Nuss Accordian

The Kenneth Nuss family donated this accordion that is believed to have come with their immigrant ancestors. It is on display in the historic house.

Sutton Depot Cart

This well-worn cart served the Sutton Depot for many years. We understand that Paul Bender acquired the cart when depot items were disposed of. He kept the cart upstairs in the implement dealership until the demise of that business. It then passed to the Wach family where it was garaged until their sale about two years ago when Regina Leininger ensured it found a home with the Sutton Historical Society.

The two immigrant trunks have Swedish origins. The one on the right came from the Hultman family. The left trunk was addressed: Nils Persson;   Sutton, Clay, County, Nebraska, North Amerika.  Nils Persson immigrated in 1883 and homesteaded in the SW corner of Fillmore County. It too was in the possession of the Wach family.

The Persson trunk is in excellent condition, especially the wood that was used some 128 years ago.

I claim the Persson trunk rode on this cart from the train into the Sutton depot in 1883 - counter-arguments welcomed.

The cart is often in the front yard of the museum on Sunday afternoons, otherwise visit the garage to "Touch Sutton History."

1923 in Sutton, Nebraska

What was Sutton, Nebraska like in 1923? And why 1923? No reason. It could have been any year.

Our source of information is The Sutton News, one of two Sutton newspapers at the time. The News was published by Simon A. Fischer, a bachelor who lived with his parents August, a one-time preacher and Auguste. His father claimed to have been born in Pomerania and his mother in Brandenburg, again reminding us that Germany is only a few months older than Sutton, both created in 1871.

The paper was a six-page, five-column publication, no photos, a modest number of ads and mainly local news. There is some indication of  a feeling of prosperity we’ve come to think of in the country after World War I and before the depression. Women’s clothing ads give a hint of the styles of the flapper era.

The major local ads were by Yost Auto Company and Phelps Sisters’ clothing store. The banks, Rosenbaum’s Store in Harvard, Hastings businesses and the Lyric Theater were other common advertisers.

1923 Suttonites had an appetite for entertainment. The Lyric Theater featured a steady stream of current movies, as long as 7-reelers but silent and black and white, of course. The Lyric added a new player piano during the summer and not a simple one either. This player had two rollers and mimicked a violin, piano, flute, mandolin and drums; it was a one-person orchestra. The Opera House hosted several traveling vaudeville shows during the year as well as a variety of other performances though owner W. J. Ochsner apologized for the condition of the 40-year old landmark promising forthcoming repairs.

Club membership and civic activities must have occupied a very high percentage of spare time. One issue of the paper included meeting information for The Walking Club, J. U. T., the Bay View Club, the Pennant Club, P. E. O., Stratton-Sutton Club, I. O. O. F and Rebekahs, Farm Bureau, Fortnightly Club and missionary support groups in two churches. The Masons weren’t mentioned as well as a couple of others that could have been.

High school and town team sports added to the entertainment schedule. This was the year following Sutton’s state championship basketball team. The 1923 team did not quite live up to its predecessor but they were playing big-city competition. Omaha Tech made the trip to Sutton and the local team had one three-day trip playing Beatrice, Seward and Hastings, going 2-1 before returning home.

Baseball was a popular sport and the local team was coached by Johnny (Chief) Bender. This was after he had coached football, basketball and baseball at Washington State, Haskell Institute, Saint Louis, Kansas State, Tennessee and if a recent phone caller is to be believed, University of Houston.

Sutton had a golf team of Burke, Lilliedoll, Pscherer and Stenson competing in the South Central Golf Association including York, Friend, Edgar, Clay Center and other towns often to large galleries.

The Sutton swimming pool was three years old and in 1923 claimed its second drowning victim, fifteen-year old Ora Salmon.

City officials elected in the spring included councilmen Henry Bauer and Carl Held, the druggist; city treasurer A. W. Burlingame and engineer Ed J. Griess. The local county commissioners were O. B. Percival and C. A. Anderson.

The look of the north end of downtown changed a little in 1923 as Anderson Studio built a new one-story stucco building and Reger Confectionary shared a new building with the Sutton Barber Shop.  

One item from June, 1923 was especially exciting for historical society members. It described a new radio outfit at Harry Stevens’ Nebraska-Iowa grain elevator that gave Mr. Stevens direct contact with daily market quotations and a jump on his competitors. The Stevens family recently donated several items to our museum including Harry’s radio. For perspective, KDKA in Pittsburg began broadcasting as the first commercial radio station in the world in November 1920, just 2 ½ years earlier.

Two spring stories told of trips west by Sutton folk. The families of Fred J. Griess and Samuel Ullman departed for Lodi, California via a meandering 2,300 mile route of visits with friends. They reported back that the trip consumed 160 gallons of gas and that they found vineyards and fruit orchards priced at $2,000 to $3,000 per acre. Their intention was to become fruit growers. The Sutton – Lodi connection for Germans continues today as does the Saronville – Turlock connection for Swedes.

