USA > Nebraska > Dodge County > History of Dodge and Washington Counties, Nebraska, and their people, Volume II > Part 57
USA > Nebraska > Washington County > History of Dodge and Washington Counties, Nebraska, and their people, Volume II > Part 57
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C. HENRY PETERSEN. A well-known and prosperous business man of Washington County, C. Henry Petersen has achieved success in the various lines of industry with which he has been associated, his keen foresight and earnestness of purpose having proved his chief assets dur- ing his career as a farmer, stockraiser and merchant. He was born in 1873 in Clinton County, Iowa, a son of Nichols D. and Margaret Petersen, natives of Germany.
Born in 1842, Nichols Petersen remained in Germany until attaining his majority. In 1865, following the footsteps of many of his com- panions, he immigrated to the United States, settling first in Iowa, where he was employed in general farming and stock raising, and was also engaged in business at Bennington, Nebraska, where he owned and oper- ated a meat market. Coming from Clinton County, Iowa, to Washing- ton County in 1876, he was here a resident until his death, on January 1, 1916. He was a democrat in politics, and both he and his wife united with the Lutheran Church at Bennington, this state. They were the parents of six children, as follows: Peter C., of Bennington, Nebraska, a butcher ; C. Henry ; Catherine, widow of John Missfeldt; John of Ben- nington, a well-known garage man; William, engaged in farming in Washington County, Nebraska ; and Emma, wife of Richard Johnson, who is engaged in farming in Douglas County, this state.
Obtaining a practical education in the rural schools of Washington County, C. Henry Petersen acquired valuable knowledge and experience in the art of agriculture on the home farm. Finding the work profitable as well as agreeable, he carried on general farming for several years, making a specialty of raising a good grade of stock. Locating in Wash- ington in 1916, Mr. Petersen opened a store, and having put in a com- plete stock of general merchandise has since been actively and prosper- ously engaged in mercantile pursuits, his trade being large and constantly increasing. He has acquired considerable property, owning land in Cheyenne County, Nebraska, and being a stockholder in the Omaha Wholesale Grocery.
Mr. Petersen married, in 1893, Mary Voss, a native of Ohio, and into their home circle ten children have made their advent, namely : Alvina, wife of Charles Wrick, a farmer in Washington County ; Clara, postmistress in Washington ; Dora and Celia, in Omaha; Carl, engaged in agricultural pursuits in Washington County ; Catherine, working in her father's store; Herbert; Otto; Louise: and Lorraine. Mr. Petersen is independent in politics, voting according to his convictions, regardless of party affiliations.
W. L. JAPP. The man who today owns Washington County farm land is to be accounted one of the most fortunate men of Nebraska. This is one of the great agricultural states of the Union, and its present state of fertility has been brought about through the efforts of the men who have devoted their time and energy to the development of its natural resources. One of the men who has borne his part in the establishment and maintenance of this supremacy is W. L. Japp, of Richland Town- ship, owner of 200 acres of valuable farm land in section 3.
W. L. Japp was born in Dodge County, Nebraska, in 1876, a son of John and Christine Japp, natives of Germany. John Japp came to the United States when a young man and homesteaded in Dodge County, Nebraska. At the time of his death he owned 1,200 acres of land, and was a man of prominence in Dodge and Washington counties. His death took place in 1879, but his widow survives him and lives in Dodge County, being now seventy-five years old.
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Until he was twenty-one years old W. L. Japp remained at home and secured his education in the district schools of Dodge County. When he reached his majority he began farming for himself, first on land he rented from his father, but later he bought his present farm, and on it he is carrying on a general farming and stockraising business, and has been very successful. He has made improvements upon his place and it is now in good condition and reflects credit upon his skill as a farmer.
Mr. Japp was married to Dora Harder, a daughter of Joseph Harder of Dodge County, now deceased. Mr. and Mrs. Japp have twelve chil- dren, as follows: John, August, Emil, George, Edward, Ernest, W. L., Kate, Minnie, Emma, Lora and Lizzie. In politics Mr. Japp is an independent thinker and voter. His elder sons are engaged in farming in the same neighborhood as he, while the younger ones are on the farm with him, and all of them are doing well. They are held in high respect in their community as hard-working and thrifty men and good citizens.
