CHAPTER II.

FIRST PERIOD. (1854-1861.)

   KANSAS TERRITORY having the greatest number of settlers, properly commanded his first attention, but after a month of travel in that territory we find him, early in December, turning his face toward the Nebraska portion of the Territory, though there were as yet few permanent settlers even at the more prominent points, such as Nebraska City and Omaha.
   The eagle eye of Dr. Goode was on the lookout and we find him in December, 1854, making his way up to the Nebraska end of his immense field, on horseback, his customary mode of travel in winter. It so often happened that there was difficulty in finding something to eat for man or horse, that the good Doctor carried corn and provision along with him for emergencies. He speaks of that trip being "rough and fatiguing; my horse became lame, and on the second or third day, failed." Procuring another he proceeded on his toilsome way. But on the first day the new steed became sick and seemed about to die. While not dying, this second horse had to be abandoned and a third one procured, with which he made his way to a point opposite Nebraska City, his intended point for the Sabbath. The ice was already running to such an extent that the regular ferry had been abandoned and the trip across the river had to be made in a skiff, at no small risk of life. But Dr. Goode always

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felt that he must get to his appointments at all hazards. Here he found the hotel of his old friend, Major Downes, so crowded that he concluded to hunt up the cabin of the pastor, W. D. Gage. This was over in the brush some distance from the hotel, and night having come on, he, with great difficulty, found his way to the cabin parsonage and was royally entertained by the pastor's family.
   The next day being the Sabbath he held service in one of the rooms of the hotel, amidst much confusion on the part of some of the guests who were not interested. No class had as yet been organized, the pastor, for some reason, was absent, and he somewhat sadly says: "This was all there was of the first quarterly-meeting at Old Fort Kearney," and it may be added, the first in the Territory. But before leaving Nebraska City he had some consultation "as to the means of prosecuting the work in this growing field, and especially the erection of a house of worship on the lots already donated."
   He had intended going on as far as Omaha, there having as yet been no pastor secured for that point, but his horses having failed him, he deemed it expedient to abandon that part of his trip for the present and return home.
   While as yet there were few actual settlers, there were many who had been on the ground, selected and staked off their claims, returned to their Eastern homes and were expecting to come back in the spring, bringing their families with them, so there was little that could be done until that time.
   In anticipation, of this influx of permanent settlers in the spring of 1855, Dr. Goode bad published a call in the

Advocates for men to supply the field, only one man so far having been appointed. W. D. Gage, who has been noted elsewhere, was assigned to Nebraska City in 1854. A quotation from his book will show the care with which Dr. Goode selected these men and the spirit in which he expected them to come to the field, and prosecute the work, and the difficulties he experienced in procuring the right kind of men: "Early in the winter responses began to be received to the public calls for ministerial aid, which we had made through the Church papers. These calls were general. No man was individually requested or advised to come into our new and exposed work. All were left to follow the call of duty or of inclination. Our tables were loaded with letters of inquiry, expressing good wishes, and making contingent and indefinite proposals for the future. But these did not fill the immediate and urgent demands of our work. Occasionally, however, one was found whose first proposition was, 'Here am I; send me.' With such our work in the Territories has been supplied. None have been pressed into service.
   "In a very large majority of instances our supplies were men of the right stamp, volunteers, men of energy, willing to 'endure hardness as good soldiers.' There were a few instances to the contrary. Attempts were made to foist upon us, from the older Conferences, men who were too indolent or incompetent to labor acceptably where they were; but who, in the judgment of good brethren, 'would do for the frontier.' Such efforts were generally detected before consummation; or, if not, soon afterward, in which case they were disposed of in the most summary way practicable. The speculating

SOME OF THE MEN WHO CAME IN THE FIFTIES.

1. JEROME SPILLMAN. 2. J. W. TAYLOR. 3. LORENZO W. SMITH. 4. JACOB

ADRIANCE. 5. DAVID HART, 6. Z. B. TURMAN. 7. JESSE L. FORT.

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mania, that has sometimes seized Western recruits, or perhaps even prompted their transfer, has been but little known among the traveling preachers of these Territories. They have been, for the most part, Homines unius operis.
   "Rev. A. L. Downey was the first volunteer that came to our aid. He was appointed to Leavenworth mission. The second in order of time who appeared among us, was Rev. Isaac F. Collins, a transfer from the Arkansas Conference, and a man of considerable experience in the work of Indian missions, who was assigned to the Omaha City Mission.
   "Some new fields, also, were laid off and supplied. Meeting, providentially, with Rev. Hiram Burch, a young man from Illinois, who had, in feeble health, been laboring as a supply in Northern Texas, I employed him to take charge of a new field in the northern extreme of Kansas, known as Wolf River Mission. His health improved; he was received into the Iowa Conference the ensuing session, appointed to Nebraska City, and has ever proved a faithful and efficient minister. Upon a steamboat in Missouri River, I met with a young Englishman with credentials and apparent qualifications for the work, and employed him to travel between the Nemahas, and organize the Nemaha Mission. This was Rev. David Hart.
   "Thus, in the course of the year, our entire work was manned. The order of time has been anticipated in this statement, for the purpose of presenting all the names at one view. My Wyandott home became a place of resort, and an outfitting point for preachers coming into the Territories; a circumstance which probably had much to

do in fixing the jealousy and inveterate hate of pro-slavery sentinels, secular and ecclesiastical, posted along the border."
   Thus we see that this alert superintendent had pastors in the field at all the strategical points before there were organized flocks to shepherd. W. D. Gage was sent to Nebraska City nine months before a class was formed, Isaac Collins was in Omaha six months before an organization could be effected, and David Hart was sent early in the spring of 1855 to the Nemaha Mission where he must wait and toil till the following fall before effecting an organization.
   It is a very suggestive coincidence that in the same year that the territory which afterward constituted Nebraska passed from the possession of Catholic France to that of Protestant America by the Louisiana Purchase in 1803, there was born in Pennsylvania the one who should, half a century afterward, be the first to be assigned to a pastorate in the territory, and as the chaplain of the first legislature, should typify the character of the State to be built up in the Territory. Though W. D. Gage was a humble, unpretentious, rugged pioneer preacher, he was the representative of the most aggressive form of Protestant Christianity then in the field, the Church which has wrought most potently in making the great State of Nebraska what it is.
   It would be interesting to speculate about what might have been if the Louisiana Purchase had not been made, and the territory remained in the possession of a Catholic country, and Catholic colonies spread over these prairies, and Catholic priests instead of Methodist preachers like W. D. Gage and other Protestant pioneers had been the