Seward County, Nebraska - Chapter 6, 1916

The opinion formed by a few persons and accepted as correct by the general public that the whole vast area of territory, extending from the west shore of the Missouri river to the foot-hills of the Rocky mountains, was a baren desert, without doubt resulted from a mere glance at the great plains during an unfavorable period. There must be many residents of Seward county who can remember the desolate appearing outlines of the "Great American Desert" which marred the face of the maps in the school geographies fifty or sixty years ago. And the laws of the land and the powers that were in those days would not have permitted an author of school maps to outline and describe Seward county nor any other portion of that desert as the most productive land in the world. Had a child in school advanced such an idea he or she would have been summarily punished with the small end of a beech limb and declared too lazy to learn the lessons taught in the books. And here in Seward county today people are inclined by vast reasons to question the sanity of those who everlooked facts and placed a myth or deception before school children in regard to the country they lived in. But in looking up facts they reveal something of a reason for such errors. In those wild times when the buffalo, elk, deer and antelope had full sway, roaming at will over the prairie, they tramped and eat the grass, during the drouth seasons, until the ground in large tracts was as bare as a floor. Especially was this so on the up-lands bordering upon the Missouri river. And the land being of a sandy nature with no timber and nothing to be seen but the bare and parched earth as far as the eve could reach, there was little else to be thought of but a desert. Again the absence of moisture to keep the dust down together with the prevalent winds of that period resulted in almost constant sand storms or dust blizzards.

Although the tilling of the soil ami the planting of millions of trees by the settlers aided in drawing moisture, breaking the winds and keeping the land more settled, those desert appearing sand storms were of frequent occurrence up to as late a date as 1880. Dust blizzards were similar to snow blizzards excepting that they followed a drouth or dry spell while a snow blizzard follows a wst season. They were in early times both of three days duration and seldom cut their stay one minute short of regulation time. The clouds of dust which were formed frequently had so much appearance of rain clouds that a person not acqainted with them would expect to see the rain pouring down in torrents in a few minutes. These phenomenal disturbances were many times augmented by the addition of lightening and heavy thunder. There has been many such storms in Seward county and many days when the air was so impregnated with fine, white sand that it was difficult to get a breath of air that was clear from dirt. And this latter condition seemed to have come from other localities as the sand would fall like dew, unaccompanied by high wind.

In the spring of 1879, shortly after seeding time, the most disagreable and destructive dust blizzard ever witnessed by the earliest settlers, raged throughout Seward county for the usual period of three days and nights. It had been a very dry year. In fact there had been but little moisture for eight months, the earth being so baked and hard that there was but a small amount of fall plowing, as it was almost impossible to keep a plow in the ground where it was baked and in fields where it was not baked the soil was so dry and light that a plow as smooth as glass would only push the furrow over without turning it. It is said "there is no great loss without small gain," and in the fact that it had been too dry for weeds to grow, was its blessed reminder. But with the earth in this condition the wind came and the billowy clouds rolled from the earth to the sky, and the frequent Hash of lightening and peal of thunder caused many hearts to beat with rapture over thoughts that it would rain; and it did rain, but not the kind that required the token of God's promise that the world should not be destroyed again by water. And it entered the houses regardless of the tightest walls. Wherever the air went the black dirt accompanied it, blanketing beds and tables and carpeting the floors. The soil was swept from plowed fields as with a broom to the depth of the plowing, and drifted into ridges in hedges and in die high dead grass at the sides of roads similar to snow drifts, many of the drifts of dirt being visible at the present time. The misfortune caused by this storm consisted not only in the seed grain which was swept entirely from the fields, but the labor of sowing together with the lost time, or backset to crops which were re-sowen, in all not easy to estimate. Fortunately there has been a gradual receding from those desert conditions until there has been only a few small reminders of them in the past thirty-four years.

While Nebraska is a dry state it is frequently visited by unparaleled downpores of rain, turning the draws into rageing torrents and swelling the rivers until their valleys resemble lakes. While Seward county is like a duck's back and surplus water soon runs off, those precipitations of moisture are generally followed by continued drouths. Snow storms of any great magnitude have occurred only occasionally, and each one can readily be recalled to mind by most any of the earlier settlers. W. W. Cox, in his history, gives an ac- count of a disasterous snow storm in the winter of 1864-65, but it appears that the thawing off of the snow accompanied by a forty-eight hour downpour of ram was the greatest cause of misfortune to a few families who had settled upon the river bottom land. But the winter of 1866-67 seems to have been the crowning period for snow storms of which Mr. Cox says: "Of all the hard winters we have experienced in forty-live years of residence in Nebraska, that was bv far the most severe. It began to snow on the first day of December, and from that time to the first of April it was a succession of storm after storm, and many of them was regular blizzards of the most ferocious character. The snow became very deep and was drifted into such huge drifts that communication was entirely cut off between distant settlements." It is evident that the little settlements at that time were sorely distressed for the want of food and fuel, and also for feed for stock, being almost reduced to a point of starvation. Their scanty supplies had run out almost before there was an opening through the great banks of snow by which they might replenish their stocks, and then the Hoods following the sudden melting of the snow cut them off from relief for several days. This was, of course, a condition incident to earliest pioneer life in Seward county.

