USA > Nebraska > A Biographical and genealogical history of southeastern Nebraska, Vol. I > Part 11
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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 | Part 40
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youngest, resides at Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. The father, Israel Barn- hart, makes his home with his daughter, Mrs. Hamaker, in Mount Joy, the mother having died in 1895.
John W. Barnhart obtained his education in the public schools of his native town and at Cedar Hill Seminary. He began his newspaper work as "printer's devil" in the office of the Mount Joy Herald, and remained in that office three years, working his way up and thoroughly familiarizing himself with every detail of the business. He was after- wards employed for a short time in the office of the Daily New Era, at Lancaster, Pennsylvania. In 1877, he came west to Nebraska, first locat- ing in Lincoln and soon afterwards removing to Sterling, where he estab- lished the Sterling News, a weekly paper which he published a year and a half. His next move was to Tecumseh. There he started the Johnson County Journal, a weekly paper Democratic in politics. This paper he sold in the spring of 1881. Returning to Lincoln, he purchased a half interest with General Victor Vifquain, in the Daily State Democrat. One year later General Vifquain sold his interest in the paper to Hon. Albert Watkins, and the firm became Watkins & Barnhart. In the sum- mer of 1883 Mr. Barnhart sold out to Hon. W. S. Sawyer, who was afterwards United States district attorney for the district of Nebraska. In the fall of 1883 Mr. Barnhart located at Elk Creek, Nebraska, where he published the Echo until the latter part of 1887, and at the same time was postmaster of the town, his appointment being made by President Cleveland. Late in 1887 he moved his plant to Auburn, and February I, 1888, issued his first copy of the Nemaha County Herald. He owns the building in which his plant is located and from time to time has made improvements and enlargements in his equipment until he is now pre- pared to care for the regular work of the paper, which at this writing has a circulation of over two thousand seven hundred, and also to do
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the large amount of job printing which comes to his office. His employes number seven to ten.
Mr. Barnhart married, in 1883, in Tecumseh, Nebraska, Miss Clarabel Foster, a native of Greencastle, Indiana, and a daughter of William L. and Adelaid (Chittenden) Foster. Mrs. Barnhart was educated in her native town, famed far and near as an educational center, and had for one of her professors the historian Ridpatlı. She was for some time previous to her marriage a teacher. They have three sons and two daughters, namely; Edgar Geoffrey, Kathryn Elois, Charles Bryan, Chandler Foster, and Marguerite.
Mr. Barnhart is, fraternally, identified with the Knights of Pythias and the Ancient Order of United Workmen. Politically he is a Demo- crat, active and enthusiastic in party affairs. He has served his ward in Auburn as a member of the common council. In 1897 he was in the legislature as second assistant clerk of the house of representatives. At this writing he is secretary and treasurer of the Nebraska Democratic Editorial Association, with office at Auburn. Mr. and Mrs. Barnhart in their religious faith are Episcopalians.
ABNER R LOOFBOURROW.
Abner R. Loofbourrow, a retired farmer who has resided in or near the city of Peru for the past thirty years, and has lived in Nebraska since 1869, is well known and thoroughly esteemed and respected throughout Nemaha county and has had a career of unusual interest. While he is now seventy-five years old, he still retains his powers of mind and body and is able to enjoy the comforts which his past labors have given him. As a citizen he has performed all the duties which have fallen
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to his lot, as a toiler in the world for his individual gain he has been successful, and as the father of a family he has placed his children well equipped on the road of life and won their undying love and respect as a father and kind friend.
Mr. Loofbourrow was born in Fayette county, Pennsylvania, Jan- uary 2, 1829. His grandfather, David Loofbourrow, was born in Scot- land in 1755, and after coming to America was a soldier in the ranks of the patriot army, afterward drawing a pension for the part he had ren- dered as a soldier of the country. He was an old-school physician and also a Baptist minister, and though he lived a life of usefulness to his fellow men he was not a money-getter. He died at the age of ninety- three years, and his last resting place is in Jefferson county, Ohio. He was twice married. By his first wife, Amy Gaskell, he had three sons and two daughters. His second wife, the grandmother of Mr. Loof- bourrow, was Catherine Rittenhouse, a native of New York or of New England.
