for civic and municipal development and improvement. He owns his own beautiful home and also two that he rents in the best residence section of the city. He is a public spirited man who lives up to the high standard which he sets as an American citizen. Mr. Donovan is a Mason and his wife is one of the prominent members of the Eastern Star. CHARLES A. BURLEW. -- There is no man more widely known or more closely concerned with public affairs and county development than Charles Burlew. Early settler, pioneer newspaper man and politician, public official and merchant of Box Butte county, his numerous business interests and a high reputation for honorable dealing as a business man, have given him an enviable standing in this section of the Panhandle. Throughout his life he has not only maintained the reputation noted, but has also sustained and strengthened it so that there are few who have been in public life in Box Butte county today who stand higher in public favor, esteem and confidence. Mr. Burlew is rescended (sic) from a long line of fine old Pennsylvania stock as his ancestors settled in the Keystone state at an early date and there took an active part in its development and political history. He was born in Mifflin county, June 12, 1852, the son of Henry and Nancy (Davis) Burlew, both natives of the same state, where they were reared, educated and later met and married. Charles was the seventh in a family of fourteen children consisting of seven boys and seven girls. He attended school during the winter terms and worked on a farm summers, so that he early learned the value of money. When twenty years of age Mr. Burlew came west to Dane county, Wisconsin, locating at Mazomanie in 1872, and found work on a farm for fifty cents a day. The next year he taught in a country school and as he did not feel satisfied with his educational advantages so far, entered the Platville normal where he remained until graduation. After commencement he continued teaching as superintendent and principal of the city schools until 1896. On September 10, 1884, Mr. Burlew was married at Eau Claire, Wisconsin, to Miss Margaret C. Cogan, now deceased, who was born in Dodge county, Wisconsin, the daughter of John Cogan, a native of Ireland. Three of Mr. Burlew's brothers had served in the Union army. When he left Madison, Wisconsin, in 1886, for the Black Hills of South Dakota, he was accompanied by Charles T. Davidson, now a resident of Hemingford, but as they were not pleased with the country did not settle there but came to northwestern Nebraska and finally located in the Panhandle, February 28, 1886, near the site of Hemingford then in Dawes county. At that early date the only structure was a sod house on the corner where Shindler's store now stands, which was occupied by Joseph Hare who was in the land business, locating settlers. Mr. Burlew and Mr. Davidson located land, the former taking a pre-emption two miles west of the present site of Hemingford, which at that time was platted around a public square but as the land was not proved up it was illegal but a little later a town site company was formed, Mr. Burlew being one of the prime movers of the enterprise. In 1887 he was sent to Broken Bow to procure a surveyor to properly plat the town and soon a fierce competition sprang up between the towns of Nonpareil and Hemingford. for the location of the seat of justice as there was talk of dividing Dawes county and erecting a new state division in which these new villages were located. Mr. Burlew was one of the organizers and principal figures in having this new county formed and tried to have the division made in such a manner as to have Hemingford nearest its center. He headed the Hemingford delegation in the fight for the county seat, while a man named Gene Heath was the leader of the Nonpareil party. It was indeed a bitter feud and the partisans of either side hardly spoke to the men opposing them when they met at Chadron to vote on the permanent location but when Nonpareil was chosen, the two leaders rode home in a one horse cart together and have since been good, warm friends. Later the B. and M. railroad survey was made through Hemingford instead of Nonpareil, the town was re-platted and finally the county seat was established there. In 1886, Mr. Burlew bought the pioneer newspaper of the section, known as the Box Butte County Rustler and during the county seat war had to bear the brunt of the abuse from those opposed to Hemingford for the seat of justice, but it was due to this sheet that the fight was finally decided in favor of his faction when the railroad was built. Mr. Burlew owned and edited this paper until 1890, and he played an important part in shaping the policies and forming the views of the early settlers. He was fearless in his denunciation of anything that was not fair and square in politics, advocated and aided in the upbuilding of the towns of the county and agricultural develop- |
