My Genealogy Hound

MICHAEL HUFFMAN, one of the most highly respected men of Franklin county, Nebr., was born in Bourbon county, Ky., February 10, 1826. His father moved to Brown county, Ill., in 1833, was a farmer and blacksmith by occupation, and died in 1872. Our subject engaged in farming when he became of age, and has stuck to it ever since. He came to Franklin county, Nebr., in the fall of 1875, took a homestead and was one of the first settlers in the county. He lived in a sod house and shared fully in the vicissitudes of the early pioneers, having had his crops destroyed by the grasshoppers and laboring under other disadvantages common to the early settlement of a new country. When he came there were plenty of antelope, but the buffalo were beginning to disappear.

Mr. Huffman was married January 21, 1847, the lady of his choice being Miss Sarah Shelly, a native of Indiana. To this happy union there have been born nine children, namely — Henry, born May 23, 1848; Elizabeth, born December 26, 1849; Mary A., born November 19, 1853 (deceased); Sarah A., born June 3, 1855; Eli, born June 23, 1859; Harriet A., born April 6, 1863; Charles, born April 10, 1865, and Berdella, born August 8, 1867 (deceased), and a boy that died unnamed when eight days old.

Mr. Huffman has belonged to the Masonic organization since 1859, and is also a devoted member of the Methodist Episcopal church. He has two hundred and forty acres of choice land, which is well timbered and has plenty of fruit growing on it.

In 1850 Mr. Huffman, with the great rush of gold seekers, went to California with an ox-team, and in the spring 1852 returned by the way of Panama, having done fairly well. From 1867 to 1872 he was engaged in the milling business, with his brother Henry, in Schuyler county, Ill., on Crooked creek. His failing health was the cause of withdrawal, but he never gave up farming. The mill which they erected is still operated by Henry Huffman. In his early Nebraska days Michael Huffman’s house was a stopping place for the homesteaders that freighted their produce from the Solomon and Republican rivers, and country adjacent, to Kearney to exchange for the necessities of life, but for these accommodations Mr. Huffman made no charge whatever, and he is today noted for his cleverness and genuine hospitality.