USA > Nebraska > Dodge County > History of Dodge and Washington Counties, Nebraska, and their people, Volume II > Part 43
USA > Nebraska > Washington County > History of Dodge and Washington Counties, Nebraska, and their people, Volume II > Part 43
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liberal, and in this connection it should be noted that he has been spe- cially influential in connection with the promotion of effective drainage systems through the county. He has served fourteen years as a director of the board of drainage commissioners of the county and has been president of the board since 1915, having been re-elected president in 1920. Within his incumbency the county has expended more than $200,000 and thereby effected the drainage of fully 40,000 acres of land which has been brought to a high state of cultivation. The service of the drainage board involved the straightening of the course of the Elk- horn River, and by this means valuable land was redeemed to cultivation.
Mr. Roberts is the owner of a fine farm of 168 acres, improved with modern buildings of the best type and yielding large returns annually. He has made his farm enterprise specially successful, and he has availed himself of the best of modern facilities as well as scientific methods, and he has reason to feel gratified in the substantial prosperity which he has won through his well ordered efforts during the period of his resi- dence in Nebraska, a state to which his loyalty is marked by deep appre- ciation of its attractions and advantages.
Within the period of his residence in America Mr. Roberts has made two trips to his native land, and on the last occasion, in 1911, he was accompanied by his wife. They witnessed the coronation of the present king of England, and prior to returning home they visited Switzerland, Belgium and Germany. While in England they met numerous kinsfolk and other friends of earlier days.
Mr. Roberts is affiliated with the local organizations of the Inde- pendent Order of Odd Fellows and Fraternal Order of Eagles, and both he and his wife hold membership in the Presbyterian Church of Fremont.
In 1892 was solemnized the marriage of Mr. Roberts to Miss Emma M. Hicks. who was born in Illinois and who is a daughter of William H. Hicks, with whom Mr. Roberts came to America when a boy, as pre- viously noted. Mr. and Mrs. Roberts have no children of their own, but their adopted son. Albert Roberts, is now married and has the active management of the farm of his foster father.
JOHN H. BADER. The premier honors of breeding more champion- ship hogs in the year 1919 than any other man in America rests with John H. Bader of Dodge County. His stock farm, known and appre- ciated for its products in many states, is located in section 2 of Ridge- ley township.
Mr. Bader is a young and enthusiastic stockman, and was born at Toledo, Illinois, in 1883. His parents were Asa and Clara Bader. His father was born and reared in Ohio and his mother in Illinois, where they married. Asa Bader was a good farmer, and in 1893 came to Wahoo, Nebraska, where he farmed until his death in 1903. He and his wife had seven children: Elmer, a farmer at Webster, Nebraska ; Rono, of Fremont ; Cora Bishop, of Hooper : Della Linquist, of Scribner ; Lizzie Van Horn, of Fremont ; Fannie Van Horn, of Dodge ; and John H.
John H. Bader received most of his early training and education in Nebraska and began for himself in 1908. He was farming as a partner with his mother near Hooper until after his marriage and then rented and in 1910 bought his first land, 240 acres. Six months later he sold that, and his present farm comprises 120 acres. On this farm he has built the finest modern home in this section of the county. Some years ago he purchased his first thoroughbred big type Duroc-Jersey and has
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had wonderful success with this breed, and it is now the chief feature of his business. Mr. Bader is an independent voter, a member of the Masonic order and the Congregational Church.
Mr. Bader married Miss Cora Hallett, a native of Toledo, Illinois. She died in 1911, the mother of two children, Howard and Mable, who live with their father.
JOHN MATTSON. Numbered among the prosperous agriculturists and respected citizens of Dodge County, John Mattson is the owner of a fine and well appointed farm, pleasantly located on section 22, in Logan Township, where he is laboring with excellent and highly satisfactory results as a general farmer, the land, under his gentle persuasion, yielding profitable harvests each season. A son of the late Matts Mattson, he was born, August 18, 1865, in Omaha, Nebraska, where the first five years of his life were spent.
