Gage County, Nebraska - Chapter 22, 1918

Beatrice Concluded

For many years after the settlement and organization of our county the pioneers were wholly dependent upon foreign banking institutions in all business transactions requiring the intervention of a bank. One of the six "wild-cat" banks established in Nebraska territory in 1856, by legislative charter, was the Platte Valley Bank, at Nebraska City. It was organized with S. F. Nuckolls as president and Joshua Garside as cashier. On account of the high character of these men, this bank secured a good patronage, and it was the only territorial bank of the "wild-cat" type that survived the terrible financial panic of 1857. In 1859 it liquidated its obligations and was succeeded at Nebraska City by the private banking house of James Sweet & Company, which was organized September 19, 1859. The honorable record as bankers established by the Platte Valley Bank under Mr. Nuckolls' management, together with the confidence inspired by James Sweet and those associated with him in his private banking enterprise, drew to Nebraska City a great volume of banking business from many of the South Platte counties, including Gage. Through the cooperation of the pioneer merchants of Beatrice with these banking concerns, a regular banking business of a sort was established for Beatrice and vicinity. The process was in the main as follows : A citizen wishing to borrow a sum of money would go to Joseph Saunders or to Blakely, Reynolds & Townsend or to some other Beatrice merchant, offer his security, make his note at twelve per cent, annual interest, payable in advance, and secure the money. The lender, by endorsing the note or guaranteeing its payment, could turn it in at his correspondent bank at Nebraska City and take credit for it.

But with the coming of the railroads, in 1872, all this was completely changed. To every property-owner in the county the advent of the iron horse was equivalent to unclaimed treasure-trove. That which before had possessed no market value, became marketable. Land advanced almost over night from a nominal sum to five dollars or more per acre, and found purchasers. Business quickly adjusted itself to new conditions. Grain and. live stock and other products of the farm, found a ready market at reasonable figures. In fact the coming of the railroads ended the pioneer days in Gage county.

In 1871 Nathan Kirk Griggs and Hiram Peter Webb began a banking business in a. small way, as private bankers, in the twostory, brick building erected by them on lot 10, block 47 of the original town of Beatrice, described as No. 314 Court street. Neither member of the firm possessed sufficient capital for any but the most meager banking operations, but they did have the most desirable of all wealth, - youth, enthusiasm, self-confidence and, to a very remarkable degree, the confidence of the community, - a confidence which both well deserved. Both were well educated, both lawyers without briefs, both with character and abilities which promised much for the future. At the election in November, 1869, Webb was elected treasurer of Gage county, and by successive elections he- held the office from January, 1870, to January, 1876. There were then no restrictions upon the use of the funds of the county by - the treasurer, nor was he required to account for interest on such funds. Many a pioneer bank in Nebraska had its inception with the election of the county treasurer. The bank was known as the Griggs & Webb Bank and it did a large business for those crude days; it was successfully managed by Webb until 1878. In 1874 they built a two-story, stone bank building at the comer of Fifth and Court streets, and transferred the bank to this building. In 1876 Mr. Griggs, who had by that time become a prominent and successful lawyer and politician, was appointed United States consul to Chemnitz, Saxony, 'and on accepting this office he withdrew from the bank. Webb retired from the county treasury in January, 1876, and thereafter devoted his time exclusively to the affairs of the bank, which then became known as H. P. Webb & Company, he having associated with him in the bank Nathan Blakely and Silas P. Wheeler. Had he confined his activities to legitimate banking he no doubt would have built up a very strong institution. He was a genial, clever, accommodating man, much esteemed in the community, and drew about him a host of the warmest of friends. In an evil moment, he formed a copartnership with a man named Holt, bought both the Beatrice and De- Witt mills, and with him engaged in the milling and grain business at DeWitt and Beatrice, using the funds of his bank to finance these transactions. He was cruelly deceived and cheated by Holt, and both mills were finally destroyed by fire. The banking house of H. P. Webb & Company closed its doors in May, 1878, its assets passed into the hands of W. H. Ashby, as assignee, and Gage county's first banker, Hiram Webb, having lost what in those days was a fortune and the opportunity of great success in the banking world, broken in spirit while still a young man, left Gage county and went to Oregon, where, being deeply religious, he engaged in works of piety, and died many years ago, far from his friends. The annals of Gage county

