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About The Falls City tribune. (Falls City, Neb.) 1904-191? | View Entire Issue (Jan. 22, 1909)
5th Annual White Goods Sale; Begins Thursday, January 28th We will show you the finest and largest line of Embroideries, Laces, Table Damask, Napkins, Towels, Muslin Underwear, fine Lawns, Swisses. India Linon, Muslin Sheeting, Pillow Cases and Wash Goods ever shown in this part of the country. Look for prices next week. Wait for THE WHITE EVENT OF THE SEASON. Remember the date of beginning Thursday, January 28th—For 15 Days The Daylight Store SAMUEL WAHL ^ ^ ^ ————— I ■ ——— —— HIM——IW—■mi—■! Reminiscences of a. Wayfarer Some of the Important Events of the Pioneer Days of Richardson County and Southeast Nebraska, as remembered by the writer, who has spent fifty one years here. MY Tli AMP TO FALLS CITY. The day following my advent into Rulo was Sunday, but nev ertheless I must continue my journey to Palls City. Porthat purpose, I went out after break fast to the Coldsberry store to see about getting a conveyance for the trip. There was none to be had on any terms—in fact there was none to be had at all and there was nothing for it, but that I must do the distance on foot. While at the Golds berry store I made the acquaintance of several gentlemen, w h o m I had not met the day before, among them was Pelix Kitch, Hugh Boyd, E. H. Johnson and Thomas Tostavin, the young surveyor, who had surveyed and platted the town and who told me he was about to enter upon the survey of an addition lately made to it. I think, by Mr. Ken celeur. All these men, except Tos must go, notwithstanding they told me there was no road and only a path here and there, which, if followed, would prob ably take me out of my course, and besides, l would find a dense covering of high grass to walk through that would be both tedi ous and tiresome. However, one of their number accompanied me to the highest point west of town, from which Falls City could be seen in the distance, and pointed out such landmarks as were visible, and they were few, to guide me. There was but one house between Rulo and Falls City and that belonged to Jo seph Forney, who is still liv ing and a citizen of this city. His house was located in the valley and west of the Muddy I was told to keep the Nema ha river on the south in sight and go as straight west as possible, j’he Forney house was not vis Arriving at Falls City tavin, I knew intimately and well, for the balance of their lives There were others around whom I don't remember. They all, however, tried to dissuade me from going to Palls City. They said it was an “Abolition Hole,-’ “Jim Lane Town,” and other names of designation, which I thought betrayed an un friendly disposition t o w a r d s the town on the prairie. I was in no mood for an argument and therefore, made no reply to what they said, nor made inquiry in connection with the matter. They further stated it would never amount to anything be cause it was too far from the river, had no timber about it, and nothing to induce popula tion. etc. I replied that I must go for I expected to meet a friend there at whose instance I had come to Nebraska, and I prepared for the start. The failure to get a conveyance was embarrassing but all the same I ible from that point, anti the Nemaha, indicated only by a fringe of timber stretching along the valley, was the only reli able land mark and that was not always in sight. 1 was told further, that just before I would reach the Muddy my course would take me into the valley of the Nemaha. This direction was correct and when after la borious walking 1 reached the Muddy I found the ruins of a mill that somebody had started to build and somebody else had tried to burn. I walked across the creek on a few of the charred timbers that still remained and beyond it, to nearly the resi dence of Mr. Forney, I encoun tered a morass of at least a half mile in extent. Splashing through that as best I could, I came to the Forney residence and applied for further infor 1 ination as to my course to Falls I City. At that point the town I was invisible and in fact re mained so until I got within a mile or so of it. After 1 left the Forney place I missed my way and wandered over to the north till 1 came in sight of a house, that of E. T. Minshall. as I afterwards learned, in the valley of the Muddy, and then 1 knew that I was far out of my course, for 1 had been told that Falls City was located on the high ground overlooking the valley of the Nemaha river, and that stream I already knew was on my left hand and miles away | to the South. 1 also saw from that point, | the site and remnants of the old town of Archer, on! the north side of the Muddy. I came to know more of it after wards, and will try to relate its history, which is somewhat pa thetic, in a future paper. From there I turned to the southwest and s h o r t I v discovered the place of my destination. At first in my lonesome tramp that day, it was a positive pleasure to look out on the wide expanse of prairie, as green as an emerald and arched by a sky as blue as an amethyst, stretching away into distance, vast, vacant and silent. I was on the edge of the great plains I had heard and read so much about—the land of the Indian and the Buffalo, those restless nomads of these soli tary wastes, and of the wild deer and the antelope. The best informed on the subject (I assumed they were for they said so,) at Rulo, told me the white settle ments along the west bank of the Missouri, had driven the Buffalo herds inland fifty or sixty miles from the river, and perhaps more, in some places. I could well believe that, for a new force in the economy of things had made itself felt in their near vicinity. They had heard the voice of the white man; it was a strange voice and they lied before it, for there was in it the sound of doom that even those poor animals as well as their savage neighbor and master, the Indian, could under stand. There was not a tree or a bush in sight, save on the Ne maha and along the s ma 1 ler streams, and nothing whatever that suggested the presence of man, until 1 reached the Forney house on the Muddy and that of Mr. Minshall further u p t h e stream. I found a peculiarity that I had never noticed before for the reason that 1 had never been present in the settlement of a new country, and that was, that every newcomer wanted to take a claim in the valley of some stream and if possible one | having' timber on it. There i were but few settlements at that time anywhere in the country on the high lands, or what was called the uplands, between the water courses. The fact is. and l have frequently heard itsoex pressed, those lands were not reyarded then as beiny valuable for any purpose except perhaps, for the hay the wild yrassyrow iny on them, would yield. Every body since, has come to know that that was a mistake, as the very best lands now in Richard son County are those located out of the valley of a w a t e r course. Everybody a p p e a r e d t o want timber, and everybody de sired to build in or near the timber. 