Seward County, Nebraska - Chapter 35, 1916

Chapter 35

Miscellaneous Items. Produce Statistics of Mid Pioneer Period. First Marriages in Seward County. Rattle Snakes More Dangerous Than Indians. Seward County Court House and Court House Propositions Death of Etta Shattuck. Rememberance of Henry Cashier.

The following statement of acreage of land under cultivation and crop yield in 1879, about the middle of the pioneer period, is from a report made to the B. & M. Railway Company by Edwin Mclntire, of Seward, agent for the sale of that company's Seward county real estate.

Total number of acres under cultivation in Seward county, 109,590. Number of acres in rye 1283, yield 19, 240 bushels. Number of acres in spring wheat 43,825, yield 482,362 bushels. Number of acres of barley 8,900, yield 170,900 bushels. Number of acres of oats 5,718, yield 227, 720 bushels. Number of acres in buckwheat 112, yield 2,240 bushels. Number of acres in flax 2,109, yield 18,981 bushels. Number of acres in corn 46, 594, yield 2,096,280 bushels. Number of acres in broom corn 160, yield 53 tons. Number of acres in potatoes 966, yield 36,840 bushels. Tame grass, timber and fruit trees. Blue grass, 17 acres. Timothy 1,272 acres. Clover 1,179 acres. Number of acres of cultivated timber 4,500. Number of apple trees 30,500; pears 300; peaches 26,450; plums 8,000; cherries 16,000; grapes 33,000 vines.

The following market prices taken in June, 1892 is a fair sample of prevailing prices through the entire pioneer period, varying at times bv a drop in the price of corn to fifteen and twenty cents, and eggs to three cents.

Market prices on that date for farm produce were as follows: Wheat 55 cts per bushel. Corn 30 cts. Oats 23 cts. Flax seed 70 cts. Millet seed 45 cts. Hogs $4.00 per hundred lbs. Steers $3.00 to 3.50; cows and heifers $1,50 to 2,00. Eggs 10 cts per doz. Butter 10 cts per lb.

W. W. Cox states in his history that the first marriage in Seward county occurred on the 12th of November 1866 at the residence of Samuel Long when his daughter, Eva was united in wedlock with John W. Pitt, C. J. Neighardt J. P. officiating. The first marriage in -G- precinct and the locality of the city of Seward was on the 20 of March 1867, at the home of the bride's parents, Mr. and Mrs. Lewis Moffit, the contracting parties being David P. Imlay and Miss Mary Moffiit, VV. W. Cox, J. P. officiating. The second wedding in -G- precinct occurred April 20, 1867, at the home of the brides father, one and one-half miles north-east of the present city of Seward, the contracting parties being James A. Brown and Miss Sarah A. Imlay, W. W. Cox officiating. In addition to the foregoing we wish to present -L- precinct's and southern Seward county's first marriage, being that of James G. Anderson and Miss S. Alice Reed, at the home of the bride's parents, Mr. and Mrs. Roland Reed, near old Beaver Crossing, in -L- precinct, December 18, 1866, Judge J. L. Davison officiating. We are suspicious that Brother Cox didn't know there was anybody living down on the West Blue so early in the pioneer period.

Rattlers Dangerous Natives

Rattle snakes were more dangerous in Seward county during the pioneer period than the Indians. The greater danger was with small children, with whom the bites of the reptiles frequently proved fatal. Chris Hoops, a farmer living about ten miles north of Seward, went out one day, about the mid- die of June 1887, to his barn to gather some eggs, and in a nest that was partially hid from sight he felt sure there were some eggs and putting his hand in got an egg, and at the same time felt something like the prick of a thorn on his hand, and putting his hand in the nest for another egg the same thing occurred again. He thought nothing ot it, but after going to the house his hand began to pain him and one of his sons, learning of the occurrence, went out to see what was in the nest and found a rattle snake. After killing the snake the boy reported what he had found and wanted to go for a doctor, but his father objected, saying there was no need of it. He was given some whiskey which had no effect upon him and he soon became delirious, requiring three men to hold him. Dr. Breed, of Seward was summoned and administered remedies which relieved his distress and he recovered after several days.

