History of Nebraska - Chapters 18-19



Page 420

CHAPTER XVIII
TERRITORIAL PRODUCTS

   BOTH Bryant and Parker discerned with prophetic eye the potential 
agricultural riches of the Nebraska country. After passing through 
northeastern Kansas and southeastern Nebraska along the valley of the 
Blue, Bryant remarked that, with the exception of the single objection of 
want of timber, "the country appears to be the most desirable, in an 
agricultural point of view, of any which I have ever seen. It possesses, 
such natural wealth and beauties, that at some future day it will be the 
Eden of America. When that epoch arrives, he who is so fortunate as to be 
then a traveler along this route, may stand upon one of the high 
undulations, and take in at a single glance, a hundred, perhaps a thousand 
villas and cottages, with their stately parks, blooming gardens and 
pleasure grounds; their white walls seen through the embowering foliage, 
and glittering in the sunbeams from every hilltop and slope of these 
magnificent plains." Even the cynically inclined. Kelly's prejudices were 
melted by the charming prospect of the country along the two Blue rivers:

   Knolls of gigantic dimensions, covered with fine timber in young 
foliage, being irregularly scattered over the plain, which was intersected 
with numbers of streamlets, all tributaries of the Little Blue; clumps of 
trees standing here and there in the different angles formed by their 
courses. All it required to complete its pastoral charms being the flocks 
and herds, and the neat but unpretending cottage of the shepherd peeping 
from the shady grove.

   But in the dimmer distance of 1835 Parker was moved to enthusiastic 
prophecy at sight of the fertile land between the Elkhorn and the Platte. 
"This amazing extent of most fertile land will not continue to be the 
wandering ground of a few thousand Indians, with only a very few acres 
under cultivation . . . The herds of buffalo which once fattened upon 
these meadows . . . and the deer which once cropped the grass have 
disappeared; and the antelopes have fled away; and shall solitude reign 
here till the end of time? No. Here shall be heard the din of business, 
and the church-going bell shall sound far and wide." Mr. Parker insists 
that unless the Indians are brought under civilization and Christianity 
they will continue to melt away. He was not sociologist enough to see that 
the contact and competition with the race that should teach them the new 
faith and bestow the new knowledge would hasten rather than prevent their 
extirpation.

   All of the early travelers from the '30s to the '50s speak of the heavy 
rain-storms which they encountered all the way from the Missouri river to 
Fort Kearney. Their reports seem to corroborate the most authentic records 
upon this subject, that there has been no change of climate in regard to 
rainfall since those times.

   Though Father DeSmet's spiritual vision was all pervasive, yet it did 
not interfere with his material insight which was far keener than that of 
his literary contemporaries; for this is the picture he paints of the 
Plains of 1851:

   Between the Nebraska and the Wasecha, or Vermillion, for about four 
hundred miles, the forests are vast and beautiful, often intersected by 
rich prairies of turf and verdure. This contrast delights the traveler. 
Every time he enters the desert he cannot refrain from admiring this 
succession of forests and plains, this series of hills which encircle 
then, and present such a variety of forms -- here and there covered with 
trees and underwood of a thousand kinds, sometimes rising, bold, rugged 
cliffs, to the height of one or two hun-

Page 421

dred feet, and then noble plains, ascending gradually, with scattered 
groves, so pleasing to the sight that Art seems to have crowned the work 
of Nature. We wonder that we do not see farms, barns and fences . . . 
Nature seems to have lavished its gifts on this region; and without being 
a prophet, I can predict a future far unlike the past for this desert . . 
. . These plains, naturally so rich and verdant, seem to invite the 
husbandman to run the furrow, and promise an ample reward to the slightest 
toil. Heavy forests await the woodman -- and rocks the stone-cutter . . . 
Broad farms, with orchards and vineyards and alive with domestic animals 
and poultry, will cover these desert plains, to provide for thickcoming 
cities, which will rise as if by enchantment, with dome and tower, church 
and college, school and house, hospital and asylum. I speak here 
principally of the region from the mouth of the river Kansas to that of 
the Niobrarah or Eau qui coule, and extending beyond the Black Hills, 
continuing along their crest to the Rocky mountains, thence it follows 
southwardly the already existing limits of Utah, New Mexico, and Texas. 
This region contains several large rivers, . . . the principal of which 
are the Platte, the two rivers just named, and the head-waters of the 
Arkansas, Osage, and Red . . . This great territory will hold an immense 
population, destined to form several great and flourishing states.

   It has already been observed that, for reasons pointed out, the social 
beginnings of Nebraska were factitious and not a gradual growth like the 
settlement of the eastward states; and for several years after the 
political organization of the territory the political field was cultivated 
with much greater assiduity than any other. Four years after the 
organization of the territory, we are told,

   Scarcely any produce enough to support themselves. Hundreds of acres of 
land, entered and owned by men who live among us, are allowed to lie idle 
doing no more good to the community than when the land was owned by the 
native savages . . . We have now a home demand larger by far than we can 
possibly supply, with ready sale, good prices, and prompt pay, for 
everything we can produce.

   The further statement is made that the federal government had, during 
that season, shipped vast quantities of farm products from the east 
through Otoe county "to the different military stations west of here."

   In 1858 it was said that the development of farming had taken place 
chiefly in the last year and almost wholly in the last two years. 
"Previous to the last season, farmers, or those disposed to cultivate the 
soil, were engaged, in common with other classes, in speculating, and did 
not consider the tilling of the soil sufficiently remunerative." But "hard 
times came on, speculation ceased, dealing in fancy town shares and 'city' 
property suddenly fell below par to a ruinously poor business, and the 
consequence was that the chief, first, and best employment in Nebraska -- 
agriculture -- was resorted to, with some as a necessity, with others 
because it would pay better than any other kind of business."

   In May, 1859, Pollard & Sheldon, of the Weeping Water Falls flouring 
mill, were delivering sacks of meal at Wyoming for shipment below; and the 
encouraged editor remarks that, "This begins to look like 'living at home 
and boarding at the same place.' Two years ago the citizens of this county 
were dependent upon the supplies furnished us via the Missouri river; but 
now scarcely a boat departs but it is loaded to the guards with the 
surplus produce of the country seeking a market in the south and east." 
The News observes that crops in Nebraska never looked better than at this 
season, and in all probability there would be an immense surplus of corn; 
also that there would be a large surplus of vegetables and all kinds of 
grain except wheat in the territory that fall. The same paper remarks that 
"there have never been injurious frosts here."

   Three years later an important change in the prosecution of the chief, 
or almost sole legitimate industry of Nebraska is, noted:

   Until within the past year we as a territory were non-producers. We 
were not raising our own supplies, and many of our citizens were indebted 
to eastern parties for loans contracted during the period of speculation, 
on which they were paying exorbitant rates of interest; and what little 
money we had in the territory continued steadily to flow to other parts in 
exchange for the necessary articles of consumption. Now behold the change!

Page 422

We are exporting largely of our native products and the surplus so largely 
exceeds our consumption, or imports, that for the first time in four 
years, exchange is in our favor. The supply of exchange on New York and 
the east, together with that made by the shipments of gold dust, is 
continually exceeding the demand, and the result is that in Omaha and 
Nebraska City, the principal places where gold dust is negotiated and 
sold, exchange, though nominally selling at one-half premium, is in 
reality a drug on the market. Money is flowing into the territory from all 
directions.

   Indian corn was established as the principal Nebraska crop long before 
white occupation.

[image caption: LAWSON SHELDON Prominent resident of Cass county]

Coronado found the Indians cultivating this staple cereal in 1541. The 
Rev. Samuel Allis, the missionary, observes that the Pawnee Indians in 
Nebraska, with whom he dwelt in 1835, had a good corn crop, "and as they 
had plenty to eat they enjoyed it hugely." Major Long found the Pawnees in 
their villages about the Loup cultivating corn with success. "Fool Robe, 
their chief, excused himself from feasting us, saying his squaws were all 
absent at the corn fields."

   King corn stimulated the imagination of the earliest settlers; and we 
find a local chronicler, after noting the first load of corn for the 
season for sale on the streets at 85 cents -- "price has usually been 
$2.00" -- exulting in the thought that supremacy in corn had gone 
successively from Ohio, to Indiana, to Illinois, to Missouri and to Iowa, 
and "now NEBRASKA is about to be crowned the conqueror of the conquerors," 
We are told that in 1860 corn, so far, was the staple production, but the 
experience of last season dispelled the illusion that the climate was not 
suited to wheat.

   Coronado in his letter to the king of Spain states that he found in the 
Quivera country "prunes (plums) like those of Spain and nuts and very good 
sweet grapes and mulberries." Wild grapes are mentioned by the earliest 
settlers as growing in the utmost profusion, and their enthusiastic 
expressions about the abundance of this fruit remind one of those of the 
children of Israel who had gone to spy out the unknown Canaan: "Now the 
time was the time of the first ripe grapes . . . and they came unto the 
brook of Eschol and cut down from thence a branch with one cluster of 
grapes and they bare it between two upon a staff."

   The editor of the Arrow possessed to a remarkable degree that quality 
of imagination which underlies appreciation, and the first number of this 
paper tells us that "there is the greatest profusion of wild fruits in the 
territory that we have ever seen in any country," and then, in its own 
spelling, as free from the bonds of conventional usage as the society of 
the plains on which it is encamped, goes on to mention them: "Plums, 
grapes, gooseberries, strawberries, rhaspberries, currents, cherries, haws 
and hackberries. Many other minor varieties may be found in almost every 
locality and exceedingly fine and large."

   The press continues to make frequent mention of the abundance of wild 
fruits, which no doubt were valued as an important part of the food 
supply. As late as August 13, 1859, it was said that "there are quantities 
of wild grapes growing along the bottoms of the Missouri in this vicinity, 
and on the island opposite. Stacks of them are being gathered and pressed 
into wine, jell and a hundred other useful domestic purposes. Large 
quantities

Page 423

are being used at the hotels in drinkables, adding great flavor and 
richness to the liquid. The grape is of a superior quality, surpassing 
everything we have ever seen."

   In 1862 one of these local historians breaks out in an almost 
rapturous, but not overdone description of the richness of the Nemaha 
valleys:

   The Big Muddy across the southwest corner of Nemaha county is also well 
timbered. The forest trees are generally burr oak, walnut, hackberry, ash, 
red and white elm, maple and mulberry. The wild plum -- a rich fruit -- 
grows everywhere in extensive thickets. Wild cherries are interspersed 
throughout all the groves. The woods abound with a sort of grape which has 
been proven by experiment to need but little cultivation to make it a 
useful luxury. Wild gooseberry bushes, bearing a fruit quite as large as 
the garden berry and much more palatable are very plentiful. Raspberries 
fill the underbrush; and in every glade or corner of the prairies, where 
they are protected from the annual fires, strawberries bud, flower, and 
waste their luscious fruit. Game is yet plentiful. Wild turkeys, prairie 
fowl, curlew, geese, ducks, sand hill cranes, pigeons, etc., are found in 
sufficient numbers to reward the chase of the laziest sportsman. Coyotes, 
wolf, catamount, wild cat, badger, otter, musk rat, mink, coon, squirrel, 
rabbit and beaver skins can be had at all times for the labor of shooting 
or trapping. Deer, elk and antelope are still within reasonable range of 
the Missouri river settlements. The buffalo have been driven back from the 
frontier, although a trip of two or three days in the spring or fall to 
the plains beyond the Big Blue will bring the hunter to vast herds of 
them, pursuing their semi-annual migrations. Rattlesnakes, copperheads, 
bull-snakes, gophers and ground-squirrels in great numbers make some of 
the annoyances to which the settler is subjected.

   As we follow the editor of the Arrow, of excellent fancy, to the 
farthest frontier, at Wood River Center, we find him reveling in the same 
appreciation of the horticultural bounties of nature: "Rich, brown 
clusters of grapes -- large, juicy and sweet, tho' in a state of nature. 
Of plums we never saw so large, or quality better, growing wild, and they 
seem to be abundant, we enjoyed them to a 'fullness.'" It is noted in the 
same paragraph that "trees cut by beaver and numerous paths, slides, and 
dams are found along Wood river."

