Peter Jansen purchased land in Jefferson County where the town of Jansen now stands. He was a sheep rancher feeding from 8,000 to 10,000 sheep per season marketing as much as 200,000 pounds of wool. A staunch Republican and supporter of the gold standard, he was involved in politics serving in the Nebraska House of Representatives, Commissioner of the Paris Exposition and the Louisiana Purchase Exposition.
Peter Jansen, Leader, Philanthropist, and Man
At the second Annual Meeting of the Nebraska Hall of Agricultural Achievement, in nineteen hundred seventeen, an address was delivered by one Peter Jansen. Now, 20 years later he is himself, fittingly enough, to be the subject of an address before the members of this institution, in which he took the deepest interest.
The briefest biography of Peter Jansen’s long and useful life would not be complete, nor can the extent of his service to Nebraska agriculture be fully understood, without some description of his origin and his background.
His father, Cornelius Jansen, was born in Tiegenhof, near Danzia, West Prussia, in 1823. At about the time of the great westward trek of covered wagons towards California, Cornelius Jansen also undertook a journey as long and troublesome, if not as dangerous, when he decided to join the Mennonite Colony in South Russia.
This prosperous group had gone there from West Prussia towards the end of the eighteenth century, at the invitation of Catherine the Great. In view of what was to happen later, the reasons for that migration are significant.
The ancestors of this group had fled from Holland to escape religious persecution and had been given a place of refuge in the marshes and lowlands of the River Vistula. In a hundred years they had converted this rather desolate region into the most fertile and flourishing province of the country. The fame of these frugal, industrious and peaceful people reached the ears of the Empress Catherine, who was desirous of finding Colonists to settle the vast domains she had taken from the Turks in war. To induce immigration of these people, the Empress promised them exemption from military service in perpetuity and other privileges, which they retained for almost one hundred years.
One of the principle tenets of the Mennonite creed was and is strict obedience to the Sixth Commandment - “Thou shalt not kill!” And it was the promise of freedom to carry out this principle that induced many hundreds of Mennonite families to leave Prussia, where they had enjoyed a similar privilege, and settle on the new Russian lands formerly occupied only by a few scattered Tartar tribes.
Here they again built an orderly and prosperous community, here Cornelius Jansen came to engage in the grain-export business in the seaport of Berdjansk, on the Sea of Azov, and here on March 21, 1852, Peter Jansen was born.
Cornelius Jansen was made Prussian Consul. In the house next door lived the British Consul, and from the latter Peter Jansen gathered a smattering of the English language, little thinking, at the time, that it would subsequently become the language in which he thought and worked and wrote.
The family prospered. They leased a large ranch about thirty miles from the city - and here Peter learned a great deal about cattle and sheep, spending much of his time in the saddle from the age of fourteen onwards.
In 1870 the Russian government broke the covenant made by Catherine and ordained that henceforth the sons of the Mennonites would be subject to conscription. The elder Jansen advised his friends to sell their lands and seek a new home in America, where they might again be free to live according to their principles.
For this advice he brought down upon him the wrath of Russian officials and was ordered to leave the country.
Visiting in Germany and England on the way, the Jansen family finally arrived in Quebec in August 1873. Leaving the rest of the family in Berlin, Ontario, Peter and his father went to New York and Philadelphia, established communication with their Russian friends, and were commissioned to visit the West and look over the various states and territories in which good land was to be had at low prices.
Through the influence of the American Quakers, whose tenets were very similar to those of the Mennonites, the Jansen’s were taken to Washington and introduced to President Grant, who was much interested in the proposed immigration of the Mennonites.
Peter Jansen, accustomed to the glittering pomp of Russian officialdom, was greatly surprised to find the White House portals guarded only by a single-colored man, without even a sword to rattle. He was much impressed by President Grant’s account of his early experiences on the farm, and his statement that he could still hitch up and drive a team of horses as well as ever.
Here he also met General Custer, who, three years later was to perish so tragically on the Little Big Horn. And at the same meeting he made his first acquaintance with the American Indian, for Custer had brought a delegation of chiefs to Washington for a pow-wow with the Great White Father.
Shortly Peter and his father left for the West, accompanied by some of the railroad land-commissioners, who were as much interested as had been the Prussian Kings and Catherine in securing the settlement of Mennonite colonies on their lands.
The Jansen’s traveled through Northern Iowa, Minnesota, the then Territory of Dakota, Nebraska and Kansas, found good lands at many points and eventually Mennonite Colonies were established in all of them.