While this was a case of recovery the following case was not so fortunate. A German lady whose name was given to us as Mrs. Swantzenburg, pioneer settler near the Seward and Butler county line, who was quite a help in the art of binding grain in the harvest field, went to the field, one day in 1873, to assist in binding some sheaves of wheat which had lain some time after being cut, and going to the first one kicked it to get it closed together for binding and received seven rattle snake bites upon her limbs before she could get away from the reptiles. A doctor was immediatly summoned but the unfortunate woman died before he reached her.

In the following case which, perhaps is the only one ever known of a child sleeping all night in bed with a rattle snake, there is room for doubt of the reptile's temper at all times. Mark A. Armagost, section foreman on the North Western railway, at Beaver Crossing, son of James Armagost who settled on a homestead in Butler county, Nebraska in 1870, has the distinction of being the only living person who shared his bed when three years old with a rattle snake. The pioneer homes were not air tight and many of them become open enough to admit gophers and rats. One night in the spring of 1871 young Mark was put to bed and in a short time he called his mother and told her there was a snake in his bed. She didn't think so and told him to go to sleep. He did so and in the morning after he got up and his mother went to make the bed she turned the covers down and there in the middle of the bed lay, nicely coiled up, the boy's bedfellow with thirteen rattles on him. Rattle snakes do not bite; their upper jaw seems to be on hinges and when they become excited the upper jaw is thrown so it stands perpendicular, and in the upper part of the mouth is a small sac of poison, and extending form this are two fangs laying close together and closed with the point back, or inwards. And when the snake is angry that fang is thrown stright out from the roof of the mouth and he coils and strikes the fangs into his victim by jumping from his coil the two fangs sprading sufficient to emit the poison into the wound. It is possible and probable that Mark's bed companion could not open his mouth and strike when covered with bed clothing, and the warmth of the child's body soothed his anger.

Court House And Court House Propositions

The pioneer part ol this work mentions the first court house in Seward county, which was a result of the action of wide-a-wake citizens of Seward soon after the question of the location of the county seat had been settled in favor of that place. A court house was considered not only a necessity, but a help to seal the location of the county capital, therefore funds were procurred by brivate donations to errect a court house in accordance with the needs of the county, and it was built at a cost of twelve hundred dollars, but was not supposed to have been any expense to the county. And at that time the house was an expensive structure. Had it been built to correspond with the general wealth of the county as it would if the expense had been boren by the county, it would have been constructed of sod, the same material as the school houses, churches and dwellings were made of. But it was a frame building, well arranged with rooms for the different county officials. It was found after a few years that there was such an accumulation of records and other valuable county books in the different offices that there was not only insufficient room for them in the old house, but great danger of their loss by fire, therefore rooms were rented in some of the more fire proof buildings and used for all the purposes of a court house. And the old, and first Seward county court house was abandoned and finally sold and used for a blacksmith shop. The county continued to rent rooms for a court house from about 1879 to 1906, and during that period there were two propositions submitted for the issuing of bonds to build a court house at the expense of the county, but the people seemed too well pleased with paying rent to put the same money into a building of their own and defeated the propositions at the poles.

Along in 1904 a new proposition to issue county bonds to the amount of $100,000 to build a court house and jail, the former to cost $88,000 and the latter $12,000, was submitted to a vote at the general election. In the mean time following the defeat of the last proposition in 1901, voters of the county had brushed the scales from their eyes sufficient to see the unnecessary extravagant waste in renting, and added to this Lewis Moffitt had bequeathed a large and valuable farm to the county to be sold after his and his wife's death, the procedes to be applied on the building of a new court house and when the vote was taken the proposition for the issuing of ten year optional bonds carried by a vote of 2,406 for to 1,228 against. The court house was built in 1905 and 1906, an illustration of the structure is presented on the opposite page. An error in handling the funds for building the

The grand structure of which the above is a fair illustration was erected in 1905- 1906 at a cost of eighty-seven thousand, two hundred and twenty-five dollars. It is composed of Indiana white stone and is as near fireproof as it is possible to make any building. The expense of the building was borne in a large degree by Lewis Moffit and Wife, pioneer settlers and enterprising founders of the city of Seward, who bequeathed the proceeds from the sale of a large and valuable farm for that purpose. And the court house stands today as a monument to the memory of those noble and worthy early settlers.

jail delayed its erection until 191 5, about ten years. The following taken from a Seward newspaper dated May 11th, 191 5, is undoubtedly a correct version of the transaction:

