My Genealogy Hound

JOHN NASH. To be considered an old settler anywhere in central Nebraska does not necessarily imply that one is an old man. There are numbers of men to be found scattered over the territory covered by this volume, who are now only in middle life, but who nevertheless have seen this country when it was in the undisturbed possession of the Indians. Buffalo county, for instance, which contributes a large share of the sketches composing this work, began to be settled early in the “Seventies.” With but very few exceptions does the residence of even the oldest settlers of this county extend back of 1870 — or even a year later, 1871 — at which time the settlement of the county began in real earnest. One of the citizens of this county, not yet an old man by any means, but still a man justly entitled to be called an old settler, is John Nash, of Gibbon township. Mr. Nash settled in Buffalo county in the spring of 1877. He took a homestead at that date in the old Fort Kearney military reservation, filing on the southwest quarter of section 4, township 9, range 13 west, lying between the south and main channels of the Platte river on Elm Island. There he located, and lived for two years, at the end of which time he sold out, and, being then unmarried, struck for the Northwest. He went to Oregon, but remained there only about a year, returning to Buffalo county and purchasing a farm near his former one, and again settled. Shortly afterwards he married, and, selling out again in 1882, went to Texas, settling in Callahan county, but not liking it there came back to Nebraska and located in Buffalo county, in the vicinity of his former place of residence, since which time he has continued to reside there. Mr. Nash is a farmer, and has been steadily engaged at the buisness since he came to the state, except during what might be called his temporary absence as noted above. He is an honest, hardworking, economical man. He came to the county with no means, and began the struggle for existence as a common laborer. His ways have not been ways of pleasantness, nor have all his paths been paths of peace. He has had his share of difficulties to contend with, and he has had to meet them alone, never having had a dollar in his life that he had not made himself. Friends he has not been without, but from these he has received only the coin of friendship, “esteem.” He has relatives, but they have never been able to help him, beyond extending their sympathy and kindly encouragement. He has made his way alone, and the fact that he has done it as well as he has, although he has never attained any great degree of success, ought to be a matter of pride and pleasure to himself as it is a matter of remark by those who know him.

Mr. Nash was born in Ora township, Ontario province, Canada, and is of English and Scotch stock. His father, John Nash, was born in Somersetshire, England, and came across and settled in Canada when a young man. He there married, and, some years after, moved to the United States, settling in Michigan, where he died in July, 1881, at the age of seventy-nine. He was a farmer, a plain, unpretentious man. Coming of sturdy English ancestry, and trained to the steady-going, easy habits of his country-men, he led the life of the plodding, well-to-do Englishman, working hard, living well, and dying comparatively poor.

Mr. Nash’s mother, who, before marriage, bore the maiden name of Christina McCallum, was a daughter of Peter McCallum, and was born in Glasgow, Scotland. She was a child when her parents emigrated to Canada and settled in Ontario province. There she was reared and there married. She died in her native place in 1876, in middle life.

These, John and Christina Nash, were the parents of sixteen children, ten of whom reached maturity, and eight of whom are now living. The ten who became grown were — Peter, Elizabeth, Mary, Marion, Maggie, John, Thomas, Christina, Daniel and Mary Ann. Two of these, besides the subject of this sketch, were among the early settlers of Adams county, both since having moved on west. These were Peter and Daniel.

Mr. Nash had just turned into his twenty-first year when he came to Nebraska, having been born in 1856. He married in 1881, July 25, the lady of his choice being Miss Emma Belle McKinley. Mrs. Nash’s parents were among the first settlers of the county, coming in April, 1871, with the soldiers’ colony. Her father, Jeremiah McKinley, was born in Milesburg, Centre county, Pa., in August, 1837, was reared there, and lived there till coming to Nebraska, excepting the time that he was in the army. He enlisted in the Union service in August, 1862, entering as a private in Company F, One Hundred and Forty-eighth Pennsylvania infantry. He served in Virginia, and was in all the principal engagements up to Gettysburg, at which place he was wounded by a gunshot through the lungs, and compelled to retire from the service in consequence. He never regained his health afterwards, and finally died in November, 1872, from the effects of his wound. Mrs. Nash’s mother, who still remains as one of the original colonists, is also a native of Centre county, Pa., having been born there in March, 1835. She, too, was reared there, and there married in the fall of 1857. She is the mother of two children — Emma Belle, just mentioned, and Alma Catherine, wife of Hector Bookey. Mr. and Mrs. Nash have one child, a son, Harry Nelson.