Gage County, Nebraska

Ancestree Articles


CLOSING EXERCISES OF ST. JOSEPH'S PAROCHIAL SCHOOL


June 23, 24, 1908
Beatrice, Gage County, NE.

From: Margaret Graff, Beatrice
Names on the Program

Miss A. B. LONG

Irene GRFF

R. GENTLEMAN

A. GRABOWSKI

A. ZAHN

L. KLINE

J. BORZEKEWSKI

F. SIMON

F. LUCKS

J. PLEBUCK

A. FALK

F. O'DONNELL

J. GRAFF

F. CALLELY

A. KUNKEL

J. STELLER

Miss L. MAYER

C. FALK

E. MOGAN

J. GRANETZKI

M. SHULTZ

F. MAHONEY

L. GRAFF

E. KOLLEKOFSKI

M. PLEBUCK

G. KUNKEL

H. CZUBA

A. BORZEKOWSKI

Hugo LANG

C. GRAFF

S. SOBOTT

C. LUCKS

M. KOBJEROWSKI

A. CARMICHEL

E. SCHLEGEL

A. SCHMIDT

T. GRAFF

E. ENGLER

E. LUCKS

M. SCHULTZ

. J. KUNKEL

A. McMULLEN


From Elden G. Burcham, North Platte, Ne.
HUNT SCHOOL, DISTRICT No. 18
Rockford Tp. Gage Co. , NE 1906
Miss Beulah BLASS, Teacher      Miss Anna V. DAY, Co. Supt.
PUPILS

Orcen HESS

Mary LEWIS

Estel MAY

Eugene LEWIS

Esther LEWIS

Henry JOBMAN

Hazel BURCHAM

Lucile SPARKS

Elza BURCHAM

Lora LEACH

Lynn HILL

Ray MORRIS

Alta SPARKS

Arthur HESS

Clark HEMPHILL

Phelps LEWIS

Ethel MAY

Perry HEMPHILL

John JOBMAN, Director

Granvil SPARKS, Treasurer

Silas BURCHAN, Moderator


EARLY SCHOOLS OF GAGE COUNTY
Beatrice Weekly Express Nov 3, 1898
The following very interesting paper written by Mrs. W. A. Wagner was read before the Gage County Pioneer Association recently and its publication will be of deep interest to every citizen of the county and city:

Gage county was organized July 16, 1857, soon after the arrival of the first settlers. The first election was August 4th. Amoung (sic) the officers elected was H. O. Belden, school superintendent; he recieved (sic) thirty-one votes. There were at that time thirty-three men and one woman in the county. Mr. Nathan Blakely was one of the men who did not vote. He had arrived in Beatrice but a few days previous and was undecided whether to remain or not. He has fully atoned for not voting at that first election by voting at every fall election from that day to this.

There were no schools in the county to superintend at that time and as Mr. Belden himself is forgotten by most of the early settlers it is supposed that he soon went on farther west. Even the legality of his election is questioned as many years afterwards we find the county clerk acting as ex-officio school superintendent, First, Mr. Nathan Blakely from 1858 to 1861, C. C. Coffenberry 1861, Oliver Townsend 1861 to 1868. There was also a board of school examiners, consisting of three person. For several years Mr. Nathan Blakely and Dr. H. M. Reynolds were members of this board. About 1861 Mr. J. T. Sargent, brother-in-law of Mrs. Dr. W. J. Harris, was one of this examining board, and starting to return from Beatrice to his home at Blue Springs, as Oliver Townsend was taking him across the Blue river in a canoe the boat upset and they both came near being drowned.

The first attempt to build a school house was made in Beatrice in the fall of 1859. This was on the corner of Ella and Fifth streets. Before it was completed it was destroyed by a prairie fire. It was not until 1862 that the first school house in Gage county was completed. This was in Beatrice, on Elk Street, a little south of where the high school building now stands. It was a small frame house, and for many years was used not only for schools, but for church and all public meetings. It was built by subscription, some giving money, others material or work. Rev. A. L. Tinkam superintended the building of it, he and his sons doing a large part of the work. In the winter of 1862-3 Mr. Oliver Townsend taught the first school in the new school house.

