MISC: Seneca Township History; Kossuth County ***************************************************************************** USGENWEB ARCHIVES(tm) NOTICE All documents placed in the USGenWeb Archives remain the property of the contributors, who retain publication rights in accordance with US Copyright Laws and Regulations. In keeping with our policy of providing free information on the Internet, these documents may be used by anyone for their personal research. They may be used by non-commercial entities so long as all notices and submitter information is included. These electronic pages may NOT be reproduced in any format for profit. Any other use, including copying files to other sites, requires permission from the contributors PRIOR to uploading to the other sites. The submitter has given permission to the USGenWeb Archives to store the file permanently for free access. http://www.usgwarchives.net/ ****************************************************************************** This file was contributed for use in the USGenWeb Archives by: Letty Hurlburt February, 2003 ___________________________________________________________________________ NOTE: Please visit the Kossuth County, IAGenWeb page at http://iagenweb.org/kossuth/ ____________________________________________________________________________ SENECA TOWNSHIP, KOSSUTH COUNTY, IOWA. Submitted by Letty Hurlburt on September 16, 2002. The Seneca Township Cemetery is located in the NE part of the SW¼ of Section 8, 98/30. Located approximately 26 miles northwest of the Algona, the county seat. Once Seneca was part of the former Bancroft- Crocker County territory. No one now living has any knowledge of white people living in this territory before 1865, but at an early settler meeting at Bancroft, Ambrose A. Call reported that two or three Scandinavian Families lived near Seneca in 1860 and later moved. The townships first permanent settlers came when Seneca was part of Algona Township, just after the Civil War ended (1861-1865), Joseph Burt being the first in 1865. He homesteaded Seneca Township, Section 6 NW¼ (recorded in court house records in 1872) presently the John Fothergill place. In the next five years he was followed by the families of Gray, Kinney, Fish, Brayton, Ormiston, and a few others. It is not known who the first death was, nor when, but the first public burial ground was on the bluff just east of the river, located on what was then the Robert I. Brayton farm on the SE ¼ of Section 8. Brayton’s daughter Cora Brayton-Kessell-Drinan (1866-1938), was the first white child born in the township, and is buried in the Seneca Township Cemetery. Several Brayton children were buried there in the late 1860’s and possibly others. The first of the three, freezing deaths to occur in the township was that of 14 year old, Manning Kinney (1852-1867), son of the George W. Kinney’s who lived in Section 14, presently known as the Verl Smith Place. 1867 had been a very severe winter and provisions were scarce, being obtainable no nearer that Algona. The Kinneys were living principally on potatoes and corn flour, which they ground in a coffee grinder. When the coffee grinder broke, young Manning was sent with it to the nearest settlement (Black Cat area north of Algona) to try to get it repaired. With the extreme cold and deep snow, added to his under-nourished condition, he fell victim to freezing before he reached his home. He is buried in Greenwood Cemetery, Bancroft. Perhaps this was near where he died. George W. Kinney also lost a son in 1888 and three more children in Feb-Mar 1889 to diphtheria, and then a daughter died of diphtheria in May 1889. G.W. abandoned his wife and children and Kossuth County was left to care for them. G.W. died at Center Junction on his way to Chicago and was buried there. In 1870 Peter Eckholm came to the Seneca area on the first train into Algona and homesteaded Section 10 E ½ of SW ¼ and W ½ of SE ¼, what we know as the old Bollig Place, west of Jim Breese. In the 1880’s John and William Klein and Thomas Fitzimmons drove their cattle on foot from Waterloo to Seneca. Some of these early settlers are buried just northwest of Seneca in the Seneca Township Cemetery. ((Brayton children, Fish, Gray, Wm (1837-1892) & Hannah (1842-1885) Ormiston)). The Ormiston Family homesteaded 1874 Section 6 SE ¼ of SE ¼, known as the Robert Burt Place. Charles O. Fish (1840-1909) and wife (Lucy 1844-1935) and daughter had settled on the southeast corner of the southwest quarter-section of Section 8. They homesteaded there in 1868. However, in a couple of years it was decided that the road crossing the section from east to west would follow the half-mile line instead of the south line of Section 8, since the crookedness of the rivers course would have necessitated building three bridges had the section line been followed. Accordingly the Fishes moved their