NEMAHA COUNTY, Part 12

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES (ALTHOUSE - LEWIS).

HARMAN ALTHOUSE, farmer, P. O. Sabetha, is a son of the late Conrad Althouse, a Hessian, who served as a Captain under the First Napoleon during all his campaigns from Piedmont to Waterloo. At the final downfall of that great warrior, Capt. Althouse sought and found refuge in the United States. He married in Somerset County, Pa., Susanna Workman, who survives him. The family came West to Savanna, Mo., in 1857, removing two years later to Rock Creek, where the father died in 1860, at the age of sixty-seven. His eldest son, Harman Althouse, was born 1834, in Somerset County, Pa., and married near Savanna, Mo., Miss Susanna, daughter of Abram Howard, one of the original settlers of the "Platte Purchase." Mr. Althouse settled on his present farm in 1860, and has made good and durable improvements, beginning with raw prairie. Near him lives his aged mother and his brother, John Althouse, all that now represent this family in Kansas.

J. C. BELYEA, harness-maker and dealer, was born September 9, 1840 in Canada. His early life was spent in school and in his father's store in Bronte, Canada. In 1861 he settled in St. Joseph County, Mich., and spent about ten years there as a fruit-grower. In 1871 he came to Sabetha; returned to Ohio in 1874, and for two years owned and operated a large steam stave-mill at Leipsic, Ohio, employing thirty men and making large shipments to St. Louis. In 1876 he again came to Kansas and bought and sold real estate and live stock until June, 1882, when he began his present line of trade. His wife was Miss Emily, daughter of Elijah Williams, a prominent business man of Cleveland, Ohio, the organizer and President of its Board of Trade, and a man whose accidental death in 1879 was deeply deplored. Mr. and Mrs. Belyea have two sons - Edgar A. and Herman A. Mr. Belyea is showing characteristic enterprise in pushing his new line of business, having the largest and most varied stock of harness, saddles, whips, trunks, etc., in Sabetha.

E. F. BOUTON, farmer, P. O. Sabetha, was born in Virgil, Cortland County, N. Y., April 8, 1833, and came to Albany, Kan., in 1860. Enlisted in September, 1862, in the Thirteenth Kansas Volunteer Infantry as a private; was appointed Sergeant and afterward promoted to First Sergeant:; was detailed while yet a Sergeant for duty as an officer, July 15, 1864, and was virtually in command of Company E, Seventy-ninth United States Colored Infantry, being the only officer present with it from that date till the 21st of April, 1865, when he received commission as First Lieutenant of the same Company, and continued in command till discharged, October 8, 1865. Mr. Bouton, in 1860, married Fannie E. Waldo, in Steuben County, N Y. She died in 1867, leaving two children - Rosa and Henry W. He married for his second and present wife Mrs. Nancy J. Slosson Graham, widow of John L. Graham (see sketch). They have one daughter - May L., born in 1874.

C. P. BRANIGAN liveryman, came to Kansas in 1859; spent the next three years in Colorado; settled in Washington County Kan., in 1862, and was driven out by the Indians in l864. Enlisting in Hollenburg's command, he took part in the pursuit and punishment of the "Reds." During the next six years he was farming in Rock Creek Township, and in August, 1870, built a house and the first livery barn in Sabetha. Has since been in the livery and stock business, retiring from the latter in 1881. For about five years he had the mail route from Sabetha to Pawnee City Neb. Mr. Branigan married Miss Rebecca, daughter of A. Hawkins; this lady enjoys the honor of having taught the first school in Rock Creek, first in 1859 in A. Moorehead's house, and in 1860 in J. Goodpasture's house, Sabetha.

REV. M0SES M. CHASE, farmer, P. 0. Sabetha, was born 1836, in Meigs County, Ohio. Grew to manhood there, and at the age of nineteen, went via New York and the isthmus to California; returned in the fall of 1857, and in 1858 settled in Woodson County. Kan., where he made two farms from raw prairie. In 1860 he settled on a farm, now part of the Sabetha town site, and a year later sold to I. D. Simons, and located north of Capioma, where he secured the organization of school district No. 18, and did good work at farming. In l871 he located where he now is; he has 480 acres of magnificent land in a body, and is now building a tasteful and commodious farmhouse at a cost of $2,000. His wife was Sarah Barnes, of Guernsey County, Ohio. They have six children, all born Kansans. Mr. Chase has been an elder in the Christian Church since 1873; has organized three churches, and now has charge of that number. He has also been a vigorous and effective temperance worker.

