Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

building immediately, to be used at present as a state-house, and for offices of the various departments, provided it should be required by the Executive. A good and commodious ferry-boat runs every day between this city and Council Bluffs. Much bustle and activity are exhibited by many who are preparing to build and remove to our new and delightful territory."

The first real estate advertisement relating to "Omaha City" will interest the reader. Is was prefaced by an editorial in the Arrow to the effect that "our city is surveyed, and lots-choice lots are now for sale (see advertisement) :

"OMAHA CITY LOTS FOR Sale.

"A limited number of lots in Omaha City are now ready for private sale. Call on the undersigned, or on Mr. Boyer at Tootle & Jackson's store

[Council Bluffs]. Lots will be given to persons who wish to build this season. "July 28, 1854." "E. Lowe.

When the Snowdens settled in "Omaha City" and became the first permanent residents of the town, their immediate neighbors were Omaha Indians, then living near what was and still is called Sailing's Grove, in Sarpy county, about five miles southwest of the city. Wolves, rattlesnakes, with another reptile of still more hideous mien, but not venomous-the bull-snake-then infested the beds of the two creeks, which have since disappeared in sewers. Mr. and Mrs. Snowden, with others, in the following winter nearly froze and starved. They had to live on leaden bread, cove oysters, "side meat" and sanguine hopes. Of the last mentioned, it is needless to say they had an abundant supply.

CONSUL WILLSHIRE BUTTERFIELD.

[To be continued.]

THE BAR OF OMAHНА.

THE erection by congress, in 1854, of the territory of Nebraska was speedily followed by the appointment of Fenner Ferguson as chief-justice and Experience Estabrook as district attorney of the new organization. These officers reached the western bank of the Missouri soon after their appointment, the chief-justice establishing his residence at Bellevue and Mr. Estabrook choosing Omaha as his home. Judge Ferguson was doubtless influenced in his selection by the fact that Honorable Francis Burt, the first governor of the territory, had, as it was understood, fixed upon Bellevue, a beautiful and commanding site about ten miles south of Omaha, as the seat of government. Harassed, however, beyond measure and worn out by the vexatious trials incident to his new position and the persistency with which the conflicting claims of rival town-site speculators were pressed upon him, the new governor, in just ten days after his arrival in the territory, relinquished the struggle and sought rest in the grave. His successor, Governor Cuming, was built of stronger stuff, and though "plied, begged, pressed, entreated, assailed and even threatened" by almost every township in the territory, he at last escaped from further importunity by designating Omaha as the place where the first session of the legislature should be

held.

An Executive proclamation, however, directed that the session of the territorial district court for the First district should be held at Bellevue; and in this beautiful beautiful village, therefore, on the twelfth day of March, 1855, the first court ever held in Nebraska was solemnly opened. Those appear to have been easy times for Nebraska judges. The only business transacted at that term of the court was the appointment of Silas A. Strickland as its clerk and the administration to him and filing of the official oath. These weighty affairs having been satisfactorily accomplished, the court adjourned, for rest and recreation, to the twelfth day of the next April. On that day the labors of the judge were less onerous, the only business being an adjournment for six months to the sixteenth of October.

Upon the last-mentioned date the court came promptly to time, and on this occasion its session was held in the city of Omaha. The chief-justice presided, with Mr. Estabrook as district attorney and Mr. George Armstrong as deputy clerk. Fortunately for the reputation of the tribunal, a suit had by this time been commenced. This was the case of William Whitmore against Almiron Lockwood. Of this, the pioneer case in a Nebraska court of record, the files have disappeared, and the journals of the little information.

court give us but

Even the names of

the attorneys engaged in it nowhere appear. All that we know of it is that a demurrer was interposed to the petition, which was argued on the twentythird of October, 1855, and taken under advisement by the chief-justice, who on the next day rendered his decision sustaining the demurrer and dismissing the action. So ignominiously perished the first-born of Nebraska jurisprudence, without even an opportunity for a trial on the merits.

"O fairest flower, no sooner blown but blasted, Soft, silken primrose fading timelessly away." Another case which came up at this term of the court, and, like the former, never reached the ordeal of a petit jury, was that of the Territory of Nebraska against Charles A. Henry. This excited great interest among all residents of Omaha, and is well remembered by such of them as still survive. The de.fendant (commonly known as Doctor Henry) was a man of great force and energy of character, attractive manners, sudden and quick in quarrel, impetuous, rash and careless of consequences. He had been unfortunate enough to kill his antagonist, one Hollister, in an affray which took place on the steps of a building then standing on the present site of the United States National bank. Forthwith, as is usual in such frontier cases, sides were formed, one denouncing the homicide as an atrocity, without excuse or palliation, and the other maintaining it to be purely a case of justifiable self-defence. The doctor was committed to jail on a mittimus from Judge Ferguson, and by his orders was handcuffed and shackled. This

seemingly needless severity may perhaps be explained by the imperfect security which any place of confinement at that early day could offer. Of the first grand jury summoned to deliberate on this case, hardly any remain alive, and but one, so far as known, is at present a resident of Douglas county. Jesse Lowe, afterwards a wealthy real estate owner in Omaha, was its foreman. After an investigation of two days the jurors reported that they could not agree upon a bill of indictment, and asked to be relieved from further consideration of the case. Whereupon followed cross motions, one by Henry's counsel for his discharge, and the other by Prosecuting Attorney Strickland for an adjournment and submission to another grand jury. After a day's meditation, the judge sustained the latter motion, ordered a new venire, and directed the defendant "to be confined meanwhile in the manner heretofore prescribed." The latter clause of the order, however, probably became the subject of earnest remonstrance, for on a subsequent day it was modified, "by striking out so much as relates to manacles and fetters." the new jury, which was sworn on the twenty-seventh of the following November, had no better luck than the old, for on the first of December they "return to the court that the charge against Charles A. Henry be dismissed," which was accordingly done; and so ended a prosecution which had produced no little heart-burning and heated discussion.

