USA > Nebraska > A Biographical and genealogical history of southeastern Nebraska, Vol. II > Part 1
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Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39
Gc 978.2 B51 v.2 12 71403
M. L
GENEALOGY COLLECTION
ALLEN COUNTY PUBLIC LIBRARY 3 1833 01065 6970
A
Biographical and Genealogical History
OF
Southeastern Nebraska
EMBELLISHED WITH PORTRAITS OF MANY WELL KNOWN PEOPLE OF THIS SECTION OF THE GREAT WEST WHO HAVE BEEN AND ARE PROMINENT IN ITS HISTORY AND DEVELOPMENT
VOL. II
ILLUSTRATED
CHICAGO
NEW YORK
THE LEWIS PUBLISHING COMPANY
I904
Den dir- 60.00 (2mes) 5-6-64
BIOGRAPHICAL HISTORY.
1271403
SIDNEY B. LUTGEN, M. D.
Sidney B. Lutgen, M. D., who is an old-established practitioner of southeastern Nebraska, is a veteran member of the medical profes- sion, having begun practice fifty years ago. He came to Brownville, Nebraska, in 1874, and with the exception of three years has practiced in this vicinity, having been located in or near the town of Brock nearly twenty-five years. He is a man of varied attainments and capa- bility, and during the seventy years of his life has seen many phases of activity and in many ways been useful to society and his fellow men.
Dr. Lutgen is a physician both by adoption and inheritance, and is a representative of the third generation to contribute one member to the art of healing. His grandfather, James Henry Lutgen, was a native of Luxemburg, was a physician and surgeon, and was one of Napoleon's body guards during a part of that soldier's career in Europe. He afterward came to America and served in the war of 1812. He married Ann O'Hara, and they had one son and one daughter. They disagreed on religion, she being a Catholic and he a Protestant, and the daughter was placed in a convent and became a nun. He was again married, and had six children by his second wife.
James H. Lutgen, the son of the first marriage of James Henry Lutgen, was born in Pittsburg, Pennsylvania, and after his father's second marriage was bound out to a man by the name of Rowell. He was reared and educated at Athens, Ohio, and had a liberal schooling
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and became a physician. He volunteered for service in the Civil war, in the Seventy-seventh Ohio Infantry, and was made captain of a company. He was wounded at the battle of Shiloh, and this injury caused his death two years later. He was also second lieutenant in the Mexican war. He married, in Morgan county, Ohio, about 1830, Alvena McGrath, of Maine, who died in 1884, having drawn a pension of twenty dollars since her husband's death. They had eight children, as follows: Mrs. Caroline B. Rogers, born August 23, 1832, died in 1893, leaving three children; Sidney B. is the next; Lorinda is the wife of John Hook, in Ohio, and has three living children; Julia Ann is the wife of Henry Outkelt, of Ohio; Athenitus, born in 1840, was killed by lightning after his return from the Civil war and left eight children; Alvena A., born October 17, 1842, is the wife of Henry Patterson, and their four sons are all physicians; Mary C., born May 16, 1845, was the wife of Willard McDonald, and she died leaving three children ; James C., born April 30, 1848, was a carpenter and cabinet- maker and died leaving three children.
Dr. Sidney B. Lutgen was born in Ohio, June 30, 1834, and was educated for his profession at the Physio-Medical Institute in Cin- cinnati, and entered upon the active practice of his profession over fifty years ago. In 1861 he enlisted in the Seventy-seventh Ohio Volunteer Infantry, and was wounded at the battle of Shiloh, and was discharged from the hospital at Camp Chase, Columbus, Ohio, being now the recipient of a small pension. He came out as a second sergeant. He has been active in Grand Army matters, and is a charter member of Robert Post No. 104, G. A. R., at Brock, and has filled all the higher offices of his post. Dr. Lutgen was in practice in Ohio until 1874, and then came to Brownville, Nebraska, where he had an office for seven years. He was in Thomas county, Kansas, for three years, and during that time served as coroner. Since his return from Kansas he
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has had his residence in or near Brock, and has actively engaged in practice. He owns a nice farm and mill property near the town.
January 15, 1856, Dr. Lutgen married Miss Margaret Porter, of Ohio, and she died in Brock in 1896, leaving three children: James R. an engineer in the state of Washington, and has a wife and one son and two daughters; Vena B. is the wife of Julius Peterson, at Breemer, Nebraska, and has three children; E. S. is a fruit grower in Oregon, and has one daughter. In 1897 Dr. Lutgen was married to Mrs. Ella Stout, nee Varney, and she has two children by her first husband, Elmer Stout; E. E. Stout, who has a wife and two children ; and Ella, a girl of thirteen years. Dr. Lutgen is a thirty-second degree Mason, and has affiliated with the Independent Order of Odd Fellows since 1862. In politics he is a loyal Republican.
