History of western Nebraska and its people, Vol. III, Part 137

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

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J. Monroe Brunt acquired his preliminary education in the public schools of his native

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state, where he supplemented his training by a course of higher study in Princeton Univer- sity, from which historic institution he was graduated as a member of the class of 1878, with the degree of Bachelor of Law. He was well equipped for the legal profession, but his tastes and inclinations led him into other fields of endeavor, so that he never engaged actively in the practice of law. Mr. Brunt became as- sociated with his father's contracting business, of which he was superintendent about five years, and he then assumed a large contract in the supplying of natural ice to the city of New York. After the completion of this contract he conducted a general merchandise business in his native town of Rahway for a period of about ten years, and for about one and one-half years thereafter he was connected with the company operating the DeBrosse street ferry, between New York City and New Jersey. In 1881, Mr. Brunt set forth for the west, and finally settled in Henry county, Illinois, where he was engaged in farm enterprise about four years. He then, in 1885, came to Nebraska and established his residence at Ogallala, but in 1887, he came to what is now Garden coun- ty and took up a pre-emption claim about three miles distant from the village of Lewellen, which was not marked by a single building at that time. Later he filed claim to a homestead adjacent to his pre-emption claim, and here he has maintained his residence during the long intervening years, which have been marked by worthy achievement on his part. His landed estate now comprises five hundred acres of well improved and productive soil, and here, in connection with diversified agriculture, he is giving special attention to the raising of live stock-horses, cattle and hogs. He has been notably prominent and successful in the rais- ing of horses of fine type and has made this department of his farm enterprise one of ma- jor importance. Mr. Brunt has given his in- fluence and co-operation in the movements and enterprises that have tended to advance the general welfare of the community and in his personal activities has kept pace with the march of splendid development and progress in this section of the state. Upon the organi- zation of the Bank of Lewellen he became the first depositor in the new institution. He has been prominently identified with irrigation de- velopment here and was for ten years super- intendent of the Bratt irrigation ditch-1896- 1906.

In politics Mr. Brunt is aligned in the ranks of the Democratic party, and prior to the or- ganization of Garden county he served, in

1888-9, as sheriff of Deuel county. Prior to coming to the west he had served as chief of police in the city of Rahway, New Jersey, for two years, 1877-8. As a young man he served about three years as a member of the New Jersey National Guard, and he was first ser- geant of Company F, Third New Jersey Regi- ment, when it was in active service during the great strike turbulence in New York City in 1880. He is affiliated with the Modern Wood- men of America and both he and his wife hold membership in the Methodist Episcopal church at Lewellen.

The marriage of Mr. Brunt was solemnized at Ogallala, Nebraska, in 1887, when Miss Ella Ross became his wife. She was born in Iowa, and is a daughter of Samuel and Mary A. (Newsome) Ross, who were natives of Penn- sylvania and who became pioneer settlers in Iowa, the father having been seventy-six years of age at the time of his death and the mother having passed away at the age of sixty-two years. Mrs. Brunt came to Ogallala, Keith county, Nebraska, in 1886, and near that place she took up a homestead, to which she pel - fected her title in due time and of which she eventually made a profitable sale. Of the chil- dren of Mr. and Mrs. Brunt the eldest is Ethel, the wife of George West, of Lewellen, and has two sons and two daughters, and Nine V., Clayton W. and Edith M. remain at home. Clayton W., the only son, served in the coast artillery during the progress of the World War and received his honorable discharge atter the signing of the historic armistice.

GEORGE M. COCHRAN is the owner of a well improved farm of two hundred and forty acres, three miles northwest of Lewellen, Gar- den county, and is now giving his active super- vision to the property, with energy and good judgment that are giving him maximum re- turns in his operations as an agriculurist and stock-grower. He was long identified with railway service, and in this connection he was foreman of the extra corps of workmen that laid the track on the North Platte Valley branch of the Union Pacific Railroad, through Garden and other counties in western Ne- braska.

