fall's Sanitarium Lutheran Hospital . Institute for Feeble Minded Youth New Lutheran Hospital Colonel John M. Stotsenberg Fenner Ferguson James Bradley . Edward Randolph Harden Oliver P. Mason Zion's Lutheran Church Kilpatrick Mausoleum Pioneer Residence of Fidillo Hunter Dobbs 270 278 279 285 292 304-305 306 307 308 308 308 308 309 314 320 321 322 325 448 600 613 CHAPTER I THE DISCOVERERS Christopher Columbus — England and Fr.\nce — French Explorers and Missionaries — Robert Cavalier de La Salle — The New World — Louisiana Nothing in human history exceeds in roman- tic interest the discovery and settlement of the New World. The first voyage of Columbus from the shores of Spain across the unknown waters of the Atlantic ocean, which the super- stition of the times invested with every sort of mystery and danger, must always appeal to the imagination as an act of superlative dar- ing — ^ an event of first importance in the progress and happiness of mankind — for he, by adventuring where others dared not ven- ture, by a single act revealed to the astonished gaze of Europe the existence of new lands of wonderful beauty and promise, where none were believed to exist ; and, at a blow, dis- pelled forever the ignorance and fear which hitherto had enslaved the mind and paralyzed the endeavor of the most favored and most intelligent portion of the globe. Columbus set sail from the port of Palos on the 3d day of August, 1492, with a fleet of three small vessels, the Pinta, the Santa Alaria, and the Nina. He was accompanied by the tears and lamentations of the entire popula- tion of that small port, most of whom had relatives abroad the ships, and who, as the winding of the shore hid the little fleet from sight, abandoned all hope of ever again see- ing the adventurous mariners alive. On hoard those small caravels the crews them- selves, as the distance from the shores oi Spain daily increased, were seized with fear and unrest, which greatly endangered the success of the expedition. But the confident Admiral held firmly to his course and pointed the prow of his flag ship steadily toward the west. The sea was smooth, the air soft and refreshing, nature herself seemed un- usually propitious toward this momentous and daring enterprise. Soon the frail vessels came within tlie course of the trade winds and, with a constant and favoring breeze, the little squadron made rapid headway. Occa- sionally the crews sighted floating weeds and other objects which seemed to indicate the near presence of land and which served to cheer their spirits and invigorate their flagging zeal. On, on, on they sailed, day and night, always toward the west. Uneventful weeks passed without sight of land, but on the night of October 11, 1492, Columbus, who was sta- tioned on the high cabin of the Santa ^laria, saw at a distance across the water a faintly gleaming, uncertain light. Few of his crew were encouraged by this sign, though Colum- bus himself regarded it as a certain proof of the vicinity of land. At two o'clock on the morning of the 12th day of October, 1492. the little Pinta, which from her superior sailing ability was leading the other vessels, fired a gun, the agreed signal in case any of the ships should in the night time discover certain indi- cations of land. The little squadron instantly lav to, eagerly awaiting the dawn. At last daylight slowly broke, and at a short distance the voyagers beheld a green and marv'elously beautiful island, lying in a sapphire sea. It was San Salvador, the outpost of a newly discovered world. To their intense surprise, the Spaniards found this island densely popu- lated by perfectly naked savages, so kindly disposed and unsuspicious as to regard the 15 16 HISTORY OF GAGE COUNTY, NEBRASKA newcomers as gods whom they were inclined to worship. Accompanied by the principal persons of his expedition, Columbus, richly attired, was rowed to the shore. Falling upon their faces, the party kissed the earth and gave thanks to Almightj' God. Then unfurl- ing the bainier of Spain over this patch of land, Columbus took possession in the name of his sovereigns, Ferdinand and Isabella. A few days were spent in sailing the waters about this island, and having gathered from the natives that, toward the southwest, gold was to be found in lands of yet more surpass- ing beauty, Columbus, on the 24th day of Oc- tober, 1492, turned his prows in that direction. On the fourth day of his voyage he beheld the noble shores of Hispaniola, now Cuba, rising out of the ocean before him. Charmed to ecstacy by the mildness of the climate, the beauty of the scener)', the gorgeous plumage of birds, the docility and intelligence of the natives, and the sunlit sea in which Cuba rests, (|uccn of the waves, the soul of the great Ad- miral glowed with pride and satisfied ambi- tion. He gave up his days to the luxun,' of his surroundings and to exploring the north- ern coast of the island, and on the 5th day of December, 1492, having passed the eastern extremity of Cuba, he saw toward the south- east, looming out of the ocean, a new island — high and mountainous, Hayti. the most beau- tiful and most unfortunate of all the West Indian islands. Here, freed by the softness of the climate and the wonderful fertility of the soil, from toilsome labor, he found a native population that passed its days in indolence and repose. Having lost the Santa Maria by an accident of the sea and being deserted by the Pinta, commanded by Pinzon, Columbus now resolved to begin his homeward voyage. Departing from Hayti Januar>- 4, 1493, after a most perilous voyage, guided by the hand of Providence, on the 15th day of March follow- ing, he again cast anchor in the little harbor of Palos. He left Spain jK>or and unknown, he returned rich with honors, having gained the right to have his name forever first on the roll of discoverers, as well as that of those who by greatly daring, greatly achieve. Columbus carried with him to Spain several natives of the islands, together with products of the soils of these new lands, notably to- bacco, cofTee, and potatoes, with fruits and spices, as evidence of his discoveries. The great and unusual honors bestowed upon him by the proudest and most powerful court of the world, with the graphic report which he was able to make to his sovereigns of his won- derful voyage and the marv-elous possibilities suggested by his discoveries, electrified every fKjrtion of the globe where civilization had ob- tained the slightest foothold. Fired partly by religious zeal, partly by love of adventure and thirst for fame, and partly by the commercial incentive to discover and open an all-water route for trade between Europe and the East Indies, the maritime nations of western Eu- rope joined enthusiastically in voyages of dis- cover}^ to the western hemisphere. Columbus himself continued in the great work of discovery till he had added to the memorable voyage of 1492 three others to the New World. Island after island rose out of the depths of the ocean before him. But in none of his voyages did the great discoverer touch either of the American continents. Ig- norant of the vast extent of the ocean, he imagined that he had reached only the thresh- old of India and that he was upon the point of realizing his lifelong dream of an open, all-water route to Cathay — land of jewels and spices, ^^'ith feverish energy he sought the one factor which alone, as he sup- posed, could give value to his priceless discov- eries. But gold was rare in those islands, fanned by the great trade winds, and yielding only bloom and fruitage, heaped as by magic upon the bosom of the Atlantic. On his third voyage, in 1498, Columbus came upon the large island of Trinidad, which lies off the coast of South America, near the mouth of the Orinoco river. Cruising about this island, he found to his surprise that the waters of the narrow strait that separates it from the main land were sweet and fresh, and gazing westward he beheld what he conceived to be the low-lying lands of a yet larger island extending twenty leagues or more along the HISTORY OF GAGE COUNTY. XEliRASKA 17 coast. Never dreaming that these fresh, sweet waters were those of a mighty river that drained a continent and the low-lying lands the eastern edge of that continent, he sailed away to Hayti to visit a colony which he had founded there on his second voyage, in 1496. From this visit he was sent to Spain a prisoner in chains, and he died at Valladolid. IVlay 20, 1516, poor and neglected, old and broken, at sixty years of age, already robbed by Ameri- cus \'espucci, an obscure adventurer, of the honor due to his memory, of bestowing his own name on the great New World which his genius and faith had disclosed to mankind. In a material sense, the net result of his four voyages of discovery was to add to the known portions of the earth those groups of archi- pelagoes in the western Atlantic which are collectively known as the West Indies, and which, sweeping in a wide curve from Florida to the mouth of the (Orinoco, screen the Car- ibbean sea from the gulf of Mexico and the i\tlantic ocean — islands of ravishing beauty, marvelous fertility, delightful climate, teem- ing with the products of nature. But who shall ever be able rightly to weigh the tremendous influence of this simple-hearted man upon the physical and mental horizon of the world ? The people of all western Europe by the middle of the fifteenth century had so far emerged from the "Dark Ages" as to be measurably free from the forms of govern- ment which had characterized the feudal sys- tem, and for the first time since modern Europe had arisen from the fragments of the Roman em]jire its governments were in the hands of able rulers, while national policies had displaced government by individual whim or caprice. It was the age of the Renaissance and the re\ival of learning. The world was undergoing the process of a new birth. The foolish superstitions and practices which had prevailed for centuries under the forms and guise of religion were rapidly passing away. A universal activity and zeal for the cause of learning had aroused mankind to a sense of its needs. France, England. vSpain, Portugal, were rapidly assuming the dignity and self- importance of empire, in the very midst of this tremendous activity and of these vague longings and dreams of national aggrandize- ment, came Columbus home from the voyage into the unknown, with almost incredible tales of golden islands beyond the furthest rim of the western sea. The vast evolution which was rapidly bringing freedom to mankind throughout western Europe had already pre- pared maritime nations to a large extent for the discovery of a new world, and, as if by the intervention of Providence itself, this great event was made to serve as an outlet for their highest ambitions. It is foreign to the aim and purpose of this history to narrate in detail the great work of discovery, exploration, and coloni- zation of America which followed its dis- covery by Columbus. W'e know that for years Spain led the other nations in the num- ber, extent, and value of her enterprises. In less than forty years after the death of the great Admiral, she had established her hold on the West Indies by right of discovery, and had grasped by the bloody hand of conquest Mexico, Central America, the isthmus of Panama, the isthmus of Darien. and the con- tinent of South America — a domain which in natural resources rivalled continental Europe, and which for unbroken centuries jjoured a golden stream into her national treasury. In addition to all this, she claimed Florida by right of its discovery, on Piaster Day, 1512, by the aged cavalier, juan Pnncc de l.ei-n, sailing in search of the fountain of perpetual youth, and she laid claim also to the basin of the Mississippi, on account of the discovery of that historic stream by Hernando de Soto, in 1541, and its exploration in part by him and the wandering remnant of his followers after he had sunk to rest in its mighty flood. W ith more or less definiteness, Spain asserted for centuries proprietary' rights in the whole of North America, on account of the achieve- ments of Columbus and those Sjianish navi- gators who followed him. But her rivals, and particularly England and France, were quick to perceive the tremendous possibilities involved in the possession of lands in the western hemisphere, where, at almost IX IISTORV ol" CAC.E COL'XTY, XEIJRASKA ;i siiifjlc Ijound and at a trifling cost in money and life, national wealth, national resources, and territorial dominion might be immeasur- alily increased. Thus it came about that in 14yX. when Columbus, looking westward from the island of 'IVinidad, saw the shores of South .\merica, Sebastian Cabot, sailing under a commission from Henry \'ll of Hngland, discovered and explored the eastern i)ortion of North .America from Labrador tn Ca])e Hatteras, thereby affording ground for Eng- land's claim to all jwrtions of the continent of .North .\merica from the middle shore of the .Atlantic ocean to the crest of tlie .Alleghany mf)untains. l-'rancis 1, King of France, early in the six- teenth century, turned his attention to discov- ery, e.\|)loration, and colonization in the New World. In 1524 John N'arrazani. a Floren- tine in the service of France, sailed from the shores of Europe with four vessels, in search of an all-water route to .Asia. Directing h'\> course nearly to the west, on the 7th of March he discovered the main land of the continent, in the latitude of Wilmington, North Caro- lina, lie explored this coast from one hun- dred and tifty miles south of Wilmington to the remotest (>oint of New England, reaching Newfoundland in the latter part of May. In July he returned to France and published an account of his wonderful voyage, which at- tracted wide attention, but ten years were sutTfered to elapse l)efore another effort was made to rejieat his experiment. Beginning with 1534, French navigators, aided by their government, flocked across the .Atlantic, ex- ])lored the eastern coast of the great northern continent, circumnavigated Newfoundland, en- tered the gulf of St. Lawrence and ascended the noble St. Lawrence river. They founded .scores of towns, including I'ort Royal (now Annapolis, Nova Scotia), Quebec, and Mon- treal. French adventurers, tra])pers. hunters, j)enetrated the wilderness to the Great Lakes ; black-robed French missionaries preached the gospel over wide areas to savage tribes bv lake and stream far into the interior. No fairer pages of history can be found than those which record the exploration and settle- ment of New France, as the French posses- sions in North .\merica came to be known. From the early ])art of the sixteenth century lo the latter part of the seventeenth century, this work went continually forward. It was closed by the rediscovery of the Mississippi river by Joliet and his companian, the heroic Jesuit missionary. Father Marqette, in 1673. and bv the e.xploration of that mighty stream from the Illinois to its mouth by La Salle, in 1682. The name of Robert Cavalier de La Salle will be forever spoken with respect by every man who is at all conversant with his daring and adventurous achievements. No more con- spicuous name adorns the annals of colonial history in North America. Amidst the vacillat- ing and shifting policy of Louis XIV and his ministers with respect to the French ])osses- sions in the New World, where much was jjromised and little done, La Salle, with the prevision of genius and great statesmanship, saw more clearly than any other man of his race that the road to empire for France lay in the lakes, rivers, savannahs, and wildernesses of North America. Not only was the prevision of em])ire his but lie possessed also the imagin- ation to conceive anil the power and will to put into execution the plans which should have been the colonial policy of France from the first. La Salle was a Norman, born at Rouen in 1643 ; he was educated by the Jesuits, with whom he spent ten years as a student and from whom he acquired a habit of rigorous abstrac- tion. .\bnormally reticent about himself and his work, he made few close friends and many bitter enemies. He was persistent, active, de- termined, and brave to a fault. In 1660 he left France for Canada. By that time the French possessions in North America had be- come known to the world as New France and comprised the entire basin of the St. Law- rence river, the Great Lakes region. Labrador. Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and that part of Maine lying in the basin of the St. Lawrence. To the vain and licentious Louis XI\'' New- France offered but a small and unpromising lield for the display of his glory and power HISTORY OF GAGE COUNTY, NEBRASKA 10 and the gratification of his ambitions. It cost money to colonize, defend, and develop the distant province, and Louis was wasting his resources and exhausting the nation in deso- lating wars with England and the Holy Alli- ance. He had at last been prevailed upon to send to New France, in 1672, the ablest and most disinterestedly patriotic of all French governors, Count Louis de Frontenac, who, like La Salle, foresaw the approaching strug- gle for the continent between Protestant Eng- land and Catholic France, and was, like him, gifted wilh the jirevision of empire in the New World. On arriving in Canada, La Salle settled on an estate nine miles lielow Montreal, on the St. Lawrence. Here he came in contact with roving bands of Iroquois, who told him of a mighty river, far to the west, which rose in their country, flowed westward and he who followed its course for nine months, entered a wide sea. They called this river Ohio, mean- ing probably to include with it the Mississippi from the mouth of the ( )hio to the gulf. La Salle pondered this important information. Like other explorers, he was imbued with the idea of discovering an all-water route to India ; and he argued that the discovery of this stream might enable him to reach the Pacific, whose waves he knew in their far course broke on the distant shores of Cathay. With a few Franciscan monks, known as seminar)' priests, and some men at arms, with the aid of Frontenac, he organized an expe- dition to explore the region of country west of the Alleghanies, drained, as he believed, by the river described by the Iroquois. Little is known of this venture into the wilderness be- yond the fact that the expedition reached the Ohio and descended its course as far at least as Louisville, Kentucky. In 1670 we hear of La Salle again wandering amongst the forests that border the Illinois and exploring the region drained by that stream, Init again he stopped short of the great river. Fort Frontenac had been erected near the outlet of Lake (])ntario, on its northern shore, and here in 167S, La Salle was in command of this, the most advanced military outpost of New France. In this enxironment this re- markably grave, solitary, thoughtful man ruled with absolute authority over a wide region of country. His days were spent amongst the Indians, half-breeds, traders, trappers, voyageurs, and couriers de bois (rangers of the woods), barkening to their strange tales of the wilderness and prairies, of river and lakes, Indian tribes, and the wild life of the woods and plains. Slowly, slowly, he matured the great design of uniting by a bold stroke these unknown and unexplored wildemeses to New France, thereby laying the foundation for a French empire in the New World. La Salle knew that Joliet and the black-robed priest Marquette had in 1673 rediscovered the Mississippi river under In- dian guidance, l)v following the course of the Wisconsin, and had jjaddled down the great river as far as the mouth of the Arkansas, leaving the question of its ultimate termina- tion still in doulit. By some of his associates it was thought that the Mississippi flowed into the Pacific ocean, others that it discharged its waters into the Atlantic, and some that the gulf of Mexico received its mighty flood. The