220
BIOGRAPHICAL SOUVENIR OF BUFFALO COUNTY this claim, as the reservation had not then been thrown open to settlement, but as soon as it was opened he made his filing, improved his claim and got his patent to it, and has since resided there. His place lies on the lower bottomland of the Platte river and is more suitable for grazing and hay-making than for agricultural purposes. Mr. Foxworthy has not, therefore, broken out a great deal of it. Besides, hay has always been a commodity in good demand in local markets, whereas the sovereign product, corn, has not. Putting these things together as a sensible farmer would, Mr. Foxworthy has devoted his attention mainly to stock-raising and hay-making. At this he has succeeded reasonably well. Like most of the farmers who settled in Buffalo county twelve and fourteen years ago, Mr. Foxworthy began on limited means and the first few years of his residence were marked more for their hardships and privations than for the progress they witnessed in the way of making a home. What these hardships and privations were need not here be recounted. They have become part of the history of those times and it will do the subject of this sketch sufficient justice from a historical point of view to say that he passed through those times, bearing his full share, and more, of the suffering that fell to the common lot. One instance which will be decisive on this point, may here be given. Mr. Foxworthy relates that when he and his family reached the county they had just $18.00 in money and a limited amount of household goods and wearing apparel. With these they began the struggle for existence in the last and hardest year of the grasshopper season. The fact that he has succeeded as well as he has, is an admirable tribute to his pluck, energy and patient self denial, extending through long years of discouraging vicissitudes. But Mr. Foxworthy was and is the man to endure such trials. He comes of an ancestry that heroically fought similar, or, perhaps, more fiercely contested, battles on the frontier before him, and his own early training and personal experiences well fitted him for an undertaking of this character.
P. E. Foxworthy is a son of Phillip A. and Martha (Evans) Foxworthy. His father, a native of Virginia, went to Kentucky when a young man, married there, and not long afterwards moved to Indiana and settled in Morgan county in territorial days. He made that his home until his death in 1875, in the eighty-third year of his age. In his earlier years he followed the business of a carpenter -- later he devoted himself to farming. He led the life of the average farmer and met with a fair degree of success.
Mr. Foxworthy's mother, who bore the maiden name of Martha Evans, was a daughter of Andrew Evans, who moved from Kentucky to Indiana at an early day and settled in Owen county. She died in Morgan county, in September, 1843. Her husband had been married prior to his marriage to her and married again also after her death, but it is not deemed necessary to encumber this article with the details of these two marriages. The subject of this sketch is the only offspring of the marriage to Martha (Evans) Foxworthy, and with his history and lifework we are more especially concerned.
P. E. Foxworthy was born in Morgan county, Ind., in September, 1843. He had the great misfortune to lose his
221BIOGRAPHICAL SOUVENIR OF BUFFALO COUNTY
mother in his infancy, she dying when he was but two weeks old. His earlier years, however, were watched over by a kind father and he grew up under as good training as could be had at the hands of one parent. Mr. Foxworthy had just turned into his eighteenth year when the clouds of civil war burst over this country and he, like thousands of other patriotic young men when the call was made for volunteers to defend the Union, quit his plow and bravely marched to the front. He enlisted in August, 1861, as a private in Company H, Thirty third Indiana volunteer infantry, commanded by Colonel Coburn, of Indianapolis, and was assigned to duty as a drummer. His regiment left Indianapolis in September, 1861, and moved across the line into Kentucky. It saw its first service at Wildcat, Kentucky, and was in a series of skirmishes about Cmnberland gap, finally driving the confederate forces from their position there, and and after foraging for more than three months, holding the advantages thus gained, it was forced back across the Ohio river for supplies. Returning, it was engaged during the winter of 1862-63 in chasing the wily cavalry chieftain and