USA > Nebraska > A Biographical and genealogical history of southeastern Nebraska, Vol. II > Part 39
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excellence. He set out some large apple orchards on his farms, and en- couraged his sons to do likewise, with the result that this has since become their leading line of business. At the present date the residence of Mr. Shubert is perfectly embowered on three sides with fruit trees, there being a hundred acres of apple orchard besides cherry, peach and other varieties, and there are several acres of fine walnut groves sodded with a smooth velvet of bluegrass. There is no prettier landscape pic- ture in the county than is to be seen in the homestead of Mr. Shubert, and from early spring to late autumn it is a scene of varying and in- teresting beauty. The spacious grounds in front of the residence afford the most pleasing variation of arboreal charm, for there one may delight in the cool shade and fresh beauty of trees of almost every description natural to the country.
Mr. Shubert cast his first presidential vote for Abraham Lincoln, and has been a Republican and a stanch supporter of those principles to the present date. He has been a member of the Masonic order since 1866, and in attending his first lodge he had to drive some sixteen miles at every meeting. He later became one of the charter members and took an active part in forming a lodge at Hillsdale, Nebraska, acting as sec- retary of that lodge a number of years. In religion he holds member- ship in the Christian church. Mr. Shubert is a man of much force and energy of character, as will appear from his successful conduct of affairs and his substantial place among his fellow citizens. Such men form the bulwark of any community against the restless and changing forces which are continually assaulting the social structure, and their con- servatism combined with constructive ability and moral uprightness insure the world for progress towards right ideals. From his busy application to practical affairs he has often found time to turn aside
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and spend a winter, now in the south, now in the west, for the recrea- tion and benefit of himself and family, and not one of the younger ones enjoyed hunting and fishing and camping out in free nature more than he. Several winters were spent in southern California with his wife and two youngest sons.
May 7, 1858, Mr. Shubert was married, in Illinois, to Miss Mary Griffin, who died suddenly, in Nebraska, in 1879. September 27, 1881, he married his present life companion, Miss Mary B. Skeen, a daugh- ter of A. D. Skeen, and her family history will be found under the caption of Thomas B. Skeen, elsewhere in this work. By the first mar- riage there were seven children, as follows: John D., born in Mason county, Illinois, February 29, 1860, is now engaged in farming, fruit- growing and the ice business at Shubert. M. Fannie, born in Illinois in 1862, is the wife of E. F. Burson and the mother of four children, their home being near Shubert. M. Etta, born in Nebraska, in 1866, is the wife of J. L. Speece and the mother of three children, her hus- band being a farmer and fruit-grower near Shubert. Arthur M., born in Nebraska, in 1868, is a farmer and fruit-grower, and has two daugh- ters and two sons. J. Frank, born in Nebraska, in 1870, lives at home in Shubert, and is the father of one daughter. Henry Walter, born in Nebraska, in 1874, is a farmer near Shubert, and has a wife and two children. A. Grant, born in 1878, is on a farm near Shubert, and is married and has one daughter. By Mr. Shubert's second marriage there is one son, Leon Willard, who was born August 1, 1882, and is now studying law at Kansas City, Missouri.
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REV. DANIEL FORREST RODEBAUGH.
Rev. Daniel Forrest Rodebangh, after many years of devoted and useful ministerial labor with the Methodist Episcopal church, has re- tired from the active pursuit of the profession and has been a resident of Peru since 1899. He began his work in the Master's vineyard over forty-five years ago, most of which time has been spent in Nebraska, and that too during the period of development of this state's resources. The life of a minister in the most advanced communities and where all the comforts and conveniences and wealth of the twentieth century facil- itate the ministering of the gospel, is by no means a sinecure; but the ardent preacher of a generation ago, with his field in the new state of Nebraska, had to meet and overcome difficulties almost unknown now in any part of this country. The founding and building up of new church communities, the resuscitating of old ones, the increasing of the power of the spiritual leaven to comprehend all the souls within reach; traveling from place to place after the manner of the itinerant minister, visiting the sick, comforting with sympathy and advice or helping with more material aid,-all this and much more fell to the lot of the early ministers of the state of Nebraska, and in such work Rev. Rode- baugh took no small part during twenty years or more of active efforts in the cause of religion.
