My Genealogy Hound

ED. L. ADAMS, judge of the Kearney county court, is a native of Monroe county, Ind., was born May 24, 1861, and is the fourth of a family of seven children born to Joseph and Minerva (Whisenand) Adams. On his father’s side he comes of one of the historical families of America, being a great-grandson of Captain Samuel Adams of Revolutionary fame. Judge Adams’ father was born near Charleston, S. C., September, 1823, and was brought when a lad to Indiana by his parents, where he was reared and where he now resides, being a resident of Monroe county. He has been a life-long farmer, a man of plain tastes and industrious habits, and is a good representative of his calling.

The subject of this sketch was reared in his native county and received an ordinary common-school education. Perhaps to get a correct idea of the sort of education Judge Adams obtained, it will be necessary for the reader to lay emphasis on the word ordinary, for his school training, even with the best advantages his parents could give him, was of a very ordinary kind. Yet what he got was sufficient to arouse in him a thirst for knowledge, and he made up his mind while yet a lad that he would have an education. He sat about studying in private, and having acquired considerable knowledge in this way he started out at the age of sixteen as a teacher of country schools, beginning his career as thousands of other ambitious boys have done who have had to carve out their fortunes in the world. It was never his intention to make a professional teacher of himself. His school-room work was only to afford him the best attainable means to a higher end. He taught during the winter months in different localities in his native county, and worked during the summer months at any sort of manual labor he could find, reading and studying and perfecting himself as best he could, continuing at this for a period of nine years. In the meantime, in 1881, he married — the lady on whom his choice fell for a life companion being Miss Alta Strean, a native of Monroe county, Ind. Having determined in the meantime, also, to devote himself to one of the liberal professions, he selected law and began reading with Fulk & Mulky, of Bloomington, Ind. His law studies were pursued under some difficulties, but he kept them up as closely as possible, and never lost sight of his purpose to fit himself for a calling of usefulness and one, as he believed, of congeniality, in that of the law. In March, 1885, he moved to Nebraska and settled in Kearney county. He rented a farm in Sherman township and devoted himself for a time to agriculture, but in the fall of that year he was appointed to the position of assistant principal in the public schools at Minden, when he moved into town and assumed the role of teacher. In the fall of 1887 he was solicited to make the race for judge of the county court, a flattering recognition of his ability, but a step which he hesitated about taking. He knew that Kearney county had a large republican majority, and being a man of strong democratic principles he naturally considered his chances for an election as by no means promising. He yielded, however, to the importunities of his friends and made the race, and was elected by a majority of three hundred and sixty-three. Taking the office in January, 1888, he served the people of Kearney county for two years, at the end of which time he was re-elected and is now serving his second term. The best evidence of the satisfaction he has given is to be found in the fact of his endorsement with another term at the last election. Had he failed to give this satisfaction the people of Kearney county would have been quick to emphasize the fact at the polls, while self-sacrificing citizens would not have been lacking to have taken up the work he could not do. But Judge Adams has steadily grown in public favor. He came into notice rather suddenly, but he has met public expectation, and it may safely be said that he has passed the probationary period in his public career. He has won the esteem and respect of all citizens, even of those who differ from him widely in political faith, and has done this in the only way such things can be done, and that is by a conscientious discharge of his public duties, using his office as a public trust. He is a man of intelligence, and therefore possesses one of the first requisites of a public official, whatever the capacity he may be chosen to fill. He has a good knowledge of the law, without which he could not be a good judge; he possesses a taste and aptitude for the duties of his office, without which he could not give satisfaction, whatever his intelligence or special training in the law might be; and above all is he a polite and accomodating, genial and affable gentleman, which qualities, while they adorn the man, whatever his position, set with special grace upon him who has been elevated to a position of trust and and honor by his fellow-citizens. Judge Adams is universally and deservedly popular, and, being yet a young man, has a bright future before him.