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About The frontier. (O'Neill City, Holt County, Neb.) 1880-1965 | View Entire Issue (June 30, 1949)
Judge Kinkaid *Outstanding Nebraskan’ Tap of a Bell on Puget Sound Determined Course for Future Congressman By ROMAINE SAUNDERS Edilor-m-Chief, Diamond Jubilee Edition Smoke from ocean-going steamers floated lazily in from Pu get Sound. The air of mid-forenoon held a chill. Sea gulls on Se eternal hunt for scraps to feed upon held the attention of a dapper young man who stood upon the wharf not knowing wh<eth er to board a vessel for Vancouver, British Columbia, or return i lflndHe finally left it to the tap of a bell. If the bell sounded at the appointed hour the scholarly, well-groomed y°un« ™an ®a‘d to himself he would board a train and leave the Northwest. Th bell clanged. And so O'Neill acquired one of its most distinguishad ciii sens a polished gentleman and able lawyer from old Virginia. A week after the bell gave that signal M. P. K,nkaid O'Neill I got the story of the bell out there on Pug from Kinkaid after he became a member of congress. That was in 1882 and from then until his death in 1922 he was a citizen of O’Neill. What brought this polished gentleman from America’s oldest settled community into a wild and wooly frontier count y" Maybe it is accounted for on the theory of positive and npcative forces opposites find their affinity, or was it with him M ^wiuTothers, drawn into the untamed West by that mystenoua and subtle thing, a desire for adventure. But Kinkaid played a part in taming the West. A* district judge he did much to clean up the cattle rustlers and horse thieves, in 1900, Kinkaid was elected to congress from what was then the Sixth congressional dis trict. It may not be too much to say he did more for the district and the state as a whole than any that have gone to Washington from Nebraska when he secured the change in the homestead laws to enlarge the homestead in his district from a qu^ter section to a full section, which provided also that those who had acquired a quarter section under homestead could have three additional quarters and added to the tax rolls a vast amount of government land. This was achieved during Kinkaid s first term in congress. He was a member of congress at the time of his death. Kinkaid, a man of exemplary habits, able, precise, contribut ing freely to the support of ev ery worthy cause, knew every body and extended the glad hand. But he was not a close friend and never carried O’Neill at an election. Kinkaid was a bachelor. Maybe O’Neill voters resented the idea of voting for an unmarried man. Or maybe ii was like send ing up to Minnesota for pota toes when we grow better ones in Nebraska. Some how he, a Republican, could be elected when everything went otherwise politically. Some of the party leaders fa vored his nomination only be cause he could be elected. They had no personal warmth of feel ing for him. As a lawyer, in le gal contests opponents feared him. Judge Kinkaid’s Virginia blood showed in his interest in horses. When a herd of wild ones were brought in off of the range and corralled back of Ward’s barn, the judge looked them over and at different times bought the one that took his fancy. But he had unfortunate experience with two or three and then was absent as a spec tator at the corral. The judge was no broncho buster. One Howard Wilcox was taming for him. got tan gled up in wire and was cut badly, another in the hands of Long Hair John kicked off a hoof and was shot. Another bought on the as sumption it was a pacer, proved otherwise, and was disposed of probably at a loss. The upstairs rooms of O’Neill’s first brick structure, at the cor ner of Fourth and Douglas streets, were both home and of fice for Judge Kinkaid. A new cottage fitted up on the East side of town by the judge had implications of the home of an other bride and bridegroom in our midst. Speculation involv ed three accomplished la dies of the town, but none of these were under serious consid eration as mistress of the new cottage. The lady he had in mind turned her hand and heart to a member of the United States congress and the fancied victim of unrequited love was said to have made the vow to be elected to congress himself. Af ter a brief residence in the new cottage the judge resumed his lonely life in the original haunts and found solace in devising a political career and sustenance from the crackers and protose from the Battle Creek sanitar ium. I enjoyed the contacts with Judge Kinkaid as did others and now wish to pay a tribute to his memory as one of the out standing Nebraskans of his day News Notes in 1881- 82 . . • Kinkaid Makes Court ‘Squirm’ Bad Business—R. P. Cooper Shoots John Frits—Jo Hall m