Nebraska State Genealogical Society Journals
NEBRASKA ANCESTREE
Volume 19, No. 4
Spring 1997
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Source: The History of Cedar County, Nebraska
Submitted by: Eleanor F Arens, Crofton, NE
The county was organized by an act of the territorial legislature on February 12, 1857. St. James was designated the county seat. L.E. JONES, an early inhabitant of the county writes, "A postmaster carried St James in his pocket. Wherever he moved, St. James went with him."
A group of eight Frenchmen first explored this region, starting their journey May 29, 1739. They followed the Missouri River and met the Panimaha tribe of Pawnee in northeast Nebraska. Their purpose was to trap furs and trade with the Indians. They were followed by other trappers who spent their winters buying furs. Returning, they related many tales of wealth in great quantities to be found in this region.
The only permanent dweller was a Frenchman named TRADEAU. In 1796, he visited Indian villages in what is now Cedar County, and lived on an island in the Missouri near St. Helena.
The LEWIS and CLARK expedition camped on the Calumet Bluff and on August 28, 1804, held council with the Sioux. Beneath a large oak tree, the two parties smoked the pipe of peace. The Indians' allegiance to the English had proven unprofitable, and Chief SHAKE HAND complained: "We are very poor. I went formerly to the English and they gave me a medal, but nothing to keep it from my skin; now you give me a medal and clothes." Chiefs WHITE CRANE and STRUCK-BY-THE -PAWNEE approved his words, and added a request for "some of the great father's milk" -whiskey.
They were given presents and pledged allegiance to the United States. The Pawnees, Algonquin, and Sioux tribes all wandered through this region at that time.
More sober and accurate accounts of the Cedar County region were carried back by explorers who followed Lewis and Clark. Most notable among these men were NUTTHALL and BRADBURG, who traveled these parts in 1808. Their reports proved to be an incentive to settlers, who made the new country their home.
Indians at different times caused considerable trouble. In 1858, a party of Poncas, returning from a visit they had just made the Omahas, stole five oxen for food. The oxen were the property of Platt SAUNDERS and Martin CHAPMAN. Upon hearing of the thefts, forty-nine settlers in the community started in pursuit. After following the trail for a day or so, they discovered the Indians on the opposite side of the creek, drying the flesh of the oxen.
Safeguarded from attack by the creek, the Indians fled, leaving their provisions behind. There were approximately thirty in the party and all escaped except one woman and her papoose. The settlers captured her and proceeded to the Ponca agency to report the thefts. The chiefs whipped her unmercifully and doubtless would have beaten her to death had the Indian agent not interceded. A party of warriors was sent out to capture the thieves and SAUNDERS and CHAPMAN were reimbursed.
In 1862, approximately fifty Cedar County citizens joined Company T of the Second Nebraska Cavalry, organized for the purpose of defending the frontier settlements against Indians. Among them were John ANDREWS, Henry CLOPPING, Ernest and August FELBER, William GUITE, Henry MORTON, Henson WISEMAN, and Moses H. DEMING. DEMING was a first lieutenant.
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This regiment went to Dakota in 1863 to join General SULLY's command. During the absence of WISEMAN, a party of Yankton and Santee Sioux attacked and killed his five children, who were at home alone.
The early homesteaders found Cedar to be almost ideal for farming. Gently rolling prairie, numerous and extensive valleys, and a soil of clay or vegetable loam varying from two to ten feet in depth make up most of the county's area. Along the Missouri River, hills are higher and more precipitous, but few are too steep to allow cultivation. The county is also well supplied with chalk and brick clay, good building materials. The chalk is soft enough to be sawed and planed, and hardens upon exposure. Few pioneers, however, used it in constructing their homes. One such farm house is located a mile south of St. Helena; a few have been built at the Santee Agency, Knox County, and others at Yankton, South Dakota.
Cedar County creek bottoms and Missouri River banks are lined with fine stands of timber. Elm, basswood, box-elder, ash, hickory, soft maple, black walnut, red cedar, willow, and coffee trees may be found. The number of forest trees estimated in 1881 as under cultivation was 323,100 and fruit trees numbered 1,415. Tributaries to the Missouri provide ample water. East, Middle, and West Bow creeks, Logan creek, branches of the north branch of the Elkhorn, and other small streams wind through the valleys.
