USA > Nebraska > A Biographical and genealogical history of southeastern Nebraska, Vol. II > Part 14
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has been residing in town for a number of years, and has pleasant surroundings and many friends and companionships in which to pass the remaining years of a well spent life. He is a popular member of the W. T. Sherman Post, G. A. R., at Dorchester, and he also affiliates with the Independent Order of Odd Fellows, having passed all the chairs in his lodge. He is a strong Republican, and he and his wife are es- teemed members of the Methodist Episcopal church.
JAMES JOHNSON.
James Johnson, who is engaged in raising vegetables and plants at Crete, is numbered among the pioneer settlers of Saline county, and few of its residents have more intimate knowledge concerning its settlement and growth, for he arrived here about 1858 or 1859. He came from Doniphan county, Kansas, where he had located in 1856, and previous to that time he lived at Ashpoint, Gage county, four years. He was born in Montgomery county, Ohio, April 10, 1833, and was reared to manhood upon his father's farm. He is a son of William Johnson, who was born in North Carolina in 1805, and died in Iowa in 1861, after a residence of ten years in that state. He wedded Miss Elizabeth Hinshaw, also a native of North Carolina, and they became the parents of eight children, of whom four were sons. James is the eldest. Pris- cilla is the wife of Elijah Johnson, a resident of Wapello, Iowa, and they have seven children. "Mrs. Elizabeth Barnhart, a widow, is residing in the state of Washington and has several children. William Johnson, - the youngest living member of the family, is residing in Iowa, upon the
old home farm upon which the father settled in 1851. The mother died in Ohio when past middle life, and the father afterward married again, but there were no children by the second marriage.
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James Johnson received fair educational privileges in Ohio, and also had ample training in farm work, assisting in the labors of the fields from early boyhood. In the fall of 1853, when twenty years of age, he was married in Iowa to Miss Sarah Eliza Houck, who was born in Illinois about 1838. They became the parents of eight children. Aquilla Johnson, the eldest, has spent the last two years in the Klon- dike. He has been married twice and has three children. Hibbert, who has been engaged in the milling business in Crete for twenty years, is married and has two living sons. George, a farmer residing in the Red Willow district of Nebraska, is married and has five daughters. James, a resident of Crete, is married. R. H. Johnson is employed in a brickyard in Saline county. John N. resides in Crete. Annie is the wife of Walter Kimball and has two children. Charles, residing in Crete, completes the family.
For many years James Johnson has followed farming and he now owns a little tract of land of four and a half acres within the corporation limits of Crete, upon which he grows plants and is engaged specially in the raising of sweet potatoes. In this he is particularly successful and has produced as high as four hundred bushels in a single season.
In his political views, Mr. Johnson is Republican, unfaltering in his advocacy of his party, and in public office he has been most faithful and prompt in the performance of his duty. He has been constable and was road overseer for twenty years. Both he and his wife are Methodists in religious faith and have led honorable, upright lives.
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NAOH HOCKMAN.
Noah Hockman is a prosperous farmer at Dorchester, Saline county, and is an old-established citizen, with residence dating back to 1877. He is an ex-soldier of the Civil war, and it is the judgment of all who know him that he has been as efficient, faithful and reliable in all the duties and obligations of life as a civilian as he was a good and trusted soldier when the country was involved in internal strife. He is a frank, genial and interesting man, and has a wide and extensive ac- quaintanceship throughout Saline county.
Mr. Hockman was born in Hocking county, Ohio, August 29, 1836, being a son of Abraham and Catherine (Fought) Hockman. His father was born in Virginia in 1806, being a son of Christian Hockman, also of Virginia birth. Mrs. Catherine Hockman was born in Ohio, was married in 1835, and died in Hocking county, Ohio, in 1878. Abra- ham Hockman was a farmer by occupation, believed in Democratic doc- trines as to politics, and he and his wife were members of the Pres- byterian church. There were six children in their family: Christian, who served in the Civil war; Noah; Andrew, who was a soldier and died of the smallpox; May; Leah; and Abraham.