Pursuit of Cooper Is Thrown from Horse and Nearly Killed. —An Unfortunate Affair. Thus read the headlines over a col umn story telling of a shoot ing over a debt. Cooper was apprehended and placed un der S500 bonds but made his get-away. The wife of Herger Gaulek son, a Norwegian homesteader on the Keya Paha, was brought , to O’Neill yesterday. The wo- t man is violently insane and Sheriff Welton will convey her to the asylum at Lincoln tomor- , row The Frontier devoted a half column to the story, set ting forth that the womaif got the notion that a prairie fire near their home was hell on earth and that the Lord told her she was to be burned up in it. Recovering somewhat her san ity, she was started off again in wild raving when her bed caught fire probably from the old man smoking in bed and she had to be taken to the asylum, her husband also somewhat de ranged, and three small children upon the mercy of the world. Jesse Crawford was involv ed in a shooting scrape and when appearing before Judge Barnes for trial was released •on the grounds of lack of jur isdiction as the crime was committed in unorganised ter ritory. Crawford’s victim was Barclay Kane. The supreme court, how ever, ordered him to be tried in Holt county. M. P. Kinkaid was defending Crawford on the prop osition that the supreme court had held in another case, that of I. P. Oliver, who was involved in a killing in unorganized ter ritory, that the Holt county dis trict court was without jurisdic tion. The Frontier said the court was made to “squirm” when Kinkaid made jurisdiction an issue. Crawford was tried and convicted and remanded to the West Point jail, where he wrote a lengthy poem for The Frontier before being taken to the peni tentiary. On this 75 th Anniversary it comes as a special privilege to descendents of the pioneers to join with others in a tribute to their memory. ★ IRA H. MOSS LINING UP FOR 'KINKAID HOMESTEAD' . . . These men are lining up at the U. S. land office, which stood on the present site of the telephone building on Upper Fourth street—each waiting his turn to file for a “Kinkaid Homestead”. In every American history book the Kinkaid Act and U. S. land offices are men tioned. Scenes such as this provoked the widely-adopted use of the expression “doing a land office business”—meaning a thriv ing business.—(Photo courtesy Mrs. L. G. Gillespie collection.) ROLLING HILLS ON EAGLE .. . This cluster of buildings represents Eagle Mills—Wm. Nollkamper’s place on Eagle Creek. Northern Holt is flat in some sections, rolling in others (above). Edw. S. Early writes (below) that the Eagle Creek country is “not too well defined geographically.” KEELEY INSTITUTE HAD ITS DAY Along in the 1880s there was started a program for the treat ment of the rednosed soaks when Keeley Institutes sprung up all over the nation. Across the South side of the Gallagher | building on lower Fourth street there was a sign in large let ters “Keeley Institute.” So the program got going in O’Neill ! bewhiskered Dr. B. T. True blood being installed as super- 1 vising physician. The treatment consisted of! taking a dose of medicine at j stated hours of the day along with certain prescribed regula tions. You could be cured of both liquor and tobacco habits —if you wanted such release Some young fellows thought it 1 popular to take the tobacco i cureall but after faithful! I downing a spoonful several; times a day for a few days and j finding the pleasure derived from the narcotic weed dimin ishing gave it up and took as strong as ever to sending up J the insence from the lighted end of a Havanna. Two newspaper men, one doctor, a former county official and various gents from various walks of life, local and out-. state citizens, who took t h e Keeley cure at the O’Neill in statute, for the most part continued on the water wagon But the institute, like many ot her things, started in the town, had its day. The sign on the Gallagher building survived for a num ber of years after the institute suspended operation^ here. It was men of more tlfan ordin i ary ability in the community ; who took the Keeley cure, a ! matter of wonderment at some who had showed no outward signs of needing such treat I ment. The institute was just I another of those things which O’Neill took on for a time Alcoholics Anonymous is now said to be bleaching out the red noses and has become a nationwide organization. No doses to take—join the bunch | and say you are done with the cup that inebriates for all time The writer does not know of such an organization in t h e county. As yet such are mostly 1 in the larger cities. Eagle Creek Family Decides Bull Snake and Bats Are Undesirable House Pets By EDW. S. EARLY of O'Neill My father, mother, my two sisters and I, myself a