EARLY DAYS IN STANTON COUNTY
Statement by Andrew J. Bottorff
I came to Nebraska at the close of the civil war, having served during the entire campaign with the Seventeenth Indiana regiment. I came west with oxen and wagon in the fall of 1866, bringing my family. We wintered at Rockport, but as soon as spring opened went to Stanton county, where I took a homestead. Here we had few neighbors and our share of hardships, but thrived and were happy.
One day I heard my dogs barking and found them down in a ravine, near the Elkhorn river, with an elk at bay, and killed him with my axe.
The first year I was appointed county surveyor. Having no instruments at hand, I walked to Omaha, over a hundred miles distant, and led a fat cow to market there. I sold the cow but found no instruments. I was told of a man at Fort Calhoun who had an outfit I might get, so wended my way there. I found E. H. Clark, who would sell me the necessary supplies, and I bought them; then carried them, with some other home necessities obtained in Omaha, back to Stanton, as I had come, on foot.
I am now seventy-five years old, and have raised a large family; yet wife and I are as happy and spry as if we had never worked, and are enjoying life in sunny California, where we have lived for the last ten years.
Statement by Sven Johanson
With my wife and two small children I reached Omaha, Nebraska, June 26, 1868. We came direct from Norway, having crossed the stormy Atlantic in a small sailboat, the voyage taking eight weeks.
A brother who had settled in Stanton county, 107 miles from Omaha, had planned to meet us in that city. After being there a few days this brother, together with two other men, arrived and we were very happy. With two yoke of oxen and one team of horses, each hitched to a load of lumber, we journeyed from Omaha to Stanton county. Arriving there, we found shelter in a small dugout with our brother and family, where we remained until we filed on a homestead and had built a dugout of our own.
We had plenty of clothing, a good lot of linens and homespun materials, but these and ten dollars in money were all we possessed.
The land office was at Omaha and it was necessary for me to walk there to make a filing. I had to stop along the way wherever I could secure work, and in that way got some food, and occasionally earned a few cents, and this enabled me to purchase groceries to carry back to my family. There were no bridges across rivers or creeks and we were compelled to swim; at one time in particular I was very thankful I was a good swimmer. A brother-in-law and myself had gone to Fremont, Nebraska, for employment, and on our return we found the Elkhorn river almost out of its banks. This frightened my companion, who could not swim, but I told him to be calm, we would come to no harm. I took our few groceries and our clothing and swam across, then going back for my companion, who was a very large man, I took him on my back and swam safely to the other shore.
While I was away, my family would be holding down our claim and taking care of our one cow. We were surrounded by Indians, and there were no white people west of where we lived.
In the fall of 1869 we secured a yoke of oxen, and the following spring hauled home logs from along the river and creek and soon had a comfortable log house erected.
Thus we labored and saved little by little until we were able to erect a frame house, not hewn by hand, but made from real lumber, and by this time we felt well repaid for the many hardships we had endured. The old "homestead" is still our home, but the dear, faithful, loving mother who so bravely bore all the hardships of early days was called to her rich reward January 28, 1912. She was born June 15, 1844, and I was born October 14, 1837.