USA > Nebraska > Dodge County > History of Dodge and Washington Counties, Nebraska, and their people, Volume II > Part 27
USA > Nebraska > Washington County > History of Dodge and Washington Counties, Nebraska, and their people, Volume II > Part 27
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John O'Connor was reared to the sturdy discipline of the home farm and his early educational advantages were those afforded in the district schools. He continued his active association with agricultural industry until he was twenty-nine years of age, and in the meanwhile had become the owner of a farm in his native county. At the age noted he removed to Fremont, the county seat, and he was long retained in office in his home county. Prior to leaving the farm he had held various township offices, and finally he was elected registrar of deeds of the county, an office in which he served two terms of four years each. Thereafter he was for 'one year employed in the Commercial National Bank of Fre- mont and the following year found him succesfully engaged in the real estate business. Then he was again summoned to public service, by being elected county clerk. In this office, of which he continued the incum- bent five years, he gave a characteristically efficient administration, and since 1916 served, with marked efficiency and acceptability as county assessor, his previous official service as county clerk having rendered him specially eligible for this post.
Mr. O'Connor has been one of the loyal and influential workers in the local ranks of the democratic party and has served as chairman of the Democratic County Committee of Dodge County. In connection with his official duties he conducted a representative real estate business and maintained also the most authoritative abstract office in the county. He has been essentially the artificer of his own success, which has been worthily achieved, and he is now the owner of 240 acres of good land in his native county, as well as valuable real estate, both improved and unimproved properties, in the City of Fremont. He and his wife are communicants of the Catholic Church, and he is affiliated with the
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Knights of Columbus, the Modern Woodmen of America, the Fraternal Aid Union and the Improved Order of Red Men.
On June 3, 1903, was solemnized the marriage of Mr. O'Connor to Miss Georgia Mowrer, who was born at Albia, Iowa, and who had been for nearly a quarter of a century an efficient and popular clerical employe in the Dodge County courthouse, her service having been in different offices. Mr. and Mrs. O'Connor have one child, Wilma, a member of the class of 1920 in the Fremont High School.
WILLIAM G. MERCER. Progress brings changes, and in nothing is this more clearly shown than in the advancement made in methods of locomotion. The invention, improvement and final almost universal adoption of the motor-run vehicle in place of that drawn by horses, has resulted in the practical abolishment of establishments which formerly were connected with the sale, care and renting of horses, and the devel- opment of modern garages. Fremont has a number of these business enterprises, and a number of them are run by men who had the vision and courage to make the change from one kind of commercial enterprise to the other. One of these men is William G. Mercer, a very successful business man of Fremont.
William G. Mercer was born at Ogdensburg, New York, on May 19, 1863, and he had the misfortune to lose both of his parents when he was a baby, but was reared by some of his uncles and annts. He attended the public schools of his native state and learned the horseshoers' trade at Ogdensburg. After he came to Fremont, on July 7, 1883, he further increased his store of knowledge by attending night school. He worked at his trade at Fremont from 1883 until 1917 when he opened the Mercer Auto Parts Company and has built up a very large business. He buys all kinds of cars, breaks them up and assembles new cars from the undam- aged parts thus secured. Not only does he own his business property, but three other pieces of property at Fremont.
In March, 1888, Mr. Mercer was nnited in marriage with Anna Bohn, and they became the parents of two children, one of whom is living, Namely : George L., who is with his father in the Mercer Auto Parts Company. Mrs. Mercer is a member of the Evangelical Lutheran Church, but Mr. Mercer is not connected with any religions organization. He belongs to the Knights of Pythias, the Ancient Order of United Work- men and the Royal Highlanders. In politics he is a democrat.
Mr. Mercer reached Fremont with twenty-five cents in his pocket, and is now one of the substantial men of his community, but this pros- perity has come to him through no favors, but is the result of his own unaided hard work, careful planning and initiative. While he has been too much occupied with his business affairs to take any active part in politics, aside from voting, he is interested in the advancement of the city and county and can be counted upon to give his support to move- ments which he believes will obtain practical results and not waste the money of the taxpayers.
