History of Nemaha County, Kansas, Part 7

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

USA > Kansas > Nemaha County > History of Nemaha County, Kansas > Part 7

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MAIN STREET AND BUSINESS SECTION, SENECA, KANS.

maps of thriving cities, streams of smoke pouring from factory chim- neys, and populous streets picturing an irresistable temptation. Run- ning a hotel in those days was a real money making business. A dollar was charged for all meals, and it was not an unusual thing to have the tables crowded full meal after meal.

From six residents, when Seneca secured the county seat from its rivals, within six years it had grown to a population of 300; a transient population of twenty-five to thirty daily ; two hotels, a grist mill, saw mill, school, jewelry store, hardware store, newspaper, several other business buildings, county buildings and dwellings. In the early eighties Seneca had 1,500 inhabitants, and now it has 2,000.

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HISTORY OF NEMAHA COUNTY

It seems rather a pity that Seneca has not become a real metropolis, for her streets are laid out with such generous width, that a cityful could be accommodated in them.

Why is it that a town laid out and planned with generosity in the matter of streets, remains of lesser proportions, while a city grows from a village that has crooked, crammed streets, and forefathers who do not appreciate the beauty of being generous in the first place, are fol- lowed by property owners who refuse to be generous when necessity fi- nally comes ?

At any rate, Seneca is to be congratulated on the breadth of her streets. In the past year the question of paving has arisen in the town. The proposition is to put a parking down the center of this beautiful main thoroughfare, and pave on either side.

Seneca's main street has other pleasing points to offer. It is blessed with quaint stone churches, covered with vines. It has not suc- cumbed to modernity and destroyed the handiwork of generous fore- fathers at the instigation of fashionable offspring. It has retained its quiet, quaint dignity, and is unique in that. There are homes and de- lightful, secluded spots in Seneca that remind one of old New England homes occupied for 300 years by the descendants of one family. It is refreshing to come upon such a town in a State where most villages and cities are as painfully new as patent leather shoes always appear to be.

From this do not gather that Seneca is not progressive and moving right along in the direction of wealth and prosperity. Where thirty years ago there stood a dozen business houses and two small hotels, today there are :

Two newspapers, the "Tribune" and the ,"Courier-Democrat"

Frank Strathmann, photographer

Albert Koelzer, photographer

B. F. Townsend, blacksmith

A. H. Grollmes, blacksmith

John Quinlan, blacksmith

Ole Nelson, blacksmith

J. J. Buser, Buser Auto Co., garage, Maxwell, Hudson and Dodge Highway Garage, C. C. Firstenberger, Buick and Ford

Bailie Keith, garage and repair shop

Earl Goodrich, Metz cars and garage

REAL ESTATE AND INSURANCE.

WV. F. Thompson T. E. Rooney Bert Woods Abbie W. Kennard Crandall & Bruner Realty Co.

.HISTORY OF NEMAHA COUNTY

LAWYERS.

C. C. K. Scoville Ira Wells John Stowell Emery & Emery

Charles Schrempp Charles Herold H. M. Baldwin F. L. Geary

DOCTORS.

H. G. Snyder U. G. Iles

A. M. Brewer C. E. Tolle

J. Rudbeck

DENTISTS.

J. J. Sullivan F. W. Drum

Hurst Fitzgerald H. F. Davis

PREACHERS.

C. A. Richard, Community

Rev. Guoin, Episcopal

Irvin McMurray, Methodist Episcopal

Christian Science

Congregational Universalist Catholic, Father Joseph Sittenauer, O. S. B., pastor ; Father Gabriel Vonderstein, assistant

SENECA BUSINESS HOUSES.

Walter Sperling's Jewelry Store

Seneca Shale and Brick Company plant

Seneca Planing Mill

Municipal Electric Light and Water Plant

Seneca Ice and Pop Plant

Gilford Hotel New Royal Theater

Cameron House

West End House

Will Carey's Restaurant

John Meinberg's Restaurant

Peter Schmitt's Steam Bakery

Otto Kelm's Home Bakery Wempe & Buening, Department Store Honeywell & Stein, "The Leader" Department Store K. J. Nash, Dry Goods and Merchandise

HISTORY OF NEMAHA COUNTY

M. A. Reckow, Variety Store

B. F. Staubus, Mammoth Racket Store

August Kramer, Hardware

Fuller & Son, Hardware

A. L. L, Scoville, Hardware

First National Bank and Seneca State Savings Bank, in one building under same directors

