CEDAR COUNTY, NEBRASKA - PARISH FOUNDER IS 80 YEARS TUESDAY
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CEDAR COUNTY NEWS JUNE 13, 1929

PARISH FOUNDER IS 80 YEARS TUESDAY

HENRY BACKMAN HELPED BUILD MENOMINEE AND ST. JAMES PARISH

Henry Backman, who helped build the Menominee and St. James parishes 
in the early days, had his 80th birthday Tuesday, June 11. Mr. 
Backman lives at the home of his son E.H. Backman about 2 1/2 miles 
south of Wynot. 

But not only of the early parish life does Mr. Backman know, he can 
also tell thrilling tales of early steamboat days along the Missouri 
River on the Cedar and neighboring county borders. Having come to the 
county in 1870, Mr. Backman spent most of his time in the first years 
cutting timber to keep the steamboats supplied with firewood despite 
the danger of Indian massacres.

Also during the first few years after he came to the county, he 
traveled with the steamboats up as far as Fort Randall and Fort 
Greenwood. Most exciting of the encounters he thus met came one day 
when the boat ran out of fuel. Two woodcutters had been killed by 
the Indians up the river and the boat had to be stopped while men 
went after wood. He was one of this group, which unknowingly walked 
into a camp of hostile Indians. He was carrying a big wood saw when a 
bullet struck it and just glanced his neck, near the jugular vein. 
Holding onto the saw they ran to the boat.  The captain ordered the 
large cannon turned on the Indians. Many times, recalls Mr. Backman, 
the Indians burned the wood that had been cut for use on the 
steamboats.

A few years later, Mr. Backman and his wife who was Miss Mary Rupiper, 
whom he had married in Iowa, settled on a homestead at Menominee, on 
which place Theo. Kleinschmit now lives.  

Later during the grasshopper siege, Mr. Backman again worked on the 
steamboats. During these years he also worked in the brickyards on 
the John Lammers farm near St. Helena getting 50 cents a day for his 
labor with which to support his family.

They moved from the homestead in 1890 going first to Bow Valley and 
then to Green Island Bottom. In 1900 he purchased his farm south of 
Wynot. Mrs. Backman died five years ago in September.  

He has three sons and seven daughters. The sons are E.H. and L.J. of 
Near Wynot,and Barney of East Bow. The daughters are Mrs. Henry Klug, 
of Wynot, Mrs. Anton Duman of Sioux City, Mrs. Melvin Rosenbach of 
Fremont, Mrs. Andy Faulk of Hartington, Miss Josephine Backman of 
Hartington, Mrs. Earl Wagers of Sioux City; and Mrs. Bruno Pinkelman 
of near Obert. He has 47 granchildren.

Mr. Backman has seen many changes in the county, and the fertility of 
this section is beyond his fondest dreams of 1870.