spected by his political opponents, and honored by his friends. Mr. Curtis has rendered faithful service during the session on the committees on finance, ways and means, corporations, and cities and towns.

ON. RICHARD DOBSON, of Grafton, Nebraska, is one of the representatives of the thirty-seventh district in the house. He was born in Lancashire, England, January 3, 1847, and attended the common schools until he came to America in 1863. That year be worked on a farm in Otsego county, New York, and the year following drifted westward to Illinois, where be remained but four months before striking out on the overland route for California. This long journey required sixteen weeks of privation and exposure. On the Pacific coast he mined for gold and worked on the Central Pacific until 1867, when he returned to New York City by water, crossing the Isthmus of Panama. After two years' sojourn in the Empire state he again appeared in Illinois, locating in Henry county, where he married Miss Harriet E. Davis, and they have six children, two boys and four girls. In 1871 he brought his family to Fillmore county, this state, where he has since

resided. This is Representative Dobson's third term in the legislature of Nebraska, the former sessions in which he served being 1891 and 1893. In the session of 1893 he was chairman of the committee on insurance. Mr. Dobson is a conscientious, hard-working member, a populist of influence, and is a member of the committees on public lands and buildings, finance, ways and means, benevolent institutions, and labor.

ON. DEWITT EAGER, of Beaver Crossing, Nebraska represents the twenty-ninth district in the house. He was born in Oneida county, New York, April 20, 1850, and his mother died when he was but four months old, leaving a family of nine children. In 1855 his father moved with his family to Rock county, Wisconsin. His father died before the son was twelve years old, after which the boy worked and shifted as best he could until fourteen years of age, when he commenced to work for wages. He made an unsuccessful effort to enlist in the service of his country in 1864, being rejected on account of his youth. At the age of eighteen he went to Montana, landing at Diamond City, where he teamed, mined, and rustled for five years. In

1873 he came to Nebraska, took a claim in Polk county, and in 1874 married Miss Ella Taylor at Central City. In 1877 he moved onto the Pawnee Indian Reservation, and when the county of Nance was organized in 1879 he was appointed county clerk by Governor Nance. He resigned this office soon after and moved to Dawson county. In the fall of 1880 he located on a farm five miles from Beaver Crossing in Seward county. In 1885 be engaged in merchandise business at Beaver Crossing and has built the largest store room in that county, and has what is called the largest and best business of his district. He was a republican until 1890, since which time he has been a consistent, influential, and able populist. Representative Eager is chairman of the committee on apportionment, and a member of the committees on engrossed and enrolled bills, privileges and elections, benevolent institutions, and public schools.

HE fifty-sixth district is represented in the house by Hon. William G. Eastman, of Kingston. He was born in 1858 in Aurora, Illinois. His father came from Canada with a colony and settled in Illinois and afterwards became county judge, and his mother was a native of New York. William was the only child when his father died, leaving him at the age of four. At sixteen young Eastman began to shift for himself, working in the harvester manufacturing shops in Illinois. Before his seventeenth birthday he located in York county, and when nineteen years of age he married Miss Jane Hickenbottom, of Glasgow, Iowa. This event has proved the most important turning point in his life, as the union has been most happy. They have a family of five children. He was one of the early organizers in his community of the Farmers' Alliance, and became a charter member of the township alliance known as Lockridge Lodge 474. He disposed of his interests in York county and removed to Custer county, and in 1892 was elected to the board of supervisors from the seventh district. Representative Eastman, in the legislature of 1897, served as chairman of the committee on other asylums, and a member of the committees on labor, and accounts and expenditures.