Old district number ten was the first school in this part of the west and as heretofore stated the first teacher was Lora Sirpless. With the coming of the grangers there were numerous schools established almost simultaneously. Over one hundred were organized in 1887 and 1888, many of which were in the present limits of Banner county. In the Hackberry community, Samuel Oliver and John Muhr were among the organizers of a school in 1887. They were on the board. Cora Oliver was the teacher first employed, and she held school in her claim house until a log school house was built.

Cora Oliver and Samuel Abbot were married on February 12, 1888, the ceremony being performed by Justice of the Peace E. M. Cowen. On that day a terrible storm raged over western Nebraska. In November, 1891, "Sam" and "Cora", as they were always called, contracted typhoid fever. Cora died December 3, and Sam on the 18th of the same month. Cowen has never performed another marriage ceremony. Once when we were both "jedges" in Scottsbluff, he came to me and asked me to perform a ceremony, for the melancholy demise of both his old friends on Pumpkin creek had made him decline to officiate at weddings.

The Abbots left two children -- a boy who died in the summer of 1892, and a girl, now Mrs. Claude North, and residing at El Paso, Illinois.

Samuel and Mrs. Oliver are now residing at Readley, California, where the youngest daughter Vera resides, and looks after them. Mrs. Oliver has been helpless for sometime with creeping paralysis and Mr. Oliver is quite feeble. The children are scattered in many states. One of .'the daughters is, at Bridgeport where her husband, Bruce Wilcox -- with her assistance -- ably chronicles through the Nezvs-Blade the story of active life and community development.