Red Blankets

For its first session, Nebraska's territorial legislature met in a ramshackle capitol in Omaha City, January 16, 1855. A thin coat of frozen ice and mud plastered interior walls. Legislators shared school desks. Red and green calico curtains dangled at the windows. An uneven floor threatened to topple the heedless.

On that first day, legislators from counties south of the Platte filled the streets and bellyached that their counties were not well represented, which they weren't. To dramatize their anger, each wore a bright red blanket tossed over his shoulder.

Liquor magnified the turbulence. Soon these legislators swore they would move the capital from Omaha City to a town south of the Platte. Come hell or high water.

Coming April 28 

THIEVES, RASCALS & SORE LOSERS:

The Unsettling History of the Dirty 

Deals that Helped Settle Nebraska

by Marilyn June Coffey

Creating a Capital

In a nasty twist of luck, Thomas B. Cuming, secretary of state, became acting governor of the new Nebraska territory in 1854.

Cuming, a man of few morals, had a claim jumper on his Omaha City property dunked to death in the Missouri.

As acting territorial governor, Cuming created eight new counties along the Missouri, half south of the Platte River, half north. He gave each county the same number of legislators, even though twice as many folks lived south of the Platte (1,818) as north (914). 

But those south Platters were Democrats, not like his buddies the Republicans. 

Cuming had some legislators left over, so he gave them all to Douglas County. He counted on those Republican votes to make his home, Omaha City, capital of the brand new territory.

It worked. 

That rascal!

Coming April 28 

THIEVES, RASCALS & SORE LOSERS:

The Unsettling History of the Dirty 

Deals that Helped Settle Nebraska

by Marilyn June Coffey

Clark Kidder

From Marilyn Monroe to Orphan Trains

Clark Kidder uncovers it all.

I know the prolific writer Kidder for his orphan train books: Orphan Trains and Their Precious Cargo (Heritage Books, Inc., 2001) and more recently, Emily's Story: The Brave Journey of an Orphan Train Rider (2007), which is the story of his paternal grandmother.

But Kidder is equally known for his Marilyn Monroe books: Marilyn Monroe UnCovers (Quon Editions, 1994); Marilyn Monroe Cover To Cover (Krause Publications, Inc., 1999 & 2003); Marilyn Monroe Collectibles (HarperCollins, 1999); Marilyn Monroe Memorabilia (Krause Publications, Inc., 2001).

Now Kidder has co-produced and co-written "West By Orphan Train," a new film based on his grandmother's story. He'll be talking about that experience Saturday, April 25, at the 2015 Gateway History Conference - Where the Lincoln Road Meets the Mississippi: A Conference on Industry, Commerce, and Community in the Iowa-Illinois Gateway Area, 1835-Present.

For more information, https://networks.h-net.org/node/6206/discussions/64396/gateway-history-conference-saturday-april-25-2015

Invitation

Please!

"I pray you on my knees, Sir," Victor Vifquain wrote to Major General Edward Canby "let me go fight the Indians and protect all that is dear to me, my wife and children, or die with them in the attempt."

The dreaded event happened August 7, 1864. Sioux, Cheyenne, and Arapaho struck ranches along Nebraska's Little Blue River. When the raids stopped, thirty-eight settlers lay dead, nine wounded, five captured. 

This began "the worst Indian raid in Nebraska history."

Hundreds of warriors struck along a 300-mile stretch of the Oregon Trail, from the Little Blue River all the way to Julesburg in Colorado Territory. 

They attacked thirty stagecoach stations, 150 ranches, innumerable homesteaders' cabins. They killed and scalped men, took women and children captive.

Wires hummed from coast to coast with stunning news of butchery. 

Frantic, Vifquain tried to find out if Caroline and their children had survived. Just twenty-five miles separated their Big Blue River homestead from the bloodbath on the Little Blue.

Coming soon in 

THIEVES, RASCALS & SORE LOSERS 

by Marilyn June Coffey

Three Musketeers

When the Civil War broke out, Vifquain enlisted in an ill-fated unit that fell apart February 26, 1862. 

Rather than seek a new outfit, Vifquain and his friends—Alfred Cipriani and Maurice de Beaumont—swore to be modern Musketeers: all for one, one for all. And they would kidnap the Confederate President, Jefferson Davis.

Off they rode to South Carolina, still wearing Yankee officers' fatigue dress.

On their way, twenty men tried to stop them. "Go back to Yankeeland!"

"We're Frenchmen," Vifquain said, "not Yankees."

The men ran toward them. "Dismount or we'll pull you off."

"Stand back," Vifquain said, "or we'll fire."

The crowd pulled back. Then Beaumont began to sing, in pure French, La Marseillaise. His remarkable voice possessed the crowd. 

"Give us another!" someone cried.

Beaumont sang another verse, and the throng parted, letting the "Frenchmen" pass.

Coming soon in 

THIEVES, RASCALS & SORE LOSERS 

by Marilyn June Coffey

Two with One Shot

When Victor came back from Belgium and heard from his wife about the visit of 300 Comanche-Kiowas, he taught Caroline how to fire a shotgun and how to make bullets. 

An owl dropped dead with her first shot. 

She soon handled her gun like a seasoned sharpshooter. She wasted no ammunition either. 

One day she shot a single bullet through two wild turkeys who wandered into her garden. 

Or so she said.

Coming soon in 

THIEVES, RASCALS & SORE LOSERS 

by Marilyn June Coffey