USA > Nebraska > A Biographical and genealogical history of southeastern Nebraska, Vol. I > Part 36
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ABRAM F. MANLEY.
Abram F. Manley, justice of the peace, of Liberty, Gage county, Nebraska, is one of the honored residents of the city and a veteran of the Civil war. His career as a soldier commenced with his enlistment in Company G, Eighty-third Indiana Volunteer Infantry, in Ripley county, Indiana, Captain George Morris and Colonel Ben Spooner commanding. After a long and faithful service he participated in the Richmond campaign and in the review at Washington and received liis honorable discharge in June, 1865, after which he returned home to Indiana.
Abram F. Manley was born in Ripley county, Indiana, October 14. 1839. He is a son of Martin Manley, who was born in Vermont, and a grandson of James Manley, who with two brothers served in the Revo- lutionary war. The mother of our subject was Huldah Holford, wlio came of an old New York family of Scotch ancestry. Both parents are now deceased, the father passing away in Illinois when sixty-five years of age, while the mother died in the same state, aged seventy-five years. The children born to this worthy couple were as follows: Mar- tin, Emory, Abram, Mary E., Martha and two who died young. The father was a farmer by occupation and a worthy man. Both he and his wife were members of the Methodist church.
Mr. Manley was reared in Ripley county on the old farm, and at- tended the little log cabin school. In 1861 he was married to Naomi Clark. She is a daughter of Thomas Clark, of England, a most estima- ble man. In 1866 Mr. Manley removed to Pawnee county and settled on Mission creek, where he made his home until 1900, when he located in Liberty. The following children have been born to himself and wife: Elmer E., Charles, Thomas E., Arthur C., Floyd, Lillian and Francis E. Mr. Manley is a stanch Republican and takes an interest
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in local affairs. For many years he has been a justice of the peace, and administers justice with rare ability and fairness. He is a member of the G. A. R., W. F. Barry Post of Liberty, and is very popular in that organization.
JESSE CROOK.
Jesse Crook is one of the stalwarts of southeastern Nebraska. Of the nearly eighty years which he has passed over since he came into the world in White county of the old commonwealth of Tennessee, one bright day dated September 12, 1826, fifty of these cycles of time, come August 28, 1904, will have been spent, to the lasting welfare and benefit of the community, in Richardson county, Nebraska. Few, if any men, can claim so long an active career in this county, and none have enjoyed a more prosperous and worthy period of years. When, on the date mentioned, he located on his one hundred and sixty acres of land one mile north of Falls City, he made the first farming settlement on the prairie of Richardson county. He had made the journey from his na- tive state with three yoke of oxen, arriving in Andrew county, Missouri, in the fall of 1853, and proceeding the final stage of his migration in the following year. He had two prairie schooners, and during the six weeks and two days of his trip camped out all the time, making a ver- itable picnic of the affair, and living high on various kinds of wild game. He had sold his land in Tennessee and came to this country with some capital. While in Andrew county, he worked one of his brother's farms, and on arriving at his place in Nebraska he built a rough log house, with a stick and mud chimney, puncheon floor and shook roof, being sixteen by eighteen feet in dimesions, and with a small
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lean-to for a bedroom. During his first year's residence he split enough rails to fence in forty acres, which land he broke and raised twenty-five bushels of corn from each acre.
Such was the advent and the first settlement of his venerable old settler. Since those early days he has been the owner of twenty thousand acres of Nebraska soil, taken altogether. He purchased ten thousand acres of the Sauk reservation, having bought it from the government in sealed bids of from $1.25 to $1.40 per acre. He has disposed of all his farm lands, and his realty property now consists of a block of lots and a business block in Falls City .. His life throughout has been marked by industry, thrift, keen and sagacious management and most honorable and upright methods of dealing with his fellow men. His solid ability achieved success regardless of the fact that he was without advantages in his youth, and only six weeks were taken from his years as a farmer boy in Tennessee in attendance at the rudest kind of log schoolhouse, with a dirt floor, beside which the country school of to-day would seem a palace.
Mr. Crook's father was John Crook, and for many generations in the history of the family the name John has headed a family. His great- grandfather John was a Virginian, and died suddenly of heart disease at the age of fifty-five. Grandfather Crook was a Tennessee planter, owning many slaves, and his life was not terminated until he had reached the great age of ninety-seven years. John Crook, the father of Jesse, was born in Virginia in 1779, was reared in North Carolina, and came to Tennessee with his parents in 1807. He was married in 1803 to Miss Mary Lee, a relative of the famous military family of Lees, and she was born in Roan county, North Carolina, in 1784, and was also married in that county. She survived her husband about three years, and both passed away and are interred in White county, Tennessee.
