It may be too late. I'm guessing he's out of stock...
Wednesday, August 24, 2016
The Bemis Family - Sutton Pioneers
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The Bemis family commemorative brick at the Sutton Museum display
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Hosea’s
wife Ann and family had stayed in Marion, Iowa near Cedar Rapids where the 54-year
old Civil War vet had been farming. Their daughter Ada Augusta had married
George Bemis in 1868, had lost a year-old son in 1870 and had another infant
son.
The
historical society has shown a bias towards the Gray family in our retelling of
the story of Sutton’s early days. Explainable. John Gray built the two houses
that comprise our museum. But now it’s time to talk about Mr. Bemis.
George
and Ada Bemis had been living in Belle Plaine, Iowa west of her parents when
the extended Gray family headed west. We’ve not found any account that spells
out their motivation for the move, but heading to the frontier was the
consequence of a variety of reasons.
The
Gray and Bemis families were both farm families in Iowa but soon Hosea Gray and
George Bemis were both practicing attorneys in the new town of Sutton. Entry
into the legal profession was then more of an apprentice thing than a formal
education – remember Abraham Lincoln’s story?
Ada
Bemis told a story that indicates George may have been more an attorney and
less of a farmer. Seems shortly after the family arrived in the start-up town
of Sutton, George Bemis bought a milk cow, perhaps the first one in town.
Neighbors gathered as he milked his cow that first evening – probably wasn’t
much on TV that night…
Then
the next morning, George was drinking coffee after breakfast when Ada asked if
he was going out to milk the cow. George response was, “Why? Are you out of
milk already?”
Unclear
on the concept.
The
Bemis family was an old New England family. George Whitfield Bemis was born
September 1, 1846 in Mayfield, New York, on the edge of the Adirondack
Mountains northwest of Schenectady. His mother was Eleanor Day, born in that
same town in 1808 but her family origins appear lost in the haze.
George’s
father was Phineas Bemis who was born in Vermont but his grandfather Isaac, a
Revolutionary War veteran and four earlier generations of John Bemis’ all lived
in Middlesex County, Massachusetts just outside of Boston. George’s fifth
great-grandfather Joseph was the immigrant, born in Essex County England in
1619 who arrived in Massachusetts in 1640.
The
Bemis family certainly had deep colonial roots. The biography of one daughter,
Anna Gray, who will return to our story later, reflects the roots of the
family: member of the Daughters of the American Revolution, the United States
Daughters of 1812 and the Nebraska Society of Mayflower Descendants.
George
and Ada Bemis had one son when they arrived in Sutton. There may have been as
many as seven subsequent children born between 1872 and 1886. The family had
moved to York by 1900 where George continued to practice law and served a term
as mayor. Ada built a reputation in York as a musician and writer. Four of
their children appeared in the 1900 census with their parents: Anna, Gray,
Winnie and Eugene.
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The Bemis family is one of hundreds of Sutton residents, past and present
remembered at the front door of the Historic House.
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Before
he left Sutton, George Bemis played a part in Sutton’s “war” with the
Burlington Railroad. This story has been hashed and re-hashed in other
contexts, but we’ll cover a bit of the background here.
The
Burlington railroad resisted placing a depot in Sutton for quite some time.
There were several issues separating the positions of the railroad and Sutton’s
early settlers and the “negotiations” did not always occur up there on the High
Road.
The
best that Sutton could get out of the Burlington was a freight car parked on a
siding that was to serve as a temporary depot. The thing was identified by an
old bleached Buffalo skull with the number “124” painted on it.
Then,
in December, 1871, even that vanished and reappeared about four and a half
miles east at a location the Burlington named Grafton. This was not where
Grafton currently is, but about half way between today’s Sutton and Grafton. It
was half way between Fairmont and Harvard and also between Lincoln and Kearney.
The
railroad owned much of the land around their Grafton and with a depot at that
site, Grafton would grow, Sutton would surely wither. Burlington’s Grafton had
four houses and one general merchandise store operated by a Mr. Marthis and his
partner, Mr. Robbins.
There
were off-and-on negotiations involving Sutton people, the railroad and the
postal service, none of which were going anywhere.
Then just before Christmas, the wheels started to turn, so to speak. Someone talked Marthis and Robbins into moving their store to Sutton. The Clark brothers gave them a lot and Sutton citizens, let by George Bemis and his friend W. Cunning took teams to Grafton, loaded up the store and brought it into Sutton.
George
Bemis was a better lawyer than farmer and, as it turns out, was probably a better
poet than farmer also. He’s not Poet Laureate material. If we were to name a
Poet Laureate for Sutton, Anne Sheridan would definitely be in the running. But
the Bemis poem was good enough to appear in the Daily State Journal and has
been repeated in most meaningful publications about the early history of
Sutton. It’s been almost seven years since the historical society has published
it.
GRAFTON to SUTTON
What a clanking if hammers and ringing of
saws;
How they sound through the valleys and
ring in the draws,
Oh! Sutton is growing, in the midst of the
fray,
With the city of Grafton only four miles away.
How the B. & M. engines shriek,
whistle and squall,
And send forth the order that Sutton must
fall,
How they thunder and matter, and grow
night and day
With the city of Grafton only three miles away.
Then came Mr. Marthis, and thus he did
say,
“I’m tired of Grafton, if only it may;
I’ll come down to Sutton, without delay.”
Soon Grafton will be only two miles away.
