History of Gage County, Nebraska; a narrative of the past, with special emphasis upon the pioneer period of the county's history, its social, commercial, educational, religious, and civic development from the early days to the present time, Part 26

Author: Dobbs, Hugh Jackson, 1849-
Publication date: 1918
Publisher: Lincoln, Neb., Western Publishing and Engraving Company
Number of Pages: 1120

USA > Nebraska > Gage County > History of Gage County, Nebraska; a narrative of the past, with special emphasis upon the pioneer period of the county's history, its social, commercial, educational, religious, and civic development from the early days to the present time > Part 26

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Fred Wenger Oliver Townsend

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HISTORY OF GAGE COUNTY, NEBRASKA

Be It Ordained by the Board of Trustees of the Town of Beatrice

That the said town be, and the same is here- by, incorporated as a city of the second class, by the name of the "City of Beatrice."

This ordinance shall be published in the Beatrice Express, a newspaper in said town, for two (2) weeks, successively, and to take effect and be in force from and after the 5th day of April, 1873.

At the ensuing municipal election for that year, S. C. B. Dean, a lawyer of great ability and learning, was elected mayor ; E. S. Chad- wick, an able young lawyer, police judge; O. A. Avery, marshal; William A. Wagner, city clerk ; Samuel C. Smith, city treasurer ; Wil- liam Bradt, C. G. Dorsey, J. E. Hill and Wil- liam Lamb councilmen, of the city of Beatrice.

At this time, the population of the city had materially increased since the census of 1870, when it stood at 624. At the time the first city council was elected, in 1873, it probably exceeded 1,500. It was growing rapidly ; the census of 1880 showed a population of 2,447, and it had begun to assume the proportions and attributes of a flourishing western city.

The street shown furthest north in the ac- companying birdseye view of Beatrice in 1874 is Washington, the one furthest south is Scott, while Tenth instead of Thirteenth is shown as the eastern boundary of the city. The bridge in the foreground is the Curtis & Peavey bridge, on Market street; the first lo- cation of the Burlington depot is shown where Grant street apparently terminates. Roper's mill, with the dam, is properly located above the bridge. "Pap's Cabin" appears south of the string of empty cars. The old court house appears in its proper place. West of it by a little north is the original Episcopal church building. The church, with spire, in the mid- dle foreground is the first church building of the Presbyterians. Southwest across the block is seen the old stone Methodist church, with parsonage, and southeast is the old frame school house, on the school block. Further east by south is the first high-school building. On the south the first Sixth street bridge is seen, with winding roads from east and north, across the prairie.

In April, 1891, an act of the legislature be- came effective which provided for the incor- poration of cities of the first class having less than 25,000 and more than 8,000 inhabitants, and regulating their duties, powers and gov- ernment. Pursuant to this statute, Lorenzo Crounse, governor of the state of Nebraska, on the 26th day of January, 1893, issued his proclamation declaring that Beatrice from and after that date was a city of the first class. In his proclamation the Governor recites the fact that the census of 1890 showed that the city possessed a population of 13,825. It can not be doubted that the actual population of Beatrice in 1890 was far short of the number of inhabitants returned by the census enu- merators, and probably less even than the minimum figure for cities of the class to which this proclamation assigned Beatrice. That census has been the subject of much just criticism, which applied not only to the cities but to the entire state of Nebraska. That it was a gross exaggeration of the facts respect- ing the population of the state and its cities is an admitted fact.

Since the original incorporation of the town of Beatrice, in 1871, which included only the three hundred and twenty acres of land com- prising the original townsite, a great many additions have been made to the superficial area of the city, until to-day it embraces ap- proximately thirty-two hundred acres of land. The principal additions to the city are Crop- sey's Addition, Weston's Additions, Smith Brothers' Addition, Fairview Addition, Pad- dock's Addition, Green's Addition, Grable & Beachley's Addition, Grable & Beachley's Sec- ond and Third Additions, Yule & Son's Park Addition, and Glenover Addition-on the north and west; Lamb's Subdivision, Henry H. Lamb's Subdivision, Barney's Subdivision, and Wittenberg Addition - on the east; the town of South Beatrice and the First and Sec- ond Additions to the town of South Beatrice, Cole's Addition, Riverside Park Addition, Brumback's Additions, Belvidere Heights, and Highland Park Addition-on the south ; Harrington's Subdivision, McConnell's First and Second Subdivisions, West Park Addition,

BIRD'S-EYE VIEW OF BEATRICE, 1874

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HISTORY OF GAGE COUNTY, NEBRASKA

Scheve's Addition, Milligan's Addition and McConnell's Addition - on the west. The city also contains numerous small subdivisions, places, and irregular tracts, which by ordi- nance have been incorporated into the city. These additions were largely made between the years 1885 and 1890 - a period which witnessed tremendous growth and expansion · in all directions in Beatrice, as well as in the state at large.