JOHN LONDON.
John London, who has been a resident of Jefferson county, Ne- braska, since 1890, is one of the foremost farmers and business men, and a man with a fine record in matters of citizenship and private affairs. He was born in Clearfield county, Pennsylvania, October 19, 1845. His great-grandfather was an Englishman, but Isaiah and John London, his grandfather and father, respectively, were both na- tives of Pennsylvania. John London married Trephena Estes, who was born of an old New York family. In 1854 the family moved to DeKalb county, Illinois, near Sycamore, being early settlers of that county. They afterward moved to Bates county, Missouri, where John London died at the age of seventy-three. He was a farmer and mason by trade, and in politics a Republican. His wife died in Jeffer-
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son county, Nebraska, at the age of sixty-five. They had five children : John; Joseph, in Diller, Nebraska; Samuel; Mary, who died in Bates county, Nebraska ; and James.
Mr. London was reared on the farm in DeKalb county, Illinois, and remained there until he went to California in 1864. August 20, 1864, he enlisted at Sacramento, California, in Company F, Second California Cavalry, under Captain Starr and Colonel McGary. The regiment saw a great deal of active service in protecting the settlers of northern California from the Indians. The latter were on the warpath during most of the Civil war period, and ran off stock and raided and killed the settlers wherever the latter were not defended. The regi- ment made many forced marches and suffered much from cold, hunger and exposure. They were stationed in Posey county, California, for a time, were then in service in Chico; were in Sacramento valley two or three months; were then sent to Surprise valley in northeastern Cal- ifornia, where the Indians had driven off many head of stock and murdered some of the settlers. In this campaign they suffered severe- ly, both from lack of food and from the cold of the mountains. They had to go to Fort Crook through four feet of snow, and in the nine days of wandering many had their feet and hands frozen, while the horses were without hay and the men for three days without food. They had a half-breed scout for a guide, and they were all in a sorry condition when they reached the fort. They made battle with the bad Indian "Jim," and captured many of the braves besides some of the squaws and children, and after many such fights drove the redskins back to the mountains away from the settlements. He was in a battle with the Indians on February 15, 1866, in which eighty-one Indians were killed. They were again in Surprise valley for a time, and thence back to Sacramento, where Mr. London received his discharge June
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28. 1866, after a creditable record as a soldier, although he was not yet of age. After returning from California he lived in Butler county, Iowa, for some time, and in 1877 came to Bates county, Missouri. thence to Smith county, Kansas, where he lived twelve years, and then sold his farm and moved to Jefferson county, Nebraska, settling five miles northwest of Diller. He has been continually prosperous, has managed his affairs wisely, and has small complaints to make about the way fortune has treated him.
Mr. London was married in Chickasaw county, Iowa, in February, 1873. to Miss Jane Slaight, who was born in Illinois, a daughter of Stephen and Caroline Slaight, both deceased and the latter died at the age of eighty-eight ; their son W. M. Slaight is in South Dakota and Frank lives in Illinois, and Miranda (Mrs. Johnson) in Iowa. Mr. and Mrs. London have had a happy married life of thirty years, and have many friends in Jefferson county. They have four children : Marshall is a farmer, and married Viola Marshall, by whom he has a daughter, Alice V .; Daisy is a successful teacher in Jefferson county. and has been engaged in this work for nine years : Llewellyn and Ira, the younger children, are at home. Mr. London is an active member of Nickajack Post, G. A. R., at Diller, and also affiliates with the Masonic bodies. He is a frank and genial character, popular with his fellow citizens, and deserves the success which has rewarded his efforts.
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JOHN H. FRIDAY.
John H. Friday, a well known and successful carpenter and con- tractor of Steele City, Nebraska, has been a resident of Jefferson county for over a third of a century, having come here before there was a Steele City, so that he has been a witness of and a worker in the de- velopment of all this part of the state. He has been an upright and honorable citizen, with a full share of public spirit in all worthy enter- prises, and has won the confidence and esteem of all with whom he has been associated.
