Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: which had been guaranteed by the location of the county seat. In 1854 a plot of ground was named Nemaha City and city lots were staked for sale when but a few months before the title to the land was not vested in Uncle Sam. The first man to erect his cabin on the townsite was Allen L. Coutt, while H. Russell, W. Weddle, Nathan Myers, Dr. Wyatt, A. D. Skeen and Dr. Jerome Hoover were little behind. Dr. Hoover was on his way to Texas, but when he beheld that most beautiful landscape viewed from the bluff, broad river to the east and the valley to the north and west, he exclaimed, "Had the God of the universe spent a life-time at the work he could have produced no more beautiful resting place ior a city," Then in his mind's eye he beheld trains winding up and down the valley, steamboats loading and unloading at the wharf, the smoke arising from numerous manufacturing plants, school buildings, churches, magnificent residences, etc. The "city" was incorporated by the territorial legislature, and a charter for a ferry boat, and another for a mill dam across the Nemaha river. The ferry boat did not make many long and perilous voyages until it gave way for a toll bridge, which some years later became the property of the county and ceased to be a grinding monopoly. For some time it was said that at Nemaha there was a darn and a millsite, but there was no mill by a dam- site. But the mill materialized and made many tons of flour; and possibly more than its share, for while it is generally true that "the mill will never grind with the water that is passed," 'twas not so with this mill, for being situated but a short distance from the Missouri river there was back water often, and the water that passed often returned and passed again. This mill has been in the hands of different owners, andha...