SECRETARY SHELDON IN EUROPE.
   Addition E. Sheldon, secretary of the Historical Society, is now in France, his mission being to study on the western front the part Nebraska is taking in the war. Mr. Sheldon went as a press representative, which gives him the opportunity to get near the front lines. He sailed from New York on October 4, landing at Liverpool October 18 and reaching France October 22. A number of journalists were on board the boat going to England, and an organization was there formed and a paper issued to which Mr. Sheldon was one of the contributors. It was his intention when he left Lincoln to return before the legislature convenes in January.

CHARLES McDONALD, NONAGENARIAN PIONEER.
   On October 25, Charles McDonald celebrated his ninety-second birthday, at his home in North Platte. He was born in Morristown, Tennessee; came to Nebraska in 1855; first stopped briefly at the site of Peru and then at Nebraska City; next, in the fall of the same year, settled in the vicinity of the subsequent site of Pawnee City; two years later moved again, to Salem, Richardson county; in December, 1859, went to Cottonwood Springs. where he established his famous road ranch; in 1872 moved finally to North Platte; there he was engaged in mercantile business from 1873 to 1899; in 1878 established the "Bank of Charles McDonald" which he conducted with the general store until 1899; since that time has given exclusive attention to his bank; while he lived in Pawnee county was a member of the House of Representatives of the second Legislative Assembly. His son, W. H. McDonald. is said to be the first white child born in Lincoln county; his grandson, Charles M. Reynolds of Casaba, married Miss Irene Neville, sister of Governor Neville.

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(handwritten note: See C 1560)
Jean Marie Bize and Louise Bise, above; Laurent Bernard, below - all of Julian, Nebraska.

   Mr. and Mrs. Bernard were the first settlers at Julian. Julien Bahuaud came a year or two after Mr. and Mrs. Bernard, and then came Mr. and Mrs. Jean Lavigne and next Mr. and Mrs. Jean Marie Bize.

   The movement of French people into the Nebraska country began before the territory was opened for settlement, the first men coming from France being trappers, or Indian traders. For a hundred years or more they had roamed over this region, and to them it owes many geographic names.
   When the territory was opened to white settlers there were already small colonies of French people at Rulo, Bellevue and along the Missouri and Niobrara rivers. They were closely associated with the Indian tribes and commonly took Indian wives. The genuine French settlers came in the late fifties, and for ten or fifteen years thereafter. One of the most important of their settlements was at and in the vicinity of the present village of Julian, a station on the Missouri Pacific railroad. Julian Bahuaud was among the first settlers, and the new town which was established on the railroad was named for him. It is said that the railroad company called the station Julian because they could not pronounce the surname of the most prominent settler.
   The rich land in that vicinity attracted thrifty people from France until about forty families had settled there. They were educated and intelligent. For a time their trading places were Glenrock, Brock, Peru, and Brownville. When the Missouri Pacific railroad came through the county with two branches, Julian was the French center though there were a goodly number at Brock. They quickly acquired the American spirit, and while the French language was kept up in the homes, English was spoken elsewhere. Only two or three of their whole number failed to acquire the English language These were the older women who lacked the practise in speech which contact with people of other nationalities would have given them. All of the younger generation were educated in English in the schools and in French at home, and their home environment gave them the polite demeanor peculiar to the French people. The immigration of these settlers to Nemaha county was not a sectarian movement. The colonists were about equally Catholics and protestants.
   On May 20, 1918, the French people of Nemaha county held a picnic and celebration, calling together all those who had remained in the original colony, as well as those who had gone elsewhare in later years. A large number gathered for this celebration, which consisted at a basket picnic and, then a meeting in a grove in Julian where

