USA > Kansas > Nemaha County > History of Nemaha County, Kansas > Part 9
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The arts and literature have always been second nature to Sabetha. In 1871, before the village had a city government, a library organization was formed so early as 1871, years before Sabetha was incorporated as
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a town under the State laws. The library consisted of but twenty books as a nucleus, donated by residents and passed from hand to hand. S. W. Brooke was first president, and Emma Brady, now Mrs. Judge Gundy, of Long Beach, Cal., was secretary. This library continued until 1871 with its only income being fines and yearly fees. The library was then incorporated under the State laws with a capital stock of $1,000, divided into ten shares. This library thrived for years in C. L. Sherwood's drug store, finally it simply melted away, and, for several years, Sabetha was without a public library, the need of new books being supplied by various book clubs, which purchased the new novels of the day, which were privately circulated. Among Sabetha's rare citi- zens in the early twentieth century was Mrs. Mary Cotton, president of the Citizens State Bank. Her private library was one of the finest in the State of Kansas, comprising 1,500 books, largely in fine bindings and rare, or limited, editions. Upon her death in 1912, she willed this great collection of books to the city for library purposes to circulate free, with her home to be used as a library or to be sold for a building and a library built. The home was sold, but the citizens still await the erec- tion of the library building, the town being divided as whether to place the library in the park, opposite Mrs. Cotton's home, or wait until the money accumulates sufficient interest to both buy suitable ground, and erect a building handsome enough for the most beautiful collection of circulating books in a free public library in Kansas.
Sabetha, while not attaining Seneca's fame in hotels, has had, at least, one rare host as master of the inn. Captain Hook for years ran the Hook House of Sabetha. He was a retired sea captain, and his stories and yarns of the sea captivated all the traveling public, who patron- ized him, as well as his own sons. Edwin Miller, who built the Albany Hotel, moved it to Sabetha in 1870, and in 1871, the Sabetha town com- pany erected a three story hotel called the Sabetha House. It stood until the present year when it was pulled down to make place for a modern business block erected by a citizen, and occupied as a depart- ment store.
The flouring mill industry thrived in Sabetha from the erection of the first mill in 1872 by L. J. Sprinkle until the destruction by fire of the Sabetha flouring mill about ten years ago.
Sabetha's business houses run into the second hundred, and other towns of the county can scarcely lay claim to Sabetha's trade. Every store building is modern, with window displays planned and arranged for most part, by men who have made a study of the art of window decora- tion. If a stranger should raise his eyes no higher than the first story and not look for sky scrapers, viewing Sabetha's windows, he would think himself in a modern city fifty times the size of Sabetha.
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ALBANY, THE MOTHER OF SABETHA.
"Elihu, why did you bring me and my daughters to this dreadful country ?" cried Mrs. Elihu Whittenhall, shivering as the wind, too, shivered and whistled around the log cabin, high on the Albany hill, and trembling at the stealthy patter of the wolves' feet on the roof above her.
"We will make money here, my dear," answered her husband, his eye on the vision of the country as it is now, sixty years later. "It will be a wonderful land."
But with four little daughters, cuddled close to her, thousands of miles from the New York home, on the desolate, windswept prairie, no vision came to Mrs. Whittenhall.
Still her husband's vision was realized, although neither she nor he lived to see its full realization. Mrs. Whittenhall was college bred, carefully nurtured, tenderly reared, in a New York home. She grad- uated from the Oxford New York Academy in the class with Governor Seymour, of New York, and other distinguished men. Away all this, overland, by train, steamboat, and mule team, bringing with her the only piano in the State of Kansas, and four little daughters, is it any wonder she trembled at wolves, who made themselves as much at home as pet dogs; shivered at weeping prairie winds, and shrank from stray Indians, who walked into her house and took anything which caught their vagrant, childish fancy?
To the high hills of Albany, they came in 1857 and located their farms. Any of the magnificent land which their fancy chose, could be had for the simple act of sleeping and eating on the ground desired and the payment of $2.50. But before long, within the following year, other New Yorkers came out. Other frail, delicate, courageous women risked comforts, quiet, calm and peace to break the prairie and pioneer with their husbands. Edwin Miller, accompanied by Mrs. Miller, W. B. Slosson, John L. and William Graham came out to Kansas; and Albany, the mother of Sabetha, was colonized and named in compliment to the capital of their native State. Mr. Miller built a hotel, and then Mr. Whittenhall built a frame dwelling, and the family removed from the confined quarters of the log house, almost filled by the big square piano, so bravely standing for the refinement and elegance of its former surroundings in its New York home. The Whittenhall house was built of walnut lumber, big timbers and all, a real treasure in these days when Kansas black walnut is so valuable, and for which European aristocracy pays a big price.
