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 32

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 32

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your veracious annals : On a day in 1884, while I was publishing the Santa Clara Jour- nal in this state, a strange specimen of the now extinct genus homo known as tramp printer, walked into my office and asked for work. Upon close examination he was re- vealed as Johnny Burke. A day's work was followed by his complete disappearance, and he was not visible to me again until three years ago, when he was accidentally 'met up with' in the guise of a portly, fine appearing foreman in the office of one of the Los An- geles dailies.

"C. B. Palmer came to Beatrice as principal of the high school and soon thereafter bought an interest in the Express, chiefly as a means of printing and distributing a monthly educa- tional periodical. When the election of A. S. Paddock to the United States senate took place in 1875, I conceived the idea of going to Wash- ington and helping him run the government, which being done, the Express was soon there- after sold to I. W. Colby, and my return to Beatrice was indefinitely postponed."

THEODORE COLEMAN was born in Roches- ter, New York, January 26, 1842, of New England (Nantucket) and Dutch lineage.

The family removed to Dubuque, Iowa, and a little later to Galena, Illinois, the lure being the lead mines of those districts. The death of his mother at Galena, in 1846, resulted in a return of the remaining members of the fam- ily to Rochester.

From Rochester another family trek was taken, in 1849, to Toronto, Canada, where Mr. Coleman's father had bought a saw mill on the shores of the bay. Theodore attended the Toronto Model School on King street, Toron- to (price three pence per week), until 1852, assisting meantime in digging the first sod of Canada's first railroad, the Grand Trunk.

Back to Rochester in 1852, where the enter- prising head of the family was, in 1857-1858, financially floored by building Main street bridge across the Genessee river for the city and failing to collect under his $50,000 con- tract because of an alleged weak abutment - that still, after a lapse of sixty years, sturdily sustains the west end of the bridge. Attend-

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ance at the public school and work in a flour mill, a grocery and on the aforesaid bridge filled the period from 1852 to 1859, when an- other shift of residence was made, this time to Cincinnati. Thence up the Mississippi and Chippewa rivers to Chippewa Falls, Wiscon- sin, went the family in 1860. There, amidst somewhat primeval surroundings, a halt was made for ten years, logging and saw-mill work occupying the men of the family. Some sort of literary work, however, had always appealed to the member under consideration, so the chance to go into the office of the Chip- powa Valley Union as printer boy was eagerly seized. Two years thereafter Mr. Coleman bought the plant, and published the little weekly for two years, selling it out in order to piece out his disappointed school education by going for a year to Williston Seminary, East Hampton, Massachusetts, and for another year to Antioch College. Upon closing this agreeable chapter, he returned to Wisconsin and helped for a time to keep the saws run- ning in his father's mill. Then away to Be- atrice and into the newspaper work again, soon seeking a little time to go back to the northern state upon matrimonial intentions bent. The carrying out of this intention was a very fortunate achievement for him, as not a few of the present population of Beatrice who knew Mrs. Coleman would be willing to attest.

The thirty-nine years' residence in Califor- nia following the close of four years of gov- ernment work in Washington, has been large- ly taken up with newspaper publishing and editing; but for the last fifteen years Mr. Coleman has been occupied with duties of a more distinctly business character, first as sec- retary and business manager of an educational institution in Pasadena - Throop Polytechnic Institute and College- and later as similar officer of the Pasadena Hospital Association. His newspaper work in California was as pub- lisher of the Santa Clara Journal and, in Pasa- dena, in an editorial capacity on the Pasadena Star and the Pasadena News. His family of

two sons and two daughters, two of them natives of Beatrice, are married and all but one of the four are living in Pasadena. The oldest son is a resident of Arizona.