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She was seventy-eight years old at the time of her death, and her hus- band was eighty. They were the parents of a large family, and all of the name seem to have been gifted with long lives, for the circle of their children was not broken for many years. The record of the children is as follows: Nancy died in Tennessee in 1852, leaving ten children; John died in White county, Tennessee, at eighty, the father of nine children; Isaac, who was an early northwest Missouri settler and who came to Nebraska in 1856, died at Mineral Springs, Missouri, at the age of seventy-two, and had a family of nine children, one son being a prominent county official; Allen came to Jackson county, Missouri, in 1832, was a resident near Savannah, Missouri, until the Civil war, then moved west to Denver, where he died at the age of eighty-two, leaving two children; Charles, who had a wife and one child, died in Tennessee at the age of sixty-five; William, who was the first of the family to die, passed away in Jackson county, Missouri, in 1835, at the age of twenty-one; Ruth Gillam, a widow, resides in Tennessee and is well on toward her eightieth year; Mary McBroom died in Tennessee at the age of sixty, having been the mother of ten children; Jesse is the next in order of birth; Rebecca Stanton died in Tennessee when about sixty years old, having had seven children; Elizabeth Harper, now a Mrs. Clark, resides near Bonham, Texas, and has five children.
Mr. Jesse Crook was married, February 28, 1847, to Miss Eliza Whittaker, who was born in Orange county, North Carolina, May 3, 1830, a daughter of Isaac and Sally (Clinton) Whittaker, who were born in North Carolina in 1800 and 1802, respectively. Her father was a farmer, and he and his wife moved to Tennessee in 1832. Mrs. Crook was the third of their children, and the others are : Mrs. Melinda Holmes, a widow in Texas, still active at the age of seventy-nine and with six living children; Mrs. Nancy Ramsey died leaving three children; Wil-
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liam Preston Whittaker, who came to Nebraska in 1855 and in the fol- lowing year went to Colorado, still farms in the latter state, and has some eight children; Hickman, born in Tennessee in 1834, came to Nebraska in 1886, and died here in 1894, leaving nine children; James, Burt and Thomas Whittaker.
Mr. and Mrs. Crook have had three children. John, who was born in Tennessee in 1848, died in Nebraska at the age of twenty-one. Sally, born in Tennessee, March 2, 1849, married August Schoenheit, who died leaving two children: she is now the wife of Judge James Wilhite, of Falls City. W. H. Crook, born in Tennessee, May 9, 1851, is a leading hardware merchant of Falls City.
During the fifty years of Mr. Cook's residence in this county he has spent most of it in Falls City. He moved into town from his farm in 1858, returning to the country three years later, but since 1864 has made his home in the city, although he has moved from one resi- dence to another about six times, and has built and sold sold many houses. He built the first hotel, the Crook House, in the county in 1858; conducted it for a time, then sold, and afterward built another hotel, which he ran for three years. He carried on the Crook boarding house for fifteen years. He has been at his present nice residence for the past five years, and expects to meet the final summons at this home. He is a Democrat in politics, but throughout his long and successful career has never sought or accepted office. He and his wife have been of the Methodist faith for forty years, although both come of Baptist households. They are still hale and hearty and fine examples of Ne- braska citizenship.
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REV. DANIEL L. McBRIDE.
Rev. Daniel L. McBride, pastor of the Baptist church of Liberty, Gage county, Nebraska, and one of the leading men of the community, was born December 31, 1849, in Montgomery county, Pennsylvania. He is a son of a farmer, David McBride, who came of Scotch ancestry. His mother is Hannah Taylor, who was born in England, but was reared and educated in New Jersey.
Rev. McBride was reared in his native county. His mother died when he was ten years of age and he soon after shipped as a cabin boy on a vessel of the coast. After serving as a cabin boy he became a sailor and shipped before the mast for some time. When fifteen years of age he entered the service of the United States as a soldier, in Febru- ary, 1865, with Company G, Two Hundred and Thirteenth Pennsyl- vania Volunteer Infantry, and served until November, 1865. After his honorable discharge, he entered Wyoming Institute of Delaware to better fit himself for life's battles as his experiences clearly showed him that if he would succeed, more knowledge was necessary. Finish- ing a course in this institution he taught school in Delaware and also two terms in Illinois. During the time he taught he was studying for the ministry, finally being ordained in 1874.