From the date of its organization into a city, March 18, 1873, to May 1, 1912, the mu- nicipal government of Beatrice had been strictly representative in character. The first act of the first city council was to divide the city of Beatrice into three wards. The city government consisted of a mayor and of coun- cilmen elected from each of the wards. Though modified to include four, five, and even six wards, the principal of representative municipal government was preserved, and the citizens at large, through their councilmen, had direct representation in the affairs of the city. The clerk, treasurer, police judge, and other administrative officers were elected by the people at the time the mayor and council were chosen. The chief of police, policemen, street commissioner, city attorney, and some other minor officers were appointed by the mayor, with the advice and consent of the council. Speaking generally, this form of municipal government up to a score of years ago was universal throughout the United States, and it is still the form under which the vast majority of cities are governed, including the great metropolitan cities of New York, Philadelphia, Boston, Pittsburgh, Chicago, and St. Louis.

About the year 1900 there arose in many of the states a system of municipal govern- ment designated commission government or government by commission, which in a large measure did away wholly with the old repre- sentative form of municipal government. This heresy spread with some rapidity in the west and mid-west portions of the country. In 1911 the legislature of Nebraska passed an act providing for the commission form of govern- ment in all cities having more than 5,000

population, and at the election held in Beatrice in 1912 it was voted to abandon the repre- sentative form and adopt the new method of government. The centralizing of power in a few hands may possess some advantages as applied to civic affairs, but any form of gov- ernment, municipal or otherwise, which aban- dons in whole or in part the representative principle, lays an ax at the roots of free insti- tutions, and this because it is evident that if delegated powers may be given to two, three or five men, they can be conferred upon one, and a free community pass into the hands of a dictator. The weakness of commission govern- ment as applied to cities, and its unrepresenta- tive character, must in time become manifest, and it is doubtful whether the people will long continue a system which in effect bars the active participation of the public to an appre- ciable extent in municipal affairs.

Toward the close of the period marked by the year 1870, it became apparent that the growing needs of the county demanded facili- ties for transacting public business. The county possessed neither court house nor jail.

The county offices were housed around town, wherever quarters could be had. If the incumbent of the office happened to live in the county seat, he carried his office around with him, or kept it at his dwelling or place of business. The board of county commission- ers, or the county court, as that body was legally designated for many years, was com- pelled to hold its meetings at the residence of the member in Beatrice or the places of busi- ness at the county seat willing to accommodate them. The courts were held first at "Pap's Cabin," but when the Griggs & Webb building, on Court, between Third and Fourth streets, was erected, in the fall of 1868, the upper floor of that edifice was used for several years as a court room.

That a movement should be made in a rap- idly growing town to secure a court house and jail was the natural outcome of these condi- tions, and on August 20, 1869, a petition was presented to the county court, or board of county commissioners, signed by H. M. Rey- nolds, Nathan Blakely, Orrin Stevens, and

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HISTORY OF GAGE COUNTY, NEBRASKA

sixty-eight other electors of the county, pray- ing for the submission to a vote of the people at the next general election of a proposition to bond the county in the sum of ten thousand dollars, for the erection of a county court house and jail at Beatrice, the county seat.

On the 1st day of September, 1869, the county clerk was directed to include in the call for the annual election to be held October 12, 1869, the proposition for the issuance of such bonds, and the ballots at the election fairly submitted this question to the voters of the county. The canvass of the votes showed. a majority in favor of issuing the bonds, and in January, 1870, the matter of erecting the court house was taken up in earnest by the county board. On the 6th day of that month, the county clerk, Oliver Townsend, was directed to advertise in the Beatrice Clarion for bids for the erection of both a court house and a jail, costing not less than ten thousand dollars, all bids to be accompanied by plans and speci- fications.

