Very respectfully,            
(Signed) J. W. PEARMAN.

Nebraska City, February 14, 1873.

   It was my good fortune to have known Dr. McPherson intimately and continuously from the year 1839 to the day of his death.
   My first acquaintance with him was in the winter of 1839-40. He was then preparing himself for the medical profession. To aid in defraying the expense of his pursuit he taught school during the winter season. The winter named he taught a country school in Miami county, Ohio. While a boy of sixteen, then on a farm, I was one of his pupils.
   In the year 1855 he came west, through Illinois and Iowa to Nebraska. After looking over the Missouri river counties in Nebraska he concluded to locate at Brownville, Nebraska. Returning to Ohio, he had immediate conference with me. I was a practical printer and had been publisher and editor of a newspaper in the county in which we both resided. The Doctor, through the result of some "bad debts," had fallen heir to a well-equipped printing office, in Tippecanoe, Miami county, Ohio. He proposed to give me one-half of the office if I would go with him to Brownville and publish a weekly paper for one year. I accepted. Thus it was I came to Nebraska in the spring of 1856. The paper, Nebraska Adver-

iser, made its first appearance April 6, 1856, and has been regularly and continuously published from that date to the present, being the oldest continuously published paper in Nebraska.
   Dr. McPherson was born in the township of Livonia, Livingston county, New York, December 21, 1818. He died at Republican City, Nebraska, January 2, 1901, aged eighty-two years. Although born of humble parentage, his ambition was for an education, which he gained by diligence. After attending the seminary at Lima, New York, at the age of sixteen he moved to Norwalk, Huron county, Ohio, where he completed his literary education under Professor Thompson (who afterward became bishop of the M. E. church). He then began the study of medicine under Dr. Geo. G. Baker a and Wm. F. Kitdredge, and remained three years, when he moved to Troy, Ohio, continuing his studies under Dr. Geo. Kiefer, going from there to Cincinnati and into the office of Prof. J. P. Harrison, dean of the Ohio Medical College and president of the U. S. Medical Association. He remained at the college for two years and graduated with high honors in 1847. He was married in Miami county, Ohio, in 1845, to Elizabeth Fergus. Out of eight children they have three living: Charles E., William J., and John E. Eight grandchildren and two also survive.
   Soon after graduating he located at Tippecanoe, Miami county, Ohio, and began the practice of medicine, where he remained and followed the profession for fifteen years, and during the same time carried on a very extensive business in the manufacture of linseed oil, flour, and lumber, and also in general merchandising, in which he alone employed twenty men, and in his seven or eight different branches nearly one hundred. It might be said without overestimating that he had either erected or caused to be erected over one-third of the buildings in the town, which had a population of 3,000. When he came to Brownville, Nebraska, he brought with him a stock of goods valued at $30,000, besides a large amount of money.

   At this point he carried on a large mercantile business until 1879, and in connection with this from 1863 to 1867 he conducted a steam flour and sawmill. He also opened a large cigar manufactory, continuing it for three years. He was a member of two territorial constitutional conventions, and at both he voted against admitting the territory as a state, and in 1863 he succeeded T. W. Tipton to the state senate.
   The medical department of Brownville College was organized in December, 1875, with Dr. McPherson as professor of therapeutics.
   An act to incorporate an institute for the deaf and dumb passed the Nebraska legislature and took effect in February, 1867, (Neb. Statute, 1873, chap. 16. "Be it enacted by the council and house of representatives of the territory of Nebraska that A. Bowers, A. L. Childs, E. H. Rogers, John S. Bowen, G. C. Monell, and John McPherson be and they are hereby incorporated and made a body politic and corporate with perpetual existence by the name of 'The Institute for the Deaf and Dumb.'") These gentlemen, through arduous labor, placed the institute on a firm basis, and afterwards the state, becoming envious of their success, took it under her own wing. He also turned his attention largely to farming, accumulating some 3,000 acres, and at about the same time erected the McPherson block in Brownville at an expense of $50,000.
   In 1872 Dr. McPherson sold out his milling and other property, and in company with his son Charles went to Republican City, Nebraska, and laid out the town site. He went to Cincinnati, Ohio, purchased and shipped a new flour and sawmill, which burned two years later. He carried on an extensive business, which he sold to his son, C. E. McPherson, in 1886. He had always taken an active part in all affairs that have tended to build up the town. When the McPherson Normal College was incorporated at Republican City he took $2,000 of the stock. His life has been an active one and now he rests well.

