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Article Title: The Empire Builders, An African American Odyssey in Nebraska and Wyoming

Full Citation: Todd Guenther, “The Empire Builders, An African American Odyssey in Nebraska and Wyoming,” Nebraska History 89 (2008): 176-200.

URL of article: http://www.nebraskahistory.org/publish/publicat/history/full-text/NH2008Empire_Builders.pdf Date: 3/2/2011

Article Summary: This article provides vivid details of ex-slave African American families lives as they became homesteaders in Nebraska in the late nineteenth century, and in Wyoming in the early twentieth century. In 1908 they founded the town of Empire, Wyoming, about thirty miles northwest of Scottsbluff. They settled there because of a Wyoming school segregation law that allowed the black settlers to form their own public school and hire their own teacher. In most ways, the lives of these black settlers at Empire differed little from those of their white contemporaries. Drought and a poor agricultural economy eventually led to the community’s abandonment by the mid-1920s.

Cataloging Information:

Names: William Bright, Henry Cunningham, Moses Speese, Hannah Webb, Josiah (Harry) Webb, John Wesley Shores, Patsy Davis, Susan Kirk, George Stoneman, Joseph Speese, Radford Speese, Amos Harris, Eliza Young Harris, William Young, Baseman Taylor, Charles Speese, Otis Taylor, Rosengrant Peyton, Jim Edwards, Yorick Nichols, Russel Taylor, Reverend Haycraft, Albert Marks, Reverend Currens

Names Note: This article presents a large number of names which have not been referenced here. Only central names have been listed. It is recommended that the article itself be referenced for the full scope of family names.

Place Names: Spoon Hill Creek; Custer County, South Dakota; South Pass City, Wyoming; Platte River; Yadkin County, North Carolina; Seward, Nebraska; Westerville, South Dakota; Westerville, Nebraska; Empire, Wyoming; Sheep Creek Valley

Keywords: Exoduster; “Equality State”; black pioneer; Empire Land and Cattle Investment Company; Interstate Canal; German-American; German language school; Tabor College; African American settler; Frederick Douglass Intellectual Club; Custer County Chief; The Slave Children; The Speese Jubilee Singers; Knights of Pythias; Speese Minstrel Show; Westerville Grand Musical; S Bar P; Nebraska Supreme Court; Morrill Mail; Levere Presbytery; Bellevue college; Adelphian Literary Society; Grace Presbyterian Church [Empire, Wyoming]; Presbyterian Freedmen’s Bureau; Chalk Buttes School; Sheep Creek Baptist Church of God [Empire, Wyoming]; Sheep Creek Presbyterian Church [on Nebraska side of border]; The Jubilee Singers; lynching

Photographs / Images: American Progress, 1872 painting by John Gast; Known children and grandchildren of Moses Shores [chart]; Moses Speese family photographed by Solomon Butcher near Westerville, Custer County, Nebraska, 1888; Neighbors to the Speese, the Shores family photograph by Solomon Butcher, 1887; small inset from the Custer County Chief , 1898 re: The Speese Jubilee Singers; the Shores family, 1892; Speese family Migration to and from Empire, 1880-1925 [chart]; a modern view of Sheep Creek Valley, former site of Empire, Wyoming; Russel Taylor of Bellevue College, about 1896; Russel Taylor with Bellevue College’s Adelphian Literary Society circa 1896; the congregation of the integrated Haycraft Baptist Church [the Sheep Creek Baptist Church of God]; Jubilee Singers of Lexington Business College, Lexington, Nebraska, in 1909; Radford Speese stuccoed sod house, Sioux County, Nebraska n S e pte m b e r 1 908, covered wagons carrying several African American families crested a ridge on the Nebraska-Wyoming border about thirty miles northwest Iof Scottsbluff. The weary emigrants regarded the valley of Spoon Hill Creek before them as their promised land. Gazing across the valley, they envisioned an empire of prosperous homesteads nurturing scores of black families T h e for generations to come. Etnpire Builders An African American Odyssey in Nebraska and Wyorning Lon 9 b e for e the i r tim e, John Quincy Adams expressed his belief in the nation's manifest destiny with the words, "Westward the star of empire takes its way.'" Though Adams and the preceding generation of founding fathers envisioned the continent being settled by white pioneers of northern European origin, people of color shared the dream. They, too, sought better lives on the western frontiers. The story of this group is a saga of persistence and courage that spanned generations.

The name they would choose for their new community? EMPIRE

The Spoon Hill settlers had just concluded a quarter-century as successful Nebraska farmers. Tens of thousands of ex·slaves from the Deep Reports of better economic and social opportu­ South, ca lled Exodusters, claimed Nebraska and nities in Wyoming and diverse factors in Nebraska Kansas homesteads during the late 1870s and 1880s. spurred their departure to th e allegedly more By the turn of the twentieth century, poverty forced liberal "Equality State." They were unaware that most to abandon th eir agrarian dreams and move Wyoming's vaunted reputation was built on a foun· to Omaha, Kansas City or other urban places in dation of racism. William Bright, the South Pass search of wage labor. The Spoon Hill settlers were City legislator and Virginia native who was largely not part of the Exoduster movement and differed responsible for th e revolutionary 1869 woman from the majority of Exodusters in their origins, the suffrage law, explained his stance thus: since black timing and route of their flight from the South, th eir men had been enfranch ised, supposedly superior success as homesteaders, and their decision to white women ought to be able to cast ballots as relocate from their Custer County farms not to a well, in order that they would not be ranked below city but to a still more rural and isolated location.' former slaves in the social hierarchy. Throughout In the best mythic tradition of covered wagon their stay on Spoon Hill Creek, the black pioneers' em igrants, they sought new and better homes economic and environmental woes would be farther West. These experienced prairie sodbusters compounded by covert-and sometimes brutally were not fooled by the anachronistic, Jeffersonian overt-racism. 3 myth of the garden that inspired nineteenth cen­

tury pioneers. They knew rain didn't follow the Page 176: American Progress, an 1872 pointing by plow, and th at grasshoppers and other problems John Gast. This Iconic Image represents the nine­ would plague them, yet they mistakenly believed teenth century notion of Manifest Destiny In all its that they could find brighter futures nearer the hubris. "Westward the star of empire tokes its way," setting sun. Thus, this wagon train formed the the saying went-and for some African Americans, westward migration represented the hope of escap­ advance party of a larger migration that would Ing the raCist confines of the East. Courtesy of the create a whole new community on the Nebraska­ Museum of the American West, Autry Notional Wyom ing border. Center. Los Angeles. 92126.1 Minerva b. ca. 1859 r- Fanny --______Jeremiah Shores m. Rachel Holcomb William Sanford b. ca. 1862 ???-??? ca. 1818-1906 ca. 1832-1916 -{James A.

josiah Webb------I[no issue ???-1904

_ Hannah Webb "st four chi ldren d. in slavery Moses Shores _....!!.me.._-j ??? -ca.1855 -{ Will iam Henry b. ca. 1865 (a.1795-(a .1 875 Moses Speese m. Susan Kirk John Wesley b. ca. 1867 Joseph S. b. ca . 1869 1838-1896 ca. 1843- 1926 Radford L. b.ca. 1873 Sarah Elizabeth b. ca. 1873 Earl 1881-1907 L Charles b.1882

_ ___~m~'~?______-1[ ,Mary issue unknown ???-??? _ _ ~m~.~?______~[ L-- Patsy Davis _____...., Elizabeth issue unknown ???-??? ???-???

r Lula b. ca. 1879 Maggie (m. Basema n Taylor) l... John Wesley Shores m. Mildred Ann ­ Cora b. ca. 18B8 1862-??? 1864- ??? Hattie b. ca. 1890 Mattie b. ca. 1893 Nora b. ca. 1895 Ester b. ca. 1899 Known Chilclren ct.ncl Roy b. ca. 1902 Gladys b. ca. 1904 Grct.nclchilclren of Moses Shores _ Fores! b. ca. 1909

Th e Spoon Hill Creek settlers were recruited settlers was aptly named for the biblical hero wh o by a sly fellow named l-IelllY Cunningham, a pro­ guided the Israelites ou t of bondage in the Book moter for the Empire Land and Cattle Investment of Exodus. Moses was born into slavelY near Company. He transplanted fruit tree saplings along Faye tt eville, in south-central North Carolina, but th e creek and then represented store-bought was later taken or solelto Yadkin County in the app les as having been picked from the trees in th is northwestern part of th e state. His surname was new Garden of Eden. As far as th e black pioneers that of th e last man who had owned him. His cou ld tell, the climate and soil were productive sib lings had diverse su rnames, a legacy of slave and there was sufficient water to irrigate several famil ies being ripped apart generation after Todd Guenther is on hundred acres that Cunningham offered for sa le. generation by th e sale of human beings or by instructor of anthropology Th e huge fnterstate Ca nal had recently been built premature death. Men and women often cohab­ and history ot Central throu gh the area to bring precious water from th e ited with a series of "spouses" in "s lave marriages," Wyoming College in North Platte River to the prairie fifteen miles north. which their white owners disrega rd ed as having Riverton, Wyoming More settlers were bound to come, and land values no moral or legal standing or permanence. Their would rise. There was no time for indecision:! children became the property of the mothers' owners and used tha t surname until they were M 0 S E SAN D THE E X 0 D U S The set· sold to someone else. ti ers ' journey began long before in the dissatisfi ed This antebellum nightmare would be a con trib­ mind of an ex-slave named Moses Speese, the ut ing factor in driving th e Spoon Hill settlers from fathe r or grandfather of most of those in the Nebraska to Wyom ing in 1908, nea rly a half cen­ wagons. The patriarch of th e Spoon Hill Creek tlllY after th e Civil War ended. It also shaped their

