 MR. AND MRS. ANTHONY KENNEDY. |
can came to his rescue and roped him by one foot, still they had more than their share of buffalo meat, and it was only after the third man had swung his lasso on another leg, that they were able to control the huge beast, and they consumed nearly two hours before they had him tied down. Their horses were reeking with sweat and nearly exhausted. By the time the reached camp it was dark. They went back the next morning and butchered the buffalo and had a rare treat of the meat. At another time Mr. Hall was out in the hills with a bunch of boys rounding up cattle when a huge bear was routed out of the sage brush, and took to his heels at a lively pace followed by the boys. Gene was leading the bunch and threw his rope over the old fellow and soon found he was in more trouble than he ever dreamed possible from the innocent sport of roping a bear. With an angry roar bruin turned on the cow man and when he found he was tangled in the rope till he couldn't get loose, he grabbed the rope, hand over hand, like a sailor, and began pulling horse and rider up to him in spite of all that could be done to get away, one of the boys shot the bear with his winchester, and thus relieved the mind of a very much scared "cow puncher." In 1887, W. A. Paxton, then general manager of the Ogallala Land and Cattle Company purchased from James E. Boyd, ex-governor of the State of Nebraska, the O-C brand herd of cattle in Wyoming, and the Charles Campbell brand, which was the H-O brand. They became the nucleus in establishing their brands in Wyoming and the moving of their cattle into the Ogallala herd on account of the encroachment of settlers on their range. Mr. Hall was directed by Mr. Paxton to begin moving this herd to the newly purchased lands in Wyoming and August 1, 1887, he left Camp Lake on the western part of their range with the lead trail herd. Mr. Hall remained with this catle (sic) company until October, 1888. A peculiar thing about his experiences is that he ended his career as a cow hand, so far as early day history is concerned, at the very place where he had helped drive his first herd ten years before, and the same month in the year. After severing his conection (sic) with the Ogallala Land and Cattle Company, he came to Alliance, Nebraska, and has lived here continuously since that time. In the fall of 1889 Mr. Hall was elected sheriff of Box Butte county on the Democratic ticket and served six years. Eugene A. Hall was married at Ellsworth, Kansas, May 17,1893, to Miss Minnie E. Baker, who was born in Leavenworth, Kansas. She was the daughter of John F. and Elizabeth (Powers) Baker. Mrs. Hall was the second in a family of seven children, five girls and two boys. Mr. and Mrs. Hall had only one child, a son, Albon B. Hall, who graduated from the Kearney Military Academy in 1914, and continued in that school one year after graduation. Albon was also in the Officers' Trainig (sic) Camp at Waco, Texas, when the armistice was signed. He is a Thirty-second degree Mason and was married January 1, 1921 to Miss Esther Bevington, born November 1, 1899. Esther Bevington Hall was the only daughter of William Bevington, born at Centerville, Iowa, and May (Brooks) Bevington, born at Leon, Iowa. Mr. Albon B. Hall is a live wire and we predict a successful career for this estimable young couple. He is connected with his father in the ranching and live-stock brokerage and sales business, with offices on the corner of Box Butte Avenue and Fourth Street, south of the postoffice. Mrs. Minnie E. (Baker) Hall died July 26, 1905, and Mr. Eugene A. Hall married Miss Sadie E. Fickell at Alliance, Nebraska, August 4, 1909. She was born in Ohio. Her parents, Joseph Fickell and Hanna E. (O'Hara) Fickell, were also born in Ohio. Mrs. Hall is the third child in a family of eight children, seven girls and one boy. After a strenuous life such as few men can boast, Mr. Hall has settled in a beautiful modern home in Alliance, Nebraska, is on "easy street" and also owns a fine business building in the heart of the business district. Mr. Hall and Mr. Robert Graham, the latter the present postmaster at Alliance, have a finely equipped ranch near Alliance of forty thousand acres, run three thousand head of cattle, and cut four thousand tons of hay annually. Mr. Eugene A. Hall is a Royal Arch Mason, Knight Templar, and a member of Tangier Shrine at Omaha, Nebraska, a booster for Box Butte county, Alliance and her people. ANTHONY KENNEDY. -- It probably would be a very difficult matter to prove to Anthony Kennedy, one of Scottsbluff county's most substantial citizens, that a youth with industrious inclination and good habits, needs any other capital to start with in the building up of his fortune. Mr. Kennedy can look back over his own career as example. Instead of waiting for helpful opportunity to come to him when his schooldays were over, he sought and found it even when it entailed the cross of an ocean, kept right on and saved his |
