We finally reached the settlement in Fillmore county and lived in a dugout with two other families until I could build a dugout that we could live in through the winter. That done, I picked out my claim and went to Lincoln to file on it and bought lumber for a door and for window frames.
I looked the claim over, chose the site for buildings, and when home drew the plans of where I wanted the house, stable, well, etc., on the dirt hearth for Mrs. McCashland to see. She felt so bad because she had to live in such a place that I gave it up and went to the West Blue river, which was near, felled trees, and with the help of other settlers hewed them into logs and erected a log house on the homestead. While living in the dugout Indian women visited Mrs. McCashland and wanted to trade her a papoose for her quilts. When she refused, they wanted her to give them the quilts.
I had just forty-two dollars when we reached Fillmore county, and to look back now one would hardly think it possible to live as long as we did on forty-two dollars. There were times that we had nothing but meal to eat and many days we sent the children to school with only bread for lunch.
I was a civil war veteran, which fact entitled me to a homestead of one hundred and sixty acres. I still own that homestead, which is farmed by my son. After visiting in the East a few years ago I decided that I would not trade my quarter section in Fillmore county for several times that much eastern land.
FILLMORE COUNTY IN THE SEVENTIES
By William Spade
We came to Nebraska in October of 1870 by wagon and wintered a mile east of what now is the Red Lion mill. We made several trips to Lincoln during the fall and winter and one to Nebraska City, where brother Dan and I shucked corn for a farmer for a dollar a day with team.
I moved on the William Bussard claim, later the Elof Lindgren farm, in March, 1871, and raised a crop, then moved on our homestead in section 24, town 8, range 3 west. We built part dugout and part sodup for a house and slept in it the first night with only the blue sky for a roof. Then we put on poles, brush, hay, dirt, and sod for a roof. This was in October, and we lived in this dugout until 1874, then built a sod house.
In April, 1873, we had a three days' snow storm called a blizzard. In the spring of 1871 I attended the election for the organization of the county of Fillmore. I followed farming as an occupation and in the fall of 1872 William Howell and I bought a threshing machine, which we ran for four seasons. Some of the accounts are still due and unpaid. Our lodging place generally was the straw stack or under the machine and our teams were tied to a wagon, but the meals we got were good. Aside from farming and threshing I put in some of the time at carpentry, walking sometimes six miles back and forth, night and morning.