History of Nemaha County, Kansas, Part 6

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

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Men and women who herded their father's cattle and sheep over the unfenced fields and pastures of Nemaha county's early days are now flying around in automobiles and looking with assurance on the eventual ownership of an aeroplane. Spinning by field after field a Nemaha county man said : "I have herded stock over every foot of this ground. Just there was a lake, above it was another. We called this rise 'the big hill' and it is scarcely more now than a moderately undulating field. The topography of the country has changed almost compara- tively with our mode of transportation. I have stood on the back of my pony in my bare feet and galloped over hill and dale to corral my cattle. Horse back and across lots was the way we got around those days. Today we are not allowed on the wrong side of a built road. We must pass a man on the left side. We must pull to the right, and we cannot cut across a street that a policeman does not grab us by the arm and pull us the right way. Those were truly the days of freedom, if the method was in a measure slower than it is today."

And it was several years before the method of transportation was advanced materially in Nemaha county from the ox team, the mule train, the Indian pony or the spanking, stylish team for Sunday use.

As early as 1860, there was, of course, "talk" among the settlers of getting a railroad into Nemaha county. St. Joseph was to be the start- ing point, and the railroad was to extend through the northern tier of Kansas counties. The road was in fact laid for a few miles from St. Joseph through Elwood and as far as Wathena. But the unsettled con- ditions, and then the declaration of war, stopped all preparations or even thought of railroads. During all that stressful period, mail was brought to the county only by overland and pony service. Even Ne- maha county forgot the railroads, for Nemaha county sent most of her men to the war.

In 1862, a desultory attempt was made to revive the railroad ques- tion in Doniphan county, but few attended the called meeting. Two years later, the broth was again stirred at Seneca, which was as mea-

HISTORY OF NEMAHA COUNTY

gerly attended as at the Doniphan meeting. The hearts of the people were at the front, their souls and bodies could find no comfort in the thought of a railroad at that time. But 1865 saw an end to the hostil- ities. The remaining soldiers were gathered beneath their own roofs, and the cultivation of vine and fig tree again commenced. Then was the railroad found to be a necessity, and no one stood upon the order of its securing.

In the spring of 1866 an election was held to vote bonds for $125,000 to aid in the building of a railroad. The election carried and a meeting was held a few days later in Hiawatha, Brown county, for organizing a company to further the railroad acquirement. Samuel Lappin, of Seneca, was made president of the organization, F. H. Drenning, secretary, and W. B. Barnett, treasurer. Eleven directors, three of whom were Ne- maha county men, were elected as a board of directors. In the fall of that year two roads were consolidated and named the St. Joseph & Den- ver. But Nemaha county did not get her share of the road until four years later. "Rome was not built in a day," neither are railroads ex- tended in that length of time. In 1870, however, the road entered Ne- maha county at Sabetha, legal differences and other matters having been adjusted. It continues west through Oneida, Seneca, Baileyville and on through Nemaha county, Marshall county, thence into Nebraska to Grand Island.

The railroad is owned by the Union Pacific, and is called the St. Joseph & Grand Island. Nemaha county people have always laughed over their exclusive railroad and put up with it. It is one of the best "feeders" in the country, traveling as it does through the most pro- ductive and richest part of Kansas and Nebraska. A Nemaha county man was far away from home recently looking at a motion picture play which had been made in the East. His great surprise and amuse- ment at seeing a bunch of "strike breakers" unload from a St. Joseph & Grand Island box car, took him directly back to the pastures green of his boyhood home.

The northeastern section of the county, several years afterward, secured a branch of the Rock Island railroad, which enters the county at Sabetha, extends northwest, leaving it at Bern and extending to Fair- bury, Neb., thence connecting with through trains from Chicago to Denver.

In the southern part of the county runs the Central Branch of the Missouri Pacific, which was the first railroad to enter the county. The Central Branch was surveyed as early as 1863, and was ably aided by the State and government in its advance across the State of Kansas. It was given scandalous assistance and has become the stock joke of the kerosene circuit actor, who aims his batteries at the Central Branch's inefficiency and always receives tumultuous applause for his jibes. The Central Branch was given $16,000 a mile for a distance of 100 miles from Atchison to Waterville. It enters Nemaha county at Wetmore and

EARLY DAY TRANSPORTATION ON THE PLAINS.