GEORGE L. MERCER is one of the enterprising young business men of Fremont who is proving his worth to his community, and doing credit to his parents. He was born at Fremont on July 15, 1890, a son of William G. and Anna (Bohn) Mercer, the former of whom is the originator and owner of the Mercer Auto Parts Company of Fremont, where he and Mrs. Mercer are still living.
I.D. Richards
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After having attended the Fremont High School and Normal School, George L. Mercer gained a knowledge of the fundamentals of business life as a hardware clerk, and remained in that line of endeavor for five years, after which he learned horseshoeing with his father, and then worked at his trade for seven years. When his father organized the Mercer Auto Parts Company, George L. Mercer assisted him in it for a year, and then established himself in the garage business as proprietor of the Fremont Garage, but April 8, 1920, he sold his garage and joined his father again in the management of the Mercer Auto Parts Company.
On October 27, 1913, Mr. Mercer was united in marriage with Anna L. Godel, born at Fremont, a daughter of Henry Godel, one of the early settlers of Fremont, who is still a resident of the city, and a man highly respected by all who know him. Mr. and Mrs. Mercer have one child, George L., Jr., who was born on January 27, 1916, a very bright little fellow. Mr. and Mrs. Mercer belong to the German Salem Church of Fremont. Fraternally Mr. Mercer is connected with Fremont Lodge No. 514, Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks, and the Odd Fellows, and is interested in the progress of both organizations. A leader among the young republicans of his ward he is now chairman of the Fourth Ward Republican Committee, and is deeply interested in public matters, and well posted on current events.
LUCIUS DUNBAR RICHARDS. History is largely a record of men's deeds and experiences, and when an individual's activities reach out and influence the life of many communities the task of biography is exceed- ingly difficult. The following paragraphs while involving many matters of great historical import to Dodge and Washington counties, neverthe- less fall short of adequately representing the career and character of the Fremont pioneer and distinguished citizen Lucius Dunbar Richards.
Mr. Richards in his own career has been a living exemplification of Americanism, and in that respect has been true to the record of his ancestors who were among the early settlers of New England, and were participants in the French and Indian war, the War of Independence and the War of 1812. His own birth occurred on a farm at Charleston, Orleans County, Vermont, November 26, 1847. The home being broken up when he was eleven years of age, he left the homestead and went to work fourteen to sixteen hours a day for neighboring farmers for board and clothes. He also had the advantages of some limited terms of instruc- tion in the Yankee district school.
Before he was fifteen years of age on September 5, 1862, he enlisted in Company I of the Fifteenth Vermont Infantry. He succeeded in get- ting to Brattleboro the rendezvous of the regiment, and by the interces- sion of the colonel with the United States mustering officer was accepted in spite of his youth. His regiment was commanded by Redfield Proctor, who was not only an able soldier but afterwards governor, secretary of war and senator from Vermont. Young Richards served out his nine months' term and was mustered out in August, 1863. Before going to the front he was detailed as orderly to Colonel Proctor and this relation- ship was cemented by a lifelong friendship between the commander and the boy soldier. Mr. Richards has a memento of Colonel Proctor's hand- writing on the discharge which reads: "No longer a soldier under my command. May the stronger relations of friendship continue through life is the wish of your colonel and friend."
Not satisfied with his first term of enlistment, in the summer of 1864 he re-enlisted in Company K of the Seventeenth Vermont Infantry and
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carried a musket until the close of the war. He was with his regiment in the front line before Petersburg when that stronghold fell on April 2, 1865, and when Lee surrendered he was detailed as a guard, and the regi- ment leaving soon afterward he was never relieved on his post, until he took it upon himself to discharge himself from that duty, the only instance of his military career when he was not faithful to orders.
After the war he joined his mother in Michigan, worked on a farm, and in the fall of 1865 entered Eastman's Business College at Pough- keepsie, New York. In March, 1866, he went west to Hannibal, Mis- souri, and was employed by his uncle, F. R. Lockling, then city engineer of Hannibal, and assisted in laying out additions to the towns along the Hannibal & St. Joseph Railroad. He also was on the railway survey between Hannibal and Moberly. This gave him a knowledge of engi- neering. Starting for Colorado in July, 1867, he ran out of money and stopped at Missouri Valley, Iowa, then the headquarters of construction of the Sioux City & Pacific Railway. While he tried to qualify as an engineer, his first work was on a pile driver, but later he accepted an engineering job at smaller wages. In April, 1868, he was promoted to transit man on the survey of the Sioux City & Pacific Railway from Cali- fornia Junction to Fremont. Thus a little more than half a century ago Mr. Richards in line of duty became identified with the city of his present residence. After this work was completed he was a member of an engi- neering party that made the survey for what is now the Illinois Central from Sioux City to Fort Dodge, and he then returned to the Sioux City & Pacific road.
