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impossible. Wolfel, Bremer and Hashberger made a second trip to Omaha and back with a hand sled, bringing provisions. They followed the frozen channel of the Platte River and made the round trip in ten days.

1856 INDIANS

Only once during this first year were the colonists disturbed by the Redman, whose village was then below and opposite Fremont. A number of these savages came one day when all of the men were away from the premises. They broke into Jacob Louis' house and stole all he had, which was chiefly tobacco. They then went to the Town House whose contents they doubtless considered quite tempting. But the brave Mrs. Wolfel kept them at bay until the men returned, when from policy the Reds were admitted to the hospitalities of the house. The guests quickly devoured what food was prepared and as quickly emptied the Town House quart bottle of whiskey. Demanding more and being refused, they required payment in money for all the broad undefined country hereabout.

The officials of the occasion gave them an order on General Harney, of Wholesome Ash Hollow Memory, then commanding at Fort Kearney, for the money. The order was squarely validated by a significant glance by way of endorsing General Harney at a box of muskets and bayonets in the room.

Harney and bayonet fixed muskets --- the best antidote of Indian deviltry ever prescribed on the plains.

SETTLEMENT IMMIGRATION

The immigration of the following year was opened by the advent at Columbus of Dr. Charles B. Stillman and George W. Hewett, coming from Omaha on foot through the snow three feet deep in the month of March. Next came early in April, another pair of footpads --- Patrick Murray and McDonald* walking from Iowa City. Pat squatted where he now is and is likely to be forever. McDonald on the adjoining tract now owned by Esquire Millett. Pat, having spied out the land and foreseen how his little one thousand dollars of gold which he brought might grow on the banks of the Loup to ten thousand dollars during the nineteenth century, sent back to Pennsylvania for his two sisters, Kate and Maggie, the latter being afterwards Mrs. Adam Smith, now Mrs. Brady, and better to him than both, his faithful Bridget whom he met and married at Omaha.

The heralding of the Irish element which has since figured well in the County annals, was soon followed by the first installment on Shell Creek west of the Meridian. Michael Kelly, Thomas Lynch, Patrick Gleason and John Dineen led the way. From Omaha out they had constant battle with the near guard of that big snow. At Rawhide below Fremont, that near guard literally closed around and captured them.

But the Irish outwitted their captor. They were without shelter, cooked food, or wood to make a fire and bound in snow fetters. But the Irish had not been after venturing to the frontier without a barrel or so of good whiskey. From the mysteries of the barrel, as from the magazines of war, they proved that Irish fire, as well as Greek fire, is effective in battle; the fetters of their captivity dissolved and they held the field.

SETTLEMENT

On the first day of May, 1857, Leander Gerrard, in behalf of himself and his father's family, stuck his stakes on the Looking Glass near the centre of Monroe County (now a part of Platte), having a sharp eye, no doubt financially and politically speaking, to County seat if not also to State Capital considerations. Gerrard made quick timely tracks --- the only kind he ever makes -- back toward the United States Land office.

While on his way down, his claims were jumped by Whaley, Pierce and Baty, a party from New York then by Ray, Swicker and Henderson. Then came the Mormons and jumped them all. But Gerrard, Whaley and Ray ousted the Mormons establishing their claims by the tenth of the month, and the Mormons moved up higher and commenced settlement at Genoa on the River. This ground is just beyond the limits of our County, but I must say in passing, that three separate but cooperative colonies of these people called respectively, the Alton, Florence and St. Louis comprising together over one hundred families, commenced improvement under all the embarrassment of extreme poverty but in religious hope of an auspicious future on that enchanting spot. They enclosed with ditch and sod fence two thousand acres of the richest land in Nebraska and broke and planted twelve hundred acres. And a Nebraska sod crop saved them from starvation. Such a sod crop never grew before nor since on the plains. Many a single potato was as large as a common man's foot, solid and good, and was a full meal for one.

Before the crop was at all ready for use, the people were on the verge of famishing, living some of the time on nothing but cucumbers and parsley. "It is said of Mrs. Freston who is well known and respected in Columbus and whose good husband was killed here a few years ago in a wind storm, by the falling timbers of Will B. Dales new store, that her first child was born in a hut without a roof, during a drenching rain and that she lived and nursed her infant for three weeks on such diet alone."

INDIANS

But in the year 1852, the United States Government surveyed and confirmed by treaty to the Pawnee tribes of Indians a reservation, seventy-five by thirty miles area, commencing at the mouth of the Beaver and extending westward along the Loup. This of course displaced the colonies, and they scattered some east, some west. A few, however, remained in the country and they still remain. Of these are Henry J. Hudson, Charles Brindley, James Warner, Moses Welch, the heirs of Peter Murie, Mrs. Carl Reinke, Mrs. Freston and the families of each and all of these.

