Henry C. Green and Margaret Jane Patterson were married April 12, 1892. They were neighbors, living on adjoining farms west of Miller. Henry was fifty, she was twenty-five. On first seeing his bride-to-be, Henry decided they were to be married. Maggie, on the other hand, could not "see him for sour apples," and rejected Henry's first proposal. Their marriage in 1892 was the result of four years of persistent courtship. Henry's claim, where they made their home, however, was his as the result of a fortuitous bargain as suggested in the title to this story. The following account is based on oral interviews with Hester Green and Hazel Green Conser, daughters of Henry and Margaret, who still own the family claim.
Henry C. Green was born on the 22nd of February, 1842 at Kent City, Delaware. His parents were James P. Green and Hester Conley Green, who farmed near Kent City. He joined the Union army in 1861 and served in the Virginia area, participating in the battles at Antietam, Fredericksburg and Chancellorsville. At Chancellorsville he sustained a severe wound to his left leg and spent the next 27 months in a hospital at Washington, D.C. The wound failed to heal properly at first, then his doctor noticed a piece of bone protruding from the wounded leg, removed it, and the healing process started. His left leg, however, was shorter than his right. Henry kept the bone with its bullet hole for some time.
Henry C. Green
When he got out of the hospital, Henry was discharged from the army and returned home to work as a farm hand for his neighbor, Powell Aron. As an unsettled war veteran, he tried many things including law school in Philadelphia, working in a village store in Delaware, and a stint as assistant marshall in Dover. The country was in a turmoil from the aftermath of the Civil War. Henry read in a local newspaper that Colonel John Thorp from New York was organizing a group of Union war veterans to go to Nebraska, form a colony and hopefully improve themselves. As he was single and had no hopes for the future in the east, Henry contacted Colonel Thorp and joined the colony. So it was that he arrived with the colony at Gibbon on April 7, 1871. He was very ill for a time after their arrival due to infection in the leg wound, which returned periodically, and a neighbor family nursed him during this dark period.
Members of the colony settled up and down the Platte between what is now Gibbon and Shelton, living in railroad cars until their shelters were ready. Henry's homestead was located in Shelton township on the northeast quarter of section 10, township 9, range 13 west. While residing on this farm, Henry was elected the 19th of August, 1871 to fill a vacancy on the board of School District No. 1 and was re-elected to a full three year term in 1872. He also served the board as its clerk until April of 1873. Henry sold his quarter section of land within a few years and went into partnership with a man who lived east of Fort Kearny. They raised cattle and worked on Drover's Island, originally named Green's Island. He could ride a horse, but walking bothered him and he could not work the levers of machinery with his injured leg. Henry took great pride in his horse and saddle, but, unfortunately, he suffered further injury to his bad leg in a fall from his horse which broke his knee cap.
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Henry was still a drifter and single. By the middle of the 1870's, he was at work as foreman of a ranch on the Dismal River north of Buzzard's Roost. Taking time off from his duties at the ranch, Henry was riding south from the Dismal River for a visit in the Gibbon area when he stopped at a dugout to quench his thirst. Drought and grasshoppers were making it difficult for all settlers this year. It was a hot, miserable day and the farmer, a timber claim settler, was especially despondent.
While drinking the cool well water and resting his horse, Henry listened to the complaints of the homesteader, who poured out his troubles to his visitor. He finally exclaimed: "If I just had a horse and saddle, I would leave this country. I would give this place to anybody." Henry assessed the situation for only a minute and responded: "Here you are, horse, saddle and bridle. Give me the papers for the timber claim and we have a deal!" This spot on the trail would be Henry's headquarters for the rest of his life and destiny was, a few years later, to bring him his bride, when she settled with her family less than a mile away.
Henry's timber claim is the northwest quarter of section 12, township 11, range 19 in Dawson County and is today bisected by Highway 40 between Miller and Sumner. The adjoining southeast quarter of the same section 12 would be occupied as a homestead by the Patterson family, who, over the years, found their way west from Pennsylvania, Kentucky, Illinois and Iowa, before settling down in the Wood River valley of Nebraska.
Margaret Jane Patterson was born in Bonaparte, Iowa on the 12th of August, 1866 to Charles F. Patterson and Lydia Caroline Miller Patterson. Her father was a foreman for Isaiah Meek, who maintained a large stock operation in Bonaparte. His parents were from Kentucky, but he was born in Illinois and had worked in a stave factory in Arkansas before coming to Iowa. During his employment at Bonaparte he met Lydia Miller, who also worked for the Meek family as a cook. Lydia's parents had purchased land in Iowa near Bonaparte sight unseen, after selling their property in Pennsylvania. They had made the trip west with their twelve children by travelling down the Ohio River and up the Mississippi to Keokuk, from which point they went up the Des Moines River to Bonaparte.