Born, bred and married in Sweden, Matts Mattson immigrated to the United States early in 1865, and for five years thereafter followed his trade of a stone mason in the City of Omaha. Coming with his family to Dodge County about 1870, he secured eighty acres of land in Logan Township, and with true pioneer courage and faith began the improve- ment of his land. His first dwelling was a rude, one-room shack, in which he and his family lived, and in addition took for a boarder the first school teacher employed in that district. Laboring earnestly and faithfully, he was quite successful as a farmer, and in course of time added materially to his landed possessions, at the time of his death, at the advanced age of four score and four years, owning 280 acres of rich and fertile land, the greater part of which was under culture and with improvements of an excellent character. His wife survived him, passing away at the venerable age of ninety years. Of the eight chil- dren that were born of their marriage, but two are now living, as fol- lows: John, the subject of this brief sketch, who was the seventh child of the parental household in order of birth; and Matts, of Uehling, Nebraska.
Brought up in Logan Township and educated in the public schools, John Mattson was initiated into the mysteries of agriculture as early as possible, beginning as a boy to assist his father on the home farm. The free and independent occupation appealing to his tastes and temperament, he began life as a farmer on his own account at the age of twenty-one years, renting a piece of land from his father. Full of push and energy, Mr. Mattson labored diligently and each year has materially added to the value and productiveness of his farm, which is one of the best in the community in regard to its improvements and appointments, its neat and attractive appearance bearing evidence of his good management.
Mr. Mattson married, in 1889, Carrie Peterson, a daughter of Lars Peterson, of Uehling, Nebraska, and they are the parents of five chil- dren, namely : Mrs. Ruby Larson, of Uehling ; Josie, Marvin, Franklin and Geneve, at home. Mr. Mattson is a strict prohibitionist in politics and in addition to having served four years as township clerk was school treasurer nine years. A member of the American Sunday School. Union, he served as Sunday school superintendent for ten years, in that capac- ity doing efficient and appreciated work.
JOHN MCQUARRIE. The interesting activities of John McQuarrie, a retired coal and lumber merchant of Blair, first touched this community nearly fifty years ago when for a time he had his headquarters at Blair
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and engaged in the real pioneer business of buying up from local hunters quantities of prairie chicken and shipping them to market. It was some four or five years later that Mr. McQuarrie became a permanent resident of Blair and continued for forty years the leading coal and lumber dealer of that community,
Mr. McQuarrie was born on Prince Edward Island December '24, 1847, son of Charles and Mary (Matheson) McQuarrie. Both his grandfathers were natives of Scotland and his parents were born and lived all their lives in Prince Edward Island. Charles McQuarrie was a boat builder, was captain of sailing craft a number of years, also cul- tivated a small farm and reared his family in a rural district. He and his wife were stanch Scotch Presbyterians. Of their eleven children five are now living, all residents of Prince Edward Island except John. The others are Isabelle, wife of Joe Clemens; Ann, a widow; Robert ; Jane, a widow.
John McQuarrie received his early education in his native province, and in 1868, at the age of twenty-one, left home and removed to Rhode Island. The following year he came West to Omaha, but during that summer found work as a farm hand near Sioux City, Iowa. He remained there five months, being paid twenty-two dollars a month. He had come West with about $200 and it was through the exertion of his physical energies and taking advantage of opportunities presented by experience that he eventually laid the foundation of a business he prosecuted to success and which enabled him to enjoy life at ease. After leaving the farm Mr. McQuarrie was for two and a half years in the Government service as a carpenter. During that time he was sent to an Indian agency in Nebraska, working there from September, 1873, until Febru- ary, 1874. Then he returned to Sioux City, Iowa, worked as a car- penter there and at Yankton, South Dakota, for a brief time, and in the fall of 1874 paid his first visit to Blair in the novel business pre- viously referred to. In 1875 he worked as a carpenter in Omaha and in 1876 went West to Cheyenne, Wyoming, again in the Government service. During the summer of 1877 he was employed in helping build Fort Custer, Montana, a memorial to the gallant General Custer who fell in the massacre the preceding year. He worked in Montana from July to October and then started down the Yellowstone River from Fort Custer and on a steamer down the Missouri River, a journey of 348 miles.
Having returned to Blair, Mr. McQuarrie in 1878 entered the lum- ber business, conducted a yard for handling lumber supplies, and also sold coal, and was in the business consecutively until 1919, when he sold out to the Christiansen Lumber Company.
