The Western Stage Company ran daily to and from Beatrice, connecting there by stage with Brownville and Nebraska City. The arrival of the stage was the great and exciting event of each day; it brought our mail and daily newspaper, an exchange to the Gazette; and occasionally it brought a passenger.
After resting from my long walk I decided to go on to Republic county, Kansas, and take a homestead. There were no roads on the prairie beyond Marks' mill, and I used a pocket compass to keep the general direction, and by the notches on the government stones determined my location. I found so much vacant government land that it was difficult to make a choice, and after two trips to the government land office at Junction City, located four miles east of the present town of Belleville. I built a dugout, and to prevent my claim being jumped, tacked a notice on the door, "Gone to hunt a wife." Returning to Fairbury, I stopped over night with Rev. Ives Marks at Marks' mill. He put me to bed with a stranger, and in the morning when settling my bill, he said: "I'll charge you the regular price, fifteen cents a meal, but this other man must pay twenty cents, he was so lavish with the sugar." On this trip I walked four hundred and forty miles. Two years later I traded my homestead to Mr. Alfred Kelley for a shotgun, and at that time met his daughter Mary. Mary and I celebrated our fortieth anniversary last May, with our children and grandchildren.
The first schoolhouse in Fairbury was completed in December, 1870, and for some time was used for church services, dances, and public gatherings. The first term of school began January 9, 1871, with P. L. Chapman for teacher.
In December, 1871, I was employed to teach the winter and spring terms of school at a salary of fifty dollars a month, and taught in one room all the pupils of Fairbury and surrounding country.
Mr. Cross announced in the Gazette that no town of its size in the state was so badly in need of a shoemaker as Fairbury, and he hoped some wandering son of St. Crispin would come this way. Just such a wandering shoemaker came in the person of Robert Christian, with all his clothes and tools in a satchel, and twenty-five cents in his pocket. He managed to get enough leather from worn-out boots given him to patch and halfsole others, and was soon prosperous.
During the summer of 1871 C. F. Steele built a two-story building on the lot now occupied by the First National bank, the first floor for a furniture store, the second floor for a home. When nearly completed a hurricane demolished it and scattered the lumber over the prairie for two miles south. It was a hard blow on Mr. Steele. He gathered together the wind-swept boards and, undismayed, began again the building of his store and business.
In the fall of 1871, William Allen and I built the Star hotel, a two-story building, on the east side, with accommodations for ten transient guests—large enough, we thought, for all time.
In the early days of my hotel experience, I was offered some cabbages by a farmer boy—rather a reserved and studious looking lad. He raised good cabbages on his father's homestead a few miles north of town. After dickering awhile over the price, I took his entire load. He afterwards said that I beat him down below cost of production, and then cleaned him out, while I insisted that he had a monopoly and the price of cabbages should have been regulated by law. Soon after, I was surprised to find him in my room taking an examination for a teacher's certificate, my room-mate being the county superintendent, and rather astonished, I said, "What! you teach school?"—a remark he never forgot. He read law with Slocumb & Hambel, was some time afterwards elected county attorney and later judge of this district. Ten years ago he was elected one of the judges of the supreme court of the state of Nebraska, and this position he still fills with distinguished ability. I scarcely need to mention that this was Charles B. Letton.
A celebration was held on July 4, 1871, at Mattingly's sawmill, and enthusiasm and patriotism were greatly stimulated by the blowing of a steam whistle which had recently been installed in the mill. Colonel Thomas Harbine, vice-president of the St. Joseph & Denver City R. R. Co., now the St. Joseph & Grand Island railroad, made the principal address, his subject being "The railroad, the modern civilizer, may we hail its advent." The Otoe Indian, Jim Whitewater, got drunk at this celebration, and on his way to the reservation murdered two white men who were encamped near Rock creek. He was arrested by the Indians, brought to Fairbury, and delivered to the authorities, after which chief Pipe Stem and chief Little Pipe visited the Gazette office and watched the setting of type and printing on the press with many a grunt of satisfaction. I was present at the trial of Whitewater the following spring. After the verdict of guilty was brought in, Judge O. P. Mason asked him if he had anything to say why judgment should not be pronounced. Whitewater proceeded to make a lengthy speech, ridiculed the former sheriff, S. J. Alexander, and commenced criticizing the judge. The judge ordered him to sit down. A look of livid rage came over Whitewater's face, and he stooped slightly as though to spring. Then the judge turned pale, and in that rasping voice which all who knew him remember well, commanded the sheriff to seat the prisoner, which was done.
The spring of 1872 marked a new era in the life of Fairbury. On March 13th of that year the St. Joseph and Denver City railroad built into and through our city. From the time the track-layers struck Jenkin's Mills, a crowd of us went down every day to see the locomotive and watch the progress of the work. One of our fondest dreams had come true.