National Bank of Seneca

Citizens State Bank

Ralph Johnson, Groceries

E. R. Mathews, Groceries

A. E. Levick, Groceries

Thomas Routh, Exclusive Shoe Store

Buehler Clothing Company, Men's Clothiers

Firstenberger & Son, Men's Clothiers

John L. Clark, Drug Store

D. B. Harsh, Drug Store

H. E. Jenkins, Drug Store

August Hang, Butcher Shop

L. P. Alexander, Butcher Shop

Jenkins & Avery, Butcher Shop

Seneca, having a good start on hotels in the first place, has kept on in the right direction, and now one of the famous hostelries of north- eastern Kansas is the Gilford Hotel. In a town of 2,000 people, to be driven up to a hotel worthy of a town of 20,000 is something of itself. Then to be taken into a cool, spacious dining room, seated by a window at a table with white tablecloth and a bouquet of country flowers, look- ing out on a sloping green hill and blue sky, with no disreputable shacks or smoky chimneys interposing between your vision and the fair sight, is a delightful surprise.

The Gilford hotel was named in honor of its builders in a euphonious combination of their names: John A. Gilchrist and Charles G. Scrafford. Mr. Gilchrist was formerly interested in the Seneca State Bank, now the National Bank of Seneca. He lives now in El Paso, Texas, but has left behind him a monument of pride to the entire county. Mr. Scraf- ford was the pioneer merchant of Seneca. He built the first hotel in White Cloud and the first saw mill there. But White Cloud, with its Indian agency and increasing citizenship, was becoming too civilized and metropolitan for the adventurous and delightful Mr. Scrafford, so he sought new worlds to conquer and removed to Seneca, where he opened a general store in 1860. With ox teams he crossed the prairie between Missouri and Seneca to haul his goods and lumber for his building and stock. The stuff had to be ferried across the Missouri river, then loaded on the wagons, and across the open prairies the ox teams carried the goods, a trip that could not take less than four days with such a load,

HISTORY OF NEMAHA COUNTY

longer than it takes now to go by rail to California. Mr. Scrafford was in business, both mercantile and banking, with Finley Lappin. He married Mr. Lappin's daughter, a brilliant, witty woman, whose wit has increased with her years. Mr. Scrafford was an early day town trustee, later was mayor, and altogether was one of the moving spirits of Seneca.

Seneca is the most cosmopolitan town in Nemaha county, in that many different countries are represented by her pioneer citizens. Mr. and Mrs. John W. Fuller celebrated on January 1, 1916, their sixtieth wedding anniversary, their wedding having occurred in Kent, England. The marriage occurred in the little parish church in the village of Ash- ford. Mr. Fuller has a fund of reminiscences of his native country and pioneer days in the land of his adoption.

Mr. Fuller accounts for immigration to Kansas from England in 1870 in telling of the meetings of workingmen held at 18 Denmark street, Soho, London, England. He says this was a great place for working- men to congregate. They met and discussed the best way to mitigate the conditions of the English workingmen. Among them was John Rad- ford, a big talker, quite a power in that way, but impractical. Jim and Charley Murray were other Englishmen who talked to the English workers. It was planned for a colony to settle near Goff, Kansas, and Edward Granger Smith was superintendent of the colonization plan. Those who migrated at that time were promised a fourteen-room house When they reached Kansas nothing of the sort was to be found. Mr. Fuller was obliged to house, if it could be so called, his family, consist- ing of a wife and six children, in a frame room fourteen by ten feet, with a leaky roof over it.

There were seventeen in the party who came over from England with the Fuller family.

As for their exact location, Mr. Fuller says it was not named, but their destination was the forty-eighth mile post. Their particular sec- tion was 25, twenty miles and a half due north of this point, and divided into ten-acre tracts, which they expected to plant to wheat.

They reached this point in May. Edward Granger Smith, pro- moter and prime mover, accompanied them, but he died within a short time after their arrival. In recalling the incident, Mr. Fuller says that he made the coffin, and donning some Odd Fellows' regalia which he had brought from England, he repeated from memory the burial service of the English church. Later he performed the same services over the body of another pioneer named Dewey.

In telling of the first planting on their scant acreage, Mr. Fuller says he traded three hogs for enough wheat to plant his ten acres. It was spring wheat and this for fall planting, but it made a splendid crop, which he sold to Don Rising for $1.10 a bushel.

Mr. Fuller also recalls that he bought a ten-acre plot with improve- ments from John Stowell, who was there a year earlier, paying about $2 for all, land which now would doubtless bring $200 an acre.

HISTORY OF NEMAHA COUNTY

In August after these emigrants came, a preacher named Smith built a house, there, making it a sort of postoffice, with siding for a station.