David Loofbourrow, the father of Abner Loofbourrow, was born in Pennsylvania, January 4, 1799, and died in Van Buren county, Iowa, in June, 1877. He and his wife were members of the Baptist church. He was married about 1819 to Miss Jane Shanks, who was born in Fay- ette county, Pennsylvania, in 1800, and died in 1881. They had eleven children, eight of whom came to adult age: Malinda, the wife of Joseph Day, died in Jefferson county, Ohio, in 1870 at the age of forty-seven, leaving two sons and three daughters. Louisa died at the age of twenty- two, unmarried. William, who died in Fairfield, Iowa, in 1853, was a teacher, and in the year of his death he and his wife had come from Ohio to Council Bluffs, Iowa. Abner R. is the next of the children. David, a farmer died in Humboldt county, Kansas, at the age of fifty- six, leaving seven sons. John, a farmer and teacher, died in Harrison
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county, Ohio, in 1871, and left two sons. Wade is a farmer in Wayne county, Iowa, and has eight children. James now a farmer in Van Buren county, Iowa, was a soldier in the Civil war, and on one battlefield was left for dead and was supposed for six months to be dead; he lost an eye in the service and has been totally blind for years, but is very active, cheerful and performs his farm duties with wonderful ability; he is a great 'favorite at the soldiers' reunions, and recently attended one in Ohio; he has five sons and one daughter, all grown.
Abner R. Loofbourrow had a limited schooling in the district schools up to the age of sixteen years, and while his elder brother William was away at college he was required for the work at home. He remained at home until he was past his twenty-second year, and after his marriage lived with his wife's family until 1854. In that year he came west to Jasper county, Iowa, and bought a quarter section of new prairie land, where he made his home and engaged in the improvement of his land until 1869. He then sold his place for five thousand dollars, at a hand- some profit over his original investment. In the fall of 1869 he came to Richardson county, Nebraska, and with four thousand dollars of his cash capital bought a farm of two hundred and forty-four acres, with fair improvements. He came to Peru on the first of January, 1873, and bought a farm of eighty acres near by. This he soon sold at a profit, and bought a farm of fifty-five acres adjoining the town of Peru. He also disposed of this place at an advantage, and his present property con- sists of seven acres within the city limits. He has three houses, two of which he had built, and bought the other, the newest one renting for two hundred dollars a year. Before the death of his wife they kept boarders, and he now takes roomers from the normal students.
June 19, 1851, Mr. Loofbourrow was married to Miss Mary Jane Carr, who was born in Jefferson county, Ohio, in November, 1834. Her
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father, William Carr, married a Miss Bechtell, and they were farmers in good circumstances in Ohio, where they died past middle life, leaving Mrs. Loofbourrow as their only daughter. Mr. and Mrs. Loofbourrow had six children : William, who is a college-bred man and a minister of the Methodist Episcopal church, is located at Atwood, Kansas, and has been married twice, having seven living children, three sons and four daughters; Wade, born in Iowa in 1856, died in Red Willow county, Nebraska, in July, 1891, leaving a wife; Mary, the wife of Mr. N. E. Wagner, a shoemaker and dealer in Eureka, California, has four sons and two daughters; Rose, who graduated from the Peru normal at the age of nineteen and taught school for ten or twelve years, is now the wife of Mr. A. D. Brown, a machinist in the mills of Eureka, Cali- fornia, and they have two children; Lillian, the wife of Marion Newton, having been a teacher before her marriage, died at the age of thirty years ; Thaddeus Lincoln, who graduated from Rush Medical College in Chi- cago and was one of the thirty out of a class of two hundred to carry off honors, is now practicing medicine in Eureka, California, and has four daughters.
The mother of this family died in Peru, June 2, 1889. On Janu- ary 7, 1892, Mr. Loofbourrow was married to Mrs. Millie Carl, the widow of James Carl. Her maiden name was Thompkins, and she was born in Galesburg, Illinois. She was a teacher, and a noble and true Christian woman. She died January 16, 1903, at the age of sixty years. She was an active worker in the Methodist Episcopal church, although reared in the Congregational faith. She was of a most intellectual and high-minded family, and one of her brothers is a Congregational minister in Chicago and another is a physician. Mr. Loofbourrow voted the Republican ticket until about ten years ago, since which time he has sup-
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ported the Prohibition cause. He has been connected with both the Baptist and the Methodist churches, and has held official relations in both.
BENJAMIN T. SKEEN.
Benjamin T. Skeen, who is one of the thoroughly practical farmers and stockmen of Nemaha county, residing in London precinct, Brown- ville postoffice, has lived in this part of southeastern Nebraska practically all his life, since the year 1855, when the country was one unbroken stretch of prairie and woodland, uncultivated, unimproved, the haunt of the Indian and the wild animals which had roamed it for all the pre- ceding centuries. Coming at such a period, he has naturally been a wit- ness to all the development and progress which have transformed the land into waving grain fields, beautiful homesteads and prosperous towns and villages, and he has taken his due share in this work of advance- ment.
