I taught at Cuming City until the school fund was exhausted, and by that time the small schoolhouse on Long creek was completed. Allen Craig and Thomas McDonald were directors. I boarded at home and taught the first school in this district, with fourteen pupils enrolled. At this time Judge Bowen of Omaha was county superintendent, and I went there to have my certificate renewed.
When all the public money in the Long Creek district was used up, I went back to Cuming City to teach. The population of this district had increased to such an extent that I needed an assistant, and I was authorized to appoint one of my best pupils to the position. I selected Vienna Cooper, daughter of Dr. P. J. Cooper. I boarded at the Lippincott home, known as the "Halfway House" on the stage line between Omaha and Decatur. It was a stage station where horses were changed and drivers and passengers stopped over night.
At the close of our summer term we held a picnic and entertainment on the Methodist church grounds, using the lumber for the new church for our platform and seats. This entertainment was pronounced the grandest affair ever held in the West.
The school funds of the Cuming City district being again exhausted, I returned to Long Creek district in the fall of 1867, and taught as long as there was any money in the treasury. By that time the village of Blair had sprung up, absorbing Cuming City and De Soto, and I was employed to teach in their new log schoolhouse. T. M. Carter was director of the Blair district. Orrin Colby of Bell Creek, was county superintendent, and he visited the schools of the county, making the rounds on foot. I taught at Blair until April, 1869, when I was married to William Henry Allen, a pioneer of Fort Calhoun. Our license was issued by Judge Stilts of Fort Calhoun, where we were married by Dr. Andrews. We raised our family in the Long Creek district, and still reside where we settled in those pioneer days.
REMINISCENCES OF PIONEER LIFE AT FORT CALHOUN
By Mrs. N. J. Frazier Brooks
I came to Nebraska in the spring of 1857 from Edgar county, Illinois, with my husband, Thomas Frazier, and small daughter, Mary. We traveled in a wagon drawn by oxen, took a claim one and one-half miles south of Fort Calhoun and thought we were settling near what would be Nebraska's metropolis. My husband purchased slabs at the saw mill at Calhoun and built our shanty of one room with a deck roof. For our two yoke of oxen he made a shed of poles and grass and we all were comfortable and happy in our new home. In the spring Mr. Frazier broke prairie, put in the most extensive crops hereabouts, for my husband was young and ambitious. We had brought enough money with us to buy everything obtainable in this new country, but he would often say, "I'd hate to have the home folks see how you and Mary have to live." Deer were a common sight and we ate much venison; wild turkeys were also plentiful. They could be heard every morning and my husband would often go in our woods and get one for our meat.
In 1859 he went to Boone county, Iowa, and bought a cow, hauling her home in a wagon. She soon had a heifer calf and we felt that our herd was well started. The following winter was so severe that during one storm we brought the cow in our house to save her. The spring of 1860 opened up fine and as we had prospered and were now making money from our crops we built us a frame house, bought a driving team, cows, built fences, etc. I still own this first claim, and although my visions of Fort Calhoun were never realized I know of no better place in which to live and my old neighbors, some few of whom are still here, proved to be everlasting friends.