Hall County NEGenWeb
Who's Who in Nebraska 1940
Hall County -- Introduction

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Introduction
to
HALL COUNTY
Who's Who in Nebraska 1940

By A. F. Buechler

The genesis of what today is Hall County is traced back to days, long before the Civil War, when statesmen of the era began to think of the development of the vast region lying between the Mississippi river and the Pacific ocean. For this development a transcontinental railroad was held essential. And it was the general conclusion that this railroad must be built through the natural passageway--the valley of the Platte in the then new territory of Nebraska.

The author hopes to, make it clear, in this brief history of Hall County, how the Platte valley has retained that particular characteristic and permanent advantage even up to the present day.

There were living, at that time, on the eastern border of this large, undeveloped domain, namely at Davenport, Iowa, on the Mississippi, a number of citizens of German nativity. They had arrived at Davenport about two years prior to 1857. The idea came to them that they should organize a colony to form a settlement and lay out a city in the Platte valley. The generally discussed plan of a transcontinental railway naturally included connecting north and south roads; and it was believed that the first such point would be about this distance from Omaha, then a city of about 2,000 inhabitants, yet, relatively the gateway to the west.

As Fred Hedde, leader of the colony, writes in his memoirs, a company was formed to furnish the financial means for the existence of the settlers, and for making improvements in "the intended city." The financing firm was Chubb Brothers & Barrows. Incidentally a check on Chubb Brothers & Barrows, that had never been presented for payment, and bearing the signature of Fred Hedde, is one of the several hundreds of relics in possession of the Hall County Historical Society.

The financial structure having been perfected, there was organized a party of thirty-seven persons, thirty-two of whom were recent German immigrants and five Americans. The thirty-seven were: Fred Hedde, William Stolley, Christian Menck, William A. Hagge, Henry Joehnck, Mrs. Henry Joehnck, Kai Ewoldt, Miss Anna Stehr, Mr. and Mrs. William Stehr, Henry Schoel, Mrs. Henry Schoel, Fred Doll, Mrs. Fred Doll, George Schultz, Fred Vatje, Johann Hammann, Detlef Sass, Peter Stuhr, Hans Wrage, Nicholas Thede, Cornelius Thede, Henry Schaaf, Marx Stelk, Henry Egge, Mathias Gries, Fred Landmann, Herman Vasold, Theodore Nagel, Christian Andresen, Mrs. Andresen and four year old child.

Surveyor Barnard's party consisted of him, Louis Barnard, his brother, of Washington, Josiah Smith, David P. Morgan, and William Seymour, all of Davenport.

In Davenport the expedition was regarded as foolhardy, but the members of the colony paid little heed to this belief. Most of their number were from Schleswig-Holstein (Plattdeutsch). Quite a number had seen military service and the colony had confidence in its man power.

The colonists left Davenport on May 25, 1857. The surveying party started a few days in advance, led by Surveyor Barnard. It consisted of the surveying party of five, and Fred Hedde and Christian Menck. It traveled behind a four-mule team. The larger party, under the leadership of William Stolley, followed a few days later, in four wagons each drawn by several yoke of oxen. He brought the same across Iowa to Omaha. From that point it proceeded to the end of the journey, under the leadership of Fred Hedde. Mr. Stolley's memoirs explain that his return was necessitated by business having to do with the financing of the company.

An interesting item in the memoirs of these colonists is afforded by the diary kept en route by Henry Egge. It reads:

"Our train passed Fremont June 3, which town had ten log houses. Arrived at Columbus, which had 18 log houses on June 26. Crossed the Loup river June 27, at Genoa, about 20 miles upstream from Columbus and on July 2 Wood river was rived, over the wild prairies of the valley, where the pioneer train made the first wagon trail."

