EARLY RECOLLECTIONS OF GAGE COUNTY
By Mrs. E. Johnson
Emerson aptly said, "America is another word for opportunity." We realize this most truly when we compare present prosperity with early day living in the middle West.
In 1878 my brother, A. M. McMaster, and family, arrived in Nebraska City. They came overland to Gage county and settled on section 15, two and a half miles northeast of Filley and one mile south of what was then known as Melroy postoffice, so-called in honor of two little boys born the same year the postoffice was established, Mell Gale and Roy Tinklepaugh, whose parents were among the earliest settlers in this neighborhood.
My brother built his house of lumber he had shipped to Nebraska City. Beatrice was our market place. We sold all our grain, hogs, and produce there. Eggs were five cents a dozen and butter six cents a pound. The first year we came we bought five hundred bushels of corn at twelve cents a bushel delivered, and cribbed it.
There was an Indian trail across the farm, and often the Indians would pass going from the Omaha reservation to the Otoe reservation at Barnston; the children would become frightened and hide under the bed; the Indians would often call and ask for flour and meat.
There was not a house between Elijah Filley's stone barn and Beatrice on the Scott street road, and no bridges. The trail we followed going to Beatrice led us north to Melroy, making the traveling distance one and a half miles farther than in these times of well preserved section lines and graded country roads. This stone barn of Elijah Filley's was an early landmark. I have heard Mr. Filley tell interesting anecdotes of his early years here, one of an Indian battle near the present site of Virginia.
Before the town of Filley was in existence, there was a postoffice called "Cottage Hill," which is shown on old time maps of the state.
One of the curiosities of the early times was a cow with a wooden leg, running with a herd of cattle. The hind leg was off at the knee joint. She was furnishing milk for the family of her owner, a Mr. Scott living on Mud creek, near the town of Filley.
Mr. Scott often told of pounding their corn to pulverize it. The nearest mill was at Nebraska City. This difficult traffic continued until 1883, when the Burlington came through Filley.