HISTORY OF NEMAHA COUNTY

continues west through Goff, Corning and Centralia, across the entire southern section of the county. The State also ceded to the railroad alternate sections of land along its track on both sides, and the terri- tories back of these sections for a distance of ten miles. The county, having given its birthright to such an extent, was not obliged to give hard cash. In 1866 the railroad reached Wetmore, and Centralia a year later. Wetmore was established by the entrance of the railroad.

It was now that numerous Nehama county towns virtually picked up their beds and walked. Having endeavored to induce the railroads to come to them and failed, the residents of the neglected town moved to the railroads.

The grade over the hills to Albany, one of the earliest towns in the county, was found unfeasible by the surveyors of the St. Joseph & Grand Island railroad. So Albany was lifted bodily and taken to Sabetha, which was easier of approach.

Centralia moved over the hill to the Central Branch railroad, a dis- tance of a mile, after having her root, if not her branch, firmly in the ground for seven years previous.

The original Corning became known as "Old Corning" when tlie new Corning was established on the railroad. Old Corning was a mile and a half away, and that part of it which did not move to the New Corning on the railroad, dissolved into farm lands.

While these towns moved, others were established on the railroad as need came, and still others faded gradually away as the need for them lessened, as has been told in forerunning pages.

From Kansas City to Seneca was established another branch of the Missouri Pacific some years after these original through railroads. It is the Kansas City Northwestern and goes through the western part of the county, through Centralia, Goff and Seneca to Virginia City, Neb.

The early and intermediate history of Nemaha county is woven with day and night dreams of railroads gridironing this section of the country. Especially in the early days, the vision of the Kansas pioneer knew no bounds. The flights of imagination were confined to no trade or profession. If a blacksmith opened a shop on a cross roads, his fancy. as he hammered on his anvil, built a magic city upon the fields and prairies that surrounded him.

Railroads were built on paper in every part of Nemaha county and a divisional headquarters, eating house and shops were located in the particular spot on which the dream originated. So strange is the turn · of events that the visions of railroads of the early days are today changed into dreams of automobiles and paved highways throughout the county, a dream that probably will be realized before this history is many years old. The railroads are growing less important in the scheme of life except as freight carriers.

As an example, we smile today at the Netawaka, Woodland & Northwestern Railway Company. This railroad project got into the

HISTORY OF NEMAHA COUNTY

serious class in 1884, when articles of incorporation were filed for the building of the road. The charter of the company located the line from Netawaka via Granada, Woodland and Oneida to Pawnee City, Neb., where, in the big imaginative scheme, it would interest the old B. & M. line. At Netawaka, of course, the road had an outlet in the Central Branch and "all points east."

So it went. There was agitation for months. But the same was true of other localities, each of which had its pet railroad scheme at different times.

Even as late as ten years ago the Falls City, Sycamore Springs, Sabetha & Southwestern railroad was planned. Sycamore Springs had developed a big sanitarium. W. L. Kauffman, the proprietor, and the community in general saw big things in this new railroad. The com- munity, in other words, lost none of its optimism and its faith. This project was pushed hard and for a time it looked as if the railroad would be built by the sheer force of the enthusiasm of its promoters. A blue print of the route was made, a careful survey having been com- pleted.

Mr. Kauffman, a prime mover for the railroad, had made a noted place of Sycamore Springs. He had the Kansas spirit. He believed in his springs. The springs had a traditional fame. Indians had gone there to be cured for unknown generations. This is shown by archeo- logists who examined the locality and arrived at their conclusions from the type of relics unearthed in that locality.

Miles from the nearest town, Mr. Kauffman erected a stone hotel of sixty rooms at the springs. He equipped it with a waterworks sys- tem and other modern conveniences, and the "world made a path to his doorway." Then, having erected this modern hostlery out in the open country, he proceeded to arrange for a railroad to it, tapping numerous lines of railway at Falls City and Sabetha.

Then came the automobile. It was the last railroad dream of the pioneer.

The St. Joseph & Grand Island railroad was the pioneer road of Kansas. Its three miles of track laid from St. Joseph to near Wathena in 1860 were the original rails of steel into a future garden spot, then regarded as an enterprise of doubtful value. While the Grand Island was the first Kansas railroad, it was not the first line into Nemaha county, for the old Atchison & Pike's Peak line, now known as the Central Branch, traversed the southern part of the county before the Grand Island was completed west of Hiawatha.

