USA > Nebraska > A Biographical and genealogical history of southeastern Nebraska, Vol. I > Part 24
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GEORGE CROW
MRS. GEORGE CROW
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fulling trade in the woolen mills, and began life without money, prog- ressing to comfortable circumstances before his death. He married Susan Johnson in New Jersey, who was born in 1792, a daughter of Joseph Johnson, who was an active man at the age of eighty-seven and died at ninety years. George Crow and wife had nine children, five daughters and four sons, and the only ones now living are George and his sister Rachel, who is the widow Remley, living in Laharpe, Kansas, and the mother of two children. The daughter Elizabeth was born in 1808 and died in 1896 in Iowa, having been the mother of two daugh- ters and one son. The mother of these children died in Indiana at the age of forty of milk sickness, and her husband died there in the fall of 1848. Nearly all the family seems to have been remarkable for the length of their years, and they were worthy and useful citizens in every community in which they lived.
George Crow was born in Burlington county, New Jersey, May II, 1821, and when a boy of twelve or thirteen was brought to Ran- dolph county, Indiana. In 1844 he joined a company who were going to Andrew county, Missouri, he driving the wagon of a widow woman for his passage. One of the reasons for this move was that the young lady whom he afterward married and who is now his honered companion of old age, came at the same time with her parents, and young Crow at the ardent age of twenty-four could not believe otherwise than that it was his duty to go also. In the same year, however, he left Missouri and went to Nebraska. The Presbyterian mission among the Pawnee Indians just at this time wanted a farmer, and Mr. Crow went there for that purpose, spending one year there before his marriage, after which he went back and conducted the mission farm until August, when the Indians became hostile and drove the settlers down the Missouri. This makes Mr. Crow's residence in the state antedate that of any other
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living white man, and he is also the oldest actual settler of this part of the state.
In the spring of 1850 Mr. Crow was one of the great expedition of argonauts from Andrew county, Missouri, who went across the plains with oxen and horses to California, being from May to September on the journey. He was fairly successful during nearly three years that he spent there, although he would have done just as well at home, and he returned to Andrew county on December 30, 1852; most of his mining experiences having been in the placers. In October, 1856, he moved from Buchanan county, Missouri, to Nemaha county, Nebraska, and has been a permanent resident ever since. He and his good wife have made all they have through the hard work of their hands and shrewd management and business ability. He has engaged in farming and stock-raising since coming here, and fifteen acres of broken land was the only improvement on the two hundred and forty which he made so profitable during the remainder of his life. He is now living retired on his eighty-seven acre farm in London precinct, Brownville post- office.
Mr. Crow married, February 14, 1846, Miss Mary Ware, who was born in Burlington county, New Jersey, December 4, 1823, two and a half years later than her husband, and they first knew each other when she was seventeen years old. Her parents, Joseph and Lydia (Clutch) Ware, were of New Jersey, whence they were pioneers to Clermont county, Ohio, about 1828. Seven years later they went to Indiana, and thence in 1843 or 1844 to Andrew county, Missouri. Mrs. Crow was the third of twelve children. Her father was born June 14, 1797, and died in 1879, and her mother was born May 25, 1800, and died September 27, 1887. Mrs. Crow has four brothers and two
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sisters living, and she is the eldest. Her brother James Story Ware died of disease in the army during the Civil war.
Mr. and Mrs. Crow have been the parents of the following children : Lydia Ellen, wife of Amos McIninch, of St. Joseph, Missouri; Charles Elliott, who died when five years old; George Ranney, who died at the age of two months; Anna, wife of John Felton, in Auburn; William Allen, of Oklahoma, who has had one son by each of two wives ; Susan O., wife of John W. Ritchey, a merchant of Brownville, and has two sons ; Ida M., wife of David Kite, a farmer near Howe, and has one son and two daughters; Mary Emma died in infancy; Walter P. is in Colorado, and has two daughters and one son; Charlotte L. died at the age of seven months.
Mr. and Mrs. Crow are among the octogenarians who have had the honor of celebrating their golden wedding. He is a Master Mason, for over fifty years a Mason. He was formerly a Democrat. He was sent as a representative to the territorial legislature for about five terms, and he introduced the measure for removing the capitol to Lin- coln. While serving in this body he practically gave his time and serv- ice to the territory, for the remuneration was so small that it would not hire a man to take his place on his stock farm. He served as jus- tice of the peace for a time, and the only couple who came before him seeking matrimonial bonds he tied free of charge.
