USA > Nebraska > A Biographical and genealogical history of southeastern Nebraska, Vol. I > Part 15
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his farm near Dawson, having been a locomotive engineer while in Illi- nois, and three sons and two daughters survived him; Mrs. Ogle is next of the family; Cornelia White, in Augusta, Illinois, has one daughter ; the fifth child died at the age of three years; Eliza Blanche died when twenty-six years old; Nora Spence lives in Missouri and has four sons and three daughters; George is a farmer in Illinois and has some six children; Thomas died in Illinois aged twenty-five and unmarried; and one son died in infancy.
Mr. and Mrs. Ogle have lost three children and have four living : John, who is farming one of his father's places, has a wife and one son and one daughter; Anna Blanche is the wife of Walter Cross, a tenant farmer, and has one son and two daughters; Susie died March 21, 1903, aged twenty-two; Marcellus died in infancy, January 10, 1883; Lena E. is her mother's right-hand supporter and helper at home and is a charming young lady; Ray, aged eighteen, is at home and still a stu- dent; Bertha Pearl died October 28, 1892, aged three years.
SAMUEL B. DOOLEY.
Samuel B. Dooley, one of the popular and enterprising residents of Beatrice, Nebraska, is a veteran of the Civil war and a member of the G. A. R. Post No. 35 of Beatrice. He enlisted in Company D, Four- teenth Illinois Volunteer Infantry, May, 1861, for three years, and his regiment was one of the ten regiments organized for the state of Illinois under what was known as the Ten Regiment Bill, but when the govern- or's call came for men these ten regiments were placed at the disposition of the United States government. Colonel J. M. Palmer commanded the regiment in which Mr. Dooley enlisted, and the company was com-
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manded by Captain T. J. Bryant. This regiment participated with General Fremont and General Hunter and later was transferred to the command of General Grant when he was at Shiloh; they also participated in the siege of Vicksburg, and then were with the seventeenth army corps under General Sherman in his famous march to the sea. Mr. Dooley was taken prisoner on October 4th, and for six months was confined at Andersonville; when he was first confined he weighed one hundred and sixty pounds but when released was a mere skeleton of ninety pounds. No words can do justice to the gallant service done by the veterans of one of the most terrific struggles the world has ever known. Remnants of their arduous fighting and long marches still remain, and make their sacrifice all the greater.
Samuel B. Dooley was born in Boone county, Indiana, November 6, 1836, and he is a son of Robert Dooley, a native of Kentucky, and a grandson of Samuel Dooley, also born in Kentucky, who served in the war of 1812. Robert married Julia A. Shelburne and eleven children were reared from their union, three of whom were soldiers in the Civil war : John K. resides in Nuckolls county, Nebraska, a veteran of the Civil war; James R. served in an Illinois regiment and died in Andersonville prison. The father died at the age of fifty-two years and the mother died when she was forty-six years of age.
Samuel B. Dooley resided in Indiana until he was eighteen years of age, during which time he learned the carpenter trade and later the brickmaker's trade. but he then engaged in a mercantile line and removed to Illinois. After several changes he settled in Kansas in 1857 and from there returned to Illinois. In 1882 he located in Beatrice, Nebraska, where he has since resided, and is now engaged in the mercantile busi- ness. He was married May 25, 1865, at Coldwater, Michigan, to Elizabeth Wilkins, whom he had met in Kansas. She was born in Indi-
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ana and was a daughter of Dr. Wilkins, a physician and minister of the Christian church. The children born to Mr. and Mrs. Dooley were: Effie, who married a Mr. Almon Stevenson, of Beatrice, Nebraska, and they have one child, Bush; Minnie Alta, who died at the age of eleven years; and two boys who died in infancy. In politics Mr. Dooley is a staunch Republican and served in Illinois as justice of the peace and mayor of Chapin, Illinois. He has always taken an active part in the G. A. R. post, in which he is very popular, and he serves faithfully as elder in the Christian church, of which his wife is also a member. He was elected commander of Rawlins Post, No. 35, G. A. R., in Janu- ary, 1904.
JOHN H. COATNEY.
John H. Coatney, a leading farmer and stock and fruit grower in Peru precinct, Nemaha county, with postoffice at Peru, is now in the main retired from the more strenuous and arduous toils connected with the raising of the fruits of the soil. He has certainly deserved much in the way of material prosperity and latter-day comforts and advantages, for he has been one of the thrifty, industrious and business-like farmers of southeastern Nebraska for forty years, which time, when well em- ployed, is sufficient in a productive state like that of Nebraska to pro- vide any man against the advancing foot of time or the dangers of an idle and profitless old age.
