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Gc 978.2 C23p 1192490
GENEALOGY COLLECTION
ALLEN COUNTY PUBLIC LIBRARY 3 1833 01065 6905
Progressive Men of Nebraska ;
A BOOK OF PORTRAITS
DODGE COUNTY EDITION
Introduction by ROSS L. HAMMOND
Historical Review of Dodge County; Compiled from Public and Private Records
With an Appendix Information for
the Citizen and Taxpayer
Edited by DANIEL M. CARR
PROGRESS PUBLISHING COMPANY HAMMOND BROS. & CARR, PROPS., FREMONT, NEB.
1902
COPYRIGHTED 1902 BY DANIEL M. CARR
PROGRESSIVE MEN
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T THE WORTHY MEN WHO MID MANY HARDSHIPS BRAVED THE LONELI- NESS OF LIFE ON THE FRONTIER, AND BY THEIR EFFORTS TRANSFORMED THE VIRGIN PRAIRIE INTO A GARDEN-SPOT NOT EXCELLED IN ALL THE UNION OF STATES, AND TO THEIR WIVES, SONS AND DAUGHTERS, AND TO THE THOUS- ANDS OF OTHERS WHO BY HONEST WORK AND ENDEAVOR IN DIFFERENT VOCATIONS, HAVE ASSISTED IN DEVELOPING THE WONDERFUL RESOURCES OF DODGE COUNTY, IS THIS VOLUME DEDICATED : : . : : : : : :
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PUBLISHERS' NOTICE.
HIS volume is the initial one of a series, new and unique in design, and is the first effort made to collect in a volume a considerable number of portraits of the citi- zens who have been foremost in furthering the inter- ests of their county or community. Heretofore all attempts in the direction of securing and preserving the portraits of the worthy ones identified with any section of country has been carried on in such manner and the cost made so great to those who should have been interested, that only a few received representation, and as a portrait record such a volume generally has been of small value. In this work the greatest effort of the publishers has been to make it as complete as possible. Perfection is not claimed for this work, nor can a compilation of this class be made complete, for no matter how painstaking the publishers and their representatives in the field may be, there are influences beyond their power to control that preclude the carrying out of their plans in the fullest. It is with regret that many portraits of worthy and enter- prising citizens have been omitted from this volume. Yet this book is representative of the sterling element of the county. But few of the pioneers who during life were active in business and public affairs and who are now numbered with the dead, have been neglected. Herein can be seen many copies of the only likenesses of deceased citizens of
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Dodge county, and in this work their portraits will be preserved for generations yet unborn. It is sad to contemplate that many were called away and through neglect left no portrait, while many of the portraits obtained were old-fashioned daguerreotypes or so much faded as to be reproduced with the greatest difficulty.
It is not the purpose of this work to give an exhaustive county his- tory; its field is to present portraits of the men who have been makers of county history. Neither does it enter the biographical field. All in this volume pertaining to county history has been gathered from the most reliable sources, and plainness and brevity is aimed at rather than verbosity and fulsome inflation.
To all who have supported this undertaking which has been carried through under many difficulties and adverse circumstances, the publish- ers extend their grateful acknowledgments.
HAMMOND BROS. & CARR.
Fremont, Neb., July 1, 1902.
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INTRODUCTION.
ROM whatever point, be it ever so elevated, only a nar- row view can be had of the wondrous All that has been accomplished by the work of progressive man. Not half a century has passed since the vast tract lying between the Missouri river and the Rocky mountains, now a bloom- ing garden of tens of thousands of square miles and supporting millions of prosperous, God-fearing and happy people, was known as the "Great American Desert." The transformation of this vast territory has been phenomenal. A generation has barely passed since white men first looked toward it with a view of building upon its broad expanse homes for themselves and their families. There are still living hundreds and thousands who have witnessed its progress from the virgin prairie to innumerable farms, rich and productive and which, in the picture, forms the beautiful background of hundreds of thriving, populous and prosperous cities pulsating with life and industry. The wonders of the Arabian Nights have no greater charm or fascination than the story of the growth and development of the Great West. In all this vast area there is no section better illustrative of the miracles wrought by brain and brawn of man than in Dodge county. Hundreds are still living within its limits who have seen its magical changes. These have viewed the flight-the annihilation of herds of buffalo; the dispersion of the
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Indian from what was for centuries unknown to the historian, his camp- ing and hunting ground, and whose council house has been replaced by stately churches and halls of justice, and whose tepee has given way for palatial residences and fine schools of higher civilization.
