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History
Oto Indians Forced LDS to
Leave Cutler’s Park, Nebraska’s First Civically Organized Community
Cutler’s Park, east
of today’s Mormon Bridge Road and north of Young Street, was
selected
in August, 1846 to be a winter quarters for about 2,500 Mormon
(Latter-day Saints) refugees. It was named for Alpheus Cutler, one
of the master builders of the Nauvoo Temple, who found the site.
Cutler’s Park was about nine miles north of Cold Spring Camp, first
LDS camp west of the Missouri River. Both were about three miles
west of the river. Cold Spring Camp, though abandoned, was still on
the road from Cutler’s Park to the Middle Mormon Ferry over the
Missouri River to Iowa. There travelers to and from Iowa could
water their animals and rest.
At Cutler’s Park a
speaker’s stand, benches shaded by leafy arbor work from the hot
August sun – temperatures hit 100 degrees several days in a row --
and a New England style meeting were arranged. The Twelve called
Alpheus Cutler, presiding, Winslow Farr, Ezra Chase, Jedediah M.
Grant, Albert P. Rockwood, Benjamin L. Clapp, Samuel Russell, Andrew
Cahoon, Cornelius P. Lott, Daniel Russell, Elnathan Eldredge, and
Thomas Grover as a Municipal High Council.
Elijah Averett, John
Pack, and Henry Harriman returned from the Elkhorn River, 20 miles
west, and reported where they had put in piers and abutments for a
bridge. They would wait the next spring before completing the
bridge to see what the spring rise would do to the waters of the
Elkhorn River.
Church services were
held in Cutler’s Park Sunday, August 9 in the public square, shaded
by the arbor work. In the afternoon, men and women held up their
hands to accept their new High Council. They also sustained Horace
S. Eldredge as City Marshal. Twenty four police and fire guards
would be hired later at 75 cents per day.
A letter to be sent to
President James K. Polk was read from the public stand. It informed
the President some refugees headed to the Great Salt Lake or Bear
River Valley had crossed over the Missouri River into Indian
Country. Perhaps as justification the letter told how the Mormon
Battalion had been recruited and sent off promptly, leaving hundreds
of wagons on Iowa prairies with little supplies or protection for
the families of the Battalion volunteers. It noted, also, that
Capt. James Allen, now Lt. Col. James Allen as a result of the
successful recruitment, said some of the Latter-day Saints might
cross the river to stay while waiting to migrate on to the Rocky
Mountains.
The letter to Polk
petitioned: 1) the Latter-day Saints might have a brighter day
under the Polk administration; 2) that President Polk be thanked
for providing a means of financing the move west by calling up the
Mormon Battalion; 3) the Latter-day Saints wished to locate in the
United States but retreat to deserts or mountain caves rather than
be ruled by governors whose “hands are drenched in the blood of
(innocents)”; 4) Latter-day Saints cannot live with former governor
Boggs of Missouri whereas it is said his friends are trying to get
him appointed governor of California; 5) as soon as settled in the
Great Basin, the Latter-day Saints would petition for a territorial
government; 6) the Latter-day Saints had confidence in Polk as
President and prayed for him.
Nebraska’s first
anti-pollution ordinance was passed with a raise of hands: No
cooking fire would be allowed without that family first building a
sod fireplace with sod chimney to keep smoke and sparks out of the
neighbors’ tents and wagons.
Monday, another hot day,
brought Amasa Lyman’s company to Cutler’s Park. Lyman’s group
camped between that of Brigham Young and Heber C. Kimball. The
Twelve and the Municipal High Council met to discuss the work of
settling in: building corrals for livestock; preparing walks to and
from the springs; and cutting hay. It was agreed no buildings would
be constructed until men and boys had put up 800 tons of hay to
winter their livestock. Crews broke sod and planted beets and
buckwheat – in August! But the haymakers were not to be outdone,
they put up between l,500 and 2,000 tons of hay.
