The Historical Significance of Kanosha, Nebraska

by Patricia Sedlacek

            While searching for information on local Indian tribes in the Plattsmouth library, I happened across a story written by an early settler. In this remembrance, she described how her family had crossed the Missouri River at the town of Kanosha. This piqued my interest immediately because almost every day on my way home I turn off Highway 75 onto Kenosha Road. I then stopped by the Cass County Historical Society and asked for any information on the town of Kanosha. An employee confirmed that there was at one time a town three miles south of the ghost town of Rock Bluff, but the library didn’t really have any information on it. On my way home that day driving down Highway 75, I checked my mileage between Rock Bluff Road and Kenosha Road: three miles, almost exactly. It was this first small discovery that sent me down the path to many more discoveries and mysteries regarding the forgotten riverboat town of Kanosha, Nebraska. After many weeks of research, I am convinced that the historical significance of Kanosha, Nebraska has been overlooked and should be outlined in a condensed documented form and preserved on the actual site.

Kanosha was located eight miles down river from Plattsmouth, and it was three miles down river from the town of Rock Bluff. Much has been written about the history of Rock Bluff, but very little attention has been paid to Kanosha. The town began as an Indian trading post before the area was opened for settlement in 1854. Businesses sprang up quickly, as many of the earliest pioneers of the newly opened Nebraska territory crossed the Missouri River at this point. The site was known as Kanosha, but it was not incorporated until January 22, 1856. The little frontier riverboat town seemed to flourish for approximately ten years. There were several stores, a post office, school, saloon, doctor, wagon and blacksmith shop, and many residences (Gilmore, “Ghost Towns in Cass County”). At some point in the mid 1860’s, it began to fade into obscurity. The property is now all privately owned by the Biel family.

I began my research by contacting the present owner Lavonn Biel. She suggested that I look at the George H. Gilmore Collection at the State of Nebraska Historical Society in Lincoln. Dr. Gilmore had researched the history of Kanosha for approximately eleven years. He believed that Kanosha was “One of the leading ferryboat transfer points on the Missouri River.” He also noted that many biographical sketches of early pioneers mention the fact that they entered Nebraska Territory at Kanosha” (Gilmore, notes re:Kanosha). His interest in this site was because his father was one of the first settlers in Kanosha in 1855.

 Dr. Gilmore was born in 1866 in Cass County and graduated from Rush Medical College in 1895. He practiced medicine in Cass County for most of his life. He is credited, along with Dr. Sturm from Harvard, with the “Turtle Mound” find at Rock Bluffs and the “Walker Gilmore Buried Village” at the White farm east of Murray, Nebraska (Gilmore). Many of his writings are housed in the Archives of Archeology at the University of Nebraska in Lincoln. Dr. Gilmore founded the Cass County Historical Society in 1935, and his contributions to society, both through his medical practice and as an historian, are immense. He died in 1955 and is buried at Oak Hill Cemetery in Plattsmouth, Nebraska.

To begin to understand the historical importance of the Kanosha site, we must start in 1804 with Lewis and Clark’s expedition up the Missouri. There has been much speculation as to the exact location of the Lewis and Clark campsite on the night of July 20, 1804, in what would fifty years later become Cass County. According to their journals on the day of July 20, 1804, Lewis and Clark passed a creek which they refer to as “L’Eauqin Pleure,” or the “Water Which Cry’s.” This reference would be to what later became known as “Weeping Water Creek” (Moulton). They also note increasingly large sand bars. This was possibly because the confluence of the Missouri and Platt rivers was approximately eight to ten miles upriver. In their notes they also describe high points of land which are the river bluffs of southern Cass County, later mapped as the lower part of the Pennsylvanian Wabaunsee Group (Moulton).

