History of western Nebraska and its people, Vol. III, Part 136

Author: Shumway, Grant Lee, 1865-
Publication date: 1921
Publisher: Lincoln, Neb., The Western publishing & engraving co.
Number of Pages: 1056

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BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES

articles to the present time, two of his sons being associated with him.

At Chadron, in 1886, Mr. Loewenthal was united in marriage to Miss Rose Cohn, who died March 9, 1907. She was a daughter of Julius Cohn, a resident of New York, and the mother of five children: Julius, Sadie, Moie, Charles and George. In May, 1908, Mr. Loe- wenthal married Bertha Loeffler, of New York City.

In public affairs in Dawes county, Mr. Loe- wenthal has been prominent and useful from the first. He served in 1886, as first city treasurer of Chadron, and, in 1894, was elected on the Democratic ticket, a member of the board of county commissioners of Dawes county, and served in 1894-5-6, during a per- iod of momentous importance in the affairs of the county. In civic matters he has been ex- ceedingly active, serving on the school board for over twenty-one years, and as a member of the city council during 1912 and 1913. In 1914, he was elected mayor of Chadron, of which honor no citizen could be found more capable or deserving. During the life of the Chadron Business Men's and the Chadron Commercial clubs, he was an active factor, and for thirty-four years he has been a mem- ber of Chadron lodge No. 36, Odd Fellows, possibly a charter member and for many years an official. No man in the business life of this city or in its official administration, is held more trustworthy than Benjamin Loewenthal.

ROBERT A. DAY .- The genius for con- structive achievement has marked the career of this representative pioneer merchant and banker of Oshkosh, Garden county, and the more credit is due to him by reason of the fact that this achievement has assisted him definite- ly in the advancement of local interests in gen- eral, besides giving him secure vantage ground as one of the substantial and valued citzens of his county.

Mr. Day was born in Brown county, Ohio, March 5, 1866, and the old Buckeye state like- wise figures as the birthplace of his parents, Albert M. and Mary L. (Brown) Day, mem- bers of sterling families that were founded in that fine old commonwealth in the pioneer era of its history. Albert M. Day was actively engaged in farming in Ohio at the time of the outbreak of the Civil War, and such was his physical condition that he was rejected for service when he attempted to enlist as a patriot soldier of the Union. Notwithstanding his re- maining in civil life, he was taken prisoner by Confederate forces under command of the

famous raider, General John Morgan, whose men likewise stole the horses from the farm of Mr. Day, who was not long held in capti- vity. After the war Mr. Day continued his association with agricultural industry in Ohio until 1884, when he came with his family to Nebraska and became a pioneer settler near Ulysses, Butler county, where he accumulated valuable property and where he remained un- til his death, which occurred when he was about seventy years of age, his wife having passed away at the age of sixty-eight years. Mrs. Day was a daughter of Robert and Mar- tha ( Wardlow) Brown, who passed their en- tire lives in Ohio. Of the children of Mr. and Mrs. Day the eldest is Elizabeth, who is the wife of G. R. Pollock, of Ulysses, Nebraska ; Robert A., of this review, was the next in or- der of birth ; William D. is a resident of Ulys- ses, Nebraska ; Lillian W. is the wife of Frank Palmer, of Ulysses, and Osa M., wife of J. M. Stephens, likewise resides at Ulysses.

Robert A. Day passed the period of his childhood and early youth on the old home farm in Ohio and is indebted to the public schools of his native state for his early edu- cational discipline. He was nearly nineteen years of age when he accompanied his parents to Butler county, Nebraska, where he contin- ued to be identified with farm enterprise for two years thereafter. He then came to what is now Garden county, where, in December, 1886, he took up a homestead near the present town of Oshkosh. During the first five years of his residence here he was in the employ of the Rush Creek Land and Live Stock Com- pany, and in the meantime he instituted the development of his homestead, to which he duly perfected his title. After severing his connection with the company mentioned, Mr. Day became manager for the first mercantile store at Oshkosh, this establishment having been conducted by George T. Kendall & Com- pany, of St. Paul, this state. After being thus engaged about one year Mr. Day opened the first drug store in the progressive new town, and the building which he used for this pur- pose was the second frame structure erected in the village. After conducting the drug store about three years, Mr. Day removed to Chap- pell, county seat of Denel county, and there he served two years as deputy county clerk. He then assumed the office of county clerk, of which he continued the incumbent two suc- cessive terms-1902-6-after which he became cashier of the Deuel County Bank, at Oshkosh, which was made the judicial center of the new county of Garden. While thus serving as