ment and became one of the leading public figures of the day. In 1888, he was elected clerk on the Democratic ticket and served two years. During this time he maintained his residence in Hemingford, ran his paper by proxy though he took active supervision of it, for he had a capable man at its head in Thomas O'Keefe, whose official title was "Printer's Devil" but who was really manager. Mr. Burlew often walked the six miles from Hemingford to Nonpariel while a county official and tells that during his term in office the primitive accommodations of the temporary court house were so poor that the safe in his office was too small for the legal papers so the chattel mortgages were "dumped in an empty salt barrel for safe keeping." From first locating in this section, Mr. Burlew has been a prominent figure in political circles, having been called upon to serve on many important committees, and as chairman of the Democratic conventions. He has been delegate to the Democratic State Conventions many times and in 1896, was elected as delegate to the Democratic National Convention at Chicago, when Bryan was first nominated for president. The honor of organizing the first bank in the county is his, for he established this financial institution in 1886, and continued to be an official until 1897, when he disposed of his stock to engage in the mercantile business in which he met with instant and gratifying success. He owns his building, erected in 1910, and also a fine home and other good properties in the city, so that today he has a comfortable fortune of his own making, and is considered one of the most substantial men of the community. Today Mr, Burlew does as much work in his establishment as any of his younger assistants and is active in many other ways. He has been a consistent and constant "booster" for Box Butte county for thirty-five years and for Hemingford in particular. He says he has passed through all the phases of development this country could offer, from drinking from a buffalo wallow and sleeping on the open prairies wrapped in a blanket to awaken in the morning with another blanket of snow, to the present development in all its many ramifications of twentieth century life. He tells of the interesting relic he had, the first chair in Box Butte county, made of pine lumber cut on Pine Ridge by R. H. Hampton and says if he had it--unfortunately it was burned years ago--he would not part with it for five hundred dollars. Mr. Burlew is a Knight of Columbus and a consistent Democrat. There are two children in the family: Regina C., a graduate of St. Mary's Academy, Omaha and Fremont College, now associated with her father in the store, and Charles A., Jr., who graduated from the commercial course of Fremont College and was for some time a student at Creighton Univeristy (sic), Omaha, now the manager of his father's business and who is displaying marked executive ability. IDA M. ROSS. -- Nearly thirty-three years have passed since Mrs. Ross and her husband drove to their farm in Box Butte county and settled on a homestead in a wilderness where houses were few and conditions primitive. For years they lived and labored, slowly and arduously developing a farm and establishing a home for their family, watching and assisting in the advancement and progress which were making the country flourish and thrive. Mr. Ross, an honored pioneer has passed from earthly scenes, but the reputation for industry and integrity which he established is being perpetuated by his children and his wife, who are still the owners of the homestead and the large landed estate which she and her husband owned at the time he passed away. Matured and invigorated through the labors and hardships of the pioneer days, Mrs. Ross, though a pioneer of two states, Wisconsin and Nebraska, retains the mental, and till recently, the physical vigor of a woman many years her junior. She was the devoted helpmate and companion of her husband for about twenty-nine years--a woman whose moral strength was as the number of her days and who had a remarkable share in pioneer experiences in the lumber regions along the Wisconsin river and on the Great Plains of the west, as will be attested by the statements yet to be made in this context. Ida Strobridge Ross was born in Marathon county, Wisconsin, in the little frontier town of Jenny, the daughter of George and Margaret (Pedrick) Strobridge, the former a descendent of fine old Pennsylvania stock and a native of the Keystone state. They had three children, two boys and the one daughter, Ida. Mr. Strobridge was a lumber man by vocation and the first white man to locate in Marathon county. He established his home in Jenny, later called Lincoln, and today known as the City of Merrill, Wisconsin on the banks of the Wisconsin river. He engaged in lumbering industries, and built and operated the first saw-mill in the vicinity. The trees were cut in the timber during the winter snows, hauled along logging roads by horse and ox teams to the banks of the river from |