MRS. ANN MAXWELL.
Mrs. Ann Maxwell is well known to the residents of Nemaha county, and is the widow of John Maxwell, who was born in Lanark- shire, Scotland, June 22, 1823. On the Ist of January, 1847, in the
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land of his birth, he was united in marriage to Miss Ann Wardrop, a daughter of Daniel and Agnes (Donald) Wardrop, both of whom died in the prime of life, leaving three of their five children, namely : Daniel, who died when about fourteen years old; Ann; and Margaret, who resides in Glasgow and is the wife of a railroad engineer. Mrs. Maxwell was but six years of age when her mother died, and two years later her father was called away by death, leaving these two children with but a small estate left by their grandfather Waldrop. By her marriage Mrs. Maxwell has become the mother of eleven children, as follows : John, who was born in Scotland, January 27, 1848, and is now engaged in farming in Sheridan county, Kansas; Daniel, who resides on one of his mother's farms; William, a farmer near the old home place; Agnes, the wife of Frank Hacker, a farmer of this township; Nettie, who died at the age of sixteen years; Walter, a mail carrier in Nemaha city; Alexander, engaged in the livery business in Oklahoma; Margaret, who died when but two years old; Charles, who died at the age of eleven years; Frank, deceased at the age of three months; and Edward, whose history will be found below.
In 1852 Mr. and Mrs. Maxwell bade adieu to the home and friends of their childhood, and came by sailing vessel to America, spending seven weeks and four days on the voyage from Glasgow to New York. After residing one year at Buffalo, New York, where Mr. Maxwell followed his trade of shoemaking, they removed to Whiteside county, Illinois, there securing forty acres of land, on which he farmed during the summer months, while in the winter he worked at his trade. Fifteen years were spent in the Prairie state, and in. 1867 this worthy couple made their way to Nebraska with their eight children, two of whom were babes, and here for a time they farmed on rented land. For thirty- three years they had charge of the county almshouse, and in this official
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position they proved themselves honest and trustworthy. In his fra- ternal relations Mr. Maxwell was a member of the order of Odd Fellows, and was an unswerving Republican in political matters.
There are one hundred and sixty acres in the home place, another farm has one hundred and seventy acres,-in all three hundred and thirty acres ; one hundred and sixty acres are in Kansas. He came here without anything and was a self-made man.
Edward J. Maxwell, a son of these worthy Scotch parents, was born in this county on the 2d of August, 1872. He was reared as a farmer lad and in his youth attended the district schools and the com- mercial college at Shenandoah, Iowa, graduating in that institution in 1891. Since his father's death he has been his mother's constant support, and is now engaged in farming on one hundred and sixty acres of land belonging to the estate. On Christmas day of 1897 he was united in marriage to Lizzie Leibhart, who was born in Pennsylvania in 1876, a daughter of W. W. and Mary Leibhart, both of whom are living in Nemaha, to which place they removed from Illinois in 1883. They became the parents of six daughters and two sons, but one son is now deceased, and the two married sisters of Mrs. Maxwell are Clara, the wife of W. E. Patterson, of Gretna, Nebraska; and Rose, the wife of Frank Titus. One little daughter, Maxine, has been born to brighten and bless the home of Mr. and Mrs. E. J. Maxwell, her birth occurring on the 26th of August, 1903. Mr. Maxwell is a member of the Inde- pendent Order of Odd Fellows, and is a stanch supporter of Republi- can principles. During the heated campaign of 1903 he was the suc- cessful candidate for the office of assessor, which he is now filling with honor and credit. Mrs. Maxwell is a member of the Baptist church.
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MRS. MARY E. CLARK.
Mrs. Mary E. Clark, residing on the farm of her late husband in London precinct, Nemaha City postoffice, is one of the oldest living settlers of Nemaha county and southeastern Nebraska. Few, indeed, are they who can boast of a half century of residence in this state, dating from a time even before the organization of this section of the country as a territory. Mrs. Clark spent nearly all the days of her long and happy married life in this state, during which time she wit- nessed its organization under "squatter sovereignty," the troublous days preceding and during the Civil war, and the magnificent in- dustrial and agricultural development which has taken place since. She is a true pioneer, a woman of noble attributes and Christian charac- ter, and deeply esteemed and revered within her own circle of relatives and in the community which her long and blameless life has adorned.
