Elizabeth Montague Newell-Life Story

Elizabeth Montague Newell-Life Story

This story was written in the early 1930’s

Author: Elizabeth Montague Newell who was in her 80’s at the time.

This story was retyped as in the original format and submitted by Kenny Smith with permission from Kathryn Francis Baker – the G-G- granddaughter of Elizabeth Newell and James Leroy Skinner.

Elizabeth Newell story begins in Massachusetts, then to Nebraska and eventually to Kansas.

Elizabeth Montague Newell (Skinner) was born January 26, 1849, (seventh child of the family.) at a place called Pelham Hill, a small farm in Massachusetts where her grandfather David Newell lived. Grandmother Charlotte Williams Newell was a descendant of Roger Williams, founder of Rhode Island

Samuel Newell, father of Elizabeth Newell, was a shoe maker. When about 7 years old, they moved to Pelham (Massachusetts) where she started to school in a little red house. Moved to Shutesbery, Massachusetts when about eleven. Then to Amherst, Massachusetts when about 13.

In Pelham they lived in a large house that had been a hotel. Two big rooms on each side of the hall and back of that a dining room, kitchen, pantry, laundry room with brick fireplace with iron kettle. In the back of that a wood shed, etc. Grandmother Newell’s bedroom was on the first floor. On the second floor at least 6 bedrooms, the third floor was one big room. The house stood next to the Congregational Church which was on the corner. Across the street was a big store and further on up the street south was the school house—a three department --Primary, First Grammar School and Second Grammar School. The High School Amhurst was close to the College grounds.

Samuel Newell was a shoe maker and at Amherst worked in Watson Shoe Store, making shoes and boots. At Amherst was a palm leaf factory owned by Henry Hill where they split up the palm leaves and bleached them. Then the people in town would get the bundles and take them to their homes and braid them into hats or fans or wove them on looms in sheets, then take them back to the factory where they were cut into shapes and made into Shaker Hoods. Samuel Newell worked in the factory in the pressing and varnishing room after he left the store at night. Elizabeth and other members of the family did the homework. She worked on small looms and the older ones on larger looms. Her sister Amelia was married in Shutesbury to Edward Stanley. He enlisted in the army when they had been married six months. He died in the army and never saw his son, Edward (Ned). Amelia was the oldest daughter and did dressmaking at home.

At Pelham Hill we lived in a large house the kitchen had a big fireplace. At the side of the fireplace was a brick oven and when hot we would shovel out the ashes. On baking days her mother Rebecca would bake many loaves of bread, big pans of beans, pies, etc.. Vegetables were cooked hanging on a crane in the fireplace. Flour was bought by the barrel. Her father ( Samuel Arnold Newell) shop was at the end of the old cellar and stairway to cellar where the old house stood that was burned.

About ¼ mile down a narrow lane lived two old ladies, sisters named Crozier, called Aunt Patty and Aunt Zuba. She went often to see them. House built on the side of hill.

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They had lots of kittens. Aunt Patty died, then Zuba lived alone until she died. (They were no relation to the Newells). She had a brother Moses Crozier living nearby. On the other side lived old Nathaniel and Debby Gilson. She used to visit them often ( I was about 5 years old then). He had a yoke of steers he hitched to his cart to drive to Amherst about three miles to buy his groceries.

Another neighbor was Mrs. And Mrs. Louis Cook and daughters, Bessie and Julia. Bessie died while the Newells lived there. They had one son I think his name was Joseph.

At Amhurst Elizabeth and her sisters would, in going back and forth to school pass the depot, but always had to go directly to school, could never stop for anything. One day coming from school they saw a soldier’s body taken from the train. It was a son of the President of the College. The name was Stearns.

Lucious was in the Army while they lived at Amhurst, was sent home ill the summer of 1864, then when well enough left for the west and joined his brothers, Job and Willard.

Willard went west when he was only 18 or 19, the spring of 1855, and then a little later Job, who stayed about a year out west, and then went back to Vermont and married Laura Cowles, where they stayed until they moved to Kansas several years later.

The Newell family consisting of S. A. Newell, wife Rebecca, and children –Amelia and her son Ned, Elizabeth, Lucy Eliza, Martha and Myron left Amhurst, Massachusetts, April 3, 1865.

The older sons, Job, Williard and Lucius had preceeded them.

Samuel Arnold Newell made a sale of everything and the family stayed with a cousin named Eastman at North Amhurst until they left Amhurst three or four days later. They took a train at Amhurst, Elizabeth’s first train ride (age 16 years). Mother had packed a big basket of food for the family. The train was so crowded, she had to stand in the aisle. Peace had just been declared and lots of soldiers were on the train. April 3, 1865 was on Monday and she was so train sick she was not able to eat all week until Thursday. She remembers about a man evidently very well off who was very drunk and said he had always intended to celebrate winning the war by getting drunk and he certainly was drunk. He got into an argument with a man across the aisle from her, who was a rebel. The conductor came along and put them both off at the next train station.

At Niagara Falls she was still ill and they had to get a doctor and was still too ill to get out of the depot to see the Falls.

There was a ferry from Canada to Detroit. We had to change cars at Chicago from one depot to another by a horse drawn bus for several blocks. From Chicago to Grinnell, Iowa on the train went thorough Davenport, Iowa. The end of the Railroad was a t Grinnell, Iowa. The railroad was Chicago, Rock Island and Pacific. We arrived at Grinnell the next Thursday. Willard met the family at Grinnell with two, two horse teams and covered wagons. He came from Omaha. Stayed at Grinnell that night (Thursday) and it was the first time they had ever stayed at a hotel. The roads were muddy but it was cold enough that night to freeze so it was very rough riding.

