| At the close of a long dusty days drive from
Omaha in August 1857, Fremont first appeared to my view.
A few words will describe it. Six or eight log cabins
scattered on either side of Military Avenue, and about a
score of haystacks; only that and nothing more. Not a
tree or shrub; the blue sky overhead. The prairie
stretching away in every direction, far as the eye could
reach, underneath your feet. Nothing that could be called
inviting met the eye. We were indeed on the frontier. But
we were young people in those days, full of hope and
courage, with life all before us to do with it as we
might. |
| Perhaps to the housekeepers of the present day a
few reminiscences of the trials and hardships of those
days may prove interesting. You will, of course, readily
see that by the time a pioneer had his home built and a
team and farming implements purchased, there was but
little money left. The first year there is no income, and
but very little the second year. To find daily bread and
butter became a hard task. In speaking of those days I
must draw largely upon my own experience for facts; but
what was characteristic of my own case was so of my
neighbors in a greater or less degree. Our dwellings were
log cabins a story and a half high; the floors of rough
cottonwood boards put down just as they came from the
mill. They shrunk so badly in a few weeks after being
laid that the spaces between the boards bade fair to
rival the width of the boards themselves! The wind, which
blew incessantly, came through the cracks in such force
that in winter time it was impossible to keep the
dwelling warm. |
| Few of us possess carpets; those of us who did
not used to buy rush mats which the squaws made, and
which answered very well while they lasted. One winter I
covered my floor with buffalo robes (of these every
settler had a supply), purchasing them from the Indians
who lived south of the Platte River. I used also to buy
buffalo moccasins of the squaws and wear them over my
shoes in the winter, which, though awkward and clumsy,
were quite comfortable. Of clothing , most of us brought
a bountiful supply from the East, so did not suffer in
that respect. But the larder, to keep that filled with
the most common articles of every-day use was beyond most
of us. Omaha was the base of our supplies, and it took
three days to make the trip, one to go down, one to do
the trading in, and the third to drive home. So our
shopping expeditions were few and far between. As long as
a cent remained in the purse the first year we lived
comfortable, but there came a day, alas, when the purse
became empty - not only that but the flour barrel also;
and the coffee canister, and the tea canister, also the
sugar bucket. In fact we had nothing in the house but
potatoes and salt. |
| We had a quantity of corn we procured of the
Indians, a much softer variety of corn than the dent of
corn today, and it made a fine meal. But there was no
mill to grind it nearer than Bellevue, south of Omaha,
and we could not wait for a team to make the trip there
and back, so an uncle with an inventive turn of mind took
a tin milkpan, and with a nail punched the bottom full of
holes, as close together as they could possibly be put.
Turning the pan upside down upon the table, the ears were
scraped backward and forward over the rough surface and
the particles thus scraped off formed the meal, which
made all the bread we had for many days. I might add, for
the benefit of the cooks of today, that having no cow, we
had no milk or butter; owning no hens we had no eggs.
That cornbread was mixed with water and a little
saleratus was added. I will not vouch for its lighness! |
| There were plenty of wild plums and grapes on
the banks of the Elkhorn and Maple Creek, but as few of
us had the sugar necessary to preserve them, we made but
little use of them. In the spring of 1858 we were made
happy by receiving from the Agricultural Department of
Washington, D. C., packages of sorghum seed, which were
planted and tended with zealous care. Our townsman,
Robert KITTLE, made a small mill for crushing the cane. A
number of the women went to the fields and helped strip
the leaves from the stalk, in order to prepare it for
crushing the cane. The juice was then boiled down, in
shallow tin pans, and we felt rich indeed in the
possession of a few gallons of sorghum, which was the
only sweetening of any kind I had in the house that
winter. In those days there was no electric light, no
gas, no kerosene oil. A good mother in the far East, in
packing a box of household articles to send to her newly
married daughter, added a pair of brass candlesticks that
had lain in the attic of the old home for many years. A
sister in helping to pack asked what that was done for.
