USA > Nebraska > A Biographical and genealogical history of southeastern Nebraska, Vol. I > Part 18
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Missouri. The following children have been born to Mr. and Mrs. Hurst : Lindley S. is a teacher and farmer, living at home in Peru ; Findley D. is a farmer in Nodaway county, Missouri, and has five chil- dren ; Mary S. is in the Peru normal and perparing herself for a teach- er; Sophia S. is the wife of Glenville N. Coon, manager of a lumber yard in Osceola, Nebraska ; Benjamin B. is a teacher in Harvard, Ne- braska. being a graduate of the business department of the Tarkio (Mis- souri) College; Calista A. is a member of the class of 1906 in the Peru normal. The beloved mother of this family died on the farm in Atchison county, Missouri, in 1891, at the age of forty-four. She was a woman of noble character and attributes, and was not only a revered personage in her family circle but was a favorite among her many as- sociates and friends. She and her husband were members of the Meth- odist Episcopal church, and he is a trustee of the church in Peru.
SHADRACH M. CHAFFIN.
Shadrach M. Chaffin, farmer and veterinarian of Humboldt, Rich- ardson county, is an old and well known settler of Southeastern Ne- braska. He first became acquainted with this county in 1858, and has resided here continuously since the 12th of August, 1861, on which date he arrived from Holt county, Missouri. Nebraska was not yet a state and was indeed a wild country compared to its present highly civil- ized condition, and its many changes and steps of development are photographed on the mind and engrafted in the experience of Mr. Chaf- fin, who has himself been intimately identified with the life and times in which he has lived for over forty years.
Mr. Chaffin was born in Scioto county, Ohio, August 12, 1833.
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so that he is now past the Psalmist's limit of three score and ten years, yet is able to do a day's work and perform his part of the obligations of life with much of the zeal of youth. He was reared on his father's Ohio farm, and remained with his parents till after he was grown. His schooling was meager and acquired in the primitive log schoolhouse such as was marked out for the temple of learning in the early part of the last century. From the age of sixteen he was constantly engaged in farm labor, and has had an increasing ratio of success in all the years that have followed. In 1855 he left Ohio and moved to Holt county, Missouri, and five years later arrived in Nebraska. For thirty years he was engaged in farming near Salem, and in 1891 he took up his abode on his present nice homestead, a part of which lies within the corporate limits of the town of Humboldt. Besides working with profit his small farm he follows the vocation of stock doctor, and is well known for his connection with both pursuits.
Mr. Chaffin is a Republican in politics, but has nourished no spe- cific ambition to leave the rank and file of the party and attain office. He has served on the city council of Humboldt for three terms, and is known as a public-spirited and enterprising citizen. He and his wife are members of the Christian church, and he is a firm advocate of the temperance cause.
September 25, 1864, Mr. Chaffîn was married to Miss Lucinda O. Pierce, who was born in Vermont, November 19, 1847, a daughter of Daniel W. and Lucy Edwin Pierce, both natives of Vermont. Her father was a cabinet-maker, who moved to Waterloo, Wisconsin, in 1857, and died in 1899, in the same week with the death of his oldest son, Daniel W. The famliy had come to Nebraska in 1858 and twenty years later had gone to the state of Washington, where Mrs. Chaffin's mother died in 1891. Mrs. Chaffin remained at home until her marriage,
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which was celebrated in Brown county, Kansas. Eight children were born to Mr. and Mrs. Chaffin, as follows: George is an office man in the employ of the Great Northern Railroad, and has a wife, one son and three daughters; Francis died at the age of one year; Ettie, the de- ceased wife of Charles C. Pool, died at the age of thirty-three, leaving six children; Mrs. Lucinda Belle Corn, a widow with three children, resides with her parents; Edgar E. died at the age of four years; Mrs. Lucy Boss, in Humboldt, has one daughter; Miss Mary is at home and in the employ of the telephone company, and also sings and plays well; the eighth child, a daughter, died in infancy.
PHILIP JENKINS.
Philip Jenkins, one of the well known and much esteemed citizens of Pawnee City, Nebraska, was born December 6, 1821, in Onondaga county, New York, and is a son of Christopher and Minnie ( Howard) Jenkins, both of whom were born in New York. The father descended from three brothers of the name who came to America from England, prior to the Revolutionary war. The father died in 1847 at Lacon, Illinois, aged fifty-two years, the mother dying in 1840, in Morgan county, Illinois. By trade Christopher Jenkins was a carpenter. He lived an honest, upright life and died respected by all who knew him. Our subject's parents had a family of nine children, four of whom still survive.