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HISTORY OF WESTERN NEBRASKA

cashier of the bank he was chosen as the first county clerk of the new county, and his pre- vious experience fortified him most admirably for the duties of this exacting office in the formative period of Garden county history. He retained the office of county clerk from 1910 to 1915, and in the meantime he trans- cribed from the records of Deuel county all data requisite for the new county. Mr. Day has figured continuously as one of the inost loyal, liberal and progressive citizens of Gar- den county, where his influence and co-opera- tion have been given in support of all measures projected for the general good of his home town and county. From 1907 to 1915, he served as United States commissioner for Ne- braska, and incidental to the nation's partici- pation in the great World War he was county chairman of the first and second Liberty Loan drives, as well as chairman of the committee having in charge the drive for the sale of war savings stamps. Upon the organization of Garden county the bank of which he was cash- ier changed its title to the First State Bank, and of this substantial and important institu- tion he was elected president in January, 1919. but on the 15th of the following March he re- tired from this office, his resignation being prompted by his impaired health. Since that time he has lived virtually retired, save that he is associated with his son-in-law, J. C. Schlater, in the real estate business, his broad and exact knowledge of realty values in this section of the state making his advisory service of great value in this connection.

In politics Mr. Day is found arrayed as a staunch advocate and supporter of the cause of the Democratic party ; he and his wife are active members of the Christian church, and he is a charter member of Oshkosh Camp, No. 4991. Modern Woodmen of America. He is a citizen who has been the true apostle of progress and civic liberality, and none com- mands more inviolable place in popular con- fidence and esteem in Garden county.

On April 19, 1896, was solemnized the mar- riage of Mr. Day to Miss Viola E. Empson, of Vallonia, Indiana. Mrs. Day was born at Sumner, Missouri, and was a child of two years when she accompanied her father, after the death of her mother, to Indiana, in which state she was reared and educated, her advan- tages having included those of Lebanon, Ohio, College, in which she was graduated. She has been a popular figure in the representative so- cial activities of Oshkosh and presides most graciously over a home that is known for its cordial hospitality. Mr. and Mrs. Day have

three children: Pearl Marguerite is the wife of J. C. Schlater, of Oshkosh; and Robert Stanley and William A. remain at the parental home.

JUST. JOHNSON, who is now living re- tired at Oshkosh, Garden county, established his home in this locality in 1887, when the county was still a part of Cheyenne county, and here he gained pioneer honors in connec- tion with industrial development and progress, for he obtained land a few miles south of the present town of Oshkosh and there developed a productive farm of one hundred and sixty acres, which valuable property he still owns. He was one of the successful exponents of ag- ricultural and live-stock industry in Garden county during the various transitions that marked its segregation from Deuel county, and previously from Cheyenne county, and he has lived up to all the possibilities that have been offered, as is demonstrated by the substantial success that has attended his efforts and the high place which he has in popular confidence and good will.

Mr. Johnson was born in Sweden, on Octo- ber 12, 1859, and was reared and educated in his native land. In 1880, about the time of attaining his legal majority, Mr. Johnson im- migrated to the United States, and his prin- cipal capital consisted of his dauntless courage and determination, his sturdy physical powers and his ambition to achieve worthy success. He first settled in Sac county, Iowa, and after having there been engaged in farm enterprise three years he came to Blair, Washington coun- ty, Nebraska, where he assisted in building the bridge across the Missouri river. He then went to Rapid City, in the Black Hills district of South Dakota, and for a period of about one year he was engaged in freighting between that locality and Chadron, Nebraska. He then, in 1887, became one of the pioneers of the pres- ent Garden county, where he took up a home- stead and improved the farm property, where he lived until his retirement, in 1917, since which year he has maineained his residence at Oshkosh. He is aligned as a supporter of the cause of the Democratic party and his religious faith is that of the Lutheran church, of which his wife likewise was a communicant.

