Dixon County, Nebraska - Chapter 3, 1896

Particulars and Experiences of First Settlement of County The Rapid and Increasing Tide of Pioneers The Birth of Ponca -Paper Towns and the Townsite Business in 1856 and 1S57-- Concord, North Bend, Dixon and Ionia --The Desire for County Organization-Attending Election at St. Johns The First (Jrasshopper Paid Seen by the Pioneers - Organization of County and Location of County Seat First Election of County Officers. As appears from the list in the foregoing- chapter, a good sized crowd of settlers made homes, in 1 S5(>. 1857 and 1858, in the country which afterwards became Dixon County. The list contains about one hundred and fifty names, many of them heads of families, and represent not less than two hundred and fifty or three hundred persons.

It will be noticed by looking over the names and dates of settlement, that the first party of settlers arrived May 9, 1856, a little over thirty-nine years ago. They camped the first night on the south bank of Aoway Creek, and but a stone's throw from where Ponca now is.

They had a right to come that far under the treaty made the year before with the Omahas, but could not legally cross to the north side of the creek, as there the Ponca Indians still held sway. Hie party consisted of Adam Smith and wife, Henry Paschal, Henry Ford, Charles Buckman, Mrs. Buckman, John Bimtz, Gerhart Carstines, Isaac Kngler and wife and John Snyder, most of whom were from Pennsylvania. They selected their lands near each other for mutual protection and company, Mr. Smith taking land which is now the farm of Wm. O'Connor half a mile south of Ponca, and the others making claims in his neighborhood up and down the creek, being careful, however, not to encroach on the adjacent hostile territory.

fchey were the first in the comity and who properly divided the title of "first settler" between them, were soon followed by others. For a few months not many cared to incur the hostility of the Poncas, and cross the Aoway. But as time went on. settlers became less fearful, and occasionally one would venture over the boundary and take possession of one hundred and sixty or three hundred and twenty acres, (generally the latter. i as near as could be guessed at. the lands not yet having been surveyed. For safety, the settlers, whether located on government or Indian land, organized a "squatters club," so called, which assumed to protect its members in their claims and to settle any disputes which might arise. The meetings of the squatters were held at the house of Adam Smith and for about two years were the only dispensers of law and order in the country. They ran things about as equitably and fairly as one could expect.

Crimes in those days were rare, and the fact that no courts, dilatory motions or rules of law could interfere between an offender and his deserved punishment, had a tendency to keep things straight. We venture to say that legislatures and courts of justice of the present day could with profit study the law making and law enforcing squatter government of our predecessors thirty-nine years ago.

From the first start in May. the rush of pioneers rapidly increased and soon became very great. Favorable reports of the country were sent back by the settlers to their old homes in the East and there incited the "Nebraska fever" to rage and grow. All now know how attractive this country is in the spring and summer. The grass covered and flower bedecked prairies, hills and valleys, the trees and vines, the Italian sky and genial sun. all these radiant beauties peculiar to this country and climate presented a picture strongly in contrast with what eastern people had been accustomed to see. Hence the desire became almost universal to come. Not all could come, indeed not many when compared with the whole, but all longed to see a country where dingy fogs and bottomless mud were unknown and where farms equalling those of the Mohawk valley could be had for the asking.

Prominent with the throng which came during the summer and fall of 1856, may be mentioned Dr. Stough, John Rouen. James Clark. Marcellus Lathrop, George Brown. C.

F. Putnam. John Stough, Henry. Frank and William Hoese, the Malones, the Scollards, the Gormans, the Gillans, McKennas. O'Conners, etc. The attractive valleys of South Creek and West Creek soon began lilling up, and in the choicest locations were seen the homes of settlers and fields coming under the dominion of the breaking plow.

In August, (1856), Frank West and Mr. Carson came up from Sioux City. Like those who came before them they saw the ominous sign which one Charley Kulo. a half breed, had put up on the bank of the Aoway. warning settlers not to cross under the penalty of being tired back by the Ponca Indians. Nevertheless. West kicked aside the threathening notice, and with Carson crossed the Rubicon to where Ponca City now is. In the October following. West platted the first twenty-four blocks of this place and named it Ponca, after the Indian tribe.

Frank West, who took so prominent a part in the starting of Ponca was quite a rustler in his way. He was the son of a banker at Des Moines. Iowa, and had unlimited nerve, plenty of money and a large number of friends. He had various town site projects, one of which was Niobrara, and in that business was generally successful. He was an expert marksman and a great Indian tighter, and in the Niobrara country and south and east of there his name was a terror to the Pawmees and Poncas.

