My Genealogy Hound

WILLIAM E. AUSTIN is one of the oldest settlers and most highly esteemed citizens of Logan township, Franklin county. He is a native of Massachusetts, and comes of old New England stock of great respectability, and is the fifth of a family of ten children born to John and Lodemia (Daniels) Austin. His parents were both born in Massachusetts, as were also their parents, and his father was a successful farmer and a man of some local public note. The mother was a daughter of Dan Daniels, whose father was an Irish-man by birth, an immigrant to America at an early day; a man of wealth, a lover of liberty, and a stanch supporter of the colonial cause against the mother country. He was the commander, under the British, of the fort at Boston when the Revolutionary war began, but deserted and joined the Americans. A prize was offered for his head by England on account of the part he took in the Revolution, but his head was never obtained. He used his great wealth in furthering the cause of freedom, cashing colonial script and equipping soldiers for the field. Mr. Austin’s maternal grandfather, Dan Daniels, served in the Revolution as a courier, was once captured and tried for his life, but escaped the death penalty. The family name was originally McDaniels, but Dan changed it to Daniels. Dan Daniels held a commission as justice of the peace for sixty years, the longest period of any man in Massachusetts, and held the office at the time of his death.

The subject of this notice was born June 23, 1815, and was reared in his native place, growing up on a farm. He lost his father at the age of twelve, and he, in consequence, made his way alone from that time on. He resided in Massachusetts till 1863, engaged in farming, but sold out then and moved to Iowa, where he lived till 1872. That year he came to Nebraska, settling in Logan township, Franklin county, where he has since resided. He took a homestead, filing on the northwest quarter of section 30, township 3, range 14 west, which he began at once to improve. He began in a humble way, and, as may be supposed, suffered many hardships. The first few years he lived in a dug-out. He raised a crop or two of pretty fair sod corn and then came the grasshoppers. Fortunately he had some means and thus was enabled to tide himself over that season of failure and want, but he saw much suffering on the part of others. He was at that time running a small store in his township, and such was the suffering among the settlers that he could not withstand his charitable impulses, and as a result he gave away almost all he had to his neighbors. He has been steadily engaged in farming at all times since settling in the county, and, with the exception of the grasshopper years and the dry years of 1880 and 1881, he has had good crops. He has taken an active part in developing the country and particularly the locality where he lives. When he settled there it was all open country, raw prairie and no improvements, but he has made his homestead a handsome place and has rendered much assistance to others in doing the same for themselves. The next year after settling in Logan township he secured a post office for his community, giving it the name of Macon. His son Frank was the first postmaster, and he held the office for many years. A pleasant, thrifty, village has sprung up there, and it has become the local market for the vicinity.

Mr. Austin has been married twice. He first married in 1845, taking to wife Miss Emaline Clark, a daughter of Alexander Clark of Massachusetts. By this marriage he had born to him four children — William H., John Franklin, Edward L. and Charles F., the latter dying in infancy. Mr. Austin lost his wife in 1862 while still residing in Massachusetts. He married again in 1867, his second wife having borne the maiden name of Fannie Lester, being a daughter of Thomas and Abigail (Phelps) Lester. No children have been born to this union.

In politics Mr. Austin is independent. He believes in judging every man and every measure strictly according to merit. He is also independent and non-sectarian in matters of religion, and established a non-sectarian Sunday-school in the township in 1872, which has continued to grow and prosper since, and has been a powerful factor in the moral growth and development of his community since. Mr. Austin has ideas of his own on many subjects, some of which do not agree with prevailing notions. He believes, for instance, that all land titles should be held according to the law of Moses, and he opposes, strongly, usurious interest. He is prompted to those beliefs by his warm and zealous nature and by its uncompromising hatred of wrong and over-reaching on the part of the strong and wealthy.