In 1880 Mr. McQuarrie married Margaret Higgins, who was born in Prince Edward Island, a daughter of Theophilus Higgins. Mr. and Mrs. McQuarrie have had their home in Blair for a number of years. They are parents of four children : Miss May, at home; George, in the automobile business at Blair ; Jeannette, a teacher at Kenesaw, Nebraska ; and Marian, a student in the State University at Lincoln.
The family are members of the Presbyterian Church and Mr. McQuarrie has filled various chairs in the Lodge of Odd Fellows. In politics he has been aligned with the republican party ever since he acquired American citizenship. While in the midst of his business career at Blair he was elected and served two terms as a member of the city council and for two terms was mayor of the municipality.
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HENRY L. BEEBE, whose home is in section 4 of Platte Township, is one of the oldest native sons of Dodge County, and his father was one of the very first white pioneers in this region of old Nebraska Territory. H. L. Beebe has interesting memories of many things he saw and took part in as a boy and young man. The prairies were still covered with buffalo and wild Indians while he was growing up and practically the entire history of Dodge County has been enrolled as a panorama before his eyes.
Mr. Beebe was born in Dodge County March 4, 1860, just one year before Abraham Lincoln was inaugurated president of the United States. He is a son of Henry P. Beebe, whose record appears again and again in connection with the early annals of Dodge County, Born in New York State, he arrived in Nebraska Territory September 27, 1856. He started for the country west of the Missouri from Green Bay, Wis- consin, and traveled overland with a team of horses and two teams of oxen. Locating on a land grant of 160 acres, he built a log house, the building in which Henry L. Beebe was born. At that time the nearest trading point was Council Bluffs, Iowa. H. P. Beebe married Lavina J. Hager, who was born near Montpelier, Vermont. Of the ten children born to this pioneer couple, six are still living: Stedman P., Curtis E., Henry L., Mrs. Welthie S. French, Mrs. Sarah J. Howe and Mrs. Rosie A. Bower. H. P. Beebe died at the age of seventy-two and his wife aged fifty-nine.
During the sixties and seventies, while Henry L. Beebe was passing through the period of youth, school facilities were very poor in his section of Dodge County. But he had abundant opportunity to exercise his strength and practical skill in assisting the family to make a living in those poverty-stricken days. His present farm is a portion of the old homestead, comprising 152 acres, and during his active life he has done much to improve and develop its resources. For many years it was a difficult struggle to make a living, however cheap and plentiful land was. Mr. Beebe many times ground corn and wheat in a coffee mill and after shelling corn by hand hauled it to market at Fort Kearney, a distance of 150 miles, being a week on the trip and getting hardly enough money for his crop to supply the household with groceries. There were a num- ber of winters when the Beebe household was snowed in for weeks at a time and this family also passed through the discouraging periods of great drought and devastation by grasshoppers. Mr. Beebe personally witnessed the tremendous prairie fire of 1881, when thousands of tons of hay went up in smoke. Those adversities are now largely a matter of memory and Mr. Beebe and others who went through the trials of that period now find themselves blessed with abundant prosperity. He is still active, farming ninety-five acres, and does some stock raising.
Mr. Beebe is a member of the Masonic Lodge and in politics. is a republican in national affairs and an independent in county elections. He served six years as justice of the peace of his township and for nineteen years was a member of his local school board.
March 25, 1902, he married Jennie Thompson. She was born in Canada and when six months old was brought to the United States by her parents, John and Martha (Kirk) Thompson. Her mother is still living. Her father, who died in 1888 when about fifty years of age, settled near Morse Bluff in Saunders County, Nebraska. Mrs. Beebe has two brothers, Joseph and Robert Thompson. The only child of Mr. and Mrs. Beebe is Henry A., born May 20, 1905.
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CLAUS G. TANK has become one of the successful representatives of farm industry in the county that has been his home from the time he was about two years old, and as an agriculturist and stockgrower in Dodge County he is the owner of a well-improved farm of 120 acres in section 11, Cotterell Township. Energy and good management have brought to him substantial success and he is a citizen who has secured place in popular esteem. He is a stockholder in the corporation owning and operating the well equipped grain elevator at North Bend, and his progressiveness is further shown in his being likewise a stockholder and loyal supporter of the stock show held annually at Scribner. A dem- ocrat in politics, he takes lively interest in all things touching the welfare and advancement of his home county, and though he has had no desire for public office he gave most effective service during his incumbency of the position of treasurer of School District No. 30. Mr. Tank is indebted to the public schools of Dodge County for his early education, has been continuously associated with farm enterprise since boyhood and began his independent activities as an agriculturist and stockgrower when he was twenty-four years of age, his success having been con- tinuous and cumulative since that time.