How often the thread of a long and interesting prospective history is snapped at the first turn or two

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* Hugh McDonough.

of the reel. And how over and over again from the Atlantic rocks to the Pacific sands, during more than three centuries past, the aborigine, by virtue of the baseless theory of his tribal rights to the soil, has been the friction lock on the chariot of civilization, the dead earthen rampart unscalable before army of the world's workers!

The Pawnee reservation annulled Monroe County, scattered the most promising colonies, turned the tide of travel, from one of the finest valleys the sun shines on, invited and facilitated the incursions of hostile savages from the immense Northwest Nebraska, and for eighteen years has been a wall turning back the wave of immigration or hindering its flow around by its tremendous friction. And all for what? Echo answers --- what?

NEW TOWN

Two and a half to three miles northwest of Columbus was laid out in 1857, on a magnificent scale, the town of Cleveland. George W. Stevens, William H. Stevens and Michael Sweeney were the active workers and for awhile occupied the premises.

The project was plausible, for the site was in itself and in its surroundings more beautiful than any other in this region. The instincts of common sense and the powers of human reason operated in those days very much as they do now-a-days, and Cleveland, like Columbus, had "Capital on the brain." To show how the common sense and reason of that day have since been endorsed by high authority, be it remembered that in 1866, George Francis Train, the greatest financial and political prophet of the age, united the two localities in his grand scheme by purchasing all between, and merging Cleveland into Columbus. For he bought all movable Cleveland, put her on wheels, rolled her down to the Centre of the United States, into the exact heart of the Universe, and in a written contract with the to-be proprietor of the Credit Fancier* of America Hotel, remembered that he himself was then "next President of America," had it expressly stipulated that a certain room therein should be forever at the command of the President of the United States and another room subject to the order of the President of the Union Pacific Railroad! Such are the honorable antecedents of the Hammond House, (now the Meridian Hotel), and Captain Hammond and his lady can afford to be held to these conditions, world without end.

So sank the boat of Cleveland on the boat of adventure but not until the Arnolds and Norths --- old settlers all -- had first enjoyed its fading glories and pre-empted the earth on which it stood, and leaving Stevens, undrowned, perched on a little ararat of his own, saved alive to be the pioneer schoolmaster of the day.

So also faded the glories of Zigzag, yielding to the trading-post and beautiful farm of our lamented L. W. Platte, who in 1875 passed over to the next life, leaving all to the care of his wife, the time honored teacher of the Pawnee nation. These premises, thus notable in various ways, have received by interpretation of their faithful friend's name into the Pawnee language, the title of Keatskatoos.

So sank also Monroe, the home of Gerrard and Whaley. So went down also Neenah, the far known ranche of Joseph Russell, and since the possession of the departed Mrs. Wells.

This ranch was three miles west of Schuyler on Highway 30 and thus too sank Buchanan, as in the grave of the aged and worn down civil chieftain. All of the old cities of these plains except Columbus have sunk in a sea of chance. Yet all of these died in faith, not having received the promise that they might obtain better inheritance of good fame, and their proprietors sought a city which hath foundations even Columbus. But while cities faded out of sight farms came into view. For during this year, in the fall of 1857, and the next two, 1858-1859, valuable accessions were made to all the neighborhoods.

SETTLEMENTS --- PEOPLE WITH COMMON BOND

To the German settlement came Held, Erb, Marohn, Will, Wetterer, Rickert, Ahrens, Henggeller, Matthis and the Losekes. To the Irish settlement came Hays**, Doody and the Carrigs. In now southeast Colfax County came Nelson, Toncray, William, Davis, Robert Carson and farther up near Schuyler and west in Colfax County, Rolfor, Russell, Skinner, Kemp, Clough, Spaulding and Fayls.

In September, 1859, came the Salt Lake immigrants. Father James Galley and his three sons, George W., James H., and Samuel, William Draper and John Barrow. They settled southeast of Columbus in Columbus Township. Later came McAlister and Anderson. They were in Colfax County near the McPherson Lake.

Beyond the Loup an interesting community of Yankees, we might call them, commenced in our Platte County Mesopotamia. Barnum, Clother, the Beebe Brothers, Stevens, Morse, Perry, Clark, Cushing and Witchie. In 1876, only two of the trans-Loup Brotherhood (Barnum and Witchie) resided on their original premises. Yet at that time it was one of the most densely occupied and best improved parts of Platte County.

