In 1869, Julius A. Johnson, the owner of a large body of land in the west-central part of the county, laid out a town called Johnson, and secured a post office, of which Judd Wright was the first appointed Postmaster. The contemplated Brownville & Fort Kearney Railroad was located through the village, and for a time hopes were entertained of making there a business center. Several dwellings were erected; J. H. Claggett brought in a stock; a blacksmith started a forge. But the suspension of work on the contemplated railroad caused the blighting of hopes, and it was not until June of last year that a revival took place. The Burlington & Missouri River Railroad surveyed a line near Johnson, and determined to place a depot in the neighborhood. A new town site within forty rods of the old one was laid out by the Lincoln Land Company -- Julius A. Johnson and J. P. Miller. The buildings in the old village, consisting of one large store-house, a blacksmith shop and a dozen dwelling houses, were removed to the new town of the same name. The new railroad route has been graded through the place and the iron will be laid, depot erected and cars running by July 1, 1882. Then the people confidently look for a healthy and rapid growth. Johnson lies half way between Calvert and Tecumseh, and is beautifully situated on a rolling prairie, in the center of the most fertile section of Nemaha County. The present Postmaster is J. H. Claggett, who has a large store-house filled with general merchandise. A two-story hotel is being erected, and, as soon as the cars commence making daily trips to Johnson, the sale of lots will begin, and a first-class boom is confidently expected. J. A. Johnson & Son, the original proprietors, retain a large interest in the town property.

The settlement was made in Clifton in 1864, and the name was derived because of the surroundings of rocky hills. The first settler was W. H. Hawley. The early settlers were H. O. Kerns, H. F. Palmer, Peter Smith, B. Aldrich and D. Hughes. Clifton is on a prairie, with uneven or hilly surroundings, and is sixteen miles west-northwest of Brownville, in a well-settled neighborhood. The first child born there was Richard Hawley. Date of birth April 5, 1865. The first marriage was David Douglas to Mary Appel, in December, 1871. The first death was Eva Gilbert, in October, 1867. Mrs. M. M. Opperman taught the first school in 1869, in the Clifton Schoolhouse, which was erected in the spring of the same year on Section 3. The first sermon was preached at the house of Julius Gilbert, by Rev. Mr. Johnson, in the winter of 1867. The Clifton Post Office was established in May, 1868, and the first appointed. Benton Aldrich is still serving as Postmaster. The only "institution" in the neighborhood worthy of special mention is the farmer's circulating library, full mention of which is made elsewhere. The library company expend nearly $100 per annum for new books. Benton Aldrich has served as Librarian and Treasurer from the beginning. There is no village at Clifton--nothing but actual farmers, not even a blacksmith shop or store, and never has been.

BENTON ALDRICH, farmer and horticulturist, and Postmaster of Clifton, is a native of Cheshire County, N. H., and was born May 3, 1831. He is the son of Alfred Aldrich, of the same county, and Mary Farrar Aldrich, of Hillsboro County. Benton received a common school education as he grew to manhood on the paternal farm. In 1850, he located in St. Croix Co., Wis., and three years later removed to Winona Co., Minn., where he lived until his settlement at Clifton, in 1866. Mr. A., seventeen years ago, had barely means to buy a forty, but he went bravely to work to demonstrate that skill, economy and close attention to business may enrich even a poor farmer in Nebraska, and further to prove that it is pre-eminently a fruit-growing State, to-day he has 100 acres, and the finest showing of fruit and forest trees in his locality. A quadruple row of cottonwood and soft maple was planted around the forty first bought in 1866, as a windbreak. In 1869, 1870 and 1871, he planted an orchard of 1,100 apple trees, now in full bearing, and in addition has 2,000 trees two years old and 640 trees one year old, as thriving as trees are anywhere else in the United States, and his groves of forest trees are an encouraging sight to the new-comer to Nebraska. The Ben Davis, Wine Sap and Rawl's Jannet are Mr. A.'s favorite apples. He is also a successful breeder of swine. At his house is kept the Clifton Library, comprising over 700 volumes; 320 of these are standard works on arts and sciences, by popular writers on those topics. A complete set of the Nebraska Supreme Court decisions arrayed prevent many a lawsuit in this pleasant and intelligent community of wide-awake farmers. The books circulate among about sixty families and are purchased and owned by the Clifton Library Association, comprising B. Aldrich, Librarian and Treasurer; W. F. Wright, J. B. Johnson, Charles Blodgett, Julius Gilbert, R. Brown, C. Gilbert, H. Douze, P. Crother, W. H. Hawley, P. Smith, J. H. Dundas, Karl Aldrich and J. M. Campbell. Mr. A. gave 1876 as the date of the organization, and is very much encouraged by the result accruing therefrom. He has a pleasant home, and has kept the Clifton Post Office since 1869. He married Dec. 5,1854, in St. Croix Co., Wis., Miss Martha J., daughter of John and Hannah Smalley Harshman, of Washington Co., Penn. They have five children--Karl, Nella and Mary, born in Winona Co., Minn., Lina and Alfred, born in Nebraska. Such is a brief and imperfect sketch of the life and work of Benton Aldrich, of Clifton.

