80 WESTERN INCIDENTS.

RECEPTION AND BALL AT OMAHA.

The authorities of Omaha were on the alert at an early
hour for the purpose of welcoming and entertaining the
distinguished party. Governor Saunders, Secretary Pad- “
dock, Mayor Miller, and Vice-President Patrick, of the
Board of Trade, soon made their appearance upon the
steamers, and welcomed the excursionists in appropriate
speeches, tendering them the freedom of the City and
Territory ; and inviting them to a reception ball at the
Hernden in the evening ; all which were duly responded
to and accepted by Senator Patterson, Government
Director Sherman, and others of the party.

Carriages were in waiting, to convey such of the num-
ber as desired to leave the boats, either about the town,
to the hotels, or to the residences of several of the pri-
vate families, which had been most liberally thrown open
for the occasion. .

That portion of the party which had crossed the State
of Iowa by land, including Mr. Perry H. Smith, the
Vice-President, dnd Mr. George L. Dunlap, the General
Superintendent of the Chicago and Northwestern
Railroad, Messrs. Turner, Ayer, Bowen, Crerer, and sev-
eral others from Chicago, with the most important addi-
tion of Professor Kinsley, the justly celebrated caterist of
Chicago, and a strong detachment of his assistants, hav-
ing re-joined the party in the morning, were assigned to
quarters on the Railroad Company’s steamer EHikhorn,
which lay at the landing immediately across the bows of
the steamer Denver.

It should here be recorded for the benefit of all future
historians, as well as the “rest of mankind,” that, on this
memorable day, and upon this veritable steamer Elkhorn,
the famous, and never-to-be-forgotten Elkhorn Club was