At Grinnell was the first time any of the family had ever seen a mule. They were quite a curiousity. The family left Grinnell on Friday A.M.. Willard driving one team and father the other. The family rode in the wagon but I was still so seasick that I had to ride on the

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seat with father. We had woven trunks and used them in the wagons for seats. The roads were very muddy all the way.

We went through Des Moines, crossed the river there on a toll bridge. We stopped at farm houses at nights.

Eggs could be bought for 10 cents a dozen which made quite a treat for them as they could eat them every night for supper and for breakfast. Lucy was keeping a diary or

Account of the trip, telling where they stopped each night, etc. One night she asked an old lady at the home where they were staying what country they were in and she said, “Well, I’ll be dogged if I know”. This was the first time that expression had been heard by them and they thought it was very funny.

At another place they heard a baby crying and a girl came in and pulled an old trunk out from under the bed and got the baby. She was using the trunk for as a cradle for the baby. This was the worst place they stopped, so much mud everywhere, stock in the yard, and the woman were worked to death nearly, while there men stayed in the bar room.

We arrived at Council Bluffs, April 14th and stayed at Mrs. Brown’s that night. Elizabeth Waite was keeping house for her Uncle, Mr. Brown and his two children. She afterwards married Willard. While they were there, Mr. Brown came in with the news that President Lincoln had been shot. We crossed the Missouri River on a ferry boat to Omaha, the next morning, April 15, 1865 and flags were half mast on account of the death of the president. Omaha was the Capital of Nebraska at that time and was a small village.

Willard had the first bakery and made the first crackers, with a cracker machine, that were made there.

Eliza (Lida) and Amelia did not go to Elk City but stayed in Omaha. Amelia did dressmaking in a shop connected with a shop and had 8 to 10 girls working for her. Lida worked in a millinery store owned by the three McCouslin girls. Amelia boarded with a woman by the name of Hunt who had a boy named Andrew about the same age as Ned. Ned stayed with Amelia part of the time and at Elk City part of the time.

I taught private school at home, each one paying tuition. They were 2 Philip girls, a boy who’s last name was Pratt, Mary Gugin, Tommie Keeler, Jane Keeler, Ella Boyer.

When we got to Elkhorn, Nebraska we stayed at the hotel for a week or so as our two large boxes of bedding, etc. had not arrived yet. The hotel was run by Mrs. Barber and her three sons, Charles, Gates, and Herbert. She had two married daughters living at Elkhorn named Mrs. Phoebe Ryan and Mrs. Purchase. When our goods came we moved into the house that Willard had bought. It was a three room house, with an attic where we had our beds. The house was made of cottonwood planks with narrow boards to cover cracks between the wide boards. The floors were cottonwood planks. The house was not plastered. It had about 2 acres of ground. In the winter time we moved the cook stove into the living room from the kitchen as we did not have a heater. We had very little furniture but plenty of bedding and beds. We children slept upstairs and quite often when we would wake up in the morning there would be snow on our beds. We had two bad blizzards the first winter.

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The next winter, 1865-1866, I taught school about 4 miles east of Fremont and boarded with a family named Gordon. The school house was about ¼ mile from the house. The pupils were 2 Gordon boys 17 or 18 years old, Harriet Smith, 2 Smith boys, 2 Hayes children, a boy and girl. I got 16 dollars a month and board.

One Sunday night the 2 Gordon boys and Harriet and I went to church in Fremont, drove 2 horses hitched to a bobsled. After church when we were ready to start home, we

all got into the sled and the horses balked, we had a terrible time there in the cold trying to get the horses started and when they finally did get into the sled, then they started running in a circle and one boy had to run to get into the sled, then they started for home and stopped for nothing until we got there. We thought at the time it was very funny.

Once while there I took a bad cold and had an ulcerated tooth. I had to go home and Lida happened to be home from Omaha so she went and taught school in my place for two weeks. I had a very bad time with that tooth, but we were miles and miles from a doctor so I had to just grin and bear it. I was 17 years old then.

Gordon’s lived on a ranch and it was one of the stopping places for freighters. They had a cat that always got into the kitchen oven after the fire went out. One night some freighters came by late and started a fire to get their supper. They heard a terrible crying and mewing and could not imagine what it was, but in looking around, they opened the oven door and out jumped Mr. Cat.

The second summer, 1866, I taught school in the school house about 8 to 10 miles east of Columbus. I boarded at McAllister’s part of the time, also at McPherson. Pupils were Maggie McAllister, Johnnie and Mary McPherson, 3 Anderson girls, Damon and Ralph Cummings and 2 Clark children.

The McAllister’s house was just across the road from a small branch of the Platte River. We went down there and was in the water wading at the time the grasshoppers happened to come. They were so thick that they looked like a cloud and made it dark as if a cloudy day.

Mag had a horse. She always rode bareback and was out on the horse one day when her mother called her to look after the horses out in the pasture. They had a cellar in the yard. Mag started out on her horse and rode over the cellar and went right through the top of the cellar. They had to get neighbors to help get the horse out.

Of the families-

There were the Skinner family, Joe and Julia Skinner, children James, Joe and Byron, and the George Lawrence family. Mrs. Lawrence was Addie Skinner, sister of James Skinner, etc. Ellen Skinner Wilson, another sister, had already moved out to Oregon. It was this summer I met James. Joe Skinner later married Maggie McAllister and Byron married Amelia Gardner who taught school where Schulyer is now but lived near David City, named for her father. Mr. Clough was the Postmaster at Eldorado, which was between the Skinner and Lawrence home. Years before that the Post Office was on the Skinner ranch.

