Stephen Decatur Bross

Who was Stephen Decatur Bross?

Stephen A. Decatur, born Stephen Decatur Bross and often referred to as Commodore Decatur, was one of the earliest settlers in Nebraska. He was the namesake and one of the incorporators of Decatur, Nebraska, the second-oldest settlement in Nebraska.

He was born in Sussex County, New Jersey, one of eleven children of Moses Bross and Jane Winfield Bross. He attended Williams College during the 1830s, rooming with his twin brother William, who later became Lieutenant Governor of Illinois. Stephen became a schoolteacher under the name Stephen Decatur Bross in New Jersey and New York. In the early 1840s he suddenly disappeared, abandoning a wife and two children.

He next surfaced in the Nebraska Territory under the name Stephen Decatur. While on the Nebraska frontier he served in the Mexican-American War. He arrived in what is now the Decatur area from Bellevue in 1841 and made his home with the Omaha tribe. He lived on a farm which was called "Decatur Springs," named for a spring of pure water found there which supplied water to the town for the next century. Later he was a clerk at Sarpy's trading post, which opened in 1854.