   An item in the Huntsman's Echo is of interest because it advises us of 
the early response of Nebraska soil to the hand of the cultivator and of 
the whereabouts of a pioneer who was afterward to become a prominent 
citizen and governor of the state. The editor reports that he has received 
a present of the largest and finest watermelon of the season from J. E. 
Boyd who has "a most delightful and eligible farm seven miles above -- 
comfortable buildings, several hundred acres fenced and near 200 in crops, 
a pleasant and an agreeable lady and a pretty baby."

   The first legislative committee on territorial library was not lacking 
in imagination, either, judging by its report made through Councilman 
Samuel E. Rogers, on that part of the governor's message which related to 
minerals, thus:

   For heavy forest we do find a complete equivalent in the vast coal beds 
which lie embosomed in our beautiful territory. Enough has been 
ascertained already by the observation and researches of the squatter 
citizen to satisfy the incredulous that we have coal enough for empires 
and to spare. This mineral wealth has presented itself in numerous 
openings throughout the whole extent of the valley of the Nemaha rivers, 
and on either side of the Platte from its mouth to its far distant source. 
There is no portion of our territory yet explored by the settler which 
does not possess ample quarries of choice and durable building rock, from 
many of which samples have been taken admitting a polish approaching that 
of marble. We have also had credible information from residents of Burt 
county that extensive quarries of red marble have been found in that 
county which admits of a beautiful polish. Red sand-stone also exists in 
the same vicinity which is worked from the quarry with great facility, and 
which on coming in contact with the atmosphere becomes so hard as to 
render it an excellent and durable building material. Granite is said to 
exist also in the more northern counties. Trappers of intelligence assert 
that large specimens of almost pure copper ore, easily obtained, may be 
procured some seventy or eighty miles west of the more northern counties
. . . Trappers have brought into settlements from near this vicinity 
specimens of rock-salt in samples sufficiently large, and

Page 424

of quality pure enough to justify the opinion that this great staple may 
yet be mined in ample quantities in our own territory without being 
subjected to freight and charges incurred in carrying this commodity from 
Turk's island.

   This quotation is not from the Arabian Nights but from the journal of 
the first territorial council (p. 60).

   The source of the early lumber supply is pointed out in an item in the 
Nebraska Advertiser of February 26, 1857, which speaks enthusiastically of 
the fact that the sawmill at Brownville had "thawed out" and had begun to 
cut lumber faster than any other mill in Nebraska. The Advertiser advises 
the proprietors -- Noel, Lake, and Emerson -- that they will have to run 
day and night to supply the demand for lumber. Not less than fifty 
buildings were to be erected at Brownville during the ensuing season. The 
Nebraska City News notes that Lowne's shingle factory is turning out 40,
000 excellent cottonwood shingles a week. A great deal of attention was 
given to gold mining by the settlers of present Nebraska during the times 
of feverish excitement over the discoveries of that metal in the 
neighborhood of Denver. The Omaha Republican notes that Kountze Brothers, 
bankers of Omaha, had bought from the gold mines since January 1, 1860, 
gold dust to the amount of $4,850, and to the amount of $19,000 during the 
year.

   The Omaha Nebraskian reports that, notwithstanding the dry season, 
wheat, rye, oats, and barley are abundantly fine and heavy and seem to 
test the capacity of the soil for cereals. The Nebraskian was of the 
opinion that the Wood river country was the best wheat-growing region in 
Nebraska and that that cereal would be a great staple there. The Nebraska 
City News advises farmers to sow large quantities of wheat, as it was the 
best paying crop last season. There was to be a large steam mill built at 
Nebraska City so that farmers would no longer be annoyed and 
inconvenienced in getting their grists ground.

   As early as August 14, 1863, the Nebraskian announces that the crop of 
both winter and spring wheat was very fine that year and strongly urges 
its increased cultivation; that the general cultivation of this cereal 
which has been in actual practice only during the last few years, is a 
recrudescence of this early theory and practice rather than an original 
enterprise. The Omaha Republican announces that Nebraska has become a 
wheat exporting state with St. Louis the principal market. Nebraska wheat 
commanded a higher price by ten cents a bushel in St. Louis than the same 
grain from any other part of the country. The Republican confidently 
prophesies that Nebraska is destined to be a great wheat-growing region; 
and the prophecy seems to be in process of fulfilment at the present time.

   The Nebraska City News copies from the first number of the Democrat of 
Dakota City an account of great crops of corn raised in the past year in 
Dakota, Dixon, and Cedar counties. There were over 200 improved farms in 
Dakota county at that time and 3,000 acres of corn. The yield generally 
ran up to 70, 80, 90, and 100 bushels an acre. For a climax it was noted 
that Alex MacCready -- who afterward became well known as a leader of the 
Greenback party and editor of a greenback newspaper -- raised 140 bushels 
an acre. The chronicler doubtless assumed that due allowance would be made 
for inflation in these figures. Dixon county at that time was raising much 
wheat which was ground at the Ponca mills. The Nebraskian of August 7, 
1863, rejoices that that season was one of great crops all round, 
including winter and spring wheat. Corn averaged from 80 to 100 bushels an 
acre. The faithful chroniclers of the early press show us that there were 
occasional crop failures in those days on account of drouth, just as in 
these later years. For example, the Advertiser of July 12, 1860, notes 
that, owing to drouth the early part of the season, the straw of wheat was 
short, but the head and grain were full, large, and plump. The same paper 
notes that "owing to the extensive drouth the present season crops will 
fall very short of what they would have been ordinarily. Wheat fair, sod 
corn and potatoes a failure, corn well worked, fair." The News of August 
7, 1867, states that there were

Page 425

fine crops of wheat and oats in that county that year-over 10,000 acres of 
wheat with an average of 26 bushels an acre.

   At the time of the organization of the territory there was undoubtedly 
a general impression that those parts west of a distance of forty or fifty 
miles from the Missouri river were not fit for successful cultivation, and 
there was a great deal of skepticism as to whether trees or useful crops 
would grow successfully on the uplands even within the narrow strip in 
question.

   But the Huntsman's Echo of April 25, 1861, overcomes the presumption 
and prophecy of the wiseacres by the results of actual experience when it 
says of the Wood river valley that, "corn, wheat, oats, rye, barley, 
potatoes, and all sorts of vegetables and roots grow to perfection. For 
melons and other vines the fruit is almost spontaneous; we never saw so 
sweet grown." The timber consisted of cottonwood, elm, ash, hackberry, box-
elder, and oak; and eighteen miles below there was a sawmill, lumber being 
$30 per thousand feet. There was a "one horse" grist mill at Wood River 
Center. The vast emigration going up the valley at that time demanded far 
more of the products of the region than the supply, and corn brought from 
$1.25 to $2.50 per bushel; flour, $5 to $7 per hundred; potatoes, $2 per 
bushel; butter, 25 cents a pound, and eggs 25 cents a dozen. "We have 
growing apples, peaches, English gooseberries, currants, raspberries and 
strawberries set out last year. They stood the winter well and look fine." 
In wild fruits there was abunance of the finest of plums, grapes, 
gooseberries, black currants, choke-cherries, and sand-cherries. In every 
issue during the two summers of the life of the Echo the far-seeing editor 
prophesied as to the future agricultural greatness of the Wood river 
valley.

   The hope, courage, and foresight of the leaders of the little band of 
venturesome pioneers soon began to make themselves felt, and we find 
Governor Black in his optimistic "promotion" message of 1859 urging 
settlers to plant trees. The alert George Francis Train emphasizes the 
duty of tree planting in the Omaha Herald, and in the fall of 1867 the 
Nebraska City News and the Omaha Herald give a great deal of attention to 
this important topic. The Nebraska Advertiser, while under the editorial 
guidance of R. W. Furnas, kept the subject of fruit tree and shrubbery 
planting constantly before its readers. The editor of the Herald was so 
thoroughly alive to the importance of tree planting as to abruptly set 
aside his anti-paternalism principles and prejudices while he urged the 
people to petition Governor Saunders to call an extra session of the 
legislature "to lend encouragement to some well digested plan." The editor 
had reasons for thinking that the general government might undertake 
systematic tree planting in the western states. The auspicious beginning 
in the Nebraska sand-hills justifies, though somewhat tardily, the wish, 
the thought, and the guessing of the Herald of nearly forty years ago. 
Citizens of Nebraska of the present day need not be told of the industry 
and eloquence with which J. Sterling Morton, who was to win national fame 
in later years as the author of Arbor Day, and Dr. George L. Miller, 
through the columns of the Omaha Herald, of which he was editor, and by 
his own vigorous example, championed and promoted the cause of tree 
planting in Nebraska. To these prominent pioneers, as well as many not so 
well known, the present commonwealth owes an incalculable debt for 
wonderful results of their courageous faith and foresight in beauty and in 
more material good.

   There was about the same degree of apprehension felt by the early 
pioneers in regard to the invasion of grasshoppers as to the recurrence of 
drouth. The grasshopper scourge, while always menacing and much of the 
time destructive, up to the early '70s, yet proved to be a temporary 
incident of the wildness and uncultivated condition of the Plains. In 1857 
the Advertiser complains that "grasshoppers have been mowing the prairie 
farms for some time." The Huntsman's Echo "regrets to learn that clouds of 
grasshoppers migrating south have for several days been doing considerable 
damage at some of the ranches above." The Omaha Republican of June 16, 
1865, notes the presence of myriads of young grasshoppers in the northern 
counties making

Page 426

sad havoc with the crops. "That region has suffered from this scourge 
several times before, and if the ravages this year are as great as they 
were last it is enough to depopulate the country." In 1866 the Plattsmouth 
Herald states that grasshoppers are making sad havoc of vegetation in Salt 
Creek and Weeping Water regions. The Nebraska City News says: "From almost 
every quarter of the country we hear complaints of the ravages of 
grasshoppers. Fields of corn, wheat, oats, etc., are being swept away in a 
single day. The gardens in the city have suffered terribly from their 
onslaught." By July 1st the News

[image caption: GRASSHOPPER SCENE, PLATTSMOUTH, NEBRASKA, 1874]

breaks out in rejoicing because, "Northward the grasshoppers take their 
course. Not one remains to tell the ravages done by them. The chickens 
since their departure are dying of starvation. They refuse to eat anything 
but fresh grasshoppers." The same paper advises settlers to let the grass 
on the prairies remain until spring and then burn it and 40,000 millions 
of young grasshoppers.

   Prospecting for coal was carried on in the South Platte section in 1867 
with a good deal of hope if not enthusiasm. The Omaha Herald of March 22d 
congratulates J. Sterling Morton on his pluck and perseverance in solving 
the coal question. "A considerable will is already producing coal of as 
pure and unadulterated a quality as Pennsylvania ever placed upon the 
markets of the world." The Home Coal Mining Company of Nebraska City, at 
this time had a shaft down 100 feet on Mr. Morton's farm, and the News of 
March 27th says, "Doubters may sneer, but the result will show that pluck, 
faith, and works are always rewarded with success." Unfortunately these 
optimistic coal miners were counting more upon a very vulnerable, though 
venerable maxim than upon scientific data. The basis of the Herald's hopes 
were "several large blocks" of this coal "brought from Morton's mines." 
The qualities which failed of success in the quest for coal, however, 
achieved it on the same ground by adaptation to nature's intention and 
provision. The News of October 28, 1867, notes that the editor, J. 
Sterling Morton, raised that year fifty bushels of apples on 300 trees. As 
early as September 19, 1861, the Advertiser pins its faith to peaches: 
"They have done well in this section of Nebraska the present season. There 
need no longer be any doubt as to fruit of almost all kinds being raised 
successfully. This is the first season that peach trees have borne to any 
extent, but this year they have 'literally broke down' where they have 
grown on the uplands. The highest and most exposed positions hereabouts 
have produced the most abundant crops." It was nearly for later that 
experiments in peach raising in southern Nebraska were carried on with 
sufficient thoroughness to justify the faith of Mr. Furnas, the editor of 
the Advertiser.

