My Genealogy Hound

D. P. ASHBURN came to Buffalo county, Nebraska, April 4, 1871, as a member of the Soldiers’ Free Homestead Temperance Colony, and settled at that date at Gibbon, where, with the exception of temporary absence, he has since resided. He has been identified with the leading interests of his locality, material, political and social, and is probably one of the best known, as he has been one of the most active and useful men, not only of his township, but of his county and state.

Mr. Ashburn is a native of Ohio, having been born and reared in Trumbull county, that state. He was brought up on the farm, and has always been more or less interested in agricultural pursuits, having, also, in his earlier years, followed the carpenter’s trade. He married in his native county, and resided there till coming to Nebraska. His original homestead, where he settled on coming to the county, lies only about a mile west of the town of Gibbon, he still holding the title to it, and having resided there, more or less, since living in the county. Mr. Ashburn has been, and is now, a man of diversified pursuits and manifold interests, and has spent not a little of his time in the public service. For the first few years after he located in Gibbon, he was mainly engaged in contracting and building, and farming. Then, when the grasshopper invasion came, followed by the dry years, and the problem of life narrowed down to a struggle for bread and butter, he was for a few years in the employ of the Union Pacific Railway Company as express messenger, running west from Omaha. Resuming his farming pursuits, with the return of good crops, in 1876, he was so engaged till 1879, when he left the farm, and, moving into Gibbon, began the grain trade, building a grain elevator, which he subsequently sold to the parties who built and operate the present one there. In 1881 he built the Gibbon creamery, which he continues to own and operate, and which bears the distinction of being one of the most successful enterprises of the kind in central or western Nebraska.

Mr. Ashburn has filled a number of public offices, and has done a vast amount of labor of an official and semi official nature. He was elected justice of the peace of Gibbon township in the fall of 1871, and held that office for one term. In the fall of 1872 he was placed in the field by his friends as the republican candidate for the legislature, against the then well-known frontiersman and since celebrated showman, “Buffalo Bill,” democratic candidate. Mr. Ashburn received a majority of the votes cast, but by mistake, the returns from Franklin and Harlan counties were sent to the city of Lincoln instead of the county seat of Lincoln county (North Platte), as the law required, and these returns were not before the canvassing board. The remaining returns showed a majority for “Buffalo Bill,” and he received the certificate of election. Mr. Ashburn brought a contest, and, producing the returns of all the counties in the district, proved his majority and was seated by a unanimous vote of the house, “Buffalo Bill” not appearing or claiming the seat. His district, the twenty-sixth, embraced all that portion of the state lying west of a line extending through the state from north to south, parallel with the east line of Buffalo and Kearney counties, thus giving him a large area of country to look after. He took an active part in the general legislation before the house and in the committee rooms. During the last session of the legislature, he was selected by his county board as a delegate from his county to act in connection with others similarly selected to consider the revision, and propose measures for the recasting of the township laws of the state, and at the first meeting of those delegates, held at Columbus, he was made chairman of the convention, and at the second meeting, held at Lincoln, he was sent as a delegate from that convention, to urge before the legislature the passage of the measures proposed by the convention, nine out of twelve of which measures were passed and became laws. He also had in charge a measure from the Nebraska State Dairymen’s Association, asking for an annual appropriation of $1,000, for which he drafted a bill and secured its passage. He has been particularly active in behalf of the dairying interests of the state, being now president of the State Dairymen’s Association. He has served his township on the county board of supervisors, being the present member of the board from Gibbon township, and has been a member of the town council of Gibbon several terms, and active in its municipal affairs. In January, 1889, he was admitted to the Buffalo county bar, having since given some time and attention to the practice of law, and, in July, 1889, he was appointed postmaster at Gibbon, an office which he continues to hold.

With these interests and pursuits, Mr. Ashburn’s life has been and continues to be, an active, not to say laborious, one; yet, as exacting as his duties have been and are, he has discharged them with entire satisfaction to those concerned, and has succeeded in his own personal affairs far beyond the average of business men. It would be doing injustice to his most excellent and deserving wife not to say in this connection, that in his labors, both of a public and private nature, he has been materially assisted by her, and not a little of the success he has attained has been reached through her efficient labors and zealous co-operation. As has already been noted, Mr. Ashburn married in his native county, in Ohio. The lady whom he selected to share his life’s fortunes was Miss Emily Amanda Brown, who was reared in Trumbull county, Ohio, but was a native of New York. Mr. and Mrs. Ashburn were married August 3, 1862, since which time they have borne each other the cherished companionship which they sought with each others’ hands, and have reared, almost to maturity, an interesting family of children. For these duties, as well as for those in the more extended sphere, in which she has been called in connection with her husband’s business, Mrs. Ashburn is admirably fitted, being a lady of not only sound intelligence, but of an abundance of practical sagacity, discriminating judgment and business methods and accomplishments, possessing, withal, a well-cultured mind and a nature rich in the treasures of her sex.