USA > Nebraska > Adams County > Past and present of Adams County, Nebraska, Vol. I > Part 5
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PAST AND PRESENT OF ADAMS COUNTY
in prospect. The motion of Samuel Alexander providing for a com- mittee of ten to canvass each precinct in behalf of Hastings was carried. The workers were assigned as follows: For Denver Pre- cinct, Thomas E. Farrell and R. V. Shockey; for Little Blue, G. W. Donahey and A. Berg; for Silver Lake, C. K. Lawson and Charles Kohl; for Kenesaw, A. D. Yocum and Charles H. Paul; for Juniata, B. H. Brown and S. S. Dow. The committee named at this meeting worked with a will. They visited the homesteaders at their homes, buttonholed them when they came to town and industriously labored setting forth the advantages of Hastings, with its two railroads, as the location for the county seat. Meanwhile the inhabitants of Juniata were just as zealous. Among the leaders of Juniata's defenders were the county commissioners, James Laird, A. H. Bowen, B. F. Smith, A. V. Cole, W. B. Thorne and several others. The spirit of war was rife among the contenders and sometimes disputes became so heated that blows resulted.
Less than a month following the mass meeting which had been held at Hastings and which was presided over by M. K. Lewis, with J. M. Abbott secretary, the work of the committee of ten showed results, for on July Ist a petition praying for the submission of the question of the removal of the county seat from Juniata was filed with the county commissioners. This petition was filed by Simon Rankins, a business man of Hastings, and was signed by him and a large number of other citizens. For the time being the petition was laid upon the table and the defenders of Juniata planned their next moves against the assaults of an enemy which showed all the signs of persistence and determination.
The petition remained upon the table until August 20th, when it was taken up and a remonstrance against the submission of the removal question to a ballot was filed by William Gardner, C. H. Chapman and 200 others. On the afternoon of that day, while the August sun shone in real Nebraska strength upon the little public building in the prairie town, arguments were heard by the commis- sioners for the petition and for the remonstrance. A large number of Hastings residents and partisans were present, and the Juniata sympathizers were out in force, so that the little room where the commissioners deliberated could not begin to accommodate the crowd, many of whom braved the blazing rays and congregated about the door. Hastings was represented in the argument chiefly by R. A. Batty and A. W. Wheeler. The principal spokesmen for Juniata were James Laird and A. H. Bowen. Not all the arguments, how- ever, were within the building. Outside the contending partisans kept
44 PAST AND PRESENT OF ADAMS COUNTY
up a running fire of language that every now and then reached a crisis of intensity.
The arguments before the commissioners began at 2 o'clock and were kept up continuously until 6.30, when the meeting adjourned for an hour. After supper the discussion was resumed. Immedi- ately after supper Mr. Batty requested that the commissioners post- pone their decision until the following Friday and that in the meantime they should receive further petitions for and against. This was on Wednesday evening. The commissioners, however, refused Mr. Batty's request and ordered that the time for receiving and filing petitions be declared closed, and that the board take until August 28th to decide the question. On that date the commissioners rendered their decision in favor of the remonstrance and did not order an election. The ground upon which they rendered their decision was that the statute required that the petition be signed by two-thirds of the legal voters of the county. The remonstrance showed, it was contended, that the petition did not have the required number of voters. Thus did Hastings lose the first skirmish before the Adams County commissioners.
This defeat, however, by no means lessened the ardor of the Hastings partisans, and the work systematically begun by the com- mittee of ten was pressed on with vigor. In the fall election of 1873 A. H. Cramer was elected county clerk and in the subsequent develop- ments this election of Mr. Cramer proved to be an important factor.
The next activity of moment in the removal contest began in the forenoon of June 19, 1874. The county commissioners were in ses- sion and A. II. Bowen appeared before the board and presented a resolution for their consideration. Mr. Bowen was asked to read the resolution, which was signed by E. M. Allen, B. F. Smith and A. H. Bowen. The resolution set forth that a large number of taxpayers had met at Juniata Monday, June 15th, and decided that the time was ripe for the erection of a courthouse at Juniata. The resolution asked that the $13.000 as shown by the levy of 1873 should be transferred by the commissioners from the sinking fund to the courthouse fund and that they should at once let the contract for the erection of the building. The resolution also stipulated that the pro- posed courthouse was to cost not less than $15,000 nor more than $25,000. This sudden move for the erection of the courthouse was the plan developed and adopted by the leaders of the Juniata parti- sans for the securing of the county seat already theirs, and for quelling the agitation for removal. This plan was developed without the knowledge of the Hastings partisans. It was Juniata's answer to
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PAST AND PRESENT OF ADAMS COUNTY
the attempt made by Hastings the preceding year to have the ques- tion of removal submitted to a vote.
