USA > Kansas > Nemaha County > History of Nemaha County, Kansas > Part 16
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Nemaha county has begun to get back in the live stock game. For the last decade or two stock raising seemed to be on the wane, and this was regretted because of the inevitable depreciation of the soil. Just within the last year or two the farmers are raising cattle and sheep. They are keeping more hogs. So great is the impetus for swine raising that an extensive hog cholera control movement conducted by both State and county government has been started here. Hog cholera has been a thorn in the side of the farmer in his agricultural pursuits. It has been absolutely necessary to control hog cholera in order to make farming a consistently successful institution. The live stock game can now be played with completeness and without danger of disaster. A county farm bureau will be opened at the county seat, Seneca, and the whole scheme of agriculture put on a scientific and business basis. Dairying, proven to be one of the best paying pursuits on the farm, is growing rapidly in importance. Sheep raising is being pursued so profitably that a group of armers in Nemaha county have organized an association. The pro- duction of beef cattle for the market is assuming its old-time importance.
Pure bred livestock of all kinds is in the ascendency. John McCoy, one of the first to see the need of providing the farmer with the best beef cattle, now sees his labor bearing fruit in the ever-increasing high grade fat cattle going to market. Ira Collins, who was in the thick of the live stock fray in the early days, is now pushing the dairy type of cattle. His farm at Rock Creek, in which he has been interested for nearly half a century, is producing some of the finest Holsteins in the entire West.
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The best Holsteins that money can buy have been brought to the Col- lins farm, chosen from world's record ancestors for milk production. Mr. Collins has always been one of the forces in the community. He was the first mayor of Sabetha, represented this district in the legislature and is always a man of affairs.
So we find Nemaha county harking back to the live stock of the early days, but under scientific conditions and methods which make the industry more profitable.
There are many herds of fine cattle over the county and there are several breeders whose fame have reached far beyond the borders of the county and State. Thomas J. Meisner, of Berwick township, has one of the finest droves of pure bred Poland China swine in Kansas which he has developed during past years. Mr. Meisner has achieved remark- able success in his avocation and is a director of the Kansas Poland China Breeders Association and is also a director of the International Poland China Association.
M. G. Hamm, of Ontario, Kans., proprietor and manager of the fa- mous Rosary Stock Farm, is one of the most successful breeders of Percheron horses in the State and has produced many fine show animals. He is a specialist in the breeding of Scotch Top Shorthorns and has add- ed many good herd leaders to herds in Jackson and other counties. Mr. Hamm is organizer of the Kansas Duroc Jersey Breeders Association and assisted in organizing the Kansas Draft Horse Association.
William Winkler, of Mitchell township, is a breeder and a successful exhibitor of Poland China swine which have won many first prizes at fairs and stock shows. L. H. Gaston of the same township is a breeder of shorthorn cattle which have received many awards for their excellence.
Charles W. Ridgway, of Adams township, is a fancier of fine Percheron horses and pure bred Poland China swine and is president of the Kelly Draft Horse Company, importers of Belgian and Percheron horses. Peter P. Waller, of Adams township, has a fine herd of Hol- steins started and is destined to make a name for himself as a breeder. Howard Thompson, of Richmond township, is a breeder and fancier of . Ayrshires. Henry Rottingham, of the same township, has long been a breeder of Percheron horses. Peter H. Reed, of Reilly township, has a large herd of pure blood Polled Angus cattle. His neighbor, Albert Swartz, prefers Holsteins and has developed a fine herd.
D. N. Price, of Center township, is one of the pioneer breeders of the county and has achieved both fame and fortune with pure bred Short- horns. Mr. Price has been one of the most successful breeders in Kansas during past years and the product of his skill has gone to all parts of the Middle West.
Emil R. Burky of Capioma township is a breeder of Percheron and Clydesdale horses. Samuel Johnson, of Gilman township, is specializing in Morgan horses and Aberdeen Angus cattle. Other breeders are C. H. Wempe, Jerome McQuaid, and Mr. Bergen, of Richmond township.
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The tendency of the times is toward the pure bred varieties of live stock and many of the younger farmers of the county are beginning their herds with the best live stock obtainable.
