History of Nemaha County, Kansas, Part 17

Author: Tennal, Ralph 1872-
Publication date: 1916
Publisher: Lawrence, Kan., Standard Publishing Company
Number of Pages: 964

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These two Kansas men, Mr. Derby and Mr. Parker, have served commerce and themselves well. As stated, in 1915 the volume of busi- ness of the Derby Grain Company totaled three and one-half million dollars. To handle that grand total of the world's food in twelve months requires experience, keen understanding of men and the machinery of commerce-yes, and vision. These men believe in things, or they would not have grown so extensively in Western affairs. They belong to Nemaha county's annals.

CHAPTER XXI.

AGRICULTURE. (Continued. )

APPLE ORCHARDS-HONEY-CATTLE SHIPMENTS-PRIZE CROPS-AGRI- CULTURAL AND HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY-FIRST ANNUAL FAIR- BOARD OF TRADE-REPAYING NEW YORK-A FREAK PEACH TREE -- PRIZE WINNERS-PURE-BRED AND "SCRUB CORN - FLETCHELL AND WRIGHT'S $67,000 GRAIN CROP-HARVESTING THE CROP-AS A HEALTH RESORT-AGE OF NEMAHA-JACOB FLEISCH'S QUARTER SEC- TION TREE FARM.

Of the original trees planted in the town of Sabetha, but two im- mense cottonwoods are left. Four of these withstood the woodman's axe until late years. These are the four that stood in a row, mighty old patriarchs, on the H. C. Haines lot on Fourteenth street. Two of these have gone. Two represent the remains of the immense cotton- wood family plantd on the townsite by J. R. Prentice. Mr. Prentice says that the town topography would have been changed if the women had been more careful about tying their clothes lines to his tender young cottonwood trees. It was to faithful adherence to the god of Monday's labor that tore down the cottonwoods. The two handsome cottonwoods on the Haines place are sole reminders of the tree that made bearable the prairie country, which pioneers found almost treeless. Mr. Prentice also planted the soft maples, that have been spared by the ruthless axe- man to some extent. The original apple orchard, which grew all over the townsite, was planted by Captain Williams, the town father. Of this immense orchard, the only remaining trees are on the F. V. Turner place, the Masheter, Whittenhall and Weiss places, homes widely scat- tered now by streets and buildings.

Old orchards are being weeded out to some extent, making room for corn. They have been immense bearers, as the following will show. Ed Harding, the Rock Island freight agent, estimates that Sabetha had 30,000 barrels of apples shipped out in one year. Edgar Newman had some Wolf river apples weighing twenty-three ounces apiece; W. C. Deaver had a pippin that weighed ten ounces ; Smith Ayers had Rambos that weighed thirteen ounces. It takes but fifty-seven of these Rambos to make a bushel. Robert Edie, a farmer near Bern, had 1,800 apple trees loaded with fruit, but, owing to the poor market for the apples, his big crop was fed to the hogs. He had at least 1,000 barrels of apples. It is the difficulty of shipping the fruit to a good market when

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the crop is good, at a time when work is needed in other parts of farms that has induced Nemaha county farmers to give up the orchards in many instances to a less demanding crop.

Tales of bumper crops do not come from grain raisers alone. A. W. Swan, of Centralia, shipped to Kansas City 3,000 pounds of honey. This was from 150 stands of bees. The bees were believed to be starv- ing at the beginning of the season.

A shipment of two train loads of cattle, the biggest shipment ever received in this part of the State, came to Sabetha. It consisted of forty-one cars of heifers and feeders. The cattle came from Arkalon, Kans. There were 1,886 head in the two trains. The arrival of a big shipment attracted a great deal of attention. It took three engines to bring the train to Sabetha. The cattle were distributed throughout this section. Two thousand five hundred head of spayed heifers were re- ceived in Nemaha county in this vicinity within two weeks.

D. A. Bestwick, of Berwick, had eight and one-half acres in alfalfa, which shows the profit which can be derived from this kind of hay in Nemaha county. First, he cut fully eight tons of alfalfa from his field, valued at $65. Then he threshed forty-nine bushels of seed from the second crop, worth $392. He then cut a third crop from the same field, bringing the value of the product of the eight and one-half acres up to $520. In addition to this, twenty-seven head of hogs had been making themselves fat on the field.

The unbroken, treeless line of horizon remembered by pioneer women seems impossible to the residents of Nemaha county today, who see such logs as this taken to market. An immense white elm log, cut by C. E. Sammons, of Albany, was hauled to a saw mill near Pace's pond, but the log was too big for the saw mill to handle: The log was five feet in diameter and twelve feet long. It was supposed to be sawed into lumber, but it was so big that no ordinary mill could cut it. The log came from the Fox farm, near Albany.