In Ittofi, the town site business was extensively followed. and in the hands of speculators like West was made very profitable. It did not much matter whether buildings were erected or anything else was done, except to survey out and number the lots and blocks, drive the stakes, give names to the streets and make and record the map. Then the proprietor would he in a position to sell his lots and gather in from credulous eastern people of wealth a golden harvest. The scheme generally resulted profitably to the lot sellers. A beautiful map of an alleged town, with pictures of churches, opera houses and elegant residences nicely shown on the margin, was attractive, and many were bitten by their anxiety to purchase lots, the price of which seemed to them dog cheap. As an instance, the town site of Curlew in Cedar county, Neb., was probably the most glaring and successful fraud of all the fifty or more town sites in the river counties

But though houseless, its fascinating map and pictures, demonstrating the tremendous growth and importance of the place, gave the lots a rapid sale in New York and other eastern cities. Its ten thousand lots brought to its proprietors not less than $1 50.01 10. It was that sort of townsite speculation which generally prevailed in Nebraska, in 1856 and 1857; Whether Ponca was or was not started by Mr. West for purposes of speculation in the east, or with the object of making more than a paper town, cannot be told. but whatever the intent may have been at the first, the admirable location, the unfailing water power, the protecting hills and the presence of a vast body of valuable timber on one side and innumerable acres of rich land on the other, soon showed that this would, in earnestness and truth, become a real and permanent town.

In the spring of 1857 the balance of the town, comprising in all three hundred and twenty acres was platted by Messrs. Stough and Fuller. The land had not yet, however, been surveyed by government and not until after such survey were Stough and Fuller enabled to perfect their plat so as to make it harmonize with the lines of the government surveyor. Such completion of the ma}) was made May 5, 1858, and the same was duly hied in Dakota county clerk's office, June 15th. of that year.

In the neighborhood of Ponca, other towns were also staked out in the fall of 1856. On the hills a short distance southeast of Ponca the rival cities of St. Paul and Addison were surveyed, and being on land south of the creek where the title was not disputed by the Indians, it was thought that one of them would take precedence as the coming town, instead of Ponca. Put nothing more than the platting, was done in behalf of St. Paul or Addison and they both soon became settlers' farms.

During that fall also, a town was started near where Lime Creek enters the Missouri river, in the northwestern part of the county, by Messrs. Muholland and Cummings, and by them given the name of Concord, and another embryo city. North Bend, was located a mile north of Concord, by Jacob Duel and two or three others. Afterwards, in 1858, North

Bend and Concord were each desirous of becoming the county seat of the new county, and their antagonism toward each other resulted in the platting of a paper town, Dixon, between them, thereby uniting the whole as one.

In L856, also, parties living in Sioux City located Ionia town site, building no houses, however, nor doing anything to hold the claim. In 1858 Ionia came into the possession of L. T. Hill, in whose hands it had prosperous growth for several years, but in 1878 the Missouri changed its channel and raided the town, and the ground on which it stood was washed away, together with its improvements and hopes for greatness. Accounts of those early towns, Concord, North Bend, Dixon and Ionia will be more fully given elsewhere.

As to Ponca, it did not at first grow very rapidly, and it remained a town only on paper until late in the fall of 1856, when Messrs. Henry, Frank and William Hoese built the first house. It was a comfortable log building one story high and was located near the creek. No farther advance was made until the next year. The country was growing faster than the town, a condition of things always taken as a healthy sign.

In December, "Old Man \\ nitcomb." as he was called, his sons and a partner (Dexter) and two assistants (Preston and Hotchkiss) came from Ohio and brought with them a steam saw mill which they located on the Missouri river bottom, a mile below Ponca landing. This, the first mill in this part of the country, suggested the possibility in the near future of houses of boards instead: of logs, and hence was deemed an establishment of much importance to the settlers. Whitcomb's mill did a prosperous business for several years and eventually a small run of burs was added to it for grinding corn, so that the laborious task of grinding out a grist in a coffee mill which had been the general custom, became a thing of the past.