The Skinner farm was 160 acres with a log house on it; adjoining it was Byron’s 160 acres, Joe’s 80 and James 80 acres. Later when they left there, they sold to a German named Smith and moved to Kansas.

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I went back to Fremont the fall of 1866 where my folks were living. Father had put in a big garden and had contracted to furnish vegetables to the hotel and restaurant. Mr. Fowler had the hotel. He had two sons, Frank and Will, and one daughter, Jennie. She and I were chums. Mr. Fowler was ill one night and she got up to get medicine and made the mistake and gave him poison. He lived only a few hours. Jennie married Mr.

Munger who was later District Judge in Omaha. I visited them years afterwards. Fremont was a very small place, a few houses, and one hotel. We (Elizabeth Newell and James Skinner) were married at the Fowler Hotel August 31, 1867. Jim drove down in a 2 seated hack and brought his mother. The Skinner’s and the Fowler’s were old neighbors.

We drove that day to Omaha and Council Bluffs where Jim’s mother took the train to their old home in Middleville, Michigan. We stayed in Omaha a couple of days. Willard lived there then. In Omaha Jim bought two little baskets of peaches about 6 or 7 in the basket. He gave one to his mother and brought the other ones back to Mr. Fowler. We went on to Eldorada, the old hone. Byron and his wife Amelia and his father were ready to leave for Kansas. We stayed on the farm from Sept. 4 to the first of April; we went up to Big Springs. Joe lived with us through the winter on the old farm and he and Maggie were married in January.

Huge flocks of wild geese and ducks flocked where on the wheat stubble after the wheat had been harvested. Dad went out and killed one and I spent the whole day dressing it. We didn’t get any more because I didn’t want to dress them. We could have gotten enough for a feather bed, but Dad wouldn’t kill anymore than we would eat. He said it was waste, to kill them and not eat them.

The Skinner’s owned an island on the Platte River. The island was 10-15 acres and thickly wooded. This was included in the property because the river ran through the middle of it. Every winter the Pawnees would come down from their reservations and camp on the island. The Pawnees were very dirty and wore blankets all the time. That winter Dad and Joe cut trees for the Union Pacific railroad. So all winter I stayed there at the house by myself during the daytime. The island was about a mile from the house. After they cut the trees they hauled them to Schuyler. Since Dad and Joe left at sunrise and came back at sundown, I didn’t see anyone but Indians during that time. The Indians were friendly but always begging all the time.

When the Indians came to the house they always looked right in the windows before coming in. They always walked right in, without being invited. The men and women were never out together. The women, when they came, had their papoose fastened to their backs and when they came inside would unfasten the strap and stand them up against the wall. They could talk some English and I could talk some of their language so we could understand each other. It was at the farm that we had a well and drew up water up in a bucket with a pole. We covered the well with a board. One day three Indian men came. I didn’t let them come in. The men had left a big butcher knife out at the well. I saw an Indian pick it up and stick it under his blanket. I went out and told him to give it to me. He shook his head and I told him again to give it to me. He thought it a pretty good find and didn’t want to give it up but he did and finally went off. I was scared later.

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There were big flocks of prairie chickens most everywhere you went in Nebraska, all over the prairies. Everybody but me liked them in fact they thought it a great treat.

Joe and Maggie went up on the Railroad a month or so before we did. They located first section east of Julesburg, Colorado. Later about April 1, we went to the section at Big Springs, but the family in there did not leave for a couple of weeks, so we went and stayed with Joe and Maggie. Their house was just a 2 room house. When they went to

bed they had to keep their guns stacked on the table where they could get them quick. The guard had to watch close for Indians but they never bothered while they were there.

We went down to Big Springs; we lived in a sod house. Big Springs was a double section-6 miles east and 6 miles west. The sod house had 3 rooms—dining room, kitchen and small bedroom. The men slept in a loft and would get there by a ladder. We boarded from 25 to 50 men. The Union Pacific Rail Road was being built into Colorado, but they had to keep a lot of men working all the time. The depot was at Big Springs. There was a camp of U. S. soldiers stationed at Big Springs. I think about 20. There was a spring walled up there and the soldiers were stationed near the spring on the other side of the Rail Road tracks from the depot. All the help I had was what Jim did and a helper by the name of Jim Lane.

We had a big cook stove and made coffee and tea in large lard cans. We had two big iron kettles, 2 or 3 dripping pans. Dad would go down to Omaha the first of every month and get a barrel of corned beef, about 25 hams, big can of lard, firkin of butter, big wooden box of raisins, about 20 sacks of flour, a barrel of sugar, sacks of coffee. About 15 bushels of potatoes, a box of dried apples, salt, etc. He would go on the 4 o’clock train in the afternoon and be back the second day, be gone two nights. I was the only woman around there. Never saw another woman until in July when Mrs. Charlie Lawrence came and stayed awhile. He worked on section and she helped me. The Sioux Indians were on the war path and the men never went to work without their Winchesters and revolvers. We always slept with the Winchester right at the head of the bed. The Indians did not come while we were there but did just a few sections east of us and killed the boss and a couple of other men.

One afternoon at Big Springs, we looked out and saw 2 men coming up from the river about ½ mile away. They were young men so we waited till they came and they wanted a meal. So I gave them a good meal and they gave me 50 cents a piece and went off down the railroad tracks. When Jim went to Omaha he got besides groceries, shirts, overalls, and socks for the men. These two strangers bought each of them a shirt before they left. That night after midnight ( the track was right close to the house), we heard an engine stop right by our bedroom window, they blew the whistle and woke everybody up. They came to the door, Dad got up and the Officer of Vigilance Committee told Dad to get everybody up. So he had to get everybody out and they had to be looked over. Mr. Alexander who was the boss of the gang, had to verify each man. Jim told them about the two men that had been there that afternoon and which way they went. They were found later at Grand Island, they had robbed a bank.