In his narrative of 1897 Fred Hedde relates that when the colonists reached Columbus, "also a German settlement," the settlers urged them to stay and settle there; but they preferred to go farther, even though there was not a single white man's settlement west of that village. The spot on Wood river which the colonists reached from Genoa was described by Fred Hedde in the following:

"About ten miles from the point where this little stream emptied into a narrow north channel of the Platte river, opposite the large island in the Platte called Grand Island, the new settlement was located July 4th, 1857." Mr. Hedde, who with Mr. Menck and Surveyor Barnard selected the location, writes further:

"The island was formed by a very narrow channel branching off from the main Platte about 50 miles above, and joining the main river again about

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ten miles below the new settlement. The little branch was fringed with a narrow strip of cottonwood trees, furnishing logs for buildings and firewood. On account of its timber, in other places in the valley very scarce, the name of this island was already well-known, and gave the settlement the name of "Grand Island settlement" and the later city the name of Grand Island.

"Our pioneers then went to work putting up some log houses near the present *dwelling houses of the Menck and Stuhr farms, a little east and south of the present city, so near together that they could protect each other in case of trouble with the Indians. And they broke as much land as the late season would allow. Our surveyor succeeded in laying out a town which covered the southern part of our present city of Grand Island but never advanced beyond the character of a paper town, because the Davenport company which had started the enterprise and which was bound to make improvements in the new town, in consequence of the crisis of 1857, broke up about a year later, and consequently abandoned their scheme."

Thus are fixed the time, the place of birth and the christening of our city. And it will not be remiss at this point to take notice that the quoted record was made by one of the three men who "made" that history, as is, in the Buechler-Barrstough "History of Hall County" (1920), completely corroborated by a second colonist, Christian Menck and in large part by William Stolley, August Schernekau and others.

The pioneers were now domiciled and at work. But the supplies were becoming exhausted and Mr. Hedde and Mr. Menck contacted Surveyor Barnard with reference to this need. Two loads of provisions had been brought out with the colony, by two men. These two had been sent back to bring out two more loads. They had not come. Mr. Barnard's reply to Mr. Hedde and Mr. Menck was that he had appointed a man to bring out the next load. To the suggestion that the man might not be reliable the surveyor responded that the man was honest and a gentleman. But Mr. Hedde felt uneasy and sent four of the colonists, with an ox team, to get a load of food and other supplies. This trip would require from fourteen to seventeen days. There were not enough provisions left if everyone, as before, received what he wanted. In his anecdotes, as written for The Independent's fiftieth anniversary edition, Christian Menck relates, in connection with this incident:

"In the settlement all provisions were brought out of the wagons in order to make inventory of what there was left and to gauge the use of them accordingly. It was estimated that at least fourteen days would be required before our team could return. Rations were reduced to one-third of one pound of flour per day for each person or we would have suffered from hunger the first four weeks of our settlement here. Mr. Hedde thus from the beginning came to be the adviser of the settlement."

Other memoirs also reveal that, had Mr. Hedde not disregarded the assurance of Mr. Barnard, the main agent, and had not sent the four men to Omaha for two more loads of the supplies that had been purchased and stored for the colony, it would have been in sore straits, with the possibility of dissolution; for, when the four colonists reached Omaha, they ran across the man appointed by Mr.. Barnard to bring supplies, walking on the streets. He excused himself by saying that his horse was taken sick. The four men returned with provisions in due time. Mr. Hedde writes:

"Thus the pioneers patiently stood nearly three weeks of hunger without being starved; and when, at the end of this trying time, the men with their loads of good things arrived, there was great rejoicing, for there was once more plenty and the settlement had been saved."

During the first winter in the new land there, was one fatality. In November a snow storm set in quite suddenly. Henry Joehnck and a stranger who was temporarily in the village, had gone hunting, to Prairie creek. They could not find their way back. A rescue party found the two--the stranger already dead. The life of Mr. Joehnck was saved with difficulty. After this storm the winter was exceedingly mild and though they lived 65 miles from the last traces of civilization, and never saw any travelers excepting once in the late summer of '57, when a party of Californians returned along the valley, they enjoyed that lonely time in peace and happiness.

The financing firm of Chubb Brothers & Barrows, of Washington, with branch banks at Boston and Davenport, failed during the '57-'58 winter. This terminated all outside supply of provisions. All hope of building up the "paper city" was abandoned. The settlers were on their own resources. But they had land and courage; and the second year not only brought a second colony of 20 persons but also the first definite resurge of that generic fact of the natural passageway across the continent and its benefits. The second colony brought twenty yoke of oxen, some milch cows and some young stock. It, likewise, consisted largely of Germans.

