Kearney, Nebraska

“ Nebraska probably owes as much to her as to any one person for the present high plane art has attained within its borders. The four cities in which she has resided, Hastings, Grand Island, Kearney and Omaha, have felt her vivifying influence and breathe a more elevated atmosphere of art. She is the mother of one child, a daughter. ”

“ But the herds which lived east of the Mississippi were comparatively only mere stragglers from the innumerable mass which covered the great western pasture region from the Mississippi to the Rocky Mountains, and from the Rio Grande to Great Slave Lake. The town of Kearney, in south central Nebraska, may fairly be considered the geographical center of distribution of the species, as it originally existed, but ever since 1800, and until a few years ago, the center of population has been in the Black Hills of southwestern Dakota. ”

“ She resigned her position in the Buffalo high school on account of temporary failure of health. When restored physically, she entered the lecture-field, where she funds useful and congenial employment. Her present home is in Kearney, Neb., where she is active in every good word and work. Her decided individuality has made her a potent force in whatever sphere she has entered. She now holds the responsible position of State superintendent of scientific temperance instruction in public schools and colleges for Nebraska. Her duty is to energize the teaching of the State schools on that line. ”

“ I left southwest Missouri late in October, 1872, accompanied by my sister, and journeyed by team via Topeka, Kansas, to Nebraska. We spent our first night in Nebraska at Fairbury, November 8, 1872. Trains on the St. Joe and Grand Island railroad had just reached that point.
After visiting a few days with the Carney families near Fairmont we took the train for Plum Creek (now Lexington) and reached Kearney at 10 o'clock P. M. All rooms being occupied we sat in the office of the hotel till morning. None of the Union Pacific trains stopped at that place except to take mail. ”

“ Until well into the sixties freighting across the plains was a great business. The “Oregon Trail,” the “Old California Trail,” and the “Old Salt Lake Trail”—all nearly identical in Nebraska—ran along the Platte across the entire state with various terminal branches near the eastern border, to the Missouri river towns; while branches from St Joseph, Missouri and Leavenworth, Kansas, ran up the valleys of the Big Blue and Little Blue rivers and joined the Nebraska roads near Ft. Kearney. The Oregon and California migration was of large magnitude by 1846. ”

“ I have heard the members say that they received more real good from those union services than they ever did when each denomination had a church of its own. The Episcopalians in the community were the most enterprising for they built the first church, a little brick building that seated one hundred people. It was very plainly furnished, but it cost fifteen hundred dollars, due to the fact that the brick was brought from Kearney and freight rates were high. It stood on the site of the present modern building and was built in 1874. ”

“ The city is situated in the broad, flat bottom-lands a short distance N. of the Platte River. Lake Kearney, in the city, has an area of 40 acres. The surrounding region is rich farming land, devoted especially to the growing of alfalfa and Indian corn. At Kearney are a State Industrial School for boys, a State Normal School, the Kearney Military Academy, and a Carnegie library. Good water-power is provided by a canal from the Platte River about 17 m. above Kearney, and the city’s manufactures include foundry and machine-shop products, flour and bricks. ”

“ The Platte or Nebraska R., and well-known affluent of the Missouri R. Her description is similar to Frémont's, in his first exploration of ten years earlier.—Frémont. Report. Washington, 1845, p. 16.
[44] Fort Kearny, Nebraska, named after Col. Stephen W. Kearny who, in 1845, conducted the first military expedition through the West, from Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, to the South Pass of the Rocky Mountains. It was at first named Fort Childs, in honor of Gen. Thomas Childs, of the Mexican War. The post was abandoned permanently in 1871. ”

“ Though such little jarring passages as those we have recorded were nothing uncommon between these two young men, they were very good friends on the whole, the very dissimilarity that provoked their squabbles saving them from any more serious rivalry. In reality, no two people could be less alike: Kearney being a slow, plodding, self-satisfied, dull man, of very ordinary faculties; while the other was an indolent, discursive, sharp-witted fellow, mastering whatever he addressed himself to with ease, but so enamoured of novelty that he rarely went beyond a smattering of anything. ”