When the resolution was presented by Mr. Bowen no Hastings partisan was present except the county clerk, Mr. A. H. Cramer. Before deliberations had proceeded very far, however, the county clerk espied Charles H. Paul, who happened to come to Juniata that day. Mr. Paul had ridden a horse to town. Mr. Cramer succeeded in slipping the word to Mr. Paul that something direful to the hopes of Hastings was pending before the board, and he urged him to return at once to Hastings to warn the people as to what was about to transpire. Mr. Paul at once turned the head of his steed and raced back to Hastings with a speed and a spirit somewhat akin to those of Paul Revere upon a previous momentous occasion. For a time the commissioners discussed the feasibility of the plan set forth by the resolution: that is, to transfer $13,000 from the sinking fund to the courthouse fund. The county clerk protested, declaring that the commissioners were not warranted by law to make the transfer.
Commissioner Langley then moved that the commissioners hold themselves in readiness to receive plans, specifications and bids for a courthouse to cost not more than $15,000. When this motion had been carried, Commissioner Brass moved that the sheriff notify architects. contractors and builders to prepare their plans, specifica- tions and bids "by 10 o'clock this day."
Shortly after this action was taken, hoofbeats were heard upon the prairie road to the east. Hastings had rallied her forces upon receipt of the message carried by Mr. Paul. They came in wagons. on horses, on whatever conveyances they could muster, and if mem- ories may be relied upon through the forty-two years elapsed since that event, some brought shotguns, revolvers and other weapons with which to defend what they considered to be their rights. Fortunately, these weapons were not brought into play and no crime mars the intense feelings which the occasion engendered.
Throughout the presentation of the arguments and the threats of the folks from Hastings, the commissioners remained unswerved from their determination. In the afternoon, however, they extended the time for the bids, plans and specifications to be filed by 10 o'clock the following day. Hasting's lost no time in preparing a remonstrance against the erection of the courthouse. When the commissioners met the next day the remonstrance, signed by Frank Sears and eighty- eight others, was filed. It was evident that the commissioners did not propose that much time should be lost in parleying. Chairman Selleck kept the machinery of deliberation moving rapidly. A time
46
PAST AND PRESENT OF ADAMS COUNTY
limit of ten minutes was placed upon the speakers for each side. The debate was acrimonious, led largely by Mr. Batty for Hastings and James Laird for Juniata. It was quite evident, too, that the speaking was not going to convince anyone not already convinced.
On the motion of Mr. Brass the commissioners proceeded to open the bids. The bid of R. D. Babcock was for $18,000, for which he proposed to erect a courthouse "similar to the one at Lowell, county seat of Kearney County." The bid was rejected.
E. M. Allen's bid of $22,000 was rejected.
The bid of D. H. Freeman of Juniata was accepted. The speci- fications filed with Mr. Freeman's bid designated a building 40 by 46. It was to be erected for $14,000. Mr. Freeman asked that he should be paid in cash, or he would agree to take county warrants at 75 cents on the dollar. He also agreed to add an approved belfry.
Following the acceptance of Freeman's bid, Commissioner Brass made a motion that the levy in the sinking fund should be borrowed for the use of the general fund to apply to the contract with Freeman. The motion was carried. The next motion carried ordered that the clerk draw warrants on the general fund in the amount of $10,000 in favor of D. H. Freeman.
A. II. Cramer, who it will be remembered was the county clerk, again protested that the action just taken by the board of commis- sioners was irregular and unlawful. The board reminded Mr. Cramer that his duty was merely clerical. The debate between Mr. Cramer and the commissioners was heated, Mr. Cramer, however, steadfastly refusing to place the official seal of Adams County upon the warrants, feeling the while that probably he was exceeding his legal authority, but also quite sure that the action of the commissioners was irregular. Finally, exasperated by the obstinacy of the clerk, the commissioners carried a motion declaring the office of county clerk of Adams County to be vacant.
