In the spring of 1866 there appeared in Columbus a young Irishman named John E. Kelly, in the capacity of a buckboard driver in the employ of the Western Stage Company, his route being between Buchanan and Columbus. The company at that time ran stages and buckboards on alternate days between Omaha and Kearney. Kelly, was a long-haired, cranky looking individual, who had just graduated from the law department of the Michigan University, and being "broke," adopted that means to get a little "raise." In the autumn of 1866, the railroad having been completed to Columbus, his occupation was gone, so that he located in the county seat to practice law. Kelly's inclinations were toward politics and he commenced to work for the republican nomination as representative for the territorial and state legislatures. While at Buchanan, he had ingratiated himself into the confidence of two or three republicans there and had their support in the convention. He managed to secure enough delegates to receive the nomination over Leander Gerrard. The democratic candidate was James E. North, and, strange as it may seem, the carpetbagger was elected by a magnificent majority. When the State Legislature met in the spring of 1867 and the location of the seat of government was being considered, the prospects of Columbus would have been favorable had it not been that we were opposed by our own representative, or the man who should have been such, whose votes were always cast in favor of Lincoln. Being in the ring in the distribution of political rewards, he acquired considerable property there and in a short time became affluent and never returned to the bosom of his constituents.
Thomas Sarvis was a young man of good education and considerable ability, and ambitious withal. At that time Platte was attached to Dodge County for representative purposes in the Territorial Legislature, and Sarvis was desirous of being the representative. Securing the support of Platte County, he started out to make a canvass of Dodge County. The time passed on and he did not return. On investigation it was learned that he had been at Fontenelle and the last he was seen he had left that place to walk across the country to Fremont. The supposition is that in crossing the Rawhide he got into deep water and was drowned. If so, his body never was recovered. Thus disappeared a young man who might have become one of Platte's prominent citizens, identified with the progress of the country.
At the commencement of the settlement of this town the Columbus Company set apart a number of lots scattered through the Platte country, they to be donated to persons who would build a house upon them. And that year a number of cabins were built upon these lots. A Swiss by the name of Greenfelder had put up a set of logs on one of them and while the house was in an unfinished condition he became insane and went home to his friends. The probate judge felt it his duty to take care of the estate for the lunatic and therefore appointed a guardian. An inventory was taken, the property was sold according to law and fortunately brought enough to pay the fees of the court and of the guardian. Judge Speice was the purchaser and the logs were those that formed the walls of his old-time residence. About the same time that the Town of Columbus was laid out, in 1856, the two Albertson brothers, Isaac and Alexander, and E. W. Toncray came out to the mouth of Shell Creek and laid out the Town of Buchanan, named after the man who the next year became President of the United States. There was then a house on the site of the Town of North Bend. A man by the name of Emerson settled about six miles east of the Town of Buchanan near where the present Town of Schuyler is situated. The intervening country between what is now Schuyler and Columbus was not inhabited. In the spring of 1857 a party consisting of Leander Gerrard, C. H. Whaley, Christopher Whaley, Robert P. Kimball and several others laid out the Town of Monroe, a little west of the present Town of Oconee, with the view of making it the county seat of Monroe County. During that year a number of log houses were erected. In pursuance of a proclamation issued by the probate judge of Douglas County (on what authority it is not quite evident) an election was held in August, 1857, both in the counties of Platte and Monroe to locate the county seats and elect officers.
A townsite had been laid out about twelve miles east of Columbus and called Neenah. The Town of Genoa had also been laid out and immediately settled by a colony of Latter Day Saints. At the election Columbus gained the county seat, Buchanan and Neenah being the rival aspirants. In Monroe County, Monroe, Cleveland and Genoa each received the votes of their residents, and although Genoa had practically twenty times the population of Monroe, the residents of the latter place were so successful in getting out all their voters that they carried it in favor of their place.
The title of the Pawnee Indians was extinguished to the land west of the Loup River in 1857 and as soon as that occurred the Town of Arcola was laid out on the farm of G. C. Barnum, the town company built a cabin and got Joseph Wolf to live in it and hold the townsite. He, losing his grip the following spring and succumbing to the attractions of Pike's Peak, sold the claim to Barnum and left for Colorado.
During the same summer the Town of Bedford was laid out, embracing the intervening land not occupied by the Towns of Columbus and Cleveland. In the summer of 1857 an election was held for delegate to Congress. The previous incumbent was Bird B. Chapman who, although representing the territory, had never been a resident of it, his family residing in a very comfortable home in Elvria, Ohio. It was a sort of scrub race, Governor Thayer being one of the candidates, Dr. B. P. Rankin and perhaps others. But the race was between Chapman and Fenner Ferguson, who had been chief justice of the territory from the time of its organization and who was put in nomination by a people's convention held at Florence. The settlers at Columbus favored Chapman's selection because they believed he could and would get an appropriation to build a bridge across the Loup River at the Military Road. Monroe County favored Judge Ferguson, because it wanted a stage route, and this time the whole county succeeded in polling the entire vote, rolling up a nice little majority of four or five hundred and electing the judge. Among the voters at Genoa were "Oliver Twist," John Doe and Richard Roe.
At the election for representative that fall, Columbus favored the candidacy of Henry W. DePuy and showed it by returning a majority of 175 which, considering that the county had about seventy-five voters, some of whom were away, was as much as he could reasonably expect.
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