Mr. Coatney knows what pioneer conditions and hardships are. He made his arrival in Otoe county, Nebraska, in the fall of 1864, before Nebraska was admitted to statehood and when the country was very new and barren of much of the beauty and material improvement which now meet the eye of the traveler on every hand. He came from Cass
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county, Illinois, having driven through with two covered wagons or prairie schooners, and bringing his family and goods and chattels, pre- pared to make a place for himself in a new country. For the first two years he was a tenant farmer, but then bought an eighty acre farm, with scant improvements in the shape of a house little more than a shell and with five acres broken for cultivation. The purchase price was fourteen hundred dollars, and he had five hundred dollars that he had made and saved. This place was in Nemaha county, and it has been his home ever since. About twenty years ago he tore down the old shanty and built in its place a commodious and comfortable farm house. He has also built a fine barn, thirty by twenty-six feet, with a forty-foot addition and a ten-foot driveway. He keeps from twenty-five to thirty head of cattle and ten to sixteen horses, and each year raises about one hundred Poland China hogs. The orchard of one hundred and fifty trees which he planted soon after coming to the place has died out, and about five years ago was replaced with one hundred apple trees and one hun- dred cherry trees, which are now bearing fruit. Mr. Coatney is known everywhere for his hard-working qualities and for the success that he has won by his own efforts in this county.
May 28, 1860, Mr. Coatney was married in St. Louis, Missouri, to a Virginia maiden of seventeen summers, Miss Margaret Holtzman, who was born in Page county, Virginia, October 26, 1843. Her parents, William and Ruth (Battman) Holtzman, were born, respectively, in Maryland and Virginia, and were married at the county seat of Page county. The former was a farmer, and died in Virginia in 1854, when about sixty-five years old. His widow died in 1864 in Cass county, Illi- nois, whither she had moved in 1857, and of their ten children five mar- ried and had families.
Mr .and Mrs. Coatney reared ten of their twelve children, as fol-
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lows : David Henry, called "Dick," is an enterprising farmer on an adjoin- ing farm, and has one daughter, Myrtle Zoe; Martha Lee is the wife of Willard Redfern and has eight children; John William, a farmer in Oklahoma, has two sons and two daughters; George B., also of Oklahoma, has one son and two daughters; Jennie, the wife of Cyrus Milan, of Auburn, has six children ; Linnie Irene, the wife of Fred Nelson, has four children; Addie is the wife of D. McKenney, a barber of Leavenworth, Kansas, and has two sons; Edward is a farmer near by and is married; Bessie Pearl is the wife of Lewis Chavey, of Auburn, and has one son ; Charles Cleveland is at home and engaged in the conduct of the home- stead. Mr. Coatney is a gold Democrat. He has served his fellow citi- zens with capability and conscientious zeal for eighteen years as road overseer and for over twenty years as a member of the school board. He has always supported the churches, but is not a member, and has gained the esteem and respect of his associates and many friends by his sterling honesty and fidelity to every duty incumbent upon his manhood.
MONROE T. CONNER.
Monroe T. Conner, a prominent grain dealer and farmer of South- Auburn, Douglas precinct, Nemaha county, has been identified with this part of southeastern Nebraska for over twenty-five years, and has justly gained distinction among the business men of his county. He practically began his career in this state, and, being possessed of a little property when he came here, he has used his capital to the very best advantage. He has proved an industrious and indefatigable worker in every line in which he has engaged, has displayed shrewd business ability and push and
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enterprise, and with these qualifications he has won a foremost place among the citizens of his county.
Mr. Conner belongs to an old-established family of the Mississippi valley. His father, David Conner, was born in Decatur county, Indiana, in 1824, and died in Missouri in 1867. He was a prosperous farmer, and came to the latter state in 1841 in boyhood, before the memorable flood of 1844 devastated the valleys of the Missouri and Mississippi. He was reared and lived in Buchanan county, Missouri, and was there mar- ried to Margaret Brown, who was born in Indiana in 1828, a daughter to the first marriage of William Brown, who was a pioneer settler of Ken- tucky, whence he went to Indiana, and from there to Missouri. Mr. Brown was a man of wealth for his time, was a merchant, and built a mill on Sugar creek, and both the Brown and Conner families were prominent and well known in northeastern Missouri. Seven children were born to David Conner and his wife; Monroe T .; George W .; who is in the agri- cultural implement business in Maryland and has one son and two daugh- ters; Penelope, wife of Cleveland Black, residing near the old home in Missouri, and they have three sons ; Mary A., wife of A. D. Sutton, lives at the old farm in Missouri, and has two sons and two daughters; Emily, the wife of William Jones, died in the prime of life, having been the mother of one son and one daughter;Henry Clay died at the age of two years ; and one died in infancy. The mother of these children died in 1901 at the age of seventy-three years.
