 MR. AND MRS. ALBERT M. WRIGHT. |
state, as well as a man whose ability and sterling character made him influential in community affairs. He served about twenty years as postmaster at Kewanda and was one of the venerable and honorable pioneer citizens of the county at the time of his death, in 1913, at the age of eighty-three years. Mrs. Sarah Jane (Strode) Pickering died in 1874, when the subject of this sketch was but seven years old, he having been the fourth in a family of six children, three of whom--James A., Charles M. and Ernestine Helen--took up homesteads in Garden county and in due course proved up on the claims. Frederick A. Pickering acquired his preliminary education in the public schools of Illinois and was fourteen years old at the time of the family removal to Nebraska, where he continued to attend school whenever opportunity offered, at the same time giving his share of aid in the work of his father's pioneer farm. In 1893, he engaged in independent farming, in Phelps county, but two years later he came to that part of Deuel county that now comprises Garden county, where he has since given his close attention to agricultural and live-stock industry, through the medium of which he has achieved substantial and worthy success. In 1903, he entered claim to a homestead of a hundred and sixty acres, and under the provisions of the Kincaid act he added to his holdings until he is now the owner of four hundred acres, his pleasant home being near Oshkosh, the county seat. Mr. Pickering is a bachelor, is affiliated with Oshkosh Lodge, No. 286, Ancient Free & Accepted Masons, and in politics he gives his allegiance to the Republican party. As a citizen he has shown his loyalty by supporting enterprises and measures that have inured to the general welfare of the community, and in Garden county he has a wide circle of friends. ALBERT M. WRIGHT, United States Deputy Marshall, pioneer of Dawes county, and prominent man of affairs in the Panhandle for many years, was born in Racine county, Wisconsin, January 20, 1847, the son of Eben and Julia (Merrill) Wright, both natives of Vermont. Albert was the eldest of the six children born to his parents. His father was a farmer and the boy was reared in the country. He was sent to the public schools and thus gained a good practical education. When only eighteen years of age he enlisted in 1864, in Company H, Fifth Wisconsin Volunteer Infantry. He was on the battle front March 25, 1865, before Petersburg, Virginia, was in the following battles which took place in that locality when General Robert E. Lee was driven from his stronghold of Petersburg and was present when Generals Ewell and Fitz Hugh Lee surrendered with six thousand troops. Mr. Wright was in the army that followed Lee until he too surrendered. At the close of histilities (sic) he was mustered out at Madison, Wisconsin, June 26, 1865. Almost at once he returned to his farm near Portage, Wisconsin, remaining there in farm work until 1871, when he went into the timber country of northern Michigan, but in the spring of 1872, took a position as brakeman on the Northwestern Railroad on a run from Escanaba. He remained with the road until 1885, and during that time was promoted to conductor. Mr. Wright was married December, 1872, at Milton, Wisconsin, to Miss Sarah L. Wood, who was born in Rock county, the daughter of Joel and Sarah A. (Butts) Wood, both natives of New York state. She was the youngest in a family of eleven children. Mrs. Wright was a graduate of the Milton Academy, of Milton. Mr. and Mrs. Wright became the parents of three daughters: Anna J., who married Joseph Robinson, had one daughter, who married E. M. Birdsall; Mary, who married G. T. H. Babcock, an attorney of Chadron, has two children, George and Jane. Mr. Babcock is a Mason and also belongs to the Modern Woodmen and the Elks. The third child is Gertrude S., who married E. L. Godsall, a passenger conductor for the Northwestern Railroad. He volunteered for service during the Spanish American War, and served as lieutenant of Company H, Second Nebraska Infantry. He volunteered during the World War as a member of Company H, Sixth Nebraska Infantry, then was transferred to the One Hundred and thirty-fourth Infantry, Thirty-fourth Division and went to France as captain of that company. He was promoted to Major in France and commanded prisoners at Fort Rougoune, France and Is Sur Tille. He returned to the United States October 20, 1919. Mr. Godsall is a Knight Templar Mason and a member of the Elks. In 1885 Mr. Wright came to western Nebraska, and located at Valentine, the end of the Northwestern Railroad at that time. He took charge of a construction train laying track west from Chadron and held the position until August 10, when he was assigned to the operating department of the railroad and remained in the freight department until promoted to the passenger service as conductor in 1886. Mr. Wright served in this capacity, |
