Gage County, Nebraska - Chapter 14: Founding of Beatrice, 1918

The HannibaIv-Nebraska Association - Organization - Members - Locating Committee - Its Report - Selection oe Name - First Fourth oe Juey CeeEbration - Association Meets on Townsite - Selection and Entry oe Townsite

The most authentic and interesting account of the early settlement of our county clusters about the beautiful city of Beatrice. Whatever credit may be due to others for the settlement, development, and progress of Gage county, there can be no doubt of the part that this city has played in all this work. The story of the founding of Beatrice reads like a romance and can never fail to have absorbing interest as a unique experiment in the settlement of the west.

Almost from the beginning of the ninteenth century the Missouri river steamboat had been an important means of communication between settled portions of our country and the western frontier. By 1854, when the territory of Nebraska was created and opened to immigration, lines of steamboats were regularly plying between St. Louis and the upper Missouri. One of these vessels was the old side-wheel steamer "Hannibal." On the 3d day of April, 1857, this staunch river boat slowly turned her prow up the current of the Mississippi, pushed off from her wharf at St. Louis, and began a long, tedious, and uneventful voyage to the settlements along the Missouri river. She was crowded with emigrants from every portion of the country, all bound for the west. Of her three hundred passengers two hundred were Mormons on their way to join a Mormon colony at Florence, Nebraska territory, and thence to move across the great plains to Salt Lake City. Of the remaining passengers many were young men, and a few were heads of families ; nearly all were bound for the western frontier. Before they had been many days out from St. Louis, there sprung up between the non-Mormon p>ortion of the passengers an acquaintance which was destined to be attended by consequences of the utmost importance to the citizens of Gage county and the state of Nebraska. On the 23d day of the voyage from St. Louis, while this great river boat was temporarily, stranded on a sand bar, opposite the village of Doniphan, in Kansas territory, in a meeting called for the purpose of considering the situation steps were taken whereby thirtyfive of these daring and congenial spirits bound themselves by a written constitution to remain together and settle as a colony somewhere in the new territory of Nebraska.

The chairman then stated the object of the meeting to be the organization of all who were willing into one town association and the formation of a settlement in Nebraska. Appropriate remarks were made by the president, tending to show the advantages of such an association, if all the members were actual settlers, and further stated that southern Nebraska, the Nemaha country, would probably offer the greatest inducements at present.

traveled in the Nemaha country and that it was a beautiful and desirable section, and that a town located in its midst would thrive and prosper.

The chair appointed as a committee to draft articles of association, John McConihe, Ezra M. Drake, Timothy Elliott, Bayard T. Wise, James A. Raridon.

The second meeting also was well attended. It included probably most of the non-Mormon male passengers who were looking forward to establishing themselves in the new territory of Nebraska. The minutes of this meeting are interesting and have great historical value. They are as follows :

Missouri River Steamboat Hannibal. April 23, 1857, 10 A. M. Meeting called to order, Hon; J. F. Kinney in the chair. The committee appointed at the first meeting to draft articles of association reported as the result of their labors, the following :

Second: The object of the same to select a townsite in Nebraska, either by purchase or claim ; claim the same and so much land adjacent thereto as this association may agree upon, all of which shall be held by the members for the mutual benefit of all.

Third : Persons signing these articles and becoming settlers either in person or by substitute upon the townsite or adjacent land claimed as aforesaid within two months shall be entitled to an equal share in all the benefits belonging to or arising out of this association.

Fifth: A locating committee shall be appointed immediately, who shall proceed at the expense of this association to explore Nebraska and select a townsite and report at an adjourned meeting to be held at Omaha City on the 20th of May next, which report shall be adopted as the townsite for the town of . .

Sixth: Such townsite shall be surveyed, lithographed and divided into such number of shares as may be agreed upon, which with the claims adjacent thereto shall be the property of this association, and such number of shares as may be thought best can be sold and the proceeds of such shares applied to the carrying out of the purposes of this association.

