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SENECA’S HISTORY OF 1870
Seneca has a proud history since it was first founded in the mid 1850’s. At that time, four gentlemen formed a town company. One of these men, Finley Lappin, has received the claim of being the person responsible for the naming of our town. Finley, before emigrating to Nemaha County, was a resident of a north central Ohio county. The bordering county in Ohio was Seneca County. Therefore, this explanation of how our town gained its name seems plausible. At the very least, it makes a great story.
By early 1870 discussions must have taken place about the incorporation of Seneca. With incorporation Seneca would have been able to govern itself. With this idea in the minds of many supporting townspeople, incorporation occurred and the rest is history. This sets the stage for our one hundred twenty-fifth celebration.
May 15, 1870--Probate Judge H. H. Lanham ordered James P. Taylor, Charles G. Scrafford, Joseph B. Meyer, Abijah Wells, and John F. McGowen to organize as trustees of the town of Seneca by June 6, 1870.
May 21, 1870--In pursuance of order of incorporation, the five trustees elected C. G. Scrafford, president; J. W. Williams, clerk; J. C. Hubbard, treasurer and R. P. Furrow, constable with Abijah Wells serving as secretary pro tem.
May 28, 1870--On this date O. C. Bruner was employed to survey the town site and to put stakes at the corner of each block. It was further ordered at this meeting that a Mr. Smith be employed to establish a grade on Main Street. J. P. Taylor, Abijah Wells, and J. F. McGowen were named the committee to draft ordinances.
June 3, 1870--With all trustees present, the committee on by-laws and ordinances reported and the following were passed:
Making it a misdemeanor to sell liquor without a license, $25 to $100 fine.
Regular meetings at 7 p.m. of first Friday of each month, or called by president or majority.
Disturbing peace, $5 to $50 and up to 60 days at discretion of Justice of the Peace
Established liquor license fee for any tavern, dram shop or grocery from $250 to $500 each year and a favorably signed petition from a majority of voters in the ward where such establishment is located. Violators fined $25 to $100 and up to 60 days.
Carrying concealed weapons fined $1 to $100 and up to 60 days in town jail.
Nuisances, fine $1 to $100 per day, placing offal or other offensive matter including carcasses in ally or street, fine $5 to $25, and constable to notify tenant or owner of privy or stable nuisance and if not remedied could be fined $10 to $100.
Establishing Main Street grade. (see page 14)
Awarding city publications to Nemaha Courier and Independent Press, each to receive one-half the Kansas legal rate.
Providing town officers and prescribing duties of the clerk, treasurer, constable and street commissioner--constable same fees as allowed township constable, street commissioner $2 a day for time actually worked, treasurer and clerk both to give bond in approved amounts and not to exceed $25 a year.
June 3, 1870--Constable given the job of taking a census in town of Seneca.
June 11, 1870--A petition filed by Ingram & Lake and Assenmacher & Munch for a license to sale liquors that was ordered to be granted upon payment of $300 for each license.
June 16, 1870--A bond from Ingram & Lake filed and approved. The bond of J. C. Hebbard filed and approved.
June 17, 1870--Joseph Sharp was employed and appointed the town attorney.
Going back in history to 1866, Nemaha County had voted 322 to 247 to issue $125,000 worth of railroad bonds. When the railroad company asked for the money in 1870, John E. Smith headed a delegation to protest the issuance of the bonds because the name of the railroad had been changed to the St. Joseph & Grand Island, and was not the same as the original contracted company. Smith and followers won their suit in the Kansas Supreme Court and the bonds were not issued. However, the railroad was being built through Seneca by June of 1870. Two stories have emerged with one being the city had granted the railroad 100 feet of right of way across town and 10 acres of land at the depot site. The other story indicated private citizens dealt with the railroad. This deal, a guaranteed agreement for the same right of way and depot grounds, was made by C. G. Scrafford, J. P. Taylor and 53 others prior to Seneca’s incorporation. In either case, the railroad came and with it the ability to communicate by telegraph.
June 29, 1870--A tenth ordinance was passed granting the St. Joseph and Denver City Railroad their right-of-way through Seneca and required the railroad company to construct a bridge at the east side of town.
July 1, 1870--The first city warrants were issued to pay for surveying, a city census, printing ordinances, and establishing grade on Main Street. Ordinance No. 11 was passed setting a fine of $50 to $500 for non-residents giving shows, circuses or exhibitions without city license. Ordinance No. 12 was the fast or careless driving ordinance. The cost of prosecution and a fine of $5 was set for anyone riding a horse, mule or other animal about town at an excessive, furious, or dangerous gait on any street or thoroughfare within corporate limits. Joseph Sharp was to receive one-half of fines rendered against the breakers of the peace.
