My Genealogy Hound

JOSEPH A. WATERS is one of the most successful farmers in Buffalo county, Nebr., as his finely improved farm in Center township indicates. He was born April 1, 1847, in Coshocton county, Ohio, and is of Scotch-Irish descent; his father, Allen Waters, a farmer by occupation, having been born in Scotland, and his mother, Frances (Foster) Waters, in Ireland. There were seven children in the paternal family, Joseph being the fourth. Joseph lived at home in Ohio until about twenty-one years of age, during which time he attended the neighboring school and helped cultivate the farm. In 1867 he emigrated west and located in Scotland county, Mo., where for six years he engaged in farming and worked at the carpenter trade, which trade he still follows at odd intervals. Not being satisfied with his general surroundings in Missouri, he decided to emigrate still further west and take up government land; accordingly, in the spring of 1873, he came to Buffalo county, Nebr., and filed his claim, April 12, under the homestead law, on the quarter section in Center township on which he still resides. The country was very new at that time and settlers were few and far between. There were plenty of deer, elk and antelope and a few remaining Pawnee Indians. The first summer was put in principally at work at the carpenter trade. The following year (1874) he put out corn, oats and wheat, but harvested only a few bushels of wheat, the corn and oats having been totally destroyed by the grasshoppers. The following year he raised a fair crop, but in 1876 again lost nearly everything by the grasshoppers, but he has had good average crops ever since. In 1877, he set out trees on his farm, which are now large and thrifty and present an imposing appearance in the front of his spacious frame residence. He now has two apple orchards, which have borne fruit for five years — a very rare thing in this country — and has had extraordinary success in fruit growing.

Mr. Waters was married November 2, 1871, to Lyia A. Turner, by whom he has one child, Eva, who was born September 9, 1880, but lived to be only three weeks old. Mr. and Mrs. Waters are both members of the Methodist church. In politics, Mr. Waters is a republican.