J. F. CLOUGH, editor Nemaha County Republican, and postmaster of Sabetha, was born 1847, in Oxford, Ohio, and at fifteen, while an attendant of the village school, he enlisted in the Sixty-ninth Ohio Volunteer Infantry, serving from 1861 to 1864. He was twice shot at the battle of Mission Ridge, both balls striking him simultaneously, crushing his left shoulder and piercing both lungs. After about a year in hospital, he received his honorable discharge. Founded the Monroeville, Ohio, Spectator in 1870, sold out in 1876, and in the fall of that year started the Republican at Sabetha. It is a seven column quarto, straight Republican in politics, and a well conducted and popular county newspaper. Mr. Clough has been postmaster since August, 1877.

HON. IRA F. COLLINS, of the firm of Moorehead & Collins, hardware, was born October 14, 1843, in Cass County Ill., where he grew up on a farm. Early in 1862 he enlisted as a private soldier in the One Hundred and Fourteenth Illinois Volunteer Infantry. Served under Grant at Vicksburg, and at the battle of Guntown, Miss., received a bullet in the side of his head and face; was taken prisoner and confined at Mobile and Castle Morgan until the close of the war, and with 3,000 others suffered the horrors of a regulation Southern prison pen. During 1865 he came to Sabetha, bought land on Rock Creek, and farmed it until 1870; then removed to Sabetha, where the above named firm was formed in 1872. He engaged in general mercantile business until 1877, when an intermission occurred until 1880, when the present business was commenced. Politically, Mr. Collins is a Republican. He was the first Mayor of Sabetha. He has twice represented his district in the Lower House, and is now State Senator from Brown and Nemaha Counties.

JOHN E. CORWIN of the firm of Corwin & Holdridge, was born in Fayette County, Pa., as was his father John Corwin, a first cousin of the talented and eloquent Thomas Corwin, of Ohio. J. E. Corwin lived alternately in Pennsylvania and Ohio until 1856, when he settled in Greene County, Pa. He enlisted early in 1862 in the Ninety-seventh Indiana Volunteer Infantry, serving through the entire war as a First Lieutenant under Gen. W. T. Sherman, taking part in the first siege of Vicksburg, the battles north of Atlanta, the march to Savannah and through the Carolinas. Discharged with his regiment after the "Grand Review" in 1865, he began the carpenter's trade in Indiana, and came thence, in 1872, to Sabetha. Here, as an architect and builder, he planned and built the Congregational Church and most of the substantial homes that grace Washington avenue, Sabetha. Began his present business in 1876; has been City Councilman ever since his location, and is now serving his third term as Mayor; has been Justice of the Peace four years, and belongs to the A. F. and A. M., and the I. O. O. F.

J. W. CUNNICK, A. B., principal of the public schools, is a native of Cambridge County, Pa.; graduated from Oberlin College with the class of 1880, and has since occupied his present position. It is but just to say that his repeated re-appointment to his place at the head of the city schools is the result of the high appreciation in which his services as an educator and disciplinarian are held by the tax payers of Sabetha.

O. FOUNTAIN, merchant, was born in Zanesville, Ohio, November 21, 1834; was reared and educated in Peoria County, Ill. Followed the sea for a number of years in early life, and in 1861 enlisted as a private soldier in the Forty-seventh Illinois Volunteer Infantry; was during the war, by regular promotion, commissioned Lieutenant, Captain and Major. February 1, 1864, was married to Miss Jeannie Shepherd, of Saratoga, N. Y. The same year they settled on a farm at Fairview, Brown County, Kan., making it with tree-planting and thorough culture noted throughout the country as Fairview Farm. At this place their only child, Ethel, was born, December 20, 1864, who at the age of fifteen was sent to Binghamton, N. Y., to be educated under the care of Rev. and Mrs. H. W. Shaw. In 1887 Mr. Fountain established a post-office at Fairview, and was first postmaster. In 1876 he removed to Sabetha, Nemaha County, Kan., and built the store now occupied by the Weiss Bros. In 1880 he built his present fire proof store building 26x80 feet, and is doing a large and increasing business in general merchandise. He is a member of the Masonic Order of Sabetha.

