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By JOHN R. CAMPBELL On the 24th of August, 1865, Peter Campbell with his wife, four daughters and three sons sailed from Glasgow, Scotland, on the steamship St. George for the purpose of settling in the United States. Their home had been in the hamlet of Lochgelly in the county of Fife. Mr. Campbell's aged father and other members of his family had already emigrated to this country. The Campbell family landed at Quebec, Canada, after an uneventful voyage of thirteen days. Travel by railroad was so much slower then than now that it seemed ages before they arrived at St. Joseph, Mo., then the farthest western limit of any railway. From that place they traveled by steamboat to Nebraska City. The water being low in the Missouri, the journey required eight days. Nebraska City being then a crowded outfitting place for a great deal of the westward overland travel, Mr. Campbell could not find suitable accomodations (sic) for the family; but the dauntless Scot spirit rose to the emergency, and the man with his wife and seven children proceeded to occupy a vacant lot with nothing to protect them from sun, wind, or rain; and their first scanty meal on Nebraska soil was procured here and there as they could buy it. They paid five cents a quart for water and for other things in proportion. But a kind brother Scotchman took them into his home. In a week's time the emigrants again started westward in a two-horse wagon. After ten or twelve weary days they arrived at Junctionville, situated near the place where Doniphan, Hall county, was afterward built. |
Mr. Campbell's first care was to provide shelter for his family, as winter was approaching, and soon a log house, roofed with sod and chinked with mud, was ready for occupancy. In the middle of the unusually long, cold winter Mrs. Campbell succumbed to hardship, dying in January, 1866. The husband and children tenderly buried her in a rude, unpainted coffin in a lonely wilderness grave. In the spring of 1867 Mr. Campbell went to Nebraska City where he filed a homestead claim and declared his intention to become a citizen of the United States. He brought back in his wagon groceries and household goods. Their crops of corn, oats, wheat and vegetables were very good that season and a ready market at good prices was found for their surplus. There were then less than a dozen settlers up and down the valley a distance of ten miles from the Campbell place. On the twenty-fourth of July, 1867, Mr. Campbell and his oldest son, a lad of fourteen, went to assist a farmer six miles away at his harvest which began that day. About three o'clock in the afternoon a horseman approached the harvesters at full speed to tell them that Indians were raiding the settlement. Mr. Campbell and his son at once mounted a horse and started for their home. They first came to a neighbor's house, about a quarter of a mile from their own, where they found the mother of the family lying dead on the threshold of the door, clasping her infant son in her arms; and nearby a son, fourteen years of age, lay shot through the thigh. They found their own home robbed and destroyed and all the family missing except a girl nine years old, who had managed to elude the Indians by hiding in a field of grain and then crawling for a quarter of a mile to get out of sight and afterward running four miles to notify the neighbor who rode to give the terrible news to Mr. Campbell, as already related. A search for the missing children-- |
two daughters and the two youngest sons--was at once organized. The settlers, convinced that the single company of soldiers at Fort Kearny1 could not afford them protection, decided to abandon their homes and by evening of the next day the reduced Campbell family, now comprising only the father and one son and the grandfather and a brother, were the only inhabitants left in the neighborhood. In about a week Captain Wyman with a detail of six soldiers from Fort Kearny joined in the search for the missing children, exploring the country for a distance of twenty-five miles southward but without success. At last, about the 20th of September, news came through the little settlement at Grand Island that the prisoners had been seen at a camp of a band of Oglala Sioux on the Solomon river. It was rumored also that government authorities were treating with these Indians for the purpose of recovering the prisoners. Soon after [September 25] a communication appeared in the Omaha Republican, as I remember it, substantially as follows: "Dear Republican: Here we are again in the place noted in bygone days as the city of the plains, but which now looks more like an Indian reservation. Leaving Omaha at 6 p. in. nothing worthy of note transpired until we reached Elm Creek. Here we were aroused by the whistle down brakes repeated several times. "Indians! Indians!" was repeated in every car. Guns and revolvers were soon ready for action but upon closer inquiry the cause of the alarm proved to be another train on the track ahead of us showing a red flag. Antelopes and buffaloes were seen at a distance, but too 1According to the report of Lieutenant-General W. T. Sherman, commander of the Military Division of the Missouri, dated October 1 1867, there was only "a detachment of recruits" at Fort Kearny; and, according to the report of the adjutant general, dated October 20, the garrison then consisted of two companies of the Thirtieth infantry--seventy-two men--commanded by Captain (Brevet-Major) A. J. Dallas of the Twelfth infantry. (Report Secy. of War, 2d Sess., 40th Cong., pp. 40, 436.)--ED. |
far for a try of our Henry rifles. We reached North Platte in safety and were informed that the peace commissioners would be there and that Spotted Tail's band would arrive some time that day.2 The commission arrived at 2:10 p. m. and the Indians at 7:30. By the aid of our glasses we discovered them as they crossed the river. Soon there was a general rush to the camp, by men, women and children, to greet the brave soldiers who had been so successful in rescuing six captives out of the hands of the barbarous wretches." Four of the prisoners proved to be the Campbell children. They had suffered greatly from hunger and general ill treatment. In the early spring of 1868 the Campbell family abandoned their homestead and moved to Saunders county, Nebraska. Little more need be said--only a few lines in regard to the survivors. The father died in November 1875. Christiana, the oldest daughter, became the wife of J. P. Dunlap of Dwight, Nebraska. Jessie, the next oldest, died in St. Louis ten years ago. Agnes, the nine year old daughter who escaped from the Indians, died nine years ago. Peter, one of the boys, is now living at Weston, Nebraska, and Daniel, the other, is living in southern Illinois. John R., the oldest son of the family, is at present living in Omaha. Lizzie, the youngest daughter, died six years ago. 2 This peace commission was appointed by the president of the United States, July 20, 1867, and consisted of N. G. Taylor, commissioner of Indian affairs; J. B. Henderson, chairman of the senate committee of Indian affairs; S. F. Tappan, John B. Sanborn, and Generals W. T. Sherman, W. S. Harney, C. C. Augur, A. H. Terry. According to the report of the commission, printed in the report of the secretary of the interior, 3d session 40th congress, page 486, it left Omaha on the 11th of September, 1867, bound for North Platte by the Union Pacific railroad.--ED. |
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