mere kid, arrived in O’Neill from Pennsylvania in July, 1886 Father secured the relinquish ment of a claim from George Gaffney and by Fall of that year we were established as Holt county homesteaders on land in what became known as the Eagle creek country, not too well defined in geographic al boundaries but most any where from the North boundry of town to undefined limits to the Northwest. There was a makeshift of a log house built in the side of a hill on our landed estate and the family took over. However, as mother and sisters entered this castle of frontier grass land they were greeted by a huge buli snake coming to wel come them from his hideout between two logs and a bat flapped his ugly wings. Mother and sisters retreated. Tom Gallagher had induced father to pull up stakes in the East and come West. He was a neighbor of ours in Pennsylva nia and so our familv became guests in the hospitable home of the Gallaghers until a house could be built on father’s claim. . The blizzard of 1888 put a finish to the log hovel by Piling 10 feet of snow over it. crushing the building in. and this broke up the dishes and crocks stored there. That blizzard was the outstanding experience of prairie home steaders in the 1880s. On the mild morning snow clouds suddenly dropped to earth and enveloped every liv ing thing out in the open in a blanket of damp snow. Quickly violent wind swept »n from the North and the temperature dropped to zero coating eyes and nose and bodies of the livestock and the small herds of the home steaders were first smothered then frozen. Onlv a few cat tle in our neighborhood sur vived at that time. The storms of the past in I ter left no such desolation in ' our community, but the storm striking as it did in mid-Nov ember was unlooked for and so many were unprepared. The long Winter and severe storms found the herds weakened for lack of enough feed but now out on the grass lands they will soon fill up. 1 During those Winter months we fed the cattle some gram but the hay was inaccessable because of incessant drifting of the deep snows. And with the melting snows under the warm th of Spring skies came an other worry, that of flood wat ers. The settlers of Holt county, their descendants and the later arrivals are made of the stuff to contravene opposing forces. The first thing I do when The Frontier arrive? is to di gest the Prairieland and I am under the impression that be ing connected with the press the author of the Talk has a wonderful foresight of the old j original town of O’Neill, pro bably such as Emmet is today, or has improved the opportun ity to mix with thfc pioneers j who long Since responded to ■ ■ News Note in 1888 . . . Patrick Fahy’s Wife Expires The Frontier of April 19, 1888, quoted from the Western Cath olic, published in Chicago, I1L, the notice of the death of Mrs. Fahy, of which the following is an extract: "On Tuesday last this esteem ed lady, who was the wife of the Hon. Patrick Fahy, of O’Neill, Neb., breathed her last at 2931 Prairie avenue, after a protract ed illness which she bore with true Christian resignation. Mrs. Fahy, who was in her 43d year, was a sister of the Hon. John Fitzgerald, of Lincoln, Neb., president of the National League in America, and was born in the parish of Murroe, County Limerick, Ireland. She was in valided for more than a year and during that time visited most of the principal cities in the United States for treat ment.” The body was taken to Waun ake, Wise., for burial after the rites of the church in Chicago at St. James. Pallbearers were these prominent men of that day: Michael Cudahy, John Cud ahy, P. F. Ryan, Bernard O’Gal laghan and W. J. Onahan. ‘A Village Called O’Neill Was Incorporated’ On October 12, 1882, this news story appeared in The Frontier: “Acting on a petition signed by a majority of the taxpayers, a village called O’Neill was in corporated on Saturday last by the board of county commis sioners. Messrs. Sanford Par ker, John J. McCafferty, Ed E. Evans, Patrick Hagerty and W. D. Mathews were appointed to act as a village board until the village election in April.’’ the drumbeat of eternity. They blazed the trail, endured the privations, the joy .and the grief incident to the establish ment of a town and a settle ment that has become an im portant center of commerce and culture. And now upon this Diamond Jubilee I join the many in whose memories are enshrined the men and women to whom we are indebted for the herit age of the pioneers. O’Neill celebrates today its Dia mond Jubilee. For the heritage left us by the pioneers we hon or their memory on this 75th an niversary of the arrival of the First Colony. HAMMOND ABSTRACT CO. L. D. PUTNAM ★ ★ ★ % Choice Hereford Feeders Elkhorn Valley Hay ★ ★ ★ Phone 204 O’Neill