USA > Nebraska > A Biographical and genealogical history of southeastern Nebraska, Vol. I > Part 10
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CHESTER REUBEN CAMP.
Chester Reuben Camp, a retired farmer in Auburn in his seventy- sixth year, has been one of the enterprising and progressive citizens of Nemaha county for forty years, so that he is one of the old settlers and has witnessed in his time a wonderful transformation of this country from unproductive prairies to a paradise of farms and towns. He has made his handsome property by diligence early and late and shrewd man- agement, so that he has well earned the prosperity and comfort which have come to his later years. He is public-spirited as well, and has always been willing to help along any worthy enterprise for the general welfare.
Mr. Camp was born in Ontario county, New York, March 4, 1828.
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His father, John Camp, was born in Massachusetts about 1787, and died in Hillsdale county, Michigan, in 1856. He was a shoemaker and a farmer. He was married in New York to Amy Scott, who died in Mich- igan in 1863. They had come to that state in 1837. They were parents of five children, and reared three of them. Sylvester died past middle life in Hillsdale county, Michigan, leaving one son and one daughter; Patience, the wife of Joseph Benfield, died in Lenawee county, Michigan, in 1846.
Chester Reuben Camp, the only survivor of the children, was reared on the home farm in Michigan. He received his education in the dis- trict school, and after completing its studies was asked to become its teacher, but declined. He worked out by the month until he was mar- ried, and for two years he farmed the old homestead. In 1863 he came to Nemaha county and bought a quarter section in Glen Rock precinct, paying two yoke of oxen and one hundred dollars for it. He afterward traded this, with four hundred dollars to boot, for the farm on which he made his home for so many years. He has been an indefatigable worker, and has made his farming operations pay unusually well. He continued his active work on the farm until 1899, and in that. year sold his land for fifty dollars an acre, but it is now worth seventy-five. He then located in his nice home on one and a half lots in Auburn, and is hare surrounded with all the comforts desired by one whose life has been passed in such strenuous effort.
December 17, 1852, Mr. Camp was married to Miss Sally M. Phil- lips, who was born in St. Lawrence county, New York, June 9, 1832. Her parents, Allen and Lydia (Baker) Phillips, were born, respectively. in Vermont and New York, and were married in the latter state. They reared seven children, five daughters and two sons, all of whom had fami- lies, and all are now deceased except Mrs. Camp, who was the sixth
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child. They were farmers in New York, and came from that state to Michigan in 1838. In the spring of 1857 they drove their team overland to Nebraska, and laid a land warrant on one hundred and sixty acres in Glen Rock precinct, where they began humbly and experienced the trials and privations of a new country. They returned to Michigan in 1860, and spent the winter with Mr. and Mrs. Camp, but on March 25, 1861, they once more landed in Nebraska, where they spent the remainder of their lives.
Mr. and Mrs. Camp have had two children. Alvaretta is the wife of John M. Elliott, in South Auburn, and they have twelve of their four- teen children; Calvin, who died in 1876 at the age of seventeen years and seven months, of scarlet fever, was a promising youth, bright and energetic, and his death was a great sorrow to his parents. Mr. Camp has always voted with the Democrats, and officially has served as school director and supervisor of roads. He and his wife are esteemed members of the Highland Baptist church.
HON. JOHN H. POHLMAN.
Hon. John H. Pohlman, who is one of the model agriculturists of Washington precinct, Nemaha county, and whose farming and stock- raising operations in this county have brought him a most gratifying degree of material prosperity, is one of the old settlers of this part of the state. He crossed the Missouri river on the 10th day of May, 1867, having driven across the state of Iowa in real emigrant style, with four of the best horses which had been seen in this part of the country for some time, and which excited universal admiration when he passed through the small town of Brownville to the place which he took up from
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the government. He has made his home here for the past thirty-eight or more years, experiencing several of the ups and downs which fortune pays all men, but on the whole being unusually successful. He has shown himself to be a man of strictest integrity, uprightness in business dealings, thoroughly capable and careful in the management of his affairs, and exhibiting a degree of industry which would bring success in any vocation. His principal occupation since taking up his residence in this state has been the subduing of the soil and its cultivation and the raising of all the products for which this section of the state is so justly famed, but he has likewise been keenly interested in the public welfare and the upbuilding and development of the community of his residence, having been more than once called to responsible offices in the gift of his fellow citizens.