S. B. FREELOVE, farmer. P. O. Sabetha, was born in 1835, in Rutland County, Vt.; settled in Will County Ill., in 1848, and about 1856 became one of the Plainfield Battery, an organization that, with Edward McAllister as Captain, and himself as First Lieutenant, tendered its services to President Lincoln a few days prior to the bombardment of Fort Sumter. This battery was the first of the military to reach Cairo, Ill., where it remained on duty during its three months' term of service. Lieut. Freelove, however, with fifty-four men ran the patrol boat "W. H. Brown" between Cairo and St. Louis. After his term of enlistment, while stationed at Bird's Point with the battery he turned his guns on the commissary, threatening to blow the establishment to flinders unless rations heretofore refused by reason of "red tape" subterfuges, were furnished in five minutes, and, as he says: " We got 'em." Serving two months after his time he re-enlisted in the Eighth Illinois Cavalry, which heroic and reckless regiment, thoroughly detested and feared by the Rebels, took active part in the following battles: Manassas, Rappahannock Station, Mechanicsville, Seven Pines, Gaines' Mill, Savage Station, White Oak Swamp, Malvern Hill, Poolesville, Frederic, South Mountain, Boonesboro, Antietam, Martinsburg, Piedmont, Barber's Cross Roads, Little Washington, Amosville, Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville, Beverly Ford, Gettysburg (where it opened the fight), Second Boonesboro, Frankstown, First and Second Brandy Station, Culpepper, Raccoon Ford, Stevensburg, Brantsville, Second Culpepper, Mine Run and others. Private Freelove re-enlisted in the same regiment in December, 1864, and in August, 1865, was discharged with the rank of regimental Quartermaster. After the war he farmed two years in Will County, Illinois, and in other places in Illinois and Indiana, until 1879, when came to Kansas and settled where he now is. His first wife nee Ellen Smith, died in Indiana. The present Mrs. Freelove was Lucretia Aldrich, of Vermont. Her first husband, George Wyman, left her one daughter; her second, E. C. Tyrell, leaving her a son and daughter. Both deceased husbands were Union soldiers, Mr. Wyman dying in the service.

JOHN L. GRAHAM, deceased, one of the four original settlers of Albany, Nemaha Co., Kan., was born in Richford, N. Y. He was married April 7, 1853, in Maine, Broome Co., N. Y., to Nancy J. Slosson. Mr. Graham settled at Albany in April, 1857, pre-empted a quarter section of land, and engaged in farming. Mr. Graham assisted in raising Company D, Eighth Kansas Infantry, September, 1861; was chosen Second Lieutenant, and served in that capacity till the summer of 1863, when he was promoted to First Lieutenant. He held at the time of his death a commission as Captain, but had not yet been mustered. He was killed in action at the battle of Chickamauga, September 19, 1863. Capt. Graham was one of the few army officers who were never known to taste intoxicating drinks. He left two sons - Charles D. and Fred E. His widow afterward married E. F. Bouton (see sketch). Graham County, Kan., was named by the Kansas State Legislature in honor of Capt. John L. Graham.

WILLIAM GRAHAM, one of the numerous and noteworthy Graham family, which through early settlement and right living, has become well known and popular in Nemaha County, is a native of Tioga County, N. Y., born in 1834; he was reared a farmer, and came with the Albany Colony to Kansas in the spring of 1857. His farm lay just to the south of what afterward became Sabetha. Here he worked until July, 1861, when he enlisted in the Thirteenth Missouri Volunteer Infantry, and was captured with the heroic Mulligan at Lexington; was paroled and discharged; re-enlisted in November, 1861, in the Seventh Kansas Cavalry, and served through the war with that regiment. Returning to Sabetha, he was married in 1870 to Miss Sarah L. Rolyea, of Union, Broome Co., N; Y. They have one daughter - Eliza J., born in Sabetha. Mr. and Mrs. Graham are leading members of the Congregational church, of which he is a deacon. Politically he is a Republican.

