Commentary by Willa Cather 1894
[Note: The text below is imperfect, has omissions and is not in perfect order. If any reader has access to the works of Willa Cather, corrections and other information is welcome.]
According to Dan Holtz, "...article is taken from a book called The World and the Parish: Willa Cather's Articles and Reviews, 1893-1902, edited by William M. Curtin and published by the University of Nebraska Press in 1970. The Peru State College library does have this book, although I've never looked at it. ...."
Brownville.During the summer of 1894 Willa Cather visited Brownville, on the Missouri River in southeastern Nebraska, to gather material for a journal story commemorating the fortieth anniversary of the town's founding. She was accompanied by Roscoe Cather, the eldest of her four brothers, and Mariel Gere.7 Although it is not mentioned here, perhaps the most memorable feature of the Brownville stay was the awful heat. A 1900 piece based on this visit, and including details from the following selection, is entitled "The Hottest Day I Ever Spent" (see The Library, below). Moreover, in a letter to Mariel Gere written fifty-one years later, Miss Cather recalled the hot wind.
Brownville grew rapidly in its early years and became a real boom town after the Colorado gold strike of 1858.9 It was a port for river boats bringing settlers, gold seekers, and supplies, and the starting point of the main overland trail west to Fort Kearny, Julesburg, and Cherry Creek (later Denver). At one time it aspired to be the state capital, a dream which faded when Omaha was chosen the terminus of the Union Pacific Railroad. Brownville's great man was Robert W. Furnas (1824-1905), governor of Nebraska (1873-1875) and for fifty years a leader in the development of the state's agriculture and horticulture. In 1856 he founded the Nebraska Advertiser, one of the earliest newspapers printed in Nebraska Territory (though not the first, as Willa Cather states). Another leading citizen refierred to in the article, Thomas W. Tipton, was one of the first two United States senators from Nebraska. Brownville is the setting for Willa Cather's 1897 story, "A Resurrection."10
7. Society column Lancaster Journal, July 28, 1894, P. 4. I am indebted to Bernice Slote for calling my attention to this item.
8. Willa Cather to Mariel Gere, October xxx, 1945.
9. Information in this paragraph from Nebraska: A Guide to the Cornhusker State (New York: Hastings House, 1939), PP. 133, 372-373; and a pamphlet, "An Informal History of Nemaha County," compiled by Mr. and Mrs. Hugh P. Stoddard, Mrs. Esther Pohlman, Mrs. Ruth Boellstorff, and Mrs. Evelyn Christy (no place of publication or publisher given, 1967), Pp. 11, 54-55.
10. Home Monthly, April 1897, PP. 4-8; CSF, PP. 425-439.THE LOCAL SCENE (II) BROWNVILLE
It is almost unheard of to find a town in Nebraska that has a past; it is sometimes rather difficult to find one that has a present, though all of them have, or think they have, a future. A country cares very little about its early history and traditions until it has had a great many trials and disappointments, until the first feverish impetus of its growth has been checked and it settles down into that quiet, steady course of honest labor and honest gain, which is the only honest way of living. Then it has time to look back on whatever was beautiful or brave in its history, and begins to appreciate the talent and worth that it overlooked or pushed
In it's frenzied hurry to be 'great', Nebraska has not reached the active age as yet, and in the western part of the state, at least, there are few people who know anything about the sleepy little town on the Missouri where the beginnings of Nebraska history were made. Brownville is built in a little horseshoe-shaped gulch. Behind and on either side of it rise the high, wooded bluffs and in front of it flows the yellow river. Across the river run the bluffs, with intervals of green meadow land, and back of the town, over the ridge of the hills, lie the rich orchards and fruit farms for which Nemaha County is noted. The site looks out over four states, across the river Missouri and Iowa, on this side Nebraska and Kansas. The town is built back into the little ravines, and the dusty roads, which the inhabitants still respectfully call "streets," run up the wooded ravines and across the hills. It does not take one long to see that the town has been what it is not. Here and there all over those stately hills are handsome residences gone to rack and ruin, terraces plowed up in cornfields and sloping lawns grown up in wheat and sunflowers. The main street is lined with empty brick buildings and gaping cellar holes where the buildings have fallen down or been torn away. The white stone pavements and gutters are growing with pale, lifeless-looking grass. The rotting board sidewalks which run over the hills clatter and creak when one steps on them, like rickety ladders. The emptiness of the place is something awful. Most of the houses down in the gulch have inhabitants of some sort, but those on the hills are in all stages of dilapidation. The further up one goes the more desolate it becomes.