Following the failure of the Webb banking concern, William Lamb, having acquired the old Webb banking house, August 1, 1879, organized a private bank bearing his name. In 1881 the Lamb banking establishment was purchased by Erastus E. Brown, of Lincoln, and reorganized June 14, 1881, as the Gage County Bank; capital $50,000, with Brown, president, Lamb, manager, and Oliver M. Enlow, cashier and attorney. In 1884 the stock of this bank was purchased by Daniel W. Cook, Jefferson B. Weston, Nathan H. Plarwood and their associates, and it was then reorganzied, as the Beatrice National Bank, with a capital of $50,000. President, Jefferson B. Weston; vice-president, Daniel W. Cook ; cashier, C. M. Brown. The bank continued in business in the old two-story, stone building at Fifth and Court streets until December 10, 1892, when its directorate having acquired the bulk of the stock in the old Masonic Temple Building Company moved the bank to that building, on the corner of Sixth and Court streets, which had been remodeled for banking purposes. This building was destroyed by fire December 22, 1902, entailing a complete loss of the bank furniture and fixtures. The vaults and safes, however, afforded perfect protection to the books, records and funds of the bank, and at the usual hour the morning of the 23d of December it opened for business in the old Nebraska National Bank building, secured for that purpose while its own was in flames.

Steps were immediately taken by the officers and directors of the bank to erect a modern bank building on the spot where the old Masonic Temple building had stood. This work was begun as soon as the debris of the old structure was cold, and it was pushed to completion as rapidly as possible. Almost a year was consumed in the erection of this building, and it was not till the morning of December 14, 1903, that the doors of the new building swung open to the patrons of the bank, and a new chapter was begun in its long career of usefulness and prosperity. Supplemental

In August, 1872, John E. and Samuel C. Smith came to Beatrice and on the first da)' of September following they opened a private bank at No. 409 Court street, in the building now occupied by Cullen & Lock as a cigar store. The brothers possessed a capital of $10,000, and the bank was known as Smith Brothers' Bank, of which John E. Smith was president and Samuel C. Smith, cashier. Both brothers were natives of Ridgefield, Connecticut; John E., the elder, was born August 6, 1842, and Samuel C. was bom June 18, 1846. They were at an age when, if ever, enthusiam and ambition have assumed full sway and they entered into the business life of our county with a vigor that was most inspiring to all who fell under their influence. They brought to their business as bankers the powerful support of a number of moneyed men both in Ridgefield and in Cambridge, New York, where the elder brother had served an apprenticeship in the banking business as an employe of the Cambridge Valley Bank, which institution he had served three years as cashier, acquiring a thorough knowledge of the business. For nearly forty-six years Smith Brothers have been prominent factors in the growth and development of the city of Beatrice, the county of Gage and state of Nebraska.

In 1877 they organized the First National Bank of Beatrice, which was chartered and commenced business in April of that year. The directors of the bank were Hon. Algernon Sidney Paddock, Hiram W. Parker, Elijah Filley, Charles G. Dorsey, John E. and Samuel C. Smith, of Beatrice, and James Ellis, of New York. John E. Smith was president; Hiram W. Parker, vice-president; Samuel C. Smith, cashier; and Frank Graham, assistant cashier. The success of this banking enterprise was immediate. The statement of its condition at the close of the first nine months of its existence comprises not only an instructive commentary on the afifairs of the bank itself, but is the first bank statement ever issued by any institution in Gage county. It is dated December 31, 1877, and is as follows:

About the year 1885 the First National Bank, building, on the corner of Fifth and Court streets was erected, and the bank was transferred to the commodious quarters arranged for it in this substantial structure.