l78 • NEBRA.SKA history individual lives and family structure for nearly a After th e Civil War, Moses Speese struggled in century. The Speese family's reaction to their pre­ poverty as a sharecropper. The Yadkin county war life was steely resolve to collect the whole economy was a shambles. The white landlord took family and remain together through subsequent advantage of Moses' illiteracy to over-charge him generations and cross-con tin ental migrations, to fo r supplies, and demanded payment for goods he create and maintain the strength provided by a did not order or receive. When Moses expressed large extended family, to marry advantageously, his desire to acquire free land he'd heard about in and to work together to realize individual and the West, the infuriated landlord told him that he common goals in the face of many obstacles. could go, but his wife and children would have to The con fused genealogy begins with Moses remain as collateral on Moses' debts. Speese Speese's father, also named Moses, who was born described his dilemma to a neighbor who late in about 1800. He married "by slave custom" a 1871 or 1872 hauled him, hidden beneath a load woman named Fanny who deli ve red a so n named of hay, to the railroad in the next county and then Jeremiah about 1818. They probably had oth er bought him a ticket north to New Castl e, Indiana, children who either died young or disappeared and safety. Moses may have chosen his destination later into slavery's charn el house. One or th e oth er because it was familiar: numerous wh ite Union parent was apparently sold, and Moses se nior next supporters had fl ed Yadkin County to Indiana, called Hannah Webb his wife. She delivered including to New Castle, during or shortly after Josiah (sometimes called Harry) Webb, and th en the war. th e family see ms to have endured another sa le, for And thus began the Speeses' long exodus to­ their next child was Moses Speese in 1838. Hannah ward the Promised Land on Spoon Hill Creek, an died in 1855 after living her entire life in slavery. odyssey tha t would last a half century. In Indiana , • I Moses se ni or next "married n Patsy Davis. They Moses dug ditches and took any job he could get, both must have become the property of one of the while accumulating funds he tru st ingly mailed to , • I Shore or Shores families in Yadkin County before th e former neighbor who had helped him. By she delive red John Wesley Shores (born about 1873 th ey had saved enough money to transport 1862) and girls named Mary and Elizabeth. Patsy th e rest of the family north. Susan an d the boys died in 1865 or 1866. Now in freedom, Moses hid beneath another load of hay and then boarded Shores return ed to his first love, Fanny, and they a northbound train to join Moses across the Oh io may have married legally. At this time, if not be­ River. 8 I' I fore, Moses se nior and Fanny's now middle-aged Moses and Susa n had another ch ild while living son, Jeremiah, took their su rname, Shores. All the in New Castle: Sa rah Elizabeth was born about su rviving siblings and their fath er seem to have August 1873. Moses' father and stepmother, Moses lived on neighboring farms in rural Yadkin County and Fannie Shores, followed him north to New and kept track of each other's whereaboutsS Castle and lived the remainder of their lives in Moses Speese's wife, Susan Kirk, was born about Indiana. Moses' siblings also came north, including 1843 or 1844 near Winston-Salem, North Carolina. John Wesley Shores and his wife, Millie Ann , who It is unknown whet her Moses and Susan were came in 1880, followed by Jeny (Jeremiah) Shores owned by the same master or neighbors, but they and his wife, Rach el, and Moses' half-sisters, MalY "started a family before freedom came."' Th eir Hauser and Lizzie Stimpson. Th eir existence as first four children died you ng in the anonym ity of wage-laborers during the national financial turmoil slavery. Seven of th eir twelve children survived to of the 1870s was grueling, and race-hatred brutal­ adulthood. The fi rst survivi ng child was William ized their children . Th ey longed to heed th e Siren Henry, whom th e family called Henry. He appears call of the West where free land would enable to have been born in May 1865, jusl weeks after them to become farm ers. 9 freedom came in th e form of 6,000 Union cavalry­ men under General George Stoneman. William 0 s e s led his followers to Nebraska just Henry Speese became the first family member M a few years after th e Sioux and Cheyenne never to live a day in slave ry since his ancestors were con fin ed to rese rvation s, and simultaneously were kidnapped in Africa. His birth was followed with th e mass migration of Exodusters fl eeing the by brothers John Wesley about December 1867; Deep Sou th. Moses and his family settled near the Joseph or Josiah S. in January 1869; and Radford L. predominantly German-Lutheran community of . about March 1873. All three became leaders in Seward in early 1880. Th e seven Speeses shared a Empire.' crowded sod house with a Prussian immigrant

WI NTER Z008 179 ~ > \ d i.

family of nine, a German-Am eri ca n teacher's Moses Speese family. photographed by Solomon family of five, and an unm arri ed black farm er Butcher near Westerville, Custer County. Nebraska, I BBB . NSHS RG2608-1345 from Sou th Ca rolina. Moses quickly went to work hauling freight with a newly purchased tea m and wa gon . Th e chi ldren attend ed a German-lan guage Weste rn history, shows tha t the house was a rela­ school and learned to speak, count, and sing auf tive ly large. we ll-maintain ed multi-room sod dy. Deutsch. In September 188 1 Susa n delivered At least one glass wind ow let the prai ri e sunsh in e an other son, Earl , who suffered throughout his life bri gh ten th e da rk int erio r. Moses and his old er from a debilitating disease and was described as so ns broke th e sad and planted their own fi elds. "crippled." Moses and Susan 's last child, Charles, A wi nd mil l provid ed wa ter. Th ey acqu ired seve ral was bo rn at home on Janua lY 8, 1882. 10 teams of fine horses and veh icles, incl uding a In October 1882 Moses led th e fami ly farther fan cy two-sea ted buggy and the necessary farm west to Westelville in Custer County. There, nearly equ ipment. Th ey bu ilt neat frame outbu il din gs a decade after fl eeing North Ca rolina, they finally behi nd the house. Like th e fa rm, th e fami ly was built a home on th eir own farm . By 1885, twenty immacu lately clean, healthy, stron g, ancl proud. years aft er the war end ed , the ir three cows pro­ Susa n and Sa rah took good ca re of hea rth . home. duced 300 pounds of butter per yea r. They had and th e younger children according to th e gender seventy chickens that produced 1,800 eggs, and ro les of th e day. By the late I 880s th e Speeses were their fie lds produ ced more bush els per ac re than able to afford luxuries including fashionable cloth­ most of th e neighbors' . The Speeses shared a simi­ in g. Their financial success was not du e ent irely to lar li festy le and aspirati ons with neighbo rin g whit e the men's labor in th e fi elds. Susa n, who had homesteaders. A re markab le difference was that cooked on so uthern plant ati ons, wasohen hired th eir mat erial success exceeded that of so me by neighbors to feed th e multi tud es at comm unity whit es an d nea rly all Exodust er fami li es. Th e ga th e rin gs.l ~ form er was especially in credible co nsidering that Moses' brother, Jerry Shores, relocated his many whites had so ld farms or bu sin esses in th e family from Indiana to Nebraska by May 188 7. East or Europe to finance th eir new lives. The Three generations of th e Shores family lived to­ Speeses, on the other hand, sta rted life wi th noth­ geth er in sad buildings pleasantly si tu ated next to in g and had th emse lves been owned like farm a stream. Their build ings were not laid up with th e anima ls. 11 sa me ca re and precision ev ident at Moses' place, A famous Solomon Butcher photograph, famil­ nor we re th ey as well-ma in ta in ed. The Shores' iar to generati ons of Neb raskans and stud ents of farmyard was not kept in such tidy order. and th eir

180 • NEBRASKA history stock was no t as numerous or as fine. Th eir clolh+ d U cat ion rem a i n ed a consistent ing was patched during the 1880s, but by th e early Eth eme as Moses and Susa n's children reached 1890s their clothing and even th eir house were in adulthood. Beginning as early as 1887, Henry, better repair. 13 John W" and Radford all allended Tabor College. Jerry's laid-back atti tude about life and relaxed a private religious instituti on in Iowa . This was a relationships wi th white children are illustrated by remarkable ac hi eve ment, especially given th e th e fo ll owing anecdote: nation's fi nancial crisis of the mid-1 890s and fa rm­ ers' la ck of cash. Th e choice seems even stranger There was a colored family nam ed Shores since the University of Nebraska and other church ­ who lived close to my grandparen ts... My affiliated private inst itutions were much closer to father and his brothers liked to visit there. home. However, Tabor's administration had been They tell a story about being there one day involved with the Underground Railroad and pro­ [when] Uncle [J erry] Shores was tipped back in his chai r with his hat down over his face vided housi ng for John Brown and his weapons tak ing a snooze. The boys had been ou t in prior to th e Civ il War. Those facts may have made th e pasture roaming around wh en brother Jo that institution desirable to African Am eri cans. stepped on a cac tu s plant. He lay sc rea ming After graduating in 1895, Henry reportedly en tered in the pasture. Th e oth ers ran to th e house to the Union Theological Sem inary in Chicago in tell Uncle [Jerry] Shores. 1896 (though no evidence has been loca ted to He tipped his hat up a lillie, looked at verify his enrollment), and became an ordained them and said, "Well, leave him alone, and Af ri ca n Methodist Episcopa l minister. Du rin g his he'll get off il." And he went back to sleep.I.' ca reer he served co ngregations in Yank ton , Sou th By July 188 7 anoth er broth er, John Wesley Dak ota , Westelville, Nebraska , and oth ers in Shores, his wife Millie Ann , and th eir children Illinois and Californ ia. John W. is believed to ha ve arrived from New Castl e and settled adjacent to undertaken additional studies at the Uni ve rsity of Moses. Josiah Webb, cruelly mutilated and Neighbors to the Speeses, the Shores family sat for crippled by slavelY (and who apparently never • photographer Solomon Butcher in 1887. The figures marri ed), also claimed one hund red acres of were later identified, L to R, as: Minerva (holding Neb raska prairi e in th e vicinity of his brothers. baby), the Reverend Albert Marks, Rachel and He lived out th e remainder of his life th ere and her husband Jerry and their son , Jim Shores . in Ansley .ls NSHS RG2608-t231

W tNTER 2008 • 181 Neb raska, then appren ti ced in law in Topeka, oth ers. Tickets were twen ty-five and fi ft y cents. Kansas, and practiced in Ok lahoma before rejoin· Touring was additionally demeaning during that ing th e family in Nebraska. Radford, too, may era when many hotels and restaurants refused to have st udied at th e Un iversi ty of Nebraska where, serve African Americans. 1i in 1895-96, he was an active member of th e Ba ck home in the integrated and more tolerant Frederick Douglass Intellectual Club. Unlike th ei r Westerville area, th eir performances flourished neighbors who stayed on th e farm, th e Speese with vari ety and quality. Rad , an "instrumental family, determined to exceed their neighbors' stan· musician an d singer of some attainment ," orches­ da rds of success, spent a small fortune on college trated the 'Wes terville Grand Musi Ca l," a program ed uca ti ons even while strugg ling out of sla very­ of songs, rec itatio ns, instrumenlalmusic an d induced poverty. Nati onally in 1910 only th irteen dialogues staged on Ma rch 19, 1903, in th e Method­ percent of Americans were high school graduates, ist Church the Speeses attended an d had helped and a mere three percent of Americans held build. It is noteworthy that Radford ciirec ted the college degrees. " predominan tly white cast of about twen ty. Charl es The grown children established reputations was the featu red singer and musician who pe r· as professional violinists, si ngers and pianists. In formed more numbers than anyone else. Joe sang January 1896 the Custer County Chief reported th at at the 1903 Memorial Day and Fourth of July "Our colored troupe" em barked on a month·long celebrations in Dun ning, a community farth er tou r though central and western Neb raska. Only north where he and some of th e family were then th e boys participated establishing new homes. IS because Sarah , raised to TI", ~I..~-. ,I"hil,>,' ., n~"MI h:1\·o be a proper Victorian lady, e a r aft e I' yea r through you th and j"" '·"'"1,1,-1...1 " ,ullr 'hr""~h ."'-, ,'rn N.,IJm.kll, ,"..\ yll" .,11 IlIi•• th" was not allowed to perform Y young adulthood, th e Speese and Shores in publ ic, th ough she did tn'Bt or the "(':l~nll 11 ynu lUll til children plowed, planted, and harvested, th en tW.lr tlH'ir hi'", J.!;'!!"" ",,,tf r:ln...••. accompany th e "Su nday drove wagonloacls of th e earth 's bounty to town '1'1...), Hltl~ ,.., cruw,I,:,1 hOD""-fII ("'t'ry sings" at home and church, for sale. Th ese you ng, black men and women who "" I;rr~. The boys were billed came of age arollncitile turn of the twentieth cen· variously as "Th e Slaves tul)' were not stereotypical cowboys or sod busters, Children" and the "Speese but th ey pulled ca lves in the spring snow and Custer County Chief Jubilee Singers." Newspaper accounts from Ord, drove their stock to railheads for shipment to east· (Broken Bow), Jan. 17, 1898 51. Paul, Boelus, and Alliance suggest that th e tour ern packing houses. They raised good mules th at began as a formal , high·culture Ju bilee perfor· were ma rketed in Omaha. They became inti mately mance of vocal and instrumenta l music. Rura l familiar wi th th e demands of climate, soi ls, crop audiences apparently preferred black perform ers selection and rotat ion, and fluctuations in eastern in stereotypical roles of lowbrow slapstick and markets. Th ey lea rn ed how to read and write, to degrading slave parody. After the Speeses' flopped weigh complex issues, and make dec isions th at performance in 51. Paul , the local Knigh ts of would have long-lasting repercuss ions on their Pythias obliged th ei r neighbors a few days later families' well being. Th ey learn ed to survive by by staging a minstrel show celebrating what local fa rming and ranching on the ari d plains. res id ents though t Afri can American entert ai nment By th e time th ey ca rn e to fu ll adulthood, how­ ought to be like. "Coon shows" were popu lar ever, the farming lands of central Neb ras ka were dive rsions that typically showcased whites in settled and full. Th e fam ilies would have to move black·face makeup who sang, danced and cracked again if th e children were to have land of th eir bigoted jokes. own. In spite of th ei r educati ons and other sk ills, The Speeses toured for profi t-probably to most remained ti ed to th e land by agra ri an dreams fund thei r educati ons-and modified th ei r show in the ve in of Thomas Jefferson. in response to the public's demands. When they Moses, like his Biblical namesake, did not sur­ opened in Alliance a week later, they were billed vive to lead th e continuing search for th e Promised as th e Speese Minstrel Sho\\,. Their previous digni­ La nd . He died in April 1896 and was buried in the fied play list was gone. An ad in th e Allionce nmes Westerville cemete,y. Oth er family members who invited, "Come ou t and laugh-a su re cu re for th e perished about this time included Moses' brothers, blues. Hear them jolly colored boys. Hear them Josiah Webb, who died in 1904, and Jerry Shores, coons sing, "'De ole Arks a Movin', Carve dat who passed away in December 1906. ivloses and Possum, De wa term elons smiling on de vine," and Susan's sickly son, Earl , who may have been