It is as though there had once been a high tide of prosperity there, and when it went out it had left for its watermarks rows of ruined houses and stranded homes. Even the Lone Tree saloon is falling to pieces, and that, in a western town, is the sure sign that everything is gone. Further up the street is a big hole and massive stone foundation, which promised a handsome building, but before it got above the foundation the tide went out, and most things in Brownville went out with the tide. But today Brownville people always speak gravely of that hole as the "Masonic Temple." The dilapidation is nowhere unsightly or offensive. Nothing could be offensive in that magnificent background of giant oaks and elms. It is a gentle, sunny, picturesque sort of decay as if the old town had lain down to sleep in the hills like Rip Van Winkle and was busy putting in thirty years. Everything in Brownville is tired. I saw more hammocks there than I ever saw in my life before. They seem to be characteristic of the place.
Even the tired, spiritless little freight that creeps along through the hills often stops often to rest in the shade. It utterly represents Brownvill's sense of responsibility and hurry. If the engineer's hat falls off, he stops his engine and goes to hunt it and he generally waits before he climbs up into his cab again. If his hat doesn't fall off the wheezy little engine stops anyway, from sheer habit.
But much as Brownville has lost, it has retained that which most towns in the state do not have, a history. A history of which any town might be proud. It is different from it was the birthplace of a new and great commonwea the light of their own history those crumbling houses show a deeper meaning than mere ruin and decay. It was in that little oak-grown gulch, sheltered by by the restless river that a new civilization struggle claimed the right to be. Down there on the shore is forty years ago the twenty-ninth day of this month, Missourians landed and made the first settlement in upstairs room of Senator Tipton's big house xxx on the first telegraph wire that linked Nebraska with the country and made it a part of the big world. Down in the xxx r the building in which ex-Governor Furnas and Ches xxx the first newspaper ever issued in the territory has been converted into a dwelling house now, but high xxx the big brick high school building, the first built in old Brownville xxx patriot proudly said to me, braver men and women never went out of any school than when youth was earnest. Indeed in those days before the tri which belong to an older civilization had crept in. Those who went out of that schoolhouse had enough of the fron reach the highest kind of scholarship and the noblest s They had at once all the freshness of childhood and Willa Cather's article, "Nebraska: The End of the (September 5, 1923), 236: "When I was a child I heard ex-Governor Furnas xxx stood with other pioneers in a log cabin where the Morse instrument was and how, when it began to click, the men took off their hats as its first message flashed across the river into Nebraska was not a market report, but poetry: 'Westward the course of empire takes its way.' The old incident also is mentioned in "A Resurrection" (note 10, above) Lark, p. 69 (Brownville is there misspelled Brownsville).