   Dr. MacMurtry, who preached Dr. McPherson's funeral sermon, added this tribute to his memory, which I cheerfully make a part of this paper:
   "The occasion has suggested to me the theme of this hour - 'The Value of a Human Soul. I have never met one who more fully appreciated the value of our text than he whose body lies before us at this hour. I have not come into closer and more intimate acquaintance with any in my visitations in Republican City than I did with Dr. McPherson. I found him sound in the Christian faith; one who loved to read his Bible and commune with God in his soul. It was his intention to unite with this church at our last communion in September. To him the church was an institution of God and its membership nothing if not true worshippers of the living God. His library contained many choice volumes on the immortality of the soul - Plato, Socrates, the Koran, and others; but in these he found no comparison to the teachings of the Bible. Israel's God and the Christ of God, man's only redeemer, was his Saviour. Together we have often bowed the knee in prayer. Two weeks ago we were together at his home; I had been reading an article on faith in Jesus Christ and handed it to him. After he had read it I said, 'That to me is sound doctrine,' and I shall not forget his answer, 'Yes, I believe all that.' The value of the human soul was no unsolved problem to him.
   "As a citizen he loved the peace and good will of his fellow citizens, I have not been to his friends to ask his character or standing; I have not listened to the words of praise from the lips of those who today suffer the silence of his voice and the caress of his hand. I hear it everywhere. If ever God found in any man a standard of good will and the incorporate law of the Golden Rule it was to be found in Dr. John McPherson.
   He was one of the first to settle on these prairies; no one brought more capital, energy, and push to put into every enterprise than he, whether it was in business propositions, a school, or church. Honest himself, he trusted others; if there was a wrong done he was the first to right it, and if he suffered he bore it without one thought of revenge. His tongue is not more silent now than it has always been in speaking an unkind word of his neighbor or fellow man. Having enjoyed a good education and being blessed with pro-

fessional ability, he sought to help others to the same. Beginning with his own, it was the pride of his life to put opportunity within the reach of every son and daughter. It was not his fault that Republican City is not the center of higher education today. On your main streets stands a monument to higher education once the pride of his ambition. Nothing would have suited him better than to have heard the hum of voices reciting the classics or pursuing the sciences by the children and youth of his town.
   "I am sure he will be remembered for his kindly ways; even the children will not forget his friendly notice, and a will miss his cheerful voice. To those within his family circle the cords were strongest. Love, devotion, heart-to-heart companionship reached down to the fourth generation. For forty-five years he has walked hand in hand with the loved ones who survive him. God graciously lengthened out his years and favored you - his children, grandchildren, and beloved wife - with his devoted life.
   "There is a richer endowment to children than a divided fortune; this is yours. It is a father's unblemished character and an aim in life that it will be well to emulate. God's richest blessing will be yours if you strive for the same mark of the high calling. God wants men of character to fill every station in life; men that realize the value of time and the value of a human soul."

Ladies and Gentlemen of the Association:
   While the sad event is already known to you, the sorrowful duty devolves upon me to officially announce the death of a worthy member of this Society, it's late President, J. Sterling Morton.
   He was born at Adams, New York, April 22, 1832, and came to Nebraska, 1854, shortly after the passage by Congress of the Kansas-Nebraska act, opening for settlement this part of the Northwest, May 30 in the same year. He died April 27, 1902, at the residence of his son Mark, Lake Forest, Illinois, a suburb of Chicago, where he had gone tem-

