History of Nebraska - Chapter 8



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CHAPTER VIII
FIRST LEGISLATURE -- ADMINISTRATION OF GOVERNOR IZARD -- LOCATION OF THE 
CAPITAL -- LAWS OF THE FIRST SESSION -- UNITED STATES SURVEYS -- CLAIM 
CLUBS -- INCORPORATION LAWS --NEBRASKA'S PECULIARITY -- FIRST INDEPENDENCE 
DAY -- JUDICIAL ORGANIZATION

   FIRST LEGISLATURE. In accordance with the proclamation of Acting 
Governor Cuming, the first legislature of Nebraska territory convened at 
Omaha, Tuesday, January 16, 1855, at ten o'clock in the morning, in the 
building which had been erected for the purpose by the Council Bluffs & 
Nebraska Ferry Company. This company was incorporated under the laws of 
Iowa, and Enos Lowe was its president. This Iowa corporation embodied or 
represented the Omaha that was to be; for the future metropolis then 
existed only in the imagination, the hope, and the ambition of its Iowa 
promoters. Iowa men had procured the incorporation of the territory and 
shaped it to their wishes; and an Iowa man had organized it into political 
form and arbitrarily located its temporary

[image caption: FIRST TERRITORIAL CAPITOL BUILDING OF NEBRASKA AT OMAHA,
33 x 75 FEET. COST ABOUT $3,000.00]

seat of government contrary to the wishes of its real residents. It was 
fitting that Iowa capital and enterprise, which were to fix the seat of 
the government, should also temporarily house it. -- "This whole 
arrangement," we are told by the Arrow, printed in Council Bluffs, "is 
made without a cost of one single dollar to the government."

   This first tenement of organized Nebraska government was located on lot 
7, in block 124, as platted by A. D. Jones, fronting east on Ninth street 
between Farnam and Douglas. The structure was known as "the brick building 
at Omaha City," indicating that it was the first building of brick in the 
town. It was occupied by the legislature for the first two sessions, and 
was afterwards used as the first general offices

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of the Union Pacific Railway Company, until, in the fall of 1869, they 
were transferred to other quarters.

   The first meeting house of the legislature is thus described by the 
disappointed but no doubt faithful contemporary chronicler of the 
Palladium:

   First Capital Building. The building in which the session is to be held 
is a plain, substantial, two-story brick edifice, which we should judge 
was about 30 by 45 feet.

[image caption: JOSEPH L. SHARP President of the first territorial council]

The entrance to the building is on the east side into a hall, from which 
the various state apartments above and below are reached.

   As you enter the hall below, the representatives' room will be found on 
the left, and the governor's apartment on the right. A winding staircase 
leads to the hall above, at the head of which, upon the left, you enter 
the council chamber and the committee rooms on the right. The building is 
a neat and substantial one, but altogether too small for the purpose 
intended.

   The speaker's desk is elevated two or three steps above the level of 
the floor, and likewise that of the president of the council. The desks 
are well proportioned and tastefully finished.

   The desks for the representatives and councilmen are designed to 
accommodate two members, each having a small drawer to himself, and a 
plain Windsor chair for a seat. The furniture, including the secretaries' 
and speaker's desks and chairs, is of the plainest character, and yet well 
suited to the purpose for which they were designed.

   The size of the legislative rooms are so small that but very few 
spectators can gain admittance at one time.

   We were struck with the singularity of taste displayed in the curtain 
furniture of the different rooms, which consisted of two folds of plain 
calico, the one green and the other red, which we took to be symbolic of 
jealousy and war -- which monsters, we fear, will make their appearance 
before right is enthroned and peace established.

   On the 13th day of October the Arrow tells us that, "But a few short 
months ago and not a sign of a habitation was visible upon the site where 
now are constantly(1) in progress and will be completed, within another 
month, a town numbering some 175 or 200 inhabitants."

   The legislature was composed of a council of thirteen and a house of 
twenty-six members. It cannot be said that a single member of this first 
legislature had a permanent footing in the territory, and many of them had 
not even "declared their intentions." But the men from Iowa were there in 
full force. Mr. J. L. Sharp, the president of the council, nominally from 
Richardson county, lived at Glenwood, Iowa, and never became a resident of 
Nebraska. Out of a total membership of thirty-nine at least five, namely, 
Sharp, Nuckolls, Kempton, Latham, and Purple never were actual residents 
of the territory, and many of the rest were mere sojourners -- driftwood, 
temporarily stranded on this farther shore of the westward stream of 
population, but destined soon to be caught by its constant on- 

(1. Memorabilia, Andrew J. Poppleton.)

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ward flow and carried off to the boundless country beyond.

   The members of the first territorial council were Benjamin R. Folsom of 
Burt county, Lafayette Nuckolls of Cass county, Munson H. Clark of Dodge 
county, Taylor G. Goodwill, Alfred D. Jones, Origen D. Richardson, Samuel 
E. Rogers of Douglas county, Richard Brown of Forney county, Hiram P. 
Bennet, Henry Bradford, Charles H. Cowles of Pierce county, Joseph L. 
Sharp of Richardson county, James C. Mitchell of Washington county.

   The first territorial house of representatives was comprised as 
follows: Burt county, Hascall C. Purple, John B. Robertson; Cass county, 
William Kempton, John McNeal Latham, Joseph D. N. Thompson; Dodge county, 
Eli R. Doyle, J. W. Richardson; Douglas county, William N. Byers, William 
Clancy, Fleming Davidson, Thomas Davis, Alfred D. Goyer, Andrew J. 
Hanscom, Andrew J. Poppleton, Robert B. Whitted; Forney county, William A. 
Finney, Joel M. Wood; Pierce county, Gideon Bennet, James H. Cowles, James 
H. Decker, William B. Hail, Wilson M. Maddox; Richardson county, David M. 
N. Johnston, John A. Singleton; Washington county, Anselum Arnold, Andrew 
J. Smith.

   It does not require the full spelling of these Christian names in the 
record to safely conclude that there were three "Andrew Jacksons" in the 
house. The circumstance that this representation of strenuous names from 
the North Platte outnumbered that of the South Platte, two to one, might 
have had much to do with the success of the first named section in 
achieving its heart's desire.

   Hiram P. Bennet of Pierce county was chosen temperary president of the 
council, and it is his recollection that J. C. Mitchell of Florence 
nominated him for that office and put the question to the council. After 
temporary organization the council proceeded to the chamber of the house 
where the governor delivered the first message to the joint assembly. With 
characteristic imperiousness he first undertook to administer the oath of 
office to the members. Mr. Bennet thinks that he required as a condition 
for taking the oath that members should have received certificates of 
election from him. At any rate three South Platte members, Bennet, 
Bradford, and Nuckolls, refused to take the solemn vow by the governor's 
sanction, and after the reading of the. message both council and house 
acknowledged the irregularity of the proceeding by going through the 
ceremony before Judge Ferguson and Judge Harden respectively. This

[image caption: HIRAM P. BENNET President pro tem. of the first 
territorial council]

is the Palladium's unfortunately meager account of the first actual 
skirmish of the irrepressible and endless conflict between the North 
Platte and South Platte factions:

   The acting governor made an attempt to get control of the council, but 
was peremptorily denied the privilege by the president (Mr. Bennet), by 
whom he was told that he had no business to do what he was attempting to 
do, and that he was not needed, and not wanted there, that he was not set 
in authority over that body, and that his pretensions could not be 
recognized by it.(2)

   At the afternoon session Mr. Bennet, having become convinced that Mr. 
Sharp hav-[sic] 

(2. Nebraska Palladium, January 17, 1855.)

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been playing both sides, and had agreed to transfer his support to the 
North Platte, refused to act as temporary president, and Benjamin R. 
Folsom of Burt county was elected in his place.

   Messrs. J. L. Sharp and Hiram P. Bennet of the council were advertised 
as lawyers of Glenwood in the Palladium, during and after the legislative 
session, and that faithful chronicler of the doubtful deeds of all whom it 
classed among the wicked says that immediately after final adjournment the 
president of council "led off for Glenwood, Iowa, at about 2:40 on the 
first quarter." The ordinary restraints to the game of grab for the 
capital, which was organized at Council Bluffs soon after if not before 
the passage of the organic act, were lacking. These restraints are a 
settled interest in the community or state which the non-resident does not 
have, and the pride and fear of reputation which are invoked in public 
representatives only by the knowledge and fear that the eye of a real and 
responsible citizenship, with moral standards by which it will reach moral 
judgments, is upon them. It was to be expected, therefore, that the 
preparation for, and the first step in lawmaking should do violence to 
moral law.

   Omaha promoters intended to make that place the capital, and with well-
founded confidence they relied upon the Napoleonic Cuming to carry out 
their intention. The citizens of Bellevue had insisted that their 
settlement should constitute a separate legislative district. It far 
exceeded in numbers any other settlement excepting Omaha and Nebraska 
City. "There were two points in the county though lying side by side were 
actually heaven-wide apart in interest and feeling. No union existed 
between them any more than if an ocean rolled between. If there were any 
points in the territory needing a district representation, these were the 
ones."

   Mr. Decatur, in arguing his case as contestant for the seat of Mr. 
Poppleton in the house January 31st, is quoted as saying that "In the 
original organization of Omaha county, now recognized as Douglas county, 
there were two separate and distinct districts." The inference from this 
is that during the negotiations, or cross-bidding between Bellevue and 
Omaha, conducted by Governor Cuming, he had at first intimated or agreed 
that in the first organization Omaha City and Bellevue should be kept 
apart in distinct districts, and the county was to be named Omaha instead 
of Douglas. And so Mr. Decatur charges that, while the Nebraska bill makes 
it obligatory upon the acting governor to so district the county that each 
neighborhood should be represented, Bellevue is unrepresented.

   By the governor's tactics, however, Bellevue was thrown into the Omaha 
district where her hostile vote was safely swallowed. But Bellevue voted 
for a distinct set of legislative candidates, and the tabulated vote is an 
interesting page in history.

   Bellevue, determined to emphasize to the utmost her distance from her 
northern rival, threw most of her vote for delegate to Congress to a 
resident of the far South, Savannah, Missouri -- Napoleon B. Giddings -- 
while Omaha voted for Hadley D. Johnson, actually of Council Bluffs but 
constructively of Omaha.