The spring of 1873 was very pleasant and people had made gardens and prospects were so fine for early summer that the ordinary straw stables for stock had been neglected and permitted to become open, the sides having been blown away by the wind, and in fact all precaution and care for the protection of man and beast from the cold blasts of a winter storm had been forgotten. It commenced raining on the tenth of April, the wind blowing gently from the southeast, the rain and wind continuing until the night of the twelveth, the clouds thickening at times would be accompanied b\T lightening and thunder. We were living in our twelve foot, pioneer residence with two windows. Cn that memorable night of the twelfth of April we were awakened by an unusual roaring of the wind and glancing at the windows thought the moon was shining, but soon recalled the fact that there was no moon. We got up and opened the door and were a'most instantly made aware of the source from which the disturbance and the light in the windows came. The wind had veered to the north-west and seemed to have the force of a cyclone while the air was so full of snow as to produce an appearance of moonlight. In fact the most terrifying blizzard we had ever witnessed was before our drowsy eyes in all the horrors that could be depicted. We did not tarry long to view the panarama as the ruling elements seemed to dictate that we retire and shut the door. This blizzard continued for three days and nights without abatement for an instant and the doleful tones that were ever present in the ears were not relieved when in the refreshing embrace of slumber. And there was scarcely a minute during the seventy-two hours that an object of any dimension could be discerned ten steps distant, and two minutes exposure to the full force of the storm would cause vacant places in a person's clothing to fill up with the celebrated but not appreciated "beautiful snow." While several of our neighbors saved their cows, horses and mules by taking them into their houses we saved three out of four small hogs and about thirty hens by dividing our twelve foot space with them. We did not bring these animals in until the second day and one of the hogs died in fifteen minutes after being brought where it was warm. Charles Emerson, living in a sod house on a hill in L precinct, had his horses in a dugout stable at the foot of the hill, perhaps six or eight rods from the house, and the storm was so severe and blinding that he did not venture to go and attend to them during the three days, and after the storm had passed b}^ his heart almost failed him when he opened the half closed door of the stab.e and found it packed full of snow and not the least sign that his faithful horses were alive. He secured a shovel and after digging a while came upon the horses both standing up, the snow having filled in around them so close that they could not lie down, the warmth from their bodies melting the snow sufficiently to give them breathing room, and both were alive. This storm raged during the 13th, 14th, and 15th of April, the latter being Easter Sunday, and would justly pass to history as the greatest Easter storm on record.

The winter of 1879 and 80 was a record breaker for snow, and the first and only winter when runners superseded wheels on all conveyances in Seward county. That winter sledding came to stay and during three months it was almost out of style, and impossible to run wheel vechicles. The foundation of this continued sledding came about the middle of Decmber in the way of several inches of snow upon which there was a heavy fall of sleet, forming an unusually stiff crust, and upon this crust there came a heavy fall of snow. This stormy condition lasted about ten days, and although there was a little too much of it for the many that had corn to gather, no one thought much about it, as snow never remained on the ground long in Nebraska. But there came an unlooked for change on the night of December 23d the wind raising to a force of about sixty miles an hour, swept the loose snow on top o[ the crust into drifts ten and fifteen feet deep at the south and east sides of buildings, hedges and in draws and low places in roads; corn fields were full almost to the top of the stalks, and these great banks were pounded and packed so hard by the force of the wind that horses and cattle could travel over them and not break the crust. And while the drifts would bear the hoofs of those animals they would not bear the wheels of wagons.

While these conditions cut the farming community cff for a time from their source of supplies and mail, there was but little if any suffering for want of real necessities. Our house was short on bread stuff, but we had a good coffee mill and an abundance of wheat and corn and got along fine. The greatest suffering in our neighborhood was due to the fact that nearly every man used tobacco and all had been stretching their plugs to make them reach to the end of corn picking time and were out when the roads became blockaded. And if there ever is a time when a man who uses tobacco can't tret along without the stuff it is when he is snowed in.