Mrs. Whittenhall lived several, happy, contented years on their farm at Albany, but she died before Albany was moved to Sabetha and never dreamed that her husband would own almost half the town, which was eventually electric lighted, heated by municipal steam, gov- erned by commissioners, and with all the intermediary improvements
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of the modern city. Her daughter, Mrs. Oscar Marbourg, says now : "If mother could only have seen these electric lights!"
Albany was the home of more men and women of culture, brains and foresight, than is usually found gathered together in so small a community. A residence and hotel were followed by the erection of a schoolhouse. A postoffice was established in 1859 and a store erected in 1860. Meantime the population had been increased by George Graham, Archibald Webb, Mose Stevens, J. P. Shumway, the post- master, Mr. and Mrs. John Van Tuyl, B. H. Job, Mrs. Rising, Mrs. Archer, Thomas Robbins. Those who had not wives went back home and got them, and in most cases, "back home" was New York State.
A notable marriage, with the consequence of many members of a fine family migrating to Kansas, was W. B. Slosson's to Miss Achsah Lilly, of Castle Creek, N. Y. In 1860 he went back for his bride and brought her to Nemaha county, Albany colony. In their wake shortly followed the following relations: The Brigham family, the Emery, and Alice West Lilly, Rev. A. H. Lilly, Foster Lilly, Mrs. Charles Sher- wood, Henry Lilly and Mrs. Hutchinson, George H. Adams, for whom Adams township is named, and his son; George F. Pugsley and family, Harvey M. Campbell, Lyman B. Lilly, Mrs. William Graham and the Hall boys; Albert West and sons, Myron and Nathan, and daughters ; Mrs. Rellis and Mrs. Benson, John Tyler and family, and John and Mer- ritt McNary, and others less directly connected, and still others, whom Mrs. Slosson, who wrote this list, could not recall. All of the families are connected, and many of them moved soon to Albany, and others to Sabetha or to the farmlands surrounding Albany and Sabetha. Most of them came from Castle Creek, N. Y., and all of them have been a credit to both homes, and the life blood of the new, struggling community.
When probably the first party of pioneers came up the Missouri river on the steamboat with the Graham brothers, Slosson and Miller, the trip required five days from St. Louis to Kansas City. The latter was a mere landing at that time. There were fifty men on the boat, and there was a gambling game on in every available spot. William Graham offered to make a bet that a man could not pick out a certain card. Upon the man's taking him up, the rest of the party said Graham sidestepped the issue and said, "I'm too nice a man to bet." The al- leged reply became a nick name which followed Mr. Graham all through his fine service during the Civil war.
On the boat were five men who invited the boatload to settle on the river point where Kansas City now stands. Here was another man with real vision. He said this would be the spot for the big city of the West. There was not a habitation in sight, so the boat moved on. and the load went on up the river to scatter in various directions. But the five men stayed with the settlement. Twenty-five years later, Mr. Slos- son met one of the five men who stayed and who had become a mil- lionaire by staying. On the boat trip a daughter was born to one of the women pioneers, and a collection was taken to give the mother.
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The party traveled overland across the California trail. On the overland trail, about ten miles from Albany, they passed a young man wearing a pair of overalls, checkered shirt, shoes and no socks, working in a sawmill, who directed them to Pony creek. The young man was E. N. Morrill, who became governor of Kansas, several years later.
That the young pioneers were not born farmers may be shown in the following, amusing anecdote told by Mr. Slosson. They passed a man, who asked them, if they had seen a stray filly. One young man replied, "I don't know what a filly is." Edwin Miller spoke up, not wanting the man to think they were tenderfeet, and said to the first speaker, "You darned fool-a filly is a nigger wench."
The men got on to Albany, and the settlement, at their arrival, had a population of forty-six people. A Congregational church was formed with Rev. Parker as preacher, who later became editor of the Manhattan Kansas "Telephone," a paper which long since has passed on. A school house was built of gray limestone in 1860, the school dis- trict building the first story, and the Congregational society, the second story. The school house is in use today, and has been every year since 1860, the upper story being used for neighborhood entertainments.
