The Sutton Museum is the home of the Sutton Historical Society and is dedicated to the collection and preservation of historic artifacts and information about the Sutton, Nebraska community.
Tuesday, January 31, 2017
AF Lt. Col. Robert A. Jackson
Plowing through the hard copies of old newspapers each week for our newspaper column leads to multiple "finds" each week, many about personal family history.
This clipping was from late 1966 about the death of my cousin's husband. They were divorced, but I identified with Bob Jackson as the only contemporary military family member. Bob died on November 13, 1966, while I was in Officers Training School in Texas - did not know that until I saw this piece.
The story mentions one of his three children from his marriage to my cousin, Florine (Cassell) Jackson of Edgar. Pat, the stewardess mentioned here was a twin of Robert Jackson, Jr. and they were born in 1945 as military brats.
Another daughter, Carole Diane Jackson was born in 1956. Carole is married to Mr. Arturo Moreno and they live in Scottsdale, Arizona and La Jolla, California. They own the Los Angeles Angels baseball team. Wonder of Col. Jackson was a baseball fan...
Monday, October 31, 2016
Apple Valley Graduation - 2016
The Sutton Museum is proud to be a part of 4th grade Apple Valley program each fall.
Fourth graders at Sutton Schools have a block of study each fall about early Nebraska. They come to our Wolfe School Museum at the beginning of the study block. We tell them about our school and about the rural schools in our area.
Their teachers then assign the students to families for their Apple Valley experience as they re-enact rural school for the next six weeks.
The students return to the Wolfe School for Apple Valley graduation, typically about Halloween.
Here, Apple Valley graduation begins with a song by one of the two 4th grade
classes at Sutton Schools.
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The 4th graders have a schedule of tasks to complete to qualify for to be an Apple Valley graduate. One task is to learn a poem and recite it at the graduation.
Poem recital has two learning experiences: memorizing the poem
and performing the recitation.
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| Nineteenth Century costumes and style is part of Apple Valley |
| And there is a Graduation Certificate |
Sutton Schools Apple Valley Class of '16
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| We don't usually find this many cars parked at the Wolfe School Museum. On a Friday. In the morning. |
Where Did Our Early Settlers Come From?
Where did the early settlers of the Sutton area come from?
We’ve
had this conversation a number of times. We’ve talked about the Germans from
Russia. I’ve made sure the Swedes are recognized. And we’ve mentioned the
Iowans, the Pennsylvanians, the Ohioans and others from Back East. Let’s dive
into the topic a little deeper this month.
The
first settlers in our area were Luther French and Peter O. Norman who lived in
dugouts along School Creek. French was the first settler in Sutton Township,
Norman was a short distance down the creek, the first settler in School Creek
Township.
The
main wave of settlers from the east began arriving in the Spring of 1871
establishing a community named School Creek, soon renamed Sutton. The Swedish
wave came a year later in 1872 with the establishment of a Lutheran Church in
the short-lived village of Huxley in the middle of Section 6 in Sutton
Township. That upstart moved a half mile west along the Burlington tracks to
become Saronville.
Our
main source will be the 1880 census for School Creek and Sutton Precincts. Census
day for the tenth census was June 1, 1880. Jacob Steinmetz was the enumerator
for School Creek Precinct; James E. Marsh covered Sutton Precinct. Steinmetz
found 772 people in 141 households in School Creek Precinct. Marsh had 1627
individuals in 307 households.
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Census data
contains a treasure trove of information and the raw material for stories about
people of the past. We used the 1880 census for School Creek and Sutton Townships.
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The
household count is squishy. There was a count of dwellings and families those
were handled ambiguously. A household included borders, servants, brothers and
sisters, widowed mothers and in-laws. (Sutton households displayed a particular
fondness for a teenage svenska flicka as
a servant in large families – Swedish girls.)
Some
“households” were unusual and can skew our analysis. P. T. Walton’s household included
his wife, 2 sons, 2 daughters, 4 servants, a clerk and 46 borders – he ran a
hotel. Some of the borders were likely “transients” caught in Sutton on census
day, but many were certainly residents of the hotel with local jobs (painter,
blacksmith, shop keeper, etc.).