About this time the question arose as to where the new court house should be erected. The founders of Beatrice had provided for county buildings by dedicating the block bounded on the north by Ella, on the east by Ninth, on the south by Court, and on the west by Eighth street; but when it became appar- ent that the county commissioners were about to act in the matter of locating the county buildings, A. J. Cropsey, of Lincoln, who had been a state officer in Nebraska and who had laid out an addition on the north of the origi- nal town of Beatrice, designated and known as Cropsey's Addition, appeared upon the scene and made an offer to the county board, composed of H. M. Wickham and others, to donate block 24 of his addition to the county for court-house purposes, and the south half of block 11 for the purpose of a jail. Mr. Cropsey included also in his offer certain other inducements. The county commissioners ac- cepted these offers and abandoned to the first comer the "public square" which the founders of Beatrice had dedicated to court-house pur- poses. Daniel Freeman, who was sheriff of the county in 1870-1871, quickly saw the weak-

ness of this move and took possession of the square, fenced it and placed a couple of small dwelling houses on it. In 1873 the legislature passed an act entitled, "An Act to Quiet Title to Certain Portions of the City of Beatrice." Section 3 of the act reads as follows :

That the dedication to the county of Gage of the block known as the "public square" in the said city of Beatrice, lying between block ' 52 on the east, and block 51 on the west, is hereby ratified and confirmed, and the legal and equitable title thereto, in fee-simple, is hereby vested in said county of Gage, to be used as a site for public buildings, either for the said Gage county, or for the said city of Beatrice, or otherwise, as may seem proper.

In August, 1874, through the agency of a distress warrant for taxes, an effort was made by the county treasurer to dispossess Free- man. This proved abortive and in the end served to strengthen his hold on the property. (Freeman vs. Webb et al., 27 Neb., 160.) No effort appears to have been made by the county at any time by direct suit to assert its title to this property, either under the act of dedica- tion or the above described act of the legisla- ture, and in process of time Freeman's pos- session, as the law then stood, ripened into a perfect title.

On the 19th day of August, 1870, the con- tract for the erection of a court house at Be- atrice on block 24 of Cropsey's Addition to the city, was let to Binns & Fordham. The contract price of this structure was $11,196.01, and it was to be erected in accordance with the plans and specifications furnished by the contractors and adopted by the county board. The building was a two-story, brick structure, with stone foundation and trimmings; it was about forty feet square, with both north and south frontage, connected by a straight hall- way, six feet wide, through the entire build- ing.

The lower floor of this old court house was wholly occupied by the county offices, while the upper story was used exclusively as a dis- trict court-room, with two connected jury rooms. This floor was reached by a stairway which started from the lower hallway at the middle of the east side and led directly to the

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HISTORY OF GAGE COUNTY, NEBRASKA

second floor, terminating in a short hall which led westward to the district court room.

Before the work was completed the con- tractors suggested modifications of the plans, which they agreed to make for one thousand dollars in addition to the contract price of the building, and which were accepted by the county board. The work progressed rapidly, and on April 19, 1871, the first court house of

county offices were moved to the stone building at the corner of Fourth and Court streets, then occupied by the Nebraska National Bank. The county court and the sheriff's office were later moved to the basement in the Masonic Temple building, at the corner of Sixth and Court streets, the present site of the Beatrice National Bank. In the latter part of 1889 the court house was wholly abandoned, dis-

FIRST COURT HOUSE AT BEATRICE

our county was turned over to the county and formally accepted by the commissioners - James Pettigrew, Solon M. Hazen, and Hor- ace M. Wickham. The total cost of this old building, including a vault for the county treasurer, and all extras, was $13,914.00. The grounds about the building were planted by Mr. Cropsey with cottonwood, maple and other forest trees, and for many years served to some extent the purposes of a park.

This first court house, product of the neces- sities of the pioneers, remained in constant use until the spring of 1887, when several of the

trict court being held at first in an old frame opera house at the corner of Fifth and Ella streets, where the fine two-story Kilpatrick building now stands, and later in a hall on the third floor of the Nebraska National Bank building.

No sooner had the county abandoned the property in part than A. J. Cropsey, who after a long absence from the state had returned to Lincoln, began in the United States district court at Omaha an action in ejectment against the county, to obtain possession of the court house square, alleging that the property had

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HISTORY OF GAGE COUNTY, NEBRASKA

been conveyed to the county for court-house purposes only, and, setting forth its abandon- ment by the county, charged that the title to this property had reverted to him as the gran- tor. After considerable evidence had been taken by deposition on both sides, the case was compromised and settled by this writer, as county attorney of Gage county, in March, 1889, by and with the approval of the county board, and a quit-claim deed taken from Crop- sey and his wife for both the court house square and the half block where the county jail was located.