In the meantime, the first party of the friends from Russia had arrived, and the Jansen’s met them in New York. Because of his knowledge of English, as well as of the lands which he and his father had inspected, Peter was appointed to lead a delegation of the men of the new party back to the west, where the choice of a location for a settlement had narrowed down to two tracts of about 30 thousand acres each, one in Butler county, Kansas, the other in Jefferson county, Nebraska.
Eventually the Jefferson county land was decided upon, Peter giving as one of his reasons for making the choice his feeling that a State which had perpetuated the name of the Great Emancipator in the name of its capital city, would be just a little better place in which to live.
For his own family Peter bought 1280 acres 18 miles west of Beatrice, which was then a village of probably 50 houses. He paid an average price of $3.75 an acre.
Soon the rest of the family moved west, the elder Jansen’s taking a home in Beatrice while the building of a ranch house on the new property was begun. Typical of their attitude towards the new enterprise, and towards the land of their adoption, was the little scene in which, when they had selected a building site, Cornelius Jansen took a piece of board, wrote on it with a pencil, “With God’s help we will here build our new home,” and stuck it in the ground.
In the beginning the Jansen’s raised sheep. Peter went to Wisconsin for his ewes and to New York state for the rams. Accustomed to raising sheep on the nutritious grasses of the Russian steppes, they assumed that Prairie hay would serve the same purpose as a fattening fodder. However, after losing quite a few sheep the first winter they learned that Nebraska hay was not nourishing enough without an added grain ration. This problem conquered, they built up, in following years, the finest breeding flock of Merinos in the state.
Sometime in 1876 Peter went again to New York, to meet and bring west some of their friends from Prussia, and this was a more than ordinarily pleasant duty, because among them was a very charming young lady whom he had met during the family’s visit in Germany, and between them there was already a tacit understanding which culminated in marriage the following year.
Peter was mighty proud as he traveled across country with this new group of friends, for they represented what was probably the largest body of well-dressed, well-educated, and well-to-do emigrants that ever came to the west.
These folks settled in Gage county, Nebraska. In his memoirs, written nearly 40 years later, Peter Jansen writes: “They have kept up their characteristics to a large degree to the present day, and probably stand unique with their moral and business standards. There has not been a criminal case amongst them during all these years and probably not over half a dozen civil lawsuits. They have become useful, law abiding American citizens, and are respected throughout the community and state.”
If Peter Jansen had never done anything beside lead these Mennonite colonists to the State of Nebraska, he would be worthy of a niche in the Hall of Fame, for their industry, their steadiness, their homemaking instincts and ability, as well as their hereditary knowledge of the soil, have been beneficent factors in the building of our Commonwealth.
While Peter was running the sheep ranch for his father, he was investing his share of the profits in adjoining land, paying from six to twelve dollars an acre for it. He began the improvements on it with a small frame house and a barn, and moved to this farm with his wife, who, there, presented him with five children, one of whom, the first-born, died in infancy. In the next few years Peter continued to make improvements - erecting new sheep sheds, a large horse barn and numerous other buildings, planting a great many trees, and a fine orchard. He also laid out a beautiful front yard, with an artificial lake. “Jansen’s Ranch” eventually became the show place of the county and attracted much attention and many visitors. In all it consisted of more the 2,000 acres. Seven families lived on it and worked for the owner, who built for each family a comfortable house and a good barn. Each of the men had his own particular job to do, his own stock to look after and care for. Peter Jansen was a systematic man and insisted on whole-hearted cooperation with his system from those who worked for him. Yet he treated them with unfailing kindness and helped many of the more capable and ambitious to buy and stock their own farms.
At first, besides raising sheep, Peter Jansen grew enormous crops of spring wheat, and got as high as $1.22 a bushel for it. And, when winter wheat was introduced, he had the first field of it - about twenty acres - in Jefferson county.
He also raised big crops of corn - 50 to 60 bushels to the acre was not unusual, and year his entire acreage averaged 63 bushels per acre.
In the eighties, settlers came in very rapidly, and the open prairie was soon no longer available for the Jansen flocks. Consistent in his business ability and foresight, Peter Jansen changed his plan and commenced feeding western sheep for the market. Under his able direction this industry grew into great proportions. Soon he had feed yards in four different places, and in one season fed 25,800 head of sheep.
