This was a sore turn of the trial, for most of the jurors were boarders at the hotel, just opened, and there was no other boarding house in the town large enough to accommodate them. Finally, by the persuasion of friends, the landlord relented, and thus ended the first lawsuit in Nebraska.

It was whispered that some members of the Legislative Assembly had no constituents in the counties which they claimed to represent; and a report was current that one member took a few men in a two-horse wagon and went into the territory some ten or fifteen miles and then stopped and held the election in the wagon, not knowing whether or not he was even within the county he claimed to represent. However, no one challenged his right to his seat, and he was an excellent member. The country was full of emigrants and speculators, and many members owned or had an interest in town sites which existed on paper and nowhere else, but which they were exceedingly anxious to sell to strangers. With the purpose of expediting the sale of his shares in town sites one member got up a turkey roast and invited the governor, his wife, and myself, with a few other friends, to his boarding house to share the treat. He claimed that the turkey was killed on his town site; and we all agreed to praise it and boom his town site to the best of our ability. Accordingly, when the dinner was served, quite a number of strangers being seated at the long table,

Hascall C. Purple became a member of the House of Representatives by some such method as that indicated by Mr. Johnston. The story generally accepted is that Purple, who then lived at Council Bluffs, took a wagonload of men, nine in all, from that place, and when they thought they had come to Burt county, the boundary of which had been designated by Acting Governor Cuming, but, in fact, were in Washington county, they stopped and voted, that being the only election held for Burt county. The acting governor had designated two places for voting in Burt county, one of them at Tekamah, which a company comprising Mr. Purple had staked out on October 7. For the usual version of this election tale, see Nebraska State Historical Society, Proceedings and Collections, second series, II, 126; Watkins, History of Nebraska, I, 187.-ED.

the governor said: "General, the turkey is excellent; where did it come from?" The general replied: "It was killed on the town site by one of my constituents and presented to me." The truth was the turkey was killed in Iowa and sent to him by a friend.

There was a member of the House whose seat was near a west window which gave him a good view of what was going on in the town. A new saloon was opened nearly every day, and the custom was to treat at the opening. When this member from his post of observation saw the proprietor of the saloon come out and hang up his signal that he was ready for business, this signal being usually a red flannel shirt, there being no signs or sign painters in Omaha, he would say, "Mr. Speaker, I move we adjourn for a recess"; and of course the motion was seconded, and then most of the members would hasten to enjoy the hospitality of the new saloon. In a few minutes all resumed their seats and were ready for business. While a great many amusing things happened during the session, it passed a wise code of laws and laid the foundation of the future prosperity of a great state.

Occasionally the legislative halls were brightened by women from Council Bluffs and from the nearby Presbyterian mission of Bellevue. Mrs. Cuming, wife of the governor, was a beautiful and charming woman, and I can recall, even at this distance of time, delightful evenings spent with a few choice friends in her parlor at the hotel. A distance of over half a century has effaced from my memory many other incidents of those early days."

'Mr. Johnston sent these reminiscences from Otego, Kansas, January 23, 1908. He died at Kansas City, Missouri, on February 9, 1909.ED.

CONTESTED ELECTIONS OF DELEGATES TO

CONGRESS FROM NEBRASKA

BY ALBERT WATKINS

NOTE.-On account of their unusual length and importance the footnotes are printed in type larger than that ordinarily used and at the end of the main part of the paper.

