LOOKING BACKWARD
By George E. Jenkins
Looking backward forty years and more, I feel as Longfellow so beautifully expresses it,
"You may build more splendid habitations,
Fill your rooms with sculpture and with paintings,
But you cannot buy with gold the old associations,"
for in that time I have seen Fairbury grow from a little hamlet to a city of the first class, surrounded by a country that we used to call "the Indian country," considered unfit for agricultural purposes, but today it blossoms as the rose and no finer land lies anywhere.
I have read with great interest of the happenings of ten, twenty, thirty years ago as published each week in our Fairbury papers, but am going to delve into ancient history a little deeper and tell you from personal experience of the interesting picture presented to me forty-odd years ago, I think in the year 70 or '71, for I distinctly remember the day I caught the first glimpse of Fairbury. It was a bright and sunshiny morning in July. We had been making the towns in western Kansas and had gotten rather a late start from Concordia the day before; a storm coming up suddenly compelled us to seek shelter for the night. My traveling companion was A. V. Whiting, selling shoes, and I was selling dry-goods, both from wholesale houses in St. Joseph, Missouri. Mr. Whiting is well and honorably known in Fairbury as he was afterwards in business there for many years. He has been a resident of Lincoln for twenty-three years.
There were no railroads or automobiles in the country at that time and we had to depend on a good pair of horses and a covered spring wagon. We found a place of shelter at Marks' mill, located on Rose creek fifteen miles southwest of Fairbury, and here we stayed all night. I shall always remember our introduction there, viz: as we drove up to the house I saw a large, portly old man coming in from the field on top of a load of hay, and as I approached him I said, "My name is Jenkins, sir—" but before I could say more he answered in a deep bass voice, saying, "My name is Clodhopper, sir," which he afterwards explained was the name that preachers of the United Brethren church were known by at that time. This man, Marks, was one of the first county treasurers of Jefferson county, and it is related of him that while he was treasurer he had occasion to go to Lincoln, the capital of the state, to pay the taxes of the county, and being on horseback he lost his way and meeting a horseman with a gun across his shoulder, he said to the stranger, "I am treasurer of Jefferson county. My saddle-bags are full of gold and I am on the way to Lincoln to pay the taxes of the county, but I have lost my way. Please direct me."
Returning to my story of stopping over night at Rose creek: we were most hospitably entertained and at breakfast next morning we were greatly surprised on being asked if we would have wild or tame sweetening in our coffee, as this was the first time in all our travels we had ever been asked that question. We were told that honey was wild sweetening and sugar the tame sweetening. I cannot refrain from telling a little incident that occurred at this time. When we had our team hitched up and our sample trunks aboard, we asked Mr. Marks for our bill and were told we could not pay anything for our entertainment, and just then Mrs. Marks appeared on the scene. She had in her hand a lot of five and ten cent war shinplasters, and as she handed them to Mr. Marks he said, "Mother and I have been talking the matter over and as we have not bought any goods from you we decided to give you a dollar to help you pay expenses elsewhere"; and on our refusing to take it he said, "I want you to take it, for it is worth it for the example you have set to my children." Politely declining the money and thanking our host and hostess for their good opinion and splendid entertainment, we were soon on our way to pay our first visit to Fairbury.
We arrived about noon and stopped at a little one-story hotel on the west side of the square, kept by a man by the name of Hurd. After dinner we went out to see the town and were told it was the county-seat of Jefferson county. The courthouse was a little one-story frame building and is now located on the west side of the square and known as Christian's candy shop. There was one large general store kept by Champlin & McDowell, a drug store, a hardware store, lumber yard, blacksmith shop, a schoolhouse, church, and a few small buildings scattered around the square. The residences were small and widely scattered. Primitive conditions prevailed everywhere, and we were told the population was one hundred and fifty but we doubted it. The old adage reads, "Big oaks from little acorns grow," and it has been my privilege and great pleasure to have seen Fairbury "climb the ladder round by round" until today it has a population of fifty-five hundred.