At Big Springs in 1868 there were antelope running by the train, a man stepped out on the platform and shot the antelope, just to see if he could shoot it. People those days lived on wild meat, shot deer, antelope, wild turkey, buffaloes and prairie chickens. The

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train kept going so some of our workers went out and got it. The men dressed it and put it in the barrel with the corned beef. I cooked it with our other meat. I never liked wild meat of any kind but I did eat this. I guess putting it in with the corned beef, took away the wild flavor.

One day a herd of cattle was driven through. They camped a little ways from us. Dad

went out that night and got a bucket of milk. The first and only milk we had while at Big Springs.

A few days later I saw an animal, down by the track, about a half mile away. I supposed it was a cow strayed out of the herd. A couple of men went down there, killed it and butchered it and we had fresh beef for as long as it lasted. The only fresh beef we had while there in Big Springs.

We lived in a Sod house at Big Spring with dirt floor. We had a wood cook stove and one little old kitchen chair with a rope bottom. A built in table and rough board shelves in the kitchen. In the dining room was 2 long board tables with benches on each side. They took up practically all the room. We had a small cellar outside of the house called a “dugout” or cave, where we kept the potatoes, barrels of meats and 15-18 hams. We kept the rest of the food stacked in the corner of the kitchen—dried apples, flour, raisins, cans of lard, a firkin of butter, sacks of coffee, can of tea, barrel of sugar, etc.

For breakfast, Dad would slice almost a whole ham and put it in dripping pans in the oven, because there wasn’t room on the stove. As there were two kettle’s full of corned beef and a 5 gallon lard can full of coffee.

My kitchen utensils were 3 or 4 big bread pans, dish pan, 2 large iron kettles, rollong pin, paring knife, butcher knife, tin pie pans, and a wash boiler.

The first time Dad went to Omaha he brought back 2 barrels full of heavy white earthen dishes, 4 dozen plates, 4 dozen knives and forks, 4 dozen cups and saucers, 6 vegetable dishes, 4 butter dishes, 4 sugar bowls, 4 dozen tin teaspoons, some tin cups, and a water bucket.

One night a man came there and ate supper he was going through there. I don’t know where he came from or who he was. But when he saw the table all set, he said that that was the first time he had seen a table set with dishes in any section house or boarding house because everyone else used tin plates, etc.

I never saw an egg all summer. For desert all we ever had was dried apples pies and this pudding which I called “railroad pudding”—left over pieces of dried bread put in a pan and I poured boiling water over them. When soaked up I would put in sugar, raisons, and some spics and beat it all up together and bake it in the oven.

I had to get up at 5 0’clock in the morning and start cooking. I baked about 15 loaves of bread every day. It would be 9 o’clock every night before I got the work done, supper dishes washed, etc. The potatoes left from supper, I’d cut up and fry for breakfast.

For breakfast we had bread, ham, fried potatoes, and coffee. For dinner boiled meat, boiled potatoes, coffee, and bread. For supper we would have cold meat, potatoes, bread, tea, and pudding or pie.

One forenoon when we were still in the old sod house, Mr. Alexander came in and said that a train had some in with thirty more extra men and wanted their dinner. We already

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had thirty more extra men boarding there then. We sent over to the soldier’s camp and got their cook who was a Frenchman. They built a place out in the yard of stones and built a fire and cooked the potatoes in a wash boiler. We filled the 2 big iron kettles full of corned beef. I had already baked 15 loaves of bread and had to bake another 15 loaves that afternoon. We fed the men their dinner and as Jim had to go to Omaha that afternoon, we told them not to come back for supper. We got supper for our regular 30

men and after we had gathered up the dishes and were washing them, there was an old who came in and wanted a cup of coffee and anything that might be left. So I let him come in. While he was eating, another man came in and they kept coming in until I fed 13 extra men. They each gave me 50 cents. I didn’t get through until one o’clock in the morning and I had to get up at five o’clock every morning. So we got up at five the next

morning as usual. Jim had helped me in the morning before by cutting up the hams and doing the lifting.

We did not get coffee as we do now. We got green coffee and then had to roast it and grind it in a hand mill. The next day after we had fed those extra men, Mr. Alexander came in again and said that the carpenter said that the new house was done and ready to move into, but he said (Jim) Skinner had said for us not to move until he came back from Omaha. But I said it didn’t make any difference about that. I’m going to move out of this sod house right NOW. If you will let the men carry things over we will move right now. The new house was across the RR tracks from the sod house. So they carried the stove and everything over and we were over there and settled when Jim got back.

At this time we were living in a new frame house. It was not plastered, it had a big dining room and kitchen and bedroom, and a large room upstairs where the men slept. We didn’t have bedsteads but the men took boards and built bunks.

There were two long tables and benches built in the dining room. All they had to move was the stove, dishes, clothes and groceries. We had the only porcelain dishes along that part of the railroad.

We had straw beds for the bunks. Some of the men moved to the new house and some stayed in the sod house. I did not leave there until 6 weeks before Fred was born. I went to Fremont on the train. The Fowlers also had a livery stable and Jim had left word with the Fowler that when I came, Mr. Fowler was to take me to Cuming City where my folks lived, which he did. When the folks lived at Cuming City, Blair, Nebraska wasn’t started.

Fred was born at Cuming City, October 8, 1868. I didn’t go back to Big Springs. Willard and Lib lived near and had a store in part of their house. Their boy, Oscar, took sick and they sent for Mattie (Martha) to come and help with the work. The doctor did not tell them that Oscar had scarlet fever. Mattie stayed about a week and came home sick and it turned to scarlet fever. Fred was only a few weeks old, he took scarlet fever and so did I, and Mother, Myron and Ned (Amelia’s boy). We were all very sick. I had a relapse and was much worse. Amelia and Mrs. Waite took came of us. Amelia had already had scarlet fever.

