We
are fortunate to have a robust library of books and other publications that tell
the story of Sutton, Clay County, South Central Nebraska and state and the Great
Plains.
The
two important publications that pertain to Sutton history are the Sheridan
sisters’ book “Along the County line" and Jim Griess’s book about the
Germans from Russia. Each does a great job of telling parts of Sutton’s story.
The
Sheridan’s told us about Sutton and the farm lands to the southeast into
Fillmore County. Jim Griess focused on the story of our major demographic
group, working in the early history of our town and tracing the family
histories of the Germans from Russia back to Russia and to struggles of the
unification of Germany.
And
there are many other publications that help to tell the story of our past.
We’re going to dash through many of those now.
When
we reached the end of the first century of settlement in this area our county
communities marked the occasion with the publication of centennial books.
Nearly every town in Clay County publish their own Centennial book: Edgar and
Fairfield in 1972; Harvard in 1973; Clay Center, 1979; Deweese and Ong in 1986;
even Eldorado, 1988 and Spring Ranch in 1990. Missing from that list is Sutton.
Sutton
was the first county town to reach 100 years of settlement and perhaps it
didn’t enter anyone’s mind at the time to tell that 100-year story. Harvard
almost missed out too. Their centennial book is called “Harvard, Nebraska 100
Years + 2” perhaps my favorite title for a book, any book. We might assume that
Edgar and Fairfield’s 1972 publications may have triggered the Harvard’s folks.
Don
Russell made a good attempt to correct that situation when he was publisher of
The Clay County News with his book, “Sutton Nebraska – 125 Years – A Pictorial
History”. While his format did not follow that of the earlier county centennial
books, he did provide us with almost 100 pages of valuable photos of those
first 125 years of Sutton.
A
very early short publication about the county was The Centennial Sketch of Clay
County, Nebraska published in 1876. That centennial was that of the nation and
a county historical committee compiled four, two-column pages packed with the
story of the first five years of Clay County. We’ve posted the sketch on our
blog at http://suttonhistoricalsociety.blogspot.com/2016/04/sutton-centennial-sketch.html
County
Agent George Woosley and the Extension Service produced “The Story of Clay
County” in 1969, a 70-page soft-cover for a buck and a quarter. It has sections
for each community and a several of the county’s stories.
We
start to move beyond the boundaries of Clay County with the large two-volume
(almost 1500 pages) “History of Hamilton and Clay Counties” from 1921. Volume 1
has a section for each town in each county plus sections on a variety of
subjects. Volume II has more than 400 biographies of citizens.
“The
Fillmore County Story” is substantial. It’s a hardback of almost 400
large-format pages with 15-20 pages for each township. Schools, homesteads,
early businesses and settlers get thorough coverage in this book, edited by
Wilbur G. Gaffney and published by the Geneva Community Grange in 1968.
Clay
and Fillmore Counties share “Mother Wanted a Son” by Alida Curtiss which we’ve
written about before: http://suttonhistoricalsociety.blogspot.com/2011/10/nellie-stevens-pioneer-fictional.html Though it is a
novel it is based closely on the life if Nellie Stevens who with the author
operated a millinery shop in Sutton for several years.
The
York County chronicler was Marie Kramer with at least three books,
“Grandchildren of the Pioneers”, Volumes 1 and 2 and “Homestead Fever”. These
contain one to three page stories from a widespread, multi-state footprint. One
of local interest is an account of a Geneva area farm family by Homer Brauning.
His father enticed a brother to stay on the farm by buying him a tractor. He
borrowed money from the banker in Grafton to buy a John Deere for $825, a huge
investment at the time. Then they drove it home from Sutton on steel wheels,
installing lugs when they got it to the yards. So, Bender’s sold them a Johnny Popper.
”Old
Settlers’ History of York County, Nebraska” has similar early stories (some
duplicates of Ms. Kramer) including a bit more information about the Wellman
family who started Sutton’s first newspaper – they were in the York newspaper
business too.
A
local-interest book sometimes turns out to be “something else”. Dr. John
Janovy, a University of Nebraska professor and parasitologist wrote “Keith
County Journal” about the birds, snails, people and other critters in one
Many
of these books are in local libraries. I think the Clay Center Library has all
the town centennial books. The Sutton Museum has some of them (when they aren’t
on my desk serving nobly.)
The
“Images of America” series has a pictorial book about Hastings – there may be
hundreds in this series. Another Hastings book is “The 1931 Hastings Bank Job”
by Monte McCord and published by The History Press.
Another
History Press book (again, there are many) is Melissa Marsh’s “Nebraska POW
Camps”. I picked up those, and many
others at Prairie Books & Gifts on 2nd Street in Hastings.