The far-off glitter of gold caused caravans of struggling, determined humanity to blaze paths over the expansive plains, the sturdy pioneer planted his standard on their trails and by his labors accomplished in a few short years a work that will live through all the generations to come. Where the painted red-man chased the buffalo and the antelope and engaged betimes in barbarous combat with his enemy, and following in the wake of the argonauts, tracks of steel have made a net-work, and over them fiery, steaming, fast-flying locomotives carry hordes of active pleasure-seeking, wealth-craving human beings, and millions and millions of dollars represented in products of the once "Great American Desert."
The whole world has devoted a portion of its energy in the form of sturdy men and hearty women for the development of the resources of the wonderful country of which Dodge county is a part. It is of the county itself this article is principally intended to deal. From the fire- sides of New England, New York, the central states, the north, the south, came the forerunners of the many thousands who followed to make for themselves homes within the county. It is but just that these pioneers find a permanent place in the annals of the country which they so bravely assisted in developing. This is the purpose of this small volume.
A comparison of the past with the present gives us a better under- standing of the growth and advancement made the past forty-two years. In 1860 the total population of Dodge county was 309; in 1870, 4,212; in 1880, 11, 191; in 1890, 19,260; and in 1900, 22,298.
According to the report of the county treasurer made in 1860, the funds of the county were as follows:
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Territorial Fund
$300.00
County
612.12
School 66
201.20
Poll and Road Fund
397.94
Total
$1,511.26
The monthly report of the county treasurer, bearing date of April 30, 1902, showed the following balances in the different funds:
State Consolidated. $ 4,507.73
County, General,
4,218.91
Sinking.
37,580.91
Road .
3,213.57
Bridge. 3,761.33
School District. 17,929.76
Bond.
13,432.13
Cities and Villages
3,454.32
Townships .
3,625.54
Miscellaneous.
25,791.27
Total
$117.514 96
The total bonded indebtedness of the county is $141,000.
Within the county, according to the reports of the assessors made in 1901, there were 213,746 acres of improved land, and 103, 168 acres of unimproved, all of which, estimated at $50 per acre shows the landed wealth of the county to be $15,845,700. In 1901 there were 8,326 head of horses; 26,544 head of cattle; 431 head of mules; 9 972 head of sheep and 25,372 head of hogs, besides other domestic animals. The stock here enumerated represents a value exceeding $2,262,000. An approxi- mate estimate of the value of all other property classed as personal is $5 812,854. Thus we find the total wealth of the county reaches the magnificent amount of $23.920,000, and this is a figure far below the actual value.
The acreage planted in the leading crops in 1901 was as follows:
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Wheat, 27, 162; corn, 101,980; oats, 33,229; barley, 886; rye, 767; sugar beets, 3,050; and in meadow, 31,671. Averaging the crops by the usual yield in the county, in 1901 the wheat crop amounted to 698,850 bushels; corn, 4,079,200 bushels; oats, S30,725 bushels. Considering other crops, fruits and vegetables, the agricultural wealth produced in Dodge county in 1901, is sufficiently large enough to give the most enthusiastic statis- tician a broad field for speculation.
The financial institutions of the county in their reports reflect the general prosperity of the people. In the county there are six national banks, two savings banks and seven state banks, whose combined capital is $718,000. The surplus and profits of these institutions the first quarter of 1902, amounted to $232,100. Their loans amounted to $1,851,005, and deposits to the amount of $3,348,74S. When it is known that about two-thirds of the deposits belong to the agricultural classes, some idea of the prosperity of the Dodge county farmer can be formed.
While the scramble for wealth goes on, the moral and the intel- lectual is not overlooked. Within the county outside of the city of Fre- mont there are 83 school districts, with 84 schoolhouses. The total value of district property is $250,814, of which schoolhouses supply a value of $192,103. The total indebtedness of all school districts is $60,732.71. In 1901 156 teachers were employed in the schools outside of the city of Fremont. The total number of children of school age in the county is 8,262 ; total attendance during 1901, 5,972, with an average daily attendance of 3.766.