Mr. Pohlman was born in Neumuenster, Schleswig-Holstein, Ger- many, Angust 25, 1839, His father, Hartwig Pohlman, was a railroad man in Germany and died there at the age of forty-eight, leaving his widow and two sons with a small estate. He was born in 1799 and died in 1847. He had married Miss Anna Inselman, and they had two sons, John H. being the elder, and Fred was a printer and died in Chicago at the age of forty years, leaving his wife and three children. Mr. Pohl- man's mother crossed the Atlantic in 1857, and landed in New York on July 4th, having been seven weeks and three days on the ocean. She came ont to Illinois, and was later married in Peoria to Charles Polster, who came from the same part of Germany as she had. She died in Peoria, September 30, 1898, aged eighty-three years, and strong in body and spirit to the last, having been sick only one week before she passed away.
Mr. Pohlman had a good education in his native land up to his seventeenth year, and also attended school awhile after he arrived in
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Knox county, Illinois. He worked in Illinois at wages from six to fifteen dollars a month, and was thus engaged until the war. August 18, 1861, he enlisted in Company C, Forty-seventh Illinois Infantry, and served thirteen months, but was discharged at St. Louis on account of physical disability, on September 27, 1863. He was confined in the hospital for two months before his discharge. His pension of eight dol- lars a month has recently been raised to twelve. After his marriage in 1863 he lived in Illinois until he started across the country, in a large covered wagon, and was thirteen days on the road to Nebraska, bringing his wife and two children to the new country across the Missouri. He took up government land, and his first residence cost him ten hundred and eighty dollars, but in 1871 this with its contents was burned to the ground. He could ill afford such a loss at that time, and in order to rebuild he was compelled to sacrifice a team of fine horses which he loved so well, selling them for four hundred dollars and erecting a cheaper res- idence until he could build a better. With the increase of his family and his material prosperity he tore down his house number two, and has now one of the most substantial and comfortable country residences in this part of the county. It has two stories, with ten rooms, a cement- floored basement under all, and is everywhere known as one of the model homes of the vicinity. It is surrounded by a beautiful lawn, with cement walks leading in all directions, and the einbowering groves of shade and fruit trees give the entire place a setting and charm which would entice any beauty-lover to an hour's repose within its boundaries. Mr. Pohlman has always engaged in general farming and stock-raising, and his fine orchard of five acres, which he tends carefully and does not allow to die out, has also been a source of revenue, in addition to supply- ing the home with all needed fruit. He has shipped as high as three carloads of apples in one season. In the matter of stock Mr. Pohlman
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has always been an enthusiastic lover of fine horses, and he usually raises from twenty to twenty-five head, and each year feeds from forty-five to one hundred head of Poll Angus cattle and about five hundred hogs of the Poland China strain. He raises some of the best mules in the country. His farm consists of three hundred and twenty acres, and all its improve- ments and equipments and methods of cultivation show the up-to-date and progressive agriculturist who owns it.
December 23, 1863, Mr. Pohlman was married in Knoxville, Illi- nois, to Miss Elizabeth Crawford, who was born in Knox county, Illinois, November 4, 1845. Her parents were Thomas and Diana (Metcalf) Crawford, who were born May 15, 1807, and February 20, 1809, respec- tively, and were married December 18, 1830, being the parents of fourteen children, as follows : Three died in infancy or childhood ; James Crawford died in California aged about sixty-five years; Thomas died in California when about fifty, leaving a wife ; Deborah, the wife of James Buck, died in Illinois, leaving three children; Mrs. Mary Daniels lives in California, having one son: Robert died during the Civil war, leaving two children; Joanna is in California and has three children; Martha, the wife of John Thompson, died in Nemaha county, leaving two children; Mrs. Pohlman is the next of the family; Vachel is a farmer in Jewell county, Kansas, and has five children ; William, a dealer in musical instruments in Lincoln, Nebraska, has three daughters and one son; Walter died at the age of nineteen. Thomas Crawford, the father of this family, died in California about 1894, aged eighty-seven years, and his wife had passed away in 1859.