A
disclaimer is needed. The arbitrary nature of defining house households and the
likelihood that my counting was not flawless preclude any guarantee that these
figures are perfect. Anyone is welcome to check my work and get back to me.
Each
decennial census collected a unique set of information about the population.
Our objective here is to identify the birthplace of the residents. We’ll count
the number of people born in each state or foreign country and also track the
heads of households as an approximate family count.
Census
data gives a rough history of a family. We know the birthplaces of the father
and mother of a typical family, the birthplaces of each of their parents and
the birthplaces of each child. So we can see where the earlier generation was
born and learn where the family lived over time as we see where the kids were
born.
For
instance, my great grandparents were both born in Indiana. The 1880 census
found them in Sherman Township just south of Edgar in Nuckolls County. Beginning
in 1880, people were asked for the birthplace of their parents. James
Rowlison’s parents were both born in Virginia; Rhoda’s father was born in
Maine, her mother in Indiana. For those following the string of these articles,
Rhoda’s father Isaiah Walton was the subject of a recent article; he is buried
in Marshall Union Cemetery here in Clay County completing the
Maine-Indiana-Nebraska path his eventful life took.
James
and Rhoda Rowlison’s 1880 census entry shows their first son born in Indiana, four
kids born in Missouri, a daughter in Iowa, and another daughter in Nebraska.
It’s not apparent in the census but the Nebraska daughter was born near Peru in
Nemaha County.
Later
census data show that the Rowlison family added a son while in Nuckolls County,
another son and a daughter while on farms near Edgar in Clay County and the
eleventh child born in on a wheat farm near Hoxie, Kansas. Some may remember
the baby of that family as Ethel Oakley, wife of long-time (1922-1955) Clay
County Clerk Roy Oakley.
Just
by reading census date it is possible to reconstruct a rough history of the
traveling of that family.
But
back to northeast Clay County and School Creek Township.
Foreign-born
residents outnumbered U.S. born folks 462-310, and 106-35 in heads of
households. The influence of foreign households was even greater as 150 of
those 310 U.S. born were Nebraska-born children, most in those immigrant
households, but we’re counting them as domestic residents. Not at all
surprising, Russian born immigrants were the most populous with 283 people in
49 households plus kids born since immigration.
People identified their place of birth and that of their parents for the census taker. The Sutton area Germans from Russia are listed as Russian born. Without any additional information, anyone examining the School Creek census of 1880 concludes that there were lots of Russians around here. Newspaper items of that time and well into the 19th century also referred to these people as Russians. They self-identified as Germans from Russia, but that took a while to catch on.
Swedes
were the second most populous group with 33 households with 122 people born in
the old country. Again, there were Nebraska born youngsters in those families
as well as kids born in other states, i.e., Illinois.
The
center of this Swedish settlement was around Saronville and Verona and north to
Eldorado. School Creek Township catches the northeast quadrant of that area;
we’ll find more Swedes in Sutton Township but likely a near equal number
settled in Eldorado and Lewis.
Similarly,
while the early Germans from Russia settlement centered in School Creek, their
settlement area included the town of Sutton, Sutton Township and into Fillmore,
Hamilton and York Counties. Several families including Yost and Pauley families
landed around Harvard.
The
north end of Sutton, that part north of Ash Street is in School Creek. There
were native born residents in town and on farms. Twenty-one residents came from
New York, 29 from Ohio, 31 from Iowa, 17 from Pennsylvania, 20 from Wisconsin,
17 from Illinois and 13 from Indiana. The rest were scattered.
A
common Swedish immigration route was through Illinois. City dwellers
congregated in North Chicago and Swedish farmers initially came to Henry, Knox
and Mercer counties in western Illinois, just southeast of Davenport, Iowa. Typically,
they stayed for a short time before heading further west for open country and
cheaper land. Though a few stayed longer. Andrew and Charlotte Israelson
immigrated from Sweden to Illinois in 1852, had 12 kids and then moved on to
Saronville in 1878.