It is not the purpose to herein give in detail all that appertains to the county's progress, for to do justice would require a volume larger than this. All that has been accomplished is the result of zealous and ceaseless effort by those who have chosen Dodge county as their resi- dence place. To these is all credit due for the county's prosperity. It
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is with satisfaction that this work is presented to the public containing as it does more than four hundred portraits of men-living and dead- who have by their work assisted in making Dodge county the wealthy, prosperous one it is, and who have for themselves gained a worthy place among the progressive men of Nebraska.
No interest in Dodge county exceeds in importance the men and women of the county. This volume is devoted to picturing the men. The portraits are an epitome of the history of the county. They repre- sent its pluck and push, its intelligence and moral fiber. Many are pioneers; others came later and took up the work of home building with them. Some day, it may be, there will be published a book of portraits of the women, also. The pioneer women deserve a high place in history. They bore with patience and courage the hardships of early days, greater than the men, for they not only had to endure the same hardships but they also had to endure the men.
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DODGE COUNTY COURT-HOUSE.
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HISTORICAL.
AR back in a period so remote that there are no records of it only those that lie buried in the stratas of the earth's crust, the little section of Nebraska now known as Dodge county was the living place of animals that exist to-day only in skeleton, and clay and plaster models in the museums of the world. Those animals of the Miocene and Pliocene periods lived in a country so vastly different from the Dodge county and Nebraska of to-day as are the sunny Antilles different from the polar regions. Scientists say that these great mammals-specimens of the rhinoceros, camel, elephant, mastodon, the musk-deer, several species of the horse now extinct, and various other quadrupeds known to the scientists and paleontologists of the present only by bones recovered from the earth's recesses-lived some millions of years ago among gigantic plants and flora such as people of the present can picture only by the most lively exercise of the imagination. Not alone did these great animals abound in the little tract now Dodge county, but roamed over a great part of what is now the state of Nebraska. Then came a period when the land was covered with water-a great lake whose rich deposits now give wealth to the land and make it among the richest for agricultural purposes that can be found in all these United States.
It matters little to people living in this age whether or not it was a thousand years, ten thousand or ten million years ago that such a condi-
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tion existed, but that it did exist in the light of modern knowledge is a matter indisputable. At a more recent time before the advent of the white man in Nebraska, it was a paradise for animals-buffalo, elk, deer, beaver, foxes -all were in abundance and at home on the prairies and slopes and along the streams.
Just who was the first civilized white man to visit what is now Dodge county, perhaps will ever remain a mere matter of conjecture. It may be possible that the noted de Coronado and his associates in 1541 visited this section, for it is certainly a part of what he was pleased to call Gran Quivira-where he saw the strange animal, the buffalo. It is within the range of possibility that this garden spot was visited by the good Father Padilla, the Franciscan friar, who accompanied Coronado, and who later with a single guide and a few Indian servants as his com- panions, started from old Mexico and traveled to the Platte river, there intending to labor in teaching the poor Indian the Word of Life and the love of the Savior. Fate was unkind to Padilla, and soon after his arrival in the land of Quivira he was slain by savages whom he thought to be friendly. His body was laid at rest near the Platte river, and while the exact place has never been learned it is possible that they may rest in Dodge county. Padilla was the first Christian missionary to become a martyr for his Master on American soil, and surely blessed should be Dodge county if within its limits his mold reposes.
For some two hundred years it is not known that any other white man ever set foot within the limits of Nebraska. It may be that ven- turesome men who in the early part of the eighteenth century became identified with wandering Indian tribes visited Nebraska and Dodge county, but if such be the case no records have been left. About the middle of the eighteenth century French missionaries crossed from Canada and visited different sections of the Mississippi and Missouri river country. In their annals reference is made to the Indians and the country now supposed to have been west of the Missouri in what is Nebraska. About the first of the nineteenth century French fur traders from St. Louis had their trading posts among the Indians along the Missouri and Platte rivers.