guerrilla, John Morgan, over the mountains of Kentucky. It then moved into Tennessee, and at Franklin, that state, was formed part of the brigade sent out to capture Van Dorn's mounted infantry. In the affair at Thompson station, March 4 and 5, 1863, its casualties were thirteen killed, eighty-five wounded and four hundred and seven missing. Almost the entire regiment was captured; Mr. Foxworthy, however, luckily escaped. In January, 1864, the regiment veteranized, was placed in the Twentieth (Hooker's) corps, and immediately entered on the Atlantic campaign. Mr. Foxworthy was then carrying a musket. Beginning with the engagement at Resaca, he was in the continuous series of engagements down to Kenesaw mountain, where he was wounded June 23d, having a rib of his left side broken and an ugly hole made through him by a ball from the enemy's guns. He was sent back to Nashville for hospital treatment, and from there, as soon as able, secured a, furlough and went home. When his wounds had snfficiently healed he started back to his command, shich was then under Sherman on his "March to the Sea." But at Chattanooga, Mr. Foxworthy met Thomas on his return into Tennessee and was placed in Thomas' army and participated in the remainder of that campaign. After the defeat of Hood at Nashville he was engaged till the following spring in chasing fragments of confederate forces around through Tennessee, Georgia and Alabama. In March, 1865, he was ordered to join his own command, which was then on the Carolina campaigns. Going around by way of Washington he reached Sherman's army at Goldsboro, N.C., just before the surrender. He was present when the capitulation took place between Sherman and Johnson, returned home with his regiment and was mustered out at Indianapolis in June, 1865. The Thirty-third made a splendid record during its term of service, and inasmuch as Mr. Foxworthy was with it nearly all the time and helped to make that record, another fact or two of general interest in connection with the history of his regiment may be given here: At the date the Thirty-thirty (sic) veteranized it re-enlisted four hundred and sixty men,
222BIOGRAPHICAL SOUVENIR OF BUFFALO COUNTY
being the largest re-enlistment by more than twenty men made by any Indiana regiment. Its loss in killed and wounded was one hundred and sixteen; its loss by disease, accident and deaths in prison was one hundred and eighty-two; making a total loss of two hundred and ninety-eight. Eloquent figures, they speak volumes for the courage, endurance and heroic bearing of the "Fighting Thirty third."
At the close of the war Mr. Foxworthy resumed the peaceful pursuits of life with the same courage and sense of duty that distinguished him on the battle-field, and being then a young man with but little to go on he resolutely set about to make his way in the world in a manner becoming a man. He married in September, 1866, Miss Elizabeth Applegate, a daughter of Hezekiah and Margaret (Whittaker) Applegate, of Owen county, Ind. Mrs. Foxworthy is a native of Owen county, and is one of four children born to her parents, the others being John M., a farmer of Buffalo county; James, of Owen county, Ind.; and Juliet, wife of William Myers, of Colorado. Mrs. Foxworthy's parents were both natives of Kentucky, and were among the first settlers of Owen county, Ind., where her father died in 1874 at the age of fifty-four, and where her mother yet continues to reside.
Mr. and Mrs. Foxworthy have been the parents of five children, three of whom are now living. These children in the order of their ages are as follows -- John, who died in infancy; Ollie, who died July 4, 1888, at the age of eighteen: Clara, Alice and Cora.
Mr. and Mrs. Foxworthy are members of the Christian church, and, having been reared in a knowledge of the great truths of the gospel themselves, they are bringing up the little ones committed to their charge in the same knowledge, thus fitting them for the greatest usefulness and happiness here and hereafter.
It seems natural and in every way becoming that a man of Mr. Foxworthy's history, experience and family traditions should be a republican in polities. His first vote was cast for Abraham Lincoln when he was a candidate for the presidency the second time, and he has voted the straight ticket since.
All in all, it can be recorded of the subject of this sketch, without any stretch of language, that he is not only an old soldier of good record, but a citizen distinguished for his integrity, industry and benevolent christian character.