Lewis and Clark note that their campsite of July 20^th was approximately one quarter mile above Spring Creek, below a high bluff, on the left side of the river (Moulton). This would put their campsite approximately one half mile south of the Kanosha site and north of Rakes Creek, most probably between mile markers 578 and 579 at the base of the bluff known as Flag Pole Point on the Biel property (Wood). What Lewis and Clark noted as Spring Creek was later named Rakes Creek, and due to the rerouting of the Missouri River in this area by the Core of Engineers in the 1940’s, it now empties into the river farther south than it did in 1804 (Wood). There is a marker at Flag Pole Point noting the spot as a Lewis and Clark survey point. It is not hard to speculate that a member of the expedition climbed to this spot to see what lay ahead for the next day’s journey, as it is one of the highest points in Cass County. The fact that this spot has been marked as a Lewis and Clark survey point is in itself historically significant.

From the marker at Flag Pole Point, it is a short walk to the Kanosha Cemetery, which is also situated on the top of the bluff. In reading over Dr. Gilmore’s notes from 1937, ones sees that he was appalled at the condition of the cemetery and tried to gather funds and public support to preserve it, without much success.

 The cemetery is approximately one quarter of an acre, surrounded by a hog wire fence that is falling down in many places, and it is covered by such thick brush in the summer as to be almost impenetrable. Many of the gravestones are either missing or buried under one hundred and fifty years of debris. According to Dr. Gilmore’s research, there are at least twenty-one gravesites that are some of the earliest pioneers in Nebraska Territory (Gilmore, notes re: burials at Kanosha Cemetery). The pioneers buried in the Kanosha Cemetery, each in their own way, made a significant contribution to the early history of Nebraska and the westward expansion of the United States. The courage they must have taken to move their families to the wild unsettled frontier should at the very least be honored by the preservation of their final resting place.

One of these early settlers was John McFarland Hagood. He settled in Kanosha, having come from Kentucky in October 1854. He married Mary Katherine Brown in 1855. She was the daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Gorman Brown, who are also buried in the Kanosha Cemetery (Gilmore, notes re: John Hagood). John Hagood, along with Bela White, formed the Kanosha Land Company in December 1856, with himself as President and White as secretary. They filed a plat map for the town in 1857, which shows 56 blocks with approximately 591 lots.

In the early organization of Cass County, Governor Cuming divided the county into two voting precincts, Martin’s in the northern part and Kanosha in the south. In the second general election held on November 6, 1855, John Hagood was elected to the territorial legislature for Cass County and was again elected to the tenth session in 1865. He also served as a representative in the house in the fifth state legislature (Gilmore, notes re: John Hagood).

John Hagood enlisted in Company A of the First Nebraska Volunteers in June 1861 as a private  and, by May 1862, had been promoted to First Lieutenant (Gilmore, notes re: John Hagood). John McFarland Hagood was a pioneer, business man, blacksmith, ferryman, politician, and civil war veteran, who was laid to rest in a cemetery on a high bluff in his home town, but is now forgotten.

When John Hagood came from Kentucky to Kanosha, he brought with him an African American slave. His name was Sam, and he is also buried in the Kanosha Cemetery, along with most of the Hagood family (Gilmore, notes re: Interview with Peter Campbell). The fact that a slave or former slave, depending on his date of death, was buried in a small, all white cemetery, in the mid-1800’s, is very significant.

Another one of the first settlers in Kanosha was Dr. George Gilmore’s father, John Gilmore. He came to Kanosha in the spring of 1854 from Ohio, with his first wife Rachel and their two young sons. There was no ferry at this time, so in order to cross the river he built a raft and directed it to the opposite bank near the trading post (Gilmore, notes re: Ferry boat at Kanosha). In 1855 John Gilmore, along with John Hagood, and Thomas Thompson were granted the first permit to operate a ferry at Kanosha.

John Gilmore’s first wife died shortly after giving birth to a third son at Kanosha in September 1855. According to Dr. Gilmore’s records, Rachel Gilmore is the first recorded burial in the Kanosha Cemetery (Gilmore, notes re: Burials at Kanosha Cemetery). Rachel was a twenty-nine year old mother of three who followed her husband into the unknown, uncivilized frontier, and after a short time paid the ultimate price. Now she rests in an unmarked grave, in a forgotten cemetery, in a forgotten town. John Gilmore remarried in 1860 and moved his family to a farm located six miles west of the present day town of Murray, Nebraska (Gilmore).

One of the most interesting and mysterious characters in this early pioneer town was Bela White. In Dr. Gilmore’s notes and correspondence, he seems to become quite obsessed over his eleven-year period of research with finding out who Bela White was, where he came from, and what happened to him.