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In 1804 the first authentic information of the country and its people was gained by the Lewis and Clarke expedition. It was in the middle of July, 1804, that the expedition reached the Platte river and visited with the Otoes, who at that time consisted of some two hundred souls and made their homes along the Elkhorn and Missouri rivers. Further west were the Pawnees. Some two weeks were spent by the members of the expedition in the neighborhood of the Platte and Missouri rivers, and no doubt those brave men trod upon the soil of this county.
In 1820 an expedition under Major Stephen N. Long, acting upon orders of John C. Calhoun, then secretary of war of the United States, after camping during the winter a few miles from Bellevue, or "Council Bluffs," on the west side of the Missouri, early in the spring of that year followed the north bank of the Platte river westward until they had the first sight of the Rocky mountains. The same year the party returned by following the Platte river to its mouth. The first settlement was made in Nebraska in 1847 by Peter A. Sarpy, who for years conducted a trading post for the American Fur company, though as early as 1823 a school had been established at "Council Bluffs" or Bellevue, but was discontinued on account of the indifference manifested by the Indians in the matter of education. It was not until 1854 that there was any con- certed action toward the making of homes in what was then thought to be a land of little agricultural promise.
COUNTY ORGANIZATION.
The organization of Dodge county was by territorial act approved March 15, 1855. This act defined the boundaries of the county as follows:
"Commencing at a point on the Platte river, at the southwest corner of Douglas county, running westerly along said Platte river to the mouth of Shell creek, thence north twenty-five miles; thence east to the western bounds of Washington county ; thence south to place of beginning. The town of Fontanelle shall be the place of justice in and for said county."
By an act approved November 2 1858, a boundary line was estah- lished between Washington and Dodge counties as follows:
"Beginning at the fourth standard parallel, two miles east of the
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southwest corner of township seventeen ( 17), range ten (10), east of the Sixth P. M ; thence north twelve miles to the line between ranges nine (9) and ten (10) ; thence north to the south line of Burt county."
The boundaries of Dodge county were finally fixed as they exist to-day by an act of the state legislature in 1869, when the line between Burt and Dodge counties was established as follows:
"Commencing at the northwest corner of township twenty, north of range eight, east; and thence east along the Fifth standard parallel to the northeast corner of section six, township twenty, north of range nine, east; thence south on the section line one mile east of, and parallel with the guide meridian, four miles to the north line of Washington county, as defined by the act of the legislature of the territory of Nebraska, approved February 9, 1857."
Dodge county is bounded on the north by Cuming and Burt coun- ties; on the east by Washington and Burt counties; on the south by Saunders and Douglas counties and on the west by Colfax county. Its area is about five hundred and nine square miles, or 325,546 acres, divided into fourteen townships, viz: Webster, Pebble, Cuming, Logan, Pleasant Valley, Ridgeley, Everett, Hooper, Union, Cotterell, Maple, Nickerson, Platte and Elkhorn.
FREMONT'S FIRST POSTOFFICE.
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GROUP OF SHORT-HORN CATTLE ON A DODGE COUNTY FARM.
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TOPOGRAPHY.
The topography of the county presents an undulating surface with wide tracts of prairie and level tracts along the Platte and Elkhorn rivers and at places along the smaller streams. The soil is an alluvial deposit, a rich loam in places mixed with sand. There are few sloughs in the county, all its great area being under natural drainage. More than eighty-five per cent is susceptible to high cultivation, and is unequaled in fertility by any other like area within all the United States. The county is well-watered and drained by the Elkhorn, the principal stream of the county, which was given its name by Lewis and Clarke in their diary of their expedition in 1834; the Rawhide, Cuming, Pebble, Logan, Clark and Maple creeks, all of which flow in a general easterly direction. It is well here to give the origin of the names of the creeks: Rawhide was so called on account of Pawnee Indians capturing a man, Seth Esterbrook, who was with a party of immigrants bound for Cali- fornia, and skinning him alive for wantonly shooting a squaw to fulfil a promise made to shoot the first Indian he saw. He was taken from among his comrades, and after being firmly bound was skinned alive, dying before the operation was completed. His skin was tanned and was retained by the Pawnees as long as they remained in Nebraska terri- tory and taken with them to their reservation in the Indian Territory.