"The settlers spread out," writes Mr. Hedde, "each taking up his own farm and going over from the mainland to the big island;" and this "is the reason that the neighborhood of the present city (1897) for five miles down and six or seven miles up Wood river is settled almost exclusively by hardworking German farmers." The year also brought more travelers through the valley. A rumor, first heard by the colonists in '57, became fact early

*The Stuhr farmstead still stands. The Menck farmstead was about half a mile east of the Stuhr. A little to the northeast of the Menck farmstead, and on the present Stuhr, former Windolph farm (original Doll claim) slight depressions still show where the small cellars of these original settlers' homes were.

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Who's Who in Nebraska ----- Hall County 1940

in 1858. Tie rumor was of the discovery of gold at Pike's Peak, Colo.

Early in '58 quite a number of gold seekers passed through "for the new Eldorado, the embryo of Denver and the state of Colorado." Though many returned in the fall, sad and disappointed, "the stream of immigration, not only to Colorado but also to the other gold countries of Wyoming, Montana, Idaho, and the Pacific coast, yearly increased and at once began a trading of food and other supplies to these travelers. The gold fields held no attraction for either the original colonists or for the second 1858 group, which consisted of William Stolley, Henry Vieregg, August Schernekau, John Hann and wife and two children, Carl Boehl and wife, Adolph Hoepfner, Rudolph Matthiessen, Charles Gardner, John Vieregg and Fred Moeller. In this "trading" good prices prevailed. From $1 to $1.50 for a bushel of grain was the general price and upon occasions the price went considerably higher. Contracts for corn, delivered at Brak's camp, nine miles this side of Fort Kearny, by William Stolley, brought $2.04 per bushel. "A good sized cabbage," writes Mr. Stolley, sold frequently for fifty cents and a fair sized watermelon for $1.00. And--there were no checks--only gold and silver coins.

A still further addition, in 1858, was a settlement of Mormons, on Wood river. They remained about five years.

Hall County was organized as such in 1859 and the first officers were: Fred Hedde, probate judge; Theodore Nagel, county clerk; Hans Wrage, James Vieregg, and Henry Egge, county commissioners; William Stolley and R. C. Barnard, justices of the peace; Herman Vasold, sheriff; Christian Andresen, treasurer; Frederick Doll, assessor; and Christian Menck and Mathias Gries, constables.

During the next few years many additional Germans arrived and in 1861 a number of Irish settled in the region just west of the present Wood River village, which, as such, practically began its history with the advent of the Union Pacific. The first settlers there were two brothers, Pat and Alex Moore, quoting from the Hedde memoirs:

"They were soon joined by their brother-in-law, O'Brien . . . . After some years a large number of Irish people settled around them. They were good, hard-working men, who got along well, and with whom our Grand Island pioneers lived on terms of friendship."

In 1862 the first real store was erected a mile southeast of the present city, by Henry A. Koenig and Fred Wiebe. It was called the OK store. Here, for the larger part, the old settlers had their meetings and later erected fortifications against the Indians. In 1864 Fred Hedde opened a store five miles farther west, and James Jackson opened a store in Wood River.

Here, again, that pathway: All these stores were kept right on the old emigrant road to catch the emigrant trade, no city as yet existing. But two years later the pathway took on a different form. The old emigrant road was displaced by the Union Pacific's rails. The prediction of a transcontinental railway through the Platte valley was being fulfilled. A real town site was laid out by the railroad company. The development brought about a great change, not only in the business and social life of the settlement but also in the occupation and development of adjacent territory. After commenting on the construction of the railroad, Mr. Hedde describes the result:

"Now the solitude was gone and the old relations were more or less changed. A number of settlers moved into the new town and the stores went away from the former emigrant road. The farther the railroad extended the more the old travel disappeared on the road until it finally stopped entirely and the old profitable trade with the gold hunters was entirely gone. But the farms in the meantime were enlarged, the acres were broadened, and large crops at smaller prices replaced the old high prices of small crops. The city grew--but only slowly until 1869, when the Union Pacific and Central Pacific railroads were finished. This great event started a large immigration into Nebraska from all parts of the United States, of which Grand Island and its neighborhood received its due share. Until then most all of the newcomers had settled in the Platte valley; but from 1869 on they went north from Grand Island to and beyond Prairie creek and Loup Fork, and began to fill the valleys of the Loup. Grand Island was for a number of years the center of trade for this whole country and grew fast. It was then the shipping point for their produce, sending it to east and west, and supplying them with all the goods necessary for their settlements. Grand Island's trade reached out for more than 100 miles."