1 have seen an expla nation af this peculiarity in hu man kind in a work of Prof. Darwin, called “Descent of Man.’’ He accounts for this uni versal habit of men to build in the timber, and if they have none, to plant trees at the ear liest opportunity, coupled with the penchant a boy has to climb a tree, on the theory that it is an inherited instinct of some ar ; borial animal from which the race descended. Whether this is entirely true or not is not very much to the purpose just now, 1 merely mention the fact as showiny that at least one man has scientifically accounted for the desire people have, appar and as they were expecting me, some arrangements had been made for my entertainment, for which L was indeed thankful. I have been in more luxurious quarters since, but I hardly think I have ever taken possession of any with greater satisfaction than I did those provided for me on that occasion. The house was what would be called a story and a lullf high, b u t h a d n o t a yard of plastering in it, nor a smear of paint on any part of it, nor for that matter was there such in or on any house in town. I said in mv first paper that everything about Kulo ap pea red to be new, but in Falls City everything appeared to be old, except the people. Most of the houses were built of sec ond hand luufber brought over from the wreck ol old Archer and made into six or eight shacks or excuses for houses, and this was Falls City as I saw it that day in the long past. The influences that silently control the movements and des tinies of people, are not always palpable to the senses, nor ex ist as facts confessed in con sciousness, but premate the so cial fabric in all its multitude tile Lotophagi told of in the Odyssey of llomcr, who, having once tasted of the fruit of an Island upod which Ulysses w < - thrown in his wanderings by s< i from the Trojan land to Ithaca, neither the love of home, coun try, or friends could ever induce them to leave. We have all, onetime or another, eaten something akin to the fabled Lotus, better known to the cliii dreii of men as katk. SEEKS INFORMATION Stephen Prior Makes Inquiries In Regard to Richardson County Stephen Prior wants to know who has been writing about Rule and Falls City in 1858. He says he knew the War Eagle as well as he knew a pair of mules he lias driven to a dray wagon, and was perfectly acquainted with the Missouri river boat “Wat< s sa, ’’ a stern wheeler. He says she sank in the fall of 1859, running a race with the “Denver,” above St. Joe, strik ing a snag and sinking. She was afterward raised by Jack Beeber and John Hanford and the boiler used to replace the boiler in the lo«ver mill on Rush Island opposite Forest City. H1 also saw her once return from a trip up the upper Missouri on a Rulo Looking South From the Miller Residence ently instinctive, to build in the timber, or plant trees. There are those perhaps in Nebraska who may think that we learned to plant trees from d. Sterling Morton, who acted very much in times past, as though he was the original discoverer of the tree planting' habit of man. Well, after a long and wearisome walk, cove ri n gr at least twelve miles, through a tangled mimic wilder ness of grass, (I had lengthened the distance by wandering from the direct course at least two miles,) I arrived at Palls City sometime in the afternoon. There was a log house standing , about where the Maddox block does now, opposite the court house, in which a man by the name of George Van Lew and his good wife kept a kind of boarding house. They were for merly of Elmira, New York, and as my friend, who had induced me to come to Ne braska, was stopping with them nous ramifications, felt every where and seen nowhere, like the wind that bloweth where it I isteth. I know why I came to Falls City, but I don’t why I staid, any more than 1 now know who will be president of the United States a hundred years hence. It is certain however, that a combination ot circumstances and associations following my arrival here, conspired to deter mine my course in the future. Somebody must stay in the little hamlet, or it would cease to exist, and why not I as well as others. Physically speaking, a person while on the surface of; the earth, and until he or she is put under it, must live some where, and one place is just as good as another for that pur pose. Some nameless but im pelling cause may have been at the bottom of it all, concerning which I can give no account, and of which I was never sen-j sible: like that which controlled | lur trading expedition and all. hands were drunk as well as the boat. She plowed into the bank at White Cloud and cut a log in to her as large as an elephant's body. The boat was named by a famous Kickapoo chief, a job that Prior says he could have gotten as he could have been an. Indian if he had wanted to. Notice There will be a meeting of the Richardson County Farmers Institute Association, on Janu ary 23, 1909 at 2:30 o’clock p. in., in the County Clerk's office in the Court House, Falls City. Neb., for the purpose of electing' officers for the coming year and to transact such other ousiness as may come before the meeting Henry Fritz, President. Lots, Blocks and Acres * Will consider the sale of 1,2 or 3 blocks or all of what is known as the Frank land, in all about 30 acres. Henry C. Smith.