G. W. GREENFIELD, farmer, P. O, Sabetha, was born September 14, 1842, in Canada. He learned the trade of carpenter, and in 1869 came to Nemaha County, Kan. With him were two brothers, James and John. The three bought each 160 acres of school land southwest of Sabetha. When G. W. Greenfield settled on his farm, not a house was visible, even in Sabetha. He began with raw prairie, and to-day has 200 acres well improved, a good house and other conveniences, orchard grove, etc. His wife was Bettie McGinty. They have a daughter - Sadie E. The parents of Mrs. Greenfield were early settlers of Brown County, Kan., where her mother now lives at the age of eighty, her father having been killed by lightning in 1860.

H. C. HAINES, merchant, began business here for himself in 1878; built his present 26x80 store in 1880 and is doing a large and steadily increasing business. The first floor is devoted to a full line of staple and fancy groceries, and a partial one of dry goods and gent's furnishing, while carpetings, clothing, trunks and books occupy the second floor; carries a stock of from $20,000 to $30,000, four and five clerks being employed. Mr. Haines was born in 1844, in Tuscarawas County, Ohio. Enlisted in 1862, in the Eighty-seventh Ohio Volunteer Infantry; was taken prisoner with Colonel Miles at Harper's Ferry, and paroled; kept books for a while for J B. Lea & Co., Philadelphia, and In 1864 enlisted in the Eleventh Maryland Volunteer Infantry, serving 100 days, and fighting at Monocacy, Md., when 6,000 Federals were finally driven back by 25 000 Rebels. At the end of 100 days he enlisted in the Fifty-first Ohio Volunteer Infantry, and was sent into Texas with his regiment, and served until November, 1865. On his discharge he settled in St. Joseph, Mo., and clerked three years for May, Weil & Co.; was then for four or five years partner of Capt. Williams, at Bigelow, Mo., where he remained until he located at Sabetha. Here he has erected a spacious and elegantly appointed home for his wife, nee Jessie Hartzell, and large family of eight children. Mr. Haines is a Congregationalist, and does not interest himself in politics, never desiring office, though now serving as President of the School Board.

ALMON HAWKINS, liveryman, settled in November 1858, near the head of Pony Creek, and engaged in farming in Brown and Nemaha Counties until 1869, when he began the butcher business in Sabetha; ran that four years, and has since been in the livery business. He was born in Rochester, N. Y. His father, Alanson Hawkins, with his father, Ebenezer Hawkins, and three brothers settled in 1826, in Vermillion County, Ill. Alanson Hawkins and wife removed thence to Kankakee County, Ill., where both died. Almon Hawkins was reared in Illinois, and married Caroline Thompson, by whom he has seven children living - Rebecca, Amanda, Hattie, Abbie, Frank, Viola and Ella.

J0SEPH HAIGH, deceased, was born in Yorkshire, England, and came to America in 1842, settling in Muskingum County, Ohio where he married Anne Mulviney. They came to Kansas in 1860. During the Civil War, Mr. Haigh served two years as a teamster. The family began poor, living in a log house with no neighbors near, and suffered much from sickness sand privation, but eventually secured a fine farm by improving the original claim, and a pleasant home by replacing the log cabin with a neat frame farmhouse. Mr. Haigh died in 1872, leaving a widow and three children, to mourn the loss of a husband and father, always to be remembered as a kind and good one.

J. S. HENDRIE, miller, was born in 1857, in Westmoreland County, Pa. Went to Sidney, Ill., March 24, 1876, and there farmed for J. B. Porterfield three years; went to Sidney to learn milling, and came to Sabetha, Kan., March 20, 1880, and after working one year for S. A. Groninger & Co., took his place as head miller in the Sabetha Mills. His father, George Hendrie, served one year in Virginia during the Rebellion as a volunteer in the One Hundredth and Seventh Pennsylvania Regiment.