Bela White owned the trading post at Kanosha, and he could probably be considered the town’s first settler. As the little settlement grew, so did Mr. White’s trading post into a good-sized store. In 1856, he and John Hagood formed the Kanosha Land Company, and that same year he was given a commission as Notary Public by Governor Mark W. Izard at Omaha City, Nebraska Territory (Gilmore, notes re: Kanosha Land Company). He was also elected the first County Treasurer at the first county election held on April 10, 1855 (Andreas). White was the postmaster in Kanosha from 1855 until its discontinuation in 1868 (Gilmore, correspondence re: Kenosha post office).

 Looking at these facts regarding Bela White, I believe it became quite obvious to Dr. Gilmore that Mr. White was no run of the mill river-rat trading post operator and that he must have been well educated, thus inciting Dr. Gilmore’s curiosity of the man’s origin. In a 1937 letter to a Mr. Sheer who used to help run the ferry at Kanosha, he asks for information on Bela White, such as where he came from, did he have any relatives in this country, when did he die? (Gilmore, Correspondence to Mr. Sheer). In doing this research, I too had become quite intrigued with the mystery of Bela White, and I have made some exciting discoveries regarding his history before he came to Kanosha. Early one morning I simply googled his name, and to my astonishment got a hit on the very first site. It was in the Edward and Orra White Hitchcock Collection at the Amherst College Archives.

Bela White was born in 1798 to a prominent Amherst, Massachusetts farming family. His sister was Orra White Hitchcock, considered one of the earliest female artists and illustrators in the United States. She and the other White children were educated at home with a private tutor, and then Orra was sent to boarding school. I can only assume that if the Whites sent a daughter away for higher education in the early 1800’s, they must have also done the same for their sons. Orra’s husband was Edward Hitchcock, a scientist, educator, and minister at Amherst College for almost forty years. He was a Professor in Chemistry, Natural History, Natural Theology and Geology, and served as President of the college from 1845 to 1854 (Amherst College Archives). Bela’s brother George was a doctor, in Hillsboro, Illinois.

Bela White married Julia Ann Stanton on February 1, 1832 (Condarcure). This is the only reference to a wife I could find, and there is no record of any children. Bela was seventy years old when the post office closed in 1868, and there seems to be no trace of him or information on him after that. His name appears on the 1855 Nebraska State Census, and on the 1860 Census, but not on the 1870 Census. He had outlived his parents, siblings, wife, and had no children. Peter Campbell described Mr. White in his interview with Dr. Gilmore in 1948 as being a short and heavy set man, with full cheeks, blue eyes and had very long hair that hung near his shoulders. Where did Bela White go at the age of seventy in 1868? I think there is a strong possibility that he, like Rachael Gilmore, and many others, lies in an unmarked and forgotten grave in the Kanosha Cemetery.

I started my preliminary investigation of burials at the Kanosha Cemetery at the Cass County Historical Society. The Society’s official record of gravesites in this cemetery is ten (see Table 1). This was compiled by a simple walk through and notation of existing headstones by Maurice Carmichael in 1995. According to Dr. Gilmore’s research and personal interviews, there are approximately twenty two gravesites (see Table 2). Considering the size of the cemetery and the length of time it was in use, I believe Dr. Gilmore’s count to be far more accurate.

CASS COUNTY HISTORICAL SOCIETY

OFFICIAL GRAVSITE RECORD KANOSHA

NAME                                              BIRTH                                 DEATH

Augustus Case                                 none                                   12/3/1861

John Pulley                                      8/24/1803                          4/8/1865

Frances Biel                                     9/26/1882                          1/8/1885

Emily Brochus                                  1831                                   1896

Andy Exeline                                    2/7/1863                            7/10/1891

John Hagood                                   none                                   none

            Four stones/unknown

Table 1 (Carmichael)

1. GEORGE GILMORE’S RECORD OF BURIALS ATKANOSHA

NAME                                              BIRTH                                 DEATH

John Hagood                                   8/5/1818                            10/21/1885

Mary Katherine Hagood                    none                                   8/26/1888