JULIUS GILBERT, farmer, P. O. Clifton, was born Nov. 12, 1823 in Camden N. Y., and is of Scotch and English lineage. He was educated in the Augusta, N. Y., Academy, learning the art of surveying among other things. At twenty, he located in Rock Co., Wis., and lived in that county until his removal to Nebraska, in 1867. He bought a homestead right, and began improvements, which have developed into his present home. A bearing orchard of 550 apple trees and fifteen acres of forest trees testify as to his care and labor. Mr. Gilbert now owns 480 acres, and is well fixed as to this world's affairs. He is a Republican of strongly abolitionist antecedents, and a member of the Christian Church. In 1871, he was elected County Surveyor, and served until 1875. He is a feeder of cattle on a large scale annually selling from eighty to a hundred head of fat cattle. Mr. Gilbert married, in Rock Co., Wis., Annie E. Coriell, and they have four children--Charlie J., Frank C., Nerva M. and Jennie D., the three eldest born in Wisconsin and the youngest in Nebraska.

Joseph Deroin, an Otoe chief, owned the land now known as St. Deroin, after whom the village was called. It is located on the bank of the Missouri River, and at the time of Deroin was on what was called the half-breed reservation. In 1854, Robert Hawke, Joseph Deroin and others laid off and named the town, and commenced a store for the sale of goods to the Otoe Indians then residing in the vicinity. In the year 1858, Deroin was killed by a man named Beddow, in a quarrel. Beddow was tried and acquitted. In 1858, the town was resurveyed by Gruner, Nuckols & Co. The following year, Judge A. J. Ritter opened a stock of general merchandise, and still continues in trade, in partnership with his son. Through his efforts a post office was established in 1861. Judge Ritter was appointed Postmaster, which office he held until 1879, when he resigned and Ray Taylor was appointed. A fine schoolhouse and a first-class flouring-mill were built in 1868. At the present time there is but one store in the village, managed by A. J. Ritter, Jr. Judge Ritter removed to Nishnabotna Station, on the Council Bluffs & St. Joe road, in Missouri, three years since, where he is merchandising. St. Deroin contains also two blacksmith shops, one hotel and one flouring-mill, run by G. W. Barnes.

This post office settlement is located about seventeen miles west of Brownville, and principally by a class of thrifty Germans, in 1856. The first settler was A. J. Behrends, Messrs. T. Caspers, J. Gelker, W. Tuxhorn, A. Fass, B. Bower. Rike Weber soon followed. The first births in the settlement were twin children, boy and girl, of Rike Weber, born in 1856. The first marriage, John Tuxhorn and Cora Williams, in 1857. The first death was that of an infant boy of B. Bower, in 1857. Messrs. W. Tuxhorn and John Tuxhorn were the first town officers. The first schoolhouse was located on Section 9, Town 4, Range 13, and was a snug frame, built in 1857. The first sermon was preached in this house in 1858, by Rev. J. Magie, an Evangelical Lutheran minister. A church was built by the same denomination in 1866, located on Section 9, Town 4, Range 13. There is no other church organization in the settlement. The Postmaster, H. Steinmar, has served since the opening of the office in 1865.