In July. 1904, Mr. Johnson wedded Mrs. Maggie (Edwards) Adell, widow of Charlie Adell. She was born at Bull Mountain, Colo- rado, and was but four years old at the time of her mother's death; her father, who was a miner in Colorado, died in 1908. Mrs. John- son, who proved a devoted wife and mother,

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died in 1912, and of the three children the eldest was Ida May, who died October 20, 1917. William and Albert remain with their father in the pleasant home which he has pro- vided at Oshkosh.

MRS. SARAH E. VALENTINE, needs in this publication no voucher for her popularity, not only in her home community of Oshkosh, Garden county, but also on the part of the traveling public, for she is the gracious and generous hostess of the popular Oshkosh hotel known as the Travelers' Home, her man- agement of which has made it a place that fully justifies its title.

Mrs. Sarah E. (Stratton) Valentine was born at New Troy, Berrien county, Michigan, and is a daughter of James and Elizabeth ( Ab- ley) Stratton, the former of whom was born in the state of New York and the latter was a girl of fourteen when she came to America from her native Switzerland, in company with her parents. James Stratton was a pioneer in southern Michigan and he passed the closing period of his long and useful life at Three Oaks, that state, where he died at the patriar- chal age of ninty-two years, his wife having died in the city of Chicago, at the age of sixty- four years. Mrs. Valentine acquired her early education in the public schools of her native place and thereafter completed a commercial course in the Savor's Institute, of Chicago. She became an assistant instructor in the tele- graphic department of that institution and re- tained this position about one year. Within a short time afterwards she became the wife of James H. Redding, and they established their residence on the upper peninsula of Michigan, at Menominee, where their son, Emmett F. Redding, was born September 5, 1886. He now lives in Chicago, where he is assistant su- perintendent of the Metropolitan Life Insur- ance Company, having been with that company for ten years, working from the bottom up to his present position. They remained there eighteen years, and there Mr. Redding died, at the age of fifty-five years. Mrs. Redding then removed to Chicago, where she followed the profession of nursing and where her mar- riage to William H. Valentine was solemnized.

In 1913, Mrs. Valentine came to Oshkosh, Nebraska, mainly to assume charge of and perfect title to the homestead that had been taken up, in Garden county, by her deceased sister, Miss Flora A. Stratton. On July 17, of the same year, she assumed control of the Travelers' Home, which excellent hotel she has since conducted with marked success, so

that it is a specially favored resort for the traveling public. She has perfected title to the land mentioned and is still the owner of the property. Mrs. Valentine is a popular factor in the social activities of Oshkosh, is a mem- ber of the Congregational church and is ac- tively affiliated with the Woman's Christian Temperance Union.

SAMUEL P. DeLATOUR cast in his lot with the people of progressive Nebraska in the year 1880, after a previous valuable experience of official and business life in the state of Ar- kansas. In Nebraska his career has been marked by constructive and successful enter- prise and he is one of the influential pioneer citizens of the splendid Panhandle of the state, with prestige as a banker and as a prominent man of the cattle industry. He is president of the Bank of Lewellen, Garden county, and the owner of valuable farm land in this county, where he has the distinction of becoming the first settler in Bear Creek precinct. He has been a prominent figure in civic and material development and progress in this section of the state and is an honored citizen, meriting spe- cial recognition in this history.

Samuel P. DeLatour was born at Platteville, Wisconsin, September 15, 1848, and, as the name implies, is able to trace his lineage back to sterling French origin, though the family has long been established in America. He is a son of John J. and Sarah J. (Parr) DeLa- tour, the former of whom was born in the state of New York, in 1815, and the latter of whom was born at Greenville, Bond county, Illinois, in 1825, her parents having been numbered among the earliest of the pioneer settlers of that section of Illinois, where she was reared and educated and where her . marriage was solemnized in 1844. John J. DeLatour con- pleted a course in the historic old Williams College, New York, and was a man of excep- tional intellectuality, his profession having been that of civil engineer. About the time of at- taining his legal majority he removed to the west, in 1835, and established his residence in Illinois, where he became prominently identi- fied with the real estate business, as well as with pioneer farm enterprise. During the cli- macteric period of the Civil War he gave ef- fective service to the Union, as an official in the quartermaster's department. He passed the closing period of his life in the city of Chicago, where he died at the venerable age of eighty years. In the meantime he had been for a time a resident of Wisconsin, where he had various business and industrial interests, the

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family having returned to Illinois when the son Samuel P., of this review, was a child of two years. The devoted wife and mother died when she was about eighty-four years of age, and of the five children-three sons and two daughters-Samuel P. was the second in order of birth.