One morning at breakfast the superintendent of construction, Burnett, laid an order upon his plate directing him "to take charge of all railway work between the Missouri River and Fremont," giving him due author- ity and instructions to harmonize and bring efficiency between the track laying, pile driving and bridge forces. This responsibility was thrust upon the young man not yet twenty-one years of age.
Track laying was completed to Fremont in February, 1869. Going thence to Cherokee on the Sioux City and Fort Dodge Line Mr. Rich- ards had charge of construction of a division crossing the Little Sioux River until November, 1869, after which returning to Fremont he built in about six weeks the first ten miles of the Fremont, Elkhorn & Mis- souri Valley Railway. Under his charge this road was completed during 1870 to West Point and early in 1871 to Wisner. During this period Mr. Richards also surveyed and platted the towns of Scribner, Hooper and Nickerson. Railway construction having for the time ceased he became roadmaster and superintendent of bridges and buildings on the line from Sioux City to Wisner, so continuing until August, 1872 Dur- ing this time he exercised his right under the land laws and homesteaded and proved up eighty acres near Scribner. This constituted his first real estate possession.
The young railroad builder returning from out of the West to his native state of Vermont was married January 9, 1871, to Miss Carro E. Hills, of Burlington. His bride returned with him to Fremont, subse- quently lived at Missouri Valley until the fall of 1872 when Mr. Richards took his wife and child back to Burlington and accepted an advantageous offer from the Henry Meggs' railroad interests in Costa Rica, Central America, and for nearly two years was engaged in engineering and super- intending construction and operation of railroads in Costa Rica.
In April, 1875, he returned with his family to Fremont. Railroad construction had absolutely ceased following the financial panic of 1873
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and he was confronted with the necessity of finding some other line of work. At that time he entered the real estate and insurance business with W. C. Ghost as a partner for about a year, later was associated with Mr. Reynolds, and still later the firm and corporation of Richards, Keene & Company.
Having reviewed briefly the experiences which preceded his permanent residence and interests at Fremont and in Nebraska, an effort should be made to describe in broad outlines the larger service and influence ren- dered by Mr. Richards. His dominating characteristic has always been a constructive spirit. With other empire builders he has been best satis- fied in giving concrete reality to broad plans that affect for good the wel- fare of large regions and numerous population. This characteristic was reinforced by his early experiences as a railroad builder, when responsi- bilities far in advance of his years were laid upon him. The group of railroad builders with which he was mainly associated included that great pioneer, John I. Blair, and was the group which built and owned what afterwards became a part of the Great Northwestern system in northern and eastern Nebraska, known for many years as the Sioux City & Pacific and the Fremont, Elkhorn & Missouri Valley. His co-operation and council were long valued by those roads. In compliance with the Nebraska law his office for a considerable time was the corporate Nebraska office of the Fremont, Elkhorn & Missouri Valley road. He was the general agent for their state land grant lands and townsites. He supervised the preliminary investigations and surveys in the middle '80s of a proposed railroad northwestward from Fremont midway between the Union Pacific and the main line of the Northwestern, which afterwards materialized as the Scribner-Albion line of the Northwestern. He was in close touch with the construction management when in 1886-87 the Northwestern lines were built out from Fremont to Lincoln, Hastings, Superior and Omaha.
His constructive genius was combined with the vision of a financier and that led him to make strong financial and business connections in New York and New England, through which he was able to take a still larger participation in the development of the eastern Nebraska country and his home town in particular.
From the first he conceived that strong confidence in Fremont and the surrounding country which their great intrinsic merit warranted. At a time when he owned but little real estate his high public spirit led him to work for the realization of everything calculated to develop the town and country. One of the first fundamental resources of Fremont which he interested himself to develop was in 1880, the dairy industry. Taking into consideration the wide surrounding valley of hay and corn lands, he fore- saw scarcely any limit to the future of the industry. Largely through his initiative and financial co-operation a modern brick creamery was built in 1880, a building of a size considered large even now. He has lived to see the Fremont creamery industry and interests and closely related lines developed into eight prosperous companies and plants with an annual volume of business of more than $3,000,000.
