(97) THE great storm of 1873 was the worst ever known in this part of the state. It is yet spoken of as "the April storm" or the "Easter storm," as it began' on Easter Sunday and continued without abatement for three days. The terrific blizzard of January 12, 1888, was worse for a short time, by reason of the intense cold, but it was of short duration. This January storm came without warning at about one o'clock p. m., and continued for about twelve hours only, when the wind died down, but the severe cold continued.

     In 1888 the county was well settled in every part, houses were much nearer together, planted groves, cornstalks, and stubble fields caught the snow and prevented such tremendous drifts as came in 1873, and besides, the prairie had not been burned over. Then, too, people were well prepared, with better houses and good stables and sheds to shelter the stock. The next morning, too, the wind had gone down, and the farmers could get out to look after their stock. Everybody had plenty of hay and grain on hand and were more or less supplied with fuel. The storm of 1888 was much less destructive in this part of the state than that of 1873.

     The storm of 1873 commenced on Easter Sunday, April 13, about four o'clock P. M., with a strong wind from the northwest and a light rain. The rain soon turned to sleet, and the wind continued to increase in violence until it became almost impossible to face it. In an hour or two it began snowing and continued to snow for the greater part of two days. It was not easy to tell, the second day of the (98) storm, whether snow was falling or not, as the air was so filled with drifting snow that one could not see the distance of a few rods, and at times objects a few feet away were not discernible.

     The settlers were not prepared for such a storm, and were not looking for anything of the kind. The winter had been mild, and for some days the weather had been warm and pleasant. The spring wheat was all in the ground, and some of the fields were beginning to look green. The oats were mostly sown, and people had begun to make garden; some had commenced to break prairie. Some of the settlers were located in sheltered places, where their buildings were protected by native timber, and others had good log stables and hay and grain convenient. These got through all right, excepting that in some instances their stock, if running out, drifted away with the wind and part of it perished before it could be recovered. The majority of the settlers had stables made of forked posts and poles, covered with hay or straw, which had been allowed to get out of repair, as the winter was supposed to be over.

     Prairie fires had swept over the country the fall before, leaving the ground black and barren, with nothing to catch and retain the snow as it fell. As a consequence the terrific wind that continued to blow constantly, swept the hills and all high lands bare, carrying the drifting snow to the south slopes and filling up the ravines and all low and sheltered places with great snowdrifts. The snow was piled on the south side of buildings as high as the buildings themselves, stables that were out of repair were drifted full, and the horses were taken into the houses to be kept from perishing. In some cases cattle were taken into the houses, but generally only the teams, the cattle being left to shift for themselves. Cattle that were loose drifted before the wind until some sheltered ravine or patch of brush or timber was found, where they could have some protection. Many brought up in some deep snowdrift and perished from lack of food and exposure.

      (99) The wild animals and birds alike suffered from this storm. The writer at that time was engaged in surveying and appraising land for the Burlington and Missouri River Railroad in Sherman County, Nebraska. After the storm was over and the snow melted sufficiently so that he could resume work, he found on the prairie numbers of antelope and deer that had been driven before the wind until, becoming exhausted, they had lain down and died. Generally, these were found lying with their legs folded up underneath, as if they had lain down to rest, but some were found stretched out at full length, as if they had run until entirely exhausted and had then fallen.

     The birds had many of them already returned from the south, and great numbers of them perished, especially the larks and robins. Prairie chickens suffered very severely, and were not so numerous afterward.

     The writer, during the storm, was stopping with a man by the name of Humes, whose house was built in a heavy body of timber about one and a half miles west of the present site of Loup City, Sherman County. The snow did not drift at all in the timber, excepting at the north side, where the drifts were at least fifteen feet deep. Neither did it get very cold, only a few degrees below freezing.

     Loup City at that time consisted of about four log houses and two dugouts. Just after the storm had commenced Captain Mix of the United States Army came down the valley of the Middle Loup with his company of cavalry, having been in pursuit of a predatory band of Indians. They encamped under a low, steep bank near the creek, in the southern part of what is now Loup City. This bank at first afforded some shelter, but soon the snow began to cover the wagons and tents, and the soldiers were compelled to seek shelter in the houses and dugouts. The horses and mules had no shelter whatever, and most of them no feed, and thirty-seven of them perished. Afterward, a man by the name of Hayes was employed to haul the carcasses away, which he did by dragging them with (100) teams about a half-mile up the creek and dumping them over a high, steep, clay bank. It was intended to cover them with earth from the bank, but before this was done a heavy rain melted the snows up the creek; the carcasses were brought down again by high water, and many of them were deposited along the bank of the creek within the present limits of the town. This gave the name "Dead Horse" to the creek, and it is known as such to this day.

