YORK COUNTY NEBRASKA
OLD SETTLER'S HISTORY

     (3) In looking up early incidents for the Old Settlers' History, to be kept in the County Judge's office of this county, the first question was, why was the County named York? I first wrote to the State Historical Society at Lincoln, but could find no reason from there. I find from A. T. Andreas' history of Nebraska, and from the help of Judge Sedgwick in investigating the Journals of the first and second Territorial Legislatures that met in 1855, that one A. D. Jones, a member of the first Territorial Legislature from Douglas county, (and by the way Omaha was the capital of Nebraska at that date) was chairman of the committee on defining the boundaries and giving names to new counties. Mr. Jones proposed to name the new counties after prominent leaders from each political party; that accounts for the name of Polk, Hamilton, Butler, Fillmore, Clay and many others. Seward County was first named Green, after a senator who afterwards joined the rebels in 1861, and the good people of Green county petitioned the legislature and had the name of their county changed to Seward. The journal of the first territorial legislature of 1855 shows that the north line of York county was the Platte river, the boundary was later changed to include its present boundary.

     York county was named by the legislature of 1855, long before any white man settled here.

     I next wrote to A. D. Jones, who seemed to lave a good deal to do with laying out and naming new counties in the early day, but the letter was returned, and I learned after that Mr. Jones went to heaven ten years ago. I secured from early records the names of members of the first legislature and wrote to quite a number and some of the letters were returned uncalled for, and others were answered, stating they could remember nothing of the reason for naming York county. A party suggested that if I wrote the editor of the Bee, Mr. Rosewater, he could tell me everything, so I wrote, enclosing a stamp, and got no reply and he is a stamp ahead. I recently wrote to the Public Librarian of Omaha, for Omaha was Mr. Jones' home, and he was very (4) prominent in its early history, in fact he homesteaded the land where the principal part of Omaha now stands. I thought this Mr. Jones who named York county, might have come from York, Pa. I received the following letter, which is the first ray of information as to why this county was named York.

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