But Nemaha county was a wonder for its stream of beef cattle that poured into packing houses three or four decades ago. From one ship- ping place alone in one week in Nemaha county there were sent to the city market 374 head of fat cattle, weighing 486,610 pounds. Those cat- tle ranged around 1,300 pounds each, not a bad record for those days of all kinds of breeds fattened under all kinds of feeding conditions. One shipper. T. K. Masheter, had seventy-five head which averaged 1,451 pounds. Another, J. M. Boomer, had seventy head which averaged 1,410 pounds. From this same shipping point during the month of December there were shipped to market forty-one cars of corn; two cars of rye; thirteen cars of hogs ; one car of horses and one car of hides. J. T. Brady and T. B. Collins, then of Nemaha county, claim the honor of having been the first men in Kansas to begin stock fattening on a large scale. They commenced in 1867 and in 1868 fed 125 head of cattle. In 1869. 800 head were fattened and sold to Illinois drovers. Then began the big cattle feeding business of Brady & Collins. For ten years they annually handled from 2,000 to 3,000 head of cattle. In 1880 Mr. Collins bought a farm south of Seneca and in June of that year built the largest livery barn in the county. It was 32x80 feet, with sheds for twenty horses. Later, of course, he lost the record, because now Nemaha county has' many big barns.
The model farm of three decades ago and the model farm of today ! What a contrast ! First let us look at the model farm of yesterday. E. L. Rosenberger, who came to Nemaha county from Harveysville, Pa., had what was considered a model farm and equipment and home. The farm was in Rock Creek township. It was divided as follows: thirty acres of prairie grass for pasture ; thirty acres in tame grass ; wheat and oats, each ten acres; house, barn and fruit, twenty acres; cohn, sixty acres. Mr. Rosenberger kept twenty-five to thirty head of cattle: 175 to 200 hogs; horses sufficient to do the farm work. The first improve- ment made by Mr. Rosenberger was the erection of a good, substantial residence for that day. The house was 20x32 feet, two stories high and basement below. It was situated in the center of the twenty acres, set apart for yards, farm buildings and fruits of various kinds. To the west and north of his house he had fruit trees of nearly every variety. He had a cabbage patch of 2,000 plants. He had one-fourth acre of beets and celery. The vineyard had 200 vines. He had 1,000 each of raspberry For shade trees he grew the catalpa for a windbreak. His hog pens were all partitioned and had good floors and roof, where he did his feeding.
On the farm of today a good proportion would be in corn as was Mr. Rosenberger's. But there would be little, if any, prairie grass for pas- ture. At least this much would be in alfalfa-thirty acres. Instead of ten
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acres of wheat and oats, there would probably be at least forty acres to the two crops. There would not be so much land devoted to orchards. Today fruit raising is considered a business apart. Of the small fruits there would be strawberries only enough for the family's use. The same is trie of the garden. One of the out buildings on the place of today is a garage for the automobile. A feature of the farm, unthought of in Mr. Rosenberger's time, is the silo. The modern farm would have one or more silos. The modern farm would be equipped with machinery for every operation, and riding machinery at that and we believe tomorrow that most of the farm work will be done by motor, day after tomorrow, perchance, by electric motor.
The home of the modern farm of today is heated by furnace and all the rooms are warm. The house and all outbuildings are lighted by elec- tricity. The house has running water, hot and cold, and a complete bathroom. The farmer's wife is beginning to come into her own. Her floors are of hard, polished wood, as is all the interior finish. She does not make as much butter as she used to. She can market her butter in the form of cream separated mechanically with a cream separator. Mrs. Clayte 'Lewis, wife of a modern Nemaha county farmer, said at a party recently that she would give up her piano before she did her cream sep- arator. But the modern farmer's wife today has both separator and pi- ano with a Victrola for good measure. The same electric lighting plant that lights the house and outbuildings can operate the sewing machine, the washing machine, the separator, etc.
Sabetha tried out an irrigating farm scheme once that is believed to have been the only irrigating project in this corner of Kansas. J. A. Rob- ertson owned four and a half acres at the edge of Sabetha. He had been a market gardener for many years. He greatly increased his income through the irrigating plan. With a gasoline engine and a deep well he irrigated his ground. He irrigated a small patch of strawberry ground on which were 400 plants and received $40 more profit from his crop. The patch he did not irrigate in this dry year produced but a dollar's worth. His power cost him three cents an hour. A profitable business resulted from the plan. It is one that has not been tried out in this section, but as the value of farm land rises and it is more difficult to secure large farm- ing tracts, this fruit and garden scheme will doubtless grow.
The Kansas hen has done as well in Nemaha county as anywhere, and Mrs. Harry Carpenter, of the Woodlawn neighborhood, thinks hers have done a little better than anyone's. Mrs. Carpenter was a school teacher, who married a farmer. The first summer of their marriage, one of her hens walked into the yard one day followed by twenty-two little chicks, newly hatched and able bodied. Mrs. Carpenter was amazed. She had not set the hen, but the hen had laid the eggs in the wood from time to time, and secretly went to her private home and sat on the twen- ty-two eggs, until she had a real family.