O. E. THOMPSON, of Shelton township, is one of the oldest settlers of Buffalo county, and one of its most intelligent and best informed citizens. He accompanied his parents to Nebraska in October, 1857, being then a mere lad. For two years and a half they resided at the village of Genoa, at the mouth of Beaver creek on Pawnee reservation, coming in March 1860 to what is now Buffalo county, and settling on Wood river, one mile west of the present town of Shelton, since which time he has resided in that vicinity excepting temporary absence when he was away in the United States service or scouting among the Indians on the plains. Thirty years in Buffalo county, Nebr., and the West! Let the reader take up a state map bearing
223BIOGRAPHICAL SOUVENIR OF BUFFALO COUNTY
the above date and one of the present time, and after refreshing his memory on the historical incidents connected with the making of this portion of the great West, let him reflect for a moment what a world of observation and an unlimited wealth of experience a man must have had who has lived for the last thirty years as far west as Buffalo county, this state. The bare mention of the fact suggests to the imagination an historical perspective seldom met with even in the lives of the oldest pioneers. Thirty years ago Nebraska had been but recently organized as a territory. The permanent settlements were confined to the Missouri river trading posts and a few inland points, while the vast territory comprised within the central and western part of the state was one unbroken prairie, threaded by a few streams and dominated by the aboriginal red man and roaming herds of buffalo. The county of Buffalo had not then been marked on the map. All that was known of its geological boundaries and physical features was known of it as part of the great valley of the Platte, which in turn formed a part of the great plains over which the persecuted Mormon and the venturous gold seeker, bound for the Pacific slope or Pike's Peak, toiled their weary way, long before the railroads had belted tile continent with their glittering bands of steel, or even the lumbering stage-coach had developed into the institution which it subsequently proved to be. "Life on the Plains!" What memories are awakened by these words. The literature of the country has been flooded for the last quarter of a century with descriptive articles, personal recollections, incidents of travel, poems and novels, all seeking to portray some phase of the pioneer's life in the West. But who yet knows what it was save the pioneer himself! "I came on the plains in the fifties or sixties," are words which when spoken by the sturdy old pioneer mean a vast deal more than the man of this day can understand. When Mr. Thompson settled on Wood river there was a stage station at Shelton, a few families scattered along the river in that vicinity. To the west, north, south and one might say to the east, the country was simply part of the unknown world so far at least as the abodes of white men were concerned. The Union Pacific railroad had not then been projected, this part of the great public domain had not then been surveyed, and the country at large was considered worthless except as a hunting-ground for the Indians. These were present in great numbers and comprised some of the most powerful and war-like tribes on the continent. The Cheyennes, Sioux and Pawnees roamed over this part of the country then, and they not unfrequently left the evidences of their savagery in murdered men and women and in desolated homes. To people of a later generation, not one in ten of whom, probably ever saw a "painted red devil," it is hard to convey an adequate idea of the terror these prowling bands of savages spread through the country, and the constant strain under which the settlers labored in consequence. Not the Indians, however, nor their freebooting white brothers of the plains formed the greatest impediment to the settlement of this country nor scattered the greatest desolation, suffering and death among the early pioneers. The invisible forces of nature and the hardships and privations almost inseparably connected
224BIOGRAPHICAL SOUVENIR OF BUFFALO COUNTY
with the opening of a new country formed the greatest obstacles to the advance of civilization, and called for the exercise of more heroic qualities than did the warding off of Indian forays and the attacks of pillaging bands of free-booters. Little do the people of this day know of the want, suffering and heart-aches which the first settlers were called on to endure. And what is here said of the old settler in general applies with special force and significance to the subject of this sketch. All that others saw and endured he saw and endured. He was among the first and he has stuck steadfastly to the home of his adoption even up to the present time.
As noted above, when Mr. Thompson came to Nebraska he was small and came with his parents. Let us take up his history and give its brief outlines.