money. Mr. Kennedy at present is not only one of Scottsbluff's most respected citizens, but is the owner of a large tract of some of the finest irrigated land in this part of Nebraska. Anthony Kennedy was born in Ireland, January 5, 1942, the son of John and Ann (Right) Kennedy, natives of Scotland but long residents of the north of Ireland, where the were married and spent their lives. They were members of the United Presbyterian church. Anthony grew up on his father's little farm and attended the local school. When sixteen years old he went to England in search of employment, and found work with contractors who were building a cut-off dam in the sea. His work was hauling and, although according to the present high wage scale of laborers, he was paid but a pittance, that money was saved and when he returned home a year later had amounted to enough, as he hoped, to pay his passage to the United States. When he reached Liverpool he found himself able to still further add to his savings and he remained in that city for six months, in the meanwhile making friends, with one of whom, in 1864, he embarked for the United States. After landing the youths made their way to Pittsburg, Pennsylvania, where Mr. Kennedy soon secured work as a drayman, later as a warehouse man, and then entered the employ of the Kilpatrick Grocery Company, with which house he remained connected for twelve years. In the meanwhile Mr. Kennedy married and later decided to embark in farming. He removed to Deleware (sic) county, Iowa, and rented land there for eight years, then came to Madison county, Nebraska. For the next four years he rented land there and carried on farming and stockraising very profitably, coming in 1886 to Scottsbluff county and secured a homestead near Minatare, He now owns one hundred and ninety-two acres of irrigated land, the agricultural possibilities of which are incalcuable (sic). In 1908 the family moved into Scottsbluff but later returned to the farm for three years when Mr. Kennedy bought a lot and erected a comfortable residence at Scottsbluff, which is now the family home. At Pittsburg, Pensylvania (sic), December 20, 1870, Mr. Kennedy married Miss Martha Baxter, who was born August 20, 1848, in the north of Ireland where she was reared. She was of Scotch ancestry, her forebears having settled in Protestant Ireland at an early day. Mr. and Mrs. Kennedy were school mates in youth, and after the young man came to America and could support a wife he sent for his boyhood sweetheart to join him in this country. Martha Baxter crossed the ocean in 1869 and the marriage occurred the next year. Three sons and three daughters have been born to them, as follows: William, who resides in Texas; Alexander, a stockman in Montana; Maggie, lives with her parents; Mary the wife of John Jensen, who operates Mr. Kennedy's farm six miles' northeast of Minatare; John, in the stockraising business in Montana; and Sarah who resides at home, is employed in the Platte Valley State Bank. Mr. Kennedy has been an important factor in public affairs since coming to Scottsbluff county. For ten years he was a justice of the peace and his decisions were never reversed. He was one of the first elected county commissioners and his general popularity was shown by the returns when it was found that his majority was greater than that of any other county candidate. Mr. Kennedy served in other official capacities and was county assessor for four years. He has always been a staunch Republican, and is a Royal Arch Mason. With his family Mr. Kennedy belongs to the Presbyterian church. Few men in Scottsbluff county are better known than "Squire Kennedy." FRANK L. BLACK, one of the earliest settlers of Dawes county who has taken an important part in the development of this section, deserves a place in the Dawes County History, as a man who has done much for his locality, as he has lived to see the many changes and improvements that have taken place here since he came in 1884. Today, Mr. Black is one of the heavy land owners here and is considered one of the most substantial and reliable men of the county and Chadron. He was born in Henry county, Iowa, October 9, 1854, the son of Layfette and Anna (Johnson) Black, the former born in Ohio, while the mother was a native of Kentucky. Frank Black was the oldest child in a family of nine children but only one of the girls is now living. His father was a farmer who enlisted in the Union army and served for three years during the Civil War, under Captain Little and Colonel Hardesty. The Black children were raised on the farm and Frank began to earn money while still a boy trapping opposums (sic). He attended the public schools for three months for a while in the winter time, but most of his schooling consisted of lessons in the hard but excellent school of experience where he learned well, for he has succeeded in becoming one |