Mr. Tank was born in Germany November 3, 1874, and thus was about two years old when his parents immigrated to the United States in 1876 and established their home in Dodge County, Nebraska. Here the father was employed for seven years in the grain elevator at Fre- mont and he then purchased land and engaged actively in general farm enterprise, in which he here continued until his death, which occurred in 1904 at the age of 56 years, his widow still continuing to maintain her home in Dodge County and being a devout communicant of the Lutheran Church at Fremont, as was also Mr. Tank, whose political allegiance was given to the democratic party. Of the nine children, Claus G. is the eldest ; Celia is a resident of North Bend; Henry resides in Morrill County ; Mary and Edward remain in Dodge County; Niel, Amelia and Emil are residents of Cheyenne County ; and John is a farmer in Dodge County.
In 1902 was solemnized the marriage of Claus G. Tank to Miss Iowa Miller, who was born in the State of Kansas, and they have four chil- dren, all of whom remain. at the parental home: Glenn J., Alta C., Edwin A. and Melvin M.
ALBERT E. BUCHANAN, M. D. Admirably fortified in personality and technical ability are the physicians and surgeons who are upholding the honors of their profession in Dodge County, and among the number whose success and popularity are adequate indices of professional ability and effective service is he whose name introduces this paragraph. Doctor Buchanan has the distinction of being a native son of the historic Old Dominion commonwealth, with whose civic and material affairs the name which he bears has been identified for numerous generations. The doctor was born in Smyth County, Virginia. August 21, 1872, and is a son of Hickman S. and Laura (Sexton) Buchanan, both natives of that state, where the father died in 1889, at the age of fifty-two years, and where the widowed mother still maintains her home, at the age of sixty-seven years (1920). Arthur E. is the eldest in a family of ten children, all of whom are living except one. Hickman Buchanan was a successful planter in his native state and was a man of ability and fine personal character and standing. His political allegiance was given to the democratic party and he held membership in the Presbyterian Church,
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as does also his widow. His father, Patrick C. Buchanan, was born in 1799, of Scotch-Irish ancestry, and three representatives of the name came to America in early days, one having settled in Pensylvania, one in Tennessee and one in Virginia.
Afforded the best of educational advantages in his youth, Doctor Buchanan finally entered Emory & Henry College, one of the historic and well ordered institutions of Virginia, and in the same he was grad- uated in 1896, with the degree of Bachelor of Arts. Thus fortified in the academic education that has been all too frequently neglected by aspirants for professional service, Doctor Buchanan was matriculated in the Virginia Medical College, in the City of Richmond. In this insti- tution he was graduated as a member of the class of 1900, and after thus receiving his degree of Doctor of Medicine, he was for three years engaged in practice in his home state. He then, in May, 1903, came to Nebraska and established his residence at Cedar Bluffs, Saunders County, where he developed an excellent practice and where he continued his activities until 1910, when he found a broader field of service, he engaging in practice at Fremont. Here his success has been unequivocal and he is distinctly one of the representative physicians and surgeons of Dodge County, with a substantial practice that shows a constantly cumulative tendency. He is actively affiliated with the Dodge County Medical Society, of which he is president in 1920; the Elkhorn Valley Medical Society, the Nebraska State Medical Society, the Missouri Valley Med- ical Society, and the American Medical Association. The doctor inherited his full quota of ancestral patriotism, and this was distinctly shown when the nation became involved in the great World war, for in 1918 he sub- ordinated all else to tender his professional services to the Government. On August 1st of that year he was assigned to service at the base hos- pital of Camp Mead, Maryland, and he continued in active base hospital work with marked fidelity and efficiency, until he received his discharge, December 6, 1919. He is an appreciative and valued member of the local post of the American Legion, is affiliated with the Masonic frater- nity, in which he has received the thirty-second degree of the Ancient Accepted Scottish Rite and in which his maximum York Rite affiliation is with Mount Tabor Commandery of Knights Templar, at Fremont, besides which he is identified with the adjunct organization, the Ancient Arabic Order Nobles of the Mystic Shrine, as well as the Fremont lodges of the Knights of Pythias and the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks. The doctor is a member of the Fremont Rotary Club, and through this and other mediums shows his civic loyalty and pro- gressiveness. He attends and supports the Congregational Church, of which Mrs. Buchanan is an active member.