THE WORLD AND THE PARISH
a frenzied hurry to be great. Nebraska has not reached the fective age as yet, and in the western part of the state, at least, there e few people who know anything about the sleepy little town on the Missouri where the beginnings of Nebraska history were made. Brownville is built in a little horseshoe-shaped gulch. Behind and on either side of it rise the high, wooded bluffi and in front of it flows the yellow river. Across the river run the bluffi, with intervals of green meadow land, and back of the town, over the ridge of the hills, lie the rich orchards and fruit farms for which Nemaha County is noted. The site looks out over four states, across the river Missouri and Iowa, on this side Nebraska and Kansas. The town is built back into the little ravines, and the dusty roads, which the inhabitants still respectfully call "streets," run up the wooded ravines and across the hills. It does not take one long to see that the town has been what it is not. Here and there all over those stately hills are handsome residences gone to rack and ruin, terraces plowed up in cornfields and sloping lawns grown up in wheat and sunflowers. The main street is lined with empty brick buildings and gaping cellar holes where the buildings have fallen down or been torn away. The white stone pavements and gutters are growing with pale, lifeless-looking grass. The rotting board sidewalks which run over the hills clatter and creak when one steps on them, like rickety ladders. The emptiness of the place is something awful. Most of the houses down in the gulch have inhabitants of some sort, but those on the hills are in all stages of dilapidation. The further up one goes the more desolate it becomes. It is as though there had once been a high tide of prosperity there, and when it went out it had left for its watermarks rows of ruined houses and stranded homes. Even the Lone Tree saloon is falling to pieces, and that, in a western town, is the sure sign that everything is gone. Further up the street is a big hole and massive stone foundation, which promised a handsome building, but before it got above the foundation the tide went Out, and most things in Brownville went out with the tide. But today Brownville people always speak gravely of that hole as the "Masonic Temple." The dilapidation is nowhere unsightly or offensive, nothing could be offensive in that magnificent background of giant oaks and elms. It is a gentle, sunny, picturesque sort of decay as if the old town had lain down to sleep in the hills like Rip Van Winkle and was busy putting in thirty years. Everything in Brownville is tired. I saw more hammocks there than I ever saw in my life before. They seem to be characteristic of the place.
THE LOCAL SCENE (11)
>p>Even the tired, spiritless little freight that creeps along the stub road into ifle stops often to rest * 1 Brownville in the shade. It utterly lacks the railroad sense of responsibility and hurry. If the engineer's hat blows off, he stops his engine and goes to hunt it and he generally waits to catch a few catfish before he climbs up into his cab again. If his hat doesn't blow off, the wheezy little engine stops anyway, from sheer habit, and in the shade of the big tree snores faintly as though it were fast asleep. But much as Brownville has lost, it has retained something which most towns in the state do not have, a history. it has great traditions of which any town might be proud. It is different from other towns because it was the birthplace of a new and great commonwealth. When viewed in the light of their own history those crumbling wind-racked buildings have a deeper meaning than mere ruin and decay and become almost sacred. it was in that little oak-grown gulch, sheltered by the bluffi and washed by the restless river that a new civilization struggled and grew and proclaimed the right to be. Down there on the shore is the spot, where, just forty years ago the twenty-ninth day of this month, Richard Brown, the Missourian, landed and made the first settlement in the wilderness. In an upstairs room of Senator Tipton's big house on the hill was stretched the first telegraph wire that linked Nebraska with the civilization of the east and made it a part of the big world. I I Down in the ravine are the ruins of the building in which ex-Governor Furnas and Chester Langdon printed the first newspaper ever issued in the territory. The first schoolhouse has been converted into a dwelling house now, but high upon the hill stands the big brick high school building, the first built in the state, and, as an old Brownville patriot proudly said to me, braver and more earnest men and women never went out of any school than went out of that one. Youth was earnest indeed in those days before the trivialities and divisions which belong to an older civilization had crept in. The young men who went out of that schoolhouse had enough of the frontiersman in them to reach the highest kind of scholarship and the noblest sort of achievement. They had at once all the freshness of childhood and the high purpose of ,,.
Cf. Willa Cather's article, "Nebraska: The End of the First Cycle," Nation 117 (September 5, 1923), 236:
"When I was a child I heard ex-Governor Furnas relate how he stood with other pioneers in a log cabin where the Morse instrument had been installed, and how, when it began to click, the men took off their hats as if they were in church. The first message flashed across the river into Nebraska was not a market report, but a line of Poetry: 'Westward the course of empire takes its way.' The Old West was like that." The incident also is mentioned in "A Resurrection" (note 10, above) and in The Song of the Lark, p. 69 (Brownville is there misspelled Brownsville).