Mrs. Clark was born in Jackson county, Missouri, August 4, 1832, a daughter of Smallwood V. and Sally (Profit) Noland, who were both of Kentucky and were married in Chariton county, Mis- souri. They owned slaves before the war, and were respected farmers of Jackson county. Mr. Noland was a Democrat, and served in the state legislature. He died in Holt county, Missouri, leaving his widow with all their children. She was born in 1804, and had married at the age of sixteen. They were parents of ten children : William Rhodes Noland was killed by the Indians in Oregon, a single man; Cordelia McEwan, who married young, and died at the age of twenty-three, leaving four children; Pleasant C., who lived in Oregon, died in 1904, and had a wife and two children; Mrs. Clark is fourth in order of birth; Ledston died in the Mexican war; Benton Boggs died out west, un- married; John M. died in Oregon, unmarried; Adelia Stephens died, leaving four children; Gabriel Fitzhugh is in Oregon, and is single;
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Martin Van Buren went to Mexico with considerable money, and has not been heard of for thirty years. All the sons who went to Oregon inade money.
Mrs. Clark is well reared by her grandparents, and at the age of nineteen, in 1851, married John C. Clark, who was born in Kentucky, in 1826, and was by trade a brickmason, having built the present residence of Mrs. Clark forty-nine years ago. They came to Brownville, Nebraska, in 1854, and later traded their good home in that town for a squatter's right to their present place. Mr. Clark was an honest and industrious man throughout his life, and his career of successful effort was not closed until his seventy-sixth year, on May 29, 1901, after he and his wife had lived together for fifty years. He was a member and a deacon in the Christian church in Brownville, he and his wife having been charter members when it was organized in the early fifties. He and his brother Henry took care of their widowed mother till her death, which occurred on an adjoining farm, when she had reached the great age of ninety-seven years.
Mr. and Mrs. Clark were parents of nine children, all of whom were born on the home farm but one. Sally is now Mrs. B. F. Jones ; William Smallwood died at the age of eighteen; Dora E. died when three months old; Florence is the wife of Elder M. M. Good, a Chris- tian minister at St. Joseph, Missouri; Kate is the wife of Sam Barnes, in Smith county, Kansas, and has nine children; O. L. is a non-com- missioned officer in Company F, Seventh United States Infantry, in the Philippines; Edith M. is a teacher and is the wife of D. C. Shell, a school principal, and they have one daughter; D. H. Clark runs the home farm of one hundred and fifty acres, and is taking care of his mother; Thomas A. is a telegraph operator on the Union Pacific Rail- road in Nebraska, and is married.
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JOHN B. LEWIS.
On the roster of Nemaha county's officials appears the name of John B. Lewis in connection with the office of mayor, which is an in- dication of his popularity and prominence, and he is also serving as the station and ticket agent for the Burlington Railroad at Brown- ville. He was born in Atchison county, Missouri, February 22, 1869, and his education was received in the schools of Brownville, Nebraska. On the 30th of April, 1891, at Vesta, this state, he began his railroad career as a station agent, and there he also learned the art of telegraphy. At Vesta, on the 14th of September, 1892, Mr. Lewis was united in marriage to Miss Bertha Hardenberg, who was born in Peoria county, Illinois, August 29, 1874, a daughter of H. D. and Anna (Coe) Hardenberg, the former a native of New York. After their marriage Mr. and Mrs. Hardenberg located in Vesta, Nebraska, where they engaged in mercantile business and in 1900 located in Osceola, Iowa, where they now reside. They became the parents of four children, three daughters and a son, namely: Mrs. Lewis; Edna, who is em- ployed as a saleswoman; Alora, a stenographer in Dexter, Iowa; and Newton, the proprietor of a barber shop in Osceola. Three children have blessed the home of Mr. and Mrs. Lewis,-Nevada, Vesta and Viola, aged, respectively, ten, eight and four years. The family reside in a pleasant, two-story brick residence in Brownville, which has been their home since the spring of 1902, but they have resided in this city since December, 1893, at which time Mr. Lewis was transferred from Vesta.
In his fraternal relations Mr. Lewis is a Master Mason and a member of the Knights of Pythias. His political support is given to the Republican party, and as its representative he is now serving his second term as the mayor of Brownville, while for eight years he was
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a member of the city council and for two terms president of the school board. Mr. Lewis is a well informed man, and enjoys the high regard of railroad officials, patrons and the citizens of Nemaha county.
