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Seward County's Name
From
an examination of geographies and maps of the territory
of Nebraska, published about 1860, and about the
time of the clearing away of the myths of superstition
which had previously given the whole area a place
on the maps
of the world as a barren desert, we find that the
territorial legislature had given that part of the
territory now
known as Seward County the name of Greene County.
It
has been told that the county was named Greene after
the name of one of its early settlers, but this
is undoubtedly
a mistake as the county was named previous to any
settlement within its borders. In his history
W.
W. Cox says that the county was named Greene in
honor of a Missouri statesman by that name who proved
to be a "Rebel" and that as an unorganized
county under the control of the legislature, which
decided to
prohibit the naming of any of the 'sacred soil under
its control after the name of a rebel', and the
name Greene
was deliberately dropped and the honored name of
Seward, the grand war secretary of state, who as
the great assistant and adviser of the martyred
Lincoln, helped to steer the ship of state through
the dark
days of the rebellion, was bestowed upon the county.
While
the acts of territorial legislatures like the acts
of all legislatures are open to criticism, the act
that gave this
county the name of, and erected an everlasting monument
to the memory of one of the nation's most able
and worthy statesman was one for which the citizens
of the county should feel thankful. Whatever
may have
been the cause for changing the name.
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