Gage County, Nebraska - Chapter 9: The Pioneers, 1918

It should certainly be the delight of every age to pay grateful tribute to a noble or valiant ancestry. The annals of mankind have but meager interest when stripped of the personal element and confined to a bare narrative of events. But when vivified by the record of the lives of those whose heroic daring lifted them far above the ordinary, common plane of living, history may become the most pleasing and instructive of all subjects of study.

No history of our county would be complete 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 public highways, to groves, orchards, meadows, churches and schools, to thriving villages and cities, to newspapers, manufactories, banks, business establishments, railroads, telegraph and telephone lines, to everything, in fact, that typifies modern living, we are too prone to forget the hard, difficult pioneer days, when there were no homes save the settlers' lonely dugout, sod-house, or log-cabin ; when 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 highways save the meandering paths of the buffalo and Indian; when there were no orchards, 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 happiness and prosperity prone to forget the aspect that nature wore in these primitive solitudes to the wondering view of the first inhabitants of our county, but we may even be strongly inclined to hold as of trifling consequence the sacrifices required of pioneer life and to disparage the actual hardships, dangers, privations, and suffering which they endured whose heroism and courage made it possible for the lines of civilization to be advanced upon the great plains region of the west.

The thin line of immigrants that gathered in the spring and early summer of 1854, on the eastern shore of the Missouri river, awaiting the signal to enter the new territory of Nebraska, rapidly spread over the eastern section of the territory contiguous to that mighty stream. And the early immigrants of Richardson, Nemaha, Otoe, Cass, Sarpy, Douglas, and some other of the eastern counties, on account of the navigation then existing on the river, were spared many of the privations of pioneer life. But those who later pushed on into Gage and other counties remote from this, the only source of water transportation available, experienced in every degree the hardships of isolated pioneer existence.

sixty-four years of our state's history, we will find that in 1854 when people of the New England, the Middle, and the South Atlantic states spoke of the west they meant Ohio, Indiana or, at the farthest, Michigan, Wisconsin, lUinois, - or Iowa or Missouri when they mentioned our western border or frontier. The immigrants bound for Nebraska territory in 1854, and for several years thereafter, usually crossed the Missouri river at Omaha, Plattsmouth, Nebraska City, Brownville, 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, sidewheel Missouri river steamboats, which in those days traversed the "Big Muddy" from St. Louis to the trading posts of the trappers, traders, and frontiersmen scattered along its banks to its source in the northwest. Once having crossed that turbulent stream, the immigrant 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 telegraph was still wrapped up in a congressional appropriation of thirty thousand dollars, to enable Professor 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 point as far as the eye could see, stretched the territory of Nebraska, until then wholly unoccupied by civilized man. Of one thing the immigrant could feel assured, - when he turned his back upon the Missouri river and faced the western horizon he was like an army cut ofif from its base of supplies and lines of communication. Before him lay the undulating almost treeless prairie, rolling away to the west, north, and south like the billows of the ocean, hundreds upon hundreds of miles. It was the "Great American Desert" of the old geographers ; the "Plains" of the military department at Washington; the El Dorado of the poor homeseeker; the unorganized, tenantless territory of Nebraska, inhabited only by wild animals and by the red man, almost equally wild. As he advanced westward a little in the brilliant 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. Around 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 primeval 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 true pioneer looks beyond his present hard, uninviting surroundings, 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 !