HARVEY C. KENDALL, advertising manager and director of the Fre- mont ·Evening Tribune, is one of the leading business men and public- spirited citizens of Fremont, who has done much for the advancement along industrial civic lines of this locality. He was born in Iowa County, Wisconsin, in 1885, a son of William H. and Minnie (Hoskins) Kendall. They were born in Iowa County, Wisconsin, where they lived for many years engaged in farming, but in 1905 he sold his farm and retired to Dodgeville, Wisconsin, where he and his wife are still living. They had four children born to them: Alma, who married John Campbell, mayor of Dodgeville, died in 1918; Harvey C., who was second in order of birth; James H., who is treasurer of Iowa County, Wisconsin, is the youngest man ever elected to such an office in Wisconsin ; and Dr. Charles H., who is practicing dentistry at Milwaukee, Wisconsin, was graduated from the Northwestern University at Evanston, Illinois, and was presi- dent of his class during his senior year. Mr. and Mrs. Kendall are con- sistent and earnest members of the Congregational Church. He is a republican in politics. He has been fairly successful in his undertak- ings, and has won the confidence of his fellow citizens. The paternal great-grandfather, Henry Kendall, founded the family in this country when he came from England to the United States and located in Iowa County, Wisconsin, about seventy years ago. When he settled there he was one of the very earliest pioneers in the county, and became one of its prominent men, always holding some of the township offices. Possessed of sterling traits of character, principal among which was strict integrity, he stated in his will that all of his debts must be paid first of all. The maternal grandfather, William Hoskins, was also an Englishman, born in Cornwall, England, and he, too, was an early settler of Iowa County, Wisconsin.
Mr. Kendall's first occupation was in newspaper work, at which time he was in the employ of his uncle in North Dakota. Six years later he returned to Wisconsin and became the manager of the Dodgeville Chronicle, which has the largest circulation of any weekly newspaper in Wisconsin.
While in North Dakota Harvey C. Kendall met Alice Mckay, to whom he was married September 11, 1912, and in January, 1913, he moved to Fremont to become manager of the Fremont Herald. Later he went with the Hammond Printing Company and held the position of advertising manager for three years. He resigned his position with the Tribune at that time and organized the Golden Rod Ice Cream Company,
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incorporating it at $50,000, and F. E. Pratt is its president ; Carl Thomsen is vice president, and Mr. Kendall was secretary and general manager. The company ships its product all over Nebraska, Iowa and South Dakota, and is represented on the road by two traveling salesmen. In January, 1920, Mr. Kendall sold his interests in the Golden Rod Ice Cream Company and purchased a substantial interest in the Hammond Printing Company. He was elected a director of the firm and adver- tising manager for its publication, the Fremont Evening Tribune, which position he now holds. Mr. Kendall has other interests, owning stock in several concerns, and his nice modern residence.
Fraternally Mr. Kendall is a Knight Templar Mason. He also belongs to the Modern Woodmen of America, Ancient Order of United Workmen and other similar organizations. Always interested in the work of the Young Men's Christian Association, he is now serving as one of the directors of the association at Fremont, is president of the Fremont Boy Scout Council, is secretary of the Fremont Aerial Club, and is a member and official of the Fremont Rotary Club and an active member of the Commercial Club. He is one of the officials of the Con- gregational Church. During the late war he served as county merchant representative, and took a very active part in all of the war drives. A strong republican, he served as chairman of the county central committee and as chairman of the congressional committee of the Third District of Nebraska of his party. Mr. Kendall is a man of more than ordinary strength of will and is oftentimes called into counsel with other repre- sentative men of his community. Having devoted much thought to cur- rent events, he is recognized as an authority on public questions and local politics. Among other qualities without doubt he is possessed of grit, vision and a really marvelous ability to overcome obstacles, and he has contributed of them freely to civic undertakings as well as to the advancement of his own interests.
E. P. HANSON. Strict attention to business and undaunted faith in his ability to succeed have been influential factors in the rise of E. P. Hanson, president of the Herman State Bank. His original business equipment consisted of a good name, a fair endowment of intellect and a practical education, and with these he has worked his way to business and financial prominence among the people of his community.
