Among the nineteen counties which were created by the first session of the legislative assembly of Nebraska territory was the county of Gage.

This act was entitled "An act to define the boundaries and locate the seat of justice in Gage County."

In conferring a name upon the new county it was the aim of the assembly to honor the Rev. William D. Gage, a Methodist clergyman, who was then serving as chaplain for both houses of the legislative assembly.

This act became a law on the 16th day of March, 1855. As denned by the act, the county consisted of a tract of land twenty-four miles square, lying directly west of Pawnee County, which had been likewise created by this session of the legislative assembly and its boundaries prescribed by an act approved March 6, 1855.

The second section of the act creating Gage county reads as follows:

"William D. Gage, John B. Robinson and I. L. Gibbs be and are hereby appointed commissioners to locate the seat of justice in said county."

And by the third section these commissioners or a majority of them were required to meet "at some convenient point (as may be agreed upon) on or before the 10th day of June next, or within three months thereafter, and proceed to locate the seat of justice for said Gage county."

By the fourth section of the act the commissioners were required to commit their findings to writing, giving a particular description of the place so selected, and to file the same in the office of the county clerk of Richardson County, who was required to file and keep on file such findings.   The place thus designated was declared to be the "seat of justice" for the new county.

The act further required the setting aside of  "fifty lots of land" in the town so selected to be reserved for the use of such county, the moneys arising from the sale there­of to be by the county judge applied to the erection of a court house and other necessary public buildings.

Prior to the passage of the foregoing act; Acting Governor Cuming had evidently marked out a county, lying west of Richardson. to be known as Jones County.

This prospective county began at the northwest corner of Richardson County, as then constituted and which included both the present counties of Pawnee and Richardson, and apparently it was meant to extend thence northward to the Platte River, and along the south side of that stream to the western boundary of the territory, on the crest of the Rocky mountains; following this chain in a southeasterly direction to the south line of the territory and thence back again to the southwest corner of Richardson County and north to the place of beginning.

In preparing for the election of members for the first legislature, the governor detailed Jesse Lowe, the deputy United States Marshal, to visit the proposed county and ascertain the number of settlers therein. He was instructed to apportion to it one or more representatives, as the number of inhabitants should require, and to arrange for the holding of an election in such county.

Whether the deputy marshal actually visited the prospective county is doubtful, but on the 10th day of December, 1854, he reported to the acting governor that there were no voters in said county, "unless a few living in the neighborhood of Bellews precinct in Richard­son County, and who would naturally vote in said precinct."

But as we have already seen, within three months from the date of this report, a bill passed both branches of the legislative assembly and became a law, creating the county of Gage, defining its boundaries and providing for the location of a seat of justice in and for said county.

But it takes more than broad acres and legislative enactments to create a body politic. At the time the first territorial legislature sought to immortalize its chaplain, the Rev. William D. Gage, by bestowing his name on that portion of the public domain which it had erected into Gage County, there is not known to have been a single actual settler within its boundaries, and it is doubtful if at that time there was a single white person in the county.

It was, in fact, more than two years after the passage of this act before a sufficient number of settlers had gathered in the county to attempt its organization.

No evidence is known to exist which shows that the commission charged with the duty of locating a county seat or "scat of justice" for Gage County ever met or acted under the authority thus conferred upon it.

But at the third session of the territorial assembly, begun and held at Omaha, January 5, 1857, an act was passed (and approved February 13, 1857), locating the "seat of justice" of said county at Whitesville. The site thus selected by the assembly as the future county seat of Gage county comprised the southeast quarter of the southeast quarter of section twenty-nine in Rockford township, located a little south of the present village of Holmesville, two miles east and one-half mile north of the geographical center of the county as originally created.

For several years thereafter the stout oak stakes driven into the prairie to mark the corners of lots in Whitesville were plainly visible.

Prairie fires finally consumed them and with their destruction all trace of the projected “seat of justice” for Gage County disappeared.

