Ham, Eggs, and Corn Cake: A Nebraska Territory Diary

Introduction {Includes Maps]

ronald c. naugle Introduction The lure of the West is an indelible part of American history, legend, and folklore. The cast of characters and human drama associated with the development of the United States and its expansion westward to fill the continent have shaped American character and values. They have defined what America is; sadly, for others they have illustrated what America is not. The myth and the reality at times appear inseparable. What is truth? What is fiction? The diary of Erastus Flavel Beadle is the diary of a man lured by the myth of the West as a place of adventure, a new start, a chance to get rich. It is also the diary of a man who faced realities that drew him back to the East, from which he had come. The diary is one man’s brief account of life in Nebraska Territory in 1857, and it provides snapshots of a human drama as it plays out in business, culture, and politics. Beadle’s diary furnishes a picture of the reality of one small piece of the nineteenth-century American West and a glimpse into the dreams and hopes of a group of men for the creation and future of Saratoga, a western city to rival all others (see map 1). Erastus F. Beadle was born in Pierstown, New York, (immediately north of Cooperstown) on 11 September 1821, the son of Flavel and Polly Fuller Beadle.1 There is little recorded information about his early life. Biographical dictionaries and encyclopedias contain brief and sometimes conflicting information, but there is general agreement that during Beadle’s early years his parents moved several times, once as far x introduction west as Kalamazoo County, Michigan, in hope of finding success in farming. In 1835, during a brief stay near Fredonia, New York, where his parents did odd jobs for farmers, young Erastus obtained employment as a farm hand. He remained there after his parents moved back to the Cooperstown area; consequently, at age fourteen he was on his own. During his approximately six months in Fredonia, Beadle became acquainted with the local printer and soon learned the basics of the printing trade, a path that would eventually lead to his fame and fortune.2 After his lone stay in Fredonia, Beadle moved to Cooperstown, where he became an apprentice at the printing house of H. and E. Phinney. He stayed many years with this firm, following it to new offices in Buffalo, New York, after the Cooperstown printing house burned in 1847. Just the year before he had married Mary Ann Pennington.3 Beadle’s printing and publishing career flourished with the move to Buffalo. Within a short time he took a new position as a stereotyper for the Buffalo Commercial Advertiser, and three years later, in 1850, he went into business with his brother, Irwin, establishing a stereotype foundry. During this time he also decided to try his hand at publishing and, in 1852, launched his first magazine, The Youth’s Casket: An Illustrated Magazine for the Young. With the success of The Youth’s Casket, Erastus and Irwin sold the foundry and established their own publishing company. By 1856 they were publishing a second magazine, The Home: A Fireside Companion and Guide for the Wife, the Mother, the Sister and the Daughter. The name was later changed to Beadles Home Monthly. In 1856 Robert Adams became a partner in the firm; this is the Robert to whom Beadle frequently refers in his journal.4 By late summer 1856 Erastus Beadle was thirty-four years of age, had been married for ten years, and had three children: Irwin Flavel, age nine; Sophia, age seven; and Walter Hamilton, age six.5 The fondness with which Beadle refers to his wife in his journal as “Mate” and his frequent expressions of missing her and the children, whom he hopes will join him soon, suggest it was a happy marriage. Overthecourseoftheprecedingtwentyyearshehadestablishedboth introduction xi a family and himself, first as a printer and subsequently as a publisher. In partnership with his brother and Adams, he controlled a publishing house that was producing two popular magazines. The publishing career of Erastus Beadle thereafter is well-documented . So too is the House of Beadle and Adams, which developed from the partnership with Robert Adams.6 The Buffalo firm relocated to New York City in 1858 and by 1860 was...