‘God’s Country’ Made Appeal
By ROMAINE SAUNDERS
Editor-in-Chief, Diamond Jubilee Edition
On a visit to the metropolis of Southern Holt country in late
April, on a hunt for information reaching back into the creative
period, when the foundations of Chambers were laid on virgin sod
of the charming prairieland between the South fork and the
Cache, I was greeted by old friends. After interviewing a number
of citizens I met Mrs. Letha Cooke, who directed me to Miss Lor
ena Coppoc, the local historian. »T
I found Miss Coppoc in her pleasant little home in the North
part of town and was graciously received. Miss Coppoc wrote a
comprehensive history of the first 25 years’ ministry in the com
munity of the Baptist church, which is closely identified with, in
deed. identical in some respects, the history of the town. Miss
Coppoc has kindly loaned her story to The Frontier From this,
with the aid of other sources of information, this brief history of
Chambers is undertaken.
In the early 1880 s a copy of
The Frontier, containing Doc
Mathews' vivid word picture
of "God's Country", fell into
the hands of R. C. Wry. after
reading which he took off lor
Holt county. In after years he
said he never regretted com
ing to this prairieland.
From Miss Coppoc’s history it
is learned that Mr. Wry was
college bred, a graduate of Am
herst college, Amherst, Nova
Scotia. He taught for 20 years
in Jolicure, New Brunswick,
Canada. In 1879 he started with
his family for California, stop
ping in Macon, Franklin county,
Nebraska, to visit at the home
of a sister of Mrs. Wry. They
went no farther, the California
trip being abandoned in favor
of a place in the Macon schools
as an instructor, which Mr. Wry
filled for two years. The next
move of the Wrys was to Diller,
in Jefferson county. Here Mr.
Wry read of “God’s Country.’’
Whether it was the title of that
story that appealed to him in
view of his solid Baptist tradit
ions or other considerations, he
pulled up stakes for Holt coun
try, took as a homestead the
land on which the town of
Chambers took root.
Why named Chambers and
not Wry? With a store carrying
a meager stock of necessities
where Lee Baker in the middle
’80’s had a drug store, a black
smith and a few sod house
homesteaders there was need for
a postoffice. A mail route was
authorized out of O’Neill by the
postal department, but a post
office must have a name. As
none was furnished by Mr. Wry,
the first postmaster, the depart
ment put the office on the map
as Chambers, in honor of a gent
by that name who was carrying
thevnail to and from O’Neill with
a pair of bronchos.
Dr, T. V. Norvell, Rev. J. L.
Coppoc and Mir. Wry and their
families were the founders and
first members of the Baptist
church as well as having much
to do with the development of
the community. Dr. Norvell was
a graduate of the Ann Arbor
Mich., medical college. He min
istered to the sick in pioneer
days but later turned to horti
culture, as did Rev. Coppoc, who
combined that with preaching.
He was the first pastor of the
Baptist group. H. R. Henry and
son, Ernest, of Minneola, started
a paper, the Chambers Eagle,
which Mr. Wry later took over.
There was a rival town and a
rival newspaper, the Sham
rock Pickings, started North of
Chambers which town and pap
er folded up while the other
town grew and the paper flour
ished under a change of man
agement from time to time
Starting as the Eagle, the name
was changed to the Bugle and
then became known as the Sun,
which recently suspended pub
lication.
Chambers and country
thereabout is a community of
church-goes and supporters of
education. A fine high school
is maintained and three flour
ishing churches. The Metho
dists and Lutherans have each
long been established with
commendable places of wor
ship. Miss Coppoc's story of
the organization of the Bap
tists in interesting.
She says:
REV. J. L. COPPOC
“On the appointed date, Aug
ust 30, 1884, Mrs. Norvell and
her girls made what preparation
they could for holding a meet
ing in a living room 14x16. They
took down one bed and the one
they left up could scarcely bare
the strain of those sitting on it.
. . . Some were sitting on spring
seats brought in from the
wagons, some on the floor and
the room crowded with people
standing by the walls and in
front of the three windows, Rev.
Coppoc stood by the cook stove
which had been converted into
a pulpit stand with a white
cloth spread over it, and plac
ing on it the Norvell family
Bible, a pitcher of water and a
glass. The song books were of
various kinds and songs com
mon to all the books were
chosen.”
