353
BIOGRAPHICAL SOUVENIR OF BUFFALO COUNTY success, soon gave it up. He then opened a hay market in Sacramento, which he continued for one year, with considerable success. He next engaged in faro and monte, and made $150,000, after which he engaged in buying and selling cattle, which business he continued until 1868, when he returned to Kentucky, having made in all since he left, $100,000. He remained in Kentucky but a short time, and then went to Missouri and engaged in the cattle business. In 1873 he sold out his cattle interests in Missouri and came to Buffalo county, Nebr., purchasing 320 acres on the South Loup river, and went into the ranch business. In those days, deer, elk, antelope, beaver and otter were plentiful; also a great many Indians. Mr. Wright was very friendly with the Indians and could speak their language perfectly. The Indians made his place a kind of rendezvous and he used to frequently kill a heifer and treat them to a feast. In this manner he made them his friends, and while others in that region were continually having cattle stolen, he was never molested in any way. He trapped along the Loup river with the Indians and never even had a trap stolen by them.
In the early days Mr. Wright was well acquainted with Kit Carson, Pegleg Smith and Stephen Greenwood, old mountaineers.
Mr. Wright was never married and has kept bachelor's hall the greater part of his time. Politically he is a democrat and is now serving in the capacity of constable, being one of only three democrats who have ever been elected in his township, and having received sixty votes out of a total of seventy-nine.
JAMES H. MILLS was born in New York State August 13, 1843, and is a son of Nahum and Lucy (Wisewell) Mills, the former a native of Massachusetts and the latter of Vermont. The senior Mills was reared to manhood in the Green Mountain State, and the couple were married there. Subsequently they located in York State, but Mrs. Mills died in 1872, in Nebraska. Mr. Mills was a blacksmith in the early part of his life, but followed farming in the latter part. He died in 1890. Both were devoted Baptists and honored and respected by everyone.
James H. Mills, the subject of this biographical notice, is the youngest of a family of seven children, only two of whom are now living. He had no special school advantages in his early days, but notwithstanding this fact he has been a close observer and has kept himself posted on almost all the leading questions of the day. Mr. Mills was an active participant in the late war and his record is one that no man need be ashamed of. He enlisted August 11, 1862, in the One Hundred and Twenty-second New York regiment, and participated in the battles of Antietam, South Mountain, Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville and Gettysburg. He was wounded on the third day of July on the famous field of Gettysburg, from the effects of which he suffers to this day. He was struck by a bullet in the right shoulder, shattering it all to pieces. He was in the act of aiming his gun and getting ready to pull the trigger when he was shot. The ball entered his shoulder from the top, and the physicians who dressed the wound, were considerably puzzled to know how he could have been wounded in such a
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manner unless he was lying down, but he insists that he was on his feet and in the act of shooting. It was afterwards learned that the lieutenant of his company accidentally discovered a "Johnny" cleverly seated in the bow of a tree shooting Union men as fast as he could load his gun. He had already shot six of Mr. Mills' companions in the head, and it was then that the mystery was explained as to how he came to be shot in the top of the shoulder. The lieutenant who discovered the ingenious rebel in the tree pointed him out to the boys in blue and a volley from a score of muskets brought him to terra firma. Mr. Mills was confined to a hospital for two years, and to-day has but partial use of his right arm. He was mustered out of the service in May, 1865.
Mr. Mills came to Buffalo county, Nebr., in the fall of 1871 and took a homestead in Sharon township, taking the southwest quarter of section 30. He built a sod house and prepared to receive his family, who came out the following spring. The country was wild and presented a barren and forlorn appearance, but he had faith in its ultimate development and believed it was only a question of time when it would become a great country. He stood by and looked on three years in succession while the grasshoppers harvested his corn crop. The grasshoppers in those days were almost as thick as snow flakes in a blizzard, and were without doubt the most destructive army that ever invaded any country.
On April 24, 1866, Mr. Mills was married to Miss Susan Baker, a native of Vermont. This union has resulted in the birth of nine children, namely--Clayton, born March 17. 1867; Frank, born September 15, 1869; Lucy, born July 13, 1873; Lua T., born April 18, 1876 (deceased); Effie, born August 27, 1878; Ivie, born October 27, 1880 (deceased); Elvie and Elsie (twins), born October 29, 1884, and Susie, born February 3, 1888.