Philip Jenkins was reared to manhood in his father's home, in 1839 coming with his parents to Morgan county, Illinois, and later to Wood- ford county. He was one of the loyal citizens who responded to the call of President Lincoln for troops, and enlisted for service on August
PHILIP JENKINS
MRS. PHILIP JENKINS
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13, 1862, in Company C, Seventy-seventh Illinois Volunteer Infantry, under Colonel D. P. Grier. His term of service covered eighteen months, and during that period he participated in the Yazoo expedition, was at the siege of Vicksburg, Jackson, New Orleans and in the move- ments of the army on the Texas coast. On one occasion, when the flag bearer was struck down, Mr. Jenkins gallantly seized the banner and carried it in the face of the enemy. For his bravery on the field of battle he was promoted from second to first lieutenant, and doubtless would have received further recognition had not domestic trouble caused him to resign and return to his home. During his absence two of his little children were taken sick and died, both being buried in the same grave. The prostration of their mother caused such serious illness that her devoted husband felt that his place of duty was at her side.
Mr. Jenkins was married in Woodford county, Illinois, February I, 1846, to Miss Malinda Sweet, who was born in Morgan county, Illinois. She is a daughter of Phelig and Abigail (Bardeen) Sweet, natives of New York, who settled in Illinois, where both died. The three children born to Mr. and Mrs. Jenkins are: E. M., of Byron, Thayer county, Nebraska ; Lola M., wife of Niel Duncan, of Pawnee city; and Myrtle, wife of J. H. Phelps, of Wilsonville, Nebraska. The two children who died in Illinois were: Abraham Lincoln, aged three years, and Philip J., a babe.
Mr. Jenkins came to Nebraska in 1878 and located in Brownville for eighteen months, then went to Alexandria and remained until 1883. For the following two years he was at Tobias, and in 1885 located in Ohiowa, Fillmore county. From 1878 to 1893 he successfully followed the lumber business. In 1894 Mr. Jenkins came to Pawnee city. He is a Republican in politics and is the oldest member of the John Ingham Post No. 95, Grand Army of the Republic, of Pawnee city. For forty-
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eight years he has been a Mason. He belongs to the Baptist church. Mr. and Mrs. Jenkins celebrated their golden wedding in Pawnee city in 1896.
ALFRED PAGE.
Alfred Page, of section 28, Grant precinct, near Dawson, Richard- son county, is identified with the best traditions and highest develop- ment of agricultural enterprise and public-spirited citizenship in this . rich and beautiful section of Southeastern Nebraska. For forty-five years he has given faithful attention to his life pursuits on the govern- ment land that he took up when he came here, and his management and toil have been so effectively directed that now for several years he has lived in retirement on his beautiful homestead, free to spend some time before and all his life after his sixty-eighth birthday in wholesome ease befitting strenuous endeavor during the fulness of manly vigor. Mr. Page has been prominent and influential in the affairs of his community as well as successful in material circumstances, and has been honored with offices of trust and responsibility and has given a due share of his time and attention to matters concerning politics, religion and insti- tutions of county and state.
This well known Nebraska citizen was born in Monroe county, Kentucky, on Christmas day, 1835. His father. Samuel Page, was a native of Tennessee, and was accidentally killed in the woods when his son Alfred was five years old. There were two other sons. B. W. Page came to Richardson county in 1859, and died in Nemaha precinct in 1879, following his wife in death and leaving seven living children. He was born in 1832, was a stock farmer, and served in the state legis-
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lature. The other son, Elijah, is a miner in Washington and Montana, and is a bachelor.