ROBERT V. MUIR.
Robert V. Muir is one of the oldest living settlers, both in point of his own age and in length of residence, of which southeastern Nebraska can boast. If he survives a very few years longer so as to be an octo- genarian, he will at the same time have completed a half century cycle of sojourn in this state. He has been identified with the growth and progress of this section of the state almost from the days when Ne- braska territory was organized under the famous "squatter sovereignty" of Senator Douglas, and he is honored and respected by all for the worthy part he has taken in affairs of citizenship and private life. He and his estimable wife, the long-time companion of his world journey, also claim distinctive recognition in this work because of their long and famous family relationships and ancestral pedigrees, which are cursorily mentioned in the followed paragraphs, but are of such interest to the genealogist that material for a volume might be compiled concerning the personal and family history.
Mr. Muir was born in Lanarkshire, Scotland, October 22, 1826. His father. William Muir, was born in the same place, about 1769, and died in Carbondale, Pennsylvania, in 1853. He was one of three sons of a Scottish farmer, and one of these sons, Robert, was a prominent jeweler in Edinburg. The family possessed a coat of arms, handled down from an antique generation. The device, an engraving of a Moor's head and the inscription Duris Non Frangor, is to be seen
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on the heavy, hand-beaten silver spoons in the possession of Robert V. Muir, although the engraving is dim with the passage of years and constant use.
Mr. Muir came to the United States with his parents in 1835, settling with them in Greene county, New York, whence fifteen years later he went to Carbondale, Pennylvania. In 1856 he was elected treasurer of the Nebraska Settlement Company, and in that capacity came to Table Rock, Nebraska, where, in company with Luther Hoad- ley, he built a sawmill. In 1857 the company built a sawmill at North Star, Missouri, opposite Brownville, Nebraska, and on the dissolution of the firm in the following year this mill became the property of Mr. Muir. He managed this mill and at the same time did an extensive real estate business. From 1867 until 1874 he engaged in mercantile business in North Star, and from the latter date until his practical re- tirement in 1881 -he devoted his time and attention to the flour busi- ness in High Creek Mills, Missouri, which he had already begun in 1863. He built his large and substantial residence in Brownville in 1870, and this is still accounted one of the best homes in the town. Its interior furnishings are of butternut, birdseye maple and black walnut, all of which were cut in his mill, and it is a home of taste and refined appearance as well as comfort. Mr. Muir began this success- ful career humbly enough. He was educated in the Wyoming Semi- nary in Pennsylvania, and taught his way through school, and in this way got his start. He also got his wife in this same school, for Esther Davidson was his fellow student, and for several years before they were married he taught in a district adjoining her home. Mr. Muir is a member of the Presbyterian church, an interested worker for re- ligious principles and the cause of prohibition. In politics he was originally a Whig, later a Republican, and now a Prohibitionist. In
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1898 he was candidate for governor of Nebraska on the prohibition ticket and in 1903 was a candidate for regent of the State University.
Mr. and Mrs. Muir have three children : Downie Davidson, born in Carbondale, Pennsylvania, November 12, 1853, is engaged in min- ing enterprises in New York city, and by his marriage to Armista Wilson, of Mineral Point, has one son, Downie Davidson; Frank Davidson Muir, born in Carbondale, August 2, 1856, has been a bank inspector, and lives in Brooklyn, New York, where he married Miss Mary Barber; and Robert Davidson Muir, born in North Star, Mis- souri, September 19, 1866, is cashier of the national bank in Port Jervis, New York, and by his wife, Lillie Estella Hathaway, of Lincoln, Nebraska, has two daughters.
Mrs. Robert V. Muir is of one of the oldest Scottish families, going back to the time when clan fought clan in terrible struggle. It is said that the descendants of the great Robert Bruce and the David- sons intermarried. The Davison (or Davidson or Davisson, as variously spelled) coat of arms bore this motto : Viget et Cinere Virtus, -Virtue lives even in death. This was selected after the battle of the Inches or North Inch of Perth, fought by thirty picked men of the Davisons against a like number of the McPhersons with broadswords only, with King Robert III as umpire, A. D., 1396, in which battle nearly all on both sides were killed, one man of the Davisons surviv- ing, and he was saved by swimming the river Tay and remaining under water. Since those dark medieval days many a Davison has been prominent, on both sides of the Atlantic, and one branch of the family has been established in this country almost since the beginnings of American civilization.