Oliver Edwin Thompson was born in Warwickshire, England, September 16, 1846, and is the second of three children -- Hannah, Oliver Edwin, and Johnnie, born to William and Jane (Matthews) Thompson, natives of the same place. His parents immigrated to American in the spring of 1850, and settled in St. Louis, Mo., where the father died, August 4th, that year, followed later by the youngest child. The mother was re-married in 1855, being married to a country man of hers, Henry Dugdale, now remembered by the old settlers of Buffalo County as one of the pioneers of central Nebraska. The family came to Nebraska, settling, after a temporary residence on the Pawnee reservation, in Buffalo county, where the subject of this sketch was reared and began the pace of life. His earlier years were spent on the old home-place west of Shelton, and he grew up as a boy on the frontier might be expected to, alternately engaged in the stirring sports of the field with the stern contest from bread and butter. He traveled extensively, being out with freighters and scouts, and ranged all the way from central Nebraska to the Rocky mountains. December 26, 1862, being then in his seventeenth year, he entered the United States army, enlisting in Company K, Third California infantry, at Camp Douglas, Utah. He served in Utah, Colorado and Idaho, being in the frontier service and engaged in keeping down Indian and Mormon troubles. It was his command that fought the famous battle t Bear river, Idaho, on the 29th of January, 1863, where the United States troops, one hundred and fifty cavalry and ninety infantry, fought the Indians and Mormons, killing three hundred Indians out of three hundred and six engaged. Mr. Thompson gives an interesting description of that battle, fought, as it was, amid the mountains, with the snows two feet deep and hundreds of miles from civilization. He gives the Indians credit for having displayed a vast deal more courage and manhood than the Mormons; for, he says, the former fought bravely, even the squaws, old men and children bearing a part in the battle, while the latter, after having instigated the Indians to the contest, refused to give them aid. Mr. Thompson was in the United States service on the frontier till October 31, 1865, being mustered out at that dates in Denver, Colo. He served as a private, entering as a fifer, but after two months taking a gun, which he carried till the expiration of the term of his enlistment.
Returning to Buffalo county in the fall of 1865, he settled down to farming and
225BIOGRAPHICAL SOUVENIR OF BUFFALO COUNTY
stock-raising, and followed the uneventful life of a frontier bachelor till 1871, when on the 6th day of August that year, he married Miss Clara Lew, a young lady who had come to the county that spring with the Gibbon colony. Having previously taken a homestead in Shelton township, two and a half miles south and east of the budding town of Gibbon, Mr. Thompson settled there, and began the serious duties of life in earnest. He began on limited means, as did all the old settlers, and, although he had previously seen much hardship, all his ways were not ways of pleasantness, nor were his paths all paths of peace. He had his struggles with the grasshoppers, drouth, (sic) hail and hard times, and he had his courage and endurance tested to their utmost stretch, like all his neighbors who remained through all those dreary years. Mr. Thompson, however, remained steadfastly by the home of his adoption, and the gradual improvement of the country witnessed a gradual improvement in his condition. He is to-day one of the best fixed and most prosperous farmers in the county. He owns four hundred acres of land lying in Shelton township, all of which is susceptible of cultivation, and most of which he has improved and well stocked. He is one of the few men of the township who never gave a mortgage, who is out of debt, and whose paper is good in any bank in the county without collateral security.
It could hardly happen that a man who has resided in the county as long as Mr. Thompson has, and who possesses the sound intelligence and business qualifications that he does, should not have been called on to fill some positions of a public nature. He was appointed sheriff of Buffalo and Dawson counties, in February, 1870; served out an unexpired term, and was elected in the fall of 1871, and served two years, during which time he served also as register of the county, having received the appointment to that office in the meantime. He has never aspired to anything like a public life, being content to pursue his own personal affairs, in which he finds his greatest pleasure, as well as his highest reward.