In the spring of 1857 the second house in Ponca was put up by Stough brothers and the third by H. A. Fuller and John Cavanagh. In dune a store building, (a pretentions, one story structure. 16 by 40 feet), was erected by Mr. Bramble, and soon after a house and shop by Mr. Rogers, the village blacksmith. All were built of logs, and in fact log houses were all they had in the countv until the fall of 1S57, when C. F. Putnam built a frame house on his farm. The first frame building in Ponca was commenced in 1858 by Mr. W nitcomb, and finished in 1859. It was designed for a hotel and was quite large, and its two tall stories loomed up with metropolitan dignity. No one ever occupied it any great length of time, although people stopped there temporarily for want of better quarters, and during a few weeks in 1859 Preston Hotchkiss used it as a hotel. Its emptiness except on special occasions and its general creaky and rattletrap condition gave it the name of the "Old Air Castle." Despite its name, however, the "Air Castle" was quite a useful building during its existence. Here were held religious and political meetings, elections, debating societies, probate courts, Indian shows and public gatherings of all kinds. But in the course of time the building without care or repairs went into decline, and during the winter of 1862, when the soldiers stored in it a few loads of corn, its floor fell down and collapse and chaos ended its career.

In 1857 and 1858 the circle of settlement continued to widen and extend. Of those arriving up to the close of 1858 it has been very difficult and many instances impossible to obtain full particulars. Among the fewT who now reside in the county are Dr. S. B. Stough, John Stough, Jacob Stough, John McKinley and N. S. Porter, of Ponca city; P. Dempsey, of Silver Creek township; C. F. Putnam, of Ponca township; John Roden, Bernard Cavanagh, John Maskall, Alexander Curry and John Malone. These comprise nearly all who remain out of the one hundred and fifty who came in those first three years. During the long interval between then and now, death has removed many from the country which their enterprise helped to subdue. Among them are Judge Arnold. John Cavanagh. William and James Bigley and their father, P. J. Winston. E. M. Bisbee. Francis Freeman, Edward Serry, James and Robert Alexander, Custavus Smith, the founder of New Castle; Michael (lillan, Murtha Gorman, Maurice Scollard. William Pfister, John Sader and P. Dailey. There are of course many others. Some of the early settlers, after remaining a few years, moved away and are spending useful lives in other places. Of the more prominent. Messrs. Fuller and West, once town proprietors of Ponca, now reside, the former in Omaha and the latter in

Des Moines, Iowa. I,. T. Hill, the father of the once prosperous hut now defunct town of Ionia, is a citizen of California, and D. T. Bramble, who kept the first store in Ponca, removed many years ago to Yankton. And the Hoeses. Adam Smith, dames Barrett, Leander Davis and a host more have gone, so that by death and removal, as well as by the constant additions of new comers, one wdio only knew the country and people in lS5('>-7-S. would now. if here, find himself almost a stranger in a strange land.

The number of those who came here in 1857 was much greater than in 1856. In 1S57 the Indians assigned their claims to the country and it was surveyed and brought into market and the uncertainties as to title and possession no longer gave trouble. 'This year, also, there was plenty to do, breaking land, building houses, barns and fences, and labor was in great demand at high prices.

These considerations, together with the promise of good crops encouraged everybody. The general prosperity and the rapid increase of population aroused, during the summer, the ambition of settlers to have a county organization. Ponca, then in Dakota county, but in the northwestern corner of it. hoped to be taken into the new county, as its future in such a new deal, would become more promising. With these ambitious desires in view, the Ponca people at an election, held August 8, 1857, brought forward Dr. S. P. Stough as their candidate for the territorial legislature. Their voting place had been previously and was that year at St. Johns, a town about a mile north of Jackson. St. Johns, though now extinct, was then the largest town in Dakota county and of so much importance that it had recently been nearly successful in an effort to become the county seat in place of Dakota City. In such effort St. Johns received a majority of the votes but not two-thirds, and that being the number required, Dakota City continued to hold the fort. St. Johns did not want Ponca to go into a new county, as it would then make the location of the former too far to one side, and thereby in any future struggle for county seat, be apt to defeat its efforts. On the contrary for the same reasons, residents in the eastern part of Dakota county wTere anxious to be rid of Ponca and territory enough on the west to bring Dakota City near the center and thus assure its destiny forever as a county seat. Hence Dakota City and Ponca joined hands to elect Dr. Stough to the legislature, knowing that his election would result in the desired law and would he beneficial to both.