Mr. Friday was born in Ithaca, Darke county, Ohio, October 7, 1842, a son of George Jacob and Sophia F. (Hess) Friday, both natives of Germany, whence they came to this country; the former died in Ohio, and the latter in Nebraska. Mr. Friday was their only son. He was reared to manhood in Ohio, and taught the lessons of industry and honesty from an early age. He received a good education in the public schools of his native state, but was only eighteen years old when he enlisted at Greenville, Ohio, on September 9, 1861, in Company G, Forty-fourth Ohio Infantry, for three years' service. The first captain of the company was J. M. Newkirk, and later J. Shaw was captain, and the colonel was Samuel Gilbert. He was in a number of battles of the war : at Lewisburg, West Virginia, May 23, 1862; the regiment was on detail duty much of the time in Virginia, and also in active service in Kentucky and Tennessee, participating in the siege of Knox- ville. While in Virginia Mr. Friday was wounded by a ball in the left leg and one in the right, also in the head, and two buckshot struck him in the back, all the wounds being received within a few minutes' time. He was taken prisoner and held in Andersonville for eight months, during which he suffered all the well known hardships of that prison pen. He weighed one hundred and sixty-four pounds when he was
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captured, and only ninety-four when he escaped. He was taken by transport to Baltimore, and was sent home to Ohio for sixty days, after which he joined his regiment at Parkersburg, Virginia, where he re- ceived his honorable discharge on account of disability. He came out as a corporal, and during his service suffered much for his country and gave full proof of his loyal devotion.
He returned to Ohio after the war, and in 1867, with his young bride, came to Jefferson county, Nebraska, and took a homestead east of Endicott, where he farmed for six years. He had learned the trade of carpenter, and he moved from his farm into Steele City, where he has had a busy career as builder and contractor. Many of the houses of the city and this part of the county are monuments to his work, and he has the reputation of being a first-class workman. He has a good home in Steele City, and is in prosperous circumstances.
Mr. Friday was married in Darke county, Ohio, in 1867, to Miss Rebecca Foreman, who was born in Pennsylvania, a daughter of Henry Foreman, also of that state. Twelve children have been born to Mr. and Mrs. Friday : Lillie M. Lambert ; Elmer L., a railroad man in Colo- rado; Myron, in Kansas; Miss Bertha A., of Steele City ; Ida Z. Woods, of this county ; Ruthelia M. Blair, of Chicago, Illinois; Pearl Beckwith; and Harry S., at home; and four who died in childhood.
Mr. Friday was postmaster of Steele City for one term. He was chairman of the school board, and has done much for the cause of edu- cation; and has been town trustee for ten years. He is a member of the Grand Army post, and affiliates with the Ancient Order of United Workmen. His wife is a member of the Methodist Episcopal church. They have both been interested in temperance and moral works, and are useful as well as highly esteemed members of society.
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ROBERT CRINKLAW.
Robert Crinklaw is one of the oldest settlers of Steele City, Ne- braska, where he took up his residence over thirty-five years ago. Al- though now in the main retired from active pursuits and in poor health, his past years have been exceedingly useful ones, and he has had a career of which he may well be proud. He has experienced pioneer conditions in Nebraska, and went through it all to prosperous circum- stances. Likewise as a citizen and soldier he has perfermed his part, and is honored and esteemed by all his friends and associates.
Mr. Crinklaw was born near London, Canada, April 16, 1837, in a family known for its uprightness and integrity. His ancestors .were Scotch, and of warlike disposition, having taken part in many of the wars of that nation. James Crinklaw, his father, was born in Scotland, and grew up there and was married to Miss Janette Smith, who was also born and reared in Scotland, and was of an old family in the heart of Scotland. They left Scotland and came to London, Canada, where he was a prosperous farmer. He died at the age of eighty-three, and his wife at seventy. He had been married twice, and by his first wife had two sons and three daughters, and by his second wife had six sons. One son. David, lives in St. Joseph, Missouri.
Robert Crinklaw was reared on a Canadian farm, and there de- veloped a vigorous constitution by chopping wood and clearing land and making rails. At the age of eighteen he went to McHenry county, Illinois, near Marengo, and worked at farm labor until the Civil war. In 1862 he responded to Lincoln's call for sixty thousand men, and enlisted in Company A, Ninety-fifth Illinois Infantry, under Captain Avery and Colonel Church, and later Colonel Humphreys, who was killed in Mississippi. He participated in many battles in Mississippi and Aalabama, was at the long siege of Vicksburg until the final sur-
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render on July 4. 1863; was at Natchez; in the Red River expedition and the battle of Sabine Cross Roads ; at the siege and capture of Mobile and Fort Blakely, and numerous other engagements. He served as corporal, and was a fine-looking soldier, standing six feet three in his stocking feet. After the war he returned to McHenry county, and later to Canada. In 1867 he came to Nebraska and took up a homestead. He lived in a log cabin for a time near Steele City, or rather where that town now stands. There were Indians in the vicinity, wild game abun- dant, and the entire country was primitive and untouched by man's civilizing hand. He still owns one hundred acres of his homestead. He came to Steele City and was in the implement business for a num- ber of years. He was also postmaster during Grant's administration, being Steele City's first postmaster. During the Indian massacre north- west of Steele City he went to the assistance of the settlers and helped bury those killed and take care of the living and helpless. For a num- ber of years he has been retired from business, partly because of his poor health, and is living in the enjoyment of the esteem and appre- ciation of his friends and neighbors.