Rev. Rodebaugh was born in Medina county, Ohio, thirty miles south of Cleveland, in 1836. His grandfather, Thomas Rodebaugh, a native of Pennsylvania, was the owner of a large farm, on which he employed many men. He reared a large family, among whom were the following: Thomas, who settled in Michigan; John, near Akron, Ohio; Peter, who was a sailor until middle life; Daniel; Samuel; Adam,
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at Fort Wayne, Indiana. Some of these children followed the profes- sions of ministry and medicine.
Joseph Rodebaugh, the father of Rev. Rodebaugh, was born in Dauphin county, Pennsylvania, in 1802, and died in Beaver City, Ne- braska, in 1888. He was a shoemaker by trade and also a shoe mer- chant. He was married twice, and his first wife was the mother of Rev. Rodebaugh. He was married in 1823 to Miss Mary Rhodes, who was born in Pennsylvania and died in 1847. They had ten children, but one son died in infancy and another at the age of two years; the others were as follows: Susan, the wife of Reuben Blank, died in Illi- nois when past middle life, leaving three children; George is a business man and attorney at Toledo, Ohio; Christopher died on the plains while en route to California in 1855, and now fills an unknown grave; Daniel F. is the next of the family; Abram J. is a barber in northern Kansas and has a large family; Thomas was a minister of the Methodist Epis- copal church in Oregon, where he died leaving several sons and daugh- ters; Samuel H., in northern Kansas, has a wife and family; Mary M. Kelley lives in Indiana and has four children. Of the sons, George, Thomas, Abram and Samuel were soldiers in the Civil war, Abram be- ing a first lieutenant and George also an officer.
Daniel F. Rodebaugh passed only the first nine years of his life under the parental roof, and was then bound out for six years to a farmer by the name of Bills in Boone county, Illinois, who at the end of his service gave him a yoke of steers. In 1854 he started from Belvidere, Illinois, in a company of thirty men and ten women, and was six months in crossing the plains. He took his steers with him, and for three years engaged in farming, milling and stock-raising in the Scott valley, California. He was fairly successful, and in the fall of 1857
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returned, by way of the isthmus, to Boone county, Illinois, and thence went to Bureau county, the same state. He spent two winters in Wheaton College, and was also a student in Adrian College, Michigan, one year, but failing health compelled him to leave. He was licensed to preach and joined the Rock River conference in Illinois, and his first ministerial efforts were in Bureau county, at Bureau Junction. Rev. Rodebaugh was a teamster in the construction of the first railroad west of Chicago, now the Galena division of the Northwestern road, and was also similarly employed on the Burlington road, having engaged in this work while preparing himself for his life labors. He spent four years in the Rock River conference, and was at Seneca, Kansas, from 1869 to 1872, and since then has been in Nebraska. He was treasurer of the West Nebraska conference for ten years, and has been engaged in the revival work much of his life. He has unusual ability as a pulpit orator and exhorter, and his earnestness and conscientious zeal have resulted in the conversion and saving of many souls. He was presid- ing elder of the Beatrice district for one term, and this was the most arduous service that he rendered his church. He traveled seven thou- sand miles, preached seven times a week during the first year and five or six times during the remaining three years. He has gained the record of being a "little giant" in mind and body, and his career has been cred- itable to himself and of untold benefit to the church.
June 8, 1860, Rev. Rodebaugh was married in Bureau county, Illinois, to Miss Minnie E. Cowan, who was born in Princeton, Illinois, in 1841, a daughter of William and Emeline (Kirby) Cowan, farmers, and the former of New York and the latter of Kentucky. Emeline Kirby was the first or one of the first teachers in the schools of Chicago and the first in Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin. Mr. and Mrs. Cowan had
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a large family of children, and gave them good educations, four or five becoming teachers, and all making prosperous and worthy careers.