stories were told and songs sung. The address of welcome was by Mr. C. L. Mesnet, speaking both in English and French, with responses by several of the others.
   The principal feature of the day, perhaps, was the taking of moving pictures of the assemblage at the grove, of the gathering at the railroad station to speed to the war some French boys, and of the parade of the Home Guard.
   This picnic was a good start on what may later develop into a state association of French people and their descendants. For this purpose a partial list of the early settlers and their children was made, as follows:
   Jules and Mary Bernard; Blanch, Rozelle, Laurent, Lenora..
   Lucian and Theresa Bernard; Alice, Richard.
   Calixte L. and Millis Mesnet.
   Frantz and- Marietta Gamboni; Franky, Calixte.
   Mrs. Louise Bize, mother; Paul and Blanche Bize; Paul, David, Louise.
   Mrs. Marchand, mother; Henry and Marie Lavige; Albert, Pierre, Blanche, Henri, Rose, Alice, Catherine, Paul, George.
   Emile and Laura Marchand; Raymond, Malvin, Frederic, Marie.
   George and Louise Chavez; Emma, Louis, Stella.
   Fred and Louise Bourlier; Laura, Blanche, Clifton, Ivan, Leston.
   Fremont and Emma Jodry; Amber, Harold, Mildred.
   Mrs. Catherine Vernier; Sophia, Jane, May Beason.
   J. M. and Louisa Burress.
   James and Flora Bourlier; Sidney, Floyd.
   James, (Sr.) and Laura Bourlier.
   Fred and Liza Bourlier; James, EIsa, John, Blanche, Helen, Nellie.
   John and Susie Bourlier; Donna, Lysle.
   Mrs. Mellie Bourlier.
   Fred , Frank and Armand Barbier.
   Emile Berlet and wife; Amelie, Alice, Blanche, Irma.
   Fred and Amalie Marchand; Alphonze, Emma, Charles, Lea, Louise, Lilly, Laura, Mary, George, Rose, Jules, Blanche.
   Peter Berlet and wife; Fred, Lucile, Mina, Emma, Victoria, Elois.
   Fred and Jennie Donze; Dot, Fred.
   Fred and Vina Kiechel; Walter, Addie, Raymond, Doane.
   Frank and Mary Gilbert; Gus, Millie.
   Mrs. Muster and Mrs. Besancon,
   This list is incomplete, being largely made up from families attending the picnic. Messrs. C. L. Mesnet and Paul Bize expect to complete the roll of all the living persons who have been connected with the Nemaha county colony, so that a comprehensive history of the settlement may be written.

   The following interesting records are copied from inscriptons on monuments in the Catholic and protestant cemeteries, respectively:

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   Following is a record of the deaths since September 2 of pioneers who settled in Nebraska not later than the year 1867:
   John Kennedy, a resident of Nebraska City for fifty-two years, born in Donegal county, Ulster province, Ireland, in 1844. died September 22; came first to Pennsylvania; in 1866, with his brother James, settled in Nebraska City; was never married. (The News, (Nebraska City), September 23.)
   M. J. Burns, Peru, born at Birmingham, Iowa, March 15, 1844, died September 18. In 1862 he was a freighter from Nebraska City to Denver. (The Peru Pointer, September 20.)
   Alfred P. Hoskins of Fremont, born in Hamilton, Ontario, April 17, 1846, died September 22; came to Omaha in 1866 and to Fremont four years later, where he engaged in banking; in 1884 went back to Omaha where he became interested with his cousins, Joseph Millard and Ezra Millard, organizers of the Commercial National Bank; afterward went into the lumber business in Chicago and returned to Fremont in 1909. (Fremont Evening Tribune, September 23.)
   George Gawthorne, born in England in 1834, died September 22 at his daughter's home in Whitesboro, Texas; came to Nebraska in the early fifties, where he lived until about two years ago. (The News, (Nebraska City), September 24.)
   William Henry Banning, born in New London, Iowa, in 1837, died September 25; came to Nebraska City in 1857, where he had ever since lived. (The News, September 25.)
   William Barnich, eighty-one years old, born in Germany, died September 25; a resident of Omaha since 1867; for forty years employed in the Union Pacific railroad shops. (The Omaha Daily Bee, September 25.)
   Mrs. Mary Tex, born in Luxemburg in 1847, died in Papillion September 14; came to America in 1855; lived a few years in Dubuque, Iowa; then moved to Omaha: a resident of Sarpy county since 1872. (The Gretna Breeze, September 27.)
   Henry P. Coolidge of Columbus, born in Tazewell county, Illinois, October 6, 1835, died September 27; when a boy came with his parents to Omaha where the family resided several years; in October, 1865, he became private secretary of D. H. Wheeler, Pawnee Indian agent at Genoa. and conducted a tin shop at the same time; moved with his family to Columbus in 1868, where he lived until his death. (The Columbus Telegram, October 4.)
   James Thomas, born in Ohio in 1824, died in Lincoln. September 27, 1918, at the home of his daughter, Mrs. Mary Gould; came to Nebraska with his family in 1885, where he was a farmer until he was past eighty years of age. His first vote for a president was cast in 1848, for Zachary Taylor.
   Albert Noyes, born at Portland, Maine, July 18, 1830, died September 27; came to Nebraska in 1863, settling at St. Deroin, where he lived to the time of his death. (Nemaha County Herald, October 4.)
   P. S. Hall came to Nebraska in 1856; died at his home in Rock Bluffs early in October, aged eighty- eight years. (The Lincoln Daily Star, October 12.)
   Miss Agnes McAusland, born in Scotland, died October 6 at Omaha, where she had lived for fifty-eight years, aged eighty-three years. (The Omaha Daily News, October 7.)
   John Martin Osborn, born in Indiana in 1843, died October 10 at Gridley, California; came to Nebraska in 1867 and settled on a farm near Pawnee City; a member of the state senate from his district in the seventeenth legislature, twenty-fifth session, 1897. (The Pawnee Chief, October 18.)
   Nicholas Rix, born in Schleswig, Germany, 1830, died at Fort Calhoun, October 10; came to America in 1852, landing at New Orleans; went thence by steamboat to Camanche (Clinton county), Iowa, where he worked as a carpenter; the next year, with his wife, crossed the state of Iowa, with two yoke of oxen, to Omaha; soon after settled on a homestead which included the site of Fort Atkinson, one mile west of the present city park of Fort Calhoun. (Fort Calhoun Chronicle, October 17.)
   Mrs. Bertha Krueger, born in Germany in 1843, died October 17 at Germantown; came to Nebraska in 1865. (Blue Valley Blade, October 23.)
   John Blankenship, born in Illinois, died October 19 at Peru, aged sixty-three years; when two years old came with his parents to Peru where he had lived ever since. (Nemaha County Herald, October 25.)
   Henry W. Smith, born in Germany in 1844: died at Burkett, Nebraska, October 19; came to America in 1847 and to Nebraska in 1865; homesteaded near Richland, Nebraska. (The Colfax County Press, October 26.)
   Mrs. Albert Thies, born in Denmark in 1848, died at her home in Nebraska City, October 23; had been a resident of Otoe county since 1857. (The Nebraska Daily Press. October 24.)
   Mrs. Louisa Stoll, born two miles north of Nehawka in 1859, died October 23; was mother of twelve children. (The Nehawka News, October 31.)
   Mrs. Calvin G. Taber died October 24 near Inavale; settled on a homestead two miles northwest of Weeping Water in 1866. (Weeping Water Republican, October 31.)
   Hugh Aird, born in New York in 1838, died at Bruning, Nebraska, in October; came to Nebraska City in 1864. (The News, (Nebraska City), October 26.)
   Lewis S. Reed died in Washington, D. C., October 27, aged seventy-one years; came to Omaha in 1863; was a member of the House of Representatives of the eighth legislature, which impeached Governor Butler; was for twenty years president of the Equitable Trust Company, and vice president of the Nebraska National Bank in Omaha. (The Omaha Daily News, October 28.)

   Mrs. Emma L. Barnard died in Los Angeles, California, late in October, nearly eighty-four years old; in 1856 was married to Edwin H. Barnard at Canajoharie, N. Y., her birthplace. In August, 1856, Mr. Barnard surveyed the town site of Fremont which he and John A. Koontz had just appropriated as a claim. He was born in Kirkland, N. Y., in 1830. The Barnard's lived in Fremont more than fifty years. (Fremont Evening Tribune, October '29.)
   Christopher Bader, born in Ohio in 1863, died October 29 at Nebraska. City, where he came when he was a small boy. (The Daily Nebraska Press, October 30.)

FRANK HELVEY.