In 1870 the railroad went to Sabetha, not being able to make feas- ible grades by way of Albany. So most of Albany moved to the rail- road, and became identified with Sabetha and included in her upbuild- ing and progress. Sabetha, though, is the offspring of Albany, and the history of the two towns is so interwoven the two towns seem as one. Albany was settled in 1857 by a party of educated, refined men and women from New York, who, for the most part, removed to Sabetha, houses, household goods and all, with the coming of the railroad.
In 1858, Capt. A. W. Williams, another New Yorker, whose native city was Rochester, opened a postoffice, and for the first time the set- tlers were able to get their mail nearer than St. Joseph, sixty-five miles away. Between the birth of Sabetha and the discovery of the famous spring by the California traveler, Jim Lane (General James Lane) had established a fort two miles east, which also bore the name Sabetha. Captain Williams became the first justice of the peace of Sabetha, as well as the first postmaster. During the Pike's Peak rush for gold in fifty-eight and fifty-nine, Captain Williams claimed his sales at the postoffice store averaged $200 a day. This first store building erected by Captain Williams was burned and another erected in its place. The store was closed in 1861, when its proprietor joined the Union army. John L. Goodpasture, the only man left in Sabetha at the time, opened another store shortly after this. This was the beginning of the mercan- tile trade in Sabetha, which is conceded the biggest in Nemaha county today.
In 1859, a Methodist circuit rider, by the name of Rawlins, came down the California trail through the tiny Sabetha settlement and held the first religious service of the town in the Williams store.
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Fanny Gertrude Whittenhall, one of the four little girls who came from New York and huddled to her mother's skirts on the wind blown hills of Albany, was the first bride. She was married to WV. G. Sargent December 27, 1859. It was she who taught the slave girl to read, and her daughter, Mrs. Roscoe Hughes, and her grandchildren are liv- ing in Sabetha now, the fairest monument to a lovely and lovable mother.
In 1860, Miss Rebecca Hawkins opened a school in the hotel erected by Goodpasture, the second storekeeper of Sabetha. Miss Hawkins later became Mrs. C. P. Brannigan. Noble H. Rising kept this hotel for some time. Miss Hawkins started with five children in her school, which gradually attained an attendance of eighteen.
Captain Williams, James Oldfield and Isaac Sweetland became the first town company under a special act of the legislature, but no advan- tage was taken of the act for over ten years.
It was then that William B. Slosson, J. T. Brady, T. B. Collins, Arch Moorehead and three Missouri men, E. P. Gray, Ben Childs and Jeff Chandler, were given an incorporation charter, and real Sabetha was founded. These men were liable to A. W. Williams, who still owned the townsite, in the sum of $4,000. For ten years, the war inter- fering with its growth, Sabetha consisted of but three stores and a blacksmith shop. But, in the seventies, things began to move and have been moving faithfully and unfalteringly ever since. This-with the coming of the railroad.
A drug store was opened by T. K. Masheter and E. B. Gebhart, which, after various changes, came into the sole possession of Mr. Mash- eter in 1879. Mr. Masheter has a host of interesting reminiscences of the early days. He recalls the arrival of the first safe in Sabetha, which was as big an event as the arrival of the first locomotive. He is author- ity on the orchards, and the court of last resort in early day event argu- ments.
T. K. Masheter celebrated his forty-sixth year in Sabetha. On April 2. forty-six years ago he arrived from Iowa. Just note the method he employed to get to Sabetha. He had to ferry across the Missouri river. . The Grand Island ran only to Hiawatha. Of course the Rock Island was not thought of then. From Hiawatha Mr. Masheter came to Sa- betha in a wagon. The survey for the Grand Island to Sabetha was made six weeks later. When Mr. Masheter arrived in Sabetha, Captain Williams had a hotel and big stone barn in the east part of town. A school house had been erected where Mr. Sam Kreitzer's house now stands. East of this was a blacksmith shop. John C. Perry, the post- master, was located on the site of M. J. Beegley's house. There was a row of trees up our present Main street, and one of them stood until a few years ago. On the present location of Kreitzer's bakery there was a big straw stack. Covered wagons passed in flocks, like geese and ducks do now. They were going in every direction. Sabetha was a farm, only forty-six years ago.
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The Sabetha of today contrasts strangely with the Sabetha, as it was first remembered by T. K. Masheter in the seventies. Mr. Mash- eter remembers most of Sabetha as Captain Wiliams' corn field. A hay stack stood where the Kreitzer Brothers' bakery is now located.