Monroe T. Conner was born in Buchanan county, Missouri, October 15, 1849. He was reared on a farm, and learned its duties. He received a common school education up to the age of eighteen, at which time his father died, and he remained with his mother until he was twenty-seven. He came to Nemaha county from Missouri on March 18, 1877, and for two years engaged in farming and stock grazing on rented land. He had
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about a thousand dollars to start with, and in 1880 he purchased a quarter section of land for twenty-five hundred dollars, and from this as a nucleus has developed a large business by general farming and stock-raising, the latter branch being the industry to which he has devoted his principal efforts and with the most success. He now owns three hundred and twenty-six acres of choice land, in one farm, with two residences, four barns and other outbuildings, and his well kept fences are mostly of wire. His fine forty-acre apple orchard was just beginning to bear in 1900 when it was almost ruined by a storm, with a loss of four thousand dollars to Mr. Conner.
He embarked in the grain-buying business at Howe, and in 1881 started a grain and stock business in South Auburn, having the credit of shipping the first carload of hogs from that place over the Burlington and Missouri River Railroad. He continued the stock business in Auburn and South Auburn for about twelve years, for ten years the firm being Conner and Bousfield. Mr. Conner sold out to this partner in January, 1899, and was engaged at home on his farm until April, 1903, when the firm of Conner and L. L. Coryell was formed. They have an elevator of twelve thousand bushels' capacity, and they ship from one hundred and fifty to two hundred carloads of grain each year.
June II, 1873, Mr. Conner was married to Miss Nina Elliott, who was born in Missouri, October 14, 1855, one day earlier in the month than her husband. She is a daughter of Dawson and Elizabeth (Argo- bright) Elliott, who were from Kentucky and came from that state to Missouri in 1844, where the latter died in 1897, at the age of sixty,. but the former is still living on the old homestead, hale and hearty at the age of seventy-two. Mrs. Conner is one of eight children, of whom she is the eldest, and the others were : one that died in infancy; Nellie, Edward, Dawson, Bessie, Lulu, and John. All were married and had families
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but two. Mrs. Conner was educated by her well-to-do parents at the college in Platt City, Nebraska, and she is a lady of much refinement and culture.
Mr. and Mrs. Conner have six children living, and lost the third in order of birth when it was an infant. Lemuel Conner, born May 14, 1874, is running his father's farm; Eva is the wife of Francis Thomas, of Howe, and has one son; Gertrude is a teacher of vocal and instru- mental music; Earl is married and living on the home farm; Mable is at home; and Raymond is twelve years old.
Mr. Conner adheres to Democratic principles. He held the office of county commissioner for two terms, and was chairman of the board most of the time. During this time the county court house was built, and it is one of the public structures of which the county feels proud, both because of its architectural outlines and convenience and because it was built economically and without burdening the taxpayers with heavy debt. The last bond will be redeemed in 1904, and then the county will not have a cent of indebtedness. Mr. Conner as chairman helped draw the interior plans, and in many other ways assisted in the erection of the building at the lowest possible cost consistent with good workmanship. The court house will compare in every way with any to be found in counties of the same size in the west, and it is so substantially con- structed that it will last for generations. Mr. and Mrs. Conner are identified with the Christian church, and enjoy the highest esteem of all with whom they are associated.
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HENRY B. ERISMAN.
Henry B. Erisman, a prominent farmer in Douglas precinct, Glen Rock postoffice, is one of the thrifty and industrious men to whom Nemaha county and southeastern Nebraska owe their most substantial development and progress. Thirty years ago Nebraska was one of the most uninviting places for a sluggard or anyone not possessed of great energy and diligence and even courage for combatting the primitive con- ditions to be found at that time. But the proper kind of men came, settled and worked, and the result is that beautiful country which seems to the traveler almost paradisiacal. Mr. Erisman, while now the possessor of one of the fine farms of the county and in prosperous circumstances, began with nothing, and at one time was heavily in debt for his place. He deserves great credit for his successful career, and is highly esteemed both as a man and citizen.