“ Annie tried hard not to be depressed by the treeless stretches of the Nebraska plains.
“This is different from Illinois,” she ventured once, gently; “it is even different from Iowa.”
“Yes, yes,” cried Jim, enthusiastically, “it is different! It is the finest country in the world! You never feel shut in. You can always see off. I feel at home after I get in Nebraska. I'd choke back where you live, with all those little gullies and the trees everywhere. It's a mystery to me how farmers have patience to work there.” ”

“ Like all the streams we have noticed in Nebraska it is very crooked, yet we do not wonder that the water does not know where to run, there is no "up or down" to this country; it is all just over to us ”

“ The population of the township was nearly three thousand. At Sidney, which is a military post, I stopped at the Railroad Hotel. Sheep-farming is a leading industry of Sidney and its vicinity. My last stopping-place in Nebraska was at Evans Ranche, Antelope, a small village on the Elk Horn River.
Crossing the boundary into Wyoming Territory and reaching Cheyenne, I made my entrance into this most interesting region—a great plateau of nearly 100,000 square miles, its lowest level 3,543 feet, its highest altitude more than 13,000 feet above the sea. ”

“ In 1859 a stage line was put on between Omaha and Fort Kearny. No one can tell with what thankfulness and rejoicing each and every improvement in the condition and surroundings was greeted by the settlers. Dating from the discovery of gold in Colorado the pioneer was no more an object of pity or sympathy. Those who had planted their stakes and made their claims along the old military and California trail were independent. Many of the emigrants became discouraged and turned their faces homeward before getting a glimpse of the Rocky Mountains. ”

“ As I take my seat in the car, a young, well-dressed boy sits near me in a quiet state of intoxication. Well, I am really ashamed! To think I have seen two drunken men to-day and only seven during my three months' stay in Nebraska. So much good for the high license law. If you cannot have prohibition, have the next best thing, and drowned out all the little groggeries and make those who will have it, pay the highest price. Poor boy! You had better go to Nebraska and take a homestead. ”

“ Between 1885 and 1895 Kansas and Colorado went through much the same expedience, due to a too rapid settlement of their arid areas before the conditions of successful agriculture were properly understood. Many homes, and even small settlements in Nebraska—though not to the same extent as in Colorado and Kansas—were abandoned. Urban population (the population in places having 4000 or more inhabitants) also fell, constituting 25.8% in 1890, and in 1900 only 20.8% of the total population of the state. ”

“ The first winter was a mild one, fortunately, but there were plenty of hardships for the young people. There were no very near neighbors, the village of Kearny Heights, now Nebraska City, being then over two miles away. The Indians formed the greatest danger. I can remember a day in my boyhood when we had everything packed up, ready to flee across the Missouri to Iowa from the murderous Pawnees and Cheyennes, who, fortunately, did not come that time. A part of that first winter my father and mother spent in Bellevue. ”

“ After a college course of four years my husband entered the ministry and served for twenty-five years in Nebraska, except for one year of mission work at Cheyenne, Wyoming. The itinerant life is not unlike the pioneer life and brought with it the bitter and sweet as well, but the bitter was soon forgotten and blessed memories remain of the dear friends scattered all over the state of Nebraska, and indeed to the ends of the earth. ”

“ We felt sorry for the troubles of the poor men, but learned this lesson from their experience—never buy a tent so old and rotten that it won't hold to the fastenings, to go out on the prairies of Nebraska with; it takes good strong material to stand the wind.
In the afternoon we all went up on to the table-land to see the prairies burn. A great sheet of flame sweeping over the prairie is indeed a grand sight, but rather sad to see what was the tall waving grass of last year go up in a blaze and cloud of smoke only to leave great patches of blackened earth. ”