Mr. Mills is an honored member of the G. A. R., A. O. U. W. and Alliance organizations, and his political views have always been in accord with the principles of the republican party. He and his estimable wife are zealous members of the Methodist Episcopal church and both enjoy the confidence and esteem of thc community in which they live.
Photo of George E. Norris GEORGE E. NORRIS, one of the most prosperous and highly respected farmers of Buffalo county, traces his ancestry to Thomas and Jane (Bowers) Norris, early settlers of middle Tennessee and prominent slaveholders when slavery was the great institution of the South. Being people, however, of a strong sense of personal liberty, and possessing an inherent dislike for slavery, they gave up all rights they were entitled to under the institution, selling and freeing their slaves. They were the parents of several children, one of whom was John, the subject's father, who was born in North Carolina in 1774, and when three years of age was taken to Tennessee by his parents, who settled in Davidson county, near Nashville. He was dependent upon himself from the age of sixteen, at that age learning the blacksmith's trade and continuing at the same till he reached his thirty-second year. He then enlisted
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in the war of 1812, entering as a private and being promoted for his distinguished services in the field to the position of captain. He was in the battle of Tippecanoe and several smaller engagements. In September, 1812, a frontier post known as Pigeon Roost, Ind., was attacked by a band of hostile Indians, the only occupants of the post being William Collins and family and Captain Norris. These successfully defended the post until the flints in their guns gave out. They then stole away, bearing the small children in their arms, and made their way to the house of Zebulon Collins, a kinsman of William Collins, ten miles distant from the post. Captain Norris died in 1855. He was a devoted member of the Christian church, always zealous in advancing its interests, and was largely instrumental in establishing Bethany church in Clark county, Ind.
In politics he was an uncompromising democrat. He was united in marriage to Miss Elizabeth Epler in 1819, his wife being a native of Lancaster county, Pa., and born in 1777. She was an active member of the Christian church, and lived a life consistent with her profession, dying in 1881. Their union was blessed with ten children--Nancy and Thomas (twins), Eliza Jane, Delilah, Catherine, Zerelda (who was killed by accident at the age of sixteen), Sarah Maria, John M. (deceased), Isaac E. and George E.
George E., the subject of this sketch, was born in Clark county, Ind., in 1831. Being thrown upon his own resources he migrated to Illinois in 1857, and was there employed on a farm at $13 per month, attending school a part of the winter of that and the succeeding year. In 1852 he moved to Indiana, and after a residence there of only one year he returned to Morgan county, Ill., and there remained till 1854. That same year he took the steamer, "George Law," for California, by way of the Isthmus of Panama, and after a voyage of thirty-five days passed through the "Golden Gates," landing on the western shores of this continent, where he remained six years. The first two years he was engaged in mining, and the remaining four years in stock-raising. He then went to Chariton, Iowa, and engaged in farming and stock-raising. While there he was married, in 1866, to Anna L. Jay, a native of Trenton, Iowa. After a residence at Chariton, Iowa, of three years, they moved to Red Oak, Iowa~ and from there came to their present home in Kearney, Nebr., in 1871, settling on section 4, township 8, and range 16 west. At that time there was no town on the present site of Kearney, and Mr. Norris was obliged to haul lumber from Gibbon, fifteen miles distant, with which to build his house. He engaged in the dairy business in Kearney in 1872, and continued at this twelve years. Mr. Norris came here under the burden of debt, was legally released from payment, but being true to the principles that are characteristic of him, by hard work and economy he liquidated his indebtedness, and in addition has amassed a good-sized fortune, which was partly due to his locating so near Kearney, that prodigy in enterprise, thrift and growth, but more especially due to his foresight and superior judgment in business transactions. This he exemplified by selling a part of his homestead at $500 per acre, and the balance, excepting four and a half acres, at $100 per acre, to the West Kearney Im-
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provement Company. He owns, within a few miles of Kearney, nine hundred and forty-five acres of land, five hundred and forty of which are under cultivation. This, however, is but a part of his possessions. Mr. Norris is well and favorably known throughout the county. He has taken two degrees in the Masonic order in Iowa. Politically, he is a republican, and is now serving his second year as supervisor of his township.
Mrs. Norris is a kind and gracious woman, admired most by those who know her best. She has taught school for several years and was for some time teacher in the Chariton schools, of Chariton, Lucas county, Iowa.