   The production of salt was the object of more faith, hope, and 
enthusiasm than that of coal, and proved equally illusive; though in the 
earlier days, before means of transportation had been established, the 
salt springs near the site of the present city of Lincoln were of great 
practical benefit. They attracted the attention and supplied the wants of 
the earliest settlers, and as late as 1867 probably had more influence in 
establishing the capital of the state in their neighborhood than any other 
legitimate consideration. We find merchants of Nebraska City advertising 
in the News of

Page 427

April 21, 1860, that they had for sale "the best and finest article of 
table salt, gathered from the banks of Salt creek, forty miles directly 
west of this city. Nature is the only evaporator used in the manufacture 
of this salt." The News of April 28th relates that a sample of some thirty 
bushels of the very neatest and best of table salt had been brought for 
its inspection, and it had been "scraped up from the banks of Salt creek 
with a shovel. The probability is that the salt, as well as gold, silver, 
and coal mines of Nebraska are inexhaustible." The News of May 25, 1861, 
notes that a train of three wagons passed through Nebraska City to engage 
in the manufacture of salt at the springs fifty miles west. The same paper 
says that, "A gentleman the other day brought in from Salt creek 1800 
pounds of as fine salt as we have ever seen. It met with ready sale. There 
is a mine of wealth out there." The News of September 14, 1861, reports 
that there are "four salt basins of a thousand acres each -- except one 
small one -- filled with small springs that during the night ooze out 
their briny waters and cover the plateaus with a thick scum of salt. They 
ebb and flow like the tides of the ocean, during the night time covering 
the entire surface to the extent of thousands of acres and to a depth of 
several inches. By nine o'clock of an ordinarily dry day, with sunshine, 
the waters have sunk away, or rather evaporated, leaving a crust of salt. 
There are at present ten furnaces." The Advertiser reports that a number 
of persons from Nemaha county and Atchison county, Missouri, had been out 
to the salt springs in Saline and Lancaster counties manufacturing salt 
for winter use. "They all returned with their wagons filled with the very 
best quality of salt. The salt manufactured at these springs is precisely 
the same as we get in small sacks. called table salt. Hereafter there will 
be but little salt brought up the river for this region of the country." 
The News of June 28, 1862, in a description of Salt creek valley, says 
that along this valley and near some of its tributaries the saline 
deposits and springs are found, the first of them in township 8, and 
thence to township 12 they are of frequent occurrence. The more southerly 
are not of very great value. In township 10 of ranges 6 and 7 are found 
the great springs, the water of which is of sufficient strength and supply 
to make the manufacture profitable. The News of June 7, 1862, notes that 
the surveyor general of Kansas and Nebraska "is about to visit and 
reëxamine the saline lands lying west of this city in Calhoun county."

   By virtue of the act of Congress of March 2, 1867, in that year Prof. 
F. V. Hayden made a geological survey of the state, and in his report to 
the secretary of the interior he stated that there was a great salt basin 
near the town of Lancaster, covering 400 acres, another of 200 acres 
between Oak creek and Salt creek and a third of like extent, called 
Kenosha basin, on the Little Salt, besides numerous small basins on Middle 
creek. The largest spring was on Salt creek, from which four gallons of 
salt water a minute flowed in a single stream out of sand rock. "From June 
to November, 1866, two companies were operating in these basins, producing 
in that time about sixty thousand pounds of salt."

   The News of March 20, 1867, quotes the prediction of the Omaha Herald 
that, "What the Saline springs have been to New York, the Lancaster salt 
springs are certain to be to Nebraska . . . Salt can be manufactured by 
solar evaporation at Lancaster and laid down upon the Union Pacific road 
at a cost of not more than eight cents per bushel. It now brings in this 
market $1.50 per bushel." The Herald of March 22, 1867, insists that, "The 
waters of Lancaster contain more of the great staple than the Syracuse 
water by actual measurement"; and it insists that they can be evaporated 
by the solar method at a cost of eight cents a bushel. A vexatious 
question arose as to whether these salt springs were saline lands under 
the law and so reserved from private sale. The report of the commissioner 
of the general land office for 1861 states that the notes of the deputy 
surveyor in 1857 show that there was a small establishment for boiling the 
water for salt making on section 22, township 10, in that year; and that 
he had "discovered valuable salt springs along the bed of the creek and in 
sections 22,

Page 428

23, 34, and 37." The secretary of the interior had advised him that the 
delegate (presumably the delegate to Congress, Mr. Daily) had informed him 
that there was "good reason to believe that large quantities of saline 
lands have been reported as ordinary lands by fraudulent collusion between 
the surveyors and speculators." On the 12th of September, 1859, John W. 
Prey located military land warrants on 320 acres of these lands, which 
included the best of the springs, in sections 21 and 22, township 10 north 
of range 6 east, and the certificates were issued by Andrew Hopkins, 
register of the land office at Nebraska City. Mr. Prey had obtained these 
warrants from J. S. Morton, who held them as agent for eastern owners. As 
they were worth their face for land entry but were below par in the 
market, there might be mutual advantage in this arrangement. Patents for 
these lands were sent to the land office, but before they were delivered 
the question whether the lands were open to private entry arose, and the 
patents were withheld by the order of the commissioner of the general land 
office. In the following November Prey made warranty deeds of an undivided 
third interest in these lands to Andrew Hopkins, Charles A. Manners, and 
J. Sterling Morton, respectively, the consideration recited in each deed 
being $166. The commissioner of the land office held that these lands were 
reserved as saline lands under the act of July 22, 1854. The enabling act 
of 1864 granted to the state of Nebraska, when it should be admitted into 
the Union, "all salt springs in said state not exceeding twelve in number, 
with six sections of land adjoining, to be selected by the governor within 
one year after the admission of the state." Governor Butler made a 
selection of most of the lands under this act in June, 1867. In his 
message to the legislature which convened January 7, 1869, Governor Butler 
made an enthusiastic statement of his belief in the great commercial value 
of the salt basin and said that for the purpose of promoting the early 
development of the salt industry he had leased one section of the salt 
lands claimed by the state to Anson C. Tichenor, who in turn assigned a 
half interest in the lease to the Nebraska Salt Company of Chicago; but 
this company was neglecting or refusing to develop the industry. On the 
15th of February, 1869, the legislature declared this lease void, and on 
the same date a part of the reserve --the north half, and the north half 
of the south half of section 21, township 10 -- was leased by the governor 
to Anson C. Tichenor and Jesse T. Green for a term of twenty years. For 
the purpose of testing the legal rights of the purchasers of the lands 
under Prey's entry, as against the state and its lessees, on the 24th of 
December, 1870, J. Sterling Morton, with several assistants, including 
Edward P. Roggen, since well known as a politician and secretary of the 
state of Nebraska, took possession of a building upon the leased lands 
which had been erected by the lessees for their use while carrying on the 
work of salt production; but the premises were not occupied at this time. 
Thereupon, under the direction of James E. Philpott, attorney for the 
lessees, Morton and Roggen were arrested on the charge of stealing 
firewood which was piled up at the building they had appropriated to their 
use. The alleged trespassers were brought before John H. Ames, then 
justice of the peace, since then a commissioner of the supreme court of 
Nebraska, and Seth Robinson, attorney-general of the state, appeared to 
prosecute them. On Morton's agreement to desist from any further attempt 
to obtain possession of the disputed lands until the question of title 
should be legally settled, the criminal proceedings were stopped at this 
stage.

   On the 7th of January, 1871, Mr. Morton began an action in the court of 
Lancaster county against the lessees to recover $20,000 damages for 
malicious prosecution and false imprisonment, and the trial resulted in a 
verdict for the plaintiff for the sum of $100, which was paid into court 
for his benefit. On the same day on which this suit was begun Messrs. 
Morton, Manners, and Hopkins brought suit in ejectment against the 
lessees. The case was tried in the district court of Lancaster county and 
was decided in favor of the defendants. On appeal to the supreme court 
Justices Lorenzo Crounse and George B. Lake, affirmed the decision of the 
district court,

Page 429

while Justice Oliver I. Mason dissented in a long and vigorous opinion, in 
which he held that the reservation act of 1854 did not apply to the lands 
in question. The plaintiffs then carried the case to the Supreme Court of 
the United States, where it was contested on their part by such eminent 
counsel as Jeremiah S. Black, Montgomery Blair, J. H. Hopkins and Eleazer 
Wakeley; and by E. Rockwood Hoar for the defendants. Judge Wakeley had 
been Mr. Morton's attorney from the inception of the case. The Supreme 
Court also decided against the plaintiffs, Judge David Davis writing the 
opinion, in which he held that the lands in question had been reserved as 
saline lands by the act of Congress, and that the patents -- or right to 
them -- on which the plaintiffs relied for their title were void from the 
beginning. The opinion recites that, "It appears by the record that on the 
survey of the Nebraska country the salines in question were noted on the 
field books but those notes were not transmitted to the register's general 
plats, and it is argued that the failure to do this gave a right of 
entry." But the court held that the language of the statute was sweeping. 
"The executive officers had no authority to issue a patent for the lands 
in controversy, because they were not subject to entry having been 
previously reserved." It appears that before Prey located these lands with 
his military warrants the President of the United States had offered them 
for sale, and there being no bidders they were thus, so far as this record 
appeared, left open to private filing or entry.

   An article in the Nebraska City News of January 11, 1862 -- A. F. 
Harvey editor of the paper at this time throws light on the political 
contention which arose out of the filing on the lands:

   The meddling propensities of Wm. H. Taylor, member of the legislature, 
candidate for congress, etc., have induced him to attempt to procure the 
cancellation of certain entries of land in Lancaster county, supposed to 
embrace the famous salt springs. The Omaha Republican approvingly pats 
William on the back for sticking his nose into what was none of his 
business, and points a finger, crying "fraud" at Hon. J. Sterling Morton, 
Gov. Black, Andrew Hopkins esq., and the late Gen. Calhoun, because they 
happen to be owners of portions of said lands.

   As for the fraud in the entry of the said lands, neither E. B. Taylor, 
nor the immaculate Wm. H., can truthfully point to any. We have before 
stated, and repeat, at the time the surveys were ordered, the department 
had no information of the supposed existence of salt springs in Nebraska, 
and consequently the surveyors were not instructed. And, at the time the 
surveys were made the country was so flooded with water, that it was 
impossible to define any portion of it as saline lands, and the deputies 
could not carry out even the general instruction of the manual. The 
surveyor general, and the department of the interior never had, and under 
the circumstances, could not have, any official knowledge of the existence 
of the saline lands. When, therefore, after the sales of 1859, the unsold 
lands became subject to private entry, these lands like others, were only 
known as common lands; and if Mr. John W. Prey knew the "numbers" of them, 
and having the means to pay for them, did buy them and "put money in his 
purse" by disposing of them afterwards, he did only what any other man was 
entitled to do; what Wm. H. Taylor might and would also have done had he 
been sharp enough.

   The fact that certain distinguished democrats -- Messrs. Morton, Black, 
and Hopkins -- were the purchasers from Mr. Prey of the most valuable of 
the salt lands seems to be the only reason that Taylor has had, in 
attempting to procure the cancellation of the entries. Envy and jealousy 
are prominent characteristics of the gentleman, and he has taken the 
opportunity to display them in the most paltry form. But that he was 
blinded by these passions he could have let well enough alone, knowing as 
he certainly must, if he has a solitary particle of common sense that the 
springs in the hands of private individuals, who have been preparing to 
invest considerable capital in working them, would be vastly more 
productive and of much larger benefit to the territory than they can be, 
by any possible means, when under the direction of government agents. The 
whole cancelling affair is one outrageous humbug, got up, and carried on 
through spite, and the most infinitesimal meanness.

   In pursuance of "an act to provide for the sale and leasing of the 
Saline lands and the development of the Saline interests of the state of 
Nebraska," passed by the legislature of 1885, a contract was made with M. 
C. Bullock of Chicago, December 22d of that year,

Page 430

for sinking a well to the depth of 2,000 feet for a consideration of $10,
125. The plant was set by April 7, 1886, and actual work was begun on the 
3d of May and continued to the last of August, 1887. At a depth of 600 
feet flowing water was reached, as in the Cahn and Evans well. "This water 
is some different from that obtained at the government square. Both flows 
were found in limestone, the one at the square at 560 feet." The work 
under the first contract ceased at 2,008 feet. "No brine of sufficient 
strength to warrant the manufacture of salt" having been found, a 
supplementary contract was made to go down 400 feet further. The work 
stopped at a depth of 2,463 feet, "without finding any brine or 
indications of salt." The strongest brine was found in a stratum of sand 
and gravel between depths of 195 feet and 205 feet, and it tested thirty-
five degrees. It was the opinion of B. P. Russell, the geologist in charge 
of the work, that the salt springs upon the basin were caused by the 
gradual rising of this water to the surface. At 205 feet the first hard 
rock was found, and the use of the diamond drill began. A pipe or casing, 
nine inches in diameter, was sunk in the first forty-nine feet of the 
boring, and then a seven-inch pipe was inserted in this and sunk below it 
down to the hard rock at 205 feet. From this point to a depth of 365 feet 
a bit cutting a core four inches in diameter was used; then a bit cutting 
a two-inch core was substituted and used to a depth of 1,025 feet, where a 
soft straturn compelled the reaming of this smaller section and the 
sinking of a four-inch casing through the soft material until hard rock 
was again reached at 1,113 feet. The artesian stratum of water at 600 feet 
was a weak brine of twelve to fourteen degrees, another flowing stratum at 
828 feet tested from twenty degrees to twenty-two degrees.

