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Yorktown Loses Its Mercantile

Lincoln Sentinel, 9 February 1896

The Yorktown Store is in the hands of Mr. Morris, a representative of the Symms Grocery Co. of Atchison. The Atchison house sold goods to the Yorktown company, Wm. Lutz, manager, in the amount of $1,707.28, for which it seems they were not likely to receive their pay. Thursday of last week J.D. Young, ex-state senator for the Beloit district, acting for the Symms company and others, went to Yorktown and placed the store in charge of Mr. Morris, son of Col. Dick Morris, deputy collector or revenue for the district of Kansas and Oklahoma. Mr. Young came on the Lincoln and filed mortgages and bills of sale against the New York Store company as follows:

Symms Grocery Co., $,707.28; H.L. McDonald & Co., $1,600; James Finnegan, Beloit, $90.00; Glen Elder State Bank, $1,000; New York Mercantile Co., $680; Hayes, Norman & Co., $708; Glen Elder Milling Co., $135. Total, $17,228.48. These, however, are not the total liabilities, as every lawyer in Lincoln has received instructions from wholesale houses to look after their claims, which range in amount from $80 to $300 together with a number of due bills held by farmers in the vicinity of Yorktown, both in Lincoln and Mitchell counties. It is said that the total liabilities may equal up to the $40,000 mark, though it is not likely to do so.

Mr. Young told a Sentinel man Saturday that he believed the assets would eventually wipe out the liabilities. It is hoped that Mr. Young’s estimate is the correct one, and that our farmer friends at least will not be heavy sufferers. The company bought up everything in sight, and paid for it in goods and due bills were lifted.

The failure of the Yorktown Store company is an apt illustration of what our Pleasant Valley correspondent is getting at when he pretends to believe that the Ellsworth merchants are doing a good thing for the country by paying more for produce than they can get for it. This instance is sufficient to explain our meaning: The Yorktown merchants paid 17 cents for corn and sold it for 15 cents; yet the goods they gave in exchange were said to be lower in price than those offered at other places for the cash. Somebody had to lose, and somebody did. The future must reveal who. The failure is a bad thing for this country, as it will have a tendency to shake the “confidence” of the wholesale dealers in the stability of our local merchants.

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