Mr. Erisman was born in Miami county, Ohio, March 7, 1847. His grandfather was a native of Germany and a farmer of Pennsyl- vania, where he died about 1848, leaving a large family, of whom there are now living four sons; Joseph, in Illinois; Christopher, in Ohio; Benjamin, in Ohio; and Emanuel, in Ohio.
Jacob Erisman, the father of Henry Erisman, was born in Pennsyl- vania in 1826 and died in Nemaha county in 1895. He was one of the first to come from Ohio to Nebraska, in 1865. He had a meat business at Brownville for a number of years. He began life without money, and at one time possessed ten thousand dollars. He and his wife were members of the Methodist church. He married Miss Fanny Whitmer, who was born in Pennsylvania, and is still living, in Washington pre- cinct, Nemaha county, active and bright at the age of sixty-three. Six of their nine children are still living: Henry is the oldest; Lillie is the
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wife of William Flack, in Washington precinct, and has seven children ; Lincoln, a bachelor, lives on the old homestead of eighty acres, witlı his mother ; Carrie is the wife of Mr. John Hastie, in Oklahoma, and has three sons and one daughter; Leroy, in Nemaha county, has two sons and one daughter; Lizzie is the wife of Charles Swift, in Garfield, Whit- man county, Washington, and has three children.
Henry B. Erisman had only a limited education, and has known hard work from early boyhood. He left home at the age of twenty-one, and worked out until he was married. He bought his present farm of one hundred and sixty-nine and a half acres in 1894, and he has made all the improvements. He now has two hundred acres. He built his com- fortable two-story residence in 1899, and has all the conveniences which make the farm an ideal home. He grows about one hundred acres of corn, with an average yield of thirty-three bushels to the acre, and fifty acres of wheat; keeps twenty-five high-grade shorthorns, eight or ten horses and fifty hogs. At the beginning he was in debt on this place $2940, but he is a hustler ,and has made his property and more besides. His residence is surrounded by shade trees, and stand well back from the road, its embowered appearance suggesting cosiness and inviting com- fort, which, in fact, are always found in this home.
February 24, 1884, Mr. Erisman was married to Miss Samantha Swift, who was born in Nemaha county in 1862, a daughter of Benja- min Swift and his first wife, both from Missouri. Seven children have been born to Mr. and Mrs. Erisman: Carrie, aged eighteen, is in the Auburn high school, class of 1905; William, aged sixteen, is in the dis- trict school; Fannie is thirteen ; Benjamin nine; Bryan seven; Grace four ; and one son died in infancy. Mr. Erisman now votes the Populist ticket, having come over from the Republican ranks. He has never sought office, but has held minor offices.
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FRANK A. CARMONY.
Frank A. Carmony, who has given three terms of satisfactory ser- vice as county superintendent of schools of Jefferson county, has spent the greater part of his life in southeastern Nebraska, and is a well known and popular resident. He has given to educational matters the best efforts of his life, and has evinced special fitness for the duties which he is now performing. The office of superintendent is by no means a sinecure, and he has devoted all his energy and executive ability to the management of the complicated system under his charge.
Mr. Carmony was born in Ringgold county, Iowa, September 9, 1873, a son of the well known grain dealer of Endicott, this county, J. W. Carmony and his wife Mary J. (Batten) Carmony, whose biog- raphies find place on other pages of this work. Mr. Carmony is one of four children, three sons and one daughter. He was reared in Iowa, Kansas and Nebraska, and from youth up has known farm work. He received his earlier education in Kansas and Nebraska, and later at- tended the Western Normal College at Shenandoah, Iowa, where he was graduated with the class of 1896. He was principal of the Reynolds, Nebraska, schools for some time, and his long experience in educa- tional work gives him a thorough equipment for the office to which he has been elected by the voters of the county. He has carried the county at each election by a good majority, and his administration meets with the approval of the best classes of citizens.
Mr. Carmony is a Populist in politics, and has been active in party affairs and a delegate to the state conventions. In 1897 he was married to Miss Sadie H. Boggs. Mr. and Mrs. Carmony have one son, Arthur, who is five years old. They are members of the Presbyterian church, and are highly esteemed in the social circles of the county.
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WILLIAM H. LOHR.
William H. Lohr, the popular and efficient postmaster at Howe, Nemaha county, and also the leading hardware merchant of the town, has been a resident of the county for twenty years, and is one of the long established and best known citizens. He has excellent qualifications both as a citizen and business man, and during his four years' incumbency of the office of postmaster has given one of the best administrations in the history of the office.