This sketch, long as it is, would not be complete without further mention than has been made of the excellent lady whom Mr. Thompson selected to share his life's fortunes. Like himself, she is something of a historical character in Buffalo county. She came to the county in April, 1871, as a member of the old Soldiers' Free-Homestead Colony, being one of the two unmarried ladies of that colony. She came from West Farmington, Ohio, where she was born and reared, accompanying to this state some old friends and neighbors. She is descended from pioneer ancestry, and is, in every essential, a pioneer herself. Her father, Joseph Lew, was a native of New York, having been born near the present city of Rochester. He immigrated to Ohio, and settled on the Western Reserve, in 1832, where he some years afterwards married a lady, Miss Martha Hatch, and there lived till his death. Mrs. Thompson's mother, who is still living, being a member now of her daughter's household, is a native of Vermont, and a descendant of New England ancestry. Her father moved to Ohio in 1834, and settled on the Western Reserve. Mrs. Thompson was the only child born to her parents. She grew up in her native place, and received a good common school train-
226BIOGRAPHICAL SOUVENIR OF BUFFALO COUNTY
ing; also attended the Western Reserve seminary, West Farmington, Ohio, taking, a three years' course; commenced teaching at the age of fifteen, closing her twenty-third term of school the day before starting for Nebraska; so that when she came to Nebraska, in the general division of labor among the colonists, the position of teacher naturally fell to her. She taught the first school in the county, taking it in the summer of 1871. She taught in a sod school house, one mile west of the present town of Shelton, her district embracing all the surrounding country, she even having pupils from Hall county and old Fort Kearney, across the Platte river. She only taught one session, marrying, as already noted, in the summer of 1871, after which she joined her husband on the farm.
Mr. and Mrs. Thompson have a pleasant home, to which they welcome friend and stranger with that warmth, hospitality and tender touch of nature that makes all the world akin. They both possess intelligence and culture, and their home, conduct and conversation, give evidence of refinement not met with among all of the "old timers." Their friends are numbered by their acquaintances, and even the casual visitor retains a happy recollection of them.
WILIAM W. GIBSON. One of the oldest settlers of Gibbon township as he is one of the most industrious and highly esteemed citizens of the township, is William W. Gibson, the subject of this sketch. Mr. Gibson is a brother of A. F. Gibson of the town of Gibbon, a sketch of whom appears in this work, in which sketch will be found the facts pertaining to the ancestral history so far as they are of interest or value to this record.
William W. Gibson was born in Lawrence county, Pa., August 7, 1845, and was reared in his native place, growing up on the farm, receiving a common school education in the district schools of the community where he was reared, and being trained also to the habits of industry and usefulness that mark the farmer's life. He enlisted in the Union army at the age of twenty, entering February 1, 1865, as a member of Company B, One Hundredth Pennsylvania infantry. He saw his chief service in front of Petersburg, Va., participating in the siege of that place and taking part in the mine engagement. In this siege he was severely wounded in the right wrist by a fragment of a mortar shell. He was in the service till July 27, 1865, being mustered out at Harrisburg on that date. He served as a private and had the good fortune never to be captured or wounded. He belonged to a historic regiment, the old Hundredth being known also as the "Roundheads" and proving themselves worthy upon many a battle-field of their historic name. The regiment was present at twenty-three of the principal battles of the war, in only four of which it did not take an active part. It lost in killed and wounded eight hundred and eighty-seven men out of a total enlistment of two thousand and fourteen, all but twenty-nine of its losses occurring in actual conflict in the field, twenty-nine being the number that was lost in Confederate prisons. The number killed outright in open engagements was
227BIOGRAPHICAL SOUVENIR OF BUFFALO COUNTY
two hundred and twenty-four, being a little over eleven per cent. It fought in widely separated localities and made long journeys by sea and land.
