USA > Nebraska > Dodge County > History of Dodge and Washington Counties, Nebraska, and their people, Volume II > Part 20
USA > Nebraska > Washington County > History of Dodge and Washington Counties, Nebraska, and their people, Volume II > Part 20
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Born, bred and married in Euger, Westphalia, Germany, Henry Saeger emigrated from the fatherland to the United States in 1887, coming directly to Fremont, Nebraska. After working in the cigar factory of George Godfrey for a brief time, he started in business on his own account, becoming junior member of the firm of Stork & Saeger, continuing under that name until 1890, a period of two years. On June 5, 1890, the present firm of Saeger & Sons was formed, and has been actively engaged in manufacturing cigars ever since, the members of the company comprising Henry Saeger, Sr., William Saeger, August Saeger, Peter Saeger, and Henry Saeger, Jr.
This enterprising firm began business at the corner of Fourth Street and Nye Avenue, and subsequently occupied the Loomis Building on Main Street, five or six years. Its constantly increasing business demanding more commodious quarters, Saeger & Sons erected, on the corner of Main and Fourth streets, a large two-story factory, the larg- est cigar manufactory in the state, it having a frontage of 44 feet, and being 120 feet deep. The entire upper floor is used for manufacturing purposes by the firm, which also devotes the first floor of the north part of the building to its own uses, selling the products of its factory at retail, while the first floor of the south portion of the building is rented to other parties. The firm carries on a very large business, both in making and selling cigars, employing about fifty people.
Henry Saeger, Sr., married, in Germany, Johanna Schroeder, who died in Fremont, Nebraska in 1916. Seven children were born of their marriage, as follows: William, of this sketch; August, born in Ger- many, is married and has four children, Alfred, Victor, Roland, and Elsie ; Peter, born in Germany, married and has three children, Gretchen, Hulda, and George; Henry, Jr., is married, and has one child, Warren ; Lizzie, wife of Arthur Fox, who is engaged in the laundry business at Great Falls, Montana ; Gusta, wife of Fred Moller, a mail carrier in Fremont ; and Minnie, wife of Francis Eagle, of Fremont, a traveling salesman. Both parents united with the Lutheran Church when young. The father, now a venerable man of eighty-five years, became quite homesick after spending seven years in Fremont, and went back to Germany to stay permanently, but after a short stay in his native land decided that life in the United States was far preferable, and returned to Fremont, where he has since lived, contented and happy.
William Saeger, married in 1891, Dora Kaufman, and into their pleasant household nine children have made their advent, namely: Will; Paul; Edward; Fred; Rudolph; Homer, who secured the first prize in the baby contest on July 4, 1918; Kate; Elizabeth; and Minnie.
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Mr. Saeger, who came to Fremont in 1886, a year before his father and family came, devotes his entire time and attention to his cigar business, which is extensive and lucrative.
WALTER C. BLISS. A live, wide-awake young agriculturist of Dodge County, Walter C. Bliss occupies a position of prominence among the enterprising and progressive farmers of Elkhorn Township, and is held in high esteem as a citizen of worth and ability. A son of F. C. Bliss, he was born in 1891, at Howell, Colfax, County, Nebraska, coming from honored New England stock.
Born and bred in Vermont, F. C. Bliss grew to manhood in New England, and received his education in the public schools. Coming to Colfax County, Nebraska in 1886, he took up land near Howell, and for several years was engaged in farming. Subsequently removing to Omaha, he embarked in the commission business as head of the live stock firm of Bliss & Wellman, one of the best known organizations of the kind in the city, and in the management of its affairs is meeting with excellent success. To him and his wife, whose name before marriage was Ada Pattee, three children have been born, as follows: Huishel, deceased ; H. P., of Omaha, in business with his father; and Walter C.
Well trained in agricultural pursuits as a boy and youth, Walter C. Bliss began life for himself with fair prospects for a prosperous future, and his energetic labors, ability and good business tact have already placed him among the prominent and successful agriculturalists of Dodge County. He has 360 acres of rich and fertile land in Elkhorn Township, on which he has made many wise improvements, his farm in regard to its appointments and equipments being one of the best in the community. In addition to carrying on mixed husbandry after the most approved modern methods, Mr. Bliss makes a specialty of raising stock, breeding about three hundred and fifty Hampshire hogs every year, and feeding a hundred head of cattle.