determination of this vital question was in La Salle's mind the first step toward empire. Resigning his command at Fort Frontenac, he applied for a commission from the king to explore the vast unknown region lying south and west of Canada and the Great Lakes, but such were the difficulties and hardships which he encountered that four years expired after receipt of his commission before he was able to undertake the great adventure. In Febru- ary, 1682, with a small fleet of canoes, and accompanied by about thirty Frenchmen and a band of Indians from western Canada, La Salle descended the tranquil Illinois. His course was impeded at first by floating ice, but at Peoria lake he struck clear water, and on the 6th day of February, 1682, the small flo- tilla of canoes issued upon the bosom of the mighty Mississippi. Without a moment's hesitation, the canoes were pointed with the swift current and the momentous voyage which was to determine the course of the Mississippi was begun. The 21) HISTORY OF GAGE CDLXTV. XKI'.KASKA ]iarty floated and iniddled rapidly down its current, travelinjj only Ijy daylight. Day by day they drifted swiftly, almost silently, to- ward unknown destinies. Slowly the mysteries oi the New World unrolled before them like a scroll. The winter passed into spring, and in the bright smdiglit and drowsy atmosphere they saw the tentler foliage clothe again the wilderness. They passed numerous Indian vil- lages, some of which they visited, and where they occasionally spent the night. Not infre- quently they encountered Indians in huge war canoes, but. avoiding all hostile encounters. they drifted on and on toward their objective — the mouth of the Mississippi. They noted the steady trend of the river, through dense forests, swamjiy cane-brakes, wild-rice tields that lay along the shore, ever toward the south. Doubt finally dissolved into certainty: they knew that it led on through senii-tropic.d lands to the heaving billows of the gulf of Mexico. On the C>th day of April, 1682, ex- actly two calendar months since they had em- barked on the river, they reached its delta, where its mighty flood divides into three chan- nels. Directing D'Autray to follow the east- most channel with some of the canoes, the Count Henry Tonty the middle channel. I. a Salle himself flescended the western pass- age. Slowly ])addling down these waterwavs. they noted soon the odor of brine in the frcsii- ening breeze and suddenly before these keen- eyed voyageurs the tmnbling billows of the gulf of Mexico came into view. Proceeding along the marshy shore. La Salle ](icked u]) one after another the canoes of his ]>arty and, assembling his followers on a drv s])ot of land a short distance above the mouth of the river, he caused a column of wood to be made on which he inscribed the following: "Louis the (ircat. Kiiuj of France and of Savarrc. King. April 9lh, 1682." Then marshaling his men at arms, amidst the tire of musketry, the shouts of "A'ive le Koy" anil the chanting of the Te Deum by the ])riests, while the Indian braves and their s(|uaws looked wonderingly on. La Salle plant- ed the column in its jilace. Standing near it he then in a loud voice delivered a proclama- tion, of which the following is part : In the name of the most high, mighty, in- \incil)le and victorious prince, Louis the Great, by the grace of God king of France and of Navarre. Fourteenth of that name, I this ninth day of A])ril, one thousand six hundred eighty-two, in virtue of the commission of his majesty which I hold in my hand and which mav be seen by all whom it may concern, have taken and do now take, in the name of his ma- jesty and of his successors to the crown, ])ossession of this country of Loi'isi.w.v. the seas, harbors, bays, ports, adjacent straits and all the nations, peoples, provinces, cities, towns, villages, mines, minerals, fisheries, streams and rivers within the extent of the Slid LmisiA.VA. Thus the great basin of the Mississippi river came imder the scepter of Louis XI\', the most dissolute monarch of Furope. and thus at the word of a single daring explorer, standing on the lonely delta of that great river, the territory of Louisiana, out of which came Nebraska, was called into exis- tence, a territory which comprised vast and unknown regions of dense forests, rich savannahs, sunbaked plains, apparently limit- less ])rairie, watered by a thousand streams, peopled only by savage Indian tribes, the abode of bufl^alo and other wild denizens of the for- est and plain : a territory which stretched from the pure springs of tiie far north whose confluent streams form the source of the mighty F'ather of Waters, to the hot marshy borders of the gulf of Mexico, and from the low-wooded crests of the .Mleghanies on the east to the river of ])alnis. the bold, naked l)eaks of the Rocky mountains and the sources of the Missouri of the west. The New France of Robert Cavalier de La Salle and of Frontenac, conii)rising Canada, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, the region of the Great Lakes and the territory of Lou-s- iana. has long since been lost to its founders, but the memory of that glorious empire plant- ed in the wilderness of North .\merica, with incredible hardships and labors which only men of heroic mo'd oould liave endured, still survives to animate the souls of the thought- ful and the hearts of the daring. CHAPTER IT TERRITORY OF LOUISIANA As PART OF Ni-:\v France — Attempted Settlement bv La Saeli' — His Assassination — Effect of Extension of New France to Mississippi Basin — ^ France loses her Colonial Possessions in North America — Retrocession by Charles V — American Opposition — Jefferson and the Treaty of Ildefonso — Ji;ffi;k- son's Aims concerning Louisiana and the Mississippi — Threat of Al- liance with England — Alarm of Napoleon by Threat of War — Livingston Admonishes Talleyrand — Arrival of Monroe — Cession to the United States — Price — Population — Ignorance of America concerning New Purchase — Explorations of Lewis and Clark The liistory of Nebraska may properly be said to begin with the voyage of the heroic La Salle in 1682. An historical sequence of events leads the mind steadily forward from his dis- coxeries till. l)y well defined processes of dif- ferentiation and elimination, a ])oint is reached where the commonwealth of Nebraska stands forth clearly defined in the mighty sisterhood of states which comprise the North American republic. In a comparatively short time after its dis- covery the vast territory of Louisiana became linked to Canafla and the other French posses- sions in North America as an integral part of New France. This ])rocess was begun and car- ried forward by men animated by the desire to realize the ideal of its discoverer, which aimed at nothing less than a great interior French empire, composed of the most fertile lands in the world. The New France, as fash- ioned by the vision of La Salle, was to be yet fairer than the old, as the daughter will some- times lie fairer than the mother. The work of reclaiming the wilderness was first carried on by French traders, trappers, hunters, and wood rangers, who extended their activities over the greater portion of the Mississippi basin, ex- tending south to the gulf of Mexico and west to and including Texas. \Miere these went the Jesuit and Franciscan monks fol- lowed, i^reaching the pure and gentle religion of the lowly Nazarene to the savage tribes who inhabited these wildernesses and plains. The earliest effort to establish settlements in the new territory was made b)' La Salle, himself, in 1684. Shortly after his return from the long voyage to the mouth of the Mississippi he repaired to France, and was supplied with three vessels, including a ship of the line, and a body of troops and emigrants, for the purpose of establishing a colony and erecting fortifications to guard the great river from English and Spanish aggression. But lie missed the mouth of the Mississippi and sailed westward to Mata Gorda bay, Texas. Dissension arose between him and the com- mander of the war vessel that accompanied him, and La Salle, leaving the ships with a few of the emigrants and men at arms, tem- porarily established his headquarters at that point and began a search for the Mississippi. Failing in his quest, he, in 1686, undertook to penetrate the wilderness to the Illinois, where Tonty had been directed to remain with supplies and men. While prosecuting this venture this remarkable man fell by the hand 21 HISTORY OF GAGE C< >rXTV. XEMRASKA of an assassin. Others took up the work of settling New France and occupying at least the lower basin of the Mississippi river; as a result of which New < )rleans was founded in 1723. by Jean IJaptiste Lenioine. sieur de Bienville. Settlements were made also in the ( >hio valley and elsewhere in the wilderness west of the .Mleghanies, so that by the middle of the eighteenth century a chain of forts and military ])osts had been planted by the French from Quebec along the St. Lawrence, the Niagara, the Detroit, the Illinois rivers, and the Mississip])i river and some of its tribu- taries, to the bay of IJiloxi, on the gulf of Mexico, while the region of the Great Lakes was guarded by similar outposts of defense. Such settlements were accompanied by the orderly forms of government, supported by the military forces of Canada and France, in the hope of guarding and defending from Eng- lish aggression on the east and Spanish aggres- sion on the south and west, the most valuable and extensive colonial territory ever possessed by a single European jjower in North America. The extension of New France to the basin of the Mississippi river from source to mouth and westward from the heights of the Al- leghanies. had the efifect of setting metes and bounds to British possessions in the New World. Bitter and ini])lacable rivalry arose between the English and French colonists, and i)loody attacks and rejjrisals blur the annals of both Saxon and Gaul. Britain's claim of all North America from ocean to ocean by right of Cabot's discover)-, and the stout resistance by the French to this claim, were the main causes of that series of sanguinary conflxts known in English colonial histon.- as the French and Indian wars, which, beginning in 1690, with what is known as King William's war. raged with great fury and finally termi- nated at the close of the Seven Years' Euro- jjean war. in 1763, thirteen years before the commencement of the .\inerican Revolution. By treaties which marked the closing of these wars, striking changes were eflfected in North ,\nierica. By the treaty of L'trecht. in 1713, which marked the close of that colonial dis- turbance sometimes designated as Queen Anne's war, England made her first great in- road into French territon,'. By this treaty she obtained control of the valuable fisheries of Newfoundland, together with possession of Hudson bay, Labrador, Nova Scotia, and minor French possessions ; and at the close of King George's war, in 1763. under the treaty of Paris, Canada itself and Cape Breton were ceded by France to England, with their terri- torial appendages, and the western boundaries of the English colonies were pushed beyond the .Mleghanies to the eastern shores of the Mississippi river. Thus fell, as by a single blow, the dream of empire which had animated the soul of the courageous La Salle, and of which Count rleans fixes the sentence which is to restrain her forever within her low-water mark. It seals the union of two nations who in conjunction can maintain exclusive posses- sion of the ocean. From that moment we must marry ourselves to the British fleet and nation. This threat had been most elteclively dan- gled by our minister to France before the eyes of the First Consul and from the moment of receiving the.se instmclions .Mr. Livingston was able to speak in a tone that arrested Xa- I)oleon's attention, and aroused in him a sense of a new power beyond the seas. .\ year had gone by since tiie secret treaty ui lldefonso had come to the knowledge of our government, and Mr. Livingston had apparently made but little jjrogress. In the s))ring of 1S03. at Jef- ferson's instance, James Monroe was dis- patched to France as special envoy and min- ister extraordinary to assist him in adjusting the irritating questions with respect to Louis- iana and the .Mississip])i — <|uestinns which had si)nmg so suddenly into prominence and which were bmirly heccmiing more menacing to the peaceful relations between France and the I'nited States. Even yet the instructions to both ministers did not contemplate the ac- quirement of the whole of the territory of Louisiana. The most that was hoped for aj)- parcntly was free navigation of that river for American commerce. To secure this, how- ever, it was proposed that we inirchase New < )rleans and the I'loridas from France, under the erroneous assumption that she had ac- quired the latter from Spain : and. by proi)er treaty stipulations, secure to both nations the right to free transportation. Not knowing the full terms of the treaty of lldefonso. Mr. jetTerson instinctively felt that whatever they were they deeply concerned the I'nited States, and he considered the moment had come to settle forever every question of policy or ter- ritory which might in the future occasion dis- sension with France. With clearer vision than any man of his day, Jefferson foresaw the tremendous advantages of removing everv obstacle to the expansion of our countrj- be- yond the Mississippi. Guided by an instinc- tive prevision, he purposed to seize the mo- ment to acquire control of that great stream and secure forever an unobstructed passage to the gu!f. Failing to achieve this result by peaceful means, he determined to accomplish it by force, and when .Monroe set out for France he carried instructions to demand the cession of Xew Orleans and the Floridas to the L'nited States, and conse(|uently the es- tablishment of the Mississippi as a boundary between the L'nited States and Louisiana. Mr. Livingston had already apprised Xapoleon tliat such a demand would l)e made and the First Consul had considered it of sufficient weight to detain the armed expedition whicli was about to sail for Louisiana. I'ut tile rapid march of e\enls was working more ])owerfully in the interests of the Amer- ican re]jublic than any influence the govern- ment itself was able to exert. At almost the very moment the existence of the treaty of lldefonso became knr.wn. came the porten- tous threat of war witii luigland : and Xa- poleon feared that because of her superior naval power and the defenseless position of Louisiana, England was bound to deprive F'rance of that province and yet further aug- ment her power and prestige in the western hcmisi)here. There were other considerations which impelled the consular government of France to hearken favorably to the represen- tations of Mr. Livingston. On the retroces- sion of the great province to Spain, aufl while the terms of the trcatv were still a secret, in order to be in a position to defend Louisiana from a convenient base against aggression from whatsoever source, Xajioleon had dispatched an arm\ , under General LeClerc, to San Do- mingo in KS02. This was partly for the pur- pose of crushing the negro rebellion then at its height in that island and partly to have an army within striking distance of Louisiana. HISTORY OF GAGE COUXTV, XELIRASKA i'.ut LeClerc was defeated by Toussaint I'C )u- verture, and his army had been so decimated by war and disease that it iiad become inef- fective as a mihtary force. Besides these con- siderations, the increasing expense and diffi- culty of maintaining the power of France in Louisiana became every day more apparent to Napoleon and his advisers, while like a nightmare the haunting threat of Jefferson of an English alliance loomed before his vision. By a strategic dij^loniati; movement as dis- tinctive of his genius as any on the field of battle, the First Consul determined to defeat the arch enemy of France in its aggressive policy and at the same time with bands of steel bind to France the rising young republic of North America, whose ultimate destiny he foresaw was to dominate the western hemis- j)here. The existence of the treaty of Ildetonsn became known to Livingston in 1S02, and in Noveniber of that year, learning that Na- poleon had planned to send an expedition under General Victor to take possession of Louisiana, on behalf of the United States he submitted a definite offer to purchase New ( Jrleans and the Floridas, leaving to France all the great territory lying west of the Mississippi. The reticence of both Napoleon and his chief minister of state, Talleyrand, with respect to the representations of our gov- ernment, and the secrecy with which the terms of the treaty was guarded, led our minister to suspect designs against the Lhiited States it- self. He warned Jefferson of his fears and advised the prompt strengthening of the mili- tary forces of the country in the lower basin of the Mississippi. A winter had passed without action on Livingston's offer of pur- chase, but Napoleon still delayed taking possession of Louisiana. Sjiring ajjproached. Mr. Monroe was known to be on the high seas, hastening to the assistance of Livingston. His arrival was momentarily expected. But Na- ])oleon, having reached a final conclusion, acted with the celerity that characterized all his movements. Returning to his palace at St. Cloud from the religions services on Easter Sunday, ;\pril 10, 1803, he called into consul- tation Decres and Marbois, two of his most trusted advisers, and asked their opinion on the subject of the province of Louisiana. In the discussion which followed, he said : I know the full value of Louisiana and have been most desirous of repairing the in- juries to their country of the French nego- tiators of 1763. It has been restored to us by a few lines of a treaty. Now we face the danger of losing it. No doubt the English will seize it as one of their- first acts of war. .\lready they have twenty ships of the line in the Gulf of Mexico. Its conquest will be easy. There is not a moment to lose in plac- ing it beyond their reach. They have succes- sively taken from France the Canadas, Cape Breton, Newfoundland, Nova Scotia and the richest portions of Asia. They shall not have Louisiana. While nothing can compensate us for its loss, it may be disposed of in such man- ner as nltimateh' to redound to our advan- tage. The patriotic Decres elo(|uently 0]>pi:scil the projiosal. "France," he said, "needed colonies, and what colony could be more desirable than Louisiana ? The navigation to the Indies by doubling the Cape of Good Hope had changed the course of European trade and ruined Venice and Genoa." And then, with pro- phetic vision, he asked, "What will be its direc- tion if at the Isthmus of Panama a simple canal should be opened to connect one ocean with the other?" "The revolution which navi- gation will then experience" he declared, "will I)e still more considerable and the circumnavi- gation of the glolje will become easier than the long voyages that are now made in going to and from India. Louisiana will then be on the new route and it will be acknowledged that this possession is of inestimable value. There does not exist on the globe a single port, a single city susceptible of becom- ing as important as New Orleans." Marbois admitted the gravity of the situ- ation but supported the view of Napoleon. No conclusion was arrived at, but at daybreak the following morning Marbois was summoned to read the dispatches from the French min- ister at London. These indicated that war was imminent and rapidly approaching. After con- 2f> HISTORY OF r.ACF. C()l"^"T^'. XKIiRASKA sideriiiK the inirport of this iiitelHgence, tum- ing to Marbois. Xapoleon said: 1 renounce Louisiana. It is not alone New Orleans that we will cede, hut the whole col- ony, without resenation. 1 know its value anil 1 abandon it with the greatest regret. Bui to obstinately endea\or to retain it would be the height of folly. 