   The geologist in charge was loth to give up the boring; for while it 
had "resulted in no discoveries of economic importance," yet deep boring 
would give us the only information of the lower formations of the state. 
Negative results of the experiment were of no small importance, for "we 
know now that there is nothing thus far to warrant the expenditure of 
money by the state for the development of these salt springs."

   The geologist, however, considered it a question of freight charges 
whether it would pay to manufacture salt from this brine of thirty-five 
degrees; it would pay if a price of $1.50 a barrel could be guaranteed. In 
Michigan it was not profitable to work brine weaker than ninety-five 
degrees, and there the slabs and other refuse of the sawmills furnished 
fuel for boiling without cost.

   While this one-time famous salt basin yielded no important benefits to 
mankind, it unfortunately influenced the commissioners to unwisely plant 
the capital city in a semi-basin in its uncomely and otherwise injurious 
contiguity, from which, year by year, it instinctively shrinks toward the 
sightliness, salubrity, and unsalted water supply of the adjacent but 
originally slighted slopes.

   Corn and cattle, which in later years have come to be the imperial 
products of Nebraska, were here in prehistoric times, but the original 
bovine lords of the plains -- the vast herds of buffalos -- have been 
succeeded by their finely bred cousins with which the farms and ranches, 
into which the plains have been transformed, are now stocked. Buffalos 
were very numerous up to the time of the advent of the Union Pacific 
railway.

   In 1835 Parker found them numerous about the forks of the Platte, but 
in greater number along the north fork. East of the forks he saw very few. 
Parkman in his trip up the Platte in 1846 complains that his party had 
been "four days on the Platte and no buffalo." Captain Bonneville in 1832 
found many at the crossing of the Platte; but at Chimney Rock on the north 
fork Irving tells us that "as far as the eye could reach the country 
seemed actually blackened by innumerable herds." No language, he says, 
could convey an adequate idea of the vast living mass thus presented to 
the eye. He remarked that the cows and bulls generally congregated in 
separate herds.

   In 1846 Bryant found them numerous above the forks of the Platte. "We 
saw large, herds during our march, some of which approached us so nearly 
that there was danger of their mingling with our loose cattle." This 
traveler

Page 431

remarks that hunting these animals is exciting sport, their speed and 
endurance being such that it requires a good horse to overtake them or 
break them down in a fair race, and the skill and practice of a good 
hunter to place the ball in fatal parts. He had known a buffalo to be 
perforated with twenty balls and yet be able to maintain a distance 
between himself and his pursuer. "Experienced hunters aim to shoot them in 
the lungs or the spine. From the skull the ball rebounds, flattened as 
from a rock or a surface of iron and has usually no other effect on the 
animal than to increase his speed. A wound in the spine brings them to the 
ground instantly, and after a wound in the lungs their career is soon 
suspended from difficulty of breathing. They usually sink, rather than 
fall, upon their knees and haunches, and in that position remain until 
they are dead, rarely rolling upon their backs." Mr. Bryant remarks that 
the flesh of the bull is coarse, dry, and tough, but that from a young fat 
heifer or cow -- and many of them were very fat -- "is superior to our 
best beef." "The choice pieces of a fat cow are a strip of flesh along 
each side of the spine from the shoulders to the rump; the tender-loin; 
the liver; the heart; the tongue; the hump-ribs; and an intestinal vessel 
or organ, commonly called by hunters the 'marrow-gut' which anatomically 
speaking, is the chylo-poetic duct."

[image caption: Photo by A. E. Sheldon, November, 1903. BUFFALO BULL, TWO 
YEARS OLD, AND SHORTHORN YEARLING. BUFFALO CALVES, SIX MONTHS OLD
From the Deer Park of John W. Gilbert, near Friend, Nebraska]

   Major Long, on his expedition in 1819, also found buffalos in large 
numbers above the confluence of the forks of the Platte, and at one time, 
"it would be no exaggeration to say that at least ten thousand here burst 
on our sight in an instant." Major Long also found these animals in vast 
numbers, on his return trip, in the neighborhood of the great bend on the 
Arkansas. In the upper Platte country he observes that, "We have 
frequently remarked broad, shallow excavations in the soil of the diameter 
of from five to eight feet, and greatest depth from six to eighteen 
inches. These are of rare occurrence near the Missouri as far as Engineer 
Cantonment and in other districts where the bison is seldom seen at the 
present day." He observes that these "wallows" become more and more 
numerous as he goes west, "offering a considerable impediment to the 
traveler who winds his way amongst them, and are entirely destitute of 
grass, being covered with a deep dust." Major Long was convinced from 
observation that these wallows were made by the bulls dusting themselves 
by means of their fore feet, and that they also served as places for 
rolling and wallowing. Stansbury also found large herds of buffalos west 
of the forks of the Platte. Kelly found these animals in immense numbers 
in the same region. They were so numerous that he was driven to confess 
that the stories he had heard about them in this respect had not been 
exaggerated.

Page 432

   In 1851 Father De Smet found that "the whole space between the Missouri 
and the Yellowstone was covered [with buffalos] as far as the eye could 
reach." He observed that a young Indian lured the cows within easy gun-
shot by imitating the cries of a calf, and he called back the simple 
creatures to their death at pleasure by repeating these cries after he had 
killed part of them. After leaving the valley of the Platte, "a very 
sensible change is perceptible in the productions of the soil; instead of 
the former robust and vigorous vegetation the plains are overgrown with a 
short, crisp grass; however it is very nourishing and eagerly sought by 
the herds of buffalo and countless wild animals that graze on them."

   It is notable that but few antelopes were found on the Nebraska plains 
by these earlier travelers.

   The Omaha Republican -- August 8, 1860 notes that several hunters had 
just returned from Kearney bringing with them sixteen buffalo calves which 
they had captured in that vicinity. At this time there were plenty of 
buffalos to be found between Plum Creek and Lone Tree Station, twenty 
miles below Fort Kearney. A great many were shot by travelers every day 
for mere sport, and the stench from the dead bodies was intolerable.

   The editor of the Huntsman's Echo not only gives us many facts 
illustrative of the kingship of the buffalo in central Nebraska, just 
before the influx of white settlers which followed the building of the 
principal railroads, but he dresses up his information in a quaint style 
and tells his story with a charming naivete. On the 26th of July, 1860, he 
tells us that, "A few miles above, on the Platte and Wood rivers, there 
are numerous herds. Across the river it is said, they are coming over from 
the Republican in innumerable multitudes, and many, famishing for food or 
water -- whilst making for the Platte for a drink, are frightened back by 
emigrants and travelers, yet make immediate efforts to gain the water, but 
are again driven back by the report of fire-arms; and, we are told, many 
thus perish before they reach the water."

   On the 6th of September of the same year, this defiant note resounds 
from the Echo:

   Buffalo are again continually coming about our farm, ranch and office, 
bothering us by eating our vegetables, cropping the grass, bellowing and 
kicking up a dust generally; and not being able to stand it longer we sent 
the boys, and Doc F. out to drive them away; this resulted in prostrating 
the carcasses of two, and as dogs and wolves are scarce we have had to 
breakfast, dine and sup from their flesh since our return. We shan't try 
to stand it, and give timely notice that the echo of fire arms will be a 
common thing in this neck of woods, unless these fearfully frightful 
looking creatures desist from peaking into our office, and dis-composing 
our printer.

   In another item of the same issue it is stated that "at Kearney it 
seems, they almost come into the town. The driver of the 'express' from 
Denver. . . . was compelled to bring his team to a walking pace near 
Kearney because of the buffalo thronging the road."

   All through the growing season, evidently, the buffalo was the 
paramount issue. On the 27th of September the editor continues the story: 
"Our garden of late has not been molested by these burly creatures, and 
well they have kept their distance for we have had our gun greased and 
borrowed our neighbor's dog. There are still great numbers of them across 
the river, and we intend going over in a few days 'to make our winter's 
meat.'"

   Our editor was a clever punster and profusely illustrated his fanciful 
game stories by resorting to that artful trick. On the same date he tells 
us of the abundance of other game in this phrase:

   Last week, upon two occasions, from office, we witnessed the playful 
pranks of several antelope, and again a sprightly red fox came up near the 
enclosure, but cut and run when Towzer came in sight; a nice race they had 
and both made time but reynard the best. A week ago three large white 
wolves hove in sight, and played around on the prairie at a safe 
distance -- the same chaps, probably, that made a tender meal from a good-
sized calf of ours that had been running out. The buffalo have taken our 
caution and for two weeks have not troubled us, or annoyed our printer, 
putting a "period" to the sports of the "chase" in this "section" which 
has no "parallel" for game, giving our "shooting-stick" a little rest and 
saving our "lead" and "caps" for the next "case."



Page 433

CHAPTER XVIX
TERRITORIAL PRESS

   THE territorial press was strongly characterized by ability and 
virility. The manifestation of the latter quality often degenerated into 
excessive roughness and sometimes even boorishness, but this extravagance 
was a natural result of the lack of restraint by the more refined public 
opinion, which is wanting in new and unorganized societies. In the year 
following the organization of the territory, J. Sterling Morton began to 
impress his strong personality and remarkably aggressive temperament upon 
the News of Nebraska City, and during a period of about forty years that 
journal bore the marks of his incisive style, though he was either actual 
or nominal editor during only a part of that time. In 1865 Dr. George L. 
Miller began to play a no less conspicuous part in the journalism of the 
territory through the columns of the Omaha Herald, of which he was editor 
for twenty-two years. Less conspicuous but yet remarkable for ability and 
aggressive individuality were Edward D. Webster, Edward B. Taylor, John 
Taffe, and Saint A. D. Balcombe, who were from time to time editors of the 
Omaha Republican from 1859 on beyond the territorial period. Robert W. 
Furnas, editor of the Nebraska Advertiser at Brownville from 1856 to 1861, 
was an industrious purveyor of territorial news, and next to the Nebraska 
City News, the Advertiser exercised the greatest political influence of 
any newspaper in the South Platte section. Orsamus H. Irish exerted a 
large measure of leadership in the republican party through his 
intermittent connection with the People's Press of Nebraska City from 1858 
to 1866. Milton W. Reynolds and Augustus F. Harvey ably edited the 
Nebraska City News during a period of about four years each under the 
territorial government, and Bird B. Chapman, John H. Sherman, Theodore H. 
Robertson, Merrill H. Clark, and Milton W. Reynolds successively made the 
Omaha Nebraskian one of the most aggressive and wide-awake journals of the 
territorial times.

   The Nebraska Palladium was the first newspaper published for Nebraska, 
as also the first

[image caption: JOSEPH E. JOHNSON First Omaha editor, Arrow, 1854]

published in Nebraska. Its first edition was printed at St. Mary, Iowa, 
nearly opposite Bellevue, on Saturday, July 15, 1854, though the name 
"Belleview" appeared in the date line and it was published as a Nebraska 
paper. The issue of November 15, 1854, was printed at

Page 434

Bellevue and its publication was continued at that place until its 
suspension with the issue of April 11, 1855. During its entire career the 
name of Daniel E. Reed & Co. appeared as editors and publishers. Thomas 
Morton set the first type for the Palladium printed at Bellevue, and 
therefore the first type ever set for a newspaper or any other purpose in 
Nebraska. The first column, second page, of the first number printed in 
Nebraska contained a full account of that very interesting incident.