Mr. Bliss married, June 24, 1914, Vivian Wright, who was born in Richford, Vermont, and acquired her early education in the public schools of her native state. Her father, Mathew Wright, never came to Nebraska, but since his death her mother has made her home with Mr. and Mrs. Bliss, who have one child, Ethlada Bliss. Ever interested in local progress, Mr. Bliss, although not an office seeker, has served as school director a number of terms. He is a member of the Congrega- tional Church, and Mrs. Bliss, true to the faith in which she was reared, belongs to the Baptist Church.
MRS. MAY (SMITH) MOREHOUSE. A daughter of the late Joseph Towner Smith, Sr., Mrs. Morehouse was born in Fremont of honored pioneer ancestry. Her father, a native of Pennsylvania, came to Nebraska with two of his brothers long before it was admitted to state- hood. Locating in 1856 in what is now Dodge County, he helped lay out the Town of Fremont, and was thereafter conspicuously identified with its development and growth.
A man of distinctive and forceful individuality, Mr. Smith was con- spicuously identified with the upbuilding of Fremont, being a leading spirit in the establishment of beneficial enterprises, and in addition to having been the pioneer merchant of the place served as its first fire chief, and his brother and partner, James G., was the first postmaster. Full of energy and vim, he extended his business operations from time to time, and through wise management and good investments accumu- lated a large estate, to a part of which Mrs. Morehouse is heir.
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Mr. Smith married first Charlotte Adelia Miller, who died in early life. He subsequently married, November 25, 1882, Augusta Wilhelmine Knopp, and into the household thus established three children were born, as follows: May, now Mrs. Morehouse; Franklin Perry, who was born in 1888, and died March 10, 1919; and Joseph T., who has charge of his father's estate. A more complete sketch and a steel portrait of Joseph Towner Smith will be found on other pages of this work.
Mrs. Morehouse received her rudimentary education in Fremont, and after leaving the high school attended St. Mary's Boarding School in Knoxville, Illinois, for two years, and then studied a year in Liberty, Missouri. On June 28, 1905, she was united in marriage with Carlos Morehouse, who was born in Hooper, Nebraska, and acquired his first knowledge of books in the rural schools of his native county, completing his early studies at the Culver Military Academy, in Culver, Indiana. For two years thereafter, Mr. Morehouse was engaged in the grain business, having an elevator at Gresham, York County; coming from there to Fremont, he was employed in the bottling works for a time, after which he became a member of the firm of Wiley Morehouse & Company, wholesale dealers in fruit, with which he was connected until recently.
Mr. and Mrs. Morehouse have three children, namely: Gene, born September 30, 1907; Joseph Franklin, born in 1909; and Richard Car- los, born in 1911. Religiously, Mrs. Morehouse is an active member of the Congregational Church. Mrs. Morehouse is a member of the Order of the Eastern Star, and belongs to the Fremont Woman's Club, and to the Charity Club.
ALLEN JOHNSON is one of the representative younger members of the bar of Dodge County and is engaged in successful general practice in the city of Fremont, as junior member of the firm of Cain & Johnson, his partner being William M. Cain, of whom individual mention is made on other pages.
Mr. Johnson was born in Dodge County, August 3, 1880, and is a representative of a pioneer family of the county, where his father estab- lished residence in the year that marked the admission of Nebraska to statehood. Mr. Johnson is a son of Andrew J. and Martha (Sampson) Johnson, who were born and reared in Sweden and whose marriage was solemnized in Dodge County, where the father established his home in 1867, the mother having come to this country in the early '70s. Andrew Johnson came to this county with very limited financial resources, and he took up and instituted the development of a homestead, in the mean- while adding to his revenues by working at intervals on the Union Pacific Railroad for a period of about three years. After his marriage he and his wife remained on his homestead farm a few years, and finally they removed to Burt County, where Mr. Johnson purchased a goodly acreage of land and developed a valuable farm property. There he continued to reside until his death, November 10, 1916, at the age of sixty-seven years, his devoted wife having passed away on the 13th of the preceding April, aged sixty-seven years. The eldest of the four children is Charles W., a retired farmer residing at Oakland, Burt County; Sarah is the wife of Charles E. Lunberry, of Craig, that county; Miss Anna C. resides at Oakland, Burt County ; and Allen, of this review, is the youngest of the number. Through his own ability and efforts Andrew J. Johnson gained substantial success in connection with farm industry in Nebraska, and he was one of its loyal and progressive citizens. His political alle-
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giance was given to the republican party and he and his wife 'were zealous communicants of the Lutheran Church. Though Andrew J. John- son was of Swedish birth, his paternal grandfather was an Englishman named Allen, who left his native land on account of religious intolerance manifested toward him and made his way to Sweden, where he became successful in his temporal affairs and where he passed the remainder of his life. The change of the name of his descendants to Johnson was in consonance with the common practice in the Scandinavian countries, where the son took as his surname the personal, or Christian name of the father, with the additional terminal of "son." Two sisters of Andrew J. Johnson married brothers by the name of Pollock and the two Pollock families were the earliest settlers of Dodge County, Nebraska.
