Search billions of records on Ancestry.com

Genealogy: Butler Co. Nebraska USA

Butler Co. NEGenWeb is open for adoption

Search, Read, Post, Browse messages
| Butler Co. Message Board | GenForum: Butler Co. |

| Old Queries | Surnames | Lookups | | Biographies | Butler Files | Towns | Townships |
| NE Files | History | Homesteads | Library | Photos | Communities | Cemeteries | Nearby Counties |
| Directories | DNA | Ethnic Files | ENGS | Railroads | Families | Maps | Mail List |
| Marriages | USA Genealogy | Useful Links | Emmett Mason |
| Census | Churches | Obits | Schools | Search Nebraska | Cyndi's List NE |
| Butler County Gallery | Butler County Cemeteries with Tombstones New|
| Thorpe Opera House Foundation | Butler Co. Genealogy Society |

Can you identify the location or group for this Unknown Group Photo? Possibly Old St. Francis Church, Center Township





Top

Ethnic Genealogy Links



Top

Brief History of Butler Co.

Various indigenous peoples inhabited Nebraska by 8000 BC. In the 1800's semi-sedentary Indian tribes, most notably the Ponca, Omaha, Oto, and Pawnee, lived in eastern and central Nebraska. They lived on the Platte river from before the 16th to the latter part of the 19th century.
They spoke a language of the Caddoan stock, and lived by farming and hunting, raising corn, squash and beans and hunting grazing animals principally the bison. In their permanent villages they lived in large earth-covered lodges, but on bison hunts they used skin tepees (tipis). For hunting, travel and transport they used horses obtained in 1600's and 1700's from the Spanish settlements in the southwest. In the 1800's, the Pawnee tribe was composed of relatively independent bands--the Kitkehahki, Chaui, Pitahauerat and Skidi--each divided into more or less kinship villages with hereditary chiefs and priests. They had a lineage & kinship system (of the Crow style), matrilineal descent and matrilocal residence after marriage, which was contracted for a given couple by their maternal uncles. Class distinctions favored chiefs, priests and medicine men or shamans. The Pawnee religion was elaborate including star symbolism and human captive sacrifice. Pawnee culture was broken by the start of the 1900's and the population reduced to less than 1000. Ref: EB vol 17, 1956 edition, pg 406.
These early Pawnee (view photo) anciently lived on Skull Creek, near the spot where Linwood now stands; there they were frequently pounced upon by their murderous and out-numbering foe, the Sioux, their wick-i-ups demolished and their squaws and papooses strewn around the village, mangled and dead. It is said by the "old men" of the Kittikoraks that not many generations ago the Pawnees were more powerful than the Sioux. Kittikorak's band lived for many years upon the present site of the Savannah, which might have been chosen because it was a watering-place for bison and other game.

EARLY SETTLEMENT AND EARLY SETTLERS

Butler County was named "William Orlando Butler of Kentucky, a military hero during the war with Mexico, who declined to be the first territorial governor of Nebraska," according to a local historian. The county seat, David City, was named for William David [or Mrs. Wm. Miles née David[s], owner of the land where David City was built. Butler County is located in the east-central part of Nebr., lying about fifty-one miles west of the Missouri River. Its northern border is washed by the Great Platte River. It has a climate cool enough for wheat and all northern productions, and sufficiently mild for the growth of fruit, vegetables and coarser cereals of southern localities.
To the southward and eastward lie the beautiful and charming valleys of the Big Blue and the Oak, marked in summer time by a thread-like continuation of green groves and plum thickets, winding in and out and through the treeless plains.
In 1714, Etienne Venyard de Bourgmont (Fr.) reached the mouth of the Platte river; in 1720, Col. Pedro de Villasur (Sp.) and his party were killed by Pawnee along the Platte; and in 1739-40, Peter and Paul Mallet (Fr.) crossed the Platte region from east to west. These adventurers probably did not stop in Butler Co.
Trappers and traders used the Platte river, notably the Robert Stuart party in 1812-1813 going east and the William H. Ashley party in 1824. This water route was used annually into the 1840's. Probably members of the exploring party of Lt. John C. Fremont (1842-44) were the first whites who stepped upon Butler County soil. Missionaries, in 1835 and after, went through to Oregon. Oregon homeseekers started passing this way in 1841. The Mormons came next (1847 and after), on their long, weary and perilous journey to Salt Lake, leaving their foot-prints in the shape of a winding, deeply-beaten roadway, familiarly known to early settlers as the "Old Mormon Trail" (they actually used both sides of the Platte river). California gold seekers came and went through the Platte valley in 1849-50 and Colorado gold seekers passed by in 1859.
In 1858, Solomon B. Garfield and James Blair settled with their families to take up their lonely abodes, and are entitled to the honor of being the first permanent white settlers in the county. As is usual with the pioneers of every new country, they avoided the high ground, preferring to settle along the valleys of the streams, snuggling into the little groves and nooks, under the protection of the hills and bluffs, in the vicinity of the prime necessities of pioneer life, water and wood, each new arrival venturing a little farther up the stream to the next grove or thicket.
Sod House
An early log cabin, located on the Abram Towner farm, one-half mile south and one mile east of Surprise, built in 1866, was said to be the first building of its kind in Butler Co. and on the first homestead in the county. But log houses were probably built by settlers along the Platte river late in the fifties and early in the sixties.
For a view of pioneer travel in late 1860's, read these two letters from settlers to their folks back home.
Links for history of Butler County and it's inhabitants and settlers.



