USA > Nebraska > A Biographical and genealogical history of southeastern Nebraska, Vol. I > Part 26
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10, 1846, by her first husband, Chauncey Thayer, had one son, and by a Mr. Mower had four children, and she is now a widow living in Jewell county, Kansas. Matilda, born October 10, 1848, is the widow of E. J. Prouty, of Washington state, and has three children. Reuben, born March 4, 1851, is a farmer in Jewell county, Kansas, and has one son and two daughters. Christopher, born November 12, 1854, died August 27. 1855. John, born June 25, 1858, is a resident of Colorado. where he is serving his county as assessor ; he is a widower without children.
Morgan H. VanDeventer had rather limited educational advan- tages, and such as he had were obtained in a primitive log school- house, with the rough puncheon floor, slab seats and the other usual pioneer equipment of the temple of learning of those days. He was at home until he was twenty-two years old, and on May 5, 1858, left Indi- ana with an ox team and a drove of stock cattle, and went to Hudson, Wisconsin, where he was employed on a farm for thirty days, and thence went to Ottawa, Minnesota, where he remained two months, and during the following winter was in Mahaska county, Iowa. In the spring of 1859 he started for Nebraska, driving an ox team, and on the Ist of May filed on a quarter section of land in Richardson county. After proving up he rode back to Indiana on an Indian pony for which he had traded his gold watch, and in the spring of 1860 he and his parents drove overland with two wagons drawn by three yoke of oxen and a team of horses, bringing also six cows. His parents, who came with considerable means, settled on his claim, and his father also filed on an adjoining claim. In 1865 Mr. VanDeventer went across the plains with a party of sixteen driving ox teams, engaged in freighting hardware from Nebraska City to Denver, and also taking loads of corn to Julesburg in the same season. He and his brother had two outfits, each wagon drawn by four yoke of oxen. For the past thirty years
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Mr. VanDeventer has been dealing in hogs, and has shipped from seventy-five to one hundred cars a season. He began business in Salem, the firm of VanDeventer and Morgan continuing for seven years, and he was then in business alone in Dawson and in Stella, for the past three years the firm of VanDeventer and Wagner having been in busi- ness in the latter place. He has shipped more hogs from this section of the state than has any other man. For eight years he and a partner were in the general merchandise business together. Mr. VanDeventer has been residing in town since 1888, and for the past twelve years his fine farm in this county has been conducted by his son. They raise a large number of hogs, cattle and other stock, and have a model farm- stead, with large house, barns and other improvements.
January 12, 1862, Mr. VanDeventer married Miss Sarah Jane Brown, and they became the parents of four sons: Albert is a stockman. in Colorado, and has a wife and three sons and a daughter; Burl, a farmer in Jewell county, Kansas, is a widower with two daughters and one son ; Walter is on his father's farm, as mentioned above, and has a wife but no living children; and Charles, born July 20, 1869, died aged seven months, seven days. The mother of these children died December II, 1900, and on December 12, 1901, Mr. VanDeventer married Miss L. R. Linn, a veteran school teacher and one of the following family : E. H. Linn, a harness-maker of Lincoln, Nebraska; Mrs. VanDeventer ; Mrs. J. A. Williams, of Lilly, Illinois, a former teacher ; R. G. Linn, of Pawnee City, Nebraska; A. A. Linn, of Ottawa, Kansas; and Mrs. William M. Rogers, of Monmouth, Illinois. Mrs. VanDeventer's fam- ily came to Nebraska in the fall of 1871, leaving Tremont, Illinois, on October 20, and drove through with two large wagons.
Mr. VanDeventer has been a member of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows for the past thirty years, and has passed all the chairs of
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his lodge. While on his farm he was a member of the school board for eighteen consecutive years. He is a stanch Republican, and was elected county commissioner in 1868 and served three years. In 1890 he was sent to represent his county in the lower house of the legislature for one term.
LEVI THACKER.
Levi Thacker, the well known miller and dealer in grain and flour, in Jefferson precinct, Falls City, is one of the old citizens of this com- munity, having settled here in December, 1869. He has followed the milling business most of his active life, and has made a great success of it. His enterprise has grown from small proportions in the days of its first establishment to one of the important industries of the county, and he has built it up by his industry and thrift and steady per- severance, always relying upon .exact and honorable business methods, so that prosperity has not smiled on him undeservedly.