At this election, the last at which Ponca had to go away from home to vote, twenty-seven of Ponea's citizens piled into G. F. Putnam's big hay wagon and went down to St. Johns. The voters of St. Johns objected to their voting, and much eloquent wind was expended on both sides. The St. Johns folks challenged the right of the Poncaites to come there to vote and made threats of black eyes and possible annihilation. In fact there were two or three moderate tights, and both sides had coats off and decks cleared for action, and there would have been a desperate scrimmage had it not been for Father Tracy, the Catholic priest. He quieted the uproar and poured oil on the troubled waters. The men from Ponca put in their votes and tried their best for Dr. Stough. Dakota City helped all it could, but there were not enough votes, all told, to elect him. Hence the new county project was knocked in head for that year.

Misfortunes come in pairs. That truth was demonstrated on the same day their election resulted so disastrously. Their second misfortune was a grasshopper raid, something the settlers had never seen before. Late in the afternoon as the hay wagon with its twenty-seven closely packed voters was returning from St. Johns to Ponca, a phenomenon was seen entirely new to them. It was a great, dark cloud rapidly approaching from the north. As it came near, they saw it was not a rain or dust cloud, and it was thought to be composed of a great collection of cottonwood seeds floating together high in air. When near them, part of the cloud came to the ground and Putnam and Hoese climbed down from the wagon and made examination.

The new visitations resembled the eastern grasshopper somewhat, and as Messrs. Putnam and Hoese had often heard of the dreaded western variety, they readily determined as to what they were.

When the party arrived in Ponca, they found a sorry state of affairs. The 'hoppers, innumerable hosts of them, had come down and were busy eating the gardens and corn fields.

Out of this grasshopper raid grew a lawsuit the next day, One, Benniphon, residing up South Creek way, and said to have an inordinate love for his neighbors' property, came before the Squatters Club, and claimed that the cattle of William Jones had destroyed his corn. A committee consisting of Messrs. Forney, Hoese and Harrington, accompanied by Putnam as Sheriff, went out to Henniphon's place to examine the field. They saw no cattle tracks hut found plenty of evidence that the damage had been done by the all devouring 'hoppers, and that hence the cause of action was beyond the jurisdiction of the Squatter Court. This little lawsuit episode had for the time, diverted the attention of the settlers from an examination of their own fields. Hut the sight of Henniphon's demolished crop, opened their eyes to the tremendous strength and industry of a grasshopper's jaws, and they made haste with many forebodings, to investigate. They found that this first grasshopper visit, though short, had wiped out the growing crops of every one of them. During the balance of the fall the new county project was subordinate in all minds to the question as to what they would have to eat the coming winter. Really, the loss was not great, as only about two hundred and seventy-five acres were in crops that year, but it was all the people had and though now-a-days the loss of ten times that amount would cut no figure, then it was a most serious matter and foreshadowed hungry days.

Nor were the fears ill founded. With 1858 hard times came in earnest. In 1856-7 money had been plenty, wages from $8 to $5 per day and enough to do. But in 1858 and from that time to and including 1860 there was hardly a dollar between Sioux City and Niobrara. Crops were poor and provisions scarce and the ambition of settlers and the prices of land went down to bed rock. Mr. Putnam says that during those unpropitious years a good farm could have been bought for a dollar. The main difficulty in making such a purchase was to get the dollar.

In these first years of Dixon County life, the pioneer had the usual troubles of those who settle in a new country. Generally with a thin purse and little credit, privations naturally followed. At the start it was expensive for settlers to come to the west, and when here to plow and plant, build cabins and stables and fairly get business under satisfactory headway. But such expenses and labors even with the additional disappointments and losses from hard times, grasshoppers, short crops, etc.. did not often discourse the settlers of Dixon County, especially in the first three years. The pioneer realized that he could well afford to suffer privations. Instead of costing the earnings of a lifetime to purchase a farm, as in the east, he had here a better farm given him. Here was a beautiful country, fertile soil, timber, pure water, and above all a healthy climate. What more could reasonably be asked. What though he might suffer backsets at first and be made to feel the want of many things which in the east were considered indispensable.

Allowing that his purse was empty, his family on short rations, and that a good square meal and a comfortable coat were known to him only in his dreams. These were not calamities but temporary privations which energy and perseverance would cure. But it would have been a calamity to have left his farm with its attendant privations, and go back east. and. no longer the lord of a manor, himself, become a hewer of wood and a drawer of water for reviving the project for a county organization. This year the election turned out better than it had the year before, and I). T. Bramble, the merchant of Ponca. and naturally greatly interested in its welfare and in the welfare of the country tributary to it, was elected to the territorial legislature, the next session of which was held at Omaha, commencing September 21. 1858.