Other
foreign born settlers in School Creek came from Germany (21), Ireland (14),
Switzerland (9), England (6) plus a few from Canada, France, Scotland and
Denmark.
Sutton
Township had a little more than twice the population of School Creek with 596
foreign born and 1031 born in the U.S. including many in households of the
foreign born.
Again,
the Russian born dominated the foreign born with 222 followed by 126 Swedes.
Six heads of households and a total of 21 listed Germany as their birthplace.
At least I counted them as from Germany. Birthplaces of Prussia, Baden,
Bavaria, Hessen, Wittenberg and other city-states appear on the census forms.
The unification of Germany did not occur until 1871 so immigrants on the 1880
census often identified with their original homeland rather than a thing called
Germany.
There
were 48 English born in Sutton Township in 1880, 46 from Ireland, Canada was
listed by 41, Scotland (19), Holland (15) and others from Norway, Denmark,
Austria, Turkey, France and one Hungarian.
Any
questions? Or didn’t you notice the Turkey thing? John Grosshans, a Sutton
grain dealer and his wife Christina were born in Russia. Three of their
children, Christiana, age 30; William, age 28 and John age 27 listed Turkey as
their place of birth. Five younger children were born in Russia.
About
a dozen families made a different stop between Russia and Sutton much like the
Swedes in Illinois. Jim Griess told this story in his book, “The German
Russians: Those Who Came to Sutton.” Mr. Johann Bette had immigrated to the
United States in 1849, twenty-four years earlier than the migration we’re
more familiar with. He was from the village of Johannestal near Worms and Rohrbach
where Sutton’s Black Sea immigrants came from. Bette settled on an island in
Lake Erie near Sandusky, Ohio becoming wealthy with his vineyard.
Johann
Bette returned to Russia on a visit in 1872 and told of the wonders of the
United States. His visit was noticed by the Russia authorities who did not want
the German population riled up about leaving. His hosts learned that the
authorities wanted to question Bette. They thought it better if he could avoid
that. His spiffy American suit made him much too conspicuous so they gave him
some more appropriate attire and helped him across the Austrian border.
The
privileges granted by the Czarina Catherine and Czar Alexander to the German
colonists were abrogated about this time and Bette’s story was fresh in the
minds of those seeking to leave. About a dozen families in the Sutton area in
1880 had parents and perhaps a kid or two born in Russia then one kid born in
Ohio and younger kids born in Nebraska. That’s just families who had a child
born in Ohio. We should suspect that many more made that temporary stop.
Surnames associated this story include Urbach, Popp, Schnell, Deines, Brehm,
Geilman, Seeter, Orie and Schaffer.
As
for the U.S. born in Sutton Township, 216 were Nebraska born. These are all the
younger children of families. There was no Nebraska born head of household in
the area in 1880. Why? A bit early for that. Nebraska had been a state for only
13 years though a territory since 1854 and no Nebraska born had started a
family here.
There
were 165 Illinois natives in the township and 123 from Ohio. Other common
birthplaces were Wisconsin (117), Pennsylvania (109), New York (91), and Iowa
(76). There were fewer from each of 23 additional states, even California,
District of Columbia and almost all states in the northeast.
What’s
missing can be almost as interesting as what is found. There were two people
from Mississippi and two from Louisiana plus some Texas-born in a few farm
families. But that’s about it from the states of the Confederacy. There were no
Sutton residents in 1880 from the Carolinas, Georgia, Alabama or Florida.
Nathan
Tyler and Leonard Jarrett (Sybil’s father) were Confederate soldiers who
arrived later but all in all, rural Nebraska was Union country.
Before
the Civil War, Nebraska and Kansas marked a kind of dividing line – remember
the Kansas-Nebraska Act? A quick check of a couple of townships in Jewell
County across the Kansas line, in Sedgwick (Wichita) and in Neosho County near
the southeast corner of Kansas also did not turn up southerners in 1880. Was a
little surprising.