porarily for the benefit of his health, barely passing the Scriptural allotment of three score and ten years by five days. He had often expressed to me a desire to pass that period in life.
   His father, Julius Morton, of Scotch descent, was born at St. Albans, Vermont. His ancestors were among the earliest of New England Puritans, coming in the next ship following the "Mayflower" - the "Little Ann." His mother, Emeline Sterling, of English descent, was born at Adams, New York.
   He attended a private school until fourteen years old, then a Methodist school at Albion, Michigan, where he prepared for college. He entered the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, but graduated and received his diploma from Union College, New York.
   October 30, 1854, Mr. Morton and Miss Caroline Joy French were married at Detroit, Michigan. Within an hour after the marriage they started to Nebraska, reaching Bellevue early in November following. Here they remained only for a few months, removing to Nebraska City, where a homestead was taken, and remained the continuous Morton residence, now known as "Arbor Lodge." This residence is surrounded by the pride of Mr. Morton's life, orchards, vineyards, forest and evergreen groves and flowers of rarest varieties.
   Mrs. Morton died June 29, 1881. She was an ideal wife and mother.
   There were born to the family four sons who grew to manhood as model young business men: Joy, Paul, Mark, and Carl. Carl, the youngest, died suddenly three years ago.
   Mr. Morton was appointed by President Buchanan territorial secretary of Nebraska; a portion of the time he was acting-governor. He was Secretary of Agriculture during Mr. Cleveland's second term.
   It affords me pleasure to speak, although briefly, of this man's life and work since in Nebraska.
   Mr. Morton was favored with a most excellent and practical education, fortified with strong mental and physical equipments. Had fitted himself for the practice of law, and

came to Nebraska with his young bride, at the age of twenty-two, in the year named, with the intention of following that profession.
   Arriving in Nebraska, he was at first sight infatuated with the New West, and thought there was an opening whereby he could accomplish more good than in the practice of his profession, namely, the development and upbuilding of the new territory. And further, he conceived a newspaper to be the better medium through which he could the more effectually accomplish his desire and object. Accordingly he became the editor of the Nebraska City News, and for years remained as such. And continuously thereafter, until summoned hence by the great Dispenser of events, his able pen, eloquent and forceful voice were directed in demonstrating the worth, resources, and possibilities of Nebraska. More especially in agriculture, horticulture, forestry, and their kindreds, he accomplished a great work, and by a kind Providence was spared to be an eye-witness of the fruits of his labor.
   Mr. Morton was a rare, unique, character. A close acquaintance with the man revealed this, and its consequent real worth. He was honest to a fault, if such can be. He was a very positive man. Was cautious in formation of his opinions as to men and measures. When conclusions were reached and position taken, next to no power could change them. Sure in his convictions of right, it made him a fierce defender as well as denunciator. He was a stranger to the word compromise. His friendships knew no bounds. His dislikes were along the same line. He never forgot a friend nor allowed an enemy to forget him. However bitter may have been differences between him and others, no one ever called in question his ability or integrity. No man of his means did more to wipe away orphans' fears or kindle fires on widows' hearths, did more for the betterment of his fellows, more helpful to those in need. All such Samaritan acts however, were of the scriptural order: "Let not thy left hand know what thy right hand doeth."

   I remember an instance not many years since, when Shylock stood on the doorstep of a worthy helpless neighbor of Mr. Morton, demanding the foreclosure of a mortgage, the pound of flesh which would render the family homeless. Mr. Morton paid off the sum, into hundreds of dollars, making the indebted a clear deed, without reimbursement.
   Another incident characteristic of Mr. Morton. In the earlier days of the territory differences between men were frequently settled with knife or bullet. For some reason, I can not now call it to mind, a grievance sprang up between him and a then prominent citizen of the territory, since dead. The other party challenged Mr. Morton to fight a duel, and demanded pistols as weapons. His reply was: "Do you mean to challenge me to mortal combat? Is there positively a coffin in our polite invitation, and if so, for whom? An early reply will greatly gratify."
   The matter was then, by the challenger, referred to his "second," to whom Mr. Morton replied: "Permit me to remind your principal that, as the weather is very warm (July), you impress upon his mind that a recumbent position will be more comfortable, and if he will not assume that, compromise with him upon a sedentary position. I am quite anxious to hear, and do hope you will inform me upon this important question very speedily."
   "Convey to your bellicose principal my renewed assurance that he has never, in any way, given me reason to demand satisfaction of him, as I have never held a judgment against him, nor even a note of hand. He will probably be pleased to learn of my good health, and also to know that I enjoy life very much, and love it, too, even better than I do him. His proposition to shoot lead bullets at me is not in accordance either with law or my own ideas of social amenities or amusements. To kill or to be killed would be no particular felicity with me, especially in hot weather when corpses spoil so readily. Not for a moment doubting the bravery of your martial principal, which is proverbial, I would like to inquire whether he is the author of the following stanza:

