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
"The Indians kept the main herd ahead of them so we were only able to
see a few buffalo that had strayed away. We went farther west and got
two or three and then went into camp on the Little Blue. We always left
a guard at camp and all of the fun came when Boss Gilmore and I were on
guard so we missed it. The others rounded up and killed about twenty
buffalo. One fell over the bluff into the river and it fell to our lot
to get it out and skin it, but by the time we got it out the meat had
spoiled. The water there was so full of alkali that we could not drink
it and neither could the horses, so we started back, struck the freight
road and followed it until we came to Deep Well ranch on the Platte
bottom. We had driven without stopping from ten o'clock in the forenoon
till two o'clock in the morning. We lay down and slept then, but I was
awakened early by chickens crowing. I roused the others of our party and
we went in search of something to eat. It had been eight days since we
had had any bread and I was never so bread-hungry as then. We came to
the Martin home about three miles west of Grand Island and although we
could not buy bread, the girls baked biscuits for us and I ate eleven
biscuits. That was the home of the two Martin boys who were pinned
together by an arrow that the Indians shot through both of them while
riding on one pony.
"That morning I saw the first construction train that came into Grand
Island over the Union Pacific railroad. If I remember correctly it was
in November, 1867.
"We took home with us five wagonloads of buffalo meat. I did not keep
any of the hides because I could not get them tanned. Mr. Gilmore got
Indian women to tan a hide for him by giving them sugar and flour. They
would keep asking for it and finally got all that was coming to them
before the hide was done, so they quit tanning, and Mr. Gilmore had to
keep baiting them by giving them more sugar and flour in order to get it
done."
Mr. and Mrs. Dixon have eight children, all living. They still own the
original homestead that was their home for so many years.
PIONEERING IN FILLMORE COUNTY
BY JOHN R. MCCASHLAND
In the fall of 1870, with Mrs. McCashland and two children, Addie and
Sammy, I left Livingston county, Illinois, and drove to Fillmore county,
Nebraska. We started with two wagons and teams. I had three good horses
and one old plug. I drove one team and had a man drive the other until I
became indignant because he abused the horses and let him go. Mrs.
McCashland drove the second team the rest of the way.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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