REAViS & ABBEY
The Great Furniture Store
We announce to our trade that we have laid in a hner stock oi lurniture tor our patrons this spring than we
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tory, and we have gone a step further this year. There never was a better assortment of Rugs, Carpets,
mattings and Linoleum in r alls Lily tnan we are
now showing. We have facilities for laying and
sewing, and want your visits before purchasing.
This Streit genuine leather Davenport is the
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a day. Frame solid oak, simple in construction.
OPEN
CLOSED
—
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.
The Death of Ahcfeu.
Falls City was made a possi
bility by the death of old Archer,
not perhaps by the process the
Greeks called metempsychosis,
by which it was believed by
them, and by the Brahman phil
osophers in an older age, that
the soul of one dying would pass
into the body of one about to be
born, in other words and in
plain United States, the trans
migration of souls, but from the
fact, that Archer had become
untenable as a site for a town
and the Falls City location af
forded better facilities for the
purpose.
Certain it is, there was a pret
ty large transmigration of souls
on foot or otherwise, from the
wreck beyond the Muddy to the
new town to the South.
Archer was laid out as a town
by a man of that name on what
he supposed to be public lands
of the United States, shortly
after the erection of the terri
torial government, in the fall of
1854.
The western line of the Half
Breed tract, a body of land be
tween the two Nemahas, that
had been reserved for the half
breeds and mixed bloods of cer
tain Indian tribes, as then lo
cated, was about one and a half
miles east of the site of the pro
posed town. That line had been
surveyed and established sever-1
al years before, and was known
as the “McCoy line.”
After the Congress had cre
ated the territory of Nebraska,
a move was made to have the
treaty of Prairie du Chie/i, made
in 1880, under the provisions of
which, among others, the reser
vation was made, executed by
allotting the land in severalty
among the beneficiaries named
in the treaty. To that end the
Indian officer caused a census to
be taken of the half- and mixed
bloods of the tribes named,
which were, as I now recollect
without consulting the recovd
the Yankton and Saute Bands
of Sioux, the Omahas, Otoes and
Iowas.
While this was going on, some
enterprising land grabber, or
may be several of them, induced
the authorities at Washington,
to cause a resurvey of the boun
daries of the Reservation, and
the mischief was done. By the
provisions of the treaty, the
boundaries of the reserved tract
were to be ascertained by sur
veyiug ten miles up each river,
from its confluence with the Mis
souri, to points thereon, and
then by a straight line between
those points, which would mark
the western boundary, while
the Missouri would form the
eastern. The McCoy survey
was made by following the river
in its sinuosities, which w as the j
only way a sensible and fair
surveyor could execute the calls ]
of the treaty. When thus made
the western initial point on the
Great Nemaha, was locate d
about the mouth of the Muddy;
and a line drawn f r om that
point to a like point ten miles
west of the mouth of the Little
Nemaha, left Archer about a
mile and a half west of it.
The new survey wa~ made on .
an entirely different basis of
operation. Instead of follow
.....j
Mrs. W. M. Maddox
___i
ingthe meanderings of t ie river, j
the surveyor, whoever he was, j
started at the mouth (or some- j
where thereabouts) a n d r a n a
straight line up the valley, to a
point ten miles west, which!
moved the initial point on the i
Great Nemaha for flit l ine to a :
corresponding point northwest'
on the Little Nemaha, about
four miles further vest and
when that line was run t o
I
cated Archer on the Half-Breed ,
tract. That gave the Half
Breeds a slice out of the public ;
domain four sections wide and 1
some thirty miles long Not a
bad land grab.
Of course, that survey was a ;
fraud and a wicked one. and
though it failed of success in the
end, it nevertheless mined Ar
cher, and wrecked the hopes- and
plans, as well as the fortunes of
many worthy people.
This occurred sometime in the
latter part of the year 1850, and ,
at the session of tin legislature1
that convened shortly tl < real’
ter in 1857, the final death ! low '
was given Archer by tin re
moval of the county seat, ]o-:
cated there by an act of the first
territorial legislature . ,J" to,
Salem, seven or e.gbf ir ' ' - s :
further west.
Charles McDonald, , citizen
of Salem, and a member of the
legislature, introduced bill
providing with apparent delic
acy, that if the commissioners
of the county should ascertain
that Archer was in fact located
on the Half-Breed tract, they
would at once move the county
offices to the town of Salem;
and immediately afterwards,
without waiting developments
under the first bill, he intro
dnced another, removing the
county seat bodily and at once,
from Archer to Salem. Both
bills were probably passed the
same day, as the record shows
that they were both approved on
the same day. That was “the
most, the unkindest cut of all,”
as those people of Archer were
largely instrumental in electing
McDonald to the office, the pow
ers of which he used for the de
struction of their town. From
that hour Archer was lost.
The most prominent of the
men living there at the time
were John C. Miller, Ambrose
Shelly, William Level, W. M.
Maddox, John Welty, A. D.
Kirk, Frank Goldsberry, Wil
liam P. Loan, and a greater
number of other persons than I
have space to name here. They
were all involved in the wreck
and injured correspondingly.
Kirk and Goldsberry went to
IIulo, which had been started
the year before, Loan went to
St. Stephens, another town on
the Missouri, some miles above
IIulo, but as I recollect, he
passed most of hi> time at the
house of William R. Cain, his
brother in-law, who was then
engaged in opening a farm in
the near vicinity.
William R. Cain was long a
leading citizen in this part of
the country.
The others wandered off in
one direction or another and to
one place and another, but most
of them to that land starward.
It ivas a cruel thing to de
stroy that young community,
and especially when no substan
constantly in their relations
with each other, upon the the
ory of equivalents and compen
sations? It appears so to me.