   The Bellevue candidates contested, or rather attempted to contest the 
seats of the Omaha candidates -- who had of course received certificates 
of election from Governor Cuming. In the council they made a test of A. W. 
Hollister's claims. On the second day of the session, by a close vote of 7 
to 6, Dr. Geo. L. Miller of Omaha was chosen chief clerk over Mr. Isaac R. 
Alden, the temporary clerk, who, being from Washington county and 
Florence, presumably was not sound on the capital question; 0. F. Lake was 
chosen assistant clerk, S. A. Lewis, sergeant-at-arms, and N. R. Folsom, 
doorkeeper. Then Mr. Mitchell offered a resolution "that a committee of 
three be appointed to investigate the claims of A. W. Hollister of Douglas 
county to a seat in this body," which on motion of Richardson of Douglas 
was tabled. A similar resolution

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on behalf of B. Y. Shelley of Burt county who, according to the returns, 
had received 25 votes against 32 for Folsom, the sitting member, met with 
similar treatment. An attempt of the anti-Omaha forces to take up these 
resolutions on the following day was unsuccessful. On the 24th a 
resolution by Mr. Folsom to inquire into the right of Mr. Mitchell to a 
seat, on the ground "that he is not now and never has been a citizen of 
Nebraska, but that he is a citizen of Iowa," was met by another from the 
other side making similar charges of non-residence against Folsom, 
Richardson, and Sharp, the president; and then came a resolution by 
Mitchell that Goodwill of Douglas was ineligible because he was a resident 
of New York, and another by Goodwill charging that Nuckolls of Cass was a 
minor. These resolutions were all referred to the committee on elections 
from which they were never reported, probably on the ground that it was 
not worth while, since the reasons for the investigation were admitted on 
all hands and could not be denied. Resolutions calling on the governor to 
furnish the council with the original census returns and his instructions 
to census takers were referred with safety to the same committee, since 
two of its members were from Douglas county.

   On the 6th of February this committee reported that it was 
"inexpedient" to further investigate the subject of contested seats; a 
word fitly chosen, considering the peculiar character of the objections 
raised to the claimants of seats and the impartiality of their 
application. As Mr. Shelley had at least a plausible case against Mr. 
Folsom, based upon the number of votes he received and not upon the 
delicate one of non-residence, he was allowed the pay of a member up to 
February 6.

   In the house, on Mr. Poppleton's motion, Mr. Latham of Cass was chosen 
temporary presiding officer, and Joseph W. Paddock was appointed temporary 
chief clerk, George S. Eayre, assistant clerk, Samuel A. Lewis, sergeant-
at-arms, and Benjamin B. Thompson, doorkeeper. As in the council, those 
members were recognized who held certificates of election from the 
governor. In the joint session, Doyle of Dodge and Decker and Maddox of 
Pierce refused to receive the official oath from Governor Cuming.

   On the second day Andrew J. Hanscom of Douglas was elected speaker over 
John B. Robertson of Burt by a vote of 18 to 7; Joseph W. Paddock of 
Douglas was elected chief clerk over Mastin W. Riden by a like

[image caption: BENJAMIN R. FOLSOM Member of the first territorial 
assembly]

vote; George S. Eayre, assistant clerk, over Mastin W. Riden by a vote of 
19 to 7, and Isaac L. Gibbs doorkeeper without opposition. The Rev. Joel 
M. Wood, member from Forney county, seems to have acted as chaplain of the 
house for the first week of the session, although the Rev. W. D. Gage of 
Nebraska City had been formerly elected to this office. The council took 
no action for the selection of a chaplain until the fifth day of the 
session when, by resolution, the president was authorized to invite the 
Rev.

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[image caption: Jacob King was an early and well-known resident of the 
Platte valley]

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William Hamilton of the Otoe and Omaha mission to act in that office. It 
does not appear, however, that "Father" Hamilton ever served as chaplain, 
but the record shows that Mr. Gage actually served a part of the time in 
the council and also in the house.

   A determined fight was at once begun by the anti-Omaha members in favor 
of contestants, against those who had received certificates of election 
from the governor. Archie Handley of Forney county contested the seat of 
Wood, Benjamin Winchester of

[image caption: NILES RATHBONE FOLSOM Santa Monica, California, doorkeeper 
first territorial council]

Washington contested against Arnold, and J. Sterling Morton and Stephen 
Decatur of Bellevue against A. J. Poppleton and William Clancy of Omaha.

   On the 17th, Decker of Pierce offered a resolution for the appointment 
of a committee of three "to examine the certificates of members of the 
house, and to investigate the claims of those contesting seats," which was 
rejected. On the 24th Mr. Poppleton moved to amend rule 53, which was 
similar to Decker's resolution, so as to restrict the duty of the 
committee on privileges and elections "to examine and report upon the 
certificates of election of the members returned to serve in this house." 
The opposition exhausted all their parlimentary resources against the 
passage of the rule, but it was finally adopted by a vote of 13 to 12. 
This was an approximate division of the Omaha and anti-Omaha forces on the 
capital question. It is interesting to note that this violent measure was 
supported by the same members, who, with the addition of Robertson of 
Burt, two days later, passed the bill locating the capital at Omaha. The 
Palladium sounds this note of disgust and despair:

   Governor Cuming's appointees having the majority and being reluctant to 
have their claims investigated, yesterday they made it a rule of the House 
that Cuming's certificates were the only evidence which had a right to 
come before the House in the matter! ! ! And this in Nebraska, and enacted 
by the very men who are so loud in their praises of popular sovereignty! 
Oh! Shame! where is thy blush?

   Poppleton and Richardson of Douglas and Latham and Thompson of Cass 
argued that under the organic law the possession of the governor's 
certificate was conclusive, and that there could be no appeal or contest 
but to him. Decker of Pierce, Wood of Forney, and Doyle of Dodge insisted 
that the well settled principle that legislative bodies have the right to 
pass upon the qualifications of their members applied to this case. The 
Palladium admits that "Poppleton, the mover, closed the debate in a 
tolerably able vindication of the amendment." Even then Poppleton must 
have been a tolerably good jurist; and he must have laughed in his sleeve 
as his defense of his novel doctrine rolled out in plausible phrase and 
with unctuous smoothness.

   Nebraska, we believe, is unique in the discovery and application of 
this principle of parlimentary procedure. The provision of the organic act 
bearing on this question is as follows: "The person having the highest 
number of legal votes in each of said coun-

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[image caption: J. B. Kuony established the first store at Fort Calhoun, 
Nebraska]

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[image caption: Mrs. J. B. Kuony]

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cil" -- or the house, as the case may be -- "shall be declared by the 
governor to be duly elected"; and this wording is found substantially in 
the organic acts of all the northwestern territories. We find a like lack 
of restraint in the organization of thePages of other territories, though 
under the usual parlimentary rule. ThePage of Kansas, at the first, 
arbitrarily unseated nine free-soil members who held certificates, and 
because they were free-soilers, the other two having resigned partly 
through disgust and partly through the "moral suasion" of the pro-slavery 
members. In Wisconsin, the first house unseated a

[image caption: BENJAMIN B. THOMPSON Doorkeeper, first territorial house 
of representatives]

certificated member and seated the contestant, according to the general, 
but against the Nebraska parlimentary principle; and the first house of 
Indiana, whose first act was to consider the qualifications of its 
members, arbitrarily unseated the regular member from St. Clair county.

   On the first day of the session it appears that two of the contestants 
from Bellevue, J. Sterling Morton and Stephen Decatur, were admitted into 
the house and participated in the discussion about Cuming's credentials or 
certificates, and from what we of the present know of Morton we may be 
sure that the discussion was not lacking in aggressive vigor. The sardonic 
answer of the report of the committee on privileges and elections to the 
editor's hope and prayer for righteousness was that "Mr. Decatur advanced 
his claim on the ground that Douglas county is separate and distinct from 
Omaha, and that he is the representative from Douglas county, having 
received greater number of votes in that county than Mr. Poppleton"; but 
"Mr. Poppleton in defense produced a certificate from the governor of 
Nebraska declaring him duly elected a representative from Douglas county."

   It did not matter that the conclusion of the committee violated 
immemorial parliamentary usage and renounced all spirit of fairness; it 
was backed by a majority as resolute as it was oblivious of any such nice 
considerations. The finding was brief and to the point, as it could afford 
to be:

   After considering the evidence of each party your committee are of the 
opinion that A. J. Poppleton is entitled to a seat in this House according 
to the organic law and rules adopted by this House.(3)

   Of the five members of the committee, four had voted for the obnoxious 
rule and afterward consistently voted to locate the capital at Omaha. It 
is a barren formality to add that every member to whom Governor Cuming had 
given his certificate held his seat. This was the beginning of the end of 
the most important act of the first legislature.

   The council or upper house, the equivalent of a state senate, contained 
some men of remarkably good intellect, and several of previous experience 
in legislative bodies. Colonel Joseph L. Sharp, nominally of Richardson 
county, who was elected president of the council over his bitter political 
and personal rival,. James C. Mitchell of Florence, had formerly been a 
member of the legislature of Illinois and also of the legislature of Iowa. 
He was a disciplined and ready parliamentarian. He knew and could apply 
with quick decision, the rules governing deliberative bodies. Down to this 
day no one has presided over the senate, or any other deliberative body of 
the state, 

(3. House Journal, 1855, p. 144.)

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with more skill or dignity. He was a man of italic individuality. His 
person was angular and his height six feet three. His hair was abundant 
and iron gray, and it covered a leonine head. His eye was a bright steel-
blue, his chin square, his mouth tight-shut and firm. In the little 
council chamber where these primitive lawmakers were laying the footings 
for the walls of the civic edifice since built, there was but small space 
for spectators; but they drifted in from the curious East, now and then, 
and, standing against the railing which fenced them out from the members, 
took notes and made whispered observations among themselves upon the 
proceedings of the council and the demeanor of its president. It was the 
misfortune of Colonel Sharp to have been fearfully scarred, indented, and 
pitted with smallpox. That dreadful disease had bleared, glazed over, and 
destroyed the sight of his left eye, and at the same time had twisted and 
deeply indented his prominent nose, which looked somewhat awry; so that, 
altogether, the victim's facial expression was rather repellant. Right 
against the lobby rail was the desk and seat of his spiteful and malignant 
competitor, Jim Mitchell, as he was called. Mitchell was a lithe, slender, 
small man, about sixty years of age, not more than five feet six inches 
tall and weighing not more than one hundred and twenty pounds. He was 
quick of mind, had a hair-trigger temper, and his courage was 
unquestioned. He had justifiably killed his man at Jackson, Iowa, had been 
tried and honorably acquitted. Therefore no bully presumed to insult him, 
though his features were mild, gentle, and pallid as those of a studious 
orthodox clergyman, and his manners were refined and quiet. His hatred of 
Sharp was deep and relentless. One day a couple of visitors from "down 
east" were leaning against the railing by Mitchell's desk, watching 
President Sharp and listening to his rapid decisions and rulings, and 
finally one said to the other, in an undertone which reached the alert car 
of Mitchell: "That president knows his business. He is able and impartial, 
quick and correct, but certainly the homliest man I ever looked at"; and 
Mitchell, with a cynical smile and tranquil irony, remarked: "Hell! You 
should have seen him before he was improved by the smallpox." Possibly 
state senators of this day keep sarcasm in stock sharper and more 
spontaneous than that, but they seldom exercise it.