They did anything for a livelihood. Installments were sent over from the workingmen in England. Mr. Fuller remembers going to At- chison to cash a check sent from there. He helped to build the railroad from Atchison to Waterville. He was put to sawing wood for the loco- motive, probably because he was large and strong, and received $2 a day for it.

Mrs. Fuller recalls planting ten acres to corn, using a hatchet to make the holes. It was, of course, sod corn, but it came up, making a fair yield. In the spring of 1871 they moved to Centralia, where there was a similar colony. The Mechanic's building in old Centralia is still standing.

The following year the John W. Fuller family moved to Seneca, locating where the business block of Lieutenant Governor Felt was later built. They made tin roofs or any kind of work they could get. At one time Mr. Fuller bound wheat for John Koelzer for $2 a day and board. Having been brought up a mechanic, Mr. Fuller says this was the hardest work he ever did in his life.

On the trip of these emigrant English, from New York to Kansas, a stop was made at Elkhart, Ind. Mr. Fuller went into a shop there and asked for treacle, which is English for molasses. The store keeper was nonplused what to give the purchaser. A Kentish boy happened to enter the store during the discussion and explained that molasses was what was wanted. Thieves and sharks were all along the line to victimize the emigrants. In their stop in Chicago, while the family was housed for the night in a freight depot, the Kentish boy watched over them all night to protect them from these depredations.

Seneca has among her residents a famous Italian, Antonio Raffo, whose restaurant for many years was the goal of every epicure who was so fortunate as to have heard of him. Antonio Raffo ran a restaurant many, many years ago in Baltimore. He married an American woman named Katie Brooks. Together they ran the famous restaurant in Seneca, which, if conducted today, would make the town a goal for au- tomobilists from all over this section of Kansas and the neighboring Nebraska. Katie Raffo died twenty-five years ago. Her hushand seemed to have lost his zest at this grevious parting, and closed the restaurant. He was very devoted to her, and loves her as fondly today. Her grave is one of the most perfectly kept anywhere. Mr. Raffo is a veteran of two wars, and his back pension enabled him to retire comfortably. He owns two properties. His present home he keeps himself, and it is said that Antonio Raffo, veteran of the Crimean war and the Civil war, is the best housekeeper in Nemaha county.

Antonio Raffo's father was a soldier under Napoleon Bonaparte. Raffo was born in America, but his love for battle was inborn. When

HISTORY OF NEMAHA COUNTY

the Crimean war broke out Raffo worked his way across the ocean to Italy on a merchant vessel and enlisted with the Zouaves. He was only nineteen years old, but distinguished himself in the famous war when England, Russia, Italy and France fought for the possession of Crimea.

A. Raffo is the second Nemaha county citizen who fought in the Crimean war and was present at the famous battle of Sebastopol. He tells, in his quaint pronunciations, of the dazzling feats of the Italian Zouaves who scaled walls and wrested guns from the slower Russians on the walls of the city. He was one of seventeen men to receive a Vic- torian cross for his conspicuous bravery in the attacks on Balaklava and Malkoff. At the close of the war he returned to America and opened his Baltimore restaurant .. Here also he joined the Baltimore guards, who volunteered for service to capture John Brown at Harper's Ferry. Antonio Raffo was with the men who captured the famous John Brown, whose body may "hang on a sour apple tree, but whose soul still goes marching on."

Baltimore thugs and toughs also went along in the free train to assist in the capture. But finding that Brown and ten negroes were fortified in a metal engine house they disappeared. The Baltimore guards surrounded the engine house, and with timbers as battering rams crashed in the door. Brown's men then opened fire, concentrating it on one spot. Only four guards fell. The guards then entered and every man was killed except John Brown and one negro. The negro was felled by an officer and Raffo, because of his Crimean experience, ban- daged his wounds. Then Brown was seen and recognized. "I guess he would have been killed right there if I had not protected him," said Raffo.

In 1861, because of his military experience, Raffo was employed as a drill master by the State of West Virginia. He then enlisted for service in Company C, Seventh regiment, West Virginia volunteers. Others in his regiment said that he was considered the handsomest man in the regiment and could have had any position, if he could have spoken English better.

Another Nemaha county resident who served in the war of the Crimea was John Williams, who had lived on his same farm for fifty years until his death in 1914. He was a sailor on a British man-of-war and saw service during the entire war. He saw the famous charge of "Six Hundred" at the battle of Balaklava. He was present at the taking of Odessa. Mr. Williams was born in Swansea, Wales, and came to Nemaha county two years after the close of the Crimean war.

