USA > Nebraska > A Biographical and genealogical history of southeastern Nebraska, Vol. I > Part 20
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John Palmer remained in the parental home till he was married and was also with the family in their various migrations about the country, living in Idaho from 1863 to 1869. In the latter year he took up his home in Nebraska and later bought land. He settled on his present place about seventeen years ago, buying eighty acres with but slight improvements, and he erected his good and comfortable house six years ago. In the season of 1902 he had twenty-one hundred and fifty bushels of corn, and in all his agricultural operations is meeting with well deserved success.
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Mr. Palmer was married in April, 1861, to Miss Mary Moore, who was born in England, being five years her husband's senior, and her death occurred May 21, 1902, at the age of sixty-nine, after a use- ful and worthy life of devotion to her husband and children and in which she gained the affection and regard of all with whom she came in contact. Mr. and Mrs. Palmer were the parents of seven children : Henry, who is a farmer on Dr. Neal's farm and has a wife and two daughters; Sarah, who is the wife of Lute Hanaford and has two daugh- ters and one son: Alice, who is the wife of John Root and has four daughters and one son; Emma, the wife of Thomas Carlisle and has one daughter and two sons; Minnie, who is the wife of Archer Cook and has two sons and a daughter; Miss Mary, who has been her father's housekeeper since her mother's death; and John, at home. All the children had good educational advantages in the common schools and in the normal.
PHILLIP PALMER.
Phillip Palmer, a brother of John Palmer and a retired farmer living in Peru, was born in Lincolnshire, England, November 17, 1846, a son of John and Eleanor (Dove) Palmer, the former of whom was born in England in 1806 and died in Peru, October 14, 1889, and the latter was born February 2, 1812, and they were married February 14, 1834. Their nine children reared to maturity were all born in England, and they lost their eldest child, Sarah, born in 1837. They came to America and made their way to St. Louis, having to borrow money to reach their destination, and they began their career in this country in humble circumstances, but gradually advanced by honorable and industrious efforts to a fair degree of material prosperity before
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their lives were ended in death, both passing away within the same week.
Phillip Palmer began working by the month near St. Louis, re- ceiving only five dollars a month at first, and this wage was afterward increased to six dollars. In 1863 he, with the rest of the family, went by boat up the river to Omaha, where they were compelled to wait twelve weeks on account of illness, and from that point went across the plains with ox teams in a train of twenty-six wagons to Salt Lake City. They all located one hundred miles north of there, in Idaho, where one of the sons-in-law had settled previously, and there for six years the men of the family were engaged in farming, freighting and stock-raising. But to remain there in peace and harmony they should have been compelled to turn Mormons, and not favoring that idea they returned to Omaha and in the same fall came to Nemaha county. Phil- lip Palmer still owns the eighty acres which his father located, and he made it his home until the fall of 1903. He lost his right leg in January, 1900, and was compelled to give up active farming, so he moved into town and now has a pretty cottage home surrounded by five acres of land, mostly in orchard and beautiful evergreen groves. He is a Republican voter, and his wife is a member of the Christian church.
April 12, 1886, Mr. Palmer, after with filial devotion having re- mained with his parents for many years, as he also continued to do until their death, was married to Mrs. Minerva Spicer, the widow of William Spicer, who died in 1885, leaving his widow and three daughters. Mrs. Paliner was born in Jasper county, Iowa, a daughter of C. C. and Nancy (Wolf) Tharp, the former of whom was born near Indianapo- lis, Indiana, in 1818, and died March 19, 1902, at the advanced age of eighty-four years and the latter at the age of sixty-eight. Mr. and Mrs. Tharp had five children : One that died in infancy; Minerva, now Mrs.
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Palmer; Martha, the wife of Wilson Canning, in Colorado, and the mother of nine children; Armada, the wife of Rev. Chapman, a minis- ter of the Christian church, and has eight children; and John Tharp, in Olkahoma and has five children. William Spicer was a native of Delaware, was a carpenter by trade, and came to Nebraska before 1872; he was a non-commissioned officer in the Union army during the Civil war, and was twice wounded, in the head and in the arm. Mr. and Mrs. Palmer have three daughters, all of whom were educated in the normal and have taught, as follows: Edith is the wife of Henry Palmer, a cousin, and has two daughters; Mary is the wife of Lee Parrish, on the farm three miles south of Peru, and has an infant son; and Bessie is a student in the training class of the normal.