   Frank Helvey, born in Huntington county, Indiana, July 7, 1841, died in Fairbury, July 4, 1918, having lived in Nebraska continuously since 1849. In 1846 Joel Helvey, with his family, comprising his wife and six children, started west. They first stopped at old Fort Kearny, but Nebraska at that time was not open to white settlement so they soon moved into a log cabin on the opposite side of the Missouri River. About three years later the Helvey family obtained permission of the caretaker of the remaining property of the abandoned fort to settle in the Nebraska country providing they would take their chances with the Indians. Thereupon, Mr. Helvey and his three sons built a ferry boat in which they profitably carried emigrants to Pike's Peak across the Missouri River, at Table Creek, in 1849 and 1850. On October 10, 1853, Joel Helvey was judge of an election at Table Creek, which came to be called Nebraska City the next year, for a provisional delegate to Congress, whose mission was to aid in the passage of the pending bill to organize the territory of Nebraska. Similar elections were held at other places on the eastern border of the Nebraska country, on October 11, but, probably by mistake, the election at Table Creek was held October 10. These were not legal elections, and neither of the two delegates chosen was recognized by the Congress, though both went to Washington with the purpose stated.
   In April, 1859, the Helvey family started for Pike's Peak, but hearing discouraging reports from returning gold seekers they stopped on May 25 at Little Sandy and built a ranch house where the Oregon Trail crossed that creek. Frank Helvey, then eighteen years old, engaged in freighting across the plains. He also drove the Overland Stage and was a substitute Pony Express rider. Later he became a successful farmer and stock raiser.
   For many years his bible, presented to him by Alexander Majors of Russell, Majors and Waddell, the famous freighters, was on exhibition in the rooms of the State Historical Society.

   September 21, 1864, Mr. Helvey was married in Beatrice to Eleanor Plummer of Swan Creek, and ten children were born to them. Mrs. Helvey died July 16, 1910.

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   B. H. Groves, superintendent of schools at Falls City, Nebraska, has recently presented to the Nebraska, State Hostorical [sic] Society a volume entitled "Second Annual Report of the Commissioner of Common Schools of the Territory of Nebraska to the Seventh Legislative Assembly, Session 1860-6l."
   The report shows that the territorial school tax levied for 1861 amounted to $6,352.23 and that children of school age in the nineteen counties mentioned numbered 7,041.
   A Chapter is devoted to schoolhouses and grounds and to school furniture. Plans for building and equipment for work compare well with some of the most approved methods of to-day. The volume also contains the school laws of the. territory.
   J. B. Weston, acting county clerk of Gage county and clerk of the board of education in Beatrice township, reported that "There is now no regular schoolhouse in the county. [A commodious building begun in 1858 was destroyed by fire before it was completed.] Last summer a school was taught in this town in a vacant building fitted up for that purpose by Miss Frank C. Butler . . . the average attendance was about twenty-five scolars. The teacher's wages [defrayed by private subscription) were two dollars per week, I think, and board. . . This is the sum total of all that has ever been perpetrated in the way of schools in this county as yet."
   For comparison the following figures are interesting:
   The amount of money actually expended in Nebraska for the year ending July, 1917, was $11,921,859.05. Youth in Nebraska under twenty-one numbered 387,394; youth enrolled 292,362; average daily attendance 219,246.
   For the year ending July, 1918, Gage county actually expended $320,894.17. The number of school age in the county was 9,092; enrolled, 7,354; average daily attendance, 5,462.
   Lancaster county was "hereby erected into a separate county by an act of the first Legislative Assembly passed March 6, 1855, but no county government was established until 1869. No mention is made of Lancaster county in the report.
   William Egbert Harvey, of Otoe county, was "territorial commissioner of common schools" at this time. He came from New York state to Nebraska City in 1857. Until he was elected commissioner of schools, in 1859, he was engaged in his profession of civil engineering. Like his. brother, Augustus Ford, the very prominent editor and politician and who laid out and at least partly planned the original town site of Lincoln, he had a talent for actuarial work, and after holding the educational office for six years, in 1866 he engaged in the life insurance business in Chicago. Two years later he, became actuary of the state insurance department of Missouri. His brother Augustus succeeded him in this office about two years afterward.
   An act of the first Legislative Assembly, which convened January 16, 1855, established the office of librarian and superintendent of public instruction. The fifth assembly, which convened on September 21, 1858, established the separate office of territorial commissioner of common schools; the seventh assembly, which convened on Decenther 3, 1860, abolished this office and imposed its duties upon the auditor of the territory; this arrangement continued to the end of the territorial government.
   The use of the term "Beatrice township" requires explanation. By authority of the organic act the governor of the territory designated the "places of voting" at the first election and called them precincts. Under an act of the first Legislative Assembly, county government was administered mainly by the probate judge. The next year the second assembly adopted the commission form of government, and the act authorized "each board of commissioners" to "divide the county into convenient precincts . . ."; but another act of the same assembly authorized the governor of the territory to designate the voting precincts for the third election, held in 1856. An act of the fifth assembly, approved November 4, 1868, provided "That hereafter each and every township in any organized county in the territory shall compose but one school district . . ."; but the act of 1856. empowering county commissioners to establish precincts was still in force (Revised Statutes of the Territory of Nebraska, 1866, chapter XLI), and no such division as a township had been

