Collection of Nebraska Pioneer Reminiscences Part 19

During this year, there was an Indian scare and settlers throughout the county thronged to the military parks at McPherson and North Platte, taking refuge in the railroad roundhouse at the latter place.

The first money collected from fines was that paid into the county treasury on February 1, 1868, by R. C. Daugherty, a justice of the peace, who fined a man $21.50 for stealing an overcoat.

The first school in the county was taught at North Platte during the summer of 1868. Theodore Clark was the first teacher. The next term of school began November 30, 1868, and was taught by Mary Hubbard, now Mrs.

P. J. Gilman.

The first Sunday school in the county was at North Platte, and was founded by Mrs. Keith, Mrs. Miller, Mrs. Cogswell, and Mrs. Kramph.

There were only three children in attendance.

During the year 1868, troubles with the Indians were on the increase. On one occasion, "Dutch" Frank, running an engine and coming round a curve with his train, saw a large body of Indians on each side of the road, while a number were crowded on the track. Knowing it would be certain death to stop, he increased the speed of his train and went through them, killing quite a number.

In May, 1869, the Fifth U. S. Cavalry arrived at Fort McPherson under General Carr. Eight companies were left here and four companies went to Sidney and Cheyenne. The government was surveying this county at that time and the troops were used to protect the surveyors. Large bands of Indians had left the reservation and were killing settlers and stealing horses. During the summer of 1869 the order from General Auger, commanding the department, was to clear the country of Indians between the Union Pacific and the Kansas Pacific. I was an officer of the Fifth U. S. Cavalry and was in command of the post at North Platte in 1869 and 1870, and was in all the Indian campaigns until I resigned in 1878.

The first bank in North Platte was started in 1875 by Walker Brothers and was later sold to Charles McDonald.

GRAY EAGLE, p.a.w.nEE CHIEF

BY MILLARD S. BINNEY

It is not often that one sees a real Indian chief on the streets of Fullerton, but such happened in June, 1913, when the city was visited by David Gillingham, as he is known in the English tongue, or Gray Eagle, as his people call him, chief of the p.a.w.nees.

Gray Eagle is the son of White Eagle, whom the early inhabitants of Nance county will remember as chief of the p.a.w.nees at the time the county was owned by that tribe.

Gray Eagle was born about three miles this side of Genoa, in 1861. He spent his boyhood in the county and when white men began to build at the place that is now Genoa, he attended school there. When he was fourteen years of age he accompanied his tribe to its new home at p.a.w.nee City, Oklahoma, where he has since resided. The trip overland was made mostly on horseback, and the memories of it are very interesting as interpreted to us by Chief Gray Eagle, and John Williamson, of Genoa, one of the few white men to make this long journey with the red men. Gray Eagle made one trip back here in 1879, visiting the spot that is now Fullerton--then only a few rude shacks.

Uppermost in Gray Eagle's mind had always been the desire to return and see what changes civilization had brought. In 1913 he was sent to St.

Louis as a delegate to the Baptist convention, after which he decided to visit the old scenes. From St. Louis he went to Chicago and from that city he came to Genoa.

"I have always wanted to see if I could locate the exact spot of my birth," said Gray Eagle, in perfect English, as he talked to us on this last visit, "and I have been successful in my undertaking. I found it last week, three miles this side of Genoa. I was born in a little, round mud-house, and although the house is long since gone, I discovered the circular mound that had been its foundation. I stood upon the very spot where I was born, and as I looked out over the slopes and valleys that had once been ours; at the corn and wheat growing upon the ground that had once been our hunting grounds; at the quietly flowing streams that we had used so often for watering places in the days so long gone by; my heart was very sad. Yet I've found that spot and am satisfied. I can now go back to the South and feel that my greatest desire has been granted."

When asked if the Indians of today followed many of the customs of their ancestors, he answered that they did not. Occasionally the older Indians, in memory of the days of their supremacy, dressed themselves to correspond and acted as in other days, but the younger generation knows nothing of those things and is as the white man. In Oklahoma they go to school, later engage in farming or enter business. "Civilization has done much for them," said Gray Eagle. "They are hard workers and have ambitions to accomplish great things and be better citizens. Only we old Indians, who remember the strenuous times of the early days, have the wild blood in our veins. The younger ones have never even seen a buffalo."

Then he told of his early life in the county and related interesting stories of the past--Gray Eagle, the Indian chief, and John Williamson, the pioneer, talking together, at times, in a tongue that to us was strange, but to them an echo of a very real past.

The Loup he called Potato Water, because of the many wild potatoes that formerly grew upon its banks. Horse creek he remembered as Skeleton Water, the p.a.w.nees one time having fought a band of Sioux on its banks.

They were victorious but lost many warriors. Their own dead they buried, leaving the bodies of their enemies to decay in the sun. Soon the banks of the creek were strewn with skeletons and ever after the creek was known to the Indians as Skeleton Water. The Cedar was known as Willow creek, Council creek as the Skidi, and the Beaver as the Sandburr.

