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About The Falls City tribune. (Falls City, Neb.) 1904-191? | View Entire Issue (April 23, 1909)
Reminiscences of a Wayfarer 7BmBnammmam%a wmmsmmmmam * .wicr 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 F'lKsT VISIT TO numVNTlM.K The first settlements in X< braska were ninny the Missouri river, extending from the mouth of the Cn at Nemaha north to l,'run f/u/ rmn t. or in ordinary United States, The Running Water, or as that stream is now known, the Niobrara, which empties its waters into the Mis souri in Dakota county, lyiny across from Sioux City, in the state of Iowa. The three princi pal towns on the Missouri,south of the Platte.were Plattsinouth, so named because it is a few miles, three or four, south of the point o! continence of the Platte with the Missouri river, in Cass county. Nebraska City immediately south iiHMoecoun ty, and Mrownville still furtherj south, in Nemaha county. There wem three other towns below Brownville, Nemaha < 'itv. Aspinwall and St. Demin, in Nemaha county, and two Birth er down, St. Stephens ami Itulo, in Richardson county. In IKi* Brownville w a s a flourishing' place, exceedingly lively and full of business The land of tice for the southern district, was located there, which made it a point of great importance. Every squatter in the district had to go there to tile, as it was called, on the quarter section he intended to purchase from the government f»v right of pre emption:*and if another fellow wanted the same quarter on any pretense,a contest was pro vided for by|law, and a trial of the respective rights of tin* con testants to the land was had I before the officers of the land office, and if either was dissatis tied with the decision, an ap peal was allowed to the com missioners of the general land oftice|at Washington, and if thi>*decision did not suit both parties, and it hardly ever did, the loser could cause a review of the whole matter by the See retary of the Interior And even his decision would not end the contest, it the defeated party had the money and the “sand" to formulate a case for the courts, and then everybody knows what might happen. i wen rememner my nrst visit to Brownville. It was made in the night, to save time, as my fellow travelers called it, hut just how it was a sat ing of time was not very clear, as none of us had anything to do in the day time.hut to kill time,and the necessity for a night journey that we might have more day light in which to do nothing, seemed tome to savor a little of the absurd. However, that was the way they put it. and if i was to get to the land office without walking, 1 must go w ith them, and it was so arranged. We accordingly procured a team of horses and a lumber wagon, into the lied of which, some new mown prairie hay was put to sit on or sleep upon during the night, as circumstances or in clination might require. It was dark before we got started, probably, at that season about eight and a half or nine o'clock in the evening. Where there are five or six, as with our par ty, to make a journey of* tin* kind, there art* always more or less delays in getting everybody ready, and as we were not ex empt from the common exper ience in such cases, it was far into the "shank” of the night before we got off. There was no well defined traveled road, but as all the party except my self, had been over the way many times^before, no difficulty wTas apprehended in tindingr and keeping in the right and us ual route. It was a beautiful night, moonless but clear, with the starry|hosts above in splen did array, makiny the atmos | ]>ln rr almost as luminous as the moonliyht could have done. Added to this was a warm soft breeze from the south, laden with the indescribable smell of the prairie, sweetened with the scent ot millions of wild Mowers, whisperiny of tin- summer and of the seed time and the harvest. Harvest! What was there in all that wild waste to harvest but prairie hav, with never a cow to eat it? Well, as there was no beaten road thi' horses could 'travel no faster than a walk, and we cal ciliated the trip could be made in about seven hours, which would briny ns to Hrownville about breakfast time. IAir the first hour or two, and until we all got sleepy, the con versation was about claims, and what each expected to do with his own, the number of cattle they would have, to be pastured on t h e unoccupied common, as though nobody but themselves would ever come to take it up as they were doing; and in .ill their vague notions of the future greatness of the country, the idea that it would one day be a solid net work of highly improved farms, with no public common