Mr. DeLatour acquired his preliminary edu- cation in the common schools of Illinois, then completed a higher course of study in the Clark Seminary, at Aurora. In December, 1869, about three months after the celebration of his twenty-first birthday, Mr. DeLatour es- tablished his residence at Huntsville, Arkansas, where he was appointed deputy clerk of the district court. He remained at Huntsville until 1872, when he removed to Helena, Phillips county, that state, where he served not only as clerk of the district court but also clerk of the United States District court, besides where he engaged in the banking business. In 1880, he resigned the office of clerk of the Federal District Court and came to Nebraska. Soon after his arrival in this state, Mr. DeLatour set- tled at Cambridge, Furnas county, where he became associated with William E. Babcock in organizing the Republican Valley Bank, besides engaging also in the live-stock and mercantile business. In 1883, he disposed of his various interests in Furnas county and came to the western part of the state, to es- tablish a cattle ranch ninty miles northwest of North Platte, in that part of old Cheyenne county that is now included in Garden county. He thus became the first settler in the present Blue creek precinct of Garden county, as he filed entry on a pre-emption claim of a hundred and sixty acres, in 1884, improving it into a good ranch which he devoted principally to the cattle industry, an enterprise which proved successful. The ranch later was in the newly organized Deuel county, and still later was in- cluded in the newer county of Garden. A man of broad experience and fine intellectual endowment, Mr. DeLatour was well qualified when he was called upon to serve, through ap- pointment, as county attorney of Deuel county, an office of which he continued the incumbent one term.

In 1911, Mr. DeLatour organized the Gar- den County Bank, at Lewellen, and in this en- terprise he was associated with his two young- er sons-Eugene and Ben C. In 1914, the father and sons purchased the business of the Bank of Lewellen and the two institutions were then consolidated, under the title of the Bank of Lewellen. Mr. DeLatour has since been president of this substantial and well reg-

ulated institution, which has a capital stock of $50.000.00, and deposits which have now reached an average aggregate of $260,000.00.

Well fortified in his convictions as to mat- ters of economic and governmental, Mr. De- Latour gave his support to the Republican party until 1895, when he transferred his al- legiance to the Democratic party, of whose basic principles he has since continued a stal- wart advocate. He is affiliated with the Ma- sonic fraternity and his religious views are in harmony with the faith of the Episcopal church, his wife having been a zealous mem- ber of this church.

At Helena, Arkansas, in 1873, was solem- nized the marriage of Mr. DeLatour to Miss Lucy McGraw, who was reared and educated in that state, though she was born in Kentucky. Her sister became the wife of Honorable Powell Clayton, who served as governor of Arkansas and later as United States senator from that state. Mrs. DeLatour, a woman of most gentle and gracious personality, died in January, 1897. Of the four children the eld- est is John McGraw DeLatour, who served in the medical department during the World War and who is now a resident of Cheyenne Wells, Colorado, where he is engaged in a real estate business ; Samuel Van Allen DeLatour resides at Lewellen, Garden county, and gives his at- tention principally to stock-raising ; Eugene, whose death occurred October 23, 1918, was associated with his father in the banking busi- ness at Lewellen, and prior to the organiza- tion of Garden county he served two terms as county clerk of Deuel county ; and Ben C. De- Latour, who is vice-president and general man- ager of the Bank of Lewellen.

JOIIN MEVICK -When it is stated that for five successive years this well known pio- neer and live-stock man of Garden county cap- tured the grand champion prize for car-load exhibits of hogs at the Denver Stock Show, Denver, Colorado, it becomes apparent that he has not been laggard in promoting the live stock industry and advancing stock standards in the Panhandle of Nebraska. His admirably improved stock farm, which still receives his personal supervision, is situated about four miles northwest of Lewellen, in which village he maintains his residence, after having lived on the farm for nearly a quarter of a century.

Mr. Mevich was born at Kenosha, Wiscon- sin, October 3, 1860. and is a son of Peter and Mary Mevich, the former a native of Germany and the latter of Ireland, their marriage hav- ing been solemnized at Kenosha, Wisconsin,

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from which state they removed to Illinois in the year 1861, both having been young people when they came to the United States. Peter Mevich became a substantial farmer in Henry county, Illinois, but he died in the very prime of his manhood, having been forty-seven years of age at the time of his demise, and his widow, who long survived him, having attained to the venerable age of eighty-two years, her death occurred at Henry, Illinois.