Closely related to the dairy industry and farming generally and vital to the best interests of Fremont was the extensive drainage of the extremely wet valley lands adjacent to the city. Here Mr. Richards' skill and experience as an engineer came into play and peculiarly fitted him to solve and direct the complicated work carried on through a period of thirty years. His service in this connection has undoubtedly been one of the greatest credited to his personal energies. Tributary to Fremont
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were 200,000 acres of Platte and Elkhorn River valley lands, presenting during the greater part of the year a morass unproductive of little more than wild hay and incapable of good roads. While the engineering prob- lems involved were serious and expensive, the human elements were equally difficult to line up, since any project however well conceived inevitably aroused antagonism and resulted in litigation and obstruction. Under Mr. Richards' leadership in 1886-88 the first adequate ditch was initiated and constructed, crossing the wide flat valley diagonally from the northwest to the southeast into the Platte a number of miles west of Fremont and known as "the Fremont cut-off ditch." It was followed by two other similar main cut-offs further west in the county, and more recently by a comprehensive highly detailed ditching system for the east- ern end of Dodge and the western end of Douglas County. This latter system involved reducing the length of the Elkhorn River by eighteen miles and the dredging of many waterways into that river.
The culmination of his persevering efforts came in 1907 with the organization of a special district at Fremont of levees, dykes and diver- sion work on the Platte River to prevent the periodical river overflows which had always distressed the southern portion of Fremont and that general locality. This organization was made possible solely through Mr. Richards' financial and legal support and through the large real estate holdings he represented in that locality. The plan was effectively accom- plished by an expenditure of $100,000 and a dozen years of careful, pains- taking engineering work.
While so much is to be credited to his personal initiative and enter- prise, in all the years of his residence in Fremont Mr. Richards has retained and advanced his influence through his faculty of leadership and co-operation with his fellow citizens. He has always realized the power of united effort and concentration of energies involving all the progres- sive elements of the community. In 1880 while mayor of the city he brought about the organization of the Fremont Board of Trade, which under the later name of Commercial Club has been an efficient body for forty years. While even in larger cities such clubs have had alternating periods of stagnation and feverish energy, largely through the unremit- ting efforts of Mr. Richards the Fremont organization has been kept going and working, and now in its fortieth year is one of the strongest and most efficient organizations of its kind in the state.
Mr. Richards for many years has been regarded as one of the fore- most business men of Nebraska. In 1885 he organized and incorporated the first trust company in Fremont and to this corporation he turned over the great trust and investment business he had personally built up. For several years previously he had been doing business in twenty counties of eastern Nebraska and western Iowa, where he was the exclu- sive confidential representative of large eastern land and farm loan investors. He organized and conducted the first savings bank, and in 1886 organized the Fremont Stock Yards and Land Company with a paid-up capital of $200,000, owning 1,400 acres of land adjacent to Fre- ment for the feeding in transit of western sheep, cattle and general stock. This company has extensive yards, covered sheds, grain elevators, three miles of industrial railroad of its own and many other facilities. Mr. Richards has always been the president and leading stockholder of the company. He was largely instrumental in the organization of the Fre- mont National Bank, in which were combined the private banking inter- ests of Richards & Keene and Hopkins & Millard.
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After Mr. Richards returned to Fremont to make the city his perma- nent home he resurveyed the town. He was a member of the Board of Public Works for twenty-five years, served as surveyor of Dodge County three years, as city engineer of Fremont, and for two terms held the office of mayor.