At the age of twenty-three years he was married to Mary Bellamy, a native of Illinois and a daughter of David Bellamy. Our subject filled the pulpit at several places in Illinois for thirteen years. In Feb- ruary, 1890, he moved to McCook, Nebraska, and engaged in ranching in connection with his ministerial work there for ten years. During his stay there he was elected to the state legislature of Nebraska for the session of 1894 and 1895, and filled the office with credit. In Jan- uary, 1901, he was called to the Baptist church of Liberty, and he ac- cepted. Rev. McBride is an earnest and a very successful church worker.
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The family of children born to Mr. and Mrs. McBride, are as fol- lows: Mrs. Hannah Hayden, of Frontier county, Nebraska; Emma ; Fred, of this county; Lewis; Susie; Howard; Ruth; and Margaret ; Bessie, who died at the age of twenty years; Irene, who passed away when twenty-two years of age; and Frank, who died at the age of seventeen years. In politics our subject is independent in his views, and always supports the men and measures he believes of the most merit.
ALANSON M. BORST.
Alanson M. Borst, who has lived in easy retirement in Peru for the past twelve years, has a most successful record as a farmer and business man. He has lived in Nebraska since 1861, and from a small farm, with primitive surroundings and equipments, steadily progressed along all lines of his endeavor until he ranks as one of the prosperous men of Nemaha county. He has passed the seventieth milestone of life, and has reason to be proud of what he has accomplished since beginning his active career.
Mr. Borst was born in Schoharie county, New York, April II, 1831, descended from a Hollander who came to the United States before the Revolution. His father, John Borst, was born in Schoharie county, New York, in 1792, and died in Oswego county, New York, in 1876, and he and his wife, who preceded him in death by three months, rest in the cemetery at Hannibal Center, New York. On February 28, 1821, he was married to Miss Elizabeth Billington, who was born on the Mohawk Flats, New York, in 1788, a daughter of James Billing- ton, a hotel-keeper. They were the parents of the following children : Sally Jane, born September 17, 1822, died at the age of nine years;
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Myron, born January 7, 1824, lives retired in Houston, Texas, and has one son and one daughter ; Theron, born July 30, 1825, is a farmer in Kilbourn, Wisconsin, and has two daughters and one son; Christiana, born September 3, 1827, is the widow of Squire Fisk, in Rochester, New York, and has four sons and two daughters; Henry and James, twins, were born April 9, 1829, and Henry is a widower, living in Nance county, Nebraska, and James is a millwright in Los Angeles county, California, and has one daughter; Alanson M. Borst is next of the children; and Luther is farming the old homestead in New York.
Alanson M. Borst was reared on a farm, and up to the age of sev- enteen had a common school education. He then entered the Falley Seminary, and later went to the Ypsilanti, Michigan, School, and was also a student in Kalamazoo College. At the age of twenty he taught his first school in Oswego county, New York, and during the winter season was engaged in teaching for eleven years. He taught six terms in Michigan, and fourteen terms in Nebraska. He came to Nebraska in 1861 from southeastern Kansas. After his marriage, in 1865, he began on a farm of eighty acres, and he now has three hundred and forty-three acres in Nemaha county, Nebraska, which with its excellent improvements is worth sixty dollars an acre. He also owns a quarter section in Nance county, Nebraska. In 1891 he built his present sub- stantial, two-story and basement, brick residence, and after it was com- pleted left the farm and has since made Peru his home. He also erected a frame house near by, which he rents. He owns the brick block on the corner of Fifth and California streets, and also a half interest in the opera house building.
April 23, 1865, Mr. Borst married Miss Frances Snyder, who was born in Wood county, Ohio, March 22, 1846, a daughter of Samuel and Elizabeth (Sprankle) Snyder. Her father was a farmer, and in
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1852 came to Missouri and in 1857 to Nemaha county, Nebraska. He pre-empted a quarter section and bought one hundred and sixty acres southeast of Peru. He died in 1880 and his wife in 1888. They were prosperous, and left their children a good property. They had eight children, as follows: Sprankle Snyder, who is a fruit-grower in Cali- fornia; Louisa, the wife of Mr. Cooke, died at the age of thirty, leaving two sons; Mrs. Caroline McReynolds died aged about forty-five, leaving seven sons and one daughter; Rebecca Worrell died leaving two sons and two daughters; Henry lives in South Dakota and has two sons and two daughters; Mrs. Borst is the sixth of the children; Rosetta married August Quante, and is the mother of a large family of boys and girls; and Frank lives on a part of the old home place on Honey creek.
