[Illustration: THE FOUNDING OF
LINCOLN
ON JULY 29 1867
IN SESSION AT
THE FRONTIER HOME OF
CAPT. W. T. DONOVAN
LOCATED 166 FEET NORTH
638 FEET EAST OF THIS SPOT
THE NEBRASKA STATE
CAPITAL COMMISSION
DAVID BUTLER, GOVERNOR
JOHN J. GILLESPIE, AUDITOR
THOMAS P. KENNARD
SEC’Y. OF STATE
LOCATED LINCOLN
CAPITAL CITY OF NEBRASKA
ON THIS PRAIRIE
ERECTED BY NEBRASKA SOCIETY
SONS OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION
JULY 29 1927]
On a hot afternoon in July, 1867—the 29th—Commissioners Butler, Kennard
and Gillespie emerged dripping from the attic of Captain W. T. Donovan’s
house. Standing on its east side to avoid the blazing sun Butler
announced that henceforth Lincoln would be the capital of Nebraska. The
severely fashioned Donovan house stood at the northern point of a
triangle which would have included the Journal building and the
Burlington station had they been built at that time. Why the
commissioners took to the attic to vote on the site is not certain, but
possibly they did not want to be rudely interrupted by those who had
been insisting that it be located at Ashland, Seward or Yankee Hill, or
be left in Omaha.
Captain Donovan came to Lancaster county in the mid-fifties. Captain of
the steamboat Emma, one of the boats which plied up the Missouri as far
as Plattsmouth, he was drawn to this region by the possibilities of salt
in the Salt creek valley. His son was the first white child born in the
county, his daughter the first Lincoln bride. He took the first
homestead in the county under the 1862 homestead law. He stuck to his
claim during the Indian scare of 1864 and helped protect settlers who
had the courage to remain. The tablet was erected by the Nebraska
Society of the Sons of the American Revolution.