To Mr. and Mrs. Norris five children have been born --George Milton and Anna L. (twins), born 1868 (the latter dying at her birth, the former two years later); Maggie Blanche, born 1873; Charles Edward, born 1875; Minnie Kate, born in 1876.
Evan Jay, the father of Mrs. George E. Norris, was a native of Indiana. He was man not to be thwarted in his purposes by unfavorable circumstances, possessed an indomitable will, and was able to bend circumstances to it. He was looked upon as a leader in matters of public interest wherever he lived. He always endorsed anything tending to educational advancement, being himself denied the privilege of school training. He was at different times engaged in farming and mercantile business, and between the years 1840-50 he was three times representative and once senator in the Iowa legislature. In politics he was a whig, and his last vote was east for Abraham Lincoln.
In 1827 he was married to Miss Hannah Way, a native of North Carolina, who is still living, and is eighty-two years old. She adheres strictly to the Quaker faith. Mr. Jay died in 1861.
To Mr. and Mrs. Jay were born nine children--Lydia, died at the age of two years, in 1830; Nathan (at the age of fifteen), died in 1845; Rebecca (twenty-one), died in 1853; Henry W. (thirty-four), died in 1868; Joseph R. (twenty-nine), died in 1866 (Henry and Joseph were both surgeons in the army); Mary Jane (three years), died in 1842. Anna L. and Evan T., a lawyer and extensive stock-raiser in Frontier county, Nebr., are the only surviving children of the family.
CARL B. SCHIECK was born at Werbustedt, Germany, November 20, 1851. His father, John G. Schieck, was born near Berlin, June 19, 1815, and was a clockmaker by trade. He served in the Revolutionary war of 1848, afterwards followed farming and for one year was postmaster of the burg in which he lived. He came to America in the fall of 1860 and made his home in Canada, where he was engaged as a lumberman and farmer until 1874. He then moved to Hall county, Nebr., but he disliked the location and started with a colony of Germans for Schneider township, Buffalo county, and there took up a land claim, which he still holds. He married Martha Fisher while still a resident of Germany. Karl B. Schieck received four years of schooling in the old country and came to America with his parents, settling with them in Canada, where he was
359BIOGRAPHICAL SOUVENIR OF BUFFALO COUNTY
reared a farmer, and then coming to Nebraska with his father. At the age of twenty-two he married Carolina Straw, and to this union have been born four children, viz. William. Emma, Henry and Royal. Mr. Schieck is Lutheran in religion, and in polities is a republican.
ISAAC WILLARD, one of the representative farmers of Buffalo county, is a native of Indiana, and was born in Johnson county, that state, March 8 1829. He is the youngest son of John Willard, a Tennessean by birth, who was one of the first settlers in Johnson county and cleared his way through the forests of that state in 1829. He died in 1836. He was by occupation a farmer, and was also a zealous member of the Baptist, church. The mother of Isaac Willard bore the maiden name of Elsie Wright. She was a native of Tennessee and died in 1833. The Willard family are of English with slight mixture of German extraction and are noted for their longevity. John Willard was the only son of a large family to die under the age of eighty years. The forefathers were soldiers in the Revolutionary war, and all lived to a good, round old age. Isaac Willard, our subject, went to live with an uncle in 1836, in Pratt county, Illinois, when he was seven years old. The territory now composing that prosperous county was then a vast wilderness, inhabited by only five families. Mr. Willard well remembers when the county seat was laid out on the Fourth of July, a few years after he went to reside with his uncle. The first appropriation made by the county board amounted to exactly thirty-seven cents. Young Willard grew to manhood in Pratt county and resided there for twenty-seven years. When he was twenty-five he began learning the carpenter trade, which he has followed more or less of the time since.
When the war broke out, Isaac Willard was among the first to respond to the call for volunteers, enlisting on the first of December, 1861, in the Sixty-third Illinois regiment. He participated in the terrible siege of Vicksburg, but only happened to be in two severe engagements after that, during his two years' service. He was discharged on December 11, 1863, on account of physical disability.
He located in Macon City, Mo., in 1864, where he did an extensive business as a contractor and builder for about nine years. In 1873, Mr. Willard came to Kearney, Nebr., where he landed on Christmas eve. He immediately investigated the new country, and at once saw its great future possibilities. He worked at his trade in Kearney for the first two years and in the meantime located a homestead in Sharon township. He located his family on this homestead, December 3, 1875, where he has since resided. He was grasshoppered two years in succession, but he never became discouraged or lost faith in the future of the country.
