WASHINGTON COUNTY HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION
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Museum  Highlights
Featured Artifacts from the Museum Collection


Local Pre-Historic Fossils 
from the Ft. Calhoun Rock Quarry.

Fossil Sandbox
The sandbox with the ancient fossils and bones provide a greater understanding of ancient life in and around the Washington County area. It allows children to interact with history and gain a greater understanding what it is typically read about in school. Some of the fossils and bones in the sandbox are: mammoth or mastodon teeth and bones, corals, snail shell, and teeth of prehistoric horses.



Edison Exhibit
North Gallery



Banister from Crowell Home, c. 1884

Crowell Home
Blair, Nebraska  1884-1971
The Crowell Mansion was built by Christopher C. Crowell, son of Massachusetts capitalist and philanthropist, who came to DeSoto in Washington County in 1869.  There he rented and operated a grist mill.  In the same year he founded a business in Blair which grew into the Crowell Lumber and Grain Co. and the Crowell Elevator Co. with yards and elevators at fifteen points along the Fremont, Elkhorn and Missouri Railway in which Mr. Crowell had an interest.

The house, built on an eleven acre tract at the end of Grant and Lincoln Streets, was a three story structure with twenty-two room, an imposing example of the "High Victorian" style in domestic architecture of the opulent 1880s.

It was replete with ornate cornices and gables, stained glass windows, patterned brick work in chimneys, built-in gutters, slate shingles, running water piped from cisterns and the most modern plumbing facilities of the day.
Features of the interior were:

Fourteen foot ceilings, parquet floors, handsome oak stairways, balustrades and grill work, oak, walnut and cherry paneling, plaster ornaments in ceilings, Fresco painting on walls and ceilings (done by a Chicago artist), ten marble fireplaces, functional or ornamental imported French plate glass mirrors, ten and twelve foot doors, twelve called "front doors" and etched glass panels.

Toby's, an exclusive Chicago furniture store, supplied the original furnishings.

The mansion was given to the Methodist Church in 1905 to be used as a home for retired Methodist ministers and families.  It was altered during the years as its doors opened wider to elderly citizens.

Posted 4/12/2003



Recitation Bench
Used in the first college in Nebraska, "Nebraska University" at Fontenelle in Washington County, Nebraska. 

Nebraska University
Recitation Bench
Nebraska University, the first college in Nebraska was originally located in Fontenelle on the west side of Washington County.  Building for the college began in 1858.  The first teachers were Oberlin College people.  Later Nebraska University become Doane College, located at Crete, Nebraska.

Fontenelle became the county seat of Dodge County on March 6, 1855. In the meantime Fontenelle entered the lists as a contestant for the prize of the Territorial Capital, but failed after having exhausted every expedient known to the politics and diplomacy of those times. She, however, was incorporated and became a city, by legislative enactment, Monarch 14, 1855. She also succeeded in securing a charter for a college, named "Nebraska University," to be located there; so she was not altogether destitute of consolation. A building, suitable for an academy, was erected in 1856, as preliminary to the University, and a school opened under the auspices of the Congregational Church, which was a flourishing institution for a number of years. Professor Burt was the first principal.  Source

"In accordance with these instructions the Nebraska University, located at Fontenelle, February, 1855, and commonly referred to as the "Fontenelle school," was transferred to the Congregationalists, January, 1858. A tract of 112 acres was set apart for the school almost ideal in the lay of the  land, and the early prospects of the school were bright, but subsequent disappointments many. Fontenelle had an ambition to secure the county seat and also the capital of the new state."  Source   Source



Civil War Belt Buckle, c. 1860??
Part of a long black wool U.S. Army Coat from Captain John Newton Chamberlin; 97th Regiment, U.S. Colored Infantry.  Donor:  John Bisbee



G.W. Bartholomew Clock, c. 1830
Clock with wooden works.  Maker: G.E. Bartholomew of Bristol, Ct.  Donor:  Ray Rosenbaum Family.



Museum Display

 


Washington County Historical Association
PO Box 25        Fort Calhoun, Nebraska 68023         402-468-5740
info@newashcohist.org