WV. P. King, a writer of fifteen years ago, tells a very interesting story of the trials, troubles and tribulations of the Grand Island, and re- lates the history of its inception. A history of Nemaha would nt be com- plete without giving the early record of the Grand Island. For it was this line with which the county most concerned itself. And it is the Grand Island that has figured most prominently in the progress and prosperity of the county.

HISTORY OF NEMAHA COUNTY

The section of country tributary to the St. Joseph & Grand Island was a part of the Missouri territory, and in 1854, when the Kansas-Ne- braska act was passed, was comprised in the Great American desert. The only part of Kansas that was then believed as likely ever to be of value was that north of the Kansas river and west as far as the Big Blue river. Included in this territory is Nemaha county.

All the territory outside of this boundary was esteemed to be the home and heritage of the wandering Indian tribes and the buffalo. Kansas was inhabited by many tribes of Indians who had reservations. Upon the northern part opposite St. Joseph were the Sac and Fox In- dians and the Iowa Indians, removed from the Missouri side and one time owners of the Platte purchase.

Joseph Robidoux, founder of St. Joseph, had in 1826 established a trading post at the mouth of the Blacksnake to catch the trade of the Indians passing from Agency Ford, Grand River and Western Missouri to Highland, in Doniphan county, Kansas, where there was quite an Indian settlement. At that date the country, after passing a few miles west of St. Joseph, was covered with buffalo grass. The rains were in- frequent in summer and grass and herbage generally dried up by An- gust, so it was hardly possible to pass over the country west of the river in the fall or winter with teams. In 1853, 1854 and 1855 there was no running water from June until November between the Missouri river and the Big Blue. Parties from St. Joseph, sending out goods in wagons to the stations during those months, had to carry water with them. Today there are many streams and hundreds of springs that never go dry. This change is largely due to the ground cultivation and the cessation of burning the prairies every fall by the Indians in order to confine the game to the small wooded valleys of the streams.

A ferry was established at the Big Blue at a Pawnee trading post known now as Marysville, and in 1853 General Frank Marshall and James Doniphan bought it. In 1854 the laid out the town of Marys- ville and named it for Mrs. Mary Marshall, calling the county Marshall for General Marshall.

In 1849 the United States sent out a regiment of soldiers, laid out a route known as the military road, from Ft. Leavenworth to the Big Blue at Marysville, and built forts at Laramie, Ft. Hall and the Dalles. This was the main route traveled by the Argonauts of California south of the Platte for many years and much the larger number traveled this route.

In 1850, a large part of the California emigration crossed at St. Joseph and passed up Peters creek by Troy, Kans., and united with the military road at Kinnekenick, in Brown county, and thence through Nemaha county to the Big Blue at Marysville.

When the territory was admitted, in 1854, many settlers rushed into Doniphan county, as the lands were esteemed valuable. But set- tlements were pushed out in Brown, Nemaha and Marshall counties. Up to 1861 there were few settlers except in small towns and stage sta-

HISTORY OF NEMAHA COUNTY

tions. Marshall county, now one of the largest corn producing counties of the State, was then believed to be barren soil, unable to produce anything except sunflowers and buffalo grass. Beyond the Big Blue but few settlements were made until the railroads penetrated that region.

In 1854, Magraw, the conductor for the stage line across the con- tinent, had established a station at Guittard, nine miles east of Marys- ville, another two miles from Hanover called Hollandberg; another at the mouth of Elk Creek, where it joins the Little Blue; another on the Big Sandy, one at the Lone Elm in the Platte valley and then at Ft. Kearney.

The idea of the originators of the St. Joseph and Grand Island rail- road was to follow as nearly as the topography of the country would allow, this route to the valley of the Big Platte, and then to the Pacific as laid out by the military road. The country is now a prolific farming region, one of the most highly cultivated and productive in the Union. A colony of South Carolinians, becoming tired of trying to make Kansas a slave State, bought the claim adjoining Marysville and called the town Palmetto. In February, 1857, the Kansas Legislature passed an act chartering a railroad from St. Joseph to the Big Blue, "The Marysville, Palmetto & Roseport railroad," entitled as follows: "An act to incor- porate the Marysville, or Palmetto & Roseport Railroad Company ; ap- proved February 17, 1857."