Mr. Willard was married March 4, 1884, to Virginia C., daughter of William Newler. The Newlers belonged to the F. F. V.'s, and, like the Willard family, are noted for their longevity. Mr. and Mrs. Willard have had three children, namely--Louie (sic) M., born in Missouri, November 25, 1872, now the wife of D. W. Scott, of
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Haxtun, Colo.; Charlie F., born August 9, 1874, and H. J. Ray, born October 97, 1878. Mr. Willard was originally a member of the whig party, but has always been a republican since the organization of that party. While he has never been an aspirant for political honors, he has filled very acceptably some important positions of public trust. He has always, however, taken a prominent part in the management of the political affairs in his county and state, and is recognized as one of the leaders of his party in the county. He has also been identified, for several years, with the agricultural society of Buffalo county, and is at this time a member of the board of management of that organization. He takes considerable pride in raising fine horses and cattle, and is considered one of the most successful fruit growers in Buffalo county. He has one hundred and twenty acres of splendid land, equipped with nearly all the modern conveniences.
H. K. SMITH. Of the many young men who came to Buffalo county, Nebr., early in the seventies, few, if any, have been more successful than the subject of this brief biographical notice. Every dollar Mr. Smith possesses has been earned by hard work. Whatever be undertakes to do he does, and does it right, too. He is intelligent as well as energetic and is noted for his ability as an excellent manager. He was born in Lawrence county, Pa., October ll, 1856, and is a son of J. P. and Sarah (Fox) Smith, both of whom are natives of the Keystone State and of German descent. His father is one of the honored pioneers of Buffalo county, having immigrated from Pennsylvania in the spring of 1871 and was the first actual settler to build a frame house north of the Wood river in Sharon township. Wild game and Indians, too, were plenty. The settler had to watch the game to kill it, and had to watch the Indian to keep from getting killed. The senior Smith came near being a victim of the terrible blizzard in April in 1873. He was some distance from home when the great storm began, and it was with much difficulty that he succeeded in reaching it safely, so blinding was the storm. It was only by the most heroic exertions that the cattle belonging to Mr. Smith were prevented from perishing during that awful storm, which lasted three days and nights. Mr. Smith shared the usual fate during the grasshopper raid, but soon recovered from its effects, and since that famous raid he has not suffered from an entire failure of crop.
When Mr. H K. Smith was twenty-five years of age he purchased a quarter section of the best land in Sharon township. Since that he has purchased more, until he has now three hundred and sixty acres of fine land. In 1886 he began contracting with the great seed house of D. M. Ferry of Detroit, to furnish vegetable seeds. He has been engaged in this enterprise since and is making a complete success of it. In 1890 he raised twenty-five acres of cucumbers, seven acres of tomatoes, fifteen acres of squashes, and thirty acres of sweet corn.
Mr. Smith was married August, 1884, the lady of his choice being Miss Fannie
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M., daughter of Jacob and Eliza (Trip) Herr. She was born in Illinois, August 14, 1868. This union has been blessed by the birth of three bright children, namely--Earl, born July 4, 1886; Lavona May, born January 12, 1888, and Elsie Grace, born September, 1889. Mr. and Mrs. Smith are members of the Methodist Episcopal church and enjoy the confidence and esteem of all who know them.
LORENZO PLUMB. Among the young men who accepted the advice of the former journalist and came West to grow up with the country, none have shown more pluck and energy than Lorenzo Plumb. He had faith in the marvelous development of the West, and early in life determined to come hither and seek a fortune. In the fall of 1871, the subject of this sketch, then about twenty-four years of age, might have been seen wandering about the boundless prairie in the eastern portion of Buffalo county in search of a suitable quarter section of land to take as a homestead. He finally made a selection of the twentieth section of what is now Sharon township, on which he immediately proceeded to erect a small frame house. No one had yet dared to settle in that immediate locality, and one could look a long way without seeing a house or even a sign of one. He was accompanied by two companions, and the trio kept "bachelors' hall," and no doubt spent the long winter evenings of 1871-2 in discussing the future possibilities of the new country. Early in the spring of 1872, Mr. Plumb purchased a span of horses and began "breaking" preparatory to planting a crop. His idea was to break and plant all he could tend with one team, and he never stopped until he had turned eighty acres of sod upside down. In 1873, the crop was rather light, but he obtained seventy-five cents a bushel for his corn, and realized handsomely, after all. His first wheat crop yielded five hundred and fifty bushels, for which he obtained a dollar per bushel. In 1874, the grasshoppers harvested his crop on shares, but the portion left him afforded a small remuneration for the trouble and expense in planting it. The festive hoppers visited the Plumb ranch three years in succession, and seemed to grow more numerous each year. This was enough to discourage even a young bachelor, and made him even wonder what the world was coming to anyhow. But the grasshopper ceased to make his annual tour, and a succession of good crops followed, and Mr. Plumb took courage and prospered.