Mr. Crinklaw was married in Jefferson county, Nebraska, to Miss Ida Flowers, a native of Michigan and a daughter of Mr. C. Flowers, of New York. Mr. and Mrs. Crinklaw have two sons : Frank is pro- prietor of the Steele City meat market, and he married Anna Kelly; Robert is a single man, in Chehalis, Washington. Mr. Crinklaw is a man of strong opinions on matters of politics and public interest, but is genial and popular in all his relations with others, and has hosts of friends.
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.CHARLES LEE FOWLER.
Charles Lee Fowler, the present popular and efficient postmaster of Steele City, Nebraska, is one of the best known men of southeastern Nebraska, and with a reputation pretty well diffused over the entire west. He is an old-time editor, having begun in the most humble capacity years ago, and is acquainted with newspaper business from bottom to top. He has also the honor of being a veteran of the Civil war. For a number of years lie was a pioneer actor and performer in the traveling shows and circuses which made the one phenomenal red- letter day of the western communities before and after the introduction of railroads. All these varied experiences have been crowded into a life of sixty-three years, and indicate him to be a man of resourceful ability, versatile and popular with all classes of citizens, such as he has proved to be since coming to Jefferson county a little over a decade ago.
Mr. Fowler was born in Fayette county, Pennsylvania, in Union- town, September 30, 1840, of an old and well known eastern family. W. Emory Fowler, his father, was a cousin of the late well known writer and publisher, Professor O. S. Fowler, of New York city. The former was a tinsmith by trade, and followed that pursuit for a num- ber of years in the east, and about 1850 became one of the early settlers of the state of Iowa, being in business in Des Moines for a time, and was also at New London, Henry county. He died at the age of seventy- eight, having been a Democrat in politics and liberal in religion. His wife was a Miss Van Every, of an old New York family, and her father was a relative of President Van Buren. She died at New Lon- don, Iowa, at the age of seventy, a member of the Christian church. They were parents of nine children.
Charles Lee Fowler was educated in the town schools, but most
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of his wide acquaintance with history and literature was gained by his own self-imposed study and the exigencies of his profession. He was helped by a very retentive memory, and his versatile nature soon dis- played itself. He began learning type-setting in Uniontown, Pennsyl- vania, being connected with the Genius of Liberty. He afterward went to Monmouth, Illinois, and then to Muscatine, Iowa. He was a young printer in a newspaper office there when the news of the rebellion first arrived. He and two or three others went out on the streets and made up the first drum corps, and enlisted recruits for the first Iowa volunteer regiment. He has the honor of being the first one enrolled from Iowa for service in the war, his enlistment dating in April, 1861, a few days after Sumter was fired upon. Captain Mason, of Muscatine, com- manded the company, and Colonel Bates, of Dubuque, the regiment. They were sent south to the Hannibal and St. Joe Railroad, and took part in many of the conflicts in Missouri during the early perioel of the war. He was with General Lyon at Booneville, also at Springfield, and at Wilson Creek, where Lyon was killed, and in the campaign against Price. He helped publish the first Union paper in the south, at Macon, Missouri, on June 15, 1861, and it sold for one dollar and a half a copy. The other editors were F. B. Wickel, E. G. Upham, S. T. Orr and Joseph Biles. Mr. Fowler was honorably discharged, and then returned to Iowa, where he engaged in more peaceful pursuits.
He continued as a type-setter in Iowa for a time, and in 1865 went to Colorado, where he worked on the Rocky Mountain News. He had already displayed his genius as an actor and clown, was possessed of a good voice, and these qualifications soon led him into the most exciting part of his career. He was offered a good salary to become an actor in Denver, and from this beginning he traveled over most of the west and south, entertaining hundreds of delighted audiences.