This pioneer bank has had a remarkable career in the banking history of the state of Nebraska. In 1886, the Beatrice Savings Bank was organized and operated in connection with this institution, and from the beginning, Smith Brothers, had maintained a farm-loan department, separately incorporated however as the Smith Brothers Loan & Trust Company. All these institutions did a tremendous business, each in its Une. Through Smith Brothers Loan & Trust Company the funds of the savings bank were largely invested in mortgages on western Kansas and Nebraska land. The business thus transacted was enormous, was most conservatively conducted, and under normal conditions would have proved very profitable to all parties concerned. But the great financial panic of 1893, coupled with a series of dry seasons which beggared nearly every man in the territory where these lands were located and drove thousands out of the country, caused such shrinkage in values as to force the Smith Brothers out of business. The savings bank passed into the hands of a receiver, and the stock of the First National Bank held by them passed to L. B. Howey and those associated with him in its purchase, and John and Samuel Smith, by these transactions, turned over to the creditors of their business enterprises all their non-exempt property. The saddest part of this business tragedy consists in the fact that the assets of the two banks were what in common parlance is described as "giltedge." Even under the wasteful management of a receivership the assets of the savings bank paid ninety cents on the dollar of its indebtedness, and if the Smith Brothers could have been given time, the restoration of values which shortly ensued would have left their several institutions entirely solvent and them with independent fortunes. They were innocent victims of the times and the lack of confidence in all financial institutions then widely prevalent. With superb courage, they have successfully re-established themselves in a profitable farm-loaning business known as the Farmers Trust Company, but more important than all, through all reverses of fortune, they have retained the confidence and esteem of a community to whose material, social and religious development they have so largely contributed.

The reader has now witnessed the begining of the banking business in the city of Beatrice and followed the history of its two pioneer banks to the present moment. It may be of interest, at least to those who come after us, to know that these two institutions are today stronger, more powerful and better than ever before. Since the death of Daniel W. Cook, in 1916, Wallace Robertson has been president of the Beatrice National Bank; R. J. Kilpatrick, vice-president ; Daniel W. Cook, Jr., cashier; J. H. Doll, assistant cashier. Frederick H. Howey is president of the First National Bank; M. V. Nichols, first vicepresident; William C. Black, second vicepresident; R. B. Clemens, cashier; H. A. Reeves, assistant cashier. With its other activities the First National Bank, in 1909, organnized and is successfully carrying on a savings bank, under the name of First State Savings Bank of Beatrice, Nebraska.

Numerous other banking ventures have been made in the city, some achieving a great success, some a dismal failure. One that in the early '80s promised to reach a position of great usefulness was The People's Bank, organized by John Ellis (a forrner county treasurer of Gage county), Horace L. Ewing, Warren Cole, Lafayette P. Brown, C. W. Collins and others, in 1882. Within a year after its organization Mr. Collins removed to Hebron, where he became the principal owner and president of the First National Bank of that city, an institution which he conducted to great prosperity. After the retirement of Mr. Collins, Ellis and his associates erected a splendid four-story, stone building at the corner of Fourth and Court streets, now the property of Milburn & Scott Company, and reorganized the bank into the Nebraska National

Bank, with Ellis as president, Cole, vice-president, and Ewing, cashier. But the terrible financial panic of 1893-1896 found the bank unable to withstand the demands upon it, and it went down in a maelstrom of ruin. Its affairs were wound up by E. R. Fogg, the receiver, who paid about fifty per cent of the indebtedness.

In 1881 William A. Wolfe founded the German National Bank. Associated with him were George Arthur Murphy, Andrew W. Nickell, Dwight Coit and the W. H. Thrift estate; capital $100,000. Wolfe was chosen president; Nickell, vice-president; and Coit, cashier. After nearly a quarter of a century of successful business this bank liquidated in 1912, sold its building at No. 411 Court street to the Union Savings Bank, and retired from business. In 1913, Mr. Wolfe, with Dwight Coit, Hugo Ahlquist and others, organized the Nebraska State Bank, with Wolfe, president, and Coit, cashier; capital $50,000.

Another hopeful banking venture was that of the American Bank of Beatrice, organized in 1888 as the American Savings Bank, but soon changed to the American Bank, capital $100,000. The officers were: Charles E. White, president; Charles L. Schell, vicepresident; John Henderson, cashier. The institution occupied the banking house owned by it at No. 110 North Fifth street, and now owned and occupied by the State Savings & Loan Association. This bank also was caught in the financial storm of 1893, and closed its doors on the second day of July of that year.