Mr. Thacker was born in Clermont county, Ohio, February 23, 1843. His grandfather, Townsend Thacker, came to America from Germany in company with his father and two brothers, and after locat- ing for a time in Virginia came on to Clermont county and settled in the heavy timber. His wife was Sarah Owens, by whom he had some eight children, but Mr. Levi Thacker has recollection of only three of the sons : Isaac, who was a physician of Defiance, Ohio; William, who was a farmer in good circumstances; and John O. Townsend Thacker died in 1850, and his wife in 1870, when past the ninetieth milestone of her life's journey.
John O. Thacker, the father of Levi, was born in Ohio in 1804, and died in that state in 1845. He married Rebecca Randolph Mount,
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a native of New Jersey, and they had four children: Henry, who died of the measles in boyhood; Allen, who has a wife only, went to Cali- fornia twenty years ago and is a successful miller of that state; George is a miller of Phillips county, Kansas, and has four sons and one daughter; and Levi is the youngest of the family. The mother of these children was married a second time, her husband being John W. Jones, and she survived him some twelve years, her death occurring at Cincinnati, Ohio, in 1866.
Mr. Levi Thacker was reared in Ohio, and as 'a young man saw some service in the Civil war as a teamster. He began learning the milling business under his eldest brother, and has made this his voca- tion in life. He came to White Cloud, Kansas, in 1864, and for five years was engaged in running a flour mill which he sold out, and in 1869 arrived in Richardson county, Nebraska. He had inherited twenty- five hundred dollars from his father, and on coming to Nebraska he and his brother purchased a sawmill and corncracker, together with ninety- three acres of land, for five thousand dollars. In 1875 they erected the first grist mill nearer than Salem, with a two-burr mill twenty by fifty feet. The firm was first A. and L. Thacker, and Adam Davis after- ward joined them, buying A. Thacker's interest, and they continued to carry on operations for twelve years. Mr. Thacker has himself been in control of the business for some years. In 1898 he enlarged the plant, putting in an engine, and his equipment is now complete for pro- ' ducing fifty barrels of high-grade flour every day. Most of the output is sold to Rulo and Falls City, and he does a large custom business.
Mr. Thacker was married at Craig, Missouri, April 17, 1873, to Miss Elizabeth Catherine Jones, a native of Missouri and a daughter of Isaac H. Jones. Mrs. Thacker is the eldest of the five living children, the others being: Jane, in Colorado; William, in southern Kansas;
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Jolın, north of Falls City; Mrs. Emma Arnold, in Richardson county. Mrs. Thacker's mother died near here, and Mr. Jones was again mar- ried and had one daughter. He died at the home of his daughter, Mrs. Thacker, in 1901, at the age of seventy-nine. Mr. and Mrs. Thacker have seven children: Otho, who is a miller, assisting his father ; Edgar A., a street car conductor in Los Angeles; Gertrude, at home; Mary, in the Falls City high school; Leona Schneider, near Pawnee city ; Clyde, also employed in the mill; and Mary, at home. Mr. Thacker is a Democrat, but without aspirations for office. His wife is a member of the Methodist church, South. Mr. Thacker has made all the improve- ments on his property, including a modern residence situated on beauti- ful grounds just above the mill, and his business and real estate interests are all very desirable and valuable.
DAVID WILKIE.
David Wilkie, who resides on section 22, Lafayette township, Ne- maha county, with his postoffice at Talmage, is one of the old pioneer settlers of this part of Nebraska, and is likewise one of the oldest men of the county, being now past the eightieth milestone of an unusually active and useful career. He began life in the crude and primitive early decades of the last century, and what advantages there were in in an educational way in that time he was hardly privileged to enjoy. for since his young body had thirteen years' growth he has known what hard labor is. He is therefore a man who has made his own way in the world, and the success which is his present lot has been gained by the sweat of the brow and intelligently directed industry. After spending his early years in his native state, he came to the Mississippi valley and
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DAVID WILKIE
MRS. DAVID WILKIE
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was in Illinois before the Civil war, during which conflict he gave three years of his loyal service to the cause of the Union arms, as a member of an Illinois regiment, and he now draws a pension from the govern- ment to which he gave a patriot's highest devotion. Right after the war he came, in true emigrant fashion, in his wagons and with house- hold effects and stock and family, to the new country across the Big Muddy, where he made his start, in humble circumstances, on govern- ment land. In the years that have since elapsed the results of his dili- gence have yearly become more manifest, as anyone could bear witness who should visit the fine estate of four hundred acres where he has developed his home and made the seat of his residence for nearly forty years.