In the meantime there had developed further economic uses of the Platte valley as the natural lane across the western domains. Indeed, a trail known variably as the "Overland" or "California," and sometimes the "Mormon," had long since started from the banks of the Missouri river near Bellevue and to Florence, followed up the north side of the Platte and North Platte to Fort Laramie where it joined the older Oregon Trail." Yet the last named, too, entered Hall County near the Martin ranch, following the south side of the river to a point twenty miles below the upper end of the "Grand Island," where it crossed the river for the then "Fort Kearny." The Hall County Historical Society has marked The Overland: (1) near Harmony Hall on the Merrick County line; (2) on south Locust; (3) on the west side of the Sandkrog road about forty yards north of the Wood river; (4) on the west side of section line running south from Alda; (5) on the west side of the township line road between Wood River and Jackson townships, about 50 feet south of the residence of Pat-

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rick Francis and, (6) at the west line of Hall County, in the southwest corner of the land owned by Henry Stedman.

Likewise following the Platte pathway came, on April 3, 1860, the Pony Express from St. Joseph and from here on west, soon followed by a stage coach line.

On July 4, 1861, Edward Creighton started a telegraph line through the valley from Omaha to Salt Lake City. The line was completed on Oct. 17 of the same year, and was known as the Pacific Telegraph company. It was later merged with the Western Union Telegraph company and routed parallel with the Union Pacific road. In 1872 Grand Island had its first telegraph office.

In January 1859, fire of malicious origin destroyed all but one house of the original settlement. Several other houses, in course of construction, were also destroyed. Speaking of his own home, Mr. Menck writes: "We saved only enough bedding for one bed. We had provisions for the entire winter and clothing for several years. It all went. The vagabond who set the prairie afire above us did it, as he boasted, because "the damned Dutch had no right to establish a settlement here." Mr. Barnard obtained fourteen days' rations for the victims, from Fort Kearny.

Aside from this hostile act it was during the sixties that the colonists and later pioneers faced the greatest dangers and suffered the greatest tragedies at the hands of the red men. This region was Pawnee territory--a tribe peaceful by tradition. While, upon one occasion, 1,500 of them passed through the settlement, outside of a few depredations they never gave the settlers serious trouble. But during and especially toward the close of the Civil War, when the Sioux, occupying southwestern Nebraska, seemed to have realized that regular troops would be unavailable to the settlers, that tribe became hostile. It once threatened to clear the entire Platte valley of the white man. But only roving bands came as far east as Hall County, and these evidently regarded the Grand Island settlement too well protected. Their visitations in Hall County were limited to the then western outskirts. Tile space allotted for this review permits brief descriptions for only a few of them.

The first of these major attacks took place on Feb. 5, 1862. Joseph P. Smith and Anderson, his son-in- law, farmers on Wood river, about twelve miles west of Grand Island, went to the Platte after some building logs. They were accompanied by two of Smith's sons, William and Charles, and his grandson, Alex. Late in the morning Anderson took one load home. When he returned after dinner he found Smith lying face down on the ice, dead and holding each of his boys by one hand. William was still alive, but he had been shot by an arrow and the cheek was cut from mouth to ear. He was taken home but bled to death. Charles' skull had been crushed and his neck broken, probably with a war club. The Anderson boy's body was found some distance away, his skull fractured. The four horses were taken by the Indians.