My father’s house that we lived in was built so that it could be moved to the homestead the next spring. It was not plastered, no partitions, just one big room and one room

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upstairs. Father moved it the next spring to his homestead about 10 miles north and west of Blair, Nebraska.

I left father’s and mother’s home about the middle of February 1869 to go to our farm about 5 miles east of them. Jim came along after us in a wagon. Amelia went to stay two or three weeks with me. The snow was up to the hubs of the wagon wheels. Jim bought the farm from the man who had homesteaded it. Jim had the Soldier’s right to 80 acres and another 80 by citizen’s right to homestead. We could of gotten this land all adjoining the 80 we bought but he did not take them.

We lived on this farm about three years. Julia was born here, May 28, 1870. It was such a good farm we had an abundance of everything. We planted onions, which grew to the size of sausages and very large cabbages, fine wheat and oats crops. The only things we had to buy at the store were sugar, alt, etc. We had our own flour, cornmeal, lard, meat, etc. Spikers bought the homestead joining our land and had the Post Office which was named Spiker.

Father, Mother, Myron and Mattie came up and stayed with us in the spring of 1869 and during that summer Father moved his house from Cummings City to his homestead.

Mr. and Mrs. Cook and son Theodore, were our nearest neighbors. Mr. and Mrs. Ed Hindley lived about 1 ½ miles from us. Charles Holsteen, a bachelor, had a farm adjoining Mr. and Mrs. Billings and daughter Eliza.

That fall the folks moved to their homestead in the New England neighborhood about 4 miles north. Perry and Lida (my sister) Selden lived in this neighborhood adjoining father’s homestead. Mr. and Mrs. Haines and 4 or 5 children lived there to. Their daughter Helen worked for me when Julia was born.

We had such fine mushmelons and watermelons that Dad took a load to Blair one day and could sell only a part of them and he had to dump them out to the pigs. The house on this farm of ours was 2 bedrooms and shed, kitchen without any floor and an attic over the two rooms. It was built of rough cotton wood boards up and down. After we had been there awhile Jim got some siding and Mr. Hindley was a carpenter and helped him side the house.

In December my sister, Amelia, died with pneumonia. She was in Omaha and had a dressmaking shop in a store. Her husband, Edward Augustus Stanley died in the Civil War. They had a son, Ned Standley, who he never saw. Ned was only 7 years old when his mother died, then on he lived with Mother and Mattie or with us. He died when he was 20 years old. Amelia was buried in Cumings City Cemetery, then later moved to New England Cemetery in 1883.

Lucy (my sister) Eby died the next May 12, 1870 in Fremont, Nebraska when her son, Walter was 10 days old. Mother and Mattie raised him too. Then he got older and lived with us part of the time. I went to Amelia’s funeral but not to Lucy’s as that was just a few days before Julia was born. The blizzard in 1870 was the worst blizzard I ever saw. When the storm was over we could not see the stable, it was at the foot of the hill and completely covered. The storm started Sunday and by Monday you dared not go out the door. It lasted until Wednesday afternoon. We had 70 hens and when the storm was over

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only 6 or 8 were left. Jim had to shovel his way from the house to the barn. Before the blizzard got too bad, Dad tied a rope to the door knob and worked his way to the barn to take care of the stock, so he could give them plenty of hay to last, then in coming back had the rope to follow back. I didn’t go to Blair once while I was on the farm.

Henry Newell and his wife and their 3 or 4 children came out here from Massachusetts,

while we were on this farm and they rented a room from a farmer for awhile and later moved to Blair. He was a carpenter and did not want to farm. Later they moved to Omaha. Julia, Walter, Minnie, and Lutie were all born the same month of May 1870. I was postmaster for a short time and called the place Amherst (for back home in Massachusetts) then turned it over to Spiker.

In the fall of 1871 (it was the year of the Chicago fire) we sold the farm to a German, (cannot remember his name) and moved to live with Jim’s father and stepmother on a farm four miles north of Olathe, Kansas, over the worst hilly rocky road I ever saw. His father had kept writing us to come down there. Jim ran the farm for him awhile then he bought it. It was a much poorer farm than the fine farm that we had left in Nebraska. I didn’t raise anything good while on this farm.

The house had only three rooms, consisting of one room with shed on each side. We lived in one room until they moved to Olathe when we bought the place from them the next spring. Frank was born here June 2, 1873 (?). We were on this farm 4 years. The grasshoppers came three years in succession. They came in great clouds and soon ate everything in sight.

One Sunday our garden was up and the lettuce was big enough to cut before I went to church so I went out and looked and decided to wait after church to pick it, but when I got back from church the grasshoppers had eaten up the whole garden. Grasshoppers were so thick that they stopped the trains. Later on that same summer the grasshoppers were still there and ate all the leaves off all the peach trees and part of the peaches. We managed to save some of the peaches to can and dry.

This was the summer we didn’t have much to eat, we couldn’t get any flour or vegetables. We just had what they called middlin’s or shorts to make biscuits. We could not use it for bread. Later in the fall Jim went to town and brought home some navy beans and we were so hungry for them that we stayed up that night and cooked and ate them.

Byron Skinner (Jim’s brother) had a farm adjoining this farm near Olathe. Byron sold his farm the same time we did ours and they moved to De Sota, Kansas where he lived a year or two and then they moved to Ashland, Kansas. His wife’s name was Amelia (Gardner), their children were Bert, Matie, Bessie, (who died when a baby), Jessie, Cora, Daisy, Arthur, and Clyde. They later moved to North Bend where Cora, Daisy and Matie now reside. Amelia and I visited back and forth. She was a fine woman and I liked her very much.