"After being lost to sight for nine years the missing court house and jail bonds were found Tuesday in the vault of the First National bank pigeonholed among some old papers where they had been handled many times perhaps, but mistaken for old insurance policies. At the time the court house was built an agreement was made between the trustees of the Lewis Moffitt estate and Mrs. Lewis Moffitt by which the trustees were allowed to sell 400 acres of land that Lewis Moffitt had set apart, the proceeds to be used in the erection of the court house after Mrs. Mofifitt's death. By an agreement of the trustees and Mrs. Moffitt, $15,000 of the county bonds was to be reserved and the interest on same was to go to her support during her lifetime. However, Mrs. Moffitt died not long after and from that time #10,000 of the bonds could not be found and no coupons were ever presented at the county treasurer's office for payment. Several times when a movement has been started to erect a new county jail the matter has been held up because of the missing bonds. This year, however, the county board of supervisors took up the matter of building and appointed a committee to try to locate the bonds with the result that at last they were found."

With the finding of the lost bonds the building of the new jail was almost immediatly commenced and rushed to completion during the season of 191 5.

Death Of Etta Shattuck

The subject of this sketch, whose suffering and tragic death should touch the sympathetic heart of christiandom, was a young lady resident of Seward. She made a living for her father, an aged and helpless veteran of the war of the rebellion, by teaching school. In the winter of 1888 she was teaching a country school. On the evening of January 12th that year, during the fierceness of that terrible calamitious fury of wind and blinding snow, she dismissed her school. In her misgivings for the safety of the children her kind heart was touched and she thought only of their wellfare, and after making every possible effort to guide them safely to their homes she became bewildered and lost, wandering for hours in that fearful night, she come upon a haystack in which, with trembling limbs and frozen ringers she burrowed sufficient space to admit her exhausted body, where without norishment, suffering with her frozen feet and limbs she laid for torty-eight hours, and until found by a searching party. She was taken to her home at Seward where it was found necessary to amputate her limbs, but she died from the effects of the severe and dreadful ordeal, February 7, 1888. Death relieved her, after nearly a month of intense suffering in mind and body, and she was laid to rest at Seward where her aged and heartbroken father, Benjamin Shattuck, shortly followed and was laid by her side.

Rememberance Of Henry Cashler

Many of those who were young people living in the south west quarter of Seward county in the early seventies will remember Henry Cashier who lived at the York and Seward county line, and who was found dead in his house, Monday, November 11, 1901; at whose pioneer home they frequently met to enjoy an old time social dance while he sat with his good wife by the stove and listened to the music of his son John's fiddle, smoked his cob pipe and watched the graceful dancers and the great clouds of dust from the sod house floor, set afloat by their merry feet. We distinctly remember many occasions of the kind when with others we faced the cold north-west winds five miles to his home, well knowing that when we reached there we would meet with a warm welcome and a good fire. The kind old people are both dead now as are the times when we enjoyed those pleasures at their home. Two sons, Alex, and John, still living, and six daughters, Mrs. Paul Peterson, Mrs. George Bray, Mrs. Laurance Deidle (now dead), Mrs. White, Mrs. Mann and one we knew as Miss Belle, survived to mourn the departure of the most kindly parents.

This has become recognized during the past few years as one of the standard and most profitable adjuncts to the products of the farm. Car loads of eggs and poultry are going out of the county every week and good prices are being returned for them to the farmers and poultry raisers. There was a time, which includes the period from the earliest settlements in the county to as late as 1890, when the profits from the feathered flocks on the farm were considered only from the place they filled on the farmer's table. As late as the spring of 1880 we hauled twenty dozen eggs twelve miles to the Seward market and sold the entire consignment for sixty cents and took pay for it in goods at one hundred per cent profit to the dealer - net thirty cents for the twenty dozen eggs. We didn't think it was a big deal only so far as the eggs were concerned in it, but we had more eggs than we could eat and our neighbors were supplied in about the same way. We packed those eggs in bran to prevent them from being broken, and when we looked at the proceeds from their sale on our return trip home we regretted that we didn't pack them in rocks. But times change and so does the price of eggs. The time when we sold eggs for three .cents, or more properly, one cent and a half a dozen because we had more than we could use, has changed and we now think we are luckey it we can buy what we can use for one cent and a half each. And egg producers feel very much depressed if eggs drop occasionally to twelve cents per dozen. But they seldom get that low in price these days and hold so much value as to be worth packing in silk tissue.