DeWitty, later renamed Audacious, was a village in Cherry County,

Nebraska Nebraska ( ) is a landlocked U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern region of the United States. It borders South Dakota to the north; Iowa to the east and Missouri to the southeast, both across the Missouri River; Ka ...

, United States. The settlement, which was founded in 1907 and

disincorporated Municipal corporation is the legal term for a local governing body, including (but not necessarily limited to) cities, counties, towns, townships, charter townships, villages, and boroughs. The term can also be used to describe municipally owned c ...

in 1936, was located north and west of Brownlee. DeWitty was Nebraska's "largest and most permanent colony" of

African American African Americans, also known as Black Americans and formerly also called Afro-Americans, are an Race and ethnicity in the United States, American racial and ethnic group that consists of Americans who have total or partial ancestry from an ...

homesteaders.

History

The 1904

Kinkaid Act The Kinkaid Act of 1904 (ch. 1801, , Apr. 28, 1904, ) is a United States government, U.S. statute that amended the 1862 Homestead Act so that one section (land), section (1 mi2, 2.6 km2, 640 acres) of public domain land could be acquire ...

amended the

Homestead Act The Homestead Acts were several laws in the United States by which an applicant could acquire ownership of Federal lands, government land or the American frontier, public domain, typically called a Homestead (buildings), homestead. In all, mo ...

to provide in Nebraska's Sand Hills. This lured a number of African-American families to move to the area. By 1910 twenty-four families filed claim to acres (57 km) of land in Cherry County. By 1920 185 African Americans claimed acres (160 km) around DeWitty, a small town named after a local African American business owner. Clem Deaver was the first African American to file a homestead claim in Cherry County as a "Kinkaider". While working in Seneca, a railroad town, Deaver went to Valentine to claim land. There he learned that acres (200 km) of unclaimed land were available northwest of Brownlee. The tract bordered the North Loup River for almost in the eastern part of Cherry County. He returned to Seneca and started promoting the land. By 1907

sod house The sod house or soddy was a common alternative to the log cabin during frontier settlement of the Great Plains of North America in the 1800s and early 1900s. Primarily used at first for animal shelters, corrals, and fences, they came into use ...

s of new settlers dotted the land. Within a few years, black

Canadian Canadians () are people identified with the country of Canada. This connection may be residential, legal, historical or cultural. For most Canadians, many (or all) of these connections exist and are collectively the source of their being ''C ...

farmers who settled near Overton in Dawson County joined the settlement, bringing the population to 66. By 1917, the settlement had 100 families. During the town's history, it was renamed Audacious. A church was started in 1910 by Reverend O.J. Burchkardt, a missionary of the

African Methodist Episcopal Church The African Methodist Episcopal Church, usually called the AME Church or AME, is a Methodist denomination based in the United States. It adheres to Wesleyan theology, Wesleyan–Arminian theology and has a connexionalism, connexional polity. It ...

Lincoln Lincoln most commonly refers to: * Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865), the 16th president of the United States * Lincoln, England, cathedral city and county town of Lincolnshire, England * Lincoln, Nebraska, the capital of Nebraska, U.S. * Lincoln (na ...

. The town had a

post office A post office is a public facility and a retailer that provides mail services, such as accepting letter (message), letters and parcel (package), parcels, providing post office boxes, and selling postage stamps, packaging, and stationery. Post o ...

, a

baseball Baseball is a bat-and-ball games, bat-and-ball sport played between two team sport, teams of nine players each, taking turns batting (baseball), batting and Fielding (baseball), fielding. The game occurs over the course of several Pitch ...

team, a

barber A barber is a person whose occupation is mainly to cut, dress, groom, style and shave hair or beards. A barber's place of work is known as a barbershop or the barber's. Barbershops have been noted places of social interaction and public discourse ...

, a

general store A general merchant store (also known as general merchandise store, general dealer, village shop, or country store) is a rural or small-town store that carries a general line of merchandise. It carries a broad selection of merchandise, someti ...

, and three

school district A school district is a special-purpose district that operates local public Primary school, primary or Secondary school, secondary schools or both in various countries. It is not to be confused with an attendance zone, which is within a school dis ...

s for area students. An annual picnic was held in August, to which residents of Brownlee were invited. The town cemetery includes almost twenty burial sites. Many of DeWitty's young men served in

World War I World War I or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War, was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War I, Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers. Fighting to ...

and returned after the war. Droughts and crop failures following

caused DeWitty's families to mortgage their properties. Many lost their claims to

banker A bank is a financial institution that accepts Deposit account, deposits from the public and creates a demand deposit while simultaneously making loans. Lending activities can be directly performed by the bank or indirectly through capital m ...

s, as did small farmers throughout the Great Plains. They discovered that the Plains were not good for subsistence farming. The last resident to leave DeWitty sold his land to neighboring white ranchers in 1936. DeWitty's population trends were similar to those of African-American farming settlements throughout Nebraska. Nonetheless, DeWitty was described as an important contribution to the development of agricultural communities throughout the

American West The Western United States (also called the American West, the Western States, the Far West, the Western territories, and the West) is census regions United States Census Bureau As American settlement in the U.S. expanded westward, the mea ...

during the time of the Kinkaid Act. On April 11, 2016, The Nebraska State Historical Society installed a roadside marker on U.S. Highway 83 to commemorate the DeWitty settlement. Approximately 200 attended the dedication ceremony, including 18 descendants who traveled from six different states to be there.Thomas County Herald, April 21, 2016. Page 1

References

External links

* * at

Nebraska State Historical Society Nebraska State Historical Society, formerly History Nebraska, is a Nebraska state agency, founded in 1878 to "encourage historical research and inquiry, spread historical information ... and to embrace alike aboriginal and modern history." It w ...

finding aid {{coord missing, Nebraska 1936 disestablishments in Nebraska Geography of Cherry County, Nebraska Ghost towns in Nebraska Populated places established in 1907 Populated places established by African Americans 1907 establishments in Nebraska Populated places disestablished in 1936