In 1889-1890, after arrangements had been made to erect the present court house, the old building was demolished and became a thing of the past. But to those whose memories cover its history this old building will never cease to possess a deep interest on account of the part it played in the early development of our county and state. Here many of the law- yers who are now practicing at the bar of Gage county, and many others who have died or moved away, gained their first experience in the trial of causes; here much of the im- portant litigation, both civil and criminal, arising in our county was tried, including the two Marion murder trials (1883 and 1886), the Bradshaw murder trial (1883), the Reed murder trial (1883), the first Carson murder trial (1889), and many other cases of public interest and importance. Here also the county business was transacted from April 19, 1871, to April 1, 1887 ; here at desk and ledger toiled men, many of whose names are inseparably connected with the early history of our county. Among these names may be noted the following: Hiram P. Webb, John Ellis, J. F. King, E. J. Roderick, county treasurers ; the lamented Daniel E. Marsh, William D. Cox, John E. Hill, A. J. Pethoud, and George E. Emery, county clerks ; Oliver M. Enlow, John E. Hill (ex-officio), A. V. S. Saunders, and Frank H. Holt, clerks of the district court ; Daniel Freeman, Leander Y. Coffin, Eugene Mack, Nathaniel Herron, and E. F. Davis, sheriffs of our county ; C. A. Pease, J. W. Carter, Alfred Hazlett, Peter Shaffer, Joseph E. Cobbey, Ernest O. Kretsinger, and

Oliver M. Enlow, county judges ; Lucius B. Filley, J. R. Little, Matthew Weaverling, and M. D. Horham, county superintendents of . public schools.

Few are living now of all those who in the days of the old court house were prominent in the affairs of our county. All of the old trea- surers are gone; all of the old clerks but George E. Emery ; all of the clerks of the dis- trict court except A. V. S. Saunders ; all the sheriff's except Davis; and all the judges ex- cept Hazlett and Kretsinger, while not a single one of the old county superintendents is left.

All the days of the years of the old court house were great days for the citizens of Be- atrice and Gage county. In those days were laid broad and deep, and for all time to come, the foundations of one of the most progres- sive, homogeneous and patriotic counties in the entire state of Nebraska.

In the year 1887 our county abandoned the commissioner system of county government and adopted the supervisor system, and at a meeting of the board of supervisors held in February, 1889, steps were taken for the erec- tion of the present court house, on the site of the old, and a special election was called for May 7th of that year, in which a proposition for the issuance of the bonds of the county in the sum of one hundred thousand dollars for the purpose of erecting a court house at the county seat, was submitted to the voters of our county. Of the 5,059 votes cast at this election, 2,589 favored the proposition and 2,470 opposed it, leaving a clear majority for the bonds of 139 votes. Steps were about to. be taken for the issuance of these bonds and. the erection of the court house, when proceed- ings were inaugurated by citizens of Wymore to enjoin the work on the ground that the act under which the board of supervisors had pro- ceeded in calling the election was unconstitu- tional and therefore the election was void, and that the county board was without jurisdiction to bond the county for the purpose of erecting a court house. In the district court, Hon. A. D. McCandless, of Wymore, represented the plaintiffs in the action - Robert Fenton, A. Perkins, John Mordhorst, Michael Keckley,.

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HISTORY OF GAGE COUNTY, NEBRASKA

FEDERAL BUILDING.

GAGE COUNTY COURT HOUSE.

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HISTORY OF GAGE COUNTY, NEBRASKA

Patrick Murphy, and J. W. Bridenthal - while the writer of this history, as county at- torney, represented the defendants - Thomas Yule, as chairman of the board of supervisors, and George E. Emery, as county clerk of Gage county. The cause was instituted July 8, 1889, and a temporary restraining order was granted until a hearing could be had. On July 15th a demurrer was filed to the petition, on the ground that it did not state facts sufficient to constitute a cause of action against the de- fendants; and on July 17th Judge Jefferson H. Broady sustained the demurrer, dissolved the injunction and dismissed the bill at the cost of plaintiffs. The cause was then appealed to the supreme court of Nebraska, where it was ad- vanced and came up for hearing at the open- ing of the September term of that tribunal. At this hearing Mr. McCandless was assisted by Judge Oliver P. Mason ; and the writer, as attorney for the defendants, by G. M. Lam- bertson. On October 30, 1889, the case was again decided in favor of the validity of the bonds, by the court of last resort in Nebraska, (Fenton, et al. vs. Yule, et al., 27 Neb. 758), and the way opened for the erection of the new court house.