The changes of forty years in Nemaha county are astonishing and in
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the archives of the State Historical Society and State Board of Agricul- ture are the records of what Nemaha county was in 1875. The 720 square miles in Nemaha county remain as in the beginning, but from that point constrasts begin. In 1875 the population of Nemaha county to the square mile was only 9.86. Going back to 1860 there were in the county 2,436 persons. In 1870 there were 7,339 people here. The increase in the ten years from 1860 to 1870 was therefore 4.903. The population in 1875 was 7,104. Thus there was a decrease in five years from 1870 to 1875 of 235, but within the fifteen years there was an increase in population of 4,668. Times were mighty hard in the early seventies. There was the grasshop- per year and the financial panic and general distress, and presumably some of the faint hearted went back East to the home folks, or farther west where the star of empire takes its way.
Another interesting fact about the county in its early history is that Germany furnished its largest foreign population. The nativity of those in the county in 1875 follows : Born in the United States, 5,926; in Ger- many, 372; in Ireland 212; in England and Wales 157; in British Amer- ica 144; in southern Europe 101 ; in Scotland 46; in Sweden, Norway and Denmark 45 ; in France 39; in northern Europe 38; in Italy 21 ; in coun- tries not specified 3. The county had more men than women. The males numbered 3,696; the females 3.408. Those early settlers in Nemaha county came mostly from Illinois. In this same year, 1875. there were 1,185 of these Illinois emigrants. Missouri came second with 676; third, Iowa with 601 ; fourth, Ohio, number, 443; Indiana took fifth place with 426. The county was populated from other States as follows : Alabama, 4; Arkansas, 5 ; California, II ; Colorado, I : Connecticut, 19: Georgia, 25; Kentucky, 6; Louisiana, 1; Maine, 8; Maryland, 2: Massachusetts, 43; Michigan, 21 ; Minnesota, 22; Mississippi, 2; Nebraska, 92; Nevada. 14; New Hampshire, 17: New Jersey, 5 ; New York, 317 ; Pennsylvania. 235 ; South Carolina, 2; Tennessee, 20; Texas, 8; Vermont, 17; Virginia, 27 ; West Virginia, 7; Wisconsin, 346; District of Columbia and the terri- tories, 15. Many of Nemaha county's citizens came direct from Europe here. These are included in the figures previously given, showing na- tivity of the county's citizens. So those coming direct from Germany number 61; from Ireland 10; from England and Wales, 76; from Scot- land 29; from Sweden, Norway and Denmark 8; from France I; from northern Europe 5; others, southern Europe 50: from British America 88.
The business of rearing families was the most important early in- dustry. There were in Nemaha county in 1875. 2,015 Kansas born chil- dren ; pretty good within twenty years' occupation. In this same year 1,454 persons were engaged in agriculture, 81.03 per cent. Nearly every- body was busy growing crops. There were only ninety or ninety-five per cent. engaged in professional and personal pursuits and in trade and transportation eighty-four, or eighty-four and seven-tenths per cent. We started out promisingly in manufactures. One hundred and sixty persons
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were engaged in various manufacturing establishments, eight and nine- tenths per cent. A brick plant at Seneca is about all we have now in that line.
A survey of the county in 1875 shows bottom land ten per cent ; up- land ninety per cent .; forest, three per cent .; prairie land and rolling land, 90 per cent .; forest, 3 per cent. ; prairie land 97 per cent. The aver- age width of bottoms was a mile. This was the land that was farmed in the early days. They have since found the upland to possess produc- tivity undreamed of at that time. In those days the average width of timber belts was half a mile. There grew along these timbered belts, hickory, oak, hackberry, elm, walnut, cottonwood, ash, locust, and syca- more. Much of this wood has gone for lumber and stovewood. Hun- dreds of cars of walnut have been shipped to Europe to decorate castles and palaces of kings, princes and potentates of the Old World. The cut over lands are now producing crops that during this year of bitter European war, are feeding the Old World.
The Fourth Kansas Agricultural report issued in 1875 gives the prin- cipals streams as follows: The Nemaha river flows north twenty miles through the center of the county ; its tributaries are Deer creek, flowing west; Harris, northwest; Illinois, southeast; Grasshopper, southeast ; Pony Creek, east; Rock Creek, northeast; Vermillion, west; French, south ; and Turkey Creek, east. The county is very well supplied with springs and good well water is obtained at a depth of from thirty-five to forty feet. Small quantities of coal have been found along the Nemaha and its tributaries. Veins, from four to thirteen inches in thickness, have been mined ; their depth below the surface is from six to twenty feet ; quality medium. Very little coal mining has been developed and its tise is altogether local.