Mr. Noah Hockman was reared on the Ohio farm and received his education in the district schools. At the age of seventeen he moved to Piatt county, Illinois, and four years later went to Hancock county in the same state. In 1862, when Lincoln made his call for sixty thousand volunteers, he enlisted at Keokuk, Iowa, in Company C, Seventeenth Iowa Infantry, under Captain Archer and Colonel Rankin. He was at Benton Barracks in St. Louis for a time. He was a participant in the battles of Iuka, Corinth, Jackson, the siege of Vicksburg for forty- seven days, at Champion Hills, Missionary Ridge and other places. He was captured by a part of General Hood's Confederate forces, and after
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being held for some time in several places in Georgia he was taken to that dread place of Andersonville, where for seven months he endured the misery incident to a great civil war. When time came to be ex- changed he paid five dollars in order to be allowed to be among the first thousand who were placed aboard the cars and herded together and guarded like cattle until the neutral ground was reached. He was sent to St. Louis and later received his honorable discharge, with a gallant record as a soldier. He received two slight wounds at Champion Hills, one in the left wrist and the other in the left shoulder.
He returned from the war to his Illinois home, and in 1865 was married to Miss Julia A. Huff, who has made him a loyal and devoted wife for nearly forty years. She was born in Hocking county, Ohio, being a daughter of Thomas and Elizabeth Huff, the former a native of Loudoun county, Virginia, and the latter of Ohio. Her parents came to Hancock county, Illinois, where her father died at the age of seventy-seven, and her mother at the age of seventy-five. Her father was a farmer, a Republican in politics, and was a member of the Method- ist Episcopal church. One of her brothers, Henry Huff, was a soldier in the Seventeenth Illinois Infantry, and her brother Thomas, also of an Illinois regiment, lives at Dorchester, Nebraska. Mr. and Mrs. Hockman have had nine children, but Thomas died at the age of ten and John at the age of three years. Those living are George, Lewis, Ernest, Frank, Bert, Daisy, and Irvin.
Mr. Hockman owns and resides on a nice farming estate of one hundred and sixty acres south of Dorchester, and manages it in a very profitable manner. He is a Republican in politics, and he and his wife are members of the Christian church. He is a member of the G. A. . R. Post No. 107, of Dorchester.
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GEORGE H. HASTINGS.
Hon. George H. Hastings, classed with Nebraska's distinguished citizens by reason of his ability as a member of the bar and his able service in public office, having twice served as attorney general of the state, as well as in many local offices, was born in Marengo, McHenry county, Illinois, August 26, 1849, and is descended from English ances- try. The Hastings family, of which he is a representative, was founded in America by two brothers of the name who came from the north of England to the new world and settled in Connecticut about the year 1640 upon what has since been known at Hastings Hill. George W. Hastings, grandfather of George H. Hastings, was born at Suffield, Connecticut, April 13, 1794, and having spent the forty-four years of his life there, passed away March 17, 1838.
His son, Carlisle Hastings, was born at Suffield, April 25, 1815, and throughout his business career followed the occupation of farming. He went to Illinois about the time of the close of the Black Hawk war and settled in McHenry county, entering from the government the land upon which he afterward lived. The western land office was then located in the little town of Chicago, and Fort Dearborn was still gar- risoned by United States troops. Mr. Hastings not only aided largely in reclaiming the wild land of McHenry county for the purposes of civilization, but also took an active part in public affairs resulting in permanent good to the county. He was the officer who organized the county into school districts, and he also served as sheriff of McHenry county, Illinois, at an early day. He died at Coral, Illinois, March 4, 1902, and his wife, who bore the maiden name of Hannah Granger, and was born April 16, 1817, passed away March 19, 1903.
George H. Hastings, son of Carlisle and Hannah Hastings, com- pleted his literary education by graduation from the high school of
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Marengo, Illinois, with the class of 1865, and was afterward employed for a year or two as clerk in a mercantile establishment in Marengo, thus securing the funds that enabled him to prosecute his law studies. His leisure hours during this period were devoted to reading law, and on the completion of a thorough law course he was admitted to the bar in 1870.