LOVERS' LEAP

BY MRS. A. P. JARVIS

I pause before I reach the verge And look, with chilling blood, below; Some dread attraction seems to urge Me nearer to the brink to go.

The hunting red men used to force The buffalo o'er this frightful steep; They could not check their frantic course; By following herds pressed down they leap,

Then lie a bleeding, mangled ma.s.s Beside the little stream below.

Their red blood stained the waving gra.s.s, The brook carnation used to flow.

Yet a far more pathetic tale The p.a.w.nees told the pioneer Of dusky maid and stripling pale Who found in death a refuge here.

The youth had been a captive long, Yet failed to friendly favor find; He oft was bound with cruel thong, Yet Noma to the lad was kind.

She was the chieftain's only child, As gentle as the cooing dove.

Pure was this daughter of the wild; The pale-face lad had won her love.

Her father, angered at her choice, Had bid'n her wed a chieftain brave; She answered with a trembling voice, "I'd rather lie within my grave."

The day before the appointed eve When Wactah was to claim his bride, The maid was seen the camp to leave-- The pale-face youth was by her side.

She led him to this dangerous place That on the streamlet's glee doth frown; The sunlight, gleaming on her face, Her wild, dark beauty seemed to crown.

"Dear youth," exclaimed the dusky maid, "I've brought thee here thy faith to prove: If thou of death art not afraid, We'll sacrifice our lives to love."

Hand linked in hand they looked below, Then, headlong, plunged adown the steep.

The p.a.w.nees from that hour of woe Have named the place The Lovers' Leap.

EARLY INDIAN HISTORY

BY MRS. SARAH CLAPP

In 1843 Mr. and Mrs. Lester W. Platt were first engaged in missionary work among the p.a.w.nees, and in 1857 the government set aside a tract of land thirty miles by fifteen miles, in the rich prairie soil of Nance county, for their use; and when the Indian school was established at Genoa, Mrs. Platt was made matron or superintendent.

My mother taught in this school during the years 1866-67. She found the work interesting, learned much of the customs and legends of the p.a.w.nees and grew very fond of that n.o.ble woman, Mrs. Platt, who was able to tell thrilling stories of her experiences during her mission work among the members of that tribe.

At the time my mother taught in the Genoa school, the Sioux, who were the greatest enemies of the p.a.w.nees, on account of wanting to hunt in the same territory, were supposed to be friendly with the settlers, but drove away their horses and cattle and stole everything in sight, furnis.h.i.+ng much excitement.

My father, Captain S. E. Cus.h.i.+ng, accompanied my uncle, Major Frank North, on a number of expeditions against the hostile Indians, during the years 1869 until 1877. He was with Major North at the time of the famous charge on the village of the Cheyennes, when the notorious chief, Tall Bull, was killed by my uncle.

In 1856, when Frank North came to Nebraska, a young boy, he mingled fearlessly with the Indians along the Missouri in the region of Omaha, where our family first settled, learning their mode of warfare and living, and their language, which he spoke as fluently as his mother tongue. In 1861 he took a position as clerk and interpreter at the p.a.w.nee reservation and by 1863 he had become known as a daring scout.

The next year the building of the Union Pacific railroad was started, and as the work progressed westward the fierce Arapahoes, Cheyennes, and Sioux began attacking the laborers, until it seemed deadly peril to venture outside the camps. It was useless to call on the regular troops for help as the government needed them all to hold in check the armies of Lee and Johnston. A clipping from the Was.h.i.+ngton _Sunday Herald_, on this subject, states that "a happy thought occurred to Mr. Oakes Ames,"

the main spirit of the work. He sent a trusty agent to hunt up Frank North, who was then twenty-four years old. "What can be done to protect our working parties, Mr. North?" said Mr. Ames. "I have an idea," Mr.

North answered. "If the authorities at Was.h.i.+ngton will allow me to organize a battalion of p.a.w.nees and mount and equip them, I will undertake to picket your entire line and keep off other Indians.

"The p.a.w.nees are the natural enemies of all the tribes that are giving you so much trouble, and a little encouragement and drill will make them the best irregular horse you could desire."

This plan was new but looked feasible. Accordingly Mr. Ames went to Was.h.i.+ngton, and, after some effort, succeeded in getting permission to organize a battalion of four hundred p.a.w.nee warriors, who should be armed as were the U.S. cavalry and drilled in such simple tactics as the service required, and my uncle was commissioned a major of volunteers and ordered to command them. The newspaper clipping also says: "It would be difficult to estimate the service of Major North in money value."

General Crook once said, in speaking of him, "Millions of government property and hundreds of lives were saved by him on the line of the Union Pacific railroad, and on the Nebraska, Wyoming, and Montana frontiers."

There is much to be said in his praise, but I did not intend writing a eulogy, rather to tell of the stories which have come down to me, with which he and my other relatives were so closely connected.