John Mevich was an infant at the time of his parents' removal to Illinois, and there his early education was acquired in the public schools at Mineral, Henry county. His initial enterprise as a farmer was prosecuted in illi- nois, where he remained thus engaged for a period of three years. He then removed to Hamilton county, Iowa, whre he continued in agricultural pursuits for three years, at the ex- piration of which he came to Nebraska and numbered himself among the pioneer settlers in that part of old Cheyenne county that now constitutes Garden county. He took up home- stead and tree claim and instituted their recla- mation from the prairie wilds. With the pass- ing years he continued to make excellent im- provements on the property and became a spe- cially prominent and successful representative of live-stock industry in the present Garden county, remaining on his original farm for the long period of twenty-four years. He still owns the property, to which he has added until he now has a valuable landed estate of twelve hundred acres, and though he has resided in the village of Lewellen since 1909, he continues the active management of his farm and sub- stantial live-stock operations and stands as one of the most extensive breeders and feeders of hogs in the western part of the state. His fine ranch, known as one of the best equipped in the Nebraska Panhandle, has four milcs of hog fence, and three hundred acres of his land receives effective irrigation from Blue creek, he having been prominently concerned in the building of this irrigation system. In addition to raising hogs on a large scale Mr. Mevch usually runs an average of nearly two hundred head of cattle on his ranch and about fifty to sixty head of horses, though he is gradually reducing his activities in the raising of horses. He has been a leader in movements tending to advance the agricultural and live-stock indus- tries in Garden county and was the first presi- dent of the Garden County Fair Association, of which office he continued the incumbent from 1910 to 1917 ; in the meantime he wielded vital influence in forming the policies and di- recting the other activites that have made this

organization a most successful adjunct of in- dustrial progress in the county. In politics he is a staunch supporter of the cause of the Re- publican party and fraternally he is affiliated with the Modern Woodmen of America. He and his wife are members of the Methodist Episcopal church and are sterling pioneers who have a wide circle of friends in the section of Nebraska in which they have long maintained their residence.

. At Lewellen, Garden county, March 31, 1890, was solemnized the marriage of Mr. Mevichi to Miss Grace White, daughter of Wel- lington and Mary (Langton) White, the form- er was born and reared in Wisconsin and the latter was born in England, whence she came with her parents to America when a girl, the family home being established in Wisconsin. Mr. White served as a member of a Wisconsin volunteer regiment in the Civil War, and con- tinued with his command during virtually the entire period of this historic conflict. He final- ly came with his family to Nebraska and he and his wife now maintain their home at Le- wellen. Mr. and Mrs. Mevich have two chil- dren: Ruth M. is the wife of George H. Mor- ris, of Oshkosh, Garden county, and Charlotte M. remains at home.

J. MONROE BRUNT, who has secure van- tage ground as one of the substantial citizens and pioneers of Garden county, where he has been successful in his operations as an agricul- turist and stock-grower, claims beautiful old Union county, New Jersey, as the place of his nativity. In the village of Rahway, in that his- toric county, he was born July 12, 1858, and is a son of Joseph and Emma Brunt, both of whom were born in England, and the latter of whom was a girl when she accompanied her parents to America, the family home being es- tablished in New Jersey. Joseph Brunt was reared and educated in England and was a young man when he came to the United States, where he became a successful contractor at Rahway, New Jersey. In that state he and his wife passed the remainder of their lives, she having been sixty-four years of age at the time of her death and he having attained to the ven- erable age of eighty-two years. They became the parents of seven sons and three daughters, and the subject of the review is the youngest of the number. The four older sons, William, James, Harvey and George, all served gallantly as soldiers of the Union during the Civil War, and all were members of the same artillery command, with assignment to the same cannon.

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History of western Nebraska and its people, Vol. III, Part 136

Author: Shumway, Grant Lee, 1865- Publication date: 1921 Publisher: Lincoln, Neb., The Western publishing & engraving co. Number of Pages: 1056

Author: Shumway, Grant Lee, 1865-
Publication date: 1921
Publisher: Lincoln, Neb., The Western publishing & engraving co.
Number of Pages: 1056