Thieves, Rascals & Sore Losers: The Unsettling History of the Dirty Deals that Helped Settle Nebraska, by Marilyn June Coffey
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Thieves, Rascals & Sore Losers: The Unsettling History of the Dirty Deals that Helped Settle Nebraska, by Marilyn June Coffey
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On they came, from Belgium and New Hampshire, from Ireland, Germany and Scandinavia, from the Chicago fire, from the territories: Utah, Wyoming, Kansas, the Dakotas. All the way they brawled, about Indians, about border lines, about slavery, about who was the bigger imbecile. And then they fought County Seat Wars in most of the 3,000 new counties. A thousand of those remaining ended up in south central Nebraska, scrapping about Harlan County and which still-imagined town should hold the seat of government.
Thieves, Rascals & Sore Losers: The Unsettling History of the Dirty Deals that Helped Settle Nebraska, by Marilyn June Coffey - Amazon Sales Rank: #2002421 in Books
- Published on: 2015-05-08
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 1
- Dimensions: 9.00" h x .90" w x 6.00" l, 1.17 pounds
- Binding: Paperback
- 325 pages
Thieves, Rascals & Sore Losers: The Unsettling History of the Dirty Deals that Helped Settle Nebraska, by Marilyn June Coffey Review Thieves, Rascals & Sore Losers is filled with humorous and unforgettable characters that make for an entertaining easy read. --Dr. Ann MoncayoEntertaining, intriguing, and educational! Marilyn Coffey's exceptional clarity and sense of humor triumphs once again. --Carole Rosenthal
From the Author INTRODUCTION The dirtiest deal in my home county happened when settlers near the tiny town of Alma snagged the Harlan County seat in the late 1800s. A native of that Nebraska county seat, I didn't find the affair that scuzzy, but descendants of the nearby town of Orleans still do.Mention the county seat there and faces redden and glower, voices snarl and snap. Indeed, Orleans's descendants seem to think that locating the county seat in Alma was Harlan County's worst calamity, more unfortunate than the 1935 Republican River flood that killed 110 people, destroyed 11,400 head of cattle, and wiped out trees, houses, barns, bridges, and railroad tracks. "At least," they say, "we recovered from the flood," but not the Harlan County seat fight, still taking its toll in Orleans.What in the world happened in early Harlan County, I wondered, to create a fury that burned for generations? What took place between 1871 when forty-two settlers voted to make Alma City the county seat and 1884 when the Nebraska Supreme Court settled the inevitable disputes?A few trips to Alma and Orleans libraries, I felt sure, would satisfy my curiosity. Was I wrong! Trying to discover what happened during those thirteen years felt like struggling to solve a huge jigsaw puzzle riddled with missing pieces. No single account described the entire conflict. Speeches, letters, interviews with old timers, and reprints from early newspapers contradicted one another or dealt with isolated aspects of the quarrel. Even legal records, including county commissioners' journals and district court records, were incomplete.As I searched, I realized that the Harlan County fight was far from unique. All over the Midwest at this time, the creation of counties and the locating of county seats turned into bitter dogfights. Small wonder at the zeal in these little towns. Securing a county seat brought more than prestige to a community. It brought a government payroll and rapid growth generated by private businesses that sprang up to profit from the traffic created by governmental activities. Speculation alone could generate amazing amounts of money. A railroad might even stop in the lucky community. The town that lost, by contrast, often died out. In county seat fights, no second-place prize existed. This made many of these contests rancorous, even violent. I also noticed, as I researched, that the Harlan County contenders had plenty of models of thieves, rascals, and sore losers. Everything Harlan County citizens did--lying, cheating, stealing records, stuffing ballot boxes, building courthouses--also happened in other county fights. Plus the state, the territory, and the national Congress of that time provided Harlan County residents with plenty of examples of dirty deals. A Senator pulls a pistol in Congress to shut up a speaker. An acting governor deals out counties like playing cards. The army sets the partially settled prairie ablaze. Territorial Senators stupidly repeal all of Nebraska's laws. Indians kill white folk and white folk massacre Indians. Voters burn a Senator in effigy. The United States entertains Indian chiefs in Washington, the better to intimidate them.These stories seem endless.Such patterns of behavior must have enabled Harlan County settlers to justify their friction. These familiar tales must have led settlers to believe that, in Nebraska, a person could get away with as much as he dared. I also discovered, while researching, that little is known about most Harlan County settlers. I have listed the names of the early settlers in a detailed section at the end of the book--not to assign blame but to chronicle once and for all the first players in this ongoing battle, from whom many readers of this book may have descended.However, a great deal is known (or can be deduced) about two settlers: William Parker Carr who settled near Alma and Victor Vifquain who left Harlan County in disgust.Of third generation New England stock, Carr, a visionary, laid eyes on the paradise that would become Harlan County while it was still Indian land. What he saw persuaded Thomas Harlan and his settlers from Wyoming to come stake claims in the Alma area.Vifquain, an immigrant from French-speaking Belgium who became a Civil War hero, led the first settlers--forty men--to what would be Harlan County. They chose claims in today's Orleans area months before Thomas Harlan and his men scouted the land.In the first two parts, I introduce you to these two men and explore what drew them to the area that became Harlan County. The next two parts, Unscrupulous Models and Taming the Wild Tribes, describe the Nebraska worlds these two men found when they arrived. Unscrupulous Models focuses on the national, territorial, and state governments whose actions brought, eventually, Harlan County into being. The Cheyenne, Arapaho, and Sioux who lived along the Republican River paid an awesome price for trying to stay on their land in the face of the intruding white culture. Taming the Wild Tribes describes those fights, necessary before folks dared settle near the Republican River.In the last section, Harlan County's Bitter Birth, I tell you--here for the first time--the entire story of what happened between 1871 and 1884 in Harlan County, Nebraska. You'll learn why Tom Harlan stole county minutes, why the Reverend John Whiting hid election returns, how young, strong Joel Piper stole the records back, and what set the county seat on wheels. From my book, you can understand why these early settlers scrapped so. You may even see why the righteous indignation that trickled down through the years has a certain logic. Won't you journey with me through this strange and often amazing world?