The same week a party of eight Sutton men left for Cody, Wyoming ranch land where they intended to “prove up” several tracts of Carey Act irrigated land with about 20 acres cultivated on each tract. The eight were W. H. Ebert, Jr., Henry Vauck, J. C. Catterson and son Harry, H. J. Bauer, Frank Levander, Ezra Elwood and S. A. Fischer the Sutton News editor. The Fischer family had a ranch in the area which appears to have been the connection to Cody. Letters back to Sutton during the summer told of the work but mainly about camping trips to Yellowstone and other scenic environs.

The route of the Potash Highway from Spearfish, South Dakota to Wichita, Kansas was announced in the summer showing the highway coming into Hastings from the north, passing through Sutton and south from Fairmont.

The year of 1923 was not an especially memorable year for Sutton, all the more reason to peruse the year’s newspaper for items of possible interest. It’s been fun; we’ll do it again sometime.

This article first appeared in the May, 2011 issue of Sutton Life Magazine. For information about the magazine call Jarod Griess at 402-984-4203.

SUTTON FIRSTS

Sutton is a young town, barely 140 years old and as a consequence, its early history is quite well documented. Diaries of settlers, the Andreas History of Nebraska and other sources describe how the town started and who pioneered many activities.

The Luther French story as Sutton’s first settler in 1870 is well-known. The “first married white woman” to settle in, or near Sutton was Mrs. W. Cunning who arrived with the Gray party on May 4, 1871. One wonders why the writer qualified her as “married” as though some single woman preceded her. But we’ll ignore that.

Sutton’s first business appeared later in the month of May in Mr. McTyge’s “shanty” store next to the house that Homer Gray had already built. Two gents, Kearney and Kelley started a saloon in a tent followed quickly by the second saloon of P. H. Curran and Mart Higgins in a building constructed by Henry Potter, the town’s first builder. A third saloon popped up next. The first “violence” in Sutton occurred when one saloon keeper, Mr. Flynn shot his partner, Mr. Mullen in the face – though it was not a serious injury. Andreas explained, “These fellows were fascinated by the charms of an Omaha belle.” The saloons were only one month earlier than the town’s first church services held by Rev. Mr. Jones in the “grove”, probably today’s park.

The first businesses were along Main Avenue north of the railroad tracks and on Maple Street. The area picked up the nickname of “Whiskey Row” somehow.

The first craftsman was Andrew Sherwood whose forge was in a sod shop just below the French dugout which would put it along School Creek just south of the bridge on Ash Street though today’s School Creek is not quite where it used to be.

Luther French’s dugout served as the first Post Office starting in the summer of 1871 and until A. Burlingame assumed the duties on New Year’s, 1872 at a salary increased from $12 to $400 annually.

John Maltby arrived in the area in June. He talked Luther French into dividing his homestead into town lots and suggested using the name Sutton after his home town in Massachusetts. The town was laid out on August 12, 1871 the same day the railroad arrived. The first train on a regular run rolled into Sutton six days later. Swedish bride Betsy Swanson was the first woman to arrive by train when she came from Lincoln to join her homesteader husband and becoming the township’s first homemaker in a board house.

 

The first lumber yard(s) in Sutton provide a favorite story. Thurlow Weed brought a car load of lumber from Lincoln on the new tracks on August 23, 1871 and gets credit for the first lumber yard. John Gray’s lumber arrived one day later making his yard the second in town.

The first town caucus was in the fall of 1871 in French’s dugout and on October 14, 1871 an election at a farmhouse near Harvard named Sutton the first county seat for Clay County. The court house started in the offices of R. G. Brown, Sutton’s first attorney. Brown’s first case, argued before Probate Judge Maltby, involved a well. Plaintiff James Schermerhorn won the suit over defendant David Jayne. Brown received a $10 fee.

Gray (probably Homer) & Bemis (George) started a nursery on November 1, 1871 with fruit trees, shrubs and ornamental trees.

C. M. Turner opened a general merchandise business and took delivery of the first carload of flour in town on December 9^th, 1871. Thompson & Young’s implement company appeared around New Year’s, 1872, again, the first in town and the county.

William Weed began the first school around the 20^th of January in 1872 with about fourteen students.

The Central Hotel was built in February, 1872 and was located
at the site of today's Cornerstone Bank.

The first hotel was opened in February, 1872 by William Shirley and later expanded into the Central Hotel. It was on the west side of Saunders, north of the depot.

Isaac Newton Clark and his brother Martin Van Buren Clark arrived in Sutton in November, 1871 and purchased all of the unsold town lots from Luther French’s 80 acre homestead for $4000. They built the Clark House, a two-story frame structure on the west side of Saunders Avenue near the north end. Martin Clark was a physician, the county’s first, starting practice on November 1, 1871, and he was a druggist. He and Isaac stocked a drug store and a hardware store in the building in February, 1872; both were the first such enterprises along the Burlington west of Crete.