For
this article we’ve relied almost exclusively on the 1880 census which is
readily available. I access it via my ancestry.com account but there are other
means. With a bit of research time collecting and sorting data and then with a
minimum of inferences, we can learn quite a lot about the make-up of the
population of the Sutton area 136 years ago. And while plowing through that
information it is amazing how many additional tidbits appear that entertain and
distract.
I
may have mentioned this before, but we are always looking for more people to
join us at the Sutton Museum and help us collect and preserve Sutton’s story.
If the prospect of digging into stories like those in this article, or other
aspects of Sutton’s past interests you, please let us know. There is much more
to learn than we have the time or the skills to uncover. Your help would be
greatly appreciated.
This article first appeared in Sutton Life Magazine in October, 2016. For further information about the publication contact mustangmediasales@gmail.com or call 402-984-4203.
1916 Agricultural Price Comparisons
Petiton for a new Clay County Court House - 1916
Tuesday, October 4, 2016
Sutton in 1890
We’re going to look at life in 1890 this month, life in Sutton, in Nebraska and beyond.
The
Sutton Museum received several items from the estate of Jim Griess including
copies of very early Sutton Register newspapers. We’ll tap into one of those
now. The bound volume contains all 52 issues of the Register in that year, four
pages per issue – a good resource.
1890
was the fourth year that F. M. Brown had been publishing The Sutton Register.
He and his son Charles would operate that paper through the 1930’s.
Register publisher F. M. Brown had a joint subscription offer
with the Detroit Free Press. How'd that happen?
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Benjamin
Harrison was president in 1890. His was a one-term presidency between the two
terms of Grover Cleveland – the only time that has happened to us. His
grandfather was the ninth president, barely, dying just 31 days into his term.
The
governor of Nebraska was John Milton Thayer, a Civil War general who had
organized the 1st Nebraska Infantry Regiment and later switched to
the cavalry.
Some
tidbits from early in the year included:
The Sutton Post Office was moved to the
north end of town, likely where it was within the memory of many off us, next
to City State Bank (Cornerstone to the young folk.)
Roy Clark and Rubben Schwab sold
subscriptions to purchase a flag for the school – delivered with much
celebration.
County Treasurer B. H. Dunn sold his farm
three miles west of Saronville along with 26 horses, 89 head of cattle and 60
stock hogs.
The Sutton Building and Improvement
Company, owner of the Opera House was upset that their insurance rates were 60%
higher that the folks in the Central Block, I. N. Clark was an investor and he
was sure their taxes were higher that other downtown businesses. The Opera
House was also assessed $10 a year for a license to operate. They were looking
to lease the building much of the year.
Clay and Thayer County undertakers formed
a professional society with George Honey as the president.
Mr. I. N. Clark planned to put up 5,000
tons of ice in early 1890 – he was harvesting Glen Lake, now called Clark’s
Pond. This was another family business. Son Albert (Bertie) continued providing
ice for years.
Officers of The First National Bank
(north) were Henry Grosshans, president; George A. Tenny, V.P.; M. L. Luebben,
cashier and Theo. Miller, assistant cashier. Bank capital was $50,000 with
$6,000 surplus.
Directors of the Sutton National Bank
(south) were J. B. Dinsmore, J. J. Bonekemper, A. K. Marsh and Cashier F. C.
Matteson. Their capital was $50,000, surplus $3,500.
The Palace Stables were on the south side of Grove Street. I'm guessing you
could still move that merchandise today.
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Farmers
were up against some tough economic conditions. Early in the year there were
reports of Pender farmers had stopped moving corn to market at 15 cents a
bushel but were burning it instead of coal at $8 per ton. Ton for ton, corn
generated about the same heat as coal at half the price for soft coal, one
fourth the cost of hard coal. By later in the year, the practice had spread,
widely.
Hastings
authorities began shutting down that town’s bawdy houses.
The
Willow Springs distillery in South Omaha was believed to be among the largest
in the U. S. The owner later was the first investor in the Omaha Stockyards.
Mobs
in the U. S. had executed 175 people during 1889, all were negroes. In 1890
Mississippi authorities executed a white man for killing a black man – the
first time that had happened in the south.