Mr. Hanson was born on a farm in Washington County, Nebraska, May 4, 1870, a son of H. V. and Anna Hanson. His father, a native of Sweden, came to the United States a poor young man in 1865, and after four years in Utah settled in Washington County and purchased a relinquishment of eighty acres. For his first board home he hauled lumber all the way from Omaha, but in later years this residence was replaced by a more commodious and pretentious one, for Mr. Hanson rose rapidly in fortune through his industry and good management, and at the time of his death in 1902, when he was sixty-four years of age, was the owner of 720 acres of land and considered one of the successful men of his locality. His wife, Anna, died when forty-two years of age, leaving six children : Mrs. R. B. Wilson, a resident of Omaha; E. P .; Mrs. Dr. J. F. Peddleford of South Dakota: Mrs. Swan Johnson, living on the old homestead in Washington County ; E. A., a former banker of Decatur, this state, now deceased; and Francis, a member of the First Nebraska Volunteer Infantry, who met his death in the Philippines April 27, 1899.
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After attending the local schools E. P. Hanson pursued a course at the normal school at Fremont, from which he was duly graduated, and at the age of nineteen years entered upon a career of his own. He farmed until he reached the age of twenty-eight years, at which time he became a salesman on the road for the Cudahy Packing Company, with which concern he remained three years, then entering the employ of the Standard Oil Company, with which he remained five years. Mr. Hanson then spent one year at the Exposition grounds, Omaha, following which he came to Herman, and in 1907 founded the Herman State Bank, of which he is president. This institution has an excellent standing among the financial concerns of the county, and is capitalized at $50,000. A large part of the confidence placed in it by the people of this community is by reason of their faith in Mr. Hanson's motives, which have always been found above board and free from double dealing. He has various farming interests in Washington and Thurston counties, and is a member of the board of directors of the First National Bank of Decatur. As a fraternalist he is a thirty-second degree Mason and a Shriner, and a member of the Knights of the Maccabees, in both of which orders he has numerous friends.
In 1901 Mr. Hanson was united in marriage with Lucy D. Cooper, who was born and reared at Cameron, Missouri, and to this union there has been born one son, Howard, who is still attending school.
HIRAM JEFFERSON ROSENBAUM. For thirty years Hiram Jefferson Rosenbaum was numbered among the industrious farmers, good citizens, trusted friends and neighbors of Washington County. His life record is one to be remembered in his community. Besides Mrs. Rosenbaum and his children he left material evidences of his activity in a substantial farm property and country home, now occupied by Mrs. Rosenbaum.
This farm home is in Arlington Township, section 1, a half mile north and five miles east of Arlington.
Mr. Rosenbaum was born in Washington County, Virginia, a son of Joel and Nancy (Ramsey) Rosenbaum. His father was a Virginia farmer and at one time held the office of constable. The family were Presbyterians in religion.
Hiram Jefferson Rosenbaum in 1874 married Sarah Garrett, who was born in the same county as himself. The following year, in 1875, they came out to Washington County, Nebraska. They first bought land near Fort Calhoun, where they remained eight years, after which they removed to the community west of Kennard where Mr. Rosenbaum spent the rest of his years. A carpenter by trade, which he had learned in Virginia, he used that trade during many seasons in Nebraska, also cul- tivated his farm, and built up a considerable business in fire insurance. He identified himself from the first with the progressive element of the community, and was a very popular and highly esteemed citizen. He died in 1916 at the age of sixty-one. Fraternally he was affiliated with the Woodmen of the World, Modern Woodmen of America and the Knights of Pythias. Mrs. Rosenbaum is a member of the Baptist Church.
To their marriage were born ten children: Carrie, wife of Reese French, a Washington County farmer; Joe, who farms the old home- stead : Edward, in the real estate business at Omaha ; Mattie, widow of Jens Hoteling of Oklahoma ; Nancy, wife of Charles Robinson, a farmer at Denver, Colorado; Buck, a farmer near Kennard; May, wife of Charles Peterson of Kennard; Jesse, a railroad man living at Spokane, Washington; Hiram B., a prospector near Spokane ; and John, a sales- man for the Goodyear Tire Company of California.
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THOMAS T. OSTERMAN, proprietor of the Tribune, of Blair, has been enrolled in the printing and newspaper service since boyhood. With all his devotion to this profession, he has likewise been a leader in politics and in the civic affairs of his home community.
