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About The Conservative (Nebraska City, Neb.) 1898-1902 | View Entire Issue (Jan. 12, 1899)
I ' I 'Che Conservative. when they nro in their rngo and nngor. Finally it is a fierce beast of counten ance and form of body. The horses fled from thorn , either because of their de formed shape , or because they had never seen them before. Their masters [ mean ing no doubt the Indians ] have no other riches or substance ; of them they eat , they drink , they apparel , they shoe themselves ; and of their hides they make many things , as houses , shoes , apparel , and robes ; of their bones they make bodkins ; of their sinews and hair , thread ; of their horns , maws and blad ders , vessels ; of their dung , fire ; and of their calf skins , budgets , wherein they draw and keep water. To be short , the > r make so many things of them as they have need of , or as may suffice them in the use of this life. " It is perhaps a work of supererogation for me after the lapse of three and a half centuries to endorse and verify the accuracy of that word picture of the buffalo. A photograph of the great herd which I rode into during my hunt could hardly better convey to the mind the images of buffalo. The hundreds of years intervening between my own excursion into the volley of the Repub lican and the invasion of Coronado had neither impaired , improved nor percep tibly changed either the buffalo or the soil of that fertile section now compris ing the county of Franklin in the state of Nebraska. Of that immediate pro pinquity Coronado said : "The place I have reached is in the 40th degree of latitude. The earth is the best possible for all kinds of prodiactions of Spain , for while it is very strong and black , it is very well watered by brooks , springs and rivers. "I found prunes , " [ wild plums , no doubt just such as my party and the wild turkeys were feasting upon in October 1861 ] "like those of Spain , some of which were black ; also some excel lent grapes and mulberries. " And Jarauiillo , who was with Coron ado , says : "This country has a su perb appearance , and such that I have not seen better in all of Spain , neither in Italy nor Franco , nor in any other country where I have been in the service of your majesty. It is not a country of mountains ; there are only some hills , some plains and some streams of very fine water. It satisfies mo com pletely. I presume that it is very fer tile and favorable for the cultivation of all kinds of fruits. " And this land whence the Coronado expedition upon foot retraced its march * * , to Old Mexico , a distance , by the trail ho made , of 8,280 miles , was in latitude forty degrees and distant westward from the Missouri about one hundred and forty miles. Geographically , topograph ically , and in every other way , the de scription fits Franklin and the neigh borhood of Hi vert on in that county. Here then in Franklin county it is re corded that the last horse belonging to Coronado and his band of precious- metal hunters died. At that time all the horses on this continent had been imported. The loss of this animal that day at that place was like the loss today of a man-of-war for Spain in a great naval conflict with the United States. It was discouraging and overwhelming and resulted in the relinquishment of further exploration for the land of Quivera the home of gold and silver and the return to Old Mexico. There was no use for saddles , bridles and other equestrian trappings for with no horse to ride even stirrups were thrown away. And it has been the good fortune of Ne braska to have them exhumed after a sequestration of more than three cen turies. HAUDAU STIRRUPS. In the summer of 1877 , at a point about five miles north of Riverton , .Mr. George W. Prather , a farmer , began digging for a cellar or root house and at about one foot below the surface he found a pair of perfectly preserved Moorish stirrups of Bagdad manufac ture. Both of these relics of our Spanish pioneers in Nebraska ought to be the property of the state historical so ciety of Nebraska. For their secure- men t and preservation as conclusive cir- cumstanthl evidence of the Spanish having camped near where Riverton in Franklin county now stands , this so ciety is directly indebted to the zeal and intelligence of the late Frank M.Diuinny , of Tecumseh , who secured them and of one of them wrote to his friend , Hon. J. E. Lamaster as follows : "It was found by George \V. Prather , a farmer , about six miles north of River- ton , Franklin county , Nebraska , in the Republican valley. Mr. Prathor was making an excava tion for a 'root house' and found this and another exactly like it about one foot below the surface of the ground. He supposed he had found an old Indian grave , but careful examination showed that nothing else had been buried with it. They were side by side. It is possible , and qiiito probable , that they were loft on the surface of the ground and covered by the wind. The soil is a loess , or a loess modified , in the locality where found. They were dis covered in 1877 and came into my pos session in 1878. I let Jiidgo Savage of Omaha have one of them. I supposed them at first to be relics of Do Soto's expedition , but later investi gation leads me to believe that they were left by Coronado's party in 1540. The dry condition of the climate would account for their wonderful preserva tion and being so free from oxidiza tion. Riverton is in Latitude 40 ° 5' ' north ; Longitude 98 ° 45' ' west. Yours truly , FRANK M. DlNINNY. " In 1884 I received this letter : "I send herewith statement from F. M. Dininny in regard to the stirrup. IUMS4 111 your article I want you to give him full credit for their preservation since found by Prather. The more thought about the more in teresting this wonderful relic becomes the most perfect voucher that any of the early explorers of our continent have or could have given us. You will be careful not to lot it go out of your possession. Yours truly , J. E. LAMASTER. " "Tecumseh , Nob. , Jan. 14 , 1884. " And thus after so many years of de lay I give you the story of the first buf falo hunt and the last buffalo hunt in the Republican valley concerning which I am competent to make statement. The Coronado encampment was made there only forty-eight years after the discovery of this continent by Colum bus , but nineteen years after the con quest of Mexico ; sixty-seven years be fore the settlement of Jamestown , eighty years before the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth , and two hundred and thirty-six years before Jefferson wrote and the United States adopted the Dec laration of Independence. My buffalo hunt excursion was six years before Nebraska became a state , and in the thirty-seven years which have since elapsed the world has made greater advancement in the develop ment and perfection of power-agents , in architecture and transportation than it achieved in the three hundred and seven years just succeeding the Coronado expedition. FORECAST OF A VISIT TO FRANKLIN COUNTY A. D. 2250. It is not a function of the historian to forecast the future. But briefly I antic ipate the possibilities as to the conditions and environments in Riverton and Franklin county three hundred and fifty- eight years hence. This locality is then visited by antiquarians and savants in the year A. D. 2256. These learned men have como from Persia , China , Japan , Brazil , the Philippine islands , Hawaii , the Argentine Republic and the utter most parts of the northern and south ern hemispheres. Some of them have arrived by travel through pneumatic tubes in time for lunch at Riverton , having breakfasted at Buenos Aires , Hong Kong , London or New York. Others , instead of having been blown in , reached the place by aerial lines of beautifully winged and most luxuriously furnished and decorated ships which arrived with the speed of the flight of martins and swallows. Others have boon whizzed into town upon elevated electric railways which converge at Rivorton from nearly every point of the compass. VEGETARIANS. At this time the race of human beings has by evolution become almost entirely vegetarian in its diet. Consequently this gathering of scientists discourses