DUTTON, STUART L.

by Marjory Dutton

Entry F116 from the History of Hooker County Nebraska
with permission of the Hooker County Historical Society

  Hooker County Sheriff 1910-1917

Stuart Luther Dutton, son of William
Thompson and Emily Mize Dutton, was born
May 20, 1876 in Smith County, near Rural
Retreat, Virginia. Stuart was the youngest
child of two sets of children. When his father
returned from the Civil War, he discovered
most of his children had died. Stuart attend-
ed schools in Virginia, College in North
Carolina, and held a teacher's degree. He
worked in Virginia, North Carolina and West
Virginia, then on to Indiana where he worked
on farms. Stuart then travelled on to Madison
County, Nebraska where there was a settle-
ment of Virginians. While in Madison
County, Nebraska, Stuart married Lalla
Boyer in 1900. They moved to south Cherry
County where Stuart filed for a Homestead.
Stuart and Lalla had four children, Robert,
Clarence, Myrtle and Lewis. Stuart worked
for the 101 Ranch (a big ranch that ran cattle
from Oklahoma through the sandhills).
Stuart also delivered mail in a spring board
buckwagon. He sustained a broken leg in an
accident, but continued on and finished his
mail route. The mail route became his main
source of income. He had hired a man for the
farm work on the homestead.

According to Robert Dutton (Stuart and
Lalla's oldest son), Stuart bought the livery
stable from Alex Kerns, sold his ranch-farm
to Charlie Boyer, and left the homestead on
May 30, 1911. A court house was being built
in Mullen and they needed a Sheriff and
Stuart was asked to run for the job. According
to Robert, there were only one or two
prisoners at a time, for minor offenses. They
would be locked up at night in a jail that was
built under the new court house, but during
the day the prisoners hung around the livery
barn where Stuart could keep an eye on them.
They had no female prisoners. During the flu
epidemic, the prisoners were taken to
Stuart's home for lodging until they recov-
ered. Robert claims that while Stuart was
Sheriff' he had only one "Bad case", when he
arrested a man for murder, took him to Grand
Island by train for trial and the man was sent
to state prison at Lincoln.

Stuart and Lalla's marriage terminated
about this time.

While Stuart was in the livery stable
business, he became fascinated with automo-
biles. He owned on of the first cars in the
Sandhills. His first license plate was 93-4, the
same number he had all his life. (That license
number passed from Stuart Dutton to his son
Neal, and now to his grandson Jay.) I don't
know if the low number was because of his
being a county official, or because of him
having one of the first cars in the county.

In 1913 Stuart Dutton was in the first
group to be initiated into the Masonic Lodge,
making him a Charter Member.

On May 18, 1917, Stuart married Anna
Louise Hibben. Anna was a young lady who
had been raised in the vicinity of Fremont,
Nebraska and Missouri Valley, Iowa. She had
attended school in Chadron, Nebraska, and
had taught school in the eastern part of the
state. Anna came to Mullen by train to spend
the summer with friends. She got off the
train, asked Robert Dutton (who was just
hanging around the train station) to carry her
bags to her friend's house, gave him a nice tip,
and Robert introduced Stuart to Anna.

Stuart and Anna had two sons, Neal Jesse
and Marvin Earl.

Anna Dutton was a Charter Member of
Winifred Chapter #292, Order of the Eastern
Star.

In 1922 Stuart started in the grocery
business. That business extended credit to
many of the early settlers of the Sandhills.
The old store served as a meeting place,
especially on Saturdays, of the community
associated with Mullen. Stuart saw the
fencing of the Sandhills, as attempt to farm
the land, the dust bowl and the buying out
of the small farmer by the big rancher.

Stuart passed away in 1958 and Anna
passed away in 1975.