building site to the north edge of the southwest quarter of section 8 and in 1870 they deeded a tract on that quarter to be used by the township as a cemetery. There was to be no charge for lots and the place was to be kept up by taxation. Mr. Fishes’ only stipulation being that he be given the choice of two burial lots for him and his family. This was done. The tract was surveyed by C.W.Tellier, a qualified surveyor who at one time taught the Fish school. The first burial (1871) was that of a young girl, Delilah Coffin, whose parents lived on Section 9 NW ¼ (presently the Elvin Godfredson place). That plot is just inside the gate and to the right (west). Soon afterward, R.I.Brayton had the bodies of his dead children exhumed from their first burial place just east of the river, and they were buried near the Coffin and Fish lots. (So far as I know, no other removals from the first site were made, and in the 1940’s, when it had been forgotten that the place had ever been used for burials, the county opened it up as a large gravel pit (Section 8 E ½ of NW 1/4) and it was excavated and used for road building.) At one time three churches served the people of Seneca Township. In the early 1870’s a Norwegian Lutheran Church was organized in a school house, where the services were held until the present church (Blajker Lutheran Church) was erected. From 1896 to 1902, Pleasant Valley Presbyterian Church existed northeast of Seneca, but because of a paucity of parishioners, the building was sold to the Presbyterian group at Ringsted. A Methodist Church was built in 1900 in Seneca, but this too was torn down in the 1920’s and since that time Methodist Parishioners attend services in Fenton. In later years, as residents of the township decided to move to Armstrong and Bancroft, several bodies were exhumed from the present cemetery. First was that of Rev. O.(Ozias)A. Littlefield, a pioneer pastor and missionary who after years of work in Wisconsin, Illinois, eastern Iowa and Winnebago County, had moved to Seneca Township Section 16 NW ¼ (presently the William (Bill) Loss Place) in 1869, when he was in his late 60’s. He founded a little church at the township and no doubt conducted the funerals of the earlier of the burials in the present cemetery. He died in 1884 and his wife later moved to Bancroft and became postmaster. In 1896 she died and left a request that Rev. Littlefield’s remains be moved to Greenwood cemetery at Bancroft and re-interred beside hers. This was done, and a few years ago the historical societies of Kossuth and Chickasaw counties jointly marked their graves with a fine monument; as he was the founder of the Little Brown Church near Nashua in 1855 and Seneca was his last church. Later exhumations were those of several members of the Carroll family, re-buried in the Armstrong, Iowa cemetery, and of two brothers, Phillip Victor Eckholm and Conrad, sons of the Victor Eckholm family who had settled, in 1870 in Section 10 E ½ of SE ¼ (presently west of Jim Breese; the old Bollig Place) northeast of the later site of Seneca Village. Their bodies were moved to Harrison Township cemetery at Swea City, IA. There probably were never more than 100 burials in the Seneca Cemetery, and perhaps that is a rather generous estimate. The last burial was that of Mrs. James (Sadie) Byers, in 1959. Byers lived Section 19 S ½ of NW ½, presently nothing there, and then they moved to Section 11 NW ¼ . Jack Tibbetts was the last burial in 1994. As aforementioned, Delilah Coffin’s was the oldest grave, but that of the oldest person is found in the far northwest corner of the tract, the stone giving the name of Joshua Cunningham and his date of birth, 1792!! George Washington was still living when Mr. Cunningham was born! The Cunningham family, originated from Virginia, were early settlers of Buffalo Township. Joshua Cunningham died 6/29/1887. In 1870 and 1871, mail was brought to the settlers twice a week from Algona. Prior to this time, it was brought by stagecoach, driven by Robert Pinkerton of Algona, who also carried passengers to Swan Lake in Emmet County. In 1870 a post office was established at Seneca with Edwin Woodworth as the first postmaster. One of Woodworth’s successors, Abijah Betterson (1822-1884), froze to death while carrying mail from Bancroft, during a raging blizzard in December 1884, which claimed many victims. Abijah’s team of horses was found blanketed with Abijah’s body found frozen in his sleigh. The mail unharmed. Abijah traveled by covered wagon from Washington County, Iowa with his wife Nancy (Morgan) and their five children in 1874. After Abijah’s death Nancy courageously carried on with her young family, Abijah, Ellen (Mrs. Heckart), Mary (Mrs. Hugh Bronson), Laura (Mrs. Edwin Manton), and Sally (Mrs. M.E. Blanchard). Abijah is buried in the Seneca Township Cemetery. In 1875 Abijah lived in Section 14 