Returning to Lawrence county when the war was over, Mr. Gibson settled down to farming and remained there till the spring of 1871, when he in company with hhs brother, A. F. Gibson, joined the Soldier's Free Homestead Colony and came to Nebraska, settling in Gibbon township, where he took a homestead and has since remained. Mr. Gibson's place lies about a mile north of the town of Gibbon, being the northeast quarter of section 12, township 9, range 13 west. He has resided on this place for more than nineteen years, taking it when it was a raw prairie bearing fresh marks of the buffalo, which had only a few years previously roamed over it undisturbed. It is now well improved, half of it being under cultivation and the remainder in pasture, furnished with comfortable buildings and ornamented with groves, natural ,and artificial. For several years after coming to the state, Mr. Gibson lived a bachelor, having too much regard for the tender feelings and gentle nature of the opposite sex to ask any woman to share with him the hardships and privations which fell to his lot in the earlier years. But with the improvement of his worldly condition, the gradual settlement of the country and the appearance of better times, he got the consent of his mind to change his lot of single blessedness, and, as was most natural in such a case, his eyes reverted to his old home in Lawrence county, Pa. In 1878, February 13th, he led to the marriage altar Miss Virginia McGary of that county, a lady whom he had known from early childhood, she, like himself, being a native of that county. Mrs. Gibson comes of Pennsylvania parentage, his (sic) father, John MeGary, having been born and reared in Lawrence county, where he always lived and where he died in 1875 at the age of sixty-two, and her mother, a native of Armstrong county and still living, being a resident of Lawrence county. Mrs. Gibson is one of a family or twelve children, of whom, besides herself, two daughters and one son reside in Buffalo county, viz.--Mrs. Mary Thompson, Miss Nan E. McGary, and James McGary. Mr. and Mrs. Gibson have only one child, John M., a bright, intelligent boy, around whom their chief hopes and ambitions gather, and who gives every evidence of being the realization of their fondest expectations.
WILLIAM ROACH. A man who has lived in Gibbon township, Buffalo county, sufficiently long to be called an old settler and a man who has been one of the most successful, as he is one of the most highly esteemed, citizens of the locality where he resides, is William Roach, the subject of this biographical notice. Mr. Roach is an Englishman by birth, having been born and reared to the age of seventeen in that famous island, which has furnished the world more navigators, explorers, pioneer settlers, empire makers and city builders than any other spot on earth. He comes of good old English stock, the Anglo-Saxon strains running through his ancestral line from time immemorial. He is a native of Cornwall, and was born October 20, 1830. His father was Thomas
228BIOGRAPHICAL SOUVENIR OF BUFFALO COUNTY
Roach, a native also of Cornwall, and his mother bore the maiden name of Jennie Hare, being a daughter of William Hare, and a native of the same county. His parents immigrated to Canada in 1847, bringing their family, but remained there only about one year, when they came across into "the states," settling in Erie county, Pa. There, after a residence of a few years, the mother died, leaving, surviving her, her husband and nine children. The father, accompanying his son, the subject of this sketch, to Nebraska, died here the 12th of June, 1888, at the advanced age of seventy-nine. He was a plain man of quiet tastes and orderly habits, having led an industrious, upright, useful life.
William Roach, our subject, was reared on the farm and adopted farming as the calling of his life. He married in Eric county, Pa., having grown to maturity in that county, the lady whom he selected for a life companion being a native of Pennsylvania, reared mainly in Erie county--Miss Caroline Ames. As his family began to grow up around him, like a thoughtful parent solicitous for the welfare of his children, Mr. Roach decided to move West, where opportunities were better for getting on in the world than in the more thickly settled communities of the East. He came to Nebraska in the fall of 1871, settling in Gibbon township, where he took a homestead about three miles north of the town of Gibbon, and where he has since resided. Starting with the limited means at his command, Mr. Roach has steadily progressed from year to year in spite of the obstacles, failures and discouragements that fell to his lot in common with most of the old settlers at an early day, and also since, until now he is one of the best-to-do farmers in Buffalo county, owning more than seven hundred acres of land, mostly in this county, a large part of which he has under cultivation, well stocked and otherwise well improved. He gives particular attention to the raising of horses, having several Norman and Clydesdale thoroughbreds and a number of high-grade animals on his place. He is a thoughtful, industrious, progressive farmer and deserves all the success he has attained.
