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Dec. 1916
The Reminiscences of a Hall county Pioneer
Depicting, in Plain But Highly Interesting Narrative, Life and Its Trials, As Also Its Pleasures and Joys, When the Place in Which We Now Live Was a Mere Wilderness.

By Norman Reese

I was born in 1846 in Dane county, Wis. In 18[58] my father leased me to the great Venabury Consolidated shows for two years. In my twelfth year of age I was with another boy of my own age. We were called the Postering brothers, but were also engaged as horizontal bar performers, and performed on the high flying trapeze on the dome of canvas. Exhibits were made twice daily. We were "elicits" and ring tumblers. We were pronounced the two youngest hurdle bareback riders on the American shores. Our parents received $75 per month during out traveling season, which consisted of five months, and also received $25 per month while in winter quarters. This was a great help to them. My father, who in 1858 had

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finished his course of studies in the University College of Medicine at Madison, received his diploma and practiced medicines at that place until the year of 1860.
My lease ran out with the show company and the latter wished to renew it, but my mother would not consent to it. Everything was in a condition of excitement at that time over the civil war. Business was on the standstill, and provisions all went up. My father, who did not own a home, decided to go into the far west, and as I had two brothers and one sister, with the help of my wages that he had received from the show people and had put away for the future he purchased two wagons with heavy canvas coverings and a tent, a stove, break plow and a few tools that we would need in a new country. With two yokes of oxen, one yoke of cows, household effects and provisions

to last over the journey, and a supply of drugs and medicines to last for two years, we started out.

"Made Six Miles a Day."
We were very heavily loaded, more so than we expected to be. We should have had another yoke of oxen or cows, but our means did not permit it. My father had very little cash when we started on our long and slow journey. The first week we engaged about six miles a day. We would lay over Sundays to wash and bake bread for our next week's journey.
Our cows gave a good supply of milk and seemed to stand the traveling better than the oxen. They pulled their share of the load and in some places we had to double up and put all on one wagon. We never saw a mile of railroad after leaving the capital of Wisconsin until the Union Pacific went through Nebraska in 1868.

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We wound our way along until we crossed the Mississippi into the state of Iowa. Our cattle gave us no trouble at camping time, being fed close to the wagons. Then we managed to schedule and make on good roads from eight to ten miles a day. We had plenty of butter and milk on the road which helped us materially. After crossing Cedar Rapids, we inquired our way to Des Moines. The country became very dry between those two places. My father was compelled to buy water for the cattle at 5c a pail. After reaching Des Moines, we had no trouble, however, in this respect.

"First Glimpse of Nebraska,"
After crossing the Missouri river, my father found some money at the post office which had been sent to him by a former debtor, who had owed him $8. This came in very

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handy, for we had to pay ferry rates across the Elkhorn. Then we came on to the Loup river at Columbus. There was [sic] a few dwellings at Columbus at this time. Incidentally when we arrived, the man who conducted the ferry was on a spree and wanted $5, to take us across, and this was more than my father had. My father, was therefore, obliged to go to Genoa up the Loup river fifteen miles to the Pawnee reservation, where we saw the whole Pawnee tribe, the first Indians with which we ever came in contact. The man here ferried us across for $2. There was a company of United States soldiers protecting the reservation against hostile Sioux, Cheyennes and Comanches; for those tribes were on the war path against the Pawnees. When we reached Eagle Island, the stage station, a band of Pawnees were on the other side of the Platte

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river after a heard of antelope, and a band of Sioux attacked them and stole from them. The Pawnees came upon us just as we were camping, and were very impudent. They surrounded our little caravan and relieved us of all our provisions. My father, my older brother and I fought them, but they held us at bay. A half hour later they left. Later two Pikes Peak gold seekers joined our company and camped with us. They gave us the first buffalo meat we ever ate. They were returning to their homes in the east, but had no gold. The Pikes Peak excitement being a fake. Indeed, they had lost all they had in Colorado salted mines.

"Arriving at Grand Island."
We traveled on to the Lone Tree stage station, where we began to inquire our way to the city of Grand Island, for my father had an acquaintance of old Squire Lamb, who kept

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a stage station thirty five miles east of Fort Kearney. Lamb had written my father that there would be a letter with money at the Grand Island city postoffice. When therefore, we arrived at Grand Island city we were unable to find the city, but saw a lone shack on the north channel of the Platte, south of where Grand Island is now located. We asked the man here how far it was to Grand Island. He said we were there. My father asked where the postoffice was and he replied that he was postmaster, and that we were in the postoffice. He had as an office a cracker box partitioned off. The man said his name was John Schuler. He had a stump foot, the result of some misfortune. He declared that there was one letter in the postoffice, and that was for my father. It contained $2 in "shin plasters."

Here we met a heavy freight train

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going to Omaha to reload and take provisions back to Denver and other western points. Everyone we saw would talk about the civil war, which was sure to come. At last we reached our destination, unyoked our cattle on the plains joining the stage station. There were very few settlers in the Wood River valley at that time, and they were five to eight miles apart. With the aid of my father's neighbors, he was not long in putting up a log cabin twenty-two feet long and eighteen feet wide with a thick sod roof, and we referred to the soil as Nebraska shingles. There was also a large fire place with a sod chimney. My father and Mother having when young been accustomed to a fire place to cook by, they also had a cook stove. My older brother, my father and myself set to work cutting up hay with a scythe and also helping the stage company put up hay, thereby

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earning money to buy tea and coffee. Everything was high, because everything had to be carried by wagons. Flour was from $8 to $10 per hundred pounds.

"First Trading Place."
Fort Kearney was the nearest trading point it being the settler's store which was controlled by the government, and the only trading place until Mr. Koenig and Mr. Wiebe erected a large log store in Grand Island had had a freight train on the road from Omaha every week. They put in a stock of dry goods, tinware and provisions as there was quite a colony of Germans on the whole Platte bottom and on the island in 1858. The store of Koenig & Wiebe was of great benefit to the community of Germans, which numbered about twelve or fifteen families. Corn was their main crop and this had to be shelled and put into sack and drawn to old

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Fort Kearney to the stage company. If the quartermaster was short of corn, he would make the men drive to the fort with it, although he would not pay any money, as the stage company paid all the cash. The quartermaster would write out a voucher. You could not get any money on it, but you would be compelled to endorse it and hand it in to the express messenger. The messenger made a trip to Fort Kearney every two weeks, and on to Omaha, where he presented the endorsed vouchers at the First National Bank. The above named bank cashed it for ten per cent discount. The messenger charged five per cent for collecting and delivering the same, and if it had to go through many more hands, there was but little coming. The men received from $2.50 to $3 per bushel for delivery at Fort Kearney, but still they were not used as they would have liked to have been used, but