At its January, 1890, session the board of supervisors adopted the plans and specifica- tions for the present court house, prepared and submitted to them by Gunn & Curtis, of Kansas City, Missouri, and immediately adver- tised for bids for its erection. On the 29th day of March, 1890, the bid of M. T. Murphy, of Omaha, for the sum of one hundred thou- sand dollars was accepted, upon his executing a bond, in the sum of twenty thousand dollars, to be approved by the county board, for the faithful performance of his contract. After some vicissitudes the building was finally com- pleted, was turned over to the county board and was accepted by that board in January, 1892.

The erection of a county jail was, after the first court house, the next most urgent public need. The administration of the criminal law was reduced to almost a farce by lack of facili- ties for enforcing it. Whenever it became necessary to imprison persons accused of

crime, the county was compelled to rely on Nebraska City, which was the nearest point within the state where jail privileges were available. This involved not only a charge for maintenance of the prisoners while in jail, but also the cost of their transportation to Nebraska City, and back again to Beatrice every time the district court set or until the criminal charge was finally disposed of. This is well illustrated in the case of the State of Nebraska vs. Lydia Armstrong, a woman who had been bound over to the district court by a justice of the peace on a common peace war- rant sworn to by her husband, W. W. Arm- strong. At a session of the county board held October 23, 1869, the following bills in this case were audited, allowed and paid :

L. P. Chandler, sheriff, board of pris-

oner at Hulbert House. .$

4.50

A. L. Hurd, guarding prisoner 1 day .. 2.00

W. W. Brock, guarding prisoner 1 day 2.00

L. P. Chandler, guarding prisoner 6 days

12.00

Otoe County jail, 4 days at $4 per day Feed for team 4 days.

16.00

8.00

3.00 Board for prisoner 2 days at $1.50. . . Expense for prisoner at Otoe County jail 30.58

A. L. Hurd, for team for conveying prisoner from Otoe County jail to Gage County court, 4 days at $4. 16.00

Feed for said team for 4 days. 8.00

Board of prisoner 2 days. 3.00

Guarding prisoner 6 days 12.00

Total $117.08

Action looking toward the erection of a jail was first taken by the county board January 30, 1872, when one W. W. Watson was ap- pointed by the commissioners to prepare plans and specifications for a jail, and the county clerk at the same time was directed to adver- tise in the Beatrice Express for proposals for the erection of a jail at Beatrice, in accordance with such plans and specifications. But on February 24, 1872, all proposals were rejected, and, on account of cost and lack of funds, the building of a jail for Gage county was in- definitely postponed, by commissioners Solon N. Hazen, Horace M. Wickham, and Elijah Filley.

But the subject was not allowed to rest.

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HISTORY OF GAGE COUNTY, NEBRASKA

Steps were taken by the county board to sup- ply funds for this building, and at the regular annual election held on the 8th day of Oc- tober, 1872, a proposition to bond the county in the sum of $7,000, the proceeds of which were to be used in the erection of a county jail at Beatrice, was carried by a decisive majority.

On the 9th day of January, 1873, the county clerk, William D. Cox, was again directed to advertise in the Beatrice Express for three consecutive weeks for bids for a county jail, all bids to be accompanied by plans and speci- fications, the building to consist of stone and iron, and to cost not more than $6,000 -the

it by Andrew Miller, of this city, for the erec- tion of a jail in conformity with the Anyan plans and specifications, for the sum of $6,400, conditioned, however, upon his executing a bond to the county in the sum of $12,800 for the faithful performance of his contract. But on March 22d following, Miller appeared be- fore the board and confessed his inability to give a bond in sufficient sum. The contract with him was thereupon cancelled, and a read- vertisement ordered for bids. On April 21, 1873, the contract for the erection of a jail in accordance with the Anyan plans and specifi- cations was awarded to T. J. Patterson for the

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History of Gage County, Nebraska; a narrative of the past, with special emphasis upon the pioneer period of the county's history, its social, commercial, educational, religious, and civic development from the early days to the present time, Part 26

Author: Dobbs, Hugh Jackson, 1849- Publication date: 1918 Publisher: Lincoln, Neb., Western Publishing and Engraving Company Number of Pages: 1120

Author: Dobbs, Hugh Jackson, 1849-
Publication date: 1918
Publisher: Lincoln, Neb., Western Publishing and Engraving Company
Number of Pages: 1120