Allen Johnson was a child at the time of the family removal to Burt County, where he was reared on the home farm and profited by the advantages afforded in the public schools. This discipline was supple- mented by a course in the Fremont Normal School at Fremont, and in preparation for his chosen profession he entered the law department of the University of Nebraska, in which he was graduated as a member of the class of 1908, with the degree of Bachelor of Laws. He was forth- with admitted to the bar of his native state, and he has been admitted also to practice before the Federal Courts in the state. All of these privileges were granted him on the day of his graduation, and the next day he opened an office at Fremont and girded himself for his profes- sional novitiate. He proved himself well fortified as a trial lawyer and counselor, and his law business has continuously expanded in scope and importance. Since 1917 he has been associated in practice with William M. Cain, under the title of Cain & Johnson, and this is recognized as one of the strong and successful law firms of Dodge County. The firm has a representative clientage and is retained as local legal representative of the Chicago & Northwestern Railroad Company. Mr. Johnson is the owner of valuable real estate in Fremont, including his attractive home. He is a republican in his political allegiance and he and his wife hold membership in the Methodist Episcopal Church of their home city.
August 2, 1908, marked the solemnization of the marriage of Mr. Johnson to Miss Lottie Morter, who was born in Hand County, South Dakota, a daughter of Henry and Fedora (Barr) Morter, who are now residents of Burt County, Nebraska, where the father is a prosperous retired farmer. Mr. and Mrs. Johnson have one child, Forrest Allen Johnson, who was born May 13, 1917.
WILLIAM H. BELKNAP has been a resident and active business man of Blair for a quarter of a century and is manager of the Haller Pro- prietary Remedy Company. Mr. Belknap first came to Washington County, Nebraska, soon after the close of the Civil war, but through the stress of circumstances abandoned his intention of developing a homestead and returned east to take up a business career.
He was born at Yonkers, New York, July 30, 1845, son of Charles F. and Abigail Jane (O'Dell) Belknap. His parents were lifelong resi- dents of New York State and his father was a contractor and builder and followed the business until his death. There were three children : Ethelbert, a retired hat manufacturer at Yonkers; W. H., second in age ; and Mrs. Ida Morrell, who still lives in New York State. Charles F. Belknap was the first member initiated into the Lodge of Odd Fellows at Yonkers and was faithful and loyal to that order all the rest of his life and was honored with all the chairs and offices. He began voting as a whig and subsequently became a republican.
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William H. Belknap acquired his early education at Yonkers, attend- ing the Star Commercial Collegiate Institute of that city. At the age of sixteen he began work as clerk in the grocery store of Walter Pad- dock at Yonkers, but soon gave up his place behind the counter to enlist as a soldier in Company A of the Thirteenth Regiment of New York Militia. He was in the Hundred Day service and did picket duty and acted as a guard on the pike road and railroads around Richmond. He and his regiment went by boat from Fortress Monroe to New York City for the purpose of being discharged. The boat was wrecked during the voyage and seven lost their lives while being transferred to life boats. Following his military experience Mr. Belknap was for two years entry clerk with a hatter's supply house of New York.
In 1867 he came as a pioneer to Washington County, Nebraska. He entered a homestead and earnestly devoted his time to its development and improvement for a year and a half. There were many trials and discouragements, and the last straw was a severe hail which completely ' destroyed all his crop prospects for that year. Leaving his place in charge of a neighbor, he returned east to better his finances. He had paid eight hundred dollars for lumber for building purposes and has practically nothing to show for nearly two years of hard work. He was offered five hundred dollars for his homestead and decided to sell it, though something interfered with carrying out the transaction and he continued to own the land for a long period of years, until 1910, when . he finally sold the property at a hundred dollars an acre.
Mr. Belknap, after his Nebraska homesteading experience, remained in New York State for twenty-five years and became very successful in business, as president of the Yonkers Hat Manufacturing Company. Then in 1896 he returned to Nebraska and located at Blair, and has since been manager for the Haller Proprietary Company, a company incor- porated for fifty thousand dollars capital. This company manufactures a large line of home remedies and the product is sold and widely dis- tributed over the country.
