My Genealogy Hound

M. H. NOBLE. The observation is frequently made that the second crop of settlers in a new country always reap the fruits of the labors of the pioneers. Strictly speaking this is not correct, but the general statement contains considerable truth. The qualities that make a good pioneer do not necessarily make a successful man of the world, and it is a fact that, as a new country becomes settled up, the old-timers, as a rule, move on to the more sparsely settled districts while the new-comers pick up the desirable locations and not unfrequently monopolize the most lucrative professions and absorb the best paying business enterprises. There is something in the free and easy way of living practiced by the old settlers that seems to unfit them for coping successfully with the aggressive forces that come with the better settlement of the country. On the other hand the more newly arrived settler, fresh from the over-crowded communities of the East and thoroughly practiced in all the approved methods of getting on in the world, feels freer for his change and sees opportunities where his discouraged neighbor can not, and not being slow to avail himself of the opportunities he soon forges to the front and begins to attract attention as a man who “has come in recently but is making it pay right along.”

One of the citizens of Buffalo county who falls within the designation of “second-crop of settlers” is M. H. Noble, a representative business man of the town of Gibbon. Mr. Noble came to Buffalo county July 31, 1879, more than eight years after the town was located and the county properly opened to settlement. He had friends who were residents of Gibbon and who were among the first settlers of the place, and it was from a knowledge of the country gained through them that he decided to make his home in Nebraska. On his arrival here Mr. Noble went to work in the Gibbon mills, where he learned the business of milling. He was in the employ of the Gibbon mills for three years and a half, the last year of which time he was first miller. From the mills he went on the ranch of I. N. Davis in Valley township, four miles north of Gibbon, and there remained two years and a half. He put up the buildings on this ranch, did a large part of the fencing and superintended the breaking out of a considerable portion of it. He raised three crops and was getting in a fair way to make of the place one of the best ranches in the county, when, on account of failure of health of wife, he was forced to give up. He moved into Gibbon and bought out the half interest of James A. Kelsey in the drug house of Kelsey & Murnen, entering into partnership with Mr. Murnen, the firm becoming Murnen & Noble. Later he bought out his partner’s interest, since which time he has been alone. He has the best drug house in the town of Gibbon and one that would do credit to a town twice the size of Gibbon, carrying a clean, neat, well-selected stock and sufficiently large to meet all local demands. He drives a prosperous business and may be set down as one of the money-makers of his town.

Mr. Noble received exceptionally good training for the mercantile business in youth and doubtless his success is due, in no small measure, to the knowledge he so acquired and the methods he learned. For five years prior to coming to Nebraska he was in the mercantile establishment of William Bell & Co., of Cincinnati, Ohio, entering that establishment as cash boy and quitting it as cashier. During this time he had abundant opportunities to learn all the “ins and outs” of the mercantile business — wholesale and retail — city and country. He availed himself of these opportunities as a quick, active young fellow might be expected to, and he came away from Cincinnati with the foundation of a successful business career well laid.

Mr. Noble is a native of Clermont county, Ohio, and was born October 4, 1858. He is a son of Alfred and Susan (Longstreth) Noble, his father being a native of Virginia and his mother a native of Indiana. His father was a physician of excellent attainments, being thoroughly enamored of his profession and enjoying an extensive practice. Unfortunately for his family and for the community where he lived, he was cut off in the midst of an enviable professional career and in the prime of life. He died July 26, 1858, at the age of fifty-five.

Mr. Noble’s mother was a daughter of William Longstreth, of Philadelphia, Pa., an old, honored and useful citizen of that county. She is yet living, and is the second wife of Dr. Noble, he having been previously married and having by his former marriage two children, both of whom are now living. These are Alfred B. Noble, now a resident of Hamburg, Iowa, and Mrs. Addie Bell, wife of William H. Bell, of Knightstown, Ind. To Dr. Alfred and Susan (Longstreth) Noble were born a family of seven children. These were Julia, wife of L. C. Simpkins, of Cincinnati, Ohio; John, now a resident of Ft. Wayne, Ind., and an electrician of some note; William, a resident of Colorado; Adelia, wife of M. S. Cook, of Gibbon, Nebr.; Frank, of Rome, Ga.; Charles, of Ft. Wayne, Ind., and Milton H., whose name is placed at the head of this article. The last two are twins.

Milton H. Noble was reared in his native county, and received an ordinary common-school education. What his career might have been had his father lived to superintend his training and counsel him in the selection of his life-work, can not now of course be told. So far as this is concerned, only the sad fact remains to be recorded that he never saw his father, and that what training he got in youth was such as fell to the average boy; all he has and all he is he owes to himself, aided, as he was in his earlier years, by a kind and faithful mother.

In his domestic life Mr. Noble’s lines, like those of many others, have fallen partly in sunshine and partly in shadow. He was married, in September, 1882, to Miss Ida E. Day, of Alfred, Me. This lady died in January, 1883. He married again July 15, 1884, his second wife being Miss Blanch Seaver, a daughter of Parley Seaver, of Stockholm, St. Lawrence county, N. Y., in which city Mrs. Noble was also born.

Mr. Noble has never aspired to be more than a man of business. He has devoted himself strictly to the pursuit of his own personal affairs, to the discharge of his duties as a citizen and to those dependent on him. He is a liberal-minded, open-handed man, ready to help any worthy enterprise or deserving person to the extent of his means in an honest purpose or endeavor; and this is not the opinion of a stranger to him, but it is the report given of him by his neighbors and acquaintances who have lived by him and have done business with him for years, and whose opinions are therefore entitled to consideration on this point.