   The next item in the paper is an excuse for delay in the issue that 
week, which was owing to the removal from St. Mary, and the editor 
announces that on this account he will skip the next week's issue. While 
the date on the title page is November 15th, that at the head of the 
editorial column is Saturday, November 18th, which is probably the day 
when the paper was actually printed. Another item announces the arrival at 
Bellevue, on the 13th of November, of "J. S. Morton, assistant editor of 
the Detroit Free Press, and lady."

   It is supposed that the Palladium was named after the well-known 
journal of Worcester, Mass. The editor, Mr. Reed, was employed in the 
office of the Worcester Palladium as printer's. devil; and in the third 
item of the first issue of the Nebraska namesake, in a plea to the 
governor to speedily appoint a Thanksgiving day, he says: "We were born 
and educated in New England, and we love our institutions, among which, is 
that of appointing an annual THANKSGIVING DAY." Mr. Reed came to Bellevue 
to teach in the school of the Indian agency. He seems to have been 
possessed by the New England or Puritan temperament and conservatism to 
such a degree as to prevent his adaptation to his new western frontier 
environment and its society of hustlers. He preached excellent moral 
precepts in season and out of season, but, considering the character of 
the field he was cultivating, he overworked them. Notwithstanding that 
during the five months of the Palladium's existence, the editor recorded 
in it many facts and ideas directly appertaining to the beginning of 
Nebraska, yet it is to be regretted that his somewhat excessive and morbid 
moralizing doubtless displaced many a precious item of information which 
would otherwise have been preserved. Bellevue's loss of the capital, which 
blasted the hopes of the ambitious and promising first town of the 
commonwealth, discouraged the publishers of the first paper and 
overstrained the moral confidence, and apparently broke the heart as well 
as the purse of the introspective editor. In the issue of April 11, 1855, 
he makes the following announcement:

   We have against our own desire, and that of many ardent friends, made 
up our mind to suspend the issue of the PALLADIUM until a sufficient 
amount of town pride springs up in Bellevue to pay the expense of its 
publication. The expenses of issuing a paper are such that a large amount 
of advertising patronage is required for its support; and as there has not 
been, and is not now, sufficient inducements of this kind, we shall wait 
until there is, or until some others are held forth. We hope that time 
will soon appear. We have been assured by members of the Territorial 
Council, that it was the design to give us the printing of one journal of 
that body, and that it would have done it, had we not have advocated the 
local politics and sectional interests of this place, with as much warmth 
as we felt it our duty to do in behalf of the capitalists and politicians 
of this place. The PEOPLE too, had the rights of enfranchisement to be 
contended for. We breasted the surging billows of political strife in 
behalf of these, and they have done what they could to sustain us, and 
they have our thanks.

   The Bellevue Association has given us twenty-four bundles of printing 
paper for which we have sacrificed pecuniary interests far more valuable 
to us -- and which they are either unable, or unwilling to make good. This 
company now oppose us, because we refuse to descend low enough in their 
service to oppose other interests in this place, as valuable and as 
righteous as their own. When they make good what we have lost in their 
behalf, it will be time enough to ask us to do more.

   We are in hopes to be able to re-issue the PALLADIUM in due time, under 
better auspices than it has hitherto been. In the interim we intend to 
make the necessary preparation for this purpose.

   But that more convenient season, when the journalistic 
conscientiousness so much affected by our editor should have chance for 
play, never came. The editor's successors long since learned that 
journalism is primarily a

Page 435

private enterprise, like any other commercial business, and primarily 
governed or enchained by commercial ethics.

   The second newspaper published for, though not in, Nebraska was the 
Omaha Arrow. The first number of this paper was dated July 28, 1854, and 
Joseph E. Johnson and John W. Pattison were its editors and proprietors. 
Between this time and December 29, 1854, the date of the last number, the 
Arrow was issued somewhat irregularly thirteen times, and all the issues 
were published at Council Bluffs. This Johnson was certainly the most 
versatile and ubiquitous, and probably the most unique figure in the 
history of Nebraska journalism. He was a Mormon and probably settled at 
Kanesville -- now Council Bluffs -- for that reason in 1852, where he 
bought the Bugle of A. W. Babbitt, who established it in 1850. The Arrow 
was printed in the office of the Bugle.

   The bubbling poesy of the salutatory all but drowns its practical 
purpose.

   Well, strangers, friends, patrons, and the good people generally, 
wherever in the wide world your lot may be cast, and in whatever clime 
this Arrow may reach you, here we are upon Nebraska soil, seated upon the 
stump of an acient oak, which serves for an editorial chair, and the top 
of our badly abused beaver for a table, we purpose enditing a leader for 
the OMAHA ARROW. An elevated tableland surrounds us; the majestic Missouri 
just off on our left goes sweeping its muddy course adown toward the 
Mexican Gulf, whilst the background of the pleasing picture is filled up 
with Iowa's loveliest, richest scenery. Away upon our left spreading far 
away in the distance lies one of the loveliest sections of Nebraska. Yon 
rich, rolling, wide spread and beautiful prairie dotted with timber looks 
lovely enough just now, as heaven's free sunlight touches off in beauty 
the lights and shades to be literally entitled the Eden land of the world, 
and inspire us with flights of fancy upon this antiquated beaver, but it 
won't pay. There sticks our axe in the trunk of an old oak whose branches 
have for years been fanned by the breezes that constantly sweeps from over 
the ofttimes flower dotted prairie lea, and from which we purpose making a 
log for our cabin and claim.

   Yonder comes two stalwart sons of the forest bedecked in their native 
finery. They approach and stand before us in our "sanctum." That dancing 
feather which adorns his head once decked the gaudy plumage of the 
mountain eagle. The shades of the rainbow appear on their faces. They 
extend the hand of friendship with the emphatic "cuggy how" (how are you 
friend) and knowing our business request us by signs and gesticulations to 
"write" in the Arrow to the great Father that the Omahas want what he has 
promised them, and they ask us also to write no bad about them. We promise 
compliance, whilst they watch the progress of our pencil back and forth 
over the paper. But let us proceed. What shall we say. But little.

[image caption: ORSAMUS H. IRISH Omaha Indian agent and prominent Nebraska 
citizen of early days]

   The ARROW'S target will be the general interest and welfare of this 
highly favored, new and beautiful Territory upon which we have now for the 
first established a regular weekly paper. Our caste is decidedly "Young 
American" in spirit and politics. We are in favor of anything that runs by 
steam or electricity, and the unflinching advocates of the "sovereigns of 
the soil."

   The pioneering squatter and the uncivilized red man are our 
constituents and neighbors. The wolves and deers our traveling companions, 
and the wild birds and prairie winds our musicians-more highly appreciated 
than all the carefully prepared concerts of earth. Surrounded by 
associations, circumstances, and scenes like these, what do you expect 
from us,

Page 436

anxious reader. Don't be disappointed if you do not always get that which 
is intelligible and polished from our pens, (we mean those of the East and 
South, the pioneers understand our dialect.) Take therefore what you get 
with a kindly heart and no grumbling. In the support of the national 
Democratic party, the advocacy of the Pacific R. R. up the only feasible 
route -- the Platte Valley -- the progress of Nebraska, and the interests 
of the people amongst whom we live, always count the ARROW flying, hitting 
and cutting.

   We'll shoulder our axe and bid you adieu until next week.

   The article in the next column entitled "A Night in our Sanctum" is 
worth quoting as an example of the fertile fancy and imagination of the 
first Omaha editor.

   The Arrow's valedictory illustrates both the vicissitudes of early 
territorial journalism and the characteristic quaintness of the editor's 
style:


GOOD MORNING
   Well friends, it has been some time since we last met, but here we are 
again.
   Providence, and THE BAD STATE OF NAVIGATION OF THE MISSOURI RIVER has 
played smash with our calculations and we have not been able to "come up 
to time" in the issue of the arrow, but expect before long to make it 
permanent at Omaha, or piece [place] it in hands that will do you justice 
and honor to themselves. In the meantime we send you the "Bugle" in its 
place which contains every thing of stirring interest in Nebraska. -- Each 
subscriber will receive his just and true number of papers and in the end, 
will lose nothing.
   We are sorry for this unavoidable state of things. We had press and 
material purchased but on the account of the exhorbitant rates of freight 
were detained below.

   John W. Pattison, who afterward became prominent in Nebraska journalism 
and politics, was associated with Mr. Johnson in the editorship of the 
Arrow. He was a bright young man, and probably as an inference from that 
fact many old settlers of that time believe that the articles of striking 
originality which appeared in the Arrow were from his pen. But added to 
the testimony of others we have evidence in the pages of the Huntsman's 
Echo, which Mr. Johnson published at Wood River Center, in 1860, that he 
was the author of the articles in question. The style of writing in the 
Echo is unmistakably the same as that of the peculiar articles in the 
Arrow. The ready imagination, the lively sensibility to the salient 
features of the writer's environment, the happy conceits and the quaint 
simplicity of style which are illustrated in the effusions of this 
untutored product of the plains would be remarkable as specialties in the 
most pretentious periodical of today. Even the workaday incidents of his 
bucolic life, which he enjoyed with a relish as if he and his rural world 
were designed especially for each other, he pictured in his naive fancy. 
This is the way he records the coming, of the very materialistic telegraph 
line:

WHOOP! HURRA!
   The poles -- wire -- the telegraph -- the lightning! The first are up, 
the second stretched, the third playing upon the line between St. Jo. and 
Omaha; and the people of Omaha are exulting in the enjoyment of direct 
communication with the balance of the earth, and the rest of mankind. 
Dispatches from everywhere generally, and any place in particular, may be 
had by calling at the office.
   The poles are already planted nearly half way to this place, and in two 
weeks it is expected that all the poles will be up as far as Kearney, 
seventeen miles above here, and the laying of the wire soon commenced. And 
soon --
   Thoughts that breathe and words that burn, will glide along the wires 
with lightning rapidity.
   Yesterday Messrs. Kountze and Porter called upon us whilst on their 
trip providing for the distribution of the balance of the poles along the 
route. Come on with your forked lightning! Strike for the Great Western 
ocean, the land of gold and glittering stones and ore.

   The prosy slaughter of a prosier buffalo strikes his poetic vein:

FATAL CASUALTY
   It will be recollected, that in our last, we gave out certain cautions, 
and warnings, against a large class of intruders upon personal property -- 
viz: the tresspassing of herds of buffalo upon our town site, and arable 
lands. Unfortunately for the party concerned, no heed was given to our 
ominous warnings, and the result has been, the fall of another aboriginal 
bovine -- that fell a victim of

Page 437

curiosity. Walking leisurely to a point near our office he seemed to sniff 
an idea -- perhaps a good one -- or perhaps he took one peep for the 
skeleton of one of his kine, and thus in a reflective, designing or 
calculating mood he stopped, and from under his long shaggy lashes gazed 
toward us -- stamped our ground, pawed up dust and earth, and then, after 
snuffing the breeze towered his head in a threatening mood; we could not 
stand it longer, but started Sam, who intercepted his progress before he 
had done much damage to our garden, and hanging away

   The well-aimed lead pursues the certain sight;
   And Death in thunder overtook his flight.

   The flesh being secured, our t'other half, little ones, self and the 
balance, have been regaling upon roast, broil, fry and stew, ever since.

   This master of a delightfully natural style was, contrary to the old 
maxim, jack of all trades. In advertisements in the Emigrant's Guide, 
published at Kanesville, December 15, 1852, the versatile editor appears 
as "general outfitting commission merchant"; as keeper of "Council Bluffs 
Mansion"; as carrying on "wagonmaking and blacksmithing"; as keeper of a 
"cabinet shop"; and of a "bakery, confectionery and eating saloon." In the 
same paper he joins two others in certifying as an expert that the north 
route to California up the Platte river is best. When he became tired of 
Wood River Center, Mr. Johnson followed the tide of his Mormon brethren to 
Salt Lake City.