The first territorial assembly, by an act passed and approved March 14, 1855, provided that whenever the citizens of any unorganized county desired to organize the same a majority of legal voters of the county might make application to the probate judge of the county to which it was attached for election purposes for an order calling an election for county officers in such unorganized county. 

The act further provided that all unorganized counties should be attached to the nearest organized county to the eastward for election, judicial, and revenue purposes.

Under this act, Gage County at the moment of its creation became automatically attached to Pawnee County for the purposes specified in the act until such date as it ha perfected its own organization.

On the 5th day of August, 1857, shortly after the arrival of the company of colonist who founded the city of Beatrice, steps were initiated by them to organize Gage County, with Beatrice as the county seat, and this without complying with the provisions of the act above mentioned.

The town site enthusiasts appear to have gone through a form of an election of county officers at that time.

It is said that thirty three votes were cast and it seems that a full list of county officials were chosen.

At that date there could not have been over fifty white persons within the county of Gage and it is doubtful if there were a dozen voters outside of the Beatrice Town site Company.

The minutes of the county commissioners, or county court, as it was then called, in and for Gage County, begin March 13, 1858, wherein it appears that Albert Towle and H. M. Reynolds acted as county commissioners and Nathan Blakely as county clerk of said county.

These minutes are the first county records of any kind in existence, and in a sense they form an unbroken, continuous record of the transactions of the county board of the county from the beginning.  The minutes of the first meeting read as follows:

"Commissioners court, held March 13, 1858. at which ordered that a county election should be held on Saturday, March 28th, to relocate the county seat of Gage county; also to elect a sheriff in place of Daniel P. Taylor, who failed to qualify; also to elect a county treasurer in the place of Calvin Miller, who failed to qualify; also to elect a recorder in the place of John Hart, who failed to qualify; also a superintendent of common schools in place of  N. B. Beldin, who failed to qualify.

"It was ordered: That the county be divided into two precincts for election purposes; that townships one and two shall he called precinct No. 1, and that townships three and four shall be called precinct No. 2.

"Isma Mumford, John McDowell and Bennett Pike were appointed judges of election in precinct No. 2; Rankin Johnson, James Johnson and Henry Elliott judges of election for precinct No. 1.  The court then adjourned.”

The next meeting of the commissioners’ court was held at the house of Albert Towle, October 7, 1858, and the third meeting was held at the same place, November 29, 1858, both designated as regular meetings, with the same officers present as at the first meeting.

The next regular meeting of the commissioners' court was held January 3, 1859; present Commissioners Towle and Reynolds and County Clerk Nathan Blakely.

And on April 13, 1859, at a special meeting of the commissioners' court, there occurs the following entry:

"At a meeting at a special term of the County Court held at the house of A. Towle, on the 13th day of April, 1859, present: Commissioners Albert Towle and H. M. Reynolds. It was ordered and the following preamble and resolutions be adopted:

"Whereas, We have been officially informed by the county clerk of Pawnee County that certain individuals residing in precinct No. 1 of Gage county have petitioned the county commissioners of Pawnee County to issue an order for an election for the purpose of organizing said Gage County, Therefore,

"Resolved, That we protest against any such order being issued by the aforesaid com­missioners of Pawnee county or any action being taken thereon by the citizens of precinct No. 1 of Gage County.

"RESOLVED, That we claim that Gage County was regularly organized by an election held on the 3d day of August, 1857; that as evidence of this fact we have the certificate from the county clerk of Pawnee County certifying that the officers elected at the said election were duly elected. And also the fact that the county clerk of said Gage County elected at the said election was duly qualified by the county clerk of Pawnee County.

“In addition to the above the returns of an election held since the above named have been recognized by the board of territorial canvassers as being issued by a regularly organized county.

“It is ordered that the county clerk of Gage County forward a copy of the above preamble and resolutions to the county clerk of Pawnee County.  Also send a copy of the same into precinct No. 1 of Gage County.

“The court then adjourned.

“Nathan Blakely, County Clerk’

It is clear from this preamble and these resolutions that active steps had been taken by the county-seat promoters at Beatrice to validate the election of August 3, 1857.