Previous to this, in 1860, Mrs. Frances Butler, also known as Mrs. Blush, had taught a subscription school in a small frame school house on what was known as the Roper property. Fifteen pupils were enrolled. Among them were three of Mr. Towle's daughters, Emma, afterwards Mrs. Jos. Saunders, Delia, now Mrs. Richard Davis, and Mary, Mrs. Dr. Davis, John and James Mumford, Hiram and Joseph Alexander, Ella Miles and a little sister, (name not known) two or three Maxwell boys and Will Jones, the latter a boy of 11 years, riding in from the country four or five miles every morning on a mule, and to his good memory we are indebted for many of the facts and dates recorded in this paper.


NEBRASKA ANCESTREE - WINTER VOLUME 16, No. 3 - Page 104

Early Schools of Gage County Continued:

In 1861 Miss Weathy Tinkum, now the wife of Mr. Jos. Hollingworth, taught in Beatrice, on the south side of Court Street near Fourth, the first public school taught in Gage county.

In every school district a three months term must be taught before any public money can be drawn. This preliminary school was the one taught by Miss Wealthy Tinkum, she taking the examination but being paid by subscription. About this time, 1861 a subscription school was taught in Blue Springs by Mrs. Maria Sargent, sister of Mrs. Dr. W. J. Harris, and wife of J. R. Sargent. She taught in her own home, a log cabin, and had twelve pupils. In 1864, she and her husband returned to their home in Illinois.

In 1862 Miss Wealthy Tinkum taught a subscription school in Blue Springs, and 1863 her sister Maggie, afterwards wife of Mr. Nathan Blakely, taught the first public school in Blue Springs, and Hugh Dobbs was a pupil. She taught in a building erected as a dwelling house but fitted up with seats and used for school and church. We cannot hear of any school taught in Blue Springs in 1864-65, during the Indian troubles; 1866 is doubtful. Miss Mary Bailey, afterward wife of James Shelly, taught in 1867-68 in Mr. Haynes log house. The first school house in Blue Springs was built in 1869, the next with two rooms in 1873, the present building in 1882.

The first country school we can hear of was a private school taught by Miss Clarissa Roper, in Mr. Jones' house four miles north of Beatrice, in the summer of 1861. Mr. Jack Pethoud taught a subscription school there in the winter of 1861-62 and Miss Alexander also taught in the same district or neighborhood. A log school house was built there in 1867 and in Jan. 1868 W. . Wagner began the first school in it, and the first public school in that district.

District No. 2, on the Nemaha, where Mr. George Gale lived, was one of the first districts organized. In 1865, they got logs and other material ready to build a school house but a flood came and scattered the timbers all over the bottom land, and it was with much additional labor and expense the building was finally erected. So the early settlers had to contend with both fire and floods in establishing the school of which Gage county is justly proud. In the fall of 1863 Beatrice came very near losing its school house again by fire. As Mr. A. O. Sage was riding into town one day he saw a prairie fire rapidly approaching the school house. He jumped from his horse, let it go, pulled off his coat and with no other weapon fought the fire single handed. At length he had the satisfaction of seeing the fire subdued and the school house saved, but his coat was completely ruined.

In District No 21, Mrs. Daniel Freeman taught the first public school in 1865, in a house built by Louie Coffin. Miss Martha Alexander had taught a subscription school in that district previous to 1863. In the Kilpatrick district, No. 22, Miss Cornelia Bailey, afterwards Mrs. Wm. Blakely, taught in 1864, and Hattie Bailey (Mrs. Eugene Mack) taught in 1865. Mrs. Jos. Hollingworth taught in her own house on their homestead in 1865, the only


NEBRASKA ANCESTREE - WINTER VOLUME 16, No. 3 - Page 105

Early Schools of Gage County Continued:

school between Beatrice arid Blue Springs and the first in that district, Miss Maggie Tinkum taught three years in Mr. Dobbs' district. She was teaching there in 1865. Many districts were organized that year. Teachers in those days received $10 per month and boarded around.

The following is a list of the teachers who taught in Beatrice from the first subscription school in 1860 to the first graded school in 1870. A few of the dates cannot be ascertained with certainty as no records can be found, and we have had to depend on the memory of those who were in Beatrice at that time:

Mrs. Francis Butler, summer

1860

Miss Wealthy Tinkum, summer

1861

Oliver Townsend, winter

1862-3

*Mary Alexander, summer

1863

Lucindia Loomis, winter

1863-4

Susan Galliger, summer

1864

Jack Pethoud, winter

1864-5

Carrie Galliger, summer

1865

Jack Pethoud, winter

1865-6

Hattie Bailey, summer

1866

Carrie Gale, fall and winter

1866

Mr. Dutton, winter and spring

1867

Sarah Crabbs, summer

1867

*M. S. Edgerton, fall

1867

N. K. Griggs, winter

1867-8

Mattie Terry, summer

1868

Henry L. Wagner, winter

1868-9

H. P. Webb and N. K. Griggs

1868-9

     Private school, winter

Louisa Dunn, summer

1869

Mr. Hodsden & Mary L. Blodgett

1869-70

     First graded school, winter

Mary L. Blodgett

1870

     Private school

No public school taught, summer

1870

*Date uncertain

Miss Loomis is still teaching in Omaha we are informed.