About the year 1889 L. E. Walker, Thomas Yule and others organized a bank known as the Union Savings Bank of Beatrice. After a few years Mr. Walker retired and Martin V. Nichols and John H. Penner became the leading stockholders of this concern, which then became a cornmercial bank, under the name of Union State Bank. This bank man-- aged to exist until quite a recent date, when the stock was purchased by Robin B. Nickell, who about the same time purchased the stock of the German National Bank and consolidated the two into a strong financial institution now known as the Union State Bank, and

In February, 1892, the Fanners & Merchants State Bank was organized with a paidup capital of $50,000, by William P. Norcross, Milo Baker, Eugene W. Wheelock, and others, and with Norcross, president; Baker, vicepresident, and Wheelock, cashier. The bank was very conservatively managed and promised a long career of usefulness in the community. It opened with a fine patronage and this was continued until the great financial panic of 1893-1896, when banking had become so hazardous a risk as to be unattractive to capital. On the 31st of December, 1896. the Farmers & Merchants Bank went into voluntary liquidation, its depositors were paid in full and the stockholders' money returned ro them dollar for dollar.

In 1908 the Beatrice State Bank was organized by F. E. Allen, of Auburn, Nebraska, J. T. Harden, H. H. Waite, Frank Morrison, Alpha Graf and others ; capital $50,000. This institution has had a successful career and is ably and conservatively managed. F. E. Allen is president ; J. T. Harden, vice-president, and H. H. Waite, cashier.

The city of Beatrice may be said to have Ijeen a manufacturing center of consequence from the date of its origin, in July, 1857. The old steam saw mill set up by the Townsite Company, employed in the manufacture of lumber from native timber for their immediate use, was supplanted in the early '60s by Fordyce Roper's water-power saw and grist mill and shingle and lath machines, all doing custom work and finally drawing trade from considerable distances. From these early days and crude beginnings to the present time Beatrice has steadily advanced until, in a trifle more than three score years from the date of her founding, she has gained first place as a manufacturing center amongst the cities of her class in Nebraska, as respects both the variety and the value of her manufactured products.

and enterprise of her citizens. The list includes valuable agricultural implements, wind mills, gasoline engines, pumps, machinery for handling hay, irrigating and ditching machinery, well-drilling devices, galvanized steel tanks, burial vaults, portable corn cribs and granaries, woven-wire fencing, wire and slat fencing, cigars, ice cream, butter, tombstones and monuments, electricity, flour, meal and other cereal products, cement building blocks, bricks and tiling, blank books, corn-husking pegs and other hardware specialties, shirts, and many other articles of daily use and consumption.

The figures are not at hand to show the value of the manufactured products of the city as a whole; but since the great Dempster Mill Manufacturing Company stands at the head of the manufacturing industries of the city, perhaps of the state, some idea may be gained of the value of its products from the fact that it has a present capital and surplus of more than one and one-fourth million dollars, that it has over five hundred employes, exclusive of its Memphis plant, and an annual pay roll of over half a million dollars.

Several of the other factories of the city make a creditable and an impressive showing. Some of the more important concerns are the Beatrice Steel Tank Manufacturing Company, Beatrice Iron Works, the John H. von Steen Company and the E. D. Kees Manufacturing Company.

In addition to its manufacturing concerns Beatrice has several allied' institutions. These are the Lang Canning & Preserving Company, the Beatrice Cold Storage Company, Swift & Company's poultry house, and the Beatrice Creamery Company.

The limitations of this work make a further enumeration or description of the manufacturing interests of the city inexpedient. It is sufficient to say here that as a manufacturing and distributing center Beatrice has acquired a prestige and a momentum that assure her future growth and prosperity.

as a wholesaling point. Here are located the great Sonderegger Nurseries & Seed House, the Pease Grain & Seed Company, the E. S. Stevens wholesale grocery, and the Blue Valley Mercantile Company, also a wholesale grocery house.

Beatrice has latterly come to occupy an enviable position as a retailing center. Her merchants are enterprising and accommodating, their stocks large and varied, and trade is attracted to the city from long distances. With her attractive business houses and her magnificent system of street lighting, Beatrice certainly in its business district approaches the "City Beautiful."

But however attractive the business portion of the city, visitors never tire of traversing the residence districts, where there are found some of the most beautiful homes in the west. The extensive paving of the streets in recent years has greatly added to the charm of Beatrice as a residence city, and latterly attention has been given to architectural form and beauty in the erection of private residences. With the constant increase of wealth, the advancing years will witness a continual accession of artistic dwellings.

Both time and space forbid extended notice of the secret societies and benevolent orders. As it has been the aim of the author to avoid anything like a directory feature in this work, it must suffice here to say that almost all the societies and different orders found in the west are represented in Beatrice. He feels constrained, however, to give place here to an organization which all delight to honor and which is not a secret society nor is it to be classed with the benevolent orders. It is a list of the living members of Rawlins Post, No. 35, Department of Nebraska, Grand Army of the Republic, which was chartered in 1880, dropped in 1881, reorganized and chartered December 27, 1882.