The WISEMAN family was the first to come to Cedar County, arriving in 1857, from Virginia. A monument of their massacred children stands on the site of their early home, the scene of the outrage, east of St. James.
Henson WISEMAN, the father, answered a call for men to fight warring Indian tribes in the Dakotas in 1862. Despite his wife's fears at being left alone with the children, he left for Dakota in October. While Mrs. WISEMAN was in Yankton purchasing supplies, the Indians attacked. She returned home to find the cabin looted and her children murdered.
Henson WISEMAN in petitioning the government to repay the Indians' damage, wrote the following account of the massacre: "I told my wife and children where we were going, (Dakota City, Nebraska, fifty miles from his home,) and they all cried and said "the Indians will kill us if we stay here and you leave us.: I told them other soldiers would come as soon as we were gone." But no soldiers came. Some days after the massacre, Wiseman heard accounts of it and from the description, judged the family was his own. Riding swiftly to Yankton, he found his wife had gone to Sioux City and followed her there. "My wife" the petition continues, "the mother of these five children, returned home in the evening and as soon as she got to the door saw a boy lying dead on his back. She fled as soon as possible to the settlement of St. James three miles away. The inhabitants, now thrown into excitement, dared not go to see the same night. Going the next day, nine miles on the open prairie, they found three dead and two almost dead. The youngest boy, age four, could only tell the Indians scared him. He was stabbed under the left arm and lived three days."
WISEMAN's fourteen year old daughter had been brutally tortured. She lived five days, but was unable to relate any of her experiences. The Indians had exploded a cartridge in her mouth after piercing her with an arrow. The oldest boy was found with
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his head and arms battered, gripping an empty gun. He had died fighting and had killed at least one Indian.
Following the massacre, WISEMAN and his wife moved to Virginia. They found conditions poor in the east and returned to Nebraska two years later. Unwilling to live again on the site of the murder, they located a mile and a half west of there. WISEMAN's granddaughter, Mrs. Willard GUY, now lives on this second homestead.
In 1864 the "Great Stampede" occurred. The Sioux, Cheyenne, and other hostile tribes had threatened annihilation of the frontier settlements. Almost all the settlers west of Cedar County fled westward carrying descriptions of a pursuing body of ten thousand Indians. Cedar County settlers, deciding to remain and defend themselves as well as possible, constructed a fortification 100 feet square around the St. James courthouse. Behind this nine-foot earthen wall they awaited attack. St Helena inhabitants, too, fortified themselves. But, the Indians never arrived. A portion of the Seventh Iowa Cavalry remained in Fort Jackson near St. James for nearly a year.
Lewis E. JONES of Wynot, who was with the group at St. James, procured the only horse in the vicinity in order to verify a report Yankton was in flames. Arriving opposite Yankton, he found some men stealing chickens from the abandoned farms, and persuaded them to ferry him across the river. Yankton streets were empty, and he found the population within a plank fortification built around the Ash Hotel. D. T. BRAMBLE, Yankton's only storekeeper, had moved all his goods inside the blockade and was doing a land office business. Dakota Territorial Governor EDMONS had placed a guard at every James River ford, and forbade anyone to leave the country. Satisfied with conditions at Yankton, JONES returned to St. Helens. After a few days the frightened settlers returned to their farms and the country soon quieted down. No Indian resident remains today in the county.
The real settlement of Cedar County began in 1857, when nine families of permanent settlers arrived. These homesteaders were Col. C. C. VAN, James HAY, O. D. SMITH, Saby STRAHM, John ANDRES, Henry FELBER, Ernest FERBER, Gustave FERBER, and Paul FERBER. All except STRAHM settled near the present site of St. James. He took land across the Missouri near the present Yankton. Colonel VAN, a man of considerable means in that time, acquired a large tract of land. Government land could be purchased then at $1.25 an acre, with no restriction on the amount of purchase. For several years HAY and SMITH were Cedar County's only merchants.
John ANDRES, the FERBER brothers, and their father were farmers of the progressive type and soon demonstrated agricultural possibilities on this county.
