About Seppuwa Falls
Founding Story of The Town
The story of the town’s founding is always a bit exaggerated and mixed with legend but this much is known for sure. The town was founded by in the aftermath of the Civil War. The two groups of veterans and the wagon train of prostitutes that founded the town were an unusual band of founding fathers and mothers but the town was never meant to be a cookie cutter town .
One group were Union veterans foraged for food for General Sherman’s Army referred to as Bummers. This small group was led by Franklin Stokes who organized this group in Washington D.C. following the festivities marking the end of the war .
The second group was led by Eric Jacobsen a veteran of the Confederate Army. Years of war and painful memories led to him organizing a group of his veterans from the Army of Northern Virginia also in search of a new beginning.
Both groups started their travels independently in May 1865 following the end of the bloody conflict. The first group to arrive were the Bummers who settled in the area now known as Seppuwa Falls Forrest in the fall of 1865. The Confederate veterans settled soon after. Initially the two groups avoided each other due to the lingering animosity from the war.
They wandered the area searching for food until they encountered an Indian tribe that has since vanished. No record of the name exists only the one word in there language that has endured, Seppuwa which means ignorant white man.
The Bummers had run out of food and all they had were their weapons but no ammunition. They sold their useless weapons to the tribe in exchange for food. The Confederate veterans also desperate to find food in the area had sold their weapons to the tribe. Unfortunately they were given food that was laced with dysentery. Dehydrated they met in the area known as Stokes-Jacobsen Park where the Falafel brothel now stands. A skirmish started being they had no weapons, a series of fist fights erupted as they began fighting men began to fall in agony not from coming to blows but because the disease was taking its toll on both sides.
During this time of hopelessness, both sides realized if they were to survive they had to pool resources. Those who survived now had to try and forage food. The Confederate veterans nor the yankee bummers were unable to find a source.
All hope was lost men were now asking themselves if they would survive to see the New Year. On Christmas Eve, a wagon train from the east was passing by. The group was headed west and had miscalculated the road and found themselves traveling during the winter. The men seeking companionship thought it was a Christmas miracle. Not only did they now have companionship from the opposite sex but the wagon train was actually a group of prostitutes and a Madame headed to start a brothel in the wilderness.
Unfortunately the men had no possessions to barter for the services of these women of the night. Instead, they attempted to convince the prostitutes to stay. After a spirited Christmas and New Years celebration, the prostitutes decided the area was am ideal place to start their brothel.
Days later search parties went out to scout for food and they said they heard a waterfall. The waterfall they heard was never found. This waterfall, that was more than likely the result of a hallucination became the namesake of. On January 15th, 1866, that group of veterans and prostitutes founded the town of Seppuwa Falls. The ceremony was marked with a feast of tree bark since that was the only food they could forage at the time.
