Charles N Emery

CHARLES N. EMERY, born "way down in Maine" in 1835, was well known on the Overland Line. He was Station Master at the Thirty-two-mile Creek station, on the Fort Kearney division, from March, 1862, until the spring of 1864. He was then given the station at Liberty Farm, twenty-five miles east of there, on the north bank of the Little Blue River. During the raid by the Indians in August, 1864, Thirty-two-mile Creek and Liberty Farm stations were burned, as were also a large number of other stations on the great stage line. In the spring of 1865, after new stations were built, following the terrible raid by Indians in 1864, Emery was placed in charge of the station at Fort Kearney, where he remained until the completion of the Union Pacific from Omaha to Kearney. Mr. Emery was a very useful man for the stage line. He was a good judge of horses, and, when occasion required, he could mount the box and hold the reins of a four- or six-horse stage team quite as well as most of the boys.

While a Station Master, Charley Emery and his wife had the reputation of keeping a most excellent eating station. Mrs. Emery was a first-class cook and everything on her table was gotten up in nice shape for the passengers. An incident is related of one of Ben Holladay's trips by stage from California, when he stopped one morning at Thirty-two-mile Creek and breakfasted at the Emery table. Ben had been raised among the jungles of the "Big Muddy," in western Missouri, and was apparently more fond of a slice of good fried bacon and a "corn dodger" than any thing that could be gotten up in the eating line. Mrs. Emory somehow knew this, and, in her best style, prepared an ample supply of these two, substantial "frontier delicacies." After the great stage man had partaken of such a nicely gotten up breakfast, before departing on his journey east, he threw down on the table a twenty-dollar gold piece, which he said was for the "lady of the house," who had anticipated his coming and had cooked for him such a choice breakfast.

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