Fifteen children have been born to Mr. and Mrs. Pohlman, as fol- lows: Frank C., born in Knox county, Illinois, in 1864, is a successful stock rancher in Thomas county, Kansas, and has two sons and three daughters; Minnie L., born in Illinois in February, 1866, is the wife
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of George Leiser in Grand Island, Nebraska, and has four daughters; John H., born in Nebraska, December 7, 1868, died when two years old; Olive B., born October 19, 1870, is the wife of B. L. Brinkley, of John- son, and has two daughters and one son; Etta, born August 28, 1872, is the wife of Byron Phelan, a farmer in Nemaha county, and has five sons ; Anna, born March 8, 1874, is the wife of John Weber, a farmer of Nemaha county, and has one daughter; Homer J., born February 25, 1876, a farmer near his father's place and for the past two years a mail carrier, has two sons ; Thomas C., born December 30, 1878, is unmarried and at home; Fred, born January 28, 1880, died when two years old; Ella and Della, twins, born August 25, 1882, died within twenty-four hours of each other when two years old; John H. and Jennie. born June IO, 1884, are both at home; Charles P., born October 17, 1886, is a student in Grand Island College; and Rose, born January 4, 1887, is at home and attending school in Johnson. The daughters all have musical taste and sing and play. Withal it is a family to be proud of, and Mr. and Mrs. Pohlman thoroughly enjoy and appreciate their model home.
Mr. Pohlman has served his fellow citizens two terms in the lower house of the legislature, and made a name while there for conscientious interest in the welfare of his costituents and the state. He has also served nine years in the office of county commissioner. He has always been a stanch Republican, and is logical and intelligent in his beliefs. He was reared in the faith of the Lutheran church, while his wife is a Methodist. He is one of the German Americans who on coming to this country readily adapted themselves to the ways and customs of this land and acquired the language with the readiness of a child learning its own vernacular, so that he has since helped many other Germans who have worked for him to learn the language.
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DANIEL GOODMAN.
Daniel Goodman, one of the prominent farmers and stock-raisers of Gage county, near Adams, Nebraska, is an old-time citizen of the state, having first settled here twenty-five years ago, and he has lived in Gage county for fifteen years. His life is a record of loyal citizenship, for he is listed among the veterans of the Civil war, where he displayed brave and creditable service as a soldier, and in all his subsequent activity has been as true to duty and the obligations imposed by family and society as when a youth wearing the blue uniform of a Union soldier.
Mr. Goodman was born in Northumberland county, Pennsylvania, in 1845, of an old and highly respected family of that county and state. His parents, Daniel and Katie (Wagner) Goodman, were also natives of that county, and his great-grandfather Wagner was a patriot soldier of the Revolutionary war. Daniel Goodman, Sr., was an honest farmer, a good citizen, a member of the Reformed church, a Republican in politics, a man respected wherever he went. Both he and his wife died in Penn- sylvania. They had fourteen children, ten sons and four daughters, and three sons, Eli, Nathan and Daniel, were soldiers in the Civil war.
Daniel Goodman, Jr., was reared on a farm and taught to work and given an honest purpose in life. He was eighteen years old when he decided to become a soldier. In February, 1863, he enlisted from his native county as a member of Company I, Forty-ninth Pennsylvania Infantry. He was in the terrible Wilderness campaign, at the battles of Cold Harbor, Spottsylvania Court House, Winchester and other en- gagements of lesser importance. He was around Petersburg during the last days of the war, and took part in the grand review of the troops at the close, after which he received an honorable discharge as an honored veteran of the greatest war in the annals of history, and went home with
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a record of service which will always remain a matter of pride to him- self and his descendants.
Shortly after his return from the war Mr. Goodman went west to Stephenson county, Illinois, and settled on a farm near Freeport, where he lived until 1874, in which year he first took up his residence in the state of Nebraska, locating in Otoe county, near Dunbar. Here the noted grasshopper scourge descended upon him, destroying his crops and all his prospects for the time, and gave him such a bad opinion of Nebraska in general that he returned to Illinois and did not make the venture of settling across the Missouri for several years. But on coming to Ne- braska for the second time he fared better and came to realize the abun- dant resources of the state. He has been in Gage county for fourteen years, and is now a prosperous and contented agriculturist. He owns eighty-five acres of land, with a pretty and comfortable residence, ample barns, a fine lot of horses and cattle, and everything needed by the model Nebraska farmer.