He was born at Fremont, Nebraska, June 9, 1876, fourth among the ten children of Charles Osterman and Catharine Kerl. His father was born in Germany in 1840, came to America at the age of sixteen, and was identified with the pioneers at Fontanelle, Nebraska. Mr. Osterman's mother was born near Jefferson City, Missouri. Her half-brother, Simon Kerl, was a noted author and grammarian, and was private secretary to the secretary of the treasury in Abraham Lincoln's cabinet.
At the age of thirteen, when in the seventh grade of the old Fremont Central School, Tom Osterman went to work in the office of the Flail, to learn the printer's trade. When three years later he left home he was competent as a compositor and in other branches of printing, and as a journeyman he worked in a number of eastern Nebraska towns. In 1895 he leased a weekly paper at Arlington, and at that time was regarded as the youngest editor in Nebraska, The lease terminated in 1896 and in September of that year he began his long and permanent connection with Blair, where he became foreman of the Courier. He was in charge of the business while its editor was in the South during the Spanish- American war in 1898.
In 1903 Mr. Osterman was appointed deputy county clerk. He resigned that office March 1, 1904, to assume the ownership of the Blair Republican, changing its name to the Blair Democrat. In 1907 he purchased the Courier, consolidating the two papers. In 1912 a building and lot was purchased in the central business part of the city, to which the Democrat was moved. It was published under that title until 1917 when Mr. Osterman participated in the purchase of the Tribune and has since used the latter name for his publication.
Always active in politics as a stanch democrat, in recognition of the services he had rendered the party in Washington County Mr. Osterman was appointed postmaster at Blair on the recommendation of Congress- man C. O. Lobeck and took charge of the office July 1, 1914. While this necessitated turning over the active management of his newspaper to others, he has found time to keep in touch with its conduct and policies and has never for a moment lost sight of its welfare nor allowed it to lag in a single particular. A second commission as postmaster was given Mr. Osterman under date of October 3, 1918, Congressman Lobeck informing him of his reappointment with the announcement that "The department had not a single mark against his record."
Something should also be said of Mr. Osterman's influential activi- ties in civic affairs. With the aid of his newspaper he has worked stead- ily for the betterment of the community. In a great measure his persistent efforts were responsible for the organization of Blair's present Chamber of Commerce, and it is a source of personal satisfaction to him that the local Commercial Club has brought about an extensive program of paving and sewer construction at Blair, to say nothing of the many other aids the chamber has rendered the city since its organization a few years ago.
Mr. Osterman has been interested in lodge work, being a Mason, Odd Fellow and Knight of Pythias, and for the last two years has been chancellor commander of Garfield Lodge No. 6, Knights of Pythias, at Blair, during which time the lodge has enjoyed an unprecedented growth in membership.
THOMAS T. OSTERMAN
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November 23, 1898, Mr. Osterman married Miss Minnie A. Parish, a daughter of Joel D. Parish. Their only child was born in 1901 and died during a scarlet fever epidemic in 1905. Mr. Osterman's brother, Theo M., of Central City, is serving his fourth term as a member of the Nebraska House of Representatives and is minority floor leader. Mer- rick is his home county and he is prominently mentioned as a candidate for democratic gubernatorial honors in 1922.
F. J. HOVENDICK was born in Washington County about the time Nebraska was suffering its worst era of vicissitudes through grasshop- pers, drought and other adversities. His people were early settlers here, and since youth his own efforts have been put forth as a practical farmer, and largely on the land where he was born and reared. He has shared in the great prosperity of modern times and is owner of one of the highly improved places in Richland Township, in section 24.
He was born October 24, 1875, son of Herman Henry Hovendick. His father, a native of Germany, came to the United States in 1858 and for several years lived in Quincy, Illinois, a community from which came many of the early colonists of Dodge and Washington counties. He was employed as a teamster there and when the Civil war broke out he enlisted in an Illinois regiment and gave valiant service to the Union cause. Several years after the war, in 1869, he came to Nebraska and settled on land. now included in the farm of his son, F. J. Hovendick. His first purchase was a relinquishment of eighty acres, and later he added another eighty acres and gave to this farm the best efforts of his life. He lived there honored and respected until his death on May 11, 1917, at the age of seventy-eight. He was married in Quincy and his wife died in 1903. In the family were five sons and four daughters.
