Bartlett Richards, 1862-1911 [RG2455.AM]

HISTORY NEBRASKA MANUSCRIPT FINDING AID

RG2455.AM: Bartlett Richards, 1862-1911

Ellsworth, Sheridan County, Neb.: Cattleman
Papers, etc.: 1864-1982
Size: 1 roll of microfilm; 3 boxes

BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE

Bartlett Richards was born in Weathersfield, Vermont in 1862, the son of Rev. J. DeForest Richards, a Congregational minister, and Harriet Bartlett Jarvis. For health reasons young Bartlett Richards went west before he was to enter college. He arrived in Cheyenne, Wyoming in 1879, became involved in the cattle business, and elected to remain in Wyoming rather than return to the East.

Discouraged by the blizzard of 1886, Richards sought adequate range lands in the Nebraska sand hills. In the late 1880s he joined with J.J. Cairnes to establish the Spade Ranch, headquartered in Ellsworth, Sheridan County, Nebraska. The firm of Richards and Cairnes was succeeded by the Nebraska Land and Feeding Company, operated by Bartlett Richards, his brother Jarvis, and a new partner, Will Comstock.

Richards and Comstock were faced with a problem common to the range cattle industry: the need to obtain sufficiently large tracts of land to support their livestock. To cope with this problem they followed the custom of the day by encouraging old soldiers and soldiers’ widows to take up the quarter section of land to which they were entitled under the Homestead Act and subsequently deed these “buried claims” to the Nebraska Land & Cattle Company.

In April of 1902, Secretary of the Interior Hitchcock announced that all fences on the public domain had to be removed. This ruling was opposed and in some instances ignored, by cattle interest in the West. In 1905 Bartlett Richards and Will Comstock were charged in federal court with illegally fencing public lands. In June of 1905 they testified that they had not fenced surveyed government land. A force of Secret Service men entered the area of the Spade Ranch and extended the lines of the original government surveys. In so doing they demonstrated that the Nebraska Land and Feeding Company had illegally enclosed 212,000 acres of government land. Before the November trial, held in Omaha, Richards and Comstock pled guilty and were sentenced to pay a fine of $300 each and remain in the custody of the U.S. Marshal for six hours. The perceived leniency of the sentence and the manner in which the convicted men spent their imprisonment (the six hours were spent at the Omaha Club) aroused the ire of President Theodore Roosevelt, who removed the U.S. Attorney and Marshal in the case.

In 1906 Richards and Comstock were indicted again. In December of 1906 they were convicted on a charge of conspiracy to defraud the government of use of public land, and ordered to pay a fine of $1,500 each and serve one year in jail. The two men were incarcerated in Hastings rather than Omaha, after three years of judicial appeals proved unsuccessful. On September 5, 1911 Bartlett Richards died in a Hastings hospital, one month before the end of his sentence.

SCOPE AND CONTENT NOTE

This collection consists of one microfilm reel and three boxes of manuscript material arranged in three series; Series One, Correspondence, 1864-1959; Series Two, Minutes, 1895-1913; and Series Three, Printed Matter, 1862-1982.

Series One contains correspondence (on microfilm) relating to Bartlett Richards’ personal and business interests, 1864-1959. Topics include Bartlett Richards’ early experiences in the West, his interests in the cattle business and involvement in litigation relating to charges of illegally fencing public lands, 1905-1910.

Series Two consists of the minute book of the Nebraska Land and Feeding Company and the Richards and Cairnes Company. It includes, articles of incorporation, by-laws, minutes of stockholders meetings and a half-million dollar bond issue floated by the corporation. This material was loaned for microfilming by Bartlett Richards, Jr. in September of 1974.

Series Three contains information compiled for the book, Bartlett Richards, Nebraska Sandhills cattleman, by Bartlett Richards, Jr. and Ruth Van Ackeren. This series includes correspondence and paperwork of the Richards Brothers, articles and news-clippings about the land trials and the Richards – Comstock incarceration, information about fencing public land, research notes and correspondence of the authors, and book publication notices and reviews.

For information about Bartlett Richards photographs, please contact our Library Staff.

