THE EARLIEST ROMANCE OF JEFFERSON COUNTY, NEBRASKA
By George W. Hansen
One hundred and three years ago Hannah Norton was born "away down east" in the state of Maine. Hannah married Jason Plummer, and in the year 1844, seized by the wanderlust, they decided to move west. One morning their little daughter Eleanor, four years old, stood outside the cabin door with her rag doll pressed tightly to her breast, and watched her parents load their household goods into the heavy, covered wagon, yoke up the oxen, and make preparations for a long journey.
As little Eleanor clambered up the wheel and into the wagon, she felt none of the responsibilities of the long pioneer life that lay before her, nor did she know or care about her glorious ancestry.
Only a few decades previous her ancestor, Major Peter Norton, who had fought gallantly in the war of the Revolution, had gone to his reward. His recompense on earth had been the consciousness of patriotic duty well performed in the cause of liberty and independence. A hero he was, but the Maine woods were full of Revolutionary heroes. He was not yet famous. It was reserved for Peter Norton's great-great-great-granddaughters to perpetuate the story of his heroic deeds. One, Mrs. Auta Helvey Pursell, the daughter of our little Eleanor, is now a member of Quivera chapter, D. A. R., of Fairbury, Nebraska, and another, Lillian Norton, is better known to the world she has charmed with her song, as Madame Nordica.
But little Eleanor was wholly unmindful of past or future on that morning long ago. She laughed and chattered as the wagon rolled slowly on its westward way.
A long, slow, and painful journey through forests and over mountains, then down the Ohio river to Cincinnati was at last finished, and the family made that city their home. After several years the oxen were again yoked up and the family traveled to the West, out to the prairies of Iowa, where they remained until 1863. Then, hearing of a still fairer country where free homes could be taken in fertile valleys that needed no clearing, where wild game was abundant and chills and fever unknown, Jason, Hannah, and Eleanor again traveled westward. After a toilsome journey they settled in Swan creek valley, Nebraska territory, near the present northern line of Jefferson county.
Theirs were pioneer surroundings. The only residents were ranchers scattered along the creeks at the crossings of the Oregon trail. A few immigrants came that year and settled in the valleys of the Sandys, Swan creek, Cub creek, Rose creek, and the Little Blue. No human habitation stood upon the upland prairies. The population was four-fifths male, and the young men traveled up and down the creeks for miles seeking partners for their dances, which were often given. But it was always necessary for a number of men to take the part of ladies. In such cases they wore a handkerchief around one arm to distinguish them.
The advent of a new family into the country was an important event, and especially when a beautiful young lady formed a part of it. The families of Joel Helvey and Jason Plummer became neighborly at once, visiting back and forth with the friendly intimacy characteristic of all pioneers. Paths were soon worn over the divide between Joel Helvey's ranch on the Little Sandy and the Plummer home on Swan creek, and one of Joel's boys was accused of making clandestine rambles in that direction. Certain it was that many of the young men who asked Eleanor for her company to the dances were invariably told that Frank Helvey had already spoken. Their dejection was explained in the vernacular of the time—they had "gotten the mitten."
The music for the dances was furnished by the most energetic fiddlers in the land, and the art of playing "Fisher's Hornpipe," "Devil's Dream," and "Arkansaw Traveler" in such lively, triumphant tones of the fiddle as played by Joe Baker and Hiram Helvey has been lost to the world. Sometimes disputes were settled either before or after the dance by an old-fashioned fist fight. In those days the accepted policy was that if you threshed your adversary soundly, the controversy was settled—there was no further argument about it. At one dance on the Little Sandy some "boys" from the Blue decided to "clear out" the ranchers before the dance, and in the lively melee that followed, Frank Helvey inadvertently got his thumb in his adversary's mouth; and he will show you yet a scar and cloven nail to prove this story. The ranchers more than held their own, and after the battle invited the defeated party to take part in the dance. The invitation was accepted and in the morning all parted good friends.
On August 6, 1864, the Overland stage, which had been turned back on its way to the west, brought news that the Sioux and Cheyenne were on the warpath. They had massacred entire settlements on the Little Blue and along the trail a few miles west, and were planning to kill every white person west of Beatrice and Marysville.
For some time the friendly old Indians had told Joel Helvey that the young men were chanting the old song:
"Some day we shall drive the whites back
Across the great salt water
Whence they came;
Happy days for the Sioux
When the whites go back."
Little attention had been paid to these warnings, the Helvey family believing they could take care of themselves as they had during the past eighteen years in the Indian country. But the report brought by the stage was too alarming to be disregarded; and the women asked to be taken to a place of safety.
At this time Mrs. Plummer and her daughter Eleanor were visiting at the home of Joel Helvey. They could not return to Swan creek, for news had come that all Swan creek settlers had gone to Beatrice. There was no time to be lost. The women and father Helvey, who was then in failing health, were placed in wagons, the boys mounted horses to drive the cattle, and all "struck out" over the trail following the divide towards Marysville, where breastworks had been thrown up and stockades had been built.
During the day Frank found many excuses to leave the cattle with his brothers while he rode close to the wagon in which Eleanor was seated. It was a time to try one's courage and he beguiled the anxious hours with tales of greater dangers than the impending one and assured her, with many a vow of love, that he could protect her from any attack the Indians might make.
The first night the party camped at the waterhole two miles northwest of the place where now an imposing monument marks the crossing of the Oregon trail and the Nebraska-Kansas line. Towards evening of the next day they halted on Horseshoe creek. In the morning it was decided to make this their permanent camp. There was abundant grass for their stock, and here they would cut and stack their winter hay.
A man in the distance saw the camp and ponies, and mistaking the party for Indians, hurried to Marysville and gave the alarm. Captain Hollenberg and a squad of militia came out and from a safe distance investigated with a spyglass. Finding the party were white people he came down and ordered them into Marysville. The captain said the Indians would kill them all and, inflamed by the bloodshed, would be more ferocious in their attack on the stockade.
The Helveys preferred taking their chances with the Indians rather than leave their cattle to the mercies of the Kansas Jayhawkers, and told the captain that when the Indians came they would get to Marysville first and give the alarm.
Their camp was an ideal spot under the grateful shadow of noble trees. The songs of birds in the branches above them, the odor of prairie flowers and the new-mown hay about them, lent charm to the scene. Two of the party, at least, lived in an enchanted land. After the blistering heat of an August day Frank and Eleanor walked together in the shadows and coolness of night and watched the moon rise through the trees. And here was told the old, old story, world old yet ever new. Here were laid the happy plans for future years. And yet through all these happy days there ran a thread of sorrow. Father Joel Helvey failed rapidly, and on September 3 he passed away. After he was laid to rest, the entire party returned to the ranch on Little Sandy.
The day for the wedding, September 21, at last arrived. None of the officers qualified to perform marriage ceremonies having returned since the Indian raid, Frank and Eleanor, with Frank's sister as chaperon, drove to Beatrice. On arriving there they were delighted to meet Eleanor's father. His consent to the marriage was obtained and he was asked to give away the bride. The marriage party proceeded to Judge Towle's cabin on the Big Blue where the wedding ceremony was solemnly performed and "Pap" Towle gave the bride the first kiss.
And thus, just fifty years ago, the first courtship in Jefferson county was consummated.