Olk Elk Hill 1910 98

• Language: unknown
• Subjects: Ferguson; Beaver Creek
• Online Access: http://cdm16250.contentdm.oclc.org/cdm/ref/collection/p15010coll4/id/771

Hamilton refused to consider such a proposition and Omaha's subsequent tender of land and money won Cuming to their side and brought the capital to that place. This action practically killed Bellevue's hopes for supremacy, although as we shall later see, the town had another chance to regain this prestige. *To the left of the next paragraph is a painted portait of a man with dark hair and eyes in a suit* Let us return briefly and pick up some of the incidents occuring during this time, which were of themselves important, but which have been overshadowed by the momentous question of territorial organization and capital location. With the year 1853 the treaty by which the Indians held their land at Bellevue expired and it became necessary to negotiate a new one. For this purpose a delegation was sent to Washington and for their spokesman they had chosen Logan Fonten- elle, the son of Lucien Fontenelle. He had been for a number of years the interpreter at Bellevue, was very influential with the Indians and had done much to promote temperance and industry among the Omahas. So well did he present the case of the In- dians that he was made one of the head chiefs of the tribe by acclamation in 1854. His rule was brief, lasting until his death in 1855, but he had a re- markable effect upon the relations existing between the whites and the Indians. His predecessors had both done much for their people, but Fontanelle was as popular among the white traders and settlers as among the Omahas, and this gave him an opportunity to bring the two classes together, which the other leaders had never possessed. He was ever a man of peace, and his own death came about largely through his desire to wean his people from the love of warfare. He was murdered by the Siouxs while on a hunting expedition near Beaver Creek, June 15, 1855. With the new treaty came a change of location for the agency, and in 1855 it was moved to its present location near the Blackbird Hills. This removal took from Bellevue one of its chief commercial assets, but this was not without its com- pensations, for it opened the land formerly held by the Indians to settlers and this with the establishment of the territorial government, brought in a vast number of traders and people who intended making this their permanent home. Among the foremest of these was Henry T. Clarke, who, with his brother, came here in 1855 and for many years was actively engaged in the upbuilding of the commercial interests of the region. In 1854 the Bellevue Claim Club was established with Peter A. Sarpy, Stephen Decatur and others at its head, and with some organized meas of pro- tecting the rights of the settlers, filing on the Indians lands began immediately. With the removal of the Indians to their new location came the removal of the Mission, and in 1856 a company formed from the men before mentioned, together with Mr. Longsdorf, Mr. Clarke and Justice Ferguson, purchased the Mission Reserve and other land from this tract, lots were laid out to constitute the town of Bellevue. A postoffice bearing the name Bellevue had already been estab- lished, and now, possession both a postoffice and a newspaper, the new corporation was in a position to prosper and publish its advantages to the world. The news- paper just mentioned was the first published in Nebraska and bore the title, "The (96)