This is the name of a new railroad town platted January 20, 1882, A. T. D. Hughes, proprietor, and surveyed by George R. Shook. The station and post office name of the place is Howe, in honor of Church Howe, Esq., who owns a large body of land in the immediate neighborhood. Bedford lies four and a half miles south of Sheridan, and is located on the southeast corner of the southeast quarter of Section 10, Town 4, Range 14. Preparations are being made for the erection of several buildings. Messrs. Cowell & Co. have opened a good stock of general merchandise, soon to be followed by other business houses.

M. Y. CHESEBRO, farmer, P. O. Bratton, born in 1838, in Albany Co., N. Y. He grew up in Wyandot Co., Ohio, where William Chesebro, his father, located in 1839. In 1858, M. Y. Chesebro started for Pike's Peak, but stopped in Nebraska for a few months, long enough to locate with a land-warrant the farm which he now uses as a pasture. In 1859, he revisited Benton and located the quarter-section on which he now lives. In 1860, returned to Ohio, and there, in 1863, he married S. A. Baker, daughter of John Baker, who was born and reared in Ohio, and now lives on the ancestral farm claimed by his father in the days of Ohio's bloody early history, and transformed by him into a pleasant home, despite dense woods, wild animals and wilder Indians. In 1868, Mr. and Mrs. Chesebro settled on the Nebraska farm and remained quietly and happily until 1872. when their home burned, crops failed, and, becoming discouraged, they returned and spent four years in Ohio, returning again to Nebraska and locating on the Benton farm in 1876. Mr. C. has made good improvements here in the way of building and tree-planting. Mr. and Mrs. C. belong to the M. E. Church of Bratton; they have four children--Oren F., Nettie L., Anna June and Susan Fern. The youngest was born in Nebraska and the others in Ohio.

HON. JARVIS S. CHURCH, farmer, P. O. Howe, was a native of Springboro, Crawford Co., Penn., was born April 2, 1830. His father, the Rev. J. E. Church, was the son of a Revolutionary patriot and his mother, Julia Bailey Church, was the daughter of an English soldier who fought on that side during the war of 1776 and 1782. Until he was eighteen years old, Jarvis S. Church worked on his father's farm, he then took the scientific course at Oberlin College, alternately teaching and attending the college. In 1855, he located in Cerro Gordo Co., Iowa, where, having been admitted to the bar, he took a prominent part in the organization of the county, holding, as a Republican, the position of Treasurer and Recorder from August, 1855, one year; that of Prosecuting Attorney for the next two years, and that of County Judge for the following two years, he was Postmaster at Mason City during this time. In 1862, he was commissioned by the U. S. Marshal of the district to secure the enlistment of volunteers from the counties of Cerro Gordo and Worth to keep the quotas assigned to those counties under the several calls of the President filled up. This he did, and no draft was ever ordered from those counties. In 1866, he resigned the office of Superintendent of Common Schools of the county and that of Postmaster for Mason City and removed with his family from Cerro Gordo Co.. Iowa, to Nemaha Co., Neb., and soon after, the law firm of Tipton, Hewett & Church was formed, the senior member of which was then United States Senator; and Mr. Church became Mayor of the city of Brownville and served one year. In the fall of 1857, Mr. Church bought a half-interest in the Brownville Advertiser, and was its editor for two and a half years. In the fall of 1868, he was elected to the Legislature and served two years. From 1870 to 1875, he was engaged in speculation. In the fall of 1875 he was elected County Judge, and served one term. Then located on his large and valuable Bedford farm, where he has since resided. Judge Church married, in Cerro Gordo Co., Iowa, Mrs. Sabra L. Vanpatter. They have three living children--Bertha M., Ida E. and Hallie E. Their first-born, Lucius B. Church, a talented young man of much promise, died while attending the State University, aged twenty-two years. The Judge and wife belong to the Baptist Church.