George Madison Cochran was born in Jen- nings county, Indiana, August 15, 1869, and is a son of Richard M. and Elizabeth (May) Cochran, the former a native of Pennsylvania and the latter of Indiana, to which state her parents removed from North Carolina. Rich- ard M. Cochran became a prosperous farmer in Indiana and later in Kansas. He removed to Montana, 1899, and died a year later. Mrs

GEORGE K. COGDILL AND FAMILY

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Cochran died in 1907. George M. Cochran gained his rudimentary education in the public schools of his native state and was about twelve years old at the time of the family removal from Indiana to Montgomery county, Kansas, where he was reared to manhood on the home farm and where he continued to attend school at intervals. He continued his association with agricultural industry in Kansas until 1886, when he came to Pawnee City, Nebras- ka, and entered the employ of the Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific Railroad Company, with which he continued in the construction and maintenance service about eighteen months. For the ensuing two years he was foreman of a section gang on the Missouri Pacific Railroad, and for the following seven- teen years he was in the service of the Union Pacific Railroad-as section foreman, extra- gang foreman, and as road-master on the divi- sion between Laramie and Rawlins, Wyoming. He next acted as foreman of the extra gang that laid the track on the North Platte Valley branch, in which connection he established his headquarters at Lewellen, Nebraska. In the meantime he became the owner of his present farm, and in 1909 left the railway ser- vice to take charge of his place, upon which he has erected good buildings and made other modern improvements, including the provid- ing of irrigation facilities. He is one of the appreciative and loyal citizens of Garden county and has served six years as a member of the Lewellen school board. His political allegiance is given to the Republican party, he and his wife are members of the Methodist Episcopal church, and since 1890 he has been affiliated with the lodge of Ancient Free & Accepted Masons at Brock, Nebraska.

At Big Springs, this state, in 1892, Mr. Cochran wedded Miss Jennie B. Plummer, who was born in Wisconsin, where she was reared and educated. Her father, Walker D. Plummer, was a resident of Mount Hope, Wisconsin, at the time of his death, when he was about fifty-six years of age, and her mother, Margaret (Chisholm) Plummer, a native of Scotland, died at the venerable age of eighty-one years. Mr. and Mrs. Cochran have two sons and two daughters: George Byron, who resides at Alliance, Box Butte county, married Miss Helen Shoup, and they have one child, a daughter; Rolland Bruce, Myrtle B. and Vivian M. remain at home.

GEORGE K. COGDILL, horseman, rancher and groceryman, was born in Gentry county, Missouri, May 22, 1866, the fifth in a family of seven children, three boys and

four girls. His father, Miles Cogdill, died when George was at the age of five years. Miles Cogdill was also born in the state of Missouri and was, by occupation, a far- mer and blacksmith. George's mother, a Miss Eliza Perkins, with her parents emi- grated from Illinois to Missouri and there married Miles Cogdill and thus the beginning of our subject and surroundings that well qualified him for the life he was destined to live. At the age of eight years he began to cast about and through perhaps the adven- turous disposition that was his, worked at the grocery store and on the farm making what spending money he could and attending the district schools until he was about twelve years old. He was a lover of good books and received much knowledge from them. About this time, he and a cousin of the same name and about the same age were herding cattle on the Empire Prairie, a tent being their only shelter. One Sunday afternoon, when a dark cloud appeared in the west, the boys watched it as they rode about their cattle and before they realized their situation, they were nearly in the midst of one of the worst cy- clones that ever struck Missouri, missing the boys but a short distance. For the next five or six years George worked on the farm raising stock, having developed a love for stock, especially horses, and when about eighteen years of age, his mother died, and the following fall, 1884, he drifted west to Valentine, Nebraska, falling in with a freight outfit and walking most of the way still far- ther west to Bordeaux Creek, stopping at Mr. and Mrs. Boner's, in Sioux county, now Dawes county, where for the next several years, it was his home when in Dawes county. He stayed there about a month and at that time had the pleasant experience of being almost run over by a Black Tail deer. He liked this part of the country as there were plenty of both small and big game; but he returned to Missouri and in the next spring in company with a cousin by the name of Lute Russell, came back to Dawes county. Chadron, at that time, was only a small village, mostly tents, so the boys, hunting adventures as much as work, walked sixty miles west to Harrison, Sioux county, Nebraska, which at this early date consisted of one tent about twelve by fourteen feet, occupied by a thrifty merchant with a small stock of groceries and a large stock of forty rod whiskey. They hired out there to the Fremont, Elkhorn and Missouri Valley Railroad Company to cut ties and were furnished with blankets and a grub stake and