   The other law-maker of experience in the council was Origen D. 
Richardson of Douglas county. He had served in the Michigan senate and had 
also been governor of that state. He was a native of Vermont, level

[image caption: ORIGEN D. RICHARDSON Oldest member of the first 
territorial assembly]

headed, honest, and of sound judgment. More than any other individual, 
Richardson determined the character and quality of the legislation of that 
first assembly. As chairman of the permanent committee on the judiciary, 
in the council, he did an enormus amount of thoughtful, diligent, and 
efficient labor. He no doubt planned, formed, and shaped more statutes 
than any other member of either house, not excepting Andrew J. Poppleton, 
who was the most capable, industrious, and painstaking member of the house 
committee on judiciary, the superior of any lawyer then

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in Nebraska, and the peer, perhaps, of any who have since practiced in the 
courts of this state. In those earlier days Mr. Poppleton was almost 
passionately fond of public speaking, for which he was well equipped with 
an unusual share of personal magnetism, reasoning power, and a plausible 
and persuasive address. He manifested a keen interest in political affairs 
up to the time of the segregation of his services in the office of the 
Union Pacific railway company, which was a distinct loss to the 
commonwealth.

   Among the most far-sighted law-makers of that first council was Dr. M. 
H. Clark, member from Fontenelle, Dodge county. He was a type of the 
vigorous frontiersman in form and mind. He was an enthusiast as to the 
commercial future of Nebraska. As chairman of the committee on 
corporations he made a report to the council on the 16th of February, 
1855, which was a prophecy of remarkable accuracy, and which has been 
completely verified.

   The report in its advocacy of the chartering of a transcontinental 
railroad forecasts

[image caption: Engraving from pen and ink sketch by Stanislas W. F. 
Schymonsky, owned by Mrs. James T. Allan, Omaha, Nebraska. THE 
PRESBYTERIAN MISSION AT BELLEVUE, COMPLETED IN 1848. This, and its 
companion pieces, are the only pictures extant of the Mission building as 
it appeared in 1854]

the future of such a road, and in concluding declares that if it could be 
built,

   The millions of Europe would be brought in contact with the hundreds of 
millions of Asia, and their line for quick transit would be, to a great 
extent, across our continent. Their mails, their ministers, their most 
costly and interesting travel and trade, would take this route, and 
augment our business and multiply our resources. In view of the 
comparative cost, to the wonderful changes that will result, your 
committee can not believe the period remote when this work will be 
accomplished; and with liberal encouragement to capital, which your 
committee are disposed to grant, it is their belief that before fifteen 
years have transpired the route to India will be open, and the way across 
this continent will be the common way of the world. Entertaining these 
views, your committee report the bill for the Platte Valley and Pacific 
Railroad, feeling assured that it will become not only a basis for 
branches within Nebraska, but for surrounding states and territories.

   The report begins with this sentence: "It is generally conceded that 
the portion of the territory of Nebraska which will first seek 
organization as a state is that which lies be-

Page 183

tween the parallels of 40 degrees and 43 degrees, extending west to the 
Rocky mountains."

   That this discerning pioneer should thus have foretold the future 
northern and southern boundaries of the state is more significant than 
remarkable for prescience when we consider that it is simply a reflection 
of the original Iowa idea. This was the original and persistently proposed 
northern boundary for the territory until, at the last moment, all that 
remained of the unorganized part of the Purchase was included. It was the 
boundary in the bills introduced by Douglas in 1844 and 1848, and of the 
bill of the Iowa senator (Dodge) in 1853 -- the bill which, as amended, 
was finally passed -- and the 40th parallel was the southern boundary in 
the bill of 1848. This boundary had been fixed by the united desire or 
judgment of the bordering promoters of organization, and in accordance 
with the reasons given by the Iowa statesman already freely quoted. This 
forecast indicates that Mr. Clark was, to some extent, familiar with what 
had gone before; and his judgment as to the desirable and probable 
location of the coming state was confirmed by its projectors.

   That report, written and published before civil government in Nebraska 
was six months old, and when most of the people of the United States who 
had thought about the subject at all believed that the construction of a 
railroad from the Missouri river across the Plains and through the Rocky 
mountains to the Pacific coast was an impossibility, is a notable piece of 
economic and industrial faith, if not of foresight.

   Acting Governor Cuming delivered the first executive message to a joint 
meeting of the two houses in the chamber of the house of representatives 
at three o'clock in the afternoon of the first day's session.(4) As might 
be expected of a man so able and of such positive parts, the message was 
comprehensive and well composed, and for the greater part direct, concise, 
and incisive; and as might be expected in one so young -- he was only 
twenty-six -- it not only had the unnecessary and at least now quite 
unusual appendage of a peroration, but this peroration was grandiloquent 
indeed. When it is considered that no other executive message since 
delivered in this commonwealth, except that of the ripe statesman, 
Governor Richardson, equals this first one -- the composition of an 
inexperienced boy -- in point of saying what should be said and saying it 
well, we readily overlook the final efflorescence.

   The temporary governor bespeaks for the expected permanent executive, 
Governor Izard, the blending of "a dignified disinterestedness with an 
appreciated efficiency . . . well befitting the chief magistrate of the 
largest commonwealth of freemen within the limits of the Union or the 
world." Our appreciation of the unerring western apotheosis of mere size 
is heightened by the reflection that this physically greatest of all the 
territories, past or present, was the least of all in population. It is 
significant that the first recommendation of this first Nebraska message 
was in favor of a memorial to Congress in behalf of the construction of 
the Pacific railway up the valley of the Platte. The governor suggested 
that the legislature in its memorial should "urgently if not principally 
ask" for a preliminary provision for telegraphic and letter mail 
communication with the Pacific, and that for its protection parties of 
twenty dragoons, should be stationed at stockades twenty or thirty miles 
apart. Councilman Clark's committee report in favor of a Pacific railway 
and by the Platte route was an elaboration of the governor's 
recommendation. The legislature, was reminded that in the enactment of a 
code of laws and the establishment of public institutions, it had the 
benefit of an ample fund of experience treasured by neighboring states. 
The recommendation of the enactment of general incorporation laws was wise 
but unheeded. The governor also recommended that voluntary military 
companies be organized for protection against the Sioux, Ponca, and other 
Indians.

   ADMINISTRATION OF GOVERNOR IZARD. Mr. Izard, United States marshal, who 
had been in Washington, we may believe with an eye to 

(4. Records Nebraska Territory, p. 40.)

Page 184

promotion to the governorship, returned to Omaha on the 20th of February, 
and his arrival was formally announced to the two houses of the 
legislature by Secretary Cuming on that day, and on the same day the 
secretary presented him to a joint meeting of the houses, when he 
delivered a passable speech, as governor's speeches go, and which might be 
excused for its lack of much else by its plethora of reference to 
"sovereigns," "the principles of popular sovereignty," and "the 
sovereignty of the people."

   The new governor had taken the oath of office December 23, 1854, in the 
city of Washington, before Judge John A. Campbell, as-

[image caption: MARK W. IZARD First United States marshal and second 
governor of Nebraska territory]

sociate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. He resided at 
Mt. Vernon, Francis county, Arkansas, and his appointment was due to the 
influence of Senator Sebastian of that state. The Helena (Arkansas Star in 
noticing his appointment admitted that he was "riot endowed with shining 
talents," and the governor's Nebraska contemporaries still living are not 
heard to dissent from the admission. He was doubtless a fair sample of the 
overplus of the mass of aspirants for place with which southern dispensers 
of patronage must have been infested, and for whom, in the emergency, such 
long-distance provision must be made. Since Secretary

Page 185

Cuming, a quasi-resident, was himself an aspirant for the office in 
question, we may presume that his sympathetic reference -- in introducing 
his successful rival to the legislature -- to the carpet-bagger's "long 
and toilsome journey" in reaching Nebraska was not innocent of malicious 
irony. Izard was scarcely competent to properly perform the duties of his 
office. His short career gave evidence of this, no less than the implied 
admission of his friends when they said he "meant well."

   Governor Izard was not inclined to miss a chance to distinguish himself 
as a maker of state papers; so he gave himself the benefit of the doubt 
whether a second message was called for, and delivered one to the two 
houses February 27th. He had discovered his lack of discretion and sense 
of propriety in his address of the 20th in saying that "in the discharge 
of my official duties as your chief executive I shall endeavor to carry 
out the wishes of the national administration." In his message to the all 
but sovereign legislature he betrayed his ignorance of the limitations of 
the province of the executive by expressing regret that he was not 
"sufficiently familiar with the progress already made to indicate a course 
of policy for the government of your future action." He recommended in the 
message the adoption of the code of Iowa for temporary purposes, "as a 
large portion of our citizens at present are from that state, and are more 
or less familiar with its system"; that provision be made for all local 
officers to be elected by the people; that the interest of settlers on 
lands they had occupied, not yet surveyed under the act of Congress of 
July 22, 1854, be treated as taxable property; and he followed Acting 
Governor Cuming in wisely urging general instead of special legislation as 
far as possible. These first legislators were true to their type in that 
practical politics was their first care; and house file No. 1, offered 
January 18th, by Robertson of Burt county, was a joint resolution as 
follows:

   Resolved, That we herewith endorse the principles enunciated in the 
bill organizing the territories of Kansas and Nebraska; that we rejoice 
that the geographical line between the northern and southern states has 
been erased, leaving the people of every state and territory free to 
control their domestic institutions; and that we commend the firm and 
patriotic course of the men, without distinction of party, who have aided 
in establishing the sound constitutional principles of the compromise of 
1850, and
   Resolved, furthermore, that we pledge ourselves to oppose any unfair 
discriminations, such as those of the late Missouri compromise, but to 
protect and defend the rights of the states and the union of states, and 
to advance and perpetuate the doctrine of popular sovereignty.

   LOCATION OF THE CAPITAL. The momentous contest of the session was 
opened by the introduction of bills for the location of the seat of 
government. The contest has raged at intervals from that time to this. On 
the 24th of January a bill was introduced in the council by Richardson of 
Douglas county, and the following day Latham of Cass introduced a similar 
bill in the house. A motion by Nuckolls to insert the words "Plattsmouth 
of Cass county" in the council bill carried 7 to 6. A motion by Clark of 
Dodge to insert the name of Bellevue lost. Richardson succeeded in having 
the bill referred to the committee on public buildings. The Latham bill 
left blanks in the bill to be filled in relative to the location. A motion 
by Kempton, to insert Plattsmouth, lost, as did a motion to insert 
Brownsville, and a similar motion to name Omaha. Latham later renewed his 
motion to name Plattsmouth, but the motion lost by a tie vote, and 
Poppleton, the general in the house for Omaha, finally renewed his motion 
which carried, and the bill was sent to the council.