MENTOR A. BROWN, who succeded Theo- dore Coleman in the ownership of the Be- atrice Express, January 7, 1884, has writ- ten for this history the following interesting reminiscent narrative of his connection with the paper :

"My knowledge of the newspapers of Gage county dates from the 20th day of July, 1871. On the evening of July 19th I disembarked from a Kansas and Nebraska stage coach after a dusty ride from Crete, at the old Pacific House, of which George Hurlburt was land- lord. The following morning the office of the Beatrice Express was discovered in a small one-room frame building that had formerly housed the public schools of the pioneer vil- lage, and it still remained in the center of a block of ground with no other building nearer than Ella and Fifth streets. This intervening space was for several summers afterward utilized by the 'fans' as a baseball park.

"Theodore Coleman was the sole proprietor and editor of the Express. He had purchased the plant of the Clarion the previous year and changed the name to the Express. The shop was equipped with a Washington hand-press (which served until the fall of 1883) and a limited assortment of type and other material. There was one printer in the shop, a big six- foot Mississippian named Hogshead, with the imposing front and the swing of the old-time southern colonel, sandy 'complected' and of surpassing good nature. The first 'devil' who was initiated soon afterward was 'Johnnie' Burke, who is still plying his trade and a mem- ber of the typographical union in good stand- ing at Los Angeles. They had induced the writer to quit a job as a compositor on the Council Bluffs Nonpareil, to do the job print- ing, set the 'ads,' etc. The proprietor, Mr. Coleman, was not a skillful printer, but was a capable newspaper man, a versatile and graceful writer and also a capable business

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man. Charles B. Palmer, principal of the Beatrice schools, also a practical printer, be- came associated with Mr. Coleman in 1871, and Coleman & Palmer were the publishers until January 1, 1874, when the 'cub' bought ont Mr. Palmer and the firm name was changed to Coleman & Brown. This partner- ship and business association was very har- monious, but was interrupted when Mr. Cole- man accepted a position in Washington as sec- retary to Senator Paddock, and by the sale of his interest in the paper to Mr. Colby, in 1876. Soon thereafter the junior partner also sold his interest to Mr. Colby, but he remained in charge and conducted the business until the winter of 1876-1877, when he purchased an interest in the Fairbury Gazette; but in the early fall of 1877 he returned to Beatrice, having purchased Mr. Colby's entire interest in the Express, and became sole proprietor. The paper grew with the town, and in 1884 the Daily Express greeted the public. In the summer of 1888 the writer disposed of his entire interests in the newspaper and printing plant to Kilpatrick Brothers, and in October of that year he removed to Kearney, where he established the Kearney Daily and Weekly Hub.

"The first rival newspaper of the Express was the Courier, published by Conlee and Ritchie, about 1875. Mr. Ritchie soon retired and the paper itself lived but a short time, its career being both sensational and tempestu- ous. Mr. Alex W. Conlee was one of the old type of 'personal' journalists and a very inter- esting character. At a later date, M. B. Davis, lawyer, published the Beatrice Republican. The Beatrice Democrat was established about the middle of the '80s by George P. Marvin, a vigorous, aggressive and capable newspaper man, father of the present publisher of the Be- atrice Sun, which later succeeded the Demo- crat.

"It might be mentioned that Beatrice was the original home of the educational journal, the 'Nebraska Teacher,' which was first pub- lished by Mr. Palmer, printed in the office of

the Express on a hand press, and removed to Lincoln in 1877, when the publisher removed to the capital to take charge of the preparatory department of the Nebraska State Univer- sity."

MENTOR A. BROWN was born February 19, 1853, at Janesville, Wisconsin. His mother died in his infancy; his father died on Sher- man's march to the sea.

Mr. Brown was reborn as printer's devil, office of New Era, Jefferson, Iowa, June 25. 1866. "Swarmed" July 17, 1870, and spent a year in Nebraska City, Omaha, and Council Bluffs. Found himself in Beatrice, Nebraska, July 19, 1871. Connected with Beatrice Ex- press as printer, partner, publisher, and edi- tor, until October, 1888. Nearly fifty-two years' service in "print-shop." He married and has three sons and two daughters and eleven grandchildren living; wife Sophie G., daughter of the late Captain C. J. Schmidt, of Beatrice.