182 • NEBRASKA history epileptic, died in the "insane hospital" in Lincoln The Shores family, phofographed In 1892. Photo is in April 1907." labeled, lell fo rlghf, Armsfed, unidenflfled baby, In spite of th e deaths, the extended family grew Rachel, Minerva. Jerry. and two unidentified figures. NSHS RG2301-3-4 through marriages and births as Moses and Susan 's children, nieces and nephews started fa milies of their own, which added urgency to the search for a Westerville. Although a local newspaper wrote that new home. None of th e Speeses married members Joe and Rad were the only two "colored" men in of failing Exoduster families. Most wed children of Blaine County, they were welcomed by neighbor­ earlier, financially secure black pioneer families. ing Thomas Coun ty's resident black cowboy, Henry often performed th e ceremonies. The Amos Harris and his wife, Eliza (young), a sister Speese men generally waited until they were of Joe Speese's wi fe, Lizzie. The Speeses, whose mature and fin ancially independent to assume th e brand was th e S Bar P, planned to build a cattle Victorian-era masculine heads of household role. ranch using purchased and leased land and re la­ Sarah, too, married late when in 1903, at age 25, tives' homestead claims. she wed Otis Taylor, who would become a leading In th e spring of 1901 the boys' mother, Susan, figure in Empire. His brother Baseman had previ­ joined them and filed on 160 acres a short distance ously wed Maggie Shores; Baseman would later east of Joe's claim. Next, their uncle, John Wes ley have a horrific role in the fall of Empire. The Shores, who was only five or six years older tha n Taylors had roots in Virginia but came out of Joe, brought his wife and children to Halsey. Eliza slavery in Misso uri. In about 1881, th ey se ttled Harris and Lizzie Speese's brother, Wi lliam Young, near Seward, Nebraska, where their lives became a farmer and blacksmith at Dunning, married the intimately en twin ed with the extended Speese Shores's daughter Lulu in 1901. Th ey sang and and Shores families." performed, and Rad taught Sunday School at one of the local churches. For several years li fe was rr his 5 e con d g e n era t ion of promising. The local farm economy improved in 1Speese and Shores families began their first 1907 when at least two railroad cars of sugar beets tentative journeys in search of new pastures in were shi pped from th e area, establishing a new 1900. That October Joseph and Radford Speese cash crop. In September both Joe and his mother, applied for a homestead just east of Halsey in Susan, happily proved up on th eir claims and Blaine County, roughly sixty miles northwest of obtain ed title to their farms.:!!

WINTER 2008 183 SOUTH DAKOTA WYOMING NEBRASKA DeWittyl Empire _.."..."..,...,--~..,.--"J'?l>- * Audacious 1908~ca.1920 ~~-~~'"J....- ca.1920~192S

Cheyenne o

,------.-----~---...---..---. KANSAS

SPEESE FAMILY MIGRATIONS TO AND FROM EMPIRE, CA.188o-1925

Their opinions of the area soured that fall. Local claimed that school laws were much more liberal school funding problems-related to the statewide in Wyoming than in Nebraska.22 issue of opening scores of rural schools to serve Then, in 1908, the horror and degradation of new homestead communities-were aggravated slavery was resurrected and dealt the Speese and by a minstrel show in which local whites in black­ Shores families a terrible blow. After Josiah Webb face mocked black stereotypes. This form of died intestate, the Nebraska court system stepped entertainment was common across the nation; in in to consider claims to his 160 acre estate by sib­ this case it was staged to raise money for a nearby lings or their descendants. The Nebraska Supreme rural school. The Speeses, disgusted by racism, Court finally decided the case, ruling that because inadequate financial support for existing schools, Moses Speese was the only other issue of Josiah and possibly legal problems with their land claims, Webb's mother, only Speese's heirs were entitled again heard the Sirens' song when the Ansley news­ to the estate. Because slaves could not legally marry paper reported newly irrigated land available in in antebellum North Carolina, the judges reasoned eastern Wyoming. Though large numbers of black that all children of slaves were illegitimate. farm families, including some of the Shores, were Such reasoning placed a damning, insurmount­ moving to the Sand Hills and settling in new com­ able social stigma on the entire family. Slavery munities in Cherry County, the Speeses and Taylors had physically maimed and crippled Josiah Webb. decided instead to move west. By December they Now that institution reached from the grave to had sold their Blaine County ranch to relatives by cripple his survivors in heart and mind. In the eyes marriage, William and Ambrose Young, who like of the Nebraska Supreme Court, the rest of the their sister Eliza (Young) Harris, chose to remain state government, and the people of Nebraska: there. When the Speeses made arrangements to they were bastards. All their long labors to succeed purchase property on the Wyoming border, the in white society both financially and socially, their Brewster News reported that Joe was elated by the aspirations toward acceptance, to be seen as good prospects in his new home. Among other things, citizens, to be perceived as pious and proper by though his barn and nearly seven hundred acres their neighbors' rigorous Victorian standards, had of family-owned land would be in Nebraska, his come to naught. Fury and shame intensified their house would be across the line in Wyoming, mean­ determination to leave Nebraska and re-create ing that his children could go to school there. He themselves farther west. 23

184 · NEBRASKA history E M P IRE During the first half of 1908, as Joe the Westervi lle column in the Ansley Argosy and Rad finalized plans to move to Wyoming, ceased. 25 most of th e remaining Speeses and Taylors near All but one of the new arrivals quickly set to Westerville decided likewise to buck the "Sandhills work farming. Baseman Taylor was done walking trend" and move west. Henry and his family behind a mule. He found work as a hotel cook, instead moved to th e southern tip of Illinois, where probably in Henry or Torrington, where the nearest he served several black congregations. The other hotels were located. The others began their new Speeses finalized their agreement with the farms midway through the West's last big boom Wyoming rancher, Cunn ingham, and traded their in homesteading. Between 1889 and 1910, the developed Westerville-area farms for about 800 number of farms in Wyoming leapt from 5,600 to acres of his sagebrush and soon-to-be irrigated 26,000. Then , during the giddy ag economy in­ fields north of Henry, Nebraska, and Torrington, spired by World War f, stock growers doubled the Wyoming. The Speese and Taylors each claimed 320 acres of additional land; at one time the extended families had more than 4,000 acres. The operation was sometimes referred to as th e Speese Brothers ranch and at other times as the "Speese Taylor ranch." Charles sold the family's Custer County cattle herd in December 1907. In March 1908 the recently widowed Baseman Taylor auctioned his livestock, farm machinery, and household goods preparatory to "quitting farming" to find some other way to care for his little daughter. That same month, the Speese fami ly sold three eighty-acre parcels of Custer County land at $50 per acre. During the summer Joe and Rad concluded legal matters in Blaine and Custer counties. The anticipated arrival of a group of African American settlers was news in the Mitchell Index.24 In late summer of 1908, Joe and Rad with their families, John Speese, and brother-in-law Baseman A modern view of Sheep Creek Valley, former site of Taylor finally left for Wyoming driving wagons Empire, Wyoming. Photo by author. and loose stock. Rad's wagon carried a sewing machine that he had won in a contest from a number of cattle between 1914 and 1918. Wild Dunning store earlier in the year. Joe drove a four­ inflation and extravagant speculation led to a 76 horse hitch pu lling a heavily laden wagon. His percent increase in Nebraska land values between twelve-yea r-old son, Harry, drove a buggy. Some­ 1910 and 1920. Banks extended liberal credit on time later, Charles Speese and Otis Taylor farm mortgages. It seemed that anyone could pros­ transported their equipment and livestock to per. Like the whites also flocking to the area, the Torrington via the railroad. Meanwhile, Charles Speese, Shores, and Taylor families thought them­ became a father when his wife, Rose, still back in selves well situated to take advantage of th e Nebraska, delivered their first baby. Happily, thriving economy." Taylor's brother Nathan and his wife, who had moved up from Alliance an d claimed a homestead 'T' hey f 0 U n d 1 itt I e evidence of the preceding spring, were waiting for them. After 1human presence on Spoon Hill Creek. Almost the advance party prepared temporary quarters, the only trace of human activity north of the huge the women and children took a train from new Interstate Canal was a rude wagon track along Westerville to Torrington, where the families were the west bank of Spoon Hill Creek. About two and reun ited and th en climbed into wagons for the ride a half miles north of the Speese homesteads, the to Spoon Hill Creek. The family matriarch, aged ruts intersected the old Fort Laramie to Fort and widowed ex-slave Susan Speese, had been Robinson military trail. The first black settlers in staying with Charles and Rose. Now she moved the area had been slaves who worked at an west with her large family. With their departure, Oregon Trail trading post near the future site of