In Stephenson county, near Freeport, Illinois, in 1881, Mr. Goodman was married to Miss Emma Reed, who has been a faithful wife and helper to him for over twenty years. She was born in Schuylkill county, Penn- sylvania, one of the eight children of Daniel and Mary (Hay) Reed, who were natives of Pennsylvania, and the former of whom died in Otoe county, and the latter in Gage county, Nebraska. Mr. and Mrs. Good- man have one daughter, Essie, now the wife of Oscar Vanderpool, of Lancaster county, Nebraska, and they have one daughter, Goldie Van- derpool. Mr. Goodman is a stanch Republican in politics, and affiliates with the Sergeant Cox Post No. 100, G. A. R., at Adams. He is a man of excellent business ability and attractive social qualities, and is respected and liked by everyone.
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HENRICK L. WATSON.
Henrick L. Watson, proprietor of the general blacksmith and repair shops of Adams, Nebraska, is one of the most successful men in his line in Southeastern Nebraska. He has been a respected resident of Adams for twenty-three years, so that he is really an old settler. He has been engaged in his trade continuously for forty years and his present pros- perity has been well earned.
Mr. Watson was born in Tuscarawas county, Ohio, May 2, 1845. His father, William Watson, was born in Scotland, of an old Scotch family, and was a tailor by trade. He voted the Republican ticket, and was a Scotch Presbyterian in religion. He died in Ohio at the age of sixty-nine, honored and respected for his worthy character. His wife was Lucy Barrett, a native of New York state, and she died when sixty- eight years old. They had eight sons and three daughters. Their son Evanett was drum major of the Ninety-eighth Ohio Infantry, and with Sherman in the march to the sea. Some of the sons are deceased, and the two daughters living are Mary and Eda.
Henrick L. Watson was reared and educated in Ohio. During the war he enlisted in Company E, One Hundred and Sixty-first Ohio Infantry, under Captain Cables and Colonel Taylor, and served four months. He was at Harper's Ferry, and at various points in Virginia and Maryland. He learned his trade as an iron and steel worker in the railroad shops at Denison, Ohio, where he remained for five years, and became very proficient, as his subsequent success proves. He followed his trade in Illinois and other states for ten years, and came to Johnson county, Nebraska, twenty-five years ago, two years later taking up his residence at Adams, Gage county, where he founded the business which he has carried on so successfully ever since. He has all the patronage
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which he can handle, and the long continuance of some of his customers gives his work the stamp of reliability.
Mr. Watson was married in 1887 to Miss Jennie Shaw, a grand- daughter of Benjamin Shaw and a daughter of John Shaw, who is one of the honored old settlers of Adams, having come here in 1857. The Shaw family history is given on other pages of this work. John and Sarah Shaw both reside in Adams. Mr. and Mrs. Watson have six children : Blanche, Eda, Ruth, Lucy, Esther, and John Mckibben. Mr. Watson is a Republican in political creed, and he and his wife are valued members of the Presbyterian church. They are liberal in dispensing their means and their efforts for the general welfare, and have a happy home and many friends throughout the town and county.
JOHN EDWARD LAMBERT.
John Edward Lambert, one of the leading agriculturists and stock- raisers of Nemaha precinct, Nemaha postoffice, has been a resident of Nemaha county for over thirty-five years. Coming here poor in health and pocket, he has taken advantage of opportunities as they presented themselves, has been an indefatigable worker in everything that he has undertaken, and his efforts have been rewarded by his being now in the front rank of the farmers of the county.
Mr. Lambert was born in Franklin county, Virginia, August 19, 1837. His grandfather and grandmother were Virginia farmers, and the latter (ncc Moore) was old enough to spin during the Revolution. Two of their sons volunteered for service in the Mexican war and were made officers, and one was disabled while drilling cavalry troops and the other was killed by his horse. Two other sons came and settled in Mis-
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souri in an early day. Grandmother Lambert died in Virginia when nearly a centenarian.
