B., Mary E., Lucy W., George E. and Roberta L., are at home with their parents. Mr. Austin, politically, is a sound Democrat, and in 1887 was appointed to his present office.

OHN H. McMECHAN is a practical, prosperous farmer and stock-raiser of Four Mile Precinct, and he is managing with marked success the old homestead that was once the property of his father, the late John McMechan, a well-known and widely respected pioneer of Otoe County. Our subject was born in Zanesville, Ohio, Feb. 22, 1839, coming of good old stock his ancestors representing an ancient Scotch family, one of whose members, the great-grandfather of our subject, during the Reformation settled near Belfast, Ireland, and became one of the large landowners of the Kingdom. Later, in the early years of this century, one of the scions of that house, the grandfather of our subject, a brave, high-spirited, energetic man, emigrated to America and cast in his lot with the pioneers of Ohio.
   We are pleased to be able to give so much interesting history of the life of John McMechan, the father of our subject; John McMechan died Nov. 3, 1883, at "Headwood," the family residence in Otoe County, near Nebraska City, of the infirmities incident to old age, being eighty-three years and twenty-three days old. The McMechan family is of Scotch origin, and lived in Ayrshire, but being active and leading members of the "Solemn League and Covenant," was forced by religious persecution to leave Scotland in 1650, and settled in County Antrim in Ireland, near "White Abbey," five miles from the city of Belfast. John McMechan, the father of the subject of our sketch, was a wealthy land-owner, and the family estate in Ayrshire and Antrim County numbered several thousand acres of grazing and tillable land. His wife was a Miss Mary Ballentine, daughter of David Ballentine, of Ayrshire, and grandniece of Lord John Ballentine, a cousin of Mary Queen of Scots. John McMechan was born on the 10th of October, 1800, at the family homestead, "Carmonia," near the "White Abbey," five miles from Belfast. He had four brothers and five sisters. He survived all of his brothers and two of his sisters. In 1810 the family came to America and settled in Belmont County, Ohio, eight miles from Wheeling, Va., and his father in the same year purchased the "Indian Springs" farm, so called from the springs at which the Indians camped previous to attacking Wheeling. His parents being Covenanters, were remarkably reverent in their observances of the teachings of divine truth, and he being early impressed with them grew up with an abiding sense of duty and right, and a strong hostility to false pretenses. He received a good and thorough common-school education, the best to be had in those days in that new and sparsely settled country. He also learned the lessons of a high moral culture and of industrial habits, constituting the basis of integrity and fidelity to duty, which marked his career. At the age of seventeen he engaged in mercantile pursuits, for which he was by nature admirably fitted.
   When twenty-one years of age he moved to Mt. Pleasant, Ohio, and engaged in merchandising, where he remained until 1826, when he went to Zanesville, in the same State, and on the 24th of April, 1827, he married Miss Matilda Ballentine, the second daughter of David Ballentine, of that town.
   This happy union was blessed with a family of six sons and four daughters, of whom one son and one daughter died in infancy. During his residence in Zanesville he engaged in the flouring-mill and mercantile business. In 1842 he removed from Zanesville to Glasgow, Mo., where he continued merchandising, and at this place he built and conducted the first packing-house on the Missouri River. In 1846 he removed with his family to St. Louis, Mo., where he embarked in the wholesale grocery business, under the firm name of J. S. Thompson & Co., afterward Hammill & McMechan, Worthington & McMechan, and later John McMechan, until the summer of 1853, when he closed out his business in St. Louis.
   In September, 1853, he removed to Council Bluffs, Iowa, then the principal outfitting and starting point for Utah and California emigrants,

and there he engaged in the wholesale grocery and outfitting business, and in freighting across the plains to Salt Lake City, Utah. His was the first exclusively wholesale grocery store in Council Bluffs, Iowa. When Nebraska was opened for settlement, in 1854, he was offered a portion of the town site of Omaha, but not liking the social element then predominating, on account of the Mormon element, he declined, but purchased several lots on the original town site, and for him was built one of the first business houses erected in Omaha. He closed out his business and sold his real estate at Omaha and Council Bluffs in the autumn of 1854, came to Nebraska, and became one of the original proprietors and one of the founders of Kearney City, which is now part of Nebraska City, Otoe Co., Neb. He surveyed and laid out the town site, and when the land was subject to entry, entered the same in the land-office at Omaha. In the autumn of 1854 he purchased of Hall, Platt & Co. the steam sawmill at Civil Bend, Fremont Co., Iowa, and in the spring of 1855 moved the same to the new town in Nebraska, it being the first steam sawmill erected in that place.
   On the 5th of April, 1855, the family removed to Kearney City, where the subject of this sketch built the first frame dwelling-house erected in that town. In 1857 he purchased of Ephraim White a farm two miles south of Nebraska City, in Otoe County, where the family has resided since 1863, and which when purchased was named "Headwood." Soon after buying this farm Mr. McMechan set out a fine orchard, which was one of the first planted in that part of the Territory. Mr. McMechan was a man of indomitable energy, and for him were built the "Planters' House," the first and only hotel in Kearney, now a part of Nebraska City, Neb., the business houses of T. H. & L. C. Winn & Co., Kalkman & Wessells, and the hardware store of D. B. McMechan, the first hardware store in Kearney or Nebraska City, and a large number of dwellings.
   In 1820 the elder McMechan united with the Associate Reformed Presbyterian (now United Presbyterian) Church, presided over by Rev Samuel Findley, D. D., in St. Clairsville, Ohio, and was a Ruling Elder and Trustee for seven years in the United Presbyterian Church in St. Louis, Mo., during his residence in that city. He was an earnest, energetic, zealous, consistent and generous Christian, exemplary in all the duties of religion, and putting in practice his religious belief, always encouraging churches, religion and charitable societies, and one of his first acts after settling in Nebraska was to establish a Sabbath-school, under the auspices of the church of which he was a working member. This was the first denominational Sabbath-school established in the Territory. At the same time Rev. R. H. Allen, of Mt. Pleasant, Iowa. came to Nebraska by invitation of Mr. McMechan, and held divine service in Kearney, now one of the wards of Nebraska City, and preached the first sermon delivered in the new town. The subject of this sketch possessed a truly modest, retiring, cheerful, quiet, contented, charitable and unassuming disposition; his mind was clear and his judgment had much weight, and these qualities, together with his Christian life, won for him the highest esteem of all who knew him. He possessed that stability of character which is the distinguishing mark of his countrymen. In business he was active, prompt and punctual. He gave often and lavishly to the poor and needy, and no appeal in behalf of suffering humanity ever passed him unheeded, and although a Presbyterian in his belief and views, he gave liberally to all denominations wherever he lived. The poor of this section, never knew a better friend than he who has gone from them forever. Socially, he was agreeable, entertaining and hospitable to a fault. His peculiarly happy temperament continued to the last. His perseverance in active well doing was not ostentatious, but fruitful and unceasing.
   As a citizen and town proprietor Mr. McMechan was solid and substantial, just, obliging and honorable, courteous and accommodating, heartily engaging in every movement which seemed calculated to benefit the community or society at large. He gave liberally of his property and means to everything which tended to the advancement of religious or public good, to the encouragement of men struggling in business, and to those starting in life, or to the unfortunate and deserving. In friendship his attachments were sincere, strong and confiding. As a church member he was liberal, ever ready and