EARLY HISTORY OF FRONTIER COUNTY NEBRASKA

EARLY HISTORY AND REMINISCENCE
OF
FRONTIER COUNTY
NEBRASKA

(13) We went on each other's bonds; and as the whole population of the new county was in bond to protect its interests, the new organization was a success under the watchful ewes of Judge Watts and Commissioner Bratt.

The first farming in the county was a failure. We planted some squaw corn and pumpkin seed; which soon gave promise of good returns for time and labor bestowed. But one morning we heard bellowing in the field. We gathered our cartridge belts and guns, then went to see what the intruder was.

About one thousand buffalos had taken possession of our field. We protested with a vengeance and brought down fifteen of those lordly brutes of the plains, but the entire crop of Frontier County was tramped out of sight or that year. The squaws came out, butchered our game, and a feast followed the loss of our crop. (14)

John Bratt built a ranch near where Curtis is now, one at Medicine Lake and one on Fox Creek, and brought in the first herd of cattle, which numbered many thousand head. Cattle were sold, beef-fat off the nutritious buffalo grass, with no care of expense but rounding up and branding. Every ranch stood open to all that came, so hospitable and free-hearted were those pioneers. The cook would "rustle" up a good meal, and when it was ready he would sing out, "Grub pile!" And when the meal was over, all would sit around the fire, tell stories, sing songs until tired out, then sleep, perchance dream of the loved ones and their homes far away, that they had not seen for many long, weary years.

In 1871 there came very near being an Indian outbreak on the Medicine. Chief Whistler and two of his braves started for Ft. McPherson. While in camp, preparing some food they were discovered by three white men who were passing through and shot them in the back. Then the bodies were taken and thrown in a canyon. It was several days before they were found. During this time the cowardly murderers had fled from the country. The inhuman act so enraged the Indians that they would have killed all of us for revenge on the white people, had it not been for the great influence Hank Clifford held over them.

After the organization of the county, we concluded to give up hunting and go to farming. We were in doubt yet whether it would pay or not, but determined to try; and in taking this initiatory step toward civilization we selected the present site of Stockville (that being near the center of the county) in 1872. Then we set a day on which all turned out and began the erection of a court-house sixteen feet square, built of logs, which was soon completed and was furnished with the county records. It was also the first house erected in the county of Frontier.

We worked early and late, building bridges, houses and putting out a crop. Clifford and I sent back east and had a dozen chickens shipped out, which cost us seventy-five cents each. They were a wonder to the natives who came from far and near to see them.

We had made such a wonderful stride toward civilization that I wrote back to Florida for my father, mother and sister to come (15) here. They arrived on March 12, 1872, my mother and sister being the first white women in the county. After a long ride across the wild, roadless country, over level divides and through long canyons, from Fort McPherson, we came to the Medicine and went into camp. Mother said:

A flock of antelopes stood on a hill near by and watched us while we busied ourselves picketing out our horses and gathering up wood for our camp-fire. Welk Snell got supper in true frontier style in the far West. Snow-drifts, remnants of the past hard winter, yet lay at the head of canyons, white and cold; the buffalo and wolves serenaded us with their various notes of weird cadences; a flock of geese passed over us, winging their way north, added to the unbounded solitude. Thus the introductory scene's of life in the Wild West were thrown upon the minds of those pioneer ladies to institute a comparison and contrast with their old home in the far-away "Land of Flowers."

During the summer of 1872 a few "prairie schooners'' came in, laden with men and their families in search of a place to take up their abode and make a home. A Mr. Lewis was the first to bring in a flock of sheep, which was a picnic for the wolves. James Kibben and Judge S. P. Baker each brought in a herd of fine cattle in the summer of 1872. Also, John Lockwood, Andrew Webb, R. A. McKnight, George Carothers, Ed Bovey, Herman Doing, J. R. Brittingham, A. S. Shelly, Orville Works, Jerome Dauchey, J. A. Lynch, Henry Miller, James, John and Sam'l Gammill; W. H. Allen, Wm. Black and W. L. McClary--all settled on the Medicine and successfully played their parts in the early historical drama of the county.

John Sanders was among the front rank that came in to earn a fortune in a new country, and built the first flour mill in the county, on the Medicine near Stockville. To Mr. and Mrs. John Sanders was born the first white child, a daughter, that is recorded in Frontier.

Wm. Nolan, J. M. Noyes, E. S. Childs and John Waits took claims in the southeastern part of the county and had borne their part of the burden in tramping out the cactus, turning over the buffalo sod and making our county bloom like the rose. (16)

Reverend Shirvington, the first preacher to take up his abode here, staked out a claim on Fox Creek; John Miller outlined a ranch on Brush Creek and was a "Robinson Crusoe" for some time; W. G. Warner, who brought in a herd of fine cattle from Iowa, settled permanently on the Brushy; Gid and Abe Barry purchased and located on a ranch that John Bratt built, on Curtis Creek. All aided in opening the way for the great flood of emigration which soon followed and took up the government land.

