Buffalo County, Nebraska - Chapter 15: Across the Plains in 1860 a Million of Buffalo, Horace Greeley Delayed, 1916

Ten Cents A Gallon For Water In 1 874

CENTS A BUSHEL TEN DOLLARS TO WATER GOVERNMENT TEAMS THE TRANSPORTATION EXPENSE OF FORAGE DELIVERED AT FORT KEARNEY AND FORT LARAMIE TEN CENTS A GALLON FOR WATER IN 1 874.

J. E. ]\liller, a soldier of the Civil war, came to Buffalo County, from Iowa in the year 1873, taking a homestead claim in Cedar Township. Mr. ^liller served as justice of the peace in his township and two terms as state senator. He introduced in the Senate and secured its passage, a bill providing for the teaching of agriculture in our public schools, - this the beginning of the teaching of the principles of agriculture in the public schools of our state and nation. In the year i860 Mr. Miller made a journey across the plains and in the year 191 5 gives the following interesting description of the journey:

I passed up the south side and down, from Fort Kearney, the north side of the Platte River in i860, fifty-five years ago this summer. Our company consisted of seven ox teams (two and three yoke to a wagon) and nineteen men. We left Davenport, Iowa, early in April, crossed the Missouri at Nebraska City, May 1st, loaded up and started for the Platte route, which we struck 115 miles below Fort Kearney (this would be about opposite Columbus). Only a few miles from Nebraska City we lost sight of settlers and traveled through an unbroken prairie till we reached Salt Creek (this Lincoln) where there were a few straggling houses. I now believe it was near the junction of the little creek coming down from the asylum as we found the water too salt for our use, and by crossing over to another stream we found the water all right. Soon after reaching the Platte we came in contact with others on the same errand - "Pike's Peak or bust." By the time we reached Fort Kearney the road was full of freighters and gold seekers.

A large herd of buffalo had about finished crossing the Platte River going north; it had taken them two days and nights to cross; the east edge of the herd was at Doby Town (this two miles west of Fort Kearney) and reached west thirty-five miles. The buffalo were in a solid mass so that all teams were delayed.

Horace Greeley, who was a passenger on the overland stage, was detained twenty-four hours, ^le wrote to the New York Tribune, of which he was editor, "I know a million is a great many but I am sure I saw more than a million buffalo yesterday. Some estimate there are more butTalo on the plains than domestic cattle in the United States. I can't say as to that, but I feel sure there are more in weight as the buffalo weigh more." From P^ort Kearney to Denver the road was filled with teams. r>y standing on the front of the wagon one could see every tuni of the road for many miles by the line of covered wagons. I noticed the peculiar fact that there was not a stream, little or big, which entered the Platte from the south, from w'here we struck the valley (at Columbus) to Denver. The mail was carried from the Missouri River by Hinkley's express ; we had to pay 25 cents for each letter besides the 3 cents stamp.

Denver Was In Kansas

Kansas and Nebraska at that time extended to the summit of the mountains and joined Utah. Denver was in Kansas. We crossed the range and mined 23/2 months near where Leadville now is. We had to saw our lumber with a whip saw. We averaged to earn about ten dollars per day to the man. Snow began to cover the range September 14, and we, being short of provisions, pulled out. Reached Denver, 115 miles, in a week.

Bought corn at Denver at 12^^ cents per pound to feed my team - I had bought horses. It was a long, dreary road to Fort Kearney, where we forded the Platte; we found some settlers along Wood River of whom we bought com for $2 a bushel. Crossed the Missouri at Omaha where we sold our gold for $18 an ounce. Of course this lightened our load somewhat. The year i860 saw the great drouth in Kansas. Nebraska was not farming much then or she would have suffered. The drouth extended into Western Iowa and we paid 60 cents a bushel for corn. It was cheaper as we traveled east until I bought the last bushel fifteen miles north of Davenport for 10 cents. That was the biggest fall in the price of corn I ever knew it to take inside of fifty days. I reached home November 5th and the next day cast my first vote for President, thereby electing Abraham Lincoln. While going up the Platte I would take to the sand hills on the south side and chase antelope. My opinion of this country as an agricultural paradise you can guess.

I had intended to go back to the mines in 1861, and perhaps would, had it not been there was a rebellion to look after and I was asked to take the job.

Ten Dollars To Water Government Teams

There is a tradition that $10 was paid at one time to water a string of Government teams at a well on the divide south of the Platte and that the amount was allowed in the expense account at Washington. If so it must have been because this territory was known as a desert and in a desert water is often scarce. East of Kenesaw, on the trail coming from the Little Blue over the divide to the valley of the Platte, a distance of some twenty miles there was a well known as the "Government well," but private property, which was more than one hundred feet deep. It was curbed with logs and was a regular stopping place for travelers over the trail. Possibly it was at this well that the "large"' price was paid for water for the Government teams. This price is not greatly in excess of the contract price paid for hay for use at Fort Kearney, as related $20 per ton, and the contractor let the contract to cut and stack the hay in sight of the fort for $1.25 per ton. Some idea of the enormous expense of maintaining an army at Fort Kearney and Fort Laramie will appear in the following taken from Morton History, Vol. 2: "The cost of transporting (1865) a hundred pounds of corn, hay, clothing, subsistence, lumber or other necessary from Fort (Kansas) to Fort Kearney was $6.42; to Fort Laramie $14.10." It is further stated that the cost of a bushel of corn bought at Fort Leavenworth and delivered at Fort Kearney was $5.03. In 1850 Gen. Winfield Scott complained of the great expense of furnishing supplies for troops on the frontier, in which he states : "The average cost of forage for a horse during one month at Fort Kearney was $27.72, and at Fort Laramie, $34.24." In 1873 the writer paid 10 cents for a gallon of water and 25 cents to water a team on the divide south of the Platte and drew the water himself, out of a well much more than one hundred feet in depth.