But first remembering Jessup village , Nebraska 

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Only because a doggedly determined German immigrant named Julius Hering set out to 
find a place to build himself a water-mill did Jessup , Nebraska , come to be . In 1879 , 
searching for a place to errect a mill , Julius Hering  journied about in northeastern 
Nebraska . He looked around the  country near Pierce and Middlebranch  and near the
headwaters of the Verdigris , finally deciding on a site in the latter . 

Jessup - sited about six miles northeast of Glenalpine was situated in the extreme 
northern part of the county, on the main branch of the Verdigris. The countryside  about 
being well watered by the river and its branches , suited  dairying and stock-raising. 
It was named in honor of ex- Governor Jessup, of Iowa .

JESSUP IS NUMBERED AMONG NEBRASKA " GHOST TOWNS " : Some ten years before the village of Royal had its
beginning , three surveys for a proposed railroad from Niobara to the Gulf of Mexico were made .Those surveys across Antelope County passed directly through the orchard lot of miller Mr.Julius Hering on the River Verdigris in North Antelope County , Nebraska . After the
third survey it seemed reasonably certain that the railroad would not be long in coming that way , an anticipation that drew various enterprising individuals to conclude that the site of Mr.Hering's mill would make an ideal town site .  Accordingly , Mr.George A.Brooks
a pioneer merchant and miller at Bazile Mills built a store adjoining Mr.Hering's Mill and Mr. Frank Vickery , a nearby resident , established a drugstore and sold quantities of " bitters " . Mr . Ben Jones set up a blacksmith shop and Mr.Tite Sherman opened up an eating house .
The Jessup post office , which had originally been named for Jessup in Iowa , was moved from a point down the creek , to the mill and
Mr.Pete O'Malley was appointed postmaster . The place was then officially named Jessup , a name which was printed on maps of Nebraska
for some twenty years . In tme Mr.George A . Brooks sold his store to Mr . Walter Seaman , a man who had inherited $3,000 from eastern relatives. Mr. Seaman became the next postmaster and remained so for about thirty years , by which time rural routes [ roads ] had been established in the area . Seaman's stepfather , Mr.Bob Gross , was another citizen who had faith in the development of a new town .He established a cigar factory , a business he had previously persued in Albany , New York .

SCHOOLING IN JESSUP : At first classes of School District 37 were held in the upstairs of Ben Jones' house , then until 1886 in a sod building .By then a frame structured schoolhouse , near the center of the district had been built. Among the teachers were Jennie Fields ,
Irma Sherman , Benne Sherman and Jennie Sherman . Sunday school was also held in the schoolhouse .

JESSUP though just a village was important . Its flour mill being a particular godsend to the pioneers . Farmers came to it from places
as far away as thirty and forty miles , bringing their wheat , corn , buckwheat , oats and rye . At times they would remain for two days
waiting their turn of the miller , who's wife would give them lodgings . The miller could be busy both day and night waiting on his
customers , who would return home with their newly ground flour and feed . Even in 1962 old-timers would still talk of the pure
buckwheat flour , the good graham and the tasty cornmeal that the old miller , and later the young miller , turned out .


The Jessup Store Front - circa the 1880's : It was around the store's back that the youth was shot .
LAW AND ORDER , MISFORTUNE , PLENTY TO TALK ABOUT . . . In those days matters of cattle rustlers , horse thieves
and dead men would furnish plenty of material for Jessup conversation . Vigilates were pressed into service frequently . When
Doc Middleton and his gang were reported to have been seen at Millerboro , just a few miles east , the talk was that : " The gang had
hideouts among the Verdigris hills and vigilantes had been organised at the Mars schoolhouse ". Unfortunately , as it proved , the
selection of the vigilates brought about tragedy . For reasons never known , a person who had not been selected to be a vigilante
became angrily peeved and threatened to " get even " for being rejected . His words must have been taken very seriously
by someone , for one night " he was caught by strategy " - ie caught unawares - and shot dead .
The murdered man , described by journalist Mrs . R. J . Hering as a " feller from down the creek " , was found in a grain bin in a kneeling posture , holding a sack in his hand . The actual circumstances of the death were never uncovered . Shortly afterwards , Will Field ,
"a highly respected youth" who had worked at the place where the " grain bin body " had been found , was himself shot - apparently quite accidentally - by Bert Lockwood a hunting companion . Unfortunate Will Field had not long been dismissed from his job on the land
on which the " grain bin body " had been found . Local talk was the he had , " accidentally overheard conversation not intended for his ears ".
There were no witnesses to the actual shooting that winter's day . Field and Lockwood had stopped at the Jessup store to buy ammunition . Having done so they went to get into their sled and at the back of the store the shooting happened . Customers in the store heard a shot and rushed out to find Field shot in the chest . Lockwood stated that he had shaken the blankets in the seat , and that the gun had discharged , striking Field who was at the rear of the sled . Doctor Jacob Millerboro , who was seven miles distant was summoned but the to and fro trips
of a sled team took several hours and Field died . Lockwood brooded over the affair and was never quite himself again .
Whilst working away from Jessup his nerves became so " jittery " he couldn't hold a job . He returned to Jessup and the home of his foster parents. One afternoon , though years later , he left his house and disappeared .He was never seen or heard from again .


