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and are being fitted out with a good education and the other qualities which will make of them useful members of the community.

After their marriage Mr. and Mrs. Shaw settled in Adams Township, where our subject had homesteaded 160 acres on section 21, and where he has built up a good farm, which they still occupy. He has a substantial residence, around which stand the trees of his own planting twenty years ago or more, and which are not only useful in warding off the storms of winter and the heat of summer, but add greatly to the value and beauty of his property. While having his hands full in tilling the soil and carrying on the improvement of his farm, Mr. Shaw has been in nowise negligent in regard to the welfare of the people about him, and has ever given ready and cheerful assistance to the enterprises calculated for the general welfare. He has served as School Director a number of years in the district, and with his estimable wife is prominently identified with the Methodist Episcopal Church of Adams, to which he gives an able support. Socially, both Mr. and Mrs. Shaw are members in good standing of the I. O. G. T. Mr. Shaw voted the Democratic ticket in support of Seymour in 1868, and Tilden in 1876, but his warm interest in the cause of temperance led him in 1880 to identify himself with the Prohibitionists.

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Letter/label or doddleARREN M. LASELLE, senior member of the firm of LaSelle, Fiske & Co., grocers at Beatrice and also dealers in boots and shoes, is numbered among the solid men of the city. He was born near Lebanon, in Madison County, N. Y., April 7, 1833, and was the eldest of eleven children, five sons and six daughters, ten of whom are still living. The parents were Mason A. and Mary A. (Grosvenor) LaSelle, also natives of Madison County, N. Y., the mother being the youngest daughter of E. G. Grosvenor, who bore the honor of being the first settler of that county. The Grosvenors were of English descent, while the LaSelles trace their ancestry to France.

 The father of our subject was a farmer by occupation, and after his marriage settled on a farm in Madison County, N. Y., where he lived until 1883. Then coming to Beatrice with his family, he, after a brief sojourn in this city, located in Cortland, where he engaged in general merchandising four years. Then, disposing of a half-interest in his business there, he returned to Beatrice, and in company with a partner, Mr. Fiske, established himself as a general merchant, and they have now built up an extensive and lucrative trade. They are prompt and reliable in their business transactions, and thus have obtained a good standing as business men and citizens.

To Mr. and Mrs. LaSelle there have been born four children, one son and three daughters, namely Addie M., now the wife of I. L. Fiske; Adelia N., Frank G. and Lizzie D. The family residence is a neat and comfortable structure, and its inmates are surrounded by all the comforts of life, enjoying also many of its luxuries. Mr. LaSelle presented his son Frank with a share in the business, and the latter bids fair to emulate his father in point of business principles and ability. They are both ardent supporters of Republican principles.

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Letter/label or doddleR. JAMES T. ARMSTRONG, Superintendent of the Nebraska Institution for  Feeble-Minded Youth, and which is located in the eastern portion of the city of Beatrice, assumed the duties of his responsible position on the 12th of August, 1886, and is discharging them with much efficiency. He is a man of fine business and mental capacities, a native of Columbiana County, Ohio, and was born near Hanoverton, Dec. 28, 1856. When a child two years of age, his parents came to Iowa, settling on a farm in Jefferson County. The father, Titus Armstrong, was a native of Ohio, and the mother, Anna M. (Stever) Armstrong, was born near Carrolltown, Pa. Their family consisted of two children only, our subject and his brother Willard. The latter died when four years old, and his father died in 1858. His mother is living in Washington County, Iowa.

The subject of this sketch was reared to manhood, passing his boyhood and youth after the manner of most farmers' sons, and acquiring his early education in time district school. Later he attended the academy at Fairfield, Iowa, and then he entered Parsons' College at that place. After emerging

 

 

   

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thence he became a student of the State University at Iowa City, where he continued two years. He then took up the study of medicine under the instruction of Dr. O. W. Archibald, of Glenwood, and subsequently entered the medical department of the State University, from which he was graduated March 5, 1879.

Dr. Armstrong began the practice of his profession in Southwestern Iowa, and during his four years' residence there built up a good business among the people of that region. Afterward changing his residence to Omaha, he practiced there until assuming charge of the institution with which he is now connected. The buildings of this were completed during the year 1886, and Dr. Armstrong was installed as its first Superintendent. He maintains a careful oversight of every department, and has chosen an efficient corps of assistants, so that the domestic arrangements, as well as those relating to the education of the inmates, closely approach perfection. In the development of the darkened intellects under his charge Dr. Armstrong takes the keenest interest, and his ingenuity is often taxed to the utmost to devise the best methods for their well-being, morally, mentally and physically.

The marriage of Dr. James T. Armstrong and Miss Maude Archibald, of Glenwood, Iowa, was celebrated at the home of the bride, June 30, 1881. Mrs. Armstrong was born in Nova Scotia, and was a daughter of E. T. Archibald. The parents of Mrs. Armstrong still reside in Nova Scotia. Of this union there have been born two sons--Paul C. and Osborn A. Mrs. Armstrong departed this life at her home at the institution, Sept. 27, 1887, and the Doctor's son, Osborn A., died Oct. 19, 1888, aged four years and three days.

Among the representative men of the State we are pleased to present the portrait of this well-known gentleman.

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Letter/label or doddleENRY ARLINGTON LASELLE. The name of this gentleman is recognized as that of one of the leading business men of Beatrice. Neb., of which he has been a resident since the spring of 1867. A native of the Empire State, he was born in Lebanon, Madison Co., N. Y., Aug. 5, 1838.