Four children were born to Mr. and Mrs. Rodebaugh: Mary E. is the wife of A. L. Stonecypher, who has a job printing establishment in Omaha, but the family reside in Lincoln, and they have four children ; William H. is foreman of a printing house in Omaha and has a wife and six children: Nellie E. is a student in the normal school in Peru, and has especial talent in art and music: J. Forrest was in the class of 1903 in the normal school and is a teacher. The children have all in- herited taste and talent for music and art, and the granddaughter, Helen Stonecypher, at the age of fifteen, showed her artistic tendency by taking an unbaked brick and with a case-knife modeling an Indian head which is natural and lifelike. The death of the mother of these chil- dren occurred October 14, 1900, and the bereaved family still feel the loss of one who was so close to them in their affections and so helpful and inspiring, a devoted wife and mother and a character of beauty and true usefulness. Her death resulted from paralysis, as she was on her way home from the West Nebraska conference, which she had at- tended with her husband. Since her death Rev. Rodebaugh has lived at home largely retired from active participation in ministerial work.
HON. THOMAS E. HIBBERT.
Hon. Thomas E. Hibbert, an ex-member of the state legislature of Nebraska, an old soldier of the Civil war, and a pioneer and popu- lar citizen of Gage county, Nebraska, took up his present homestead in Hooker township in 1869, so that the thirty-five years spent here
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entitle him to be classed as one of the old-timers. Besides being a witness to the phenomenal development and progress which have taken place in Southeastern Nebraska, he has been an active participant in that work, and in his individual enterprises and his public career has proved himself a man of ability, worth and high character.
Mr. Hibbert was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in 1846, of a family known for its honesty, industry and integrity. His father, Edward R. Hibbert, was born in England, and landed at Philadelphia when he was nine months old. He married Mary Graham, a native of Philadelphia and a member of a Scotch family whose early representa- tives had served under Cromwell. Both parents were Presbyterians in faith. They had four children, Thomas E., Martha, James and Edward, the two latter dying in infancy, and Martha Smith is now a widow living in Philadelphia.
Mr. Hibbert was reared and educated in Pennsylvania, and when a boy of fifteen, weighing but one hundred and five pounds, he enlisted from Wayne county, at Salem, in Company A, One Hundred and Thirty- seventh Pennsylvania Infantry, under Captain J. M. Buckingham and Colonel Bossert, in the Third Brigade, Second Division and Sixth Army Corps, or Hancock's brigade, Baldy Smith's division, and Franklin's corps. He was at the battles of Poolsville, Maryland, September 10, 1862, South Mountain, September 14, 1862, Antietam, September 17, 1862. The One Hundred and Thirty-seventh Regiment buried almost two thousand rebels on the Antietam battlefield. He was then trans- ferred to the Third Brigade (Paul's), First Division (Wadsworth's), First Corps (Reynolds'), and was at the battles of Fredericksburg, December 13, 1862, on Burnside's mud march, and at Chancellors- ville, April 28 to May 12, 1863. His was a nine months' regiment,
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and he was mustered out of service on June 6, 1863, but at once re- enlisted, being assigned to Battery C, Second Pennsylvania Veteran Artillery. He served in the Twenty-second Army Corps in the defenses around Washington until May, 1864, and then went to the front and served in the Eighteenth Army Corps. He was in the Cold Harbor battles in June, 1864, and leaving that place on June 12, took a trans- port at White House Landing and sailed down the York river to Chesapeake bay, past Fortress Monroe, thence up the James river to City Point, Virginia, and on June 15 was in the movement to Peters- burg. His regiment made the first attack on that city, capturing the outside fortifications, and he participated in all the engagement of the Eighteenth Army Corps. At the organization of the Twenty-fourth Corps the Second Pennsylvania Artillery was part of the Third divi- sion of that corps until Lee's surrender. after which until the muster out it did provost guard duty, being finally relieved by the Twelfth United States Infantry. His services continued until February 6, 1866, and despite his youth he carried the heavy musket of Civil war days and performed the same service in camp and field as was expected of his comrades. He was reported killed at Chapin's Farm, but wrote to his father that he was alive and well. In fact, he was neither dead nor sleeping. but was reported among the dead be- cause a shell from a gunboat exploded so close to him that he was knocked senseless for a few minutes. He was offered a commission in a colored regiment. He was color guard, and on the return of the regiment he carried the state flag home, and on July 4, 1866, in person handed the flag to Governor A. G. Curtin, the famous war governor of Pennsylvania. This stand of colors went out in 1861 and came back in 1866, and during that long period rebel hands never
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touched them. In the general orders he was mentioned for making the three best shots at a target with a 24-pound howitzer, while serv- ing on the defenses at Washington, he being the gunner and having sighted the piece. When the rebels made an attack on Redoubt Car- penter below Dutch Gap, Virginia, on January 25, 1865, his services were loaned to a battery of the Thirteenth New York Artillery, and he was complimented for the assistance rendered by his howitzer in repulsing the enemy.
