All honor and admiration, therefore, to men who, like our subject, faced the difficulties, braved the dangers, and succeeded in fitting themselves for the happenings of life.
   We must not forget, however, to pay, as is justly due, some tribute of respect to the truly noble woman who shared with him through all these years the often hazardous and certainly checkered life. How often might he have given up but for her words of encouragement and cheer; how often might he have made mistakes of grave, and even disastrous, import, but for her wise and cautious counsel; how often the results which were ascribed, and justly so, to his energies and enterprise, would never have been entered upon but for her thought and advisement.
   For three years Mr. Hay has served conscientiously and with much ability as Justice of the Peace, which service has been justly commended and generally recognized by the entire community. He is an acknowledged friend and liberal supporter of every enterprise which looks toward the elevation of society and the improvement of the county. In the Methodist Episcopal Church our subject and his wife find their religious home, and if in the community generally they are respected, in the church they are beloved. He has officiated in the Steward's office for about one year.
   To Mr. and Mrs. Hay have been born three children: Sarah A., born May 28, 1880, and died June 5,1882; Frederick G., born Nov. 26, 1882, and died Feb. 27, 1883; and Mark I., born Sept. 6, 1885, who is the only surviving child.
   It only remains to be stated what has doubtless already been surmised, that in his relation toward the State and Government, Mr. Hay espouses, upholds and advocates Republican principles, and that his influence, eloquence and activities are never commanded in their behalf, but they meet with the heartiest response. A view of Mr. Hay's homestead is presented in this connection.

ILLIAM CLAY is entitled to be recorded as one of Panama's earliest pioneers, and his family is the only one of the sixteen who came here together in the early days of the settlement of the town who is still residing here. His pioneer experience was a rich one, and would form an interesting chapter in the history of Lancaster County. He says that this was a beautiful prairie country, with scarcely a habitation, when he first settled here, without trees, and abounding with antelope, deer, wild geese, ducks, etc. He has watched the wonderful development of the county, and its gradual settling up as the tide of emigration came this way from the Eastern States. He always gave a cordial and hospitable welcome to the weary and sometimes disheartened emigrants, and sent them on their way refreshed and encouraged; sometimes as many as fifteen teams laden with people seeking new homes on the broad prairies of Nebraska would stop in front of his house, and he would cordially invite them to pass the night with him. Mr. Clay has done very well, notwithstanding those disastrous years when he had to fight prairie fires, grasshoppers, drouths and blizzards, with the dread possibility of total ruin staring him in the face, and he is well satisfied with his farm, and is contented in his comfortable home, wherein he enjoys the comforts of life procured by a sufficient competency.
   Our subject is a native of England, a son of George and Catherine (Gracard) Clay, who were born in Lincolnshire, England. His father was a farmer, and was in prosperous circumstances in his early years, but later in life he failed, and died at the age of fifty, a comparatively poor man. The mother of our subject died in England in 1881, aged seventy-five years. Both she and her husband were people of sterling integrity and industrious habits, and were considered valuable members of the community in which they were residents. They were the parents of fifteen children, ten of whom grew to maturity.
   William Clay was the third child of his parents, and he was born July 10, 1826, in the parish of Gedney, Lincolnshire. He grew up in the home of his parents, but being one of the eldest in a large family of children, his education was necessarily limited, as his services were required on the farm. In December, 1847, at the age of twenty-one, he took unto himself a wife, in the person of Miss Maria Huson. He continued farming in his

native England until after he was the father of three children, when he sold his possessions there, and sought this new world with his family, hoping to be able to build up a more commodious home here than he could in the old country. He sailed with his family from Liverpool in December, 1852, and landed in New York the following January. He went to Albion, Orleans County, where he worked for three years steadily, being employed by the day, and having carefully saved up some of his earnings that were not needed to supply the wants of his growing family, he left New York for Michigan, and bought a farm in Shiawassee County. He lived there for nine years, but he wished to go still further West, and we next hear of him in Mitchell County, Iowa, where he remained only a few years. He had the sad misfortune to lose his good wife there, she who since his early manhood had been his stay and help, and had cheerfully abandoned her old home and friends to accompany him across the waters to a strange land, and had ever proved the kindest of wives and the most tender of mothers, in 1868. After her death, Mr. Clay broke up his home in Iowa, and with his children came to this State. in a wagon, being four weeks on the road, and camping in the company of sixteen other families, known as the Iowa Colony.
   They settled in Panama, and now our subject is the only representative of that colony still living here. He pre-empted his land the first year, not having sufficient means to get a homestead right. From the wild prairie he has evolved a good farm comprising eighty acres, under an admirable state of cultivation. Honesty and industry have characterized the life of our subject, and, with his kindness and consideration toward others, have won him the respect and esteem of his fellow-citizens. In his political views he is a strong Democrat. He is the father of nine children, of whom three are dead--Catherine, Samuel and William. The others are settled in life, and are in prosperous circumstances, and the following is their record: Henry, who is married and has a family, is in business in Kansas City; George is a successful farmer in Panama; Clara, the wife of Robert Dickson, of Panama, has three children--Agnes, Thomas and Ethel May; Ann, the wife of Amos Kennedy, of Nebraska, has two children--Cora and George; Mary is the wife of Mr. McDonald, of Montana, and they have one child, Fay; William is a prosperous farmer in Johnson County.

AMES E. DAVEY. A community is very much like a large piece of intricate machinery, with its many wheels, cogs and bands, all working together for the production of a given work. The men who first tilled the soil of Ohio and Indiana were compelled to dispose of their products at a ruinous figure, because of the difficulty of bringing them to the market, and they would have valued greatly the modern system, and so with every department of trade and commerce; one cannot do without the other. The figure of speech, "the body," social, political or otherwise, is most happy, because every member of the body, however strangely diverse in fashion, shape or use, is absolutely necessary for the well-being of the perfect man. Hence the grocer and farmer, or grain buyer and shipper, are but component parts of the whole. To the farmer, as above noted, the grain buyer is an intimate and, perhaps, especial need, and in this biography we present a sketch of one of these important factors in an agricultural community.
   Our subject is the well-connected and popular grain buyer of Malcolm, and was born in St. Lawrence County, N. Y., in 1844. His father was William Davey, a native of County Sligo, Ireland, where he was born in 1800, and where he was reared and married. Some years after this latter event he came to America, accompanied by his wife and seven children. He purchased a farm and settled in St. Lawrence, where he continued for some years, and was sufficiently prosperous that when he desired to change he was able to start well in mercantile life, in 1832, in Edwardsville, Canada West. He was in this associated with his eldest son, the other sons being left in charge of the farm at St. Lawrence, where he continued to reside and superintend. This he continued until the year 1857, when he died, aged fifty-seven years.
   Mr. Davey, Sr., was twice married. By the first