CHAPTER I.
Setting Up Altars of Remembrance.
It has been said that once upon a time Heaven placed a kiss upon the lips of Earth and therefrom sprang the fair State of Nebraska.
It was while the prairies were still dimpling under this first kiss that the events related in this little volume became part and parcel of my life and experience, as gathered from a trip made across the continent in the morning glow of a territory now occupying high and honorable position in the calendar of States and nations.
On the 16th day of March, 1852, a caravan consisting of twenty-four men, one woman (our captain, W. W. Wadsworth being accompanied by his wife), forty-four head of horses and mules and eight wagons, gathered itself together from the little city of Monroe, Michigan, and adjacent country, and, setting its face toward the western horizon, started for the newly found gold fields of California, where it expected to unloose from the storage quarters of Nature sufficient of shining wealth to insure peace and plenty to twenty-five life-times and their dependencies. As is usual upon such occasions, this March morning departure from home and friends was a strange commingling of sadness and gladness, of hope and fear, for in those days whoever went into the regions beyond the Missouri River were considered as already lost to the world. It was going into the dark unknown and untried places of earth whose farewells always surrounded those who remained at home with an atmosphere of foreboding.
Nothing of importance occurred during our travel through the States, except the general bad roads, which caused us to make slow progress. Crossing the Mississippi River at Warsaw, Illinois, we kept along the northern tier of counties in Missouri, which were heavily timbered and sparsely settled. Bearing south-west, we arrived at St. Joseph, Missouri, on the first day of May.
The town was a collection of one-story, cheap, wooden buildings, located along the river and Black Snake Hollow.
The inhabitants appeared to be chiefly French and half-breed Indians. The principal business was selling outfits to immigrants and trading horses, mules and cattle. There was one steam ferry-boat, which had several days crossing registered ahead.
The level land below the town was the camping-place of our colony. After two or three days at this point, we drove up to the town of Savannah, where we laid in new supplies and passed on to the Missouri River, where we crossed by hand-ferry at Savannah Landing, now called Amazonia. Here we pressed for the first time the soil of the then unsettled plains of the great West. Working our way through the heavily timbered bottom, we camped under the bluffs, wet and weary.
We remained here over Sunday, it having been decided to observe the Sabbath days as a time of rest. We usually rested Wednesday afternoons also.
Just after crossing the river, we had a number of set-backs; beginning with the crippling of a wheel while passing through a growth of timber. As we examined the broken spokes, we realized that they would soon have to be replaced by new ones, and that the wise thing to do was to provide for them while in the region of timber; so we stopped, cut jack-oak, made it into lengths and stored them in the wagon until time and place were more opportune for wheel-wrighting. This broken wheel proved to be a hoodoo, as will appear at intervals during the story of the next few weeks.
In attempting to cross the slough which lies near to and parallel with the river for a long distance, my team and wagon, leading the others, no sooner got fairly on to the slough, which was crusted over, than the wagon sank in clear to its bed, and the horses sank until they were resting on their bellies as completely as though they were entirely without legs.
And there we were, the longed-for bluffs just before us, and yet as unapproachable as if they were located in Ireland. A party of campers, numbering some fifty or seventy-five, who were resting near by, came to our relief. The horses were extricated, and, after we had carried the contents of the wagon to the bluff shore, they drew the wagon out with cow-teams, whose flat, broad hoofs kept them from sinking. Cow-teams were used quite extensively in those days, being very docile and also swift walkers.
Here under the bluffs over-hanging the Missouri, we completed our organization, for it was not only necessary that every man go armed, but also each man knew his special duty and place. W. W. Wadsworth, a brave and noble man, was by common consent made captain. Four men were detailed each night to stand guard, two till 1 o'clock, when they were relieved by two others, who served till daylight.
