Trying Times in 1873

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“Trying Times in 1873” from Pioneer Sketches, Nebraska and Texas by William Straley, 1915.

The following sketch was handed us by Mr. D. W. Wright of Nelson. He has pictured the experiences his father's family underwent in Nuckolls county in the year 1873. His father, W. B. Wright, is now living on the old homestead southeast of Nelson.

We started from near Otomway, Iowa, with a good team of horses and a few cattle, and landed at Beatrice in the latter part of September, 1872, where we wintered, as they said there was nothing to do for a living farther west.

During our stay in Beatrice, father hauled rock for some of the best buildings there.

He paid $300 fer the right of a homestead to C. J. Jacobs, Alfred Harsis' father-in-law. Then we traded for two yoke of oxen to begin life right in the West.

We arrived at our homestead in Nuckolls county, May 10, 1873. There were ten acres of broken land on the place and 9x12 ‘dug-out' on the southeast corner of the tract. This ‘dug-out' had a half window in the gabled front. There were six of us in the family, and we had a bed, stove, table and several boxes in this 9x12 room. Sister and I slept on the table, and were always sure of our bed being made.

Father had $7 in money to build and do all the improving with, and with which to keep up a sickly wife and a family of helpless children.

‘His machinery consisted of a wagon, breaking plow, harrow, scythe, axe, hoe and a 1 ⅛-inch auger.

Our nearest neighbor on the east was Alfred Harris, two miles; on the north, Mr. Alender, one and a half miles;on the west they said twenty miles—but we never saw him.

We sowed the ten acres in wheat the first year, cut it with a cradle and threshed it with a flail.

Father began to break prairie, and soon the plow blade got dull. He cold-hammered it out on a piece of railroad rail about eight inches long for an anvil. This did not do very well, so he built a furnace out of sod in which to heat his lays. He used wood instead of coal to heat them with. His cutter broke and he could not weld it, so he carried it about twelve miles distant, to a man who had a forge and coal to get it mended.

We planted some sod corn. Father took the axe and I the corn; he drove the axe through the sod and I dropped in the corn, and then another lick with the axe and the seed was covered.

When it did not rain enough to fill the ponds (buffalo wallows) to water the cattle, sister and I drove them once a day to a pond in a draw two miles east of us, where there was water. We were afraid and disliked it very much, but it had to be done. When the wiggle-tails were too thick to strain out of the water from the little holes in the draws, father hauled water in a barrel on a sled from Mr. Alender’s.

When we went visiting we rode on a sled. In the summer-time the wagon-bed was set off on some blocks, as that was the only means of keeping the clothing dry, as it had a good cover, and the ‘dug-out’ leaked—and there was not room to put the things and live there too.

Father had to build a house, so during the summer he cut logs on the creeks from far and near, as the right lengths were hard to find. The logs were twenty-eight feet long and so crooked that when one end was on the wagon the other was laying on the ground—some of them had to be swung under the wagon and hauled home in that manner. In the fall we had a log raising. Among those who helped to raise the house were: Fred and Alfred Harris, — Alender, T. J. Hewett, E. L. Downing, and others. We used mud for mortar to fill the cracks between the logs, and chuncks of wood in the holes formed by the crooked timbers.

The house was covered with a series of ribs, over which was put a layer of willows, which in turn was covered with grass, then a final covering of earth on top of all—not a board was used in the entire building. At first we hung up a piece of old carpet for a door—the building also had two half windows. When a door was finally put in, the lumber and nails came from Sutton, about forty miles distant. The grass was knee-high under the bed for a year or two, as we did not get to tramp it off there.

'Father made us a bedstead, split from a log. He made us shoes out of the tops of old boots which had been brought along in case of necessity; and the soles were made out of saddle skirts, as we did not need the saddles—our oxen not being broke to ride.

In the summer while we were in the ‘dug-out' father heard a terrible noise which sounded like some one in deep distress; he went out and listened, and it proved to be a bunch of Texas cattle which had stampeded. A man was on a pony ahead of the cattle hollowing as loud as he could, endeavoring to attract the cattle so that he could turn them to stop--get them to mill, as we say, or come into the back part of the herd, when they would run in a circle and then break up. About ninety head lost their horns during the stampede, caused by striking against one another in the run.

There were lots of deer and antelope here in those days. One day mother and I saw animals coming into our corn so we took the dog and chased them off; they proved to be deer. Father saw a few buffalo. There were lots of prairie chickens on the prairie, but no quail.

In August the county was devastated by a prairie fire.

The up-land hay was no good, and what was secured had to be cut in the draws.

We were ready for winter in our new home, the largest log house in the county, and we thought it a mansion—dirt floor and roof. We had a cross log to hold up the long logs in the roof, the cross logs being about five feet above the floor. These cross logs felt many a soft head that bumped them. Ask Will Welch if he ever felt the soft side of one of these logs.”

Straley, William Wilson. Pioneer Sketches, Nebraska and Texas. Hico Printing Co., 1915.

William Straley

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