   While the Palladium and the Arrow were shortlived, the News of Nebraska 
City, though it was subsequently started, is the oldest paper in Nebraska 
at the present time, and was the first that had any considerable length of 
life. It was first printed in Sidney, Iowa, in the fall of 1854, though 
with the name Nebraska News, and Dr. Henry Bradford was its first editor. 
It was moved to Nebraska City, November 14, 1854, and occupied the second 
story of the blockhouse of old Fort Kearney, which was built in 1846. The 
12th of the following April J. Sterling Morton was employed at a salary of 
$50 per month as editor by its proprietors, the Nebraska City Town Site 
Company, and Thomas Morton became foreman or head of the mechanical 
department. Soon after he became the owner, and he continued as part or 
sole owner and publisher until his death, August 10, 1887. J. Sterling 
Morton was editor from April 12, 1855, to April 13, 1856; R. Lee Barrowman 
from April 13 to August 15, 1856, and then Morton again to August 26, 
1857; then Milton W. Reynolds to October 19, 1861; then Augustus F. Harvey 
to August 25, 1865; then Morton to and through 1868. R. Lee Barrowman 
became a part owner with Thomas Morton and was editor for a short time.

   By virtue of its location in the largest town in the territory and the 
ability and political prominence and activity of J. Sterling Morton, its 
editor, the News was the leading journal of the territory until the Herald 
and Republican outstripped it when Omaha, through the stimulus of the 
Union Pacific railroad, became the business metropolis. Its name was 
changed from the Nebraska News to the Nebraska City News, May 15, 1858.

   In the great fire of May 12, 1860, the News office was totally 
destroyed, and the Mortons bought of Jacob Dawson the printing plant of 
the Wyoming Telescope, and also the material of a large printing office at 
Otoe City, eight miles south of Nebraska City, on the Missouri river.

   The Nebraska City News, now in its sixty-third year, is published by 
the News Publishing Company, with Charles M. Hubner as editor, E. D. 
Marnell. associate and city editor, and Otoe C. Morton, son of the late 
Thomas Morton, business manager.

   The People's Press was started as a weekly November 25, 1858, by C. W. 
Sherfey. Within a few weeks the office was sold to Orsamus H. Irish and L. 
L. Survey, but the latter retired soon after and Mr. Irish continued as 
editor and proprietor, while the publishers were Irish and Matthias. 
January 2, 1860, this partnership was dissolved, Colonel Irish continuing 
the publication, which was made a semi-weekly and so continued until May 
following when Mr. Matthias became editor. May 12, 1860, the Press office 
was destroyed in the big fire, and the paper was issued temporarily from 
the office of the

Page 438

Wyoming Telescope. Colonel Irish then bought a press from Dr. G. C. Monell 
of Omaha, and took it to Nebraska City. This press was afterward taken to 
Lincoln, and on it was printed the first number of the Commonwealth.

   In June, 1860, Colonel Irish sold the paper to Alfred Matthias and 
Joseph E. La Master, and in 1861 William H. H. Waters and Royal Buck 
bought it. Under the management of Buck and Waters the name was changed to 
Press and Herald. Mr. Buck withdrew in 1862, and Herald was dropped from 
the name. January 31, 1860, the Press was changed to a semi-weekly, and 
the office boasted a power press with a capacity of 800 to 1,000 
impressions an hour. In 1863 the publication of the Daily Press was begun, 
but it was a financial failure, and soon a semiweekly was issued instead. 
During the winter of 1864-1865 Dwight J. McCann and others bought the 
plant and organized the Press Printing Company. In 1865 William H. Miller 
took charge of the paper as editor and publisher for the company, and 
conducted it until October, 1866, when it again passed into the hands of 
Colonel Irish. In the winter of 1866-1867 the name was changed to Nebraska 
City Press. In August, 1868, Colonel Irish sold an interest to S. B. Price 
and William H. Miller, and in the November following Colonel Irish 
withdrew, and Thomas McCullough became a partner, under the name of Price, 
Miller & Co. In June, 1869, McCullough withdrew, followed by Price in 
October. Mr. Miller continued the paper until the summer of 1870, when it 
was temporarily suspended, for financial reasons. In the spring of 1872 
its publication was resumed by John Roberts and John Reed. The latter 
failed in business in 1873, and Roberts sold his interest to William A. 
Brown, who had bought the Chronicle from W. H. H. Waters on May 1, 1872. 
Mr. Brown consolidated both papers in 1874 under the name of Press and 
Chronicle. Later the paper was again changed to the Press, and the 
publisher, William A. Brown, was soon succeeded by William A. Brown & 
Sons, and the firm became Brown Bros. April 1, 1881. The Chronicle had 
been established by W. H. H. Waters as a morning daily in 1868, and aft a 
spirited contest with three other dailies was left the sole occupant of 
the field in 1870. The material used in the publication of the Chronicle 
was sold to James Thorne and by him taken to Laramie, Wyoming, where it 
was disposed of in 1876.

   The Wyoming (Otoe county) Telescope was established by Jacob Dawson in 
October, 1856. Later, S. N. Jackson became associated with him, and the 
firm continued as Dawson & Jackson until the latter's withdrawal, July 30, 
1859. In his valedictory Mr. Jackson says: "No time, since the first 
settlement of this Territory, have the different presses had more trouble 
to keep up than for the last year, as may be seen from the fact that out 
of fourteen different papers in the territory, only seven are now in 
existence, and we doubt if many pay their way. Of these there are two 
north of the Platte, and five south." Later H. A. Houston appears as 
publisher of the Telescope, with Jacob Dawson, editor. The entire 
equipment of the Telescope office was sold to the Nebraska City News in 
the summer of 1860.

   In April, 1861, Dr. Fred. Renner, a pioneer republican and an 
abolitionist, began the publication of the Nebraska Deutsche Zeitung, "in 
the interest of the threatened Union cause, and for the promotion of 
immigration." In 1867 the name was changed to Staats Zeitung. In November, 
1868, Mr, John A. Henzel became part owner, the style of the firm being 
Henzel & Renner, with Dr. Renner as editor. In 1871 Mr. Henzel withdrew, 
and Dr. Renner removed a part of the office to Lincoln, where he published 
the Staats Zeitung for two years In 1873 he returned to Nebraska City with 
his printing material and resumed the publication of the Zeitting, which 
he continued until 1876. The Zeitung had a large circulation, at least 100 
copies going to Germany, and it is largely due to its influence that large 
a number of substantial Germans settled in southeastern Nebraska. In July, 
1879, W. A. Brown & Sons of the Daily Press commenced the publication of 
another German paper which they called the Staats Zeitung, and two years 
later sold the office to Young

Page 439

& Beutler. While Charles Young has been employed in the government 
printing office at Washington for a number of years, Mr. Jacob Beutler, 
assisted by his brother Christian, is still conducting the publication at 
Nebraska City as an "Independent" in politics.

   In the year of 1859 O. G. Nickerson of New York started a small paper 
in Otoe City, now Minersville, bringing the material from New York. This 
paper was called the Spirit of the West. It only continued a few weeks, 
when the material was sold to the News and removed to Nebraska City.

   The first number of the Omaha Nebraskian, the democratic organ of the 
capital city and the first newspaper actually published there, was issued 
January 17, 1855. Bird B. Chapman, the second delegate to Congress from 
the territory, was the principal founder and brought the printing material 
used in its publication from Ohio. The Nebraska Palladium of January 17, 
1855, states that the Nebraskian is to be started that day by "the 
partially defunct combination established in Ohio some months since to 
govern Nebraska and take her spoils," meaning Bird B. Chapman, the second 
delegate to Congress from the territory, and his political coterie. John 
H. Sherman, J. B. Strickland, and A. W. Babbitt were all connected with 
the Nebraskian, August 29, 1855. John H. Sherman was the first editor of 
the Nebraskian and was succeeded by G. W. Hepburn, May 21, 1856, who was 
followed by Theodore H. Robertson in 1857. Merrill H. Clark and Milton W. 
Reynolds were editors from 1859 to 1863, and Alfred H. Jackson from that 
time until June 15, 1865, when the paper was discontinued and the Herald 
took its place as the democratic organ, The Nebraskian was first published 
as a daily in September, 1860, but suspended two months later after "a 
pecuniary loss to ourselves of two hundred dollars."

   The Nebraska News of April 9, 1859, notes the recent consolidation of 
the Nebraskian and the Times on the 29th of March of that year under the 
management of Messrs. Clark & Robertson. Mr. Merrill H. Clark "is a young 
gentleman just from northern Michigan, of considerable means." Robertson 
sold his entire interest in the paper in February, 1861, to Mr. Clark. The 
Nebraskian of December 18, 1863, contains a statement that Merrill H. 
Clark and Milton W. Reynolds have sold out the daily and weekly to Alfred 
H. Jackson of Dakota City, and that Mr. Clark* had been connected with the 
paper for five years and Mr. Reynolds had been in the newspaper business 
in Nebraska for six years. After Mr. Jackson assumed control of the 
Nebraskian it became negative and halting. In one issue two literally 
heavy editorials were printed side by side, one under the ponderous 
caption, "The Rebellion -- shall it be suppressed?" and the other headed, 
"The negro -- What is to be his destiny?" The editorial leader of February 
26, 1864, about the necessity of restoring the Union under the 
constitution, occupied five columns in minion type. This, doubtless, had 
an important connection with the final suspension of the paper the 
following October.

   The first number of the Omaha City Times was issued June 11, 1857, by 
William W. Wyman. A few months later the word "City" was dropped from the 
name. About six months after the Times was started George W. Hepburn 
became editor and proprietor and James Stewart associate editor, but this 
arrangement lasted only a few months, when Mr. Wyman again became its 
publisher, September 9, 1858, John W. Pattison and William W. Wyman 
editors. Mr. Pattison was one of the editors of the Arrow, the first Omaha 
paper. The Times was established to oppose the political faction led by 
Bird B. Chapman, but his defeat by Judge Fenner Ferguson as a candidate 
for the office of delegate to Congress in 1857 and the subsequent bitter 
but unsuccessful contest for the seat by Mr. Chapman in the House of 
Representatives undermined his political footing in the territory, and in 
1859 the Times and the Nebraskian, Mr. Chapman's former organ, were 
consolidated. While the Times was not wanting in ability, it lacked the 
aggressivness but also the scurrility of its principal contemporaries, and 
its columns were usually distinguished by dignity and decorum.

   A month before he began to publish the Times, Mr. Wyman had been 
removed from

Page 440

the office of postmaster at Omaha by the Chapman influence, and Theodore 
H. Robertson, editor of the Nebraskian, was appointed in his place; but 
early in July Mr. Wyman was reinstated. Though he specifically stated in 
the initial number of the Times that its politics was to be democratic and 
of the Buchanan brand, yet this statement was no doubt partly perfunctory 
and strategic; and no doubt, like many other democrats of that time, his 
sympathy already leaned away from the strong pro-slavery attitude of the 
Buchanan faction of the Democratic party, and this inclination soon led 
him, with countless other democrats, across the republican line. And so in 
this postoffice controversy the discomfited editor of the Nebraskian 
attacked Mr. Wyman as a "black republican in whose veins not a single drop 
of democratic blood ever coursed, and whose whole life has been devoted to 
the service of our enemies." That the delegate to Congress was not able to 
control the appointment of the postmaster of his home city to the extent 
of displacing an alleged party recreant makes the weakness of his own 
influence so prominent as to obscure the charge against the incumbent 
which, if true, should have been quite sufficient in that heyday of the 
spoils system.

   The daily Telegraph was established at Omaha by Major Henry Z. Curtis. 
Its first appearance was on the morning of December 11, 1860, from the 
office of the Nebraskian. Major Curtis was both publisher and editor, but 
associated with him was W. H. Kinsman as assistant. The Telegraph was 
first published as a single page paper of eight columns, largely devoted 
to advertising. It was later increased in size to a folio, and on November 
9th published the first telegraphic news given to the public in Nebraska 
territory. Although a circulation of 500 copies was claimed, the paper did 
not pay, and was reduced in size June 11, 1861, and August 10th following, 
Major Curtis disposed of the paper to Merrill H. Clark of the Nebraskian. 
The type on this paper was set by the late Charles S. Goodrich and Charles 
W. Sherman, the latter now a resident of Dairy, Oregon.

   Republican party sentiment became appreciable in Nebraska in 1858, and 
in that year the first steps were taken toward formal party organization, 
and a party organ was established for the first time in the two leading 
towns -- Nebraska City and Omaha.

