Nebraska Territorial Pioneers' Association

EARLY DAYS

By Virginia M. Deffenbaugh, Cairo, Nebr.

   My father, Isaac K. Young, was not in good health and his brother Rev. John M. Young had written him if he would come to Nebraska he would regain his health. That was in 1866, so they sold their property in Springfield, Ill., and left for Lancaster, Nebraska (now Lincoln).
   We went by train as far as the Mississippi river, crossed the river on a ferry boat, then to St. Joe by cars, and from there up the Missouri river on a steam boat to Nebraska City.
   My aunt, Mrs. Alice Young, and cousin, Levi, were at the landing ot (sic) meet us. We stayed at Nebraska City till morning, when we started for Lancaster.
   They had come after us in a spring wagon drawn by two ponies and we had a heavy load of passengers, consisting of my father, mother, aunt, cousin, sister, brother and myself. When we arrived within ten miles of my Uncle John's home the ponies gave out and my father hired a man with a mule team to take us the rest of our journey that night.
   On the way we passed a prairie fire, the first one I had ever seen, but many fierce ones have I seen since.
   We lived with my uncle and aunt the next winter in their log house on their homestead, on the north side of O street, East of 18th street. My brother George and I went to school at the old stone seminary until it burned down, which was a sad day for the people who had worked so hard to make the school.
   My father bought 160 acres six miles west of Lincoln on Middle creek and we moved out there into a log house. Father homesteaded an 80 acres that joined the other land on the north and we lived there for a time. We went through the grassboper (sic) years, some times having very little to eat except corn bread and molasses, but that tasted good. In the winter we used to catch quail and prairie chicken in traps
   I can remember the day the capital was located at Lancaster and the name changed to Lincoln.
   The Indians used to pass up and down the creek on their hunting trips very sparingly dressed, and there were rattle snakes by the dozens.
   My father, mother and sister have passed away but my brother, George M. Young, lives at Peru, Nebraska. I was married to Sylvester Deffenbaugh in 1877, and am the mother of eight children. Four sons were in the world war but came home to gladden our hearts. 19

THE PIONEER PRAIRIE MOTHER

A Tribute by George L. Cooper, Dedicated to his Mother.

   While we bring our offerings of praise to every mother, we especially pay tribute to the pioneer prairie mother who followed her husband into that vast and pathless prairie, the great Middle West.
   With the onward westward flow of civilization from the prosperous cities and grain-laden fields of the eastern states, went the noble pioneer woman to share with her mate the solitude and silence of the broad and barren expanse of inland prairie, and to render her part in the settlement and development of a democratic civilization; the like of which had never before appeared in the history of the world.
   She gave all: Schoolmate, friend, sister, brother, father, mother. Attachments tender and dear to her childhood memory were broken; playground, orchard and meadow were left behind. The upraised brow hid the secret, fearful thought that nevermore would she see the old home with its hallowed memories.
   The early pioneers sought no fabled cities of silver and gold; they were exiles from an enemy land. They desired an independent life and unclaimed ground where they could build homes, establish schools, rear their children and garner the products of the soil.
   They did not come in the noonday of triumphant achievement, when the plow had furrowed the sod, when fields were heavy with grain, and when schools and churches betokened the dwelling-place of a happy and prosperous people. They came when the prairie glared in the heat of the sun; when danger, disease and death stalked abroad. They came when neighbors were few and when hearts ached for the fellowship of old companions; when the young mother bent low over her fevered child and without aid of doctor or sympathy of friend -- watched, and in painful silence prayed, and if death came, laid it as the first sleeper in the new-made cemetery.
   Not all pioneer mothers were strong and hardy; born to tears and trials. Among that noble throng of pioneers were women of delicate frame and feeling, for the homes of the wealthy and the cultured gave the west of their tenderest souls.
   With the passing of the prairie, passes the prairie mother, but her toil, her tears were not in vain. Behold the blessings her labors bequeathed. Where once was desert and desolation, schools, churches and happy homes bless the land. Generous gifts to colleges and other worthy institutions declare the ardor and radiance of her enduring love. Consider how she molded character, for glowing in the hearts of a generation of young people are the enobling lessons of service and sacrifice. To 20

