Читать книгу Collection of Nebraska Pioneer Reminiscences - Daughters of the American Revolution. Nebraska - Страница 41

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Mr. and Mrs. Thomas J. Hewitt, in June, 1873, journeyed from Forreston, Illinois, to Plum Creek, Nebraska. Their object was to take advantage of the offer the government was making to civil war soldiers, whereby each soldier could obtain one hundred and sixty acres of land. They stopped at Grand Island and Kearney, but at neither place could they find two adjoining quarter sections, not yet filed on. They wanted two, for my grandfather, Rockwood, who lived with us was also a soldier. At Plum Creek, now Lexington, they were able to obtain what they wanted but it was six miles northwest of the station.

Plum Creek at that early date consisted of the depot. The town was a mile east and when my parents arrived at Plum Creek, they were obliged to walk back to the town, in order to find lodging for the night. Rooms seem to have been scarce for they had to share theirs with another man and his wife. They found a place to eat in the restaurant owned by Mr. and Mrs. E. D. Johnson.

In August of the same year, they made a second trip to Nebraska, this time with wagon and carriage, bringing with others a carpenter who built their house upon the dividing line of the two homesteads. This house had the distinction of being the first two-story house in the neighborhood. All the others were one-story, because the settlers feared the high winds that occasionally swept over the prairies. For a few months it was the farthest away from town.

In the three months between the two trips the town had moved to the depot, and had grown from nothing to a village of sixty houses and stores. The Johnsons had brought their restaurant and placed it upon the site where a little later they built a hotel called the Johnson house. Mr. T. Martin had built the first hotel which he named the Alhambra. I have a very faint recollection of being in this hotel when the third trip brought the household goods and the family to the new home. It was in December when this last journey was taken, and great was the astonishment of the older members of the family to see the ground covered with a foot of snow. They had been told that there was practically no winter in Nebraska, and they had believed the statement. They found that the thermometer could drop almost out of sight with the cold, and yet the greater part of many winters was very pleasant.

My father opened a law office in the town and T. L. Warrington, who taught the first school in the village, read law with him, and kept the office open when the farm required attention. The fields were small at first and did not require so very much time.

The first exciting event was a prairie fire. A neighbor's family was spending the day at our farm and some other friends also came to call. The day was warm, no wind was stirring until about 4 o'clock, when it suddenly and with much force blew from the north and brought the fire, which had been smoldering for some days in the bluffs to the north of the farm, down into the valley with the speed of a racing automobile. We children were very much frightened, and grandmother who was sick with a headache, was so startled she forgot her pain—did not have any in fact. Mother and Mrs. Fagot, the neighbor's wife, were outside loosening the tumble weeds and sending them along with the wind before the fire could catch them. In that way they saved the house from catching fire. My father, who had seen the fire come over the hills, as he was driving from town, had unhitched the horses and riding one of them as fast as possible, reached home in time to watch the hay stacks. Three times they caught fire and each time he beat it out with a wet gunny sack. I think this happened in March, 1874.

That same year about harvest time the country was visited by grasshoppers. They did considerable damage by nipping off the oat heads before the farmers could finish the reaping. My aunt who was visiting us suggested that the whole family walk through the potato field and send the hoppers into the grass beyond. It was a happy thought, for the insects ate grass that night and the next day a favorable wind sent them all away.

The worst grasshopper visitation we had was in July, 1876. One Sunday morning father and mother and I went to town to church. The small grain had been harvested and the corn all along the way was a most beautiful, dark green. When we were about a mile from town a slight shade seemed to come over the sun; when we looked up for the cause, we saw millions of grasshoppers slowly dropping to the ground. They came down in such numbers that they clung two or three deep to every green thing. The people knew that nothing in the way of corn or gardens could escape such devastating hordes and they were very much discouraged. To add to their troubles, the Presbyterian minister that morning announced his intention to resign. He, no doubt, thought he was justified.

I was pretty small at that time and did not understand what it all meant, but I do know that as we drove home that afternoon, the cornfields looked as they would in December after the cattle had fed on them—not a green shred left. The asparagus stems, too, were equally bare. The onions were eaten down to the very roots. Of the whole garden, there was, in fact, nothing left but a double petunia, which grandmother had put a tub over. So ravenous were the pests that they even ate the cotton mosquito netting that covered the windows.