A. L. Smart, of Wetmore, had forty acres of wheat in the nineties that went thirty-three bushels and one peck to the acre, for which he received seventy-five cents per bushel. He sowed 140 acres the follow- ing fall. Another eighty-acre farm in his neighborhood had been rent- ing for several years and bringing in scarcely enough to keep up repairs and pay taxes. The owners hired Smart to put in their wheat and the next year they realized something over $1,200 from the crop.

Levi Stevens made enough money farming to retire early in life by methods which produced prize yields on his farm. Mr. Stevens har- ʻ

vested, threshed and sold eight acres of wheat, which averaged forty- eight bushels and ten pounds to the acre, and tested sixty-one and a half pounds, and he sold it to a local elevator for sixty-three cents, three cents above the market price. John Heiniger, of near Berwick, held a record for one season. He had nine and a half acres of wheat, which yielded fifty-three bushels to the acre. Mr. Heiniger had, in addition to

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the wheat, given a thirty-five acre field of wheat, which averaged thirty- five bushels to the acre. It took the threshing machine a half day on the nine and a half acres. For many years, wine of rare vintage was made by a man who lives near Centralia. It was a Benedictine bever- age, composed of twenty-eight ingredients. The recipe was procured from a man living in Austria, who got it from a Benedictine Brother- hood. The Centralia man, who brewed it for his own use, was to prom- ise, on receiving the recipe, that he would buy only two of the ingre- dients of which it is made at the same place.

Herman Althouse, living near Sabetha, rode a mule which he had owned over thiry years, which was always a better looking animal than most horses. Mr. Althouse not only worked the mule on the farm, but when he wanted a fancy stepper and a brilliant actor, he hitched up the mule and went on dress parade. He rode or drove the mule to town almost every time he went. The mule was such a trotter that Mr. Althouse frequently drove it to a sulky. It passed farm houses with such a dash and speed that it made chickens fly clear over windmills. Mr. Althouse would not trade his mule for many a fine horse offered to him.

Nemaha county's superiority as an agricultural county is due as much to the enterprise of leading farmers as it is due to its soil. As this history is being written a county farm bureau is being estab- lished. A county farm agent will be located at Seneca and he will man- age the advancement of the county's crops. He will fight pests, intro- duce better methods of farming, and will push crop production forward generally. His salary will be $1,800 a year. Ample funds for the sup- port of the work in the county will be appropriated by the county, the State and National departments of agriculture. Farmers all over the county have banded together in a farm organization. The county farm bureau has officers and a board of directors and starts off with the best type of business organizantion.

As early as July 28, 1864, an effort appears to have been made look- ing toward the organization of an agricultural society, the "Courier" of that date containing a leader on the subject and urging the importance of holding a fair at some time during the fall for the exhibition of farm products. No energetic effort appears to have been made, however, and at all events no fair was held. The organization of the Nemaha County Agricultural and Horticultural Society was effected on June 27, 1868, with C. G. Scrafford, president; J. P. Taylor, secretary, and Samuel Lapham, treasurer. Land suitable for fair purposes was donated to the association, comprising blocks 32, 33, 34 and 35, of the townsite of Seneca, the grounds being enclosed early in the fall of the same year, and the first annual fair of the society was held October 22, 1868.

In 1869, a building 28x60 feet in size was erected for the reception of the display of farm products and manufactured articles of various kinds, and the second fair was held September 22, 23 and 24 of the same

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year. In 1870 and 1871, exhibitions were made, and in 1872, on Sep- tember 18, 19 and 20, the fifth, and as it proved, the last annual fair of the series was held. The officers at this time were William B. Slos- son, president ; N. Coleman, vice president ; William Histed, secretary, and H. H. Lanham, treasurer.

The cause of the discontinuance of displays and the practical dis- integration of the society was due to financial troubles, it having gone into debt in the imporvement of its grounds and incurred other liabilities, the total amount of the indebtedness being $1,140. In August, 1873, this burden was assumed by George Graham, Jacob VanLoon, D. R. Magill, J. P. Cone and Mrs. C. G. Scrafford as consideration for a war- ranty deed of the property of the society. On October 4, 1877, a charter was issued by the Secretary of State incorporating A. H. Burnett, Willis Brown, West E. Wilkinson, Richard Johnson and Edward Butt as the Nemaha County Agricultural Society. No other record of the new organization is found.