WINTER 2008 185 Torrington-until 1863, when the Sioux killed Speese, who often served as the family's attorney one or two of them and destroyed the post. The in these cases, soon began requesting changes of Speeses' immediate predecessor was a black Wis­ venue because he felt the court in Torrington was consin native, Rosengrant Peyton, who was literate "biased and prejudiced." Newspaper accounts and owned his farm free of mortgage. It was said sometimes exhibited the same character. Employ­ that his homestead developed into "the colored ing an old racial slur and threatening the lynching settlement, on [Spoon Hill] creek. "27 tactics used in the South, the Morrill Mail wrote, Otis Taylor and Charles Speese returned to "We understand there is to be a 'coon' hunt in this Nebraska in January 1909 to sell the remainder of valley. Coons are queer creatures and most any­ their land, stock and equipment. The Speese and thing is 'fish' that comes to their net, especially if Taylor clans joined 2,235 blacks and mulattoes in their tastes are varied. Its chickens, hen or rooster. Wyoming, a mere 1.5 percent of the population, Most any old thing looks good to them." 30 of whom more than nine hundred were soldiers. In spite of some hostility, more black families Most civilians lived in Union Pacific railroad towns settled in the area. According to local tradition, across the southern part of the state. Only a tiny another five or ten took up residence near Spoon number of Wyoming blacks were engaged in agri­ Hill Creek after 1910. At least seven black home­ culture, and even fewer worked their own land. steads were claimed on the dry lands above, and several places purchased below the Interstate Canal. Almost all the black families were related by blood or marriage. John W. Speese's father­ Their numbers did not shield in-law moved to Torrington and found work as a blacksmith. More white families moved into the the Empire settlers from valley at the same time to take advantage of the racist, hostile neighbors. same opportunities: free land and the booming agricultural economy.31

0 S t 0 f the Speese and Taylor families The farming Speeses and Taylors were minorities Mfinished their houses in late 1909 and early within minorities. They differed further from the 1910. The new walls and roofs sheltered maturing norm by creating a black community. The few families-several couples had stopped bearing black farmers and ranchers in Wyoming were gen­ children before they moved to Wyoming. John and erally scattered on remote homesteads, inspiring Mary Speese had been married for sixteen years one researcher to comment that, "For a Negro to and had two boys and three girls. Joseph and take out a homestead claim and work it was prob­ Lizzie had been married seventeen years and had ably to isolate himself in the midst of an unfriendly three boys and three girls. Radford and Clara had popUlation." Jim Edwards, "The Greatest Negro been married for ten years and were raising two Cattle Rancher in All the West,"28 who ranched boys and two girls. Charles and Rosetta had pro­ sixty miles northwest of Empire, acknowledged duced a son and a daughter in their three years of this situation in creating his brand, the 16 Bar 1, marriage; they would eventually have seventeen which represented the ratio of white neighbors to children. Otis and Sarah (Speese) Taylor had been himself. The Empire-builders on Spoon Hill Creek married eight years and had four boys. Maggie did not endure such loneliness.29 (Shores) Taylor died sometime between 1904 and 32 Their numbers did not shield the Empire settlers 1908, leaving Baseman to care for their daughter. from racist, hostile neighbors. When things disap­ Susan Speese's grandchildren enjoyed a higher peared from area farms or ranches, whites tended survival rate than had her own children, the first to assume that one of their black neighbors was four of whom perished in slavery. Her grand­ the thief. In spring 1909, the Speeses sold sheep children's improved life expectancy probably and began leasing cow pastures to a prominent resulted from their parents' healthier and more man named Yorick Nichols. That amicable busi­ plentiful diets and less stressful lives. According to ness relationship was short-lived; by January 1910 census data, none of Susan's children lost any of they were embroiled in a series of court cases with their own children. If accurate, this was extraordi­ Nichols and other white men involving charges nary during an era when death haunted every and counter charges of theft of hay, stock rustling, home and nearly every family lost one or more and threatening to shoot each other. John W. children. The national infant mortality rate in 1900

186 • NEBRASKA history was one in six. More children co mmon ly died later Several of the women along Spoon Hill Creek in childhood so that the loss of one in four or five claimed land in their own names. Rosetta, Mary, children was typical." Lizzie, and Susan all claimed ground, as did at The children and the booming western economy least one other black woman, Theodosia Scroggins. were healthy; the ir farms and community we re still That Susan, an aged ex-slave, had a claim of her hardscrabble but they were holding on. Moses and own is out of the ordinary, though she was not Susan 's children all owned shares in the rough ly unique. Not far to the north in th e Black Hills, at seven hundred acres of Nebraska land purchased least two elde rl y, ex-slave women without hus­ from Cunningham for $8,000 with proceeds from bands lived independently on homestead claims th e sa le of th eir land and Moses' estate in Custer of th eir own. On ly Rose and Mary ac tually pat­ County. Each nuclear family owned two- to five ented th eir claims." hundred dollars worth of livestock and personal property in Nebraska except for Otis, who was assessed on goods with a real value of over $1,000. Excepting Baseman, each branch of the family also paid taxes on ca ttle, horses, pigs, and miscel­ laneous property assessed between $630 and SI ,300 in Wyoming (reaf value would have been about five times those figures)." Total assessed vafu e of all the Wyoming prop­ erty owned by Moses and Susan Speese's sons was $4,020 (market value would have been about $20,000). This amount seems paltry until it is reca lled that at th e close of th e Civil War th e fami ly had been thrust into th e ruined Sou th ern economy with no possessions, few ski lls, and lacking even th e ability to read and write. A half-century after slavery th ey were healthy, highly educated, and accumulating capital. Nationally, only thirty-seven percent of Americans were able to own th eir own homes, let alone in come-producing agricultura l property'S Otis and Sarah's home was the nicest for mifes around. The oldest, original part of th e house was Russel Taylor at Bellevue built by two wh ite women in th e late 1890s. The College, about 1896. After wall separat in g its two rooms was on th e state line he came to Empire in 1911, separating Nebraska and Wyoming; th e west room Rev. Taylor became the was in Wyom in g and th e east room in Nebraska. area's most prominent citizen. Courtesy Hastings Otis Taylor built extensive additions to th e west College. end of the cab in and created a comfortable, unusually large, two-story house with eight rooms, including two upstairs bedrooms. The trees around the house were older than th e newly planted he com m u nil y grew significantly in saplings on most of th e neighbors' places and T191 f when th ey were joined by fo rty-year-old could even provide some shade in th e summer.36 Reverend Russel Taylor, his wife, Henrietta, and At the bottom of th e family spectrum, widowed their children who soon numbered seven. At first , Baseman Taylor inhabited a shack with only a few th e newcomers lived in the eastern "Nebraska acres of land and he had little in th e way of tools, room " in Otis's house, where their youngest son, livestock, or personal property. His primary in­ Paul, was born. Married in Omaha in 1899, th ey come derived from odd jobs and work as a hotel had originally lived in Oklahoma where th eir first cook. Suffering from poverty and depression, in two children were born in 1901 and 1902. They 1910 he se nt daughter Elsie to her maternal grand­ subsequently spent a decade around New Market, parents, John W. and Millie Ann Shores, in Halsey, Tennessee, where Russel served the Levere Neb raska, where she remained into th e 1920s.31 Presbytery as a missionary to freed slaves and

W1NTER 2008 187 th eir descendants. Russel was exceptionally well divine worsh ip. Fulfilling the tradition of the race, educated, having graduated with a bachelor's a Sunday school which had been held in one of degree from the Presbyterian Church's Bellevue th e houses was moved into the 5chool." 40 (Nebraska) College in 1896. He is also believed to The Empire resi den ts had hoped that Russel have earn ed a graduate degree, most likely in would arrive in the fall of 1910 to assume responsi­ divinity, possibly from the same institu tion. Armed bility for the new school, but when he was delayed with an ed uca tion, en thusiasm, and boundless in Tennessee the school board hired a loca l white energy, he soon became the valley's most promi­ woman named Miss Daniel. The co mmunity nent citizen-black or white. As preacher, teacher, protested: they had as ked for "a colored teacher." and postmaster he had a tremendous impact on Some apparently "subscri be[d] to the slogan, th e lives of the adults and especially on the 'Negro teachers for Negro children'." Russel later children of Empire." explained that in all his years in school, no white teacher or schoolbook had ever taught anything about-indeed were ignorant of-the accomplish­ ments of blacks and their roles in history. Plus, "colored " teachers were needed to provide ro le models as something other than laborers. He con­ cluded that it was no wonder that people of both races innately doubted "th e ability of th e Negro as a race." Empire parents demanded a black teacher to help th em create a better life, sense of se lf-worth, and high aspirations for th eir children. In response, the all-white county sc hool board dismissed Mi ss Daniel an d rehired Miss Thistle to teach th e 1910-11 school year. 41 African Americans in Empire turn ed on its head and took advantage of a discriminatory Wyoming Ada an r"ary SOl.; I e t,y law that read, "When there are fifteen or more Colored children within any school district, the Fouts-J .Nethery W.Kerr board of directors .. . may provide a separate I.B.Brown H.Vjncent Hannan school for th e instruction of such Colored children." Baird Denton The framers intended the law to assist white res i­ R.Taylor dents who opposed integrated classrooms an d interracial fraternization. On ly one other attempt to segregate a Wyom ing school is known: in Russel Taylor with Bellevue College's Adelphian Cheyenne, by white residents whose effort failed. Literary Society c irca 1896. With a bachelor's degree Russel Taylor finally "took charge" of the school and probably a graduate degree a s well. Rev. Taylor in late 1911. White ranchers today proudly cla im wa s overqualified to teac h at Empire's rural school. Courtesy Hastings College. that Russe l, holding a bachelor's and an advanced degree, was the best-educated teacher in any rural Russel stepped from the train into th e tempest. school in the state of Wyoming. Many barely Education had been a primary factor behind the possessed a high school diploma; some lacked families' departure from Nebraska and remained even that qu alifica tion. Not con ten t to rest on his a paramount issue in Empire. During th e 190!>- I O laurels, Taylor attended at least one Wyoming school year the community had hired Sa llie State Teachers' Institute to further his own educa­ Thistle, a young black woman from Cheyen ne, to tion. Under his tutelage, the segregated Empire teach th eir one-room country school; she appar­ sc hool did not refuse admission to white ch ildren. en tly boarded with one of th e Speese famil ies. Wh ether to take advantage of his impressive During the spring of 1910, th e county school board qualifications or because of th e proximity of th e advertised for bids to erect a new Empire school schoolhouse, white children named Hill bega n to building. Russel later wrote, "One of th e very best attend classes, but other white families wou ld not buildings in th e county among rural schools was enroll th eir children. On e neighbor seems to have provided and furnished. Th ere was an understand­ spoken for th e group when he refused to send his ing th at it could [also ] be used for the purpose of offspring "to a sc hool where a nigger cou ld te ll