The Republican, of which Mr. Brown speaks in his reminiscent article, was founded about 1886 by J. W. Hill, M. B. Davis later acquir- ing a half-interest in it. It was conducted sev- eral years by them as partners. Mr. Davis was a vigorous writer and secured for the paper a good circulation. It was a weekly newspaper and Republican in politics. About the first of May, 1892, Davis sold his half-interest in the paper to William L. Knotts and it was con- ducted by Hill and Knotts a short time, when Knotts acquired full ownership. About 1900 he sold it to Winfield Scott Tilton, a practical newspaper man from Kansas. The name of the paper was changed to the Beatrice Times and was conducted by him very ably till about 1909, when he abandoned the field and re- moved his press and other newspaper ma- terials to Oklahoma.

More than twenty-one years ago Emil Schultz established in Beatrice a German-lan- guage newspaper called the Nebraska Post, and this has had a continuous existence till July 1, 1918, when, out of deference to pub-

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lic opinion, Mr. Schultz with commendable patriotism suspended the publication of his paper till the close of the great world-war now raging with the utmost fury in all western

Europe- a war in which our own government has plunged with the maximum of energy and enthusiasm, in defense of democratic institu- tions.

COURT STREET, BEATRICE, IN 1908

CHAPTER XXIII

BLUE SPRINGS

The historic town of Blue Springs dates its origin from the year 1857, at almost the iden- tical moment that Beatrice was founded. In July of that year James H. Johnson, Jacob Poff, Martin Elliott and his sons Stephen, William, and Henry Elliott, with their fami- lies, settled on the public domain at Blue Springs and its immediate vicinity, and, in conjunction with the government surveyors who were then engaged in surveying the pub- lic lands in that vicinity, they projected a townsite company and marked out into town lots three hundred and twenty acres of land, comprising, with other lands, the present townsite of Blue Springs. But there was lit - tle inducement at that early day for engaging in such enterprises, and this company did not even go to the trouble of acquiring title to the lands they had selected for a townsite. The project was finally abandoned, and Reuyl Noyes and Joseph Chambers, returning from a gold-mining venture at Pike's Peak, took it up. They were enterprising young men and undertook to develop Blue Springs into an attractive frontier town. Amongst other things they attempted to divert travel from the Oregon Trail at Ash Point, near Rich- mond, in Nemaha county, Kansas, to Blue Springs and westward about twelve miles to the Caldwell ranch, on the old trail. It must be remembered that the Oregon Trail was to Nebraska territory in that early day what a trunk line of railway would be now to an undeveloped section of country. The princi- pal crossing of the Big Blue river was at Marysville, in a direction south of west from Ash Point. From Marysville the trail took a northwesterly course across the southern part of the Otoe Indian reservation, to the Rock

Creek stage station; part way, near the head waters of Indian creek, was Caldwell ranch. By diverting the travel by way of Richmond and Blue Springs the distance was consider- ably less. These enterprising proprietors of Blue Springs and their friends, having first, in 1859, borrowed the necessary money for that purpose from Robert A. Wilson, acquired by purchase the tract of ground where Blue Springs is located, in section 17 of that town- ship, giving him a mortgage on it. They built a double, story-and-a-half, hewed-log ranch house on the northeast corner of block 5 of the original town of Blue Springs, at the intersection of Hazen and Main streets. They also built a toll bridge across the Big Blue river, and drew a furrow from the point of departure on the old trail, past Richmond, to Blue Springs and on to the Caldwell ranch. But Seneca, the rival of Richmond, defeated this project by diverting travel from the old trail to herself. Mrs. Rebecca Woodward, who in the spring of 1859 was living at