Mr. Skeen belongs to one of the old families of the country, various members of which have taken part in all the principal wars of the republic. He is of Scotch-Irish origin. Alexander Skeen, great-grandfather of Mr. Skeen, was a patriot of the Revolution, and died in a prison pen with his oldest son. His wife Sarah then left her home in South Caro- lina with her only son, Jesse, and came to Tennessee. Jesse Skeen was born in South Carolina, November 20, 1764, and was a Tennessee planter. He married Keziah, a daughter of Robert Tailor, and born April II, 1777. They reared all their ten children, three sons and seven daughters. Kenyon Skeen, the oldest of the sons, was a farmer of Ken- tucky, where he lived and died, leaving five children; Alexander D. Skeen, born November 18, 1815, was an early settler to Nemaha county,
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his further history being detailed with that of T. B. Skeen in another part of this work.
John G. Skeen, the other son, was born in Tennessee, September 3, 1818, and died in Nemaha county, January 28, 1899. He married Miss Melinda Dinning, who was born in Tennessee, January 16, 1815, and is now living in Wabaunsee county, Kansas, bright in mind and body for all her eighty-eight years. Her father was a school teacher and a Mis- sissippi flatboatman, born in May, 1794, and died April 28, 1829, and his wife was Lavina Beason, born in 1794 and died in 1875, and they reared four children. Melinda was the only daughter, and she was married to John G. Skeen, December 12, 1843, by whom she had seven children : Andrew J., born October 27, 1844, is a farmer and stock rancher in Wabaunsee county, Kansas, where his mother lives, and has eight sons and one daughter; Melvina E., born October 29, 1847, the wife of James Maddox, died in Nebraska, July 8, 1890, leaving two sons and one daughter ; Alexander, born April 28, 1850, died when eight months old; Benjamin T. is the next in order of birth; Kenyon P., born June 6, 1853, died May 25, 1857; John W., born June 29, 1855, died May 7, 1857; Melinda J., born August 22, 1858, the only one born in Nebraska, is the wife of C. W. Roberts, in this county, and has two sons and two daughters. John G. Skeen's first wife was Betsey Herald, who died leaving one child, Mary K., born January 22, 1842. She married E. Harwood, by whom she had a son, John W. Harwood, and she then married James Thrush, by whom she had a daughter, who is now a Mrs. Beattie, in Logansport, Indiana; Mrs. Thrush died October 6, 1878. Grandmother Dinning left four Bibles, the oldest of which was printed in 1617, and is now owned by her grandson, H. D. Dinning, in Ten- nessee, who prizes this heirloom both for its own value and for the cher- ished memory of its former owner.
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John G. Skeen brought his family to Nemaha county on November I, 1855, coming in true emigrant fashion, with a two-horse covered wagon and a spring wagon which his wife drove. He had inherited some means, and pre-empted one hundred and sixty acres of land in section 33, London precinct, his entry being the sixth on the book at the land office in Omaha. He was accompained by Bill Hayes and Bob Herron as far as Omaha. Hayes is now living in Atchison county, Missouri, in his ninety-ninth year, and attended the last old settlers' picnic in 1903, being still bright for the patriarch of the assemblage.
Benjamin T. Skeen was born in middle Tennessee, September 23, 1851, so that he was a boy of four years when he came to this state. He was reared to farm life and labor from the age of nine, and the schooling which he received in the district was meager. He has worked hard for all he got, and his prosperity has been won by steady progression. He now owns two hundred and forty and one-half acres in his farm, and does not owe any man a cent. He feeds and markets one or two car- loads of cattle each year, besides a hundred and fifty Poland China hogs. He keeps ten or fifteen head of first-class horses and mules. He puts in about a hundred and twenty acres of corn and cuts from thirty to eighty tons of hay annually. His first purchase of land here was ninety- two acres for a thousand dollars, and he afterward bought ninety for two thousand, ten acres of which he sold at forty dollars an acre, and in 1891 bought sixty-seven and a half for eighteen hundred dollars. One hundred acres of this lies on the first bottom along the Nemaha river, forty acres on the second bottom, and eighty acres on the highlands back of his house and barns. He is a diligent worker in every depart- ment of his industry, and his practical farming has brought to him its just reward.