Top

NEGWNearby Counties

Platte NEGenWeb

Colfax NEGenWeb

Dodge NEGenWeb

Polk NEGenWeb

Butler

Saunders NEGenWeb

York NEGenWeb

Seward NEGenWeb

Lancaster NEGenWeb

 

Eastern NE Gen. Society

 

Navigate NE Counties:   

Navigate USA  



Top

NEGWQueries and Surnames

Surname link

Current queries are on Message Board

Pre 1882
A-L Surnames

Pre 1882
M-Z Surnames

1996-98
A-L Surnames

1996-98
M-Z Surnames

1998 Queries

1996-7 Queries



Top

NEGW

Search Butler Co. files

Powered by FreeFind

Site search Web search

..........Far out!! But still searching!!

Use this link to broaden your search to Nebraska Archives or any other state:
US Search state menu offsite



Top

NEGWCommunity Portal

The Past: Names and Families

The Present



Top

NEGWButler County Resources

Butler County Military Veterans





Top

NEGWNebraska Links offsite



Top

Railroads in Nebraska

Politics decided when and where almost every railroad line was set up, where it went, and where it terminated. I do not mean politicians, I mean the "office" type of politics. This method of behind the scenes, smoked filled room, decision making came to an end about 1909-1910.
Initially it cost about 10 cents a mile to ride almost any train in Nebraska, but within a couple of years the price dropped to about 7.5 cents a mile.
Once out of town, the trains could (and did) travel at speeds of about 60 miles an hour.
They could carry about 600 to 700 passengers, and quite often did bring that many into Nebraska from points east on a daily basis.
Read more about it in THE IRONROAD, by John McCoy offsite

Top

NEGWButler County Mailing List

Line

Line

Mailing Lists On RootsWeb

Line

Butler Co. NE Mailing List

Line

Top

NEGWGenealogy Channels offsite

Portals

Navigate USA  

Military

WorldGenWeb

LDS
Family Search

USGenWeb

Rootsweb

More Rootsweb

National Archives

Others





Top

PedigreeFamily Web Sites

If you want to post your GEDCOM online free, learn about this service by RootsWeb:

WorldConnect WorldConnect GEDCOM (upload/search)
Or, if you already have a personal, genealogy web page which has connections to Butler Co. NE, post a query which lists the web address (URL) of the most appropriate web page. If your genealogy has multiple families with Butler Co. connections, it may be appropriate to post a query for each family. Give the best link and take searchers directly to the family in question.
If your web address (URL) changes, remember to post a correction response to the original message.








Top

NEGWMaps and More Maps



Top

USGW

About the USGenWeb Project

Origins

In March and April, 1996, a group of genealogists organized the Kentucky Comprehensive Genealogy Database Project. The idea was to provide a single entry point for all counties in Kentucky, where collected databases would be stored. In addition, the databases would be indexed and cross-linked, so that even if an individual were found in more than one county, that individual could be located in the index. At the same time, volunteers were found who were willing to coordinate the collection of databases and generally oversee the contents of county web pages. Contact the county coordinator or county volunteer shown on any county page if you have a desire to contribute or help.

Butler Co.

This Butler Co. NEGenWeb page (plus the other 92 NE county pages) and the NEGenWeb pages are an outgrowth of that original Kentucky project and computer space provided by RootsWeb.

Nebraska
Coordinators

If any Nebraska county, in which you are interested, does not have a web page and/or you wish to participate in some way, please contact the NEGenWeb state coordinators: Connie J. Snyder & Wm. M. Oliver. NEGW



Top

Genealogy Lookup Links



Top

Molecular Genetics or DNA in Genealogy

 

Line

Line

Mailing Lists On RootsWeb

Line

GENEALOGY-DNA

Line

| Cyndi's List: DNA |



Top

Butler County Coordinator

Contact

Please put "Butler Co., NE" in the subject of your message.

Genealogy assistance

Steve Barlean, Lookup Assistant (Queries, lookups lives in the county)

Email

masontree.gif (1257 bytes)
Nancy Beach, York County NEGenWeb is collaborating with Butler Co. site

Problems

If a file causes a problem for you or your computer, send me the details including the filename.  Please report any problems or broken links, thanks.

Gratitude

Thanks to Sue Baker, Carolyn Wilkerson, John McCoy, Ted and Carole Miller and others who built the content of this site!! They have done a tremendous job and deserve our thanks.

Top

Copyright Notice: All files on this site are copyrighted by their creator.   They may be linked to but may not be reproduced on another site without specific permission from their creator. Although public information is not, in and of itself, copyrightable, the format in which it is presented, the notes and comments, etc., are.   It is however, permissable to print or save the files for personal use ONLY.

Visitor Counter since 3/17/98, thanks for stopping by!

Revised:26 May 2010