Mr. Wilkie was born in the little town of Queensbury, Warren county, New York, August 8, 1823. His grandparents, David and Eliza- beth (Irish) Wilkie, were farmers of Rensselaer county. New York, and their remains now rest in Warren county of that state. They reared two sons and one daughter, Mary, who became the. wife of Isaac Filo and reared thirteen of her fifteen children.
Jacob Wilkie, Mr. Wilkie's father, was born in Warren county, New York, before 1800, and was a successful farmer, owning a place of two hundred acres and also fifteen hundred acres of timber land in the same county. He was married about 1820 to Mary Weston, of the same county, and they had four sons, as follows : John Weston Wilkie, born about 1821, and died at Glen Falls, New York, about 1897, was all through the Civil war as a private soldier, was twice married, and followed the business of manufacturing the old-fashioned cradles for reaping grain; David Wilkie is the second son; James is a farmer at Brock, Nemaha county; and Martin died in Warren county New York, in middle life, leaving a small family.
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David Wilkie grew up in Warren county and remained at home until his marriage. Two weeks after he was thirteen years old he began driving teams to lumber wagons, although his childish strength would not permit of his loading the lumber. He was married in 1847, and afterward came to Illinois. After his return from the Civil war, in 1865, he left Dekalb county, Illinois, and drove overland to Nebraska City, where he arrived in October, having been three weeks enroute. He had one hundred and fifty dollars capital, and in the next June he paid out the last dollar of this for a plow with which to break the new sod of his government purchase. He now owns without incumbrance four hundred acres of choice land, and he has placed all the improve. ments upon it, including the shade trees and orchards which embower and beautify the place. He has a fine new barn fifty by fifty feet, and his comfortable farm house was erected in 1897. He has engaged in general farming, and hogs has been the principal stock raised, of which he has kept from one hundred and fifty to two hundred head, to which he has fed the most of his corn, of which he grows about eighty acres each year, besides what is put in by his tenant. He has a tenant house on the place.
On July 31, 1847, Mr. Wilkie was married to Miss Lovina Hala- day, who was born March 1, 1830, one of the six children reared in the family of Harvey Haladay. Mr. and Mrs. Wilkie have their one son, Harvey Jacob, born in Warren county, New York. May 26, 1848. He was married in Illinois to Miss Julia Thompson, of that state, and of this union there are seven living children, one having died in infancy, as follows; Emma, Mary, Carrie, David and Douglas, twins, Adelbert and Floyd. These granddaughters of Mr. Wilkie are married, and he is the proud great-grandfather of seven boys and girls. Mr. Wilkie is a Master Mason, and in politics a Republican, as are also his son
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and grandsons. He has served as road overseer. He and his wife are members of the Methodist church.
JAMES I. SHAW.
James I. Shaw, a prominent farmer and business man of Adams, Gage county, Nebraska, is one of the county's very oldest residents. He came here in 1857, during the days of squatter sovereignty, so that there is scarcely a phase of political or industrial history of the state with which he has not been contemporaneous and personally familiar. He has always been known as a capable and enterprising citizen, able to advance his own prosperity and at the same time public-spirited and foremost in lending aid to endeavors for the general welfare of the com- munity and county. He has an honorable record as a soldier of the Civil war, and since that time has several times figured in the public life of his home locality. He is esteemed by a wide circle of friends and acquaintances, and is genial and open-hearted and popular through- out Gage county.
Mr. Shaw was born in Dutchess county, New York, November 30, 1838. His great-grandfather was a Revolutionary soldier, and his family was in the Wyoming massacre, in which two of his sons were victims of the Indians' tomahawks. Benjamin Shaw, another of the sons of this Revolutionary patriot, escaped massacre, and his son Stephen was the father of Mr. Shaw. Stephen Shaw married Hannah Hicks, a daughter of John Hicks. The family moved from Dutchess county, New York, to Kenosha county, Wisconsin, and in 1857 again embarked their goods and set out for Nebraska. Two months after starting they arrived in Gage county, and took up a claim two miles from Adams.