Nellie
Bly landed in San Francisco aboard the steamship Oceanic, took the Southern
Pacific rails to Philadelphia arriving 72 days, 6 hours and 11 minutes after
she’d left on her round-the-world trip. She beat the time of Jules Verne’s
fictional character Phileas Fogg in the book “Around the World in 80 Days.”
There
were eight newspapers in Hastings though a few had failed in the past year but
another was about to start publishing.
The
Goodspeed Publishing Co. released its “Biographical and Historical Memoirs of
Hall, Hamilton, Adams and Clay Counties.”
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| Good for what ails ya. |
A
band of Omaha Indians camped on the creek bottom east of Sutton and visited Sioux
Indians who were “on exhibition” at the Opera House. The Sioux were part of The
Kickapoo Indian Medicine Co. staying for two weeks offering free consultation
and advice from Indian doctors before moving on to new hunting grounds. Check
out http://www.bottlebooks.com/kickapoo.htm for further info. Open question: was the
patent medicine company using the Sioux, or the other way around?
Rail
service for Sutton was robust. The Burlington had three trains each way (five
stopped) and the U. P. had two each way. Tickets included 150 pounds of
luggage. Less than 23 hours to Chicago, San Francisco by the third morning and
a weekly sleeper car to Portland in three days (a berth added $3 to the price
of your ticket.)
Sutton
promoters were courting the Kansas City, Wyandotte and Northwestern Railroad to
come through Sutton as they headed northwest out of Beatrice.
Prohibition
was a hot topic with women’s groups and a political party lobbying for complete
elimination of alcoholic beverages in society.
Edgar had gone “dry” in 1889 but two
saloons were planned for ’90.
The Clay County Prohibition Party sent 32
delegates to the state convention.
Harvard prohibitionists accused their
saloons of peddling adulterated liquors. That was also a Carry Nation tactic.
(There’s a bar in San Jose called Carry Nation’s Saloon with a motto,
“Temperance in Moderation” - cute.)
Speakers received up to $100 for speeches
in county towns.
Grafton had a social drinking club with
beer and liquor available only to members – just like Wichita, Kansas when I
was stationed there in the late 1960’s.
Opponents of prohibition offered high license
fees and strict regulation as an alternative.
Thomas Reed, speaker of the US House of
Representatives closed the saloon on his side of the capitol building in D. C. forcing
house members to the senate side.
These
items appeared in mid-year newspapers:
The Frederick & Wentz clothing store
was in the Merrill building in the Central Block.
P. T. Walton’s confectionary was just
north of Wm. Gold’s dry goods store.
Stevens’ grocery store was one door north
of Grice’s Harness Shop.
The Register charged its competitor
newspaper The Advertiser with bad grammar and articles filled with untruths.
The Hastings Tribune was also no fan of The Advertiser.
Owners of a Fairfield foundry were looking
for a site in Sutton.
Bradshaw was wiped out in a tornado with 6
dead and more than 100 injured. It was described as the “Most destructive storm
to life and property that ever visited Nebraska.”
The 90 remaining Iowa Indians sold their
230,000 acres on the eastern border of Oklahoma for $1.25 an acre. That land
plus more from the Sac, Fox, Pottawatomie and Shawnee was opened in September,
1891. The Oklahoma land rush continuted from April, 1889 through 1907.
A Stockham fellow brought his horse to
Sutton challenging Sutton’s fastest and lost. Significant wagering was
involved. One-on-one horse racing challenges were recurring entertainment.
Much
of the 1890 news involved politics and elections. It took up a lot of space
just to list the contenders. There were the Prohibitionist Party, Farmers
Alliance, Independent Party, a People’s Independent Party and Fusionists. The
Democratic Party was shaking off the stigma of the Confederacy while the
Republican Party of the Union had aligned with Big Business and the railroads
costing them support from farmers. The Farmers Alliance met in Omaha in 1892 to
become the Populist Party. There was a National Reform Party that met in St.
Louis but did not have an impact in Nebraska. A fragmented political picture,
but regardless of party names and affiliations, state issues were still rural
vs. urban.