Richmond, sold her possessions there, and in anticipation of the success of the movement to divert travel to Blue Springs, moved to that place, bought the Noyes & Chambers building and immediately became a factor in the development of the village. There were at that time three other log cabins built under the bluffs along Spring creek. This was really the origin of Blue Springs. Mrs. Woodward and a number of others had bought lots in the town as originally surveyed, but on account of the Wilson mortgage, title could not be made. Chambers and Noyes finally abandoned their townsite interests and Wilson succeeded to their rights. In 1861 in order to quiet the demands of those who had pur-

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chased lots of Chambers and Noyes, Wilson caused the original townsite of Blue Springs to be surveyed and platted by Solon M. Hazen, and placed the plat thereof on record in the office of the register of deeds on the 7th day of June, 1861, whereupon he deeded to the claimants lots in the townsite as platted and recorded. Several additions have been made to Blue Springs. the principal ones being Hol- lister's, Blackman's, Casebeer's, and Hill's ad- ditions. The city, with its additions, now oc- cupies a considerable portion of sections 17 and 18 of Blue Springs township.

borne in mind that the census of 1890, as far as population is concerned, was utterly unre- liable, and there were probably no more in- habitants in the city in 1900 than in 1910; the strong probability is that there was no actual loss in population after the year 1900. Since the last census Blue Springs has grown ma- terially and an enumeration would probably show a population of nearly a thousand souls.

Blue Springs always, even in territorial days, maintained a most enviable reputation on account of its attitude on all moral ques- tions, and the worth of character of its citi- zenry. Crime is almost unknown in Blue Springs. There has never been a murder

The growth of Blue Springs was slow. In 1863, when this writer, a youth of thirteen summers, attended school there, the families . committed in that community, and prosecu- living in the village and its immediate vicinity tion for even minor offenses is almost un- known. The character of the citizens is well illustrated by the attitude of the community on the question of the licensed saloon, when that was a disturbing factor in municipal af- fairs throughout the state. It never looked with favor upon the saloons, although yield- ing occasionally to the pressure brought for them, but in 1898 this arch enemy of good morals and virtuous manhood was by the voters of Blue Springs banished forever from the community. This writer testifies with the keenest satisfaction to the high moral tone that has always characterized the beautiful city of Blue Springs. were those of William B. Tyler, Dr. Levi Anthony, Martha Johnson (widow of James H. Johnson, a first settler at Blue Springs), Robert A. Wilson, Lynus Knight, James Lott, Thomas Armstrong, King Fisher, and Herbert Viney. About 1863 Solon M. Hazen opened a general store at the corner of Scott and Hazen streets, and in 1868 William Tichnor, at that time one of the county commissioners of Gage county, built a dam across the Big Blue river and erected a fine mill, including a saw, lath and shingle mill. This enterprise imparted to Blue Springs the character of a business center, since people were compelled to have their grists ground, their logs sawed, The first bridge erected across the Big Blue river in Gage county was the Noyes-Cham- bers toll bridge, in the spring of 1859, which has already been mentioned. As the travel on the proposed cut-off from Ash Point to Blue Springs and beyond did not materialize, the proprietors, in the autumn of 1859, sold their bridge to Samuel Shaw, and the spring freshet of 1861 carried it away,- and nearly carried Mr. Shaw away with it. It was not rebuilt, nor was there any effort made to erect a bridge at Blue Springs until about the year 1870, when Gage county placed an iron bridge across the river at the point where the present steel bridge is found. The old bridge was moved to Beatrice and erected across the Big Blue river at the Scott street crossing. The flood of 1903 dropped it into the water and their laths and shingles riven. Thereaf- ter the village grew apace, and about 1872 there was quite an influx of immigrants from the east to Blue Springs,-the Casebeers, Gan- bees, Wonders, Harpsters, Shocks, and others, mostly from Pennsylvania and Ohio. The territory tributary to Blue Springs was well populated by 1870, and the village had grown rapidly during the closing years of that decade, the federal census of 1870 showing a population of 354. In 1880 the population had increased to 513; in 1890, according to the census, there were 963 inhabitants; in 1900 there were 786 and in 1910 the number was 712. While these figures show a decrease in population from 1890 to 1900, and a small decrease between 1900 and 1910, it must be

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and it was finally removed and rebuilt across the river a mile north of Beatrice, near the Zimmerman Springs.