On the first day of July, 1868, there occurred in the little village of Beatrice an event of unusual significance. It was the appearance of the Blue Valley Record, the first newspaper published in Gage county. The proprietors of this paper were Joseph R. Nelson and Nathaniel Howard. It was a sorry little affair, judged by any standard of newsjjapef; excellence, yet it is doubtful if any newspaper was ever more joyfully welcomed by any

Nat Howard and I were talking of the advantage to be gained by having a newspaper published in Beatrice, and as I had some money and Nat the brains, we concluded to go into the newspaper business. When a boy I had played often in the office of the Poughkeepsie (N. Y.) Telegraph, thereby gaining the only real knowledge we had with which to start our paper.

We took a sheet of wrapping paper and marked out places for ads ; then we went out to find them. We found everyone interested. All subscribed and some took several copies to send to friends east. Nat went to Nebraska City and I to Brownville, and each got a few more ads. We then sent to the Adams Press Company, of New York, for a press, and on May 27, 1868, they shipped us our little press (called now Anny press), which arrived in Nebraska City sometime in June.

We hurried to the city to get- it, as well as the other materials, which we had bought of Tom Morton, who owned and ran the Nebraska City News, Sterling Morton being the editor. As we did not know the boxes, and being in a hurry, we concluded to have the cases with paper between them, and loaded them into our wagon (wagons then being the only means of transportation between Nebraska City and Beatrice) and started for home.

When we arrived in Beatrice we found our type somewhat mixed, and it took us several days to sort it out. The only way we knew the boxes was by the ones that had the most of one kind in. We worked early and late, copied from Nebraska City and Brownville papers, and when we got stuck we slipped out of town to see Tom Morton, who kindly helped us, and finally we launched our first paper on the waves, and were more proud of it than a father of his first-born.

We expected encouragement from the papers, and the Nebraska City News and Press and Brownville Advocate gave us a good "send-off," but the galoot that ran the Marysville Locomotive said our paper looked as though it had been set up by a coal-heaver. That made us mad and I wanted him thrashed, for I had set it up myself, with the help of Nat Baker, a young boy, and thought I had done it extra well, but in after years concluded he was more than half right.

sometimes made a mixed-up mess of it. We sent Warren Chesney to Nebraska City to collect, and he told us that when he presented the bill to one man he ordered him out, with a promised thrashing, - said he did not order that ad., and another thing he would not pay for one with another man's name to it. We looked over the paper and found the wooden reglet had slipped, and in putting it back we had got it in the wrong place. Warren said that when we wanted any more bills collected we could do it ourselves.

We sent Silas Harrington to Meridian to collect from a man who ran a saw mill, and told him to take it out in lumber. We did not see him for several weeks after his return, till meeting him one day and asking him where the lumber was, he pointed to his new house, and said, "There it is," and there it was, nailed fast.

We had many such trials and tribulations, with plenty of hard work, for nine months, when we sold a half interest to Mr. Hogshead. We next sold out to Theodore Coleman, and thus ended my newspaper experience.

Upon the sale of the half-interest in the Blue Valley Record to J. M. Hogshead, the name of the paper was changed to the Beatrice Clarion, the first number of which appeared Saturday, May 8, 1869, with the motto "Hew to the line, let the chips fall where they may." The publishers' names were given as J. M. Hogshead & Company, and the company consisted of J. M. Hogshead, Joseph R. Nelson, Nathaniel Howard, and Captain William H. Ashby. Of these owiiers all but Nelson had seen service in the Confederate army, but Howard, Hogshead, and Ashby were all finelooking, courtly gentleman, and were a welcome addition to the social and business interests of Beatrice. The biography and portrait of Joseph R. Nelson appear in Chapter XVH of this volume, entitled "A Roll of Honor."