The Lincoln firm of Houston & Street published the first directory of the town and county in February, 1872 listing three dry goods and grocery stores, two flour and feed stores, a hardware store, a drug store, two lumber yards, a hotel, one implement dealer, a nursery, a livery stable, one store with fur and hides, a meat market, two real estate offices, one doctor, one attorney a Notary Public and one shoemaker. Ten months earlier there had been one wheat farmer in a dugout by the creek.

William Woolman was the shoemaker listed in the directory and was also the first resident minister.

The first birth in Sutton was the daughter of Mr. and Mrs. F. A. Gross born on February 15, 1872. The girl died before the 1880 census. The first death was of another little girl, Maude Tracy, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Asa Tracy on April 21, 1872. Accounts of this death indicate that the new, small community was also closely-knit and quite attached to little Maude.

The Sutton Times began publication on Friday, June 20, 1873. L. L. Grimes and J. B. Dinsmore started the Pioneer Bank of Sutton in 1877, both firsts.

I. N. Clark’s Sutton Brick Co. was founded on June 1, 1876 as the town’s first manufacturing endeavor producing 120,000 bricks its first year.

As we’ve mentioned before, Sutton popped up quickly, growing from a single homestead to a thriving community in less than a year. The record of “who got there first” expands our image of those early days in Sutton.

This article first appeared in the April 2011 issue of Sutton Life Magazine. For more information about the magazine contact Jarod Griess at 402-984-4203.

It's Not Just an Old World War I Helmet

William Zimbelman's WWI helmet and the Clay County
book of 1917 registrations for the selective service.

The mission of the Sutton Historical Society is to collect and preserve the artifacts and the information about the history of the Sutton community. A substantial collection of items has been contributed to the museum. It is a challenge to catalogue, analyze and display the collected material. How can we add to information we know about Sutton’s history?

The great source of information about the Sutton community is the newspaper archives of the Clay County News. This series of Sutton Life articles and the society’s weekly newspaper column have been the rationale, maybe excuse for a nearly systematic study of those old yellowed newspapers.

The fastest growing resource for historical study is the online world. Huge databases are indexed and easily located which recently were only in libraries and other remote repositories.

Let’s look at a couple of donated items and see how we learn more about them.

One item in our Veteran’s Room is a World War I doughboy’s helmet donated by Sarah Easterly with the name “Zimbleman” painted under the brim. First question: “Doughboy?” We know that was the common name for a U.S. WWI soldier, but where did the name come from? (Your assignment: check out: http://www.worldwar1.com/dbc/origindb.htm.)

Did you ever hear the little ditty that was popular at the time?

Kaiser Bill went up the hill to take a look at France;

Kaiser Bill came down the hill with bullets in his pants.

O.K., back to the topic. Another donated item was a small booklet entitled “Complete List of Clay County men Registered for Military Draft” printed in Clay Center on August 17, 1917 containing the names 1237 county men. A little research discloses that there were three registrations efforts, one in 1917 on June 5^th for all men between the ages of 21 and 31. Our little book gives the name and home town of each. The 363^rd name is “Wm. Zimbelman, Sutton.” A little hiccup here; the registration is for “Zimbelman” with an “el” and the name painted in the helmet is “le.” Same guy? Probably, but we can look further.

The genealogy web site, “ancestry.com” (sponsor of the NBC program, “Who do You Think You Are?”) is a worthwhile resource. One of the literally thousands of sections of the site contains the scanned images of those millions of WWI draft registration cards where we find the handwriting of Mr. William Zimbelman, age 23 of Sutton, Nebraska, a farmer in School Creek Precinct. He described himself as a single Caucasian of medium height and medium build with blue eyes and light brown hair. The form is dated 6/5/17.

A quick check of census records finds eight-year old William in Bennett Township of Fillmore County in 1900 with his parents John and Christina and sister Edna. Both parents listed Russia as place of birth. Later censuses show the family in School Creek in 1910 and 1920 and in 1930, William and his bride of six years, Vera were renting a farm in Grafton Township in Fillmore County. Fun fact: In 1910 he was Zimblemann, later Zimbelman.

John, Christina and William are all buried in the Sutton Cemetery, William with a date of death of April 13, 1943.

So, with a little curiosity, a wee bit of know-how and a small effort, we’ve found some background of our helmet. Aren’t you just a little curious about the places where William wore his hat and what he was doing there? I have a suggestion: Give us a call at the Sutton Historical Society (402-773-0222) and help us look for that story and the background stories of other Sutton artifacts and information. Do you enjoy solving puzzles? Are detective stories intriguing? Dig into real puzzles and mysteries with us.

How could we learn more? Among the Clay County News archives is The Sutton News of 1918. Almost weekly, Editor S. A. Fischer printed a letter he’d received from a soldier. On January 4^th, George Barnell described working with the Red Cross and Y.M.C.A. at the Great Lakes training center near Chicago. Niles Miles wrote to his sister in Grafton describing, without telling where, the countryside around him, and that Charlie Chaplin was the American most admired by a local barber.