In the revised statues of 1866 we find that each voting precinct constitued (sic) a school district. At first there were but two precincts, Beatrice and Blue Springs, and for a long time they were rivals, Blue Springs trying to get the county seat away from Beatrice.

In 1868, after Nebraska had become a state, there was quite a revival in school interests. Hon. Nathan Blakely was a member of the first legislature that met that year at Lincoln. He secured the passage of a bill obtaining for this county the grant of 1,000 acres of land, half of the proceeds of which was to build the first bridge across the Blue river at Beatrice, the other half to go into the school fund.


NEBRASKA ANCESTREE - WINTER VOLUME 16, No. 3 - Page 106

Early Schools of Gage County Continued:

In this first year, 1868, Oliver Townsend, county clerk, and his assistant, W. A. Wagner, divided the county into thirty school districts and renumbered them, beginning in the northeast corner. The county commissioners appointed Rev. B. F. McNeal (who organized the first Presbyterian church in Beatrice) as school superintendent, and in the fall of 1869 Mr. L. B. Filley was elected by the people.

The school houses in the country districts were mostly if not all log houses, sod houses or dugouts.

The pupils were uncultured, of course, but naturally bright, some of them showing an ambition and craving for a higher life, as may be seen when a boy like Dobbs will ride ten or twelve miles to see a school house being built. Others showed a daring and wildness that might have come from living among the Indians. I have been told that pupils have actually been known to jump out of the windows during school times, and authorities all agree that there were some very rough boys in the Beatrice schools in those early days.

The first attempt to grade the Beatrice school was in the fall of 1869, when Mr. Hodsden taught the higher department in the school house, and Mary L. Blodgett the primary upstairs in an old stone building on Market and Fourth streets. The Beatrice Clarion was printed in the room below by Mr. Joseph Nelson, and as that room was not plastered, the pupils had to walk very carefully to and from recitations. My memory of that school is very pleasant. The pupils were orderly and learned very fast. I will only mention a few of the 56 names enrolled. Fanny and Josie McDowell, Katie McDowell, George and Jack Emery, Nathan Reynolds, Elsie Mary Hinkle, Edna Pease, Ella and Austie Roper. Mr. Hodsden's school numbered about 30 or 35 pupils.

In 1870, the brick school house was built on the corner of 8th and Ella, containing 3 rooms at first, afterwards six. Mr. Chase was the first principal there, followed the next year by Mr. C. B. Palmer. But this part of the history of the schools belongs to modern rather than ancient history.

Submitted by Ellen DeVries, Lincoln NE


Abstracted from: - BEATRICE WEEKLY EXPRESS--Beatrice, Ne. July 15, 1897

Forty years ago July 6, S. P. SHAW with his five sons, Egbert, J. B. , W. H. , James I. and S. V. SHAW and two sons-in-law, James and W. W. SILVERNAIL, with their wives and children arrived on the Nemaha from their former home in Wisconsin, determined to make a home for themselves in this then unsettled territory. There were then only two houses in Adams township or for that matter in the six township of Adams, Nemaha, Highland, Holt, Hanover and Hooker. These were the log houses of John O. ADAMS and John STAFFORD. S. P. SHAW died in 1863 and his widow in 1886; W. H. was killed in the war and Egbert died in 1895. The other members of the colony all live in Adams except James SILVERNAIL and wife, who live in Beatrice. These survivors have seen wonderful changes in this country in these two score years, changes little dreamed of by them and not thought of by people in the east. The nearest post office then was Nebraska City and the nearest mill in Iowa some twenty or thirty miles further, hence letters from the east were infrequent and the fashionable dish was hominy or hulled corn, wheat breat being unknown and corn meal so hard to get that corn bread was a luxury. And yet these people enjoyed life even better than some enjoy it now.

************************************************
Submitted by Ellen DeVries
From Beatrice Weekly Express
VOTERS REGISTERED IN NEMAHA PRECINCT, Gage Co.
2 Sept 1872

ADAMS, John O.