At that session an act introduced by Mr. Bramble organizing the County of Dixon was passed and duly approved November 1. 1858, with an emergency clause attached. Such act was as follows:

Section 1." Be it enacted by the council and house of representatives of the territory of Nebraska, that all that portion of the territory with the following boundaries, to-wit: Commencing at a point where the township line between townships twenty-nine and thirty strikes the Missouri river; thence west along said line to the section line between sections three and four, township twenty-nine, north, range six, east; thence south to the south line of Dakota county; thence west to a point due south of the southeast corner of Cedar county; thence north to the middle of the main channel of the Missouri river; thence down said channel to the place of beginning, be and the same is hereby organized under the name and style of Dixon County.

Sec. '2. The first election for county officers shall be held in said county on the second Monday in December, A. D. 1858, and shall be conducted in the same manner and governed by the same laws as govern the elections of other counties, excepting that the returns shall be made to the probate judge of Dakota county, who shall issue certificates of election to those who have received a plurality of the votes cast for the respective officers, who shall hold their offices until the next general election.

Sec. 3. At the first election, each qualified voter may designate on his ballot the place of his choice for the county seat of said county, and if any one place receives a majority of the votes cast, it shall be the county seat; if not, the county commissioners shall order a new election to be held within twenty days, and they shall give eight days' notice of the same, when the choice shall be between the two places that receive the highest number of votes at the first election, and the one receiving the majority shall be the county

Sec 4. At the first election, the polls shall be opened and an election held at Ponca, Galena, Ionia and North Bend, and the same shall be conducted by judges of election appointed by the probate judge of Dakota county, who shall give due notice of the election.

The language used in the above act defining the boundaries of Dixon county, is not the same as that which the .statute now prescril >es. It means precisely the same, however. The change of the wording was by an act of the legislature in 1859, "To change and redefine the boundaries of Dixon, Cedar and 1/ Eau-qui-court counties" and which went into effect January 13, 1860. Under that act the boundaries are as follows: twenty-seven, north, range 4, east; thence east to the line dividing sections thirty-three (33) and thirty-four (34) in township twenty-seven, north, of range six east; thence north to the dividing line between townships twenty-nine and thirty, north, of range six east, thence east to the middle of the main channel of the Missouri river; thence up said channel to a point where the dividing line between ranges three and four, east, intersects the same, thence south to the place of beginning. 12001.1.4

Up to the time the organization act Took effect, November 1, 1858, the government township including Ponca and a strip running north and south, therefrom across the county and three miles wide, had been a part of Dakota county, and it had been expected by many and hoped by all who lived in the western part of the region affected, that the boundary of Dakota county would not be disturbed and that Ponca wTould remain there.

As heretofore mentioned, two ambitious towns had been started near the mouth of Lime Creek in the northwestern part of that which afterwards became Dixon County. One of those towns, Concord, had a store, post office, a saw mill and four houses, and the other. North Bend, had a mill and a few houses, and in size and population about equalled Concord. Concord and North Bend were less than a mile apart and much rivalry existed between them. In the summer of 1858, when the necessity of a county organization became apparent, it was generally supposed that none of the territory of Dakota county would be disturbed, but that instead, a range of townships on the west (afterwards included in Cedar county) would be incorporated in the new county. Thus Ponca would be left out and either Concord or North Bend was sure to become the county seat.

There would then be no other place of importance in the county, not considering Ionia and Galena, which had but two or three houses apiece, and hence Concord or North Bend would naturally get the prize.

To settle this destructive rivalry the statesmen of the two villages put their heads together and evolved a plan which they immediately put into execution, viz: the towns being but a short distance apart, the land between them was laid out into a new town, and named Dixon. Thus the rivals came into one town and the central part, Dixon was, expected to become the county seat, and its name. Dixon would henceforth be the name covering the whole.

The new name. Dixon, was made the name of the count), but as afterwards appeared, the honor of naming the new count\ was all that Dixon received. The member of the territorial legislature in 1858, .Mr. Bramble, saw that if Ponca became a part of the new county it would be a powerful and probably successful rival of Dixon. Ponca had already while in Dakota county shown an ambition for county honors. At an election a year or two before to decide the location of Dakota county's capital, Ponca had entered the lists and had received a few votes, and the desire to get rid of the presence of a possible future competitor may have had something to do with Dakota City's ready consent to the loss of that part of Dakota county which included Ponca. Hence the foregoing act for the organization of the county, was advocated by Mr. Bramble without opposition of importance from Dakota county, and none which was effectual from the friends of the new town of Dixon.