THE WORLD AND THE PARISH
xxx frenzied hurry to be great. Nebraska has not reached the ective age as yet, and in the western part of the state, at least, there w people who know anything about the sleepy little town on the Missouri where the beginnings of Nebraska history were made. Brownville is built in a little horseshoe-shaped gulch. Behind and on either side of it rise the high, wooded bluffi and in front of it flows the yellow river. Across the river run the bluffs with intervals of green meadow land, and back of the town, over the ridge of the hills, lie the rich orchards and fruit farms for which Nemaha County is noted. The site looks out over four states, across the river Missouri and Iowa, on this side Nebraska and Kansas. The town is built back into the little ravines, and the dusty roads, which the inhabitants still respectfully call "streets," run up the wooded ravines and across the hills. It does not take one long to see that the town has been what it is not. Here and there all over those stately hills are handsome residences gone to rack and ruin, terraces plowed up in cornfields and sloping lawns grown up in wheat and sunflowers. The main street is lined with empty brick buildings and gaping cellar holes where the buildings have fallen down or been torn away. The white stone pavements and gutters are growing with pale, lifeless-looking grass. The rotting board sidewalks which run over the hills clatter and creak when one steps on them, like rickety ladders. The emptiness of the place is something awful. Most of the houses down in the gulch have inhabitants of some sort, but those on the hills are in all stages of dilapidation. The further up one goes the more desolate it becomes. It is as though there had once been a high tide of prosperity there, and when it went out it had left for its watermarks rows of ruined houses and stranded homes. Even the Lone Tree saloon is falling to pieces, and that, in a western town, is the sure sign that everything is gone. Further up the street is a big hole and massive stone foundation, which promised a handsome building, but before it got above the foundation the tide went out, and most things in Brownville went out with the tide. But today Brownville people always speak gravely of that hole as the "Masonic Temple." The dilapidation is nowhere unsightly or offensive, nothing could be offensive in that magnificent background of giant oaks and elms. It is a gentle, sunny, picturesque sort of decay as if the old town had lain down to sleep in the hills like Rip Van Winkle and was busy putting in thirty years. xxx ecti-N few pe, Issourl w rowr 00~~B
Everything in Brownville is tired. I saw more hammocks there than I ever saw in my life before. They seem to be characteristic of the place. Even the tired, spiritless little freight train that creeps along the stub road into Brownville stops often to rest in the shade. It utterly lacks the railroad sense of responsibility and hurry. If the engineer's hat blows off, he stops his engine and goes to hunt it and he generally waits to catch a few catfish before he climbs up into his cab again. If his hat doesn't blow off, the wheezy little engine stops anyway, from sheer habit, and in the shade of the big tree snores faintly as though it were fast asleep.
But much as Brownville has lost, it has retained something which most towns in the state do not have, a history. It has great traditions of which any town might be proud. It is different from other towns because it was the birthplace of a new and great commonwealth. When viewed in the light of their own history those crumbling wind-racked buildings have a deeper meaning than mere ruin and decay and become almost sacred. It was in that little oak-grown gulch, sheltered by the bluffs and washed by the restless river that a new civilization struggled and grew and proclaimed the right to be. Down there on the shore is the spot, where, just forty years ago the twenty-ninth day of this month, Richard Brown, the Missourian, landed and made the first settlement in the wilderness. In an upstairs room of Senator Tipton's big house on the hill was stretched the first telegraph wire that linked Nebraska with the civilization of the east and made it a part of the big world.
"Down in the ravine are the ruins of the building in which ex-Governor Furnas and Chester Langdon printed the first newspaper ever issued in the territory. The first schoolhouse has been converted into a dwelling house now, but high upon the hill stands the big brick high school building, the first built in the state, and, as an old Brownville patriot proudly said to me, braver and more earnest men and women never went out of any school than went out of that one. Youth was earnest indeed in those days before the trivialities and divisions which belong to an older civilization had crept in. The young men who went out of that schoolhouse had enough of the frontiersman in them to reach the highest kind of scholarship and the noblest sort of achievement. They had at once all the freshness of childhood and the high purpose of xxx
"When I was a child I heard ex-Governor Furnas relate how he stood with other pioneers in a log cabin where the Morse instrument had been installed, and how, when it began to click, the men took off their hats as if they were in church. The first message flashed across the river into Nebraska was not a market report, but a line of poetry: 'Westward the course of empire takes its way.' The Old West was like that.