   In the council Mitchell moved to insert Plattsmouth instead of Omaha, 
but Richardson procured its reference to the committee of the whole as a 
substitute by a vote of 7 to 6, and then secured its postponement for two 
days. In the meantime, Mitchell had seen a sign and withdrew, upon the 
first opportunity, his motion to name Plattsmouth, and moved to locate the 
capital about two and one-half miles north of Omaha; then Richardson gave

Page 186

notice that upon some future day he would make Mitchell sole commissioner 
to locate the capital buildings, and Mitchell withdrew his last amendment. 
Richardson's task was now easy and, in spite of Bennet's dilatory tactics, 
the bill was passed by a vote of 7 to 6, Mitchell's vote having changed 
from Plattsmouth to Omaha.

   After the location had finally been made, charges of bribery were 
frequent in the press of that day. The Palladium did not fail to credit 
Mr. Poppleton with efficiently following up Cuming's primary work. 
Nevertheless the governor had virtually located the capital, and was to be 
a very great factor in locating it actually. And thus it occurred that 
Thomas B. Cuming was the founder of Omaha.

   The Bellevue of today, in size and condition, illustrates the truth 
that mere righteousness and beauty are not in the reckoning against 
western hustle with all that it implies. The original missionary's 
residence and the building which was occupied by the Indian agency are 
still standing; the first on the edge of the plateau immediately 
overlooking the river. The walls are a concrete of mortar and small 
stones, and the house is rectangular in shape, two stories in height with 
a veranda extending between the two stories along the entire eastern or 
river front, thus commanding a magnificent view of the river valley and 
the distant bluffs and groves on the Iowa side. A hall extends from east 
to west across the middle of the house. The mission house itself was long 
since removed. The first church (Presbyterian) and the residences of Chief 
Justices Fenner Ferguson and Augustus Hall are still standing and in use. 
The natural townsite of Bellevue comprises a level plateau of about three 
thousand acres in the angle between the Missouri river and Papillion 
creek. It rises on the north to a high hill which seems to have been 
especially designed by nature for the capitol of the commonwealth; but 
though selfish and shortsighted man has disposed where God so 
magnificently proposed, still the eminence is fittingly crowned by the 
main building of Bellevue college.

   The journal of the council tells us that "Mr. Richardson (of Douglas 
county) nominated Mr. Sharp of Richardson county for president of the 
council, whereupon, on motion of Mr. Mitchell, Mr. Sharp was declared duly 
elected." This is suggestive that both sides in the capital contest 
depended upon Sharp, and that he was ready to disappoint either. Surviving 
contemporaries of these men and times insist that Sharp agreed for a 
valuable consideration to support Omaha in the capital struggle, and that, 
mistrusting him, the consideration was recovered through strategy by an 
emissary of Omaha (A. J. Hanscom). Though Sharp appears to have favored 
Omaha interests in the appointment of committees of the council, he for 
some reason lost interest in the cause of Omaha, and afterward voted 
against locating the capital there.

   On the 5th of February, after the capital campaign had ended in triumph 
for Omaha, friends and beneficiaries in the council moved resolutions 
vouching for the uprightness and purity of motive, and commending the 
efficiency of the Napoleonic leader in so rapidly organizing the 
territory -- the first, doubtless because it was felt that he needed it, 
and the second because he really deserved it. A resolution declaring the 
right of the council to inquire into the acts of public officers, and 
another declaring explicitly that the several acts of Acting Governor 
Cuming in the organization of the territory were proper subjects of 
investigation by a committee, had been rejected January 24th. Mr. Bennet 
now insisted that the vote of confidence could not be properly awarded in 
the face of the denial of the investigation; but after a fierce fight the 
resolution was carried by a vote of 8 to 5. Those voting nay were Bennet, 
Bradford, and Cowles of Pierce, Mitchell of Washington, and Nuckolls of 
Cass. We find Mitchell's enmity or conviction unabated by his capital 
commissionership, and the Palladium's perfidious Sharp, in this instance, 
in the enemy's camp.

   LAWS OF THE FIRST SESSION. Council file No. 1 was a joint resolution by 
Richardson providing that the style of the laws should be as follows: "Be 
it enacted by the council and house of representatives of the territory of

Page 187

Nebraska." Mr. Rogers would have it amended into this more democratic 
fashion: "Be it enacted by the people of the territory of Nebraska in 
general assembly convened," but his amendment failed and both houses 
passed Richardson's resolution.

   The enactments of the first legislature were classified in eight parts. 
The first part was intended as a complete civil code, and was appropriated 
from the code of Iowa. The second comprised laws of a general nature 
prepared by the legislature itself. The third was the criminal code, also 
appropriated from the Iowa code. The fourth located and established 
territorial roads. The fifth defined the boundaries and located, or 
provided for the location of county seats. The sixth incorporated 
industrial companies and towns, or cities rather. The seventh incorporated 
bridge and ferry companies, and authorized the keeping of ferries and the 
erection of bridges. The eighth consisted of joint resolutions adopted at 
the session.

   The first enactment, in part second, as arranged in the statute, 
provided for taking another census to be completed by October 11, 1855, 
for a new apportionment of members of the house of representatives, and 
the time when annual elections should be held and the legislature should 
convene. The second prohibited the manufacture or sale of intoxicating 
liquors in the territory. H. P. Downs of Nebraska City took the first step 
in a prohibition movement in Nebraska when he obtained eighty signatures, 
besides his own, of people of the town named, to a petition for a 
"prohibitory liquor law," and lodged it in the council. The petition was 
presented by Mr. Bradford on the 6th of February, and was referred to the 
judiciary. committee. On the 9th of February Mr. Rogers of that committee 
made the following unique report:

   Your committee, to whom was referred the Petition of H. P. Downs and 
eighty others, praying for a prohibitory law against traffic in 
intoxicating drinks, and against licensing dram shops and other drinking 
houses, report:
   That in their opinion, where the people are prepared and public 
sentiment sufficiently in favor of a prohibitory law to fully sustain and 
enforce it, such a law would be productive of the best results to the 
community.
   That in the opinion of this committee, the traffic in intoxicating 
drinks is a crime, and they would be unwilling to legalize this crime by 
the solemn sanction of a law granting license for its commission. They are 
unwilling to elevate to respectability by legal sanction any trade or 
traffic that tends to demoralize [the] community, retard the progress of 
education, impoverish the people, and impose on the sober and industrious 
part of [the] community, without their consent, a tax which must 
necessarily be incurred to take care of paupers and criminals manufactured 
by the traffic.
   They are unwilling to make a traffic creditable the evil effects of 
which do not stop by besotting and bankrupting the heads of families, but 
which cause hunger, shame, distress and poverty to be imposed with tenfold 
severity upon the innocent wife and children of their families. As much, 
however, as we may be in favor of a prohibitory law until [the] community 
by petition or otherwise may fully manifest their determination to sustain 
such a law ---- (5) S. E. ROGERS.

   Some Features of the New Laws. The: revenue law required the auditor to 
distribute the territorial expense authorized to be paid out of the 
territorial treasury according to the assessment rolls, which were to be 
transmitted to him by the judges of probate of the several counties. The 
probate judges levied the taxes, and the sheriffs were at once the 
assessors and tax collectors. The sheriff was also coroner of his county. 
A register of deeds was provided.

   The supreme court consisted of a chief justice and two associates, who 
were to hold a term annually at the seat of government. In accordance with 
the organic act, the legislature divided the territory into three 
districts, and fixed the times and places of holding court therein. A 
judge of the supreme court presided over each of these districts.

   The act regulating elections named the first Tuesday in November, 1855, 
and on the same day thereafter every second year, as the time for the 
election of a delegate to

(5. Here the report, Council Journal, p. 52, breaks off short. Thus 
prohibition in Nebraska was born in Nebraska City, and was afterwards 
legitimized and was a law of Nebraska, though little enforced, until 1858, 
when it was repealed by a license act.)

Page 188

Congress, and county officers consisting of a probate judge, register, 
sheriff, treasurer and surveyor; also a territorial treasurer, auditor, 
and librarian, a district attorney for each judicial district, two 
justices of the peace, and two constables for each district.

   A law exempting the property of married women from liability for the 
debts of husbands was passed, but no general exemption of homesteads or 
other property was made. An interest rate of ten per cent was fixed where 
no other rate was provided in the contract, and the contract rate was left 
without limitation.

   The law "to establish the common school system" conferred upon the 
librarian the duties of territorial superintendent of public instruction 
at a salary of $200 per year, and provided for the organization and 
support of the common or district schools. The county superintendent 
reported to the territorial superintendent all essential facts reported to 
him from the several districts in his county, examined and granted 
certificates to teachers, and apportioned the public school tax and paid 
it over to the districts of his county. The district boards managed the 
affairs of the districts, and before employing teachers, were required to 
examine them in the subjects taught in the common schools.

   UNITED STATES SURVEYS. An act entitled "Claims on public lands," passed 
by the first legislature, undertook to legalize neighborhood regulations 
as to claims and improvements on public lands, and provided for their 
registry in the office of the register of deeds of the county as the law 
of each neighborhood. A valid claim was limited in extent to 320 acres, 
and each claim was to conform "as near as may be to the lines of 
subdivision of the United States surveys," and the boundaries were 
required to be "marked, staked, or blazed." The act provided that the 
resident claim holders of each neighborhood should define its boundaries 
and record them in the office of the register of deeds. It is an 
interesting fact, which must be borne in mind for a proper understanding 
of the claims bill, that at the time it was passed no part of Nebraska had 
been surveyed, and therefore no lands had been offered for sale or 
formally opened to settlement. We find Mr. Joseph Dyson urging, in support 
of his candidacy as a delegate to Congress in 1854, that he is in favor of 
a law which will "secure to actual settlers a temporary right to the lands 
they have improved until such time as they can dig out of the soil the 
amount of money necessary to enter them"; and that "it is a conceded point 
that the preëmption law of 1841, in a great majority of cases, has been 
destructive to the interests of the preëmptor. because, "as soon as a 
person who has no capital files on a piece of land some individual who has 
more money than good principles will lay his money on the same land" in 
the hope that the preëmptor will not be able to pay for it at the time 
specified by law. In order to protect himself from this menace he must 
borrow money "at forty or fifty per cent per annum, which are the usual 
rates of interest in such cases."

   By the law of Congress approved July 22, 1854, the President of the 
United States was authorized to appoint a surveyor-general for the 
territories of Nebraska and Kansas, and his office was to be located as 
the President should from time to time direct. This law provided that "all 
public lands to which the Indian title has or shall be extinguished" 
should be subject to the preëmption act of 1841; also that Nebraska should 
constitute the "Omaha district" and Kansas the "Pawnee district." The 
first surveyor-general appointed under this act was John Calhoun, and his 
office was first located at Leavenworth, Kansas. It was removed from 
Kansas to Nebraska City about June 1, 1858.

