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part of the day, we returned. As soon as the ground got a little dry, we went to plowing for a garden and potato patch. After three days hard work, we had got one and a half acres loosened up in a weed patch at the foot of the ravine. Taking our hoes we leveled off the ground and planted a patch of beans sixty feet square, and beds of various garden vegetables. The balance we planted in potatoes, keeping a few for Sunday dinners. Then we went to breaking sod for corn, I driving, Harry holding the plow. As I had to watch where I was driving, I could not look back, but had to keep whipping all the time, the oxen pulling all they could. When Harry said " 'Wo," looking at him I saw the sweat streaming from his face. Asking him what was the matter, he said the blamed plow wanted to turn over. We had pulled it sixty rods tolerably straight, cutting three inches deep and sixteen wide. The whole lay under the sod. After he and the cattle had got their wind, I said "Lets go on." He said "You try it;" I took hold of the plow and started, and the plow shoved out of the ground on the land side. Backing up I got it in place again. Putting my back against the land side handle and seizing the other with both hands, we started. I held it up for two rods, when out it came. Talking with him I found out that they generally broke two inches deep, and that he had never broken any himself. We were down three and a half or four inches; setting the gauge wheel down to make it run shallower, I found that it run easier for the cattle but not much for us. We then thought it too dull. We got an ax and hammer and went to pounding it, and in doing so got the lay bent up a little, and it did better. We got sixteen acres broke and planted in sod corn on Harry's, and two acres on my claim. Result: our corn was frost-bitten, our beans never set till September, the potatoes we had to sit up nights to keep the Indians from stealing. We had onions, radishes and summer truck. I will not go over the history of Knox county any further. Those who wish to know more, I refer to Mr. Draper's history.

In 1859, we organized a company of about sixty men with twenty teams to go to Pike's Peak. We started out under the commissioner system-three men to choose the road and to have command of the company. This commission consisted of R. N. Day, now of Tecomah, Wm. Benner, and another, whose name I have forgotten. We went up the Running Water, making a road to draw travel through

Knox county. We got along finely till after crossing the Long Pine, we came to the running Water bottom where we were met by twenty Sioux Indians who said that we should go no further, and that we must go back. Not being of the go-back kind, they were told to get out of the way, when they showed signs of fight. In a moment they were covered by twenty guns, and again ordered off, and they went threatening to meet us further on, but they did not. We crossed the Running Water a little west of where Fort Niobrara now is and got into the sands west of Valentine. We broke for the mouth of Snake river and re-crossed to the south side. Again following it up till we came to Harvey's route, we crossed to the Platte. Our organization was changed at the Snake River; why, I do not know, as everything was going finely. They elected me captain at this point. On the Platte bottom the roads were lined with men and teams; hearing that the ferryboat was gone, and that men were trying to get across in wagon boxes, I drove in where there were some fine large cottonwood trees and camped two miles from Laramie. Finding the trees large and hollow for some way up, we cut down the best three and made canoes of them eighteen feet long. Placing timbers across each end and lashing them to the corners, we had a boat that would carry a wagon and its load. After getting some wagons across, we tried to swim our cattle. Some went across,

others we had to tow. One man lost his wagon by his cattle getting on the canoes and upsetting them. We followed the Laramie to the Chugwater and then went up it after Majors and Russell. They had broken two hundred acres, but whether it was productive, I can not say. On the Lodge Pole at Cheyenne there were some vacant houses built by the soldiers. A day's journey south we met Mr. Greeley on his famous overland journey. He told us what he saw in the mines. Continuing along the mountains we crossed the Cache le Peau, and the Boulder where we had our Fourth of July dinner; and then we disbanded, going to the mountains in squads of five and ten.

* *

* * * * Denver had about a dozen houses built of cottonwood lumber. One was an express office where you paid twenty-five cents to mail or receive a letter. Aurora was on the west side of Cherry Creek. Starting for the Missouri down the South Platte, I crossed it at Kearney on the Wood River. Dr. Henery had built a good log house at Grand Island. Columbus was a German colony at Loup

Fork. Fremont had two cabins half a mile apart. There I sold four dollars and ninety-five cents worth of gold dust, all I had. I also learned that the Indians were raising the devil on the Niobrara where I had some relatives. Thinking it my duty to return to them I went to Elk City: then striking north-east I met Judge Bowen; passing by Colby's on the Pappio, where Swyhart and another man lived, I came in on the hills west of Blair. Coming down to Cuming City, which was the largest place I had seen since leaving Sioux City-continuing to Dakota City, I learned that "all was quiet at Niobrara." This had become as famous a saying at that time as the saying "all is quiet on the Potomac" did afterwards to the people of the northern states. It was late, if not winter, when I arrived at the picket post of civilization in the North-west. Of those who stood guard the first winter, Frederic Vogleson was killed by lightning, on his claim two miles up the Bazill from its mouth, James Small was killed by Indians in a cedar ravine some six miles up the Niobrara, Harry Huddleson is passing his declining years near Ponca. It is unnecessary to say that I am here in the best agricultural county that this sketch describes. Of those who went to Pike's Peak, I know only of R. N. Day and Foster, who resided here in Blair for some time.