As they had begun their various business ventures there , the people of Jessup village had anticipated the coming of a railroad
through their would-be new town as a virtual certainty . Only the mill business had been begun without regard to any
railroad's likelihood. For the majority of Jessup folk therefor , it was a business or personal catastrophe when the railway
company decided to construct their 1890 Short Line on a route that passed by their village at a distance of some four miles .
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George Hardesty provided the following memories of Royal and his 19th century Nebraskan life experience .

Mr.Harold Hardesty was brought to Royal by his parents in a covered wagon in 1910 aged just two and a quarter , it was just a few
years after it it had been renamed as that - the place having previously being known as Savage .The  covered wagon  was  Mr.Hardesty's
earliest and a happy memory . However the young boy soon experienced great sadness   :   " In 1915  I   was seven years old when my father , Homer Hardesty , was hurt by a hand car rolling down a bank - it was my birthday . He died approximately four months later from it.
Mother had six kids, all under thirteen years of age. She worked at Bonestell's store and did laundry work at night to make a living. "

I can remember when a car burned , it was the first one I can remember and I believe it belonged to the banker of Royal. It happened on the
north edge of Royal on the road to Brunswick. I believe it was the only car in town . "

" I'll never forget the blacksmith , Bill Bligh , I must have been about five or six years old , when I passed by he never missed talking to me . His shop was on the south side of the street, about in the middle of the block as I remember . "

" There were three stores at that time , Bonestell's on the south side of the street , George Fannon, a wonderful man , across the street from Bonestell's store on north side and down the street to the east was Rundquist's store , also on the north side of the street . There was ( also )a store of some kind about halfway between Fannon's and Bonestell's store . I'm not sure what they carried unless it was secondhand things . The Lumber Yard on the south side of the street partly burned down , in probably , about 1915 . I remember it well . "

" About that ( same )year a cyclone ( not too big ) went ( by Royal ) to the northeast , just at the east edge of Royal . It was about one and a half or two blocks from our house . "    " We lived on the east edge of town , and just south was what we called a buck brush patch. (It is not there now.)"

" I remember an orchard just a little north of town with mulberries and apple trees . We used to play there a lot. On the way to it , through a pasture , was a small white spot of soil , thirty to forty feet long , and not very wide .It was called silica - pure white - and good to scour dishes . It was very soft and fine. I ( have )wondered about that all my life . "

" Spark's Machinery may have been between Rundquist's store and the corner east. There was a vacant lot and we did cut across there from town to get to Grandma Goodwin's place. It had machinery on it . "
One time about 1914 , or close to that , we went to Newman Grove for the Fourth of July. They sent a balloon up, which was
quite a sight for us kids . "


" The car dealer's house is gone now . John Couch had the dealership for cars and Jack Francisco worked for him . When World War I broke out , Frank Francisco and my uncle, Ben Fullerton, enlisted in the army together. I believe Frank was killed in the war . It was on the west side of the street from the church. That beautiful all brick school still stands as it did when I went to school. The home where my grandfather died in the yard still stands. It was just south of where the post office was, on the east side of the street. His named was Goodwin . "

" Sam Brennaman ran a bar and pool hall on the street going south to the railroad tracks. It was all on the west side of the street. This was in the years of 1913,1914, or 1915. "

" As I remember , George Stewart , son of the railroad foreman, was on the hand car that rolled and inured my father . Several years ago I had the pleasure of visiting with him - fifyfive years later - when I was in Glenrock . Since then he has passed on, but has several sons there yet . "

" I can remember so many names of people that lived there ( in Royal )at that time . McGoff , Stewart , Johnson , Punteney , Kirby , Bligh , Bonestell , Fannon , Rundquist, Dawson, and Barton are all names that come to mind when I think of Royal . I'd like to think of a lot more , but I'll be 82 in April of this year. The Allen's lived in the house south of his father's home, real close to town. There was just a barn left there when I was in Royal a few years back (1986). It was the first time I had visited there since I was 8 years old . I had a good visit. I was baptized at the Methodist Church when I was 8 years old . "