   The second party to the first surveying contract for Nebraska undertook 
to establish the principal base line in the territories of Kansas and 
Nebraska, which was to begin at "the point where the 40th degree of 
latitude (the boundary line between Nebraska and Kansas) intersects the 
right bank of the Missouri river," and to run west 108 miles to the sixth 
principal meridian, which was the western border of the Omaha cession, and 
is now the western boundary of Jefferson, Saline, Seward and Butler 
counties. The parties to this contract were the surveyor-general and J. P. 
Johnson of Bond county, Illinois; it was dated No-

Page 189

vember 2, 1854, and the work was to be completed by January 20, 1855. The 
next contract was made April 26, 1855, with Chas. A. Manners of Christian 
county, Illinois, for establishing the guide meridian between ranges 8 and 
9 -- the west line of Pawnee, Johnson, Otoe, and Cass counties -- and the 
Missouri river, and also to establish the 1st 2d, 3d, 4th, 5th, 6th, and 
7th parallel lines. The third contract, dated September 26, 1855, with 
Bennet Burnam, was for subdividing townships 1, 2, 3, 4, north, range 12 
east --the east tier of townships of Pawnee county, and the Southeast 
corner of Johnson, and the southwest corner of Nemaha county. This 
contract was to be completed by December 1, 1855. Contracts for the first 
subdivision in Douglas county -- including Omaha City and Florence --and 
in Otoe county were made October 31, 1855, to be completed by June, 1856.

   The Council Bluffs Chronotype quotes the Nebraska City News of January 
19, 1856, which reports rapid progress of the survey, saying that "early 
in the spring all of Nebraska between the guide meridian and the Missouri 
river will be surveyed and in the market." Major J. D. White had just 
returned to the city from the field, having completed a contract in the 
first division, and several companies were at work on the first, second, 
third, and fourth divisions.

   CLAIM CLUBS. From this account of the first surveys it will be seen 
that all claimants of lands before the organization of the territory and 
for about two years after were merely squatters, without titles or 
surveyed boundaries of their landed possessions. But necessity had become 
the mother of invention of a practicable and efficient substitute for 
statutory rule or measure. The primary government of the territory was a 
pure democracy. The first formal territorial laws were those passed by the 
claim clubs. Though the earliest of these laws antedated the legislature, 
and had no constitutional origin or sanction, they were none the less 
actual or effective. This system was doubtless borrowed directly from 
Iowa, where it had been in vogue in a similar form. There is contemporary 
evidence that the rules of these clubs were enforced with equity and 
firmness -- sometimes with the utmost severity -- and that the settler who 
came into this voluntary court of equity was protected in his substantial 
rights from the time he squatted on his claim until he made good his title 
when the lands were put on sale by authority of the federal law. The 
constitution and rules of the several clubs did not greatly differ in 
substance. The first claim association of Nebraska of which we have any 
record was organized at a meeting held under the "lone tree" -- the 
western terminus of the Council Bluffs and Nebraska Ferry -- on the 22d of 
July, 1854. Samuel A. Lewis was chairman and M. C. Gaylord, secretary. In 
the preamble of a set of resolutions passed at the meeting is an 
interesting account of the relation of the ferry company to the projected 
town of Omaha as early as 1853.


NEBRASKA CLAIM MEETING

   Pursuant to notice given, a large and respectable number of the 
claimants upon the public lands in the vicinity of Omaha City met at that 
place on the 22d day of July, 1854. S. Lewis [Samuel A. Lewis] was called 
to the chair, and M. C. Gaylord appointed secretary.
   The following claim laws were then enacted, viz.:

CLAIM LAWS
   Sec. 1. Be it enacted by the Omaha Township Claim Association, that we 
unite ourselves under the above title for mutual protection in holding 
claims upon the public lands in the territory of Nebraska and be governed 
by these claim laws.
   Sec. 2. That all persons who have families to support or who are acting 
for themselves will have protection from this association providing they 
become a member of it and act in conjunction with the majority of its 
members.
   Sec. 3. No person can become a member unless he resides in Nebraska 
territory or disclaims a residence elsewhere.
   Sec. 4. All claims must be marked, staked and blazed so the lines can 
be traced and the quantity known by persons accustomed to tracing lines.
   Sec. 5. No person will be protected in holding more than three hundred 
and twenty acres of land, but that may be in two separate parcels to suit 
the convenience of the holder.
   Sec. 6. Marking the claim and building a claim pen four rounds high in 
a conspicuous place shall hold the claim for thirty days.
   Sec. 7. At the expiration of thirty days as

Page 190

in section six the claimants shall erect a house thereon.
   Sec. 8. All differences respecting claims if they cannot be settled 
amicably between the proper claimants, shall be settled by arbitrators, 
each claimant shall select one arbitrator and those selected shall choose 
a third.
   See. 9. The arbitrators shall investigate all the claim difficulties 
between said claimants by hearing testimony and argument, and decide as 
the right and justice of the case to them may appear, and give to the 
party in whose favor the decision has been made a written certificate of 
the settlement of the differences between them and file a copy with the 
recorder of the association for the future reference if required.
   Sec. 10. When claims are sold or exchanged, Quit Claim Deeds shall be 
given as evidence of the contract in which the boundaries of the claim 
shall be amply set forth.
   Sec. 11. The jurisdiction of the association shall extend north and 
south of the grade section line in Omaha City 3 miles and west from the 
Missouri river 6 miles.
   Sec. 12. No person shall hold more than eighty acres of timber but that 
may be in two separate parcels.
   Sec. 13. When claimants of different claim townships come in conflict a 
committee of conference shall be appointed by the judge to hold a council 
with a similar committee selected by the proper authorities of the claim 
township of which the other interested person is a member, which 
committees when acting together shall determine which claimant is entitled 
to the matter in dispute.
   Sec. 14. After the adoption of the foregoing resolutions the following 
preamble and resolutions were submitted to the meeting and unanimously 
adopted:
   Whereas, the Council Bluffs and Nebraska Ferry Company obtained the 
consent and approbation of the Indian Agent in July last, now one year 
ago, to establish and put in operation a steam ferry at and between 
Council Bluffs and the point where we are now assembled, now known as 
Omaha City,
   And whereas said company has expended large sums of money in the 
purchase of a steam ferry boat, and in keeping it in regular operation, in 
making roads, and in starting the first brick yard in the territory for 
making pressed and other superior bricks,
   And whereas said company is about erecting a substantial and commodious 
brick edifice, suitable for legislative, judicial and other public 
purposes; as well as other buildings and improvements on their ferry 
claim, now Omaha City,
   Therefore, resolved, that we recognize and confirm the claim of said 
company as staked out, surveyed and platted recently into lots, blocks, 
streets, alleys and out lots, and bounded on the East by the Missouri 
river, on the North by [Thomas] Jeffrey's claim, on the West by [M. C.] 
Gaylord and [Hadley D.] Johnson's claim, and on the South by [Alfred D.] 
Jones' claim; and that we will countenance and encourage the building of a 
city on said claim.
   Sec. 15. The officers of the association shall consist of a judge, 
clerk, recorder, and sheriff, who shall hold their offices for six months, 
and until their successors are elected.
   Sec. 16. The judge shall preside at all meetings of the association and 
with the other officers call its meetings whenever he may deem it 
necessary and perform such other duties as may be assigned him by the 
association.
   Sec. 17. The clerk shall keep a journal of the proceedings of the 
association when in session assembled.
   Sec. 18. The recorder shall record all quit claim deeds, boundaries of 
claims, decisions of arbitrators, &c., which may be presented to him for 
that purpose, for which he shall receive fifty cents each from the person 
desiring the service rendered.
   Sec. 19. The sheriff shall execute and put in force all judgments of 
arbitrators and shall have power to call to his aid therefor the entire 
association and should any member refuse without good cause shown before 
the judge, he shall forfeit all his right to protection from the 
association.
   Sec. 20. These laws shall not be altered or amended except by a public 
meeting of which due notice shall be given by order of the officers of the 
association.
   After the passage of the above laws the association proceeded to the 
election of its officers, which resulted, viz.: A. D. Jones, Judge; S. 
Lewis, Clerk; M. C. Gaylord, Recorder; R. B. Whitted, Sheriff.
   On motion the assembly adjourned.
S. LEWIS, Chairman.
M. C. GAYLORD, Sec.(6)

   John M. Thayer was president of the Omaha Claims Association, and Lyman 
Richardson was secretary. The fundamental resolutions, after reciting that 
"it has been found necessary in all new countries to league together to 
prevent lands being taken by speculators abroad or at home," and that 
"during the coming season lands will be greatly sought for by newcomers 
and land sharks," commit the club to the meting out of justice in this ad- 

(6. Omaha Arrow, July 28, 1854.)

Page 191

mirably direct, determined, and unmistakable manner:

   We whose names are hereto subscribed, claimants upon the public lands, 
do hereby agree with each other, and bind ourselves upon our honors that 
we will protect every lawful claimant in the peaceable possession of his 
claim, and that in case of his claim being jumped we will, when called 
upon by the Captain of Regulators, turn out and proceed to the claim 
jumped, and there endeavor to have the matter settled amicably by an 
arbitration on the spot, each party to choose one arbitrator, and if they 
can not agree they shall choose a third; but if it cannot be so settled 
then we will obey the captain in carefully and quietly putting the jumper 
out of possession and the claimant in.
   We further agree with each other that when the surveys have been made 
and the land offered for sale by the United States we will attend said 
sales and protect each other in entering our respective claims, each 
claimant furnishing the money for his said entry.
   After the sales we are to deed and re-deed to each other so as to 
secure to each claimant the land each has claimed, according to the lines 
now existing.

   The burden was on the jumper of any part of a claim in different tracts 
to show the excess over 320 acres in the total claim by the regular survey.

   Alfred D. Goyer, who had been a member from Douglas county of the first 
house of representatives, was unanimously awarded the formidable, if not 
dangerous title of captain of the regulators. The several associations in 
Douglas county were invited to meet the Omaha association in joint 
convention to establish more accurately the division lines, and for other 
purposes. Andrew J. Poppleton was an active member of this meeting, and 
Harrison Johnson, 0. D. Richardson, Samuel E. Rogers, I. Shoemaker, and A. 
D. Goyer were the committee on resolutions.

   The Nebraskian of March 26, 1856, copies laws and boundaries of the 
club formed by the residents of the south part of Washington county. These 
laws provided that any person above sixteen years of age might hold a 
claim. The same journal of May 21, 1856, states that at a meeting of the 
Omaha Claims Association a resolution was passed requiring claimants to 
make improvements worth $50, and "begin tomorrow," in order to hold their 
claims. At Secretary Cuming's instance a resolution was passed directing 
that a copy of the resolutions of February 5th be left with the register 
of the county, and every claim holder be required to sign them in order to 
come under their protection. This paper also contains an account of a 
summary eviction by the Omaha club. Four men had erected a cabin and 
prepared the foundations for three more on the "upper end of the town
site," on the previous Saturday night. The "captain" had the work 
demolished promptly. It is stated that the jumpers intended to claim one 
hundred and sixty acres each, "worth in all at least $15,000."