Soon Grafton will be only two miles away.
Then started the wagons and horses and
men,
The steeds, how they foamed, as a whip now
and then,
Came down on their sides, near the close
of the day,
With the city of Grafton only one mile away.
Then rushed down the hill the black and
the gray,
And close followed the crowd to have
support on the way,
And the shout that went up in the end of
the fray,
Said, “The city of Grafton is in Sutton
today.”
Nice.
A
bit of a diversion here. That buffalo skull from the temporary depot is
displayed in the front porch of our museum. But why “124?”
The
usual writings about Sutton, the Griess book on the Germans from Russia, the
Sheridan sisters’ book and others mention the depot, the skull and that number.
But we’ve not seen anyone take a run at explaining why “124.” Let’s fix that.
Railway
systems are one-dimensional systems. The track has length; neither width and
height are factors. Distance measurements along the track are a big deal. So
could “124” be a measurement from somewhere.
I
traced the Burlington route with the Google Earth ruler and lo and behold, it’s
about 124 miles from the Plattsmouth Bridge where the Burlington crosses the
Missouri River into Nebraska to Sutton. You do have to work your way around the
curves as the track follows the Platte for a ways, but even with my rough approximation,
I’m good with that story and include it in my museum tours.
End
of diversion.
We
need to mention at least two of the Bemis kids in this story.
Anna
Gray Bemis was born in Sutton on December 28, 1876. The family moved to York
where she graduated from high school and college. She was active, really active
in York. We mentioned her genealogy related organizations earlier. Add to
those, school teacher for nine years, manager of a wholesale music firm for
five, author for numerous magazines (including Field and Stream and the
Nebraska Farmer), president of the state American Legion Auxiliary, state
chairman of the WCTU and the Amateur Musicale Club, officer of the York Women’s
Club and the Pythian Sisters and a member of the Native Sons and Daughters. Her
hobby was genealogy.
Anna
shared this life with two men. Her first husband was an Ohioan, Robert Cutler,
who was about 30 years her senior. He passed away in 1935 at the age of 89. She
married Col. Orlando G. Palmer in 1944. He died in 1950; Anna died on January
13, 1962.
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The York museum participated in our commemorative brick project at the
Sutton Museum with their namesake's brick at her brother's house - our
museum.
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The
other Bemis offspring we’ll mention also made his mark in York.
Eugene
Henry Bemis was born on July 4, 1880, immediately following Anna in the family
kid sequence. He was married to Kittie Houston of York.
Eugene,
or Gene Bemis had a career in the newspaper business serving as associate
editor of The New Teller newspaper. He did some writing for magazines and wrote
lyrics for J. A. Parks compositions in York. (Not sure what that was, but first
look at a Google link invites more attention.)
Gene
Bemis’ bio has almost as many organizations as his sister’s. He was definitely
into music composition and running musical programs.
But
the publication we want to focus on here is his book, The Squawker Book
published in 1919. It is a soft bound collection of his writings as editor of
The New Times introduced with the self-deprecating line, “…purported to be a
humorous department of The New Teller.” Its dedication read, “We ain’t mad at
nobody.” The column was scheduled to appear, “any darn time we please or
oftener.” We thank the Houston family for our copy at the museum. Well, it’s at
the museum when I haven’t brought it home to read its 100 pages just one more
time.
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The Squawker Book is a collection of Gene Bemis'
columns in The New Times, his York newspaper.
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Bemis
wrote with a folksy dry wit that could remind of Will Rogers. (Did I lose
anyone with that reference? Probably.)
The
George Bemis family moved on to York after making their contribution to
Sutton’s early days. While researching this article I did check the Sutton
Cemetery on findagrave.com and found Bertie Bemis (1870-1887) who matches
George and Ada’s son Lucian Albert Bemis – I submitted an update to the
memorial on findagrave.
The
other Bemis graves turned out to be members of the family of Willard Eugene
Bemis (1842-1917), and older brother of George Bemis. Willard seems to have
followed his brother to Sutton, lived in Omaha at one time and was a Sutton
rural mail carrier in 1910. The four Bemis names in the Sutton School alumni
directory are from this family, children and grandchildren.
In
any event, the Bemis name is no longer around Sutton. But the family ranks
among Sutton’s first settlers and did leave tracks in our community – not just
graves, and at least one poem that will continue to pop up from time to time in
accounts of Sutton’s history.
George
Whitfield Bemis (1846-1915) and Ada Augusta Gray (1848-1945) – Sutton Pioneers.
Monday, August 22, 2016
Detroit Free Press subscription offer in Sutton?
It seems unexpected, but in 1890, The Sutton Register had a joint subscription offer with the Detroit Free Press:
What was up with that?
1890 - Sitting Bull killed
Early newspaper commentary is sometimes striking, often hard to read.
This article appeared in The Sutton Register on December 20, 1890 telling of the death of Sioux (Hunkpapa Lakota) Chief Sitting Bull on December 15th at the Standing Rock Indian Reservation in north central South Dakota.
Note the tone of the last portion of the article, likely written by F. M. Brown, publisher of the Register.
When Sioux Chief Big Foot heard of Sitting Bull's death, he attempted to find protection at Wounded Knee Creek on the Pine Ridge Reservation. He and about 300 Sioux were killed by army troops on the morning of December, 29, 1890.
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| From the December 20, 1890 issue of The Sutton Register |