In 1860, a new element was added to the North side of the Loup above Monroe. A white haired old man, tall, straight, long visaged and sanctimonious, appeared on the theatre of reform. His name was Gladden, a name given him by his Mother before he was born because he should gladden the heart of the world, as said a message from heaven to her, as the keeper and displayer of the Flying Roll of Prophecy. He had been with the Mormons in Nauvoo. Brigham Young had discredited the credentials of his divine mission to mankind, and he had retired with a few followers intending to fly the roll first on the frontier parapet of the world. Therefore in 1859 he visited the colonies of Genoa but Elder Hudson shook his head. Still he hoped to draw them in his fold by settling near them. His followers were Platts, Stowe, Sellars, Galley, Coon and Hoagland. They established a kind of commune, and seemed for a time a happy one, having all things in common.

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*Foncier
** Hayes

In 1862 or 1863, the Gerrards' cross examination in a law suit of theirs about a steer, broke up the brotherhood. They had, however, through baptism a number of Pawnees into the Gladdenite Faith.

Rogers, Major North's Commissary Sergeant in the Pawnee Scouts, a Gladdenite convert, ascribed their power over the Indian chiefly to a kind of holy feast that followed the baptism.

During 1860 the line of ranchmen that filed out on the military road was much extended. Some persons who did a thriving business beyond our County limits afterward returned and in 1876 lived in Platte County.

Among these was Joseph* A. Baker. About this time a long deep lull came in the noise of immigration. The motive for settlement was gone, except for those who lived on the borders of the surging tide of immigration to and from Colorado, Utah and California. This gave a chance for livelihood only to a limited number and that number was filled. All shared in caring for the travelers to some extent except in Columbus, where every house was a ranch, Mrs. Baker's Hotel monopolized the business.

The War of the Rebellion was another cause for the ceasing of immigration. This was also the time of the frightful Minnesota Massacre and the murderers had gone West to new fields of rapine.

From this time until the end of the war the actual growth of Platte County was at a standstill. We have no authentic total census for those years but George W. Stevens took the enumeration of school children twice a year. This shows a sliding scale, though slowly rising in general. In 1860**, one hundred fifty-four against two hundred seven in 1866. In 1876, it had risen to 1,677 or a sevenfold growth in ten years. This was a rapid increase for a purely inland agricultural district. This increase was after the advent of the Union Pacific Railroad.

The war had slowed down the powerful incentive, known as the free homestead act, which took effect January i, 1863.

After the Indian and Rebellion War years and the building of the transcontinental and southern railroads, the homestead act showed its effect in the settlement of Platte County. Preemptions, free homesteads, and even railroad lands at five dollars an acre were at a premium, and by 1876 scarcely an unfiled homestead in Platte County could be found.

UNION PACIFIC RAILROAD

In May, 1866, the construction trains of the Casement Brothers entered our eastern County borders and on the first day of June, 1866, the track was laid through the town of Columbus. The whole City, men, women and children, turned out to witness the wonderful spectacle of a live engine slowly creeping along as the rails were laid, a pair at a time, by a gang of disciplined workmen, all moving with the harmony of a clock and completing the track laying at the rate of ten feet per minute.

This great event meant for Platte County the beginning of a new life which by July 4, 1876, had a start of ten years, one month and four days. From that time on the progress was rapid in all paths of physical, social, political and moral development in Platte County.

People with a common bond, strong and religious, formed these first County settlements. The English and Scots settled in the lower Platte Valley. This included the Mormons in Columbus Township. The Germans mostly of the Lutheran Faith settled in the lower Shell Creek Valley. In the northeast and in Tracy Valley were Yankee settlements most from Eastern part of the United States. They were largely Presbyterians. The Irish settled the upper Shell Creek Valley and the lower north shore of the Loup. They were of the Catholic Faith. In the upper north shore of the Loup Valley was a Quaker settlement. The Scandinavians settled in the Upper Looking Glass and Lost Creek and were mostly Lutherans.

In the South Loup section, known as Mesopotamia, the Germans bought out the Yankees and were mostly Lutherans. Sterns prairie in the centre was a mixture of everything, Jew, Gentile, Catholic, Protestant, Christian and skeptic.

By 1876, the whole county was dotted over with human abodes and fields of corn and wheat.

EARLY CIVIL HISTORY OF PLATTE COUNTY

In August, 1857, the counties of Platte and Monroe were organized. Judge Smith of Fremont issued a proclamation calling elections for county officers and the location of county seats. In Platte County the result was as follows: Probate Judge Isaac Albertson; Clerk, George W. Hewitt; Recorder, J. P. Becker; Treasurer, V. Kummer; Sheriff, Cyrul Tollman; Justice of Peace, C. B. Stillman; Constable, J. Guter; County Commissioner, Gustavus Becher; George Spaulding and Abraham Root.