The charter named as incorporators Robert M. Stewart, afterward Governor of Missouri; W. P. Richardson, Indian agent at Doniphan, Kans., one of the sturdy pioneers of the West; Gen. J. F. Marshall, then a citizen of Marysville ; Belah M. Hughes, of St. Joseph ; Richard Rose, John W. Foreman, an Indian trader, of Doniphan; Willard P. Hall, afterward Governor of Missouri; Gen. George H. Hall, of St. Joseph; A. M. Mitchell, who laid out South St. Joseph in 1853; Reuben Middle- ton, a pioneer merchant of St. Joseph in 1842, one of the first men to build up the Salt Lake trade in 1849; R. H. Jenkins, a Kansas politician, who died in 1861 ; Fred W. Smith, pioneer of St. Joseph ; W. S. Brewster, long since deceased.

On February 20, 1857, the territorial legislature of Kansas incor- porated the St. Joseph & Topeka Railroad Company. The incorporators were mostly citizens of Kansas, and the city of St. Joseph voted aid to the company, and October 20, 1850, a contract was entered into be- tween these two companies to own the right of way jointly for the rail- road from Elwood or Roseport to Troy and use the same track. This road afterward changed its route and ran down the river from Wathena to Doniphan and thence to Atchison.

It was long since sold out at foreclosure and the right of way pur- chased by Jay Gould and sold to the Rock Island after the track had been removed and the iron sent west to lay switches, side tracks, etc., on the Grand Island.

But we will go back to the Marysville & Roseport company. Rose-

HISTORY OF NEMAHA COUNTY

port, by the way, was one of the early day names for Elwood. The seventh section of the original act, approved February 17, 1857, gave the company the power to survey work, locate and construct a railroad from Marysville to Roseport in the territory of Kansas so as to connect with the St. Joseph & Hannibal Railroad Company, which traversed Missouri from St. Joseph to the Mississippi river.

Under the law of 1857 this company was organized on February 26, 1857, and directors were elected and $100,000 in capital stock was subscribed.

In 1860 three miles of the track was laid and ties and iron laid to near Wathena, the company having an engine called the Mud Cat. At a meeting of the stockholders, held on April 17, 1862, the name was changed to the St. Joseph & Denver City Railroad Company.

Nothing was done until 1866, when a local company was formed under the general incorpration laws of Kansas known as the Northern Kansas Railroad & Telegraph Company. The incorporators were citi- zens of Kansas. It was framed under the belief that it could get aid from the State of Kansas and more favorable legislation than the old St. Joseph & Denver City railroad, on account of the connection of Gen. Jeff Thompson and other Southerners with that road in its earlier his- tory, as well as to secure a grant of 125,000 acres of land from the State of Kansas, which it was feared could not be held by the St. Joseph & Denver City Railroad Company.

Articles of incorporation were signed on January 17, 1866, under the general railroad laws of 1865 of the State of Kansas, and were signed by Thomas A. Osborne, Frank Drenning, Sol Miller and C. E. Fox, of Doniphan county ; Ira Lacock, Samuel Spear and C. E. Parker, of Brown county, and George Graham, of Nemaha county ; E. C. Manning and J. B. Brumbaugh, of Marshall county, and Henry Hollenberg and E. Bal- lard, of Washington county, all of Kansas.

Samuel Lappin, of Seneca, was elected president, and a board of directors in May, 1866. The consolidation took palce in October, 1866, the name of the St. Joseph & Denver City Railroad Company being retained.

In January, 1866, the work was commenced from Wathena west, and the following October the city of St. Joseph voted $500,000 stock to the road. In 1869 the road was built to Troy and located to Hiawatha. Doniphan county voted bonds to aid its construction. The Kansas Leg- . islature granted odd sections of land as far west as the 100th meridian for the benefit of the railroad. At that time the road was located only to Hanover. It is believed by many that if the road had been located up the Republican river toward Denver the company would have obtained over one and one-half million acres of land. By the location made, it received only 640,000 acres.

Construction was pushed westward through Nemaha county to Marysville in 1871. In 1879 Jay Gould bought a controlling interest, the

HISTORY OF NEMAHA COUNTY

road having been completed to Hastings, Neb., 227 miles west of St. Joseph. In 1885 the road was reorganized and named the St. Joseph & Grand Island, the road having been completed to Grand Island with capital furnished by Jay Gould several years previously.

Nemaha county voted $100,000 for the road, but escaped payment through a technicality.

CHAPTER VIII.

SENECA, THE COUNTY SEAT.

