Collection of Nebraska Pioneer ReminiscencesDaughters of the American Revolution. Nebraska
History
Collection of Nebraska Pioneer Reminiscences
Daughters of the American Revolution. Nebraska
Frontier and pioneer life -- Nebraska; Nebraska -- History
Over the Nemaha river two and one-half miles southwest of Falls City, on
a high hill above the falls from which the town was named, was an Indian
village. The Sac and Foxes and Iowa Indians occupied the village. Each
spring and fall they went visiting other tribes, or other tribes visited
them. They would march through the one street of Falls City with their
ponies in single file. The tipi poles were strapped on each side of the
ponies and their belongings and presents, for the tribe they were going
to visit, piled on the poles. The men, women, and children walked beside
the ponies, and the dogs brought up the rear. Sometimes, when the
Indians had visitors, they would have a war-dance at night and the white
people would go out to view it. Their bright fires, their scouts
bringing in the news of hostile Indians in sight, and the hurried
preparations to meet them, were quite exciting. The Indians were great
beggars, and not very honest. We had to keep things under lock and key.
They would walk right into the houses and say "Eat!" The women were all
afraid of them and would give them provisions. If there was any food
left after they had finished their eating, they would take it away with
them.
Their burying-ground was very near the village. They buried their dead
with all accoutrements, in a sitting posture in a grave about five feet
deep, without covering.
The Indians cultivated small patches of land and raised corn, beans,
pumpkins, etc. A man named Fisher now owns the land on which the Indians
lived when I reached the country.
The people were very sociable. It was a healthy country, and we had
health if very little else. We were young and the hardships did not seem
so great as they do in looking backward fifty years.
NOTE--Thyrza Reavis Roy was born August 7, 1834, in Cass county,
Illinois, the daughter of Isham Reavis and Mahala Beck Reavis. Her
great-grandfather, Isham Reavis, fought in the war of the
Revolution. Her grandfather, Charles Reavis, and her own father,
Isham Reavis, fought in the war of 1812. She is a real daughter of
the war of 1812. She is a member of the U. S. Daughters of 1812, a
member of the Deborah Avery Chapter D. A. R. of Lincoln, and a
member of the Territorial Pioneers Association of Nebraska. Her
husband, George Roy, died at Falls City March 2, 1903.
TWO SEWARD COUNTY CELEBRATIONS
BY MRS. S. C. LANGWORTHY
I recall one reminiscence of my early life in Nebraska which occurred in
1876, when we first located in Seward. We could have gone no farther,
even had we wished, as Seward was then the terminus of the Billings line
of the Burlington railroad.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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