Seward County, Nebraska - Chapter 22, 1916

Chapter 22

The subject of this sketch was one of the grand characters of Seward county manhood. To speak of his greatness of heart is to speak of the man as his heart dominated every fibre of his body and soul. While there are those whose opinions may differ with his views there are none with kindly motives who can sustain a reproach to his good will towards his fellow man. As one among the earliest settlers of the county, he and his good wife were perhaps the only ones of that never to be forgoten advance guard called pioneers, who emegrated to its wild prairie in search of a home by the only mode of conve}7ance God had given them - on foot. They had been engaged in drying salt at Salt Basin, near where the city of Lincoln is now located, and the gradual decrease in the salt product gave them reason to think that the time had come when they must make a change, therefore one Ipright morning in 1863 they bade farewell to their cabin and struck out accross the prairie in search of a home with nothing to guide them but the setting sun. After a weary day's journey they landed in Seward county and rinding their ideal section, took a homestead near the present city of Seward, having for neighbors a few stalwart pioneers, the howling wolves and stroling bands of Indians. Here our former county historian and his faithful wife spent their pioneer period, sharing its enjoyments with its adversities, and later enjoying, for many years, the fruits of the advanced changes their hands had aided in establishing. After the death of that loved and loving wife, which occurred several years ago, he spent a number of his declining years in com- piling a history of the county they had done so much to improve. And as a matter of respect to the memory of our worthy historical predecessor we here quote his eloquent expression of sentiment in the dedication of his work to the memory of his departed wife.

"To the ever kind and loving companion that walked hand in hand with me nearly forty-four years of life's journey, sharing all the privations of frontier life, and lending cheer in all the dark hours and performing so nobly all the duties incumbent on her as wife and mother, as neighbor and friend, ever ready to lend a helping hand in matters of charity or public enterprise - she that walked so faithfully in the service of her Divine Master over half a century and when her work was all done passed over the dark river to dwell in the Heavenly home - is this book lovingly dedicated as a memorial to Rebecca Sampson Cox. Author." - Cox's History. In regard to Cox's History we wish to first speak by a reference to the work. It is a book worthy of a place in the library of any Seward county citizen. It has, as such works do, its merits and demerits, but perhaps enough of the former for sufficient redemption from the latter and enough to make it a valuable reference record.

Mr. Cox's efforts to embody too many matters out of line of his theme and foreign to real county history forms the greatest point for criticism of his work. While it crowded his space, enlarged his work and gave his readers too much reading to get a little history, it taxed his ability to give impartial accounts of the many different lodges, churches, newspapers, etc., and prevent those matters crowding the real work under consideration. His history contains one hundred and eight pages of territorial matter, mostly devoted to memorable stketches of J. Sterling Morton, Gen. John M. Thayer, Dr. Miller, Nebraska City's fire, some territorial newspapers etc., all of which are published under the head lines of "Seward County History." It is not such in any sense whatever. He devotes torty-four pages to newspaper clippings, mostly incomprehensibly brief and without location such as "S. R. Douglas caught a coon." 'Jan. 28th - The Baptist church was completed." "The Presbyterian church is raised." 'July 2nd - Four rights in the streets- are mentioned." Now these items are supposed to be newspaper clippings (only a very few however of similar ones published in his book) and as such will substantiate our statement that newspaper clippings are not history.

Private correspondence or so called "historical letters," some of them, like A. E. Sheldon's, written from the fanciful memory of a very small child, exaggerated to the grotesque desire of irresponsible and careless statements or air castles, made in disregard of public sentiment, are very far from true history. Fifty-two pages of Mr. Cox's history are devoted to letters from different individuals. While some of them are instructive some of them are scarcely worth the ink they are printed with and there is but little history in the majority of them.

He devotes two hundred and four pages to paragraphical sketches of indiveduals which were paid for by the parties receiving the notice, thus making his work a partial and not a general history of the county - it being general only so far as it was paid for. It might be said that while those parapraphs were paid for they were biographical sketches of the lives of Seward county people, but what has the history of any person, previous to his or her Seward county residence got to do with that county's history? But since we are investigating the injuries his history sustained from the public sentiment and opinion its own contents created we must recall the general tendency of his work to partisan politics and in this consideration we are brought face to face with two of those biographical sketches of at least two men who were never Seward county citizens, one of them being none other than E. H. Hinshaw, one of the lowest down political demagouges Nebraska ever had and a disgrace to the party that honored him and fully as much so to Cox's history. The other, an honorable christian gentleman, J. H. Mickey, twice governor of Nebraska, but received space in the afore said history on account of party politics. While the foregoing matters were detriments to Mr. Cox's history they are damaging in their effects upon the minds of many people to any work which may follow in the line of county history. It is not easy to compete with the size of Cox's history and produce no other matter than historical matter of Seward county. We mention these things because they are true conditions in regard to his work and not to injure Mr. Cox nor the history he so diligently compiled. He is at rest and his book is out of print and it is beyond our power to injure or benefit them.

