This earthenware tea set consisting of a teapot, creamer and a sugar bowl used to belong to Betty Wilberger's grandparents. Each item in the set is oblong, featuring a large sunflower on each side and square brown handles. It is hard to know where this unusual set came from. The owner believes her great-grandparents brought it from Sweden when they emigrated in 1868. For interviews and oral histories of this and other items please visit the History Harvest YouTube Channel.
Betty Wilberger, Nebraska City History Harvest, 2010
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F.J. Nelson's Drover's Ticket for Omaha to Axtell Passage, July 12, 1900
Issued to a drover overseeing transportation of cattle from the Omaha market to Axtell, this ticket is one of the rare documents of the turn of the 20th century railroad operations. Unlike a passenger ticket, the drover's ticket featured a list of physical descriptions to be marked, so that no random person riding in the cattle car could appropriate it. Thus we learn that F. J. Nelson (Ms Wilberger's grandfather) was of medium size and height with light hair and a moustache. Unlike modern descriptions that usually feature eye-color, this one provides for the description of the facial hair, a more prominent characteristic. It also tells historians that all cattle drovers were men. In 1900 Omaha had already established its reputation of one of the major livestock exchange and stockyard site west of Chicago, the largest stockyards in the world at the time. This ticket is for the Burlington Route of the Burlington and Missouri River Railroad, a branch of the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy Railroad Company. Built in the 1850s to cross Iowa the Burlington and Missouri River Railroad initially had a terminus at Council Bluffs, but later the railroad extended a line from Omaha all the way to Denver. It is not clear whether Axtell, Nebraska is now a small town not far from the Kearney Junction of the Burlington and Missouri River Railroad in Nebraska. For interviews and oral histories of this and other items please visit the History Harvest YouTube Channel.
Axtell (Neb.); Kearney (Neb.); Omaha (Neb.)
Texas-Colorado Chautauqua Auditorium Event Admission Tickets, August 3, 1899, Denver, Colorado
These two admission tickets a Chautauqua event, organized by a recently established (1898) Texas-Colorado Chautauqua Association belonged to F.J. Nelson of Axtell, Nebraska. Chautauqua is an institute of short two-three week schools for popular adult Christian education a Sunday School organizer John Heyl Vincent and businessman Lewis Miller started in 1874 on the shores of lake Chautauqua in New York. As its popularity grew, other educators and benefactors established independent or daughter Chautauquas in other parts of the country, usually in the picturesque scenic places on the outskirts of a larger town within an easy trip from the railroad station. Lectures, music, and other arts always occupied a central role in a Chautauqua experience attracting a large number of patrons from rural areas with few other opportunities to access education and quality entertainment. This, no doubt, was a major event for Betty Wilberger's grandfather F. J. Nelson who came to the August 3 1899 event in Denver from Axtell, Nebraska. A link between Texas and Colorado in 1899, Colorado and Southern Railway became a part of the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy railroad in 1908. For interviews and oral histories of this and other items please visit the History Harvest YouTube Channel.
F.J. Nelson's Drover's Ticket for Omaha to Axtell Passage, March 24, 1903
Issued to a drover overseeing transportation of cattle from the Omaha market to Axtell, this ticket is one of the rare documents of the turn of the 20th century railroad operations. Unlike a passenger ticket, the drover's ticket featured a list of physical descriptions to be marked, so that no random person riding in the cattle car could appropriate it. Thus we learn that F. J. Nelson (Ms Wilberger's grandfather) was of medium size and height with light hair and a moustache. Unlike modern descriptions that usually feature eye-color, this one provides for the description of the facial hair, a more prominent characteristic. It also tells historians that all cattle drovers were men. In 1903 Omaha had already established its reputation of one of the major livestock exchange and stockyard site west of Chicago, the location largest stockyards in the world at the time. This ticket is for the Burlington Route of the Burlington and Missouri River Railroad, a branch of the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy Railroad Company. Built in the 1850s to cross Iowa the Burlington and Missouri River Railroad initially had a terminus at Council Bluffs, but later the railroad extended a line from Omaha all the way to Denver. It is not clear whether Axtell, Nebraska is now a small town not far from the Kearney Junction of the Burlington and Missouri River Railroad in Nebraska. For interviews and oral histories of this and other items please visit the History Harvest YouTube Channel.
Axtell (Neb.); Kearney (Neb.); Omaha (Neb);
Timber Claim Receipt And Cover Letter, July 15, 1898
The Timber Claim Receipt sent to A.H. Hauptmann on July 16, 1898 certified that he paid the $4.00 (about a $100 today) for the 160 acres of land he had to use to plant trees on. Passed in 1873, The Timber Culture Act provided up to 160 acres of land to farmers for planting trees to better the land for cultivation and increase the rainfall in the western parts of the Great Plains. Most often, however, the Timber Claim allowed homesteaders to secure another section of land, leading to the repeal of the act in 1891. Yet the amendments allowed the act to survive into the 1898, as these documents testify. For interviews and oral histories of this and other items please visit the History Harvest YouTube Channel.
Flato Commission Company Cattle Sales Account, August 17, 1898
This account acknowledges the sale of 53 cows and 1 cow and calf to a party F.J. Nelson, Ms Wilberger's grandfather, was a drover for. This document is evidence of Omaha's stockyards and livestock market growth at the end of the 19th century as well as cattle prices at that time. Thus, F. J. Nelson paid $1469.06 (more than $37,000 today) for 54 cattle, almost $60 out of which were freight and back charges, commission, and hay for the cows. For interviews and oral histories of this and other items please visit the History Harvest YouTube Channel.
Flato Commission Company Cattle Sales Account, March 30, 1899
This account acknowledges the sale of 40 steers to a party F.J. Nelson, Ms Wilberger's grandfather, was a drover for. This document is evidence of Omaha's stockyards and livestock market growth at the end of the 19th century as well as cattle prices at that time. Thus, F. J. Nelson paid $1835.39 (about $47,000 today) for 40 cattle, almost $100 out of which were freight and back charges, yardage, inspection, commission, and hay. For interviews and oral histories of this and other items please visit the History Harvest YouTube Channel.
Ms. Wilberger tells the story of an heirloom tea set that might have been brought to the United States from Sweden in 1868 to UNL History Harvest graduate student assistant Rob Voss. You can find this and other stories on the History Harvest YouTube Channel.
Betty Wilberger Discusses her Family History
Ms. Wilberger shares the story of her family from Axtell, Nebraska with UNL History Harvest graduate student assistant Rob Voss. You can find this and other stories on the History Harvest YouTube Channel.
Ms. Wilberger shared the papers of her family from Axtell, Nebraska. Among them are the squatting documents, the railroad drover's tickets, and the accounts of sales for livestock from South Omaha with the History Harvest graduate student assistant Rob Voss. You can find this and other stories on the History Harvest YouTube Channel.