188 NEBRASKA history them what to do," even a black teacher as over­ qualified as Ru ssel Taylor. The Hill family soon succumbed to social pressure and transferred th eir ch ildren to a school with a wh ite teacher:11 Russe l spent the summer of 1912 back in New Ma rket, Tennessee, but returned in the fall to find twenty-two eager students waiting to resume their stu dies. The Empire school under Russel Taylor was perhaps unique in that blacks created a segre­ ga ted school in which "separate but eq ual" meant the black students actually received a better Empire parents education than thei r white neighbors. About 1915 or 1916 Empire began to dissolve as demanded a black teacher to some black fam ilies sold th eir original places and help them create a better life, moved below th e canal, where they thought they could farm with grea ter success. At th e sa me time sense ofself-worth, Rad and Charles Speese, and possibly oth er pa ren ts, began to oppose keeping Russel as th e and high aspirations Empire teacher, though Joe Speese and the Taylor for their children. broth ers supported him. He was replaced by Rose Hutchinson, a black woman from Kansas. Seizing an opportunity, the leading pa tron o f the "Nash" school, south of the ditch, eagerly invited Taylor words in his 1802 orati on at Plymouth: Empire. The to come teach there. After long consideration of immediate inspiration, however, was Cunningham's racial issues, wh ich Russe l described as worse in Empire Investmen t Company th at enticed the se t­ some ways in rural than in urban areas, he agreed tlers to Spoon Hill Creek. Cunningham had, in fa ct, to make the move. A white parent objected th at previously operated a post off ice named Empire, white stu dents ~c ould not understand the language Nebraska, from 1906 to 19 11 :15 of Colored peoplel" Another further outraged th e The new Empire, Wyoming, Post Office was a cultured and sophisticated Taylor by stati ng th at fou rth-class office th aI began operations on April "in no case should Colored persons be allowed to 10, 1912, with Russel Tay lor as postmaster. This teach whi te children fo r it mattered not how well Wyoming post office had an unusual and probably educated he might be, th e Colored man would use illegal qui rk: it was in Nebraska, where Russel lived improper English such as "dis," "dare," "dat," etc.''' in the easternmost, "Nebraska room" of the ori gi­ Taylor suggested that the man was partially moti­ nal two rooms in Otis Taylor's residence. Several vated by jealously, that it "didn't look good to him people- including Rad Speese , Otis Taylor, and for a Negro to be sitting in a school room drawing Rose Peyton-ea rned some cash by hauling the a sa lary while white men were in th e hay field and mail from Torrington. They also carried ligh t potato patch drawing wages. " After one yea r, freight and provided limited stagecoach services Russe l returned to the Empire sc 11001.·13 between Empire and To rringto n using teams and Russel Taylor's public school curri culum, like wagons. Russel's annual compensation was based many in that era, did not abide by provisions se pa­ largely all stamp receipts and the amount of box rating ch urch and state. A Presbyterian publication ren ts collected, but could not exceed S1,000. Post­ noted, "A colony of colored people was organized masters at inactive offices were paid as little as into a church, known as Grace Church of Sh eep S100. No records exist of Taylor's salal)', but it was Creek. Their pastor is also the school teacher, so probably near the lower end of the scale. The piety and learning go hand in hand, the new Empire Post Office apparently remained in Otis's sc hoolhouse serving for ch urch purposes." ·!! house even after Russel moved into his own home:1fi u sse I' s n ext major accomplishmen t Russel was preoccupied with community­ Rwas to obtain a post office so th e Spoon I-li ll building issues more than family matters. He did settlement became a lega l en tity. Th e name not acq uire a home of his own until th e spring of se lected harkens back to th e Jeffersonian dream 1913, when he finally fi led on a claim three fou rth s of a continental nation and John Adams's dramatic of a mile into Wyoming, immediately \-vest of his

W' ''TER 2008 • 189 brother Otis's ptace and just south of John Speese's. The congregation of the integrated Haycraft Baptist The following fall he claimed more land, for a Church, sometimes referred to a s Sheep Creek total of 32 1 acres that were paten ted in November Baptist Church ot God. Photo provided by author. 1917. Henrietta claimed 200 acres th at were not paten ted. Their residence, a combina ti on soddy and dugout, was simple for an influential and that may have encouraged some worshippers to cultured man, but a typical first dwelling on a seek other co ngrega tio ns."S prairie hom estead even so far into the twentieth Initi ally, services were held in members' homes century. After cramming the whole fami ly into one and later in th e sc hoolhouse. In 1915 the Grace room of his brother's house fo r so long, everyone congrega ti on fi nally acquired su fficient funds to probably breathed a sigh of relief and got along erect th e first church building in the valley. The much better with separate accommodations. With simple structure was not centrally located; it was their father preoccupied by community building situated a mile north of Otis Taylor's house on a the children someti mes had little su pervision; in high point overlooking the recently renamed July 19 16 while Russel Jr. an d Th eodosia were Sheep Creek Va ll ey. In an effort to serve th e whole hunting he shot himself in the arm. The incident length of the va lley, on at least one occasion in was noted in th e Omaha Monitor, illustrating August 1915, services were held in the Chalk Buttes Russel Taylor's prominence all across Nebraska:H School about six miles south of Otis Taylor's place. Th is service may have been a proactive attempt to u s se 1 T a y lor was also th e key figure unify area faithful and prevent the splintering and Rin another important 1912 development. He repetitive formation of new co ngregations that fa­ organized thirty founding mem bers to crea te Grace tally bled members and financial support from so Presbyterian Church. He served throughout th e many ru ral churches. eight-yea r life of the church as a "stat ed-supply" The year 1916 saw the creati on of two compet­ pastor, which meant the church hierarchy did not ing congregations. Reverend Haycraft, a white regard him as a permanent pastor. He was consid­ minister who had also moved to the area from ered a missionary and his salary was paid by th e Westerville, founded the integrated Haycraft Board of Home Missions rather th an from tithing Baptist Chu rch, also called the Sheep Creek Baptist by his cash-poor congregation. He also chaired th e Church of God, a few miles south of Otis Taylor's Presbyterian Freedmen's' Bureau and personally place. Haycraft had been an associate of Jerry ministered to former slaves and their desce nd ants Shores's son-in-law, Albert Marks, who was still a in various parts of the nation. These trips often preacher in Custer County. Severa l members of the took Russe l away from home and his fl ock for Speese and Taylor families worshiped at Haycraft's exte nd ed periods. During these tim es there were convenient location, bu t possibly only when probab ly no regular services at Grace, a situation Russe l was away,49

190 NEBRASKA history A Reverend Currens established a third inte­ was his brother Baseman in 1913. John W. Speese, gra ted congregation, the Sheep Creek Presbyterian who had been fo rced by cataracts to give up his Church, on the Nebraska side of th e border. law practice, died in 1915, but was apparently Currens, a white Presbyterian Home Missions buried elsewhere. Otis and Sa rah Speese Taylor's pastor for Nebraska, had been competing to infant daughter died th at same year. Later in 1915, recruit white and black residents of Empire since Sarah delivered anoth er baby girl th ey named at least 1912. He enticed them by offering wage Leota, who grew up and enjoyed a long life. Sarah labor on his Nebraska homestead.50 This newest died about a year later, possib ly in a buggy acci­ church was part of the Presbytery of Nebraska and dent near the Sheep Creek bridge. Th e infant and not bureaucratically related to Grace Church, wh ich was part of the Presbytery of Cheyen ne, Wyoming. This third church siphoned still more Speeses and Taylors from Russel's Grace Church kXINCT congregati on. Among th em was Joe Speese who, according to apparently inaccurate tradition, donated land for the Sheep Creek Ch urch and cemetery whe n the need arose to provide a burial place for his sister and Otis Taylor's wife, Sarah. A church building was erected east of the state border and a mile or so farther south of the Baptist Church in late 1917 and dedicated in June 19185 1 The initial thirty-member Grace Church congre­ gat ion somehow managed to keep two hundred doll ars in reserve fo r repairs and miscellaneous necessities. One year it even collected ten dollars for mission programs. In spite of stiff competition from th e new congregations, Grace's membership increased to forty-four in 1916, when nine people were bapti zed. 52 Under Russel's gu idance, the black families of Empire found solace and strength in the celebration of their Christian faith and in each other. Secu lar and religious music remained an important part of their academic and community li fe in Empire. as it Jubilee Singers at lexington Business College, Lexington, Nebraska, in t909. Members of the had been in Nebraska. Many individuals excelled Spease and Shores families were renowned as in both vocal and instrumental fo rms of this art. musicians. NSHS RG260B-766-5 Musical trai ning started at home. The Grace Church choir, christened 'The Jubilee Singers," Sarah are buried beside each other in th e Sheep was in demand all around th e area. After east Creek Presbyterian cemetery. White fa rmers and central Wyoming was organized as Goshen County, ranchers were buried in oth er parts of the cem­ the Singers performed at th e exciting 1913 dedica­ etery in subsequent years, so Sarah and the baby tion of the new county courthouse in Torrington, are segrega ted from the rest, but locals insist this just a few months prior to Baseman's death at the had nothing to do with race. Rose Peyton was hands of th e county sheriff. They also sa ng at th e among the last of Empire's African American resi­ dedication for the Berge Church in Prairie Center. dents to be buried in the area after he succumbed The Red Cloud , Wyoming, Union Presbyterian during the summer of 1919 to "a hemorrhage of Church paid them three dollars to cover travel th e lungs."" expenses for singi ng at that church's dedication in August 19 17. Th e au dience included fi ve ministers f a II I h e Empire deaths, Baseman and two hundred others.53 OTaylor's was particularly traumatic. He had Russe l was periodically called upon to perform become paranoid and threatening to family and a minister's sad duty of burying th e dead. Wi th a neighbors, who asked the court to declare him in­ congregation comprised of so many relat ives, this competent and send hi m for treatment to the state task was doubly difficult. Among the first to perish "Hospital for the Insane." Though Basemen offered

W INTER 2008 191 no resistance, the Goshen County sheriff used gathered at the Otis Taylor place on the Fourth of excessive force to take him into custody and July during the annual community picnic for all apparently caused a head injury. Within hours area residents. Using winter-cut ice preserved in Baseman began suffering seizures. According to their ice house, Otis made ice-cream for the Russel's wrongful death suit and white witnesses, throng. The guests provided the rest of the food. the sheriff, his deputies, and another prisoner sub­ Adults enjoyed the rare treat of being able to relax sequently "did beat, burn, choke, pinch, abuse beneath shade trees while chi ldren raced around and othel'Wise misuse" Baseman Taylor. Because playing in the summer su nshin e. 56 the new county had no jail, prisoners were kept in There is no evidence of organized harassment, th e Torrington Hotel and Baseman's torment was though an active Ku Klux Klan orga nization a public spectacle. People staying at th e hotel existed in Torrington during this era when the Klan described watching his attackers choke him in th e was one of the most potent forces in th e U.S. and lobby because he refused to be silent. Later they the West. The local Klan seems to have focused went upstairs to look through the open doorway most of its attention on Catholics. Local tradition of the room in which the helpless Baseman was recalls an "unspoken rule" that blacks should do shackled hand and foot in a bed during continued their shopping at night rather than darken business abuse. Apparent damage to his trachea from district sidewalks during the daylight hours, but repeated choking seems to have interfered with evidence indicates that black shoppers traded his breathing. On November 6, after three days of freely when and where they chose. Stores in other torture, Baseman Taylor died, leaving his nine­ Wyoming communities displayed window signs year-old daughter an orphan. proclaiming "No Indians, No Negroes, No His death was a lynching, an illegal killing by a Mexicans," but African Americans' money was group acting under th e pretext of serving justice. welcome in Torrington day and night. Stores Baseman's infraction, according to th e sheri ff, was stayed open late Thursdays, Fridays, and Saturdays, that he was "a crazy nigger. " The local newspaper called "Farmer Nights," so that all area farmers, reported the incident as th ough his death resulted regardless of race, could come to town and shop from preexisting medical or neurological condi­ after chores were completed. 57 tions. The authorities did not prosecute the sheriff, Conflict occasionally originated around the and Russel eventu ally dropped his su it when his hearth when times were hard and nerves frayed . attorneys informed him that "recovery ... was apt One family imbroglio became public in 1914 when to be small and of little va lue." A black man's life John Speese's wife, Mary, initiated legal proceed­ wasn't worth much in the Equality State. This hor­ ings against Otis Taylor for driving her cattle "from rific event sparked Empire residents' loss of trust in their home range." Joe, who testified in Otis's be­ the Wyoming legal system and underscored their half, Radford, and Charles all became embroiled status as second-class citizens in the same year in the feud. Tempers flared again four days later that the Wyoming legislature unanimously passed when Otis pressed charges against Rad for "uttering legislation making interracial marriage a fe lony. and useing [sic] obscene and licentious language The Equality State, like other states during this in the presence of Sarah Taylor, a female." Sarah, troubled era, was preparing to "keep th e niggers of course, was Radford's sister and Otis's wife." in th eir piace."55 To help make ends meet, several Empire In most ways, th e lives of African American residents took on outside work. This was typical settlers at Empire differed little from those of their th roughout Wyoming where marginally productive white contemporaries. Most people lived in land mandated that many homestead families soddies or dugouts. They worked hard tending bring in cash from somewhere. One old maxim stock and planting small grains, corn, potatoes, maintained that, "behind every successful rancher and other crops. "They raised what they knew." there's a school teacher" with a regular paycheck. The fami lies helped each other during busy sea­ None of the black women in Empire were teach­ sons including branding, haying, and harvest. They ers, but they did their part to support their families. held community-wide Thanksgiving and Christmas Like ranch-wives all across the West, they raised services and socials at the church/school house. poultry, eggs, and dairy products for their own Many social events were mentioned in a local tables and for sa le to purchase food, clothes, and newspaper column called the "Empire Eyelets," other objects the families needed. Sarah Speese which did not bother to note-pro or con-that Taylor tried to generate some in come doing tw ice many events were integrated. Multihued crowds weekly laundry for men and small families, though