In Monroe County, later a part of Platte County: Probate Judge, Charles H. Whaley; Clerk, George W. Stevens; Recorder, G. E. Yeaton; Treasurer, Charles H. Whaley; Sheriff, N. Davis; Representative, Leander Gerrard; Surveyor, P. Kimball; County Commissioners, H. Peck, C. H. Pierce and H. J. Hudson.

The candidates for Territorial Delegate in Congress were Bird B. Chapman, said to live in Ohio, and Judge Fenner Ferguson of Bellevue."

At this early date there commenced in our County the quiet working of a power in proposing and afterwards carrying nominations and public measures to submit for consideration. This has maintained its prestige without much change. "The responsibility of this," Taylor says, "lies at the door of such men as the Gerrards, Ed Arnold and J. Peter Becker. In the case cited, Ferguson of Bellevue was the choice of Monroe County, then quite strong at the polls and a balance power in the election.

Ferguson was elected Territorial Delegate in Congress and repaid the people in this section of Nebraska for

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* Jacob A. Baker, husband of Rosina Bauer Baker.
** 1860 school census, 66

their vote by having the first Mail and Stage line of any importance in Nebraska serve them.

Leander Gerrard went down the valley on foot with a petition in hand which everybody signed, and in a surprisingly short time the mail coaches were running three times a week from Omaha to Columbus, and once a week from Columbus to Genoa.

The first election in Monroe County was also its last. In the 1858-1859 session of the Nebraska Territorial Legislature, a joint petition of Platte and Monroe Counties headed in double column by John Rickly of Platte and George W. Stevens of Monroe, for the consolidation of the two counties was largely signed by the people, and the whole area of the two was thenceforth Platte County, and the offices of the County have since been filled successively as follows: Isaac Albertson, 1858-1867; E. W. Toncray, 1867-1869; I. N. Taylor, i869-1871; J. G. Higgins, 1871-1877; County Clerk, F. G. Becher, 1858-1861; and C. B. Stillman, 1861 and 1867; H. J. Hudson, 1867-1872; F. G. Becher, 18731877; Recorder*, Dr. C. B. Stillman, 1858-1861.

In 1861, the Clerk became recorder by law. Treasurer, V. Kummer, 1858-1877; Sheriff, E. W. Toncray, 1858-1860; John Rickly, 1860-1861; James E. North, 1861-1863; L. M. Beebe, 1863-1865; John Browner, 1865-1867; C. D. Clother, 1867-1869; A. J. Arnold, 1869-1871; George Lehman, 1871-1873; Benjamin Speilman, 1873-1877; Coroner: J. C. Wolfel, 1861-1865; L. M. Beebe, 1865-1867; J. H. Galley, 1867-1869; Samuel A. Bonesteel, 1869-1871 ; C. B. Stillman, 1871-1875; A. Heintz, 1875-1877; County Surveyor: Lorin Miller, 1858-1860; Alex Albertson, 1860-1861; R. P. Kimball, 1861-1862; I. N. Taylor, 1862-1863; J. E. North, 1863-1869; R. Kummer, 1869-1871; J. G. Routson, 1871-1877; County Superintendent: Michael Weaver, 1858-1867; 1871-1877; C. A. Speice, 1867-1869; J. O. Shannon, 1869-1871; County Commissioners in their order: William Davis, G. W. Stevens, M. Weaver, J. Russel, J. Kelly, C. A. Speice, E. W. Toncray, F. G. Becher, William Davis, Samuel C. Smith, William Davis, George W. Galley, J. W. Early, Guy C. Barnum, Abner Turner, M. Maher, J. Hammond, A. Rose, R. H. Henry. Representatives in their order: H. W. DePuy, J. Reck, Charles H. Whaley, J. Rickly, J. P. Becker, Guy C. Barnum, E. W. Arnold, J. E. Kelly, I. N. Taylor, C. A. Speice, H. J. Hudson, A. J. Arnold, F. Folda (Colfax County). State Senators: Isaac Albertson, O. T. B. Williams, L. Gerrard, O. A. Abbot, G. C. Barton.

(First Years- 1856-1876.)
PHYSICAL DEVELOPMENT OF PLATTE COUNTY
TRADE AND MARKET

Agricultural, pastoral and commercial interests and such public works as have a bearing on these.

During the first ten years, 1856-1866, but little attention was paid to agriculture except in a small way, along the immigrant road to meet the demands of travelers.