of the influential and prominent farmers and producers of his section of the plains country. Mr. Black remained at home until he was about twenty-one years of age and then began to work as a farmer, his day being usually sixteen hours long. After three years Mr. Black began to split rails and says that he often split seven hundred in a day. He was married in Gentry county, Missouri, January 13, 1876, to Miss Mary A. Green, who was born at Wayne, Michigan, the daughter of Henry and Matilda (Freeman) Green, being the fifth in a family of nine children. Twelve children have been born to Mr. and Mrs. Black: Sarah M., the wife of Henry Miller, a farmer near Chadron, has nine children; Thomas, a farmer near Clifton, Wyoming, married Amanda Pell, and they have two girls; Victoria, married M. L. Mitchell, a farmer near Chadron; Samuel, a farmer near Pine Ridge, South Dakota, married Erna Gorton, and they have four children; Anna, married Dan Clafflin, a teamster in Chadron and they have one boy; Laura, married Ralph Munkers, a farmer near Chadron and has one child; William, who served in France during the World War, married Fontine Johnson; Maud, is the wife of Mark Jensen, a farmer near Newell, South Dakota; Ida M., is a student in the Chadron high school, while the other (sic) are dead. After his marriage, Mr. Black farmed about eight years in Missouri and then joined a colony that was coming to Dawes county in 1884. He came as far as Valentine with the colony and located on a pre-emption claim ten mile southeast of the present site of Chadron, near Bordeaux creek. The first six months he lived in a tent then built a log cabin, using straw and slabs for the roof, with a coating of clay above that. Though the home was primitive, Mr. Black says those were happier days than these. The country where he settled was so wild that a man could go out and kill all the deer he wanted to for meat any time. For some time Mr. Black worked by the day and ploughed sod for his neighbors to obtain money for supplies, when not busy with his own farm work. He cut and hauled stove wood to Chadron, taking one day to cut the wood and another to drive to town. At first the crops were fairly good, until 1890, when the drought killed everything. For eight years he raised vegetables and ran a huxter wagon and made money. He says that he raised four hundred dollars worth of water melons on an acre, and often brought in a load of vegetables that sold for thirty-five dollars. One year his cabbages beat all those shown at the State Fair, thirteen head weighing ninety-six pounds. From time to time, as he made money, Mr. Black invested in land and now owns fourteen hundred and forty acres, all well improved, which he has cultivated and so became one of the influetial (sic) farmers of his locality. For some time now, Mr. Black has given up the active management of his land and lives retired at Chadron where he is enjoying the fruits of his many years of labor. He can look back and review the years of trials and hardships and feels that he has done his share in the upbuilding of Dawes county. He is a man honored and respected by all who know him, has many friends and the Black family is one of the old pioneer stock that has made the present prosperity of the county possible. WILLIAM TOBERT STOCKDALE, dean of the Chadron Normal School, Chadron, Nebraska, is a man of high culture and education who is well and favorably known throughout the educational circles of the state and holds his position of responsibility because of his attainments and marked ability. Mr. Stockdale was born in Springfield, Illinois, November 4, 1866, the son of Jonas and Rachael Stockdale, being the second of the five children born to his parents. The father homesteaded in Saunders county, Nebraska, in 1868. The summer preceding that the family lived on an island between the Platte and Elkhorn rivers just above the point where the Elkhorn empties into the Platte. During the harvest season the father swam the Elkhorn river each morning to his work, pushing a tub ahead of him which contained his clothes. Late at night on his return, his wife would go down to the river and by calling, guide him across the stream on his return. Mr. and Mrs. Stockdale lived for two years on the homestead without a team, carrying water from a spring a mile away. Then an ox team was secured, with which William Stockdale of this sketch did his first days plowing when a little over seven years of age. William Stockdale received his elementary education in the rural schools and took higher work in the Lincoln Normal University, receiving his first degree in 1898; he took still more work at Fremont College from which he received the degree of Bachelor of Science in 1899, and in 1921, was granted the degree of Master of Arts by the University of Nebraska. Mr. Stockdale lived at home until he was about twenty years old and then began to teach in the rural schools, where he continued |