The cheese manufactured in 1870 totaled 28,285 pounds; in 1875, 798,850 pounds.
In writing the history of Nemaha county we have come across a dozen cheese factories scattered around. In fact one of the history jokes is that cheese grew in every community except Neuchatel, the place where the cheese ought to grow, if names count for anything. Today there is not a cheese factory in Nemaha county, and personally we know of none in northeastern Kansas. Perhaps this is the reason: It doesn't look as if Atchison is to have a cheese factory as has been proposed. Mar- tin Jensen has been looking it up and has met with little encouragement from scientific men who are familiar with conditions. They say the cli- mate in Kansas is not adapted to cheese making and that cool nights the year around are very essential.
Butter manufactured in 1870 was 200,460 pounds; in 1875, 270,275. The number of horses in the county in 1870 was 3,307; in 1875 the num- ber had increased to 4.975. The mules and asses in 1870 numbered 156, in 1875 there were 276 of the four legged ones. The cattle in 1870 num- bered 9,221. They jumped in number in five years to 19,242, the increase
WHEAT HARVEST SCENE IN NEMAHA COUNTY.
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being 10,041. There was a sentiment for sheep in 1870 and that year flocks numbered 3.591 head. In 1875 the number had decreased to 1,171, the de- crease being 2,420. The farmers had concluded that this was not a sheep country, but of late years they are learning their mistake and sheep rais- ing has been in the ascendency. A sheep growers association organized in 1916, promises big things in the sheep line. Going back to 1870, the swine numbered 4,119 head. Five years later the hogs had increased to 5,471.
The prairie schooner that sailed to Kansas in the early days always had its hound dogs. They were about the only luxury the poor man of that day had. And everybody was poor. Instead of hound dogs today we have automobiles. But the dog census of 1875 showed 1,575 canines. There were more dogs than sheep. Probably it was the dogs that killed the sheep industry. In 1875 those 1,575 dogs killed 149 sheep that the farmers knew, and probably that many more were not reported. There were wolves in those days, too. They killed 134 sheep in that year, almost as many as the dogs. So there were nearly 300 sheep in one year lost because of the wolves and dogs.
Here are some more 1875 facts-Horticulture : Acres of nurseries, 9 ; orchards, 1,525 ; vineyards, 201/4 ; number of stands of bees, 96; pounds of honey, 107; wax, 30 pounds ; fences, stone, 8,958, cost $21,275; rail fences, 259,322 rods, cost $350,074 ; board fence, 85,691 rods, cost $109,256; wire fence, 35.300 rods, cost $26,475 ; hedge fence, 56,181 rods, cost $25,- 843 ; total rods of fence, 445,453; total cost, $532.924. The waterpower was limited, two mills being but partially supplied.
Manufactures in 1875-In Nemaha township, steam sawmills; Rich- mond township, steam flouring mill; in Home township, steam flouring mill. A brewery was listed at Seneca in 1875. A steam gristmill is listed for Rock Creek township the same year. There was a cheese factory in Home township.
Banks in 1875-The banking house of Lappin & Scrafford was at Seneca. Sabetha had the Exchange Bank, and there was another bank, the name of which was not reported. The aggregate capital of the three banks was $15.744, not a drop in the bucket for the financial institutions in the county today. Business houses of the principal towns: Agricul- tural, two; books, periodicals and stationery, two; boots and shoes, four ; clothes and tailoring, one ; confectionery, one ; dry goods, six ; drugs, oils and paints, two; furniture and upholstery, one ; groceries, one ; hardware, two; jewelry, clocks, watches, etc., one; lumber, two; saddles and har- ness, two. Newspapers of 1875: the "Courier" at Seneca and the "Ad- vance" at Sabetha, both weeklies.
In 1875 there were seventy-seven organized school districts and seventy-four school houses. Value of school buildings and grounds, furniture and apparatus, $70.553. Parochial school, Catholic, at Seneca.
Churches in the county in 1875 : Presbyterian organization, one, with a membership of thirty-two; church edifice, one; valuation, $2,200. Con-
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gregational organizations, six ; membership, 220; church buildings, three : valuation, $11,800. Baptist organizations, four ; membership, 180; church edifice, one ; valuation, $2,500. Methodist organizations, four ; member- ship, 405 ; churches, two ; valuation, $6,600. Episcopal, one, membership, six. Catholic, five, membership, 675; church edifice, one; valuation, $2,000. Universalist organization, one ; membership, twenty-five ; church, one ; valuation, $9,800. There were libraries in fourteen townships. Three reported five public libraries, with 2,200 volumes, and forty-eight private libraries, with 5,242 volumes. The prices of unoccupied lands in 1875 ranged from $3.50 to $12 per acre.