Our subject was born in Sandusky county, Ohio, June 26, 1847, and is the son of Gerard and Emeline (Hawkins) Plumb, both of whom were natives of New York State. They immigrated to Ohio in 1835, and were among the early settlers in that region known as the Western Reserve. The senior Plumb died in 1863. He followed the quiet and peaceful vocation of a farmer, and held the office of justice of the peace for many years. The mother now resides in Ohio at the advanced age of eighty-two. They were parents of eight children--four boys and four girls, four of whom are now living. Mr. Plumb was married
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April 30, 1890, the lady whom he chose as a companion to share his fortunes being Miss Mary E. Golf, a native of Ohio, and born in 1859. He has represented Sharon township on the county board of supervisors, but has never aspired to public offices of a political nature. He now owns three hundred and twenty acres of choice land, which is already in an advanced state of cultivation. Mr. Plumb purchased most of this land from the U. P. R. R. Company for $3.00 per acre.
WALTER J. STEVEN. The subject of this sketch bears the distinction of being not only one of the first settlers of the locality where he lives, but also one of the most successful and influential citizens of his community. He has been a resident of Buffalo county since 1871, coming to the county when a comparatively young man and casting his fortunes with those of his adopted county at that date and remaining steadfastly by his choice since, passing through the grasshopper scourges, the dry years and all the hard times incident thereto. He has seen the country at its best and its worst, and probably knows as much about the ways and means of getting on amid the privations and hardships of frontier life as any man of his years and opportunities for observation and experience. Mr. Steven comes of the stock of which pioneers are made, being a Canadian by birth and of Scotch ancestry. He retains in his general make-up many of the most signal qualities of his people. That thrift, industry, strong personal energy, tenacity of purpose and marked endurance, all of which have been compressed into the phrase, "as sturdy as a Scot," he possesses, and to these he is indebted for the success he has attained. Mr. Steven is a brother of James Steven, of Shelton, a sketch of whom appears in this work, and in which will be found the facts concerning their ancestral history. He is the third of a family of eight children, was born near Ottawa, Canada, April 1, 1848, and reared in his native place, receiving a good common-school education and being trained to the habits of industry and usefulness common to farm life. He resided at his birthplace near Ottawa till 1869, when, filled with a desire to see the world and to select a place where he might locate and grow up with his surroundings, he came to the United States, and, traveling for some months in the west and northwest, finally settled on Nebraska as his permanent home and located, in 1871, in Buffalo county, buying one hundred and sixty acres of land in Sharon township, four and a half miles northwest of the town of Shelton, where he settled, and, being then unmarried, began the bachelor life of the West. His experience during the first few years of his residence was such as fell to the lot of all the old settlers. Hard work, great privations and many discouraging adversities made up the daily, monthly and yearly course of life. He pulled patiently and courageously through all those trying times, improving his place and adding by purchase from time to time to his original holdings, until he now owns eight hundred and eighty acres of good land, a large part of which he has in cultivation. He continues to reside on his old
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homestead where he first settled, having transformed it from a claim on the open prairie into a pleasant, prosperous home. To the casual observer, this transformation seems simple and natural enough, but it represents a world of experience which the casual observer knows not of. Such a place serves as a milestone on the highway to mark the progress of the country in its advance from savagery to civilization; it serves to show the capabilities of the race; it serves as an everlasting memorial of the achievements of the sturdy pioneers who opened this country to settlement; and more than all does it show the pluck, energy and endurance of the man who, moving onto it while its virgin soil was yet marked only by the track of the buffalo, reclaimed it from nature, and after numerous disastrous experiments and unrecorded failures, has finally made of it a peaceful, happy home.