one to two miles and stacked there on skidways until the ice broke up in the spring, when they were sent into the water with the first spring freshet and floated down stream to the mill to be cut into lumber. Mrs. Ross was reared in the family home in Jenny, received her education in the public schools of the town and there grew to womanhood, resourceful, spirited and able to cope with any emergency due to her self-reliance and high courage developed by the life she led in this new and little developed section of the Badger state. She has many interesting recollections of the great wooded country and pine lands of the northwest and occasionally can be persuaded to tell of how wild the country was during her girlhood, when the Indians would get into inter-tribal fights among themselves and at one time she recounts how her father hid an Indian in the cellar of the house for days to keep him from being killed by his Indian companions. At one time Mr. Strobridge found an old squaw tied to a tree out in the woods and left to die, as that was the Indian custom with members of the tribe who had passed their days of usefulness; but it seemed too cruel to this white man and he and his daughter Ida secretly took the old woman food, though they had to let her remain tied up as otherwise the Indians would have searched for her and found that she was being fed. Mrs. Ross grew well acquainted with the Indians near Jenny and often as a child would run away from home to some Indian encampment to play in the tepee of an Indian, as they grew very fond of the young white girl. There her father or mother would find her with the papooses or other Indian children. After graduating from the schools of her home town Mrs. Ross taught school in Wisconsin for two years before her marriage which took place at Wausau, when she was united in matrimony with Alexander C. Ross, a native of New York. He was next to the youngest child in a family of six boys. After the marriage the young couple decided to seek their fortunes still farther west in the newer country beyond the Mississippi river and came to Nebraska, locating on a large farm near North Bend, where they lived for two and a half years. Ida Ross, while reared on the frontier had never lived on a farm and the young wife had many things to learn on the plains and she tells today with a quiet smile, that all her first experiences were not so congenial as might have been and far from her taste on many an occasion but she was a brave, high hearted pioneer and was not daunted by the hard work, lack of comforts and refinement to which she had been accustomed, and energetically took up her share of the burden of establishing a home. Mr. and Mrs. Ross returned to Wisconsin, where Mr. Ross again engaged in his trade as the manager of a large saw-mill company with big operations; but the lure of the west had entered his blood and after a sojourn in the wooded country they again returned to the open plains, but this time they came farther west, being among the first white settlers of Box Butte county. They reached the town of Alliance before the railroad had been built and located on a homestead about twenty-four miles northeast of that city. As there were few trees on the plains and no mills to cut the logs in that day, Mr. Ross shipped the lumber for a frame house from the east along with their household goods, two cows, two pigs, a span of horses, a flock of chickens and enough provisions to last them a year, until the prairie sod could be broken and crops planted and harvested. Unloading their things at Hay Springs, Mr. and Mrs. Ross put their goods on their wagon, led the cows and freighted their worldly possessions twenty-five miles across the prairies to their new home and there settled down to pioneer life in earnest. As water is such an important necessity and they could not rely on any stream for it, they were forced at once to put down a well and had to drill over a hundred feet to water. Mrs. Ross says that they had been more fortunate than many of the early settlers and had considerable capital when they started west and so had some money when they arrived in the new country, but there were so many demands for each dollar that they looked at one a long time before spending it. Mr. and Mrs. Ross passed through all the hard times incident to the new country, the grasshopper plague, the droughts and other troubles but they were determined that time would show their judgment of a location was good, and were not discouraged as so many settlers were who returned to their homes farther east, and time has proved that fortune was to smile upon their joint efforts. They were a thrifty and economical couple, made and saved money and as their capital permitted bought more land with the passing years. While Mr. Ross tilled the soil, cultivated the crops, harvested and raised cattle and hogs, Mrs. Ross bravely shouldered her share of responsibilities and made butter, sold it and eggs along with the chickens she raised during the summer season and made weekly trips to Alliance, a round trip of forty-eight miles, to |