PETER ENGLES, deceased, was born July 10, 1824, in Prussia, and was all his life a farmer. He came to America in 1847 with his widowed mother and her family, locating in La Salle County, Ill., Jan 23, 1858. He married Mary A. Meath; she was born in County Mayo. Ireland, and came with her parents to America in 1848. In 1862, Mr. and Mrs. Engles came to Nebraska with their one child, and in the fall of the next year located where the widow and family now live in Bedford. Mr. E. did good work on this half-section in way of building and improving, and became the owner of a fine section besides, in Benton Precinct, on which are four tenement houses, occupied by as many different families. Mr. E. died April 25, 1881, leaving three children--Thomas W., born in La Salle Co., Ill.; Lizzie, born in Nebraska, and now being educated in the Seminary of the Sacred Heart in St. Joseph, Mo., and Albert M., now with his mother and brother on the homestead.

JOHN HOLMAN, farmer and stock-feeder, P. O. Bratton. Mr. Holman is English by birth and instincts, and coming, in 1870, to Nebraska and to his present farm, has built up a place more closely resembling a typical farm in Old England than is to be found in Nemaha County. He has 840 acres of land, nearly all in one body; has built his home near the center of it, and laid it out after the English idea. He annually feeds about 100 head of grade Short-Horn cattle, and 200 to 300 Berkshire hogs, besides being a fancier and very successful breeder of Cotswold sheep. His sheep barn is 26x26, flanked by two sheds 80 feet in length, water for all the stock is plentifully supplied by two wind engines. He has a barn 28x52x16, and in connection a corn crib with a capacity of 2,500 bushels. His hog house is very conveniently arranged and supplied with feed-mill and all modern appliances for the comfort of his "porkers." The buildings are surrounded with groves, the farm environed and subdivided with hedges, and to make it still more like "Merry England," Mr. H. is breeding quite a pack of foxhounds, used in wolf hunts. He came here from Jo Daviess Co., Ill., and married Miss Eliza McDougal, by whom he has two children.

A. T. D. HUGHES, farmer, P. O. Howe, born in 1832 in Clarkville, Ohio. He went with his father and the family to Crawfordville, Ind., where he lived for many years. In May, 1856, he and his brother, William Hughes, came West and spent the first year on the prairie adjoining Frederick Swartz's on the north, in the Skeen neighborhood, and, in the spring of 1857, settled where he now lives, on the banks of the branch that bears his name. During the summer of 1856, he used to walk from the home of Fred Swartz, a distance of eight miles, to his claim to make the necessary improvements. Mr. H. has now a valuable half-section of land under good improvement, on which is perhaps sixty acres of timber. From 1870 to 1877, he kept the Bedford Sherman Post Office, now called Howe Post Office. In 1862 and 1863, he served in Col. R. W. Furnas' Second Nebraska Volunteers. He has been twice married, the first wife, née Caroline Smith, leaving him at her death three children. By the present wife, once Martha Grey, of Preble County, Ohio, he has seven children, all born in Nebraska. At the time of his first settlement, his neighbors in the precinct were only P. Dougherty and Hughes. He served as Justice of the Peace six years. The Missouri Pacific Railroad ran through the east side of his farm, also a station located on his land, and a town laid out called Bedford, with about twenty inhabitants and one general store.

L. D. HUGHES, farmer, P. O. Howe, is the son George Hughes and a brother of Amos Hughes, and was born in 1834 in Clarksville, Ohio. His early life was spent in Crawfordsville, Ind., and from there, in 1854, he went by the Isthmus of Panama to California, remaining until 1861 as a miner, and then enlisted in the Second California Volunteer Cavalry, and served against the Mormons and Indians, taking part in Capt. Price's memorable fight at Bear River, in which 170 whites destroyed 600 Indians. During the service, Mr. Hughes received no less than five wounds, the scars of which he still bears. He was one of the party that erected the rude stone monument over the bones of the victims of the Mountain Meadow Massacre, bearing that terribly denunciatory inscription written by a young German, Adolph Heffner. After his three years' rough army service and two years' visit to the old Indiana home, he settled where he now lives. His farm is a large and valuable one and on it he has planted about eighteen acres of orchard and forest trees. He built the tasteful two-story farmhouse, large basement barn, etc. He married in St. Joseph, Mo., Julia Trotter. They have three children--Samuel, Maud and Gussie, all born in Nebraska.