Mr. Lohr was born in Franklin county, Pennsylvania, April 5, 1858. His grandfather, Andrew Lohr, was a native of Pennsylvania and a life- long farmer there. He married a Miss Smith, of Franklin county, and she died at the age of seventy-six, while he survived and was about eighty-five years old at the time of his death. They reared all their ten children, six sons and four daughters, and all married but one and had a numerous progeny. Some of the sons served in the Civil war.
Jacob Lohr, the father of William H. Lohr, was born at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, in 1828, and is now living, at the age of seventy-five, in Rock county, Minnesota, with his son George. He married Elizabeth Foutz, of the same locality in Pennsylvania, and her brothers were sol- diers in the Civil war. She died in the summer of 1880 at the age of fifty-two, leaving four of her six children. George, the eldest, born in 1855, is in Rock county, Minnesota ; John died in youth; Jacob died when about three years old; William H. is the next in order of birth; Mrs. Mary Jane Hopkins died at the age of twenty-eight, leaving three chil- dren ; Ellen is the wife of Jacob Harrison, in Rock county, Minnesota.
William H. Lohr was reared on the farm in Pennsylvania and enjoyed a fair amount of schooling there. He left home at the age of eighteen, coming to Iowa, where he worked as a farm hand and also
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attended Tilford Academy. He began teaching school at the age of twenty-one, and was engaged in this pursuit altogether for fourteen years, both in Iowa and in Nebraska. He came to Nemalia county in 1883. For the past ten years he has been engaged in the hardware business in Howe, enjoying a good trade in the town and county. Pros- perity has come to him through his years of effort for self-advancement, and he deserves all he has gained. for he began life without capital and each step of progress has been the result of his own endeavors. He is a Republican in politics, and has held the postmastership for four years. He owns his home and his store building, and he is always willing to work for the town of his choice and do all in his power for its upbuilding.
Mr. Lohr was married in Iowa in 1881 to Miss Amanda J. Mathews, who was born in Ashland county, Ohio, in 1846, a daughter of John and Mrs. (Wolf) Mathews, natives of Ohio, now deceased as a result of a typhoid epidemic, which also took away two or three of their children. Two of their sons, Theodore and George, are farmers in Nemaha county, and have families. John Mathews was a hlacksmith by trade. Mr. and Mrs. Lohr lost their first child, a daughter, in infancy ; Ethel is at home; Ralph is a boy of fifteen and in school; Inez is thirteen years old, and Lola is eleven. Mr. Lohr affiliates with the Woodmen of the World, has served as banker of the order and is now clerk, and Mrs. Lohr is a member of the Methodist church.
WILLIAM ARTHUR CLARK.
William Arthur Clark, president of the Nebraska State Normal School at Peru, has a useful and creditable record as an educator, begin- ning with the teaching of his first school when he was fifteen years old. Many years of experience in schools of all grades from the old-fashioned
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"deestrict" temple of learning to the foremost institutions of higher learn- ing in this country, have broadened his intellectual horizon and fortified his powers for the responsible position which he now holds and for the career that still awaits him-now in the prime of his life and with his years of greatest usefulness before him. Education's progress and ad- vancement are the causes dearest to his heart and the goal of his ambition, and he has found a broad and ample field in his place as head of one of the most important educational training centers in the state of Nebraska, a commonwealth noted for its high intellectual standards and its wide diffusion of literary culture among the people. In the short time that Dr. Clark has been connected with the Nebraska State Normal he has not only maintained the high standard set by his predecessors but has notice- ably increased its educational efficiency in all departments.
Dr. Clark was reared in Ohio. At the age of eleven, soon after his father's death, he entered the high school at West Union, Adams county, and graduated from there at the age of fourteen. In his fifteenth year he secured a country school and taught six months for forty dollars a month. Following this early pedagogical experience, he entered the Nor- mal University of Ohio, from which he was graduated at the age of nineteen years. He taught a country school and also a village school, then became principal of his home high school, and for several years was principal or superintendent of town schools. In 1880 he was appointed superintendent of the school of the Ohio Sailors' Orphans' Home at Xenia, and filled that position for two years. He was then called to his alma mater, the Normal University, as teacher of mathematics, and dur- ing the ten years that he filled that chair over fourteen thousands pupils, from all parts of the Union, received instruction from him and many of these have in turn become teachers and filled other worthy places in the world's activity.
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