Mr. Cramer again contended that the latter action, too, was irreg- ular, and that his office could not be thus vacated on the grounds taken by the commissioners. In consequence he refused to give up the keys or the official seal of the county. The commissioners then carried a motion providing that the matter of the authority of the commissioners for the letting of a contract for the purpose of erecting a courthouse be referred to Judge Gantt in chambers at Nebraska City, June 30, 1874. The judge's action was to issue a restraining order forbidding the erection of the courthouse under the Freeman contract. No further effort was made to oust Mr. Cramer from office.
Feeling reached a high pitch at this stage of the county seat
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PAST AND PRESENT OF ADAMS COUNTY
removal contest. While the legality of the action of the commis- sioners in letting the Freeman contract was still in doubt, reposing in the hands of Judge Gantt in Nebraska City, a mass meeting, or more correctly, an indignation meeting of Hastings partisans was held at Juniata. This was on June 24, 1874. A report emphatically condemning the commissioners and heartily endorsing the action of Mr. Cramer in refusing to issue the warrants was adopted with an overwhelming majority. The resolutions of condemnation and con- mendation were drafted by J. M. Ragan, W. M. West, Oliver Whit- son, A. C. Moore and J. C. Wilson. R. A. Batty was the presiding officer at this meeting.
For a few weeks following the close of the phase of the county seat war just narrated affairs remained in status quo so far as overt activities were concerned. The pot was still simmering, however, and the Hastings workers felt that the failure of the Freeman courthouse contract project had won sympathy for their side and they were doubly desirous that the question of removal be submitted to a vote. Committees were active in securing signers for a petition looking to that end. The result of this activity was the filing of a petition with the board of commissioners by A. D. Yoeum and others asking that the matter of relocation be submitted to a vote at the forthcom- ing fall election. The commissioners were in no hurry to act. Mr. Yocum had filed the petition August 17, 1874. No action had been taken by the commissioners on September 7th, and on that day the workers for Hastings filed the names of thirty-three additional signers to the petition and urged the board to take some action. A remon- strance was also filed that day, signed by 392 remonstrators. There were 584 signers of the petition for submission of the question.
Next day, September 8th, the commissioners took action, denying the petition and refusing to order that the question be voted upon. The statute governing the submission of the question of removal pro- vided that two-thirds of the qualified voters at the last general election must sign the petition before the commissioners should order a vote to be taken. The officials explained that the petition filed by Mr. Yocum did not contain the required number of signers. They said that to the best of their belief there were in the county 978 persons who claimed to be legal voters. While it was true that the total signers of the petition and the remonstrance amounted to 976, two fewer than the number of qualified voters in the county, yet there had been presented to them the names of forty-six persons who had signed neither the petition nor the remonstrance. The addition of these names to those already filed would bring the total of the qualified
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PAST AND PRESENT OF ADAMS COUNTY
voters in the county up to 1,022, a number which the officials contended was absurdly high. Moreover, they declared that forty-four of those who had signed the petition for submission had subsequently peti- tioned to have their names erased. Under these circumstances, the board declared that the petition could not be rightfully granted.
The following year, 1875, however, from the very outset seemed more hopeful to Hastings. In the November election, 1874, Hastings gained a friend on the board, in the person of A. D. Yocum, who was an energetic worker. Mr. Yocum succeeded Mr. Brass January 1, 1875, and in the passing of the latter from the board Juniata lost a strong and enthusiastic advocate. By an act of the Nebraska Legis- lature approved February 24, 1875, it was provided that "Whenever the inhabitants of a county are desirous of changing the county seat an election must be ordered if the petitioners number three-fifths of all the votes cast at the last general election." Before this act was passed it was necessary that three-fourths of the electors should petition.
Once more the Hastings partisans began their struggle to get the question of relocation submitted. and on March 5th, J. L. Parrott filed a petition signed by himself and 491 others. The petition was granted and the board ordered that a special election should be held on the first Tuesday in April, 1875. The proclamations posted pro- vided for the following polling places: Juniata Precinct, courthouse, Juniata: Denver Precinct, office of L. C. Gould, Hastings: Little Blue Precinct, schoolhouse, District No. 19: Kenesaw Precinct, school- house, District No. 3; Cottonwood Precinct, house of E. C. Sheel- hamer.
On April 8th the ballots were canvassed by a canvassing board composed of A. H. Cramer. M. K. Lewis and Myron Van Fleet. The canvassers declared that Hastings had won the election. The county clerk, A. H. Cramer, directed by the canvassers, so entered the result upon the record. The canvassers of the votes by this board showed the result to be as follows:
VOTE ON RELOCATION, 1875
.Juniata Preemet
Kenesaw Precinct
Denver Precmet
Silver Lake Precinct
Little BIne Precinct
Cottonwood Precinct
For Juniata
201
66
7
67
11
28
For Hastings
53
9
296
49
144
10
For Lenata
.