We
should be permitted to claim an expanded list of “local and area” topics to
include the discovery, exploration and settlement of the West. The Oregon Trail
cut through the southwest corner of the county and provides us with numerous
titles.
“The
First Girl in the West” is an autobiography of Eliza Spalding Warren, whose
family was with the first covered wagon trek in 1836. Catherine Sager’s story
is “Across the Plains in 1844”. “Diary and Journals” by Narcissa Whitman is
another 1836 story of the long trip to Oregon. These and many other accounts,
usually from journals and diaries of women and girls, describe the details of
that trip through our area 180 years ago.
Men
seldom left us such contemporary accounts. They were busy keeping oxen, mules,
horses and cattle alive and moving west along trails through open country. The
women tell us the story.
The
series of at least 11 books, “Covered Wagon Women” contain the diaries and
letters from women who recorded the day-to-day events along the trails for the
several months it took to get from the Missouri River to Oregon or California.
Nearly
all the books mentioned here and many more are available on amazon.com,, often
for as little as 99 cents. Often hard to pass up.
Consider
that essentially every traveler along the Oregon Trail was making the trip for
their first, and only time. Almost none had any experience to draw on. The trip
often turned into a series of mistakes and blunders threatening to end in
failure, sometimes spectacularly. Historians estimate that there was a grave an
average of every 200 feet along the Oregon Trail. That is the material for storytelling
filling many books.
Mari
Sandoz and Willa Cather are Nebraska treasures who illustrate that the story of
the west can be told equally well with fiction as well as non-fiction. Mari
Sandoz’ wrote “Old Jules” about her father and every bit as much about the Sand
Hills. Willa Cather’s classic novels were realistically placed around the town
of Red Cloud – many of the buildings and features in the books are readily
identifiable today. The dedication of the National Willa Cather Center will
occur between the time I write this and when it is published.
Must
mention one more Nebraska woman, Louise Pound, longtime English professor at
the University of Nebraska but who mingled widely putting a Nebraska face on
several intellectual organizations and endeavors. Her book, “Nebraska Folklore”
is typical. She was president of the American Folklore Society at one time.
So,
it should be clear that there are dozens or hundreds of books that tell the
story of Sutton, Clay County, southcentral Nebraska and the surrounding area.
I’ve not touched upon the several topics including Native Americans and other
19th Century topics.
These
books are valuable for their content. But many years ago, I acquired a set of
books covering these topics from one of those Time-Life “deals”, books of
interest for more than content. The Classics of the Old West series has
decorated my bookshelves in three homes.
These
books are leather-bound and were printed with the plates from the original
editions. They are almost works of art.
There
are recognizable titles, “Roughing It” by Mark Twain, “A Tour of the Prairies”
by Washington Irving and William Cody’s “The Life of Buffalo Bill”. But the
real treasures are the much more obscure books by early westerners.
Those
include “My Sixty Years on the Plains” by William Hamilton, an early trapper.
The book was published in 1905 with eight full-page illustrations by Charles
Russell whose Great Falls studio was along our drive downtown circa 1970.
Captain Hobbs wrote “Wild Life in the Far West” describing his times in
Colorado and elsewhere about the west. He seems to have known a lot of folks:
Kit Carson, Zachary Taylor, Maximillian and many more.
“Captivity
of the Oatman Girls” by Royal Stratton tells of the capture of two girls by the
Apaches. Another book is “Live Among the Apaches” by Major John Cremony who had
no love for that tribe, but admired their skill at warfare against the U.S.
Army.
“The
Adventures of Big-Foot Wallace” by John Duval is about a traveling man and
frontier yarn-spinner who spent most of his time in Texas.
There
are 24 of these books. The appeal is in the production of the books with the
leather covers and their preservation of the design of early books. The black
and white illustrations are effective but there is merit in the way the table
of contents is detailed titles for chapters and sections that enable one to
find a vaguely remembered reference months and years later.
This
series was a companion to another Time-Life offering called “The Old West”, a large-format
series of 26 books, lavishly illustrated and available in some of our
libraries. My set has moved on to grandsons. Much of that series is available
at amazon searching for “old west time life books”. The whole series is
$135.79; individual books from a couple of bucks to 5-ish.
We described this series a few years back at: http://suttonhistoricalsociety.blogspot.com/2011/03/researching-west-with-light-reading.html
We’ve
been writing articles generally about Sutton history and related topics for
eight years and have often drawn on books in the library, at the museum or on
the shelves at home. We can’t overstate the extent of the material available to
satisfy curiosity about what has come before, here in Sutton, and in the
surrounding area. If you have an interest in our history, there are plenty of
opportunities to oblige that interest.
This article first appeared in the June 2017 issue of Sutton Life Magazine. Contact Mustang Media for information about the publication:
mustangmediasales@gmail.com
402-984-4203
mustangmediasales@gmail.com
402-984-4203
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