   From the Nebraskian of July 2, 1856, we learn that at a meeting of the 
claim club of Omaha, of which J. W. Paddock was now president and Dr. Geo. 
L. Miller, secretary, Mr. Poppleton, for the committee, reported 
resolutions, the preamble of which recited that it had come to the 
knowledge of the club "that divers evil-disposed persons will attempt by a 
secret preëmption to steal from their neighbors lands assured and pledged 
to them by the laws of this association." They therefore resolved that:

   Whereas, if any person shall file a declaration of intention to 
preëmpt, or take any other step to secure a preëmption upon lands not his 
own according to the laws and regulations of this association, this 
association, at the call of the Captain of the Regulators, will proceed to 
the premises on which such a statement has been filed or such steps shall 
have been taken, investigate the matter, and if such shall appear to be 
the fact, compel the party filing such statement to enter into bonds to 
deed by warranty deed to the respective owners all lands not his own 
included within the limits of such preëmption or leave the country.

   The federal principle of these claim clubs is illustrated by the 
proceedings of a county convention held in Omaha which was composed of 
delegates from Bellevue, Florence, and Omaha. Andrew J. Hanscom was 
chairman and Silas A. Strickland, secretary, of the convention, which 
resolved that,

   When the lands are offered for sale each association shall elect its 
own bidder for bidding in lands comprised within its limits for the 
respective owners; and at such sale we hereby agree to attend en masse, 
and there

Page 192

remain from the opening of the same until the close thereof, and protect 
said bidder, to any extremity if necessary, in securing said lands at 
$1.25 per acre.

   The convention further declared "that we will not hereafter recognize 
suits at law relative to claim matters."

   The preëmption act of 1841, which was in force at this time, limited 
its application to citizens, and those who had declared their intention to 
become citizens of the United States, and in particular to heads of 
families, widows, and single men over the age of twenty-one years. Any one 
of these classes might settle on a tract of land, not exceeding one 
hundred and sixty acres, the Indian title to which had been extinguished, 
and which had been surveyed, and afterward by a proper showing he would be 
entitled to enter the land. Some of the claim clubs referred to were in 
operation from one to two years before the lands their members claimed had 
been surveyed, and doubtless the Indian title had not been extinguished in 
all cases. The act of the legislature validating the acts of the claim 
clubs contravened the federal statute, and no doubt its attempt to invest 
the clubs with legislative powers was without constitutional warrant. In 
turn the Douglas county convention of clubs, by the resolution just 
quoted, sought to override or annul that part of the legislative act which 
provided that, "Any claimant may protect and defend his possession by the 
proper civil action." Iowa had gone before Nebraska in this bold and 
original adoption of means to immediate ends and local wants:

   This occupation of land which had been recorded by the association was 
declared to be legal by the territorial legislature. But this decision was 
clearly contrary to the intent of the act of 1807. It was sanctioned, 
however, by a decision of the supreme court of the territory in a test 
case during the year 1840. Iowa, by this virtual annulment of the United 
States statute showed that independence characteristic of the commonwealth 
by which it became a state.

   It is interesting to note that these claim clubs were in operation at 
Burlington, Iowa, before there was any government, except by voluntary 
local organization, as well as before the lands had been surveyed; and, 
besides, occupation of these lands was in violation of the federal acts of 
1807 and 1833. "On their way to the western prairies settlers did not 
pause to read the United States statutes at large. They outran the public 
surveyors. Soon after the close of the Revolutionary war they began to 
violate the ordinance of 1785 by settling on the public lands without 
obtaining titles. Later they ignored the act of 1807; and it is doubtful 
that the early settlers of Iowa ever heard of the act of March 2, 1833. 
Some were bold enough to cross the Mississippi and put in crops before the 
Indian title had expired . . . Hundreds of thousands of settlers from 
every part of the Union thus squatted on the national commons, all without 
the least vestige of legal right or title."

   In both Nebraska and Iowa the squatters on lands were fully protected 
by the unauthorized if not positively illegal rules and promises of the 
claim clubs. Mr. James M. Woolworth was able to write in 1857: "These 
regulations afford pretty safe possession to the actual settler; although 
it can hardly be doubted, that the law of the territory conferring 
legislative authority on the clubs is unconstitutional."

   The testimony from Iowa is more emphatic: "When the land was placed on 
the market by congressional authority the decrees of the associations were 
completely enforced. No difficulty was experienced on the part of the 
original claimants in securing, through their special delegates, at a 
nominal rate, the lands which they had taken."

   INCORPORATION LAWS. Part sixth is devoted to thirty-two special acts of 
incorporation. Two of the companies were incorporated for the manufacture 
of salt; one of them to carry on business "at a place they may select 
within five miles of a saline spring in Otoe county," the name of the 
place to be Nesuma; the other to manufacture salt "from the salt springs 
near Salt creek." The Platte Valley & Pacific railroad company was 
incorporated for the purpose of building a railroad and telegraph line 
from the Missouri river at Omaha City, Bellevue, and Florence up the north 
side of the Platte river to the west line of the territory, with power to 
connect with other roads or extend its own line where the laws of other

Page 193

states and territories should permit. The Missouri River & Platte Valley 
railroad company was empowered to construct a road from Plattsmouth by way 
of Fort Kearney and Fort Laramie to the western limits of the territory.

   The Nebraska Medical Society was incorporated with Dr. George L. 
Miller -- who was, however, destined to an important career in the wider 
field of jornalism and politics -- at the head of the list of 
incorporators. Three educational institutions were also chartered, namely, 
Nebraska University, at Fontenelle, Simpson University, at Omaha City, and 
the Nebraska City Collegiate and Preparatory Institute at Nebraska City. 
The extreme paucity of the real resources of these institution-builders 
doubtless stimulated a more or less unconscious attempt to make up for the 
serious deficiency with imposing and pretentious names. The first named 
university was the only one actually put in operation; but, as if 
predestined, after an almost vain continuous struggle, creditable only to 
the courage and fortitude of its abettors, it yielded its life in 1873.

   Of the fourteen hamlets -- and some of these not actual but merely 
potential -- which under this division were awarded municipal charters, 
only three, Margaretta (named after Governor Cuming's wife) of Lancaster, 
Brownville of Nemaha, and Elizabeth "of the counties of Dodge and Loupe" 
were abased with the title of town -- all the rest were styled "City," and 
some of these first municipal blooms were born to blush unseen.

   Of the thirty-seven bridge and ferry charters under part seven, twenty-
two are for ferries across the Missouri river, and two of these charters 
confer the right to construct bridges, also. Of the remaining fifteen, 
five are for bridges, two for bridges and ferries, three for bridges or 
ferries, and five for ferries alone across the important inland streams.

   Whatever difference of opinion may be entertained as to the virtue and 
abilities of the first Nebraska legislators, their individual prudence and 
thrift are beyond question. They bestowed on one another and their 
relatives the privileges and potential emoluments of these special 
corporations without stint and with apparent generous impartiality, so 
that their patronymics appear almost as regularly as beneficiaries of 
these special privileges as in the ordinary proceedings of the 
legislature. They lost no chance to "cast an anchor to windward." With 
remarkable disregard of the law of environment these denizens of the 
desert with one accord conceived a passion for navigation. Not less than 
twenty-one of the thirty-nine members were actually named in these 
transportation charters. We are not surprised that Mitchell, whose raw 
material as a violent opponent of Omaha in the capital contest had been 
manipulated into the glad commissioner for locating the state house on 
Capitol Hill, led all the rest with six of these tokens of appreciation of 
open-mindedness, and Dr. Clark of Dodge and Nuckolls of Cass followed with 
three apiece. The Council Bluffs and Nebraska Ferry company is, however, 
an apparent exception, for its charter runs to Samuel S. Bayliss, Enos 
Lowe, James A. Jackson, Jesse Williams, Samuel M. Ballard, Samuel R. 
Curtis, and their associates. Whether the majority of the members were 
reluctant to add further evidence to their conduct in the capital contest 
of "Jim" Jackson's very practical control over, or his practical 
obligation to them, by being named as co-beneficiaries in their valuable 
gift to his company, or whether that efficient agent of Omaha's interests 
felt, as he no doubt would have been justified in feeling, that he had 
done quite enough for them in the capital enterprise without letting them 
into this one, is not a matter of public record; but either hypothesis 
would serve to explain the singular omission.

   By these charters exclusive right to maintain ferries between the mouth 
of the Platte and a point five miles north of Florence was granted to the 
companies at that place, at Omaha, and at Bellevue. The entire river front 
was parceled out to them. As a further example of the monopolistic 
character of these grants the company at Tekamah had exclusive rights for 
a distance of ten miles.

   Predatory Omaha having left no other hope or consolation to Bellevue 
but in righteousness, her spokesman of the Palladium is re-

Page 194

solved to make the most of it, and the voice he raises for virtue is as 
that of one crying aloud in the wilderness.

   No inconsiderable portion of the present session of our terrtorial 
legislature has been spent in creating corporations. -- This has been done 
notwithstanding the democratic creed denies the doctrine of "chartered 
rights" and "exclusive privileges," and in theory maintains the doctrine 
of equal rights. We say that a large portion of the present session has 
been spent in the creation of paltry corporations, and petty monopolies, 
which enable a few individuals to bar away the public from privileges to 
which they are inherently entitled, and have as good a right to exercise 
(if the doctrine of democracy be true) as those whom the law says shall 
have the exclusive right. The liberality of the legislature has been most 
profuse in granting exclusive privileges to individuals and companies. In 
proof of this look at the single item of "ferries". . . "Paper towns" are 
pretty thickly established up and down the river nearly the whole length 
of the territory . . . Charters have been called for at nearly every place 
. . . Not content, however, with the establishment of a corporation for 
each of the places referred to, we notice one of a broader character 
designed to cover the whole extent of the river from one end of the 
territory to the other, not already covered by other charters. Numerous 
charters have been procured by companies or individuals for ferry 
privileges in different portions of the territory, where there are no 
settlements nor any likelihood of their [there] being any for many years 
to come . . . We presume most of these charters have been procured for no 
other purpose than speculation. A charter when once obtained gives the 
possessor the power of making something off of the public, without having 
made the least expenditure for the benefit of either.

   And then this Isaiah in idealism and Jeremiah in lamentation rebukes 
these monopoly servers with the charge of early recreancy to their 
democratic faith:

   A large majority of the members of the legislature claim to be the 
disciples of democracy, and yet, we have never known an instance where the 
zeal of a whig legislature, led it to bestow charters with that degree of 
liberality which our legislature has manifested in its creations of 
monopolies. We look upon this charter-making spirit as democratic heresy 
of the vilest kind, and more becoming whig faith than democratic practice. 
If whig principles are the best for the practice of democrats, in other 
words, for adoption in practice, we have no objection to them -- providing 
the theory is adopted along with the practice . . . The democratic theory 
says, avoid special legislation -- shun monopolies. The policy of the 
legislature appears to have been to cover as large an amount of both land 
and water with chartered privileges as possible.

