USA > Kansas > Nemaha County > History of Nemaha County, Kansas > Part 46
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There were no improvements on this place, but it had a valuable
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feature in the way of a large, never-failing spring, whose waters gushed from the rocks where it had its source. Mr. McCoy improved his acreage, gradually added more land to his modest eighty acres, and engaged in the breeding of Shorthorn cattle. The products of his farm in the way of pure-bred Shorthorn cattle have had a wide sale in this section of the country, and he has exhibited them at various live stock shows and fairs with considerable success. Mr. McCoy has accumulated a total of 500 acres of land and has a fine modern residence of eleven rooms on his home farm, a cattle barn, 70x36 feet in extent, with excellent im- provements on his other three farms. His home farm is located in section 4, Monall township, Brown county. Mr. McCoy is also a suc- cessful breeder of Poland China swine. His herd of Shorthorns includes an average of thirty breeding cows.
John McCoy was married in 1870 to Victorine C. Nowlen, born at Coonsville, N. Y., September 17, 1841, and who died August 23, 1915. Seven children were born of this union, four of whom are deceased. The three living children are: Jessie, at home with her father, born January 24, 1877, graduated from the Sabetha High School; Ira J., born March 4, 1879, located at Parkman, Wyo .; Edward, at present managing the home place, and widely known as a live stock breeder, born Sep- tember 5, 1882.
Mr. McCoy removed to Sabetha in 1908, and here expects to make his future home, well satisfied with what he has accomplished during his forty-four years of residence in Kansas. Mr. McCoy is a Republican and has served as a member of the school board. He has been an officer of the bank at Morrill, Kans., and is connected with the fair association at Sabetha. He is a member of the Congregational Church.
Andrew Williamson, retired farmer, Sabetha, Kans., was born at Berr Hill, Ayershire, Scotland, May 24, 1847, and is a son of James and Mary (Cargo) Williamson, who were the parents of eleven children, four of whom are living. James Williamson was a shepherd on his na- tive heath, and was born in 1800, and died in 1884. The mother of An- drew Williamson was born in 1803, and died in 1868.
Opportunities for acquiring an education were very limited in the particular case of Andrew Williamson in his native land, and he left home in 1868, shortly after his marriage in 1867, and came to America in search of fortune. He located in Montgomery county, Pennsylvania, and worked as a laborer in a small town at a wage of $1.35 per day. He remained there until 1876, and then crossed the continent to San Fran- cisco, where he was employed as teamster until 1879. He then came to Kansas and purchased 160 acres in section 30, Rock Creek township, Nemaha county, for which he paid $17.50 an acre. He bought this partly improved tract in partnership with his brother-in-law, John Cardy, who died a short time later. Time, industry, energy and good management have brought prosperity to Andrew Williamson, and he is the owner of 320 acres of land, eighty acres of which are located in
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Capioma township. When Mr. Williamson was actively in charge of the farm he kept only high grade Shorthorn cattle, Poland China and Duroc Jersey hogs. He removed to Sabetha in February, 1903.
Mr. Williamson was married in 1867 to Miss Nancy Cardy, who was born in Ireland in October of 1846, and was there married. She is a daughter of Archibald and Isabella Jamieson (McLaughlin) Cardy. Eight children have been born to Andrew Williamson and wife, as fol- lows: Charles, dead; Elizabeth, her father's housekeeper; Mrs. Mary, wife of C. B. Benedict, Miami county, Kansas ; John C., owns and farms land in section 29, Rock Creek township; Sarah, wife of Melvin Dan- ford, Rock Creek township; Andrew, a salesman for The Starns Drug Company, Detroit, Mich .; Jeannette, wife of Paul Masseter, section 25, Rock Creek township; Ellen, wife of H. Lukert, Brown county, Kan- sas. The mother of the foregoing children died September 23, 1903.
Mr. Williamson and his family were all reared in the Presbyterian faith, which was the church of his parents. He is a Republican in pol- itics and has served as a member of the school board of his township. He is a stockholder in the Mutual Telephone Company. There are two things for which this sturdy American of Scotch birth deserves credit, the first of which is the rearing of a large family of children who are all well-to-do and enterprising citizens of their respective localities; the other is, that he came to this county a poor man, has worked hard, saved his earnings, and accumulated a comfortable competence to sup- port him and his during his declining years. His life has been an indus- trious and honest one which has met the approval of all of his friends and neighbors.