Adresse Hagood                               1/1/1861                            2/11/1861

Fredrick Gorman Hagood                  7/24/1867                          5/8/1879

Oscar Hagood                                  none                                   3/3/1889

William Sutton                                 6/14/1840                          2/9/1911

Harriet Francis Sutton                      8/2/1839                            1/8/1909

Rachael Anderson Gilmore                1826                                   9/1855

Andy Exeline                                    1826                                   7/10/1911

Baby of William. Exeline                   none                                   none

Augustus Case                                 1819                                   12/3/1864

John Pulley                                      8/24/1803                          8/8/1865

Francis A Biel                                  9/26/1882                          1/8/1885

Emily Brocrus                                   1831                                   1895

Gorman Brown                                 none                                   none    

Eva Brown                                       none                                   none

Jennings                                         none                                   none

Sam                                                none                                   none

Gustena Brown O’Dell Nix                 none                                   none

Baby of Glenn Campbell                    none                                   none

Two Rorebeck children                     none                                   none

Table 2 (Gilmore, notes re: Burials at Kanosha)

All of the people in this cemetery deserve to be remembered on paper, and their gravesites maintained. They were real people leading real lives in a new frontier. I believe that several were born over two hundred years ago, such as John Pulley, Gorman and Eva Brown, Mary Hagood, and Augustus Case, who was one of the incorporators of the first Agriculture Society in Nebraska in 1856 (Gilmore, notes re: First Agriculture Society).

In the 1930’s, Dr. Gilmore tried to raise funds for preservation of these pioneer cemeteries, and also tried without much success to heighten public awareness of the destruction of many of the sites. He noted that the Doom Family Cemetery located in Cass County at that time was being used as a hog pen, and he was concerned that the Kanosha Cemetery could be made into a pasture. (Gilmore, Correspondence to Mrs. Mabel Tuttle). At that time there were no laws to protect pioneer cemeteries. It has only been in the last few years that the State of Nebraska has written statutes pertaining to abandoned and neglected pioneer cemeteries.

According to Section 12-805 of the State of Nebraska Statutes, the county board can expend money from its general fund for care and maintenance of these cemeteries, which can include repair or building of fences and spraying to control weeds (State of Ne. Statues Sec.12-805). This would be a great beginning to the preservation of the Kanosha Cemetery, and the owner of the property would not have to incur the cost herself.

Section 12-807 states that when petitioned by thirty-five adult residents of the county, the county board shall expend money to preserve and provide maintenance for an abandoned and neglected pioneer cemetery (State of Ne. Statues Sec. 12-807). As I have talked with various people in my community regarding my interest in preserving this cemetery, I have discovered that there are others who are as interested as me in trying to get this site cared for. I don’t think it would be very hard to get thirty-five signatures.

The first step of course would be to meet the criteria of an abandoned and neglected pioneer cemetery as defined by Section 12-808. The cemetery must have been founded prior to January 1, 1900. The first recorded burial in Kanosha was 1855, and the last was 1911. The site must also contain the graves of persons who are homesteaders, pioneers, first generation Nebraskans, or Civil War veterans. It can be easily proven that most of the people in this cemetery are pioneers and first generation Nebraskans. Also, it is on record that John Hagood was a Civil War veteran. The last requirement is that the cemetery has been generally abandoned and neglected for a period of at least twenty years (State of Ne. Statue Sec. 12-808). Since the last burial at Kanosha took place nearly one hundred years ago, and due to its impenetrable condition today, I would assume it would meet this requirement easily.

Section 12-810 says that any county affected by sections 12-807 to 12-810 shall provide for one mowing per year, and after five years of maintenance, a historical marker giving the date of the establishment of the cemetery and a short history shall be placed at the site of such cemetery (State of Ne. Statute Sec. 12-810). Spraying for weeds a couple of times a year, mowing once a year, and placing a marker for this historical little cemetery does not seem like it would put much of a burden on county funds, especially when compared to the loss of so much Cass County and Nebraska history if the cemetery were not preserved.

