Merrick County, Nebraska - Chapter 11: Interesting Events of Early Settlement, 1898

T[N interesting and most curious circumstance connected with the early days is vouched for by Mr. James Berryman, who says J I that previous to the year of greatest immigration (1870) the coming of the seasons was as regular as clockwork. "We all knew," says Mr. Berryman, "that on the day before Christmas we must have our barns banked up, our fuel and food supplies provided for, and be prepared for winter. In the fall of 1870 the new settlers inquired as to when they should expect winter, and we told them, 'no danger at all before Christmas; winter never misses Christmas a week either way.' " But with that winter, for some cause or other, the regularity of the seasons vanished, and the immigrants who had accepted the old settler's advice found themselves early in November at the mercy of a severe western winter. Since that time the winter season has been capricious, sometimes short and at other times spreading itself all over the months from November to mid- April.

The year of 1873 was one of the latter kind. From a lesser storm in 1872 at about the same time, however, our pioneers had learned not to be too sure of good weather before May. Consequently the great blizzard of 1873 found them not so illy prepared as would have been the case five years earlier.

On the evehing of the 13th of April, 1873, wise men of the county shook their heads and declared that before the next morning there would be a "tight blizzard." Their prediction was fulfilled. At about 12 oclock that night the storm began, and the settlers awoke the next morning to find themselves literally buried alive by the snow which had fallen during the*night. A terrific north wind, swirling and eddy¬ ing continually, drove the snow with such a force that at the height of the storm no one could face it long and live. Men sat about their redhot stoves and endeavored to keep themselves warm, venturing out only when absolutely necessary to look after their stock. For three days and four nights the storm raged, and when it ended fully onefourth of the live stock in the county had perished.

Many experiences, some sad and some amusing, have been carried in the minds of those who underwent the trial of the great storm. We are able, however, to give only a few, as indicative of the intensity of the storm and the alarm which it occasioned among the people.

The first and saddest incident of this memorable blizzard was the death of a young man, Barnhouse by name. The boy started from the Central City House to the printing office, then situated on the corner west of Larsen's implement house. When he did not return in a reasonable time inquiry was made, and it was found that he had not reached the office. A searching party of several men was organized, and joining hands they went south for a mile, and returned in the face of the blizzard, but found no trace. After the storm a party found the boy's body frozen into the ice of the Platte, near Parker's Island, only a short distance from some bushes whose protection, had he reached them, might have saved his life.

It was in this storm that Thomas Kelley, who lived at that time on the Brannan farm west of town, went out to his barn, about fiftyrods from his house, to feed his stock, and found the storm so severe that he chose rather to remain in the barn all night than to attempt a return to the house.

During the fiercest part of the storm N. R. Persinger, who lived at that time on his homestead about nine miles north of town, started out with an armload of hay for his horses. As he went around the corner of the barn the wind caught him, threw him down, and rolled him and his burden of hay over and over. When he had righted himself again his cap had disappeared. This occasioned him no alarm, but when it was found after the storm, lodged against a stable over t^o miles away, the finders were badly frightened, surmising that the lost cap meant a

To us of the later days, accustomed somewhat to the annual blizzards and more or less acquainted with the extremely severe storms which occur every five or six years, the fright of this great April blizzard of '73 may appear of little consequence. But to the newcomer, who had supposed March ended a western winter, its coming was unexpected and alarming, and few of those who passed through it have yet forgotten the terror of its coming or the'rigor of its endurance.