December 22, 1867, at Woodbine, Iowa, Mr. Belknap married Miss Emma A. Royster. She became the mother of four children, two of whom are still living. The son Rolland is chief auditor for the Sperry & Hutchinson Company at Yonkers, and the other son Stanley is in the repair department of the Remington Typewriter Company in Omaha. In 1901 at Blair Mr. Belknap married Marie F. Peterson, who was born on a Nebraska farm. They have two children, William H. Jr., a schoolboy, and Adeline Priscilla. Mr. Belknap and his family are all members of the Baptist Church. He has been a loyal member of the Masonic Order since 1866 and is also affiliated with the Grand Army of the Republic and is a republican voter.
OTTO HOEGERMEYER. Located in a rich agricultural region, Otto Hoegermeyer stands high among the enterprising and self-reliant men who are so ably conducting the farming interests in Everett Township, the greater part of his land being in a yielding condition, and the improve- ments on his place being of a good, practical, and substantial character. Although native born, his birth having occurred November 18, 1887, in Dodge County, he is of foreign ancestry, his parents, Henry F. and Mary Hoegermeyer, having been born on German soil.
Brought up in Germany, Henry F. Hoegermeyer was educated in the public schools, and, in common with his youthful companions, served the required time in the German army. He subsequently learned the
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blacksmith's trade, which he followed for a while. In 1872 he came to the United States, and having settled in Dodge County, Nebraska, secured work on a farm. Having accumulated some money, he wisely invested it in land, and having made good improvements on it continued life as a farmer and stock raiser, branches of industry that proved prof- itable. On his well cultivated estate he resided until his death, in 1914. He 'was not affiliated with any political party, being an independent voter. Religiously he was a member of St. John's Lutheran Church, to which his widow, who is now a resident of Dodge County, belongs. Nine children were born to their union, as follows: Anna, wife of Mr. Heer- mann, a farmer in Stanton County; Louise, wife of William Moeller, who is engaged in farming in Dodge County; Minnie, wife of Otto Langewisch, a Dodge County agriculturalist ; Mary ; Augusta ; Henry, a farmer in Cuming County ; Fred, engaged in farming in South Dakota; Herman, farming in Washington County; and Otto, subject of this sketch.
Completing his early education in the rural schools, Otto Hoeger- meyer worked with his father several seasons in the parental homestead. Starting in life for himself in 1914, Mr. Hoegermeyer has since carried on general farming with good results, making a specialty to some extent of raising a good grade of stock. He is a stockholder in the Hooper Mill and Grain Company, which is doing an extensive business. In poli- tics he is independent, as a voter being bound to no party. Religiously, true to the faith in which he was reared, he is a Lutheran, being a trust- worthy member of St. John's Church.
Mr. Hoegermeyer married, in 1916, Lydia Whitman, who was born in Indiana, and they have two children, Walter and Hugo.
JAMES M. SHAFFER has been actively identified with the agricultural interests of Maple Township, Dodge County, for more than a quarter of a century and ranks among the extensive successful farmers of the locality. His success has been self-attained, and in its gaining he has used strictly legitimate methods, which have served to substantially place him high in the confidence and esteem of his associates and acquaintances.
Mr. Shaffer was born in Pennsylvania in 1863, a son of Abel and Mary Ann (Hellwick) Shaffer, natives of the Keystone State. His father learned the shoemaker's trade in his youth and followed that vocation in Pennsylvania until 1878, when he came to Nebraska and rented a farm in Dodge County. He was an industrious man and even- tually accumulated sufficient means with which to buy his land, the rest of his life being passed in agricultural operations. He was a capable farmer and a good judge of live stock, while his citizenship and integrity were never questioned. In politics he was a republican, and he and his worthy and estimable wife were members of the Lutheran Church. They were the parents of six children: James M .; William, who is engaged in farming in Dodge County; Emma, the widow of Joe Barner, of Kearney, Nebraska; Lucinda, the wife of Henry Stever, an agriculturist of Dodge County ; Jacob, a resident of Kearney ; and Abel, deceased.
James M. Shaffer was educated in the public schools of Pennsylvania, and was fifteen years of age when he accompanied his parents on their overland trip to Nebraska. He was reared to agricultural pursuits and remained on the home place with his father until he reached the age of twenty-nine years, at that time buying 160 acres of land. From that time to the present Mr. Shaffer has been extending his operations annu-
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ally, and at this time is accounted one of the successfully substantial farmers and stockraisers of Maple Township. He has a good grade of live stock and his improvements and equipment indicate that he is pro- gressive in principle and that he takes a pride in his surroundings. While farming has been his chief work, he has not let opportunity pass him by when business prestige has been at stake, and is a stockholder in the Union Elevator of Hooper, and the Lion Bonding Company, of Omaha. In politics he is a republican.