upon which to graze their imaginary herds, never seemed to have a place in their minds. Our party, as I remember the fact, consisted of live persons, and there may have been another, but I cannot be sure. It was made up of Jesse Crook, Josiali Koken (a claim speculator in a small way), a fellow by the name of Solo mon IMummer, (our driver), un self and may be another, hut il so, 1 have forgotten his name. As the hour waxed late, all hut thedriver, who claimed to know the trail sufficiently to follow it in the darkest night he ever s.tw, to Use In-, own asserva tions, cuddled down in the hay and fell asleep, 1 knew no more till 1 heard a loud and not very complimentary talk to the driver, going o n outside tin wagon. a n d finding nivself alone, got out too. The team had come to a full stop, and 1 was not long in discovering that we were lost on the prairie. The driver had allowed the horses to wander from the path or trail, probably because he too, had gone to sleep, and as there were no land marks to in dicate to a native where we had gotten to, tin- general opinion was, that we camp till we found from which quarter of the heavens the sun would rise in morning, then only a few hours otf. 1 was the only one not lost. As 1 knew nothing of the coun try, all places looked alike to me. The only tliingr lost was the way to Urownville. Like the Indian in the lumber region who, acting in a confused and bewildered sort o f way was asked it he was lost, answered: “No, wiggeup lost. Ingin here." While the rest ot them were swearing at the driver, 1 took a look at the prospect myself, and as l knew nothing of the country, 1 took a look at tin stars to see in what quarter ( tiarle s Wain was to be found. '1 his. as most people know, is tin- seven stars in the constella tion Ursa Major, called the “Dipper”. I found it by look ing all around the horizon, and tin- situation was made plain to me at once. 1 then told them the horses were headed to tin southwest, and if they kept in that direction far enough, they would probably land on the liio Grande, about where Gen. Tay lor crossed that river a dozen years before, to invade Mexico. They wanted to know how 1 knew that, and I told them. i Tin* pointers in the Dipper al ways show Polaris, or what, in common speech, we call the north star. 1*1 urn me % who was 1 out of humor with evervbodv, usiny a stroffy and not very «'I«yant expletive, want ed to know how ! found , it out, and to put him, if . possible, in a better humor, 1 re plied that I learned it in about the same way lie had that niylit. somebody told me. So we yot in the wayon, turned the horses about face and in a very short time Plummer informed iis that he was hack on the trail which proved to he true#as in about an hour afterwards, (the dawn was then breakinyi we came in siylit of Nemaha City’, just over the Little Nemaha, and without further adventure, r e a c h e d llrownville in time for break fast. W lu‘ii the land office opened we went in, transacted our bus iness, yot acquainted with the officers,who were both from the south, and very pleasant yentle men, alTnble and accommodat ing, mixed with that whole souled sociability that seems a part of the southern character, and then went to look at the town. It was rather lively and decidedly fast. 1 have seen something like it in western mininy camps, although unlike them in one particular, every other man 1 met was not loaded with < olts revolvers and buwie knives. Whiskey and land war rants were the principal com modities on sale in the market, and a rushiny business was done in both. A land warrant for Hid acres was -old for sl’h), ;it five per cent per month, or six ty per cent per annum, not a bad interest when paid by the other fellow, b u t somethiny awful where you have to pay it yourself. That applied to sales made on time or deferred pay ment. It was duriny that visit I tirsl - met IW. Furnas, afterwards . yoverno of the state, and fur whom the leyislature named one of it' ountie'. and who died only i ah or three years ayo. At tllat time and several time,' before, e was a member of the upper fn>nse of the leyislature, and continued to be such as ! lony as he desired the honor. He was also editor of a neu~ ■paper called the Nebraska Ad vertiser. Ha viny visited h i s j office mi connection with some j busine's in hand, made his ac j quaintance the while,subscribed for his paper for a year, with a i very little political talk on the side, he kindly introduced me ' to tin two leadiny lawyers in soutln rii Nebraska F. F. John son and Dan McFary, and some other yentlemen whom i knew from that day forward. John son writ back to New York to die a few years