A third Nemaha county man to distinguish himself in the Crimean war, for Great Britain, was Dr. W. F. Troughton, of Seneca. Dr. Troughton held the position of assistant surgeon in a royal artillery regiment at Gibraltar. He came to Nemaha county in 1865. the year he was graduated from the St. Thomas Medical College of London. where he studied under Dr. Skelton. He was a native of Westmorland,

HISTORY OF NEMAHA COUNTY

England, and married Anne Daryes in England before coming to this country. He has been prominent in Seneca affairs for many years.

A rare citizen of Seneca, and, beyond any cavil, its most beloved, is Mrs. Emily Collins, who has taught the primary grade in Seneca schools for thirty-eight consecutive years. She is teaching the children of the. children whom she had taught.

Before Seneca is laid aside for her smaller sisters' stories, a word should be said of Jake Cohen, of beloved memory, withont which no history of Seneca would be complete. Mr. Cohen was a gentle Jew. He was elected mayor of the city with few dissenting votes in a town largely Catholic, and with the rest of the people Protestants, but broad and fine enough to recognize merit and admire quality in one of dif- ferent belief. Mr. Cohen rescued Seneca from depression. He made the town physically and morally clean. He gave such an impetus to the up- ward that Seneca will never slip back to civic slothfulness again. And when Jake Cohen died several years afterward, every store in Seneca was closed, and every resident, children and all, went to his funeral, and we still mourn him.

Seneca had a revival during the reign of Mr. Cohen, which tore the town from cellar to dome. While it was a civic revival, it was none the less religious. The revival did as much practical good as ever a re- ligions revival has done ; perhaps more. Cleanliness is next to godliness, Seneca concluded. So Seneca cleaned up and a professional revivalist, who advanced civic improvement, was employed to engineer the job. He preached better streets, cleaner alleys, better lawns, painted houses and a more sightly town. He delivered lectures in the theater, went to the farmers on the streets and talked to them and stirred things up generally. The Seneca Commercial Club paid him, and he was worth all he received. There is a rich field for this kind of an evangelist. There should be a few of them living in each town. The Seneca papers were filled with the revival for weeks. The Seneca Civic Movement League edited the matter and wrote some pretty hot shots at people who did not clean up, and did not hesitate to mention their names. A report got 'out that a certain clerk in Seneca was taking orders for a mail order house. A committee waited on the clerk at once. The movement was the best thing that Seneca had done for years, and she is still feeling the effects of it. Seneca did not backslide on that revival.

The broadness which characterizes Seneca has been carried farther in recent years by the institution, maintenance and increasing poput- larity of the community church. Many small churches of small success and difficult work have gathered under the banner of brotherly love, kindness, honesty, fairness and good works with no further creed. Seneca, a small town of 2,000, has bravely faced the problem that larger cities realize is facing the church of today and has clung tenaciously to her belief that in union there is strength. The community religious move- ment began in 1914 with a series of six sermons delivered in Protestant

HISTORY OF NEMAHA COUNTY

churches, culminating in an organization at the old stone church, March 9, 1915. It has been remarkably successful in bringing people out to church. In bitterly cold weather and excessively hot, people have gath- ered under the community banner. The members do not join, they simply go-Congregationalists, Universalists, Presbyterians, Christians, Episcopalians, Scientists and Methodists. The community church is not for the church work alone; it is supposed to reach every phase of civic life, and consequently everything in which any man is interested.

Then the Senecans combined and built a tabernacle, an open, screened building, the material and the work for which was largely donated and the money raised by giving a home talent chautauqua. Ex- perienced builders supervised the work, G. A. Shaul and Roy Vorhees, whose work was also a gift to the cause. The services were originally for Sunday evening only, but the organization having been com-

COMMUNITY TABERNACLE, WHERE CREEDS AND DOGMAS ARE LAID ASIDE-ALL DENOMINATIONS WELCOMED.

pleted, services will be held twice on Sunday hereafter. In the winter a floor was put down, also a gift, and the tabernacle building is used in winter for basket ball, indoor base ball and similar entertainment. In the summer the chautauqua, public meetings, or any kind of wholesome entertainment is given free use of the community building. The girls are kept entertained afternoons in the community building by games, and the boys are entertained evenings, or both are entertained together. The home chautauqua has been organized into a permanent association. and the athletics into a managing concern called the Independent Ath- letic Association. The regular ball games are charging for admission

HISTORY OF NEMAHA COUNTY

to pay for the lumber in the floor. The Congregational Church voted not to hire a pastor this year, but will try the community movement for six months. Rev. C. A. Richards has had charge of the community affairs since its organization ; a splendid, indefatigable, courageous young man, who believes that religion is also to be found in one's work and one's play.