His political career has some interesting incidents though as a whole it has been subordinate to the larger affairs with which he has been busied. In 1888 he was unanimously chosen chairman of the Republican State Central Committee and was re-elected the following year. He was one of the delegates at large in the national convention in 1892 when President Harrison was renominated, and a delegate at large and chair- man of the Nebraska delegation to the Chicago convention in 1920 which nominated Harding and Coolidge. In 1890 he was chosen the republican candidate for governor. That year three tickets were in the field, the populists then showing great strength. Moreover the republican candi- date showed no disposition to win at the expense of some deeply cher- ished convictions of his own, and that independence and loyalty to prin- ciples, one of his chief characteristics, was a contributing factor in the final results of the election. True to his New England instincts he has never neglected his duties as an American citizen. He has interested himself in politics altogether to promote the cause of good government and to oppose what his judgment and experience have shown him to be unsound and essentially un-American.
During his railroading experience in Costa Rica he was made a Mason and has had many honors of the craft. He has attained the thirty-third honorary degree in the Scottish Rite, is past grand high priest of Grand Royal Arch Chapter of Nebraska, past commander of Mount Tabor Commandery No. 9, Knights Templar. He is also a past president of the Nebraska Sons of the American Revolution, and is a past department commander of Nebraska Grand Army of the Republic. For many years he was a trustee of Brownell Hall, the Episcopal School for Girls at Omaha and was also deeply interested financially and otherwise in Clem- ons Fremont College, Midland College and the Young Men's Christian Association at Fremont.
The marriage companionship of nearly forty-five years was termi- nated by the death of Mrs. Richards in December, 1915. She was the mother of four children: Josephine R. Sears; Fred H., a partner with his father ; Katharine R., wife of B. W. May, a wholesale grocer at Fre- mont ; and Redfield Proctor Richards, also associated with his father in business.
JOSHUA S. DEVRIES, M. D., has been established in the general practice of his profession at Fremont for more than thirty years and is one of the able and honored representatives of his profession in Dodge County. The large scope of his practice attests most fully his technical ability, his personal popularity and his fine sense of professional stewardship. He commands the high regard of his professional confreres and has long been one of the influential members of the Dodge County Medical Society, besides which he is affiliated with the Nebraska State Medical Society, the Elkhorn Valley Medical Society, and the Missouri Valley Medical Society. Doctor Devries has been a resident of Nebraska since his boyhood, here he received his academic and professional education, and here has found opportunity for the achieving success and prestige in his chosen vocation.
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The lineage of the Devries family is traced back to French origin, and representatives of the name came to America in the Colonial period of our national history. Doctor Devries was born in Carroll County, Maryland, September 23, 1864, and is a son of Elias Perry Devries and Elizabeth E. (Shipley) Devries, who were born and reared in Maryland and the latter of whom there passed her entire life, her death having occurred in 1869. In 1878 Elias P. Devries came with his children to Nebraska and established a home in the City of Omaha. He was a resident of Fontanelle, Washington County, this state, at the time of his death. He was a democrat in politics and prior to the Civil war had been a slave owner in Maryland. His religious faith was that of the Christian Church and he was long affiliated with the Masonic fraternity. Of the five children, Doctor Devries, of this review, is the younger of the two now living, his sister, Mary J., being the wife of A. P. Manning, cashier of the First National Bank of South Pasadena, California.
Doctor Devries gained his rudimentary education in his native state, and after the family removal to Nebraska he continued his studies in the public schools of Omaha. In preparation for his chosen profession he there entered the medical college that is now the medical department of the University of Nebraska, and in this institution he was graduated as a member of the class of 1888, with the degree of Doctor of Medicine. While a student he gained a valuable clinical experience as an interne in the Douglas County Hospital, at Omaha, his entire service in this capacity having covered a period of twenty-two months. Within a short time after his graduation, and before the close of the year 1888, he came to Fremont, where he formed a professional partnership with Dr. L. J. Abbott, with whom he was thus associated two years. Since that time he has conducted an independent practice of general order, has kept in touch with the advances made in medical and surgical science and has long controlled a large and representative practice. It has already been noted that he is actively identified with the Dodge County Medical Society, and it may further be stated that he has served as president of the same. His political allegiance is given to the demo- cratic party, and at one time he held the office of coroner of Dodge County. He and his wife are communicants of the Protestant Episcopal Church, and he is prominently affiliated with the Masonic fraternity, in which his maximum York Rite association is with Mount Tabor Commandery of Knights Templars, besides which he has received the thirty-second degree of the Ancient Accepted Scottish Rite, holds membership in the Mystic Shrine and is identified also with the Inde- pendent Order of Odd Fellows.
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