   Such are the momentum and inertia of the crowd that the influences of a 
half century may change its course or character but little. Substitute 
republican for whig -- bearing in mind that the republican party succeeded 
to the economic principles or dogmas of the whig party -- and this 
pronouncement of the Palladium would be a typical democratic newspaper 
article for today.

   Part eight consisted of an even score joint resolutions and memorials. 
Congress was memorialized for the right of way and grants of land for the 
construction of the Missouri River & Platte Valley, and the Platte Valley 
& Pacific railroad companies; to establish a safe route for mails and 
other communication between the Missouri river and California and Oregon; 
and the secretary of war was requested to send without delay a sufficient 
military force to afford protection to the frontier settlements from 
Indian depredations. Among the joint resolutions are requests to the 
delegate in Congress to procure a pension for the widow and heirs of 
Governor Burt and means for the erection of a monument to his memory, and 
to procure the passage of a homestead law similar to the laws of Oregon 
and New Mexico; requesting the governor to commission officers to raise 
two or more companies of mounted rangers for the protection of the 
frontier settlements; appointing Sherman & Strickland printers of one 
thousand copies of the laws of the session, and O. D. Richardson and 
Joseph L. Sharp of the council and, A. J. Poppleton and J. D. N. Thompson 
of the house, commissioners "to prepare a code of laws for the government 
of this territory and report the same to the legislature at the next 
session."

   NEBRASKA'S PECULIARITY. Neither the dominant spirit nor the general 
work of this first legislature may be commended or ad-

Page 195

mired. it worked under abnormal conditions and without the restraints of 
organized society. There could be no appeal to public sentiment through 
public discussion -- the present criterion and referee of public 
measures -- because there was as yet no public. When the Israelite 
adventurers determined to appropriate Canaan, Moses sent twelve spies "to 
search the land." Our first handful of pioneers had come the very year of 
the first session to spy out the land while it was still in possession of 
its original occupants. Ten years before, Douglas had served unequivocal 
notice -- in his bill of 1844 -- of the intention of the stronger to "go 
in and possess the land" of the weaker race. This was no new departure, 
but the natural process and the immemorial rule of the progress of 
civilization, and never perhaps pursued by the strong nations of the earth 
with such unanimity and aggressiveness as in the last quarter century. As 
a token of the refinement of civilization nineteen centuries after Christ 
in contrast to the barbarism of fifteen centuries before Christ, unlike 
the Israelitish summary dealing with the Canaanites, our pioneers offered 
the people the grace of peaceful, as the alternative of enforced surrender 
of their homes! But the difference was merely conventional, and there was 
the same notion and spirit of conquest and force in the one case as in the 
other. The chief difference between these beginning years of Nebraska and 
those of the easterly territories was that while, owing chiefly to the 
legal barrier against gradual occupation of this forbidden "Indian
country," our invasion was sudden and comparatively artificial and 
superficial; their settlement was the result of steady purpose, and their 
institutions, accommodating themselves to these conditions, were more the 
product of growth and development. In short the differentiation of 
Nebraska territory was that it did not grow but was made.

   As there was no settled citizenship to consult, many of the legislators 
themselves refraining yet to "declare their intentions" to cast their 
fortunes in this untried and uncertain desert, the first legislative 
session was a game of scramble with "the devil take the hind-most" for its 
guiding rule. As the population of prospectors had brought nothing to 
begin with, their very first acquisition centered in the prospective 
capital -- in the process and methods, as well as the place of fixing it. 
Every other act of the legislature was subordinate and subsidiary to this 
one measure and motive of creating something for a commonwealth composed 
mostly of speculators and largely of carpet-baggers. It does not disturb 
this proposition that such men as Thomas B. Cuming, O. D. Richardson, 
Samuel E. Rogers, A. D. Jones, Andrew J. Poppleton, George L. Miller, A. 
J. Hanscom, and Thomas Davis remained -- and some of them to this day - -
to be capable builders of their city and their state, and to illustrate 
staunch citizenship therein. For if their main object in making Omaha a 
place by placing the capital there had failed, not all of them would have 
remained in Nebraska, and none of them in Omaha, for there would have been 
no Omaha -- at least none worthy to command such capable handiwork as 
theirs. In successfully pressing on to the mark and prize of their 
calling, the leaders of the capital contest exhibited ability and skill of 
no mean order. As for the rest of the work of the legislature, as we 
should expect from such conditions, that which was not merely indifferent 
must be rated as bad.

   The Arrow of Omaha and the Palladium of Bellevue mirror many 
interesting incidents of the first days of civilized and organized 
Nebraska. In its initial number the Arrow instructs those not to the 
manner born as to the pronunciation of Omaha: "As many of our foreign 
friends will be unable to pronounce this word we will from our Indian 
dictionary assist them. The proper pronunciation is O-mah'-haw, accenting 
the middle syllable." Since the editor was a tenant at will of the Omaha 
tribe, and a few weeks later published an admirable description of the 
village of the tribe which was situated about seven miles to the 
southwest, he could speak ex cathedra. But civilized usage has sacrificed 
melody and euphony to convenience by forcing the accent back (or forward?) 
to the first syllable. The same inexorable me-

Page 196

chanical law of civilization has substituted for the beauteous, 
unconventional slopes and freely irregular lines and the groves as nature 
placed them, streets and grades and cuttings and piles of brick and 
mortar, all in hard and fast and stiff rectangular lines; and the groves 
have been wholly sacrificed to the same Moloch. But by the law of 
compensation this is the price of progress.

   October 6th the Arrow notes that in his recent visit to Omaha City the 
commissioner of Indian affairs "found no fault with the settlers for the 
occupancy of the land," and to

[image caption: From a daguerreotype taken in 1852. DR. GEORGE L. MILLER]

invest this official wink with still greater suggestiveness it is further 
stated that "a gentleman who accompanied him here purchased a number of 
lots." The same issue notes "long trains and large herds of stock daily 
arriving at Bluff City and crossing to Omaha on the steam ferry, Marion." 
On October 20th the Arrow announces that at the late session of the Iowa 
conference at Keokuk, a new district, known as the Nebraska and Kansas 
missionary district, was established, at present under Presiding Elder M. 
F. Shinn of Council Bluff City, the stations in Nebraska being Omaha City 
and Old Fort Kearney. This was doubtless the first formal invasion of 
Nebraska by the great pioneer Methodist church. The same paper, on 
November 3d, gave the following interesting statement of the beginning of 
Tekamah: "The Nebraska Stock Company . . . have . . . . upon their claimed 
lands, some fifty-five miles north of this place, . . . laid-off a 
beautiful town or city platt called Tecamah. The county is called Burt,
. . . after our late respected and lamented Governor." The same issue 
argues in favor of holding a mass democratic convention to nominate a 
candidate for delegate to Congress. And notice of the advent of the first 
physician of Omaha is of more than passing interest: "Although but little 
sickness pervades our prairie land we can but congratulate our citizens 
upon the acquisition of a young and apparently well qualified physician to 
our society." The first editor of Nebraska little knew how peremptorily 
the career of Dr. Miller, the first physician of Omaha, was to require a 
slight distortion of the meaning of what he was writing. It was not in the 
professional, but in a much wider sense that Dr. Miller was to become a 
physician to Omaha in her subsequent ills and ailments. On the 10th of 
November the Arrow notes that a new town has been laid off one mile below 
the mouth of the Platte river and lots were to be sold on the 13th. "It is 
at present named Plattsmouth and will doubtless become a place of some 
importance.

   In the same number the editor's quaint fancy runs on an excursion 
against the "newfangled names which these reformers hitch on with a 
flourish to town sites, rivers, etc., throughout the territory." "It is 
not," he protests, "old fogyism to desire a retention of those names in 
our prairie land which have become as familiar as household words to 
pioneer men. Point us out if you can anywhere in the English language any 
names more musical or more appropriate to our territory than those which 
exist amongst the Indian tribes or have been affixed by old frontiersmen." 
And then he cites as examples of his outraged taste the substitution of 
Florence for the good old significant and appropriate name of Winter 
Quarters. "Next comes Bellevue -- a little better it is true -- but 
partaking of the

Page 197

same fanciful air." The name of Otoe, originally selected for the place 
now called Plattsmouth, "was a good one, and far better than the modern 
innovation. Mt. Vernon, the name of the beautiful site at the mouth of the 
Weeping Water, is another bad selection; why not call it after the 
pleasing name of the river?" "And so," he laments, "it is all over the 
territory; city and town sites, rivers, and creeks have with but few 
exceptions undergone an awkward and unbecoming change of names; an 
abandonment of these beautiful and original names which ofttimes lend an 
air of enchantment and pleasure to the place."

   Thus at the beginning this voluntary denizen of the wilderness, 
untutored in the arts, expressed a truth that has rankled in the heart and 
mind of every sensitive citizen of the commonwealth of this day. And so it 
seems that taste, that unappraisable gift of God to His creatures -- some 
of them -- compound of sentiment and judgment, is born and not made. The 
schools may lead it out and rectify its vision, but if it has only being 
in the soul it will see straight and clear to the eternal fitness of 
things. What pity that our poet-editor was not a Poo Bah, with a lord high 
executioner resolute to enforce his decrees against these counterfeiters 
of names! Through our obtuseness or vanity or other infirmity general and 
irreparable violence has been done to the native names of Nebraska. It is 
slight consolation to know that this esthetic rape was not committed 
without protest -- that at the first there was at least one eye to pity 
though there was no arm to save.

   It is not likely that this frontier champion of propriety and esthetic 
sense knew that Washington Irving, high priest of fine taste, at a still 
earlier date lamented the same misfortune:

   And here we can not but pause to lament the stupid, commonplace, and 
often ribald names entailed upon the rivers and other features of the 
great West, by traders and settlers. As the aboriginal tribes of these 
magnificent regions are yet in existence, the Indian names might easily be 
recovered; which, beside being in general more sonorous and musical, would 
remain mementoes of the primitive lords of the soil, of whom in a little 
while scarce any trace will be left. Indeed, it is to be wished that the 
whole of our country could be rescued, as much as possible, from the 
wretched nomenclature inflicted upon it, by ignorant and vulgar minds; and 
this might be done in a great degree, by restoring the Indian names, 
wherever significant and euphonious. As there appears to be a spirit of 
research abroad in respect to our aboriginal antiquities, we would 
suggest, as a worthy object of enterprise, a map or maps, of every part of 
our country, giving the Indian names wherever they could be ascertained. 
Whoever achieves such an object worthily will leave a monument to his own 
reputation.