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There were the following sons and daughters in the family besides Mr. Shaw: William, who was a soldier, and met his death by accident ; Egbert, deceased, was a soldier in the same company with his brother James ; Jolin is a resident of Adams, Nebraska; Steven lives in Adams; Margaret Gale is deceased; Emily is married and living in Gage county ; Almira Lyons resides in Adams; Hannah Noxom; and Rebecca Sil- vernail, living in Adams. The father of this family, who was a farmer by occupation and in politics a Democrat, died at the age of sixty-two years, and his wife died at the age of eighty-five.
James I. Shaw was reared on a farm and educated in the common schools, finishing his school days before coming to Nebraska. On July 3, 1861, he enlisted at Omaha in Company H, First Nebraska Infantry, under Captain Kenedy and Colonel Thayer, the latter afterward becom- ing a general and also governor of Nebraska. The regiment was sent south in time to participate in the campaign ending with the capture of Fort Donelson, in the battles of Shiloh and Cape Girardeau, and then was sent against the forces of Price and Marmaduke through Missouri and Arkansas. In July, 1864, Mr. Shaw received a furlough and went to Omaha. He had veteranized in the fall of 1863 and in the fall of 1864 was then sent to the frontier to guard government trains and set- tlers against the Indians, being stationed at Fort Kearney and Julesburg. He received his final discharge at Omaha in 1866, being first sergeant of his company. He thus has a record of unusual length of service, and fully deserves all the honor which is shown the old veteran of the greatest war of history. After the war Mr. Shaw set himelf to farm- ing and business pursuits in Gage county, and that he has prospered is indicated by his present circumstances. He owns one of the fine farms of the county, consisting of four hundred and eighty acres, and lias one of the best brick store buildings in Adams, besides five good houses.
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Mr. Shaw was postmaster of Adams during the Harrison adminis- tration, and has been active in. the work of the Republican party. He is a loyal member of the Sergeant Cox Post, G. A. R., and is popular with all his old comrades. He was married in Omaha in 1867 to Mrs. Virginia Stewart, who was born on the ocean while her Scotch parents were on their way to America. They have one son, Egbert, who is now twenty-eight years of age, a resident of Adams.
GEORGE B. LEWIS.
This honored veteran of the Civil war and the well known fruit farmer and grain dealer of Brownville, is numbered among the early pioneers of Nemaha county, for here he has made his home since the Ist of June, 1857. He came here from Luzerne county, Pennsylvania, his native place, his birth there occurring on the 4th of August, 1844. He is of Welsh ancestry, for in that country his father, George B. Lewis, was born in 1789, but when a young man came to this country and was here married to Mary Jones, a lady of Welsh descent. He was a coal miner, and they early went to Pennsylvania, where he was engaged in mining anthracite coal and for many years also served as overseer of the mines of Colonel Lee. From that place they came by rail and water to Nemaha county, Nebraska, in 1856, where the elder Mr. Lewis purchased a half section of land two miles southeast of Auburn, paying four hundred dollars for the pre-emption right of Joseph Council. He made many improvements on this place, and at his death left a valuable homestead to his seven surviving children. He' passed away in 1859, and one year previously he had buried his wife. They were worthy members of the Baptist church, in which he served as a
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deacon in Wilkesbarre, Pennsylvania. He was also a member of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows. Their seven children were as fol- lows : David, who died during his service in the Civil war, when twenty years of age, leaving a wife; Elizabeth, the widow of H. O. Minnick and a resident of Nemaha City; George B .; Washington J., who went to California in an early day and is now deceased; Isaac, a carpenter in Colorado; Daniel D., who died in Brownville in the prime of life, leaving one son ; and Charles, who died in his boyhood.