Zimbelman's draft card completed in 1917

A letter in February described the trip from New York to France with an account of escort ships dropping depth charges nearby as U-boats stalked the convoy and torpedoed a nearby English vessel. John Stertz wrote home about air raids and the wooden shoes he was buying in town to send home to friends. In March, Fischer’s brother Ralph wrote of enjoying letters from home and that he really missed eggs. He later compared an artillery barrage to a Nebraska thunderstorm.

The Sutton News printed the names of local men as they left for service. A late June list was 62 names long and included Suttonites Arthur Hornbacher, Henry Pope, John Peterson, Ernest Salmen, Leo Hughes, Clarence Dahlgren, Jake Kissler, George Stenggle, Frank Ryan, Jacob Roemich, Fred Heinz, Geo. Ioby and William Fleming.

Is that all we know? Not at all, but you get the idea. Now, how should we organize this information and present it so that visitors to the museum can enjoy it and appreciate the service of William Zimbelman and others? We would greatly appreciate your thoughts and assistance. It just might even be fun. (402-773-0222)

This article first appeared in Sutton Life Magazine in the March 2011 issue. Call 402-984-4203 for information about the magazine.

1986 article on Deweese centennial

This article appeared in the June 26, 1986 issue of the Clay County News in observance of the centennial of the village of Deweese.

Plat Maps of Clay County - 1925

1925 Plat Maps for Clay County Townships School Creek and Sutton are posted on the blog. The Sutton Historical Society has similar images for all 16 Clay County Townships that can be made available upon request. We also have plat maps for 1886 (posted online elsewhere), 1907, and several later versions (post 1950)

The Squawker

The Squawker was one of Sutton’s gifts to the town of York. It was the product of Eugene Henry Bemis who was born in Sutton on either the 4^th or the 5^th of July in 1880 – there’s reasonably good evidence for either date. His family moved to York where he was the editor of the weekly York New Teller newspaper for many years. There he entertained himself and his readers with a column that he called “The Squawker” which appeared, as he described it, “any darn time we please or oftener.”

Bemis was from one of Sutton’s founding families. His parents were George W. Bemis and his wife Ada of the Gray family. George Bemis was with his father-in-law Hosea Gray and brother-in-law John Gray on May 4^th, 1871when they approached School Creek from the east and looked down the hill to where Luther French was all alone “holed-up” in his dugout looking forward to a second year of wheat on his homestead.

The Grey-Bemis party filed for homesteads but saw the prospects for a town. Four months later George’s wife Ada (Hosea’s daughter) and John Gray’s wife Emma joined them. George Bemis studied law under his father-in-law and the two of them were among the first attorneys in town. Bemis may have been the town’s best known early poet for a single effort, “Grafton to Sutton” about the shenanigans that went on with the town depot.

Members of the Sutton Historical Society have a special interest in this family as it was Gene’s Uncle John and Aunt Emma (yes, there really was an “Aunt Emma”) who built the two houses on Way Avenue north of the railroad tracks where our museum lives and where Emma was honored in Aunt Emma’s Tea House for nine years.

The children of the Bemis family made a name for themselves after they left Sutton. Sgt. George W. Bemis, Jr. was one of the first ten soldiers into Manila when the Americans took the city. He was editor of J. Sterling Morton’s publication “Conservative” and later was the first editor of the Lincoln Star.

Gene’s sister Anna Gray Bemis graduated from York College and had a long list of articles and poems published. She was active in the social whirl of York and after a couple of marriages accumulated the name of Anna Gray Bemis Palmer and was the benefactor of the Anna Bemis Palmer Museum in downtown York. An exhibit to the right of the museum entrance recognizes her Sutton connection.

Then there is Gene. His column in the York New Teller attracted a following throughout the state and beyond. His style was folksy, to say the least, and was layered with satire and obscure references that challenged his readers. His friend John Benley of the Lincoln Journal quoted a letter from Bemis in his own column on August 20, 1939 that illustrates the Bemis writing style well:

“With footbawl next on the sports programmy, we’re on the lookout for dope. We can roll our own on the local situation but we’ve been wondering about the Cornhusker prospects and are looking for enlightenment from friend John Bentley of the Journal. Firstly, dear John, we want to know what kind of a band the uni will have this season and what kindda music it will play. As we had it from the experts last year the band played us out of the win column by playing swing – if it goes in for the jitterbug stuff this season, all is lost. How big is it gonna be, and what kind of uniforms? Will it be able to put on a class A performance at half time or will it fumble its drills? How is it fixed for drum majors – got any reserve strength there?”

Gene Bemis published a book of his columns and his poems in 1919 under the title of “The Squawker Book” with a subtitle of “Made with scissors and paste from the files of The World’s Poorest Newspaper.” The dedication line reads, “We ain’t mad at nobody.”

The Squawker columns touched on a wide variety of subjects. Several columns described Bemis’ attempt to raise chickens and economic and personal challenges of that effort. He must have had friends in the fire department as they came in for occasional mention, not always in a good light. There are complaints about the weather, prices and the behavior of people in general. A number of his poems appear in the book. Some reflected his humorous side:

Nellie had a little bell –

She rang it ‘til, goodness sake!