Alfred Page was reared by kind god-parents, but had only meager opportunities for gaining an education. At the age of twenty he left home and went to Missouri, where he followed farming mainly, in Sullivan and Holt counties, and in November, 1859, arrived in Ne- braska. He took up a hundred and sixty acres of government land, the same tract that comprises his present farm, but how vastly changed and improved since he first occupied it only he and his oldest neighbors can picture. In addition, at present, he also owns a timber lot of twenty acres, and he has sold two other farms in this state. His first house here was erected of logs that he hewed out of the timber with his own hand. But in spite of this being a very primitive and rude house, he had one equipment which was in advance of his neighbors' houses and for which he had to endure much good-natured chaffing from his neigh- hors. This "style" which was the object of so much attention and wit consisted in glass windows for his house, and they were the first in the neighborhood. The pleasant frame house which is now the family home was built in 1867, and a fine red barn was completed in 1897. There are also a cow house and hog house and all other improvements needed by the up-to-date farmer. Mr. Page also planted the hedge around the entire quarter section. At an early day he carried from the bottoms, on his shoulder, a bundle of one hundred and twenty-one cot- tonwood and soft maple sprouts, and during the years since they were planted they grew into large trees, from which were sawed much of the lumber which went into the above mentioned barn. There is also a fine orchard of various fruits, and the embowered home is a scene of beauty and coolness and shade during the most of the year. Mr. Page has made a specialty of raising shorthorn cattle and Poland China hogs,
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and keeps a considerable number of both varieties of stock. He now has a tenant on his farm, to whom he has turned over the entire operation and the management of the land.
Mr. Page in politics is a Democrat, and has fraternal affiliations with the Independent Order of Odd Fellows. He is a veteran school di- rector, having served twenty-five years on the board. He was assessor four years, and county commissioner nine years or three terms, he later served one year as county supervisor, being the first Democrat elected in the county to membership on the board.
Mr. Page married, September 26, 1856, Miss Elizabeth Buchanan, who was born in Kentucky in 1832 and was reared in Missouri. Her father, Fielden Buchanan, was a farmer of Kentucky and Missouri, and married Miss Eliza Edwards, by whom he had two sons and three daughters. One of these sons, O. A. Buchanan, is a farmer near Mr. Page, and came here in 1865, from the Civil war, in which he served over four years as a soldier from Missouri. Mr. and Mrs. Page had nine children, eight of whom are living: Mollie, the wife of Frank Porter; Minnie Staley, who lives in Greenwood county, Kansas, and has four living children; Fielden Porter Page, who is a liveryman in Dawson and has two living children; Eliza Roberts, in the state of Washington, Lincoln county, who has six daughters and four sons; Sarah Peatling, of Kansas, who has two sons and one daughter; Julia Lee, of Nemaha precinct, who has one son living; Grizell Lawson, of Kansas City, who has one daughter; Eva Whitney, who lives in Liberty precinct and has three sons and one daughter; and Emma, who died at the age of nineteen, in the flower and beauty of young womanhood.
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WESLEY G. HUMMEL.
Wesley G. Hummel, of Grant precinct, Richardson county, with postoffice at Dawson, is one of the enterprising and progressive farmers of this portion of Southeastern Nebraska. He settled here in March of 1877, from Kane county, Illinois, and a few years later commenced op- erations on the bare prairie which has since been transformed into his beautiful farm, one of the best in this county. Industry aimed at a definite end has been throughout one of his principal characteristics, and thereby he has attained prosperous condition in life and dignity and wholesome esteem among his fellow men. When a boy in years but a man in patriotism and devotion to duty, he gave loyal service to the Union cause during the war of the rebellion, and ever since, wherever he has lived, he has been noted for his public spirit and genuine interest in the welfare of his community, doing what he could to advance the general good.
Mr. Hummel was born in Lebanon county, Pennsylvania, June 8, 1847. His father, Christian Hummel, was born in Germany, June 11, 1810, and died in Kane county, Illinois, in 1896. He was married in Philadelphia, March 17, 1840, to Miss Barbara Duper, who was a native of Germany. They were the parents of nine children, seven of whom are now living: Elizabeth is the wife of Samuel Rickert, of Dupage county, Illinois, and has two daughters and one son; Amelia is the wife of Daniel Piper, of Ogle county, Illinois, and has nine children; Wes- ley G. is the third; C. L., in Richardson county, has six children; F. A .; in Franklin precinct of this county, is a farmer; Sarah A., of Edison Park, Illinois, is the wife of Mr. Mesner, who had two children by her deceased sister Catherine, and she had one child by her previous mar- riage; Mary died in middle life in Kane county, Illinois; and Henry L. lives in Holdrege, Nebraska.