thee, O noble spirit of the prairie; to thee, O lonely heroine of the hearth-fire; to thee, O matchless mother of men, to thee, and to thee alone, the sons and daughters of pioneer parentage proclaim anew their fond admiration and fervently vow to finish the work yet undone but so nobly begun.
Immortalized in bronze, in marble, in temple, in literature and in painting are the heroes of war, leaders of state and men of letters. but where, in all the eulogy of human acievement (sic) shines the glory of our pioneer prarie (sic) mother? Forgotten? No! Unrecognized? Yes.
Build heavenward your columns of marble and temples of fame; hallow each spot of patriotic pride, pay homage to the learned and wise, but forget not her who labored, who loved and who perished in the performance of duty, the pioneer prairie mother. 21

MY FIRST TWO YEARS IN NEBRASKA

By Linus G. Stewart, Geneva, Nebraska

   This is written to tell the experiences of a pioneer of Fillmore county.
   The writer was born at Troy, Wis, January 7, 1847, and has lived in the following places: Manitowoc, Wis., Milwaukee, Wis., Port Huron, Mich., Detroit, Mich., Chicago, Ill. The winter of 1869 I concluded to go west and grow up with the country. In Chicago I bought a piece of vessel sail and put a cover on my wagon and started the 16th of February, 1870. I crossed the river at Omaha on a ferry boat, came to Lincoln and on southwest and anchored my schooner on Turkey creek. I felt like Robinson Crusoe, that I was lord of all I surveyed. I built a dugout, logged up front and ends and covered it with poles and dirt. No house ever looked better than that as it was my first home.
   I wrote my mother to leave Chicago the 9th of May and I would meet her at the end of the railroad, that being Ashland. On the way home a little colt following the team was run over by the wagon, breaking his hind leg. I put him into the wagon and at Milford I set the leg and he made a good horse.
   On arriving home I dug a well and made some furniture out of poles and in July I commenced work on the railroad grade at Crete.
   In the fall of 1870 my brother and I went on a buffalo hunt. We took what we thought a sufficient amount of grub to last the trip. We missed the herd as they had gone south. We kept traveling until we were out on the Solomon river in Kansas, all out of everything to eat. We killed a hedgehog for supper. The next morning found an old buffalo and started for home and for several days we had nothing but that until we got to where Red Cloud is now. Some people living in a dugout let us have some flour. We got home with a tired team and sorry experience.
   After resting our team we started to find a job of work. The first night we stopped with the Gilberts down the creek. John Gilbert was the first man to stop with us in our dugout and many a good meal and warm bed they gave the pioneers. We went to Beatrice, Tecumseh, Brownville and Peru and got a job on McKessick's Island chopping wood at 50 cents a cord and hauling wood to Nebraska City, fifteen miles. By driving thirty miles we could make $2 per day.
   We had no wagon cover. When we went to bed we pulled a carpet over the wagon box. I piled about ten cords of wood on the east side of the river then the river froze and I commenced hauling it across. That night, not having the price of a bed, I built a fire of the wood and lay by it all night. The next day I got my pay and that night stayed at a hotel. We were gone about six 22