Our subject was the third son and fourth child of Mason A. and Dorcas (Conant) LaSelle, whose family included eleven children, six sons and five daughters, viz: W. M. LaSelle, of Beatrice; Cornelia, now Mrs. Dr. LaSelle Hutchings, of Brooklyn, N. Y.; Webster, deceased; Henry A., the subject of this sketch; Mary, now Mrs. M. E. Richmond, of St. Louis; Ophelia. now Mrs. Edwin Oatman, of Lawrence. Neb.; Flora, now Mrs. D. C. Humphrey, of Los Angeles. Cal.; Albert E. LaSelle, of Georgetown, N. Y.; L. F. LaSelle, of Beatrice, Neb. ; Ellen, now Mrs. E. C. Salisbury, of Beatrice; and Frank C. LaSelle, of Herndon, Kan.

Mason A. LaSelle, the father of our subject, was born in Madison County, N. Y., and died at his home there March 18, 1875, at the age of sixty-seven years. He followed farming his entire life, and was a plain, solid, unobstrusive citizen, who pursued the even tenor of his way, performing life's duties creditably, and living at peace with all. The mother, also a native of Madison County, N. Y., was the daughter of Deacon Conant, of Eaton, N. Y.

The paternal grandfather of our subject, Josiah LaSelle. was a native of Connecticut, and married Miss Eunice Webb, of Hartford; they moved to Lebanon, N. Y., in. 1802, and consequently were pioneers. He was quite a boy when the Revolutionary War broke out, and lived to the advanced age of ninety-three years, his death taking place at Lebanon, N. Y., in August, 1865, having lived to see the beginning and close of every war of the United States.

The parents of our subject soon after their marriage settled in Madison County,. N. Y., and there Henry A. spent his boyhood and youth on the old homestead. He pursued his studies first in the district school, and later attended Hamilton Academy. At the age of eighteen he went west with an uncle, and spent two years in Fayette County, Iowa, where he taught his first school, and assisted his uncle in opening up a new farm; returning home in 1859 he completed his studies at Oneida Conference Seminary, at Cazenovia, N. Y., where he spent two years. Soon after, the Civil War being in prog-

 

 

   

 

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ress, he enlisted in Company D, 114th New York State Volunteers, under command of Col. Elisha B. Smith. In the capacity of a soldier young LaSelle acquitted himself creditably as a noncommissioned officer, receiving many evidences of the esteem and confidence of his superior officers, and was finally assigned to detached commissary duty at New Orleans, La., having in charge a body of 1,300 men, and near the close of the war rejoined his command  in the Shenandoah Valley, Va., under Gen. Hancock, and after the assassination of Lincoln went immediately to Washington, where his regiment formed a part of the grand guard around the city during the capture of Booth and the trial of the assassins, finally taking part in the grand review of the armies of the Union at the close of the war. Capt. LaSelle received his honorable discharge at Elmira, N. Y., in June, 1865. During his services in the war he bore an honorable part in Gen. Banks' expedition to the Gulf, also in the Teche campaign west of New Orleans, was forty-two days under fire at the siege and final capture of Port Hudson; took part in the battle of Donaldsonville, and in the Franklin expedition on the Gulf to Sabine Pass, and other minor engagements. He was one of the fortunate ones of some 300 who were left of the 114th that went out full 1,000 strong, to reach home. The following winter he spent in New York City, but in the early spring of 1866 was called home to the bedside of his dying mother, and in April set his face toward the then Far West. Crossing the Missouri River he took up his abode at St. Joseph, Mo., where he spent about a year engaged in real-estate and railroad work, in the meantime visiting Nebraska, then a Territory, for the first time, and entered a quantity of Government land near Beatrice, and settled in Beatrice in the Spring of 1887, then a small outpost town of about twenty buildings. He secured by homestead and by purchase other tracts of land, and also invested a portion of his capital in a stock of general merchandise, which he opened up in a little log storeroom near the present track of the Burlington & Missouri River Railroad. For a period of fifteen years he thus engaged in trade with quite satisfactory results, but about 1882, through natural desire for change, branched out into the real-estate and loan business, and withdrew from merchandising. confining his attention to his new business, in which he has also met with success.

In April, 1875, Mr. LaSelle married a most estimable lady, Mrs. Elizabeth Crawford, of Council Bluffs, Iowa. Their marriage took place at Poughkeepsie, N. Y., where she had taken up her residence after the death of her husband, William G. Crawford, for the purpose of educating her daughter. Mr. Crawford resided for a time in Nebraska, in Territorial days, and was a member of the Legislature during the term of 1857-58, but soon after removed to Council Bluffs, where he became a prominent member of the Iowa bar. His death took place Nov. 14, 1870, at Council Bluffs.

Mrs. LaSelle was born in Ripley, Brown Co., Ohio, May 19, 1838, and is the daughter of M. M. and Sarah B. (Walker) Campbell, who were natives of Virginia, and spent their last years in Iowa and Nebraska. Of her first marriage there was born one child only, a daughter, Kittie C., who is now the wife of Joseph B. Buchanan, of Beatrice. Mr. LaSelle, politically, gives his support to the Republican party, and has been quite prominent in local affairs.

Mr. and Mrs. LaSelle are members of the Presbyterian Church. He became identified with the Beatrice church at its organization in 1869, is a Trustee and one of its chief pillars. Socially, he is a member of Rawlins Post, G. A. R., and the I. O. O. F., having passed the chairs in the lodge at Beatrice. His family residence is at No. 623 North Fifth street, corner of Washington street

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Letter/label or doddleHRISTOPHER KNOCHE is widely and favorably known in the county as one of the progressive and successful farmers and stock-raisers of Lincoln Township. where his beautiful farm of 160 acres is located on section 16. This property is part of the school land which he first leased in 1874, and continued under that arrange until 1882, when he purchased it, and has continued to improve it until the present high state of cultivation has been reached. His home is among the most pleasant, commodious and com-

 

 

   

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