192 NEBRASKA history the newspaper ad credited Otis for this work. Most torical perspective reveals was the beginning of of the income men generated producing crops and th e end of Empire. In November, after managing livestock was plowed back into the homestead. to raise only two crops duri ng all their years in The only Empire residents known to have had Wyom ing, Charles and Rosetta Speese took their wage-labor jobs were men . John Speese worked as children an d moved away.flO an att orn ey an d la nd locato r. Several men ca rri ed They return ed to Nebraska and settled near th e mail to the Empire post offi ce. Some of the DeWitty in Cheny County, wilere her parents an d Taylor men built and plastered houses. Rad Speese many other relatives and friends from Blaine, is mentioned frequently as a builder and helped Custer, and Dawson Counties had been moving build one of the few two-stOlY sod houses in since 1907. They wrote back to Empi re that the Nebraska on the nearby Grewell homestead. Joe homes in Nebraska had wood, not dirt floors. The Speese purchased a well-drilling outfit in 1910, and comparatively wealthy Nebraska community was a few yea rs la ter his son , rvliles, was praised in th e much larger, thus offering an expanded social life, newspaper for "making a good record as a young more political power, and increased potential for well maker. "59 the children to find spouses of th eir own race. Nea rly eighty families numbering almost two hundred people had homesteads along fifteen DEC LIN E AND F ALL By all appear­ miles of the North Loup River. Three entire sc hool ances, Empire seemed to be progressing on the dist ricts had on ly black pupils, while several oth ers roac! from ragged frontier agri cultural neighbor­ hood to an estab lished rural community. Yet, in While he was living in Empire, Radford Speese built a stuccoed, story4and4a4half sod house at a nearby 1915 , after Empire had acquired its post office, Sioux County, Nebraska, ranch. Shown here in a school, and church and the national ag economy modern photo, the house continues to serve as a continued to boom, something happened that his4 residence. Photo by Roger Bruhn.

WINTER 2008 193 that neither Wyoming law nor their white neigh­ Empire's dry land farmers bors would guarantee to protect citizens of color in Empire or anywhere else in the state. watched as the plowed topsoil In response to the lynchings, Russel Taylor dried up and blew away. wrote to a Cheyenne newspaper that racism was a chronic problem in Wyoming. He stated that he was consistently denied admission to restaurants and hotels and had to settle for places that were were integrated. One of the teachers was Rosetta's "of little credit to a minister." While Joe and brother, Dennis Mehan, another was Esthyr Shores. Lizzie Speese's oldest son, Miles, was wearing the 6 Life in Nebraska was better than it was in Empire. ! uniform of his country in World War I, Russel and Back in Empire, desperate environmental, another pastor wrote to express African Americans' social, and economic factors were combining to frustration that the United States would fight for crush dreams as they did to thousands of white democracy abroad without ensuring that justice homesteaders all across the West. Lacking irriga­ was served at home.62 tion available below the Interstate Canal, Empire's dry land farmers watched as the plowed topsoil De 0 pie i n Em p ire wondered what dried out and blew away. The farming techniques fto do. In spite of Charles and Rose Speese's let­ they had learned during their decades in central ters, they knew that Nebraska was not a panacea. Nebraska failed in this drier, sandier area. The The same economic and environmental issues the carrying capacity of their unplowed rangeland was families encountered in Wyoming plagued them in barely suitable even for grazing. In the late 1890s, Nebraska. And there was racism. The Ku Klux Klan when climatic conditions were more favorable burned a cross in Dunning's public park for the than during the 1910s and 1920s, each cow still benefit of Taylor and Speese relatives living there. required about thirty-two acres to survive. Raising The 1919 lynching of a black Omahan precipitated enough cattle to support a family required a wild rioting and destruction by white mobs. Mob tremendous amount of land-vastly more than any arson burned a black restaurant in North Platte. of them owned. The black families that founded Crosses were burned in other western Nebraska Empire lacked enough land and water to prosper communities and blacks were justifiably fearful. even during the World War I-era boom times. Shortly after the Omaha riot, whites in Scottsbluff Around 1916 several families sold out and moved mobbed the home of a black family to protest the below the Interstate Canal to start over. Summer rumored opening of a boarding house for blacks drought in 1919 and terrible winter storms in early by the Rev. Russel Taylor. New sugar beet plants 1920 aggravated their plights. were under construction, and local whites were At the same time Empire residents were con­ determined to prevent another influx of blacks like fronting the realities of an environment hostile to that which had brought many transient southern farming, Wyoming race relations turned deadly. black laborers into the community during con­ What may have seemed an aberration in 1912 struction of the big irrigation projects a decade when a black prisoner was lynched inside the earlier. The mob's goal was to make sure "that Wyoming State Penitentiary, was followed in 1913 no more colored people were to be permitted to by Baseman Taylor's lynching and Wyoming's anti­ locate in that neighborhood." Russel wrote to the miscegenation law. A growing national trend of paper that he was not the buyer of the building racism and increasing KKK power was also extant and called the incident a "tempest in a teapot." He in Wyoming. In 1917 a white mob lynched a black suggested that white people were afraid that low man in Rock Springs. The next year a mob in class blacks were fleeing Omaha and North Platte Green River dragged a black man from jail and for rural destinations like Scottsbluff. In his ongo­ lynched him. In 1919 or 1920 another black man ing effort to build esteem for his people and bridge was lynched in Hudson. The local authorities' chasms between the races, he stated, "Our investi­ general attitude after the lynchings was that "the gations failed to show that such was the case." He nigger got what he deserved." African Americans felt that "little if any difference is found between in Empire and across Wyoming lived in fear. These the moral status of this new influx of Negroes and incidents were not cases of rough frontier justice. those found in [Scottsbluff] when beginning our Wyoming had achieved statehood in 1890 and had religious work last April." Two years later, perhaps a well-established judicial system, but it was clear in an effort to head off a similar confrontation in

194 NEBRASKA history Omaha, Russel was associated with the Colored Commercial Club, a sort of black chamber of Nearly everyone, regardless of commerce and employment bureau which, "By cooperating with Labor Bureaus in the East and color, had ned Empire and South [was] able to keep out of Omaha a great scattered in the prairie winds. number of floaters" seeking work but who were deemed undesirable by established, resident African Americans.63 Many Empire settlers clung to their homes in son, Miles Speese, returned home from World spite of environmental and social problems but War I full of youthful energy and optimism and after World War I economic factors finally succeeded in patenting 200 acres of land in 1923. destroyed their tenuous holds on their marginal But by the mid 1920s, even the stragglers had to land. As soon as the war ended, prices for goods admit defeat and abandoned the Sheep Creek they produced plummeted, while payments on Valley. Nearly everyone, regardless of color, had mortgages and loans remained fixed at high war­ fled Empire and scattered in the prairie winds; time rates. Tens of thousands of homestead only about one out of every twenty-five settlers, families all around the West began to walk off white or black, managed to stay. With the excep­ their land into poverty-stricken futures, abandon­ tion of the Otis Taylor place, the abandoned ing their mortgages and driving hundreds of banks Speese, Taylor, and Shores homesteads were not into failure. There was no shame in giving up and reoccupied. Scavengers from the few surviving leaving during this terrible era; the disintegration ranches salvaged what they could from the of Empire was part of a huge national collapse. deserted buildings, then left the remainder to fall Farm prices dropped sixty percent, but production into ruin. Sod walls crumbled, boards blew off the decreased only six percent, which resulted in huge roofs, cattle wandered through vacant doorways, surpluses of unmarketable produce. In 1920 steers and forlorn barns collapsed under the weight of sold for $150 per head; by 1924 they were down to winter snows. Little evidence remains of the dreams $60. Nationwide, net farm income plunged from a and determination that grew out of generations of total of nearly $10 billion in 1919 to $4 billion in slavery but became nightmares during the earliest 1921. Of forty-seven national banks in Wyoming in days of the Great Depression. Today, Empire is 1921, twenty-three were out of business before the essentially an archaeological site. crash of 1929. Of 133 state and private banks in Wyoming during the early 1920s, seventy-six closed by 1927 and only thirty-two still survived in 1936. n r i n g the 1ate nineteenth and early There was no market for what little the Empire Otwentieth centuries, the population of the farmers and ranchers could produce, and no rural West was denser than today, as thousands credit to keep them going.&! of families tried to survive on little homesteads that The fall of Empire came as quickly as its rise. have since been absorbed by larger operations. A Barely able to hold on during the best of times, small percentage of those pioneers were African Empire farmers and ranchers were blown away Americans who lived in places where blacks are in a maelstrom that dwarfed Dorothy's Kansas unlikely to appear today. Many of these settlers, tornado without offering a green and fertile Oz at like their white neighbors, were driven from their the other end of the rainbow. The family-oriented farms by environmental and economic factors dur­ black residents in Empire could not care ad­ ing the 1920s and 19305. Given the demographics equately for their children or pay their taxes. Dry of the times, it is no wonder that Empire disap­ land farmers above the canal and those farther peared. But in spite of everything, the families of west-the driest parts of the area-left first, fol­ the Empire builders, like the nation they helped lowed in short order by nearly everyone else. The create, survive. Some of the descendants look Grace Church congregation declined to only four­ back on their lives in Wyoming and western teen members and disbanded in 1920; the Haycraft Nebraska with shudders. Others remember those Baptist and Sheep Creek Presbyterian Churches times fondly and with pride. The prolific family also withered and died. The Empire post office historian and optimist, Ava Speese Day, a daughter closed on August 14, 1920. of Charles and Rose Speese, acknowledged A few diehards tried desperately to hang on as economic hardships but ignored racism to pen Empire collapsed around them. Joe and Lizzie's a rose-hued summary of their lives,