The good mother replied: "In all probability they do
not use gas on the Great American Desert." |
| With the box came a letter saying: "Do tell
us what you use for lights." The reply back -
"Candles, I make them myself -dips." On the lot
directly east of the present Congregational Church in
Fremont and where stands the residence of Mr. BRUNER,
stood a log cabin built by the BOWMAN, and which for many
years was occupied as a "Bachelor's Hall", to
accomodate the many young men who were here and who could
not find homes in our small cabins. So they clubbed
together and kept house for themselves. There was no
Chinese laundry - no washerwoman at that time! Most of
these young men had come from comfortable homes in the
far-away East, and as long as there remained a clean
garment in the trunk, packed by a loving mother or a kind
sister not a thought was given to the future cleanliness
of their wearing apparel. |
| But there came a day when it was evident that,
if they had any more clean clothes, some washing must be
done, and by themselves too. The young housekeeper
opposite was asked for the loan of a tub and wash boiler;
no instructions were asked, and none volunteered; but as
the day began to wane the curiousity of the young
housekeeper was aroused as to the cause of the
non-appearance of the wash upon the line. Presently one
of the number came over and asked what they should do,
they feared they had ruined their white shirts. Here I
must stop to explain that in those days there were no
fancy-colored shirts, no pretty flannels and soft
cheviots. The working man's shirt was either of red
flannel or a blue and white striped cotton goods, called
"Hickory". |
| The bachelor's, aforesaid, after washing their
shirts, enquired of one another what they should do next.
One wise youth, with a dim remembrance of his mother's
kitchen, asked if they should not be boiled - certainly
that was the next process - so into the boiler went white
shirts, hickory shirts and flannel shirts, and a thorough
boiling for an hour given them. Imagine their dismay on
lifting the cover of the boiler, to find everything dyed
a nice red, which no amount of rubbing and rinsing could
remove. These same bachelor's were given to joking, and
the young housekeeper opposite was not infrequently the
object of them. For instance, a berry pie, set out of
doors for cooling, disappeared mysteriously, just at
noon. The bachelor's had pie for dinner, the housekeeper
did not! |
| Early
in the fall the young couple had been made a present of a
pair of turkeys - the only ones in town, and of course
were regarded with a good deal of affection, as visions
of turkey for dinner Thanksgiving and Christmas floated
before their eyes. But on Christmas night, one of them
disappeared, and it was afterwards learned that the
bachelors had a fat turkey supper at midnight, to which
no guests were invited! That same cabin was the scene of
many a dance; what mattered it that the floor was rough,
unplaned boards, each separate board curled up on either
side--the feet that danced over them were light, and the
hearts merry, so such annoyances were not to be thought
of. |
| And as
for music, did we not have a fiddler who bore the
honorable title of Judge. And besides, our esteemed old
friends, Mrs. Theron NYE and her brother S. B. COLSON,
with their honored father, who left for that land from
which there is no returning many years ago, and who was
never happier than when playing "Money Musk" or
"Virginia Reel" or "Arkansaw
Traveler" for the young people, who gathered at
their house to pass away many an otherwise long winter
evening. |
| As
there is nothing new under the sun, perhaps it will
interest some to say that society reporters lived in
those days, which I can prove by relating this little
incident. It was decided one night to have a little dance
at the cabin home of the bachelors. Gold had just been
discovered at Pike's Peak, and emigration had commenced
toward the Rocky Mountains. Camp fires could be seen
nightly on the outskirts of the village of Fremont.
Attracted by the music, a couple of campers came to the
door of the cabin and were immediately invited in. Alas!
There was no one to tell us but a reporter was among us
taking notes. Three months later a paper printed in New
Hampshire made its way to our little town. It contained a
vivid description of a dance in the "far west".
I can remember as if it were but yesterday - a part I
will here reproduce for the reader: "Across one end
of the cabin was a carpenter's bench, on top of which
seated upon an old nail keg, was the fiddler, his head
adorned by a white plug hat. Tallow candles, stuck in
between the logs, by forked sticks inserted in big
potatoes, for candlesticks, lighted the room. Wolf-skins,
nailed up to dry, adorned the walls in every direction.
The western girls danced about like parched peas in a
Dutch oven, while General BLANK was floor manager for the
occasion." |
| Now all
this was true, though it did reflect upon the young girls
just from the "Hub" of the Universe, who
thought they knew all about dancing. These are a few of
the happy incidents of the happy long ago. But I must not
close without alluding to other phases of life in the
pioneer days. Sickness and death came to us then even as
now. Having no physicians or nurses, we were obliged to
help one another. We watched with the sick by night and
did our own housework. Friendships there formed will
never be broken while memory is ours. |