But take the case in hand.
Three years afterwards, that
same legislature, by the same
arbitrary power passed another
act to take effect in the same
| month of the year and almost
on the same,day of the month,
removing the county seat from
Salem, and locating it at Falls
City. The reader can make any
application of this philosophy
pertinent in his judgment.
Judge Miller was probably
the hardest hit of them all. lie
was among the first settlers,
had invested his all in the town,
and expected to reap the reward
| of a frugal and economic life in
the anticipated prosperity of
the town and country.
He had all his family about
him: was the first probate judge
of the county, with every pros
pect of holding the office as long
as he desired it. But in an evil
hour everything was swept
away, and he was a ruined man
in his bid age. It broke his
spirit and in all probability
shortened his life. He died in
lMtjit, and is buried with others
of his family in the cemetery
near where the old town stood.
One of his daughters, Mrs. W.
M. Maddox, is a citizen of this
city. She was married to Cap
tain Maddox from her father's
house in Archer in the year 1855.
They came here about forty
years ago, and helped to build
the town. Captain Maddox was
one of the first settlers of Ne
braska, was twice a repre
sentative in the legislature, was
sheriff of the county and held
other offices of trust and confi
dence. He died several years
ago. Nearly all of his children
live^with and near their mother.
over the ravine to the north, in
which many of its early settlers
lie buried. There is nothing in
the prospect suggestive of the
fact that a town of three him
dred people or more, ever stood
there, or that it had ever been
anything but the corntield if
now is.
The cemetery mentioned, is
now Archer; the once living vil
lage has vanished, and is 1ml a
memory.
Most people have an unex
plainable desire to visit a grave
yard, and the party that went
over that beautiful Sunday af
ternoon were no. exception to
the rule.
I had in mind the fear that the
place might have been neglected
and become overgrown with
weeds and underbrush. Such
things happen sometimes t o
these places, especially where
they aue isolated from a town
and left for whoever may be
willing, to give them attention
and care. In this case 1 was
agreeably disappointed in my
expectations.
We found the cemetery in good
presentable order, finely located
on ground gently sloping to the
west and south, with a thick
covering of grass over which
the lawn mower had recently
passed. There was no sign of
neglect anywhere, but just the
reverse.
What interested me most was
the community of the dead who
lie buried there, Some have
been there two to my knowl
edge for more than half a cen
tury. Dr. D. X. Hutchins was
one. McMullen the other. Dr.
Hutchins died in the summer or
fall of 1 m',h. | never met him
but once, and then I knew he
was going slowly down to his
grave, with that fell disease,
consumption. He left a little
i/> r-, •_ ■*'
The Old Archer Cemetery
tial benefit accrued to anybody
or any locality.
I heard a great preacher say
once he was si no. e rated to
the Kpi-scopacy of the Methodist
church, but is now deceased,—
that in h!s judgment, whoever
does another a grievous injury,
sometime some other man will
do him a like injury i t sounded
a little like fatalism, but are we
not all to a greater or lesser ex
tent fatalists? Do men not act
On a bright Sunday afternoon
last summer while John W. Dor
rington, of Yuma, Arizona, an
old timer in Falls City, was here
on a visit, he proposed that we;
go out to Archer, that is to say,
where it once stood, and take a
look at the old place. It was
agreed and we went. There
were four of us; three had seen
the town in its decadence, the
other had seen only its aban
doned site, and the cemetery
I
daughter, ten or eleven years
old, who grew to womanhood in
the county, and is with ns yet,
the wife of our respected towns
man, F. M. Harlow.
Passing from one grave stone
to another 1 found that 1 had
known all those people when in
life, and L regret to say though
T have lived in the near vicinity
of this out of the way G od’s
acre, for more than fifty years,
that was my first visit to it It
was like a revival of old ac
quaintance, ffoinp amontf those
silent heralds, each announcing'
the resting place of some one I
had known in days of yore.
Each one of them, as 1 read the
names on the jfrave stones, was
present to my mental vision, as
I last saw him or her in life, and
the times in which they lived.
With Jud^e Miller and Dr. Hut
chins, I saw the spreading, va
cant prairie ajjain, and the
crumbling town they helped to
i „ \ \ ■niH'fWift n»«n.mv ■ > n —.»-«
Mrs F. M Harlow
build. The old vanished life
and surroundings, came back to
me like ghostly visitations; and
so with all the others.
A little to the west on the
south side of the creek, is the
old cam]) meeting ground, where
the pious Methodists of Archer
and surrounding country, used
to repair every year to worship
God in one of his first temples,
according to the poet, a beautiful
grove of young timber, but that
too was gone. Without the
grove the camping ground could
not be located, or at least we
could not do it, and so that,
with the shadowy congregations
that worshipped there in »Me
long ago, hate become mere
misty and confused memories.
We finally stood on the spot
where the town once was. Tile
plow share had passed over it.
and in all the wide e \ p a n s e
about us, there was nothing that
even whispered of the time when
a bustling and energetic people
lived there, except the graves
of some of their dead.
Hut what of the other.- of the
three hundred or more (and that
was a considerable population
for a town in those days), who
inhabited, hoped, and wrought
here? Gone, in their several
and restless. . anderings about
the world and out of it, with
only the two ladies I have men
tioned above, remaining. The
story of Arche i- both pathetic
and tragic.
Magnetic Healing
Miss Lizde Heitland. a gradu
ate of the Weltmer School of
Magnetic Healing, of Nevada,
Mo. 1 am prepared to treat dis
eases of all kinds. Phone 27'*.
Located at Mrs. Burris' residence
south of the convent. 4t •