My Genealogy Hound

BYRON H. CHRISLER is an early settler of Harlan county, an enterprising and progressive farmer and an old soldier worthy of note. He is a native of New York, and was born in Madison county, that state, in August, 1836. Unfortunately, through the loss of his parents at an early age, nothing has been preserved for him concerning his ancestral history. His father and mother died during the cholera scourge of 1838, and he, being the only child, was reared in the family of an uncle, and received such training as fell to him as a member of a large family, where there were others having better claims on the head of that family than he had. He married, in 1858, taking as a life companion Miss Louisa Fatherlas, a native of Germany. She came with her parents, Christopher and Lena Fatherlas, to America, in 1847, being then only nine years of age.

Mr. Chrisler settled on a farm in Wisconsin and industriously set about to make himself a home. He was so engaged when the clouds of civil war burst upon his unhappy country, and he, like thousands of others, patriotically offered his services for the defense of the Union, entering the army July 16, 1861, enlisting in Company G, Sixth Wisconsin infantry. His regiment served with the Army of the Potomac. He was in twelve battles and as many skirmishes. He was wounded in the battle of the Wilderness by a gunshot through the thigh, and when the ambulance was carrying him from the battle-field the team ran away and broke his arm. He was disabled from active service by reason of his wound for eight months, six of which he spent in the hospital. He was taken prisoner at the time he was wounded, but re-captured the same day. July 14, 1865, he was mustered out at Jeffersonville, Ind., getting his discharge later at Madison, Wis. His wife accompanied him throughout his entire term of service, as a volunteer hospital nurse. For nine months she was at Fairfax seminary, Virginia, and also served at other hospitals, being thus one of the few women who gave to the cause of the Union four years of the best part of her life, and to the cause of suffering humanity an amount of labor and heroic devotion on which it is not possible to place a value.

The war being over, Mr. and Mrs. Chrisler returned to Wisconsin and settled down to farming, and so continued till coming to Nebraska. He moved to this state in 1871 and settled in Harlan county, Prairie Dog township, and located a homestead on the northeast quarter of section 24, township 1, range 18 west, of which one hundred acres are under cultivation. He has a farm well stocked with high-grade cattle, good horses and improved breeds of hogs. All Mr. Chrisler now has represents the results of his patient industry and economical management; as, when he came to the county he had only a small sum of money, and this was soon used up in getting a start. During the first years of his residence he met with many disappointments and endured many hardships and privations in passing through the well-remembered grasshopper season and the period of drouths and hail-storms, all of which spread havoc right and left and entailed much suffering. Mr. Chrisler was reduced to the extremity of seeking employment away from home in order to earn bread and butter for his family. In recent years, however, he has had good crops and has met with fair success otherwise.

Mr. Chrisler has a pleasant home, his log house having given way to a sod one, and that to a commodious frame. In the labor of building a home for himself on the Western frontier he has been ably assisted by the good wife who bore him companionship during the four years of his service in the army, she sharing with him his every toil and hardship, and entering actively into all his plans and purposes.

Mr. and Mrs. Chrisler are the parents of seven children, three boys and four girls — Eliza J., who died August 30, 1860, one year old; William A., who died May 24, 1861, in infancy; Belva, died in June, 1882, age sixteen years, six months, eleven days; Ellen, died in 1875, four years; Emily L., Byron C. and Willie B.

Mr. Chrisler takes no particular interest in politics, but votes the republican ticket. He has served as school director of his school district for ten years, and has been zealous in the support of the educational interests in his community. He is a member of the Grand Army of the Republic and also of the Masonic fraternity, to each of which associations he gives his hearty sympathy and encouragement.