Seventh : Assessments may be made if necessary from time to time for such expenses and improvements as a majority of the members of the association may declare necessary.

Eighth : Members who do not in person or by substitute locate upon said townsite or some claim of the association adjacent thereto within two months from the time of the report of the locating committee shall forfeit all right of membership ; unless he shall be justified in his absence by the association.

Ninth: These articles may be amended or others substituted therefor by a two-thirds vote of the members, provided always that requisite notice of such proposed alteration of these articles has been given to the association at least two weeks previous to the adoption of the same and the members thereof sufficiently notified of such meeting.

Tenth : Each member shall have the benefit of such improvements as exceed in value those made by others of the association, to be ascertained and allowed in such equitable manner as may be agreed upon.

The above articles were fully discussed separately and were finally adopted unanimously. When, on motion, the secretary was ordered to copy the same preparatory to receiving signatures, and the meeting adjourned to three o'clock P.M. for that purpose.

At the adjourned meeting, at three o'clock in the afternoon, the articles of the association were presented for signatures and were signed by the following named persons: E. A. Wilmans, Calvin Miller, E. M. Drake, Wil-, liam F. Buffington, John McConihe, Timothy Elliott, M. C. Barr, Gilbert T. Loomis, Georgfi; W. Robb, John B. Kellogg, John Henn, Jacob Talman, Albert Towle, Bayard T. Wise, Pierman M. Reynolds, Bennett Pike, John Brown, George H. Tobey, A. Nelson, J. F. King,

Later, and before the boat reached its destination in Omaha, Isaac M. Steele, Alexander Lew^is, Charles Dripps, James M. Green, Daniel P. Taylor, Obediah H. Hewett, John N. Newton, Joseph R. Nelson, and Eogan D. Cameron were admitted to membership in the association, and at a meeting of the board of directors held in Omaha, on May 22, 1857, George D. Bonham and Joseph Milligan also were admitted into full membership in the association on the same terms as the others, namely, payment into the treasury of the sum of one hundred dollars. And at a meeting of the board of directors held at Beatrice it was "resolved that H. F. Cook become a member of the association upon payment of assessment (in place of Mr. Dripps, whose share has been forfeited) and upon payment of fifty dollars additional." As far as the records go there were no other formal additions to the membership of the association, but it is an historical fact that Nathan and William Blakely, together with Isma P. Mumford and wife, arrived on the townsite of Beatrice on July 17, 1857, and became thereafter closely identified with the history and destiny of Beatrice.

At the third meeting of the association held on board the Hannibal April 28, 1857, a census of the membership was taken with respect to their occupations and it was found that there were six lawyers, four physicians, three merchants, a mason, a bricklayer, an engineer, and a surveyor, together with a number of members without expressed occupations.

Before the "Hannibal" reached Nebraska City a committee consisting of Bennett Pike, M. W. Ross, F. A. Wilmans, Bayard T. Wise, Jefferson B. Weston, and Judge John F. Kinney, was chosen, known as the locating committee, in conformity with the 5th subdivision of the articles of association, "to explore Nebraska and select a townsite and report at an adjourned meeting (of the association) to be held at Omaha on the 20th day of May next, which report shall be adopted as a townsite," etc. At Nebraska City this committee left the boat and proceeded to discharge its duty. It divided itself into two sub-committees, Wise, Kinney, and Wilmans formed one of these, and, proceeding directly west from Nebraska City they passed over the spot where Lincoln, the state capital, now stands. The other three members of the committee, Weston, Pike, and Ross, hired a team at Nebraska City, and, with Harrison F. Cook as driver, began their search at once for a suitable location for the prospective city. Striking in a southwesterly direction, without other guide than the sectional corner stones planted by the government surveyors, they proceeded through the bright May weather to examine the country through which they took their course with the single purpose of choosing the most desirable site for a city. After several days of intelligent wandering over the springing prairies, in the brilliant sunshine lands, on a late afternoon in early May, they pitched camp on the banks of Indian creek, near where the Kees Manufacturing Company's buildings now stand, and within the present limits of the city of Beatrice. A little investigation convinced them that their quest was at an end. These clear-visioned young men noted the wide sweep of rolling plain extending in all directions from the confluence of the two streams where their camp was made ; they marked the near neighborhood of several well wooded streams flowing through fertile lands into the Big Blue river ; they observed that this stream, with its rock bottom and steep shores possessed at this point ample facilities and power for milling and manufacturing purposes, and that nature had given the adjacent land grades and levels that rendered the work of building a city an easy task.