Pa got excited and said, “Nell,

You’ll make that Belly ache.

Others carried little pearls of wisdom:

You may travel all around the earth –

Seek pleasure and renoun –

But the way to get your money’s worth

Is to boost your own home town.

Gene Bemis died in October 17, 1955 and is buried in York’s Greenwood Cemetery (Shout-out to findagrave.com). Perhaps he contributed to the journalism culture of York that today supports the York News-Times, Nebraska’s smallest daily newspaper.

Members of the historical society are grateful to the Houston family for our own prized copy of the Bemis book, hand-tied “binding” and all. There is an amazon.com entry for The Squawker with the note, “Out of Print – Limited Availability.” The entry refers to “Unknown binding” and doesn’t have an image of the book but maybe we can fix that.

The historical society’s major fundraiser is the sale of bricks commemorating Suttonites, especially the early folks. The Gray family was among the more important founding families and like many early families, there aren’t descendants around to ensure they are remembered in our brick walk. Volunteers have come forward to commemorate John and Emma but other Gray and Bemis families remain orphaned. Anyone interested in helping to sponsor a commemorative brick for these folks can contact us for information.

This article first appeared in the February, 2011 issue of Sutton Life Magazine. You can contact the magazine at 510 West Cedar, Sutton, NE 68979 or neighborhoodlife@yahoo.com

Historical Research Made Easy: Just Stumble onto Something

There was a time in the distant past, say, about ten years ago, when serious historical research involved a finely developed skill set, some travel, plus lots of time and effort. Today, maybe not so much. We can stumble onto more pertinent material accidently online any random evening than we used to be able to dig up in months.

The results of one recent study illustrate how information of local interests can pop up for us.

Two researchers, Dr. William G. Thomas III of the University of Nebraska and Dr, Kurt Kinbacher of Spokane Falls Community College produced a publication called “Shaping Nebraska: An Analysis of Railroad and Land Sales, 1870-1880.”⁽¹⁾ These fellows were interested in the role that railroads played in the settlement of the Great Plains, particularly Nebraska. It is impractical to study a huge region in any detail and even if one could there would likely be too much stuff to look at in any timely manner. So the answer is to pick a smaller sample and study it well.

Thomas and Kinbacher chose to concentrate on three specific townships in two Nebraska counties and to extrapolate their conclusions to the region in general. The townships were Olive Branch Township in southwest Lancaster County and Lynn and School Creek townships in Clay County.

It is our good fortune that they chose Clay County as we gain the benefit of their efforts.

The study looked at railroad land sales. The Burlington Railroad came into the state at Plattsmouth in 1869 and connected with the Union Pacific near Kearney. Sutton and Harvard were the early developing communities between Lincoln and Kearney making Clay a candidate for the study. The Burlington received alternate sections of land from the government for ten miles either side of the tracks for each mile of track they laid. That is, 6,400 acres for each 5,280 feet of track for a total of 2,450,000 acres – 5% of the state. Development of the Great Plains was government policy and the 1864 Pacific Railroad act was one of two large 19^th Century “stimulus packages” to further that policy. The other stimulus program was the Homestead Act two years earlier. Both were successful. Nebraska’s population grew from 120,000 in 1870 to 453,000 in 1880 and over one million by 1890.

The railroad needed revenue from freight and passenger service to sustain its operations. Railroads actively recruited settlers. The Burlington spent $500,000 recruiting potential settlers in Europe between April, 1870 and December, 1872. That would have been the gross proceeds from sales of 143 square miles at the average price of $5.47 per acre. They focused on Germans, Czechs and Scandinavians plus two agents worked Great Britain exclusively. But their greater successes came from folks “back east” as large populations, often second generation immigrants came to Nebraska from Illinois, Iowa, Ohio, New York, Pennsylvania and Indiana.

There was a high level of sophistication in the recruitment literature. Material aimed at English speaking prospects used maps and timetables to illustrate the maturity of the rail system. The focus was on business prospects with graphs charting growth in commodity production and income levels. Materials aimed at non-English speaking immigrants were much more textural. Europeans were worried about water and wood so brochures told of rivers and streams with abundant flowing water. Wood represented more of a problem for the advertisers who had to acknowledge the near complete absence of trees, but instead told of ready access to cheap coal and the advantage of easily clearing land with no trees.

Settlements often developed into ethic islands or clusters of like-immigrants. German language literature pointed out the numerous German communities on the plains. Meanwhile, English language material told of honest, hard-working English, Scots and Scandinavians. The Burlington claimed that one half of southern Lancaster County was made up of German communities. The actual figures were between one-fourth and a third. Close. Few immigrants self-identified as Germans as Germany had only became a nation in 1871. They were more likely to call themselves Prussians or Bavarians or Hanoverians, etc. Olive Branch Township “Germans” self-identified with at least nineteen different principalities.

Lynn Township in Clay County illustrated another aspect of settlement. Seventy-eight percent of Nebraskans in the 1880 census were native born. Forty percent of Lynn Township sales of railroad land went to Ohioans with early arrivals from the town of Newburgh near Cleveland.