" I never went through school - only ( completed ) a little more than 8 years . I was self-educated and I worked as a ranch hand , dairy hand , farm hand , welder , construction equipment operation mechanic , and Superintendent of road jobs . I was in Guide Rock, Nebraska as the Superintendent of the Courtland Superior Diversion Dam in 1949-1950.1 was also in Moorcroft , Wyoming as Superintendent of Cement and Structure on Keyhole Dam on the Belle Fourche River in 1951-1952 . For the next 15 years , I owned a construction company of my own . I then bought a service station ( Mobil Gas Bulk Plant ) and ranch and feed supply called Grain and Storage Company , ( and ran it ) for 13 years .
I retired at age 72 in 1982. "

" I also raised cattle , showed horses in four states and one of my horses led the Bi-Centennial Parade
in Washington, D. C. . . . . . And I went to the World Play-Off's in England. "


Mr.Hardesty aged 81 with his horse Blaze at the Pony Express Re-Ride of 1989 .

Looking Back : " My wife and I put it all together with nothing , or no help. She has been gone now
for four and a half years . After my retirement , I've ridden the the Eastern Wyoming Division of the Re-riding the Pony Express
Trail - participating for the last 6 years - thats 1984 to 1989 . "

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The Burlington & Missouri River Railroad Lands .

The following adapted text is from the Andrea ' History of the State of Nebraska and is included here as basic
historical background to the development of Antelope County in those days .

Quote : In 1860, the United States made land grants to the U. P. R. R. and the B. & M. R. R., giving them every odd-numbered
section within twenty miles each way from the central lines of their respective roads when located. However in certain places when the
lines were laid , for example at the junction of the two railroads near Old Fort Kearney , a place north of the B. & M. R.R. and south
of the U. P., belts of the granted land overlapped each other. Such matters of land overlap became legal questions , problems as
to whose land the sections were lawfully in .

When the Secretary of the Interior decided in favor of the U. P. R. R. Company the B. & M. Company claimed that their land loss
should be made good to them from lands outside their limits. Its claim was acceded to, and , in 1871 , compensating outside
lands were selected and patented . They lay chiefly north of the Platte , in Platte , and in Boone , Greeley , Howard ,
Sherman , Valley , Madison and Antelope Counties.

But there were problems. In 1873 , after the lands were patented, but before the patents were recorded, a suit was brought ,
by Judge Briggs , of Omaha , Neb., instigated by parties in Antelope County , in the United States Court, to annul the title
and recover the lands, alleging that they were obtained by fraud . After considerable delay, a decision was rendered
in favor of the company. The case was taken , on appeal , to the United States Supreme Court , and finally, on February 19th , 1879,
a decision was reached , affirming the title of the B. & M. R. R. Company to the lands.

On account of this suit , the B. & M . neglected and refused to pay any taxes on these lands.

The B&M were willing to compromise by paying the taxes due for the years previous to the institution of the suit, and after the
Supreme Court decision, but not for the time between these two dates.

All the counties, except Antelope, compromised on this or some other basis; but Antelope County repeatedly refused
to compromise. In 1879, the County Commissioners employed counsel to take charge of the case. In pursuance of their advice all the
disputed lands in Antelope were sold to the county to pay taxes outstanding for the years 1873 to 1878 inclusive. The sale was made
under the provisions of a law passed on January 30, 1867, and amended February 25, 1875. About the same time, the company
withdrew their lands from the market.

Afterwards , efforts were made by the company to compromise,something a majority of Nebraskans favored . A compromise
of some kind would have permitted the lands to again be placed on the market and by their sale realise capital to be taxed .
However , there was always some opposition to that since there was opinion that the B. & M. Company had not offered
to pay a sufficiently large proportion of their outstanding taxes .

In summary , the protracted railroad's lands dispute , a matter that caused the settlement of Antelope county to be retarded , was over some 60,000 acres of largely choice land . It caused discord in regard to the planning of the
final location of the county seat and particularly affected the public schools ' funding , they being dependent on the tax money
that ought to have been promptly raised ......."

End Quote .

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Jessup 's Loss ...

In Jessup : without the hoped for railhead situation , most busineses closed . Only the mill business , being dependant
on water power , was obliged to remain where it was . Although the post office and the blacksmith shop remained
awhile , one by one the Jessup businesses moved away into nearby Savage .

The original circa 1880 " little old red mill " of Julius Hering was replaced in 1915 by a modern and larger one . Milling then continued
at the site , serving the wide territory around for another forty years and more . Genevieve Hering , later to be the pianist and singer
known as Jeri Southern , was born at the new mill in 1926 .Just three years later the Herings sold their mill to the
Jessup Roller Mills company and moved into nearby Royal village . When the mill's new owners installed an engine
to drive their machinery : the old watermill's race and its flume were redundant.

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