Oldtimers from Frontier County

A gift to the Southwest Nebraska Genealogy Society's library from the Ralph G. Miller collection is a copy of a book written by Bayard H. Paine titled, "PIONEERS, INDIANS and BUFFALOES," which was published by Editor Richard Ferguson in the Curtis Enterprise in weekly installments. M.C. Smith was the publisher of the paper in 1935.

Paine, who was born in Ohio but graduated from Grand Island High School in 1889, was serving as a Nebraska Supreme Court Justice at the time. His apparent love of history and all things Nebraska made him a sought after speaker and a great portion of the book comes from his research for an address at the Eighth Old Settler's Picnic at Stockville given Aug. 3, 1933.

It was his premise that Nebraskans had been remiss in not keeping written journals of their lives settling the frontier as New Englanders had done when making their pilgrimage to the New World. In preparation for his speech, he interviewed several "old timers" in Frontier County and the following excerpts are from those interviews contained within his book.

"Mrs. Amanda Barry, widow of Gid Barry by her second marriage, is one of the county's earliest settlers now living in the county. She was born in Illinois in 1847, her maiden name being Wing, and she came to Frontier County on July 12, 1872, with her first husband, John Lockwood, who drove eighteen head of cattle through from Ottumwa, Iowa, the family riding in an emigrant wagon. She now owns the ranch upon which Hank Clifford's tepee stood, in which the county was legally organized.

"Raymond S. Baker, attorney at Curtis, was born at Holden, Missouri, in 1874, but got to Curtis in 1879. I asked (Judge Paine speaking) to tell me the names of some of the large ranches of the early days and these are ones he named: The big Bratt ranch, also those of W. H. Miles, Senator Ballentine, Tyre Nelson, Ambrose S. Shelly, the second county assessor whose widow still resides here, Abe and Gid Barry, S. P. Baker, Montie Clifford, and J. S. Douchy, his sons, Lee and Frank, being here still.

Jacob Scherer came to Indianola in 1879 and came to Curtis in 1886 and erected one of the first buildings for a blacksmith shop. He says the drouth of 1893 and 1894 was the worst in his experience: that it was so hot that corn laid in the ground a year without sprouting, for he saw rows of corn come up in the spring of 1895 that had been planted in 1894.

"Jacob Hablitzel, Pine Grove Farm about 19 miles east on the Elwood Highway, was born in Schauffausen, Switzerland, in 1861 and arrived in Frontier County on June 8, 1884. He is one of the few men who still lives on his original land, and in the front of the house is a magnificent Nebraska bull pine tree that he raised from a seed he planted. When he settled there it was a man's paradise, for there were thirty-two bachelors living within seven miles of his place."

Next week I will cover some additional Frontier County families from Judge Paine's book. Gifts, such as this one from Ralph's collection, are welcomed by Southwest Nebraska Genealogy Society.

These pages are available for research at the SWNGS library. Open library for September will be at 1 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 19, 110 West C, Suite M-3. SWNGS next meeting will be on Sept. 13.