On the 8th of June, at eleven o’clock, we reached the South Fork of the Platte, at the usual fording place. For league upon league the desert uniformity of the prospect was almost unbroken; the hills were dotted with little tufts of shriveled grass, but betwixt these the white sand was glaring in the sun; […]
Four days on the Platte, and yet no buffalo! Last year’s signs of them were provokingly abundant; and wood being extremely scarce, we found an admirable substitute in bois de vache, which burns exactly like peat, producing no unpleasant effects. The wagons one morning had left the camp; Shaw and I were already on horseback,
We were now arrived at the close of our solitary journeyings along the St. Joseph’s trail. On the evening of the 23d of May we encamped near its junction with the old legitimate trail of the Oregon emigrants. We had ridden long that afternoon, trying in vain to find wood and water, until at length
The great medley of Oregon and California emigrants, at their camps around Independence, had heard reports that several additional parties were on the point of setting out from St. Joseph’s farther to the northward. The prevailing impression was that these were Mormons, twenty-three hundred in number; and a great alarm was excited in consequence. The
The reader need not be told that John Bull never leaves home without encumbering himself with the greatest possible load of luggage. Our companions were no exception to the rule. They had a wagon drawn by six mules and crammed with provisions for six months, besides ammunition enough for a regiment; spare rifles and fowling-pieces,
On the next morning we rode to Fort Leavenworth. Colonel, now General, Kearny, to whom I had had the honor of an introduction when at St. Louis, was just arrived, and received us at his headquarters with the high-bred courtesy habitual to him. Fort Leavenworth is in fact no fort, being without defensive works, except
Both Shaw and myself were tolerably inured to the vicissitudes of traveling. We had experienced them under various forms, and a birch canoe was as familiar to us as a steamboat. The restlessness, the love of wilds and hatred of cities, natural perhaps in early years to every unperverted son of Adam, was not our
Last spring, 1846, was a busy season in the City of St. Louis. Not only were emigrants from every part of the country preparing for the journey to Oregon and California, but an unusual number of traders were making ready their wagons and outfits for Santa Fe. Many of the emigrants, especially of those bound
For fifty years the tide of civilization has been rolling westward overland towards the Pacific. Between British Columbia and Mexico one will cross at least a dozen trails running east and west, reaching from the Atlantic to the Pacific, and over which, like trunk lines of railway now, have rolled a mighty emigration. One of
Andrew Linquist James B. Lewis Louis A. Nelson Parker Simons Horace P. Breed Samuel A. Bunting Jonas J. Rudberg George D. Breed Louis Rudberg John Osborn John Rudberg J. H. McKenney Chas. J. Atwater Luther W. Leighton W. L. Van Eman Douglas Martin Robert Hunter Seth Nichols Charles A. Morris James H. Morris E. A.
The first church in Marblehead was built in 1649. “From the earliest records of this town, it appears that as early as 1648, when ‘the Plantation,’ as it was called, contained forty-four families, there was preaching among them by Mr. Walton.” “Mr. Walton continued to officiate as a public teacher, though without ordination, about twenty
First and Second Churches in Marblehead Massachusetts Read More »
The settlers along Dragoon creek received their mail at the post office of Wilmington until the fall of 1869, when a new mail route was established from Burlingame, running up Dragoon creek, to Alma, the county seat of Wabaunsee county, a distance of about thirty-eight miles. A post office was located on the northeast quarter
I kept in correspondence with Thompson Blair, and in one of his letters he minutely described the trail from Leavenworth to the settlement where he and his brother Willard were located, and I determined to join them at my first opportunity. After earning a little more than one hundred dollars above expenses, I left my
In 1858 and 1859, during the period of the Pike’s Peak gold excitement, large numbers of gold hunters passed over the trail for the new diggings. Some of these were driving good teams and wagons, some were on horseback, others had small push carts, and some even wheelbarrows, loaded with all their earthly possessions tied
Early births in our settlement were Samuel M., son of Isaiah and Nancy J. Harris, born August 11, 1858; Frank L., son of Jehu and Mary A. Hodgson; Mary E., daughter of Samuel and Dency E. Woods: Lincoln, son of Allen and Joanna Hodgson. Early marriages as I remember them were Edward B. Murrell and
As a result of the admission of Kansas as a free state and the election of Abraham Lincoln as President of the United States, seven of the southern states seceded and organized an army in rebellion against the United States government. April 15, 1861, President Lincoln made the first call for soldiers to put down
Among the families coming into the Dragoon creek settlement after the spring of 1865 may be mentioned Jeremiah Fields and wife Betsey, with their two married sons and son-in-law: Joseph Fields and family of six persons; John L. Fields and family of five persons; James M. Johnson and family of four persons; they all came
In 1860 Jehu Hodgson and wife had a tract of land surveyed and platted for cemetery purposes, James B. Ingersoll and assistants doing the work. This tract as finally platted consisted of eighty burial lots, each twelve by forty feet in size, ample for eight graves. The tract was deeded in trust to the County
The women who, both at home and abroad, are regarded as the leaders of American society in these last days of the century are or have been, almost without exception, at some time in their career identified with New York. Though there is no city in the United States that fills the central position which
Some of the first discovered veins, already mentioned in a previous chapter, retained their productiveness. The Gold Hill mine was sold in 1869, since which time to 1884 it produced $2,800,000. It was not until 1878 that the Banner district, north of Quartzburg, in Boise County, began to be really developed. The mines of War
