extensively over the Western country and spent two years in Utah and Colorado. Like his brother Louis, he is highly respected by all who know him, is social, genial, and is still single. He has a good education in both German and Englishis (sic), and a man who may be called one of the foremost of his precinct.
   A view of the homestead owned by Dittmer Bros. is given on the adjoining page, and from its appearance may he gathered even more fully than from a written sketch the character of the proprietors.

OSEPH L. PAYNE. The old Norse kings were rulers of a hardy race, if their legend history be true, for we are informed that "the survival of the fittest" was a primary and terrible fact in every maternal creed and practice; that the children were taken and caused to suffer exposure in their rigorous northern climate, with the result that the weakly and imperfect succumbed, and only the most robust constitutions survived the ordeal. Thus every warrior (and every man was a warrior) hall learned to endure hardness from infancy. Many of the strongest men and women of this country have become what they have simply because of the trying ordeal of earlier days. We do not hear of those who succumb, but we cannot refrain from learning the story of the "fittest survival." Among the men of Nebraska who have passed the ordeal and are now upon the tidal wave of success is he whose biography is herein sketched.
   Joseph L. Payne, the provident and flourishing farmer and stock-raiser whose farm is situated on section 4, Denton Precinct, was born on the 15th of August, 1858, in Delaware County, Pa., and is a son of Edwin W. and Alice P. Payne, natives of the same State. At the age of fifteen years it was his misfortune to be left an orphan by the death of his father, his mother having died when he was two years of age. After his mother's death he made his home from time to time with his aunt, Mrs. Lydia A. Arment, and continued to do this until he was about sixteen years of acre, remaining with her entirely after the death of his father. From the above age until he was twenty he was working upon the farm by the month, but when within a year of his majority he decided to go to Perry County, Ill., and for eighteen months worked as a farm hand.
   Lancaster County was visited by our subject in the fall of 1879, and a farm of 120 acres was leased for twenty-one years, and he has since then continued upon it. His lease provided that the "ground might be purchased from the School Commissioners at any time prior to the expiration thereof. This he accordingly did a few years since, adding it different times until his property to-day comprises 205 acres of land, all of this being in an excellent state of cultivation. The accompanying view of the property will assist to a correct understanding of its beauty, extent, character and consequent value.
   Our subject was married, Nov. 13, 1883, and became the husband of Harriet E. Giles, a daughter of James and Harriet Giles, of this precinct. Three children have been given to them, and are growing up amid surroundings and under influences incomparably in advance of anything in the early surroundings of our subject. Adjoined are the names of this interesting family: The eldest child, Alice H., was born Sept. 3, 1884; in October, two years subsequently, their second child, Edwin J., opened his eyes to the light; the baby, Walter, was born on the 1st of March of the present year, 1888.
   Our subject has come up to his present position from a very unpromising beginning; when it is considered how early in life first his mother and then his father were removed from him, the exceedingly small opportunity he had to procure an education, that he was compelled by force of circumstances to begin work at an age when most boys are still poring over their lessons, and that he had to make his own start as well as progress, it is an acknowledged fact that the advancement seen to-day is most honorable to him and the result of his continued persevering labor.
   Mr. and Mrs. Payne find their religious home in the fellowship of the Baptist Church, and he is Clerk of the church. He is also Treasurer for his school district. He uniformly and conscientiously de-

posits his ballot in favor of the "grand old party," which was born amid the throes of the country by its civil war. He is a gentleman of enterprise and industry, strongly in favor of every movement calculated to benefit the people, a friend of good morals, and in every way a highly respected citizen.

ILLIAM P. NORCROSS, President of the Firth Bank, is widely known throughout this and adjoining States as an able financier, a prominent and enterprising business man, and a large land-owner. He is a man of unbounded ambition, remarkable judgement and rare business tact. Begining life as a farmer's boy, he has met with more than ordinary success in the various vocations that he has pursued, of farmer, stockraiser, prospector, merchant and banker, and he is now numbered among the moneyed men of Nebraska.
   Mr. Norcross comes of good old Pennsylvania families, on both his father and mother's side who were descendants of English people who were among the early settlers of that State in Colonial times. His grandfather Norcross was a citizen of Pennsylvania, and served as a private during the Revolutionary War. The parents of our subject, William F. and Maria L. (Dickson) Norcross, were natives respectively of Erie County, Pa., and of Westfield, N. Y. They were married in the latter State, and subsequently settled in Erie County, Pa., where Mr. Norcross was quite prosperously engaged in farming), from 1826 to 1840. He then removed with his family to Warren County, Ill., and he there became an extensive farmer and land-owner. He now lives a retired life at Monmouth, at the age of seventy-six years, having gained by his own exertions and shrewd business policy an ample income. He has been a very energetic, capable man in his day, and the esteem and confidence in which he is held by his fellow-citizens show that his life has been honorable as well as useful. The amiable wife, who was to him a true helper and wise counselor, was early taken from him, her death occurring, in 1857, when she was but forty years old. The following are the names of the five children born to them: John (deceased), Marietta, William P., Hobart and Henry.
   William Norcross, of this sketch, was born Nov. 12, 1843, at Monmouth, Ill., where he grew to manhood, having a common experience with other boys reared on Illinois farms. He was early put to work at the plow, and performed other farm labors on his father's homestead until he was twenty-one, receiving his education in the meantime in the common school. After attaining his majority, in 1865, he was seized with the gold fever and went to Pike's Peak and prospected in the gold mines. He made quite a little sum of money, enough to give him a fair start in life, and at the end of a year returned home, and again resumed agricultural pursuits. At the age of twenty-six, in 1870, our subject was married to Miss Susan E., the accomplished daughter of George and Sarah S. (Gettie) Sickmon, natives of Buffalo, N. Y. Her father was a prosperous farmer of Monmouth, Ill., where she was born in 1840, being the second child and second daughter of the five children, two boys and three girls, born to her parents. Her education, begun in the public schools of her native town, was there completed in Monmouth College, where she displayed superior scholarship, and ranked high in her classes.
   After marriage Mr. Norcross continued farming for six years, and he then moved into the town of Monmouth, and engaged in the mercantile business for two years. He afterward went back to farming, for the next four years. He bought a 240-acre stock farm, and was extensively engaged in breeding, raising, feeding and shipping stock until 1882, when he came with his family to Nebraska and settled in Firth, where he has since resided. He engaged in the stock business here for one year, and then, in 1883, became a partner in the bank, and has ever since been connected with it, becoming the sole owner and proprietor of the institution in 1886. In the fall of that year he sold a part interest in the bank to E. R. Spencer, and they are now conducting the business together. The present bank building, of a modern style of architecture well adapted to its purpose, was erected in 1885. Besides attending to his banking business, Mr. Norcross deals largely in real estate in Lancaster and Gage Coun-