1 direct you to negotiate this matter at once with the envoy of the United States. Do not wait for the arrival of .Mr. Monroe. 1 lave an interview tliis very day with -Mr. Livingston. 1 shall require a great deal of money for the ai)])roaching war, but will be moderate. 1 want titty million francs for Louisiana. Pending the arrival of Mr. Monroe, Living- ston, desjiairing of success and wearv of delay, territory of Louisiana was at the disposal of his government. In the negotiations which en- sued, the demand of Napoleon's ministers for one hundred million francs as a consideration for Louisiana, was gradually reduced till an agreement was reached, and on .April 30, 1S03, a treaty was signed by our ministers on be- half of the United States of .America, and by Francis Barbe Marbois. the financial minister of France, on the ])art of that country. b\- which, in consideration of the payment of fifteen million dollars, the equivalent of eighty million francs, the territory of Louisiana ])assed to the republic of the United States. The consummation of the treatv was accom- •^ylzjeAytyyv^e/^fvc^i. a^Ley'yx^'^-^-^* on .\pril 12lh admonished Talleyrand that when Monroe arrived, he intended to advise his government to abandon the negotiations and seize New ( )rleans by force. ( )n that very day came Mr. Monroe, and on the 13lh day of April, while at dinner with a company of friends, tiie two ministers obser\'ed Marbois walking in the embassy garden. On being in- vited to enter, he stated that he liad important information to communicate, but would delay doing so until he could see the representatives of the L'nited States alone. Mr. Livingston sought him out at the first njiiiortunity and was starilic] npi.n bt-ing informed that the entire l«nied by no illusions on the ])art of the sig- natory parties. C)n the contrary they were fully aware of its import and tremendous im- portance. When it had been signed, Living- ston, rising from the consultation table, said : "We have lived long, but this is the noblest work of our lives. From this day the L'nited States takes their jjlace amongst the powers of the first rank; Fjigland loses all her exclusive influence in the affairs of .\merica." And Napoleon, showing his full appreciation of the imirortance of tjie event, exclaimed : "This accession of territory forever strengthens the power of the United States. T have just given HISTORY OF GAGE COUNTY. NEBRASKA Enj^Iand a maritime rival that will sooner or later humble her pride." The patriotic and far-seeing Jefferson lost not a moment's time in securing the rati- fication of this treaty. As soon as it was re- ceived on this side of the Atlantic, he issued a call for a special session of congress. That body assembled on the 17th day of Octolier, 1803, and within a month the treaty was rati- fied and authority conferred upon the Presi- dent to take immediate possession of the newly acquired territory. To enable him to do so, he was empowered to employ the army and navy of the United States, and, if in his opin- ion necessars', he was authorized also to en- roll the militia of the several states to the number of eighty thousand men, to enforce and secure our country's right to the ceded territor}'. But no opposition was encountered to the surrender of the possession of the great pur- chase. France herself, on December 17, 1803, first procured its surrender from Spain, and on Tuesday, the 25th day of December, three days thereafter. Governor W. C. C. Claiborne, of }ilississippi territory, having been com- mis.sioned by the President to assume the pro- visional government of Louisiana, appeared at the gate of New Orleans, escorted by Gen- eral Wilkinson, with a small detachment of state militia. The party was greeted by a salute of twenty-one guns from the forts, and entering the city it drew up on the square known as the Place d'Arms. The ceremonies attending the formal presentation of Clai- borne's credentials as a commissioner of the United States to accept the surrender of the city of New Orleans and the territory of Louisiana, were soon over. The keys of the city were delivered to him, and Latiscat, the French governor, addressing the people from the portico of the cabildo, in French, con- gratulated them upon their accession to lib- • erty and absolved them from further allegiance to the sovereigns of France. Claiborne then spoke in English, assuring all present that their rights would be preserved as citizens of the republic of the L'nited States. The fleur cle lys, emblem cf ' France, was then slowl)- lowered, as the stars and stripes, the banner of freedom, slowly arose to catch in the sunshine the freshening breeze from over the waters of the Mississippi. When the flags were both half way, the one descending the other ascend- ing, a gun was fired, and at the signal the can- non on the vessels in the harbor and the bat- teries of the forts fired a salute, while amidst the cheers of the few Americans present, the territory of Louisiana passed forever into the possession of the L^nited States. It was a tremendous accession to the terri- tory of the young republic. The very figures that attempt to convey to the mind some idea of its superficial area are themselves impres- sive. It more than doubled the previous land area of the L'nited States. In round numbers it exceeded 883,000 square miles. Out of it. in addition to the present state of Louisiana, there have been carved Missouri, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Kansas, Nebraska, Iowa, North and South Dakota, two-thirds of Minnesota, one-third of Colorado, and three-fourths of Wyoming. At the time of its accession to the United States its known population did not exceed five thousand souls, nearly one-half of whom were slaves. In ISIO the first fed- eral census showed a population of twenty thousand, of whom one-half were still negro slaves. If taken to-day, — a census of the same territory would closely approach twenty million, all free men. Considered as a whole, little was really known of the vast territory of Louisiana at the time of its purchase by Jefferson. Al- though one hundred and twenty years had elapsed since that memorable 9th of April. 1682, when Robert Cavalier de La Salle from a lonely eminence on the delta of the Mississipi had proclaimed the sovereignity of the King of France over his discoveries, no vigorous, persistent effort had been made to explore the vast territory, either by France or by Spain during the two score and five years she had been mistress of Louisiana. Few settlements had been established and aside from the "Chain of Forts" extending in an irregular line from the St. Lawrence to the 28 HISTORY < )F CAC.F. C( )LXTV. XEI'.RASKA Mississiijpi and riests, who appear to have visited nearly every jjortion of the territory. But the sagacious and energetic Jerterson had matured a plan for exploring the Mis- souri river country, the least known portion of the territory, almost heforc congress had ratified the treaty under which ])ossession was acquired, in .May, 1X04, he started the far- famed Lewis and Clark expedition u]) the Mis- souri, charged with the duty of exploring that great river from its mouth to its source and then on to the Pacific ocean. The report which these ex])lorers. after an absence of two years, were able to make of the resources of the country through which they had jour- neyed, of its lofty mountain chains and |)lateaus. of its wide, rolling jirairies. its for- ests of valuable timber, its wildernesses, rivers, native inhabitants, and its wild life of forest and plain, served to confirm the vague ideas of the times concerning the new terri- tory as a possession of the United States. Time, through a thousand channels, has vin- ilicated the wisdom of Jefferson and his min- isters in securing at a critical period in our country's history, by the arts of i)eaceful di- plomacy, this great accession of territorv to our beloved countrv. HottUkr ;it Fort Callumii. .\cl.rask;i, commemorating the first council with the Indians on Nebraska soil CHAPTER III NEBRASKA UP TO 1866 EaixLV Exi'LiiREKS In Nebraska — Coronado — Mallkt BKoTiiiiRS — Lewis axu Ci.ark Kansas-Nebraska Bill — Territory opened for Settlement — Area — Boun- daries — Organization — ■ Census — Death of Governor Burt — Gov- ernor Cuming — The First Legislature — Statehood The Virgin of the icilderness. She sits upon her hills alone; Loose sf^rigs of cedar in her hair. A z'ine-i^'reath round her cone, — As grey-eyed Pallas pure and free. Expectant of the things to be. — O. C. Dake. That portion of the '"Great Purchase" which comprises the state of Nehraska was scarcely known to white men prior to the expedition of Lewis and Clark in 1S04-1806. Doubtless it had been traversed, in part at least, by French- Canadian trappers, traders, and couriers du bois, as well as by French missionaries who followed the Indian trails to the remotes' re- j;ions of all New France. P)Ut these left no records of their travels and ad\entures of which history can take notice. Just when the earliest visits of white men to Nebraska occur- red ma}' never 1ie known. In recent years eflorts have been made l)y writers on the history of our state to connect the expedition of Francisco Vasquez de Coronado, in 1540, with Nebraska. It is claimed that this expedition not only crossed the southern lioundary of the state somewhere between the eastern boinidary of (iage comity and points much further west, but also that it actually penetrated the state as far north as the Platte river. The most convincing evidence assigned in support of this contention is that the chroniclers of the ex])edition, as well as its leader, used descrip- tive terms, in relation to the soil, vegetation, landscape, and other phenomena obserxed by them, which might be applicable to sotitheast- ern Nebraska, and that Coronado himself de- clares that Quivera "where I have reached it is in the 40th degree." To say the most for such evidence it only indicates in a general way the route of the expedition. It is offset by consid- erations which are entitled to great weight, even in the face of Coronado's declaration. Coronado came to the New \\"orld in the train of Mendoza. viceroy of .Mexico, in 1335. and had been assigned by his patron to the gov- ernorshi]3 of Neuva (lalicia. a ndrthern prov- ince of the conquered country. Like all ani- l)itious Spainards of that particular day, his imagination had Ijeen tired ])y the wonderful success of Cortez, the conqueror of Mexico, and Pizarro, the conqueror of Peru. The fabulous wealth of these vanquished nations had gone to enrich their masters to an extent of which no Spainard had ever before so much as dreamed. Coronado, listening to the tales concerning the far away "Seven City of Ci- bola," whose wealth was said to rival the riches of Montezuma and the Incas of Peru, resolved to imitate the exploits of Cortez and Pizzaro by undertaking the conquest of these fabled cities of the plain. Obtaining leave from the viceroy, and assembling an army of three hundred Spanish soldiers and a l)and of warlike Mexican Indians and equi]jping them for conquest, he started from the capital of his province on the 23d day of February, 1540, animated solely by the hope of plunder. For two \-ears this marauding. i)redatorv ex- 20 .^0 IISTORY OF r,A(",F. CorXTV. XKI'.RASKA |ieilitioii wandered about oser the barren wastes of New Mexico and possibly eastern Arizona, reddening their trail with the blood of the simple natives and committing,' heinous crimes against their chastity and virtue. The "Seven Cities pf Cibola" dwindled to a few isolated Zuni villages, while the search for f^old, always gold, proved an evanescent dream Finally it was found that the riches lay far away to the east in the land of the Quivera. 1 lere. the Spaniards were told, were large cities From f'liotogmf'h (»tiiirdition in ruin, and. turning eastw.ard, he traversed the ]i!ains of central Kansas as far as the neighborhood of Junction City, where, recently, enthusiastic Coronadists have erected a costly monument intended to commemorate the discovery of Quivera, a name apparently used to designate a tribe of Indians in that section of country. Whether Coronado came as far north as Nebraska will never be known. His declara- tion that he found Quivera within the -Wth degree means but little. Me was not engaged in exploring the country and could not have been greatly concerned about such things as degrees of latitude. Besides it is a well set- tled fact that in the sixteenth century a com- mon error of about two degrees runs through all Spanish computations as respects the fix- ing of degrees of latitude. If correct in the issumption that he did actually cross the for- ieth parallel of latitude, then Coronado was the first white man to set foot on Nebraska soil, and Nebraska was known to the Cau- casian race within a generation after the death of Columbus and more than eighty years be- fore the landing of the Mayflower at Plym- cuth Rock. It may be recorded that the first authentic account of the visit of white men to Nebraska is found in the journals of the brothers Pierre and Paul Mallet which fell into the hands of jean liaptiste Lemoyne, siuer de Pienville, the founder of New Orleans and for many years the French-Canadian governor of the province of Louisiana. In attempting to reach Santa Fe by way- of the Mississippi these explorers, with a party of French-Canadians, in 1739 l)assed up the Missouri, its chief tributary, and ap])ear to have spent the winter at the mouth of the Niobrara. In the si)ring of 1740 liiey descended the Missouri to the Platte and, following the latter stream about seventy miles, struck across the plains to Santa Fe, thus traversing a considerable portion of what is now the state of Nebraska. Whatever may be said concerning those who may have preceded them, it is true beyond cavil that the existence of what is now Nel)raska was first brought strongly to ])ublic attention by the expedition of Lewis and Clark. These ex])lorers, pad- dling up the swift and dangerous current of the Missouri river, were compelled to tie their crude vessels to objects along the river banks at night and to proceed only by daylight. HISTORY OF GAGE COUNTY, XEliRASKA 31 They camped iiuliffereiitly on either side of the stream. July 15, 1804. their journal shows they first camped on Nebraska soil, at the mouth of the Little Nemaha river, near the present town of Nemaha, and on the way out their last encampment in Nebraska was made September 7, 1804, at a point a few miles below the northeast corner of the state. ( )n their return trij) the explorers floated past the northeast corner of the state, on Sunday, the 31st day of August, 1806, and passed the southeast corner on the 11th of the following September — a total of five hundred and fifty- six miles, channel measurement. Several points in Nebraska where the explorers ]iitche(l camp have been identified from the minute and accurate description supplied by the record of their movements along the course of the Missouri. Scattered along the banks of this mighty stream Lewis and Clark found many Indian tribes, amongst them the Otoe and Missouri, which long afterward became domiciled in Gage county. While encamped at Council Bluffs, a jjoint since identified as Fort Cal- houn, the explorers made the following entries in their journal : "The meridian altitude of this day [July 31. 1804] made the latitude of our Camp 41° 18' 1.4". We waited with nnich anxiety the return of our messenger to the ( Jtoes. r)ur apprehensions were finally relie\'ed by the arrival of a party of about fourteen Otoe and Missouri Indians, who came at sunset, on the 2(1 of August, accom]ianied by a Frenchman who resided among them and interpreted for us. Captain Lewis and Clark went out to meet them and told them we would hold a council in the morning." The first political event of great signifi- cance in the history of Nebraska was the enactment by congress into law of a bill entitled "An act to organize the Territory of Nebraska." .\s early as 1848 the organi- zation into a territory of that part of the pub- lic domain lying west of Missouri and extend- ing to the Rocky mountains had received serious consideration in the halls of our na- tional legislature, and in 1852 a bill for that purpose had been actually introduced in con- gress. The following year a bill was brought forward for the organization of Nebraska territory, which covered substantially the territor)- no\\- included in the states of Kan- sas and Nebraska, extending from the Mis- souri frontier to the crests of the Rocky mountains. Neither of these measures at- tracted great ]niblic attention or received legislative sanction, but early in January, 1854. Stejjhen A. Douglas, who was then dominant in national politics, reported from the senate committee on territories, of which he was chairman, a l)ill to organize the territories of Kansas and Nebraska. This was the historic Kansas-Nebraska bill, the passage of which through congress stirred the nation, north and south, east and west, to its greatest depths and aroused passions destined to be cooled only in the agonies of fratricidal strife. No snch I)nblic upheaval as followed the introduction of this l)ill had ever before been known in the United States. The act was drawn with the ])olitician's most consimimate art 'ind with a boldness that startled the entire country. There was no eli'ort on the part of the ]:)ro- jectors of this measure or any one else to dis- guise the fact that it repealed the "Missouri Compromise," the most obnoxious measure to the slave-holding class ever passed by the na- tional legislature, and permitted the extension of slavery north of the famed "Mason and Dixon Line." On the other hand, the bill, with the appearance of fairness, permitted the people of each of the proposed territories to determine, as states, whether they should be dedicated to slavery or freedom. Thus by adroitly uniting the Democratic representa- tives in congress, both north and south, in sup- port of his measure, and having first by sub- stitution divided the original bill into two or- ganic acts, one applying to Kansas and the other to Nebraska alone, Senator Douglas se- cured the passage of the substitute bills through both houses of congress in May. 1854, and on the 30th day of that montli the act creating the territory of .Vebraska received the official approval of Franklin Pierce, then President of tile L'nited States. IIISTUKV OF CAGE COUXTV. NEBRASKA In the interval between the introduction of the hill an.l its passage, great preparations were on foot in anticipation of the act ulti- mately hecoming a law. On the 17th day of April, in that year, the federal government. by treaty stipulations, acquired the title of the various Indian tribes to all the lands within the boundaries of the proposed territories which bordered ui>on the western bank of the Mis.souri river. < )n the eastern shore of that great stream, during the spring of 1S54. people gathered from many states and anxiously awaited final action on the bill and the Presi- Stkphf.n .a. Dolgi..\s dent's proclamation opening the new territory of Xebrask.