The territory of Nebraska was represented in the federal Congress by five successive delegates chosen at seven elections. Samuel G. Daily was elected for three successive terms; each of the other four delegates was elected but once. Four of the seven elections-the second, third, fourth, and fifth-were contested. Probably it did not seem worth while to contest the first election inasmuch as scarcely four months of the term remained; as a Democratic governor had the authority to declare which of the candidates was elected; as the three leading candidates were all Democrats; as the House of Representatives, which would decide the contest, was strongly Democratic so that neither of the candidates might expect partisan advantage; and as the candidate who on the face of the returns had the most votes had interests in Nebraska City which brought him the backing of the powerful Democrats of the metropolis of the territory. In the meantime the fierce controversy over the location of the capital had established as fierce a feud between the North Platte and South Platte sections of the territory. The territorial canvassers of the second territorial election were all partisans of the North Platte, and they manipulated the returns in such a manner as to exasperate the friends of Hiram P. Bennet, the South Platte candidate for the office of delegate. The composition of the House of Representatives of the thirty-fourth Congress was such as to encourage Bennet to appeal to it. He had been a Whig and was now classed

as "anti-Nebraska", which meant near-Republican. One hundred and eight members of the House were temporarily tagged with that name, seventy-five were Democrats, forty Know Nothings, and eleven were floaters. Nathaniel P. Banks was the candidate of the Republicans for the office of speaker, and William A. Richardson, who had been the Douglas leader in the House in the struggle over the Kansas-Nebraska bill and was governor of Nebraska in 1858, was the principal Democratic candidate. After one hundred and twenty-nine ballots had been taken the Democrats seemed so near success that they courted the adoption of a rule that the candidate receiving a plurality of votes after three more ballots should be declared elected. But on the one hundred and thirty-third ballot the Know Nothings threw enough votes to Banks to elect him—a hundred and three to a hundred for Aiken, Democrat. Alexander H. Stephens, who became famous in the controversy over secession, espoused the cause of Bird B. Chapman, the North Platte and Democratic candidate, with influence enough to permanently seat him. The two leading candidates for a seat in the thirty-fifth Congress were both Democrats, and as the House was Democratic by a clear majority, the contest was between sections. Chapman unsuccessfully contested the election of Fenner Ferguson who was the South Platte favorite. In the thirty-sixth Congress there was a plurality of Republicans which made a contest by Samuel G. Daily against Experience Estabrook easy, and with a large Republican majority in the House of the thirty-seventh Congress, Daily's contest against J. Sterling Morton was never doubtful. That was the last contest, because thenceforth, though Republican ascendancy was not quite safe in the territory, it had become safe at Washington. In 1862 Daily's majority over John F. Kinney, the Democratic candidate, as counted, was one hundred and thirty-six, and Phineas W. Hitchcock's majority over Dr. George L. Miller was 1,087. Territorial government was lost in that of the state three days before

the expiration of Hitchcock's term. Conditions were so unsettled that there were irregularities and frauds, more or less gross, at every territorial election, though there was improvement toward the end."

в

Napoleon Bonaparte Giddings, a resident of Savannah, Missouri, but an occasional squatter in Nebraska City, with some interest in its town site, was chosen a delegate to Congress at the first election, held December 12, 1854eight days after the opening of the second session of the thirty-third Congress and was sworn in on the fifth of January, 1855. Bird B. Chapman, a resident of Elyria, Ohio, though a political squatter in Nebraska," was elected a delegate at the election held November 6, 1855, in accordance with the law governing elections, passed by the first territorial assembly, March 16, 1855. Though Chapman's election occurred eight months after the commencement of the thirty-fourth Congress, it was in time for him to take his seat at the opening of its first session, December 3, 1855. The second territorial assembly undertook to keep carpetbaggers out of this office by enacting that "No person shall be elected a delegate to [the] Congress of the United States from this territory who shall not have resided therein at least twelve months before the time of voting." The organic law only required that a delegate should be a citizen of the United States, so that this attempted restriction probably had only a moral effect. It was passed too late to apply to Chapman's first term, but it may have had something to do with his defeat at the next election. An act of the second territorial assembly, passed January 26, 1856, changed the time for holding general elections to the first Monday in August. Accordingly, Fenner Ferguson was elected a delegate to Congress on the third of August, 1857, five months after the commencement of the thirty-fifth Congress.

s

On the face of the returns of the election of 1859 Experience Estabrook, who had been the first territorial attorney and was a resident of Wisconsin at the time of his