   The Nebraska Republican was first issued May 5, 1858, as a weekly by 
Edward F. Schneider and Harrison J. Brown. It was published on Thursdays, 
and was distinctively republican in politics. It was bought by Dr. Gilbert 
C. Monell during the same year, and he sold it to Edward D. Webster who 
assumed control August 15, 1859, and changed the name to the Omaha 
Republican. Webster was a protege` of Thurlow Weed, and a politician of 
considerable ability. He subsequently became secretary to William H. 
Seward, secretary of state. September 26, 1861, Mr. Webster sold the paper 
to Edward B. Taylor, then register of the land office at Omaha, and his 
brother-in-law, Ezkiel A. McClure, both of whom had come from Ohio. Soon 
after the paper was reduced in size to a folio of twenty columns, and 
published tri-weekly; in May, 1863, it was enlarged one column to the 
page, and after Thursday, January 7, 1864, was published daily, except 
Monday. The triweekly was discontinued January 28, 1864, and the issue 
limited to a regular daily and weekly. October 13, 1865, Edward B. Taylor 
and John Taffe, as editors, gave way to General Harry H. Heath, who 
supported the policy of President Andrew Johnson. The firm name of the 
publishers was changed from Taylor & McClure to Heath, Taylor & Company, 
which continued until February, 1866, when Heath retired, and the name of 
the paper was changed to Omaha Daily Republican. April 13, 1866, Major St. 
A. D. Balcombe bought a half interest in the Republican and became 
business manager. The new firm name was Taylor, McClure & Balcombe. In 
July, 1866, the style of the firm was again changed to Balcombe & Company, 
and the issue of July 20, 1866, announced that Mr. Taylor had sold his 
interest to St. A. D. Balcombe, who thenceforth was editor, publisher, and 
sole proprietor. From April 9, 1867, the Republican was issued as a 
morning paper. In May, 1869, Edward B. Taylor became associate editor, and

Page 441

remained practically in charge of the editorial department until he was 
succeeded by John Teasdale, July 10, 1870. January 21, 1871, Major 
Balcombe sold a half interest in the Republican to Waldo M. Potter, who 
succeeded Teasdale as editor-in-chief. Teasdale had won his spurs as 
editor of the Ohio State Journal in 1843, and had established the Iowa 
State Register at Des Moines in 1858. He was elected state printer of Iowa 
and was postmaster at Des Moines. In 1871 the Republican and the Tribune, 
which had been established a year before on account of the senatorial 
contest between Thayer and Saunders "and succeeded in killing them both," 
were consolidated under the name of Tribune and Republican. Mr. Potter was 
succeeded as editor by Charles B. Thomas, formerly editor of the Tribune, 
while Balcombe became business manager, this arrangement taking effect 
June 11, 1871. In January, 1873, Tribune was dropped from the name. John 
Taffe succeeded Mr. Thomas as editor in July, 1873, and was followed by 
George W. Frost, who later gave place to Chauncey Wiltse. In May, 1875, a 
stock company was organized, which took over the Republican, and St. A. D. 
Balcombe was succeeded, August 18th, by Ben H. Barrows who had served as 
consul to Dublin. Casper E. Yost became business manager, Isaac W. Miner 
secretary, and September 28th of that year John Taffe became editor. He 
was succeeded May 18, 1876, by D. C. Brooks as managing editor, with 
Alfred Sorenson as city editor, assisted by Frederick Nye. In 1881 the 
paper was bought by Yost and Nye, who in turn sold their interest in the 
fall of 1886 to Sterling P. Rounds, Sr., late public printer at 
Washington, and Cadet Taylor for a consideration of $105,000. Rounds and 
Taylor organized a stock company, with S. P. Rounds, president, Cadet 
Taylor, treasurer, and O. H. Rothacker as editor. December 15, 1888, Mr. 
Yost was appointed as receiver of the business in the interests of the 
stockholders. Early in 1889 Frederick Nye and Frank B. Johnson obtained 
control of the Republican, and the following October it was sold to Major 
Jeremiah C. Wilcox, of the Evening Dispatch, the job department being 
retained by Nye & Johnson. But Mr. Wilcox saw and acknowledged that the 
culmination of the struggle for the survival of the fittest was at hand, 
and he suspended publication of the daily Republican, July 29, 1890, but 
continued to publish the weekly until the growing strength of the Bee 
during the latter years of the life of the Republican clearly indicated 
that one or the other of these journals must succumb, as there was not 
room for two organs of the same party in their field. They naturally 
became differentiated, the Republican following in the old course of the 
thick-and-thin party organ and corporation apologist, while the shrewder 
manager of the Bee saw and assiduously cultivated the now far more 
promising independent and anti-corporation field, While there were able 
men, of whom Mr. Yost was conspicuous, among the changing managers of the 
Republican in its declining years, yet the Bee had the great advantage of 
a continuous manager of remarkable tenacity of purpose and journalistic 
ability in the person of its founder, Edward Rosewater. The first home of 
the Republican was on the third floor of the Pioneer block, where it 
remained until its removal into a brick building on the corner of 
Thirteenth and Douglas streets in the latter part of November, 1876, the 
building being the same one which had been the home of the Herald in its 
early years. February 18, 1867, the Republican announced that it had that 
day connected its caloric engine with its presses -- "the first and only 
office in Nebraska where presses were run other than by hand." This 
acquisition was for some time the subject of very frequent self-
felicitation by the Republican and of just as frequent sarcastic gibes by 
the unappreciative and irreverent Herald.

   In the latter part of 1858 Hadley D. Johnson began the publication of 
the Nebraska Democrat at Omaha, but he discontinued it after a short time.

   The Florence Courier was first issued in December, 1856. James C. 
Mitchell, notorious as capital commissioner of the first territorial 
legislature, was publisher and L. H. Lathrop editor. John M. Mentzer was 
for a time editor of the Courier. Recognizing that

Page 442

Florence had lost all chances of becoming the capital of the territory, 
the Courier switched its hope to the favorable crossing at that place for 
the coming railroads, and its optimistic motto was: "We would rather be in 
the right place on 'Rock Bottom' than have the capital of the territory." 
But Florence, like Bellevue, was to learn in the dear school of experience 
that under the new railway dispensation capitals and crossings were to be 
made by men, with little regard for the preparation of Mother Nature. 
Florence still has her rock bottom, but Omaha, without that firm 
foundation, has the great railroad crossing, and by a like manipulation 
the capital was carried to an unprepared and most unlikely spot in the 
interior wilderness. Another paper known as Rock Bottom is said to have 
been published at Florence as early as 1854 by W. C. Jones. It was printed 
at Council Bluffs, Iowa.

   The Nebraska Daily Statesman first appeared at Omaha, Sunday morning, 
July 17, 1864, as a democratic paper, W. H. Jones and Henry L. Harvey 
publishers; but only a few numbers were ever issued. The professed object 
of the publishers was threefold: First, "the procuring of bread and butter 
for their wives and babies, the ultimate provision for a . . . daily and 
financial independence"; second, "to furnish the people with an expositor 
of democratic truth"; third, "to sustain the Union, the constitution and 
the laws."

   An effort was made by the Harvey brothers to revive the Statesman at 
Nebraska City in the spring of 1866, but it proved but little more 
successful than the former attempt at Omaha.

   The Republican of August 7, 1867, notes that "Augustus F. Harvey will 
soon begin the publication of the Nebraska Statesman, the good-will of 
which has been purchased. It will sustain the action of the 
administration."

   The Statesman was revived at Lincoln the first week of July, 1868, with 
Augustus F. Harvey as editor and Henry L. Harvey as publisher. During the 
Civil war Mr. Harvey had been characterized by his new party companions as 
a consummate copperhead; but the war was over, and in the business of 
moving the capital and surveying and manipulating its new site, in which 
Mr. Harvey took an active part, party animosities were easily forgotten in 
the common cause of prospective profit. Still, the partnership could not 
be lasting, and its incongruity foretold the short life of the Statesman. 
In January, 1870, Augustus F. Harvey went to St. Louis to engage in the 
life insurance business, which he followed at that place until his death. 
In the early part of March, 1871, the Statesman was published as a daily, 
its primary object being to oppose the impeachment of Governor Butler. 
About June 1, 1873, it was merged into the State Register, with N. W. 
Smails as editor.

   The Omaha Daily Herald was established by Dr. George L. Miller and 
Daniel W. Carpenter, under the firm name of Miller & Carpenter, and its 
first issue was dated October 2, 1865. The Herald was at first a six-
column folio, and was published in a building at the corner of Thirteenth 
and Douglas streets. it started out with only fifty-three actual 
subscribers, and the office was equipped with a small hand press and a few 
cases of type. Lyman Richardson and John S. Briggs succeeded Miller & 
Carpenter as proprietors August 5, 1868, but Dr. Miller still continued as 
editor; and February 11, 1869, he bought the interest of Mr. Briggs, the 
style of the firm being changed to Miller & Richardson, which continued 
until March, 1888. One of the last editors of the old Herald was Frank 
Morrissey, a native of Iowa of Irish descent, who died in Omaha a few 
years ago. He had been associate editor and became editor when the paper 
was sold to John A. McShane in 1888. He was succeeded by Edward L. Merritt 
as editor, and it was published for one year by McShane, and then passed 
into the control of R. A. Craig. In March, 1889, the Herald was bought by 
Gilbert M. Hitchcock, who, associated with Frank J. Burkley, Alfred 
Millard, William F. Gurley, and W. V. Rooker, began the publication of the 
Evening World in August, 1885. Mr. Hitchcock was editor-in-chief, Mr. 
Burkley business manager, and Mr. Rooker managing editor. After the 
consolidation of the Evening World and the Herald under the name of the 
World-Herald, Mr. Hitchcock continued as editor and principal owner, with 
Mr. Burkley as busi-

Page 443

ness manager. Mr. Hitchcock is still (1917) owner and editor of the World-
Herald, which ever since the consolidation has been the leading democratic 
paper of Nebraska.

   The first number of the Nebraska Advertiser was issued at Brownville 
June 7, 1856, and, though Dr. John McPherson of that place furnished the 
press and other printing material, the paper was published by Robert W. 
Furnas. Dr. McPherson had come to Brownville in the fall of 1855, and with 
the purpose of establishing a newspaper there he removed the material from 
Tippecanoe, Ohio. Robert W. Furnas, editor, and John L. Colhapp and 
Chester S. Langdon, printers, arrived at Brownville with the outfit April 
9, 1856. An item in the first number of the paper complains that its issue 
had been delayed by the detention of a part of the press "an unreasonable 
length of time between Cincinnati and this point." Dr. McPherson sold to 
Robert W. Furnas a half interest in the proposed paper for Brownville 
townsite lots on condition that Mr. Furnas should publish it weekly at 
least one year, and soon after Dr. McPherson gave the other half interest 
in the Advertiser to Mr. Furnas, stipulating that it should be non-
partisan and independent. This stipulation was carried out with as much 
consistency as is usually observed by professedly independent journals, 
that is, it afforded the editor a better opportunity to regard personal 
and local interests than if it had been restrained by the bonds of party 
loyalty. For example, in 1860 while the democratic party was dominant in 
the country, the Advertiser could warmly advocate the nomination of 
Douglas, its great western leader, for president, and at the same time 
support Daily, the republican candidate for delegate to Congress. By 
virtue of its democratic environment the Advertiser was democratic until 
the democratic party went to pieces and Abraham Lincoln was nominated for 
president, in 1860, when it became a republican organ and remained so for 
several years. October 29, 1857, Chester S. Langdon, "who has been foreman 
of our office since its commencement," became associated with Mr. Furnas 
in the publication of the Advertiser for the reason that the attention 
which the latter had given "to both the mechanical and editorial 
departments" had overtaxed his time and talents. This partnership was 
dissolved April 30, 1858, Mr. Furnas becoming again sole publisher and 
editor. L. E. Lyanna was a co-publisher with Mr. Furnas from November 24, 
1859, to November 28, 1861, when the Advertiser and the Union, which had 
been started at Aspinwall by Dr. Andrew S. Holladay and John H. Maun, in 
May, 1861, were consolidated and Thomas R. Fisher added to the partnership 
of Furnas & Lyanna, May 8, 1862, Mr. Fisher formed a partnership with T. 
C. Hacker, and they became publishers of the Advertiser, Furnas & Fisher 
remaining owners. Fisher was now editor in place of Furnas, who, was in 
the federal army. This arrangement continued until December 6, 1862, when 
Mr. Fisher became sole publisher and editor, and July 16, 1863, the names 
of Furnas & Fisher as proprietors were dropped from the paper. In the fall 
of 1863 John L. Colhapp became co-publisher and co-editor with Fisher, and 
they were succeeded by William H. Miller, September 8, 1864. December 22, 
1864, George W. Hill & Company became publishers and John L. Colhapp 
editor. July 18, 1867, Robert V. Muir became a member of the firm, but Mr. 
Colhapp continued to be editor. November 17 of the same year Jarvis S. 
Church bought the interest of Hill and Muir, and the firm name of the 
publishers became Church & Colhapp. January 23, 1868, T. C. Hacker became 
junior partner in the firm and business manager. January 6, 1870, the 
original publisher, Robert W. Furnas, bought out Church, and the firm 
became Furnas, Colhapp & Company, Mr. Furnas being editor. January 5, 
1871, Church and Hacker became the publishers, Mr. Furnas retiring from 
the paper, and in July of the same year Church sold his interest to Major 
Caffrey, and the firm became Caffrey & Hacker. January 22, 1874, Major 
Caffrey sold out to George W. Fairbrother, and the firm of Fairbrother & 
Hacker continued until December, 1881, when Fairbrother became sole 
proprietor. In March, 1882, the material was removed to Calvert, now 
Auburn, where the paper continued to be published by G. W. Fairbrother & 
Company.