Five children were born to Mr. and Mrs. Borst : Jennie graduated from the Peru normal school in 1888 and is now a teacher in Seattle, Washington; John Henry died at the age of thirteen months; Annie Bell graduated in the 1904 class of the Nebraska State Normal, is a teacher and is principal of one of the ward schools in South Omaha, Nebraska ; Della M. graduated in 1898 and is a teacher at South Omaha; Lillian, a student in the normal, has especial talent with the brush and pencil, and many of her creditable productions adorn the walls of the home. Mr. Borst is a Master Mason, and has always been a stanch Republican. He is a veteran school teacher. Mrs. Borst is a member of the Methodist church.
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JOHN ALBERT LAWRENCE.
John Albert Lawrence, who is one of the foremost farmers of Lon- don precinct, Nemaha county, Nebraska, was born in Jones county, Iowa, June 1, 1857, the fifth of the nine children and the fourth of the seven sons of Samuel and Rose (Moyer) Lawrence, whose family history will be found in the sketch of Sheriff A. L. Lawrence in this work. Mr. Lawrence was reared on the home farm in Nemaha county, where his father had settled in 1863, and he had a fair district schooling and two years in the Brownville high school. He remained at home until he was married in his twenty-second year to Miss Mattie Collins, one of his schoolmates, in 1879. She lived only a year and a half longer, and died leaving two children. Allie is the wife of J. C. Penney, in London precinct, and has two sons; an infant daughter died at the age of six months.
On Christmas day of 1882, Mr. Lawrence married Miss Virginia Lindsay, a daughter of William and Phebe Ann Frances ( Bryant) Lind- say. Williant Lindsay was born in county Londonderry, Ireland, August 1, 1812. His wife was born in Kentucky September 25, 1826, a daughter of Daniel Columbus and and Elizabeth Darget (Kershaw) Bryant, who were Kentucky planters and owners of slaves. The former died in Kentucky, and the latter in Nemaha county, sleeping in the Brownville cemetery. William Lindsay and his wife came from Sangamon county, Illinois, to Brownville in 1863, and they farmed one season on the William McIninch farm. In 1864 they moved to the one hundred and sixty acres which comprises the homestead which Mr. Lawrence now owns, and which they bought at eleven dollars an acre and which is now worth eighty dollars an acre. There were but slight improvements here then, and Mr. Lindsay built their first house of two rooms. They had sold their farm in Illinois, and came here
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with some means. They were married in 1849 in Kentucky, where their first two children were born, and the remainder in Illinois, as follows : Lucy M., the wife of C. W. Butler, died in Oklahoma in December, 1901, leaving five of her seven children; Margaret E. is the wife of Marion Willard, a Kansas farmer, and has four children living; Nancy Jane is the wife of W. W. Lawrence, in Nemaha county, and has two children: Robert A. is a merchant at Bessie, Oklahoma, and has one daughter; Letitia F. is the wife of A. W. Sultzbaugh in London pre- cinct, and has two sons; Mrs. Lawrence is the sixth in order of birth; Jesse T. Lindsay is a farmer in Jackson county, Kansas; Phebe A., the wife of W. Edwin Penney, died in Arkansas leaving five children living. The mother of these children died at what is now Mr. Law- rence's homestead, on December 24, 1889, at the age of sixty-three years and four months, and the father died December 28, 1895. The latter was a stonemason, which trade he followed both in Illinois and Nebraska. Among other things which he constructed, was the foundation of the first Cumberland Presbyterian church in this section, which his wife called Mt. Pleasant church, and he was one of the first elders and served as such till his death. He had been a soldier in the English army, and came to the United States in 1837, at the age of twenty-five, but a few years later returned and brought over his parents and all his brothers and sisters except one sister, who married in Ireland. He planted the old orchard here and the towering soft maples and cotton- woods, which shade the driveway from the road to the house. Mr. Lawrence has planted the young orchard of thirty acres of apple and peach trees.
Mr. Lawrence was brought from Iowa to Nemaha county at the age of four years, and was reared here. He lived on the old Lawrence homestead until April, 1886, when he went to Valley county, Nebraska,
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and bought one hundred and sixty acres, on which he farmed for nine years. He then sold and bought another tract, on which he farmed for three years, and then, in March, 1898, came to the Lindsay home- stead. He carries on general farming, growing from one hundred and twenty to one hundred and sixty acres of corn, with an average annual yield of fifty bushels to the acre. His principal live-stock is hogs, of which he raises from one hundred and fifty to two hundred, although the cholera has often made fearful ravages among them. He keeps thirty head of graded cattle, and feeds about two carloads each year.