and remained with the company until 1907, a long period of service, He had the honor of running the first passenger train into Deadwood, South Dakota, when the road was completed to that point, on December 29, 1890. After leaving the railroad, Mr. Wright was appointed city marshall of Chadron, in 1908, served until June of the same year and then was appointed Deputy United States Marshall, a position he still holds. He has faithfully performed his duties in a most efficient manner and is regarded as a man of honor and marked ability. The Wright family have a good modem home on Bordeaux Avenue, in Chadron where they enjoy their many friends. Mr. Wright is a Thirty-second degree Mason a Shriner and also belongs to the Elks. For one year he served as mayor of Chadron, an executive office which he filled to the satisfaction of the people. Being connected with the railroad for so many years he is well known from Chadron to Escanaba, Michigan, an unusual honor. J. FRANK BLAUSEY figures as a native son of what is now Garden county, though at the time of his birth the county was still a part of Deuel county, and here he has proved his loyalty as well as his full appreciation of the advantages and attractions of this section of Nebraska, by his successful association with agricultural and live-stock industry, of which he is one of the prominent and representative exponents in Garden county. John Frank Blausey was born at Ramsey, Deuel (now Garden) county, May 12, 1899, a date that denotes conclusively that he is a representative of one of the pioneer families of this section of the state. He received his early education in the public schools of Garden county, and prior to initiating his independent farm career he was employed about six months in connection with the construction of a government irrigation ditch north of Scottsbluff, Scotts Bluff county. Thereafter he was employed about a year by the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy Railroad Company, with headquarters in Nebraska's capital city. He is now the owner of a valuable farm of four hundred acres, four and one-half miles northeast of Oshkosh, has made good improvements on the property and here is proving most successful in his operations as an agriculturist and stock-raiser. He has had no predilection for political activity or public office, but accords loyal allegiance to the Republican party. His wife is an active communicant of the Lutheran church. December 20, 1911, at Oshkosh, was recorded the marriage of Mr. Blausey to Miss Martha Kaschke, who was reared and educated in Sedgwick county, Colorado, being a daughter of Henry Kaschke, of whom individual mention is made elsewhere in this volume. Mr. and Mrs. Blausey have two children--Beulah and Bernice. JOHN C. HARTMAN was a lad of twelve years at the time when his parents established themselves as pioneers in what in now Garden county, and here he has risen to secure vantage place as one of the prominent representatives of live-stock and agricultural industry in this section of the state. In Clayton county, Iowa, whose eastern borders skirt the shores of the Mississippi river, John C. Hartman was born, October 26, 1875, and is a son of Sebastian R. and Marie (Herman) Hartman, both natives of Austria and both young people when they came to the United States, their marriage having been solemnized in the state of Illinois. Sebastian Hartman immigrated to America in 1865, and for two years thereafter he was engaged in farm enterprise in Illinois. He then removed to Iowa and became a pioneer settler in Clayton county, where he was engaged in farming for the ensuing nine years. He then removed with his family to Kossuth county, that state, which was the stage of his successful farm operations for ten years, at the expiration of which, in the spring of 1897, he came to the part of old Cheyenne county, Nebraska, that now comprises Garden county, where he took up homestead and pre-emption claims and girded himself valiantly for the labors of a pioneer agriculturist and stockgrower in a new country. He improved his land, to which he perfected title in due time, and there he continued his activities until 1909, when he removed to Julesburg, Colorado, where he died at the age of sixty-nine years and where his widow passed away about two years later. The rudimentary education of John C. Hartman was obtained in the schools of Kossuth county, Iowa, and was rounded out by his attending the pioneer schools of what is now Garden county, Nebraska, where he was reared to manhood and early began to assist in the work of his father's farm. When about twenty-six years of age he initiated his independent activities as an agriculturist and stockraiser, with which basic industries he has since continued his close and successful association, energy and good management having brought to him substantial prosperity, of which evidence in given in his ownership of a thousand |