The Norvells had taken land
joining the townsite on the East.
The Coppocs had a half section,
Miss Coppoc says “of as worth
less sand as any one ever tried
to farm.”
On September 27 this group
met again in the “not yet com
pleted sod house of the Nor
vells.” A colored minister from
Wheeler county, Rev. Woody,
was present with Rev. Coppoc.
An organization was effected
and the name of Palmer Baptist
church adopted, a concession to
the wishes of one of the charter
members, Dudley Calkins, who
had belonged to a church in Il
linois so named.
The Methodists organized a
church in 1886 previous to
which time they met with the
Baptists. School was also held
in the Baptist church while a
house from an abandoned home
stead that had been moved in
was being made ready for
school use. Miss Alma Stowel
(Mis. Farrier) taught the grade
pupils and J. Y. Ashton, the
more advanced scholars. Mrs.
Farrier recalls that some of Mr.
Ashton’s pupils were exalted ov
er being in high school.
Mrs. Bower. Mrs. Farrier.
Mrs. Brown, John Walker,
Mrs. Edw. Adams are those
the writer recalls still in
Chambers who came out of the
pioneer period. Perhaps there
are others.
There were the Hubbards,
Frank Charles, Clark Hough,
Bebee, Lee Baker, the Smiths,
the Adams and Doughty, who
mMmrnmmmmmmmmmmmmmmMm i ■■ ■ m
MEN WHO CAPTURED REED . . . These men were photo
graphed at West Point after they had taken the illustrious Billy
Reed. Bill Cronin is not in the picture. (See story at right.)
..
each had a part in taming a
wilderness, and by common sac
rifices and united endeavor
have brought to fruition the
dream of pioneers for homes
and security in a quiet God
fearing community where men
and women and children live
and labor, laugh and play, and
unite their voices in song and
praise.
Mrs. Leo Adams, a grand
daughter of the Wrys, and Miss
Coppoc form a link connecting
the present with the past in
the Chambers community.
Charlie Millard has returned
irom his Iowa trip and reports
having had a good time, ob
served The Frontier 69 years
ago. And adds: “He ought to
have got spliced and assisted
in multiplying the population of
O’Neill, but didn’t and deserves
the censure of all good people
for this dereliction of duty.”
Pioneer Incidents . . .
Amusing and Tragic -
Oxen to Break Prairie —
Fred Gatz, father of Mrs. Jack
Vincent, of the Western Hotel,
and the Gatz brothers, skipped
from Germany to escape mili
tary service, came to America.
He first hung his cap in Colum
bus and then pushed on to O’
Neill when cow trails and foot
paths served as sidewalks, open
ed a meat market and launched
a trade with cattle.
Fred had an eye for busi
ness and for fun. And he
would sell you enough beef
steak or antelope meat for two
bits to last a week.
He bought steers, stalled them
back of the meat market and
sausage grinder to sell as oxen
to homesteaders. One Rev. Bar
geldt, who was holding down a
claim five miles East of town,
bought two steers of Fred, who
cautioned his reverence that they
had not been put in a yoke. The
minister led the steers away and
when he got home hitched them
to a cart. The steers, lately
from the freedom of the open
range, battered the daylights
out of things, ran away and
smashed up the rig to which
they had been hitched. With the
sublime faith of one of the cloth,
the preacher did not give up,
captured the runaways, subdued
their wild natures and trained
them to pull a breaking plow.
My one and only experience
driving oven was a half-day at
prairie breaking with that same
span of bovines.
• * •
Posse Captures Reed —
Mrs. James Ryan looked out
of her door at the family home
several miles West of town and
saw a lone horseman passing, his
horse on a lope. The horse was
evidently about winded from be
ing ridden hard. That horse was
carrying a fugative.
An hour later seven horse
men rode into the Ryan place.
Mr. Ryan was away. This party
of men, led by Jack Hayes, ex
plained to Mrs. Ryan that they
were after Billy Reed, who shot
Sheriff Kearns and they wanted
fresh horses to continue the
chase. The Ryans had many
horses and Mrs. Rvan told Mr.
Hayes to take what horses they
needed. Unsaddling their hard
breathing mounts, saddles were
thrown on fresh horses, bridled
and the riders galloped away to
the West.