But while Dakota City was glad to thus get rid of an ambitious neighbor, the fears of the friends of Dixon that the death knell of their town had thereby been sounded, especially as the desired range of townships on the west had not been taken in. rendered their welcome to the new comer anything but cordial. That their fears were well founded, soon after became apparent.

The act organizing the county provided that on the second Monday of December, 1858, the election of county officers, and the designation of the county seat should take place, and that polls should be opened at Ponca, Galena, Ionia and North Bend.

In the short time between the approval of the kiw and the holding of the election, every one was busy in behalf of his favorite town for county seat and his candidates for county officers. The combination of North Bend and Concord gave them encouraging strength, yet Ponca had eight buildings and about a dozen families, thus equaling the Concord-Dixon-North Bend triumvirate in that respect.

Not very metropolitan were these young cities, it must be confessed, but in ambition, hope and good feeling they were equal to many towns that put on more size. The entire population of the county at that time was about three hundred.

When the election came off desperate efforts for success were made by each of the rival localities. It has been said by some that the tremendous array of votes on that occasion indicated that the population of the county had suddenly jumped to greater proportions than ever before or since. Whether voters came from across the river or whether votes were put into the box in behalf of absent eastern friends, as asserted by some and denied by others, can hardly be told at this late day. Nor does it specially matter, as all, if any, resorted to the same tactics and the result was probably the same it would have been had the extra votes been left out. So long as it did not affect the result, it did no harm to vote absent friends or even Indians and in fact might have been useful as a showing that Dixon county was rapidly acquiring an immense population.

The result, loudly celebrated in Ponca on election night after the returns were in, was that Ponca had been victorious and that its eight buildings were located at the capital of the county. Tradition informs us that on that happy, exuberant occasion, the countenances of its citizens, Messrs. Bisbee, Porter, Stough, Todd, et al, shone with joy and enthusiasm.

But while Ponca rejoiced, the defeat of Dixon caused it to soon disappear from the map and even from memory. It never had a house, and being on low ground was unfit for a house to stand on. Its only use was to marry the rival towns of Concord and North Bend, and after its mission had been fulfilled and had failed to do them or itself any good, it once more was thought of as a tract of cheap prairie, tit only for hay land. It now is a part of the farm of John (i undersoil.

It may be proper to add here that in a few years Concord and North Bend petered out. their buildings were moved away or torn down, and their town sites became farms. Such is the frequent end of western town site enterprises.

Thus Dixon county was finally started out on its official career. Those who were elected were men of integrity, and their careful and intelligent management of county affairs showed that the confidence of voters had not been misplaced.

We do not learn the names of those who were elected at- this first election, from any records. There are no records which we can find here or in the secretary of state's office at Lincoln showing that any election was held at all. In all things therefore relating this election we have been compelled to rely entirely on the memories of a few of those who were present on that occasion.

As will be seen from its metes and bounds, Dixon county touches the Missouri on the north, has the river and Dakota county on the east, Wayne county on the south and Cedar county on the west.

It has four hundred and eighty-six square miles, or three hundred and eleven thousand and forty (811,040) acres. It is a tract of land which is most fortunate in several respects. It has not a single worthless or marshy acre. About onefourth of it is bottom land, the balance is rolling, and all of it has a rich soil, varying from three to six feet in depth and capable of producing immense crops.

There is no lack of water. The Logan river runs through the southern part, and the Daily, Aoway, West Branch, Turkey, Powder and Lime creeks in the central and northern parts of the county. In addition are a great number of small tributaries, so that nearly every quarter section in the county has a living stream upon it. Along the Missouri the vast tracts of timber, oak, elm, black walnut, hickory, etc., warranted to settlers abundant supplies of lire wood and lumber.

the genera] government, the territorial Legislature and the industry and energy of the pioneers, became Dixon county and the future home of thousands of prosperous citizens.

After the election of its first county officers and the location of its capital, the new county of Dixon moved forward as hopefully as could be expected. Dixon, by becoming a full-fledged county, did not disturb the equilibrium of the other counties of the state, nor by its growth excite their jealousy. Nor did Ponca under its new honors become unduly swelled with pride and importance, nor bound into notice as a rival of Omaha, [ts growth from that time forward, was at about the same pace as previously, somewhat slow, yet its future, under the circumstances, seemed more assured than before.