Tying up the loose strings of ‘Stringtown’

The Stringtown article resulted in quite a bit of interest in trying to find out where exactly Stringtown existed. Was it a town? Probably not in the strict sense of the word, but it was a community of early settlers in Red Willow County’s Bondville Precinct.

Bondville was located directly south of Red Willow precinct where the town of Red Willow was located and bordered by Danbury precinct to the south, Valley Grange precinct to the west and Missouri ridge precinct to the east.

In 1905 according to the 1905 Plat Map available for research on www.swngs.org, Bondville precinct had four schools located within its boundaries, but according to an early school district map, there were five schools there at one time. Three of the districts are easily identified by the map: Spring Canyon #44, Ash Creek #19, Golden Prairie #50. Two other districts, #13 and #34, as hard as I tried to enhance the writing, I was unable to decipher the names of the schools. Knowing the district numbers, however, would allow a person to research the early school records available at the SWNGS library. Those records usually include the identity of the student, the parent or guardian responsible for them and other siblings in the family plus the location of the residence in which the child lives.

The Ash Creek school may well have been associated with the one church identified on the precinct map, the Ash Creek church, which against all odds, still stands today along with its well documented cemetery. A picture of the church along with a listing of grave sites within the cemetery is also available on the SWNGS website.

Now to the two homes being built of “brick, brick” from my article. Henry Kisker, one of the brick home builders, owned 39.7 acres in Section 7 and 156.98 acres in Section 4. If I were a betting person, I would venture a bet that the home was being built on the 39.7-acre piece of land simply because it lays closest to the little community built around the Ash Creek Church which sat in the SE corner of Section 7 surrounded by land owned by Ernest Newman at the time. On the precinct map there are drawn in squares that are supposed to indicate a house and on Henry’s Section 7 land a house is indicated.

When it comes to William Baumbach, he owned acres in Section 6 (39.18), Section 16 (160) and his wife, Maggie (Marguerite or Margaret both are noted in different sources), owned 160 acres in Section 6. It is on Maggie’s holdings that the little black square is drawn indicating a residence.

There are several Kisker and Baumbach burials in the Ash Creek Cemetery. One of the Stringtown articles mentioned that the Baumbach’s had lost a child at birth and that little one is buried there. Maggie passed away in 1914 shy of her 46th birthday leaving William and seven children to mourn her: William, Edwin, Clara, Lawrence, Esther, Henry and Margaret. Born in Ontario, Canada where she lived until she was 17, she married William in Gage county on February 14, 1889.

Do either of the “brick, brick” homes still exist? I would certainly hope so but that will mean a road trip out to take a look or someone who might own one of the homes today getting back to me. As a further research tip, I found that in old newspapers the news of “Stringtown” may have also been referred to as RFD 1.

SWNGS may have turned the Covid corner. Our April meeting will be in person on Saturday, April 10th. Zoom will also be available by contacting us prior to the meeting. The library hours will resume in April also, Tuesdays and Thursdays, 1-4 PM. Check out our Facebook page postings for notices.