A board of trade, organized in Seneca, deploring the absence of a fair, appointed a fair committee in 1882, consisting of William Histed. Abijah Wells, George A. Marvin, C. G. Scrafford and Mortimer Mathews, to devise ways and means for the holding of a fair if possible during the fall of 1882. Learning that the only piece of ground near Seneca in every way fitted for fair grounds was about to be sold, and if secured for fair purposes must be bought at once, the sum of $2.300 was raised by subscription and the property purchased, William Histed, Willis Brown and George Williams being appointed trustees in behalf of the new owners. The object of the proprietors was to hold the land subject to the acceptance of the people upon repayment of their invest- ment, the law providing that the county might purchase improved fair grounds, appropriating not to exceed one and three-quarters mills on the dollar of the taxable valuation of the county for that purpose. The question of the purchase of these grounds was voted on at the election in November, 1882. The proposal was voted down by the county, but the existence of the society and the purchase of the ground was an as- sured fact.

About seven years ago a little paragraph from the Sabetha "Herald" went floating over the country and was reprinted in every State in the Union and even the big, haughty Eastern newspapers, to this effect: "At last, after half a century, Kansas has the laugh on New York. No more can New York, the haughty, the scornful, the condescending, look 'down upon us and refer to us as 'bleeding Kansas.' The pride of the Empire State has been humbled. She grovels in the dust at our feet, and implores our help. Rev. and Mrs. Broad, who were in Sabetha a few weeks ago, are traveling in Kansas to inspire sympathy and inci- dentally to get money to assist the wealthy, the overbearing, the inso- lent New York in caring for her poor. Remembering the old clothes sent us in grasshopper and drought times, we are digging down into our

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jeans and responding nobly to New York's cry for help. We are gladly squaring our debt of a half a century. We are not 'getting even' with our cast-off garments; we are sending hard cash, the result of harvest- ing our golden grain. Lo! how hath the mighty fallen! Golden Kansas bravely supports the drooping form of Bleeding New York."

And Nemaha county could well afford such relief if the truthful chronicle of crops in the years mentioned may be believed, and well they may be. The following stories of crops in Nemaha county are those of today and yesterday, and every year for the past decade with rare exceptions of years when one crop was poor, only that another crop might be fine. The items are taken from local reports in different parts of the county covering the past ten years. Mrs. Jennie Miller reports the first oats yield, which averaged forty bushels to the acre and made 2,000 bushels. Will Livengood's wheat averaged forty-one bushels on twenty-five acres. Ed Ruse had twenty-one acres in wheat, which av- eraged forty-six bushels. Jake Warrick's wheat yield was forty-eight bushels per acre.

Jake Ayers, who lives between Bern and Oneida, has a peach tree that has played some queer pranks with him. The peaches were orig- inally an early variety, maturing in the middle of July. Some thirteen years ago the tree was broken down completely by weight of fruit. Afterward sprouts came up and those sprouts have now developed into a tree, and the fruit on the tree does not mature until the last of Sep- tember, being more than two months later in maturing than before the tree was broken. The quality of the peach is excellent. Six peaches gathered weighed two pounds and five ounces. What is the explanation of the change in the tree's time of maturing?

Occasionally a Nemaha county man makes the mistake of moving to a new country. When he comes home on a visit he brings samples of what his new home is raising. This is the way to squelch him. Show him a sample of S. Murdock's oats, the finest in the world, which took the prize at the St. Louis World's Fair. Show him Tim Gilmore's wheat, grown near Oneida-fifty-seven bushels to the acre. Show him W. A. Doolittle's chickens, which have taken more prizes than any other in the world. Show him Ira Collins' and John McCoy's cattle, which bring buyers from all over the country. Show him George Kerr's Duroc Jersey hogs, which sell for a hundred dollars apiece. Show him samples of corn and grasses grown by Frank Deaver and Otto Porr, which have taken all the grain prizes in this section of the country for the past three years. The visitor by this time will begin to shift from one foot to the other and soon remember that he has an engagement elsewhere.

Nemaha county farmers are progressive throughout. Charlie Lewis raised two kinds of corn last season ; pure bred and scrub. The scrub was big and fine looking, but it was not compact. One of the big ears of scrub corn looked three times larger than the pure bred corn, but con- tained only 944 grains, as against 1,150 grains on the little pure bred

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corn. The grains of the scrub corn were the largest. Charlie Lewis likes the pure bred corn, but his father, Myron Lewis, stood for the scrub, and made the corn point that scrub corn will produce just as many ears to the acre as the pure bred corn, and that each ear makes a little more corn.