What an evolution! The Sabetha of today is approaching the dream of the idealist. The town has municipal steam, municipal power, municipal heat, municipal lights, municipal water works; Sabetha has paved streets, sewers, a hospital that cost $100,000. The city has the commission form of government, which is doing much to beautify and improve the town.
"The best town on the Grand Island railroad," is a remark fre- quently heard among traveling men. Sabetha is simply a metropolitan little city. Exclusive dry goods stores, hardware stores, clothing stores, shoe stores, millinery stores, drug stores, implement stores and other lines of business are splendidly represented in Sabetha. The town draws trade from a wide territory.
Sabetha's white houses and clean streets have attracted attention to the place as a spotless town. The people are generally well-to-do, and the whole of the city can be called "the nice part of town."
REMINISCENCES OF THE LATE J. T. BRADY.
About the seventeenth day of April, 1859, I left the little town of Virginia, Ill., where I was reared. My companions were two other young men about my own age-Joseph Pothicury and William H. Col- lins, (whose sister I married some years later). We had a covered wagon and three yoke of oxen. Of course, our good mothers had fixed us out with the necessary clothing, pans and kettles, pins, needles and thread, and plenty of their good home cooking.
Our prospective destination was Pike's Peak, and at Beardstorm, Ill., fifteen miles from home, we met the balance of our party-twenty- three people and four wagons, with three yoke of oxen to each wagon. Without any special adventures, we traveled from there to Hiawatha, Kans. There we met a party of about a dozen men, returning from Pike's Peak. One of the men I had known from boyhood. He gave us a woeful account of the hardships to be endured, and no gold to be found. We went on from Hiawatha to Walnut creek and camped. That night we had a council of all present, and as a result, sixteen of our party turned their faces homeward next day.
Ten of us went on to Sabetha. One of the ten men is now an esteemed resident of Sabetha, John L. Mowder. Three others, one a brother of Mowder, one named Lewis and one Cenover. All took claims just west of Sabetha, as did John Mowder. Right here I must tell a story: They built a little one room shanty on John Mowder's place. He ate his breakfast in it, then we three Virginian boys hitched our oxen to it and hauled it over to another claim, and that man ate his
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breakfast in it, and so we kept on until all four had eaten a breakfast in the shack on his own claim. Then they all struck out on foot for Kickapoo, where they proved up, each one testifying there was a shanty on his claim when he left. (Each one left as soon as he ate his break- fast). That was the way most of the proving up was done in those pioneer days in Kansas.
We landed in Sabetha on May 26, 1859. Three miles north of Sa- betha lived two men we knew, also from Virginia, Ill., B. H. Job, and his brother, Thomas. We three boys had just three dollars in cash, and one wagon and oxen, so we decided to cast our lot in the vicinity of Mr. Job, whose wife was a fine character, and once in awhile, we could visit the family, and get a taste of good home cooking and talk of our far away homes. Times were hard indeed, and for the first two years we never saw a dollar. Posts, corn, pumpkins, flour, wheat and other things were the only currency, and the "home" folks sent us postage stamps so we could answer their letters.
The second Sunday we were in Sabetha we took a load of men, women and children over to church in Albany with one ox team. Mr. Archibald Moorehead owned the only two spans of horses in the whole country.
On July 4 of that year, two loads of people in ox wagons went from Albany to Padonia to celebrate. There were only two houses between Sabetha and Hiawatha. One was Mr. Joss', the other, Mr. Hatfield's. There were only three families in Sabetha in 1859, that of Capt. A. W. Williams, Mr. Risen and Mr. Oldfields. Williams had a general mer- chandise store and was postmaster. Mr. Risen kept a grocery store. Captain Williams and Mr. Oldfield each filed on 160 acres in 1856, Cap- tain Williams taking the west 160, which he filed as a townsite naming it Sabetha. But no town appeared on the scene. In 1862 Williams lost the postoffice at Sabetha, and it was given to W. B. Slosson, of Albany. In 1861, I enlisted in Company A, Seventh Kansas cavalry. After serv- in three years, I was discharged and then went to Pawnee county, Ne- braska, where, for three years, I was a partner with Governor Butler in the cattle business. After selling out I returned to Kansas and went into business with T. B. Collins and made my home in his family until my marriage to his sister, December 22, 1870.