A second election had been held March 27, 1859, for the evident purpose of filling the county offices in all cases where the officials chosen at the first election had failed to qualify. Probably at the second election no action was taken on the county seat matter, as specified in the commissioners' proceedings under date of March 13, 1858. Blue Springs had become an aspirant for that honor, and as both voting precincts of the county participated in the election of March 27, 1859, a contest at the polls over that question appears to have been avoided.

The location of the county seat and the insistence of Beatrice on the legality of the organization of the county in August, 1857, by the Beatrice Town site Company had become so acute a subject of difference between the rival towns, that precinct No. 1, Blue Springs, failed to participate in the annual election held August 2, 1858. At the meeting of the com­missioners' court under date of July 4, 1859, among other things, it was ordered that Albert Towle, Samuel Jones, and Nathan Blakely be allowed and paid $1.50 each as judges of election at Beatrice, August 2, 1858, and that W. D. Spencer and Myron Newton be allowed and paid a like sum each for acting as clerks of that election, but nothing seems to have been allowed any citizen of Blue Springs, or vicinity for acting as a judge or a clerk in precinct No. 1 in this election.

In the spring of 1859, both Blue Springs and Beatrice attempted to assess Gage County, each claiming to have lawful right to perform that service.

Blue Springs because of the assumed illegality of the county organization claimed to have been effected by Beatrice in August, 1857, and because of her pending application to the commissioners of Pawnee County for the calling of an election to effect the legal organization of the county; and Beatrice, by virtue of the election in 1857, and her assumption of its regularity.

The resolutions of Commissioners Towle and Reynolds above set forth, under date of April 4, 1859, put an end to that movement on the part of Blue Springs, and both precincts of the county participated in the election of 1859.

To terminate the dissension that grew out of this rivalry, the legislative assembly, at its session begun and held at Omaha, December 5, 1859, passed an act entitled: "An act to legalize the first organization of Gage County, the location of the county seat at Beatrice and the official acts of the officers of said county."

There can be no doubt but that the alleged organization of the county by the Beatrice Town site Company in August, 1857, was irregular and probably illegal from its inception.  There appears to be no evidence that the en­thusiastic town site boomers made the slight­est effort to comply with the law then in effect, regulating the organization of counties, and this fact seems to have been recognized by the legislature in passing the above de­scribed act.

The passage of this act destroyed forever the hopes of Blue Springs respecting the county seat of the new county.

This unpretentious outpost of civilization possessed many advantages which were justly counted in its favor as an aspirant to first place in civic honors. It is a romantic spot, beautifully located on the Big Blue river, and during all the times here mentioned it was a prospective station on a projected cutoff from the old military highway from Fort Leavenworth to the west, which, leaving the main road at Richmond, Nemaha County, Kansas, a few miles below Seneca, on the Nemaha River, led north­west from Blue Springs and beyond, intersecting the main road at some point east and south of the famous Rock Creek Station, in Jefferson County.

Blue Springs also was on a main traveled road from Marysville, Kansas, through the Otoe Indian village to Beatrice. It possessed natural advantages for a city which were wanting to some extent in its rival. It was several miles nearer the geographical center of the county than Beatrice, and its few inhabitants were people of worth and character, equal in these respects to the Beatrice colonists.

Its most serious drawback was its proximity to the Otoe and Missouri Indian reservation, the north line of which was only two miles distant.

Beatrice may have been more in line with the direct travel both east and west, and it certainly possessed the controlling advantage of a central location as respected the white inhabitants of the county at that time.

In addition to these things, its destiny was in the hands of men who were fully alive to the advantages that would accrue to them by controlling the organization of the county from the very first, and by this and other methods securing at Beatrice the county seat.  The changing years have probably vindicated their judgment.

With its present boundaries, Beatrice is unquestionably the most desirable location as a seat for the government of our splendid county.

The animosities which may have been engendered by the county seat rivalry of more than a generation ago have long since passed away, and the two historic territorial cities of Gage County, their early dissensions for­gotten, for many years have dwelt together in the bonds of unity and friendship.

History of Gage County 1918