In Olathe they had an auction sale every Saturday. Jim went in a bought a horse and the second day after he brought it home the sheriff came and got it as it was a stolen horse. So we lost the horse and money too.

One day when Jim was gone I had to feed the pigs so I took a big knife and went to the

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corn field and cut down some corn stalks. Grasshoppers were so thick that by the time I got back to the house, they were crawling up inside my clothes. I had to strip everything off. Frank was born while we were on this farm, June 2, (1872). His name is Francis Newell.

Mattie (my sister) came down to stay with us the last year that we lived on this farm. She was with us about a year before she married. Lucious ( my brother in Montana) paid

her for taking care of Walter Eby, but all this time Walter was with mother on their Nebraska homestead. Before she married she wrote Lucious and he sent her fifty dollars.

She went to Olathe and bought lots of things for herself, including a bolt of muslin, yards and yards of embroidery, black alpaca for a dress, shoes, etc., other goods for dresses. She made the muslin up into nightdresses, skirts, and all the other underclothes we used to wear.

Mattie had met a man by the name of Warren Davis and he came down one day to visit us and stayed about 2 weeks. Then he and Mattie went to Kansas City to be married. Dad took them to Olathe to take the train to K. C.. Davis was so hard up that Dad let him have forty dollars (that we couldn’t really spare). They went to K.C. for a couple days. Then when Jim went back to Olathe for them as he had arranged, he found that they had come back the day before and had stayed at the hotel in Olathe- of course without any money as they had spent it all in K.C. so Jim had to take some more of our money to pay their Olathe hotel bill. He brought them back out to the farm.

When Mattie went to K.C. on her wedding trip, she bought herself a ready made dress. It was the first ready made dress we had ever seen. This was bought with the money Dad had let her have. Dad told her to get me 10 yards of goods for me so I could make a dress while she was in K.C.; it took 10 yards in those days to make a dress, but instead she bought me seven yard of very ugly calico which I had to make do for a dress. I had no other dresses but some old worn out things, not fit to wear anywhere.

Davis could tell the largest stories (tales) I ever heard. He told us he owned mines in Colorado and had been in the cattle business but he had lost considerable on amount of the floods but had mines he sold and the money would be due him at Christmas and talked Jim into putting our money into a second hand store in Ottawa. So we moved to Ottawa the fall of 1875. We rented a 2 story building, the lower floor for the store and we lived in the second floor.

We sold the farm to a couple that had four deaf and dumb children. They moved here so they could put their children in the School for the Deaf Children at Olathe. A few days before we moved, Warren and Dad went to Ottawa and rented the building, Dad, of course, paying the rent.

We moved our goods in the lumber wagon and got Byron’s hack for us to ride in. Jim drove the team with the goods and Warren Davis drove the hack with Mattie and I and the children. When we left the farm Amelia put a carpet in the hack for us to put our feet on and when we got to Olathe, Warren took the carpet and put it down in the only bedroom and took a bed and feather bed and stand and the best of everything (all ours) and fixed their room all up and just possession of them without even asking. There were

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only two other rooms. A living room and kitchen, we had to put our bed in the living room and use a straw bed. I put the only other featherbed, a small one, on the children’s

trundle bed.

There was an outside stairway leading out of the living room and inside stairway out of the kitchen which led down to the store below. At the bottom were two doors, one into the store and the other into a wood shed. Warren and Mattie stayed with us awhile and then moved a few doors up the block. Just 2 doors from us they had an auction of big chromo pictures, Dad and Warren went (this was in the evening). I was alone upstairs and heard someone come in the front door and go out the back door. I was awfully frightened. It was Warren; he had come back and cleaned out the money drawer. He dropped a five dollar bill at the stairway. The business would have been a good thing but Dad had to do all the repairing of the furniture and take care of everything including the horses. Warren loafed around the place, talking big and taking all the money. Finally when Dad had lost about everything he had he made them get out.

Walter and my mother came to Ottawa with Myron. Walter then stayed with Mattie and came to Coffeyville to stay with us a little later. We went to Coffeyville in the spring of 1876, I think about March 25. Because of the Ottawa deal, Dad did not have much left but the team and wagon and some household goods after Davis got most everything we had.

Dad and I and the children (Fred, Julia and Frank) came down on the train, it was the L.L. & G –the Lawrence, Seavenworth and Galveston, now called the Santa Fe. Myron drove the team down with the household goods in the wagon. We had a beautiful Newfoundland dog named Prince and Myron was bring him to Coffeyville, but lost him on the way. The children thought lots of Prince and nobody dared come near them when he was around and I had often found Prince and Frank out in the yard with Prince lying down with Frank asleep with his head on the dog as a pillow.

We got here (Coffeyville) about 4 o’clock in the afternoon and went to the Southern Hotel and stayed. Joe Kloehr was running the hotel. Mrs. Kloehr and daughter Mollie were the first women I got acquainted with. Some blanket Indians stayed at the hotel that night.

The next morning we got a house or really a shack as it was the only house in town we could get. This house was on Union S Street ( 502 Union now), just across south from the house where Captain Huffman lived which was later the Duckworth home. This shack was just one room, cottonwood floor. We lived there until August when we moved to the Captain Huffman’s house across the street. One Saturday morning Huffman’s moved out, they had bought a farm out by Cedar Bluff. I wanted to move right away, but Dad, of course, wanted to wait until Monday. So after Dad went to work, we got busy moving. Mother and Walter were with us then, had come a few weeks before. Fred and Julia carried a tub back and forth. I would put a few dishes in and they would carry the dishes over and set them out on the floor and come back for more. I had a kitchen safe and Fred and I carried it over. We set it in the kitchen and mother went over and put the dishes in the safe for me. Then Fred and I carried other things over. I had some rag

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carpet and we carried it over and put it on the bedroom floor. We got things over that way by carrying a piece at a time. Everything but the cook stove and dresser, so when at

Noon when Myron and Dad came home, they brought them over.