Philadelphia lawyer
Thomas L. Kane nicely described to the Historical Society of
Pennsylvania the activities of the pioneers at Cutler’s Park:
“…with every day dawn
brigades of mowers would take up the march to their positions in
chosen meadows – a prettier sight than a charge of cavalry – as they
laid their swaths, whole companies of scythes abreast. Before this
time the manliest, as well as the most general daily labor, was the
herding of the cattle; the only wealth of the Mormons, and more and
more cherished by them with the increasing pastoral character of
their lives. A camp could not be pitched in any spot without soon
exhausting the freshness of the pasture around it; and it became an
ever recurring task (of boys) to guide the cattle, in unbroken
droves, to the nearest places where it was still fresh and
fattening. Sometimes it was necessary to go farther, to distant
ranges which were known as feeding grounds of the buffalo. About
these there were sure to prowl parties of thievish Indians; and each
drove therefore had its escort of mounted men and boys, who learned
self-reliance and heroism while on night guard alone, among the
silent hills.
“But generally the
cattle were driven from the camp at the dawn of morning, and brought
back thousands together in the evening, to be picketed in the great
corral or enclosure, where beeves, bulls, cows, and oxen, with the
horses, mules, hogs, calves, sheep and human beings, could all look
together upon the red watch fires, with the feeling of security,
when aroused by the Indian stampede, or the howlings of the prairie
wolves at moonrise.
“When they set about
building their winter houses, too, the Mormons went into quite
considerable timbering operations, and performed desperate feats of
carpentry. They did not come, ornamental gentlemen or raw
apprentices, to extemporize new versions of Robinson Crusoe. It was
a comfort to notice the readiness with which they turned their hands
to wood craft; some of them, though I believe had generally been
bred carpenters, wheelwrights, or more particularly boat builders,
quite outdoing the most notable voyageurs in the use of the axe.
One of these would fell a tree, strip off its bark, cut and split up
the trunk in piles of plank, scantling, or shingles; make posts, and
pins, and pales – everything almost, of the branches; and treat his
toil from first to last with more sportive flourish than a
school-boy whittling his shingle.
"Inside the camp, the
chief labors were assigned to the women. From the moment, when
after the halt, the (wagon parking) lines had been laid, the spring
wells dug out, and the ovens and fire-places built, though the men
still assumed to set the guards and enforce the regulations of the
Police, the Empire of the Tented Town was with the better sex. They
were the chief comforters of the severest sufferers, the kind nurses
who gave them in their sickness, those dear attentions, with which
pauperism is hardly poor, and which the greatest wealth often fails
to buy. And they were a nation of wonderful managers. They could
hardly be called housewives in etymological strictness, but it was
plain that they had once been such, and most distinguished ones…..”
“But the first duty of
the Mormon women was, through all change of place and fortunes, to
keep alive the altar fire of home. Whatever their manifold labors
for the day, it was their effort to complete them against the sacred
hour of evening fall. For by that time all the out-workers, scouts,
ferrymen or bridgemen, roadmakers, herdsmen or haymakers, had
finished their tasks and come in to rest. And before the last
smoke of the supper fire curled up reddening in the glow of the
sunset, a hundred chimes of cattle bells announced their looked-for
approach across the open hills, and the women went out to meet them
at the camp gates, and with their children in the laps sat by them
at the cherished family meal, and talked over the events of the
well-spent day.
“But every day closed as
every day began, with an invocation of the Divine favor; without
which, indeed, no Mormon seemed to dare to lay him down to rest.
With the first shining of the stars, laughter and loud talking
hushed, the neighbor went his way, you heard the last hymn sung, and
then the thousand-voiced murmur of prayer was heard like babbling
water falling down the hills.
“There was no austerity,
however, about the religion of Mormonism. Their fasting and
penance, it is not jest to say, was altogether involuntary. They
made no merit of that. They kept the Sabbath with considerable
strictness: they were too close copyists of the wanderers of Israel
in other respects not to have learned, like them, the value of this
most admirable of the Egypto-Mosiaic institutions. But the rest of
the week, their religion was independent of ritual
observance.”
The defining moment of
this first civically organized Nebraska community came August 27,
1846 when two delegations of Native Americans walked into Cutler’s
Park. Some say there were about 75 to 80 Omaha and an equal number
of Oto. Others say there were fewer of the Oto. Both delegations
wanted rent for use of the land occupied by the Latter-day Saint
town. It was agreed to meet with them the next morning. Latter-day
Saint leaders invited them to camp overnight at the top of the hill
to the east in what now is Forest Lawn Cemetery. The hill was a
little south of today’s Young Street and a couple blocks east of the
main gate into Forest Lawn Cemetery in northeast Omaha.