John N. Funk, retired pioneer farmer and Union veteran, of Gilman township, was born in Fairfield county, Ohio, November 6, 1840, and is a son of Henry and Elizabeth (Hampshire) Funk, for whose biography see sketch of David Funk in this volume. When he was an infant six months old his parents moved to Putnam county, Ohio. John Funk received but two or three months of schooling each winter in his boy- hood days and worked on his father's farm until he was twenty years old. He then rented part of the home farm and operated the same until his enlistment in the Union army in 1864. He became a member of the One Hundred and Fifty-first Ohio regiment, an organization of one hundred day men, and was honorably discharged at Camp Chase, Ohio, when his time of service expired. Upon his return home he moved to his farm of eighty acres in Putnam county, Ohio, improved it with good buildings and cultivated it until 1868, when he sold out and bought his father's farm of 140 acres in the same county. One year later he sold his farm and went to Moniteau county, Missouri, but after spend- ing three weeks in viewing the country, he decided to go farther west to Nemaha county, Kansas, and visit his brother, David. In December of 1859, he bought eighty acres in Gilman township, and in January, 1870, he built a one room house, 14x20 feet. He also erected a typical
JOHN N. FUNK.
MRS. JOHN N. FUNK.
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Kansas barn of poles and hay. . In 1873 he bought eighty acres adjoin- ing his first tract and erected a house thereon, building an additional four rooms to this residence in 1884. Previous to this, in 1881, Mr. Funk bought 200 acres in Gilman township and rented it out for pasture for seven years, later placing all of it in cultivation excepting thirty acres. He owns 332 acres at present, all of which is in cultivation ex- cepting ninety acres, and ten acres of this amount is in orchard and twelve acres in timber.
In 1879, he built a frame barn, 24x40 feet, later adding two shed wings, 16x40 feet, on each side, and in 1886, he erected a granary, 28x36 feet. In past years Mr. Funk dealt heavily in live stock, but of late he has abandoned the live stock end of farming.
Mr. Funk was married in Ohio in 1860 to Magdeline Brannaman, daughter of Henry and Esther (Good) Brannaman. To this union ten children were born, as follows: Two died in infancy; Abram L., Havre, Mont .; Mrs. Elizabeth Schmick, Hiawatha, Kans; Mrs. Lydia Sohn, deceased; James E. (see sketch) ; Sarah, died August 7, 1910; Mrs. Eva Graves, living on the home place; Fred W., farmer in Ne- maha county ; Roy, deceased. Mr. and Mrs. Funk have grandchildren, as follows: Mrs. Laura Huffman, daughter of Mrs. Elizabeth Schmick; Norman S., May L. and Nellie M., children of Mrs. Lydia Sohn ; Omer M., son of James E. Funk; Clifford E. and Marguerite L., children of Fred Funk. Mrs. Funk was born in Fairfield county, Ohio, September 25, 1841, married at the age of nineteen and was her husband's faithful helpmate and mainstay during his rise to wealth and position, and was a good and kind mother to her children. She died July 31, 1910, and her remains lie buried in Oneida cemetery.
John N. Funk has grown up and aged with Kansas, and, like his adopted State, is still hale and hearty in the prime of manhood, although he has passed the biblical allottment of three score and ten years. When this grand old Kansas pioneer came to Nemaha county, there was hardly any settlements of houses in the vicinity of his present home, and it is a fact that he and his wife and Samuel Funk, wife and three children. lived in one room, 14x20 feet in dimension, from January 10 to May, 1870. This may seem odd and unbelievable to the present day generation, who are used to comfortable homes and every convenience, but it is a truthful statement of the manner in which the first comers to Kansas were of necessity forced to live on the plains forty and more years ago. Mr. Funk has witnessed many changes in the appearance of the country ' since that time and deserves considerable credit and honor for the useful part he has played in the creation of a great county and State.
John Zug, retired carpenter, farmer and capitalist of Sabetha, was born at Mogadore, Suffield township, Portage county, Ohio, August 2, 1846, and is a son of Jacob and Elizabeth (Crouse) Zug, who were the par- ents of four children, as follows: Mrs. Catharine Brumbaugh, deceased ; Mrs. Mary Kurtz, Brimfield, Ohio; John, subject of this review; Lizzie,
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living at Mogadore, Ohio. Jacob Zug, the father, was born in Lancaster county, Pennsylvania, January 13, 1821, and became a shoemaker, work- ing at his trade for a period of fourteen years. In 1846, he immigrated to Ohio, and engaged in farming near the town of Mogadore in 1851. He lived on his farm until death called him September 11, 1913. He was a son of Andrew Zug, a son of Swiss parentage, and who married a Miss Mishler, and followed the trade of tanner. The mother of John Zug was born April 2, 1823, in Lancaster county, Pennsylvania, and was a daugh- ter of William Crouse, who married a Miss Binkley. She died June 17, 1897.
