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.