As this history is being written, the tractor for farm work is be- coming a factor in Nemaha county. Jonach brothers, Matt, Tom and Charley, have demonstrated the utility of the tractor by a California outfit which has been giving wonderful service in Capioma township. They shipped in a Yuba tractor from California. It is of the caterpillar type. With their tractor the Jonach brothers farm several hundred acres and plow, harrow and harvest with the tractor as motive power. They also use the tractor for threshing, and even drag the roads in front of their homes with the tractor.
Peter H. Reed, of Reilly township, is another possessor of tractive motor power, and the crops on the Reed farm are ample evidence of the benefits to be obtained from the use of the tractor on the farm. When Mr. Reed's son graduated from the State Agricultural school at Manhattan, he came home to take charge of the farming operations imbued with advanced ideas of farming. His pioneer father was not far behind him, but his shrewd, practical common sense also assisted in the installation of any so-called "new fangled" ideas of farming. While Mr. Reed is an advocate of better farming, he is also aware that a great many things advocated by the "farm professors" need tempering and to be tried out. He decided to purchase a tractor, and did so against the .advice of his son, who wished to stick to the horse power The tractor was purchased. Young Reed soon became converted to its labor saving benefits and operated the tractor from early morning until late at night and soon plowed 200 acres of corn ground to a depth hitherto impossible with the horse drawn plow. He is. now an en- thusiast on the subject of tractor motive power on the farm, and the crops on the Reed farm this year show the beneficent results of thor- ough cultivation and deep plowing . The writer of this article visited the Reed farm on business connected with the county history July 26, 1916, and saw what is unquestionably the finest acreage of corn in all Kansas, without doubt. The corn was very tall and vigorous and healthy stalks and large ears already formed. There seemed to be plenty of moisture in the ground-a condition due to the fact that the motor propelled plows turned over the soil to a depth of ten to twelve inches and effectually buried any debris or weed seeds from the last year's crop. The corn crop was clean, much cleaner than other fields
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in the same neighborhood, because of the fact that the deep plowing had effectually buried everything which had been lying on the surface of the ground. The spring and summer rains had thoroughly soaked. the soil and had sunk to the depth of the plowed ground instead of running off the surface, as is often the case in shallow plowing. Con- sequently, when the dry weather set in the corn crops on the Reed place had a store of conserved moisture upon which the stalks could draw, and early maturing of the crop was the result .. It is Mr. Reed's intention to plow still deeper this fall and winter, and his prediction that he and his son will produce a crop yielding 100 bushels to the acre will probably come true.
A grain business that within sixteen years has developed from a trade of a few thousand dollars to a volume of transactions aggregating three and one-half million dollars annually is in a sentence the story of the Derby Grain Company, with headquarters at Sabetha. So rapidly did the concern spread out that F. A. Derby, the head of the corpora- tion, has an office in Topeka, leaving C. L. Parker to manage the home office at Sabetha. The history of the concern is an achievement.
It was in May, 1900, that F. A. Derby bought the old "bank" ele- vator on the Rock Island track, in Sabetha. This was the beginning of the big Derby grain business of today. A few years later Mr. Derby began to branch out, purchasing the elevators at Mayberry, Neb .. and Powhattan, Kans. Steadily elevators were added to the Derby list until at the present time there are ten elevators operated by the concern, most of them between Horton and Fairbury, on the Rock Island. Nine years ago the Sabetha flour mill burned, and Mr. Derby acquired the mill property in Sabetha, consisting of four lots. The elevator on the mill site was retained and the original elevator was torn down. In 1910, C. L. Parker, who operated the elevator at Powhattan, became identified with the Derby interests, and located in Sabetha. The concern was organized as F. A. Derby & Company until June, 1911, when the busi- ness was incorporated as the Derby Grain Company, with a capital of $50,00. The officers were F. A. Derby, president; R. L. Patton. vice president ; C. L. Parker, secretary and treasurer. This organization continues to the present time. The capital is increased to $65,000. In May, 1914, Mr. Derby moved to Topeka and established a cash grain office, and has built up a splendid business in connection with his Sa- betha interests. Since he left Sabetha, three elevators have been ac- quired in central western Kansas.
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