“ The first lesson taught to those who come west by those who have gone before and know what it is to be strangers in a strange land, is true kindness and hospitality, and but few fail to learn it well and profit by it, and are ready to teach it by precept and example to those who follow. It is the same lesson our dear great-grandfathers and mothers learned when they helped to fell the forests and make a grand good state out of "Penn's Woods." But their children's children are forgetting it. Yet I find that Pennsylvania has furnished Nebraska with some of her best people. ”

“ Yet my heart always turns to review the early scenes of settlement and civilization in Seward county with a peculiar thrill of personal emotion and special joy in the risen and rising fortunes of those who there built the foundations of a great commonwealth. No land can be dearer than the land of one's childhood and none can ever draw my thoughts further over plain or ocean than the happy valley upon West Blue whose waters spring spontaneously from beneath the soil to water her fortunate acres. ”

“ Said good-bye to the winding Elkhorn river, a little way east of Fremont.
Wild roses and morning glories brighten the way. Why! here we are at Blair; but I have told of Blair before, so will go on to the Missouri river. And as we cross over I stand on the platform of the rear car where I can see the spray, and as I look down into the dark water and watch the furrow the boat leaves in the waves, I wonder where are all those that crossed over with me to the land I have just left. Some have returned, but the majority have scattered over the plains of Northwestern Nebraska. ”

“ The Republican river leaves Nebraska a little west of Hardy, and we cross it a mile south. The water of the river is clear and sparkling, and has a rapid flow. Then over what is called "first bottom" land, with tall, waving grass, and brightened with clusters of flowers. The prettiest is the buffalo moss, a bright red flower, so like our portulacca that one would take its clusters for beds of that flower. While the sensitive rose grows in clusters of tiny, downy balls, of a faint pink, with a delicate fragrance like that of the sweet brier. ”

“ The invigoration and exaltation of careering over undulating prairies on a beautiful, speedy, and spirited horse thrilled every sense and satisfied, as to exhilaration, by physical exercise, the entire mental personality. Nature's roads in Nebraska are unequaled by any of their successors.
This excursion was in a wagon without springs; and after driving alone, as far as the Weeping Water crossing, I overtook an ox train loaded with goods and supplies for Gilman's ranch on the Platte away beyond Fort Kearny. ”

“ They are never more than 600 to 1000 ft. above the surrounding country. Nature is not grand in any part of Nebraska, but the Bad Lands are imposing, and in the wooded foot-hills there is an abundance of bold and attractive scenery, particularly in Sioux county, and in Cherry county around Valentine and on the canyon of the Snake river. East of the Bad Lands is the sand-hill region, which includes an area of possibly 20,000 sq. m. The sand-hills proper are scattered over an area of perhaps 15,000 sq. m., between the meridians of 98° and 103° W. long., lying mainly N. of the Platte ”

“ The Deborah Avery chapter gave seventy-five dollars, the Omaha chapter one hundred, and the two new chapters organized in 1902, Quivira of Fairbury and Lewis-Clark of Fremont, raised the sum to two hundred, each promising more if it was needed.
To find a Nebraska boulder was more difficult; and it was still more difficult to find a firm in Nebraska willing to undertake to raise it from its native bed and to carve upon it the insignia of the D. A. R., with a suitable inscription. ”

“ Is he badly hurt? for they would not let me see him at the gaol.’
‘Serious, I believe they are. He is cut cruelly about the face and head, and his body bruised all over. The finest peasantry have a taste for kicking with strong brogues on them, Mr. Kearney, that cannot be equalled.’
‘I wish with all my heart they’d kick the English out of Ireland!’ cried Kearney, with a savage energy. ”

“ Grasshoppers and drouth brought real adversity then, for, unlike the present, we were unprepared for the lean years. But we had hope and energy, and pulled together for the settlement of our county and the growth and prosperity of Fairbury.
We dreamed then of the days to come—when bridges should span the streams, and farm houses and fields of grain and corn should break the monotony of the silent, unending prairie. We were always working for better things to come—for the future. The delectable mountains were always ahead of us—would we ever reach them? ”