Mr. Skeen was married, January 15, 1873, to Miss Hester V. Blount,
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who was born in Nicholas county, Kentucky, May 30, 1855, a daughter of William H. and Sarah (Fuller) Blount, farmers of Kentucky. Wil- liam Blount, who had served in the Mexican war, came to Nebraska in 1868, and died here May 16, 1875, leaving his widow and four chil- dren, as follows: Hester V., now Mrs. Skeen; William K. Breckin- ridge Blount, born in 1858, who is a farmer in this precinct and -has four children ; Anna, wife of O. P. Dovel, in Auburn, and Nancy Marinda Tilton, wife of W. E. Robertson, at Cook, Nebraska. The mother of these children lives in Auburn.
Six children have been born to Mr. and Mrs. Skeen: Lottie, the wife of E. S. Stiers, a farmer in Nemaha precinct, and has two sons and one daughter; Lillie K. died at the age of twelve months; Herman died when ten months old; Ninon was educated in Peru and is at home with her parents; Carl is at home; and Helen, aged fifteen, is in the district school. Mr. Skeen is a Master Mason of Hope Lodge No. 29, and he and his wife and daughter affiliate with the Eastern Star lodge. He is a Populist in politics, having come over from the Democratic ranks, where all his ancestors were. He has served as school director for sev- eral years, and in both public and domestic relations has won the esteem of his many friends and associates. In the early days here his father's house was used as a place of worship, the elder Skeen taking an active part in church work.
GUILFORD LILLY.
Among the retired farmers who are living quietly in the pleasant town of Auburn, Nebraska, is found the subject if this sketch, Guilford Lilly.
Mr. Lilly is a New Yorker by nativity, but for nearly half a cen-
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tury has been a resident of Nebraska. He was born in Old Deerfield, Oneida county, New York, October 3, 1829, a son of New England parents. Shubael Lilly, his father, was born near Lebanon, Connecticut, in 1798. and died in Dodge county, Wisconsin, at the age of fifty-six years. He and his wife were the parents of nine children, the family record being as follows: Harriet, who died in Beaverdam, Wisconsin, in 1901, at the age of seventy-nine years, was twice married, and had one child by her first husband, Mr. Clawson, and one by her second hus- band, Mr. Rising: the next three children, Sarah Ann, Fidelia and Ada- line, died of an epidemic, within three weeks of each other, when they were quite small; Elizabeth, wife of Maxson Crandall, a farmer of Valley county, Nebraska, has a large family; Guilford was the sixth in order of birth; Parker died at the age of ten years; Julia, wife of S. C. Saunders, of Milton, Wisconsin, has a family of three children; and George H., a farmer and teacher of vocal music, died in Albion, Wis- consin, in 1902, leaving one son and one daughter. The mother of this family died in Hartsville, Steuben county, New York.
Guilford Lilly was reared to farm life in New York state, spending his first five years in his native county and the next fifteen years in Steuben county. In 1850 he landed in Dodge county, Wisconsin, where he farmed rented land until 1859. That year he came to Nemaha county, Nebraska. The trip from Madison, Wisconsin, to his place was made in a "prairie schooner" with two yoke of cattle, Mr. Lilly being one of a party of five, and they were from April Ist to May 20th in making the journey. After his arrival here, Mr. Lilly traded his interests in the outfit for a yoke of oxen, and with the six hundred dollars he had saved and brought with him he bought ninety acres of wild prairie land, pay- ing one dollar and twenty-five cents per acre for eighty acres, and one hundred dollars for ten acres of timber land, this purchase being in Bed-
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ford precinct. This land he sold in 1865, at a profit, and bought another farm, which he operated for a number of years and which he still owns.
During the Civil war period Mr. Lilly donned the blue and fought for the preservation of the Union. He enlisted in the fall of 1862, as a member of Company C, Second Nebraska Cavalry, and shared the fortunes of that command for nearly a year, their duty being in Nebraska, to watch the Indians on the west and the Bushwhackers on the east.
Mr. Lilly was married, February 24, 1861. in Dodge county, WVis- consin, to Miss Elizabeth Johnson, a native of Vermont. Mrs. Lilly was born September 29, 1842, daugliter of O. B. and Helen Ann (Wood) Jolinson, and granddaughter of Captain Nathan Wood. O. B. Johnson and wife were the parents of five sons and two daughters, of whom three are living, viz .: Mrs. Lilly; Julia, wife of George C. Bryant, of River- side California, is the mother of four children; and Henry P. Johnson, of Illinois.