A second attack of outstanding note, though without direct fatality, occurred in about 1864:

"William Martin and his two sons, Nat and Robert, were returning home with two loads of hay. Mr. Martin was driving ahead when a party of Sioux and Cheyennes without any provocation attacked them, apparently with no other purpose than securing the horses. Mr. Martin was shot with arrows in the neck but not severely enough to disable him from getting home with his wagon. The two boys were frightened and left their hay, and jumped onto a horse they were leading behind and tried to get away. But both were shot, the arrow just tearing the side of Nat under the arm, but entering the back of his brother Bob. Falling off the horses, the Indians took the horses and left the boys for dead. Nat was not so severely wounded as his brother who appears to have suffered from his wound for the rest of his life, dying in Kansas, from spinal meningitis, some years ago."

Outstanding in its savagery was the raid on the Campbell Ranch about a mile west and north of Doniphan, on July 24, 1867. The men being in distant harvest fields and none at home, the house was attacked, a woman named Mrs. Warren killed by a gun shot and her son by an arrow. The two nieces of Campbell, aged 17 and 19, and twin boys four years old, were carried away and a German named Henry Dose, was killed close by. The Indians robbed the house, killed some stock and escaped unmolested. Months afterward the government bought the two girls and the boys from the Indians for $4,000 and, as an extra compensation released a Sioux sqquaw (sic), captured by Ed Arnold's Pawnee Scouts, at Elm creek, the same season. The scene of the raid is marked by a monument and the graves of several of the victims. Through the efforts of the Hall County Historical Society a public road leads to the graves.

August Schernekau, a cousin of Fred Hedde, was one of the two Hall County soldiers in the Civil War. His sword and portrait are in possession of the Hall County Historical Society, and will be among the many choice historical relics on display when the appeals for more room, by the library board--the library being the fixed home of the historical society--are heard and granted by the voters. A second enlistment from the county was that of Benjamin F. Hurley, who gave his address as Wood River.

Grasshopper visitations are recorded for the years 1862, 1863, 1864, 1865, 1866, 1873 and 1874. According to William Stolley, those of the early years were of short duration and caused little damage. But that of 1869 destroyed nearly the entire crop and that of 1874 entailed a complete loss. From Omaha to North Platte the insect hordes practically laid the country to waste. Half the farmers desperately needed financial aid. The state

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appropriated $50,000. This was insufficient and William Stolley was sent by the State Grange to Washington and there, after an energetic presentation, obtained an appropriation by congress of $150,000 for the Nebraska sufferers.

But if the early seventies brought the grasshopper scourge, the late seventies produced an offsetting and highly beneficent surge of that original motif--a transcontinental railroad through the Platte valley. The prediction of the colonists came true.

They and their followers made it come true. They voted $75,000 in bonds for the Hastings and Grand Island railway and $50,000 for the one to St. Paul and the north. Moreover, coupled with the latter issue, was the pledge of the Union Pacific, if this $50,000 issue were authorized the company would spend $100,000 for shops and round house here, before the said $50,000 needed to be delivered. The early eighties saw the full fruition of these steps. They also saw the great development of our churches and schools, the establishment of five banks, the construction of the city hall, Bartenbach Opera House, A. O. U. W. building, Oxnard Beet Sugar factory, Soldiers & Sailors Home, St. Francis Hospital, the Burlington railroad from Aurora, the street railway system, the Palmer Hotel. Unfortunately, however, the next decade, the nineties, while not without its material gains, such as the Koehler Hotel, and several additional churches, was generally a decade of depression. Hot winds, drouths, crop failures and the closing of three of the five banks featured.

The limitation of 4,000 words for this review, already slightly exceeded has necessitated much condensation of the richness of Hall County's history and the limitation to the first forty years of its being.

It is regretted that much belonging to the history of this period, had to be omitted--the stagecoach days experience of Squire Lamb, the Goettsche-Frahm massacre, the annals of Norman Reese, details of the heavy storms, etc.

It is desired only, in conclusion, to point out, again, the rich heritage that is ours--that belongs to us of the present day and is destined to be enjoyed by those who will follow. The generic fact of our location on the natural passageway across the continent regardless of constant changes in the mere form of transportation, or communication. Note the procession: ox-drawn prairie schooner; Overland Trail; Pony Express; military telegraph; stage coach; early Union Pacific day coach; Los Angeles Limited; Ford's horseless vehicle and the Lincoln highway--and the United Air Line service across the country in less than a day!

Were not our colonists right? Is not a permanent advantage ours? A tribute to them all, and to their leaders!

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