Having carefully noted all these things they began their journey to Omaha, stopping a few hours on the way with John Pethoud and his friend Edward C. Austin, who were engaged in building a hewed-log house on Mr. Pethoud's claim, four and one-half miles north

The entire cornmittee having assembled in Omaha and agreed upon its report, the members of the association were called together to receive it, on the 20th day of May, 1857, at the hour of one o'clock in the forenoon, in the office of the territorial secretary of state. The report was brief and was probably written by that able young lawyer, Bennett Pike. It reads as follows:

Cass counties, find the most eligible site for a town near the center of Gage county. The advantages of this place consist in its location between two tributaries of the Blue and at the junction of the western branch with the main river ; in the great beauty and fertility of the adjacent prairies, in the abundance of wood and timber, in the proximity of stone fit for building purposes, and the favorable indications of coal. The prairie is four miles in width from creek to creek and is skirted on either side by the timber line along the banks of the above mentioned streams. The timber is generally oak, walnut, hickory, ash, cottonwood and elm, and is of a better quality and finer size than any other we saw in our explorations. The beauty of the situation, the central position in the county, and quality and quantity of the timber, the superior nature and location of the intervening prairie and the large extent of country tributary to it, determined us in the selection of this place as possessing all the requisites and advantages necessary to the founding and building of a pros; perous and thriving inland town. All of which is very respectfully submitted, with an accompanying map of the place.

This report was unanimously adopted and a committee appointed whose duty it was to ascertain and properly designate the exact location of the proposed townsite and have the same surveyed. Another committee was appointed, charged with the duty of reporting, at an early date to the association a name for this embryo town. The last named committee, as a result of its deliberations, at a meeting of the association on May 21st, reported the names of "Wheatland" and "Beatrice." The latter was the name of Judge Kinney's eldest daughter, Julia Beatrice Kinney, and it was adopted by a vote of sixteen to nine. The association, after appointing a committee, headed by Bennett Pike, to purchase for its use a steam saw mill, adjourned to meet at Beatrice on the 27th day of July, 1857.

Most of the members of the association made their way to the proposed townsite during the month of June, and by the 4th day of July nearly all were assembled on the original virgin townsite of Beatrice. They proceeded to celebrate the national holiday, and this was the first Fourth of July celebration ever held in Gage county. Judge Kinney, who had located at Nebraska City in the practice of the law, drove across the country with his family to participate in this celebration. Though the participants were few in number, patriotic enthusiasm was much in evidence. Miss Julia Beatrice Kinney, the seventeen-year-old daughter of the president of the association, in a pleasing speech presented to her namesake the national flag which had been made by the ladies of the association at Nebraska City, and Ben-« nett Pike replied.

Most of the members remained on the grounli until the 27th day of July, the date to which the association had adjourned at Omaha in May to meet at the townsite of Beatrice, and when on that day the president of the asso- ciation, Judge Kinney, directed his scholarly secretary, John McConihe, to call the roll of the members the following gentlemen responded to their names : Messrs. Pike, Towle, Wise, Weston, Jackson, Hewett, Elliott, Joseph Nelson, Northrop, Townsend, Tobey, Tailor, Wilmans, Ross, Reynolds, Johnson, Miller, Brown, Loomis, Green, and Bonham. Thirteen members, namely, Kellogg, A. Nelson, Barr, Cadman, Hitchcock, Henn, Dripps, Stewart, Zolinger, King, Raridon, Robb, and Bufl&ngton, were represented by proxy.