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went into the hills nearby, built a shelter of poles and pine boughs, but life was too short for the boys to stay in this lonely place and still having a few dollars, they walked west thirty miles to Lusk, (then called Silver Cliff) Wyoming, stayed at Lusk one week, then walked back east fourteen miles and went to work at the Node (Flying E) Cow Ranch, where George worked on the roundup two seasons and learned the ways of handling stock in Wyoming, and in the spring of 1888, George, with a good saddle horse and Tom Lockett with his team, headed their horses west on a trip across the continental divide to Idaho. Arriving at Lusk, Wyoming, they fell in with a man by the name of Joe Rogers, who had a team and wagon, so George, Joe and Tom pulled on together and when near Glen- rock, Wyoming, one rainy evening they camp- ed in an old shack at the protest of George, as they had tents, and a few days later, when at Casper, Wyoming they got word that the old shack had been damaged by fire, so not having time to fight the imputation of wrong doing, they paid $13.50 each, so leaving Tom at Casper. George and Joe headed their horses toward the setting sun and when reach- ing the Sweetwater country, George was taken seriously sick. Joe did all he could for him and finally told him he would have to cross the high divide if he didn't get a doctor, who was at Casper, seventy-five miles away.

George refused to have a doctor or even to be moved to the ranch where Joe had insisted on taking him, and after lying there in a tent for a week or ten days he finally got well, but the trip to Idaho was abandoned and George and Joe went to work at the U T Cow Ranch on Sweetwater river near Devil's Gate. George rode over this part of the country on the roundup and a few days after starting north at Pine Mountain about five o'clock one evening, missed his private saddle horse that was run- ning in the saddle horse herd, and suspected that he had been stolen. He made a short circle over the country and struck the trail of the horse, discovering the horse was headed east. The horse was shod and consequently more easily followed and so he followed the trail rapidly until dark, as the trail entered a steep gulch. He then pulled the saddle from his horse, tied one end of the saddle rope to the front foot of the horse and the other end to the saddle horn and using the saddle for a pillow, dropped onto his blanket and caught what little sleep he could, with the sharp bark of the coyote ringing in his ears as he drifted off to dreamland. The next morning when it

was light enough to see the trail and after fol- lowing it for four or five hours, a large cow herd so obliterated the horse's tracks that he could not pick it up again, and after riding into Casper no clue to the horse was found. The next morning, realizing his cow camp had moved, he did not attempt to go back over the same trail, but took a short cut across the rolling prairie, his cowboy training standing him in good stead, and at dusk he rode into camp, having traveled a distance of one hun- dred and fifty miles.

On the trail George had many thrilling ex- periences and when at the ranch of the U M Cattle Company, branding and turning over cat- tle, he narrowly escaped being bored to death by a Texas cow but had the presence of mind to throw himself on the ground as the cow stumbled over him, and in the fall of 1889 George and Lew Spaulding saddled their pri- vate horses and rode to Casper. As they jog- ged down the Sweetwater valley they were talking of the past and what she could tell, if she could only talk, and nearing Fish Creek, they could see the surroundings and talked of the hanging of Cattle Kate and a man by the name of Avery, which had happened a short time before. During the following year he worked for the L O and other cattle out- fits and drifted back and forth from the cat- tle country to his home on Bordeaux Creek, where he filed on a homestead in 1890 and in 1891 went back up the trail with the out- fit from Orin Junction, Wyoming, to Red Water, Montana. This trip was more clouds than sushine - riding all day and standing two hours night guard. This herd was made up of from two to four year old steers partly unbranded and when laying over a day or making an early camp, the boys would rope and brand cattle for past time. It rained the first two or three days out and while brand- ing cattle one evening, a boy had his horse jerked down on him breaking his collar bone and two ribs. A few days later, while the outfit was on the move, they got the news of Tom Wagner, who had been hung to a limb, which was about ten miles away. On the 14th of July, north of the Cheyenne river on the head of Lodge Pole, George and two other boys were caught in a terrific hail storm and as they drifted along together and as the hail became unbearable George reached down for his ladigo straps, slips off of his horse and in a few seconds had his saddle over his head. As he peeked out from under his saddle he saw the other boys had done likewise, and then took his forty-five and fired two shots into

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the air and was answered back with the same report.