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Mr. W. G. Hummel attended school in Illinois up to the time he was sixteen years old, and then enlisted from Ogle county in Company E of the Fourth Illinois Cavalry. He served two years and three months, until the close of the war. After the rebellion he lived and farmed in Kane county, Illinois, for several years, and in 1877 came to Nebraska. In 1881 he bought a quarter section of land, which was in the state of nature, and in the subsequent twenty-three years had devoted his best efforts to its profitable culivation and improvement. He planted all the fruit and ornamental trees on the place. He built his first house in 1880, and the present large two-story residence was erected quite recently, and the commodious barn in 1899. Each year he raises about seventy-five fine Poland China hogs, and from thirty to sixty head of Polled Angus cattle, which he has bred up during the past ten years. He keeps about ten horses and tills from sixty to eighty acres of corn, with an average yield of fifty bushels to the acre, and also some twenty acres of wheat.
Mr. Hummel is a man of intelligence, and takes an interest in the world about him as well as his immediate daily affairs and needs. He finds much delight in collecting things of antiquarian interest, and has a copy of the first paper printed in America, having bought it at the Philadelphia Centennial, and also a cane made from the wood of the old ship Consitution. Mr. Hummel is a Republican in politics, and is a member of the Grand Army of the Republic. He served two years as county supervisor and for fourteen years as school director of district No. 92. He and his wife are members of the United Evan- gelical church.
Mr. Hummel was married in Grant precinct November 3, 1880, to Miss Helen E. Burr. They have a bright and happy family of nine children, some of whom have already taken up life's responsible duties
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and others have the joys of childhood still before them, as follows : Boyle, aged twenty-two, is at home, farming; Frank Everett, aged twen- ty-one, is at home; Ethel Kate is a teacher and at present a student in the Peru Normal; Nellie F., is at home and in school; Wilber Harri- son; Wesley Earl; Nannie Pearl; Harry Christian; and Helen Martha, the baby of the family.
MICHAEL MELIZA.
Michael Meliza, of section 9, Liberty precinct, near Verdon, Rich- ardson county, is an agriculturist and stock-raiser of pronounced promi- nence in this county, thoroughly successful in his operations and busi- ness transactions, thrifty and most enterprising in the management of his place, and withal a representative and public-spirited citizen who acts and accomplishes results in his various dealings for the benefit not alone of himself but also of the community in which he lives and of which he is a most worthy part. He came to Rchardson county and his present place twenty-two years ago, on March 4. 1882. so that, while not a pioneer, he is an old and honored resident of this portion of southeastern Nebraska.
Mr. Meliza was born in Henry county, Indiana, April 9, 1850. His grandfather was John Henry Meliza, a farmer and carpenter in Virginia, where he died, leaving six children, two sons and four daugh- ters, who all had families. Jacob Meliza, the father of Michael, was born in Virginia, April 12, 1809, and died in Adell, Iowa, in 1889, pre- ceded two years by his wife. He was a very successful farmer, and his landed estate was valued at twelve thousand dollars. He had also engaged in merchandising, losing some six thousand dollars by security, which was the principal misfortune that he met in his career.
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He married Margaret Shively, who was born in Germany one year later than her husband, and came to this country at the age of fourteen, be- ing three months on the voyage. She was the only daughter, and her two brothers are: Mike Shively, who owns nineteen hundred acres of land in California and a similar amount in South Dakota; and John Shively, an able farmer of Missouri. Jacob and Margaret Meliza had eight children: Lydia is the wife of Thomas Fike, in Iowa, and has three children; Perry is a farmer and fruit-grower in Ashland, Oregon, and has two sons and one daughter; Michael is the third of the family; Sophia, wife of James Trimble, died in Richardson county in 1900, aged forty-eight years, leaving two sons; Martha is the wife of W. F. Hulbert, of Auburn, and has two daughters; Francis Marion lives in Iowa and has one daughter; Melissa is the wife of J. B. Shuey, of Adell, Iowa, and has one son and three daughters; Rosa died at the age of sixteen, in Adell.
