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SEMI-CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF NEBRASKA

steaded in Sheridan County. On March 22, 1892, he was married to Miss Phoebe Haskin. Mr. Housh is a member of the Populist party and has been elected Sheriff of Sheridan County for the fourth term.

      I. R. BRAY was born December 25, 1852, in Green County, Wisconsin, and came to Hamilton County, Nebraska, in 1872. He settled in Sheridan County in 1884. Mr. Bray has eight hundred acres of deeded land in Sheridan County and is the proprietor of the Commercial Hotel of Hay Springs. He is a Republican and is serving his second term as County Commissioner.

      P. T. JOHNSON was born in Norway, December 14, 1850. In 1869 he came to the United States and came to Sheridan County, Nebraska, in 1885. June 28, 1876, at Norway, Iowa, he was married to Miss Minnie Tow, who died in 1887. Mr. Johnson has a stock farm and was formerly engaged in the implement business. He is a Populist and is now serving his second term as County Commissioner.

      MABEL PEARL VAN FLECK was born in Saunders County, Nebraska, May 18, 1884, and the next year her parents moved to Sheridan County. She graduated from the Rushville High School in 1900 and since that time has been Deputy Clerk of Sheridan County. Her parents were among the early settlers and her father is a veteran of the Civil War, having been a member of Company F of the Sixty-fourth Illinois Regiment.

      AMOS BURWELL was born at Lowden, Iowa, May 6, 1859. He attended Cornell College for two years and then began as an agent operator for the Northwestern Railroad, in the service of which he remained for eighteen years. In 1883 he was transferred to Nebraska. He was interested in the banking arid mercantile business before coming to Rushville. In 1888 he married Miss Mary Connor. He is a Republican and has been appointed Deputy Treasurer of Sheridan County.

      CHARLES P. BREESE, the first white man now living to go through what is now Sheridan County, was born in Council Bluffs, Iowa, January 26, 1861. His father was a government blacksmith of the Indian reservation at Genoa, Nebraska, and then moved to Butler County. When a boy of fifteen Mr. Bresee went to the mountains and was engaged in freighting and mining in the Black Hills and Idaho for six years, when he returned to Butler County and was there married to Miss Annie Edgar in 1885. In 1885 he homesteaded in Sheridan County. He is Secretary and Treasurer of the Maverick Loan and Trust Company, is a Republican and was Judge of Sheridan County for four years.

      W. H. WESTOVER was born in Delaware County, Iowa, March 19, 1858. In 1870 he came to Lincoln, Nebraska 'where he received his education in the High School and the State University. In 1877 he went to David City, Nebraska, and studied law while teaching school in Butler County, having begun the study of law in the office of E. E. Brown of Lincoln. He was admitted to the bar in 1879 at the age of twenty-one. He came to Sheridan County in 1885 and took a homestead there, which he still holds. In 1879 he was married to Miss Olive C. Paschal of Burlington, Iowa, and they have ten children. Judge Westover served two terms as Attorney of Sheridan County and is now serving his third term as Judge of the Fifteenth Judicial District.

 

SHERMAN COUNTY.
     The first settlement in Sherman County was made in 1873 by a party of less than twenty men, who emigrated from Grand Island. Soon after the coming of these people a terrible snowstorm occurred in the month of April. Sixty men were shut up in the store of Frank Ingram for three days while the storm was at its worst. In the fall the settlement comprised seven log houses and a hotel. The first marriage was that of Frank Ingram and Fanny Taylor, which occurred at Christmas. There was a large immigration in 1874. The courthouse was completed during this year at a cost of $5,000, and on the day it was officially occupied it was burned to the ground. The hordes of grasshoppers and the winter of 1874 and 1875 caused hard times for the new county, but the rush of gold seekers to the Black Hills in 1876 brought about some degree of prosperity. The county is made up mostly of the

COUNTY HISTORY

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broad and productive valleys of the Middle Loup River and Oak, Clear and Muddy Creeks. Seventy-five per cent of the land is tillable, and the cereals, fruits, vegetables, sugar beets and alfalfa are the principal products. The county was organized in 1873 and its present population is 6,550. Loup City is the county seat. The first school was taught by Miss Susan S. Gilbert at Loup City in 1873. The county is divided into seventy school districts, the greater number of which have a term of six months or more. There are three graded schools, and the total school property is valued at $51,451.

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