The
fall term at Sutton Schools was headed by Prof. Alex Stephens, superintendent;
Miss H. R. Brewer, high school principal; Miss Manis, grammar; Miss Clara Lake,
2nd Intermediate; Miss Evion and Miss Nettie Greer, 1st
Intermediate; Miss Nellie Copsey and Miss Fink, 2nd primary and Miss
Mollie Braun, Miss Stepler and Miss Kittie Hann, 1st primary.
Steel
& Stevens, a Colorado company was buying hundreds of acres of corn, stalks
and all for 5 to 10 dollars an acre in parts of Nebraska. They were building
silos on farms and storing chopped up stalks and corn to feed 7,000 head of
cattle during the upcoming winter. The article did not use the words silage or
ensilage.
And
late in the year, these were some of the items in The Register;
York secured the United Brethren College –
today’s York College.
All Nebraska towns over 1,200 had a water
and fire protection system except Sutton. A special election in September
approved a $16,000 bond calling for a 75-foot water tower in the Fowler
addition – we called it the “standpipe” didn’t we?
A group planned to build the Kansas City
stockyards.
Chicago’s new masonic temple was to be 20
stories tall – 302 feet – the tallest building in the world from 1892 until
1905.
Drought had almost wiped out the corn crop
locally forcing small farmers to sell small pigs, or even take a hammer to
them. F. M. Brown’s comment, “Wanted at this office! A well matured ear of corn
of the vintage of ’90. It will be properly labelled with the producer’s name
and laid away in our collection of rare curiosities.”
The
November general election dominated late-year news.
Sutton voters defeated a prohibition
measure 208-174.
Independent Party candidates McKeighan and
Horn drew the most Sutton votes for US congress and state senate. Independents
won both state representative seats defeating Republicans.
Independent candidate Powers received the
most votes for governor in Sutton but Democrat James Boyd won the post
state-wide. Outgoing governor Thayer refused to relinquish the office on the
grounds that Boyd was not a citizen (he was born in Ireland.) The Nebraska
Supreme Court advised Thayer to step down but later reversed itself after Boyd
served a short time. It was a year before that the US Supreme Court ruled that
Boyd was eligible to be Nebraska’s governor. Thayer had served more than a year
of Boyd’s two-year term.
Sioux
Chief Sitting Bull was killed at the Standing Rock Reservation in north-central
South Dakota on December 15, 1890 as the army tried to arrest him. When 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 December 29, 1890.
And
that’s how 1890 ended.
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The Sutton Register ran a weekly business directory. This is one from mid-year:
This article appeared in the September, 2016 issue of Sutton Life Magazine. For further information about the magazine contact Jarod Griess at 402-984-4203 or P. O. Box 454, Sutton, NE 68979 or mustangmediasales@gmail.com
Navy Recriting Ads from September and October, 1941.
The Navy ran a recruiting campaign in small town newspapers beginning at the end of August, 1941 and running through the end of October. These ads ran almost every week (they missed one) in The Sutton Register during that period.
An item in early October pointed out that all 60 operating units of General Motors were in full production of war materials - aircraft engines, machine guns, ammunition, etc. about one year after G. M. received its first order from the War Department.
Public sentiment was against the "European" war but those in public service take an oath that includes a pledge to support and defend the constitution where the preamble includes the praise, "provide for the common defense". They were in preparation mode.
The attack on Pearl Harbor came within six weeks of the end of this particular recruiting campaign. Many who responded to this campaign were in uniform and ready to go on December 8th.
1916 Anti-Prohibiton ad in Clay County,
1916 saw two major ballot issues in many states, prohibition and suffrage. This anti-prohibition ad was run by a lobbying group called the Nebraska Prosperity League and sought to tie prohibition with lower land values. That is, land in Kansas was cheaper than in Nebraska...because Kansans couldn't buy booze over the counter.
"Causality" and "Correlation" are a couple of concepts that help explain what's happening, or not happening.
| The Nebraska Prosperity League was an anti-prohibition lobbying organization in 1916. |
This ad ran in The Sutton Register among other papers.
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