     These last incidents are related, not because they belong to the history of Antelope County, for they do not, but because they give the writer's experiences in the same storm that swept over all Nebraska, and that was especially severe in the central and northern parts of the state. Some of the snowdrifts formed during this storm did not melt away entirely until the next June.

     A. G. Merriman, commonly known as Art. Merriman, was not only the first settler in Eden township but the first to take up a claim on any of the branches of Verdigris Creek. He was a member of Captain Jacob M. Miller's colony of old soldiers. Captain Miller himself, who was well known in Antelope County, settled just over the line in Knox County, but several members of his colony settled in Antelope County. In a letter from Mr. Merriman to William B. Lambert, dated Waterloo, Iowa, April 4, 1899. Mr. Merriman thus gives his experience in the great April storm:

     "March 14, 1873, I left Independence, Iowa, for Nebraska, with a small team of mules, in company with J. A. Davis and John and Isaiah Miller.

     "We arrived at Creighton on April 1, and drove west to old Mr. Palmer's about four miles, which was the last or frontier house in the settlement. Creighton consisted of Bruce's sod house and sod store, and Quimby's log cabin, where he kept the post-office, and one or two more log or sod houses.

     "The next day we hunted our claims, which J. M. Miller had filed on for us the previous year, partly in Knox and (101) partly in Antelope County. Mine was eight miles from Creighton and four miles from Mr. Palmer's house (it was he northwest quarter, section 4, Eden township).

     "In a few days we set our three wagon boxes, with covers, where Millerboro is now, to live in until we could get material to build a house. We had been to Yankton for lumber with two teams, and got back on the 13th of April. That night it began a drizzling rain and before morning it turned to snow. The weather had been very fine, and gardens were partly made. We had built a pole and hay stable, but had little hay on it yet, and we set up some boards on the north and west sides to break the storm and wind from our horses. The next day was bad and snowed all day and all night, and the next day in the forenoon it was storming and blowing so bad we could scarcely see anything outside. We got out from our wagon covers about eleven o'clock and found some of the horses loose, some down and nearly buried in the snow, and one had packed the snow and kept getting higher until his knees were up to the roof. He had climbed clear up through the roof and eaten what covering he could reach. We turned them all loose, but could get nothing to feed them, for what little grain and hay we had was buried so deep we could not get at it. The air was so full of snow that we had hard work to find our wagon covers again, which were about four rods from the stable. The storm kept up all night, but on Wednesday, the 16th, it was not so bad, so we dug out a harness and hitched up a span of horses to a wagon and started for the settlement, four miles away. We went about twenty rods, when both horses got down in the snow, and we had to unharness them there to get them back. We left the wagon there. This was some time in the afternoon. We had had nothing to eat but some bread and crackers since supper on Sunday. So we dug out some meat and potatoes and the stove, which were all buried in the snow, and cooked supper -- the first warm meal in three days.

     "The 17th was perfectly clear. We managed, by picking (102) our way, to get our horses through the snow to the settlement and into a stable, where we kept them and hired our board for nearly two weeks. Then the snow melted and made high water and mud and very bad roads. I went to Yankton the first week in May to bring my wife and Fred and some goods. We had a hard time, though.

      "I first made some garden on my claim, then I went to breaking, and planted about seven acres of sod corn; then broke out twenty acres more. Just after harvest I made a good dugout, thirteen by twenty feet inside, and moved into it; and made a good sod stable for my mules and cow. (Mr. Merriman and family lived in a house built by one of the Millers until the dugout was finished.)

     "That winter the Millers all went away, so our nearest neighbor was Paul Thibadeau, about three miles northeast. West there were no settlers for about thirty miles, and south, for over twenty. The next spring the Miller boys came back and went to breaking and sowing wheat, etc. I sowed thirteen acres of wheat and planted about thirteen acres of corn. The grasshoppers came and damaged it, but I got sixty-four bushels of wheat and enough corn to feed.

     "In 1875 I rented my land and moved to Neligh, leaving my dugout in very good shape; the settlers there used it as a schoolhouse, and on Sundays they had Sunday school and preaching in it.

     "I proved up on my land in 1875, and in the spring of 1876 moved back to Independence, Iowa."