.
1
. .
The canvassing board, however, did not admit the vote as shown in the foregoing table. They rejected the returns from Cottonwood
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PAST AND PRESENT OF ADAMS COUNTY
Precinct because affidavits were filed by two Adams County electors stating that the polls in Cottonwood Precinct were declared open before a full election board was organized, and adjourned the same to place other than the place designated by the proclamation of election, and further that the election board did not qualify before the proper officer as provided by law. After throwing out the Cot- tonwood returns the vote stood: For Juniata, 352; for Hastings, 551: for Lenata, 1. By this reckoning 904 ballots were cast at the election. Three-fifths of that total would equal 542 2-5 votes. So that Hastings, having received 351 votes, was entitled to the county seat, the law requiring for the removal a majority of three-fifths of the votes cast. This is the reasoning underlying the entry in the record of elections which gives Hastings the victory in the contest of 1875. The vote recorded for Lenata, was probably intended for Juniata, but the writing was almost illegible and under the stress of opposition it was agreed as a compromise that the vote was for Lenata, though no one knew of a place by that name.
Juniata, however, did not remain quiescent following the finding of the canvassing board. Affidavit after affidavit was filed. It was charged that there was an irregularity in the organization of the county and that many of the election officials and a few of the county officials were not citizens of the United States. It was alleged further that thirty legal voters had been disfranchised because they would not vote for Juniata. This latter charge, of course, was made by Hastings partisans. Juniata supporters charged that in the southern townships of the county the only notices of election had been posted in Spring Ranch in Clay County. Juniata, however, exercised the greatest effort to have the vote recanvassed and to secure the including of the returns from Cottonwood Township.
And in this Juniata was successful. The Supreme Court issued an order compelling the board of canvassers to count the votes from Cottonwood. On May 19th the vote was recanvassed, the board at this time being composed of A. H. Cramer, George W. Wolcott and W. H. Burr. Cottonwood gave Juniata twenty-eight additional votes and only ten to Hastings. One vote from Silver Lake previously counted for Hastings was now counted for Juniata, and one less for Hastings was counted in Denver Precinct. According to this canvass, Juniata had received 381 votes and Hastings 539. The commissioners declared that Juniata had received more than two-fifths of all the votes cast, and was therefore the county seat, and the result was so recorded in the records.
While Hastings was much disappointed with the outcome of the Vol. 1-4
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PAST AND PRESENT OF ADAMS COUNTY
election of 1875, there was no disposition on the part of the workers to give up the contest. The Hastings Journal continued to agitate the question and plans for the next campaign were considered with- out diminution of enthusiasm. Upon March 5, 1877, Hastings began what proved to be the final assault upon Juniata. On that date there was filed with the county commissioners a petition containing 635 signers, composed of the resident electors of Adams County, praying that the question of removal of the county seat be again submitted to a vote. This time the board took immediate action, and on the same date Commissioner Moore moved that the petition be granted. The motion was seconded by Commissioner John R. Ratcliff and was carried. A special election was ordered to be held Monday, April 9, 1877. The following were designated as the polling places: West Blue Precinct, schoolhouse, District No. 33; Denver Precinct, office of George F. Work, Hastings; Pawnee Precinct, schoolhouse, Dis- triet No. 22; Little Blue Precinct, schoolhouse, District No. 9; Silver Lake Precinct, residence of W. B. Thorne; Cottonwood Precinct, schoolhouse, District No. 39; Kenesaw Precinct, schoolhouse, District No. 3; Juniata Precinct, courthouse, Juniata.
On April 14th the county clerk, A. H. Cramer, selected Thomas R. Lee and Thomas D. Scofield to act with himself as a canvassing board to canvass the votes. The canvassers found that 844 votes had been cast for Hastings and 535 for Juniata. The votes for Hastings numbering more than three-fifths of all the votes cast, it was declared to be the county seat. The abstract of the canvassers shows the vote by precincts to have been as follows:
VOTE ON RELOCATION, 1877
Juniata Precinct
Kenesaw Precinct
Denver Precinct
Silver Lake Precinct
Little Blue Precinct
Cotton- wood Precinct
Pawnee Precinct
West Blue Precinct
Juniata
231
65
26
46
32
90
27
18
Total 535
Hastings
4
13
491
15
82
7
130
102
844
Though the report of the canvassing board showed that Hastings had won the county seat by the ballot, Juniata was not disposed to yield thus easily, and there followed a period of litigation which extended until the autumn of 1878.