"The incident also is mentioned in "A xxx , manhood. Every one of them meant, in the language of an old Brownville stump speaker, "To rear somewhere in the Missouri Valley a monument high as the thought of man."
Here was the first wedding, the first birth, and the first death on the frontier, and here, struggling with poverty, loneliness for friends across the river, men and women bravely took up that simple and domestic life which is the beginning of every commonwealth. Brownville happened because of the steamboat trade, and when the steamboat trade went under it carried Brownville with it. All traces of the old boat traffic have been washed away by the encroaching river which changes its course every Sunday. But the time was when fifteen big river steamers used to tie at one time to the Brownville wharf, and unload tons of merchandise which the wagon trains carried west. The steamboat trade was a great thing in those days, and the supplies for the whole western country were brought up the river to Brownville and from there sent by wagon trains to the other settlements in the territory, while hundreds of wagonloads went to Cherry Creek and Pike's Peak, Col. Brownville was the metropolis and trading center of a large district of the Far West, and to many a homesick fellow returning from the alkali deserts the little town in the hills was God's own country. One of the important features in the river history of the town was the Lone Tree saloon, a long, brick building shaded by a huge maple, from which it took its name. There the teamsters of the western caravans used to assemble with the boat crews and exchange stories of the desert and the mountains for stories of the doings of the world and afterwards get gloriously drunk and sing in the streets till morning. Everybody in Brownville was happy then. People thought the steamer, like a river, would "go on forever." The teamsters did not know that before their day was over Cherry Creek itself would be a great metropolis, and little Billy Wilson who mixed the drinks was blissfully unconscious that over his future there lay the shadow of Sing Sing and that the electric chair would finish his career for this world. But times have changed since then, and the old river, rich with disappointment and chagrin, has tried to, commit suicide by burrowing and burying itself in the sand. It was a great river in its day, a river with a work and a purpose. The channel was narrower and deeper then, and perhaps it even moved faster before it was corrupted by the slowness of Brownville. At any rate it seemed to, and it did great work as it hurried along to empty itself in the great aorta of the continent. The first river steamer in the country ran on the Missouri then, and the Montana and Silver Heels used to bring hunting parties and wealthy prospectors from all parts of the world. The largest Mississippi freight boats-could run in the channel and the old Hannibal brought up the steel rails for the Union Pacific road. In the days of its greatness Brownville was great individually as well as collectively. No town in the state ever had so many brilliant and cultured men in proportion to its population. The men who left Brownville when the crash came now form the backbone of the largest city in the state. All the old ruins about the town suggest that it once reached a high state of civilization. The big houses on the hills with the ruined lawns and terraces were once the seats of balls and receptions, and the little opera house with the moldy walls and tattered curtain knew, in its flares of lights and color, the throb of music. All the grand balls were held there and the great New Year's masquerades. There the silver cornet band that was the finest in the state gave its concerts, and the musicians of Brownville, many of whom have since become famous, gave their select recitals. Amateur theatricals were encouraged as they always are in small towns. The drama has become so much a part of modern civilization that if people are where they cannot see acting they turn actors themselves. Play after play was given in the little hall by the Brownville Dramatic Company, and the names of many of the actors may still be seen on the dirty, dusty windows of the dressing rooms, where they were scratched by sportive diamond rings years ago. There was high life there then, and many handsome and stately women have swept in their evening dresses through that dark, dirty hallway that leads from the hotel to the opera house, and many of the romances begun there have not ended yet, though the chandeliers are broken and the music is dead and many of the dancers have grown gray and dance no more. Here and there between the old buildings are vacant lots where the ruins have been torn down altogether because of the danger to passersby. Lots that fifteen or twenty years ago sold for six thousand dollars would not bring six today. Lots are never sold in Brownville nowadays except cemetery lots. On the little hill to the east stands the Episcopal church where the elite of ancient Brownville meet to worship. The ruin and neglect of the place is pitiful. The stained glass windows are broken in, the walls black with the litter of mold, the carpet white with plaster fallen from the ceiling, the prayer benches broken and the curious [curtains?] torn, the xxx
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