J. HESSELTINE, farmer, P. O. Sabetha, was born in 1830, in Clinton County N. Y.; reared in Medina County, Ohio, where his parents, Eli and Betsey Hesseltine, settled in 1833. In the spring or 1858 he came from Marion County, Ohio, to Kansas, and his present farm, 160 acres of which he holds by virtue or the United States patent. His first night on this claim was spent by himself and family in their wagon; he then building a shanty of "sheeting;" a bed being made by driving two stakes, and placing sticks from them to the walls. His neighbors were a Z. Archer and A. Moorehead, not a house being in sight. To-day he has 720 acres in a well fenced and improved farm, and a commodious farm-house built in 1879. He married Miss Caroline Waits, of Richland County, Ohio. They have seven children, all save the eldest, born in Rock Creek Township. Mr. Hesseltine is a large feeder and breeder of cattle, and is prospering, as he ought.

E. HOLTZSCHUE, of the mercantile firm of Hammon & Holtzschue, is a native of Germany born in 1842. He came to the United States in 1864, and from 1865 to 1877 clerked in St. Joseph, Mo. The firm as now constituted was founded in 1880. Mr. Hammon resides in St. Joseph, Mr. Holtzschue managing the Sabetha branch, the store being 22x110 feet, the deepest in Northern Kansas. Four or five clerks are kept in constant employ, and a very large business transacted, as a full line of general merchandise is carried, hardware and drugs only excepted. Mr. Holtzschue is a member, with his wife, of the German Reformed Lutheran Church, has a pleasant home and three children.

W. H. HOOK, proprietor Hook's House, is the son of Capt. William Hook, who followed the sea for twenty years. In 1820, while on a voyage with his family, he touched at the Island of St. Thomas, West Indies, where W. H. Hook was born. He grew up in Bangor and Portland, Me., and removed to Carlisle, Ind.; thence in 1846 to the lead mines of Wisconsin: thence to Kansas in 1870. During that year he built Hook's Railway House, which burned down February 1, 1873. On the site he at once built the present hotel, which his genial good management has made the headquarters of commercial men in Sabetha. Mr. Hook married in Carlisle, Ind., Rebecca Arnett. They have ten children, the eldest born in Carlisle and the others in Southwestern Wisconsin. Mr. Hook is a grandson of two Revolutionary officers, who, with warrants, located large tracts of lands in Rockingham County, N. H., where W. H. Hook's parents were born and reared as neighbors of Daniel Webster.

EDWIN KNOWLES, banker, is a native of Maine, and is a son of Alfred Knowles, now of Galesburg, Ill., and himself a stockholder in five different banks.  The subject of this sketch came to Seneca, Kan., 1871, with the flouring mill belonging to himself and his father, and engaged in milling and banking until 1877, when he located in Sabetha, where he has built an elegant home, and in various ways advantageously identified himself with the place.  He was made a Director of the St. J. & W. R. R. in 1873, and has since held the position, but is best known in Kansas as a banker, being President of the Washington State Bank and the State Bank of Seneca, Kansas, Cashier of the Sabetha State Bank and a Director of the Centralia State Bank.  Mr. Knowles and wife are active members of the First Congregational Church of Sabetha, and he, since 1877, President of the State Board of Charities.  Politically, Mr. Knowles is a Republican, but he has never taken an active interest in campaigns as an aspirant for office.

W. B. LAWRENCE, farmer, P. O. Sabetha, was born in Steuben County, N. Y., in 1836, and came thence in 1858 to Albany, where he now lives. In early times he was active with W. B. Slosson and others in helping slaves across the Missouri River into Iowa via Pern and Nebraska City, Neb. In 1860 he went to Colorado and enlisted in the Second Colorado Volunteer Cavalry, and served through the war of the rebellion with his regiment. He has since resided in Albany, married Emily Stewart of his native county, and with her is a member of the Congregational Church of Sabetha. They have two children - Guy and May - both born in Albany. Mr. Lawrence is a Freemason of Sabetha Lodge No. 162.

M. A. LEWIS, farmer, P. O. Sabetha, is a native of Broome County, N. Y., and married Jennie McGregor of that county. They came to Kansas in March, 1869, and in 1871 settled where they now live. Mr. Lewis has here a valuable 160-acre farm, on which he has spared no labor during the past ten years, having erected a substantial and tasty frame farmhouse and planted about 600 fruit trees, besides fencing and hedging. He is a Republican, and Congregationalist with his wife.