On the day that the canvassing board announced their finding, April 14, 1877, Adna H. Bowen, "for himself and others similarly interested," filed a petition, affidavit and undertaking in the District Court asking the court to issue an injunction to prevent the removal of the county offices to Hastings. The county commissioners, A. D.
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PAST AND PRESENT OF ADAMS COUNTY
Yocum, Edward Moore and John Rateliff, and the county clerk, A. H. Cramer, were made the defendants. A temporary injunction was granted, and Juniata was saved from immediate loss of the county offices. The plaintiff's charged that frauds had been perpetrated in the election, that votes had been illegally counted for Hastings, and that the partisans of the latter town had used intimidation to prevent voters from expressing their wishes at the polls.
On June 8th the defendants moved the court for the dissolution of the injunction. T. D. Scofield and E. E. Brown represented Hastings, while James Laird and Oliver P. Mason, defending Juni- ata, argued against defendants' motion. Judge Gaslin overruled the motion of the defendants and the injunction continued in force. On the same date the plaintiff's were allowed to file an amended petition.
On July 6, 1877, Judge Gaslin, with the consent of both parties to the controversy, appointed C. E. Calkins, an attorney from Kear- ney, as referee to take proofs and report issues of law and fact and to report without unnecessary delay. July 18th, the referee filed his oath and forthwith began his inquiry into the fact of the election held the previous April. These sessions of inquiry were begun in the courthouse at Juniata. In form the inquiry was much like a court proceeding. A long list of witnesses were examined and the testi- mony was a conflicting maze of charges and counter-charges. Several hearings were had by the referee in Hastings, in Millet Hall, which was located on First Street, on the north side of the street and a little east of the corner of Hastings Avenue and First Street. The referee did not finish his investigation, begun in July, until the following December. On the 3d of that month he filed his report, and the next day the defendants filed a motion for judgment on the report of the referee and the court set the motion for hearing on the morning of Friday, December 7th. The compensation asked by the referee for his services was $320 and $77 for expenses, and he asked for the stenographer, John W. Brewster, for the transcript furnished by him, the sum of $400. By consent of both parties later, the reporter, Mr. Brewster, was allowed $203 additional and per diem attendance before the referee.
On the morning of December 7th, Judge Gaslin took up the motion for judgment on the report of the referee and took the report under advisement. On the day before, Mr. Bowen filed a motion for a new trial.
In order to more thoroughly familiarize himself with the merits of the controversy, Judge Gaslin took with him to Kearney the papers filed in the case and the report of the referee. On the night of
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PAST AND PRESENT OF ADAMS COUNTY
February 26, 1878, the office in which these papers were stored at Kearney was destroyed by fire, and with it the papers concerning the momentous issue in Adams County. Among the papers lost was the report of the referee. It is the recollection, however, of some of those who took part in the controversy that the lead of Hastings over Juniata was increased by the report, and that it was found that ballots were cast illegally in both plaees, but that a greater number were so cast in Juniata than in Hastings.
The loss of the records of the hearings before Referee Calkins threw a degree of consternation into both camps. On July 10th, however, Judge Gaslin overruled the motion of Oliver P. Mason, acting for Juniata, for a new trial before a referee. IIe, however, allowed the plaintiff's motion asking leave to supply all such papers as were of record in the case and which could be had from the notes and records of the shorthand reporter, and to retake certain deposi- tions. Among the depositions to be taken were those of A. W. Devore, M. B. Noel, William Stine, David Sisk, Frank Blodgett, D. F. Brown, A. S. Hill. William Linton, J. B. Dinsmore, Art Davidson, Hiram Carpenter, J. W. Carpenter, John Walliehs, Conrad Benzel, Philip Bergeron, Sr., the minister of the Russian settlement at Williamsburg, in Franklin County, and those of twenty- one others. Plaintiff's were ordered by the court to file all depositions and other papers with the clerk of the court on or before September 16th. The following day arguments were heard on the motion of the defendants to dissolve the injunction and the motion was overruled. At this time the defendants, the Adams County commissioners and A. II. Cramer, were represented by Ash & Scofield.
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