Rockford Township

Rockford Township

Rockford is located in section 1 of Rockford township and is the first station east oi Beatrice on both the Burlington and the Rock: Island Railroads. It is in one of the oldestsettled portions of the county and has fifty-six. inhabitants. It was founded by William Girl more than a quarter of a century ago and hasslowly grown to a position of great usefulness as a social and business center of Rockford, Lincoln, Hanover, and parts of Sherman and Filley townships. Though not boastful it isa good little village and there are those yet living who love it because of early associationsand the memories its name invokes.

Rockford has a general store, postoffice, two elevators, blacksmith shop and a very pretty church building, the property of the Methodist Episcopal denomination. Rockford school district No. 49 was organized at the home of Morgan Reed, upon notice to John Dunn, May 27, 1872. A few years ago it was consolidated with the F. H. Dobbs school district on the south and the T. B. Essex school district on the north, and it retains its original number, 49. A few years ago the consolidated district erected a fine three-room school house, at a cost of about $5,000. It employs three teachers and has an enrollment of about ninety pupils. In addition to the grades, it offers a two years' high-school course of study.

No locality in Gage county possesses greater rural charm than that where Rockford is situated. Cedar creek and both branches of Mud creek flow through the township into the Big Blue river. They are all well timbered streams of living water. From every height of land the observer is rewarded by a most beautiful landscape of hill, dale, valley, forest, and in the growing season of the year by vistas of living green; and in the autumn by stretches of gold and brown. No other place in the county exerts as lasting an influence over the heart as the environment of the humble village of Rockford.

Holmesville is not only the largest but is easily the most important of the unincorporated villages of Gage county. .It has a population of 175, according to the federal census of 1910. It is located in Rockford township, on the east bank of the Big Blue river. It is nine miles southeast of Beatrice and is the first station on the Union Pacific Railroad. It was marked by the early settlers as the location for a townsite and Whitesville, the first legal county seat of Gage county, was within half a mile of the townsite of Holmesville, on a tract of land afterward taken as a homestead by James Kings ford, namely: the southwest quarter of section 29, Rockford township. In a very early day, A. L. Hurd and W. S. Guffey opened a stone quarry at or near the site of Holmesville, and most of the stone used in building the first state capitol at Lincoln was hauled across country, by ox, mule and horse teams, from this quarry, in 1868.

The village was founded by Morgan L. Holmes, in 1880, the surveyed plat being filed for record in the office of the register of deeds on March 8th of thai year. The founding of the village immediately followed the construction of the present line of the Union Pacific Railroad from Marysville, Kansas, to Beatrice. The first store in Holmesville was a general store opened by Thomas Patz. James Gleason, a brother-in-law of the founder of the village, James H. Davis, Abraham Petro, Eli Miller and James H. Fuller also were among its earliest business men and residents. Fuller ran a general merchandise store for many years, and up to the time of his death, a few years ago, was a well known and substantial citizen of Holmesville.

Amongst the business concerns now found in Holmesville are two general stores, hardware store and lumber yard, elevator, hotel, restaurant and meat market. But what distinguishes Holmesville from all the other villages in the county is the investment made there by J. H. Steinmeyer and his sons George W. and Robert Steinmeyer. About 1908 these public-spirited citizens of the county estab- lished the State Bank of Holmesville, with a capital of $10,000. Under the very able management of the owners this banking institution has grown to the point where it does a large volume of business in the course of a year and has deposits of over $100,000.

In addition to this bank Mr. Steinmeyer and his sons have invested heavily in a hydro-electric power and lighting plant. The building where the machinery is located is just below the dam and is of concrete and steel construction; it was begun in 1908 and completed in 1911. It generates an electric, current of one present public school building. The district employs three teachers, has enrollment of about sixty pupils and offers a two years' highschool course of study. Recently it was consolidated with districts numbered 19, Z7 , 58, 76, 133 and part of 139. The consolidated school district is about to erect a school building which, with equipment, will cost approximately $50,000. The district will probably then employ seven teachers, will have a school population of approximately 160 pupils, and will install a high school with a four years' course of study.

The Holmesville school district was organized August 30, 1868, at a meeting held for that purpose at the home of Amos Hayden, two miles southeast of Holmesville, on Mud creeli. The first school house was a low, round-log cabin, erected by F. H. Dobbs in the fall of 1858 on his preemption claim in Rockford township. After the formation of the district, this cabin was bought, taken down and moved to the southeast quarter of section 32 and rebuilt on the northeast corner of that tract, where it was used for several years as a school house for the district. The first teacher was S. S. Switzer. After the founding of Holmesville, a frame, single-room school house was erected in the village, which by successive additions has been expanded into the

For many years Holmesville has been a social and religious center for the Church of the Brethren, a religious denomination commonly spoken of by outsiders as Dunkards, but. amongst themselves always simply called The- Brethren or Church of the Brethren. This denomination had its origin in Westphalia, Germany in 1708. It was founded by Alexander Mack, as a protest against what he conceived to be the erroneous practices and beliefs of the followers of Martin Luther. Mack taught the strict observances of the forms as respects baptism, the sacrament of the Lord's Supper and other ordinances of the church. Both heand his followers were the subjects of intensepersecution, and were finally driven out of Germany and compelled to taJce refuge in the- New World. They settled first in Pennsyl- vania, then spread over Ohio, Indiana, Maryland, Virginia and other states, and Canada as well. The communicants of this church now number more 100,000. In doctrine the Brethren are closely affiliated with the Mennonites as opposed to war and litigation; in dress and manners they closely resemble the Quakers or Society of Friends. In Holmesville they have a small church, but a couple of miles northeast of the village the denomination owns a large church edifice, where most of its religious activities are carried on. There is really but one congregation for the two churches and they both have the same pastor, at present the Rev. Edgar Rothrock.

The Church of the Brethren in Rockford township was founded by the Rev. Henry Brubaker, under the following circumstances. John P. Crothers, of Indiana, in 1867, had entered with college scrip a large tract of land in Rockford township, much of which lay on the upland between the valleys of Mud and Cedar creeks. Knowing something of the sturdy virtues of the Church of the Brethren, he advertised largely that he would donate a quarter-section of land in Rockford township to any minister of the Brethren church who would locate upon it and organize a church of that denomination. Mr. Brubaker accepted this offer, and in 1875 Mr. Crothers conveyed to him, by warranty deed, the northwest quarter of section 21 of Rockford township. Shortly thereafter he organized the Brethren church at Rockford, with twelve members. The organization gained in membership rapidly, many of the new-comers purchasing land of Crothers, and about 1880 the large church of the Brethren was erected on the southeast corner of the southwest quarter of section 15, Rockford township. This is one of the historic churches of Gage county. It has performed a great and important service in the settlement and development of the county. Its membership is of a high order of citizens and it exemplifies in an almost perfect degree the gentle doctrines of its founder. It has grown steadily in power, wealth, influence and usefulness, until it is to-day the most lasting monument that could be erected to the venerable Henry Brubaker, who is now spending the declining years of his life in Holmesville, under its shadow.