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Swiss American Historical Society Newsletter

Swiss American Historical Society Newsletter

Harvey E. Bross

Keywords

Swiss immigration, New Basel, Kansas settlements

Abstract

The November 1981 issue of the SAHS Newsletter presented the story of the founding of New Basel as featured by Harvey E. Bross in 1963. The community represents one aspect of the Swiss presence in Kansas that needs further methodical exploration. Between 1860 and 1890 quite a few immigrants from Switzerland apparently chose Kansas as their destination. John Rydjord mentions in his Kansas Place-Names (Norman, Oklahoma: University of Oklahoma Press, 1972), pp. 131-132 the following traces of the Swiss presence: "Helvetia was one of the many towns that boomed and died in Meade County. The place in Finney County where Adrian Sautter kept a store and post-office was also called Helvetia .... Swiss settlers in Dickinson County who came from the canton of Bern named their village Newbern. The village is gone, but Newbern Township is still there." As to New Basel, located about twelve miles (as the .crow flies) directly south of Abilene (see map), Rydjord reports that it had been spelled "New Basell or New Basill," but then more appropriately New Basel; he further states that "a Town in Nemaha County was known for eight days by the Irish name of Collins but its name [was] changed to Basel by Swiss settlers from Ohio. The name lasted slightly over a year and then became Bern, retaining its Swiss connection" (p. 132).

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