In a day or two when nothing remained to eat, the grasshoppers spread their wings and whirred away. Then grandfather said, "We will plant some beans and turnips, there is plenty of time for them to mature before frost." Accordingly, he put in the seeds and a timely rain wet them so that in a very few days they had sprouted and were well up, when on Monday morning, just two weeks and one day from the time of the first visitation, a second lot dropped down and breakfasted off grandfather's beans. It was too late in the season then to plant more.

My mother had quite a flock of turkeys and a number of chickens. They were almost dazed at the sight of so many perfectly good insects. They tried to eat them all but had to give up the task. They ate enough, however, to make themselves sick.

This time I believe the grasshoppers stayed several days. They seemed to be hunting some good hard ground in which to lay their eggs. The following spring the warm days brought out millions of little ones, which a prairie fire later destroyed.

The corn crop having been eaten green and the wheat acreage being rather small, left many people with nothing to live on during the winter. Many moved away and many of those who could not get away had to be helped. It was then that Dawson county people learned that they had good friends in the neighboring states for they sent carloads of food and clothing to their less fortunate neighbors.

A good many homesteaders were well-educated, refined people from Pennsylvania, New York, and elsewhere. They were a very congenial company and often had social times together. They were for the most part young people, some with families of young children, others just married, and some unmarried. I remember hearing my mother tell of a wedding that she and father attended. The ceremony was performed at a private house and then the whole company adjourned to a large hall where everybody who wanted to, danced and the rest watched until the supper was served by Mr. and Mrs. Johnson in their new hotel. The bride on this occasion was Miss Addie Bradley and the groom was W. H. Lingle, at one time county superintendent of public instruction.

For some time after the starting of the town of Plum Creek there was no church edifice but there was a good sized schoolhouse, and here each Sunday morning the people for miles around gathered. One Sunday the Methodist preacher talked to all the people and the next week the Presbyterian minister preached to the same congregation, until the courthouse was built, and then the Presbyterians used the courtroom. I have heard the members say that they received more real good from those union services than they ever did when each denomination had a church of its own. The Episcopalians in the community were the most enterprising for they built the first church, a little brick building that seated one hundred people. It was very plainly furnished, but it cost fifteen hundred dollars, due to the fact that the brick was brought from Kearney and freight rates were high. It stood on the site of the present modern building and was built in 1874. My grandfather, an ardent Churchman, often read the service when there was no rector in town.

Speaking of the courthouse reminds me that it was not always put to the best use. I cannot remember when the following incident occurred, but I do remember hearing it talked of. A man who lived on the south side of the Platte river was accused of poisoning some flour that belonged to another man. He was ordered arrested and two or three men, among them Charles Mayes, the deputy sheriff, were sent after him. He resisted arrest and using his gun, killed Mayes. He was finally taken and brought to town and put into the county jail in the basement of the courthouse. Mayes had been a very popular man and the feeling was very high against his slayer, so high, indeed, that some time between night and morning the man was taken from the jail, and the next morning his lifeless body was found hanging at the back door of the courthouse.

One of the pleasures of the pioneer is hunting. In the early days there was plenty of game in Dawson county, buffalo, elk, deer, antelope, jack rabbits, and several game birds, such as plover, prairie hen, ducks, geese, and cranes. By the time we arrived, however, the buffalo had been driven so far away that they were seldom seen. There was plenty of buffalo meat in the market, however, for hunters followed them and shot them, mostly for their hides. The meat was very good, always tender and of fine flavor. My father rushed into the house one day and called for his revolver. A herd of buffalo was racing across the fields towards the bluffs on the north. Father and some of the men with him, thought possibly they might get near enough to shoot one. But although he rode as fast as his pony could carry him, he could not get close enough and the herd, once it reached the hills was safe. The poor beasts had been chased for miles and were weary, but they did not give up. The cows huddled the calves together and pushed them along and the bulls led the way. Father learned afterward that his pony had been trained by the Indians to hunt; and if he had given him the rein and allowed him to go at it in his own way, he would have gone so close that father could have shot one. But he did not know this until the buffalo were far away.