INVENTORY

Series 1 – Correspondence, 1864-1959

Roll 1
Volume

  1. 1864-1959
  2. 1898-1900

Series 2 – Minutes, 1895-1913

Roll 1
Volume

  1. Minute Book of the Nebraska Land and Feeding Company and the Richards and Cairnes Company, 1895-1913

Series 3 – Printed matter (legal), 1862-1982

Box 1
Folder

  1. Cattle Contracts – Pine Ridge Agency
  2. Death of Richards & Imprisonment
  3. Equity Suits
  4. Fencing – Leasing
  5. Fencing Trial
  6. Huntington and Todd
  7. Judges
  8. Kincaid Act
  9. Krause Brothers
  10. Land Trial
  11. Leasing
  12. Leasing and Fencing
  13. Lease Laws
  14. Legal
  15. Newspaper Articles – Legal
  16. Omaha Daily News – Clippings, Richards – Comstock Trial
  17. Public Land Hearings
  18. Stearns – Horsnell (Dakota)
  19. Rev. George G. Ware
  20. Mosby – Kevin Siepel
  21. Court Opinions, US Court of Appeals, Justice Hook – Phillips
  22. Bartlett Richards Letters – typed
  23. Bartlett Richards Letters – typed
  24. Jarvis Richards Letters, bound

Series 3 – Printed matter (misc.), 1862-1982

Box 2
Folder

  1. Banking – Richards
  2. Cattle Ranching – General
  3. Cattle Rustling and Range Violence
  4. General News Items – NW Nebraska
  5. Miscellaneous Clippings & Articles
  6. Miscellaneous Clippings & Articles
  7. Miscellaneous Clippings & Articles
  8. Miscellaneous Clippings & Articles
  9. 1890s – Richards
  10. Richards in Berlin
  11. Richards, DeForest
  12. Roosevelt vs. Richards
  13. Schnurr – “33” Ranches
  14. Spade Ranch
  15. Spade Ranch
  16. Stockmen’s Association

Series 3 – Printed matter (Bartlett Richards book)

Box 2
Folder

  1. Correspondence, Ruth Van Ackeren
  2. Correspondence, Ruth Van Ackeren
  3. Richards Family – Research Requests
  4. Richards – Research Notes
  5. Book – Cost Estimates
  6. Bartlett Richards Book – Maps

Box 3
Folder

  1. Book Reviews & Summary of Bartlett Richards’ Life
  2. Correspondence, Book Front Piece
  3. Critique & Revisions Suggestions
  4. Book Review in North Dakota History Journal of the Northern Plains
  5. News Notices & Book Reviews
  6. Correspondence, Book Photographs
  7. Correspondence, Guy L. Peterson; copy of Bill Barlow’s Budget
  8. Historical Highlights of Public Land Management, 1962
  9. Bartlett Richards Book Reviews

 

 

Subject headings:

Cattle trade — Nebraska
Nebraska Land and Feeding Company
Richards and Cairnes Company

 

DHH/ht 09-05-1974
DDM/pmc 08-08-1985
AW/tmm 07-18-2005

Become a Member!

Our members make history happen.

Join Now

You May Also Enjoy

On This Day: Armistice Celebrated Early

On This Day: Armistice Celebrated Early

Siouan Archeology

Siouan Archeology

Nebraska Election Trivia

Nebraska Election Trivia

About NSHS

The Nebraska State Historical Society was founded in 1878 by citizens who recognized Nebraska was going through great changes and they sought to record the stories of both indigenous and immigrant peoples. It was designated a state institution and began receiving funds from the legislature in 1883. Legislation in 1994 changed NSHS from a state institution to a state agency. The division is headed by Interim Director Cindy Drake. They are assisted by an administrative staff responsible for financial and personnel functions, museum store services, security, and facilities maintenance for NSHS.

Explore Nebraska

Discover the real places and people of our past at these NSHS sites.

Upcoming Events

View our new and upcoming events to see how you can get involved.

Become a Member

The work we do to discover, preserve, and share Nebraska's history wouldn't be possible without the support of NSHS members.

NSHS Education

Learn more about the educational programs provided at our museums, sites, and online.

Education Digital Learning Resources

Find games, lists, and more to enhance your history education curriculum.

Latest Hall of Fame Inductee

The Nebraska Hall of Fame was established in 1961 to officially recognize prominent Nebraskans.

Listen to our Podcast

Listen to the articles and authors published in the Nebraska History Magazine with our new Nebraska History Podcast!

Nebraska Collections

NSHS's mission is to collect, preserve, and open our shared history to all Nebraskans.

Our YouTube Video Collection

Get a closer look at Nebraska's history through your own eyes, with our extensive video collections.

Additional Research Resources

NSHS's Research and Reference Services help connect you to the material we collect and preserve.

NSHS Services

Digital Resources

Find all of our digital resources, files, videos, and more, all in one easy-to-search page!

Support The Historical Society

Make a cash donation to help us acquire, preserve, and interpret Nebraska’s history. Gifts to the Nebraska State Historical Society help leave a legacy and may help your taxes, too! Support the work of NSHS.

Volunteers are the heroes of NSHS. So much history, so little time! Your work helps us share access to Nebraska’s stories at our museums and sites, the reference room, and online.