Among the several letters published by him as "historical letters," there is one we feel justified in reproducing. It displays a grand sentimentality and comes from the pen of not only Mr. Cox's daughter, but a Seward county daughter.

And her story seems, perhaps, more pathetic in view of the fact that the writer passed to her final rest while quite young, leaving a husband and one son one year old. She was born at Nebraska City in 1861. She was married to Frank P. Pingree, and with him settled at Colby, Kansas, but removed to Washington, D. C, in 1891, where she died in 1892. She was the second daughter of W. W. Cox and will be remembered at this date by many as a successful teacher in several Soward county schools, commencing her career as teacher before she was fifteen years old. She took a great interest in chautauqua work, and although never permitted to meet with a circle, she was graduated and received the white seal for proficiency in the work.

Nettie M. Cox Pingree

'The hills are dearest which our childish feet Have climbed the earliest; and the streams most sweet Are ever those at which our young lips drank, Stooped to their waters o'er the mossy banks." - Whittier.

"Though years have passed since our last visit to the old homestead, visions come to us ot the woods and valleys by the sparkling waters of the beautiful Blue.

"The river winds its crooked way through the valley with many a curve, forming broad acres of woodland which were a perfect paradise to us during the whole year. There in the spring time the green grass and violets formed a beautiful carpet for our feet, while around us the alder and wild plum blossoms made fragrant the air with their sweet scented odor.

"Down the garden path bordered with moss roses and morning glories, we would speed away to the river, bait our hooks for fish, and cross the foot log and follow the path through the woods to the schoolhouse. That little rough board shanty, sodded all around, and the home-made, knifemarked desks have given place to new and better ones. The children upon the playground are strange to us, but the same games of "blind man's buff," and "drop the handkerchief," are played by them as we played them long years since.

"The grape-vine swing must not be forgotten, for there, with choicest flowers, was crowned the queen of May, and also, in childish sport, were wedded two schoolmates, just twenty years ago.

"During the long summer days, wading around the sandbars and gathering shells afforded us a delightful pastime, and as the sun was seeking the western horizen, we would mount old Ned, the family horse, ford the river and go to the farther pasture after the cows.

"Each land hath its shadows and each home hath its ghosts and ours was not an exception. The "Big grove" was the most beautiful of all the "bends," on account of the heavy timber and heavy foliage. There the sugar maple trees abounded, and there grew the most berries, the latter being very important, for many a new dress and coat were bought with the profits realized from their sale.

"One evening at dusk something large and white, resembling a great bear, was seen to come out of these woods and although we afterwards learned that it was only a neighbor boy with a bed-tick over his head, we never ventured again into that grove without company.

"When the autumn sun changed the foliage and ripened the fruits, then was our harvest. It would be difficult to decide who worked the harder to store away the winter's supply of walnuts and acorns, we children or the squirrels. Perhaps we tired of the labor more quickly than our little forest friends, for frequently the restful shade of the great oaks would be too tempting, and we seated ourselves by their roots and wove wreaths of the brilliant-hued leaves, while the autumn winds sighed and rustled the branches overhead, making a beautiful accompaniment to our fancies. But when winter came with its hoary frosts and covered the earth with its blanket of snow and the cold winds whistled through the barren timber, then, like all the children of the woods, the most comfortable place for us was home. That little log cabin, with its great fireplace and clay-chincked walls, is the most cherished of all places. The dove-cote

It seems but yesterday that father brought in the huge back-log and built a brilliant fire in front of it, then popped the corn for our first Christmas eve in our new home. He took us children on his knee and told us of Santa Claus, and how he would come down the huge chimney and fill our stockings, if we would hurry off to bed. Mother tucked the covers carefully about us and resumed her knitting, while father read aloud, by the light of the blazing brushwood, the latest news of the rebellion, which was then raging with all its horrors.

We watched the shadows cast by the flickering light of the burning embers upon the hearth until we fell aleep, dreaming as all childeren do, of Kris Kringle and his wonderful sleigh full of toys. In the morning, when the sun's first rays peeped through the curtains of the one window in the cabin, with a bright Christmas greeting, we hastened to our stockings to find them overflowing with popcorn and doughnuts. Away down in the toe we found a stick of candy and a pair of lovely red mittens with little snowflakes all over them. We were a happy little band, and although many Christmases have come and gone, and Santa Claus has filled our stocking with a far more lavish hand, none will have the same place in our memory as the one of '64.

But now, far removed from those loved scenes of childhood and looking out upon the broad expanse of prairie and corn land, our minds will naturally wander back to the old homestead, and decide that, though home is home where'er it may be, yet that halo cannot be taken away from our father's hearthstone." - Cox's History.