The Pattersons were persuaded to go further west by news of opportunity in the vicinity of Armada, Nebraska spread by Harve Brown, a friend who had settled there earlier. Mr. Patterson and Robert Meek decided to drive 400 cows from Bonaparte to Armada and see for themselves this land of opportunity. They left during the summer of 1879. Soon after his arrival, Patterson started a sodhouse for the family and on January 23, 1880 the family arrived at Kearney on the Union Pacific railroad. They stayed all night at a hotel south of the tracks. Mr. Patterson and Jack Mercer met them and arranged to load the belongings and furniture on wagons for the journey to their new home. One of the Meek girls had sent a frosted cake to Mr. Patterson and the family enjoyed the treat while lunching at old Stanley on the trip to their new home. The anxious children commented many times on the sodhouses they spotted on the trip and stated confidently that they would never live in such an abode. Their parents exchanged looks, but remained quiet. Upon their arrival they found a sodhouse, but noted with some satisfaction that it was built into the side of a hill and therefore was a two-story structure further distinguished by a shingled roof. One had to walk up the hill to enter the second story from the outside; inside the house there was a ladder leading to the second floor.
Because Patterson had hurried to complete the house, he had neglected to seal the area where the sod reached the roof. The family will long remember an incident when they noticed that the valance around the bottom of the four poster bed was moving. Thinking a cat was slapping at it, Lydia lifted up the valance only to be greeted by the sight of a rattlesnake. Patterson hastened to close up the openings along the roof.
The Pattersons had five children when they came to Nebraska, John M., Mary Ann, Margaret, William R. and Charles M. Margaret (called Maggie by her family and friends), the future Mrs. Henry Green, was 13 1/2 years old when the family moved to the area near present Miller, Nebraska in 1880. The children attended country school and it was a considerable walk for them. Because of health problems, Maggie's father bought her a pony to ride. It was one of the Olive ponies used during the infamous hanging by the Olives of Mitchell and Ketchum. This animal was difficult to handle and carried on all down the farm yard lane, moving sideways and cutting up generally, until Maggie got him to the road headed for school when he would behave.
After completing the 8th grade, Maggie and a girl friend went to high school in Overton a couple of years where her brother John was teaching. He had had academy training in Bonaparte, Iowa before coming to the Wood River Valley. He later became Dawson County Supperintendent of Schools, and eventually moved to Kearney. He was mayor of Kearney from 1909 through 1912.
As a young teenager Maggie met Henry Green, her neighbor, one day at their well. He wanted to visit with her father who had gone to town for the,day. That encounter was important to Henry Green for he decided that fateful day that this young woman would one day be his wife. The incident impressed her not at all for Mr. Green was twice her age and she had other things on her mind.
Maggie passed the teacher's examination after completing the 10th grade at Overton. She taught both summer school and winter school. The older children, young men especially, who were busy on the farms all summer and spring, attended only during the winter. At one time she had 67 pupils at Overton for winter school and the school district hired an assistant. Then in the spring when the older boys left the classroom for work again, the assistant was fired and Margaret received a five dollar raise. The assistant asked Maggie if she thought she was only worth $5.00 and she replied, "Evidently the school board thought so."
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Maggie was a very organized individual and as a teacher she had several classes going at the same time, utilizing the older ones to assist the young students. She taught in the Overton schools for three years.
In 1880 Maggie's father had a heart attack and she resigned her teaching position and returned home to assist her mother. She had dated many young men at different periods. One young chap named Dunaway had moved to Kansas and wanted her to marry him and live there but she refused for she was committed to fulfill her contract. While living in Overton she had spent some time with a young man employed at the Overton bank who needed her to help him keep the accounts accurate. She was very mathematical. Another time a young lad traveling the area with a magic act had tried to sweep her off her feet, wanting her to play the organ for his act and travel with him.
Her father was seriously ill for three weeks and she was at his side constantly. To relieve the burden, Henry Green stopped by one day and suggested that they take a buggy ride. When he first asked her to marry him, she replied, "You're crazy!" However, Henry did not give up. After a courtship that lasted four years, Henry Green and Maggie Patterson were married. To this marriage two daughters, Hazel and Hester, were born. The family lived on Henry's timber claim during all their married life. Henry died on December 15, 1903, and Maggie lived until August 23, 1938.
As pioneer settlers of Nebraska, Henry and Margaret's story is one among many as a westering people sought opportunity and found it through hard work and persistence.
Information concerning Henry Green's first farm and his school activities was supplemented by consulting S. C. Bassett, History of Buffalo County, county land records, the Minute Book of School District No. 1, Buffalo County, and Biographical Souvenir, Buffalo, Kearney and Phelps Counties Nebraska.
Proofed read 10-03
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