But the prospect 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 experience, courageous, determined, he was his own best guarantor of the successful issue of his venture as a pioneer in the new territory. If the winds of wintei 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 dappled sky, whose long twilight and dawn, song of birds and distant boom of prairie chicken welcoming the rising sun, renewed his hopes and spurred him on to yet higher endfeavor. 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 first care was to provide some sort of shelter for himself and family'. Here in Gage county this usually consisted of a log cabin, or occasionally a sod house, generally comprising a single room.

constructed for that purpose, drawn by several 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 furrow regulated by a device which held the plow steadily on a level. With the pioneers, perfection 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 appearance of the weather-boarded side of a frame house. The breaking could be planted probably fourteen by sixteen feet in dimensions, 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 surroundings and the exigencies of . circumstances. After his family the pioneer's next care was to construct shelter for such stock as he possessed and to provide for their maintenance. This shelter was apt to be a very 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 abundant 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 com in every second or third furrow and covering with the next, or by cutting a gash in the upturned sod with a sharp ax or spade and inserting 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 satisfactory results. If the season were favorable, crops of sod corn were often raised yielding as high as twenty-five or more bushels per acre, and the rich, new soil produced potatoes, 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 possibility of actual want, as far as good wholesome yegetables and Indian corn could insure this result. For sugar a ready and a very wholesome substitute was found in common sorghum, and in the production of a high grade of sorghum molasses the pioneer often attained great skill, the product being wholesome 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 dietary of the people.

The pioneers of our county found growing in great abundance along the streams thickets of wild plums and chokecherries. The plums were often of large size and delicious 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 timber, of which they were the fringe. The mold produced by their thick leaves from year to year afforded 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 beginning to show on every hand, the milkwhite, 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 varieties of excellent wild grapes and wild gooseberries, 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 jelHes, preserves, jams, butters, and other forms of food for winter use, and with the thrifty housewife's tomato preserves, pumpkin butter, 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. The custom of pasturing non-tillable and timbered land with stock has proved almost fatal to the existence and spread of every 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 as respectsthe protection of growing timber from destruction 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 day abounded with several varieties of edible fish which were easily taken by the expenditure of a little time and trouble. Many of the most desirable sort, the pike, the pickerel, the perch, the sunfish, the chub, the red horse, have long since disappeared. Throughout the pioneer days, our prairies abounded with grouse or prairie chickens, the woods with squirrels, rabbits,, raccoons, and quails, with an occasional flock of wild turkeys.

Prior to the advent of the white man. Gagecounty had been a favorite range of the wild buffalo, the elk, the deer, the antelope. As late probably as 1855, when the Otoe and Missouri tribes of Indians were transferred from, the Missouri river country to our county, these great game animals were here in largeherds 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 disappeared from the confines of our county, but' still could be found in great abundance in the. region west of the Little Blue river. Small bands 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

Of all the plains animals the buffalo was at once the most picturesque and the most useful. These huge beasts ranged the prairies by millions from the Height of Land in the far north to the tide waters of the gulf of Mexico. They spread over what is now Texas, western Louisiana, Oklahoma, New jMexico, Kansas, Colorado, Nebraska, Iowa, the Dakotas, and Montana. To the Indian tribes inhabiting these regions they furnished clothing, food, materials for sewing garments, knives, arrow points, war clubs, and many 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 multiplying the means for their destruction, finally led to the wanton extinction of this wonderful and picturesque 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 government . to which conservation of natural resources of wealth has until recently been a subject of minor consideration - a high sounding phrase.

From such sources of food supply as here given, the pioneer was able fully to supplement 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 ripened again upon the rich soil of his homestead and the returns of his toil and foresight finally rendered him indifferent to the wild plum and grape, the bison, the deer, the antelope, and those conditions of living which his dependence 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 1861, clothing materials of all kinds here in Gage county were scarce and - expensive. The cost of all cominodities 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 clothing and the materials for it, as well as the cost of all clothing materials, was manifested in many ways, but chiefly by plainness and inexpensiveness of attire. Frequently the men and boys wore coats made by wives and mothers from blankets obtained from the Indians by barter, while pantaloons constructed from meal sacks or any common, cheap material were much in evidence. Shortly before the close of the war, and for some time thereafter, army contract clothing which had been condemned and rejected by the government was to be had at fairly reasonable figures, and a civilian partly clad in army blue was a common sight on the streets of Beatrice and elsewhere 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 manufacture as well as material. The common footwear for winter was brogans and cowhide boots and shoes, while in summer the country population during the war went mostly barefoot. Occasionally 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 office of suspenders, and all articles of wearing apparel were more or less of home manufacture.