STRAHM was more than a farmer; he understood animal husbandry and scientific care and breeding of livestock. His knowledge of this phase of farming was far in advance of a large majority, or so-called experts of his time. The old settlers still living here can recall his fine herd of splendid purebred cattle, his fine draft horses and in fact, all the domestic animals on his ranch, which were of the best blood. The great flood on the Missouri River bottom in the spring of 1881 drowned most of his livestock and its deposits of sand and debris destroyed his once fertile fields and fine pastures. STRAHM never fully regained his loss and it was a source of sorrow to the old settlers to see this sturdy pioneer who had done so much to develop the country's resources and demonstrate
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its possibilities, lose the splendid property he had worked so hard and faithfully to acquire.
The county's first election was held in the fall of 1857 and the following officers chosen: Commissioners, John PATTERSON, A.S. CHASE, and D.F. AMES; probate judge, M. JANES; clerk, George L. ROBERTS. In 1858, the following were elected: Commissioners, Abraham HALING, John PATTERSON, and D.F. AMES; probate judge, George L. ROBERTS; clerk, Nelson COLLAMER; treasurer, George A HALL. The second group of officers elected in 1880 were: Commissioner, Dennis O'FLAHARTY, Amos L. PARKER, and Joseph HOCHSTIEIN; probate judge, Guy R. WILBUR; clerk, Baptiste JOESTEN; treasurer, Thomas EBINGER; surveyor, Andrew McNEAL; superintendent of schools, R.T. O'GARA.
The first schoolhouse in Cedar County was built near the old Bow Valley Mills. The first church of Cedar County was built in St. Helena in 1873.
Cedar County was represented in the territorial legislature by George A HALL, elected in 1865, and re-elected in 1866, and in the state legislature by Lewis E. JONES, 1868; L. M. HOWARD, 1872; HALL again in 1876; and J.A. ZEIGLER in 1878. John ATEN was first delegate to the state legislature in 1876.
The first children born in the county were twins, a son and a daughter to Mr. and Mrs. George A. HALL.
There were three sawmills in the county, one in connection with the Bow Valley Mills below St. James, one on the St. Helena Island just below St. Helena, built in 1878 by A.J.J. LEE, and one in the timber above St. Helena built in 1870 by J.J. FELBER.
In the spring of 1858, the settlement of Waucapona was established, some six or eight miles south and west of old St. James. Warren SAUNDERS, George A. HALL and Amos S PARKER settled there. These three men took an active and prominent part in the building of the county and its civic life. PARKER was one of the first county commissioners of the county and HALL was the first representative sent to the territorial legislature. He was also the second Cedar County treasurer.
In 1884, the Northwestern railroad came into the southern part of the county and extended to Hartington. In 1889, the Pacific Short Line was built west across Cedar County and in 1907, the Burlington purchased the line from Laketon to ONeill across the southern part of the county. The Bloomfield branch was built in 1891, striking Randolph and Magnet. In 1906 the Wynot branch was extended from Newcastle, through Obert to Wynot. This line was dismantled in 1935. Many "wild cat" roads were planned and talk of new railroads was always in the air. Today, one can see the remains of an old railroad northeast of Bow Valley.
In 1892 an Englishman named PIERCE came from England with a great deal of capital. He started to build a road from Yankton to Norfolk. The grading was done and piling for the bridges between Yankton and Crofton put in place. Seeing he would have competition if this road was completed, James HILL of the Northern Pacific bought the line and proceeded to wreck it, leaving the workmen without pay.
In 1876, the Covington, Columbus, and Blackhills railroad started to build through the northern part of the county. A special election was held on April 8, 1876, and the county voted to issue bonds for $150,000. to aid the railroad. The total taxable valuation at that time was $1,013,495. Making the amount of the bonds nearly 15 percent
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of the assessed valuation.. Since no county could legally bond itself for more than 10 percent, the bonds were declared illegal by the State Supreme Court. The railroads had been partly graded to the middle of the county when work stopped. A few years ago, a new road was proposed and work again was started from Yankton, but this road failed also.
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School Enrollment in Longwood School, District 6, Custer County, NE -- 1924
Submitted by Margaret Bader, Lexington, NE
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