John Zug was reared on the Ohio farm, attended the district schools, and learned the trade of carpenter. He worked at his trade in his native State until 1880, and then immigrated to Kansas, locating in section 14, Berwick township, Nemaha county. He invested his savings in 160 acres of land upon which he made extensive improvements, soon erecting a hand- some two-story house, T-shaped, of seven rooms. He built a barn 42x70 feet-color scheme of the house was pure white in contrast to the deep red of the barns and other out buildings. Mr. Zug, being a skilled me- chanic, erected all of his own buildings. A man equipped with a heritage of industry and right living such as his was bound to succeed, as nearly all Buckeye folks of Pennsylvania German ancestry are wont to do, and he became owner of 600 acres of well improved land, 240 acres of which he divided among his children and now owns 345 acres. In 1896, he had succeeded so well that he decided to retire to a home in Sabetha, and, accordingly, purchased a tract of seventeen acres just outside the city limits, where he built a large house and resided for twelve years. He sold this tract in 1908, and bought lots in the east part of the city, and erected a handsome seven room modern bungalow, where he now re- sides.
Mr. Zug was the active promoter and organizer of the Mutual Tel- ephone Company of Sabetha, and built up this public convenience from a modest beginning in 1908, until it now has a total of 810 subscribers. He owns over one third of the stock of this thriving concern, and served as president and manager of the company for some years, and now fills the position of treasurer. Mr. Zug has, during the course of his long ca- reer, followed various occupations, and has succeeded at most of his un- dertakings. While living in Ohio, he was a butcher for a time and did business among the farmers of the neighborhood. It was his custom to take his craft tools out on his trips, and do the butchering for the farmers. After he came to Nemaha county, he followed this avocation, and was known among the farmers as a circuit butcher, turning many an honest dollar as a reward for his strength and skill with his tools of trade. His endowments in early life were good health and a strong body and a de- sire to make the best of his circumstances.
Mr. Zug was married, in 1868, to Catharine Bair, born October 17, 1848, in Stark county, Ohio, a daughter of John and Mary (Stiffler) Bair,
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who were the parents of six children, five of whom are living, as follows : Mrs. Nancy Whetstone, Lake, Ohio; Mrs. Esther Moulton, a widow liv- ing in Sabetha, Kans .; Mrs. John Zug; Mrs. Amanda Heinbaugh, de- ceased ; Henry, Akron, Ohio; Jacob, Suffield, Ohio. John Bair was born in Columbiana county, Ohio, April 22, 1819, and was a son of Adam and Barbara (Houtz) Bair, and died July 23, 1904. Mrs. Mary (Stiffler) Bair was born October 25, 1823, and died February 11, 1888.
Four children have been born to John and Catharine Zug, as follows : Charles, a carpenter at Ola, Ark .; Mrs. Mary VanDyke, living near Abi- line, Kans .; Jacob, living on a farm four miles west of Sabetha; Mrs. Cora Davis, on a farm five miles north of Sabetha. Mr. and Mrs. Zug have twenty-seven grandchildren. Charles married Amanda Reisen, and has eleven children, as follows: Lorena, Reuben, Paul, Elmer, Eliza- beth, Walter, Raymond, Hugh, Robert, Ruth, Edna. Mrs. Mary Van Dyke has five children, as follows: Harry, Esther, Lawrence, Caroline, and Ruth. Jacob married Maude Dugger, and has five children, namely : Mildred, Margaret, Merlin, John, Morris. Mrs. Cora Davis has six chil- dren, as follows : Ethel, Clarence, Pearl, George, Dale and Doris, twins.
Mr. Zug is an independent in politics, and votes as his conscience dictates, and refuses to wear the party yoke of any boss or set of political bosses. He is a member of the Church of the Brethren or Dunkard sect, and is recognized as an enterprising and useful citizen by his many friends and acquaintances. He stands high in the community, in which he has taken such an active and influential part in its building up.
Albert George Kemper, prosperous dry goods merchant of Sabetha, Kans., was born at Lancaster, Wis., July 8, 1867, and is a son of George and Elizabeth (Womelsdorf) Kemper, who were the parents of a large family of children, seven of whom grew to maturity, and six are now living. George Kemper, the father, was born in Germany and became a farmer, immigrating to America when a young man, settled in Wis- consin and in 1883 removed to Nebraska.