weeks and during that time our mother lived alone three miles from a neighbor.
   The spring of 1871 we went on another buffalo hunt. We went to Harlan county where the country was alive ith (sic) buffalo. We got a load and went to Lincoln and sold and traded it for anything we could use. My brother wanted to build a house on his claim on Prairie Dog creek in Harlan county and we went out there with a yoke of oxen. We got the logs drawn up and there came a terrible snow storm. We were staying a half mile up the creek in a dugout and our oxen were under a bank near the creek. We were afraid they would perish so about midnight we started out to find them taking hold of hands so we would not get separated. When we found them they were nearly covered with snow. The next morning we dug them out and started for home. The snow was two feet deep with crust on top.
   When we got to the Republican river it was frozen over. We unyoked the oxen and slid them across the ice. We had not gone far when their feet got sore and commenced to bleed and they would lay down in the road. A man who camped near us had one horse freeze to death. He came to us with one horse. We made a sled and he started for home. My brother's oxen's feet were ruined and he traded them for a horse and got another. His neighbor was poisoning prairie dogs and set the can down by my brother's house and his horses ate the poison and it killed both of them.
   While we endured many hardships, a pioneer's life was not without sunshine. We were all interested in each other's welfare. My mind likes to go back to the fireplace in the dugout and a lot of pioneer travels sitting by it. I had the time latch string it was always in its proper place When I came here fifty-two years ago there was not a person living within ten miles of where Geneva is now, only the beautiful elk and antelope roamed the prairie.
   My pioneer brother is gone, my pioneer wife is gone but I hope we can all meet in a pioneer hereafter. 23

EARLY DAYS.

By Caroline Vifquain, Lincoln, Nebraska.

"The Indian raid you asked me to give an account of was on July 28, in the year 1859, being the second year of our residence on the West Blue in Nebraska, with no settlement anywhere near us and the Pawnee Indians our principal visitors. Our household consisting only of a hired man by the name of Thomas Elon and a girl named Sarah Jones, my husband being away in Europe on a visit to his mother. About five in the evening, I heard the cow bell ringing. This being much earlier than they were accustomed to come home, I was greatly surprised to find they were being stampeded by some 300 Indians on horseback, armed with spears and lances, wearing gaudy head dresses, ornamented with half dollar pieces, beaten to three or four inches in diameter, and two holes in each piece. These were fastened to their scalp locks and hung down about three feet, and glistening in the evening sun made made (sic) a pretty sight.
At a signal they all dismounted, stuck their spears into the ground and threw the reins over them. The two chiefs with an interpreter and several braves made their appearance at the door. The elder, a Kiowa chief named Yellow Buffalo, was a heavy set man, while the other chief, being of the Comanche tribe (I have forgotten his name) was very tall and savage looking. The Kiowa chief had a big crucifix hanging from his neck, Observing this I got mine and showed it to him. He then pressed his to his breast and said, "good, very good." I believe we were spared on account of that incident. They then said they were hungry and wanted an ox. I offered a number of sacks of flour and meal, besides several sides of bacon but no, they wanted fresh meat and plenty of it, and they then pointed out the large fat ox they wanted. His mate had been crippled by the prairie plow early in the season, and I said "if you must have one take that one". They said he was not fat enough. I told them they should give me a pony for the ox. They gave an excuse that the ponies were to bring prisoners back on. I saw there was no use to object and they took the fine ox. They could have taken them all if they had wanted to. They shot the ox and he rolled down the bank to the river edge. They had their fires already and in a few minutes they were passing the house, each with a piece of meat, and as they passed called out "Bueno, Bueno", I did not know then what it meant. It is Spanish, being "good, very good." They brought me a choice piece and carefully hung the hide on the fence to dry, many of them, after the evening meal was over, came to the grindstone in the yard to sharpen their knives and tomahawks. They were mostly dressed in civilized clothing, and with low leather shoes.

They were going north to wipe out the Pawnees which they did to some extent, also destroying their cornfields. Most of the Pawnees were away on a hunt; only old men and women and children being at home. About nine that evening the Comanche chief began to harrangue (sic) the braves, which lasted two hours. Then the monotonous tom tom sounded and they began to dance. They were in the yard and kept the fires burning and we could see all this quite plainly from the window. This lasted for some little time, then quiet reigned, but I did not steep that night. The next morning they feasted on the balance of the fresh meat, and at nine started north, saying they would return in ten days. So they departed quietly and in good order, leaving only the smouldering fires, and many bones from which the meat had been well scraped.
They did not return our way, fortunately, which was a great relief to us and the three men camped near making hay for me. Those men were on their way to Pike's Peak, from Illinois, but getting bad reports, laid over for a time. One was an Englishman named Williams; an Irishman, given name Dave; and a Norwegian named Helauson. Their cattle were running with ours and they feared when the Indians returned they would take a fancy to some of their's. Later we heard these Indians had passed some 15 miles further up the Blue on their return. At the same time these Indians visited us, the Cheyennes, being on their way to the same Indian settlement, stopped at Salt Creek and committed some depredations. 25

TERRITORIAL PIONEERS.