 "'The deities which I adore

   Are social peace and plenty,

   I'm better pleased to make one more

   Than be the death of twenty.'

   "The temperature at this place is ardent to such a degree as to prevent my addressing you at length. 'Kiss your principal for his mother.' Enclosed is a copy of Greeley's almanac and Fred Douglas's speeches, for his perusal and consolation."
   "With high regard for the law, and especially that referred to, I remain alive,

"(Signed) J. Sterling Morton."

   I was some years afterwards the medium by which the two sat side by side at a dinner table at Mr. Morton's residence, when the old grievance was reconciled, and they were ever afterwards friends.
   As a social entertainer, especially of well-narrated anecdotes, and imitator of broken foreign languages, he had no superior; as an after-dinner speaker, but few equals. It is said of him while a sojourner at Washington, when a member of President Cleveland's cabinet, a social gathering was next to incomplete without him. He held at command a "reserve fund," almost unlimited, of anecdote and pleasing reference.
   While Secretary of Agriculture in President Cleveland's cabinet he did what no other Secretary did before or since gave his influence to abolish the shameful expenditure of millions of dollars, furnishing those "rare and valuable" seeds, lettuce, turnip, and poppy, to please members of Congress, in throwing very cheap tubs to cheaper whales.
   He was the originator of many trite utterances, among which as to corn and swine are: "Corn is king, swine heir apparent"; "A mother swine is an inter-convertible bond, her family, annual coupons, serving as farmer's mortgage lifters"; "Corn is bullion, fed to swine, the mint, produces gold and silver dollars."
   He was the author of "Arbor Day," which has become a legal holiday in all states of this Union as well as in nearly

all civilized foreign countries. Through its influence trillions of trees and vines have been planted. Since I commenced the formation of this paper I received a letter from Miss Nina Prey, a native of Nebraska, now a teacher in Porto Rico, informing me the legislature of that island had, by enactment, made "Arbor Day" in that country a legal holiday, and that it had been generally observed in its inaugural year, 1902.
   It was suggested at Mr. Morton's funeral by his many friends that a monument be erected to his memory, as author of "Arbor Day." To this end a local organization was formed and voluntary subscriptions solicited - no canvassing. Today this fund is over $11,000. A very pleasing incident is of record in this work. A gentleman in Boston who had never met Mr. Morton, but who was an admirer of his life work, sent a check for $500 and added, "If more is needed, I will add another cipher."
   In concluding this, a brief and feeble effort to pay tribute to a worthy citizen, permit me to digress and speak a word personal. Mr. Morton was a warm, unfaltering friend of mine for near a half century continuous duration. Friend in all the word can possibly signify. We came to the territory about the same time - he in the fall of one year and I in the spring following. We were editors and publishers of newspapers, differing radically in politics. In those days political editors were virulent in the extreme in their utterances, could not be more bitter and unrelenting. We were not exceptions to this rule. In all else, such as tended to the welfare of Nebraska, we were in perfect unison. We had not met each other personally. Some time during the year 1856 we came together. Our opening thoughts and expressions were not along the line of politics, but of those of which we were in harmony. At the close of a brief interview, a modest reference was made to our political altercations. We mutually agreed to never talk politics, nor write, or indulge in them personally. That agreement was sacredly observed, and a long and most pleasant life was the result. 

 I can not realize he is dead. "There is no death. The stars go down
To rise upon some fairer shore."

"He did well his work, and goes a pleasant Journey."

