Franklin County, Nebraska

For Another Day

Editor’s note: The following is a continuation of the past week’s article of an interview with E. S. Hill of Indianola from the Compendium of History of Nebraska, Reminiscence and Biography.

I so enjoy interviews of the early day people even though they are not form our area. I think we learn from these forms of history. Anything that contains Indian history is so valuable. We have very few accounts of Indian stories in southern Nebraska. When I was searching this book I stopped on this page and completely read this interview. I thought it was good that I copied it and thought it would come in handy for publication some day. I hope you enjoy this story of E. S. Hill.

Part II

“A fight took place in the fall of 1873 between the Sioux and the Pawnee, near where Trenton now is, in Hitchcock County. The Pawnees were defeated by the Sioux, and those who were able to get away came down the river and passed through Indianola in charge of a government agent from the Pawnee reservation. Later the government sent teams hired in the valley to pick up the plunder and bury the bodies of the dead Indians. I think about ninety of the Pawnees were killed. While they were passing through here I had quite a little scuffle with three Indians. I was sitting in the door of my place. I had pulled one of my boots on, and had the other in my hand, when the Indians came up to me. I fought them with my boot until the government agent saw the fracas and came up and drove the Indians off, and told me what the trouble was.

“During the summer of 1873 quite a number of other settlers came in and located on lands adjoining Indianola, and along the Willow. Our supplies came from Lowell, between sixty and seventy miles away. If we wanted a pound of sugar or a sack of flour, we had to go there for it. I went to Lowell quite a number of times in the winter, sleeping in my wagon. Our mail was brought up by parties coming up the valley from Arapahoe, and I don’t know how much farther. The mail for Indianola would be left with me. Anyone going out or coming up would get the mail and bring it in. This applies to the fall of 1872 and the summer of 1873.

“We had quite an Indian scare during the fall of 1873. The Indians threatened to attack, and we called a meeting of the citizens to devise ways and means for protecting ourselves, at the Willow. I was elected captain of the company. I was instructed to write to Governor Frunas for arms and ammunition for self-defense. I received a letter from him in which he said that he regretted that he would be unable to furnish arms for us, as the state had no arms at its disposal. So we didn’t get them. But a little later we did get fifteen, or maybe thirty stands of arms from some source. They were sent to the sheriff for distribution among the settlers. We felt reasonably safe with the arms, but never had any occasion to use them on the Indians. Mr. Stenner was killed on the Beaver in 1873.

“In 1873, the Indians made a raid from Kansas across the Beaver into Nebraska, and on the way killed Anton Stenner. He was shot in his wagon, and his family—wife and children—came over to Indianola, where they have resided ever since. Some of them live here yet. They killed everything they could find on the ranches, such as cattle, pigs, chickens, etc. they ripped open feather beds, and gave the feathers to the winds. They crossed the Republican at or near Culbertson.

“There was a man who came over from the Beaver and said the Indians or a party of them were headed this way. We gave the alarm here to everybody as far as we could give them notice. That was Sunday morning the news came to us. We camped that day on the Indianola town site. We formed a barricade of the wagons, etc., and put every team inside. We sent out scouts to look the matter up. Ike Starbuck was sick half a mile out of town, at James Hatton’s. He was brought in on a bed and left at the hotel. James Doyle had a band of horses up near Culbertson, which he brought down here. He had a mare in the band that had a colt, which he left at home. When we found out this was a false alarm which regard to the Indians, we wrote a note and tied it on his mare’s neck and turned her loose, and she went back home, and that gave word to the settlers up there. This was on Monday. The next day we disbanded and dispersed. I was living one mile west of town on a pre-emption at that time, and when I heard that the Indians were coming I hitched up my team and came down here with my neighbors.

“Washington Hinman came here in the summer of 1872, crossing the Republican River at the mouth of the Willow on the fourth day of July with a portable steam sawmill, which I helped put in place and operated during the first summer I was here. I helped to cut the first saw log that was ever cut in the county.

“After the fight near Culbertson, one squaw got away from the Sioux and crawled out into the buffalo brush, and was brought down here by a hunter in his wagon, and left, as she was not able to go any farther. She had an arrow wound to her left breast, and one behind her left ear. Her papoose had been killed, so she said. We could make that out. She was left at the cabin of Mr. Korns on the west side of Coon Creek. They tried to get her to go into the house, but she wouldn’t go in. So he placed his wagon cover against the side of the cabin and they put her into it on some straw and blankets. The next morning we found her dead, and we took a mowing machine box and we wrapped her up in a blanket, put her in the box and buried her on the west side of Coon Creek, near where the present Indianola cemetery now is. This is the first rave we have any knowledge of in Red Willow county.

“William Berger was killed by lightning in the summer of 1873, I think it was, and just one month later Thomas Thomas was killed in the same way. He went out to feed a buffalo calf after a shower, and as he set the bucket down the lightning killed him and the calf. I made twenty-five coffins here out of goods boxes and slabs—cottonwood slabs and pine boxes. I presume twenty-five or thirty pieces went into this coffin of Bergers. The river was up when Berger was killed, and we had to build a boat to get over. When Thomas was killed, we had to ford the river without teams, and the water would run into out wagon boxes. His funeral was held one Sunday.

“The survey, when I came here, extended to between ranges 28 and 29. There was a government party here in the summer of 1872, going on west with the survey. We held our election here in the year 1873, and the result was that Indianola was selected as the county seat, that is, sections 7 and 18, and part of another section. Sixty-three votes were cast at that election, which was held on May 23, 1873.

A new thing came and they could not see, a new wind blew and they would not feel it. Lord Dunsany.

Rena Donovan, For Another Day.

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