Mr. Shaffer was married in 1895 to Miss Elizabeth Brugger, who was born in Pennsylvania, and to this union there have been born two children : LeRoy and Iva, both at home.
CHARLES M. MILLER. Ten miles distant from North Bend. Dodge County, is to be found the attractive rural home of Charles M. Miller, who here has a well improved farm of 120 acres, in sections 2 and 11, Cotterell Township. As an agriculturist and stock-grower he has well upheld the high standards that have long been a marked feature of indus- trial enterprise in Dodge County, and his success has been substantial. His tangible rewards are especially pleasing to note in view of the fact that he came from Iowa to this county when a young man of twenty-one years, driving through with a team and covered wagon and reinforced with a capital of only ten dollars at the time when he crossed over the Missouri River and made his appearance in Nebraska.
Mr. Miller was born in Mahaska County, Iowa, on the 7th of August, 1861, and is a son of John T. and Elizabeth Miller, who were numbered among the sterling pioneers of Iowa, where the mother still maintains her home, at a venerable age, the father having been a native of Terre Haute, Indiana, and having been seventy-two years of age at the time of his death. He reclaimed and improved a pioneer farm in Iowa and was still a resident of Mahaska County, that state, at the time of his death.
In the public schools of the Hawkeye State Charles M. Miller acquired his early education, and in the meanwhile he had gained a plethora of experience in connection with the work of the home farm. He continued to be there associated with agricultural enterprise until he had attained to his legal majority, when, in 1882, he set forth with his team and cov- ered wagon to establish a home in Nebraska and to work his way toward the goal of independence and enduring prosperity. Soon after his arrival in Dodge County he purchased eight acres of wild land, in section 2, Cotterell Township, and for this property he paid at the rate of thirty dollars an acre. With definite plans for providing a home, the young bachelor erected a modest dwelling and other necessary buildings on his new farm, and valiantly began the work of bringing the land under cul- tivation. His original tract is an integral part of his present well improved farm of 120 acres, and the modern house and other excellent buildings give evidence of the prosperity that has attended the earnest enterprise of Mr. Miller as an agriculturist and stock-grower. In past years he gave special attention to the feeding of cattle and hogs for the market, but he now limits this feature of his farm enterprise, in order to develop to the fullest extent the agricultural resources of the land. He is a democrat in politics and is known as a loyal and progressive citizen of his adopted county.
Not long did Mr. Miller feel content to maintain a bachelor home on his farm, as is shown in the fact that the year 1884 recorded his
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marriage to Miss Elizabeth Haberer, who likewise is a native of Iowa, and who has proved a devoted companion and helpmeet. The while the passing years have brought a fine family of eleven children into the pleas- ant home, namely: Iva, Josephine, Alfred, Elsie, Zora, Goldie, Lyda, Sylvia, Onnie, Walter and Carl.
DON C. VAN DEUSEN, editor and proprietor of the Pilot, the oldest newspaper of Washington County, is one of the representative men of Blair, whose influence is far-reaching and effective. He was born in Beverly, Ohio, on October 12, 1871, a son of Barrett S. and Hannah (Green) Van Deusen, born February 21, 1843, natives of Canajoharie, New York, and Ohio, respectively. They were married in Ohio and came to Blair, Nebraska, in 1873, and bought railroad land five miles west of Blair. Mr. Van Deusen has retired and now lives at Blair, but continues to own 320 acres of land, a portion of which he bought for $10 per acre. This land was all improved by him and is now very valuable. He and his wife became the parents of nine children, five of whom are still living, namely : C. C., who is on the old homestead, served in the Nebraska State Legislature for two sessions; Don C., whose name heads this re- view; H. G., who is living retired at Kennard; Lena, who is now Mrs. Henry Kasbaum and lives near Dunbar, Neb., was for a number of years a trained nurse and lived in Omaha; and Mrs. Don J. Gammel, who lives at Tekamah, Nebraska, where her husband is manager of the Farmers Elevator Company. The mother is a member of the Methodist Episcopal Church, but the father does not belong to any religious organ- ization. During the war between the states he served as steward on the battleships Sachem and Uncas under his brother, Maj .- Gen. George H. Van Deusen, and was fortunate enough to be stationed at Newport News at the time of the battle between the historic Merrimac and Mon- itor which ended the hope of the Confederacy for naval supremacy, and was an eye-witness to what was at that time the greatest naval engage- ment of the age.
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