WINTER zp08 195 NOTES

There wasn't much money-ever-but our I Anders Stephanson, Manifest Destiny: American Expansion folks did their best to give us the best they and the Empire ofRight (New York: Hill and Wang, 1995), 18; possibly could-and I feel we had a wonderful John Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 16th ed. (New York: Little Brown and Co., 1992),296. childhood ... My husband-Missouri born­ raised in S. Dakota without segregation-still 2 The aftermath of Reconstruction and the migration of ex­ slaves from the South to the Great Plains is discussed in Nell can't get over how nice the white people in Irvin Painter, Exodusters: Black Migration to Kansas After Recon­ the Sandhills & Wyoming were to us in 1960 struction, (New York: Alfred E. Knopf, 1977); Robert G. Athearn, [and during visits as late as the 1980s]. I told In Search ofCanaan: Black Migration to Kansas 1879-1880 him it had always been like that-neighbors; (Lawrence: Regents Press of Kansas, 1978); Norman L. Crockett, like people think the word really means.65 The Black Towns (Lawrence: Regents Press of Kansas, 1979); Nebraska Writers' Project, The Negroes ofNebraska (Lincoln: Most of the people who abandoned Empire Works Progress Administration, 1940): Gregory D. Kendrick, ed., Promised Land on the Solomon: Black Settlement at Nicodemus, returned to Nebraska. But just as Odysseus Kansas (fopeka: National Park Service and Kansas State returned to a changed home not to his liking, in Historical Society, 1986): James Rose Harvey, "Negroes in Colorado" (master's thesis, University of Denver, 1941); and which he had to fight to regain his place, they Quintard Taylor, In Search ofthe Racial Frontier: African continued to face adversity through succeeding Americans in the American West, 1528-1990 (New York: W. W. generations. Though they did not yet know it, the Norton, 1998), chap. 5, "Migration and Settlement, 1875-1920," 134-63. agrarian phase of the Empire builders' odyssey was over. During the tumult of the Depression some 3 Michael A. Massie, "Reform is Where You Find It: The Roots of Woman Suffrage in Wyoming," Annals of Wyoming 62 (Spring Those ex-slave families, like many of their white counterparts, 1990): 7-9; T. A. Larson, History of Wyoming (Lincoln: University moved from farm to farm, fighting a losing battle to of Nebraska Press, 1978), 78-94. Wyoming in 1869 was the first families who stay on the land before succumbing to urban life. state or territory to grant women the right to vote, hold political office, and own property, developments that inspired the nick­ pursued Adams's The next phase of their odyssey would be lived out name, "The Equality State." Esther Morris, a woman in Bright's in Midwestern towns and cities during the hard hometown of South Pass City, was appointed justice of the "star" to the times of the Great Depression and World War II. peace in 1870 and became the first woman officeholder in the nation. With the passage of time, the grandchildren and Nebraska-Wyoming ·1 Elsie and Cecil Rose, interview by author at the Rose Ranch great-grandchildren of Moses and Susan Speese, on Sheep Creek (formerly Spoon Hill Creek), Wyoming, Oct. 4, border found the the Shores and Taylor families, spread across the 1988. The Roses ranch and farm on land that encompasses continent, farther and farther from their ancestors' much of what was formerly the Empire community. Their home West to be is on the site of Otis Taylor's ranchhouse. They have lived in dreams of tilling free soil in the West, but still the area for many years and are familiar with the community's anything but the searching for safe and decent places to raise their history. See also Morrill (Nebr.) Mail, Aug. 27, 1908: Ava Speese children and pursue their dreams. As in any family, Day, fifteen-page abstract of twenty-eight page unpublished garden that manuscript submitted to Lavonia Foster, December 1978, on some succeeded in the endeavors they chose; file, Custer County Historical Society Museum, Broken Bow, Jefferson and others struggled just to make ends meet.66 Nebraska, 13; Gering (Nebr.) Courier, "Torrington" column, The star of Empire first shone in the rhetoric of Nov. I, 1907. others imagined. Cunningham was not the fly-by-night promoter one might the Founding Fathers during an era when much suspect from this account. He had settled in the area earlier, of the nation-the American Empire-was being believed in the potential of the region, and intended to stay and built on the scarred backs of slaves who dreamed raise his own family. Any deception was apparently done on his own faith that the Spoon Hill area possessed farming poten­ of freedom and land of their own. Those ex-slave tial and he hoped to build up the area with good, hardworking families who pursued Adams's "star" to the people regardless of race. His descendants still live nearby. Nebraska-Wyoming border found the West to be According to the Roses, many transient, unmarried black men labored on construction of the Interstate Canal. There is anything but the garden that Jefferson and others evidence that a southern construction company helped build imagined. In Nebraska they lacked the financial the Pathfinder irrigation system on the Wyoming-Nebraska bor­ resources to establish their next generation as der and brought a crew of black laborers to the area around 1905 to 1915. They lived in the construction camps that moved farmers; in Wyoming environmental, economic, from place to place as the ditch progressed. Canal projects were and social conditions conspired to crush their similar to railroad construction in that workers did not live in agrarian aspirations. And yet, they contributed to permanent towns. See "Rough, Tumble Ditch Camps Provided Plenty of Business for Pioneer Doctor, Anna A. Cole," Scottsbluff the creation and development of new communi­ (Nebr.) Star-Herald, clipping, n.d. (fall 1968?), xerographic copy ties and states even while their own farm homes in author's collection.

and dreams crumbled into dust during the Great S U.S. Census, Yadkin County, North Carolina, 1870, entry for Depression. The people who built Empire were Moses Shores. Even descendants are confused by the family genealogy and not all sources agree that all these men were nation-builders, first as slaves and later as freed­ brothers, though the most reliable indicate that this was the men and women. case. For example, Moses Speese's daughter-in-law, Rosetta

196 • NEB~SKA history Meehan Speese, said incorrectly in 1964, according to Ava 14 Phyllis Cannon Wirz. "Cannon, Elmer, and Floy Ca nnon Speese Day. Mar. 28. 1964, leller to the Nebraska State Historical Leach, Westerville, Nebraska,' in Alberts. Sod House Memories, Society (hereafter NSHS) filed in Mrs. Lee (Ava) Day Mss, B983­ 210. 1345. that John Wesley and Jerry Shores had been owned by the IS Ava Speese Day Mss. 9. same master, but were not related to Moses Speese. though she also implies thai John Wesley and Moses were brothers. The 16 -Lincoln" column, The (Omaha) Enterprise. Nov. 16, Nov. most reliable source for early family history is ~ H eirs of Moses 30, and Dec. 7, 1895; Sept. 5, 1896: Tabor College records Speese. Appellees, v. Es tate of Jeremiah Shores. Appellant, Case curated in the Doane College (Crete, Nebr.) Library reveal that No. 15, 101. Vol. 81, Reports ofCases in the Supreme Court of the Speese brothers earned good grades in serious courses of Nebraska, January 19081errn (Lincoln: Slate Journal Co., 1909), study and it appears that only Henry graduated, in 1895; 593-97, (herea ft er cited as Nebraska Reports). See also U.S. Theodore Caplow, Louis Hicks, Ben J. Wattenberg, 711e FirsT Census, Torrington Prec inct, Laramie County, Wyoming, 1910; Measured Century: An Illustrated Guide to Trends in America, Ma rga ret Speece, Casper, Wyo .. interview by author, Feb. 20, 1900-2000 (Washington. D.C.: AE1 Press. 200 1), 52, 53.

1991: John E. Ca rter, Solomoll D. Butcller: PhotograpllinB the 17 Ord (Nebr.) Journal, Jan. 10 and 17. 1896: St. Paul (Nebr.) American Dream (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1985), Phonograph, Jan. 10 and 17. 1896: Alliance (Nebr.) Times, 43: and Ava Speese Day Mss, 6, 8. Jeremiah's tombstone gives Jan.21 , 1896. 1818 as his date of birth which, if accurate, indicates that he was some twenty years older than Moses. Numerous sources It Alberts, Sod House Memon·es. 208, 209: Ava Speese Day help to itluminate the Speese and Shores families' antebellum Mss.. 2, 9: "Westerville Items,~ Custer County (Nebr.) Chief, Jan. existence in slavery including Frances H. Casstevens, TIle Civil 31, 1896; -Westerville I tems. ~ Ansley (Nebr.) Chronicle, May 16, War and Yadkin COUf1ty, North Carolina (Jefferson, N. Car.: 1902: Brewster (Nebr.) News, June 26 and July 3, 1903. McFarland and Co., 1997), chaps. 5 and 6, 106, 116,261--64. 1~ Ava Speese Day Mss., 8. 9; Ansley Chronicle·Citizen, May 10,

I Ava Speese Day Mss, 6 and Day contribution in Frances 1907.

Jacobs Alberts, ed .. Sod House Memories: A Treasury ofSoddy 20 Family origins. dates and places of birth and marriage of the Stories. (n.p.: Sod House Society. 1972),262. Speese children and their spouses are found in Ava Speese Day 'Various official. published, and family sources provide con· Mss.. 1. 10, 11, 12 , with additional information extrapolated flicting birthdates for Moses, Susan. and their children. The from the U.S. Census, Torrington Precinct, Laramie County. dates provided here are based on all available information and Wyoming, 1910; Margaret Speese interview: Lela Speese Avery are as nearly accurate as possible. See also U.S. Census, K letter to author; photocopy of unidentified (Omaha?) news­ Precinct, Seward County, Nebraska, 1880; Yadkin County, North paper clipping about Hester Meehan provided to author by Lela Carolina, 1870: Custer and Blaine counties, Nebraska, 1900, Speese Avery; Charles Reece, History of Cheny County, Ne· 1910: Laramie County, Wyoming, 1910: and Goshen County. braska (Simeon, Nebr.: n.p., 1945),93-94: Don Hanna, Jr., Wyoming. 1920. 1930: Combined Assessment Roll and Tax List, ~BrownleeM and ~DeWilly Community. the Negro Settlement,· 1911, vol. 3, 137 (School District "11), Laram ie County, Wyoming and Ava Speese Day, ~S t. Ja mes RMC Church and Ceme t ery~ in Treasurer's Office. Joseph Speese's obituary in The (Omalia) Marianne Brinda Beel, ed., A Sandhill Century: An £arly History MoniTor, Jan. 14. 1927, for example. gives his birthdate as Jan. ofCherry County, Nebraska, &ok II, The People, 1883-1983 26. 1876. which is clearly erroneous, as is the purported loca· (Cherry County Centennial Committee, 1986).2-13-47. tion of his birth, ~Yac h et.~ North Carolina- apparently 21 -Dunning Dew Drops,~ Brewster News, Ja n. 25 and May 3, substituted for Yadkin County. See also Ava Speese Day in 1901, Jan. 3 1, 1902. Feb. 27 and June 5, 1903; Oct. 18. 1907; U.S. Alberts, Sod House Memories, 262: Ava Speese Day Mss., 6. 9. 10. Census, Blaine County. Nebraska, 1910.