Theodore Coleman, who in 1870 purchased the Beatrice Clarion, gives for this history the following narrative of his newspaper experience in Beatrice:

"After having, at the age of twenty years, broken into the newspaper game in northern Wisconsin and carried on the same for several years with a measure of success that stopped short, to be sure, of illuminating the northwestern horizon with its glow, I heeded a suggestion conveyed by a letter from Joe Nelson (pardon the colloquialism touching Mr. Nelson's name), and went to Beatrice for an inspection of journalistic conditions there. My entry into Gage county was not exactly of a triumphant character, since I had to tarry three days in Iowa before the running ice in the Missouri river would allow the primitive ferry to operate across to Nebraska City ; and upon finally arriving in that metropolis, it was found that transportation to Beatrice was limited to a loaded farmer's wagon, returning to his home ten miles north of my objective point. However, the walking was good and no difficulty was found in negotiating the ten miles.

"This was in 1870. The Gage County Clarion was the one newspaper of Beatrice at the time, - published weekly and carrying on its title page the rather startling motto (for a clarion) "Hew to the Line, Let the Chips Fall Where they May.'' The ownership of the Clarion was divided among several embryonic

Greeleys and Danas and Hearsts and Northclififes, including my friend Nelson, Mr. John Hogshead and Mr. Nathaniel Howard. Whether Captain Ashby was of the syndicate I do not know, but he had had some connection with newspaperdom in Beatrice, as I remember. I suspect there was a holding concern back of these gentlemen, for when it came to negotiations for the purchase of the Clarion the proposed payment of something like five hundred dollar^ for it on my part caused such a flurry in newspaper financial circles that frequent consultations with an unknown party to the deal seemed necessary.

"However, it went through and I acquired the property and with it the services of Mr. Hogshead, the only printer of the dissolved corporation. Changing the title of the paper to the Beatrice Express did not wound the feelings of the retiring proprietors, and this was done. At that time the home of the paper was the stone building on Market street near Fourth, where the newly christened Express was published until removal to the classic precincts of the old frame school-building' then standing on Fifth street, north of Court. There we remained until the transfer to the second story of a business building on Court street.

"Certain primitive conditions obtained in Nebraska in the early '70s that somewhat hampered the production of high-class journalistic work. In the first place, mechanical facilities were so limited that in the necessary task of casting inking-rollers for our four-page forms I was on more than one occasion obliged to make a stage trip to Brownville for glue. The Clarion did not boast a job press among its assets, but its fonts of type included a few that could be used in setting up simple handbills and the like, to be worked off on the same hand-lever press from which the paper was issued in weekly installments to a waiting constituency of some three hundred or more. I soon added a rotary job-press and concomi'-': tants, and its manipulation was put into the hands of a young southerner named Bailey, who, as I recall, was an old friend of Messrs. Howard and Hogshead. The former seaae^l to be at the editorial helm of the Clarion (if the mixed metaphor may be used), with Mr. Hogshead as chief officer. John was a good printer, but it pains me to have to acknowledge that the sole effusion of his pen that sticks in my memory in connection with the last days of the Clarion was to the effect that a darky exclaimed as he fled from an angry bull: 'Millions for de fence.'

"It may be said without egotism that the Express grew .apace with the growth of Beatrice, and that it was always generously supported by the people who constituted the rapidly developing community. Of these there remain with me after the elapsed half-century no memories that are not pleasant to dwell upon. Among them, I visualize now (using the familiar vernacular of that early period), Pap Towle, J. B. Weston, John and Sam Smith, Lige Filley, Judge Parker, Joe Saunders, Gil Loomis, Dan Freeman, Uncle Jimmy Boyd, Volney Whitmore, Jack Pethoud, Charley and Carl Emery, Joe McDowell, Nate Blakely, N. K. Griggs, Joe Fletcher, Colonel and Captain Presson, Oliver Townsend, Dr. Reynolds, George Hurlburt, Thacker, Dan and Alvin Marsh, Pemberton, Willard, George and Charley Dorsey, Ford Roper, Dean, Davis, et al. If Tom Shubert had been able to read and if "Old Man Chrisman" could have remained sober long enough to have achieved the same accomplishment, it is certain they would have been among the readers of the Express.