When Mr. Kyan returned nome
his wife told him what had
taken place and her letting some
of their horses go. Mr. Ryan’s
only comment on the horses was
that “there are plenty of horses.”
Reed was caught. Returned to
O’Neill and lodged in a make
shift of a jail, a little shanty at
the Northwest corner of what is
now Fifth and Douglas streets.
There was a window through
which Reed could be seen. An
armed guard was posted out
side and the suggestion made to
him that he shoot Reed, which
he refused to do.
Reed was taken to West
Point and jailed. His trial in
district court resulted in ac
quittal. He left the country to
meet his end in a gun fight in
Texas.
Kearns was killed at the old
Arcada hotel that stood on the
present site of the Knights of
Columbus hall. The death of
Kearns was the outgrowth of a
combination of romance and re
monstrance. Kearns and Reed
were rivals for the hand and
heart of a waitress at the hotel.
Reed with other cowboys had
been shooting down the clothes
lines where they saw family
washings hung out in the settle
ment and the sheriff remon
strated with Reed over this prac
tice. Six shooters came into the
dispute as the usual answer to
all frontier squabbles. Kearns
administered a blow on the head
of Reed with his gun, himself
receiving a mortal wound when
Reed pulled the trigger. Deputy
Sheriff Connelly received a leg
wound during the death strug
gle.
The posse that captured Billy
Reed was composed of the fol
lowing: Jack Wynn, Walter O’
Malley, Bill Cronin. Mike Tier
ney, Jack Hayes, Charley Kline
and Mike Ward. A group picture
was taken of these men at West
Point when they took Reed to
the Cuming county jail.
Father of O’Neill Woman Brought Records
from Paddock to New Countyseat
Fifteen miles North of O’Neill on highway 281, across the
highway from the filling station was the childhood home of an O’
Neill woman, Mrs. J. C. Harnish, now past four score years of age.
Mrs. Harnish was a daughter of Mr. and Mrs. James Jacobs, Mrs.
Jacobs being a daughter of Ryland Parker, grandfather of R. H.
and Joel Parker, of O’Neill, and father of the late Sanford Parker.
Ryland Parker was the first to be elected county judge but
did not take office as the election, held in August, 1876 was illegal,
but at the subsequent election held in December of that year his
son, Sanford, was elected county clerk.
Paddock was the county seat and Mrs. Harnish recalls that her
father hauled the records and safe in a wagon from Paddock to O’
Neill when the county seat was permanently established there.
Sanford Parker was a colorful figure of ihe pioneer period.
He tried gold mining and cutting limber in Black Hills, turned
to banking in Deadwood, knew Wild Bill Hickok and stood by
as the trap was sprung when Jack McCall, who shot Hickok in
the back, was hung.
He knew Spqtted Tail and was on friendly terms with the ft.
d ans, selecting a beautiful and cultured woman with Indian blood
as his wife. He was credited with having a part in securing the
admiss'.bn of Dakota Territory into the Union as two states.
County clerk, member of the board of trustees when O’Neill
became incorporated as a village, land office official and other
posts of trust were filled by Mr. Parker and after a life spent in
taming the West he and Mrs. Parker removed to Omaha where
they lived in retirement until their death.
With the blood of a pioneer in her, a granddaughter of the
Parkers and a native of Holt county, Louise Tinsley, was the first
Nebraska woman to secure a pilot’s license to navigate in the
clouds.
Westward
The Com *se
-T *
Of Empire Went...
.
✓
The Pioneers and Their Children for More Than 50 Years Have Been
Supplied with the Best in Merchandise at...
The McManus Store
p. j. mcmanus
Founder of the
McMANUS STORE
* MUNSINGWEAR * Oshkosh B'Gosh Work Clothes
ror the Lntire ramily .
a r . v 01 f .. * Safety Legion Togs for Boys
★ Carter Kangaroo Shoes for Men . T _
j-> | r-p. ★ 1 own and Country Outdoor
★ Regal Ties Clothing
★ Red Wing Shoes ★ Jayson Shirts
★ Stetson Hats
John P. MclV anus
The Home of Good Merchandise”
n# '•'vr _
O’NEILL, NEBR.