The Seneca High School is a building as handsome in appearance and surroundings as any city and many colleges could afford. It is a very beautiful building of pressed brick with cut stone trimming, and is located on handsome grounds, with all appliances in the play ground that may be found in a progressive city. Beginning with the first school taught in 1858, as mentioned, and coming down to R. G. Mueller, head of the school today, a witty man and a fine educator, Seneca schools have been invariably a matter of pride and congratulation to the town. There have been famous men in charge of school matters in Seneca. J. C. Hebbard was the first county superintendent of public instruction. Mr. Hebbard made the first county report during the days when Kansas was a territory, and Samuel W. Greer was the superintendent of the territory. Following Mr. Hebbard. a delightful, cultured man, who with his wife was a great assistance in the advance in culture of Nemaha county, was John W. Fuller. Mr. Fuller was the second superintendent of the county and for sixty years has kept up his personal interest in Seneca schools. It was he, who in 1907, insisted that the country schools should have manual training. He had been a member then of the Seneca School Board for the previous ten years. Mr. Fuller was the first di- rector of manual training in Nemaha county schools when the pupils of Seneca schools made a bench under his gratuitous supervision. From then on Seneca's manual training department has been made increas- ingly important. Five sewing machines were installed shortly after- ward. At the annual county fair in Seneca the most interesting section is the display of dresses, gowns and embroidery made by the Seneca children from the first grade to the senior year. The equipment in the boys' department was largely made by the pupils themselves. Mr. Fuller is an author of some note. His work on "The Art of Copper- smithing" is said to be the only treatise on the subject. Another hook of Mr. Fuller's is "The Geometric Development of Round and Oval Cones." All of which sounds as if he were the proper man to have been the leading spirit in teaching a child the honor of working with his hands. For years Mr. Fuller made frequent talks to the Seneca school children, which did much to keep their enthusiasm aroused along practical educational lines. Seneca claims that its manual training department has been the most highly developed of any school its size in the State. The school children of Seneca have had for nearly forty years an invaluable start in their work. Mrs. Emily Collins has been the primary teacher during this entire period. For years she has been teaching the children of former pupils.

HISTORY OF NEMAHA COUNTY

Seneca has a capably administered municipal light and waterworks system, which is being operated with such signal success that each year witnesses a surplus piling up in the city treasury over and above main- tenance and operating expenses. The city water is obtained from a never failing source, natural springs eastward beyond the city limits, which are safeguarded for all time from pollution, and whose waters have been pronounced by the State chemistry department to be abso- lutely pure. During the past season (1916) the main thoroughfare of the city has been regraded and an experiment in oiling carried out which is proving to be an unqualified success.

In July of 1916 the citizens voted almost unanimously in favor of bonding the city for the erection of a new city hall and municipal build- ing, to be erected at a cost of $20,000. This building is being erected on city land on the corner diagonally across from the old stone church at the western end of the business section and the sale by the city and sub- sequent removal of smaller buildings took place recently to make room for the proposed building, which will house the city offices, the fire de- partment, provide a rest room and assembly room for the people. The edifice is modern in every respect and will be a matter of pride to every Senecan when completed.

CHAPTER IX.

SENECA SHALE BRICK INDUSTRY.

AN AGRICULTURAL COMMUNITY-THE ONE EXCEPTION-IMPORTANT IN- VENTION-THE "KLOSE CONTINUOUS TUNNEL KILN"-A VISIT TO THE SENECA SHALE BRICK COMPANY'S PLANT-INTERVIEW WITH MR. KLOSE-ORGANIZATION OF COMPANY-BEGINNING OF INDUSTRY -- PERIOD OF UNCERTAINTY-PRESENT CAPACITY-CAPITALIZATION.

The region in the vicinity of Seneca is essentially and purely an agricultural locality. In fact, the whole of Nemaha county is farm land. The traveler in passing through the county from the north to south or from east to west at any angle of the compass will observe nothing but a fertile landscape, dotted with farm houses, big red barns, herds of fat cattle, droves of fine horses, great fields of corn, alfalfa and wheat- with the blue sky overhead unmarred by a breath of smoke from factory chimneys. Instead of the hum of the "wheels of industry," the whirr of the reaper is heard in season, and during the harvest time the rattle and chug, chug of the thresher is likewise heard on the various farms. These will be the only evidences of industrial activity to be found or heard aside from the passing of the steam trains and a few necessary local manufacturing establishments.

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History of Nemaha County, Kansas, Part 7

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