SELECTED FOR COUNTY SEAT-TOWN FOUNDED-FIRST HOUSE AND STORE -SECOND STRUCTURE-A LITERARY BLACKSMITH-HOTEL AND MILL -OTHER BUILDINGS AND EARLY DAY ENTERPRISES-BUSINESS BOOMS -GROWTH OF TOWN-ADVANTAGES OF SENECA-PROGRESS-BUSI- NESS ENTERPRISES AND PROFESSIONS-GUILFORD HOTEL-A COLONY COMES FROM ENGLAND- THEIR EARLY STRUGGLES-INTERESTING CITIZENS - JAKE COHEN - CIVIC IMPROVEMENT - COMMUNITY CHURCH-TABERNACLE - HIGH SCHOOL BUILDING -- MUNICIPAL LIGHT AND WATERWORKS- CITY HALL.

When Central City, Richmond and other aspirants to the throne lost definitely the county seat, they resignedly laid down their hands, while Seneca departed with the spoils. She has had little difficulty in retain- ing her seat since. Richmond was carried over the short distance and added to the population of Seneca in a body. Little by little the other small settlements thereabout drifted in and made themselves at home, on one or more of the town lots, every other one of which the Senecans had donated to the town company.

Seneca had been staked off and spoken for as a suitable town seat by J. B. Ingersoll in 1857. Mr. Ingersoll called his claim Castle Rock. He was not included in the original town company, however, which was composed of C. G. Scrafford, Royal Torrey, Samuel and Finley Lappin, who immediately changed the name to Seneca, whether for the Indians of that name or the great Roman statesman has never been divulged.

Seneca started out bravely with metropolitan ideas and hopes. The first house erected on the town site of Seneca was no modest log house of one room divided by a curtain, as is the usual pioneer dwelling. It was a double log house, built after what is now called the "Colonial plan" with a wide hall running through the center. Finley Lappin moved into one end of the house and reserved the other end, using it for a hotel. The other side of the "hall" was used for a grocery store. In addition the Lappin end was utilized by Samuel Lappin for an office when he was elected registrar of deeds. The house invariably served double purposes after its terms as hotel, grocery and office of registrar of deeds were served. It became a dwelling and a grocery shop ; a car-

HISTORY OF NEMAHA COUNTY

penter shop and had various uses until finally Mr. Lappin tore it down and erected a drug store.

The second structure on the town site of Seneca was as simple and picturesque as the first one was magnificent, even for those early times. It was a blacksmith shop erected on four poles and covered with a roof of brush. The glow of the forge at night beneath its quaint covering was a beckoning finger for the few pioneers to gather around for a visit, and plan for Seneca's future and Nemaha's great renown.

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FIRST HOUSE BUILT IN SENECA, KANS.

The blacksmith, himself, was not less attractive than his shop. He could not only shoe horses and hang a wheel, but was a writer, who contributed tales of his western pioneer home, as glowing and bril- liant as the fire in his forge. Levi Hensel was his name, and he became widely known as correspondent for the New York "Tribune." His daughter was the first child born in Seneca. She was given a town lot at her birth.

Then came to Seneca, residents who have done much for the fame, honor and riches of the town and the county. John E. Smith with his wife, sons, brother and sister, and accompanied by Charles, George W. and Eliza Williams, arrived in March, 1858, from Derry, N. H. Mr. Smith first built his house, which became known as Smith's Hotel. Moreover he brought from New England machinery for a mill. This was taken by train to St. Louis, brought as far as Atchison by steamer and overland by ox team from Atchison. The Smith Hotel served two purposes as well as the Lappin place, for it was utilized as Seneca's first school and Miss Addie Smith taught the first school there in 1858.

Buildings were becoming not so rare a luxury now, although there was some excitement when the first building of concrete stone was

HISTORY OF NEMAHA COUNTY

erected, which later was torn down for a building of natural stone. Meantime, dwellings were going np, and within a couple of years the first court house was built and business affairs moved along as smoothly a town of more years.

Two hotels in a village of less than two hundred people may seem an unnecessary ontlay, but it was not. Seneca was on the Denver Over- land road and the hotels were kept busy. Immigration was immense at that time. Gold seekers still were going to California. Denver was a lure, Pike's Peak was as tempting as the golden rivers of California. The western lands of Kansas were advertised all over the east, with

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History of Nemaha County, Kansas, Part 6

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