In addition to being identified with the best interests of his locality as a farmer, Mr. Steven has filled the usual number of local offices, having been active in promoting the school interests of his district and serving his township as supervisor. In 1874 he married, selecting as a life companion Miss Annie M. Henninger, a daughter of one of Buffalo county's best and most popular citizens, Solomon F. Henninger, a sketch of whom appears in this work. Mrs. Steven was born in Warren county, Ohio, and was mainly reared there, coming to Nebraska with her parents in 1872. She is a lady eminently qualified to bear her husband the companionship which he sought with her hand, possessing the strong sense and many domestic virtues for which her race and sex are distinguished. Mr. and Mrs. Steven are the parents of two children--LeAnna and Edna. They have a pleasant home, and within its walls friend and stranger alike are welcome, for they both possess, in addition to their many other good qualities of head and heart, that greatest of all domestic virtues--genuine, unstinted hospitality.
AUGUSTUS HAAG, a prominent and successful farmer of Sharon township, Buffalo county, is a native of Germany, having been born in the kingdom of Wurtemburg, August 15, 1837. His father, Frederick Haag, and his mother, Eva B. Hagelstein, were both natives also of Wurtemburg, the father having been born in 1800 and dying there in 1850; the mother was born in 1801, and died in 1857. They were plain, substantial people, the father following the trade of a tanner and vine grower, at which he was fairly successful. These were the parents of five children, of whom the subject of this notice is next to the youngest, the others being George (now deceased), Christian H., John G. and Earnest.
Our subject grew up in his native place to the age of fifteen, and then, with an ambition and an amount of self-reliance not often met with in one of his years, he decided to come to America to try his fortunes. He made his first permanent stop in Indiana, and was variously engaged there till the opening of the Civil war. When the call was made for volunteers, he entered the Union army, enlisting in the fall of 1861, in Company
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E, Fifty-first Indiana infantry, and served one year, when he was discharged on account of physical disabilities contracted in the service. Returning to Indiana, he remained there only a short time and then went to New York City, but leaving there shortly afterwards he went to Newark, N.J. At that place he entered the grocery business, and was the proprietor of a grocery store for three years, and subsequently entered business as an insurance broker, which he followed up to 1877. Having married in the meantime and knowing the limited opportunities for getting on in the world, for one with a growing family, Mr. Haag made up his mind to come West in 1877, and that year he moved to Nebraska and settled in Buffalo county, taking a claim in Sharon township, where he located and has since lived, having a most pleasant home. He has become one of the most enterprising and successful farmers of his community, having thoroughly identified himself with the farming interests of his locality. He has filled the usual number of local offices, having been a member of the school board of his district and justice of the peace, and holds the position of director in the Farmer's Union Insurance Company, of the State of Nebraska. He married in June, 1873 --the lady whom he selected for a companion being Miss Elizabeth K. Storr, daughter of Rev. Isaac and Mary S. (Ancelien) Storr, then of Newark, N. J., being natives of that state, but having moved to Pennsylvania, Mrs. Haag having been born in Strausburgh, Sullivan county, that state. Her father being transferred back into New Jersey by the conference, he removed again to that state, where he died in 1866. The mother moved to Kossuth, Iowa, 1876, where she lived with the rest of her family and where she married Mr. J. L. Yost; they finally moved to Hastings, Nebr., from which place Mrs. Yost went to visit her daughter, Mrs. Haag, at Shelton, Buffalo county, where she was suddenly taken sick of pneumonia, and died in January, 1889. Three children born to Mr. and Mrs. Haag yet abide with them-- Mary E., Grace C. and Homer A.
In politics, Mr. Haag is a republican. He is a zealous member Alliance, and has been of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows.
Photo of C. S. Bailey C. S. BAILEY. Considering the great number of settlers who cast their lots in Buffalo county seventeen and eighteen years ago, the date of the greatest influx of immigration, it is a matter of frequent remark that but comparatively few now remain. The colony that located Gibbon comprised eighty-five qualified homesteaders, only about thirty of whom are now citizens of the county. Near the same date, but scattered over two or three years, about an equal number of settlers took homesteads in Shelton and Sharon townships, of whom hardly as great a proportion as the Gibbon colony now remain. One of the latter number, however, who has stood steadfastly by his first choice is C. S. Bailey, now of the town of Shelton. Mr. Bailey came to Buffalo county in the fall of 1873 and settled four miles north of the present town of Shelton, in what is now
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