By A. L. Bixby.

A poem I would pen once more
To pioneers who came before
These prairies, stretching far and free,
And wild and wavy as the sea,
Had been surveyed with the intent
Of staking claims for settlement.
The brave with the hyphennated (sic) name
Was here before the pale-face came
In many a sheltered bit of wood
His sun-protected tepee stood.
He trod the hills in search of game,
So wild, so old, that it was tame,
But scant heed did these noble brutes
Give agricultural pursuits.
The natives; clad in buckskin gear,
That never knew a profiteer,
Brought home their catch of game and meat,
As much as ever they could eat,
And warred with other warlike men
For recreation now and then.
The women, ever kind and good,
Did all the work, as women should.
And so these tribes lived on for years
Our territorial pioneers.
For when I am inclined to pay
This tender tribute in this way.
Before I mention those whom fate
Decreed should drive them from the state,
Almost as soon as it seemed good
To multiply the sisterhood
By this accession which now rates
A 1 of these United States.
I do not at this time elect
To take a mournful retrospect,
Nor praise too highly those who burst
Their belts, almost, to get here first.
Since I was big enough to yell,
And wake the neighbors raising mischief,
It's been my luckless fate to share
Rough life long "versts" from anywhere.
Son of a pioneer, I know
What pioneering means, yea, bo,
My feet unbroken trails have trod,
I've lived in houses built of sod,
I've driven Buck and Tom to plow,


I've been kicked by a spotted cow,
I've shared the Indian's broncho mount,
I've killed more fleas than I could count.
And so it was in early years
With all Nebraska pioneers;
And I'm inclined to think somehow
They were as happy then as now.
The hospitality of old
Is lost the modern heart is cold.
O pioneers who paved the way
For all we have and are today,
Where did we lose the key, and when,
To human hearts, that we held then?
Now greed and selfishness appears
To dominate, and profiteers
On every hand assail and take
All that an honest man can make;
And all the tears that may be shed,
And all the prayers that may be said,
And all the piteous complaint
Of those who by the wayside faint,
Has no effect to soften trade
Directed by the gouge-brigade.
The pioneer of long ago
Whose hair is white as driven snow,
Now waits complacently to hear
The last call to the pioneer;
To join the ones we mourn and miss
Who, in a better state than this,
Their hopes attain, their strength renew,
Up yonder where our dreams come true, Beyond the toil, the grief, the kicks,
The trials and the heartaches. BIX.

Read before the Nebraska Territorial Pioneers' Association, January 15, 1918.

TERRITORIAL PIONEERS.

By A. L. Bixby, Lincoln, Nebraska.

Again as in departed years
Our territorial pioneers --
The very few now living -- meet
With younger folks to talk and eat.
Relating tales of other days,
Of deeds that merit blame or praise;
Of hardships patiently endured,
Of ills that never could be cured.
Behold the school-house, built of sod,
Among the fields of goldenrod,
And far to south and east and north,
The home shacks where the fleas held forth.
Poor markets then for stock and grain
And, seasons when it didn't rain,
These settlers were too proud at least
Or toodam poor to move back cast
Since powerless to get away,
They sturdily resolved to stay,
And so developed thru the years
Into real hard-boiled pioneers,
Who found full joy in doing chores
About the place in all-out-doors,
While waiting the uncertain quest
Of homesteads in the boundless west.
How often has the tale been told
No markets in the days of old,
And, in the scattered haunts of men
Few houses fit to live in then.
But there was pleasure, I'll be bound.
For those who early tilled the ground;
Who lived in shanties far apart
And nestled close to natures heart.
A half a century ago
The children had a chance to grow
Without conventional restraint
Or curse of cigarets (sic) and paint;
Free as the birds that cleave the sky,