George Kemper was born June 14, 1823, in Germany, and after his immigration to America, worked in a factory at Philadelphia, Pa. He moved from that city to Lancaster, Wis., and engaged in farming. In 1883 he migrated to Hamilton county, Nebraska, and followed agricul- tural pursuits until his death, February 5, 1898. He was a son of Henry Kemper, who came to this country with his family, and died in Wiscon- sin at the age of eighty-six years. Anna Elizabeth (Womelsdorf) Kemper was born February 29, 1824, at Westphalia, Germany, town of . Berleburg. They were the parents of nine children, as follows: Caro- line, widow of A. B. Frederick, living at Platteville, Wis .; Henry W. deceased ; Mrs. Matilda Bald, Aurora, Neb .; Mrs. Louise Weingarten, Aurora, Neb .; Edward L., Aurora, Neb .; George B. and August F., twins, died at the age of eight years; Anna E., wife of Dr. C. P. Fall, Beatrice, Neb .; Albert George, the youngest of the family.
The subject of this review was reared on his father's farm, attend-
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ed the district school and removed with his parents to Aurora, Neb., in 1883. He studied in the Aurora High School and when twenty-one years old he began clerking in a furniture store at Beatrice, Neb. One year later he began clerking in a dry goods store and rose to the posi- tion of manager. In 1899 he took charge of the dry goods department of a large store in the mining town of Cambria, Wyo., and held this position for a time. In 1902 he removed to Helena, Montana, and was employed in a dry goods store until 1910. He then came to Sabetha and engaged in partnership with S. G. Hazen. This partnership was dissolved in 1914, and Mr. Kemper has since been engaged in business on his own account. He carries a large and select stock of dry goods and ladies' ready-to-wear goods to the value of $13,000, and maintains one of the classiest and best dry goods stores in northeastern Kansas.
Mr. Kemper was married at Blue Springs, Neb., October 16, 1899, to Minnie I. Buckingham. One child has blessed this union, namely, Inez M., born June 6, 1904. Mrs. Minnie I. Kemper was born February 4, 1872, at Montezuma, Iowa, and is a daughter of Albert and Kathrine (Cunningham) Buckingham, who were of English descent, first lived in Ohio after their marriage and then migrated west to Iowa in a very early day. They moved from Iowa to Nebraska, where Mrs. Kemper was reared and educated. She became teacher in the district schools near Blue Springs and was teaching at the time of her marriage to A. G. Kemper.
Mr. and Mrs. Kemper are active in the affairs of the Congregational church. Mr. Kemper is a Democrat in politics and has served as mem- ber of the city council of Helena, Mont., during his residence in that far western city. He was elected to the post of president of the Com- mercial Club of Sabetha in 1914. He was elected a member of the board of education in 1915 and takes a decided and keen interest in the cause of education. Mr. Kemper is ever on the alert to advance the interest of Sabetha and is one of the real Sabetha boosters who have done much to make the city enterprising and attractive during past years. He is affiliated with the Royal Highlanders, the Knights and Ladies of Security, Knights of the Maccabees, and the Ancient Free and Ac- cepted Masons.
John U. Lehmann .- In point of years of residence in Nemaha county, John U. Lehmann is probably the oldest living pioneer settler of Washington township; he bears the added distinction of having lived nearly sixty years on the farm which his courageous mother home- steaded in 1857. John U. Lehmann has seen the prairies in all of their vast, unsettled loneliness ; he broke up the prairie sod of the homestead when his nearest neighbor was miles away ; he lived in this county when it required the most sturdy and brave homeseekers to withstand the loneliness and the privations necessary in the redemption of an unpeo- pled wilderness. His time of residence in Kansas dates from the era of the wild Indian to the gradual settling of the country and the
JOHN U. LEHMANN AND WIFE.
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peopling of the fertile plains and the building of thriving towns wherein the rugged methods of living, which sufficed for the pioneers, have been supplanted by the luxuries of later day civilization. Although born under a foreign flag, John U. Lehmann shouldered a musket and marched away to Southern battlefields in defense of his adopted coun- try. Few men can point to a better or more honorable record than this patriarch and pioneer.
John U. Lehmann, farmer and stockman of Washington township, was born at Berne, Switzerland, May 1, 1841, and is a son of John and Cathrine (Arm) Lehmann, who were the parents of twelve children, of whom John U. is the seventh in order of birth. John Lehmann, the father, was born in Switzerland in 1802. He worked in a powder mill for several years, and become owner of a tourist resort at Launge, Swit- zerland, which he traded for a farm, where he spent his last years, pre- vious to his immigration to America in 1846. He first settled in Holmes county, Ohio, and moved from there to Andrew county, Missouri, where he died in 1856.