Oto leaders privately
asked if they could camp amongst the Mormon wagon squares and
tents. They said they feared the Omaha might otherwise fall upon
and murder them in the night. Permission was granted.
A large double tent was
set up on the hill where the Omaha camped overnight and both the
Omaha and the Oto were invited in at 9:30 a.m. to talk with Brigham
Young and other Latter-day Saint leaders. The Oto refused to
participate while the Omaha were in the double tent.
Brigham Young presided
at the meeting. Logan Fontenelle interpreted for the Omaha.
Young explained why the
Latter-day Saints were there and needed to stay a year or two. He
said the Latter-day Saints would compensate the Native Americans by
repairing their guns, making a farm for the tribe, and hire some of
their young men to look after the Latter-day Saint livestock. Young
said:
“We are your friends and
friends to all mankind. We wish to do you good and will give you
food, if you need it. We are acting in accordance with the
instructions of government, and we wish you to give us a writing,
stating what you are willing to do, and if you wish, we will prepare
to have schools kept among you.” A clerk then read Lt. Col. James
Allen’s permit for the Latter-day Saints to camp west of the
Missouri River.
Chief Big Elk, bowed
with age and nearly blind, arose and spoke:
“I am an old man and
will have to call you all sons. I am willing you should stop in my
country, but I am afraid of my great Father at Washington. I would
like to know what the Oto say; if they claim this land, you can stay
where you please. If they do not, I am willing you should stay.
One half of the Oto (in villages south the the Platte River) are
willing the Omaha should have these lands…I hope you will not kill
our game. I will notify my young men not to trouble your cattle.”
With a sense of
understanding and humor which had long since won him wide
recognition among whites and Native Americans, Big Elk added:
“If you cut down all our
trees, I will be the only tree left. We have been oppressed by
other (Dakota Sioux) tribes because we were weak. We have been like
the hungry dog which runs through camp in search of something to eat
and meets with enemies on every side….Many times we could have
defended ourselves, but our Great Father told us not to fight with
any tribe unless they came to our village to destroy us. We heard
you were a good people; we are glad to have you come and keep a
store where we can buy things cheap. You can stay with us while we
hold these lands, but we expect to sell as our Grandfather will
buy. We will likely remove northward. While you are among us as
brethren, we will be brethren to you. I like my son, what you have
said very well; it could have been said no better by anybody.”
After the meeting the
Latter-day Saints agreed to go north 10 miles beyond the ruins of
Fort Atkinson and consider building their winter quarters there on
traditionally Omaha lands. The Omaha filed out of the tent in good
spirits and the Oto cautiously entered. Brigham Young repeated what
he had told the Omaha and offered the same forms of compensation.
Then an Oto chief stood and asked what the Latter-day Saints had
offered the Omaha. He was told the same offer was made to the Omaha
as to the Oto.
The second meeting broke
up in tumult and the Oto stormed out of the tent threatening war –
against the Omaha. Latter-day Saint leaders tried to calm them, but
to no avail. The Oto felt the Omaha, who had fled here in 1845 from
Dakota Sioux attacks, deserved no such treatment.
The Oto had crossed into
Nebraska from southwestern Iowa or what became northwestern Missouri
about 1700 A.D. They had hunted these very grounds since that
time. Later, two Latter-day Saint envoys were sent to the Oto
village north of the Platte River to negotiate a peace between the
Oto and the Omaha. All such talk failed.
Scouting parties were
sent out in various directions looking for a new winter quarters,
including the traditional Omaha lands north of old Fort Atkinson,
where Fort Calhoun, Nebraska is today. Finally, the Latter-day
Saints moved three miles east to Winter Quarters overlooking the
Missouri River. That ended any talk of Oto war against the Omaha.
It is assumed the Oto reckoned the Missouri River was a highway for
all travelers, and therefore not to be taxed. The Latter-day Saints
promised to leave all buildings to the Oto.
By Gail Holmes September 2006
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