and forty acres of land, the major part of which is devoted to other phases of agriculture and to the raising of good grades of live stock. Mr. Hartman has always taken loyal interest in community affairs, is a Democrat in his political proclivities and had the distinction of serving as the first assessor of Garden county, a position which he held three years. December 7, 1904, recorded the marriage of Mr. Hartman to Miss Anna Krause, of Sedgwick, Colorado, whose mother contracted a second marriage and is now a resident of Pendleton, Oregon, her name being Mrs. Bertha Shumway. Mr. and Mrs. Hartman's cheery home circle includes their fine family of six children: Bertha A., Harman J., Clara M., Roy M., Howard E., and Herbert L. CHARLES E. CARR, a representative agriculturist and stock-grower of Garden county, is another man who has proved that metropolitan training and vocation do not preclude the achieving of a definite success and precedence in connection with farm enterprise, for he claims the great western metropolis, Chicago, as the place of his nativity, and while he gained in his youth a measure of experience in connection with farm industry, he eventually returned to his native city, where he learned the metal-polisher's trade, to which he devoted his attention about five years, after which he was engaged in business as a painter and paperhanger for a period of about ten years. He then came to that part of Deuel county, Nebraska, that now constitutes Garden county, and in the same year, 1902, took tip a homestead, ten miles northeast of Oshkosh. He has reclaimed and developed this tract into one of the excellent farms of the county, and has continued his successful activities along the lines of diversified agricuiture (sic) and the raising of good types of live stock. He was a resident of Illinois at the inception of the Spanish-American War, and promptly manifested his patriotism by enlisting in the Second Illinois Volunteer Infantry, with which he continued in service until the regiment was mustered out and he received his honorable discharge. Mr. Carr has proved himself liberal in support of measures tending to foster the prosperity and advancement of the community, is independent in politics and has had no desire for public office of any kind. Mr. Carr was born in the city of Chicago on August 4, 1860, and is a son of William F. Carr, who was born in England and who finally established his residence in Chicago, where he found employment in the McCormick agricultural implement manufactory. He eventually removed to Kansas, and his son Charles finally lost all trace of him, Charles having been an infant at the time of his mother's death. Mr. Carr continued his residence in Illinois the greater part of the time until he was about fifteen years old and he then went to Kansas, where he remained until he attained his legal majority. It was at this stage of his career that he returned to Chicago, as noted in a preceding paragraph, and concerning his activities since that time ample record has already been given. Mr. Carr chose as his wife, Mrs. Maude (McMannen) Brigham, who was born and reared in Iowa, where her parents, both now deceased, were pioneer settlers. Mr. and Mrs. Carr have one child, by a former marriage of Mrs. Carr, Mable Brigham, who is the wife of Edward Allen, of Oshkosh, and who has two children, Charles Merle and Verona Maude. BIRD S. RODGERS is the owner of an entire section of land in Garden county and with the energy and progressiveness that insure success, he has here carried on vigorous activities as an agriculturist, stock grower and dairy farmer, of which lines of enterprise he is one of the substantial and popular representatives in the county. Mr. Rodgers was born in Keokuk county, Iowa, August 10, 1877, and is a son of Joshua T. and Rebecca Jane (Perry) Rodgers, both of whom were reared and educated in Iowa, in which state Mrs. Rodgers was born, her parents having been pioneer settlers in that commonwealth, as were also the parents of her husband, who was a native of Indiana, and who was a boy at the time of the family removal to the Hawkeye state. Joshua T. Rodgers continued his association with farm enterprise in Iowa until 1879, when he removed to Missouri, later coming to western Nebraska and became a pioneer settler in 1888, in what is now Morrill county, where he engaged in general farming and stock-raising. Later he was engaged in the cattle business in the sandhill district of Morrill county, and finally he resumed farm operations, south of Lisco, that county, where he continued until his retirement from active labors and has since maintained his home at Bridgeport, Morrill county, the mother of the subject of this sketch having passed away in 1888, at the age of thirty-six years. Bird S. Rodgers was reared under the conditions and influences that marked the pioneer period of the history of the Nebraska Panhandle, and his early educational training was |