The first bills naming person, job done, and fee were to O. C. Bruner, surveying town site, $44; W. R. Wells, assisting, $12; R. P. Furrow, assisting, $6; H. Linderman, assisting, $8; J. Morrill, assisting, $4; J. T. Bronaugh, assisting, $3; J. Gray, assisting, $3; E. Ingram, assisting, $4; R. P. Furrow, taking census, $6; Paul Courier, printing, $10.50; and W. Smith, establishing grade, $25.
July 8 and 12, 1870--Bids were taken for the building of a city scale in the alley of block 71 (north side of Main street between present 4th and 5th streets) and the erection of a city jail. B. Honneman was to build foundation for town scales for $29. J. A. Boyer was to receive $5 for drawing plans of city jail. C. W. Williams gave the lowest bid of $275 for building a jail. Ordinance No. 13 set a fine $5 to $100 and 10 to 30 days in jail for anyone who sold, bartered or gave away intoxicating liquor to anyone who was in the habit of becoming intoxicated, after being warned not to do so by a relative or civil officer. Penalties were provided for intoxication. All places, including taverns, eating houses, restaurants, groceries, coffee houses, cellars, and billiard halls, in violation of selling liquor would be shut up and declared a public nuisance. All gambling devices were also prohibited. Ordinance 14 was directed to nonresident auctioneers and peddlers. License fees were established at $2.50 per day and $5.00 for more than a day and less than one week. Violators' fines were set at $10 to $100 plus costs.
July 18, 1870--Lewis Hill and Jacob McLane were appointed town constables.
August 5, 1870--The foundation for the scale was accepted. J. E. Taylor was employed to prosecute John Bachel___on. Bills paid were to S. E. Clark, freighting, $14.40; Paul Courier, printing, $12; Barney Honneman, repairing jail, $5; Barney Honneman, building foundation, $31.50; and R. P. Furrow, boarding prisoner, $18.75.
August 11, 1870--Bills paid were to James Bronaugh, lumber, $21.68; Samuel Funk, jail door, $5; J. W. Williams, building jail, $275; and H. H. Lanham, justice fees, $24.
September 23, 1870--Juror and witness fees were established as 50 cents to one dollar per day. Many familiar names were on the juries in Justice Lanham’s court including S. B. Humphrey, J. W. Johnson, John Cave, L. A. Harden, S. Ewing, B. F. Todd, R. E. Nelson, A. Marion, L. Johnson, Thos. Bennett, J. W. Gray, J. F. Lewellen, H. W. Mathews, S. Culler Sr., John Norton, J. Y. Benfer, Jos. Morrell, T. L. Cowdrey, R. S. Fish, Marion Westfall, J. W. Weir, Samuel Funk, Jason Brown, John Root, Jake Muench, P. J. Assenmacher, J. Rogers, A. Mapes, Frank Dressie, Dan Kyger, J. W. Stickney, J. P. Taylor, Wm. Smith, Wm. White, Henry Scrafford, Julien Slimmer, Peter McQuaid, A. W. Manley, and Charles Eno. At the same meeting O. C. Dickinson was appointed town weighmaster and Wm. R. Wells was appointed street commissioner. Lengthy Ordinance No. 15 provided for sidewalks 10 feet wide along Main Street, to be either of stone or pine, oak or walnut lumber two inches thick and supported every four foot. All sidewalks were to be built under supervision of the street commissioner. If not supervised, a tax could be levied. This ordinance also prohibited any obstruction or openings in the sidewalk with a fine of $5 per offense and $10 per day the situation was not corrected. A fine from $5 to $100 was established for leaving your cellar door open or endangering life or limb. In other business, Ordinance 16 set forth fees for weighing on town scale. Fees were placed at 5 cents for a single head of livestock, over three but under five head of stock at 15 cents, hogs and sheep at 10 cents, 25 cents for a loaded wagon, merchandise not on a wagon per hundred at 5 cents, and unlimited use of scales set at $15 a year.
November 25, 1870--R. P. Furrow was named street commissioner. Payment of bills included A. M. Sisson, banking of dirt around scales, $10; A. C. Meacham, lumber for scales, $11.81; J. P. Cone, printing notices, $7.50; Paul Courier, printing ordinances, $7; J. W. Williams, making record of ordinances to city, $20; and A. H. Burnett & Co., lumber for scales, $1.50.
November 28, 1870--R. E. Nelson was to be paid on the note for the town’s scale. This note was being held by Forsyit, Haston & Company.
November 30, 1870--City attorney Joseph Sharp had his employment revoked.