About the year 1880 John E. Smith, Sam- uel C. Smith and Joel C. Williams established the Bank of Blue Springs. Williams after- ward acquired the stock of the Smith brothers and successfully conducted the bank for a number of years, but he was unable to with- stand the difficulties of the great panic of

Sr., acquired by purchase the title to the Blue Springs mill and dam. This pioneer milling property was thoroughly overhauled by the new proprietors and, at great expense, one of the best mills in the county was evolved. Its present owners are William C. Black, Sr., and the estate of Cochran S. Black. This valuable property is managed by R. W. Kanagy.

In addition to the business enterprises here

THE BRIDGE AND MILL, AT BLUE SPRINGS Looking up the Big Blue river from the south

1893-1898, and finally, about 1895, closed the doors of the bank and liquidated its obliga- tions as far as his shrunken assets would per- mit. About the year 1890 the Blue Springs State Bank was founded by O. N. Wheelock and others, which several years later passed into other hands. The present stockholders of this bank are Wm. C. Black, Jr., and Ralph Clemmons, of Beatrice; and T. J. Patton, O. E. Bishop and George F. Harris, of Blue Springs. Mr. Black is president of the board of directors and Mr. Patton is cashier.

A number of years ago the late Cochran F. Black and his brother, William C. Black,

mentioned, Blue Springs has two grain ele- vators, a good lumber and coal yard, and nearly every retail business common to cities of its class in Nebraska is represented.

· In 1896 M. A. Farr began the publication of the Blue Springs Weekly Motor, and from that day to this the city has possessed a good newspaper. The Motor was succeeded by the Sentinel, a paper established, owned, and edited by the late James H. Casebeer, and now conducted by his son Clarence Case- beer. It has always been a remarkably clean and reliable newspaper and has rendered in- valuable service to its readers as a dissemina-

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tor of information and a pillar of public morals.

The first school in Blue Springs was a sub- scription school (in 1861) taught by Miss Lucy Johnson, a daughter of Rankin Johnson, one of the early settlers of that locality. Fol- lowing this, Mrs. Maria Sargent, wife of J. T. Sargent, taught a subscription school in her own house, a log cabin, and had twelve pupils. In 1862 Miss Wealthy Tinkham, af- terward Mrs. Joseph Hollingsworth, taught

As early as 1859 the Methodists organized a church in Blue Springs, with John Foster as its pastor. This organization was fostered and sustained by the pioneers to a man. In 1879 the citizens assisted in erecting a stone church building for the Methodists, a move- ment contemporary with the building of the old stone church in Beatrice. Besides the Methodist church, the Presbyterians, the Evangelical Association, the United Brethren, and the Christian churches are represented,

BLUE CHƯƠNG HIỆN -THOẠI

BLUE SPRINGS HIGH SCHOOL

the first public school in Blue Springs, and in all owning substantial edifices for the worship 1863 her sister Margaret, afterward Mrs. of Almighty God. Nathan Blakely, taught the second public Both the Masonic fraternity and the Inde- pendent Order of Odd Fellows have very strong organizations in Blue Springs, the lat- ter having a membership of upwards of one hundred and fifty. A number of the bene- ficiary orders also are represented in Blue Springs. school, with an enrollment of sixteen pupils. During the Indian troubles on the Little Blue river and farther west, 1864, 1865, 1866, little attention seems to have been given to educa- tion, but in 1869 a small school-house was erected and thereafter a school was regularly taught in Blue Springs. The district now During the Civil war, in 1863, the village of Blue Springs and its tributary territory contributed a number of volunteers to the Nebraska Second Regiment of Volunters. The regiment was part of General Sully's possesses a fine, two-story, brick school-house, containing eight rooms, and employs eight teachers, with an enrollment of more than two hundred pupils.