~ Ava Speese Day Mss.. 6, 7: Casstevens. The Ciuil War and 22 Many family members had shares in the nearly 700 acres Yadkin County, chaps. 5 and 6, 65, 107, 111, l i S, 152. of Nebraska land: Joe did not have sole title. Brewster News. , Ava Speese Day Mss., 7. 8. Conflicting dates for Sarah's birth Oct. 18 and Nov. 8. 1907. Feb. 12 and June 19, 1908: Ansley are given in the Ava Speese Day Mss and in the U.S. Census, Chronicle·Citizen, Sept. 27.1907: Omaha Bee, Apr. 29, 1907: Torrington Precinct. Laramie County. Wyoming. 1910. house Mitchell (Nebr.) Index, June 26,1908: Sioux County (Nebr.) 218; Elmer Harvey oral information re.: Butcher photo 01 Shores Clerk's Office, Book M, 443: Russel Taylor. -A Bit of Racial News family, given to NSHS photograph section, Jan. 4. 1966. type­ From the Rural West,M The (Omaha) script notes on file. Monitor, Apr. 12, 1919. On May 10, 1907, the Brewster News reported that a B & M RR 10 Ma rga ret Speese interview: Ava Speese Day Mss., 7: U.S. emigration agent who encouraged the Speeses to move to Census, K Precinct. Seward County, Nebraska, 1880: Tile Spoon Hill Creek was working to create a "negro colony~ called Monitor, Aug. 31, 1923. DeWitty in Cherry County. Several of the Shores moved there, II 188S Nebraska Census of Agriculture, cited in ~Stories of the as did the fam ily of Charles Speese's future wife. Rose Meehan. Great Westward Expansion'African American History in Your Rose, a capable sixteen·year-old farm girl, drove one of her National Parks, The ~ l oses Speese Family: New Years, New father's wagons from central Nebraska to their new home Lives,~ website address, www.nps.gov/untold/oonners_and_ during the summer of 1907. then turned around to join Charles backgrounds/expansionoonrler/speese.hrm., p. 4 of 4. in Westerville for their wedding. According to Charles Barron Mcintosh in The Nebraska 12 Ava Speese Day Mss., 7; Phillip Gardner, ~Speeses­ Sandhills: TIle Human Landscape (Lincoln: University of Shores-Marks," in Centellnial History of Westerville (n.p.: n.d.), Nebraska Press, 1996), 230.231, Charles Speese's in·laws, the 307; Carter, Solomon D. Butcher, 20. Charles Meehans, were not. contrary to some assertions, the first 13 According to one source, Jerry Shores came to Nebraska African American family to claim land west of Brownlee in what alone and married Rachel Williams there in 1884: they had ac· would become DeWitty. The first was LeRoy Gields in 1902. In tually enjoyed a long-standing common-law or "slave marriage­ 1906 three more black homesteads were claimed, then eleven that was finally made legal in Nebraska. Rachel was originally in 1907, the year the Meehans arrived. followed by three more from Smyth CounlY. South Carolina. Carter, Solomon D. BUTcher. in 1908, and six each in 1909 and 1910. In 1911 additional black 43: Lela Speese Avery (daughter of Charles and Rosetta homesteads were claimed, bringing the total to forty·four. Even· Speese). leiter to author, May 20, 1991: Margaret Speese inter· tually, seventy· four total claims were filed. For information on view. A later photo of the Shores by an unknown photographer DeWitty and other black communities, see, ~Neighborhood was dated about 1892 by fam ily historian Ava Speese Day. Notes," Brewster News. May 10, 1907: Kathryne L. Lichty, ~ A

W1NTER 2008 197 I lislOry of the Settlement of the Nebraska Sa ndhilJs ,~ (master's figures to be low. The expericnces of other pioneering black Ihesis. Uni\-ersity of Wyoming. 1960); Andrew Harris. ~Deerfield. ranchers in the area can be found in Todd Guenther, "At Home a ~egro Ghost Town in Weld Coun ty. Cotorado.~ TIle Negro On The Hange: Black Homcs tcaders in Wyoming. 18S0-1950~ I-/tSfOl)' Bulletin 27 ( 196:1): 38-39; James I ~ose Han'ey. "Neg roes (master's thesis. Unh'ersily of Wyoming, 1988) . Also included is in Co torado: ~ Rheba rvlUtah Press. Ta),lor, "A Bit of Raci;1I News:" Ton-if/gtofl Telegmm. Feb. 3. 1997): and Guemher. "Could These Bones Be From 1\ Negro?" 1910. Relevant infonT1justice of the peace. xerographic copy onlile, of the Wyoming Slate Ar'chaeologis1. Laramie, 1986: Lauric K. Torrington I 100nesteader r-. luselllll. Sec also Morrill Mail. Aug. 27. Mercier. ~ Women 's Economic Role in i\lontana Agriculture: 1908. fllay 13. July 1. Nov. :1 . and Dec. 9. 1909. Sept. 16. Nov. II. 'You Ilad To ~Iake Eve!)' ~Iinute Count:" Montana: The Maya­ and Dec. 30. 1910. Oct. 20. and 27. 19 11 : Torringlon Telegram. :;iflc of lI'eslem /-lislOI), 3B (Autumn 1988): 51. Feb.3. 10. and 17. 1910, 1'.Iar.6, 191:J. .• T. B. Snyder settled all Sheep Creek ill 1881 and sold his :ll Tonillgloll Telegram, Sept.n, 19[0. l'Overland Trail ( lew Haven: Yale Uni\'ersit1 Western Press. 1957), 163: "The Last Days of Jim EdwilTds. ~ Press. 1979): Elliot West. Growing Up With The COllfllry: Child­ ElJOflY Maga:;ine (l'.lnrch 19·19):39. f,ood 01/ IIle For Western Fromier ( Albuquerque: Uni versity of New Mexico Press, \989); Li1!iilll Schlis...el. Vicki L. Ruiz, ilnd ...1 Allsley Argosy, Ja Il . 7 and 21. 1909. According to the U.s. Janice ~bck, lVestem Walllell: n'eir Land. Their Lives Census Bureau as referenced in Taylor. '" Search offhe /?ociol (Albuquerque: Universit), of New r-. lexico Press. 1988). l;inJlfier. 152. th ere were only lWO black farms in Wyoming in 1900 and only nineteen in 1910. This author believes those 3 1 Combined Assessment Roll and Tax List. 1911. vol. 3. 137:

198 • NE BR,\ SIDistrict Court. Probate 1-10 and I-II, Baseman Taylor Nov. 1916 (?): R. Taylor. "A Bit of Racial News." Larson. His/O/)' estate. on file, Wyoming State Archives, Cheyenne. of Wyoming. 226. states that no segregated school for blacks f\t first glance, many of the homesteaders along Spoon Hill w'.\s ever start ed: I ~ose interview; Ava Speese Day in Albert s. Sod Creek seemed 10 be beucr off financially ill 19 12, but that might HOl/se Memories, 265: Armstrong. telephone interview. Jan. 26 , result from inflated land values. Their sland

WINTER 2008 • L99 in Sioux COllflfy His/OIY, 116, 117, provides slightly conflicting ~ U.s. General Land Offi ce. plat book records. E 1/2 of NE accounts of the churches: Haycraft leiter to Morrill Mail, Dec. Section 'I T25N R60W: TOIringloll Telegram. Feb. 3 and Mar. 24. 30. 1920: ~ History of the Presbyterian Church in Neb ras k a~ 1910. Feb. 16. 1911. Aug. :19.1912. and undated ca. 1915 clip· ( [924 ) says the Sheep Creek Presbyterian ChuTc h was adminis­ pings on fil e. Torrington I lomesteader Mliseum: Sioux COUl/ly tered as part of the Morrill Presbyterian Chu rch. Cu rrens flistory . 100. seemed to foll ow the Speese and Taylor families from place to W Ava Speese Day in. Albert. Sod flouse Memories. 262. place. He started organizing churches about 1885, was working in the Westerville I Custer County area in th e mid-1890s. then ~I Reece, HistolY ofCheflY COllllly. Nebraska. 93-94: Don homesteaded nonh of fl'lorrill and held lent revival meetings Hanna. Jr .. "Brownlee" and "DeWitty Community. the Negro while starting his competing Sheep Creek congregation. A 1....l ay Seltlement,V and Ava Speese Day, "SI. James RMC Church and 2. 192·1. article in 71le Monilor reveills th at Cu rrens presented a Cemetery" in Bee!. ed .. A Sandl/iIJ Ceil/lilY. 243-'17. map. 250. lecture on tithing at 51. Pauls Presbyterian. where Russel Taylor Alberts. in Sad HOllse Mell/ories. 26 I. mistakenly identifies Jerry was the minister. Shores as being Charles Speese's brother rather than his uncle. Ava Speese Day, in ibid. 262. 265. identifies Esthyr Shore .. as Sl Sioux Couflty flis/D!)'. 117: Boyd Reese lctter to author: Pres­ -Aunt Ida's sister.~ Ida Shores married Rosella f.. leehan Speese's byterian Chu rch General .'\ssembly ~linutes. statistics on Grace brother. Dennis. in Westerville during a double wedding Presbyterian Chu rch. Empire. Wyoming. 1912. 1916. 1920. ceremony with Charles and Rosella in 1907. Ida and Esthyr 5J Ava Speese Da}' in Alberts. Sod House Memories. 273: Rose were daughters of J. W. and f..lillie Ann Shores. in terview; ~ II'S . George Borton. vRed Cloud Union Presbyterian The longest entry in Alberts. Sod/·/ouse Memories. is Ava Church.~ from Goshen County Ru ral Cemetery I ~eco rd. n.d .. Speese Day's description of family and community life in lI.p.. which appeal'S to be a page from published hist ory of Audacious. one of the Cherry County communities. 261-75. county churches. Torrington Homesteader f..·l useu rn . This entry is prefaced by Albert s's unusually long introduction titled. ~Neg r o Homesteading In Nebraska." 256-61. Both Alberts $I Re: Sarah Speese Taylor / Leota Taylor grave. The grave at and the Sad House Society arc to be commended for including the Sheep Creek Presbyterian site is identified by local sou rces this Illaterial. It is interesting. just the same. that this unusually (e.g .. Rose interview) as being that of Otis Taylor's wife and the descriptive and va luable section is relegated to the back of the Speese brothers' sister. The stone appea rs to postdate the burial book, calling \0 mind the status of black bus passengers in the and may have been placed by neighbors at a much later date. Jim Crow South. Sarah delivered a baby girl named Leota about 191 5. Given the trauma of the mother's death shortly after the birth of the baby. "~ Wyoming's twentieth century IYllching legacy is examined who many neighbors never got to know well si nce the commu· in Todd Guenther. v'Another Good Negro': African Ameri can nity began to disintegrate about this time. it is possible th at Lynchings in the Equality Sta l e,~ illS in press. Af/nals 0/ some well-meaning individuals confused the nallles of mother Wyoming. Sources for this parBoston: Houghton f..lifflin Co .. 1982) . 6il. 709; Armstrong. telephone call. Sept. 9. 1994: I ~obe rt A. Goldberg. Peter W. Huntoon. "The National Bank Failures in Wyoming, vBeneath the Hood and Robe: A Socioeconomic Analysis of Ku 1 924.~ Af/rlafs of Wyoming. 54 ( 1982): 35. 36. Klux Klan Membership in Denver. Colorado. 192 1-1925,v Wesl­ em Historical QlIartedy 11 ( 1980): 181-98: OISOII alld Naugle. 6$ Ava Speese Day. Mar. 28. 1964, leller to NSHS. flistory ofNebraska. 289-91. 66 1'.'larga ret Speese interview; -Four to be cited at Lambda sa vCri minal Complaint. State of Wyoming vs. O. R. Taylor. Kappa Mu luncheon." Staten Island (N. Y.) Sunda), Advance. August 10. 191 '1." "State of Wyoming vs. Radford L. Speese. Apr. 10. 1977. August 14 . 19\<1. " bUlh found in c.P. Johnson justice of the peace docket. xerographic copy on file. Torrington Home­ steader f..luseum.

200 NEB llASK,\ history