made or authorized. However, an act of the sixth assembly, approved January 1, 1860, cured the apparently inadvertent defect by providing that "for present school purposes, and until by further enactments, civil townships be formed in this territory what are now known in the organized counties as precincts, or that may hereafter be formed as such, shall be known as townships." But civil townships were not formed during the territorial period, and in the revision of the statutes in 1866 "precinct" was substituted for "township" in the cases adverted to.

   On September 29, 1918, exercises commemorating the dedication of the "Stone Church" fifty years ago took place at Febing, a hamlet of about a score people, in Benton precinct, Nemaha county, seven miles southwest of Auburn, where the church is situated. The Nemaha County Herald of September 27, 1918, contains a history of the church in part as follows:
   "The Stone church, located in Benton precinct, was dedicated September 27, 1868, the following pastors officiating: Rev. P. W. Beckman, pastor loci, and the following visiting pastors: Professor Grossman, of Stanberry Point, Iowa, of the German Iowa Synod, and its president, Rev. Ritter, of near Talmage; Rev. E. Duber, of Nebraska City, and Rev. Nolte, of Langdon, Missouri. All of the pastors and all of the members at that time have passed into the beyond.
    .    .    .    .    .    .    .    .    .
   "The Stone church is still standing and is used as a parochial school. A new frame church in later years has been built to accommodate the congregation. This is the congregation that in 1874 had a church bell cast with a net weight of 1,526 pounds and made from French cannon captured during the Franco-Prussian war of 1870-71. At the time it arrived it was the largest bell in the state.
    .    .    .    .    .    .    .    .    .
   "Rev. F. W. Beckman, Jr., son of the first pastor. has promised to be present and preach. He was present fifty years ago, but was merely a boy. Also Rev, J. H. Dirks, pastor emeritus, of Columbus, has promised to be there. For thirty-seven years he was their pastor and spiritual advisor and I think I am safe in saying that he has been longer with one congregation than any other minister in any other denomination in the state of Nebraska.
   "Today, the 23d of September, 1918, it is fifty years since the writer, J. D. Kuhlman, D. Holthus, wife and two children, crossed the Missouri River at Nebraska City and stepped from my native state onto Nebraska soil."
   The bell was cast in Detroit, Michigan, from the metal of a cannon which had been shipped there from Germany. From Detroit the finished product was transported to Brownville. In one of the varying accounts of the incident, the gift of the gun was credited to "Wilhelm, emperor of Germany," which in later stories has been taken to mean William II, late, and as we hope the last kaiser. But he was then only a lad; so the reference must be to his grandfather, William I, who became the first emperor of modern Germany three years before the birth of the bell.

   The editor of this magazine has seen many extraordinary devices used upon the Nebraska frontier, but one of the most remarkable is the burglar proof safe which held the county funds of Holt county at the time of its organization. This safe just came into the possession of the State Historical Society and is now on exhibition at its rooms. It. will be the wonder of future generations of Nebraskans, for there is nothing like it. The following letter from J. T. Prouty, the county treasurer who kept the funds in the safe, written at Spencer, Nebraska, July 16, 1918, is self-explanatory:
   "Forty years, ago the county treasurer's funds of Holt

county were safely kept in the only safe vault and bank combined in the county, described as follows: A cottonwood board 2 feet 4 inches long, 2 1/2 inches wide, receptacle 14 inches long, in which to keep the cash. This board was a part of the sheeting of a shingle roof dwelling house. I exhibited the board at the Holt county old settlers picnic yesterday as a souvenir of forty years ago. Would like to have this board kept as a relic on display at the State Historical Society. Now if this is considered in keeping with historical supplies and worth while of frontier life in Nebraska I will send it if you so advise."