Mr. and Mrs. Lilly have and only child, Encie, wife of E. P. Thomas; and the grandchildren now number five-Ethel, Elfie, Edna. Erica, and Edith,-an interesting little group. Mr. and Mrs. Thomas also have a son and a daughter deceased.
In 1893 Mr. Lilly retired from the active duties of farm life and moved to Auburn. His pleasant home in Maxwell street he has owned and occupied since 1897. For fifteen years Mr. Lilly was a school direc- tor. He is, politically, a Republican and, fraternally, a Mason.
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WILLIAM M. KAUFFMAN.
Numbered among the leading business men of Brownville is William M. Kauffman, the well known merchant, and since 1868 he has made his home in this county. He came here from Lancaster county, Pennsyl- vania, the place of his nativity, his birth occurring there on the 2d of February, 1848, and the family is of Swiss origin. His father, John M. Kauffman, also claimed Lancaster county as the place of his nativity, where he was born in 1818, and he was a son of John Kauffman, who was born in either Pennsylvania or Maryland, and his death occurred in the former state in 1866. The latter married a Miss Mets, also of Pennsylvania, and they reared five sons and three daughters. One son, Aaron, was numbered among the goldseekers to California in 1849, when twenty-three years of age, and fills and unknown grave. Another son, Cyrus Kauffman, came from Ohio to Brownville in 1867, and is now engaged in the nursery business. Christian Kauffman died in Pennsyl- vania in 1874, leaving a family, and Andrew, also deceased, made his home in Tippecanoe City, Ohio.
John M. Kauffman, the father of our subject, was a merchant tailor in Lancaster county, Pennsylvania, and was a member of the state militia. After attaining his majority he married Martha Miller, who was born in that county in 1818, and was a daughter of George Miller. Five sons blessed their marriage, namely: Franklin, who died in early childhood; Hiram, who died at the age of nine years; William M .; Jere- miah, a merchant of Baltimore; and Winfield Scott, a merchant of Balti- more, Maryland. The mother still resides at the old homestead, and has reached the age of eight-five years.
William M. Kauffman attended the public schools of his neighbor- hood until seventeen years of age, and for three years thereafter was employed as a clerk in a store at Manheim, Lancaster county, Pennsyl-
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vania. Coming thence to Brownville, Nemaha county, Nebraska, he entered the store of W. T. Den, where he remained as a salesman for three years, and from that time until 1887 was employed in the store of W. W. Hackney. In that year Mr. Kauffman purchased his em- ployer's interest, and has since been alone in business, enjoying a large and lucrative patronage. In April, 1903, his store was destroyed by fire and he sustained a heavy loss, but he immediately rebuilt, and lie now occupies a leading place in the ranks of the representative business men of the city.
The marriage of Mr. Kauffman was celebrated in May, 1881, when Miss Teresa Mclaughlin became his wife. She is a native of Iowa and a daughter of Timothy and Mary (Wogan) McLaughlin, both born in the Emerald Isle. After coming to this country they went first to Con- necticut, thence to Iowa, and about 1856 located in Omaha, Nebraska. The father was a stonemason by trade, and he survived his wife four years, the latter passing away at the age of sixty years. Two sons have been born to brighten and bless the home of Mr and Mrs. Kauffman,- William, who is connected with his father's store, and John M., a clerk in the Union National Bank. Both are graduates of the Brownville high school and for two terms were also students in the Peru normal, while the elder, William, received a business course in Omaha. Mr. Kauffman is prominent in Masonic circles, being a member of the Mystic Shrine, and his political affiliations are with the Democracy. For thir- teen consecutive years he served as the treasurer of Brownville, and for thirteen years was treasurer of the school board. Mrs. Kauffman is a member of the Catholic church. For ten years they have resided in their pleasant residence in Brownville, and there they delight to extend a gracious hospitality to their many friends and acquaintances.
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- CHARLES AUGUST WEY.
Charles August Wey, who was engaged in the butchering business in Peru for twenty years and is now retired, is an old settler of this town, where he first took up his residence on July 17, 1869. He is now in prosperous circumstances and happy and contented with what he has gained in the world, but about thirty-six years ago, when he came up the Missouri river from St. Joseph, he had only five cents with which to pay in part his passage across the river by ferry boat. Such con- trasts in material circumstances are not the result of good fortune or chance, and in this particular instance unflagging industry and a pertina- cious grip on the business in hand have steadily wrought increasing suc- cess for Mr. Wey. He is a man of true worth and integrity and relia- bility, and deserves and retains the esteem of all his friends and asso- ciates.
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