ADAMS, Isaac

BRYSON, Silas

BARMORE, H. C.

BOYER, John

BARNHOUSE, Wm

BARNHOUSE. O.

BARNHOUSE, Jacob

BLACHART, Win.

BLACHART, Geo.

BLACHART, Cyrus

BOYER, Geo. S.

CURTISS, Wm.

Clark, T. A

CLARK, L. O.

CAMPBELL, G. W.

CAMPBELL, Wm.

CLAY, Henry

DICK, Nicholas

DAVIS, Andrew

DOMAN, J. J.

DISHER, Stephen

DAVIS, T. H.

DICK, David

EVERIST, J. H.

FETROW, Abraham

GALE, Geo

GALE, Alfred

GRAY, Wm A.

GRUND, F.

GROVES, H. H.

HAMMERER, E.

HOWARD, Isaac

HILDBRAND, Leon

HILDBRAND, Jacob

HURLEY, Sidney

HORRAM, L. R.

HARNLY, Benjamin

HARNLY, Edwin

HULL, T. A.

LYONS, John

LYNCH, J. H.

LYONS, J. B.

MATHEWS, Wm

MAYO, Isaac

MOORE, J. M.

MOORE, B. F.

MOORE, K. A.

MERRICK, H. J.

MARTIN, Jacob

RUTLEDGE, W.

SANDERS, C. D.

SHAW, Jas I.

SUMPTER, J. A.

SHANKS, A.

SHANKS, B. F.

SILVERNAIL, Wm

SHAW, J. B.

SANDERS, R. R.

SANDERS, S. S.

SYKES, Jas

SYKES, Geo

SYKES, Samuel

SALISBURY, J. T.

SHAW, S. V.

STARR, Wm

TALBOTT, G. W.

TUTTLE, Win B.

WOOD, J. R.

WHYNAN, Chas

WININGER, P. B.

WININGER, Joseph

WININGER, Vol

WELCH, Win

WEBB, Samuel

John O. ADAMS, Registrar of Nemaha Pct.

VOTERS REGISTERED IN HOOKER PRECINCT # 8, Gage Co. NE

BUTLER, I. N.

BURGER, Lambert

BROWN, I. L.

BURGER, Jarins

CUMMING, Andrew

FULLER, Geo W

FREDERICK, John

GRANT, J. N.

GRANT, J. R.

GEORGE, R. K.

HILLMAN, John

HILLMAN T. C. S. S.

HILLMAN, John Jr.

HILLMAN, E. R.

HILBERT, T. E.

HILLMAN, C. R.

KRAUSE, Wm

KENYON, R. A

KOPLEEN, Win

McCARTNEY, J. S.

McCARNEY, David

MILLER, Elliott

STACKHOUSE, P. C.

SPENCER, Marques

ZUVER, B. P.

AUVER, Geo. W.

B. P. ZUVER, Register of Hooker Pct.


WORLD WAR 1 REGISTRATION 5 June 1917, Grant Twp. Gage Co. NE

Submitted by Doris A. Peters, DeWitt

Men who were between the age of 21 and 31.

AMESCUA, Augustin C.

HASENOHR, Fred H

BADMAN, Herbert L.

HAWES, Tom

BAKER, Elmer L.

HENDRICKSON, John R.

BARTON, Edward L.

HOPKINS, James A.

BECK, Wencel

INDERLIED, Henry

BLODGETT, Jess L.

JAZEK, James J.

BRIER, Edward V.

JOHNSON, Roy B.

BURGER, Albert F.

KAURA, James W.

BUSBOOM, John H.

KIBURZ, George L.

CAREY, Cecil F.

KRACKE, Wernwer H.

CAREY, Thomas G.

KREUSCHER, Dale C.

CHAB, Frank L.

KUBEVEC, Joe

CHINNOCK, Thomas B.

KUBOVEC, John J.

COMBS, Ralph

LAKE, George

COX, Floyd

LEACOCK, William H.

DANIELMEYER, Walter F.

LEEPER, Newel F.

DONEHUE, Byron E,

LIVINGTON, Earl B.

KREUSCHER, William Edw.

MATTHEWS, William Z.

EGGERT, Fred H.

MEYER, Otto

EGGERT, Henry

MILLER, William L.

EGGERT, William

MOORE, Paul

FARRENS, John Wm. E.

NEUMAN, William W.

GARRISON, Milo

NICHOLAS, Geo. Worthington

GORDONIER, John L.

GRIFFIS, Earl C.

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