Pebble creek contains in places numerous white pebbles, and these were abundant at one of the early fords used by pioneers and troops, and from these was its name derived, and later the township of the same name was called for the stream.
Logan creek was named after Logan Fontanelle, a kind chief of the Omaha tribe, and after whom was also named the old town of Fonta- nelle, which was the first seat of government of Dodge county and a rival of Omaha for the capital of the territory of Nebraska.
Clark creek was named after Dr. M. H. Clark who was territorial representative from Dodge county.
The name of Maple creek was given it on account of groves of soft maple on its banks. Upon this creek the first settlement in the county was made in 1856.
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The soil of the county is adapted to the growing of every kind of cereal and vegetable that can be cultivated in a temperate climate. All the hardy fruits thrive, and from the first settlement of the county more than ordinary attention has been given to the growing and care of orchards which dot the county from border to border. Apples, pears, plums, peaches, apricots, cherries, and all the smaller fruits are grown in abundance. The chief cereal crops are wheat, rye, oats, corn, and flax and all the various grasses grow luxuriantly. Potatoes and all tuberous vegetables produce prodigiously and of highest quality. The production of sugar beets has received more than ordinary attention the past half dozen years and thousands of acres are cultivated each year to supply the immense beet sugar plant at Leavitt, some nine miles west of Fremont.
FIRST SETTLEMENT,
While there are no records to show that any permanent settlement had been made in the section now comprising Dodge county, before 1856, for many years prior venturesome hunters and trappers had lived along the Platte and the Elkhorn, and the country had become well known to the early freighters across the plains. A few years before the founding of Fremont, a camping place had been established near what later became the site of North Bend. The first permanent settle- ments date from 1856, that year settlements having been made both at Fremont and where North Bend is now located. Both these sites occupy positions traversed by the old military road from Omaha to Fort Kearney, and were on the main trail north of the Platte of the immigrants bound for the Rocky Mountains and beyond. In those days the Indian was a menace to the peace and safety of the overland travelers, and the settlers as well. On the south side of the Platte river opposite the site of Fremont there were a few thousand Pawnee Indians occupying the bluffs. They were inclined to be troublesome when they first noticed the encroachment of the white men into the country which they claimed as their own, but to which they had no right, the Omahas having claimed the land and by treaty made some years before relinquished their right to the United States.
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The first permanent settlement made in Dodge county as it is now defined, was near Maple creek in April, 1856, by John and Arthur Bloomer. On the 4th day of July following, a party from Lake county, Illinois, consisting of George Young and wife, Robert, John, William and Alexander Miller, and Elizabeth Miller, who later became the wife of Hon. William H. Ely of Fremont, and George McNaughton, landed overland at the place where the town of North Bend was laid out a year later. There they camped until they could erect rough cottonwood cabins, which they proceeded to do. The lands of Nebraska were just opened to settlement in this section, and they "squatted" on the tracts they had chosen until a survey could be made, and at a later period duly entered their homestead claims.
FOUNDING OF FREMONT,
About a month after the Millers and others arrived at North Bend a start was made toward the foundation of a town in the eastern part of the county by the Fremont Town Company, which was launched by Pinney, Barnard & Co., consisting of George M. Pinney, James G. Smith, Robert Kittle, Robert Moorland-later killed by Indians-John A. Koontz, Seth P. Marvin and E. H. Barnard. These gentlemen landed in the vicinity of the present site of Fremont August 23rd, 1856, and the townsite company was organized on the 26th of the same month, and stakes were set outlining the proposed town and the boundaries of the same. The first habitation of any kind for the use of white men was erected by Messrs. Barnard and Koontz at the time the townsite was staked out. It was a roughly improvised cabin built of poles and thatched with prairie grass, and served as a place of shelter for them- selves and wayfarers, everyone needing a sheltering place being wel- comed to it so long as it afforded room. This little wayside hostelry stood on the site where now stands the Congregational church in the the city of Fremont. The first settlers who are now living all remem- ber this abode, which at times sheltered more than a dozen from the inclement weather. Robert Kittle was the first to erect a house of any pretentions. It was built of "peeled" cottonwood logs, shingled with
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