REMINISCENCES OF FORT CALHOUN
By W. H. Allen
I reached Fort Calhoun in May, 1856, with my friends, Mr. and Mrs. John Allen; coming with team and wagon from Edgar county, Illinois. I was then eleven years old. Fort Calhoun had no soldiers, but some of the Fort Atkinson buildings were still standing. I remember the liberty pole, the magazine, the old brick-yard, at which places we children played and picked up trinkets. There was one general store then, kept by Pink Allen and Jascoby, and but few settlers. Among those I remember were, my uncle, Thomas Allen; E. H. Clark, a land agent; Col. Geo. Stevens and family, who started a hotel in 1856, and Orrin Rhoades, whose family lived on a claim five miles west of town. That summer my father took a claim near Rhoades', building a log house and barn at the edge of the woods. We moved there in the fall, and laid in a good supply of wood for the huge fireplace, used for cooking as well as heating. Our rations were scanty, consisting of wild game for meat, corn bread, potatoes and beans purchased at Fort Calhoun. The next spring we cleared some small patches for garden and corn, which we planted and tended with a hoe. There were no houses between ours and Fort Calhoun, nor any bridges. Rhoades' house and ours were the only ones between Fontenelle and Fort Calhoun. Members of the Quincy colony at Fontenelle went to Council Bluffs for flour and used our place as a half-way house, stopping each way over night. How we children did enjoy their company, and stories of the Indians. We were never molested by the red men, only that they would come begging food occasionally.
I had no schooling until 1860 when I worked for my board in Fort Calhoun at E. H. Clark's and attended public school a few months. The next two years I did likewise, boarding at Alex. Reed's.
From 1866 to 1869 inclusive I cut cord-wood and railroad ties which I hauled to Omaha for use in the building of the Union Pacific railroad. I received from $8.00 to $15.00 per cord for my wood, and $1.00 each for ties.
Deer were plentiful and once when returning from Omaha I saw an old deer and fawn. Unhitching my team I jumped on one horse and chased the young one down, caught and tamed it. I put a bell on its neck and let it run about at will. It came to its sleeping place every night until the next spring when it left, never to be seen by us again.
In the fall of 1864 I was engaged by Edward Creighton to freight with a wagon train to Denver, carrying flour and telegraph supplies. The cattle were corralled and broke at Cole's creek, west of Omaha known then as "Robber's Roost," and I thought it great fun to yoke and break those wild cattle. We started in October with forty wagons, seven yoke of oxen to each wagon. I went as far as Fort Cottonwood, one hundred miles beyond Fort Kearny, reaching there about November 20. There about a dozen of us grew tired of the trip and turned back with a wagon and one ox team. On our return, at Plum creek, thirty-fives miles west of Fort Kearny we saw where a train had been attacked by Indians, oxen killed, wagons robbed and abandoned. We waded the rivers, Loup Fork and Platte, which was a cold bath at that time of year.
I lived at this same place in the woods until I took a homestead three miles farther west in 1868.
My father's home was famous at that time, also years afterward, as a beautiful spot, in which to hold Fourth of July celebrations, school picnics, etc., and the hospitality and good cooking of my mother, "Aunt Polly Allen" as she was familiarly called, was known to all the early settlers in this section of the country.