The widow and her younger children migrated to Nemaha county, Kansas, a year later, and Mrs. Lehmann preempted a quarter section of land in section 10, of Washington township. The family drove overland with oxen and horses from Andrew county, Missouri. The sons of the family felled trees found along the streams in Washington township and built a rude log cabin on the banks of Four Mile creek, which served as the family home for a number of years, until replaced by a more pre- tentious dwelling. The mother was born in Launge, Switzerland, in 1808, and died in Missouri in 1872, at the home of her son-in-law, William Schindler.
John U. Lehmann was sixteen years of age when his mother located in Kansas. He was strong and vigorous, his strength and health being due to the out door life which he led in the pioneering days in Missouri and Kansas. He had opportunity for little schooling in his youth, but was blessed with inherent intelligence, which enabled him to go ahead. In September, 1862, he enlisted at Seneca, Kans., in Company G, of the famous Thirteenth Kansas infantry, and saw much active service in the Indian Territory, Arkansas and Texas. He was wounded in the left eye by the bursting of a gun cap during the battle of Prairie Grove. He re- ceived his honorable discharge from the service at Little Rock, Ark., in 1865. After the close of the Civil war, he returned home and took charge of the family farm, which he purchased in 1867. During his tenure of the land, Mr. Lehmann has made many substantial improve- ments and has maintained the fertility of his acreage by good manage- ment and raising of live stock and has accumulated a total of 360 acres of good, valuable land. Mr. Lehmann is a breeder of Hampshire hogs.
However, all of Mr. Lehmann's life, exclusive of his war service, was not spent on the farm. During the great gold rush following hard upon the discovery of gold at Pike's Peak, Colo., he and five of his
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brothers, Gottlieb, John, Samuel, Fred and Christ, loaded provisions on two wagons, hauled by three yoke of oxen, and set out across the country in 1860 to see if they could gather in a quantity of the elusive yellow metal. They set out on the long journey, May 2, but returned in October of the same year, after some months of work in the gold mines of the Rockies. They were well satisfied to return to Kansas.
Mr. Lehmann was married November 7, 1867, to Magdalena Funk- houser, and this marriage has been blessed with nine children, as fol- lows: Charles J., born in 1868, and died in 1903; Mrs. Amanda Fisher, widow, living with her father; Mrs. Elizabeth Schneider, St. Joseph, Mo .; David, United States mail carrier at Bern, Kans .; Frederick William, California; Mrs. Theodosia Wittwer, wife of the Bern banker (see sketch) ; Gilbert F., on the home farm in Washington township; Edson, at home; Mae F., a graduate of the Bern High School. The mother of the foregoing children was born in Signaw, near Berne, Switzerland, September 20, 1846, and is a daughter of John U. and Bar- bara (Rodenbuler ) Funkhauser, the former of whom was born in Switzerland in 1812, and immigrated to America with his wife and family of five children in 1846, and settled near Pettisville, Ohio. In 1865 he migrated to Richardson county, Nebraska, where he died in November, 1873. His wife, Barbara, was born in August, 1806, and died in 1874.
Mr. and Mrs. Lehmann are members of the Evangelical church, with which denomination all of his children are also affiliated. Mr. and Mrs. Lehmann are loyal to their church and contribute liberally of their means to its support. He is a member of the Sabetha Grand Army Post.
It is pleasant, indeed, for a man to attain to the great age of seventy-five or more years and be able to look backward over the long, eventful years of his pioneer life and be satisfied with what he has ac- complished in the way of attaining a competence, rearing a fine family of children, and serene in the knowledge that he gave the best years of his life to help save his beloved adopted land. Mr. Lehmann often thinks of the old days when wild game was plentiful on the prairies and the Indians were numerons. The Indians frequently camped on the banks of Four Mile creek, near the Lehmann home, and he well remembers their hunting forays and knew some of the Indians well. Often he wishes that he could live over those earlier years and again hunt the wild turkey and prairie chicken. The frontier life seemed to weave a spell about the younger people which has never entirely disappeared. History will honor John U. Lehmann as being one of the real pioneers of this great county.
William Thompson .- The late William Thompson, of Sabetha, Kans., was known for his kindly deeds, his honesty and industry and his liberality in support of his church. His life was a long and useful one, and he was one of the hundreds of thousands of brave men who
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risked their lives in defense of the Union on the Southern battlefields. Nearly thirty-five years of his life were spent in Kansas developing a fine farm, and it was his forethought in providing for the future that led him to undertake the task of making a home on the prairies of Nemaha county.
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