In September, 1869, Mr. Hastings had come to Nebraska and en- tered the office of Seth Robinson, then attorney general of the state, with whom he remained until June, 1871, his practical experience there prov- ing of great value to him in his later professional career. On severing his connection with Mr. Robinson he went to Pleasant Hill, then the county seat of Saline county, Nebraska, and a thriving village. In 1876 he came to Crete, where he has since made his home, practicing his profession save when official duties have claimed his time and attention. A careful, conscientious preparation, a strong analytical mind that en- ables him to readily grasp the points in a case, and a clear, cogent reas- oning and forcible argument have been the salient features in his ca- reer. He has enjoyed a large private practice and has been the legal rep- resentative of a number of important business concerns, being now at- torney for the Crete State Bank and the Conservative Investment Com- pany, of Crete, being thus connected with these two great corporations since their organization.
For many years Mr. Hastings served as city attorney of Crete, and for two terms was county attorney. He was also county judge of Saline county and was filling that position when in 1874 he was elected to represent the county in the state legislature, where he served for two years. In 1888 he was chosen presidential elector of Nebraska and was selected as messenger of the electoral college, carrying the Nebraska vote to Washington and casting it for Benjamin Harrison.
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In 1890 he was elected attorney general of the state, and that the cor- sensus of public opinion concerning his service was most favorable was indicated by the fact of his re-election in 1892. In 1902 he was chosen mayor of Crete and again in 1903, giving a practical and businesslike administration that promoted the substantial growth and improvement of the city. He has always been unfaltering in his allegiance of the Republican party, and has studied the questions and issues of the day with a thoroughness that has well qualified him for leadership in po- litical thought and action.
Mr. Hastings is well known in Masonic circles in southeastern Ne- braska. He has been master of Crete Lodge No. 37, A. F. & A. M .; high priest of Mount Zion Chapter No. 17, R. A. M., and at the present time is serving a third term in the latter position. He is also a Knight Templar Mason. On the 28th of December, 1874, at Aurora, Illinois, he was married to Miss Helen M. Richardson, and they have one son, Robert Richardson, who was born at Crete, November 27, 1888.
Mr. Hastings has engraved his name deeply on the judicial history of the state through the assistance he has rendered in framing and en- forcing the laws, and his public spirit has been manifest in tangible ways through his conscientious performance of the various public duties entrusted to him.
THEODORE H. MILLER.
Theodore H. Miller has during a lifetime of intense and well di- rected activity been one of the most forceful factors in community affairs in Crete. He entered upon the active duties of life unaided by influen- tial friends or advantitious circumstances. He has been the sole archi-
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tect of his own fortunes, molding his own character and shaping his own destiny. He has come to be a business man of commanding ability, yct his labors have not been restricted to the advancement of his own per- sonal interests. He has extended his efforts to various fields, in which, as an acknowledged leader, he has championed the highest interests of the municipality and of the people at large, and with such success that his name has come to be held in high honor. He has controlled im- portant and extensive business affairs, and while he is yet financially interested in many leading enterprises he is now practically living re- tired, his residence in Nebraska dating from May, 1867.
Mr. Miller is a native of Hanover, Germany, his birth having oc- curred in Lengede in that province on the 8th of April, 1846. He spent his early life upon a farm until fifteen years of age, and during that time attended the common schools. He afterwards became a student in the high school of Hanover, and subsequent to his fifteenth year was for two years a college student. When twenty years of age he deter- mined to seek a home and fortune in America. In the early part of October, 1864, he had enlisted in the Queen's Hussars, and at the close of the war of 1866 between Prussia and Austria he received his dis- charge from the King of Hanover. Prussia demanded that he re- enlist in the service, and to escape this he left the country on the 4th of December, 1866, going to England, where he remained for a month. Desiring to establish his home in America, he sailed for the United States and arrived in New York on the 21st of January, 1867. Almost immediately after reaching this country he resumed military service, enlisting in the Thirty-sixth United States Infantry, and with the reg- iment he went west to Omaha, Nebraska, in April, 1867. During the three years of his service his regiment was stationed at Fort Kearney, Fort McPherson, Fort Bridges, Camp Douglas and Fort Brown in
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Wind River valley, Wyoming. The regiment journeyed westward from Omaha on the Union Pacific Railroad to the end of the line, which had been completed to the town of what is now Fremont, and from there the troops went overland in freight wagons drawn by government mules.