The history of the Kanosha site goes back farther than the town itself, or its little cemetery, to a band of brave, courageous, adventurers who set out to map the mighty Missouri River all the way to its head waters and beyond to the Pacific Ocean. Lewis and Clark’s exploration was the beginning of the western expansion of the United States, and the town of Kanosha and its early settlers played an important part in that continuing expansion.

There isn’t much left of the once booming riverboat town of Kanosha, Nebraska, other than one crumbling old building, several deteriorating foundations, and an overgrown cemetery. In this place was a school, stores, brickyard, church, post office, grange hall, and many other businesses. The Kanosha ferry brought many pioneers across the Missouri River on their journey westward, searching for what was the American dream in the 1800’s. Would we as 21^st century Americans uproot our families and head out for the unknown, uncivilized frontier like the first settlers of Kanosha? I doubt that we would have the courage or the stamina to endure the hardships and make the sacrifices those early pioneers did. This is why it is important to remember them and what they did, and to preserve something of what they left behind.

It is only a little cemetery on the top of a bluff in southern Cass County, but in this day and age of absorbing into our culture the cultures of so many other countries, we may be losing touch with our own. In studying our past, we can come to a better understanding of who we are now as a society. In preserving our past, we are building a bridge for the next generations to understand who they may have become as a society.

* * * *

Works Cited

Amherst College Archives, Edward and Orra White Hitchcock papers, Series 11 & 9, URL: <http://clio.fivecolleges.edu/amherst/hitchcock/index.htm> 14 June 2006.

Andreas, Alfred T., and William G. Cutler. “Cass County.” History of the State of Nebraska. Ed Connie Snyder. Lawrence, KS: The Kansas Collection. 15 June 2006. <htt://www.kancoll.org/books/andreas_ne/hon_cnty.html>

Biel, Lavonn. Personal interview. 10 June 2006.

Carmichael, Maurice Kanosha Gravesite Record. Cass County Historical Society 1995

Condarcure, Steve “Steve Condarcure’s New England Genealogy.” 21 June 2006. http://newenglandgenealogy.pcplayground.com/sjc.htm.

Gilmore, George H., “Ghost Towns in Cass County.” Nebraska History Magazine, volume 18, No.3, March,1938.”Rpt. in” “The Plattsmouth Journal” Volume 85 1967.

——Notes re: John McFarland Hagood. Box19, Kanosha file, Gilmore Collection, State of Nebraska Historical Society.

——Notes re: Kanosha. Box 19, Kanosha file, Gilmore Collection State of Nebraska Historical Society.

——Letter from First Assistant Postmaster General. Box 19, Kanosha file, Gilmore Collection State of Nebraska Historical Society.

——Correspondence to Mrs. Mable Tuttle. Box 19, Kanosha file, Gilmore Collection, State of Nebraska Historical Society.

——Notes re:First Agreculture Society. Box 19, Kanosha file Gilmore Collection, State of Nebraska Historical Society.

——Notes re: Burials at Kanosha Cemetery. Box 19 Kanosha file, Gilmore Collection, State of Nebraska Historical Society.

——Notes re: Interview with Peter Campbell. Box 19 Kanosha file, Gilmore Collection, State of Nebraska Historical Society.

——Notes re: Ferry-boats at Kanosha. Box 19, Kanosha file, Gilmore Collection, State of Nebraska Historical Society.

——Notes re: Kanosha Land Company. Box 19, Kanosha file, Gilmore Collection, State of Nebraska Historical Society.

——Notes re: Business in Kanosha. Box 19, Kanosha file, Gilmore Collection, State of Nebraska Historical Society.

——Notes re: Correspondence to Mr. Sheer. Box 19, Kanosha file, Gilmore Collection, State of Nebraska Historical Society.

Gilmore, Dr. John E, Massie, Harry T. ed Genealogical Record of James Gilmore and Peter Massie and Their Descendants. Unpublished 1963.

Moulton, Gary E., ed. The Journals of the Lewis & Clark Expedition. Vol 2 Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press 1986.

State of Nebraska Statutes. Section 12-805

State of Nebraska Statutes. Section 12-807

State of Nebraska Statutes. Section 12808

Wood, Gertrude Lewis & Clark in Cass County. Kearney, NE. Morris Publishing 1996