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Below is a family biography included in the book,  Biographical Souvenir of the Counties of Buffalo, Kearney, Phelps, Harlan and Franklin, Nebraska published in 1890 by F. A. Battey & Company.  These biographies are valuable for genealogy research in discovering missing ancestors or filling in the details of a family tree. Family biographies often include far more information than can be found in a census record or obituary.  Details will vary with each biography but will often include the date and place of birth, parent names including mothers' maiden name, name of wife including maiden name, her parents' names, name of children (including spouses if married), former places of residence, occupation details, military service, church and social organization affiliations, and more.  There are often ancestry details included that cannot be found in any other type of genealogical record.

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SOCRATES ATWATER was born in Wells, Rutland county, Vt., January 12, 1823. His parents, Daniel and Louise (Stevens) Atwater, were both natives of the Green Mountain State. His father was born October 27, 1785, and his mother, June 27, 1795. They were married about 1816, and had ten children.

His paternal grandfather, Simeon Atwater, was a native of Vermont and a soldier in the Revolutionary war. The Atwater family are of English-French descent. The maternal grandfather of Socrates Atwater, named Stevens, was also a native of Vermont and a Revolutionary soldier. His father and mother both died on the same day, in 1861, and sleep side by side in the same grave. Both were members of the Methodist church.

Socrates Atwater, the subject of this sketch, was married, March 30, 1850, to Lydia Wendover, who was born in Butler, Wayne county, N. Y., July 11, 1831. She is a daughter of Thomas and Margaret Wendover, both natives of New York, the former having been born at Sand Lake, January 2, 1808. They have reared two children, namely — Erastus W., born July 8, 1855, and Orlando D., born December 30, 1865.

He came to Kearney county, Nebr., in 1879, and settled in Eaton township, where he purchased railroad lands, and now has three hundred and twenty acres of as fine land as lay in the state. He has taken great pains with the cultivation of trees, and he can show as thrifty a lot as one would wish to see. He has served the people of his town as justice of the peace, and is regarded as one of the representative men of the county. He has several interesting relics which carry us back to old revolutionary times, having an old flint-lock, brass-barreled horse-pistol, such as were used by cavalrymen in revolutionary days; also a powder-horn, on which is artistically carved an ingenious representation of the harbor of New York city, also showing the courses of the Hudson and Mohawk rivers, with a description of the country along each. Another interesting specimen in his collection is a British red military coat. All these were captured from the British by Mr. Atwater’s two grandfathers.

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This family biography is one of the numerous biographies included in the book, Biographical Souvenir of the Counties of Buffalo, Kearney, Phelps, Harlan and Franklin, Nebraska published in 1890 by F. A. Battey & Company. 

View additional Kearney County, Nebraska family biographies here: Kearney County, Nebraska Biographies

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