Mr. Michael Meliza was reared principally in Davis county, Iowa, and his school advantages in youth were rather limited. He worked on the home farm, and when he started out for himself at the age of twenty-three he had five hundred dollars that he had saved from his wages. He was married in 1874, and then began as a tenant farmer in Davis county. Seven years later, when he came to Richardson coun- ty, Nebraska, he had thirty-five hundred dollars that had accrued from his industrious labors. He bought the quarter section of his present homestead, paying sixteen hundred fifty for it. It was naked prairie at that time, and all the present fine improvements have been placed here at his own cost and under his management. He has one of the finest barns in the county, built in 1892 at a cost of two thousand dollars. It has a stone basement, is painted yellow, with a cupola on top, and alto- gether is one of the most commodious and best equipped structures of
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its kind anywhere in the country around. He completed his modern, two-story house in 1899. It is amply large, is well built, and its invit- ing quarters plus the genial hospitality that pervades it all and the comfort and good cheer, for which the noble and energetic Mrs. Meliza is responsible, make this home one out of a hundred. There are two fine orchards, of apples and other fruit, which Mr. Meliza planted. He owns another quarter section, adjoining this place, and a half section in South Dakota. He keeps a large herd of shorthorn cattle, and a number of horses and mules for working his farm. He sold forty head of cattle in the fall of 1903, and some of his fine cow's have brought as much as eighty-five dollars. He has some two hundred blooded Poland China hogs, and in one season he sold three thousand dollars' worth from the breeding of twenty sows. There is a fine hedge around the home quar- ter section, and half way round the adjoining tract, and all his land is divided into forty acre fields, fenced hog-tight. Without doubt this is one of the best cultivated, best managed and best equipped farms in Richardson county, and Mr. Meliza's pains have been well rewarded in the profitable enterprise he has built up since coming here over twenty years ago.
Mr. Meliza is a Republican in politics, but the only offices he has held are road overseer and school director. He and his wife are mem- bers of the Christian church, in which he is a deacon.
December 28, 1874, Mr. Meliza married Miss Arminta J. Cham- berlain, who was born in Davis county, Iowa, and whose family history will be found in the accompanying biography of Abraham Zook. Two children were born to Mr. and Mrs. Meliza. Lem Elmer, born in Iowa September 16, 1875, died at Hunter Springs, in 1900. He was a grad- uate of Lincoln University, and at the time of his death was employed by a wholesale dry-goods firm at a salary of eighty dollars a month.
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He is buried in Verdon. His parents and sister were in California when he died, and his taking off in the height of young manhood has re- mained a lasting bereavement to them all. Katie Meliza, a young lady of fourteen years, is in the ninth grade of the Verdon schools, and is also taking musical instruction, having much talent in that direction. Mrs. Meliza is a full copartner with her husband, and the way in which she keeps up her end of the domestic establishment is most creditable to her many virtues of heart and mind.
ABRAHAM ZOOK.
Abraham Zook, a retired farmer of Verdon, was born in Wayne county, Indiana, June 24, 1832, shortly after the death of his father, Abraham Zook, who left his widow and three children already born, as follows : Daniel, who was born in 1824 and died near Birmingham, Iowa, in 1902; Esther, who was the wife of John Hoover and died in Indiana, leaving two sons and one daughter; and Joseph, who is a retired farmer of Appanoose county, Iowa, and has three sons and one daughter. The mother of these children died in Iowa at the age of sixty-two. She kept her little family of children together and reared them to be honest and industrious. She had been left with a hundred and sixty acres of land, so that they all had a home until they could do for themselves.
The father was buried in Indiana and the mother in Iowa. Both parents were Brethren in church faith. When he was a child Mr. Abraham Zook saw his grandfather, John Zook, who was a prosperous farmer in Indiana. His earliest American ancestor was his great-grand- father, who was one of two brothers and a cousin that came from Germany and settled in Pennsylvania.
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Mr. Abraham Zook had only a limited schooling in the district school. He lived at home until his first marriage, on November 6, 1851, in Indiana, when he was united in wedlock with Miss Mary A. Ulrich, who was born in Indiana in December, 1831, a daughter of John and Catherine (Teeter) Ulrich, all of Pennsylvania. There were four children of this marriage: Mrs. Susanna Price, a widow, who lives in Iowa and has five children ; Martin, of Falls City, who has five children ; Catherine, who died at the age of seven; and Oliver, who is a farmer two miles south of Humboldt and has one son and two daughters. The mother of these children died in Iowa in 1871.
January 2, 1876, Mr. Zook married Mrs. Mary C. Chamberlain, nee Wallace, who was born in White county, Illinois, September 19, 1838. Her first husband was Raymond Chamberlain, a native of Vir- ginia and a farmer of Iowa, where he died in the prime of life in 1873, leaving three children, as follows: Mrs. Arminta Meliza, wife of the prominent Richardson county farmer whose biography is given above; John Calvin Chamberlain, who is an able farmer of Nuckolls county, Nebraska, and has five sons and one daughter; and Robert Marshall Chamberlain, who bought Mr. Zook's farm of one hundred and forty- six acres in Liberty precinct and is farming it very successfully. and who has one son and one daughter.
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