F. J. Hovendick grew up on the home farm, acquired a common school education. At the age of twenty-one he entered the employment of his father, and nine years later took entire charge of the place and has lived there ever since. He now owns 120 acres and has been a very successful stock raiser, that being the most profitable branch of his enterprise.
Mr. Hovendick had a place on his local school board for seventeen years. He is a member of the non-partisan league, which expresses most of his views on politics and economic subjects. He and his family are members of the Lutheran Church.
May 6, 1908, Mr. Hovendick married Miss Frieda Tranton, daughter of the late August Tranton. She was four years old when her father died, and her mother is now Mrs. Emma Hawk. The children of Mr. and Mrs. Hovendick, all at home, are Francis, Opal and Herman.
CHRISTOPHER C. CROWEI.L. Of all the names associated with the commercial and civic history of Blair from pioneer times to the present that of Crowell has been perhaps most distinctive of widespread com- mercial enterprise, affairs and movements of first magnitude in the community and this section of the state. In earlier generations the Crowells were a wealthy and prominent family of Massachusetts and later they supplied capital and personal initiative to the great task of railroad building in the Missouri Valley, both in Iowa and Nebraska. A member of the same group of capitalists and railroad builders was the Colonel Blair for whom the county seat of Washington County was named.
Vol. II-26
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While his life for the most part was spent in Massachusetts, Prince S. Crowell, father of C. C. Crowell, was the first of the family whose name deserves recognition in the history of Washington County. He was of old Puritan stock and a lineal descendant of Elder Brewster, the first churchman in the New World. C. C. Crowell's grandfather, Capt. David Crowell, was in the War of 1812, and his father, Christopher, was in the War of the Revolution. Thus the Crowell family story goes back well to the beginning of American history. Prince S. Crowell was a man of remarkable business ability and unusual energy, and those qualities were transmitted to the succeeding generation. In younger years he commanded one of the first merchant vessels sailing from American ports to China. He retired from the sea quite young to become a shipbuilder, and he constructed .a great many vessels in his home town of East Dennis, Massachusetts, that contributed to the prestige of the American merchant marine in the early half of the nineteenth century.
Some years later Prince Crowell became interested with John F. Blair and others in a construction company which built many of the railroads developing the western country. Some of these pioneer railroad lines were the Chicago, Iowa & Nebraska, from Clinton to Cedar Rapids; the Cedar Rapids & Missouri River, from Cedar Rapids to Council Bluffs ; The Sioux City & Pacific in Iowa, from Missouri Valley to Sioux City; all of which are now integral parts of the Chicago & Northwestern system. In Nebraska this company built the Fremont, Elkhorn & Mis- souri Valley Railroad. Prince Crowell was president of two banks, and in Massachusetts conducted a large, marine insurance. He was a devoted friend of the public school system, was a radical abolitionist, and his home was the meeting place of such historic personages as William Lloyd Garrison, Wendell Phillips, the Burleighs, Lucy Stone, Anna Shaw and others who molded the thought and action of that generation. Though of a retiring disposition, his power was neverthe- less a strong factor in public affairs. He amassed a large fortune through his personal efforts and was ever a liberal supporter of all charitable movements.
A son of this New England capitalist was the late Christopher C Crowell, Sr., many of whose life activities were identified with Blair and vicinity. He was born at East Dennis, Massachusetts, May 19, 1844, and was educated in the common schools and in Eastman's Business Col- lege at Poughkeepsie, New York. After leaving school he was clerk in a ship chandlery store at Boston, and at the age of twenty-four entered the fish oil manufacturing business at Portland Harbor, Maine.
It was in 1869 that Christopher C. Crowell removed to Nebraska. He lived a short time in Omaha, and then rented and operated for a year a flouring mill near De Soto in Washington County. Locating at Blair, he engaged in the grain business and during his lifetime developed the extensive business now represented by the Crowell Lumber and Grain Company and Crowell Elevator Company, which during his life- time operated lumber yards and elevators at fifteen different points in Nebraska along the Fremont, Elkhorn & Missouri Valley Railroad.
He maintained a home in Los Angeles, California, a number of years before his death, which occurred in California in April, 1910. Even at that distance he maintained a deep personal interest in the welfare of the towns in Nebraska where his business intersts lay. He was one of the first men to undertake to utilize the salt springs at Lincoln for making commercial salt. Thinking he would have to pay royalties for the benefit
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