My Genealogy Hound

WILLIAM NUTTER, one of a family of nineteen children born to John and Elizabeth (Knowles) Nutter, is a native of England and was born January 3, 1829. He comes of English ancestry and is the only representative of his family in this state. He was reared in his native country and in his earlier years was apprenticed to the trade of cotton carder and spinner, which trade he mastered and followed for some time in some of the chief cotton factories in England. He married in April, 1853, taking for his wife a neighbor girl of his native place, Miss Dinah Hingam, a daughter of William and Olive (Hayworth) Hingam. In the latter part of March, 1855, with his wife and two children, Mr. Nutter set sail for the New World, on the ship Juventa. After a voyage of six weeks, he landed in Philadelphia, May 5, 1855, looked around the factories for work, but could not get the kind of work that he had been raised to and so went to Gloucester, N. J., and engaged in the print works, in the meantime keeping his eyes open for a chance in the cotton factories. He was there two years, and in the spring of 1857 engaged with Guy Taylor & Co., in Philadelphia, to superintend their carding and spinning departments. He held that position for a period of three years and then, in the spring of 1860, with his family, he started west to seek a home in the trackless prairies beyond the Mississippi, making his way by rail and boat he reached the Missouri river about the middle of that year and joined the great caravan of over-land immigrants then making their way to Utah. Locating in Session settlement, Utah Territory, he remained there for twenty months engaged in farming and laying the foundation for what he hoped would be a peaceful and happy home. But with the rapidly passing events of those times he soon found that he had mistaken his company, and breaking friendship with his former associates, he turned his back upon the treacherous Mormons and retraced his steps towards the East. He settled in Hall county, Nebr., in the spring of 1862, taking a homestead on the banks of Wood river near the western line of the county. That was an early date for central Nebraska — some years before the advent of the railroad with its civilizing influences. “Life on the plains!” What memories are awakened in the breast of many a resident of Nebraska at the sight and sound of these words: When the golden spike was driven which bound together the iron links in the great national highway, the knell in that wild period in the history of the West was struck. The whistle of the first locomotive in its fierce rush across the hitherto trackless expanse ended forever that scene in the drama of progress, which was alike comedy and tragedy. “I crossed the plains,” are words which, spoken by the bronzed and hardy pioneer, signify more than the men of a later generation can conceive of. The toiling caravan of immigrants to the El Dorado of the Pacific slope; the venturesome cavalcade of daring huntsmen; the solitary group of mountaineers have passed beyond the view, and all that now remains of them are scattered traces of forgotten graves, a few survivors of those scenes, busied with other tasks, and vague traditions of the times, which horrify or charm, as deeds of murder, robbery or love perchance give coloring to the tale. Among the very early trials were the dangers incident to crossing a country inhabited by fierce Indians. If the truth could be known, probably every mile from the Missouri to the Pacific would demand at least one headstone to mark a victim’s grave. The stages of life, from birth to the closing of the drama, were here exemplified. Many a poor mother hushed her new-born babe amid the rough scenes of a camp while she herself was suffering from lack of those comforts so essential to maternity. Along the trackless plains many a maiden awoke to the revelation of love and many a troth was plighted. Even the marriage rite was sometimes celebrated; and death, in every form, paid frequent court to the lone wanderer and the straggling settler. Through these scenes and the many changes since, the subject of this sketch has passed and from them he has gained a world of observation and experience not met with in the lives of many men. When he settled on his present homestead there were but few settlers along the Platte river in central Nebraska; all the central and western part of the state was one unbroken prairie, threaded by a few streams and dominated by the aboriginal red man and roaming herds of buffalo; the county of Buffalo had not then been marked on the map. When Mr. Nutter settled on Wood river there was a stage station where the village of Shelton now stands, and a family or two settled along the river in that vicinity. To the west, north, south, and one might almost say to the east, the country was simply part of the unknown world so far as the abodes of white men were concerned. The Union Pacific railroad had not then been projected, this part of the great public domain had not then been surveyed, and the country at large was considered worthless, except as a hunting-ground for the Indians. These were present in great numbers, and included some of the most powerful and warlike tribes on the continent. The Cheyennes, Sioux and Pawnees roamed over this part of the country then, and they not unfrequently left the evidences of their savagery in murdered men and women and in desolated homes. To people of a later generation, not one in ten of whom ever saw a “painted red devil,” it is hard to convey an adequate idea of the terror which these prowling bands of savages spread through the country, and the constant strain which the settlers labored under. The air was often full of rumors, and occasional outrages were committed in the settlement, but no organized forays were made against the whites as far east as Buffalo county, after Mr. Nutter settled there. Indian scares occurred frequently, and even if they were not prompted by any real danger, the danger, nevertheless, seemed imminent to the settlers, and they were for the time being exceedingly serious affairs. The greatest of these scares, which occurred after Mr. Nutter settled, was in August, 1864, during the Indian outbreak, which culminated in the Plum Creek massacre. That scare depopulated the country, and Mr. Nutter, abandoning for the time all hope of making for himself and family his long-wished-for home in the West, returned to his native country, England, leaving behind him to the ravages of the Indian and the freebooters of the plains his several years’ earnings. Remaining in England only a short time, however, he came again to the United States in April, 1865, and was again, for a period of three years, engaged with the line of Guy, Taylor & Co., of Philadelphia. Returning then to Nebraska in 1868, he settled again on Wood River, Buffalo county, buying a place where he has since resided.

Mr. Nutter has raised up around him a large and interesting family of children, some of whom are married, settled off in life, and are themselves heads of families. The christian names of his children in the order of their ages are as follows — Olive (deceased), Maroni (deceased), John, William, Hingam (deceased), Ellen, Iona, Liona, Elizabeth, Jennie, Frank, Mirabeau, Louise, Alice and Thomas (deceased).