School Creek Township hosted the closest to an actual “colony” of any area in the study. Black Sea Germans from Russia with the Grosshans, Griess & Company purchased 5 ¾ sections of railroad land in School Creek Township on September 4^th, 1873.

There were several considerations when settlers had to choose between homesteading and purchase of railroad land. Homesteaders filed a claim, spent five years developing the land then took title. Railroad land was purchased but ownership was immediate. Homesteaders stuck it out for the five years forty percent of the time. A total of 270 million acres passed into private hands under the Homestead Act. Railroad land lent itself to speculators to a greater degree. But other factors seemed to play into longevity.

Olive Branch and Lynn township purchasers of railroad land tended to move on within a few years. The School Creek Township settlement of Germans from Russia was far more stable. Forty of the fifty-nine sales contracts to Germans from Russia in the county were in School Creek with the other nineteen, primarily from the Volga region, in the three adjacent townships. As land came available, members of the Germans from Russia community purchased that land sustaining the community.

This study of railroad land sales was good for our selfish needs here in Sutton in that it tells us something about local settlement. If there is a flaw in the study it may be that it did concentrate on railroad land sales. Railroad land was only one half of the story. Interspersed between sections of railroad land were sections of homesteads often settled by different groups with significantly different motivations. 

But overall, this study is a good illustration of the type of scholarly work that was largely inaccessible to us just a few years ago. We are fortunate that the researchers choose Clay County for their study giving us further insight to what happened here, back then.

(1)   The study is at: http://digitalcommons.unl.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1044&context=historyfacpub

This article first appeared in Sutton Life Magazine, December 2010 issue. Contact Sutton Life Magazine at 510 West Cedar, Sutton, NE 68979 or at neighborhoodlife@yahoo.com

Researching the West with Light Reading

Historical research produces two types of information. First, we learn a bunch of specific facts about our topic, in our case, what happened in Sutton, who did what and when. Quite different from that we find either general information or specific things about other places which give us some idea of what kind of the world our predecessors lived in and a clue as to the kinds of things that might have happened here.

Years ago Time-Life Corporation produced a series of 26 books in its “The Old West” series. There are such titles as “The Cowboys”, “The Indians”, “The Miners”, “The Women”, and of interest here, “The Townsmen” written by Keith Wheeler. I don’t believe Sutton is ever mentioned in any of the 26 volumes, but these books provide a feel for life in “The Old West” that early folks of Sutton shared with other westerners.

Well before Sutton’s birth Congress passed the Townsite Act in 1844 enabling westerners to stake out 320 acres, define lots of 125 by 25 feet and peddle those lots for whatever the market would bear. Speculators were quick to call their site a city. A New York Tribune correspondent visiting Colorado in 1866 complained, “I only wish that the vulgar, snobbish custom of attaching ‘City’ to every place with more than three houses could be stopped.”

One such group of fast-talking speculators in 1857 persuaded 30 settlers in Davenport, Iowa, mostly Germans, to come to their newly formed town of Grand Island on the banks of the Platte River. One enticement was a suggestion that someday the nation’s capital would be moved from Washington to Grand Island’s more central location. The financial panic of 1857 cost the Grand Island promoters dearly and two years later a fellow heading to the gold fields set fire to Grand Island burning down all but one house. His reason was that he hated Germans. The town was quickly rebuilt but in 1866 the Union Pacific railroad came through Hall County, two miles from Grand Island. The townspeople moved the buildings to trackside and the town was off and running.

Towns were quick to start schools, seen as a necessary step to credibility. Finding a school teacher was often difficult as wages of $35 a month were common. The practice of having the school teacher, nearly always a single, young woman, “board around” was common. She lived for a period of time with each of the families with school children. It seemed fair that the families with the most children in school should bear the brunt of this school support. Of course, that meant the teacher was always living in the most crowded houses in town. Many teachers saw this job as a stepping stone to someplace else or to a different line of work.

Early townspeople were quick to demonstrate their cultural sophistication. Lecture circuits, traveling acting troupes, circuses and the like prospered. Shakespearian Theater was very popular with Junius Brutus Booth Jr. and his brother Edwin among the actors who made their names in the west. Edwin Booth earned as much as $25,000 a month with his portrayal of Hamlet. The third Booth brother, John also made his name in the theater though in a much different context.

Clay County towns sported their own Opera Houses which were busy with some form of entertainment most evenings. Swedish dialect comedies were especially popular with different ones making the rounds every month or so. Sutton had numerous lodges and other social and cultural groups and found excuses for festivals and other celebrations throughout the year. Boxing and wrestling were popular throughout the west including in Sutton and Clay County.

In “The Townsmen” Mr. Wheeler included dozens of stories of western towns. Guthrie, Oklahoma had a claim as the fastest town, going from a railroad watering stop to 10,000 residents in 24 hours. Hastings, Nebraska must have won some kind of award for attracting five major and minor railroads while running up municipal debt of over $250,000. Ottawa, Kansas and Ottawa College received those names as partial payment to the Ottawa Indians from the notorious confidence man Isaac Kallock for 20,000 acres.