About the Author Hi! Just so you know, my books and poems are either nice--or naughty. My nice books are histories of the truly amazing Great Plains, including the Orphan Trains and county seat wars. Sex rears its head in my naughty works. Plus I think I should tell you that I'm a personal writer. I don't write much that doesn't have an intimate feeling to it, that isn't centered, in some way, on my history. My life began in Alma, a tiny town in south central Nebraska, where I was born and raised. As I lay in bed, listening to my mother read me to sleep, I fell in love with words. Mom read oodles of books to me. My favorite was "The Farm Twins" by Lucy Fitch Perkins. When I turned eleven years old, I decided to be a writer.At twenty-one, I graduated from the University of Nebraska with a journalism degree. Then I read Jack Kerouac's "On the Road." Struck with the travel bug, I set out, saw Denver, New Orleans, San Diego, Portland, and New York. I lived in New York City for thirty years, where I taught writing at Pratt Institute, and earned a degree in creative writing from Brooklyn College. Now I'm back in Nebraska, located in Omaha. I'm a retired professor doing what I love best: writing full time. When I'm not pounding away at my computer, I can usually be found reading, pulling weeds, talking to my cat, or hanging out with my partner, Jack Loscutoff, also a writer. I have become an award winning and internationally published writer of poetry and prose who has written six books, six hundred poems, and hundreds of articles and stories. My awards include a national Pushcart Prize for my poem called "Pricksong," a Master Alumnus award for distinction in writing from the University of Nebraska, and the National Orphan Train Complex's Special President's Award for my biography, Mail-Order Kid. My "naughty" book, Marcella, is the first novel written in English that uses autoeroticism as its main theme. My writing has appeared in Australia, Canada, Denmark, England, India, and Japan.
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Most helpful customer reviews
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful. Look Back and Smile By S. Dawson Thieves, Rascals & Sore Losers, the Unsettling History of the Dirty Deals that Helped Settle Nebraska. The title says it all. M. Coffey revisits Nebraska in the 1800's with colorful prose and memorable characters. Her light touch sets humor against the facts and makes for informative, entertaining reading.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful. that still sounds like present day Nebraska By Deirdre L. Evans Impressed with the amount of research that had to have gone into this and that Ms. Coffey has so skillfully distilled into clear, well-written stories that bring to life the frontier life in Nebraska, the personal and political struggles for land and power. Present day life here in Omaha seems tame compared to the days of busting sod, cheating and fighting the Indian tribes and vyeing for county seats. When horses broke legs on wild terrain instead of cars busting axles in potholes. This is a clear-eyed, unsentimental account of those days when European settlers brought their dreams to this new land but needed to displace the Indians in order to do it. And then they squabbled over how to run things after they settled in. (Okay, that still sounds like present day Nebraska.) I enjoyed Ms.Coffey's wit and humor describing all these thieves, rascals and sore losers.
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful. Chortle as you learn some Nebraska history. By Ruth H. Firestone You wouldn't think a history of the settling of Harlan County, Nebraska would be all that interesting unless you came from Harlan County, Nebraska. Think again. Coffey tells some lurid tales of dirty politics, dirty deeds, and dirty tricks with relish and humor. What makes it all especially poignant is that I found more than a few that remind me of the shenanigans going on in Kansas right now.
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Thieves, Rascals & Sore Losers: The Unsettling History of the Dirty Deals that Helped Settle Nebraska, by Marilyn June Coffey
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Thieves, Rascals & Sore Losers: The Unsettling History of the Dirty Deals that Helped Settle Nebraska, by Marilyn June Coffey
Thieves, Rascals & Sore Losers: The Unsettling History of the Dirty Deals that Helped Settle Nebraska, by Marilyn June Coffey
