Fremont the "Forest City," is truly so named from the many trees that hide much of the city from view, large heavy bodied trees of poplar, maple, box elder, and many others that have been cultivated. Fremont, named in honor of General Fremont and his great overland tour in 1842 and, was platted in 1855 on lands which the Pawnee Indians had claimed but which had been bought from them, receiving $20,000 in gold and silver and $20,000 in goods. In '56 Mr. S. Turner swam the Platte river and towed the logs across that built the old stage house which his mother Mrs. Margaret Turner kept, but which has given way to the large and commodious "New York Hotel." The 4th of July, '56, was celebrated at Fremont by about one hundred whites and a multitude of Indians; but now it can boast of over 5,000 inhabitants, fine schools and churches. It is the junction of the U.P.R.R. and the S.C. & P.R.R. I must add that it was the only place of all that I visited where I found any sickness, and that was on the decrease, but diphtheria had been bad for some time, owing, some thought, to the use of water obtained too near the surface, and the many shade trees, as some of the houses are entirely obscured from the direct rays of the sun. I will not attempt to touch on the country as we neared Omaha along the way, as it is all improved lands, and I do not like its appearance as well as much of the unimproved land I have seen. We reached Omaha about seven o'clock. I took a carriage for the Millard hotel and had breakfast. At the request of my brother I called on Mr. Leavitt Burnham, who has held the office of Land Commissioner of the U.P.R.R. land company since 1878, and fills it honestly and well. Omaha, the "Grand Gateway of the West," was named for the Omaha Indians, who were the original landholders, but with whom a treaty was made in 1853. William D. Brown, who for two or three years had been ferrying the "Pike's Peak or bust" gold hunters from Iowa to Nebraska shores, and "busted" from Nebraska to Iowa, in disgust entered the present site of Omaha, then known as the Lone Tree Ferry, as a homestead in the same year. In the next year the city of Omaha was founded. The "General Marion" was the first ferry steamer that plied across the Missouri at this point, for not until in '68 was the bridge completed. All honor to the name of Harrison Johnston, who plowed the first furrow of which there is any record, paying the Indians ten dollars for the permit. He also built the first frame house in Omaha, and which is yet standing near the old Capitol on Capitol Hill.