-i lor settlement. No white man had previously been or was at that time ad- k>wed to enter or remain on Nebraska soil without permission from the war de])artment and then only while engaged in hunting, trap- |>ing. or commerce with the Indians. WhMc the act was elTccting its passage through con- gress, the commissioner of the general land oHice at Wa.shington. after a personal ex- ]>Ioralion of the eastern boundaries of Ne- braska, asserted that there were not three bona fide white settlers in the entire territory. The President's proclamation declaring it open for settlement was issued June 24, 1854. and with the wave of immigration that imme- diatelv broke over our eastern boundary, the long, exciting struggle which attended the erection of Nebraska into a territor}- came to an end. The area of the new territory as defined by the organic act far exceeded its {)resent boun- daries. Beginning at a point where the fortieth ])arallel of latitude crosses the Missouri river, that is to .say at what is now the so'.itheastern corner of Richardson county, the southern boundary line of the territory stretched away westward to the eastern boundary of Utah and tlic summit of the Rocky moimtain-;. thence northward on the principal chain of those mountains to the British ])ossessions, thence eastward on the national boundary line to .Minnesota, and southward to the Missouri river, following the main channel of that stream to the point of beginning. In addition to the present boundaries of our Slate, this fledgling territory embraced within its l)orders .Montana. North and South Da- kota, the northern part of Colorado, a por- tion of Idaho, and nearly the while of \\'y<:ni- ing. It comprised a variety of soils, scenery, climate, and products. It was inhabited only iiy the red man and was the range of the greatest herds of wild buffalo known to man- kind, as well as elk, deer, mountain lion, and many other wild and ravenous beasts. It con- tained vast deposits of coal, mines of precious ores, oil fields of great and unknown value, immense forests, lakes, plains, and rivers with their rich, productive valleys. Doubtless th" organic act which conferred upon the new territory such magnificent proportions was ])assed by congress under the belief that the major portion of the great ])lains region of the Missouri valley was unfit for human habita- tion. But the act ])rovided that congress might, from time to time, as appeared proper or ex- pedient, reduce the area of this territory by creating other territories or parts of territories from it, and it is by virtue of this original pro- HISTORY OF GAGE COUNTY. NEBRASKA 33 vision that Nel)raska has suffered successive diminutions until our present boundaries were finally reached. The organic act provided for the im- mediate, complete civic organization of the 1804. About 1835, the Presbyterian church had established at this point a mission for the Pawnee, Otoe, and Missouri Indians, and it was the most widely known spot in the terri- torv at that time. It was beautifullv located From f>Iiologntf-li owned by the \\-h:\isl:,i Sltilc Uixtorical Society. Francis Burt First governor of Nebraska territory' new territory, and to this end Francis Burt, of North Carolina, was apointed governor, and Thomas B. Cuming, of Iowa, secretary of state for the territory of Nebraska. These two ofificials arrived at Belle\ue, in Sarpy county, October 10, 1854. This small west- ern outpost of civilization had been a sta- tion ot the American Fur Coninanv since on a rising plateau, near the Missouri river, and for some months it was the prospective capital of the new territory. On his way out to assimie the duties of his office, the governor had contracted an illness, and on the 18th day of October, eight days after his arrival, in the old ^Mission House at Bellevue, at the foot of the hill. "Big Elk." in that remote village, he 34 HISTORY OF CAGE COLXTV. XEl'-RASKA (lied, and Cuming succeeded lo the office thus made vacant, as acting governor of Nebraska territory. In matters jieriaining to the organization of the territorial government the organic act had clothed the governor with autocratic j)0\ver and authority. Amongst other things it was made his duty, immediately upon his arrival, to take a census of the jieople and of the qualified voters of the territory; to apportion amongst the counties the members Tho.MAS U. ClMI.NO First M-crctary and twice acting governor of Xe- braska territory of the two houses of the legislature, desig- nated by the act as the council ,uid house of rei)resentatives ; to call an election for members of that body, and select a place for holding its first session. Before his arrival at Bellcvue, Ciovernor Burt had marked off the inhabited portions of the ter- ritory into counties, and the ])roclamation of .\cting (iovernor Cuming, issued on the 21st day of November, 1S54, calling the first terri- torial election, included eight counties, name- ly: Burt, Cass, Dodge, Forney (now Ne- maha). I'icrce (now Otoe), Richardson, and Washington, — all bordering upon the Mis- souri river. The first official act of the acting gov- ernor was the issuing of a proclamation containing the announcement of the death of Governor Burt, and dated the 'lay of his demise. Three days thereafter, to wit. October 21, 1854, the acting governor, in order that all absent residents might return to the territory for registration, issued his procla- mation announcing that an enumeration of the census would commence on the following Tuesday, namely October 24, 18.^4. When comjileted. this census showed the entire population of the new territory to be 2,722. Upon the return of the census enumerators. Governor Cuming apportioned the thirty-nine members of the legislature provided for in the organic act aiTiongi.t the eight counties already mentioned, and issued a proclamation for their election. ( )n the 20th day of December, 1854, the election having been held, a call was issued convening the "(^leneral Assembly of the Ter- ritory of Nebraska on the Uith day of Jaiui- ary, 'l855." This first legislature, or general assembly, as it was called, was an able and a wonderfully active body. Following the Iowa statutes, from which it borrowetl with the utmost freedom, it enacted general laws for the government of the people, adopted codes of civil and criminal procedure, established nuirierous territorial roads, created and de- fined the boundaries of nineteen new counties and provided for the establishment of seats of justice therein. It passed laws for the incorporation of insurance, railroad, land, manufacturing, milling, bridge, ferry, bank- ing, colonization, and immigration companies. It incorporated cities, of which many were mere figments of some speculator's brain, their very names having been lost in the efflux of time. It incorporated colleges and seats of learning destined never to have faculty or curriculum, and finally, on the irnh day of .March. 1855, it expired amidst a whirlwind of joint resolutions and memorials to con- gress. It is foreign to the pur])ose of this work to HISTORY OF GAGE COUXTV. NEBRASKA pursue at length tlie history of the territory of Nebraska. The organic act was passed and approved May 30, 1834, and, as we have seen, it was (|uici — ,\amk — Akka — Sicat oi- jusricic — \\'iiitf.svili.1; - AKATiDN Fur Klkction — Organization — Fir>t Mertings of County Commissioners — Col'xtv Scat I'kep- Anioiij; llic nineteen counties which were created by the first session of the legislative assen)l)!y of Xchraska territory was the county of Gage. This act was entitled "An act to define the boundaries and locate the seat of justice in Gage county." In conferring a name upon the new county it was the aim of the assembly to honor the Rev. W'illiam D. (^.age. a Methodist clergyman, who was then serving as chaplain for both houses of the legislative assembly. This act became a law od (lie loiii day ol .March. 1S55. .\s deiined by the act, the county consisted of a tract of land twenty- lour miles square, lying directly west of Paw- nee county, which had been likewise created by this session of the legislative assembly and its boundaries jirescribed by an act ai)proved -March 6, 1X55. The second section of the act creating Gage count} reads as follows : "W i1 liani D. Gage. John B. Rol)inson and 1. L. Gibbs be and are hereby ai)i)ointed commis- sioners to locate the seat of justice in said county." And by the third section these com- missioners or a majority of them were re- quired to meet "at some convenient point (as may be agreed upon ) on or before the 10th day of June ne.xt, or within three months thereafter, and proceed to locate the seat of justice for said Gage county." By the fourth section of the act the commissioners were re- quired to commit their findings to writing, giving a i)articular descri])lion of the place so selected, and to file the same in the f>tifice of the county clerk of Richardson count\. who was re(]uired to file and keep on file such findings. The place thus designated was de- clared to be the "seat of justice" for the new county. The act further required the setting aside of "fifty lots of land" in the town so selected to be reserved for the use of such county, the moneys arising from the sale there- of to be by the county judge applied to the erection of a court house and other necessary- public buildings. I'rior to the i)assage of the foregoing act. .Vcting Governor Cuming had evidently marked out a county, lying west of Richard son. to be known as Jones county, ''"his pros- |)ecti\e county liegan at the northwest corner of Richardson county, as then constituted and which included both the ])resent counties of Pawnee and Richardson, and a])parently it was meant to extend thence northward to the I Matte river, aiul along the south side of that stream to the western boundary of the terri- tory, on the crest of the Rockv mountains ; fol- lowing this chain in a southeaster! v direction to the south line of the territory .uid thence back again to the southwest corner of Rich- ardson county and north to the jilace of be- ginning. In pre])aring for the election of nicmliers for the first legislature, the governor detailed Jesse Lowe, the deputy United States mar- shal, to visit the pro])osed county and as- certain the nmnber of settlers therein, lie was instructed to apportion to it one or more re])resentatives, as the number of inhabitants should require, and to arrange for ,V. HISTORY OF GACzE COL'XTY. NEBRASKA 37 the holding of an election in such coimty. Whether the deputy marshal actually visited the prospective county is douhtful, but on the 10th dav of December, 1S54, he reported to ihe acting governor that there were no voters in said county, "unless a few living in the ■ neighborhood of Bellews precinct in Richard- son county, and who would naturally vote in said precinct." But as we have already seen, within three months from the date of this re- port, a bill passed both branches of the legis- lative assembly and became a law, creating the county of Gage, defining its boundaries and ])roviding for the location of a seat of jus- tice in and for said county. But it takes more than broad acres and legis- lative enactments to create a body politic. At ihe time the first territorial legislature sought to immortalize its chajjlain, the Rev. William I). Gage, by Ijestowing his name on that por- tion of th^ pulilic domain w hich it had erected into Gage county, there is not known to have been a single actual settler within its boun- daries, and it is doubtful if at that time there was a single white person in the county. It was, in fact, more than two years after the jjassage of this act before a sufficient nimiber of settlers had gathered in the county to at- tempt its organization. No evidence is known to exist which shows that the commission charged with the dtity of locating a county seat or "seat of jus- tice" for Gage coimty ever met or acted under the authority thus conferred upon it. But at the third session of the territorial assembly, begun and held at Omaha. Jan- uary 5, 1857. an act was passed (and ap- proved February 13, 1857), locating the "seat of justice" of said county at W'hites- \ille. The site thus selected by the assembly as the future county seat of Gage county com- ];riscd the southeast (|narter of the southeast (|uarter of section twent\-nine in Rock ford townshi]), located a little south of the present village of llolmesville. two miles east and one- half mile north of the geographical center of the county as originally created. For several vears thereafter the stout oak stakes driven imo the prairie to mark the corners of lots in W'hitesville were plainly visible. Prairie fires finally consumed them and with their destruc- tion all trace of the projected "seat of justice" for Gage county disappeared. The first territorial assembly, by an act passed and approved March 14, 1855, provided that whenever the citizens of any unorganized county desired to organize the same a majority of the legal voters of the countv might make Rkv. W n.i.iAM U. Gagk Chaplain of the first legislature application to the ]irobate judge of the county to which it was attached for election purposes for an order calling an election for county officers in such unorganized county. The act further jjrovided that all unorganized counties should be attached to the nearest organized county to the eastward for election, judicial. and revenue purposes. Under this act. Gage county at the moment of its creation became automatically attached to Pawnee county for the purposes specified in the act, until such date as it had perfected its own organization. On the 5th day of .\ugust, 1857, shortly after the arrival of the company of colo- nists who founded the city of Beatrice, stejis were initiated bv them to organize Gage 38 F^ISTOR^• nV gage C()LXTV. xeuraska foiinty. with Beatrice as the county seat, and this witliout complying with the provisions of the act above nicntionefi. The townsite en- thusiasts appear to have gone through a form of an election of county officers at that time. It is said that thirty-three votes were cast and it seems that a full list of county officials were chosen. .\t that date there could not have been over fifty white persons within the county of (>age and it is doubtful if there were a dozen voters outside of the Beatrice Town- site Company. The minutes of the count) commissioners, or county court, as it was then called, in and for (>age county, begin March 13, 1S5S. wherein it ajipears that Albert Towle and II. M. Reynolds acted as county commis- sioners and Nathan Blakely as county clerk of said county. These minutes are the first county records of any kind in e-xistence, and in a sense they form an unbroken, continuous record of the transactions of the county board of the county from the beginning. The min- utes of the first meeting read as follows ; "Commissioners court, held March 13, 183S. at which orilered that a county election should be held on Saturday, March 2Sth, to relocate the county seat of Cage county : also to elect a sheriff in place of Daniel I'. Taylor, who failed to ([ualify ; also to elect a county trea- surer in the place of Calvin Miller, who failed to qualify : also to elect a recorder in the place of John Hart, who failed to qualify; also a suiierintendent of common schools in place of \. B Fieldin, who failed to qualify. "It was ordered: That the county be di- vided into two precincts for election purposes : that townships one and two shall be called ])recinct \o. 1, and that townshi])s three and four shall !)e called ])rccinct Xo. 2. "Isma Mumford. John Mcllowell and I'.cn- nett Pike were a])])ointed judges of election in precinct Xo. 2; Rankin Johnson, James John- son and Henrj- Klliott judges of election for jiricinct Xo. 1. The court then adjourned." The next meeting of the commissioners' court was held at the house of .Albert Towle ( )ctober 7. 18.^8, and the third meeting was held at the same place Xovember 29, 1858, both designated as regular meetings, with the same officers jiresent as at the first meeting. The next regular meeting of the commission- ers' court was held January 3, 1859; present Commissioners Towle and Reynolds and County Clerk Nathan Blakely. And on .April 13, 1859, at a special meeting of the commis- sioners' court, there occurs the following en- try : ".\l a meeting at a s])ccial term of the Co. Court held at the house of .\. Towle, on the 13th day of .\pril, 1859, present: Commis- sioners .Albert Towle and H. M. Revnolds. It was ordered and the following preamble and resolutions be adopted : "\\'iiKiage county have petitioned the county commissioners of Pawnee county to issue an order for an election for the purpose of organizing said Cage county. Therefore, "Rksoi.n i:i). That we protest against any such order being issued by the aforesaid com- missioners of r*awnee county or any action being taken thereon by the citizens of pre- cinct No. One of Gage county. "Rksoi.vki), That we claim that Gage county was regularly organized bv an election held on the 3d day of Augu.st, 1857; that as evidence of this fact we have the certificate from the county clerk of Pawnee countv cer- tifying that the officers elected at the said elec- tion were duly elected. .And also the fact that the county clerk of said Gage county elected at the said election was duly c|ualified l>y the county clerk of Pawnee county. "In addition to the above the returns of an election held since the above named ha\ e been recognized by the board of territorial can- vassers as being issued by a regularly organ- ized county. "It is ordered that the county clerk of Gage county forward a copy of the above preamble and resolutions to the county clerk of Pawnee county. .\lso send a copy of the same into l)recinct No. (,)ne of Gage county. "The court then adjourned. "N.\Tii.\x Bt..\KELV, Co. Clerk." It is clear from this preamble and these HISTORY OF GAGE CUL'XTV. XELiRASKA 39 resolutions that active steps liad been taken l)y the county-seat promoters at Beatrice to validate the election of August 3, 1857. A second election had been held March 27, 1859, for the evident purpose of filling the county offices in all cases where the officials chosen at the first election had failed to qualify. Prob- ably at the second election no action was taken on the county-seat matter, as specified in the commissioners' proceedings under date of March 13. 1858. Blue Springs had become an aspirant for that honor, and as both voting precincts of the county participated in the election of March 27, 1859, a contest at the polls over that question appears to have been avoided. The location of the county seat and the in- I ■ sistence of Beatrice on the legality of the or- ganization of the countv in August, 1857, bv the Beatrice Tnwnsite Company had become so acute a subject of difference between the rival towns, that precinct No. 1, Blue S])rings, failed to participate in the annual election held .\ugust 2. 1858. At the meeting of the com- nn'ssioners' court under date of July 4, 1859, among other things, it was ordered that Albert Towle, Samuel Jones, and Nathan Blakely be allowed and ]5aid $1.50 each as judges of elec- tion at Beatrice, .August 2, 1858, and that W. n. Spencer and Myron Newton be allowed and paid a like sum each for acting as clerks of that election, but nothing seems to have been allowed any citizen of Blue Springs or vicinity for acting as a judge or a clerk in precinct No. 1 in this election. In the spring of 1859, both Blue Springs and Beatrice attempted to assess Gage county, each claiming to have lawful right to perform that service. Blue Springs because of the as- sumed illegality of the county organization claimed to have been effected by Beatrice in -August. 