In the summer of 1886 the Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific Railroad surveyed its line from St. Joseph via Beatrice to Fairbury and the west. The building of this line was a great factor in the development of that section of the State. Peter Jansen took an active part in the preliminaries, and when a railroad town was established four miles west of the Jansen ranch the railroad officials named it “Jansen”.
In the countries of the old world the Mennonite church had never permitted its members to take an active part in politics, but Peter Jansen reasoned that, in the United States, a country which gave every indication of furnishing them a permanent freedom, conditions were entirely different, and he soon formed the conclusion that the man who failed to do his part in maintaining good government was not a useful citizen. He, therefore, took an active interest in politics, and threw the weight of his influence and organizing ability behind every movement which he considered to be for the betterment of his adopted country.
From the beginning he was frequently a delegate to the county and state conventions of the Republican party, and as early as 1884 was elected an alternate delegate to the National Republican Convention at which James G. Blaine was nominated for President. He was one of the four delegates-at-large to the St. Louis convention which nominated William McKinley. But he was never an office seeker, since he felt and stated that political influence disappears as soon as one seeks office for his own gain. However, in 1880 his neighbors elected him Justice of the Peace, and subsequently he was twice elected to the State Legislature, once as Representative and again as Senator. He was offered the nomination for Governor but refused it on the grounds that such an office might place him in a position where he would be required to enforce the death penalty. He preferred not to run the risk of being compelled by his official duty to disobey the Sixth Commandment.
But his fellow citizens continued to seek his services in one way or another. In the year 1900 President McKinley appointed him one of 12 United States commissioners to the Paris World’s Fair, and during the time that he was away he traveled extensively through the British Isles and Europe, visiting his old friends in Germany and South Russia.
When he, in company with James L. Paxton, was visiting in London, they decided to attend a night session of the House of Commons. Not knowing that admission is by card from a member, they went boldly up to the inner entrance but were stopped and asked for their credentials. Peter was at that time a member of the Nebraska Legislature. Taking out one of his cards, he penciled on it the request “Mr. Speaker: as a member of the Nebraska Parliament, I would like admission for myself and my friend Mr. Paxton,” gave it to the doorman with a tip. The man returned in a few moments, with a card bringing the answer: “Admit Mr. Jansen and friend to the diplomatic gallery.”
Peter Jansen was intimately acquainted with many of the Presidents from Grant to Wilson, being particularly friendly with McKinley and Taft, and he never hesitated to use this friendship on behalf of matters affecting the welfare of his own state and community.
In 1904 he was one of the commissioners representing Nebraska at the Louisiana Purchase Exposition in St. Louis. His colleagues were Gurdon W. Wattles, Judge Matt Muller, and Harry Shed. Here they used moving pictures to demonstrate Nebraska agricultural operations and wealth, which was quite an innovation at that time. The previous winter the Nebraska steer “Challenger” had been given the first prize at the Chicago International Livestock Exposition. Peter Jansen had this animal mounted, and on exhibition at the St. Louis Exposition. The most remarkable thing about this expedition, however, was that at the termination of the exposition the Nebraska commissioners turned back to the State Treasurer $12,000 of the money appropriated for the expenses of the commission and the exhibits – a thing never before done in the annals of expenditure of public funds, and probably never since repeated.
During the early days when Nebraska was one of the prominent sheep raising and wool producing states, Peter Jansen served as the first president of the Nebraska Wool Growers Association and was re-elected several times.
Shortly before the war, Mr. Jansen sold his ranch for an average price of $100 an acre and moved to Beatrice where he had for some time owned several plots of ground. On one of these he built a beautiful home which is still one of the finest in the city, and now the property of former Governor Adam McMullen.
Interested in securing a good hospital for Beatrice, Peter Jansen gave one of his plots to the Mennonite Church for the building of a Deaconess Hospital, and also contributed heavily to the building fund.
During his remaining years, he continued to serve his people and community in every way that opened before him. He never spared himself in a worthy cause or failed to help a friend in need. After a lingering illness, he passed away at his home in Beatrice, June 6, 1923. In the poignant phrase that he once used in speaking of the passing of a friend - “God’s finger touched him, and he slept.”
I find that his life and works are summed up best, perhaps, in a somewhat critical sentence contained in an article written by a member of his church for a church paper. The writer said: “For his soul’s salvation he had little time, as he often told us.”
I am prepared to believe this true, for from early manhood until his embarkation on the Last Great Journey, he was too busy looking after the interests of his people, his family, his friends, and his state to worry about his own future reward, which he left confidently to his Creator and to posterity.