SE ¼, across from Tim Berkland, now a bare field. It is difficult for us to visualize today why this little cemetery was used by families from what, in horse-and-buggy days, represented a journey several hours. The tombstones bear family names from the areas that later became Bancroft, Armstrong, Fenton, Lone Rock, and Burt and even beyond. Consider however, that in the early years of settlement in Seneca Township, the only villages in all of Kossuth County were Algona and Irvington. The first railroad did not reach Algona until the year 1870, the same year the cemetery was established. Accordingly, people might come for considerable distances to make a burial. Even in the 1880’s, school would be in session (Section 8 E ½ of NW ¼; across from the cemetery) when someone, looking out the window, would announce that a funeral procession was approaching and school would be dismissed so that the building might house the services with the burial taking place across the road. At one time there were 9 school houses in the Seneca Township, until 1917 when the schools were consolidated in the Village of Seneca. Bancroft and Burt were founded in 1881, Swea City and Armstrong in 1892-3 and Lone Rock and Fenton in 1899; so for thirty years or more it drew from a wide area. The establishment of Blajker Church and Cemetery in the south part of the Township did create a burial place for those of the Norwegian Lutheran settlement in the 1870’s. For those buried in the cemetery, it was sometimes necessary to supply a homemade coffin, if the river was too high to permit going to Algona for one. Grandfather Fish made most of these, and Grandmother acted as nurse and midwife for many a family and helped lay out the dead. Of the twenty or so unmarked graves, she knew the exact location of every one, and planted dwarf irises on each. Some did have homemade wooden markers until an over-zealous sexton got the idea of burning off the grass…this, of course, spelled "finis" for the wooden markers. In 1878 the Fish’s lived Section 8 SW 1/4 , in 1880 they moved to the presently vacant place across from Mark Bollig’s and again later moved to what is known as the Burt Place which is also vacant. Burials of members of earliest pioneers include those of Ormiston, Fish, Brayton, (including those re-buried from the Section 8 SE ¼ site) also a Brayton daughter, Mrs. Cora Kessell Drinan (Mrs. Jerry) and a Brayton grandson, Robert Campbell, Jr., Charles O. and Lucy M. Fish, their son Walter, their daughter Edith Tibbetts-Ranney and her son Irving Tibbetts and her infant daughter (unnamed) Ranney. Warren Coffen was a veteran of the Civil War who was honorably discharged after being lamed. He was an orderly to General Rosecrans and the General’s horse stepped on Mr. Coffen’s foot. The Coffen’s lived in Section 9 NW ¼ in 1873 presently known as the Godfredson Place. Mr. Warren D. Coffen (1883-1887), is a veteran buried at Seneca, and Ed Paulsen (1874-1932), who served in World War I. Also the last burial, Jack Tibbetts served in World War II. The Legion posts of the surrounding towns have never placed a flag on these graves on Memorial Day. As to the existence of a cemetery plat…in the early years, there was a plat. It was kept at the home of William Kerr (1844-1919), a township trustee who lived in Section 9 SE ¼ in 1892, north of the Seneca Village on the place where Tom Bergum presently lives. There was a fire and the Kerr home and the plat was destroyed. In 1900 they moved to Section 16 E ½ of the NE ½, where the Fish’s had lived and where presently there are vacant buildings across from the Mark Bollig’s. Many years went by without a plat, and in 1934, Esther Charlotte Smith and her mother and grandmother Fish, 89 years old at the time, felt that the sites of at least the unmarked graves ought to be recorded while Grandmother Fish could tell remember where they were. With the help of an engineering student from Iowa State University at Ames, a plat was made but the township trustees were not interested in acquiring a copy. Later Jack Korrect and Mrs. Drinan attempted something similar but what became of it was never known. In September of 1978 John A. Fish and Esther Smith went to the cemetery and spent several hours mapping as many graves as they could definitely locate, using their 1934 records. John crawled under thick bushes, made rubbings of nearly illegible inscriptions on the stones. John tried to interest one of the trustees, but with no success. He did, however, place a copy in the court house, with the recorders or engineers office. A few human interest stories concerning some of the person buried in the Seneca Township Cemetery. Abijah Batterson is mentioned earlier. The stone of Johann Kruse, in the southeast part of the tract is inscribed in German. It is that of a very young child who died of eating the blackberries of the deadly black