Time-Life’s book business ended with the AOL purchase of Time but not before 177 series of books had been published with such titles as Collector’s Library of the Civil War, Cookery Around the World, Home Repair and Improvement, The Great Cities, etc. Sales were by subscription, a book a month for from about five to nine dollars each. Series had as few as three or as many as 109 books. Yours truly has all or parts of five of those series (only 77 of those 109 in the “Reading Program”) but my favorites are “The Old West” and “Classics of the Old West” (26 of the 31 printed on the shelf). The web site  http://www.volumelists.com/ has the inventory.  There is an active secondary market for individual books and complete sets.

Are the Time-Life books definitive and authoritative historical texts? Definitely not. They are interesting and entertaining but not even decent secondary sources with no footnotes or references at all. But did I mention they are interesting and entertaining? The Sutton Library has the complete set of “The Old West”, north wall, bottom shelf. Take a look.

Fairfield's Carnegie Library

The Fairfield Auxiliary newspaper carried this story about the town's Carnegie Library in the December 19th, 1935 issue. The library was dedicated in January 1914.

History of Fairfield Schools

This history of the Fairfield schools appeared in the Fairfield Auxiliary newspaper on November 21, 1935.

Sutton Park Story

The Sutton Park has always been an important part of the community, even before there was a community. Today’s park ground was part of the Luther French homestead in March, 1870, the town’s first real estate. The site of French’s first home, his dugout on the banks of School Creek is within the park. Though we credit French as Sutton’s founder, it is unlikely the prospect of a town was involved in Mr. French’s land decisions, much less the prospect of a park. He appears to have been a farmer just looking for a place to plant wheat.

John Maltby arrived early the next year to claim a homestead to the south of French’s and soon convinced Luther to subdivide his homestead into 600 lots for the town of Sutton which French immediately began to sell off to newly arriving townspeople. In the fall of 1871, French sold the last 400 un-sold lots to the Clark brothers, moved further down School Creek into Fillmore County acquiring another plot of ground for his wheat and resumed farming.

French’s sale of his homestead became central to the dispute that Sutton had with the Burlington Railroad when French fumbled the proper legal sequence involving recording land sales negating a deal railroad officials believed they’d completed.

Sutton's Population & Business Story

Sutton is an agricultural community. No surprise there. The dependence of our community on the surrounding farming activity dictated how the town grew and then declined and the nature of the town over its 140 years.

Sutton blossomed quickly after 1871 to about 1000 people in just ten years and to a peak population of near 2000 around 1900. Then a decline in population began that has stabilized at just less than 1500.

The population trends of the area are better illustrated by the population of Clay County as shown in census figures:

1860 - 165

1870 - 54

1880 – 11294

1890 – 16310

1900 – 15735

1910 – 15729

1920 – 14486

1930 – 13571

1940 – 10445

1950 – 8700

1960 – 8717

1970 – 8266

1980 – 8106

1990 – 7123

2000 – 7039

The current county population is about 43% of the peak population while Sutton has declined to about 75% of its peak. Other county communities have also generally declined at a rate closer to the Sutton rate than the county as a whole confirming our suspicion that the loss of farm population has been the driving factor in the decline. Farms got bigger; people got fewer.

My common comment when describing this area while I was living elsewhere was that it took twice as much farmland to raise a family each generation. That’s probably understated. It may be closer to two and a half to three times as much land to raise a family each succeeding generation. It was not unusual for five or six farm families to live in a section at one time. What’s that number today? One?

The peak farm population required robust communities to provide goods and services locally and county towns grew accordingly. Travel to Hastings or Grand Island to buy shoes and groceries wasn’t practical by horse and buggy or by Model A.

Fortunately we have two comprehensive lists of businesses in Sutton to help understand the business activity of our community. The Nebraska State Gazetteer of 1890 - 91 (found at http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~neclay/claybus.html) gives us a list of the town’s businesses in 1891. Dale Stough’s History of Hamilton and Clay Counties has a similar list for 1921.

From the 1891 list we learn that Sutton had five general merchandise stores, six dry goods and clothing stores, four grocery stores, four confectionaries, three meat markets, three druggists, two shoemakers, a jeweler and a tailor. There were four livery stables, three ag implement stores, four blacksmiths, two grain elevators and a lumber yard. There were two hotels, three banks, four attorneys, four physicians and a dentist.

These statistics are a little suspicious. From newspaper ads it seems that generally there were more than the single dentist or barber and more than just two saloons. But generally, we have an idea that Sutton was a thriving commercial center. Overall, there were almost 75 businesses in town.

By 1921 the business profile had shifted some. There were still eight stores of various kinds, still three meat markets, four grain elevators, six physicians, two dentists, two mills and two lumber yards. The livery stables had been transformed in to six garages. Sutton was down to a single confectionary shop and one hotel at that time. There was still a harness maker and three creameries were on the list.