Edward Lambert, the father of John Edward Lambert, was born in Virginia about 1796, and died in Montgomery county of that state in 1862. He was a wagon-maker by trade, and had his shop on his farm, which he also tilled. He married Sarah Acres, of Virginia, who was related by marriage to the celebrated Pocahontas. She died in 1865 when nearly sixty-seven years old. Edward Lambert was a man of great strength and vigorous constitution, and his death was caused by falling into ice cold water, from which he contracted lung fever. Neither of them was member of any church, but they reared their children under the best moral influences. They had a large family of children : Clayton, a farmer, died in Virginia about fifty years old, and had four children; Martha Ann, the wife of John Poff, died in Virginia at about forty-five, the mother of two sons and one daughter; Daniel is employed on public works in various parts of the country, and did not marry till late in life, having one son; William A., came to Nebraska in 1857, and is a farmer in Nemaha precinct; Amanda is the wife of George W. Broce, in Ten- nessee, and has six sons and six daughters; Adaline is the wife of Lewis Broce, in Ironton, Ohio, and has two daughters; Samuel Henry was accidentally killed by his brother at the age of three; John E. is the next of the children; Fleming Joseph, a farmer near Oxford Junc- tion, Nebraska, came to the state with his brother John, arriving on the day the state was admitted into the Union; Susan Elizabeth is the wife of Benjamin Moore, in Mississippi, and has nine children.
John Edward Lambert had very few advantages in the subscription schools of Virginia, and at the age of twenty years left the home in Montgomery county with the intention of coming to Nebraska. He stopped, however, in Lawrence county; Ohio, and worked on a farm by
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the month for a year at twelve dollars a month, the usual wages being even lower than that. He then returned to Virginia, and remained there until the latter part of 1861, when he enlisted in Company K, Eighth Virginia Infantry, of the Union army. He was taken sick in camp and was in the hospital for some time, and when he started to join his regi- ment he was captured by the Confederates. He was kept in durance vile for about two years, in the jails at Stanton, Lynchburg, Belle Isle, and in Libby. He escaped twice and was recaptured, but finally took perma- nent departure from captivity, and was secreted from the rebels during the rest of the war. In 1867 he came with his brother Fleming to Ne- braska, directly from Virginia. He had fifty dollars of borrowed money, and was an invalid from the exposure of prison life. The dry air of the western prairies soon reinvigorated him, and he was able to ply energet- ically his trade of mason, and was also a tenant farmer both before and after his marriage. After his marriage he sold the forty acres which he had managed to acquire, but since then has been continually adding to his real estate interests until he is now owner of five hundred and eighty-six acres of contiguous land, with two dwellings and barns, and he has a tenant farmer on a part of the land. He has successfully carried on mixed farming, raising as high as ten thousand bushels of corn annually. During the thirty-six years that he has spent in this state his average yearly profits have been a thousand dollars, which is a record to be proud of.
Mr. Lambert was married December 9, 1873. to Miss Tena Webber, who was born in Bradford county, Pennsylvania, a daughter of John and Polly ( Morse) Webber, farmers, who came to Missouri in 1859, and in 1866 to this neighborhood, where they bought forty acres; they reared two children, and Mr. Webber had two sons and a daughter by a former marriage. Mr. and Mrs. Lambert have had five children: Dora, the
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wife of R. L. Keister, died at the age of twenty-five; Luella, whom everyone called Lou, was the wife of William Russell, and died a bride of two months, at the age of nineteen; Miss Sarah Ada, aged nineteen, is at home; Waverly M. died aged eighteen months; Dan is in the dis- trict school. Mr. Lambert has been a Republican in principle, but is now independent in the casting of his vote. He has been successful in the ultimate outcome of his business career.
JOHN W. BARNHART.
John W. Barnhart, proprietor and publisher of the Nemaha County Herald, Auburn, Nebraska, was born November 8, 1856, in Mount Joy, Lancaster county, Pennsylvania. Alsace-Lorraine was the home of the Barnharts before they came to this country, and their arrival in America dates back beyond the Revolutionary period. One of Mr. Barnhart's grandsires was a commanding officer under Washington in the war of the Revolution. His father and grandfather, Israel and Jacob Barn- hart, were born in York county, Pennsylvania, the former in 1827 and the latter in 1793. Grandfather Barnhart passed his life and died in his native county, his age at death being seventy-eight years. Israel Barn- hart has for many years been a resident of Mount Joy, Pennsylvania, and as a contractor and builder has been prominently identified with that place. He was married in 1853 to Miss Lydia Bear, a native of Lancaster county, Pennsylvania, born in 1826, daughter of a merchant tailor. Of the six children born to them, we record that Mary is the wife of John S. Hamaker; John W. was the second born; William B. is a resident of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania ; Henry C. lives in York, Penn- sylvania; Samuel B. is a resident of Pittsburg; and Elizabeth, the
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