Esther Davidson was born in Poughkeepsie, New York, in 1827, a daughter of Robert and Helen (Kelly) Davidson, the former a
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native of Kelso, Scotland, and the latter of Saratoga, New York. Robert Davidson was a machinist and builder of cotton mills, and built spinning jennys in South Carolina. He came to America in 1812, and on the voyage was robbed by the crew of an American privateer of all his good clothes and tools and all his money except what was sewed in his clothes. He married in Saratoga, New York, and they reared three of their five children: Jane, the wife of John Stuart, of Scotland, died in Carbondale, Pennsylvania, the mother of four children, three surviving her; Mrs. Muir is the second; and Peter Davidson, of Scranton, Pennsylvania, is a retired farmer, and has six children living and has lost two.
In 1902 Mr. and Mrs. Muir spent several months in New York and Pennsylvania. They celebrated their golden wedding anniversary at the Cafe Martin in New York city, and the public press had this to say of them : "Back in Scranton after fifty years' absence, the prominent Nebraskan and his wife, Mr. and Mrs. R. V. Muir, returned to the home of their youth. They were guests of Peter Davidson and family, of Green Ridge, Scranton, Pennsylvania. They have spent three months visiting friends and relatives in Warren, Pennsylvania, Port Jervis, New York, New York city, and Prattsville, New York, and will soon return to their western home. They celebrated their golden anniversary with a sumptuous dinner at Cafe Martin September 22, 1902. Seated at the tables were the bride and groom of fifty years ago, D. D. Muir and his wife, Amasta Wilson and their son, F. D. Muir and his wife, Mary Barber, of New York city, R. D. Muir and his wife, Lillie Hathaway, and Anna, Mary and Esther Davidson. They were married by the Rev. Reuben Nelson, the principal of Wyoming Semi- nary at Kingston, Pennsylvania, who met the bridal party at the Wyoming Hotel in Scranton. The party were Esther Davidson and
.
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Robert V. Muir, the bride and groom, Peter Davidson, best man, and Mary Shannon, bridesmaid; also Jane Davidson and John Stuart, of Carbondale, and Rev. and Mrs. Reuben Nelson. Death in all these years has not invaded the family circle, but Peter Davidson is the only surviving wedding guest. Mr. Muir was conversant with Scranton when it was Slocum's Hollow. He assisted in building the enigne houses on the Washington gravity railroad, and was in the employ of the Hudson and Delaware Canal Company until he moved to Brownville, Nebraska."
The following obituary notice gives additional facts relating to the subject matter of this history: "Died at Table Rock, Nebraska, August 22, 1873, relict of the late William Muir, and daughter of Daniel Brown, of Lanark, Scotland, in the eighty-ninth year of her age. She was born in Lanark, Scotland, a descendant of the Browns, a name known to church history. She was acquainted with her grand- father, who was born in 1694. She distinctly remembered the close of the French revolution, the rise and fall of the first and second Na- poleon dynasties, the second war with Great Britain, and other events down to the late Civil war in the United States. At an early age she united with the Scotch Presbyterian church. She was not demonstra- tive, but witnessed her faith by her works, at the bedside of the sick and dying and in comforting the sorrowing; she had her own troubles and sorrows, and knew how to sympathize. At the age of fifteen she was bereft of her parents within a few days of each other. She lost three of her lovely children within six weeks, aged two, four and six years; later was sorely bereft by the death of her youngest daughter at the age of nineteen ; and five years later she was a widow. She was the last of her generation, and the dust of her kindred is in Scotland, Italy, West Indies, New York, and Pennsylvania. A sojourner of nearly
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four score and ten years, she died in a strange land, but comforted by the presence of her eldest daughter. She sleeps that last long and dreamless sleep in Walnut Grove cemetery in Brownville."
BENJAMIN FRANKLIN JONES.
Benjamin Franklin Jones, one of the well known farmers of London precinct, Nemaha county, having a nice farm on section 23, with postoffice at Brownville, has lived in this county for nearly forty years, since he was a boy of nineteen. He has enjoyed a successful career in his chosen pursuit, and as a good citizen and the father of a family who are among the popular and useful younger members of society, his record is one that can be scanned with closest scrutiny.
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