Rock County, Nebraska; Memoirs of a Pioneer

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Extracted by Bev Hopkins, bbeegle@huntel.net 

                                       MEMOIRS OF A PIONEER

                                       BY Earl F. Armstrong

This article has been taken from the  Diamond Jubilee Book of Rock County called
"From Ox Carts to Orbits".  Submitter - Bev. Hopkins

these are the memoirs of an early day settler of Brown, now Rock county, who was born 
in a little sod house near Mariaville 78 years ago, and who is still living there, thereby 
being the oldest settler born in Rock county still alive.  My wife was also born in Rock 
County 74 years ago, which makes us without a doubt, the oldest married couple living 
who were both born in the county.

I am writing these memories to let the young people know first hand the condition of the 
country and the way of life of the early settlers, the hardships with which they had to 
contend, and the work necessary to build the country to its present form

First - look around upon the lovely homes dotting the land, the beautiful groves and the 
great herds of cattle grazing over the sandhills and the farms that produce the various 
crops.  Try now to remove all of these and replace with little one-room sod houses, a few 
one-room log houses and some dugouts, which were just holes dug in the hillside.  All of 
these had roofs of dirt and a great many had only dirt floors.  The sandhills were just 
drifting sand with not a spear of grass of any kind on them.  The livestock - each settler 
usually had a cow and perhaps as many as six or eight.  Many of them came with yoke of 
oxen; others came with a team of horses to do their farm work.

Farm equipment consisted of a wagon, plow, some tools such as an axe, hoe, spade, etc.  
Furniture usually included a cook stove which substituted for a heating stove, a few 
dishes, a small table and bed, bedding and clothes.  Chairs were tied on the outside of the 
wagon.  This about covers the average wealth of the average settler in the pioneer days.

Now as to the real pioneer - we mean by this, the people who settled here with the 
intention of making this their home, subdue the obstacles they had to contend with.  
There were people living along the Niobrara river a long time before the settlers came, 
some of them were hunters and trappers, but many more were men on the dodge, men 
who were wanted for various crimes, and the river canyons made ideal hideouts.  Just 
how good, I will illustrate with an incident for which I can personally vouch.

A certain man who was wanted by the officers, had his main hideout on the north side of 
the river.  He had a way he could slip down to the river, cross without being seen and into 
a small cabin on the south side of the river.  In the floor of this cabin he had a trap door 
cleverly concealed and a tunnel leading from it to a heavy thicket about 100 yards away.  
From this point he had several ways to escape.

The officers had heard this man had a tunnel somewhere, and because they always lost 
their man on the north side of the river, they thought the tunnel must be there and they 
hunted for it for a long time.  I saw the tunnel and I saw the cabin.  The first time I saw it 
was as a small boy, when I went with my older sister and my father to the river to gather 
wild hops.  (I'll be you young folks will think we were going to make some giggle 
water.)  Nope, just some yeast, for in those days the housewife could not go to the grocer 
and buy yeast.  It had to be homemade and kept alive from baking to baking.

The next time I saw the cabin and the tunnel was when I was about 12 years old.  We had 
some calves to pasture and they got out and wandered away.  I found them in the canyon 
near this old cabin and boy-like I had to explore.  It was there all right.  A few years ago I 
was talking to one of the old timers and happened to mention this and he jumped and 
almost yelled, "Where was that?"  and when I told him the location, he said, "That is how 
he got away from us."

Now back to the settlers themselves.  It is conceded that the first real settlers came in 
1879, more in 1880, still more in 1881 and the grand rush came in 1883.  Thereafter the 
number began to taper off as the best land had been filed on.

Prior to 1882 the settlers had their choice of going to Niobrara City or to Oakdale for 
supplies.  They usually chose the latter as they could take a load of fence posts there and 
trade them in on their supplies, as money was very scarce.  They could cut the posts on 
government land along the canyons leading from the river.  The round trip to either one 
of these towns took from two to three weeks.

The winter of 1880 and 1881 was a terrible winter on the settlers for they did not 
understand the country, nor how to prepare for it.  The winter set in early and they did not 
have all of their potatoes dug nor their other vegetables gathered, nor feed for the 
livestock.  Ninety per cent of their stock perished during the winter and spring, several 
people died of starvation and more froze to death.  Not many of the men had made the 
trip to town for their supplies and the snow kept coming storm after storm.

Finally, when the weather did let up and it was possible to travel, Army officers at Fort 
Randall went word that if they could send a wagon to meet them the Army would send a 
load of food.  To get the horses to make the trip was the next thing as most of the oxen 
w3ere dead and those left were not fit to travel.  A man by the name of Story who lived 
on Ash creek, had a team of horses that were able to make the trip, but to get two more 
was hard to do.  They finally did get two more, just where I do not know.  With this 
equipment the men made the trip and returned with the food, which was mostly beans and 
flour.  It was certainly appreciated even though some had to walk long distances and 
carry the food home on their backs.

The Fremont, Elkhorn and Missouri Valley railroad had been building westward from 
Blair and reached Stuart in 1882.  Here the building was delayed.  The survey was made 
and platted during a dry time and the route was established thorough Eureka valley about 
nine miles south of Newport, and then on to Pine Creek.  When the building reached 
Stuart the weather had changed to wet, and the route as laid out was under water so much 
of the way that the road had to be re-routed.  The railroad was then surveyed and built on 
its present location.

I believe it is now best to take up some of the individual settlers and the bearing they may 
have had upon the history of our county.

The honor of being the first settler on the plains, without a doubt, goes to Thomas 
Peacock, Sr., who, with his family, filed on a homestead at Mariaville in 1879.  The name 
Mariaville was given to this post office in honor of their youngest daughter, Hattie Maria.  
They built a log cabin on the bank of a little creek that crossed their land and was also by 
the side of the Black Hills trail.  This trail played an important part in the days before the 
railroads, as it was over this road a great deal of fright went to the Army stationed at 
various forts in the west.  Mr. and Mrs. Peacock served meals to many travelers in their 
time and yet had time to set out orchards of fruit trees as well as groves of shade trees.

Another settler of not was Uncle Tommy May who filed on a homestead on the north 
crossing of Rock creek in the spring of 1882.  On this land is a rock formation found 
nowhere else in Rock County.  Mr. May opened a quarry and supplied the towns of 
Bassett and Newport and surrounding area with rock for the foundations of buildings.
It was from this rock formation and the use made of it that Rock County got its name.

R.N. White was another settler who deserves mention.  He came in 18and homesteaded 
on Ash Creek.  He was a great musician and wrote many songs, both words and music.  
Among them was the popular song, "Home on the Range", both the original and the 
revised version.  In 1882 or prior, this man, with many others organized an association to 
build a church in which all denominations might worship. 

The Kirkwood church, the first church in what is now Rock county, was built, and after 
80 years of service it still stands and is still in use.

Next in line came the establishment of a public school and again Kirkwood led with the 
establishment of District No. 1.  This district is still in existence.

I must tell you of an amusing incident of which my father told.  A man whose farm 
joined his, broke up 10 acres of land and planted it to cucumbers.  He was going to raise 
seed for the D.M. Ferry Seed Company. In the early fall my father was at work in the 
field one day when two of his neighbor's boys passed by going to school.  Each boy had 
two large, green cucumbers and a bottle of milk - their lunch for that day.  My father was 
astonished and he asked the oldest boy if he were not afraid they would be sick if they ate 
the, and the 10 year old boy, with the wisdom of youth, answered:  "Oh, no; if a person 
uses judgement and does not eat more than five or six at one time, it will not hurt them."  
My father had many a laugh over this answer.