After his service in the army Mr. Miller returned to Omaha and subsequent to this time went to St. James, Missouri, to secure a home- stead claim, but within a month he returned to Omaha and obtained a situation in the hotel DuNorth. He had filled that position for but five months, however, when he secured a more remunerative position as a dry-goods clerk with the firm of Tootle & Maul, who paid him fifty dollars per month, and he remained in that service for a year. On the expiration of that period Mr. Miller went to Grand Island, where he took charge of a general store at a salary of sixty-five dollars per month, continuing in that position until November, 1871, when he came to Crete.
Mr. Miller's first experience in business for himself was in Omaha. When he left the army he had two hundred and seventy dollars back pay due him, which he received from the government on the 28th of January, 1870. This money he loaned on property which is to-day among the most valuable in the business portion of the city, but he never received a cent in return for either principal or interest. This would have utterly discouraged many a man of less resolute spirit, but he did not hesitate to invest in real estate again, and his investments in this regard have been a source of very gratifying income to him. Shortly after his mar- riage he bought a farm near Crete for seven thousand dollars, for the greater part of which he gave his note, but since that time he has ac- cumulated property rapidly. 'After selling his farm in 1875 he had twelve hundred dollars in cash. In 1875 he went to Omaha and on to
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Chicago to purchase a stock of general merchandise valued at eighty- three hundred dollars. He then opened a store in Crete, which he con- ducted until May, 1884, 4 In that year he turned his attention to real estate operations, and opened an office which he conducted until 1896. In August of that year he associated himself with C. B. Anderson and opened the Crete State Bank and on the same day organized the State Bank of DeWitt. He has since been closely associated with financial interests in Nebraska, and his wise counsel and sound judgment have proved important factors in the successful conduct of various enter- prises. In 1899 he was one of the organizers of the Conservative Invest- ment Company of Crete, Nebraska. In June, 1904, he retired from active business, but is financially interested in many moneyed concerns, and is to-day president of the Crete Bank, vice president of the Invest- ment Company, a director of the Ord State Bank, and Scotia Bank, vice president of the Conservative Investment Company, of Blackwell, Okla- homa, and is also interested in various banks and business enterprises.
Mr. Miller was married in Crete in February, 1872, to Miss Mary George and their union has been blessed with five children, three sons and two daughters. The eldest son and two daughters are graduates of Doane College and have spent one year as students in Germany. They speak both the English and the German languages fluently. The Miller residence is one of the finest in Nebraska. It is a beautiful man- sion containing twenty rooms built in substantial style of light brick and castle rock Colorado stone. It is most attractive in appearance and was completed at a cost of not less than twenty thousand dollars. The interior finishing is all hardwood. Around the front and sides are broad verandas, and in its furnishings it indicates the culture and artistic taste of the family. There is no lavish display, but due regard has been paid to comfort, convenience and beauty. Mr. Miller is a most unas-
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suming man, a thorough gentleman without any of the pride of purse. He has never allowed the accumulation of wealth to affect in any way his relations toward those less fortunate financially, and he has been most generous of his means in assisting others, while the city of Crete has benefited greatly by his liberality. Among his recent gifts to the city was one of ten thousand dollars, which was made as a Christmas present to Crete for the erection of a public library. This is but one indication of his kindly, helpful spirit. While his business career, hon- crable and straightforward, is such as to win the confidence and admir- ation of his fellow men, it is the traits which he displays in his relation with his fellow men that have so endeared him to those with whom he has been associated and made him one of the most valued, honored and loved citizens of Crete.
WHITAKER BROTHERS.
