My Genealogy Hound

RICHARD DARBYSHIRE, a young and enterprising man of Armada, Nebr., was born in Burlington, Iowa, September 16, 1859. His father, Thomas Darbyshire, was born in England and came to America when nine years of age. He lived in Iowa, principally at Burlington. He followed farming mostly, and died in 1884. Richard’s mother, who bore the maiden name of Naomi Adams, was a native of Kentucky, as were also her parents. Richard Darbyshire remained with his parents until he was twenty-one and then began farming for himself. After he had farmed a couple of years he began dealing in horses, in which business he had marked success. He came to Nebraska in 1884 and resided near Armada for two years, then bought and sold farms and made considerable money in his various real estate transactions. In 1886, he began driving the stage on the Kearney and Broken Bow line and continued for about eight months, during which he had an interesting experience. He frequently drove sixty miles a day when the thermometer registered from thirty-three to thirty-four degrees below zero, and was often compelled to shovel his way through snow banks and make schedule time in all kinds of weather. He drove for days at a time when his would be the only team on the roads. The rules of the mail service imposed a heavy fine on mail carriers for being behind time without a most satisfactory excuse, but he was never fined the entire winter, which was one of the severest in the history of the country. The Union Pacific Railway Company was fined frequently for being late with the mails that winter, but the disagreeable weather was no barrier to young Darbyshire in preventing him from delivering the mails on time. He is now in the livery business at Miller, Nebraska, and has one of the best barns in the county.