But ill-disposed to soar so high.
And let me say right here that men
Were glad to help each other then.
Nebraska in these early years
Had not developed profiteers,
Those experts who today appear
To graft without a sign of fear;
Who stand in an unbroken line,
And have the game of gouge down fine.
To those far pioneers I pay
A tribute this eventful day,
In full belief that they are just,
And fair and square, whose bones are dust.
As to survivors hereabouts,
Well, honestly, I have my doubts
(Since this ungodly craze of pelf)
But I will keep them to myself
And give the regulation grip
Of friendship and good-fellowship
To those assembled here to mix
And swap fraternal greetings. Bix.

Read before the Nebraska Territorial Pioneers' Association, January 10, 1922.

PIONEERING IN BOONE COUNTY.

By S. D. Phillips, Albion, Nebraska.

   I was born and raised on a farm near Agency City, Iowa. I was never 40 miles from the Parental Roof nor more than seven days at one time absent from home, until I started west.
   I married and moved into the old home where I was reared and my parents moved to town. I soon saw that the struggle to acquire a home for my I family in that eastern locality was too one-sided, hence on the 3rd day of October, 1884, I with my wife and two children started west to grow up with the country. We landed first at Greenwood. Nebraska, but no show there for a poor tenderfoot like me. The next stop was at Kenesaw, Nebraska with like results. My wife and I had talked over the possibilities of Boone county, so we headed this way and arrived at Albion, October 20, 1884 at 10 o'clock at night in a cold drizzling rain, hungry, tired and friendless.
   The first place I stopped at was the postoffice to try and find some place to get the wife and babies in from the cold and wet. I noticed a slender, fair complexioned boy distributing mail in the postoffice. He seemed to be all over the office at once. I had many occasions to visit this postoffice after that and transact business often with this same boy. I predicted from his attention to business and courteous manner he some day would make good and I am glad to say that now after a lapse of 38 years from that night, this boy (D. V. Blatter) is president of the Albion National Bank, one of the most solid institutions of its class in the state of Nebraska.
   The winter of 1884 we lived in a shack 8x10, boarded up and down barn fashion and no plaster. Our bed stood on end in the day time so we could have room to get inside. We gave no parties nor balls, hence we had plenty of room and to spare.
   The first furniture I purchased was from a tall, white haired gentleman. I supposed he was a Swede, but I afterwards found him on the City Council, in the County Treasurer's office and now in 1922 he is my deputy postmaster, W. W. Ladd. He too, has made good.
   My first day's work in Boone county was to unload a car of coal for which I received one dollar, and I was glad of the chance to earn it. My next labor was for the then unheard of price, of fifteen cents per hour to mix mortar in the basement and carry it up to the second story on ladders to plaster what is now the First National building. I was very glad to get such high wages.
   We moved up the valley in March, 1885, near the Garner postoffice. In June, 1885 I traded for the Relinquishment on the only remaining piece of land, which looked like a living could be made on. When I presented myself at the land office at Neligh, 30