On the 1 2th of January, 1 8 8 S occurred the fatal blizzard that caused so much suffering among children having caught them at the hour of going home from school. The wind was mild from the south-east all forenoon, and until ubout three o'clock in the afternoon. The snow fell very fast all day, being in large flakes and light. Between three and four o'clock the avalanche of snow driven by a terriffic wind from the north-west, poured in upon every exposed quarter with blinding fury. The snow came so thick as to be impenetrable to vision, and many children became blinded, bewildered and lost, wandering for hours in the extreme cold. However the storm abated about sun down and the sky became clear. Had it continued the usual time of three days the prairies of Seward county might have been strewn with the dead bodies of children and the story too horrible to tell. As it was a few lost their lives throughtout the state resulting from exposure to the cold, and a few having their limbs frozen were rendered cripples.

And this sums up the severe snow epochs covering a period of fifty years in Seward county, and the severity of those storms was due as much to the unprepared conditions of the country as to the storms. The great Easter blizzard of 1873 was disagreable in the extreme, but had the settlers been prepared with comfortable quarters for their stock it would have carried a much less formidable aspect. The first, second and third storms mentioned would seem like small affairs in New York, Pennsylvania or Ohio. The last one mentioned as "the fatal blizzard" of 1888, was severe, but of short duration and had it occurred at an earlier hour in the day, or when school children were safe at home, it would have soon been forgotten. And we venture the assertion that there is scarcely a section of country in any of the snow zones of the world the size of Seward county that can compare with it for mildness in the matter of snow storms during the fifty-two years mentioned. We are not saying that it does not snow every winter in Nebraska, but storms of any great magnitude and worthy of note have occurred on an average of about one in ten years. Snow seldom amounts to even fair sleighing in Nebraska, and has been known to remain as such over three days at a time only once in sixty years. In the winter of 1879 and 1880 there was sleighing from Christmas till the middle of March and the many sleds and runners to take the place of wheels on wagons and buggies that were made during that time have become rusty, rotten and covered with moss from lack of usage.

That Seward county is located in a windy state cannot be gainsaid, and until recent years, wind blowing at a rate of forty to fifty miles an hour was only a gentle breeze, and some times it came with force enough to shake the foundation of a sod house. But there has perhaps been as little damage and inconvenience from that source in the county as many other sections of the world. And its disasterous wind storms cannot be attributed to the prevailing tendency of the element. They would undoubtedly have occurred in the balmy precincts of Switzerland had the storm conditions been the same in that realm. However the storms are limited to such small numbers that had it not been for the fatal tornado of May 14th, 1913, there would be but little of occurrence in that line worthy of mention since the earliest settlements. In June, 1875, a wind storm of violent force swept the entire county, coming from the north-west, doing considerable damage to buildings although there was no loss of life. This was a straight wind and might properly be called a cyclone. Living on the prairie where the approaching storm in all of its horrible features could be viewed for many miles, while its appearance was fearful to look upon, it was as grand a picture of the living but distinctive element as could be produced. A great, black cloud seemed to be rolling along upon the ground while it reached up to the sky. The fastenings upon our door were not very strong therefore we took the precaution to hold it shut which proved to be a task requiring our entire strength. The main force of the wind lasted but a few minutes, during which time the room was filled so full of black dirt that we could not see any one of the family nor even the windows in the walls. A similar storm occurred in September, 1876, coming in the middle of the night with a violent thunder storm. Hay stacks, grain stacks, wind mills and small out buildings were blown down, wracked or damaged in numerous sections of the county. Extending over a period from this date to May 14th, 191 3, there were but a few minor disturbances by unusual winds. The tornado of the date just mentioned placed a dark blot upon the pages of the county's history, always to be read with deep sorrow and sadness. The storm came from the south-west, entering the county three or four miles north of its south-west corner and passing north-east through the entire county, destroying farm residences, barns and everything in its path. It struck the west portion of the city of Seward, passing through it, leaving death and desolation in its wake, the dead numbering eight residents of the little city, as follows: Mrs. Edward

Edmonds, aged 63 years; Mrs. Win. Hassinger, aged 73 years; Gustav Schulz, 32 years, and daughter Elma. 3 years and 10 months; Samuel Crim, 43 years; Mrs. David Imlay, 63 years; Mrs. C. L. Wasserman, 34 years; and xYlrs. David Hoover, 58 years. This sad occurrence fell heavily upon the sympathetic spirit of the city of Seward, its citizens being almost prostrated with grief for many days, in which the entire county joined their sympathies. There were no fatalities out side the city of Seward, due to the course of the storm which passed through the fields on an angle thus avoiding contact to a great extent with dwelling houses. Again people residing in the country districts had an opportunity to see the approaching storm and secure a place of safty.

The relief fund raised for the benefit of the Seward sufferers amounted to $9,451.35. All but $1,473.30 of this fund was contributed by Seward county citizens, outside contributions not being solicited, but accepted when sent. The relief committee appointed to disburse the relief fund consisted of Hon. Wm. H. Smith, Wm. Rosborough and W. Q. Dickinson.