FRANK L. McNOWN.
Frank L. McNown, who is serving his second year as principal of the graded schools of Peru, is a young educator of unusual ability and fitness for the work which he is now doing. In a state which holds the record for the highest degree of literacy, the maintenance of the standard of the elementary schools is of the highest importance. The public schools of Peru have always been noted for their efficiency in all departments, and their progress has been accentuated by the higher institutions of learning in the same place, especially the normal school. Mr. McNown has devoted himself with ardor and enthusiasm to his work, and his connection with the schools has already resulted in many improvements in system and detail.
Mr. McNown is a native son of Peru, and being a product of the town and its educational institutions, he naturally takes all the more
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pride in their welfare and upbuilding. He was born December 12, 1874, and after completing the grades became a student in the State Normal at Peru. He has been engaged in teaching for the past five years, and was elected to his position of principal of the grade schools two years ago. He has made rapid advancement in his profession, and has a bright career before him. Like his father, he is a Republican in politics, and fraternally affiliates with the Ancient Order of United Workmen, the Royal Highlanders and the Degree of Honor.
Mr. McNown is the sixth and youngest child born to John and Martha (Hatton) McNown, the former deceased, but the latter, though at an advanced age, is living in Peru, a noble type of southern woman- hood, bright and pleasing and cheerful in her age as she has been use- ful and devoted to family and home during her earlier years. Mr. McNown's grandfather, James McNown, was born near Dublin, county Down, Ireland, about 1769, and he and his wife (of the same name and a distant relative) emigrated to America and became farmers of Brown county, Ohio; they lived to the respective ages of eighty-four and sixty-two years, and were faithful and esteemed citizens of their com- munity. They were the parents of two sons, John and William, the latter of whom died in early life, leaving two children.
John McNown was born in Brown county, Ohio, May 10, 1815, and had good schooling considering the educational advantages of the time. He was a soldier in the Thirty-third Ohio Volunteer Infantry, having enlisted at Lincoln's second call for troops, and while in the army suffered a stroke of paralysis, for which he received a pension of from fourteen to thirty dollars a month during the rest of his life, and his widow still draws twelve dollars a month.
John McNown was twice married. In Ohio he was married to Miss Fraim, and they came west to Iowa, where they spent one winter, and
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in the spring of 1857 drove through to Peru, Nebraska, where she died in 1860. She was the mother of six children, all born before the re- moval in Nebraska, and only two of them grew, up and none are now living. December 4, 1862, John McNown was married in Ohio to Miss Martha Hatton, who was born in Rockbridge county, Virginia, August 18, 1830, a daughter of William and Delilah Hatton, both of Scotch-Irish nationality. Her father died in Virginia in 1831, leaving llis widow and their only daughter and child, and four years later she passed away, in the meantime having moved to Brown county, Ohio. Mrs. McNown, thus orphaned, was reared by her maternal grand- parents in Ohio, and enjoyed a fair schooling. She and her husband moved to Peru in April, 1863, and here she has resided ever since. They were the parents of the following children: Calista N., the wife of Dr. J. F. Neal; Florence Nightengale, the wife of Otis McAdams, of Peru, has one son; Nannie Marie became the wife of Herbert W. Helms, a native of New York, who was a brick-maker and died in Peru at the age of thirty-seven years, August 16, 1898, and their only child, B. Otis, is a youth of fourteen and in school in Peru; John Rich- ard McNown is a railroad man in Oregon, and has a wife and two sons and one daughter; Lula Myrtle is the wife of James Grant Smith, of Peru, and has one son and one daughter; and Frank L., completes the family.
JOHN F. CORNELL.
John F. Cornell, of section 9, Liberty township, is one of the old settlers of Richardson county and has been prominent as an agri- culturist and public man in county and state affairs for a number of years. When he came to the state as a boy of nine years, nearly fifty
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years ago, Nebraska territory had been only recently organized and he has witnessed the entire growth and development of the country into one of the remarkably fertile states of the Union. The entire family has been indentified in many ways with Richardson county. and the first school taught in Liberty township was at the house of Mr. Cornell's father, who was also the teacher, and, for many years following, a director of the school district, which embraced four precincts, but had only fifteen scholars, Salem being in the large district. For many other reasons the name of Cornell is an honored one in Richardson county, and those who have borne the name have never failed in the discharge of their proper obligations to themselves, to the community and to all the institutions of church and state.
