Hall County NEGenWeb
Reminiscences & Narratives of Pioneers
DURING THE LAST YEARS OF INDIAN
OCCUPATION IN PLATTE VALLEY
BY W. E. MARITN, Doniphan, Nebraska

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Transcribed from
the ©1920 "History of Hall County," by Buechler, Barr, and Stough

Our father came to this county in 1862. He arrived in the United States from England in 1850, and lived first in Henry County, Illinois, and then from there he settled in Fremont County, Iowa, Sidney being the county seat. From there he came to Hall County and located. In the meantime he had crossed the plains a number of times and would go up this valley when travelling from the Missouri River on the cut-off road from Nebraska City. That road came in south of the Platte, entering Hall County where Clarence Lowery lives now. That is how he got the idea of locating in this vicinity. In passing several times, when going back and forth with a load or empty wagon on trips from Nebraska City to Denver, he would go past the place at which he afterwards located. He came out here and he told my brother Nathaniel and a smaller boy, "here is a good place to locate in the future: indicating right where he did locate. He would go right up this valley where there was a good stretch of county. In August, 1862, he went up that valley and stopped right there. His location was in Township 13, in Martin township, where Fred Weaver lives now. When he reached that place, he jumped out of the wagon, with a spade in hand, and remarked, "I am going to dig a well here."