Within the first year after the organization of the court-that is, up to March

12, 1856-the court records exhibit the following list of attorneys admitted or practising before it: D. H. Solomon, A. J. Poppleton, E. Estabrook, James M. Woolworth, Allen Root, Oliver P. Mason, William E. Moore, T. B. Cuming, Charles Grant, Bird B. Chapman, Silas A. Strickland, D. W. Price, John M. Thayer, C. T. Holloway, L. L. Bowen, L. M. Closs, Jacob Safford, Jonas Seeley, J. McA. Latham, O. D. Richardson, A. J. Hanscom, C. E. Stone, A. C. Ford, R. L. Douglas and R. N. Matthews.

Many of these names speedily disappeared from the records, but it is worthy of note that of those who remained in the territory there is hardly one who did not succeed in acquiring fame or wealth, and in many cases both, in the residence of his adoption. Several of them, among whom may be mentioned Messrs. Poppleton, Estabrook, Woolworth, Judge Mason, Governor Thayer and Mr. Hanscom, survive to this day, either in the retirement of well-earned leisure and the enjoyment of ample fortunes, or in the prosecution of successful business.

Not one of them, however, unless he was fortunate enough to hold the office of district attorney, was probably able to support himself during the early months of his career by the practice of his profession alone. A map of the city of Omaha, prepared by Mr. Poppleton and his partner, is to this day, in the absence of any recorded plat, the only authentic memorial of its original survey that we possess. The docket of the district court shows that on the

eighteenth of July, 1857, James M. Woolworth filed in the clerk's office a book entitled 'Omaha City, the Capital of Nebraska: Its Growth, History, Commercial and Other Advantages and Future Prospects.' All of them dabbled more or less in real estate, and some, speculating extensively, laid the foundations of large gains in the not distant future. Business, however, grew and the embryo city prospered; and with the increase of wealth and population came, of course, increase of litigation.

To this increase of practice contributed in no small degree the operations of a singular and little understood organization known as the Omaha Claim club. The object of this much maligned or justly abused institution. appears to have been chiefly to allow each of its members to acquire and hold three hundred and twenty acres of the virgin soil of Nebraska instead. of the one hundred and sixty acres which the government permitted preemptors to obtain. There was, of course, under the Land laws of the United States no legal method by which this desirable end could be obtained; but the earliest settlers reasoned, and not without some show of plausibility, that they who were first in the field, who had undergone all the hardships, trials and privations incident to the foundation and establishment of a new colony in what had been a barren waste, who had made it possible for others to enjoy. the privilege of securing in fee simple. a portion of the public domain, should. themselves have a right to something.

[ocr errors][ocr errors]

more than those who at the eleventh
hour were appropriating the fruit of
their toil and anxiety. The means,
however, which the pioneers adopted
to protect themselves in their self-as-
serted rights were such as can hardly
be commended by the more peaceable
and law-abiding citizens of the present
day. The Claim club had its regular
constitution, laws, officers and records.
It is extremely doubtful, however, if
all the transactions of the club were
recorded by its secretary. When a new-
comer, with no fear before his eyes of
the regulations of the society, filed in
the land office of the United States his
preliminary papers upon a quarter sec-
tion which had already been deter-
mined by the Claim club to be the
property of one of its members, he was
quietly and peacefully notified that he
was infringing on the rights of older
settlers and claimants. If he proved
refractory, and failed to take the hint so
delicately conveyed, he was, by a solemn
warning, given the alternative of peace-
ful abandonment or forcible ejection.
If still contumacious, violence was re-
sorted to; and in some instances blood
was shed and serious injuries inflicted.
In these conflicts the club uniformly
triumphed. Its members were numer-
ous, bold, determined and not always
overscrupulous. Against them a low
settler, with but few or no acquaintances
or friends, could stand but little chance
of success. A few immersions in the
Missouri, a few conflagrations, a few
shots, generally convinced the boldest
that it was useless to contend against
forces of such decided superiority.

But with the establishment of a settled system of jurisprudence the tide of victory began to turn. Those who left Nebraska at the behest of the club began one by one to straggle back again, and to invoke the attention of the courts to their alleged wrongs. Actions of ejectment, suits to quiet title, all the various remedies known to the law, were set in motion for the redress of outrages and the restoration of their rights.

These, then, were, of course, harvest days for the disciples of Blackstone. Many an historic case fought its slow way through the different tribunals of the land office, the courts of the territory and those of the United States, and were contested with a vigor and pertinacity and at an expense which frequently left the successful litigant shorn of most, if not all, of his valuable acres, and but a barren victory to boast of. But this result was not without its exceptions. More than one wealthy resident of Omaha owes his fortune to the heroism and obstinacy with which he resisted the aggressions of his neighbors, and to the perseverance with which, if conquered for a time, he returned again and again to the conflict.

Lawsuits involving so many and varied questions as would naturally arise in such cases could not fail to educate even an ordinary bar. But the bar of Omaha in those early days was by no means an ordinary one. It was largely composed of young men from eastern or middle states, many of them of liberal education, enterprising, as was proved by their emigration to the very border of civilization, active, zeal

« AnteriorContinuar »