J. S. Fletchall and his partner, Jack Wright, threshed 80,830 bushels of grain in one season, valued at $67,000. That is, the small grain grown in one locality of the county, where Fletchall has been threshing for some years. They threshed 44,390 bushels of wheat, 9,922 bushels of speltz, valued at about $4,000; 108 bushels of timothy, valued at $216; ninety-four bushels of Kafir corn, valued at $47; seventy-nine bushels of cane, valued at about $40 ; thirty-eight bushels of rye, valued at $37 ; 500 bushels of clover, valued at $4,000; 400 bushels of alfalfa. valued at $3,600. The firm also threshed sixteen bushels of flax seed for W. C. Schug. Mr. Schug used the flax seed in a meal he makes for his cows.

The corn crop of 1906 was so great that Miss Emma Cashman and many other school teachers suspended school for ten days that teachers and pupils and all might assist in the corn husking and handling the crop. The yield all over the county was from forty to sixty bushels to the acre, and the acreage immense. Several farmers that year showed a yield of eighty bushels per acre. This about established a record. There was a particular rush to market the corn this season. Farmers were hauling their corn in as fast as they could in order to get it ex- ported to Germany before the duty went into effect. Germany had greatly increased the duty on corn, to take effect in February, and the months of December and January saw every child and schoolma'am of the country districts doing what they could to help. Thousands of bushels of corn were sold to all the grain men of the county within a week. The export rush began the last week of December and elevators were worked overtime. Corn graded No. 2. There had not been such a great crop in years. Jerry Feek raised over eighty bushels on ground that had been plowed for the first time the previous spring.

A word of praise of Nemaha county as a health resort was given by Mr. and Mrs. William Jones, living in the north part of the county, by the State line. Mr. and Mrs. Jones made a trip shortly before attaining their seventy-fifth wedding anniversary. Mr. Jones was ninety-five at that time and his wife was ninety-seven. They were planning all kinds of gayeties on this trip. They had traveled all their lives. At one time they made a trip from Oregon to Nebraska on horseback. It took them six months and they slept out of doors every night. This accounts for their ruggedness and good health. Mr. and Mrs. Jones eat everything set before them, and always have. They had always been ardent in their praise of this section's out of doors and food.

The age of Nemaha county is told in her trees. Fred Lukert. county engineer, built a barn 66x72 feet, and the building throughout was constructed of solid black walnut. No veneered walnut in the barn ;

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no vulgar imitation of stained walnut. Nothing but solid walnut, even to the timbers on which the barn will rest. Out here in Nemaha county we believe in having things swell, even for our hogs. The walnut was cut from trees grown on his farm where the barn was constructed.

A QUARTER SECTION TREE FARM.

Here is a man and wife who lived their lives as they wanted to live. They are Jacob Fleisch and wife, who farm four miles northwest of Bern. They loved trees, so they grew a whole 160-acre farm of trees. The trees were planted away back in the seventies, and have given Nemaha county one of the most unique farms in the United States. The home of Mr. and Mrs. Fleisch is set down in a dense portion of the forest they planted. Within the forest they are again surrounded by flowers. Their home just grew like the trees, an addition at a time. Again, inside the walls is an inner temple. We might call this the do- as-you-please sanctuary. Mr. and Mrs. Fleisch read much, reflect a little, and from time to time add to a great fund of common sense, which both possess.

Their home-grown forest trees tower to a height of forty to fifty feet. They stand in rows from twelve to twenty feet apart and about four to six feet in the row. The trees are numbered by the thousand- mostly walnut and soft maple. There is an osage orange grove of about four acres, and osage orange surrounds the place as fences. Also there are some honey locusts used as line fence. There is cottonwood timber and willow here and there.

Hogs and cattle and horses wander about the place in prescribed limits, and you find chickens almost anywhere, each apparently enjoy- ing its own particular kind of animal heaven. A tank for the cattle and horses out in the woods is thatched and full of fresh water. The water flows out there from a well somewhere, but the whole effect is that of fresh water from a spring. The hogs have the wild, free life of their razorback ancestors.

The wind floats lazily through the dense forest, and the mere worldly human being feels impelled to quit his daily existence of fretting and fuming and take life as easily as the animals do. The feeling is further encouraged when you visit Mr. and Mrs. Fleisch and get their philos- ophy of contentment.

You need have no fear of running up against any human prejudice or custom. In the Fleisch home they do as they please and they grant you the same privilege.