1857. and because of her pending ap- ]ilication to the conmiissioners of Pawnee county for the calling of an election to eff'ect the legal organization of the county ; and Be- atrice, by virtue of the election in 1857, and her assumption of its regularitv. The resolu- tions of Commissioners Towle and Reynolds above set forth, under date of April 4, 1859. put an end to that movement on the j)art of Blue Springs, and both precincts of the county participated in the election of 1859. To ter- minate the dissension that grew out of this rivalry, the legislative assembly, at its session begun and held at Omaha, December 5, 1S59, passed an act entitled : "An act to legalize the first organization of Gage county, the location of the county seat at Beatrice and the official acts of the officers of said county." There can be no doubt but that the alleged organization of the county by the Beatrice Townsite Company in August, 1857, was ir- regular and probably illegal from its inception. There appears to be no evidence that the en- thusiastic townsite boomers made the slight- est effort to comply with the law then in ef- fect, regulating the organization of counties, and this fact seems to have been recognized by the legislature in passing the alrove de- scribed act. The passage of this act destroyed forever the hopes of Blue Springs respecting the county seat of the new county. This unpre- tentious outpost of civilization possessed many advantages which were justly counted in its favor as an aspirant to first place in civic honors. It is a romantic spot, beautifully lo- cated on the Big Blue river, and during all the times here mentioned it was a prospective sta- tion on a projected cutoff from the old mili- tary highway from Fort Leavenworth to the west, which, leaving the main road at Rich- mond, Nemaha county, Kansas, a few miles below Seneca, on the Nemaha river, led north- west from Blue Springs and beyond, inter- secting the main road at some point east and south of the famous Rock Creek Station, in Jefl'erson county. Blue Springs also was on a main traveled road from Marj'sville, Kansas, through the Otoe Indian village to Beatrice. It possessed natural advantages for a city wdiich were wanting to some extent in its rival. It was several miles nearer the geographical center of the county than Beatrice, and its few inhabitants were people of worth and char- acter, equal in these respects to the Beatrice colonists. Its most serious drawback was its ])r(i.\imitv to the (Hoe and Missouri Indian 40 HISTORY OF GAGE COL'XTY. XKURASKA reservation, the north line of which was only two miles distant. Beatrice may have been more in line with the direct travel both east and west, and it cer- tainly possessed the controlling advantage of a central location as respected the white inhabi- tants of the county at that time. In addition to these things, its destiny was in the hands of men who were fully alive to the advantages that would accrue to them by controlling the organization of the county from the very first, and by this and other methods securing at Beatrice the county seat. The changing years have probably vindicated their judgment. With its present boundaries, Beatrice is un- questionably the most desirable location as a seat for the government of our splendid county. The animosities which may have been engendered by the county-seat rivalry of more than a generation ago have long since passed away, and the two historic territorial cities of Gage county, their early dissensions for- gotten, for many years have dwelt together in the bonds of unity and friendship. CHAPTER V OLD CLAY COUNTY Act Creating — Organization — Austin — SETTLiiMENTs — Partitioning — John C.-UJMAN — Joint Meeting Commissioners of Gage and Lancaster Counties Prior to the passage of the act creating Gage county and defining its boundaries, the first territorial assembly, on the 6th day of March, 1855. passed an act "To define the boundaries and establish the seat of justice for Lancaster county," and on the following day an act was passed creating Clay county and defining its boundaries. Gideon Bennett and James H. Decker, members of the assembly from former Pierce (now Otoe) county, and D. M. John- son, representative from Richardson county, were appointed by the last named act as legis- lative commissioners "to locate the seat of justice for Clay county" : and a third section of the act provided "that the seat of justice in and for Clay county shall be called Cla- tonia." Both of these counties, like Gage, were twenty-four miles square. Clay lying north of Gage and south of Lancaster, but joining each. and consisting of a fine body of land, with an unusual proportion of rich upland prairie. Clay was duly organized into a county pursuant to the act creating it and defin- ing its boundaries, and entered upon its separate existence as such. No evidence is known to exist to show that any place was ever selected by the legislative commission as a county seat or seat of justice for Clay county. While several towns or villages ap- I)ear to have been laid out on paper, there was never in fact any semblance of a town in Clay county. The nearest approach to it seems to have been a group of squatters on the public domain about what was known as .\ustin's mill, on Stevens (now Indian) creek. Here, in 1S57, came Hiram \V. Parker. Fordvce Roper, Edward C, Charles, and Homer B. .\ustin, also (Jrrin Stevens, who gave his name to Indian creek at that ])oint — a name which the Beatrice colonists always refvised to recognize. Possibly a few other early set- tlers gathered near there on the public domain, and an efifort was made to establish a town which could become in the course of time a county seat for the ulw county. Kdward C. Austin had located a claim in the latter part of April or earlv in Mav, 1857, in the imme- diate vicinity of the present village of Pick- rell. He had built a log cabin, staked out ,i forty-acre tract of his claim into town lots, and called the proposed town Austin. Shortly thereafter he purchased and brought to his claim a saw mill and buhrs for a grist mill, and erected the former on the east side of Indian or Stevens creek, on the north side of the present road leading east from Pickrell. A little below the mill, on the east side of In- dian creek, was the suneyed town of Austin. Xo dwellings or other structures were ever erected on the tov.-nsite and '.he mill itself proved a financial failure, due in part to the fact that it was not on the line of western bound emigrant travel, and in part to the fact that there was scarcely any demand for lumber in that locality, but more to the fact that a saw mill was established about the same time in Beatrice, by the Beatrice Town'^ite Com- pany. About the year 1862 the buhrs of Austin's mill were purchased by Mr. Fordyce Roper for use in a null which he was then erecting in Beatrice. This move broke up the prospective town of Austin and nothing more 41 42 HISTORY OF (;.\GE COLWTV. XEISRASKA was heard of il. Ihe Austins left the cuuu- try : Parker. Roper, aiul Stevens moved to Beatrice, and no one was left to take their j)laces in furthering the interests of this for- lorn hojK'. In addition to the projected town of Austin, there was at least one serious effort to found a town in the north half of Clay county. In that section of the county, John D. I'rey and family had established a residence near Roca, July 26, 1K56. The following year other set- tlers joined them, among whom were J. L. Davidson, W. W. Dunham, and I. C. Bristol. .\ townsite company was formed, composed of John I,. Davidson, Joseph B. Weeks, James S. Goodwin. John G. Haskins. and George L. Bristol : a forty-acre tract of land was sur- veyed into town lots and the prospective town named Olathe. This ambitious project was lo- cated on Salt creek, about three-quarters of a mile west of the ford where the road from .Vebraska City to Denver crossed that stream, a few yanls north of the spot where the pres- ent bridge at Roca is located. The Olathe (|uarries were only a short distance awav. there was some wood along the creek, and these appear to have been the determining fac- tors in the location of the town. Nothing came of this venture, and at the time Clay county was divided there was not a single town, village, or hamlet within its bounds. Clay county as thus constituted was large- ly a treeless scope of countrj-, rather poorlv watered, especially on the upland, and it was generally thought that there was no desirable central location for a county seat in the county Its big. roiling, unbroken prairies did not look uniting to men who were wholly dependent for so important a matter as fuel upon timber along the streams. The settlements had been confined to those localities where timber could be had. In addition to the settlement in the neighborhood of Austin's mill, others were made in 18.^7. in Adams township, along the Big Xeniaha river at several points in the north half of Clay county, along Salt creek and its tributaries, and a few squatters on the public domain might li.ive been found in the southwest corner of the county, along the Big Blue river. The maintenance of county government in a county whose pojiulation was so sparse and so widely separated, would, it was thought, be an expensive and diflficult problem under any cir- cumstances, and the early settlers of the county, realizing the situation, were for the most pari readily persuaded to embrace a scheme for the division of their county. This movement was started in 1863. John P. Cadman. residing near the village of Lancaster, in the neighbor- hood known as Yankee Hill, where the present .\sylum for the Insane, at Lincoln, is located. was that year elected the representative of Gage. Clay, and Lancaster counties in the ter- ritorial legislature. He is said to have carried with him a petition signed by a majority of the legal voters of Clay county praying the legislature to divide that county and attach the north half to Lancaster and the south half to Gage county, ^\'hether this is true or not a bill was brought forward early in the session of the assembly, which convened at Omaha. Januan- 7. 1864. to effect such division and distribution of old Clay county. Some oppo- sition developed at first to this measure in the legislative body, headed by Mr. John S. Gregory, a colleague of Cadman's. But the obvious advantages of this imjwrtant measure to all three counties were such that Gregory was finally induced to lend his influence to the act. The bill, which passed the assembly on the 15th day of February, 1864, was carefully and skilfully drawn by the late P. M. Mar- quette. It was entitled "An act to attach the north half of Clay county to the comity of Lancaster and the south half of Clay county to the county of Gage." It covered every ])ossible contingency that might arise from the proposed division. It declared the or- rganization of the county of Clay to be for- ever at an end. and constituted the board of county commissioners of Lancaster and Gage counties "A board to meet at such time and place as they might agree upon for the pur- pose of effecting the division of Clay county HISTORY OF GAGE COUNTY, NEBRASKA 43 pursuant to the provisions of this act." In comphance with the terms of the act, the commissioners of Gage county on July 26, 1864, held a joint session with the commis- sioners of Lancaster county, represented by John W. Prey, at the home of Hiram W. Parker, the county clerk of Clay county, in Beatrice, for the purpose of effecting a set- tlement of the affairs of that county. The preliminary entry on the journal of the rec- ords of the county commissioners of Gage county as respects this meeting reads as fol- lows : "County Court, July Z(>, 1864. Commis- sioners of Lancaster and Gage. "At a meeting of the county commissioners of the counties of Gage and Lancaster, held at the house of H. \V. Parker, for the pur- pose of receiving the accounts, books, monies, and all and any other property belonging to Clay county, and for the purpose of a settle- ment of the accoimts to and with the officers of the aforesaid county of Clay. "There were present county commissioners from Gage county. Fordyce Roper, F. H. Dohbs and \\ illiam Tyler. From the county of Lancaster, John W. Prey." As illustrative of the niea.ner vnhniie of business transacted by a county in that early day, as well ])erhaps as the poverty and sim- plicity of the times, the remainder of the rec- ord of the meeting mentioned in the ]ireceding paragraph may not be without interest to the reader or regarded as inappropriate to this history. It reads as follows : ( )Ri)i:k 111' lU'siNicss Ordered 1st. — That the account of H. W. 1 'arker be allowed for services as county clerk (Clay County) from April 4, 1864 to lulv 28, 1864, 3J.4 months at $4.25 per month, $15.00. And that the Clerk of Clay County draw a warrant on the county treasurer for the same. Ordered 2nd. — That John W. Prey be al- lowed 811.00, his per cent, for collecting Co. revenue and that the Co. clerk of Clay County draw warrant on the Co. treasurer for the same. 3rd. — That the clerk of Clay County draw warrants on the Co. treasurer for John \V. Prey for $25.80, said amount having been paid out by him for non-assessed sinking fund for the year 1861. 4th. — By an examination of the Clay County record, the total amount of indebted- ness was found to be $211.95. 5th. — The assessed \aluation of property in the south half of Clay County for the year 1864 is $13,482.00. 6th. — The assessed valuation of property in the north half of Clay County for the year 1864 is $22,647.82. 7th. — The total amount of indebtedness to be paid by the north half of Clay County ac- cording to apportionment is $185.70. 8th. — The total amount of indebtedness to be paid bv the south half of Clav Countv is $110.75. ( )rdered 9th. — That the county treasurer of Cla}' County pay over all monies in his hands to their respective funds. Ordered 10th. — That all offices in Clay County be declared vacant from this date, ex- cept precinct officers. ( Signed ) ( )liver Townsend, Co. Clerk for Gage Co. F. Roper, F. H. Dobbs, William Tyler, John W. Prey. The reader has now looked upon the closing scene of old Clay county. Seldom have the obsequies of so important an organization as a splendid county been attended with greater simplicity or with less bitterness and dissen- sion. It is easy to read betw-een the lines of the act of dissolution the paramount influence of the rising city on the south and the am- bitious village of Lancaster on the north, so soon to lose its identity in the noblest monu- ment that has yet been reared to the martyr- president, the heroic Abraham Lincoln. Lapse of time has proved that the few heroic spirits of Stevens creek. Pierce, Hear, the Nemaha and Salt, would have been more than justified in persisting to the last in maintaining the separate existence of their county. The traveler who now motors over northern Gage and southern Lancaster counties is charmed with the beauty of the landscape and the fer- tility of the soil. Where once only a few souls gathered in isolation and loneliness along the widely separated streams within these IIIST()R^' ( )F OM'.V. ViASTY. XEI'.KASKA Ixmndarii's. he tiiuls a coiiunieil. i)rus|«.Tuu^. and happy population numbering many thou- sands. W'liere once stretched the silent and. to many, desolate prairies, he beholds wide- s])readiiij; lields, meadows and pasture lands, jjroves and orchards ; he finds also commodi- ous and not infrequently cle,E;ant country homes. Xo finer upland site tor an ambitious county-seat town can be anywhere found in the west than that occupied by the present vil- iafje of Cortland, near the ulation, amounting to over 1.000.000 gallons a day, from what is known as Zimmerman Springs, a few miles northwest of the city, — a sujjplv which under scientific analysis has been foun- 17, 1875, providing for the issu- ing of state bonds, to the amount of fifty thousand dollars, "For the purjiose of pro- viding seed for the citizens of counties devas- tated by grasshoppers during the year 1.^74." Most of the counties in the state, including Gage, were beneficiaries of these relief meas- ures, and by these various means thousands of homesteaders were held upon their claims and the state was spared wholesale depopu- lation in many counties. Great alarm existed during the winter of 1874-1875, as well as the following spring and early summer, on account of the billions and billions of grasshopper eggs that had been deposited in the ground the previous autumn. The e.xact facts of the case with respect to the deposition of grasshopper eggs staggers belief. Scarcely an inch of land or a clod of dirt but contained several nests of grasshop- per eggs, closely packed in a sealed mass, about an inch in length, numbering probablj' one hundred eggs to a package, shaped like and about the size of a small ant egg. When hatching time came in the spring, the sight was simply wonderful. Myriads upon multi- plied myriads of small, young hoppers ap- peared everywhere, so thick in places upon the rails of the railway tracks as to impede travel. Words fail to describe adequately the situation. The young hoppers were ravenous. In a large portion of the state every green, edible thing disappeared as if by magic. They matured rapidly and by the 20th of May or a little later the young pests got their wings and shape, after a succession of moultings, and became, by an almost instantaneous transition from a mere rusty hopper, a winged insect capable of prolonged flight. The migration began the moment their wings ajipeared. The young, wingless insects would begin hopping with a wind from the north, when suddenly with a mighty hop their wings would appear and, spreading them, they would sail away southward on the favoring breeze. In a few days all were gone and the replanting of the corn, oats, and gardens began. But on June 15, 1875, a south wind brought them back. Pale, anxious, frightened groups of men gathered in the cities and villages to discuss the situation, business came to a standstill, and appalling disaster seemed imminent. But Providence had intervened to avert the threatened ruin. It was soon observed that I HISTORY OF GAGE COUNTY. XEl'.RASKA although they had . settled in multiplied bil- lions in the lields and gardens, no depreda- tions were committed. An examination showed that every insect was the victim of more than a single species of parasite, amongst them being a small, yellowish boring beetle, at the base of the wings. None ever again rose in flight. They remained stationary a few hours and perished. Here in Gage countv, Avhere comparatively little damage had been done to the growing crops by the young hop- pers, a cold rain set in the night of their re- turn, and when it was over there was not a single live grasshopper to be found. Their bodies were washed, by wagon loads, into the draws, frequently damming them and im- peding the flow of surface water from the rain. This was the last of the much and justly dreaded grasshopper scourges. More than two score vears have elapsed since the final appearance of this strange and destruc- tive migratory insect, and the state of Ne- braska has become rich and powerful, but the man who was living in Nebraska in 1S74 wit- nessed a scourge of locusts greater than that of Pharaoh. The Gr.vsshoppeks KnWIN FORI) PIPER Down by the orchard plot a man and boy. The boy's hat just above the whitened floor Of oats half hiding the young trees and sway- ing Under a strong breeze in the blazing noon. The man looks upward, blinks with dazzled eyes. Then shading face with hand peers painfulh ; Little winged creatures drive athwart the sun. High up, in ceaseless, countless flight to the north. His mood runs hot envisioning the past. "It was three years ago this very day. "Three years ago that clinging, hopping horde Made the earth crawl. With slobbery mouths, -Ml leafage, woody twig, and grain, and grass. They utterly consumed, leaving the land Abominable. The wind-borne ])lague rained down On the full-leaved tree where laughter rippled light To answer odorous whispers of the flowers. Soon, naked to the blistering sun, it stared .