A DAY IN JUNE

I think, of all the year, a day in June
Is sweetest: honeysuckle fills the air,
With the wild roses blushing everywhere;
Listening to the golden chiming tune
Of wedding bells; a moon is sending down
Its mellow rays upon the prairie; soon
Strumming guitars and men's voices resound
To spread their joyful romance all around
As care-free, happy cowboys softly croon
A welcome to the one in wedding gown.

--Boyd Perkin.

The first wedding in the county was at the ranch of W. H. Miles on June 4, 1873. The happy parties were Andy Barret and Mrs. Nancy Wheatly, both half Indians. It was a grand social affair attended by ranchers, cowboys and Indians.

Andy Barret had been captured, when a child, by Mormon emigrants and taken west, where he became one of the best ropers and horse trainers of the Rocky Mountains. After twenty years he came back to the Sioux here in search of his mother, but she had long since gone to the happy hunting grounds.

We did, all possible to make his nuptial feast a social success. After congratulations Judge Watts wished them "that their lives would be one sea of happiness. That the white wings of love and peace would fan away every troubled thought, that their path through life be ever strewn with fairest flowers."

The wish never came to pass. An Indian had a dream that he must kill the first person he met; if not, he would never get to the happy hunting grounds in the hereafter. By chance he met Andy (17) Barret and, shot him dead. Mrs. Barret was lost on the plains and died. Thus ended the earthly pilgrimage of the contracting parties to the first marriage in the county of Frontier.

The first lawyer that ventured out in the misty dim on a sea of doubt as to what the future would bring forth on the frontier to a disciple of Blackstone was E. T. Jay, who took a claim in the eastern part of the county, on the Muddy. His professional services were seldom needed, as most men in those days here settled disputes before the cases were worn out, by the ravages of time, in the courts.

Mr. Jay was a counselor in the first case at law in this county, which was brought about by the hard winter of 1878 and '79. The weather was unusually severe; hard storms and blizzards raged at intervals. During the season a deep snow fell and covered the grass, so the stock suffered greatly. A big percentage of stock was lost by most of the cattlemen. Large herds drifted in on the Medicine from eastern Colorado, Cheyenne, the northern and western part of this State, so that a big "round-up" in Frontier County was the result in which one hundred men were looking after their interests.

Two men by name Lowe and Joe Ansley got into a dispute. Both drew their revolvers and fired. Ansley, being the quickest, killed Lowe, and the next shot killed his horse. Ansley stood the men off, then skipped out. Lowe was buried at Mitchell's Fork.

I was deputized by Sheriff McKnight to capture Ansley. After several days, hard riding up on the Platte River, I captured and brought him back for trial. Ansley employed E. T. Jay to defend him. They went before the court, a justice of the peace presiding on a charge of murder. The justice put the usual question:

"You did not understand the reading of the warrant. You must not say 'guilty'; you must say 'not guilty.' If you don't you will be bound over."

Then he went before the court and the question of guilty or not guilty was again asked. (18)

I returned to him his pistol. He then left for Sidney, on the Platte, minus a horse, saddle and ten dollars that his lawyer kept for his services.

This decision of the justice may seem to the reader who has been educated to believe and obey the high command, "Than shalt not kill," to usurp, with a heavy hand, the majesty of the law and allow rapine and murder to go untried and unpunished; but in this case the prisoner could prove, by half a hundred witnesses, that he shot in self defense, there not being an instant of time between the reports of the guns, while it saved a big expense to the county.

MITCHELL'S FORK

Stop, stranger; pause and shed a tear
At this lone mound on Mitchell's Fork.
These cottonwoods are sentinels brave,
And in those willows close by them
A turtle dove sings requiem;
While partridges beat their booming dirge
Above the old scout's lonely grave
On Mitchell's Fork.

Stop, stranger, stop; now dry your tears,
At this long mound on Mitchell's Fork.
There's more than dust of a scout so brave,
List to the tale that's buried here.
Though shrouded by the mist of years,
How plainly the scene comes back to me
As we stand by this lonely grave
On Mitchell's Fork.

He came to woo, he loved and lost;
Ansley was quicker on the draw;
So Lowe, the scout, lies buried here
On Mitchell's Fork.

---Boyd Perkin.

(19) After the organization of the county, we held an election which resulted in the adoption of free range, thus making this a strictly stock county; and it proved a success in that line until settlers came in so fast to cultivate land that, when the question of herd law and free-range was again agitated, after a hotly contested election in the summer of 1885 the free-range law was repealed. This was the death knell of the stock business on the free-range plan in this county. The stockmen had to go the same trail the buffalos went, with their vast herds of cattle and horses. The county since then has been rapidly developing in agriculture, and stands today without peer in southwest Nebraska.