In 1901 was solemnized the marriage of Doctor Buchanan to Miss Grace Pratt, who likewise was born and reared in Virginia, and they have three children: George Warren is a member of the class of 1920 in the Fremont High School; Edna Virginia is likewise a student in the high school, as is also Laura Marie.
GUSTAVE C. PANNING. Leading an active and useful life on the farm which he owns and occupies, and which he is so skillfully man- aging, Gustave C. Panning, of Hooper Township, is a fine represen- tative of the American yeomen, and is eminently worthy of the respect and confidence so generously accorded him by his neighbors and friends. A son of Henry Panning, he was born, August 11, 1877, in Dodge County, of German lineage.
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A native of Germany, Henry Panning was born, reared and edu- cated in Hanover. He immigrated to the United States, and after living for a time in Watertown, Wisconsin, made his way to Nebraska, locat- ing in Dodge County, where, in 1856, he settled on Government land and after the Homestead Act was passed he homesteaded in 1863. Improv- ing his land, he carried on general farming and stock raising with the best of results, and became prominently identified with several important enterprises, having been one of the original stockholders of the Winslow State Bank, and also of the Hooper Telephone Company. He married Meta Meyer, a native of Oldenburg, Germany, and to them five children were born, as follows: Mary, wife of J. C. Berght, who is engaged in farming in Wayne County; Eloise, wife of Henry Kuss, manager of the Nebraska and Iowa Grain Elevator at Winslow; Anna, wife of Paul Schmidt, of Thayer, manager of an elevator; Frederick G., a well known agriculturist of Dodge County ; and Gustave C., with whom this brief sketch is principally concerned.
The youngest child of the parental household, Gustave C. Panning had ample opportunities when young for obtaining a practical education and having finished his studies he was well drilled in the different branches of agriculture on the home farm. Beginning farming on his own account at the age of thirty years, he bought land on section 18, Hooper Township, and has since devoted his time and energetic efforts to its management. A thorough-going farmer, he has been constantly adding to the improvements previously inaugurated, and his labors have always proved satisfactory and remunerative, his land being in an excel- lent state of culture, and the buildings in good condition, everything about the premises bearing visible evidence of the owner's enterprise, intelligence and managerial ability. Mr. Panning is a good general farmer and as a successful stock raiser handles pure-blood Shorthorn cattle almost entirely. He is greatly interested in the advancement of agriculture as a science, and is a stockholder in the Farmers' Union at Winslow.
Mr. Panning married, in 1907, Anna Langewish, a daughter of William Langewish, of Dodge County, and they have three children, namely : Floma, Elert and Florence. Politically, Mr. Panning is a stanch republican, and religiously he and his wife are faithful members of the Lutheran Church.
C. A. SCHMIDT. A man of tried and trusted integrity, C. A. Schmidt, of Blair, president of the State Bank, has been an important factor in promoting the financial prosperity of this section of Washington County, and occupies a position of prominence in the business activities of the city. He is a native-born citizen, his birth having occurred in Blair on September 15, 1880.
His father, the late Christ Schmidt, was born in Benningen, Germany, and as a young man, immigrated to the United States .. He married, in Memphis, Tennessee, Wilhelmina Ufrecht, a native of Germany, and in 1870 came with his bride to Nebraska. Locating in Blair, he was asso- ciated for nineteen years with the Crowell Lumber & Grain Company. Investing his money in land at the end of that time, he turned his atten- tion to agriculture, and was subsequently actively engaged in farming until his death, in 1912, at the age of seventy-one years. He was iden- tified with the democratic party until Bryan appeared in the political arena, after which he voted the republican ticket. Ever interested in local affairs, he served as councilman one or more terms. Beginning
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