How did Jacob Fleisch come to plant 160 acres in forest trees ? Well, he always loved trees, and back in Preble county, Ohio, it ground on his soul to see the wonderful native forests depleted to make farm land, solely in a grab for dollars. He believed in more than one com- pensation-the compensation of happiness, joy in living, as well as pay

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in dollars. Also, there was the wanton destruction of those giant Ohio trees. They would have log rollings and at night great logs would be piled up and burned as a part of the festal occasion. This ground on the fancy of Jacob Fleisch.

He left the country and came to Nemaha county. He found it a prairie in the early seventies. No one was planting trees. He bought half a section of land and decided that half of it must go into trees. The querter section now in. forest was bought from Mortimer Mathews, so many years county surveyor of Nemaha county. In 1874, Mr. Fleisch began to plant walnuts. At first, four or five acres were planted. Then, in 1877 and 1878, sixty acres of walnuts were planted. The nuts were put in the ground by the bushel. Soft maples, too, were planted, fully forty acres of them. Osage orange, catalpas, and honey locusts were planted at various times in those early days.

And so the forest grew. Mr. and Mrs. Fleisch were married in Preble county, Ohio, June 22, 1876. In his bride, Jacob Fleisch had a mate who understood his philosophy, and had one of her own as fine. She helped him grow his forest and added the flowers. The flower garden is a wonder. The variety of flowers seems endless. Many of them are rare.

The oldest trees have been standing some forty-two years now. At one time there were walnut trees fourteen inches in diameter. The largest ones were cut down, partly to thin the trees and partly to make lumber for buildings. Thus the couple have part of their buildings made from trees grown on the farm.

"If I were going to plant another quarter section," said Mr. Fleisch, "I would not plant a quarter section solidly in trees. I would enclose several fields in specioso catalpas and osage orange. I would plant a grove of evergreens for the home grounds."

Among Mr. Fleisch's neighbors who are still in this part of the country are Peter Shellhorn, who lives in the same neighborhood, Mart Herrington and John A. Smith, who now live at DuBois, Neb.

CHAPTER XXII.

NEWSPAPERS.

THE FIRST NEWSPAPER-THE NEMAHA "COURIER"-ITS POLICY-JOHN P. CONE, EDITOR-THE "COURIER-DEMOCRAT"-"MERCURY"-THE SENECA "TRIBUNE" -OTHER NEWSPAPERS-SABETHA NEWSPAPERS- CENTRALIA, CORNING AND GOFF NEWSPAPERS-THE BERN "GAZETTE" -THE WETMORE "SPECTATOR"-A RARE NEWSPAPER COLLECTION.

Seneca had the first newspaper in Nemaha county. It was the Nemaha "Courier." The initial number appeared November 14, 1863. John P. Cone, still a valuable citizen of Kansas, was the editor and pro- prietor. The "Courier" was a six-column folio. The "Courier" was Re- publican in politics. It was strong for freedom. The first issue of the "Courier" handed out this one :

"The 'Courier,' as a pioneer of the art preservative in Nemaha county, today sends greeting to all, friend and foe-rebel and copper- heads excepted. Issued upon soil never before settled upon for a 'pry' to the world's lever, it stands first and yet alone to herald that happy day when types first 'were taught to act the happy messengers of thought.'"

The paper was issued in the old Lappin & Scrafford building on the main street of Seneca. Here the paper was printed once a week until January 23, 1868. The war was over, things had cooled down and the "Courier" had, too. The paper ceased to profess a protection of freedom and began to protect home industries. Whether advertising had picked up or the mail order business loomed in the distance, appeareth not in the records of the time. March 25, 1869, the name of the paper was changed to that of the "Kansas Courier," and by some joke of fate the violent Republican paper of the early days is now the "Courier-Demo- crat" of the opposite politics and big following today. The war is over.

When Mr. Cone got out his first issue of the Nemaha "Courier" in 1863, there was not another paper in this whole country. In fact, Sol Miller, who was then printing his famous "Chief" at White Cloud, ridi- culed Cone for daring to try to live and print a paper in Nemaha. There was, of course, the little matter of Nemaha county printing and job work that was going to Miller at the time, which may have influenced Miller's opinion, but the editor of the "Courier" didn't have easy sailing for a long time. Folks in and around Seneca raised some money to pay

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History of Nemaha County, Kansas, Part 17

Author: Tennal, Ralph 1872- Publication date: 1916 Publisher: Lawrence, Kan., Standard Publishing Company Number of Pages: 964

Author: Tennal, Ralph 1872-
Publication date: 1916
Publisher: Lawrence, Kan., Standard Publishing Company
Number of Pages: 964