nightshade. Just west of the Tibbetts-Ranney plot is that of the Alcorn family, with the two tall pines that are well over 100 years old. On that lot are buried three children of the Alcorns who all died of scarlet fever, two within six weeks. The Alcorns, in 1886 lived in Section 17 NW ¼ presently where Gordon Burt lives. Among descendents of early settlers who are buried there (though she herself is not), Mrs. Ida Gray Alcorn, second wife of W.W. Alcorn. The Grays (Charles H. 1831-1908 and F.A. 1831-1888) homesteaded in 1878 on Section 18 NE ¼ and SE ¼ presently the Leonard Lau place. Among the many Scandinavian immigrants who spent their first years in this country as farm laborers was one who for weeks who had been expecting a letter from the old country…supposedly one from his sweetheart, to let him know of her coming to United States to marry him. With the non-arrival of the letter, he became more and more despondent, and at last hanged himself. Blajker church had strict rules against church sponsored burial of a suicide or such a burial being made in consecrated ground. Accordingly his body was brought to the township cemetery and interred in the far southwest corner. Ironically, his long-awaited letter arrived the day after his burial. The last story concerns the burial of a mother of several children who died when one of the little boys was only five or six years of age. The family was not able to afford a marker and eventually moved out of the community. Fifty years later, when Grandmother Fish was widowed and living in Algona, a stranger come to the door seeking help with locating his mother’s grave. It was the one-time little boy, who now wished to find and mark his mother’s resting place. Grandmother Fish and her bachelor son Walter, who at that time live on the old Fish place also known as the vacant Burt place, went with the man to the cemetery. Grandmother Fish pointed out the site of the grave, Uncle Walter probed with wagon rods until it was certain, and the man purchased a nice granite marker for the mother whom he had lost so many years before. When the elder Senecans get together, they usually discuss the creamery built in 1891. This creamery was destroyed by fire a couple years later. The new on built in 1896 was considered to be the second largest in the state. Besides the creamery, there was combination blacksmith shop and livery stable. Seneca being a central community meeting place, a general store was established by D.C. Adams. The store passed through many hands including Julius and Frank Bollig, Mike Haddy, August Nelson, Frank Weir and others. It was purchased by C.O. Bailey who operated it until ill health caused him to sell out. Following her husband’s death, Mrs. Bailey sold the store building and home to Mr. and Mrs. Merlin Hanson. Seneca began looking like a small village when John C. Jensen opened a second store on the south side of the road. This store then owned by Mike Haddy was destroyed by fire in the early 1920’s. Through the passing of the years, all of the old landmarks have vanished. A total of nine schools were built throughout the township and were operated until 1917 when Seneca Township voted to consolidate its schools. The Seneca Consolidated School was erected on the site of the Center School. It was the first four year high school in the area. The first directors were: Albert Anderson, Ben Vigdal, I.F. Engessor, Peter Thorson and Anton Dahl. Charles Baird was the first secretary, Miss Samuelson served as the first superintendent of the Seneca Consolidated School for one year; Lawrence Gardner followed in that capacity. In 1953 Seneca Township joined with Fenton and Lone Rock Townships in forming a new school district to be known as the "Sentral School District". The school building was to be located centrally between the three present schools and included 127 sections of land. The existing school buildings were to serve as grade schools in each area. The Sentral High School building was ready for use by the fall of 1958. In 1956 the Seneca grade pupils were absorbed by the Fenton and Lone Rock schools, leaving the Seneca School building abandoned. The consolidated school building which was erected in 1917 was torn down in 1963. The land on which the school building stood for 46 years was sold to Gerald Voigt of Fenton. The present Robert Lynch Family home was the home of the school faculty during those years. The county bought the southwest corner of the school grounds where they erected a county shed. This also served as the Seneca Township polling place. Until the "polling" was moved to Lone Rock in 1990. The remainder of the school grounds was purchased by the Larson Brothers of Burt and the little superintendent’s house on the corner was sold to William Dorsey, presently occupied by Ben Kahler. There are now six families living in the little village of Seneca. (2002)