Every farmer who lived on the traveled immigrant highways had his market at his own door. Others who lived off this road as Pat Murray, Senecal and Carl Reinke hauled their grain to Fort Kearney, one hundred and ten miles west. It was garrisoned by United States soldiers and was a good market for corn, oats, beans and potatoes.

Columbus had a good meat market for cattle raisers.

In 1868, a man by the name of Francis Hoffman built the steam mill later used as an elevator. Little wheat was raised in that day except for flour. 1869-1870, Becker's Mill was able to grind all the wheat that was raised within a fifteen mile radius. After 1870, there was a steady increase in wheat farming until 1876, when the wheat exports amounted to one half a million. Statistics during the sixteen year period from 1860-1876 show that the taxable acreage of Platte County had grown from 6,255 acres to 186, 180 acres and the live stock from 833 head to 11,206 head.

Exports and import trade before the advent of the Union Pacific Railroad in 1866, there were almost no exports. The imports consisted mainly of flour, most of which was imported.

IMPORTS

In October, 1866, Union Pacific Railroad freight office export statistics show an export of thirty-eight thousand pounds. This business in the same month of 1868 had increased to eighty-two thousand four hundred pounds, mainly flour and potatoes.

In October, 1875, the Union Pacific Railroad exported over five million pounds of grain and of all exports, 6,365,000 pounds, an increase of one to two hundred or one hundred ninety-nine in ten years.

In 1875 the aggregate business done by all manufacturers, merchants and mechanics amounted to $1,095,000. From the record of James Meagher, Union Pacific Depot Agent in the statement for the years of 1875-1876, the month of June, 1876, was the highest month for passenger business, $1,157.95. Freight received, $8,897.57; and Express, $482.30. Total June, 1876, $10,537.82. Exports 3,436,102 pounds, Imports 1,710,218 pounds, or a total of 1,725,884 more pounds of exports than imports. Included in this is one hundred fifty cars of grain carrying a total of fifty-four thousand bushels and other exports equalling 136,102 pounds.

MANUFACTURES

In August, 1857, the steam mill of Rickly and Company was erected and for some years did a big business. It was a saw mill, a corn grist mill and a lath and shingle mill.

In 1868, a steam flour mill was built by F. A. Hoffman. The foundations of the boiler and engine were in the basement and sank in the quicksand. The mill was abandoned in 1869 and the frame later used as an elevator.

J. P. Becker's Mill on Shell Creek started operations in 1869 and by 1875, the annual business amounted to twenty thousand dollars. In June, 1873, Charles Schroeder opened a factory to manufacture carriages and a foundry. In 1875, he opened a feed mill. In 1875,

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* Registrar,

a broom factory was started, and in 1876, a planing mill.

From 1858-1876, Franz Henggeler made Swiss cheese at his farm near Shell Creek. He started with ten pounds a day and increased his output to fifty pounds a day by 1876.

Columbus also in that day had boot and shoe shops, harness shops and tin shops.

The power for manufacturing in this period was from Shell Creek and Looking Glass Creek.

Even in that far off day of 1876, I. N. Taylor says in his sketch, "The immense hydraulic force of the Loup yet waits and tempts whatever ingenius (sic) and enterprising capitalists will enrich themselves and the country by the manufacture of flour, cloth, oil and starch."

Under the head of physical development properly came such public improvements as directly affect the growth of business. For the value and the desirability of all the real estate depend largely on the extent of population and trade in the commercial town or towns of any country.

Platte County and Columbus united to build roads and bridge streams. As early as 1876, the development of highways and all the streams of the County including both the Loup and Platte Rivers had been bridged. In 1876, the County had approximately six thousand feet of substantial bridges and these made Columbus the chief commercial centre of central Nebraska.

This has given to the farmers the advantages of advanced prices for produce and reduced prices for goods, by stimulating emulation as well as securing variety and extent of commerce, and so the whole county is reaping the profits while it enjoys the honor of this large and liberal policy.

BANKS

In July, 1871, Leander Gerrard and Julius A. Reed opened a private bank in the north side town (Twelfth Street). In May, 1874, Abner Turner and George W. Hulst opened another on the South Side. (In August these two private companies organized under the name of the Columbus State Bank, with a capital of fifty thousand dollars. Leander Gerrard, President; Abner Turner, Cashier. The business was conducted in the Turner and Hulst Building opposite the depot between Twenty-sixth and Twenty-seventh Avenues. The Depot has been moved east a block. By the late 1870's, it was the most flourishing bank in Nebraska.)

SCHOOLS

The schools were referred to as the intellectual and moral institutions of the country.

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