Let us change our viewpoint to the business dealings of the townsfolk. In August of 1870, the last of the city lots owned by the county had been sold netting to the court house fund the sum of $17,473.83. On the north side of Main Street, the frame building of the “Root & Fuller” business stood next to the printing shop of the newspaper established in 1863 by J. P. Cone (see page 4). M. L. Root of Centralia loaned $400 to his son and John Fuller Sr. to start their business in 1870. Also on the north side of Main Street was supposed to have been a brick bank building established by Samuel Lappin and Charles G. Scrafford.
By 1870 Richmond township, including the town of Seneca, had grown to over two thousand (2000) residents. This was over a 200% increase in population in a decade. This seemed tremendous until one remembers over 650 men plus numerous housewives and children were probably not making this area their permanent residence. These 650 men were working on building a railroad through the county. It just happened they were in Richmond township and Seneca when the 1870 United States census taken. No accurate count of the number of people actually residents of Seneca was ascertained, but the population of Seneca was probably between 800 and 1000 inhabitants.
What was the makeup up the town of Seneca? The inhabitants came to this town from many places of origin including many foreign countries. Inhabitants of the Seneca area listed their United States birthplaces as Connecticut, New York, Indiana, Missouri, Illinois, Virginia, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Ohio, West Virginia, Maine, Massachusetts, Kentucky, New Hampshire, Iowa, Vermont, Minnesota, Tennessee, Maryland, Delaware, Nebraska, and Kansas. The many foreign countries included Ireland, Austria, Canada, England, Switzerland, France, Holland, Wales, Sweden, Norway, Luxembourg and Germany. Germany was not actually found in the records, but Prussia, Bavaria, Bohemia, Wurtenburg, Saxony, and Hanover were written down in the census record book. Needless to say, Seneca by 1870 had a varied blend of backgrounds of its inhabitants.
What brought these people to Seneca? Was it money? Surely, some of the people would have been considered rich by 1870 standards and undoubtedly, some poor. The ten heads of households with the highest combined wealth of real estate and personal property were: C. G. Scrafford, a farmer, $75,500; Samuel Lappin, a farmer, $57,000; Richard Bloss, a farmer, $20,000; Rueben Cone, a retired merchant, $17,000; John H. Peckham, a merchant, $17,000; Abraham Kygen, sheriff of Nemaha County, $15,350; Margaret Henderson, keeping house, $15,150; Wm. G. Sargent, a lawyer, $15,000; Finley Lappin, a farmer, $13,000; and J. C. Hebbard, county treasurer, $12,000. Three of these, the Lappin’s and Scrafford, were three of the four founding fathers of Seneca.
With the population increasing, it is easy to surmise that babies were being born. However, not all the people were young adults. The eldest was William Smith, age 75, from Hanover, Germany, who was still working in the brickyard. Others with accumulated experiences were Margaret Hawley, 74; David Allison, 73; Julia Cohen, 70; Chloe Ramey, 70; Maria Perese, 70; Mary Leatherbury, 68; Finley Lappin, 67, and Nancy Scrafford, 67.
These pieces of information on the states, foreign countries, wealth, and age are not the only facts found in the census. The 1870 census also gave the occupations or professions that have been tabulated in a chart. The most interesting tidbit gathered from the census would be different for each person. However, from this viewpoint, the one year old female daughter of Thomas and Isabella Bennett was the choice in 1870. The Bennett’s migrated from Canada. For some undiscovered reason, they named their daughter Seneca. Now a question comes to mind, what ever happened to Seneca Bennett?
Persons known to have arrived in Seneca in 1870 were A. L. L. Scoville, who accepted a position with J. H. Peckham and C. C. K. Scoville, one of Seneca’s mayors.
What could these people have been doing? The children of school age could have been in one of the three grade departments. In September of 1870, the public school had a primary, intermediate and high school department. This same month the Nemaha County Agricultural Society had its third annual exhibition, apparently an event similar to a county fair, in Seneca.
Let us turn our attention to the churches and denominations practicing their faiths in Seneca. There were Universalists, Methodists, Baptists, Congregationalists, Catholics, and most likely some others. Many of the Protestant denominations were using the Stone Church for religious purposes. The Stone Church had its edifice built in 1867. By agreement, the denomination contributing the most liberally was to become the building owners. Apparently, the Universalist must have backed the church with the most financial support. This still existing stone building was formally dedicated as a Universalist Church with Rev. B. F. Rodgers officiating in August of 1870.