several years. One memorable occasion was the blizzard of 1888, when he had to stand against the door to keep the children from rushing out into the storm when it struck the building. After serving in the district schools he taught in the Arlington, Nebraska, schools for several years; then became city superintendent of Wisner, Nebraska, where he remained eight years, followed by two years at Madison. Mr. Stockdale was appointed to teach in the State junior Normal School at Valentine during summers, filling this position five years, from 1906 to 1910 inclusive, acting as principal the last year. He had gained a high reputation as a teacher and superintendent and when the new normal school was established at Chadron he was appointed dean of the institution, June 5, 1911, and assigned to the head of the department of education and teacher training, a position which he still holds. During all these years Mr. Stockdale   had
continued his studies in the various institutions from which
he received his degrees and kept abreast of the latest
educational movements. He became recognized as an able
executive and it was his high scholarship coupled with this
that led to his present important position where he is
winning more laurels as one of the foremost educators of the
state.October 9, 1890, Mr. Stockdale married Miss Ida May Vorse, of Saunders county, Nebraska, the daughter of Amos and Sarah Vorse, pioneer settlers of eastern Nebraska, who came to this state in 1878. Mrs. Stockdale is one of their four children and before her marriage was a teacher of recognized merit. Mr. and Mrs. Stockdale have had two children: Alva Percy, who was a graduate of the Wisner high school, the Peru State Normal School and the University of Nebraska who was principal of the high school of Alliance, Nebraska, when he died, January 3, 1919, and Irma Lucile, who was graduated with advanced credit from the high school department of the Chadron Normal School in 1919, is now in the senior class of the normal school and in addition to receiving her regular state diploma will be granted the Bachelor of Arts Degree in 1921. Mr. Stockdale belongs to the Rotarian Club, to the Congregational church and is a Past Master in the Odd Fellows Lodge. The Stockdale family is one of the well known and prominent one in Chadron, especially in educational circles. WILLIAM A. POTTS, the owner of the Chadron Steam Laundry, and one of the substantial and progressive business men of the town is a native son of Nebraska, born in Hamilton county, April 20, 1882, of an old pioneer family. He is the son of Abraham W. and Harriet C. (White) Potts, the former a native of Pensylvania (sic), while the latter was born near Carbondale, Illinois. William Potts is the eldest of the four children born to his parents. After leaving school he obtained employment in a sugar factory at Grand Island, then he went to Wyoming. With another boy he walked from Clearmont to Buffalo, some forty miles. They worked on Crazy Woman creek on a ranch for some time. From the ranch he went to Billings, and worked in a laundry but left for Townsend to work in the hay fields. Returning to Nebraska he obtained employment in a laundry at David City, remaining six months before moving to Hastings to canvas for pictures but did not like that and again tried the laundry business which he now learned from the bottom up, working over twenty years, becoming an efficient laundryman. He was made manager of the Aurora Steam Laundry in 1906, holding that position until the laundry was sold. He then went to Holdrege for the same company as foreman of a laundry in that town and on August 20, 1907 was married there to Miss Luella H. Tatum, the daughter of William and Margaret F. Tatum, being the oldest of the two children in the family. Mr. and Mrs. Potts have two children, Margaret and Roscoe A. Mr. Potts came to Dawes county and located in Chadron April 1, 1913. He bought the old Chadron Steam Laundry which he remodeled and equipped, and in 1919, he built his new |
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