"Mentor A. Brown came into the office in 1873, I think, first as a most competent printer, and later as one of my successors in the proprietorship of the paper. His successful career as a newspaper man for these many years is generally known to Beatrice people. It is a matter of no little personal satisfaction that during all these forty and more years, his paper - first the Express and then the Kearney Hub - has reached my home each publication day, with his compliments. Another early employe on the Express now lives and thrives as a master printer in Los Angeles, ten miles from my own residence - John Burke. Anent John, let this digression, if you will, creep into your veracious annals : On a day in 1884, while I was publishing the Santa Clara Journal in this state, a strange specimen of the now extinct genus homo known as tramp printer, walked into my office and asked for work. Upon close examination he was revealed as Johnny Burke. A day's work was followed by his complete disappearance, and he was not visible to me again until three years ago, when he was accidentally 'met up with' in the guise of a portly, fine appearing foreman in the office of one of the Los Angeles dailies.

"C. B. Palmer came to Beatrice as principal of the high school and soon thereafter bought an interest in the Express, chiefly as a means of printing and distributing a monthly educational periodical. When the election of A. S. Paddock to the United States senate took place in 1875, 1 conceived the idea of going to Washington and helping him run the government, which being done, the Express was soon thereafter sold to L. W. Colby, and my return to Beatrice was indefinitely postponed."

The family removed to Dubuque, Iowa, and a little later to Galena, Illinois, the lure being the lead mines of those districts. The death of his mother at Galena, in 1846, resulted in a return of the remaining members of the family to Rochester.

From Rochester another family trek was taken, in 1849, to Toronto, Canada, where Mr. Coleman's father had bought a saw mill on the shores of the bay. Theodore attended the Toronto Model School on King street, Toronto (price three pence per week), until 1852, assisting meantime in digging the first sod of Canada's first railroad, the Grand Trunk.

Back to Rochester in 1852, where the enterprising head of the family was, in 1857-1858, financially floored by building Main street bridge across the Genessee river for the city and failing to collect under his $50,000 contract because of an alleged weak abutment - that still, after a lapse of sixty years, sturdily sustains the west end of the bridge. Attend- ance at the public school and work in a flour mill, a grocery and on the aforesaid bridge filled the period from 1852 to 1859, when another shift of residence was made, this time to Cincinnati. Thence up the Mississippi and Chippewa rivers to Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin, went the family in 1860. There, amidst somewhat primeval surroundings, a halt was made for ten years, logging and saw-mill work occupying the men of the family. Some sort of literary work, however, had always appealed to the member under consideration, so the chance to go into the office of the Chippewa Valley Union as printer boy was eagerly seized. Two years thereafter Mr. Coleman bought the plant, and published the little weekly for two years, selling it out in order to piece out his disappointed school education by going for a year to Williston Seminary, East Hampton, Massachusetts, and for another year to Antioch College. Upon closing this agreeable chapter, he returned to Wisconsin and helped for a time to keep the saws running in his father's mill. Then away to Beatrice and into the newspaper work again, soon seeking a little time to go back to the northern state upon matrimonial intentions bent. The carrying out of this intention was a very fortunate achievement for him, as not a few of the present population of Beatrice who knew Mrs. Coleman would be willing to attest.

The thirty-nine years' residence in California following the close of four years of government work in Washington, has been largely taken up with newspaper publishing and editing; but for the last fifteen years Mr. Coleman has been occupied with duties of a more distinctly business character, first as secretary and business manager of an educational institution in Pasadena - Throop Polytechnic Institute and College - and later as similar officer of the Pasadena Hospital Association. His newspaper work in California was as publisher of the Santa Clara Journal and, in Pasadena, in an editorial capacity on the Pasadena Star and the Pasadena News. His family of two sons and two daughters, two of them natives of Beatrice, are married and all but one of the four are living in Pasadena. The oldest son is a resident of Arizona.

Mentor A. Brown, who succeded Theodore Coleman in the ownership of the Beatrice Express, January 7, 1884, has written for this history the following interesting reminiscent narrative of his connection with the paper :

"My knowledge of the newspapers of Gage county dates from the 20th day of July, 1871. On the evening of July 19th I disembarked from a Kansas and Nebraska stage coach after a dusty ride from Crete, at the old Pacific House, of which George Hurlburt was landlord. The following morning the office of the Beatrice Express was discovered in a small one-room frame building that had formerly housed the public schools of the pioneer village, and it still remained in the center of a block of ground with no other building nearer than Ella and Fifth streets. This intervening ' space was for several summers afterward utilized by the 'fans' as a baseball park.