   Henry Augustus Longsdorf was one of the pioneers of Nebraska. In a long and busy life full of activities and full of works, some of the principal scenes of which were laid in this state. With his fellow pioneers he came and spied out the land, and later he worked as he found opportunity to develop its resources and to advance its welfare. Good citizenship, honorable service in war, righteousness, kindliness and industry in his daily life, helpfulness and fair dealing towards his fellow man, reverence and loyalty to his God - these sum up his life and recount his honors. They mark his name, not as one to be set above, but as one to be written among the names of men.
   On November 18, 1829, he was born in Silver Spring township, Cumberland county, Pennsylvania. He was the eldest son of George and Eliza Longsdorf and was of the fourth generation of his family in America. Heinrich Longsdorf, his real grandfather, a native of Baden, settled in Silver Spring in 1754, and on the frontier braved the dangers of the French and Indian War. Martin Longsdorf, son of Heinrich, was next in the line. He was an ensign in the War of the Revolution in Colonel Blaine's regiment.
   The childhood and youth of Mr. Longsdorf were spent in his father's home on the old family acres which for 125 years were held direct from the sons of William Penn, proprietors of the province. He learned the art of farming, but his education was not neglected, for he attended school regularly and for a time, attended Dickinson College at Carlisle, Pennsylvania, near to his home. Later, while teaching school, he continued his studies, and by self-teaching made himself proficient in the practice of surveying and leveling.

   In the years of his early manhood he went to work in the famous Cumberland Nursery owned by David Miller at Middlesex, Pennsylvania, and here began his vast and wonderful knowledge and experience about fruits and fruit trees. During his life he covered the entire field of this industry from the propagation of fruit trees and plants to the planting of orchards, the gathering and sale of fruits, and lastly to experimentation in the practical development of fruit culture and selection and testing of varieties.
   This work was indeed not uninterrupted. During the winter season he often found employment as a teacher. For some years, too, he was engaged in the general hardware trade. He entered the locally well-known hardware store of Henry Saxton, where through the long hours and hard work of storekeeping, as it was then conducted, he rose to be Mr. Saxton's principal assistant in the management of the business.
   After this was the journey to the West. Events contributed to it. His father had visited Iowa in 1846 to see the land. Several young acquaintances had yielded to the enticements of California. When a boy he had read what books were at hand concerning the West. Chief among these was Sergeant Goss's journal of the travels and explorations of the Lewis and Clark Expedition, which well-worn book - or its duplicate, for there were two of them in the family library - is now in possession of the Nebraska State Historical Society, presented by Mr. Longsdorf. He once related to the writer how his boyhood mind had from such reading imagined the future planting of a great settlement at the junction of the Platte and Missouri rivers. Therefrom it followed that, with the hurrying of travel westward in the middle '50s. He, with others, came to this much-talked-of Kansas-Nebraska country. The journey was made by way of Pittsburg, the Ohio and Mississippi rivers to Muscatine, thence by rail to Iowa City, and by wagon and foot to Council Bluffs. He arrived in Bellevue May 16, 1856. A packet of old letters written by him to his father gives his impressions at the time. It is evident that he did not come as a speculator or as an adventurer,

for he writes about the fitness of the land to make a new home for his aged parents, and he also speaks of its possibilities as a place of settlement for his younger brothers, though he laconically advises them to remain at home until sent for. Land, he writes, was too high in price in Iowa because of speculation, and money was worth 40 per cent a year at Ft. Des Moines. He expresses great satisfaction at finding in Nebraska a respite from land speculators, because of the fact that the government survey of Nebraska was not yet made; and he praises the healthy appearance of the settlers as compared with the "yellow" and sickly looking inhabitants of Illinois and Indiana whom he had seen along the rivers as he came. The fine character of the soil and possibilities of fruit culture were both matters of mention.
   His brothers, David E. Longsdorf and George F. Longsdorf, the latter now deceased, settled with him at Bellevue. Each bought or took up claims, and having perfected them by making "improvements" and completing a legal residence they joined with W. H. Cook, John P. Kast, and W. W. Stewart in keeping bachelor's hall at the "Plateau House," a cabin with the luxury of plastered walls, but of small dimensions, which until about 1890 was still standing. It was exactly at the center of the beautiful tract now the site of Ft. Crook. A huge cottonwood four feet thick remains there, the lone survivor of more than a score planted in 1856 by Mr. Longsdorf and his associates. The memory of many pleasures and much hospitality runs back to the old and widely known "Plateau House."
   Mr. Longsdorf entered actively into the life of the young community. He was a member of the Bellevue Claim Club and a shareholder of the Bellevue Town Company, and a part owner of the Sarpy Reserve which included the steamboat landing and the trading house. When Sarpy county was organized he was its first superintendent of schools, which office it may be supposed was not an arduous one at that time For three years he lived in Bellevue and then returned to Pennsylvania.