\t the bones of its piteous comrades. After- wards, A jest to strangers — charity — cattle hun- gering — Women and children starving ! But the power of the creatures ! The daughters of the locust, numberless, num- berless ! laws bite", throats suck, the beauty of lovely fields Is in their guts, the world is but a mummy !" .Man and l)ov turn from the oats and the vigorous orchard : But as they go the lad is looking, looking 'I'o see, high up, like gnats, the winged mil- lions Moving across the sun. May God rebuke them ! As long as the human race was represented in Nebraska by wandering savages who dwelt sparsely in widely separted communities it was possible for every form of wild life to thrive and increase, but when the white man spreads abroad over nature's wide domain, maintaining fixed habitations, he dominates all forms of life. And the settlement of Nebraska by the palefaced race has brought tremendous changes in its primitive forms. Gone are the useful buff'alo, the stately elk, the deer, the antelope, from which the Indian fed and clothed him- self and manufactured many of the crude utensils for his own use ; gone the larger felines that preyed upon them; fish, bird, and even insect life have also been notably modi- fied by the presence of the white man. The game birds have almost totally disappeared, with the curlews and the plovers, while the wild goose, brant, crane, and duck are rarely seen except in their long, high, semi-annual pilgrimages to and from their breeding grounds on the Saskatchewan and the far north. The denizens of the streams have been depleted both in quantity and quality, many species having wholly disappeared, as the pike, pickerel, bullhead, sucker, chub, red horse, and perch. The waters of our county no longer abound with the buffalo fish or the cat, and even the vicious gar-pike has become scarce. While these are taken in limited num- bers, the carp, an alien fish, has largely sup- planted them, liven the great Missouri has 56 HISTORY OF GAGE COLXTV. NEBRASKA suffered similar depletions and invasions and the faithful and continuous efforts of the state through its fish commission to restock our streams with desirable edible fish have so far proved of doubtful value. The beaver and the otter, which once were found in numbers about the water courses of southeastern Nebraska, have almost wholly disappeared. The mink, muskrat, and skunk are still occasionally trapped or shot, but their pursuit is no longer a profitable occupa- tion. The wolves, badgers, mountain lions, and other no.xious carnivora have either been driven away or hunted and killed, until only an occasional coyote, bob cat, or badger is found where once they abounded. Few repre- sentatives of the reptilian family remain and these are mostly of an innocuous kind. Animal life of the state has been affected too by the additions to it which man has con- sciously made or which have followed his course. Beside.; the domestic animals which replaced the buffalo, elk, and deer and made civilization possible on the "Great .American Desert," wherever man builds, plants, sows, gathers, or reaps, there is found in its greatest perfection the house Hy, the Colorado potato- beetle, the chinch bug. the cut-worm, and other insects that prey upon the roots, stems, and leaves of his fields, gardens, and orchards. I CHAPTER VIII THE PUBLIC DOMAIN Nemaha Land District — BrownvillE Land Ofeice — Registers and Receivers — FERED and UnOFEERED LaNDS PREEMPTIONS — FrEE HoMESTEAD LaW — AGRI- CULTURAL College Land Grant Act — Operation of the Act — Col- lege Scrip Entries in Townships — Homestead Entries Of^ The public domain of the United States has dwindled to a mere fraction of what it was in 1854. when the territory of Nebraska was created by act of congress. The system by which the United States government under- took to dispose of its lands has worked as ef- ficiently as any department of the public ser- vice. In every state and territory where pub- lic lands were located, and particularly here in the west, the federal land office has always proved an effective and a most important fac- tor in the settlement and development of the country. The prospective settler has met. at the verv outset of his inquiries, the organ- ized agencies of his government, prepared to lend him all possible assistance in selecting and locating upon a tract of land. The local land office for the district in which Gage county was situated in the early pioneer days, was established at Brownville, Nemaha county, Nebraska, under an act of congress, dated March 3, 1857, and opened for business about that time. The land dis- trict was officially described as the Nemaha District, while amongst the people it was al- most universally designated as the Brownville h'nd district. The office continued in opera- tion at Brownville from the date of its estab- lishment to July 7, 1868, when it was re- moved to Beatrice. The district was there- after known as the Beatrice land district, and it embraced Nemaha, Richardson, Paw- nee, Johnson, Gage. Jefferson. Saline. Fill- more, Thayer, Nuckolls, and Clav counties. The office was maintained at Beatrice from July 7, 1868, to the 15th day of September, 1887, when the district was consolidated with the Lincoln land district and the records of the Beatrice office were removed to Lincoln. For more than thirty years this office was a necessary and an important factor in the affairs of the inhabitants of the district which it served. Through its ministrations many homes were established and the foundation for many a fortune laid. The volume of business transacted at this office through the greater portion of its existence was enor- mous. Its officials were called upon to advise the settlers both with respect to the laws under which public lands were granted to in- dividuals and the methods of complying with these laws once the entryman had availed himself of their benefits. The officers of the local land offices of the United States are des- ignated as register and receiver. The fixed salary attached to each office was $500 and an additional amount, on the fee basis, was al- lowed, not to exceed ,$2,500, or $.^.000 in all. The ofiicers of the old Brownville-Beatrice land office were uniformly gentlemen of high character and excellent ability. Their names may be regarded as worthy of preservation in a work of this kind. At Brownville the offi- cials were : George H. Nixon. Register, April 9, 1857, temporary : April 16, 1858, permanent. Charles B. Smith. Receiver, .\pril 11. 1857. temporary: .April 16. 1858. jiermanent. 58 HISTORY (JF GAC.E COIXTV. XEl'.R ASKA Richard F. Barrett, Register, May 27. 1861, tiin])orar\ : July 26, 1861, permanent. I. F!d\vard Burbank, Receiver, May 27, 1>!'^>1, teni])orary. (ieorgc F. Watton, Receiver, June 21. 1861, temporary July 2b, 1861, permanent. Sewell K. Jamison, Receiver, March 10, 18<')2, i)ermanent. Charles G. Dorsey, Register, July 25, 1865, tcmijorary : May 16, 1866, permanent. Theodore W. Bedford, Register, Novem- ber 5. 18<')6, teniix)rary. Henry M. Atkinson, Register. March 7, 1867, permanent. John S. Carson, Receiver, April 15, 1867, ])crmaiient At Beatrice the officials were : lliram \V. Parker, Register, June 2. 1871. temporary; December 27, 1871. permanent; January 22, 1876, pemianent ; January 29, 1880, i)ermanent. Xathan Blakely, Receiver, August 10, 1869, lemi>orary ; December 28, 1869, permanent. Robert B. I larrington, Receiver, September 10, 1875, temporary ; December 17, 1875, per- manent ; December 22, 1879, permanent. Hugh J. Dol)l)s. Register, March 7, 1884. William 11. Somers, Receiver, March 24, 1881. Jose])h I nil. I\eceiver, June 9. 1885. tem- ]K>rary. Ivhvard R. Fogg, Recei\er, May 24, 1886, l)ermanent. In the beginning of the land office in the old Xemaha district, the ]Hiblic lands were classified as offered and iiiioffercd lands. The former comprised all those tracts which had been formally offered by the local land office for sale at public auction, for cash, to the high- est i)idder, the minimum bid allowed being one dollar and twenty-five cents per acre. The unotTered lands comprised all public lands wliich li.id not been placed on sale at public auction, for cash, to the higiiest bidder. This distinction in the public land laws was made by act of congress in the early "408. and con- tinued from that time until May 18, 1898, when the law criMtintj tlie distinction was re- ])ealed. In districts where ottered lands were lo- cated, those not sold at public vendue when offered, could be aftenvard bought without settlement for cash, at one dollar and twenty- five cents per acre. UnotTered lands were not o])en for cash entry. In both classes title could l)e acquired by entry and actual settlement under the ]3reeniption laws of congress. Like- wise military -bounty land warrants issued, under the acts of 1847 and 1855. to the soldiers and sailors of the Revolutionary war. the war ot 1812. the Mexican war. and the various In- dian wars, could be used in purchasing public lands of the United States, regardless of the foregoing distinction. And under the home- stead act, effective January 1, 186.1. this dis- tinction was also ignored and entry could be made anywhere on the public domain on lands not reserved or otherwise appropriated by con- gress. The offered lands in the old P.rownville- Beatrice land district were confined to the Missouri river counties. From first to last Gage county presented a clear field for entry of land under the preemption, homestead, and other acts for acquiring title on the pub- lic domain. Prior to the passage of the home- stead law the settlers acquired title under the l)reem])tion act, where purchase was not made by military-bounty land warrants. The pro- cedure under the preemption laws as applied by claimants was simplicity itself. It con- sisted in performing some act which amounted to notice to the world of an intention on the part of the settler to claim the tract selected by him — as the erection of some sort of a dwelling or the placing of a foundation for a cabin on the land selected ; any act, in fact, which manifested an intent to claim a given tract of land and which at the same time amounted to notice of such intent to an ad- verse claimant. Such act must of course be followed by fding in the local land office a written declaration of intent on the part of the claimant to enter and purchase said land ; it must also be followed by actual settlement on his i)art. and in twelve months by proof of settlement, of improvement, and the payment to the government of one dollar and twenty- HISTORY OF GAGE COUNTY, NEBRASKA 59 five cents per acre in cash or in military- "bounty land warrants, or, at a later date, by college scrip at the same rate per acre. A number of preemption filings were made on Gage county land prior to the taking effect of the homestead law, January 1, 1863, but these were followed by comparatively few final entries. In actual practice, the squatter on the public domain performed his acts of settlement, filed hrs declaration of intentions in the local land office to ajjpropriate said land and pay for the same, made improvements, es- tablished his residence upon the land, and in many instances; without perfecting his entry under the preemption acts, remained in open, exclusive, adverse possession until the home- stead law became eft'ective, when he availed himself of its benefits by changing his pre- emption into a homestead. Once in actual possession the "Squatter Sovereign" ran little risk of being disturbed by a rival claimant. By a sort of freemasonry existing between them, the settlers allowed it to be understood that there must be no claim jumping, and claim jumpers in Gage county were pretty scarce. The passage of the free-homestead bill by congress nearly two and one-half years before the close of the great Civil war, was followed, after the close of the war, by a tremendous influx of settlers on the public domain, wher- ex'er free homes could Ije found, and Ciage county rapidly filled with actual settlers seek- ing permanent homes in this beautiful section of country, many of them veterans of the Civil war. But in 1867 this movement was sud- denly and permanently halted l)y the operation of what is known as the .\gricultural College Eand Grant Act. ^\'hatever one may think of the beneficent purpose of this act, whereby the national leg- islature was induced, without the slightest financial consideration, to appropriate nearly ten million acres of the public lands of the United States for educational purposes, there can be no diflference of opinion as to the im- providence and wastefulness of this legisla- tion. As set forth in the title to the act, the purpose of this vast donation was to jirovide for the establishment of one or more institu- tions in each state, "the leading object of which shall be, without excluding other scien- tific and classical studies, and including mili- tary practice, to teach such branches of learn- ing as are related to agriculture and mechanic arts, in such manner as the legislatures of the states shall respectively prescribe, in order to promote the liberal and practical education of the industrial classes in the several pursuits and professions of life." Had the operation of this act been confined to those states and territories whose wealth consisted chiefly in the public lands within their boundaries, and which, on account of poverty, were unable to make suitable provis- ion for the education and training of their young men and women, it would be beyond just criticism and worthy of all praise. Prob- alily that was the original intent and purpose of the act, but the selfishness of the old and wealthy states, where there were no public lands, resulted in a distortion of the original intent, and in the end imparted to the act the appearance of a land-grabbing device of colos- sal proportions, by which states with large delegations in congress profited enormouslv at public expense. For the bill in its passage through congress to secure the support of the representatives of those states where there were no public lands subject to entry or purchase under federal laws, an ingeneous scheme was devised where- bv scrip was to be issued to all such states for the full amount of their donative shares, at one dollar and twenty-five cents per acre, for the entire acreage due them on the basis of thirty thousand acres for each senator and rep- resentative in congress. The states holding this scrip could under the law either enter land with it themselves or sell it at private sale and use the proceeds of such sale as they deemed proper to carry out the purposes of the law. The result is perfectly obvious — the weak, helpless, needy states, rich only in the public lands within their borders, were restricted to the land itself at the rate of thirty thousand acres for each senator and represen- tative in congress, while the great, strong. 60 lIIStORY (JP GAGE COIXTV. XEUKASKA healthv. jjowerful states took their share in prices, some of the states were enabled, on ac- scrip, and either located it themselves at the count of the vast amount of their donative rate of one dollar and twenty-five cents per shares of the public lands, to endow most lib- acre on vast tracts of public lands or sold it erally the institutions founded under the act. upon the market for cash. Thus Nebraska Thus. Pennsylvania, with 780,000 scrip acres, received under the act ninety thousand acres received, at the low rate of fifty-two cents per of public land, which formed the nucleus for acre, from scrip sales alone the sum of $406,- its State L'nivcrsity. while the great state of 000: Massachusetts, with a donative share of New York received college scrip covering 390,000 acres of the public domain, from scrip 989,930 acres, part of which was sold on the sales alone received S219.000: and the other market at a fraction of its face value, the re- wealthy eastern states profited from scrip sales mainder being used to purchase vast areas of proportionally. When we take into account the finest pine land in the world, in Wiscon- the fact that the populous eastern states re- sin and Minnesota. From her donative share ceived the lion's share of this vast donation, New York realized $6,651,473.88, which vast and that the new prairie states and territories sum constitutes the endowment of Cornell and the northern timbered states and terri- University. Not a single state or territory- tories were despoiled of their rich and valuable failed to avail itself of the provisions of this lands under this act, to build up existing edu- enactment, by which a grand total of 9,397,340 cational institutions in New England, New acres of the public lands of the United States York. I'ennsylvania. New Jersey, Ohio. In- were nominally dedicated to the cause of diana. Illinois, and other landless states, the higher education. Only a comparatively few, improvidence and the selfishness of this legis- however. actually received their donative lation must be aj^parent to the dullest mind, shares in land. As might have Ijcen foreseen Gage county suffered severely from this by any jjatriotic and prudent statesman, the wasteful policy. Speculators thronged her vast ])rofit of this legislation inured to indi- prairies, their pockets and carpetbags stufTed viduals. The process by which this curious with college scrip bought at nominal figures and unexpected result was achieved was ver)' from Illinois. Ohio, Indiana, Pennsylvania, sim|)le. The scrip was thrown indiscriminately Massachusetts, Maine. New Hampshire. Mis- on the market and sold for cash to speculators, souri. Kentucky, .\labama. Mississippi. Rhode usually for a fraction of its nominal value, the Island. New York, and other scrip states, and l)urchaser or assignee succeeding to the rights in the summer of 1867 her broad, fertile acres of the states to select and pay for the public disappeared as by magic, at the very moment lands of the country with agricultural-col- when Nebraska had ceased to be a territory, lege scrip so purchased, at the rate of one dol- when the railroads had come or were on their lar and twenty-fi\e cents per acre. Thus. way. and when the pioneer days were over -Mabama scrip sold for one dollar and six and immigration was setting toward her in an cents per acre, leaving a margin of nineteen ever increasing stream. Keen-eyed ajjpraiscrs cents per acre profit to the purchaser; Arkan- went leisurely over our county's finest upland sas scrip sold for ninety cents. Connecticut regions and marked for entr>- even,- desirable scrip for seventy-five cents. Delaware ninety- '""act of land. The following table shows ap- two cents, Illinois one dollar, Indiana eighty- proximately the acreage thus entered in the seven cents, Kentucky sixty cents, Maine and several townships of our county during the Massachusetts fifty-six cents. Maryland and years 1867 and 1868. by the use of college New Jersey fifty-five cents. Missouri and scrip; Pennsylvania fifty-two cents, Ohio fifty-four Adams 19 section*. cents. New Hampshire thirty-two cents. North Nemaha 19 1-2 sections Carolina forty-six cents, and Rhode Island Highland 8 sections forty-one cents per acre. Even at these low Clatonia 3 1-4 sections HISTORY OF GAGE COUNTY. NEBRASKA 61 Grant 14 1-2 sections Holt 23 1-2 sections Hanover 29 1-2 sections Hooker 29 1-2 sections Filley 19 1-2 sections Logan 20 3-4 sections Midland 14 3-4 sections Blakcly 11 1-2 sections Lincoln 20 3-4 sections Riverside ; 24 3-4 sections Rockford 18 sections Sherman 31 1-2 sections Island Grove 15 1-2 sections Blue Springs 7 3-4 sections Sicily 12 1-2 sections I{hn 8 sections In the northern portion of the county at that time, most of Nemaha township, practically all of Highland, and a large part of both Cla- tonia and Grant townships had been with- drawn from public entry as state selections under the grant by the general government to the state of Nebraska of 500,000 acres of the jiublic domain for internal improvement, under the act of September 4, 1841. In 1871 these lands were opened for homestead entry, the state's application for the reservation of such lands having been rejected by the general land office at Washington, and were thus saved from the predatorj- effects of the Agricultural College Land Grant Act. In the south part of the county the Otoe and Missouri Indian reservation, of course, escaped speculative spoliation of the college scriptor. The dense population of those townships, where practi- cally each quarter-section of land went to an actual settler, shows what would have taken place had not more than one-half of Gage county's fair domain gone to increase the edu- cational facilities of the wealthy eastern states and line the pockets of speculators in college scrip. It may interest the reader to know that, not- withstanding the donation of this ';.rge acre- age of Gage county land in the way here de- scribed, a great many homestead entries were, in fact. nia Sicily 21 Liberty 20 Nemaha Clatonia g 12 Holt Hooker 21 Logan 2-1 Blakely 32 Riverside j,, Sherman g Blue Springs 14 Elm 10 A total of four hundred and forty- four en- tries. Assuming that each entry covered the maximum of one hundred and sixtv acres, the total acreage embraced in these homestead en- tries is 71,040. Subsequent to Januan,- 1, 1871, the public lands in our county subject to homestead entry were almost wholly con- fined to .