"Theodore Coleman was the sole proprietor and editor of the Express. He had purchased the plant of the Clarion the previous year and changed the name to the Express. The shop was equipped with a Washington hand-press (which served until the fall of 1883) and a limited assortment of type and other material. There was one printer in the shop, a big sixfoot Mississippian named Hogshead, with the imposing front and the swing of the old-time southern colonel, sandy 'complected' and ot surpassing good nature. The first 'devil' who was initiated soon afterward was 'Johnnie' Burke, who is still plying his trade and a member of the typographical union in good standing at Los Angeles. They had induced the writer to quit a job as a compositor on the Council Bluffs Nonpareil, to do the job print-- ing, set the 'ads,' etc. The proprietor, Mr. Coleman, was not a skillful printer, but was a capable newspaper man, a versatile and graceful writer and also a capable business man. Charles B. Palmer, principal of the Beatrice schools, also a practical printer, became associated with Mr. Coleman in 1871, and Coleman & Palmer were the publishers until January 1, 1874, when the "'cub' bought out Mr. Palmer and the firm' name was changed to Coleman & Brown. This partnership and business association was very harmonious, but was interrupted when Mr. Coleman accepted a position in Washington as secretELvy to Senator Paddock, and by the sale of his interest in the paper to Mr. Colby, in 1876. Soon thereafter the junior partner also sold his interest to Mr. Colby, but he remained in charge and conducted the business until the winter of 1876-1877, when he purchased an interest in the Eairbury Gazette; but in the early fall of 1877 he returned to Beatrice, having purchased Mr. Colby's entire interest in the Bxpress, and became sole proprietor. The paper grew with the town, and in 1884 the Daily Bxpress greeted the public. In the summer of 1888 the writer disposed of his entire' interests in the newspaper and printing plant to Kilpatrick Brothers, and in October of that year he removed to Kearney, where he established the Kearney Daily cmd Weekly Huh.

"The first rival newspaper of the Bxpress was the Courier, published by Coulee and Ritchie, about 1875. Mr. Ritchie soon retired and the paper itself lived but a short time, its career being both sensational and tempestuous. Mr. Alex W. Conlee was one of the old type of 'personal' journalists and a very interesting character. At a later date, M. B. Davis, lawyer, published the Beatrice Republican. The Beatrice Democrat was established about the middle of the '80s by George P. Marvin, a vigorous, aggressive and capable newspaper man, father of the present publisher of the Beatrice Sun, which later succeeded the Democrat.

"It might be mentioned that Beatrice was the original home of the educational journal, the. 'Nebraska Teacher,' which was first published by Mr. Palrher, printed in the office of the Bxpress on a hand press, and removed to I^incoln in 1877, when the publisher removed to the capital to take charge of the preparatory department of the Nebraska, State University."

Mentor A. Brown was born February 19, 1853, at Janesville, Wisconsin. His mother died in his infancy; his father died on Sherman's march to the sea.

Mr. Brown was reborn as printer's devil, office of New Bra, Jefferson, Iowa, June 25, 1866. "Swarmed" July 17, 1870, and spent a year in Nebraska City, Omaha, and Council Bluffs. Found himself in Beatrice, Nebraska, July 19, 1871. Connected with Beatrice Bxpress as printer, partner, publisher, and editor, until October, 1888. Nearly fifty-two years' service in "print-shop." He married and has ' three sons and two daughters and eleven grandchildren living; wife Sophie G., daughter of the late Captain C. J. Schmidt, of Beatrice.

The Republican, of which Mr. Brown speaks in his reminiscent article, was founded about 1886 by J. W. Hill, M. B. Davis later acquiring a half-interest in it. It was conducted several years by them as partners. Mr. Davis was a vigorous writer and secured for the paper a good circulation. It was a weekly newspaper and Republican in politics. About the first of May, 1892, Davis sold his half-interest in the paper to William L. Knotts and it was conducted by Hill and Knotts a short time, when Knotts acquired full ownership. About 1900 he sold it to Winfield Scott Tilton, a practical newspaper man from Kansas. The name of the paper was changed to the Beatrice Times and was conducted by him very ably till about 1909, when he abandoned the field and removed his press and other newspaper materials to Oklahoma.

More than twenty-one years ago Emil Schultz established in Beatrice a German-language newspaper called the Nebraska Post, and this has had a continuous existence till July 1, 1918, when, out of deference to pub- lie opinion, Mr. Schultz with commendable patriotism suspended the publication of his paper till the close of the great world-war now raging with the utmost fury in all western