   In 1862 he and two of his four brothers enlisted in the 158th Pennsylvania Infantry. He became captain of Company A and served faithfully and with honor in a very trying campaign in the Virginia and Carolina Swamps, for which his brigade was officially complimented. Other parts of his service were rendered while attached to the Army of the Potomac.
   After the close of his service he followed his ordinary occupations, visiting Nebraska at frequent intervals. He was married in December, 1869, to Miss Kate A. Duey of Cumberland county, Pennsylvania. Six children were born to them, and four survive, viz., George Foster Longsdorf, Helen Mabel Longsdorf, Henry Warren Longsdorf, and Ralph Martin Longsdorf.
   In 1888 he resumed his residence at Bellevue, where the latter years of his life were spent happily and enjoyably, but not in rest, for his "old active disposition" could not become dormant. However, his labors were necessarily more of the evening and less of the midday of life than before. In his garden and among his trees and with his family he dwelt. The trees and the plants were his intimates. They spoke to him a silent language that he had known and studied for fifty years. They made known their needs and he endeavored to supply them. His interest was not mercenary, for he planted for instruction and pleasure and not for profit. In this spirit he became interested in peach culture. He was encouraged by the success of peach growers in extreme southern Nebraska to believe that peaches might be successfully grown in his own neighborhood Some attempts had already been made to do so, and from what he observed of these he made his plans for a series of trials, which, as he said, might take twenty-five years, for which reason he could not hope to complete them or live to see success. But success came quickly. The first peach seeds planted in 1892 returned a few fruits in 1895 and very heavy and frequent crops since then. Very many hundreds of peach trees were given and sold to his neighbors. They were instructed how to plant and

care for the trees and how to propagate young trees. All about Bellevue these trees grow and flourish as witnesses to, and memorial, of his useful work. His knowledge of all indigenous fruits was vast, and his experience extended over many states.
   He was a member of the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society, of various local agricultural and horticultural societies, and of the Nebraska Horticultural Society. He was also a member of the Nebraska State Historical Society, regular in attendance at its meetings, and well known to many of its members, and a contributor to its historical collections.
   Mr. Longsdorf did much public service as a citizen, though he occupied no public offices save minor ones. He was earnest and actively interested in politics and exalted in his conception of patriotism. In the highest sense of the word he was devoted in care, affection, and thoughtfulness for his family. He strove to provide education for his children and to inspire in them a love of study and improvement. He was a Christian gentleman in works as well as in words. He was frank and direct in address, and firm and courageous in loyalty and friendship. He commanded respect and thereby won the love of those who knew him best. A neighbor who knew him well paid this tribute: "His strongest trait was high integrity of character," yet it was no stronger than his unselfishness and no stronger than the constancy of his friendship and his love. His last work was the building of a new house, the first he ever owned, to provide a home for himself and for his family after him. He lived but five weeks to enjoy it. On November 13, 1902, he died. Most fittingly it was that he was laid among the pioneers who rest in the old cemetery at Bellevue on the crest of the great hills circled by the scenes of so much of his earlier manhood and or his declining years - fitting that his earthly body should return to the soil of his adopted state whose foundations he helped prepare and of which he became a proud and useful and loyal citizen.

© 2000, 2001 Pam Rietsch, T&C Miller