Whitaker Brothers, consisting of J. M. and J. B. Whitaker, conduct a prosperous real estate, insurance, money lending. brokerage and dry- goods business at Falls City, Richardson county. They are men of known business integrity and reliability, and their enterprise and pro- gressive methods give them a large leverage in trade circles of the town and county. This business was established in Falls City on April 13, 1898, by J. B. Whitaker, the junior member, and in July, 1901, he was joined by his brother. They have built up a large patronage, and are both successful men. That their careers have deserved large rewards will be understood from the history of the elder of these brothers, who are both natives of Tennessee and who outgrew the narrow limits in which they were reared and pushed forth in a bigger world outside the
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confines of their native state, finding both opportunity and a worthy place in life.
James M. Whitaker was born on his father's farm in Tennessee, May 22, 1861, a son of John H. and Amanda ( Welch) Whitaker, who were both born in the same part of Tennessee, the former in 1843. There were ten children in the family. The youngest, Jesse, died at the age of three years, having been named for his uncle, Jesse Crook, one of Falls City's worthy citizens and a pioneer to this county in 1854. Neither Mr. Whitaker nor his brother had more than the most meager schooling during youth, three months in the poor and ineficient public school during the winter and supplemented by a very brief subscription school. He often contrasts conditions in his native state with those prevailing in Nebraska when he arrived here. In Tennessee he re- ceived only eight dollars a month for hard work, and half of that was in store pay, and as to advantages, he was able to do only long division in arithmetic at the age of twenty-three.
Mr. James M. Whitaker was the first one to leave the old home, which he did in 1880, and went to Texas, where he entered the employ of a wholesale and retail firm engaged in the grain, hide and fur business. He remained three years, but returned home because of a brother's serious illness. Soon after his brother's death he told his parents that prosy old Tennessee was no place for him, and that he . was going west. Accordingly, in February, 1884, he arrived in Richard- son county, Nebraska. He began his career in this state by working on a farm, which was, however, only a means to an end. for he was not at all satisfied with his educational equipment, and determined to get at least a tolerable training for life and business. During the winter he attended a select school in Falls City taught by Professor Corey, and then during the other seasons of the year he labored on the farm.
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He soon obtained employment from F. W. Ingham, who was among the first to introduce the manufacture of pumps and windmills in this part of the country. For four years he alternated this employment with going to school during the winter. He attended the Morrell Nor- mal College of Kansas under Principal J. M. Real, and for his last school the normal at Enterprise, Kansas. He received forty-five dol- lars a month while working at the windmill business, which was almost a fortune to what he had earned by manual labor in his native state.
His father gave the boys part of their time each year after they were eighteen years old, and the first money that he had worth men- tioning was sixty-five dollars received for a little mule, which he had bought by clearing a patch of timber on his father's sterile farm and growing corn thereon, using the proceeds to trade for his mule. When he reached Texas he had but thirteen dollars of that sum, and his first outlay was one dollar for a poor breakfast. Those days of privation and even hardship have long been past, but Mr. Whitaker takes much comfort from his present situation by comparing it with his early life.
In 1892 he came to Falls City and engaged with Cook and Com- pany to learn the hardware business, receiving his board in compensa- tion. A short time later he bought in with Julius Schoenfeldt, publisher of a Nebraska journal, and Mr. Whitaker added a job printing outfit, which enterprise he conducted very successfully for a year, and then sold to his partner. He returned to the hardware business, which he con- tinued until 1896. In December of that year he got mixed up some- what in politics. He went to the Republican state convention and helped nominate J. H. Cornell for state auditor, and on the latter's election to that office he was appointed one of the deputies. He lived during the four years' term in Lincoln, and during the last two years was chief clerk in the insurance department. In 1897 he was the prime
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mover in having Nebraska represented at the Tennessee Centennial, which he attended in company with the distinguished W. J. Bryan, Senator Allen, Governor Holcomb and staff, and others. He was a Republican in politics for a number of years, but is now a Bryan Dem- ocrat. He and his brother each resides in his own home, and they own other town property and farm lands.
Mr. J. M. Whitaker was married in July, 1894, to Miss Margaret Deachy, of Morrill, Kansas. Her father, Mahlon Deachy, was a pio- neer of Kansas, coming from Somerset county, Pennsylvania.
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