Monday morning came, and at sunrise we started on the trail that led up the hollow and on to the great plains of Kansas and Nebraska. The day was warm and bright and clear. The sight before us was the most beautiful I had ever seen. Not a tree nor an obstacle was in sight; only the great rolling sea of brightest green beneath us and the vivid blue above. I think it must have been just such a scene as this that inspired a modern writer to pen those expressive and much admired lines:
"I'm glad the sky is painted blue
And the grass is painted green,
And a lot of nice fresh air
All sandwiched in between."
Sky, air, grass; what an abundance of them! in all the pristine splendor of fifty-three years ago, was ours upon that spring morning. This, then, was the land which in later years was called the "Great American Desert." I have now lived in Nebraska for a quarter of a century and know whereof I speak when I say that in those days the grass was as green and luxuriant as it is today; the rivers were fringed with willow green as they are today; the prairie roses, like pink stars, dotted the trail sides through which we passed; and, later on, clumps of golden-rod smiled upon us with their sun-hued faces; the rains fell as they have been falling all these years, and several kinds of birds sang their praises of it all. This was "the barren, sandy desert," as I saw it more than half a hundred years ago.
Perhaps right here it will be well to ask the reader to bear in mind the fact that the boundary lines of Nebraska in 1852, were different from the boundary lines of today. They extended many miles farther south, and so many miles farther west, that we stepped out of Nebraska on to the summit of the Sierra Nevada Mountains into California.
It was at this stage of our journey, that, in going out, very early in the morning to catch my horse, I noticed ahead of me something sticking up above the grass. Stepping aside to see what it might be, I found a new-made grave; just a tiny grave; at its head was the object I had seen—a bit of board bearing the inscription,
"Our only child,
Little Mary."
How my heart saddened as I looked upon it! The tiny mound seemed bulging with buried hopes and happiness as the first rays of a new sun fell across it, for well I knew that somewhere on the trail ahead of us there were empty arms, aching hearts, and bitter longings for the baby who was sleeping so quietly upon the bosom of the prairie.
The first Indians we saw were at Wolf Creek, where they had made a bridge of logs and brush, and charged us fifty cents per wagon to pass over it. We paid it and drove on, coming northwest to the vicinity of the Big Blue River, at a point near where Barneston, Gage County, is now located.
As a couple of horsemen, a comrade and myself, riding in advance, came suddenly to the Big Blue, where, on the opposite bank stood a party of thirty or forty Indians. We fell back, and when the train came up a detail was made of eight men to drive the teams and the other sixteen were to wade the river, rifles in hand.
In making preparations to ford the river, Captain Wadsworth, as a precaution of safety, placed his wife in the bottom of their wagon-bed, and piled sacks of flour around her as a protection in case of a fight.
Being one of the skirmish line, I remember how cold and blue the water was, and that it was so deep as to come into our vest pockets. We walked up to the Indians and said "How," and gave some presents of copper cents and tobacco. We soon saw that they were merely looking on to see us ford the stream. They were Pawnees, and were gaily dressed and armed with bows and arrows. We passed several pipes among them, and, seeing that they were quiet, the train was signalled, and all came through the ford without any mishap, excepting, that the water came up from four to six inches in the wagon-bed, making the ride extremely hazardous and uncomfortable for Mrs. Wadsworth, who was necessarily drawn through the water in an alarming and nerve-trying manner. But she was one of the bravest of women, and in this instance, as in many others of danger and fatigue before we reached our journey's end, she displayed such courage and good temper, as to win the admiration of all the company. The sacks of flour and other contents of the wagons were pretty badly wet, and, after we were again on the open prairie, we bade the Indians good-bye, and all hands proceeded to dismount the wagons, and spread their contents on the grass to dry.
An "Altar of remembrance," is sure to be established at each of these halting places along life's trail. A company of kin-folk and neighbor-folk hitting the trail simultaneously, having a common goal and actuated by common interests, are drawn wonderfully close together by the varied incidents and conditions of the march, and, at the spots thus made sacred, memory never fails to halt, as in later life it makes its rounds up and down the years. Not fewer in number than the stars, which hang above them at night, are the altars of remembrance, which will forever mark the line of immigration and civilization from east to west across our prairie country.