received principally in the rural schools of what is now Morrill county. When a lad of about eleven years be began working for a cattle company, and he continued to be thus identified with the cattle business about nineteen years, within which period he was employed by various representative cattle companies. In 1912, he purchased a quarter-section of land two and one-half miles north of Oshkosh and, in 1917, made an additional purchase that so enlarged his estate that he is now the owner of an entire section of the valuable land of Garden county, his progressiveness being manifest in the improvements and general condition of his farm property, which is devoted to diversified agriculture, to dairy fanning and to the feeding of hogs during the winter seasons. He is loyal in citizenship, is a Democrat in his political alignment and is affiliated with the Woodmen of the World. On November 15, 1905, at Sidney, Cheyenne county, Mr. Rodgers was united in marriage to Miss Carrie Robinson, who was reared and educated in western Nebraska, she having been six weeks old when her parents removed to this section of the state from St. Paul, Howard county. On other pages the sketch of her brother, John Robinson, gives data concerning the family history. Mr. and Mrs. Rodgers have two children: Alice I., born April 12, 1910, and John T., born July 8, 1917. CYRUS L. KEMPLIN is a Garden county citizen who has here proved his constructive ability through his effective enterprise as an agriculturist and stock-raiser, and he is the owner of a large and well improved landed estate, on which he lives in contentment and prosperity. His career has been varied and interesting, but in his multifarious experiences in the past he reverts to none than has given him as much satisfaction as that connected with his industrial activities in Garden county. A representative of a sterling pioneer family of Iowa, Mr. Kemplin was born in Story county, that state, on December 17, 1866. His father, Wilson Kemplin, was a native of West Virginia, and he was a young man when he wedded Miss Anna Simmons, who was born and reared in Ohio, where their marriage was solemnized. Mrs. Kemplin died in Vernon county, Missouri, in 1873, when her son Cyrus subject of this review, was a lad of seven years. Wilson Kemplin manifested somewhat of a nomadic spirit during the course of his long and active career, and he resided for varying intervals in different states of the west, it having been his distinction to be a pioneer of Nebraska. Prior to the admission of Nebraska to statehood he took up a pre-emption claim not far from the present capital city, and thus he became one of the earliest settlers of Lancaster county. He finally returned to Iowa, but passed the closing period of his life at Lincoln, Nebraska, where he died at the venerable age of eighty-five years. Cyrus L. Kemplin, gained his early education in the public schools of Iowa, and as a youth he learned the mason's trade, to which he gave his attention about seven years in Kansas City and St. Louis, Missouri. In 1890, he went to South Dakota, where he remained about one year, after which he returned to Kansas City. His next response to the wanderlust was given when he went to Bighorn mountains, in Wyoming and Montana, in which section he found employment in saw mills, besides working at his trade for some time. From that locality he came to Nebraska in. 1893, making the trip with team and wagon, in true pioneer style, and finding his destination in that part of Deuel county that now constitutes Garden county. He entered claim to a homestead in Antelope valley, and on this place he continued his residence thirteen years, during which time he perfected his title and made numerous improvements. Success attended his efforts, and after disposing of this homestead he purchased the fine ranch of seventeen hundred and sixty acres which represents his place of abode and the stage of his vigorous activities at the time. He has erected good buildings and made other excellent improvements on his extensive ranch, and here he is doing a successful business in the propagation of the various for which the soil and climate are best adapted and in the raising of live stock, his average run of cattle being about forty head and his place showing about forty head of horses at the opening of the year 1920. Mr. Kemplin has never manifested any desire to "tinker with" practical politics and has shown his public spirit more effectively in productive industry than by seeking official preferment. His allegiance is given to the Democratic party and he is steadfast in his political convictions. April 1, 1887, recorded the marriage of Mr. Kemplin to Miss Minnie St. Clair, who was born and reared in Indiana, where her mother still lives, at the venerable age of eighty-five years, the father, George St. Clair, having been a valiant soldier of the Union during the Civil War and died shortly after the close of that great conflict. Mr. and Mrs. |
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