Seward County, Nebraska Genealogy

JOHNSON, Zerilda Jane "Jane" (WILCOXEN), wife of 1) Moses C. JOHNSON (of Fairview, IL), and 2) James SNODGRASS. She is the mother of early Seward residents Rev. Elijah W. JOHNSON, Mrs. America (JOHNSON) SKILLMAN, Mrs. Mary Hazel (JOHNSON) WALLICK, and Mrs. Emma (SNODGRASS) MUNDWILER. Note: Her gravestone in Seward (North) Cemetery says "Zerilda Snodgrass." She was a double-descendant of Daniel Boone's sister Sarah. Submitted by great-great-great granddaughter Alice Imig Stipak. This biography is from W. W. Cox, History of Seward County, Nebraska, 1888, p. 244.

MRS. JANE SNODGRASS,

JONES, Claudius, son of David and Cynthia (WHITNEY) JONES, husband of Harriett (WEED). This biography, written by his granddaughter, is from pages 207-208 of the 1967 book On A Bend of the River, posted here courtesy of the author, Jane Ramsay Graff. The photos of Mr. and Mrs. Claudius Jones are from W. W. Cox, History of Seward County, Nebraska and Reminiscences of Territorial History, Part Two: Biographical, 1905, pages 92+93 (courtesy Pat Ryan White).
[Surnames: ALLING, BROWN, CATTLE, COX, JONES, OCKABOCK, TIPTON, WAKE, WEED, WHITNEY]

JONES
                        by Mecedes Brown Cattle

    "Claudius Jones, the pioneer banker of Seward and Seward Co., Nebraska, was for many years an important figure in the commercial circles of Seward Co., contributing much to the progress of the community." "His name is inseparably connected with the history of Seward County; each step of progress bore the mark of his handiwork, and he left behind him monuments that will survive him and his posterity for many years." These are quotes from "Biographical Records of Seward (York, Butler, Polk) Cos., Nebraska" by Ogle, pub. 1899.
    He was born 6-30-1826, Orleans Co., New York, son of David and Cynthia Whitney Jones. He married Harriett Irene Weed, 6-29-1859 in Murray, Orleans Co., N. Y. David Jones who had come to America from Wales when a small boy, served his adopted country in the War of 1812.
    While Claudius Jones was born and reared on a farm, banking was his life long interest. Because of a frail constitution, he left the farm in 1858 and went to Galva, Illinois, where he established the "Bank of Galva". It was the first bank to be established there. That statement appeared in the Galva, Ill. paper a few years ago when they were reviewing the history of their banks and was in large headlines. His two sons, Claudius Weed Jones and Harry T. Jones were born in Galva. Two daughters, Harriett Jones (Mrs. F. B. Tipton of Seward) and Anna Belle Jones ( Mrs. Wm. B. C. Brown of Kansas City, Mo.) were born in Chicago, Ill. where he went after selling the Galva Bank. The youngest daughter, Emma T. Jones ( Mrs. Thomas H. Wake of Seward ) was born in Seward.
    His next move was to Monmouth, Ill., where he helped to organize "The First Natl. Bank" of that city and was cashier until he moved to Lincoln, Nebraska, in 1871. In Lincoln, as a street broker, he handled many State and County bonds.
    Mr. and Mrs. Jones came to Seward in the Spring of 1873 to make it their home and to establish a bank. Arrangements had been made in the winter of 1872 and the bank, a private banking Co., was opened in the Spring of 1873 in a small wooden building on the south side of the "Square". That was the beginning of The State Bank of Nebraska.
    In 1874 the Bank moved into the new red brick bank building which Mr. Jones had built on the N. E. Corner of Fifth and Main Street. The bricks in that building were hauled overland from Nebraska City in wagons. I believe it was the first brick building in Seward and it is still a business building.
    [p. 208] At the same time he built a large red brick home on Columbia Ave. and Jackson Street. His home, facing Columbia Ave., was on the west edge of an eighty-odd acre farm which was bounded on the South by Seward Street, on the North by Hillcrest, on the East by Plum Creek. Columbia Ave., from Seward to Hillcrest was the West boundary. It was on this farm that he kept his fine Holstein cattle, the first to be imported into this area.
    In 1894 Claudius Jones sold a few acres for a new Lutheran School, now Concordia College. The Memorial Hospital stands in the old orchard and the "Old Home" has been torn down.
    That was the home in which my mother, Anna Belle Jones (Brown) grew up and where she was married. It was in this home that my sister, Irene (Mrs. Robert Babson Alling), and I spent many of our childhood summers with our grandparents. I remember my grandfather well, remember him as a gentle, loving grandfather. He died Nov. 6, 1896, and grandmother on July 18, 1903. They are both buried in Greenwood Cemetery, Seward.
    They were members of the Congregational Church which stood on the corner of Third and Main Street, just north of the present Junior High School. Mr. Jones was a Mason.
    Because of a serious illness following the accidental death of his eldest son, he sold the State Bank of Nebraska to Mr. Ockabock who almost immediately sold it to John Cattle Sr. in 1879. Mr. Cattle had come from England to make his home here and to invest in land. That was the time when the Burlington R. R. was opening up this country.
    The bank has remained in the Cattle Family since then. In 1939 The State Bank of Nebraska was Nationalized and became The Cattle National Bank. Now, in 1966, John Weed Cattle, the great-grandson of both Claudius Jones and of Mr. John Cattle, Sr., is president of the bank.
    In 1884 Claudius Jones established The Jones National Bank of Seward, Nebraska, and remained president until 1895, the year before his death.
    W. W. Cox in his History of Seward, Nebraska, pub. in 1905, says that Mr. Jones was one of the largest landowners and stock raisers in the county.
    An interesting sketch of the Old Home is shown on p. 104 of "The Official Atlas of Nebraska" published in 1885.
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