Wives and daughters dressed plainly in homemade garments. The sunbonnet 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 gentleman 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.

pioneer during the opening years of our county's history was frequently unable to procure 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 procurable, such articles were expensive and the cost often prohibitive. For tea and coffee substitutes were found which were relished by many. Often a burnt crust of corn 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 the leaves of summer savory and various other herbs were used in place of Bohea, Souchong, Young Hyson, and Gunpowder. 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, consisting of some sort of receptacle, as a saucer, teacup, or tin plate, with a twist of cotton cloth for a wick, immersed in lard.

Wheat was not grown in Gage county prior to 1861 or 1862, when spring wheat was introduced, and for many years it constituted 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 manufactory of wheat flour was in its crudest state. The first mill for grinding grain of any kind in Gage county was at the Otoe reservation, 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 western 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, run by water power, on the present 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 reservation, and thereafter both points became important milling centers for an increasingly large patronage. 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 continued to be a staple crop here until about 1876, when the chinch bug became so destructive to the plant that its cultivation ceased, and fall wheat was substituted for it with more happy results, while the chinch bug as a pest disappeared. The surplus wheat crop was either hauled to market at some Missouri river point or made intO' flour and hauled by wagon loads to the stage stations, ranches, and military posts 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. At 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 pioneers 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 settler by a few hours' labor could often obtain enough of this important substance to last anordinary family for an entire year. Throughout the summer months, in dry weather, a thin crust of salt would be produced every twentyfour hours over the low, flat, semi-dry surface of the basin, and this could be scraped up by wagon loads. At first the settlers hauled their scrapings home and proceeded to cleanse the salt from its impurities. This was done- 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 required depending upon the sun and the atmospheric conditions. Under favorable circumstances ten inches of brine could be completely reduced to high-grade salt in sixty hours.

pelled to return home saltless after camping for several days on the salt flats. For a number of years several enterprising gentlemen managed to make a very comfortable living in this industry, besides enjoying in its season the fine shooting of wild goose, duck, crane, and other water fowl that in myriads frequented the salt lake at the basin.

Social intercourse and social diversions amongst the pioneers were on a plane commensurate with their lives. To those who are wholly unaccustomed to the conditions

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 payment 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 evaporation 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 supply found the basin black and bare, on account of rain, mist, fog, or exceptionally high winds, and might even be comwhich a new country, devoid 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 pioneers 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 neverfailing light of imagination. To such, pioneer life in the early days in Nebraska was any- thing but dull and uninteresting. Its great simplicity and its freedom from those exactions which wealth imposes left time foi social intercourse. None were rich and few so poor as to suffer by contrast with their neighbors. Amongst the pioneers there existed a far truer sense of equality than can anywhere be found in communities where society is complex and where prevail social distinctions resting on wealth, ancestry, or position. Neighbors were few and often remote, but distance was no barrier to social intercourse 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 spend 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 appeared in its smartest garments, and well greased cow-hide boots; the feminine in its prettiest pink and white, most fetching poke bonnet and newest crinoline. Tag, blindman's buff, drop the handkerchief, and other youthful games served to pass the hours. Refreshments consisted at all social gatherings of native walnuts, popcorn, and sorghum taffy, while gaiety ruled the happy throng. Dancing 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, polka, or schottisch, but the Virginia reel or the common square dance, with the fiddles wailing out the "Money Musk," the "Arkansas 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 stentorian call, "Forward four," then "Balance all" and "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 rythmic motion in time to the rude orchestra. After a few moments of social intercourse, laughter, perchance 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 unalloyed, 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. And Belgium's capital had gathered there Her beauty and her chivalry ; 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."