In the spring of 1870, the Grand Island railroad was building west from St. Joseph, Mo. Archibald Moorehead was one of Nemaha's county commissioners, and the county had voted $125,000 bonds to the new railroad. Slosson brothers, Moorehead, Brady and Collins worked hard to get the railroad into Albany, but when surveyed, the officials thought it too expensive a route to be practical. There was bitter rivalry be- tween the towns of Albany and Sabetha. When the railroad people de- cided they would not build to Albany, W. B. Slosson went east of Albany and contracted for eighty acres in Brown county (where Hiram Fulton settled later.) Then he went to St. Joseph and planned with
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the railroad. officials to build a depot on the eighty acres, and call it Georgetown, for George Hall, president of the road. He also had posts brought from the nearby timber to help build the depot, before any one else knew of the scheme, as that region was then one vast prairie. Later the officials saw that Mr. Moorhead as county commissioner would never consent to issue the bonds that had been voted if the town was located in Brown county, and so they voted Sabetha the depot.
We went home to Sabetha and formed what is known as "The Sa- betha Town Company," each member being a director. We bought the original townsite of 160 acres from Captain Williams for $7,000.
As I remember it, the "town company" consisted of nine men, but I can only recall six besides myself : Colonel Harbine, Dr. McNeil, and George Hall, all of St. Joseph, and directors in the Grand Island road, W. B. Slosson, Elihn Whittenhall and T. B. Collins.
J. T. Brady was chosen president, Whittenhall secretary and WV. B. Slosson, treasurer, and these officials constituted the executive board, and were authorized to plat the land and sell the lots as in their judg- ment seemed best. I cannot say who made the suggestion regarding the block for a city park, but it met with hearty approval of all the board, and the three officers were equally deserving of honor in connec- tion with it.
Lots were also given to the Methodist, Congregationalist and Bap- tist churches.
In losing out on the townsite, the town company left one share ($1,000) for Mr. Slosson, provided he wanted it. At first he refused it, but after a few weeks, he took it, put up a building and moved his store to Sabetha, and from that time on, was a staunch and loyal friend of Sabetha.
Mr. Sam Slosson was the first station agent on the Grand Island railroad at Hamlin, and when the road reached Sabetha, he was trans- ferred there, and for some years, was the efficient agent.
Brady and Collins formed a company called "Collins & Company," consisting of four men. T. B. and Ira F. Collins, WV. I. Robbins and J. T. Brady. They put up the first store building in Sabetha in the fall of . 1870, and opened up a general merchandise store, selling everything from a cambric needle to a threshing machine, and shipping grain, cat- tle and hogs.
They ran the store one year and the books showed they sold $127,000 worth of goods, and all the loss was less than $300, although most everyone who asked for credit got it. They sold goods to people as far north as Dawson, Neb., and west to Fries' mills and Turkey creek and south to Granada.
Mr. Hook put up his hotel that fall, and it was the first building completed in the new town of Sabetha. Black & Marbourg opened up their lumber yard in September, 1870. A Mr. Gebhart built a small build- ing, consisting of a story and a half about where the Adams hardware store was later, and here he had the first drug store.
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HISTORY OF NEMAHA COUNTY
Rev. Gates, (or Gage maybe-ask Mr. Black), a Baptist minister from Highland was the first minister, and we often entertained him at our home. He usually came over from Highland twice a month, com- ing on Saturday and returning on Monday. The women of Sabetha united in giving socials and festivals to buy the first church bell, and it was hung in the Baptist Church, then the only church in town. The son of Rev. Gates later attained prominence as John D. Rockefeller's private secretary.
CHAPTER XI.
CORNING.
ITS PECULIARITIES-A SOLID TOWN-FOUNDED BY A COLONY FROM GALES- BURG, ILL .- DR. MCKAY-NAMED IN HONOR OF ERASMUS CORNING -. POSTOFFICE ESTABLISHED IN 1867-FIRST STORE- LOCATION OF TOWN CHANGED WHEN RAILROAD WAS BUILT-FIRST HOTEL-JACOB JACOBIA-FIRST SCHOOL-PRESENT SCHOOL-DR. MAGILL-MODERN CORNING-HIGHEST POINT IN COUNTY-NATHAN FORD AND THE DROUTH OF 1860-POPULATION AND BUSINESS HOUSES.
Each town has its peculiarities and specialties. Seneca is famous for its social gaieties, its entertainments for the young, amateur theatri- cals, fine band, Community church and fine baseball team. Sabetha points with pride to its modern business buildings, musical organizations and municipally owned public works.
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