Page 444

   During the campaign of 1870 the Advertiser was published daily for a 
few months.

   The Nebraska Advertiser, which is still published at Nemaha, Nemaha 
county, having passed the half century mark, is said to be the oldest 
continuous publication in Nebraska, an honor which would belong to the 
Nebraska City News but for a slight break in 1870 when the News, for a 
time, lost its identity in the Times. The News, however, has been 
published in one place, while the Advertiser has had a migratory 
existence, but always within Nemaha county. The present publisher and 
editor is W. W. Sanders.

   The Nemaha Valley Journal was first issued at Nemaha City in the last 
week of November, 1857, by Seymour Belden as editor and publisher. It was 
democratic in politics. It was removed from Nemaha City to Brownville in 
1859, but did not long survive. The material was purchased by the 
publishers of the Advertiser, and the office again removed to Nemaha City. 
Another attempt to publish the Nemaha Valley Journal was made in 
Brownville by Hill and Blackburn in 1867, but at the end of four months 
the material was removed to Falls City. In April, 1869, W. S. Blackburn 
sold a half interest in the Journal to W. S. Stretch, who became the sole 
owner the following fall. In March, 1870, E. R. Cunningham purchased an 
interest in the paper and became its editor until the spring of 1871. In 
June, 1872, the Journal was sold to Weaver and Fulton, but a month later 
Mr. Stretch resumed control, and in September, 1874, it was sold to Rich 
and Hamlin, and was consolidated with the Globe in 1875.

   The Aspinwall Journal, of which Dr. Andrew S. Holladay and John H. Maun 
were publishers, was removed to Brownville in 1861, and its publication 
continued for a few months under the name of the Journal, when the 
establishment passed into the hands of the publishers of the Advertiser, 
and the material was sold and taken to Illinois.

   In September, 1860, a four-column daily paper entitled the Bulletin was 
issued from the Advertiser office, but proving unprofitable it was 
suspended in January, 1861.

   In 1857 Chester S. Langdon and Goff commenced the publication of the 
daily Snort, which was short-lived.

   The first agricultural journal in Nebraska was issued as the Nebraska 
Farmer, by Robert W. Furnas, in January, 1860, and it was published about 
three years.

   Governor Furnas discontinued the Nebraska Farmer after 1861, or at 
least published it only intermittently after that date, and finally 
disposed of the publication to J. C. McBride of Lincoln, who in turn sold 
it to O. M. Druse. In 1886 Harvey E. Heath purchased the entire plant and 
soon after changed it to a semimonthly, and in 1888 to a weekly. In 1898 
the Nebraska Farmer was moved to Omaha and consolidated with the Western 
Stockman and Cultivator. H. F. McIntosh was made editor with a one-third 
interest in the paper. In 1902 the Nebraska Farmer Co. was incorporated 
with a capital stock of $30,000 fully paid up. About this time George W. 
Hervey became associate editor, and the following year editor-in-chief, 
continuing in this position until July 31, 1905.

   George W. Fairbrother and Theodore C. Hacker began the publication of 
the Nebraska Herald at Nemaha City, November 24, 1859, with the former as 
editor, later assisted by Reuel Noyes. It was a republican paper, and was 
continued about two years, and called itself "the only republican paper in 
Nemaha county."

   In May, 1861, the Union was started at Aspinwall by Dr. Andrew S. 
Holladay and John H. Maun, but the office was removed to Brownville after 
the first issue, and the paper was absorbed by the Advertiser.

   In 1857 Martin Stowell, who had been sent to Kansas as an agent of the 
free state party, went to Peru, Nebraska, and started a small monthly 
paper. The paper was printed abroad and had no local circulation or 
support. No copies of it have been found of late years, and its name even 
has been forgotten.

   The Peru Times was published by the same man in 1860, as a campaign 
paper, but nothing further is known of it.

   A few years later an effort was made to publish at Peru a monthly known 
as the Or-

Page 445

chardist, in the interest of horticulturists and fruit growers, but only a 
few numbers were issued. In 1866 a campaign paper, printed in Brownville 
with a Peru date line, was issued for two months, but no regular newspaper 
succeeded in establishing a permanent home in Peru during the territorial 
period.

   The first paper in Richardson county, the Rulo Western Guide, was owned 
by the Rulo Town and Ferry Company, and edited by Abel D. Kirk and F. M. 
Barrett. It first appeared in May, 1858, and exactly one year later was 
purchased by Kirk and Chas. A. Hergesheimer. The latter had served as a 
"devil" on the paper from the date of its first issue. It was suspended 
about the beginning of the Civil war, but was resurrected in 1864, as the 
Nebraska Register, and continued until 1869, when it was sold to H. A. 
Buell, who disposed of it to Samuel Brooks. He continued it for two years, 
then removed it to Salem, where it was soon after discontinued.

   The Broad Axe of Falls City, owned by Major J. Edward Burbank and 
edited by Sewall R. Jamison, made its first appearance in November, 1858. 
This was the successor of a paper of the same name which bad been 
published at Richmond, Indiana, three years before, by the same men. Its 
motto was "Hew to the line, let the chips fall where they may" -- "There 
is a divinity which shapes our ends, rough hew them as we will." Jamison 
was succeeded in November, 1860, by J. D. Irwin of Ohio, and in the summer 
of 1861 Mr. Burbalik retired. The Broad Axe passed into the hands of a 
firm known as L. B. Prouty & Company, and was by them sold to J. J. 
Marvin, who changed the name to Southern Nebraskian. The Broad Axe was 
resurrected in July, 1862, by the Falls City Broad Axe Company. The paper 
was next bought by the town lot company of Arago, and published by N. O. 
Pierce. About this time the plant was used by Mr. Saxe in issuing a paper 
printed in both German and English. Among other publishers following in 
rapid succession were C. L. Mather, G. A. Hill, E. L. Martin, Mettz & 
Sanderson, and H. A. Buell. Mettz & Sanderson bought the English type of 
the town lot company in 1871. This material was sold to V. M. Barrett, who 
removed it to Falls City, where it was used in publishing the Times. After 
a brief existence this paper was sold to Scott & Webster, who finally sold 
their material to Ed. W. Howe, of the Little Globe.

   The Little Globe was established in 1873 by Ed. W. Howe, now publisher 
of the Atchison (Kansas) Globe. The following appeared in the prospectus: 
"Little, but O Lord! Prospectus of the Globe (the Little) a journal of the 
third class, to be published every Saturday, at Falls City, Neb. The 
Little Globe will be intensely local and as independent as a hog on ice
. . . We hope to bless this town." This announcement was signed "The 
meekest of men, Ed. W. Howe." After about a year the Little Globe was 
discontinued, but appeared again in August, 1875, with the same motto, and 
a short time later was consolidated with the Nemaha Valley Journal under 
the title of the Globe Journal.

   The first paper in Plattsmouth, the Plattsmouth Jeffersonian, appeared 
early in 1857, published by L. D. Jeffries, assisted by J. D. Ingalls, to 
whom Jeffries later sold his interest. Turner M. Marquett was for a time 
its editor. The paper was soon discontinued.

   In 1857 Charles W. Sherfey started the Platte Valley Times at 
Plattsmouth, bringing the press from Burlington, Iowa. This paper was 
published for a short time, and then sold to Alfred H. Townsend who 
removed it to Pacific City, Iowa. Sherfey went to Nebraska City, where he 
later established the People's Press. In the latter part of 1858 Alfred H. 
Townsend removed the material with which he had been publishing the Platte 
Valley Times at Pacific City, Iowa, to Plattsmouth, where he published it 
under the name of the Platte Valley Herald until March, 1862, when he 
removed the plant to Central City, Colorado.

   The Platte Valley Times was established at Bellevue, August 1, 1862, by 
Charles N. Sturgress. The name of Henry T. Clarke appeared as editor. It 
was democratic in politics and known to have been published as late as 
October 27, 1864.

   Elijah Giles established the Cass County

Page 446

Sentinel at Rock Bluffs City at the end of October, 1857. It was removed 
to Plattsmouth in the spring of 1859, where Giles issued it for a few 
months, and then sold the plant to Joseph I. Early, who started the 
Democratic Times, which had a short life. The Sentinel was still being 
published as late as January, 1863.

   In February, 1865, Hiram D. Hathaway issued the first number of the 
Nebraska Herald at Plattsmouth, which he published until March, 1872. He 
then became associated with the Nebraska State Journal at Lincoln, and 
sold the Herald to John A. McMurphy, who published it for several years as 
a republican paper. In 1871, under the management of Hathaway, the 
Nebraska Herald was issued as a daily.

   The first number now to be found of the DeSoto Pilot bears date of July 
11, 1857, vol. 1, no. 12. John E. Parish was then editor and proprietor, 
and by September 12th of the same year he had been succeeded by Zaremba 
Jackson.

   The Nebraska Pioneer was published at Cuming City, and no. 25, vol. 1, 
appears under date of December 24, 1857, with Lewis M. Kline as editor and 
publisher.

   The Cuming City Star, vol. 1, no. 14, appears June 19, 1858, with 
Albert W. Merrick, publisher, and H. Nell Maguire, editor.

   The Washington County Sun, published at De Soto, was begun in 1858 by 
Potter C. Sullivan.

   The Nebraska Enquirer, DeSoto, vol. 1, no. 5, under date of August 18, 
1859, had for editors and proprietors Albert W. Merrick and R. Winegar. In 
September Mr. Winegar's name was dropped, and Merrick appeared as editor 
and proprietor until succeeded by Hugh McNeely, April 26, 1860. A. W. 
Merrick again assumed control of the paper in the spring of 1861.

   The Pioneer and Star were published at Cuming City and the Enquirer and 
Pilot at DeSoto. Both towns were in Washington county. The Pioneer, Star, 
and Pilot were democratic. The Enquirer supported the republican ticket. 
Mr. Kline, editor of the Enquirer, was also a lawyer and mayor of Cuming 
City. Among the advertisements in the paper in 1857 were those of Thomas 
B. Cuming and John C. Turk, and of Root (Allen) & Cozad, lawyers and real 
estate agents at Omaha. It is stated in the issue of December 24, 1857, 
that thus far the winter had been very mild. There had been very little 
frost or snow and even the little creeks were not frozen. In the Enquirer 
in 1859 are advertisements of Thomas P. Kennard, lawyer at De Soto; Joseph 
W. Paddock, dealer in boots and shoes at Omaha; Abram Castetter, real 
estate and collection agent, De Soto; and W. N. Byers & Company announce 
that they will publish the weekly Rocky Mountain News, on or about the 1st 
of April, from some point in or near the mining (Pike's Peak) region. 
Advertisements of the leading magazines were commonly published in these 
frontier journals, and as neither the ten-cent monthlies nor any prototype 
of them had yet appeared, the taste for heavy reading was apparently more 
common then than now. The publishers of the Atlantic Monthly announce in 
the Enquirer that they "have commenced the pub