Mr. and Mrs. Lawrence have two children, Iva Myrtle, born De- cember 30, 1894, and Hazel Murl, born May 12, 1898. Mr. Lawrence is a Master Mason, and affiliates with the Independent Order of Odd Fellows and the Ancient Order of United Workmen. He is a Repub- lican, like the rest of his family. He and his wife were reared Pres- byterians, and she has been a teacher in the Sunday-school. Mrs. Lawrence's family was well represented in the great wars of the repub- lic, her oldest uncle, Robert Lindsay, having died in the Mexican war, the youngest uncle, Issah Bryant, was killed at the battle of Resaca, and Jesse T. Bryant was killed at Parkers Cross Roads, Tennessee. These were her mother's brothers.
EDWARD W. SNYDER.
Edward W. Snyder, owner of what is considered the best farm in Nemaha county, in Douglas precinct, three miles east of Auburn, has lived here since the fall of 1867, and during the subsequent thirty-five years or more has taken rank as one of the leading agriculturists and and citizens of this section. Although of German birth and parentage,
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he has made a record of uncompromising loyalty in his adopted land, and his worth as a man and citizen is recognized wherever his individ- uality has touched the common life of the county.
Mr. Snyder was born in Hessen, Germany, February 17, 1840, a son of John Snyder, who was born in the same village, Spetzwingle, in 1794, and died in Illinois, in December, 1883, and who was the only son of his father, who died in 1813, but his widow survived until her ninetieth year. John Snyder was a government gamekeeper in the old country, owning his own farm. His first wife was a Miss Hose, by whom he had three children, and after her death he was married to Eva Hammell, the mother of Edward W. Snyder. The children of these two marriages were as follows: Henry, a retired farmer eighty-seven years old in Bureau county, Illinois, and has twelve children ; John, aged eighty-five, is also a retired farmer in the same county, and has one daughter living; Catherine, the wife of Andrew Schlitt, died in Illinois about seventy years old, and had thirteen children. Julia, the first child of the second marriage, was the wife of Jacob Schoffer, and died in Nebraska at the age of seventy-two, the mother of nine children; Wil- liam, who crossed the plains in 1850, was sheriff and treasurer of Butte county, California, and died there in 1893 at the age of seventy- five, having had five children; Charles, who was a miner in the mountains of California, whither he went in 1851, died about 1860, unmarried; Martha, in California, is the widow of Jacob Miller, and has nine children; John died in California in 1893, leaving four sons and one daughter; Edward W. is the next in order; Henry, a well-to-do retired farmer of South Auburn, has his third wife and one son and one daugh- ter living. The children were all born in Germany, and came to Amer- ica in 1847 with their father, landing in New York after a sixty-days' passage and coming thence to Bureau county, Illinois. Their father had
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about eight hundred dollars, with which he purchased forty acres, and later eighty acres, on which he spent the remainder of his life. His wife died about 1894, and they were both Lutherans.
Edward W. Snyder was reared on the home farm, and his limited educational advantages were received in Germany and this county. In 1858 he left home, and, following the example of some of his brothers, went to California via the Isthmus of Panama. He mined in the placers in Eldorado county for some time, and was in the meat business in Vol- cano, spending five years altogether on the Pacific slope, and did well. He returned to Illinois, and had a forty-eight acre farm for a few years. He sold this in 1867, and in the fall came, to the present place in Nebraska and bought one hundred and sixty acres, with fair improve- ments, for twenty-five hundred dollars cash down. He later bought fif- teen acres for three hundred dollars, and then thirty for six hundred, so that he now owns two hundred and five acres of land that cannot be surpassed within the confines of this county. He could get one hundred dollars an acre for his land at present, which is a high price for im- proved land even in these days of prosperity. He has a fine orchard of four acres, some of which he planted as early as 1871, and the last in 1877. In one year he sold seven hundred and fifty dollars' worth ot fruit, besides what he kept for his own use. He grows from seventy- five to eighty acres of corn, averaging fifty bushels to the acre, and sometimes as high as eighty bushels, and sows from twenty-five to forty acres to wheat. He keeps ten or twelve horses, from fifteen to forty high-grade shorthorns, with a few blooded shorthorn cows. For a time he made a business raising hogs, but the constant ravages of the cholera made this unprofitable. He has built his own nice residence, barns and others buildings, and has a model farm, both in appearance and in general productivity, a credit to its owner and to the county.
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