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He was a good singer of comic songs, and popular in minstrels and variety shows. He received one hundred dollars a week as end man with Heatly and Chase, and he played with John Dillon and other well known actors. He was later with Fanny Hernandez, lessee of the Larimer Street theatre in Denver, and as general utility man received a good salary. He took a leading part in "All is not Gold that Glit- ters." The Fanny Hernandez troupe played at Fort Sedgewick, Colo- rado, in an adobe house, tickets at a dollar apiece. At the government post at Julesburg they put up cottonwood posts, shut in the sides with tarpaulin, and with the blue sky as their roof played to a large audi- ence. This was the first company to make the rounds of government posts, and at Fort Kearney they remained a week, following the re- turn of the soldiers from the Powder River expedition. They then came on to Columbus, Nebraska, then to Fremont, where they played in a storeroom, and at Omaha the only available hall was the court house. At Omaha Mr. Fowler took the management of the Dallows Concert Hall for the winter, and then went down the Missouri river with a party to St. Joseph and Kansas City. At Olathe, Kansas, he joined. in 1866, the Johnson and Van Vleck Circus Company, and was a comic singer and clown for them at a salary of twenty-five dollars a week. He was taken sick at Waverly, Iowa, in September. 1866, and in May, 1867, he joined the McGinley and Carrol Circus of Fond du Lac. Wisconsin. On April 27. 1868, he joined the Cramer and Hampson Circus at Albia, Iowa, as a clown and singer, and was with them in the same capacity during the following year. On May 14. 1870, he joined O'Conner's Great Western Circus at Galesburg, Illinois, and he was now receiving fifty dollars a week, and refusing many good offers. In 1871 he joined the same circus at Hiawatha, Kansas, and during the winter was with the Empire City Circus, of Mobile, Alabama, all
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through the south. April 8, 1872, he joined, at Lincoln, Nebraska, the Saxby, Dunbar, Brooks and Ensign International Circus. He later joined Dr. Backenstoes' Cosmopolitan Circus at Keithsburg, Illinois, and went on steamboat with it up to the headwaters of the Mississippi and back to Memphis, Tennessee. In 1873 he was with W. W. Cole's Circus, of Quincy, Illinois, and in the following winter was in the south with Norton and Haight. In 1874 he was with the Great Eastern Circus, as also in 1875. In 1876 he was with G. G. Grady Circus Com- pany, and in the following year ended his circus business. He then accepted a partnership in -a printing office at Stewartsville, Missouri. He played in the first two-ring circus ever on the road, and was also with the first railroad show that ever traveled. He came to Steele City, Nebraska, in 1892, and was a publisher and editor for several years. He received his appointment as postmaster in 1898, and has given satisfactory service to the people of the town where he is so popular as a man.
In June, 1870, Mr. Fowler was married in Fairfield, Jefferson county, Iowa, to Miss Lou Moore, who has been his faithful companion through all the up and downs of his career for thirty-three years. She is a lady of more than ordinary ability and culture, and is beloved at home and popular abroad. She was born, reared and educated in Iowa, a daughter of Dr. B. N. Moore, who was a successful physician of the old school, coming from Ohio to Iowa, where he died at the age of sixty. Dr. Moore was a Democrat. a liberal in religious belief. He married Rebecca Shellenbarger, of an old Dutch family, and they had four children, two sons and two daughters, the son George Moore hav- ing been a soldier and now residing at Mount Pleasant, Iowa. Mr. and Mrs. Fowler have one daughter, Florence Currie, who is the mother of two children. A son, Ralph D., died at the age of eight years. Mr.
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Fowler is a stanch Republican, and has been an active worker for the party all his life.
J. S. TAYLOR, M. D.
Dr. J. S. Taylor, physician and surgeon of Steele City, Jefferson county, Nebraska, has been successfully engaged in practice here since 1888, and has gained the confidence of the people in his ability and their patronage. He was a very young man when he settled here for prac- tice, and he still has the greater part and most useful part of his! career before him. He is a well read man in his profession, and his success as a practitioner has not kept him from advancing in knowledge as well as experience.
Dr. Taylor was born in Huntington county, Indiana, in 1866, a member of one of the oldest and most prominent families of the county. His great - grandfather, Robert Taylor, and his great - grand- mother both came from Ireland. The former fought in the Revolu- tionary war in South Carolina. They lived about twenty-five miles from Charleston, near Laurens Court House, from which place after the death of the great-grandfather the great-grandmother, in 1808, emigrated to Indiana, which was then a territory. In that commonwealth she reared her family of four sons and one daughter, and all lived and died there. Dr. Taylor's grandfather died in Franklin county, Indiana, about fifty miles west of Cincinnati, in 1867. Richard T. Taylor, the father of Dr. Taylor, was born in Franklin county, Indiana. He came to Huntington county in early manhood, and married Miss Salinda A. First, of Bluffton. Wells county, Indiana, a daughter of Jacob First, who came from Pennsyl- vania to Wells county in 1833. Richard T. Taylor and wife moved from
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