\emaha. His^hland. Clatonia. and Grant townships, with an occasional entry in some of the other townships, usually growing out of the relinquishment and cancellation of a previous one. In these calculations the lands of the Otoe and Missouri Indian reservation, which were ceded to the United States in 1881 and which were afterward sold for the exclusive benefit of these Indians, for cash, to actual settlers only, under virtually the same conditions and restrictions as prevailed under the homestead law, are not considered. But if we add the 62 HISTORY ( )]•• GAGE COL'XTV. XEIiRASKA acreage of these lands to the acreage covered by homestead entries in our county, it will be seen that even then less than one-half the ter- ritory of ( >age county passed from the govern- ment of the United States to actual settlers. .\<>r are the lands the titles to \vhi:h were ac(|uired under the ])reeniption laws or cash entries with military-bounty land warrants, considered in the above calculations, Inil the lands so purchased from the L'nited States were not of sufficient acreage to affect to any extent the foregoing results. .\ moment's reflection will show the striking contrast between the beneficent influence of the free-homestead law and the effects of the agricultural-college act, not only in the early settlement and development of our county but in existing and future conditions. The one operated as a gift from heaven, descending upon an independent, self-respecting and in- dustrious population ; the other forms the basis of nearly every large landed fortune in the county. Without it there would have been no such indiviilual domain as the Scully es- tate, and the problem of landlordism in Gage countv would be scarcely worth considering. CHAPTER IX THE PIONEERS First Glimpse OF Gage County — Homebuilding ox the Praiuies — Food Supplies — Fruits — Fish — Game — The Buffalo — Clothes — Food Substitutes — First Wheat Crop — Spring Wheat — Common Salt — Social Life It should certainly be the delight of every age to pay grateful tribute to a noble or \aliant ancestry. The annals of mankind liave but meager interest when stripped of the personal element and confined to a bare narra- tive of events. But when vivified by the rec- ord of the lix'es of those whose heroic daring lifted them far above the ordinary, common jilane of living, history may become the most pleasing and instructive of all subjects of study. Xo history of our county would be com- ])lete which failed to render justice to its pioneers. Three score and four years have passed since the first wave of immigation broke over the eastern boundary of our state, which marked the close of the long struggle that attended the creation of the territory of Nebraska. Accustomed as we now are to comfortable and often luxurious homes, to cultivated fields, well kept, well traveled pul)- lic highways, to groves, orchards, meadows, churches and schools, to thriving villages and cities, to newspapers, manufactories, banks, business estalilishments. railroads, telegraph and tele])hone lines, to e\erything, in fact, that tv])ifies modern living, we are too prone to for- get the hard, difficult pioneer days, when there were no homes save the settlers' lonely dug- out, sod-house, or log-cabin ; wlien there were no fields or meadows save the rolling prairies, stretching away to the horizon on every hand, as far as the eye could see ; when there were no highwavs s;ive the meandering paths of the buffalo and Indian; when there were no or- chards, towns or cities, no railroads, telegraph or telephone lines ; when all the landscape was fresh from the hand of God, untouched and unchanged by the brain and genius of man. Not only are we in our present state of hap- piness and prosperity prone to forget the as- pect that nature wore in these primitive soli- tudes to the wondering view of the first in- habitants of our county, but we may even be .strongly inclined to hold as of trifling conse- quence the sacrifices required of pioneer life and to disparage the actual hardships, dan- gers, privations, and suffering which the\- en- dured whose heroism and courage made it possible for the lines of civilization to be ad- vanced upon the great plains region of the west. The thin line of immigrants th;it gathered in the spring and early summer of 1854, on the eastern shore of the Missouri river, await- ing the signal to enter the new territory of Nebraska, rapidly S])read o\er the eastern sec- tion of the territory contiguous to that mighty stream. And the early immigrants of Rich- ardson. Nemaha, Otoe, Cass, Sarpy, Douglas, and some other of the eastern counties, on ac- count of the navigation then existing on the river, were spared many of the privations of jjioneer life. But those who later pushed on into Gage and other counties remote from this, the only source of water transportation avail- able, experienced in every degree the hardships of isolated pioneer existence. If we turn back the pages that cover the 63 6+ HISTORY OF GAGE COUNTY. NEBRASKA sixty- four years of our state's history, we will tind that in 1S54 when people of the New England, the Middle, and the South Atlantic states spoke of the west they meant Ohio, In- diana or, at the farthest, Michigan, Wisconsin, Illinois, — or Iowa or Missouri when they mentioned our western border or frontier. The iininiyrants hound fur Nebraska territory in 1854, and for several years thereafter, usually crossed the Missouri river at Omaha. Platts- mouth. .Nebraska City, lirownville. or some less known village nestled amongst the bluffs on the western shore of that stream. The means of travel were in their crudest state. The intending immigrant might reach the river on foot, on horseback or by mule, ox or horse drawn vehicle, or by the deep-throated, side- wheel Missouri river steamboats, which in tiiose days traversed the "Big Muddy" from St. Louis to the trading posts of the trappers, traders, and frontiersmen scattered along it> banks to its source in the northwest. Once having crossed that turbulent stream, the im- migrant did not need to be told that he was on the very confines of civilization, since the crudity and newness of his surroundings were vocal with evidence of that fact. He found himself hundreds of miles from the nearest railway, while the future of the electric tele- graph was still wrapped up in a congressional aj)propriation of thirty thousand dollars, to en- able IVofessor Morse to perfect his wonderful invention. Eastward across the river lay the hamlets and sparse settlements of the new state of Iowa ; toward the west, from every ])oint as far as the eye could see. stretched the territorv of Nebraska, until then wholly unoc- cupied by civilized man. Of one thing the im- migrant could feel assured. — when he turned his back upon the Missouri river and faced the western horizon he was like an army cut off from its ba.se of sup])lies and lines of com- munication. I'lcfore him lay the undulating al- most treeless prairie, rolling away to the west, mirth, and south like the liillows of the ocean, hundreds upon hundreds of miles. It was the "Great .American Desert" of the old geogra- lihers: the "Plains" of the military department at Washington ; the El Dorado of the poor homeseeker ; the unorganized, tenantless ter- ritor}' of Nebraska, inhabited only by wild ani- mals and by the red man. almost equally wild. .\s he advanced westward a little in the bril- liant sunlit plain, the last trace of the presence of civilized man soon vanished. The dim wagon trail grew dimmer and more uncertain and finally disappeared, .\round on every hand the blue sky, descending to the horizon, encompassed him like a gigantic dome. A silence, a solitude that had brooded together over these vast areas since the world began, closed about him as his distance from the river settlements slowly increased. In these pri- meval solitudes he might remain for weeks, aye months, without seeing a single human face or hearing save his own, a single human voice. Such was the face that nature wore and the conditions that life presented to those who drew the first furrows in the virgin soil of Nebraska. But the tnte pioneer looks be- yond his present hard, uninviting surround- ings, and with prophetic vision beholds states and nations arise from tenantless wildernesses and naked plains. Others may grow weary or discouraged, and abandon the enterprise, — not so the pioneer. Destiny points his course and with unswerving fidelity he calmly awaits the fruition of his hopes ! lUit the pros])ect that confronted the Gage county pioneer in that long by-gone day — three score and four years ago — was not wholly uninviting, nor his surroundings as desolate, nor his condition as desperate as to the unreflecting mind they might have seemed. Resourceful by nature, self-reliant from the hard school of e.xperience, courageous, deter- mined, he was his own best guarantor of the successful issue of his venture as a pioneer in the new territory. If the winds of winter whistled and roared about his lonely cabin and drifting snows almost hid it from sight, within the blazing logs glowed on the rude hearth and all was warmth and cheer. If the winter seemed long. cold, and hard, it burgeoned at last into spring, whose vernal clouds and dap- pled sky. whose long twilight and dawn, song of birds and distant boom of prairie chicken HISTORY OF GAGE COUNTY, NEBRASKA 65 welcoming the rising sun, renewed his hopes and spurred him on to yet higher endeavor. Summer followed, always beautiful, with the wide billowy prairie garbed in green, white, pink, red, yellow, and gold ; then autumn, with its brilliant and soothing colors outlining prairies and stream. The occupations of the pioneer were many and varied. His Jirst care was to pro- vide some sort of shelter for himself and family. Here in Gage county this usually con- sisted of a log cabin, or occasionally a sod house, generally comprising a single room, constructed for that purpose, drawn by sev- eral yoke of oxen or sometimes by three or more horses or mules. The sod was usually broken to a depth of about three inches, the plows being equipped with either a standing or a rolling cutter, and the depth of the fur- row regulated by a device which held the plow steadily on a level. With the pioneers, per- fection in prairie breaking consisted in so turning the sod that the edges lapped in such a way as to give to a strip of breaking, the ap- pearance of the weather-boarded side of a frame house. The breaking could be planted From ilrazfiii u) .\ . r. Dodge {,L'o. .S(,j)(,uM-, 111 tli.r }ronrn-y s'.ctcit hi First Claim Cabin in Nebraska Built by Daniel Norton, between Omaha and Bellevue, in 1853 probably fourteen by sixteen feet in di- mensions, of a single low story in height, built in some bend of a stream or other sheltered spot. It was often scant quarters for a family, but children of pioneer parents soon learned to accommodate themselves to their surround- ings and the exigencies of circumstances. After his family the pioneer's next care was to construct shelter for such stock as he posses- sed and to provide for their maintenance. This shelter was apt to be a verj' crude affair, though warm and safe, while hay made from blue-stem and other grasses, and corn grown on the newly turned sod, furnished an abun- dant supply of animal food. The water supply for man and beast, and fuel being provided, the pioneer turned his attention to breaking the tough prairie sod, which was accomplished as a rule with plows as a com field either by dropping the corn in every second or third furrow and covering with the next, or by cutting a gash in the up- turned sod with a sharp ax or spade and in- serting the seed, firming the earth above with the foot. Pumpkin seeds, watermelon seeds, beans, and other field or garden truck were planted in the same way, and this method carefully followed was most apt to give sat- isfactory results. If the season were favor- able, crops of sod corn were often raised yielding as high as twenty-five or more bushels per acre, and the rich, new soil produced po- tatoes, melons, pumpkins, squashes, turnips, and other vegetables in great profusion and of excellent quality. Ordinarily a very few months in the growing season of the year, under favorable conditions, were sufficient to place the family of the pioneer beyond the r)6 HISTORY OF GAGE COUNTY. XIU'.RASKA possibility of actual want, as tar as good wholesome vegetables and Indian corn could insure this result. For sugar a ready and a very wholesome substitute was found in com- mon sorghum, and in the production of a high grade of sorghum molasses the pioneer often attained great skill, the product being whole- some and pleasant to the taste. Beginning with the first settlement of the county, and extending until long after the close of the great Civil war, this nutritious product entered largely into the dietar>' of the people. The pioneers of our county found grow- ing in great abundance along the streams thickets of wild plums and chokecherries. The plums were often of large size and de- licious flavor: the cherries, large and meaty, hung in long, thick, grape-like bunches in profusion on the low bushes. These thickets were apt to be found in great perfection in the bends of the streams, forming a sort of fire break to the groves of tim- ber, of which they were the fringe. The mold produced by their thick leaves from year to year aflforded almost ideal conditions for the spread of forest growth. In the early spring, when the elms, willows, cottonwoods, box elders, oaks, and other trees along the streams were putting forth their tender young leaves and the fresh green of the prairies was be- ginning to show on ever}- hand, the milk- white, fragrant blossoms of the plum and cherry thickets afforded a pleasing diversity to the landscape, often outlining the course of the streams for great distances. In the woods were found numerous vari- eties of excellent wild grapes and wild goose- berries, while at the edges of the prairies the wild strawberries grew in abundance — and these formed the staple fruit supply of the pioneers. These fruits were made into jellies, preserves, jams, butters, and other forms of food for winter use, and with the thrifty housewife's tomato preserves, pumpkin but- ter, dried com, and other preparations of a like character, they formed an important feature of the homely family food supply in the early days, as they virtually took the place of the orchards and vineyards of the older settled portions of the country. These native wild fruits have long since lost their value and importance as sources of food supply. The plum and cherry thickets have largely disappeared and even the wild grape and gooseberry no longer enter extensively into the dietary of the present population. Tht custom of pasturing non-tillable and timbered land with stock has proved almost fatal to the existence and spread of ever)- sort of wild shrub, vine, and forest growth. The time is rapidly approaching when the scarcity and the high cost of coal and lumber will force a return, in the matter of forestation. to the primitive conditions of the country- ;is respects the protection of growing timber from de- struction by pasturage. The food supply afforded by these sources, was not infrequently supplemented by the streams, the groves, and the prairie. The- waters of our county in an early dav abounded with several varieties of edible fish which w'ere easily taken by the expenditure of a little time- and trouble. Many of the most desirable sort, the pike, the pickerel, the perch, the sun- fish, the chub, the red horse, have long since disappeared. Throughout the pio;ieer days our prairies abounded with grouse or prairie chickens, the woods with squirrels, rabbits, raccoons, and quails, with an occasional Hock of wild turkeys. Prior to the advent of the white man. Gage county had been a favorite range of the wild buffalo, the elk. the deer, the antelope, .^s late probably as 1855, when the Otoe and Mis- souri tribes of Indians were transferred from the Missouri river country to our county, these great game animals were here in large herds and bands. The early settlers found their remains in every direction. They had slowly retired, however, before the red man. so that by 1857 the buffalo had wholly disap- peared from the confines of our county, but still could be found in great abundance in the region west of the Little Blue river. Small liands of elk were occasionally seen in the northern portions of the county, while deer and antelope, when the first settlers arrived, were still fairly abundant, especially in the HISTORY OF GAGE COUNTY, NEBRASKA 67 winter about the heads of draws or wherever thick underbrush afforded shelter and food. Of all the plains animals the buffalo was at once the most ])icturesque and the most useful. These huge beasts ranged the prairies l)v millions from the Height of Land in the far north to the tide_ waters cf the gulf of Mexico. They spread over what is now Texas, western Louisiana, ( )klahoma. New ]\Iexico, Kansas, Colorado, Nebraska, Iowa, the Dakotas, and Montana. To the Indian tribes inhabiting these regions they fur- nished clothing, food, materials for sewing garments, knives, arrow points, war clubs, and nian\- other useful articles of Indian manufacture for both peace and war. The building of the trans-continental railway lines in 1867 and in subsequent years, by multiply- ing the means for their destruction, finally led to the wanton extinction of this wonderful and picturesc|ue indigenous source of wealth. Such representatives of this once numerous and powerful denizen of the prairies as now remain are found only in parks or shows, in semi or complete confinement, regarded as curiosities and forming a sad commentary upon the careless wastefulness of a govern- ment to which conservation of natural re- sources of wealth has until recentlv been a subject of minor consideration — a high sounding phrase. From such sources of food supply as here gi\en, the pioneer was able fully to supple- ment the products of his raw land and stock of domestic animals and to live in security against the demands of hunger through the most strenuous times, until his harvest ripen- ed again upon the rich soil of his homestead and the returns of his toil and foresight finally rendered him indift'erent to the wild plum and grape, the bison, the deer, the antelope, and those conditions of living which his depen- dence on them implied. Probably the most perplexing subject with which the pioneer had to deal concerned clothes. Even before the beginning of the war of the rebellion, in 18')1. clothing ma- terials of all kinds here in C^age county were scarce and expensive. The cost of all commodities was increased by the Civil war of 1861-1865, which also augmented the scarcity of many articles. But in the case of wearing apparel the cost was not only very much enhanced but there was often little of much value to be had. The scarcity of cloth- ing and the materials for it, as well as the cost of all clothing materials, was manifested in many ways, btit chiefly by plainness and inexpensiveness of attire. Frequently the men and boys wore coats made by wives and mothers from blankets obtained from the In- dians by barter, while pantaloons constructed from meal sacks or any common, cheap mate- rial were