Part of the reason for this building becoming the Universalist Church was probably because the Congregationalist church members decided to build a house of worship on June 20, 1870. They named a building committee of Reuben Cone, C. T. Whittenhall, H. P. Dryden, J. L. Fuller, and O. C. Dickinson. By Christmas Day, a dedication of a $4000 frame edifice measuring 32 feet by 50 feet had taken place in Seneca.
The year started out in January 1870 with Father Pirmine Koumly, O.S.B. conducting a monthly Catholic service on the second Sunday of each month. . He was a 27 year old native of France He was The need for a parish house was noted in May. By June a one story parish house measuring 16 by 26 feet had been planned and constructed. July saw Father Pirmine move in and become the first resident pastor of the Sts. Peter and Paul Parish. By September 1870, the Catholics, with the help of some of the town’s Protestants, had purchased the old public school. Thus, the St. Peter and Paul Parochial School had been formed with the first teacher being Daniel Huhn. Mr. Huhn was from Prussia. The school had an average attendance of twenty-five students in its first term.
Father Pirmine was kept busy in 1870 conducting marriages and baptisms. Three marriages were recorded in the parish register. These were Francis Blocker and Mary Rohenkohl, John Eckel and Josephine Henschel, and Bernard Lindemann and Agnes Lensing. It was reported in 1938 that thirty-five baptisms had taken place in 1870. Since records for St. Mary Parish of St. Benedict, Kansas, were also being recorded in Seneca during this time period, some filtering of the baptisms was necessary. What follows is an educated guess of which baptisms were conducted at St. Peter and Paul Parish. The baptisms were:
James, son of Peter and Gertrude (Schnorrenberg) Assenmacher
Catherine, daughter of August and Margaret (Quirk) Becker
Catherine, daughter of Martin and Mary (Skill) Bedo
Francis, son of Henry and Julia (Eismann) Bernhurster
Amalia, twin daughter of Christian and Mary (Sickinger) Bogenschitz
Mary, twin daughter of Christian and Mary (Sickinger) Bogenschitz
Charles, son of William and Mary (Flowers) Cook
Anne, daughter of Michael and Elizabeth (Gellemann) Drees
Theodore, son of Lawrence and Catherine (Lindemann) Hammes
Mary, daughter of John and Mary (Ostermann) Jansen
Ida, daughter of Henry and Catherine (Schoetter) Kampert
Elizabeth, daughter of Simon and Anna (Rollinger) Koffler
Anton, son of Anton and Theresa (Muehlbauer) Koplitz
Mary, daughter of Wencelaus and Mary (Koch) Lackey
Robert, son of Robert and Mary (Farrell) McCormick [railroad worker]
Henry, son of Charles and Elizabeth (Merry) Martin
Anna, daughter of John and Elizabeth (Schmitz) Meyer
Andrew, son of Andrew and Magdalene Meyers
Anna, daughter of Joseph and Rose (Huhn) Meyers
Helen, daughter of Edward and Catherine (Kelly) Murphy
Mary, daughter of Thomas and Helen (Quinn) Murphy
Anna, daughter of Francis and Aloysia (Slanina) Priebl
Sophia (Jorden) Priebl, wife of Frederic Priebl
Margaret, daughter of Patrick and Catherine (Cockley) Radigan [railroad worker]
Andrew, son of James and Emma (Haug) Rollinger
Catherine, twin daughter of William and Eva (Rollinger) Rouspiez
Elizabeth, twin daughter of William and Eva (Rollinger) Rouspiez
Petronilla, daughter of Christian and Mary (Hemmersbach) Schaaf
Philip, son of Philip and Catherine (Hogan) Scott
Jacob, son of Philip and Frederica (Michaelis) Sonntag
Margaret (Schmidt) Stahl, wife of John Stahl
Mary, daughter of John and Margaret (Schmidt) Stahl
Theodora, daughter of John and Margaret (Schmidt) Stahl
John, son of John and Margaret (Schmidt) Stahl
Mary, daughter of John and Mary Stallbaumer
Catherine, daughter of Matthias and Elizabeth (Daltrup) Stein
Benjamin, son of Christian and Christina (Koch) Steinmeyer
Andrew, son of James and Mary (Meier) Tenvorde
Joanna, daughter of Bernard and Gertrude (Boeding) Tichlofen
Sources:
The Courier-Tribune, Anniversary Edition, 1938
Nemaha Co. Historical Museum, Ray Ingalls Collection
Nemaha Co. Historical Museum, Seneca Pamphlet
Nemaha Co. Register of Deeds, City No. Index, Book 2
Sts. Peter & Paul Catholic Church Parish Records
1870 U.S. Census, Nemaha County, Kansas
Markley Estate, City of Seneca, Book 1
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