Mr. Correll:

   In reply to your request for reminiscenses of my early days in Nebraska, will say that Mr. Pluss drove a team through from Hennepin, Ill., in December, 1869. He bought a homestead on the Sandy, two and one-half miles this side of what is now Alexandria. He then returned to Nebraska City and left his team and went back to Hennepin by rail.. The next March, 1870, we moved by rail to Nebraska City, when he loaded our goods into our covered wagon.

   After adding a stove, plow and such things that could not by in Beatrice, to our boxes of dry goods.

   The second night out we stopped at the Hillman ranch, the other side of Beatrice. Soon after we arrived, teamsters began to drive in. The house was a double log house with a huge fireplace in onend, a room curtained off at the other end and a big cook stove in the middle, over which presided a kind, matronly mother. The room was soon filled with the teamsters, a jolly, lively st. They spent the evening telling jokes and giving experiences. There were a couple of young chaps from Kentucky with them.

   One of them was an ex-governor's son. "Tenderfeet," the men would call them. The were full of questions. Some of them were answered in a queer manner, using slang. They seemed to take it all in. I wondered where the host would put all those men.

   When bed-time came we were given one of the beds, a good one, too, behind the curtain. Each of the men had his blanket, in which he rolled himself, and the room was filled from one side to the other.

   My folks thought we were coming to the jumping off place when we left home, and I concluded they were right.

   The next morning was Sunday. After a good breakfast of hot cakes and coffee, those men all started out. We did not travel on Sunday, so we stayed, and the next morning a regular blizzard was on, and we did not get away from there until Thursday.

   Mr. Pluss put the stove pipe up through the wagon cover, and I, with our two little girls, was very comfortable. But he, poor man! had to ride on the front end-gate when he did not walk. When we arrived at Beatrice, we found that a man had frozen to death in the late storm, between Beatrice and Meridian.

   We drove to the Alexander ranch the next day, where the children and I stayed while Mr. Pluss mad our house more confortable. They told us it was the best house on the Sandy. It was made of hewed logs that had been hauled down from Red Cloud.

   That spring there was an Indian raid in Hebron. The object seemed to be to steal ponies that were lariated. Nevertheless, after the raid when Mr. Pluss went to Meridian which was five miles east of us, where we got our mail one a week, I felt safer to go with him. We bought our groceries and flour there.

   In Meridian were a hotel, black smith shop, saw mill, barber shop and saloon. The first sermon in the community was preached by a Methodist minister, who was sent to our house. Mr. Pluss took him to Meridian Saturday afternoon to find a place for service. Mr. Correll, who owned the store told him they could have his store room, and they would have it cleaned out, ready for services, in the morning. When we got there Sunday morning, nothing had been done in the storeroom. Sunday was the busiest day in the store. Patrons came from all directions, particularly the west, for supplies.

   Mr. Hill, the preacher, and Mr. Pluss soon had the room cleaned out, filled with slab seats from the mill, and the room soon filled up with attentive listeners, but the proprietor was having a good trade in the room adjoining.

   If I am not mistaken, the G. I. railroad was built by Messrs. Hastings and Saxton in the year 1873.

   The prairie-fire burned across our yard three times. Kind neighbors helped us save everything until the fire of April, '72'. We only had time to cut the ropes of the cattle that were lariated on the bottom. Our stabling, extra harness, tools, machinery, hay and grain which Mr. Pluss had brought from Beatrice for feed and seed the day before, all were burned. Mr. Pluss' whiskers were burned off, as were my eyebrows.

   We experienced the grasshopper raid. When the grasshoppers settled down on our corn and had eaten the blades off the corn, Mr. Pluss said it looked more like a standing army than anything he had seen since the war. That was a dry year. Our corn was in roasting ears, but we would have enough to feed our stock through.

   Eastern philanthropist sent food and supplies to meet the settlers' wants, following the grasshopper pest. Mr. Pluss had charge fo the dirtribution of supplies, which were so scarce that when the children begged for corn to parch, he let them have but one ear.

   Mr. Pluss had quite a herd of Poland-China hots. We had sent to Illinois for a couple fo pigs. They were sent to Lincoln by express and cost him $60. He loaded all that were fit to sell and took them to Fairbury. We kept a few for our meat and fed them on wheat. He had pigs engaged at $10 a pair. No one came for them and knocked them in the head to keep them from starving. We put out three orchards while we were on the farm The first was destroyed by rabbits when Mr. Pluss was sick. The second was almost ruined by hail. The third was in a flourishing condition when we left the farm and we had about every kind of fruit that grows in this climate.

   Soon after we came, I wrote my sister that I had not seen a bit of shrubbery of any kind. Soon a bundle of rose slips, currants and gooseberries came by mail. It was a dry year, but we saved eleven varities of roses and I can truly say we have scattered roses all over this county.

   Mr. Pluss was the first commisioner sworn in in this county. They had night sessions to safe "expense". I often sat up until the wee small hours of the morning and kept a light burning in our attic window to light him across the prairie. He came on horseback and there was not much to obstruct his direct route.

   You see from my story that we had some hard experiences. Yet I can say truly that we never regretted coming to Nebraska. We always had faith in the country, and were hopeful and with the knowledge we then had, did the best we could, although with later experience in may things we would have done differently, and done better.

MRS. J. C. PLUSS
(Aged 80 years)

    P. S. We have always taken the Hebron Journal since, I think, the first issue, and it has always been the first mail to be looked over. Long may it prosper.

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