(Mr. Bassett is now President of the State Historical Society, and a few years ago was author of a splendid history of Buffalo County, our next-door neighbor to the west. The following story is a sort of border-line story, which belongs to either Buffalo or Hall county, as the Olivers became identified with the history of both counties.)

In 1860, Edward Oliver, Sr., his wife and seven children, converts to the Morman faith, left their home in England for Salt Lake City, Utah. At Florence, Nebraska, on the Missouri River a few miles above the city of Omaha, they purchased a traveling outfit for emigrants, which consisted of two yoke of oxen, a prairie-schooner wagon, and two cows; and with numerous other families having the same destination they took the overland Morman trail up the valley of the Platte on the north side of the river.

When near a point known as Wood River Centre (the first name of Shelton), 174 miles west of the Missouri River, the front axle of their wagon gave way, compelling a halt for repairs, their immediate companions in the emigrant train continuing the journey, for nothing avoidable, not even the burial of a member of the train, was allowed to interfere with the prescribed schedule of travel. The Oliver family camped beside the trail and the broken wagon was taken to the ranch of Joseph E. Johnson, who combined in his person and business that of postmaster, merchant, blacksmith, wagonmaker, editor, and publisher of a newspaper (The Huntsman's Echo). Johnson was a Mormon with two wives, a man passionately fond of flowers which he cultivated to a considerable extent in a fenced enclosure. While buffalo broke down his fence and destroyed his garden and flowers, he could not bring himself to kill them. He was a philosopher, and, it must be conceded, a most useful person at a point so far distant from other sources of supplies.

The wagon shop of Mr. Johnson contained no seasoned wood suitable for an axle and so from the trees along Wood River was cut an ash from which was hewn and fitted an axle to the wagon and the family again took to the trail, but ere ten miles had been traveled the green axle began to bend under the load, the wheels ceased to track,and the party could not proceed. In the family council that succeeded the father urged that they try to arrange with other emigrants to carry their movables (double teams) and thus continue on their journey.

The mother suggested that they return to the vicinity of Wood River Centre and arrange to spend the winter. To the suggestion of the mother all children added their entreaties. The mother urged that it was a beautiful country, with an abundance of wood and water, grass for pasture, and hay in plenty could be made for their cattle, and she was sure crops could be raised. The wishes of the mother prevailed, the family returned to a point about a mile west of Wood River Centre, and on the banks of the river constructed a log hut with a  sod  roof  in  which  they

spent the winter. When springtime came the father journeyed to Utah, where he made his home and married a younger woman who had accompanied them from England, which doubtless was the determining factor in the mother refusing to go.

The mother, Sarah Oliver, proved to be a woman of force and character. With her children she engaged in the raising of corn and vegetables, the surplus being sold to emigrants passing over the trail and at Fort Kearny, some twenty miles distant.

In those days there were many without means who traveled the trail and Sarah Oliver never turned a hungry emigrant from her door, and often divided with such the scanty store needed for her own family. When rumors came of Indians on the warpath the children took turns on the house top as lookout for the dreaded savages. In 1863 two settlers were killed by Indians a few miles east of her home. In the year 1864 occurred the memorable raid of he Cheyenne Indians in which horrible atrocities were committed and scores of settlers were massacred by these Indians only a few miles to the south. In 1865 William Storey, a near neighbor, was killed by Indians.

Sarah Oliver had no framed diploma from a medical college which would entitle her to the prefix "Dr." to her name, possibly she was not entitled to be called a trained nurse, but she is entitled to be long remembered as one who ministered to the sick, to early travelers hungry and footsore along the trail, and to many families whose habitations were miles distant.

Sarah Oliver and her family endured all the toil and privation common to early settlers without means in a new country, far removed from access to what are deemed the barest neccessities of life in more settled communities. She endured all the terrors incident to settlement in a sparsely settled locality, and in which the coming of such savages was hourly expected and dreaded. She saw the building and completion of the Union Pacific railroad near her home in 1866; she saw Nebraska become a state in the year 1867. In 1870 when Buffalo County was organized her youngest son, John, was appointed sheriff, and was elected to that office at the first election thereafter. Her eldest son, James, was the first assessor in the county, and her son Edward was a member of the first board of county commissioners and later was elected and served with credit and fidelity as county treasurer.

When, in the year 1871, Sarah Oliver died her son Robert inherited the claim whereon she first made a home for her family, and which, in the year 1915, is one of the most beautiful, fertile farm homes in the county and state.

[Transciber's Note: This is the story of the OLIVER family who settled on the Hall/Buffalo county line, particulary of the mother, Sarah OLIVER.]