Seward County, Nebraska - Chapter 7, 1916

Early in the summer of 1862, John Leonard passed over the freight route from Nebraska City with a wagon loaded with freight and drawn by two yoke of oxen, bound for the distant west. After leaving the freight at its destined place John made his way back over the plains, reaching Beaver Creek in the evening he camped for the night. It will be remembered that at this time the great civil war was the main topic of the day, excitement and fear running high and causing a greater extent of anxiety than at any later period during that terrible conflict. This matter being well embedded in young Leonard's mind it needed but little refreshing, and shortly after going into camp, parties from the east arrived to share his lodging place. During the course of conversation they told Mr. Leonard that the United States government was drafting men back in the states for the army. John's sleep was some-what disturbed and in his wakeful hours that night he thought the matter over and came to the conculsion that the place where he was then spending the night was good enough for him, and he would stay there, and there he remained, his nearest neighbor being the West families, twelve miles east on the West Blue river. Some time after his settlement his cattle strayed away and in his search for them he became lost and after wandering for several hours he fortunately came upon some settlers on Lincoln creek north-west of the present location of the city of Seward where he received refreshments and the proper directions for returning home where he arrived in due time, finding that his cattle were there waiting for him. In this trip he made a discovery of the secoud boundary of his vast neighborhood, the extension being from twelve miles east to eighteen north-east and not a living soul between them excepting himself. The matter of a young man preferring a life apart from civilized humanity, among wild Indians, ravenous wild beasts and reptiles, to shouldering a musket and keeping step with comrades in defense of his country, illustrates the awful war signs of that time and the fearful view people took of them. But John Leonard made the best of his situation and by industry and enterprise in deals with the freighters and early settlers he accumulated quite a fortune. He built a ranch which he afterwards sold to Amos Reed, and which was occupied by the latter's brother, Roland Reed. Mr. Leonard informed us that he put up about one hundred tons of prairie hay the second year after he settled on Beaver creek, selling it at large prices to people traveling across the plains who bought it in small quantities, paying as high as one dollar for one feed. John E. Fouse was the next settler at Beaver Crossing, coming in the fall of 1863, or a little more than one year later than Leonard's settlement. He built a ranch, or more properly, a wild west tavern. It was made of logs, the doors being double - one swinging in while a heavy plank door swung out. The windows were protected also by heavy plank door shutters, all arranged to be instantly closed. It was covered with the ordinary covering, poles, hay and dirt. From three to five heavy timbers were usually placed lengthwise of the building, one in the center and the others at equal distances between the center or ridge pole and the side wall of the building. Upon these timbers small poles would be placed close together and on the poles a thick covering of hay or straw would be made and all cover- ed with from one foot to two feet of clay. And it might as well be said right here that this kind of roofs made the settlement of the west possible. Had the settlers bee*] obliged lo procure shingles to cover their temporary dwellings of sod the settlement of the prairies would have been many years behind the times. The covering was not handsome and sometimes a pioneer would crack a tooth on one of the shingles that had accidently slipped through the hay and dropped into his johnney-cake, but it was the best in the market and made a warm roof. Its greatest fault was occasionally manifest when there was a continued rain lor a few days when it would commence to leak and continue several days after it had quit raining. And Fouse's ranch was covered with an extra heavy roof of this kind. The structure was located on the soth-west side of Beaver creek, about six or eight rods from the bank which was quite high at that point. There was a cellar made under it, and from the cellar a secret underground passageway was dug leading to the creek, permitting the inmates to escape from the building unnoticed. These precautions were undoubtedly taken as means of safety from Indians, whatever they may have been afterwards used for.

Shortly after Fouse's settlement Daniel Millspaw arrived and errected a ranch four and a half miles south east of Mr. Fouse's and about three miles south-east of the Leonard ranch, the former being on ground now occupied by the western portion of the city of Beaver Crossing.

Mr. Millspaw was soon followed by Wm. J. Thompson a former settler of Otoe county, who raised his tent in the way of a half dugout and half logs at the Walnut creek crossing, four miles east of the Millspaw ranch, at the junction of the steam wagon road and the freight route.

until after the close of the civil war, in the spring of 1866, when he took possession of the ranch built by John Leonard which he conducted until the end of that kind of ranch business.

The ranch mentioned by Cox in his history as that of Dan Millspaw, located in York county and conducted by that gentleman in 1862 while he was conducting one in Seward county was, without doubt a ranch belonging to and managed by Jack McClellan, a son-in-law of Millspaw's. Mr. Cox mentions an incident which occurred in this dugout ranch while Dan Millspaw was cooking his supper when a dare devil jumped down the chimney into the fire-place scaring Millspaw. It is a very nice story, but any one well acquainted with Uncle Dan, as Mr. Cox calls him, would brand it as an untruth because Uncle Dan would starve before he would cook or do any other kind of work. And besides all of this he had an excellent wife who was an excellent cook. But the whole story is absurd as Millspaw never lived in York county and his ranch was a double log house in Seward county.

While we have mentioned the ranchers as early settlers they were not such in the full sense of the term. They did not locate particularly to take land and make homes in the new country, but more to speculate in trade with the traveling public. Their mission was to feed the hungry and lodge the weary, and in return expected and received enormous prices and profits. Had it not been for this consideration, with the exception of John Leonard and Roland Reed, none of them would have been known as "first or early settlers." John Leonard's object in settling, as was told by himself to the writer, has been mentioned, and could not be considered as a sufficient reason to hold him as a perminent settler. His attention was entirely turned to speculation in deals with emigrants and freighters and it was not until late in the six- ties that he pretended to make a home upon Uncle Sam's domain. The gift of one hundred and sixty acres of as fine valley land as there was in Nebraska, with abundance of timber, made to him by his brother Amos, together with the homestead privelege was sufficient to induce Roland Reed to settle in Seward county regardless of the consideration named, yet he took advantage of the ranch opportunity as the only one open at that time to make a living for himself and family, which was natural and almost unavoidable. J. E. Fouse, Dan. Millspaw and VV. J. Thompson were Seward county settlers for no other purpose than ranch keeping and paid but little if any attention to home selections or home building. They all prospered in their chosen line until the last spike was driven that joined the Atlantic and Pacific by iron rails, cutting off the freight traffic by wagon and the overland travel along the historical routes, thus robbing the ranchers of their patronage. The result of this was that they all turned their enterprising attention to securing homes and bennefiting by the grand opportunities which were then within their reach and all came to the front as model pioneer farmers. All of these land marks except John Leonard have long since passed to their final rest.