After his discharge from the service, with such a creditable record, Mr. Hibbert lived in his native state for three years. In 1869 he came to Gage county, Nebraska, and took up one hundred and sixty acres of land, which his subsequent diligence and good management have de- veloped into one of the finest farms in the county. He has a grove and orchard of seven acres, a good house and all improvements neces- sary to a model farm.
Mr. Hibbert was married in Gage county, March 19, 1874, to Miss Nannie E. Fuller, who has been the companion and sharer of his joys and sorrows for thirty years. She was born in Indiana, February 23, 1856, and came to Nebraska on July 4, 1864. In the autumn of the same year she and her parents and brothers and sisters and the few neighbors in the vicinity were obliged to flee for their lives to escape the dreaded Indians, but the alarm subsided in a few days and they all returned to their homes. She was reared and received her educa- tion in Gage county, and she has lived almost all her life upon the same section where her father's homestead was and where she now resides with her husband and family. Her father, John Fuller, a descendant of the John Fuller who came over in the Mayflower, was one of the Nebraska early settlers of 1864, and died here in 1869. He
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was a native of Massachusetts, and his wife, Nancy Whiteman, was born in Ohio, being of Pennsylvania Dutch descent, and one of their sons, George Fuller, was a soldier in the Seventy-third Indiana In- fantry. Mr. and Mrs. Hibbert have had the following children : Mary Pearl, born April 11, 1875; Anna Josephine, born December 15, 1876, Charley Edward, born July 21, 1878; Guy, born October 11, 1881; Ila Emma, born March 25, 1884; Roscoe Conklin, born September 18, 1885; Thomas Edwin, born March 28, 1887; Benjamin Harrison, born May 9, 1889; Martha Carrie, born June 24, 1892; James Graham, born March 21, 1894; George Dewey Oscar, born May 26, 1897. Anna Josephine, died April 6, 1877; Charley Edward died January 30, 1880; Mary Pearl, died February 17, 1880.
Mr. Hibbert is one of the most active Republicans in Gage county, has been identified with that party all his life, and has strong convictions of the right and wrong in politics and statecraft. He has been dele- gate to many state, judicial and county conventions, was elected to the office of constable four times, assessor five times, justice of the peace two times, and is now serving his fourteenth year as school director. He served in the state legislature during the twenty-sixth and the twenty-seventh sessions. He is on the visiting and examining board of the State Soldiers' Home, and was supervisor of the census for 1900 for the fourth congressional district; was assistant superintendent of the Nebraska exhibit at the Pan-American exposition at Buffalo, and has held various other places of trust and responsibility. He stands high in G. A. R. circles ; is a past post commander ; was delegate to the national encampment at Philadelphia, and was adjutant of Sergeant Cox Post No. 100, department of Nebraska, on the department com- mander's staff at Cleveland, Ohio, and was on the staff of Commander- in-chief Thomas Seward at San Francisco. He and his wife are mem- bers of the Methodist Episcopal church.
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