afterwards, while McFary drifted off south duriiu,. or about the time of the civil war, and l lost him. Most of the people [ saw that day have yone out of the world are at rest in the old yraveyard on tin- hill, many of them, and royal yood fellows they were in th. ir day. Furnas,and W. T. Den. a merchant, lived on after the town and their compeers were dead, and both of them were buried on tin* same day not lony ayo, in the same silent community. Horace Freely once said of Fennimore Cooper, that lie just missed beiny a yreat man. Similarly, it may b e said of < Joy. Furnas, that lie just missed beiny the best poli tician Nebraska ever produced, and but for his penchant for of fice seekiny and holdiny, miylit not have failed. He alwavs had an office, or public station of sniive kind, and was peculiar ly constituted for yettiny and i holdiny them, as much so as- J. i Sterliny Morton was, for nol yettiny and holdiny them, and they both worked at the busi- 1 _ ness w i t li untiring industry. Artemus Ward said, when lie made the acquaintance of Mr. Brigham Young out in Utah, that lie was the most married man he ever saw, anii it is prob able that if that pleasant hum orist could have been made ac quainted with our governor’s office holding history, lie would have concluded that the Hon. li. W. was the most public trust-burdened man he ever saw. But with all his weakness for . office holding, Bob Furnas was an honest man and faithfully discharged every trust commit ted to his care, without any llourish of trumpets, or tricks of the demagogue. It is not recollected that he fixed up a hen-roost outside of town, and called it a Rookery, after the style of the titled snobs from over the sea, nor built a house and called it a Hall, or a Lodge,in imitation of a lordly race not much in evi dence in this country, except among the flunkey tribe and their name is fast becoming le gion. He neyer made prepara tion tor canonization as a po litical saint, but lived with the people as one of them, and nev er sneezed when somebody else took snuff. And beyond all else he was a sound American, pat riotic and true, in the hour of national danger. Had lie been a blattant copperhead, and rebel sympathiser in Civil war days, like some I could name, the descendants of that by no means extinct race, would no doubt erect a monument to his memory, as they have done lor others of that feather, but being only a plain old Union Soldier, his grave will remain unmarked, like thousands o f others, and after a while, will fade out of the memories of men entirely. Brownville. one time and an other, had among its citizens, men who were prominent in early Nebraska history. I lur < mentioned the two most distinc tive lawyers at the time of which I write, but at a lat date K. W. Thomas, O. U. Hev, • itt. .James Bedford and sir others figured in the bar wit more or less prominence till H. Broady came among the . about 1W57, and from that tii forward till the town began to lose its own prominence, he and .Thomas were easily at the head of the profession. Broady went on the bench In lsst. and finally moved to Be atrice. Thomas li a d already come to Falls City, where I resided till hisdeath, July, l*‘.-7 Broady afterwards located t Lincoln and died there >a^ October, the last of t e old Brownville Bar. Amo: those who were j»r<»minent in the politics of the terri tory, were T. W. Tipton and bi son in-law, Henry M. Atkinson. Tipton was a minister of the gospel, but in war times became a politician, and was elect-d one of the tirst senators frt n Nebraska after its admission into the Cnion. He drew the short term and was re-elected for a full term, forty years ag( last winter, and differing with his colleague on the question o' which was the greatest ma u and entitled to tirst consider. • tion by the President who rati er preferred Thayer war broke out all round and Tipton time1 ly became a democrat, and tin t was the end of him. I had the misfortune to be instructed by the convention that was respon sible for my election to the state senate, to vote for that gentle man for senator, which I did nineteen times in caucus and once in tin* legislature, and I have since regretted havia done so more than nineteen hun dred times, but what was t! e user Two years afterwards, P. W . Hitchcock did the business for Thayer by buying enough of his sure pop votes to let him down with a thud, and that ear ly statesman disappeared from the senate, and it became an orphan. Because they're the Notion's Choice Because Baking Pa :.r? Xian approved by the whole Nation made The National Soda Cracker E*gf> Sold only in NATIONAL. Tloislure Troof BI $ U IT Packages COMPANY