J. W. HUNTINGTON, farmer and carpenter, P. O. Nemaha City, is a native of the Isle of Nantucket, and was born May 13, 1833. In early life, he acquired the trade of carpenter, which has been his mainstay since, though he has seen much of this world's varied experiences, in Nebraska, Kansas, Iowa, Colorado and Montana, in which States he was from 1857 to 1868. Since 1869, he has lived where he now is, owning 120 acres of Section 13, Town 4, Range 14. He also owns eighty acres of land on Section 8, in this same township, which he purchased about three years ago. Mr. H. has made substantial improvements on his farm and at the same time stuck pretty closely to his trade. He married, in Denver, Colo., in 1867, Miss Abbie Tyler, a native of Virginia. Mr. H. is a Freemason, a member of Hope Lodge, Nemaha City.

JOHN M. KLECKNER, farmer, P. O. Calvert. Mr. Kleckner was born in 1839 in Snyder County, Penn, In 1852, he settled in Stephenson County, Ill., and enlisted in the Ninth Illinois Cavalry at the outbreak of the civil war. His service was in pursuing Price, Marmaduke and other guerrilla chiefs. From 1865 to 1870, he resided in Illinois; then came to Nebraska and settled on his present farm. On it he has built a large two-story house, a barn and other buildings and made other substantial improvements, planting a young orchard of about 300 thrifty trees. In 1880, he was elected County Sheriff as a Republican, served out his term and has since resided on an eighty-acre farm near his first location (which is now leased). Mr. Kleckner married Miss Rhoda A. Gice, in Stephenson County, Ill. Their three children--Katie, Amy and John, were all born in Nemaha County, Neb.

D. M. MORRIS, farmer, P. O. Howe, was born March 10, 1840, in Greene County, Penn., and is the son of Robert Morris, a farmer and carpenter, who now resides in Waynesburg, Penn. At the age of fifteen, D. M. Morris settled in La Salle County, Ill., afterward removing to Livingston County, where, in 1861, he enlisted in the Thirty-third Illinois Volunteer Infantry. His services were in Missouri, Arkansas, Louisiana, Texas, Florida and Mississippi, he also taking part in the battles of and preceding the siege of Vicksburg. Upon his return from the army, be attended the Waynesburg College for a time and taught one term in Illinois and one year in Iowa. In 1870, he located on the Nebraska farm, where he has done good work in the way of reclaiming the raw prairie that then composed it. Mr. M. has erected a commodious house and barn. and planted about ten acres of thrifty trees. He is an active and sincere advocate of Odd Fellowship, was a prominent organizer and first Noble Grand of the Sheridan Lodge, and has been District Deputy Grand Master since 1881. To him belongs the honor of erecting the first building and opened the first store, in Howe Station, of which he is Postmaster, his deputy, J. A. Crowell, occupying that same building. Mr. Morris married Miss Ella Perry. of Livingston County, Ill. They have seven children, all born on the Nebraska farm.

MATTHEW PECK, farmer, P. O. Howe, was born in 1826 in Chartres, Cambridgeshire, England. He came in 1856, joining a brother in Indiana. He married, in Vanderberg County, Ind., Mrs. M. A. Rhodes, née Powell, born in the same town with himself, and a life-long acquaintance. Her former husband, Josiah Rhodes, left five children at his death, viz., Sarah A., Josiah, Henry, Herbert R. and Ephraim. Mr. and Mrs. Peck have an only son--M. Thomas, born in Marshall County, Ill. In May, 1873, Mr. Peck bought 24 acres of his present farm, now comprising a section and a quarter of magnificent land, known far and wide as "Catalpa Grove Farm," a name given it by the Hon. Church Howe. The first catalpa trees were planted in 1874 and grown from seed brought from Illinois and planted the year before. To-day the roomy farmhouse and commodious buildings on the farm are environed by a grove of 2,500 of these beautiful trees, the only large grove in Nemaha County. Mr. Peck has three catalpa groves besides, and one of fruit trees of various kinds. His stock farm is supplied with two windmills and all needed appliances.

