How Seward, Nebraska Got Its Name (After a Rebel Lost the Honor)
Seward, Nebraska, is named for its county, which honors William H. Seward, Lincoln’s secretary of state. The county got that name in 1862, after the man it was first named for joined the Confederacy.
Where the name comes from
A 1925 study of Nebraska place names says simply that “the town of Seward was named after Seward county of which it is the county seat.” The City of Seward’s own history says the same: the city was named after the county, and the county was named in honor of William Henry Seward, secretary of state under President Lincoln.
The county’s first name
The county didn’t start out as Seward. The 1925 study says it “was originally named for General Greene of Missouri and was renamed when General Greene joined the Confederacy during the Civil War.” A county sketch in the 1940 Who’s Who in Nebraska tells it a little differently: it says the first name honored a senator from Missouri who sided with the Confederacy and became a general in its army. The two sources don’t agree on exactly which Greene it was, a general or a senator, but both say the county dropped the name because he went with the South. The legislature changed the name to Seward by an act approved January 3, 1862. (The 1925 study prints the day as “January 38,” an obvious typo.)
The rest of the record
The U.S. Geological Survey’s record says Seward was platted in 1868, incorporated as a village in 1870 and became a city in 1874. The city’s history puts its start in 1867 and gives April 5, 1870, for the village. Seward is the county seat of Seward County.
Sources & further reading
- Lilian Linder Fitzpatrick, Nebraska Place-Names (University of Nebraska, 1925). A public-domain study of the state’s place names, county by county. The town named for the county and the change from Greene.
- City of Seward, “History of Seward.” The town and county names and the early dates.
- NEGenWeb, Seward County sketch from Who’s Who in Nebraska (1940). The Missouri senator, the Confederacy and the 1862 change.
- GNIS feature 833348 (U.S. Geological Survey). The federal record for Seward. Platted 1868; village 1870; city 1874.
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