much in evidence. Shortly before the close of the war, and for some time thereafter, army contract clothing which had been con- demned and rejected by the government was to be had at fairly reasonable figures, and a civilian partly clad in army blue was a com- mon sight on the streets of Beatrice and else- where long after the war had closed. Boots, shoes, socks, hats, caps, mittens, gloves, and other articles of wearing apparel for men and boys were often crude in manufacttire as well as material. The common footwear for win- ter was brogans and cowhide boots and shoes, while in summer the country population dur- ing the war went mostly barefoot. Occasion- ally Indian moccasins would be worn and not infrequently rough homemade foot-gear, while the skins of animals — the badger, coon, coyote, squirrel, sheep, antelope, deer — were often used for caps, mittens, leggings, and vests. Leather straps, strips of buckskin, and even bedticking, often supplied the ofifice of suspenders, and all articles of wearing ap- parel were more or less of home manufacture. Wives and daughters dressed plainly in homemade garments. The sunlionnet was the most fashionable form of female headgear and crinoline was worn by all. Outside the villages, Beatrice and Blue Springs, what might be deemed a well dressed lady or gen- tleman was, in fact, rarely seen amongst the pioneers, and none but beggars and tramps would now think of dressing as rural folks in that far off day were forced to dress. In addition to his other privations, the r>8 HISTORY OF GAGE COL-XT^'. NEBRASKA jjioneer during the opening years of our coun- ty's history was tre(|Ufnt!y unable to pro- cure tea, coffee, wheat flour, coal oil, salt, and many other commodities of common household consumption, nearer than the Missouri river, if at all. Even when procur- able, such articles were expensive and the cost often i)rohibitive. For tea and coffee substi- tutes were found which were relished by many. Often a Inirnt cmst of com or any bread, parched corn, or even corn meal stirred with sorghum and browned over the fire to the size and consistency of grape nuts, made a substitute for coffee. For tea tiie leaves of summer savory and various other herbs were used in jjlace of Bohea. Souchong, ^'oung Hy- son, and Gun])owder. The substitute for wheat flour was of course corn meal, and many a family was reared to strength and happiness largely on corn bread, milk, butter, garden vegetables, and such wild meat as was available. The common substitute for coal oil for lighting purposes was the tallow candle or the old fashioned homemade lamp, consist- ing of some sort of receptacle, as a saucer, teacuj). or tin plate, with a twist of cotton cloth for a wick, immersed in lard. Wheat was not grown in Gage county prior to 1.S61 or 1862, when spring wheat was introduced, and for many years it con- stituted the only variety planted. At first the settlers strove to raise only enough for their own use, as there was no home market for their surplus. And in addition the manu- factory of wheat flour was in its crudest state. The first mill for grinding grain of any kind in Gage county was at the Otoe res- ervation, and for several years corn meal and graham flour were its only products. The pioneer hauled his wheat to Brownville, Peru, Nebraska City, and even to points in wes- tern Iowa, to obtain his supply of wheat flour. But about the year 1864 Fordyce Roper came into possession of the milling franchise in Beatrice and erected a small mill, nin by water power, on the i)resent site of Black Brothers' fine merchant mill. At the same time the United States government began to make white flour at the mill on the Otoe resen^a- tion, and thereafter both points became im- portant milling centers for an increasingly large ])atronage. These were toll mills, where the farmer delivered his grain at the mill in large or small quantities, divided it with the miller on the proportional basis fixed by law and waited around until his grist was ground. Sometimes this might require several days, as each customer took his turn, like buying tickets at a railway station on an excursion day. Those living close at hand could, and often did, leave their grists and return later for their share of the flour. Spring wheat contiiuicd to be a stajile crojy here until about 1876, when the chinch bug became so destructive to the plant that its cultivation ceased, and fall wheat was substi- tuted for it \\ith more hap])V results, while the chinch bug as a pest disappeared. The surplus wheat crop was either hauled to mar- ket at some Missouri river point or made into flour and hauled by wagon loads to the stage >tutions. ranches, and military i)osts along the old military highway from Independence,. .Missouri, Leavenworth. Atchison, and St. Joseph to Fort Kearney and beyond, where it found a ready sale at good prices, along with the homesteaders' surplus butter, eggs, beef, pork, and corn. Common salt also was a necessary article that was difficult to obtain through the ordinary channels of trade. -\t a very early period in the settlement of our state. the salt basin at Lincoln became a factor of much importance not only to the pio- neers of Gage county but also to large areas of the settled portions of the territories of Nebraska and Kansas and the state of Iowa ; for here, under favorable conditions, the set- tler by a few hours' labor could often ()l)lain enough of this im])ortant substance to last an ordinary family for an entire year. Through- out the summer months, in dry weather, a thin crust of salt would be produced every twenty- four hours over the low, flat, semi-dry surface of the basin, and this could be scraped up by wagon loads. .\t first the settlers hauled their scrapings home and proceeded to cleanse the salt from its impurities. This was done HISTORY OF GAGE COUXTV. XEBRASKA 69 by boiling the mass in sorghum pans or large cast-iron kettles, skimming off the impurities that rose to the surface and evaporating the strong brine in shallow vessels. From a wagon load of scrapings could be produced by this method a barrel or more of clean, pure salt in a few days, the length of time re- quired depending upon the sun and the at- mospheric conditions. Under favorable cir- cumstances ten inches of brine could be com- ])letely reduced to high-grade salt in sixty liours. pellecl to return home saltless after camping for several days on the salt flats. For a num- ber of years several enterprising gentlemen managed to make a very comfortable living in this industry, besides enjoying in its season the tine shooting of wild goose, duck, crane, and other water fowl that in myriads fre- quented the salt lake at the basin. Social intercourse and social diversions amongst the pioneers were on a plane com- mensurate with their lives. To those who are wholly \maccustomed to the conditions S.\I.T B.\SIN AND S.M.T WoRKS, LiNCOI.N, NeBR.\SK,\, 1872 Very shortly after the beginning of the Civil war, in 1861, there had been established at the basin a regular industry for producing salt in quantities, by evaporation. People coming- from great distances for salt were enabled to exchange flour, corn, eggs, butter, potatoes, and other farm produce for salt ready for immediate use. Or upon the pay- ment of fifty cents per hundred weight they could buy the crude salt which in fair weather had been scraped together in heaps under some sort of shelter, and by subsequent evap- oration at home secure their supply of salt. This was a great convenience, since many a settler after driving for miles to obtain his annual salt su]:)ply found the basin black and bare, on account of rain, mist, fog, or excep- tionally high winds, and might even be com- which a new country, de\oid of every convenience of modern living, imposes on its adventurous first inhabitants, the life of a Gage county pioneer may seem cruelly hard and unattractive — a drab existence from which one might reasonably exclaim in the language of the Book of Common Prayer, "Good Lord deliver us." Such persons take small account of the wonderful adaptability of human nature which enables the normal man often to turn to his advantage his most .adverse surroundings. And, besides, the pio- neers of a new country are largely in a class by themselves. They possess the prevision of the seer of visions and the dreamer of dreams, and are endowed with the never- failing light of imagination. To such, pioneer life in the early da\s in X'cbra.ska was any- 70 IIL^TORV UF GAGH COL.XTV, NEBRASKA thing but (lull and uninteresting. Its great simplicity and its freedom from those exac- tions which wealth imposes left time for social intercourse. None were rich and few so poor as to suffer by contrast with their neighbors. Amongst the pioneers there ex- isted a far truer sense of equality than can anywhere be found in communities where so- ciety is complex and where prevail social dis- tinctions resting on wealth, ancestry, or posi- tion. Neighbors were few and often remote but distance was no barrier to social inter- course in those far-off simple days. The settlers were not usually pressed for time and made nothing of traveling, even with slow ox teams, several miles to S])end the day with friends. Social gatherings, picnics, Sunday schools and other religious meetings, and even dances, were apt to bring together whole townships. Innocent youthful parties were frequent, where the masculine element ap- peared in its smartest garments, and well greased cow-hide boots; the feminine in its l)rcttiest pink and white, most fetching poke bonnet and newest crinoline. Tag, blindman's buff', drop the handkerchief, and other youth- ful games served to pass the hours. Refresh- ments consisted at all social gatherings of native walnuts, popcorn, and sorghum taffy, while gaiety ruled the happy throng. Danc- ing was always a staple amusement for the youth of the community and even for those of staider deportment and greater age. It was not the fox trot or bunny hug, not often the waltz. ]iolka. or schottiscli. but the \'irginia reel or the common square dance, with the fiddles wailing out the ".Money Musk," the ".\rkansas Traveler," "The Girl I Left Behind Me," and other simple, lively melodies, while some one called to the waiting couples on the floor. "Salute your partners and the opposite lady" : when this act of ballroom courtesy had been performed there would come the sten- torian call. "Forward four," then "Balance all" antl "Swing your partners," and so on through the whole set of dancing figures till the call "To your seats" came at last, after several minutes of glorious rj^thmic motion in time to the rude orchestra. After a few mo- ments of social intercourse, laughter, per- chance a song, the floor manager's call was again heard good and loud, "Choose your partners for the next dance." and if the young swain was fortunate enough to lead forward^ the girl of his choice, his happiness was un- alloyed, and in the minds of the happy sons and daughters of our pioneers was apt to be eclipsed Byron's description of the great ball in Brussels the night before Waterloo, when "There was a sound of revelry by night, .\nd Belgium's capital had gathered there Her beauty and her chivalrj- ; and bright The lamps shone o'er fair women and brave men. A thousand hearts beat happily, and when Music arose with its voluptuous swell, Soft eye looked love to eye that spoke again, And all went merry as a marriage bell." CHAPTER X "II-WK Y(ir Ax Evi-:.'" I'oK.m r.v Ei>\vi\ Imikd 1'ipkr — Early Gack County .Markets — .Missm-Ri Ri\t-:r-Oregc>n Trail — Insufkiciency of Local Markets — High Prices — Missouri River Points Best Purchasing Markets — Oregon Trail Best Sell- ing Market — Its Early History — Great South Pass — John C. Fremont — Origin of Term, "Military Road" — Starting . Point — Route — Marcus Whitman — Changes — Statistics nx Northern Route — An Emigrant Route — Freighting — Nebraska City — Overland Stage — Pony Ex- press — r>E\TRicE RouTi; — CtExeral Descriptiox. Have You An Eye? Have \-()U an eye for the trails, the trails. The old mark and the new? W'hat scurried here, what loitered there. In the dust and in the dew? Have vou an eye for the heaten track. The old hoof and the young? Come name me the drivers of yesterday. Sing me the songs they sung. O. was it a schooner last went by, And where will it cross the stream? Where will it halt in the early dusk. And where will the camp-fire gleam? They used to take the shortest cut The cattle trails had made ; Get down the hill l)y the easy slope To the water and the shade. But it's harlied wire fence, and section lin And kill-horse travel now : Scoot you down the can\on hank. — The old road's under plough. Have you an eye for the laden wheel, The worn tire or the new? Or the sign of the prairie pony's hoof That was never trimmed for shoe? ( ) little hy-i)at!i and big highway. Alas, your lives are done. The freighter's track a weed-grown ditch. Points to the setting sun. The marks are faint and rain will fall. The lore is hard to learn. ( ) heart, what ghosts would follow the roatl If the old years might return.' The lack of convenient markets was jier- haps as serious a drawback to the early settler of our county as any of his n.unierous hard- ships. At the very beginning, of course, there was no need of markets. On account of drought, hot, dry winds, grasshoppers, or other calamity, it frec|uently hajipened that the set- tler had no surplus, but had to su])]3lement the meager returns from his claim liy such food as the streams, woods, and prairies supplied. But in process of time the problem of markets became immediate and insistent. It was often as necessary to be able to I)U> in a convenient market as to sell, and for many years here in Gage county merchants were able to supply to only a limited degree the neces- sary demands of the population. Their stock in trade consisted principally of the bare ne- cessities of life, flour, bacon, cheese, crackers, sorghum, and the like, and as they would not usually pay cash for farm products, transac- tions with their customers were largelv a mat- ter of barter. — calicoes for eggs, denims for gooseberries or butter. There being virtuallv no home market where the pioneer could both sell for cash the surplus of his labor and ' From Barbed Wire and Other Poems, liv Edwin Ford Finer (1917). 71 HISTORY OF GAGE COUNTY, NEBRASKA skill and jnirchase the iiccessary articles of consuniption for liiinself and family, he was often compelled to seek distant markets in which to sell as well as buy. Thus many of the commonest things in use. as a hat, a bon- net, a slate, a pencil, a spool of thread, farm machinery, tools, clothing, and the like, could often be had only at some Missouri river town or village. This condition of affairs is toler- ablv well stated by the following extract from a letter written from the interior of the ter- ritory of Nebraska as late as January 26. 1866, in which the writer says: "1 will give you. or attempt it. — for nothing could show except the actual living here. — some idea of the life in these western wilds. In the first place we are about as near in the center of nowhere as I care to be. We are fifty miles directly west from Nebraska City, which is the nearest point where one can buy a shoe-string or a spool of thread. FarmS here are 'ranches.' cattle yards "corrals' ; there are no fences of any account, people herd their cattle by day, put them in corrals by night, that is they 'corral' them. " From the beginning of our county's history in 1857 until long after the close of the Civil war, until the railroads came, in fact. i)rices ranged high on all sorts of commodities. This was due to two main causes, namely, a depre- ciated medium of exchange and the absence of anything like a system of rapid transporta- tion. In 1854, the year which witnessed the first imigration to our county, the whole country was laboring in the slough of a financial de- pression induced in part, if not mainly, by a system of state banks, commonly designated "Wildcat," which sprang into being after the dissolution of the historic I'nited States Bank and its branches, by Andrew Jackson. Presi- dent of the I'nitcd States, in 1835. These banks were invariably what is known as banks of issue, and their beautifully engraved notes, containing the figure of an Indian, dog, buffalo, tree, cat, or other meaningless device, and in- tended to circulate as money, were so often utterly worthless as to destroy public confi- ilence in the entire svstem. Gold and silver were at a tremendous premium and difficult to get. .-Ml classes of chattels as well as land had an inflated value when measured by this medium of exchange. In every case the value of a bill depended wholly on the rating of the bank issuing it, and this could be shown only bv the "National Business Man's Detector." a publication intended to give the financial standing and condition of every bank of issue in the L'nited States. The public was wholly dependent upon such information as to the solvency of the hanks of the entire country. The working of this system of exchange can be illustrated by a concrete example. An immigrant party to the territory of Nebraska, in 1859, tendered the owner of the ferry boat in payment of its passage charge at the point where they desired to cross the Missouri river, a bill issued by a newly organized bank of Indiana. The bank was not listed in the copy of the "Detector" in the possession of the ferryman, and he refused the transportation until he could telegraph to St. Joseph and receive a reply assuring him of the solvency of the Indiana bank. This took from three o'clock until seven o'clock in the afternoon. All business transactions were necessarily con- ducted in the same cautious and cumbersome manner. The National Banking Act of 1864 introduced a stable as well as a uniform mon- etary system, under the general supervision of the government of the United States, and ■"Wildcat" banking became a thing of the past. But to such a deplorable state had the country fallen that the issuance of the treasury notes and the national greenback currency earlv in the great Civil war. as war measures, acted upon the business world like the elixir of life, and this even though the greenback currency itself possessed a purchasing power far below its par value. For exani])le. in 1863 one Innidred dollars in gold would jnirchase t\\ o hundred and eighty dollars in greenbacks. .\s the products of the soil increased, the ])ioneers, following a natural law of commerce, turned to the nearest cash market in which to disjxise of their surplus. This was the great continental highway which was known to the traders, ranchmen, and overland stage drivers HISTORY OF GAGE COUNTY, NEBRASKA 73 as the "^kJilitary Road." but whicli is now more generally and perhaps more properly designated as the "Oregon Trail." The cer- tainty of good cash prices for almost every description of farm produce and live stock along this great thoroughfare not only re- lieved the settlers of the dread and fear of want, but also had the effect of steadying and stimulating prices at home, thereby creating a better home market. Through the agency of this great publi: roadway eastern Nebraska rapidly filled with immigrants and the slow accumulation of wealth and fixed capital set in. This great national highway was so much their expeditions to and from the jiost the Astorians established a traveled; road over most of the distance between Independence and Astoria. Later this dim trail was fol- lowed by the hunters, trappers, and traders whose occupations took them to the northwest, and finally by explorers, surveyors, Mormons, and emigrants making their way to Utah, (Oregon, and California. In 1824 the Great South Pass, at the head of the Sweetwater, a branch of the North Platte river, was discovered, which greatly facilitated western travel. In 1832 Captain ISonneville passed over this route from Inde- '^'"^' -''^9r>r^K>^'' ^ 1 « ■>-_*- •'-^-