Judge Kinney then announced that the site selected for the location of the town was "one mile from east to west and one-half mile from north to south." Some discussion ensued, during which Mr. Bonham moved "that the townsite be so moved as to conform with the government survey and to consist of four hundred acres." After further discussion of the site of the proposed town "the whole matter was referred back to the locating committee". On the 28th day of July, that committee reported, recommending that "the eastern boundary be placed on the section line and that an addition be taken in on the west sufficient to cross the river." This report was accepted and O. B. Hewett was thereupon appointed lot agent "to donate town lots and that he be allowed to donate no more than three lots in any one block, and that no lots be donated except to actual settlers who will build thereon." A resolution was adopted that "the size of the town lots be fifty feet front by one hundred and forty feet deep, with streets eighty feet wide and alleys twenty feet wide, running one way." The Rev. D. H. May, the grandfather of Earl and Paul Marvin, was given five lots "for his kindness in coming to Beatrice and preaching the first sermon in town." A resolution was adopted donating "one thousand dollars to any competent man who will take the mill, erect the same immediately and run it under certain specified restrictions," and "Mr. Towle was allowed the privilege of occupying the association log house by unanimous consent until further action upon the subject." William H. Brodhead, who had previously been selected to survey the townsite, at this meeting of the association, July 28, 1857, was "allowed one hundred dollars and expenses for laying out the townsite and making three plats of the same" and Mr. Bonham was appointed "to confer with him about selecting lands." A half block was donated and set apart for school purposes and a committee appointed to select land for a cernetery. Mr. Pike was empowered to sell the mill if opportunity offered, and Hewett was directed as lot agent to donate two lots to the "first blacksmith who would erect a blacksmith shop in town." At an adjourned meeting of the association held July 29th at three o'clock in the afternoon, the location of the townsite was taken up and finally it was resolved "that the townsite be removed to the north so as to correspond with the government survey."

The townsite finally selected comprised the southeast quarter of section thirty-three and the southwest quarter of section thirty-four, in township four north, and range six east of the sixth principal meridian, comprising three hundred and twenty acres. It was surveyed and platted by William H. Brodhead, at that time a resident of Nebraska City, and on the 13th day of August, 1859, it was formally entered under the national townsite act, by Dr. Herman M. Reynolds, as mayor of the city of Beatrice, at the land office at Brownville, where at the same time a plat of the new town was filed, as in case of such entries the law required.

The reader has now looked upon the origin of the city of Beatrice. Glancing backward across the intervening three score years from his felicitous surroundings, it may be difficult for him to visualize the unpromising conditions that beset this beautiful city at the hour of its birth. Planted in the midst of what was virtually a primitive waste, far removed from even the confines of civilized life, no one who was not endowed with the prevision of the pioneer could have foreseen the bright future that awaited it.

The Nebraska Association continued in business until about 1870, when Solon M. Hazen of Blue Springs, who was one of the county commissioners at that time, was selected as a referee to make a division amongst the persistent members of the unsold and unclaimed lots in luded in the original townsite. Unfortunately his assignment of lots is not available for the purposes of this history. Few, however, of the original company were left to claim their proportionate share of the residue of the company assets. Having accomplished its original purpose and witnessed the full fruition of its hopes, the association, following Hazen's report, formally and voluntarily disbanded.

When we consider that the title to the ninetyfour blocks comprising the original townsite of Beatrice, and now by far the most populous and valuable portions of the city, rests upon the entry made by Dr. Herman M. Reynolds at the United States land office at Brownville, on the 12th day of September, 1859, under the act of congress dated May 25, 1844, commonly known as the townsite act, and the steady, unwavering zeal of the body of men who for years held the destiny of our city in their hands, we are bound to yield to the founders of Beatrice ungrudging credit for all they did here. It is to their energy, enthusiasm, and prevision that we owe not only the origin of Beatrice, but also in a large measure its prosperity and happiness. Their names should be ever spoken with reverence and respect by all who take the slightest interest in her welfare, or who feel a just pride in the fact that she is as a city set upon a hill, whose light can not be hid.