   The first number of the Palladium, July 15, 1854, states that John F. 
Kinney, who had lately been appointed chief justice of Utah, had given the 
name "Bill Nebraska" to his son, born at Dr. M. H. Clark's hospital, 
Nebraska Center, June 10, 1854 -- "the first white child born in the 
territory since the passage of the bill." Strong faith in the future 
development of the country is a characteristic of pioneers, and may be 
traced, in part at least, to the instinct of duty and necessity. It is 
cherished from the feeling, not always clearly conscious, that requisite 
courage and tenacity of purpose can not be sustained without it. A 
striking example of this kind of faith is found in a "puff" article about 
Nebraska which indulges in the prophecy that the Platte river will after a 
while become navigable. "According to the statement of experienced 
navigators on the upper Missouri the Nebraska [Platte] is now a much 
better stream for navigation than the Missouri was twenty-five years ago." 
This number also gives an account of the first formal celebration of 
Independence Day which took place at Bellevue. The characteristic serious 
religious sentimental temperament of the editor is touched by the scene:

   The assemblage met near the Indian agency, under the broad canopy of 
heaven, and seemed to have hearts as expansive as the great scene of 
nature in which they were situated. If the spirit so beautifully and 
freely manifested on this soul-inspiring occasion, be an index to the 
future character of the vast multitudes who will soon come from the four 
quarters of the earth, to mingle in the pursuits and pleasures of this 
people, then it will be true, as it was remarked by one of the speakers, 
that "this

Page 198

country will be, indeed the 'Eden' of the world."

   The editor himself was president of the celebration. A committee 
consisting of Judge L. B. Kinney, Stephen Decatur, and C. T. Holloway 
presented patriotic resolutions which did not neglect to point out that 
Bellevue was the one and only place for the capital. A very long list of 
toasts which neglected few patriotic topics, and included "the ladies" in 
duplicate, were offered and responded to.

   The issue of August 16th states that "the Presbyterian board of foreign 
missions for the benefit of the Otoe and Omaha Indians was established in 
the fall of 1846," and "the mission buildings were built upon a large 
scale, having every necessary accommodation for one hundred persons." In 
the whole range of their descriptive articles we find these "rough" 
pioneers still harping on esthetic features. And so this mission, we are 
told, "is built upon the brow of an eminence that overlooks the majestic 
Missouri and surrounding country, and upon which nature has lavished her 
charms with unsparing profusion."

   And then, moved to overstrain his eye of faith, the editor sees that 
"Bellevue is destined by nature to become the metropolis of learning as 
well as of legislation and commerce in Nebraska." In eight months after 
these visions of glory had thus strained his aching sight, the confident 
prophet was to abandon the fruitless and hopeless field. Mr. Reed's 
judgment was at fault in that it had failed to apprehend that the period 
of nature made capitals had been superseded by man-made capitals. 
Henceforth railways and not God-chosen sites were to locate the important 
towns, and the destiny of railways is dictated by men. In brief, man was 
not only to propose but also almost absolutely to dispose of townsites. 
When in 1856 two or three railway magnates diverted the Rock Island line 
from the proposed Pigeon Creek route to the Mosquito Creek route Omaha's 
permanency became possible and probable. When, in 1867, the Union Pacific 
bridge was located at Omaha after a fearful struggle between men, Omaha 
was made and Bellevue's last hope was destroyed. Again the editor's vision 
of the coming educational and political capital was quite right in general 
and wrong only in particularizing. When a dozen years later men, violating 
all the old rules of town-making, and turning their backs on every site of 
nature's choice, commanded, "Let there be a capital to be called Lincoln 
at nowhere" -- and there was a capital -- the orthodox editor could not 
have comprehended that his prophecy of a capital though not of his capital 
was true.

   The Palladium of November 29th calls attention to the fact that, "in 
accordance with the custom of our Puritan ancestors" the acting governor 
had designated the 30th of that month as the first Thanksgiving day. The 
editor is a moral exotic, somewhat misplaced in this western desert, and 
fitter for the society of eastern roundhead than of western cavalier. And 
so he moralizes: "Although we have, as in all new countries, comparatively 
little to be thankful for, we have sufficient to inspire our gratitude and 
praise." It is difficult for this severe purist to acknowledge anything 
good in a free lance like Governor Cuming, but he comes to it grudgingly 
and characteristically:

   We have reason to be thankful, that the Governor has thus publicly 
acknowledged the SUPREME RULER, and recommended a day of thanksgiving to 
be observed by the people of this Territory, on the very threshold of 
their territorial existence. We hope this ordinance will be respected and 
perpetuated from year to year, to the latest posterity.

   In the next number the editor tells us that "We were greatly pleased to 
witness the general interest, which this festive occasion seemed to awaken 
among our citizens, and the zeal which they seemed to manifest in the 
exercises that belong to this time-hallowed institution . . . The day was 
calm and lovely, and the earth, though robed in the dark hues of autumn, 
never appeared more beautiful than on this consecrated day." And he goes 
on to say that, "considering the place, a large and respectable audience 
attended public worship held at the mission, at 11 o'clock, A.M. An 
excellent lecture was delivered on the occasion, by the Rev. Wm. Hamilton, 
founded on the following text: 1st Thessalonians, 5th Chapter, 18th Verse: 
'For in

Page 199

everything give thanks, for this is the will of God concerning you.'" A 
remarkably large portion of his available space is given up by this 
devotional editor to an exposition of the traditional, first, secondly, 
and thirdly of the sermon.

   Alas, for the editor! Even the paucity of things temporal for which to 
be thankful, and for which he had murmured, is soon to be further reduced 
by the designation of Omaha as the capital of the territory, thus sweeping 
away his first and last hope of something worth living for, at Bellevue. 
And while these faithful souls were holding their devotional services on 
Thanksgiving day, with an ill-timed trust in the justice and righteousness 
of their capital cause, their Omaha -- or rather Council Bluffs -- rivals, 
true modern hustlers, were trustful, too, but in their own intention to 
command and use whatever means should be necessary to appropriate the 
prize, discarding moralizing, and, it is to be feared, morals as well. 
They were so trustful in their own resources that while their opponents on 
that first Thanksgiving day prayed, and laid down the rules of 
righteousness and justice, they hustled and laid up the walls of the 
capitol, while yet they had no assurance, but self-assurance, of its use.

   Notice that the school attached to the Otoe and Omaha mission is about 
to be transferred to the Iowa and Sac mission, near the northern line of 
Kansas, appears in this issue.

   The same paper, of December 20th, notes that there are in the Quincy 
Colony -- Fontenelle -- "about thirty persons who came on and commenced 
the settlement late in the fall," and several houses had been erected.

   The Palladium of January 10, 1855, explains that "goos-noo-gah" is 
equivalent of Omaha, and means "sliding," "which is a favorite amusement 
with the Omaha youth by whom we are surrounded." The sled was a cake of 
ice about ten inches wide and fifteen inches long rounded off at the ends. 
Sometimes in its rapid descent the brittle vehicle would go to pieces, 
when a catastrophe would happen to the Indian boy passenger as 
precipitate, though not as fatal, as the result of the bucking automobile 
of our day.

   The issue of January 17th describes the great beauties of the site of 
St. Mary, "on the eastern shore of the Missouri river, four miles above 
the mouth of the Platte, and nearly opposite the Council Bluffs agency, 
Belleview, Nebraska territory . . . The town is surrounded with scenery of 
unsurpassed beauty. On the east the green bluffs, rising nearly two 
hundred and fifty feet above the level of the river two miles back, 
stretch along to the north and south until they disappear in the distant 
horizon. On the north the Mosquito creek, skirted with beautiful trees and 
farms, appears at a distance of half a mile. The south presents an open 
view. The bluffs back of the town are covered with beautiful groves of 
elm, oak, hickory, and black walnut." The auxiliary embellishments of this 
picture in unimpaired beauty are still visible from Bellevue, but the 
ambitious townsite itself long since "moved on" and now, no doubt, forms 
an important part of the delta of the Mississippi. St. Mary was the 
eastern terminus of the considerable ferry traffic across the river.

   On the 7th of March there is notice that a postoffice has been 
established at Bellevue with the editor as postmaster. Mails are to arrive 
and depart twice a week; but the postmaster gives warning that "As we are 
not authorized to expend anything beyond the avails of the office for 
carrying the mails, we hope our citizens will come forward and make up the 
deficiency, and thus secure promptness and regularity in the mail 
service." In this number there is a notice of a meeting of the democracy 
of Nebraska to be held at Omaha on the 8th of March "for the purpose of 
effecting the organization of the democratic party." The meeting appears 
to have been held to further the aspirations of B. B. Chapman to become 
delegate to Congress and to discredit the sitting member, Mr. Giddings. No 
actual organization of the party was practicable until 1858, when the 
republican party began to take form, thus influencing the democrats to 
united action.

   In the issue of March 21st the following announcement appears under the 
heading "Bellevue":

   The friends of this place being desirous of

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changing the orthography of its name, so as to correspond with the French, 
from which it is derived, we have concluded to adopt that method of 
spelling.

   Henceforward, the old spelling, "Belleview," is dropped.

   It was the duty of the governor under the organic act, to organize the 
territorial courts, provisionally, this organization to continue until 
superseded by the act of the territorial legislature. Accordingly, by 
Governor Cuming's proclamation, Fenner Ferguson, chief justice of the 
supreme court, was assigned as judge of the first judicial district, which 
comprised the counties of Douglas and Dodge; Edward R. Harden, associate 
justice, was assigned to the second judicial district, embracing all that 
part of the territory lying south of the Platte river; and James Bradley, 
the other associate justice, was assigned to the third district, 
comprising the counties of Burt and Washington. A term of the supreme 
court was to be held at the seat of government beginning on the third 
Monday of February, 1855. The first terms of court in the several 
districts were to be held as follows: First district, at Bellevue, on the 
second Monday in March, 1855; second district, at Nebraska City, on the 
third Monday in March; third district, at Florence, on the first Monday in 
April. Thereafter the times and places of holding the courts were to be 
regulated by the general assembly.

   "Accordingly, on Monday, March 12, 1855, the first court of record ever 
held in the territory, the district court of the first judicial district, 
with jurisdiction practically like our present district court, was opened 
at the mission house, Bellevue, by Fenner Ferguson, chief justice; Eli R. 
Doyle, marshal." The Palladium of March 21, 1855, informs us that "The 
Court was organized by the choice of Silas A. Strickland of Bellevue, 
Clerk. Several foreign born residents made their declaration of intention 
to become citizens. No other business of importance coming up, the Court 
adjourned to April 12." But this was not the first session of a court of 
record in Nebraska. The first session of the supreme court, according to 
the governor's proclamation, met in Omaha on the 19th of February; and the 
Palladium of February 21st tells us that "The first session of the supreme 
court of Nebraska, is now being held at the capitol, Hon. Fenner Ferguson, 
Chief Justice, presiding. The Court convened on Monday, the 19th inst. J. 
Sterling Morton, of Belleview, has been appointed clerk of the court. . ."