Here you have my story written by request of Mr. Eller, from tablets of memory in the long past. Some are dim whilst others are as vivid as when first painted. Should it prove interesting, instructive, or amusing to its readers, I shall feel paid for the trouble.

GEORGE E. HOWARD:

TABOR, IOWA, January 28, 1891.

Your

DEAR SIR:-Many thanks for your favor of the 17th inst. explanation with regard to the non-appearance of my article, is certainly satisfactory.

You ask that I send you a short account of Samuel Allis which you may print.

I have re-read his article in the History of Nebraska, and I think of nothing I can write of him which would add to the lustre of his name, so prefer to wait for the proof sheets of eternity to level that portion of his life which lay parallel with mine.

I mentioned that he was not a Rev. because I supposed you desired to be correct in each particular in your historical records, and judged he had received that title from some one who thought all missionaries sent out by the A. B. C. F. M. were ministers of the Gospel. He is recorded as "Mr. Samuel Allis, teacher," in the Missionary Herald, the organ of the A. B. C. F. M., and never essayed to preach.

He afterwards was appointed teacher by our government, and it was while acting in that capacity that he made the effort to improve the condition of the Pawnees by permitting the braves to drive their boys and girls in herds to his intellectual pasture grounds, which he records as a failure.

In his article, Vol. 2, Page 155, of your Historical Records, he has given the date of the attack of the Sioux upon the Pawnees, as occurring in 1845. This does not accord with the date of that attack as given in my article, and I think, if you refer to the report of the Secretary of the Interior, you will find it was in 1843.

This may have been a misprint, and I am reminded by it to ask, as a special favor, that the proof sheets of my article be sent me, that I may verify their correctness before they appear as permanent record on your pages. Respectfully,

GEO. E. HOWARD,

Sec'y Neb. State Historical Society.

MRS. E. G. PLATT.

TABOR, IOWA, February 26, 1891.

GEORGE E. HOWARD:

DEAR SIR:-In writing, I would not forget to tender thanks for your report received, though to do this is not my special reason for appearing again before you.

In reading Mr. Allis' paper, reported by the Nebraska Historical Society, I see he is made to say that among the annuiting goods delivered to the Pawnees were shrouds.

I judge that the compositor, not being acquainted with articles of Indian barter, mistook a "t" for an "h" and thus made this most ludicrous error, and I feel impelled to call your attention to it, because it is approved by "The Nebraska Historical Society," whose design no doubt is to be correct in every minute particular.

Strouds, a heavy woolen goods manufactured in the town of Stroud, Gloucestershire, England, is the cloth used by the Indian women for dress goods, and by the men for leggins and waist cloths, and it was no doubt written thus by Mr. Allis.

Can this error be corrected so that future readers may not be stumbled by the absurd representation that our government sent shrouds to our wild Indians? Hoping I may not seem intrusive in this, I am Yours Respectfully,

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After the publication last year of my article entitled, "Notes on the Military History of Nebraska," two questions were asked me by a member of your society regarding it.

The first question was, whether the name "Kearney" (Gen. W. S. Kearney), should not be spelled "Kearny?"

On examination of the Army Register of the United States from 1876 to 1886, published by L. R. Hammersly, I found the name spelled "Kearny;" but I have since still. further investigated the matter and find in the report of the Adjutant Acting General of the army, March 13, 1824, in the Army Register for 1831, and in the report of a committee of Congress on claims, April 9, 1832, (Am. State Papers, "Military Affairs," Vol. 2, Page 7), that the name is spelled "Kearney." It is also found in the report of Gen. Gaines, in 1834, and, finally, his signature to a letter, dated Fort Leavenworth, Kan., June 20, 1837, published in Am. State Papers, "Military Affairs," Vol. 7, Page 961, is printed Stephen W. Kearney, and I infer, in the absence of stronger authority to the contrary, that my original spelling is correct.

The second question was, why I did not mention "Booneville's" expedition.

This, although not strictly a military expedition, being rather a personal exploration, might well have been mentioned.

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