THOMAS B. STOCKER. farmer, P. O. Howe. Mr. Stocker is a native of Cornwall, England, where he grew to manhood on a large estate. When he was twenty-seven, he came to America, and, for several years lived in Jo Daviess County, Ill. In the spring of 1871, he came to Nebraska, and began as a herdsman for John Holman, of Benton. By hard work and careful saving. he amassed means to buy a farm of his own, and, by degrees, to stock it, though he relates that he sold the coat off his back to pay for a calf at one time. Mr. Stocker has owned and improved several farms, but that of 240 acres on which he now lives is by far the best. It is one of the best natural stock farms in the county, and is known as Spring Valley Farm, from the number of fine springs that burst forth along the little creek or branch that courses through it. The timothy, clover and rye sown here for pasturage show a wonderful growth, and all the crops bear witness as to careful, intelligent farming and a fertile soil. Mr. Stocker is one of the largest feeders of cattle and hogs in the county, and no man turns off a better class of fat stock. He has an elegant two-story frame house, two wells, and commodious yards and sheds, scales, granary, horse-barn, etc., all acquired in the last ten years.

W. H. TUCKER, farmer, P. O. Nemaha City, born May 11, 1840, in Tazewell County, Ill. He lived, after his ninth year, in Hardin County Iowa, until, after a year's residence in Cerro Gordo County, Iowa, he went upon the plains as a driver for Waddell & Russell's Salt Lake City Freight Line. In 1860, he returned to Nebraska, and, in 1861, enlisted in Company C, First Nebraska Volunteer Infantry. He was with his regiment at Forts Henry and Donelson, Shiloh, Corinth, Cape Girardeau, etc., though a wound in the breast at Shiloh disabled him for about five months. After the war he accompanied his regiment upon its expedition on the plains, serving until July, 1866. He then began again in Nebraska, settling upon eighty acres of his present quarter-section. His father, J. H. Tucker, a native of Marion County, Ky., came to Nemaha City in 1860; died there in May of the following year. A widow and six children survive him. W. H. Tucker married, in 1867, Miss Martha, daughter of William Hawks, a pioneer of 1854 in Nemaha County, and still a resident of it. Mr. and Mrs. Tucker have six children--Gillford, Harvey, Ella, Harley, Orion and Clara--all born on the Nebraska farm.

CHRISTOPHER TUCKER, farmer, P. O. Nemaha City, was born in 1835, in Marion County, Ky. He accompanied his parents, in his boyhood, to Illinois, thence to Iowa, and, in 1860, came to Nebraska, where he first bought a farm a mile or so north, living there three years, then settling on his present small, yet well-improved and productive farm. Twenty-two years ago, his only neighbors were T. C. Kinsey and the Randall and Cummins families. During 1863, he served in Col. Furnas' Second Nebraska Volunteers. He married, in Hardin County Iowa, Miss Martha Parker. They have four children--Lucretia I., Edward, Ellis P. and Augusta M. The two eldest were born in Hardin County Iowa, and the others in Nemaha County, Neb. Mr. Tucker is a Republican, and, with his family, a member of the Christian Church.

GEORGE WHEELER, farmer, P. O. Bedford, was born in 1824 in Hartley Rowe, Hampshire, England, and, in early life, traveled extensively through England, Wales, Scotland and France. He came to America in 1855, and to Brownville in 1856. Here he remained several years, and, later, owned a farm in London Precinct. Since 1868, he has lived where he now is, owning one of the finest farms in Bedford, on which he has built a substantial brick house and other buildings, planted an eight-acre orchard, composed of nearly every variety of fruit that will grow in Nebraska. He married, in Brownville, Elizabeth Smith, of Brandon, Suffolk, England. She came to America about 1845. They have three children--Frank, Charles and Rosie M. The eldest son is now owner of a fine farm near Fisher's Lake, Glen Rock.