Myron drove the team and ran a dray for Dad awhile and later he went to work for the L.L.G. Rail Road. Dad rented a room in the Plaza building where Embree Morgan is now, the front of the building, the small side, and started a second hand store. He did not keep it more than three months and sold out.

When we were in the old shack we had a terrible storm one night and we got up and all went to the barn and stayed al night. When we went back to the house the next morning, two windows were blown out and everything in the house wet. So that Saturday that we moved it looked so stormy that was one reason I was in such a hurry to get out of that shack and moved into the Huffman house.

Mother went back up to Blair, Nebraska later that summer but Walter stayed with us. Dad went back up to Olathe to settle up with the man who had bought our farm and when he came home he brought home a rag carpet which he had taken in on the debt. This we put down in the front room.

Myron was 5 or 6 days getting down to Coffeyville with our goods, there had been so much snow and bad weather, the horses couldn’t pull the load, so he had to unload the heavy parts and send it down by train from some town between Coffeyville and Ottawa. Population at that time was about 500.

Fred first went to school about five miles west of Olathe called the Skinner school house; it was on Byron Skinner’s place. Second school was at Ottawa. He was 7 ½ years old when we came to Coffeyville. Julia started to school after we came to Coffeyville.

We did not stay in the Huffman-Duckworth house long, but bought a place on Santa Fe Street (811) it would be. When we were on Santa Fe street Sam Campbell was agent with the Depot. They lived second door north of us. They had two children ; Kate about 3 or 4 years old and Charles (later Dr. Campbell) who was a few months old. We sold the Santa Fe Street place to and rented Currier’s house. Mrs. Currier had died the year before and he and Bert, his son, kept one room and boarded with us.

I bought a millinery store while in Currier’s house. We moved upstairs over the Post Office which was next to Read’s Corner Store. Hickman was Postmaster. This building burned while we lived there. We saved some and had to move across the street on the Union side of the Plaza in the front part of the McDormatt building. They lived in the back part. This was to be only until we could find a house.

We bought from Upham a buildinmg into which we moved, lived in the back rooms and had the millinery shop in front. This is where Huggin’s Grocery is on West ‘th now. In the spring of 1886 we moved to 416 East 9th which has been our home ever since.

Once on the farm near Olathe, I never will forget when Dad bought a horse; it was so wild and mean. Aunt Amelia was coming over to our farm and the horse got out. She was so afraid of it and ducked head first into the little chicken house. It was a funny thing. One day our children with Byron’s children were playing out on the road between the two places and there were some loose horses out and we started to chase them to

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catch them. Bert (Byron’s boy) who was about a year older than Fred was kicked just above the eye, cut a bad gash and always had the scar there.

Dora Selby was the organist at the Union Sunday School. Peffer was the Superintendent. In the year of 1876 when we came here, they were having Union Sunday

School in the school building located where the Junior College now is. The church building was moved over from old Parker but it hadn’t been fixed up to use, was all boarded up. We had a Methodist preacher name of Smith at the school house so in the fall of 1876 we began to work to get it in shape to use.

We had an entertainment in the church before anything was done to it, t start raising money to fix it up. We had singing, recitations and tableaux. Julia was in a tableau, the name of the tableau was “Cupid Dead”. Dr. Frazier came to our house and asked if she could be in it. Julia had beautiful long yellow hair and I braided it before so that her hair would be krimpy. Then we loosened her hair and she had on a little white muslin suit like panties and waist trimmed with embroidery. She was lying down on a cot with her hair loose around her, and two young ladies standing looking at her, they were Gertie Luce and Stella Luck. We made twenty dollars, the first money to start the church.

The only other church was the Catholic, a little one room frame building north of 8th street. We had our first church service in the church the next Sunday after April 2, 1876. I attended the first service. Smith was the minister. We had church suppers and organized ladies society and sewed carpet rags and sold them.

They organized the Ladies Aid Society in Mrs. Willard Upham’s home, a few years later in 1878. Members were- Mrs. Willard Upham, Joe Barriclaw, Smith (minister’s wife), Currier (first president), Hetherington, Luce, Brooks, Henry Upham, Bump (Scott Bump’s mother), Sterling, Tallman (Dr. Tallman’s wife), Harper, Haz Read, Tall Read, McLee’s, Perkin, Brooks (taught school),Kincaid, Landon (Dr. Landon’s wife), Will Long (Kirby Long’s mother), John Lang, H.H. Upham, Slossen, and Selby. Later as the society grew the aid was divided into three circles. I was president one year.

Mrs. Montgomery lived just east of the Parsonage and later gave the property to the church. She and her sons in K.C. furnished the money to have the church painted and bought the bell. The Methodist Sunday School was organized after the building was finished. My children, (Fred, Julia, Frank) and I were charter members. I taught a class of boys and girls for a couple of years. I remember that Josie Brown was one of them.

I wrote to the Superintendent of Sunday School (his name was Henry Hills) at Amherst, Massachusetts where I came from and asked for some of their used books to start a library here. They sent about fifty books. Mr. Willard Upham’s mother gave $25 worth of new books.

Willard Upham’s father and mother lived here with the Upham’s. He was a minister. One Sunday morning he was going out east of town to preach at a school house. They went out to hitch up the horse for him and came in and found him dead in the chair.