One evening on the Little Missouri River a grey wolf got up and they gave chase, and George roped the ugly loafer. They stretched him out, ear marked him and gave him his liberty.

When the Yellowstone was finally reached, considerable trouble was experienced that we haven't space to describe, and after crossing and striking the Red Water range, which was a broad rolling prairie and the land of beef cattle - this was a rainy, foggy morning,- here the herd was divided into three bunches and driven off in different directions to be turned loose. George and Tom Berry, a man who was acquainted with this part of the coun- try, took one bunch of the cattle and drove them northwest, turning them loose on Muddy Creek and then started for Alkali Springs, where the mess wagon had camped. This was about twenty miles from the ranch and Tom got lost and they wandered around for about six hours, finally riding into camp about three o'clock in the afternoon, the outfit moving on into the ranch the next morning. About the fifteenth of July they began shipping beef cat- tle, making four shipments of eight hundred head each, having to cross either the Yellow- stone or the Big Missouri with each shipment to get to the railroad. On reaching the Big Missouri on one of these drives, George took his horse and crossed the river to hold the cattle up and on reaching the opposite bank his horse kept bogging down, while the boys cheered from the other side and it was plain to see that they couldn't cross the cattle. George recrossed the river and the cattle were thrown back for a week for the bank to dry off, and George had charge of the outfit as they moved back to the ranch. Finally at the close of the last shipment, which they drove to Fallon, near Glendive, Montana, George bade goodbye to the boys and went to Chicago with that train load of cattle and on the way back he visited his old home in the land of the blue grass, at Stanberry, Missouri. He stopped there only a few days and then come on to Chadron and his homestead on Bordeaux Creek and the fol- lowing March 20, 1892, he was happily mar- ried to Miss Eva Clark at the home of the bride's parents in Antelope Valley in Dawes county.

Mrs. Cogdill was the third child in a family of nine children, seven girls and two boys, and at the time she was married to Mr. Cogdill, was a school teacher. During the time that Mr. Clark and his family have lived in Dawes

county, they have built up one of the finest ranches in the country and he and his good wife have retired and now live on "Easy Street" in Hay Springs, Nebarska.

After his marriage, Mr. Cogdill and his wife moved upon his homestead on Bordeaux Creek and for the succeeding six years, to keep the wolf from the door, he cut wood and haul- ed logs from Pine Ridge to the Wilson saw mill on Bordeaux Creek, giving one third of the finished lumber for having it sawed, and hauled his wood twelve miles to Chadron - re- ceiving ten dollars per thousand for the lumber and two dollars and a quarter per cord for the wood, during those years. He then changed the style of his business to pasturing and break- ing horses for the neighbors and others that lacked the nerve or inclination to do it for themselves, his cowboy training standing him in good stead for this sort of work and which business he followed for several years. At one time he nearly lost his life riding a wild horse that ran away with him and into a barb wire fence. The wire caught on the stirrup, turning the saddle with his foot in the stirrup, and his boot pulled off, letting his foot out or he would have been dragged to death.

During these years he also worked into a small herd of cattle and horses and bought ad- joining deeded land until in 1919 he owned fif- teen hundred and sixty acres of well improved deeded land with a very substantial herd of good stock and ranch equipment, which he and his good wife sold for a life's fair financial competence and concluded to take a rest for a year.

Mr. and Mrs. Cogdill have seven children : Denver R. Cogdill, now married, living at Hat Creek, Wyoming; Hazel Munkres (nee Cog- dill), married, Chadron, Nebraska ; Edna Hoke (nee Cogdill), married, Chadron, Nebraska ; William Dale Cogdill, mechanic, single, living with parents ; Raymond Cogdill, at home with parents, State Normal student ; Helen G. Cog- gill, student at State Normal ; Mary E. Codgill, student at Chadron high school.

The following spring after the sale of the old home ranch, Mr. and Mrs. Codgill, with their three youngest children, Raymond, Helen and Mary, drove to the Pacific coast for a pleasure trip, shipping down the Columbia River twen- ty miles and on the way back from the Pacific Coast, shipped from Bremerton across the canal or bay, a distance of 19 miles, to Seattle returning home by way of Yellowstone Park and in order to partially satisfy his restless spirit for industry, with his son-in-law, John Hoke, Mr. Codgill purchased the Beghtol groc-

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ery stock in Chadron at 231 Main Street, and we predict a successful business career and a full share of the public patronage for them. Mir. Cogdill owns a modern home in Chadron and he and his estimable wife are among the best families in Dawes county. Mrs. Codgill takes an active part in the social functions among the ladies of the city and George is certainly finding pleasure in selling that which satisfies the inner man, as he did when a small boy.