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command, dispatched by the government to put down the Indian uprising in Minnesota. Some of the volunteers from Blue Springs were Francis M. Graham, George Dessert, H. S. Barnum, and Edward Armstrong.

A government postoffice was established in Blue Springs about 1859, with William B. Tyler, postmaster. The mails were at first carried on horseback from Nebraska City and Brownville, and for many years the postoffice at Blue Springs served a large portion of southern Gage county with mail facilities.

Blue Springs is electrically lighted with cur- rent from the Holmesville plant. It owns its own waterworks and by an arrangement with Wymore its springs of pure water are utilized for both cities at the expense of Wymore.

The isolation of Blue Springs was broken in 1879 by the construction of the Union Pacific line of railway from Marysville to Beatrice, as well as by the extension of the Burlington line from Beatrice to the main southern line of the company. At one time, in 1880, it seemed as if Blue Springs might become the junction point, but by over-con- fidence and mismanagement she allowed this splendid opportunity to slip from her grasp. At first the extension of the Beatrice line was more in the nature of a disaster than a bene- fit. The Burlington road, for reasons of its own, refused to stop its trains or build a depot, or to recognize in any way the existence of Blue Springs, but rushed across the corpora- tion, regardless of its public duty as a common carrier, to Wymore, which with this favor- itism was growing by leaps and bounds. But in 1885 F. W. Mattoon, a citizen of Blue Springs, brought in the supreme court of Ne- braska a proceeding in mandamus, to compel the road to afford Blue Springs railway facil- ities. The application was sustained, and thereafter the railroad grudgingly complied with the mandate of the court.

Blue Springs, though missing this great op- portunity, has remained beautiful and attrac- tive, as she was in the beginning. No "homier" place exists in all the boundaries of the state.

Amongst the sturdy pioneers who in her infancy guided the destiny of Blue Springs

were William B. Tyler, Rebecca Woodward, Robert A. Wilson, Solon M. Hazen, and Dr. Levi Anthony.

Mr. Tyler was familiarly and affectionately known as "Pap" Tyler. He was of Holland extraction and in many ways possessed the shrewdness which characterized the Holland- er. He was born in York county, Pennsyl- vania, November 16, 1801, at the very thresh- hold of the nineteenth century. In early life he married Sarah Wilt, of his native village. In 1842 she passed away, leaving a family of four children. After the death of his wife Mr. Tyler, in 1843, enlisted in the First United States Regiment of Dragoons and he served through the Mexican war. His first term of enlistment expiring in 1848, he reënlisted and remained in the service of the United States continuously until 1854, when he was honor- ably discharged, at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. He at once entered the service of the govern- ment in a clerical position in the quarter- master's department, where he remained until 1859. He then started to Salt Lake City to take a similar position under the government, but changed his mind and, in March of that year, settled at Blue Springs. He purchased a quarter-section of land a mile or so up the river from the village. In 1860 Mr. Tyler married Rebecca Woodward, who, when this writer with his parents crossed the Big Nemaha at old Richmond, Nemaha county, Nebraska, on their way to Gage county, Ne- braska, kept the ranch at Richmond which was intended to be a station on the Blue Springs cut-off from the Oregon Trail, and who short- ly afterward sold out at Richmond and bought the Noyes-Chambers ranch house in Blue Springs and came there to live. At the time of this marriage Mrs. Woodward was in pos- session of considerable means for those days, and she was probably the wealthiest person in Gage county for several years. Several of the first instruments recorded in our county represent business transactions in her name. At the time of this marriage she was about forty years of age and an amiable, accomp- lished, and very capable woman. She passed away in 1870, mourned by all who knew her.

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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 32

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