The stores in Coffeyville the first years we were here were—Well’s Brothers-general store, Barricklow-general store, Upham-general store, Barndollar-general store, York and Eby-Bank, Chas. Munn-hardware, Reads-dry goods, Brooks-meat market, Ford Lang-Drug, Later Lange Lape-furniture, Dr. Frazier & Dr. Huck-drug store, A.P. Boswell-

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hardware, Isham-hardware, Canada-general store, M. C. Currier-wagon shop, Davis-harness maker, Geo. Slossen-drug, Luther Perkins-lawyer.

When Frank was 13 or 14 years old, he went to work for Wells Bros. for a couple of years, then for Lang & Lape until he went into the undertaking business for himself.

There was a newly married couple living out on South Walnut Street. One evening she

she was standing in the door when Lon Cannady, outlaw, went by drunk on horse back and shooting—a shot struck her and killed her.

There were four or five saloons and outlaws would come up from Indian Territory and get drunk and were always shooting. It wasn’t safe to be down town after night.

Barker and Triplett gang were outlaws. They threatened to burn the town and one Saturday we heard that they were coming that night and so some guards were out for several nights for fear they would come at night. Then finally word came that a U. S. Agent had shot and killed Barker. His body was brought here and buried in Elmwood cemetery. They had Barker’s body in the old building where Bessey’s Furniture Store is now. They had Triplett in the jail here awhile, then to the penitentiary. Henry Starr also had a gang of outlaws down in Indian Territory.

Mr. Cannada’s general store was on the corner of 9th and Union. His son, Lon, was also an outlaw. Later there was the Dalton gang composed of Grat Dalton, Bob Dalton, Emmitt Dalton.

They terrorized the country for some time but were killed here in a bank holdup in October 1892, except Emmett who was sent to the pen. The National bank was in the Plaza block across the street from the end of “Death Alley”, and when the gang was coming out of the alley to the bank, Dad was standing by the side of the door but back in a little niche where he wasn’t seen as they went into the bank. Dad’s team was standing tied in front of the bank. Dad saw them coming , they didn’t see him, as they went into the bank so he ran and gave the alarm and when the shooting commenced the horses were frightened, broke loose and started running around the Plaza, adding to the confusion, finally started down 9th street toward home.

Virginia’s addition: (Virginia Frances Ritter granddaughter of Elizabeth Newell Skinner) I remember grandmother telling me years later that she was combing Lela’s and Addie’s hair intending to send them to town on an errand when she heard the shooting start. Then when grandfather’s team came wildly running home without grandpa she was sure that he had been shot. Also, one of the young men there that was killed was one of Aunt Julia’s suitors. I can’t recall his name.

The first or second year that we were here, Sterlings had a goat that ran loose so much all around town, go jumping along the sidewalk. One day Mrs. Munn stepped out of their store and she did not see the goat coming and fell head long over it.

Lela was born Sept. 8, 1884 when we were living over the millinery store, but we owned a house on East 10th street which was later the John Kloehr home, about the middle of the 300 block. We furnished one room and I stayed down there and that is where Lela was born.

Addie was born after we moved to our present home, 416 East Ninth Street. While we were living upstairs over the P. O. office Bela was about three months old when we were

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Burned out. The store two doors north was where the fire started and all three buildings were burned. Our place was next to reads Store, a brick building, which was on the corner. We got most of the things out, and were set out in the street. The insurance had expired just a few days before but fortunately I had had it renewed.

We organized the Methodist Sunday School in 1878. Mr. Breeden was Supt. He was also the Minister here for a year after Smith. He went to Independence from here for a year then he was dropped from the conference. He was not liked at all. I was the first Sunday School Treasurer. Mrs. Currier, first Secretary, librarian later. Dora Stubblefield, organist. All three of our children, Fred, Julia, and frank and I were charter members. Julia was organist later on for several years.

In 1891 the second church was built and we all attended the Dedication Service, jan. 25, 1891. I was one of the Stewards of the church for several years. Each Steward had to see to collection of the money from the members and our meetings once a month were at the Francis home. Mr. Francis was Treasurer and one of the trustees. Mr. Ella Francis was always very active in the choir work of the church.

In1908 the church we now have was finished and dedicated. There has been four dedications on that church corner. First one in 1876 (frame). Second in 1882 when frame church was rebuilt. Third in 1891, first brick church. Fourth in 1908 second brick church. I am charter member of the Woman’s Home Missionary Society.

In 1882 when the frame church was remodeled and we were getting ready for the Dedication, Walter Currier who was to be the janitor had more than he could do alone that day, Saturday, before the dedication so he had his mother help him do the work filling and cleaning the lamps. They had a large wood stove and had a large kettle of water on it to wash the lamp chimneys. She had the chimneys all washed and had picked up one of the lamps and filled it and she took it in her hand to wash it and the lamp struck against the kettle and broke, letting the oil run out onto the stove and caught fire. Standing so close to the stove the oil ran down on her clothes and she was badly burned. She died in about an hour after that. Walter Currier was working in the church fixing the windows and as soon as he heard her scream he grabbed up the carpet in the aisle and tried to smother out the fire. They had the dedication Sunday morning and Mrs. Currier’s funeral there in the afternoon.

I am charter member of the Woman’s Relief Corp. and was Treasurer for about 14 or 15 years. Some of the other charter members were—Mrs. Sam Adsall, J. H. Wolcox, Nettie Barnes, W. H. Munn, Stubblefield & Dora, Frank Benefiel, Lillie McLee’s, George Francis, Lillie Ashby. I am also a charter member of the Daughters of Union Veterans, also a charter member of Circle.

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