Mr. Roach has a pleasant home, and is surrounded by an interesting family of children, having been the father of eight -- Charles, George, Frederick, Julia, Perry, Mark, Clinton and Pearly. Of these, three are deceased. The third, Frederick, was born in Erie county, Pa., September 1, 1868. Coming to Nebraska with his parents in 1871, he has been reared mainly in this state, growing up on the old home place in Gibbon township, Buffalo county. He has received a good common school education and has been reared to habits of industry and usefulness. He has always taken great interest in farming and stock-raising, being a great fancier of good horses; and with the energy, thrift and self-reliance born to his nature and encouraged by the judicious training of his father, he began to accumulate when small, and his savings have gradually grown until now; although he is but little past his twenty-first year, he is in a much better condition financially than the majority of men who are many years his seniors in age. He is a sober, intelligent, hard-working young man, and will one day be a man of wealth, position and influence.231 BIOGRAPHICAL SOUVENIR OF BUFFALO COUNTY
Photo of D. P. Ashburn D. P. ASHBURN came to Buffalo county, Nebraska, April 4, 1871, as a member of Soldiers' Free Homestead Temperance Colony, and settled at that date at Gibbon, where, with the exception of temporary absence, he has since resided. He has been identified with the leading interests of his locality, material, political and social, and is probably one of the best known as he has been one of the most active and useful men, not only of his township, but of his county and state.
Mr. Ashburn is a native of Ohio, having been born and reared in Trumbull county, that state. He was brought up on the farm, and has always been more or less interested in agricultural pursuits, having, also, in his earlier years, followed the carpenter's trade. He married in his native county, and resided there till coming to Nebraska. His original homestead, where he settled on coming to the county, lies only about a mile west of the town of Gibbon, he still holding title to it, and having resided there, more or less, since living in the county. Mr. Ashburn has been, and is now, a man of diversifies pursuits and manifold interests, and has spent not a little of his time in the public service. For the first few years after he located in Gibbon, he was mainly engaged in contracting and building, and farming. Then, when the grasshopper invasion came, followed by the dry years, and the problem of life narrowed down to a struggle for bread and butter, he was for a few years in the employ of the Union Pacific Railway Company as express messenger, running west from Omaha. Resuming his farming pursuits, with the return of good crops, in 1876, he was so engaged till 1879, when he left the farm, and moving into Gibbon, began the grain trade, building a grain elevator, which he subsequently sold to the parties who built and operate the present one there. In 1881 he built the Gibbon creamery, which he continues to own and operate, and which bears the distinction of being one of the most successful enterprises of the kind in central or western Nebraska.
Mr. Ashburn has filled a number of public offices, and has done a vast amount of labor in an official and semi-official nature. He was elected justice of the peace of Gibbon township in the fall of 1871, and held that office for one term. In the fall of 1872 he was placed in the field by his friends as the republican candidate for legislature, against the then well-known frontiersman and since celebrated showman, "Buffalo Bill," democratic candidate. Mr. Ashburn received a majority of the votes cast, but by mistake, the returns from Franklin and Harlan counties were sent to the city of Lincoln instead of the county seat of Lincoln county (North Platte), as the law required, and these returns were not before the canvassing board. The remaining returns showed a majority of "Buffalo Bill," and he received the certificate of election. Mr. Ashburn brought a contest, and producing the returns of all the counties in the district, proved his majority and was seated by a unanimous vote of the house, "Buffalo Bill" not appearing or claiming the seat. His district, the twenty-sixth, embraced all that portion of the state lying west of a line extending through the state from north to south, parallel with the east line of Buffalo and Kearney counties, thus giving him a large
PREVIOUS | NEXT
BACK to INDEX
Scans of original pages provided by Vicky Stephens
© Mona J Houser 1998, 1999, 2000 for NEGenWeb Project