JAMES A. WILSON - He to whom this memoir is dedicated was numbered among the honored pioneers and successful farmers of what is now Garden county, where he estab- lished his residence in 1886, when this county was still a part of Cheyenne county and which was to become later a part of Deuel county, to which it remained attached until the organi- zation of Garden county. Mr. Wilson, who died on April 15, 1906, improved and develop- ed the fine farm property upon which his widow still resides, about five miles from the village of Lewellen. He was one of the progressive farmers and honored and valued citizens of this locality at the time of his de- mise, when he was fifty-six years of age.

Mr. Wilson was born in the state of In- diana. July 6, 1850, and was a son of William and Amanda Wilson, who were natives of Greene county, Ohio, and who became pioneer settlers in Warren county, Indiana, where the father developed a farm and where both he and his wife passed the remainder of their lives, their family consisting of three sons and seven daughters. James A. Wilson, the next to the youngest of the children, was reared to adult age in Warren county, In- diana, where he profited by the advantages of the public schools of the period and where he early gained fellowship with the sturdy and invigorating life of the farm. In 1872, he en- gaged in general farm enterprise in Iriquois county, Illinois, where he was actively identi- fied with agricultural and live-stock industry until 1885, when he came to Nebraska and located in Custer county. There he remained about one year. and then came with his family to what is now Garden county, where he took up pre-emption and tree claims and instituted the reclamation of a farm. He thus became one of the pioneer agriculturists and stock-growers of the county as now consti- tuted, and to the improvements which he made on his land his widow has materially added since his death, while she has shown marked ability and discrimination in carrying

forward successfully the farm activities which he had initiated. Mr. Wilson was a man of sterling integrity in all the relations of life and commanded the unqualified esteem of all with whom he came in contact. His political allegiance was given to the Democratic party, but his widow, who now enjoys the franchise, is well fortified in her convictions and is found arrayed in the ranks of the Republi- can party. Mr. Wilson held membership in the Baptist church, of which Mrs. Wilson likewise is a devoted adherent. She is a popular figure in connection with the repre- sentative social activities of her home com- munity, is affiliated with the Royal Neigh- bors and is at the time of this writing, in the the winter of 1919-20, president of the Lewel- len Women's Club.

On March 21, 1882, was solemnized the marriage of Mr. Wilson to Miss Mollie Belle Meeker, who was born in Clark County, Illi- nois, on September 2, 1861, a daughter of Matthias and Elizabeth (Allstott) Meeker, the former a native of Essex county, New Jersey, and the latter of Indiana. Matthias Meeker was reared and educated in Ohio and became a shipbuilder by trade and voca- tion, with residence in Cincinnati, Ohio. He later removed to Indiana, where his marriage was solemnized, and finally he engaged in farming in Clark county, Illinois, where he died at the age of seventy-two years, his wife having been about eighty-four years of age at the time of her death. Of their six sons and four daughters, three sons and two daugh- ters are now living, three of the sons having been gallant soldiers of the Union during the Civil War, as were also three brothers-in-law of Mrs. Wilson - the husbands of her sisters. Mr. Wilson was afforded the advantages of the public schools of Illinois and in that state her marriage occurred. She is a woman of culture and gracious personality, and is the popular chatelaine of one of the attractive rural homes of Garden county. In conclusion of this memoir is given brief record concerning the children of Mr. and Mrs. Wilson; Albert Ray, who is a resident of Billings, Montana, married Miss Myrtle Gillilard and they have two children; Addie became the wife of Alfred Fought, and by this marriage she has two sons and one daughter, after the death of her first husband she became the wife of S. G. Dumond, and they reside at Alliance, Nebraska ; Bertrand, who married Miss Edna Adams, and has one son, was in active service as a member of Company F, One Hundred and Ninth Engineers, during the period of

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History of western Nebraska and its people, Vol. III, Part 137

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