market the produce. She drove her own team of spirited ponies. At first she exchanged the farm products for groceries and clothing while the corn, hogs, cattle and horses Mr. Ross grew and raised were driven to the nearest shipping point, all the money being turned into a common fund to purchase land adjoining the original homestead until they had a landed estate of two thousand acres. Mr. Ross worked very hard and in time his strenuous labors told on his health which was poor for some time before his death, which occurred in February, 1912. He left a widow and three children, a boy and two girls: Margaret, who married Joseph Wiseman, a gold miner of Republic, Washington, where he owns his own mines, and employs a large number of men. Mrs. Wiseman was a graduate of the Chadron Normal school and taught for some time prior to her marriage. Mr. Wiseman is a Mason and Shriner and the family consists of three boys and two girls. Chester A. Ross, the son, is a ranchman of Box Butte county, one of the young, aggressive and progressive men of his community, where he is well and favorably known, always ready to spend time and money for the civic improvements and uplift of the community where he has been reared and lives. He is a member of the Masonic order and with his mother is the owner of several thousand acres of land. In 1918, in response to the president's call for greater production to feed the world they raised ten thousand dollars worth of small grains on their ranches and in 1920, expect to farm five hundred acres, using large tractors. They are also engaged in an extensive live stock industry, owning large herds of cattle and horses which are shipped to the large markets in the east each year. Evangeline M., the third child of the Ross family married Chester H. Aldrich, the son of Governor Aldrich and lives on their farm near Ulysses, Nebraska. Mr. Aldrich is a graduate of the agricultural college of the University of Nebraska, while his father is a member of the supreme court of the state. Mrs. Aldrich attended Carrol College of Waukesha, Wisconsin, where she was graduated with honors. During the war, while help of all kinds was very scarce, Mrs. Ross assumed too great a burden, worked beyond her strength and at present is contemplating taking a much needed rest and leaving the active management of her estate in the capable hands of her son. She has a beautiful country residence on the ranch with every modern convenience and is so enamoured of rural life that she prefers this home to any other and chooses to live on the farm rather than in Alliance, though she owns a valuable property on the corner of Fourth street and Laramie avenue where she expects to erect a modern apartment building in the near future at a cost of over one hundred thousand dollars. Due to her fine character, enterprise, many charitable acts and her interest in civic and communal affairs, Mrs. Ross is known throughout Box Butte county as a woman of high moral standing, Christian character, and is considered one of the most prosperous and substantial residents of the Panhandle. She is a member of the Presbyterian church and of the Eastern Star. THOMAS A. GREENE. -- The career of Thomas Greene, now one of the members of the retired colony of Hemingford, has ranged through varied conditions in the Panhandle as he drove into what is now Box Butte county in true pioneer style in 1885, settling on the prairie in what was then a wilderness, for far as the eye could reach spread the unbroken virgin sod covered with buffalo grass and wild flowers. He has lived to see what was known in the early eighties as "The Great American Desert," blossom like the rose and the Panhandle become one of the favored and most productive sections not only of Nebraska but of the whole nation. Mr. Greene is a native of the Pine Tree state, born in Danby, Vermont, March 6, 1859, the son of Rowland R. and Harriet E. (Parmeter) Greene, the former a Rhode Islander, so that he is descended from a long line of New England ancestors who played an important part in the history of the eastern states. Thomas was the third in a family of five children, as he had three half brothers and a half sister. Rowland Greene was a carpenter employed in building operations in the town of Danby and the vicinity so that the boy spent his youthful years near that town, attended the public schools of the village during the winter and helped on the home farm, rented by his father, during the summer time. While yet a boy he began to earn money for himself driving oxen for a neighbor and remained at home until he was twenty-one years of age. Land was high in the east and not very productive at best and Mr. Greene read of the great stretches of fertile land to be had in the west for the taking and decided that there was the place for a young, ambitious man. In 1883, he started west, locating first near Cresent, Iowa, but two years later he came on up the valley of the Platte to Dawes county, which |
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