Chapter III.
EARLY DAYS IN NUCKOLLS COUNTY.
NARRATED BY MR. D. W. SMITH.
SETTLED on a homestead in Nuckolls county, Nebraska, in April, 1872; my wife coming to me six months later. We bore the inconveniences incident to pioneer life together, ever striving for the betterment of our home and community. Luxuries of life were few.
​
We saw the buffalo here in 1873.
​
We broke up the wild prairie; cultivated and planted with our own hands the first fruit tree— watched it grow until it produced the long-looked for fruit, that we might eat and enjoy the fruits of our own hands.
​
We helped to organize and build school houses and churches in which our children and grand-children could be educated and taught “the way of Life,^* that they may be good and useful citizens of the county and community in which they live.
​
We have often asked this question: “Have we done any good?“ Children and grand-children, take a walk with us over the roads, wade the rivers, walk the streets of our county seat on the native sod as we did not so many years ago. Yet, some of us are still here to waP* with you on graded roads, cross the rivers over good bridges, and walk on paved walks in our county seat. “Have we done any good?’' We abide by your verdict, for it will not be long until our story will pass into the history of the past.
​
We claim the distinction of being the parents of the first white children born in Nuckolls county after the organization. On November 19, 1872, twins were born to us, viz: Hiram W. Smith and Katy B. (now the wife of Mr. R. F. Harriett)— all continue to reside in the county.
​
I am one who voted to locate the county seat at Nelson.
​
Personally I claim ancestral pioneer blood— my grandfather was among the first settlers who crossed the Ohio river where Stubenville now stands, and helped to build the first stockade there for defense against the Indians. From there with eighteen other men he migrated to near where Wooster, in Wayne county, Ohio, now is, and where my father, John M. Smith, was born in October, 1817. The Indians v/ere plentiful in those days and had to be watched closely. Many are the stories of Indian butchery of those days which have been told me. I was born near Wooster, June 9, 1844. In 1850, I, with my father^s family, removed to Allen county, Indiana, where on August 9, 1862, I enlisted in Company H 89th Indiana Infantry to take a three-year course in a “military school"— and was tutored in genuine instead of sham battles.
​
I have not had any fights with the Indians since coming to Nebraska, yet they have camped on my farm here many times during the early settlement of the county. I am not a friend to the Red Man.
​
I might tell many stories of my camping out on the prairie, fording swollen streams, traveling through rain and snow storms with well auger, and later with corn sheller and threshing machine.
​
During the early days here the people were kind and very hospitable, but often the little shanty would not accommodate all the guests, when they would go to the sheds, hay and straw stacks and arrange for a night’s rest and sleep as best they could, I will give one such incident. At one place where we were threshing the crowd was too large to be accommodated in the shanty for the night, so the good woman gave us a quilt, which we took and arranged our bed on top of the threshed grain in a bin which had no roof. We were awakened in the night by the flashes of lightning and peals of thunder, and we had to change beds on short notice or get a good soaking. As the grain bin and straw stacks were no safe shelter from such a rain as was approaching, we took our quilts and got down under the bin, where we drove out an old sow and her pigs and occupied her bed ’till morning. But, oh! the fleas! If you want a witness to this story call on J. L. Donahoo or Ed. LaBounty.