Many of us remember well the creamery business. Most farmers milked cows and kept a sizable flock of laying hens. Saturday nights found farmers lined up at the creameries delivering their five-gallon cans of cream and those 15 and 30 dozen egg crates. After an appropriate wait in the car for the cream to be tested and the eggs counted, they returned to the creamery to collect their payment, maybe six to eight dollars but enough to buy the week’s groceries.

Filling stations are another indicator of past activity. We believe there were 17 locations of stations in Sutton with as many as a dozen operating at one time.

These businesses provided employment for a sizable work force of town’s people including many single men besides local families. Boarders were listed in several homes with various occupations. The 1880 census includes one of the hotels in which more than 40 people were listed as residents, only a few of which were members of families. Most were listed as laborers but specific occupations included saloon keeper, painter, tailor, and furniture dealer. The hotel itself provided employment for the manager, his wife, four resident servants and a clerk.

The town of Sutton was a robust community in its day, as were most of the neighboring towns. Sutton is holding its own today - much of those neighboring towns, not so much.

This article appeared in the June, 2010 issue of Sutton Life Magazine. For information about the magazine contact neighborhoodlife@yahoo.com or Mustang Inc., 510 West Cedar, Sutton, NE 68979.

Sutton's Pioneer Gray Family

Emma Gray

Visitors to the Sutton Museum are familiar with the Gray family. Displays include Emma’s dress from 1871 and a calendar picture from the J. M. Gray Lumber and Building Material business. Both houses at the museum were built by John and Emma Gray and their dining room set has returned. Emma inspired the name of Aunt Emma’s Tea House.

So who were the Gray’s?

Hosea Gray, his son John M., son-in-law George W. Bemis, Wilson Cunning and his wife came by covered wagon to School Creek on May 4, 1871 where only Luther French lived in his dugout.

P. McTighe built a shanty for a store next to the Gray’s first dwelling within a few days and Curran, Higgins and Kearney & Kelley opened their saloons. The School Creek settlement was underway.

Hosea Gray was born in Pennsylvania in 1816, lived in Indiana and Illinois and made it to Iowa in 1839. He served as Linn County sheriff for four terms, practiced law, and was Clerk of the District Court retiring in 1850. He then bought a 640 acre stock farm and in 1856 was a member of the state’s Constitutional Convention. In April, 1861 he formed a company in the Sixth Iowa Infantry serving two years before a serious illness forced him from the front lines. He finished the war as a Lieutenant Colonel recruiting and training troops.

Col. Gray returned from the war to his farm and family. His wife died in 1869 and two years later he headed west to the banks of School Creek.

Hosea and John started a lumber yard on August 24^th of 1871 the day after Thurlow Weed’s carload of lumber arrived from Lincoln. The Gray lumber yard was on the west side of Way Avenue, north of the tracks.

John’s wife Emma and Ada Augusta Bemis joined their husbands early that summer. Emma Wolcott was born in 1850 in Elizabeth, Illinois. Her father died of injuries in the Civil War.

Ada Bemis was the daughter of Hosea Gray and wife of George W. Bemis. Her accounts of pioneer days in Sutton can be found online. A search using “Ada Bemis Sutton Nebraska” returns “Nebraska Trailblazer #5” and “The Easter Blizzard” at nebraskahistory.org. Hers was the first piano in the area and her performances were in great demand.

George and Ada Bemis moved their family to York where she helped organize the first branch of the WCTU west of Lincoln. Daughter Anna Gray Bemis married first a Mr. Cutler and later a Mr. Palmer. She contributed her name and funding for the Anna Bemis Palmer Museum in York. A display honoring Anna is to the right of the door as you enter.

Two sons of George and Ada Bemis entered the publishing business. George Jr. edited J. Sterling Morton’s “Conservative” and was the first editor of the Lincoln Star. As a member of the First Nebraska Infantry in the Spanish-American War, George Bemis, Jr. was one of the first ten men into Manila after it was taken. His brother Eugene was editor and columnist with “The New Teller” in York from 1911 until 1949. The family of his wife, Kate Houston generously contributed a copy of Eugene’s book, “The Squawker Book” to the Sutton Museum. The book is a collection of the humorist’s poems and columns and gets off to a great start with the dedication: “We ain’t mad at nobody”.

Back in Sutton, Eugenia Maria Gray, another daughter of Homer Gray married Samuel Carney in 1878. Carney came to Sutton from Pennsylvania and worked in I. N. Clark’s hardware store. He purchased the business from I. N. and later passed it on to his son Samuel Gray Carney. The younger Sam Carney hired a young fellow named Les Bauer to work in the hardware store. Les carried that lineage of Sutton hardware businesses into the memory of many of us.

Many of the Sutton pioneers played their part and moved on with little trace of the families remaining. The Gray family name may have faded but the extended Gray family left some distinguished tracks.

This article appeared in the May, 2010 issue of Sutton Life Magazine. For information about the magazine contact neighborhoodlife@yahoo.com or Mustang Inc., 510 West Cedar, Sutton, NE 68979.