Mr. Cornell was born in Indiana, February 7. 1847. His grand- father, Smith Cornell, was born in North Carolina, where he was a farmer and also in Maryland, where he died in middle life, leaving six sons : Benjamin, who was a farmer in Ohio, where the family settled in 1836; William; John; Samuel, who settled in Indiana; Charles; and Nathaniel, an able minister of the Lutheran church, located in New York. The father of these sons was of Welsh descent, and during the war of 1812 was a captain in the American army.
John Cornell, father of John F., was born in Maryland in Decem- ber, 1808, and died January 8, 1883, on his home farm on section 4, Liberty township, of this county. He married. in 1837. Levina Wil- hite, who was born in Maryland in 1814, and died in this county in 1896. Her father came from Germany to Maryland at a very early day, and many relatives are to be found in that state at the present time. After his marriage John Cornell moved to Indiana, settling in the woods, and taught school several years and also cleared up a farm. He began life very humbly, but was successful and a prominent per-
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sonage in every locality where he made his home. From Indiana he went to Nebraska, and in 1856 took up his residence in Richardson county. He and his wife had the following family of sons and daugh- ters: Mary Elizabeth, the wife of Alfred Hollingsworth, who is a large farmer of Idaho; Lydia Ann, who died in infancy; William Henry Harrison, who died in Verdon, Nebraska, in July, 1903, at the age of sixty-two, leaving three daughters, and who had served in the ranks for one year during the Civil war and afterwards farmed; Mrs. Celestie Worley, a widow, in Boxbute, Nebraska, the mother of two daughters and one son; John F .; Jane, who is the wife of Allen Ting- ley, of Oklahoma, and has a large family of sons; Mrs. Catherine Simpson, a widow, of Lawrence, Kansas, with three sons, one of whom is a teacher in the Philippines; George Wash, of Auburn, Nebraska, who has a large family ; and Charles T., who died at the age of thir- teen.
Mr. John F. Cornell was reared to manhood in Nebraska, and spent two years as a student in the State University at Lincoln, after which he was a teacher for some time. The fine farm of two hundred acres which he has been operating for some years is known as the John Patterson farm, and he is also owner of one hundred and ninety-two acres of land in Oklahoma. He has been very successful in his busi- ness ventures, and is one of the representative agriculturists of the southeastern part of the state. For some years he was a stanch adher- ent of Republican principles and policies, but voted for W. J. Bryan in 1892 for Congress and at both the presidential elections. He has been in public affairs for many years, and has become known for his ability and unswerving integrity in all public acts. He served as state auditor for two terms, and the press of the state gave him unequivocal commendation for his conduct and excellent accounting of the large
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amounts of state funds. He was a member of the county board for five years. He is an active member of several fraternal orders, and in church affiliations is a Baptist, while his parents were both Presby- terians.
December 21, 1882, Mr. Cornell married Miss Bell Patterson. They have four children of their own, and have adopted a bright boy of eight years. Zelie May, their first child, is the wife of Robert Mickle, on the staff of the daily Star at Lincoln, Nebraska; she was educated in the Lincoln high school and one year in the State Univer- sity, and taught for two years ; she is an able pianiste. Neenah Vashti, the second daughter, is in the Peru normal. Ann Eunice W. is a girl of thirteen, and Helen is aged nine years. All the family are blessed with fine physiques and the best of health, and are happy, interesting peo- ple, with something worth while to say and with plenty of ability to act in the world about them.
Mrs. Cornell is the only daughter and only surviving child of John W. and Lucy (Girwell) Patterson. Her brother, Albert H. B. Patterson, died in his tenth year, November 25, 1871. John W. Patter- son, now a retired farmer of Verdon, came to Richardson county in August, 1858, from Birmingham, Van Buren county, Iowa. He was born in Lawrence county, Indiana, close to Bedford, April 10, 1838. His grandfather, Gilbert Patterson, was born in North Carolina about 1770, became an early settler of Davis county, Indiana, and died there. By his wife, a Miss McBride, he had nine children : Rebecca Bynum; G. B .: Betsey Lytton; William; Gilbert; Kizzie, wife of William Baker; Dr. Mary Parsons, M. D .; Louis Patterson, the only one living, and Nancy.