to make my entry, I found that I could file on an additional 80 adjoining the one on which I had secured the relinquishment but I did not have the $14 necessary to make the filing so I lost the eighty for the lack of the sum of $14, but money was hard to get in those days.
   I worked for fifty cents per day to pay for having the sod broken, to lay up the walls of my house. We moved into it in October, 1885. There was no floor in it, no plaster on the walls, and a wagon cover was the roof. The furniture was in keeping but as I recall it today, it was the happiest days of my life for we were in our own home. The only fuel we used that winter was hay, brush and sunflowers, nor did we have anything better until we raised a crop of corn. Then we burned corn during the severe weather. I often walked to Albion, a distance of twelve miles, for our mail and groceries and returned before dark.
   On the 12th of January, 1888, I took my wife three miles through the sandhills to a near neighbor's to spend the day as it was so warm and pleasant and more like a spring morning. I left her and went over in Rae valley to call on Jack Rae. I finished my errand and started home and when within about one mile of home, I suddenly thought I had turned blind, or something bad struck me. I felt stunned for a moment but soon realized that I was caught out in a death dealing blizzard of the highest magnitude. I kept my course the best I could but the atmosphere was so dense that I could not see to the ground. I had no evercoat (sic), no overshoes, no wraps and no mittens and I knew that to miss the little sod house in the valley meant -- all is lost. It was my good fortune to bump up against the sod house and I soon found the door and safety, but none too soon as I was chilled and numb for the snow was packed next to my body as firmly as if stuffed with a sausage stuffer. It is the snow getting next to the body and melting that takes the lives in a blizzard. You could drive a wagon over the Beaver River in many places the next day and not know where the river was so solid and deep were the drifts.
   The fall of 1889 was slim picking for most of us homesteaders up the Beaver. Petersburg had been located and a store or two started but it took either money or its equivalent to buy the goods. Realizing one day in September that the flour bin was empty, I went to see if I could find some plums along the Beaver to gather and if possible trade for some flour. As I approached the plum thicket in the twilight. I discovered that there were others who thought late plums were good. I stealthily crept up to a high bank and just opposite to where I was hiding a very large beaver was going up a well worn slide to gather the very plums I was after. I watched him eat his fill and then I queitly (sic) slipped away and returned for my traps. I hastened back to my 31

plums and Mr. Beaver was having a big time sliding off in the water. The lightest noise on my part sent him under the water to his den, which happened to be above 10 feet from where I was standing. I went up the creek and waded down so no scent would be made to frighten him away. I set the trap in the den under the water and staked it out in deep water. Next morning I was out early to look at my trap for I had missed my plums and no beaver meant no bread. On arriving I saw that he had been in the trap and had cut all the brush in reach, but all was still as death. I waded out to the stake and "Ureka," there a very large beaver was caught by just one toe, but he had wound the chain around the stake and drowned. I took the pelt off, dressed it and took it to Petersburg and traded if for six sacks of flour. Some called it a lucky catch but we say Providence smiled on us.
   The Indians often pitched their tents on my place and trapped for beaver. They often came to our house to beg something to eat. We always divided with them. They would beg for everything in sight. One day an old squaw wanted our dog but we needed him in our business, but my wife offered to substitute a surplus cat in place of the dog. This made the "old girl" mad and she gave us a real good original American cussin, both in oral and in sign language.
   The coyotes often came to our house at night and sang sad requiems to the hens upon the roost. I detected one morning at the break of day an old wolf departing with his own selection from our hen roost. I was soon mounted on a fleet horse and in hot puruit and as there were no fences in those days it was a matter of who had the best wind. The hen seemed to be quite a load to carry in a real race so I overtook him in less than a mile. He had dropped his hen and courage also. The only weapon I had was the boots on my feet. I tried in vain to make my horse tramp the wolf but it was afraid so I took off my boot and began to pelt him with that. He was so winded that I could ride within six feet of him and by persistent booting, pelting and running over him I secured his pelt and that meant another sack of flour.
   As I look back on those early days I often wonder how we lived through them. Crops and rain sometimes failed us but friends and courage never. We then learned that there is a silver lining to every cloud and where there's a will there's a way.
   Among the early settlers of the upper Beavery country I recall the names of J. B. Barnes, Garret Van Camp, James and Tom Rae, Ira Whipple. R. W. Moore, George Wilson, Robert Fitzhugh, Joseph St. Louis, Hugh Martin, Silas Adsit, C. E. Lockwood and O. E. Walters. Such men could build empires.

Read before the Coons County Historical Society, February 1, 1922.