George B. Lewis enjoyed but limited educational privileges in his youth, being permitted to attend school only until his twelfth year, and previous to that time he also worked in the mines. At the first call for volunteers to assist in the suppression of the rebellion he enlisted in a six months' Missouri infantry, later entering the Fifth Missouri Cavalry, in which he served for two years, on the expiration of which period he was mustered out. He then became a member of the First Nebraska Cavalry, with which he served from 1864 until 1866 on the frontier of Nebraska, and on the 30th of June, 1866, received an hon- orable discharge at Omaha as a first sergeant. Returning thence to Atchison county, Missouri, he was there married on the 6th of Decem- ber following to Mrs. Mary Stout, the widow of W. C. Stout and a daughter of H. S. and Charlotte (Harmon) Hill, natives respectively of Kentucky and Tennessee. Their marriage was celebrated in Bond county, Illinois, she being then fifteen years old and he twenty, and in that state they became well known farming people. In 1850 they left the Prairie state for Missouri, but one year later returned to their old home farm in Atchison county, where they remained for about a year. Mr. and Mrs. Hill reared three sons and three daughters, as follows: Mrs. Lewis; William, who died in Missouri when twenty-one years of age; George, who was a printer, died at St. Joe, Missouri,
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leaving a wife and one daughter; Nancy Jane, who became the wife of Lewis Keel, died in middle life, leaving two children; Drucilla, the wife of Dr. Jones, of Watson, Missouri, and they have one son; and Benjamin F. is a printer in St. Joe, and has two daughters. Mrs. Hill was called from this earth at the age of sixty-eight years, in 1894, and Mr. Hill was an octogenarian at the time of his death, which also occurred in 1894. They were members of the Christian church, and for a number of years he served as a county judge. By her first marriage Mrs. Lewis became the mother of the following children : Henry Clay Stout, who died at the age of twenty-two years, leaving one son ; Clara Bell, who died at the age of six years; Elmer Ellsworth Stout, a resi- dent of St. Louis, Missouri; Carrie Bell, who died at the age of ten months.
The following children have blessed the union of Mr. and Mrs. Lewis: Nevada Idona, who was born in Missouri, October 18, 1867, became the wife of Thomas Fisher, and died at Liberty, Nebraska, in 1894. For several years she was a teacher in Auburn. John B. was born in Missouri in 1869, and is now serving as a station agent at Brownville. He is married and has three daughters. Libbie is the wife of R. Setzer, of Nebraska City, and they have one son, Morris. She also has one son by a former marriage, Lewis Heaton, a bright little lad of twelve years, who makes his home with his grandparents. Malcolm was drowned at Brownville when sixteen years of age. Mr. Lewis is numbered among the leading business men of Brownville, where he is a well known fruit farmer and grain dealer, and on his thirty city lots he is raising many varieties of fruit. His home is a sightly one and was erected by Mr. Wheeler, who was our subject's guardian in his youth. Both Mr. and Mrs. Lewis are worthy members of the Christian church.
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DR. J. W. McKIBBIN.
Dr. J. W. McKibbin, a prominent physician and surgeon of Adams, has been engaged in practice here for over twenty-one years. He is a thoroughly up-to-date practitioner, is broad-minded and possessed of abundant theoretical knowledge, and has all the personal attributes which make the popular and sympathetic physician, able to enter a house- hold not only as the messenger of healing but of good cheer and kind- ness. He has been very successful since locating in Adams, and is entirely worthy of the esteem which is everywhere accorded him.
Dr. McKibbin was born near Milford, Kosciusko county, Indiana, January 8, 1852, a member of a well known family of that county. His father, Samuel Mckibbin, was born in Pennsylvania of Scotch ancestry, and came to Indiana in 1837, being one of the early settlers. He was married in Ohio, and by his first wife had two children, and he was afterwards married to Malinda Wood, in Indiana; she was a native of Kentucky and of an old Kentucky family. Dr. McKibbin's father died in Indiana at the age of seventy-nine years, and his mother at the age of twenty-seven. The former was a stanch Jacksonian Democrat, and was honored and respected throughout the community. He was also a leading member of the Methodist church, and was a class-leader.
Dr. McKibbin was reared in Kosciusko county, and given a good education. He is a graduate of the Medical Department of North- western University, in the class of 1878. For two years he engaged in practice in his home place, and then came to Gage county, Nebraska, where he has been in continuous residence and practice for over twenty years. In addition to his practice he is owner of the Adams Stock Farm, on which he raises some of the best shorthorn cattle in south- eastern Nebraska, and this enterprise is not only a source of profit as an investment, but creates a diversion from professional duties.
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Dr. Mckibbin is independent in political matters. He affiliates with the Masonic fraternity and the Improved Order of Red Men, and is a member of the county and state medical societies. He is vice presi- dent of the State Bank of Adams, which is one of the best and safest of Gage county banks.
DUDLEY VAN VALKENBURG.
Dudley Van Valkenburg, grain buyer of Rulo, Richardson county, first came to this town on March 7, 1866, and has been in many ways identified with the best interests of the community since that early time. He has had a varied and wide experience in life and affairs, and is a man of ability and personal worth in all the undertakings of a busy career. He has witnessed and taken an active part in the material and general development of the southeastern part of the state, and has never been found wanting in capable performance of the duties and obligations of good citizenship and as a social factor.
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