G. B. Patterson, father of John W., was born in North Carolina in 1811, and died in Richardson county, Nebraska, in 1891. He mar-
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ried Patsy Cavaness, of Indiana, and they had three children, Mary Ann, who died at the age of five years; John W .; and Sarah, who died in infancy.
John W. Patterson was taken to Illinois in 1848, and there reared to manhood, receiving his schooling in the subscription schools. Febru- ary 11, 1858, he married Miss Lucy A. Girwell, who was born in Holmes county, Ohio, in 1834, a daughter of D. R. and Rachael (Speel- man) Girwell. Mr. Patterson came out to Richardson county soon after his marriage, and for some years was engaged in freighting across the plains to Denver and other points, laying the foundation of his later prosperity in this enterprise. He has been prominent in farm- ing and other lines of business in this state, but ten years ago sold his last farm, and has since lived in Verdon. While Mr. Cornell was state auditor he also resided in Lincoln. For several years he has writ- ten some fire and life insurance and attended to some collection business. For about ten years he did a large business in feeding and shipping live-stock. He has lived in this part of the state so many years that he has witnessed almost every detail of its progress. For many years he and his wife have been accustomed to making summer trips to the west, and from year to year the changes in the country through which he has traveled have been almost startling in their rapidity, resulting in a complete transformation of the region in a few years.
Mr. Patterson is a Democrat in politics and fraternally is a Mas- ter Mason. His wife is a member of the Evangelical church. They are particularly proud and happy in their grandchildren, the children of Mr. and Mrs. Cornell, and find a renewing of years and delightful solace in their youthful companionship.
MRS. SWEN A. ISAAC
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SWEN A. ISAAC
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SWEN A. ISAAC.
Swen A. Isaac, one of the prominent citizens of Turkey Creek precinct, Pawnee county, Nebraska, is a native of Sweden, where he was born March 20, 1837. In his native land he was known as Isaacson, but he dropped the last syllable after locating in the United States. His parents bore the names of Isaac and Katrina (Johnson) Lorson, and both were born and died in Sweden. The father was born in 1800 and the mother in 1813, and their deaths occurred in 1852 and in 1901 respectively. Among the most cherished possessions of our subject is the old family Bible, in which there is recorded that these parents had eleven children. One died in infancy; another' was evidently killed in the Civil war, as nothing was ever heard from him after the battle of Chickamauga, September 21, 1863. Our subject, a brother and three sisters, are the only survivors.
Swen A. Isaac was reared upon his father's farm and commenced learning the trade of shoemaker, but never followed it. His education was very limited, and he came to the United States in July, 1857, set- tling first near Galesburg, Illinois, where he assisted in laying the very first foundation for a dwelling house in that vicinity. When the war broke out he was among the first to respond to the call for soldiers and enlisted, August 21, 1861, in Company A, Forty-second Illinois Volunteer Infantry, under Captain Northrop, for three years, and after the expiration of his time he re-enlisted and was honorably discharged at Springfield, Illinois, at the close of the war. He lost his left arm at the battle of Franklin, Tennessee, in November, 1864, and at the same time received two other bullets in his body, either one of which the surgeons thought would cause his death. He was taken prisoner and confined in the Confederate prison, and through ignorance on the part of the physicians his arm was amputated when through proper care it
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might have been saved. He pleaded with the physicians to make the amputation below the elbow, for he knew he possessed a very strong constitution, but as this would have necessitated more trouble and the surgeons believed that his death was certain, the arm was taken off at the upper muscle. After he had been exchanged and discharged he returned to Illinois and located in Chicago, thinking he would be given a chance in the soldiers' home to go to school, but as it was full he determined to make his own way in life. Going into the country, he worked by the day and month, studying as opportunity offered. All during the war he had carried a spelling book and an arithmetic with him, and studied every spare hour, and when in the prison and in the · several hospitals. About 1866 Mr. Isaac took a trip to Kansas and Nebraska. Returning to Illinois, he entered the Prairie City Academy, where he remained until spring, when he removed to Pawnee county and homesteaded a claim in Plum Creek precinct, just south and adjoining his present home in Turkey Creek precinct. He filed his claim in June of 1866 and after his return to Illinois he purchased his team and wagon. Then after his term in the academy he drove through to Nebraska as railroad facilities terminated eighteen miles northwest of St. Joseph, Missouri. He came west in company with two brothers, who also took up adjoining homesteads. Later he took up three hundred and twenty acres more. During the fall and winter of 1868-69 he taught school, but as he felt his lack of proper pronunciation of the' English language he decided not to follow teaching as a business.
He was married on March 12, 1868, to Louisa Shewey, who was born in McLean county, Illinois, August 26, 1850. She is a daughter of Joseph and Margaret (Beaver) Shewey, the former of whom was born in Ohio, but died in Kansas aged seventy-six years, and the latter was born in Indiana and died near the home of her son-in-law,
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Mr. Isaac, aged sixty-seven years. She and her husband were old pion- eers of the county and settled in Plum Creek precinct. Mrs. Isaac was one of a family of eight children, all yet living.
About 1870 Mr. and Mrs Isaac moved into a little log cabin on the northern part of their land in Turkey Creek precinct where they lived and labored until 1880, and at that time erected their present comfortable home, one of the finest houses in Pawnee county. Five years later their fine barn was finished, and the two structures cost over $10,000. A good deal of the work Mr. Isaac did himself, as he hauled all the lumber from a half-dozen different towns in the county and helped the various work- men in the construction.
Both he and his excellent wife are active members of the Baptist church at Burchard, of which he has been a deacon for over thirty years, while Mrs. Isaac is equally prominent in the ladies' society. They both have been workers in the church of Burchard since its organization and contributed largely towards the erection of the imposing church structure. Mr. Isaac was one of the first to join the G. A. R. post in Illinois and is at present commander of the William A. Butler Post No. 172, of Bur- chard and he was one of its charter members. He is also a member of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows local lodge and of the grand lodge of the state. His first vote was cast for General Grant in 1868, and he has since that time continued a staunch Republican. He has held about all the local offices, for six years was county commissioner and was first nominated when he was away from home, without his knowledge or consent. He is also one of the old justices of the peace.
The career of Mr. Isaac has been a most remarkable one, for he came to this country absolutely penniless, and soon after his arrival entered the service of his adopted land, and in defense of the Union was maimed for life. In spite of a calamity which would have utterly pros-
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trated an ordinary man he has gone steadily ahead ever working upward, and is now one of the leading men of Pawnee county. His great ambi- tion in life, however, has been to educate himself, and he never has lost a single opportunity of acquiring knowledge. He is an upright and honorable man, a kind neighbor, a loving and devoted husband.
JOHN W. HESKETT, M. D.
John W. Heskett, M. D., is the longest established physician and surgeon of Salem, Richardson county, and for the twenty years, since April 11, 1884, the date of his locating in this town, he has held a recognized place as a reliable and successful practitioner and a promi- nent and public-spirited citizen. Medicine was the profession toward which his aspirations early in life reached out to, and by considerable self-denial and energetic resolution he attained his M. D. some thirty years ago. Since then he has not failed to make definite progress to- ward high professional standards and successful practice with each year, and through the large part of a generation he has been favored with the confidence and been esteemed as the counselor and professional friend of many a household of Salem and the adjacent country.
Dr. Heskett was born in West Carlisle, Coshocton county, Ohio. His father, Benjamin F. Heskett, was born in old Virginia, and during the Civil war was captain of Company C, Fifty-first Ohio Infantry, and was killed at the battle of Stone River. He left a wife, a half brother and this one son. His wife was Hannah Barcroft, a native of Harri- son county, Ohio, and a daughter of John Barcroft. Dr. Heskett lost his mother when he was three years old, and was then taken into the family and reared by his grandfather Barcroft and his second wife.
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His early life was spent in Coshocton and Knox counties, Ohio, and he was well educated. After he had finished the common schools at Martinsburg he taught several terms, and then entered the Cincin- nati Medical College, from which he was graduated in 1874 with the degree of M. D. On March II of the same year he began practice in West Bedford, Ohio, where he continued his professional labors for ten years. At the time above mentioned he came to Salem. He located on the south side of the village, building a pleasant cottage home, on a hill overlooking the town and the surrounding country, and he is the only resident on the south side within the city corporation who has lived there for twenty years without moving. He has nine acres of ground around his home, enough to be dignified with the name of a farm, and on this he has placed all the improvements and planted the many fruit and ornamental trees. He has an extensive regular practice, and he has lived here so long that in his professional rounds he knows by sight or name every person he meets, both in town and the sur- rounding country.
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