tained some education in the schools of the Fatherland, he began the herding of sheep, in which occupation he continued until his thirty-second year. Often when away from the busy haunts of men, in some quiet pasture, with no companionship save that of his flock, had he meditated and planned regarding the country beyond the great sea, of which he had heard so much, but knew so little. He finally concluded that there was more room for him in that New World, more opportunity, more scope for the effort he knew he was capable of making. Therefore, in 1868, he left his herds, home and country, and, after weeks upon the ocean wave, landed upon American soil in New York City.
   By the counsel of friends. Mr. Kettelhut proceeded westward to Lancaster County, Neb., and homesteaded eighty acres of Government land on section 12, Stockton Precinct. Since that time he has been a resident here, and has received the highest respect of the community. He owns 320 acres of some of the finest land in the county, the quality of which has been largely improved by his assiduous labor. His residence is situated on section 11; his farm buildings, although not elegant, are substantial, extensive, and arranged with a view to the various requirements of the progressive agriculturist. Mr. Kettelhut has been careful to accumulate the diverse implements and machines needed upon his farm, and which enable him to achieve success from his labors. In addition to general agriculture he takes great pride in stock-raising, and devotes much care and attention to this industry.
   While yet in his native land our subject was married to Miss Johanna Hapke. This lady was the daughter of John and Charlotte Hapke, and was born Aug. 6, 1844, in Pommern, Germany. She was united to our subject in marriage on the 10th of February, 1865, and their home has been brightened by the advent of eight children, who are named respectively: Augusta, Robert, Bertha, Christopher, Amelia, Otto, Eda and Otto (2d). Of these we have to record the decease of the two boys, Otto (1st) and Otto (2d). The eldest daughter is married to Gottieb Ruckenbach, and is a resident in Cass County, this State. The remaining children live at home with their parents. Mr. and Mrs. Kettelhut are consistent members of the German Lutheran Church; their family have been reared in the same communion. Our subject is not a man prominent in politics, but has made himself master of the main questions of the political situation and affiliates with the Republican party.

ICHAEL KILROY. The present sketch presents briefly the salient points of the biography of one of the representative farmers and stock-raisers of West Oak Precinct, where, on section 16, lies a beautiful farm comprising 320 acres, in as fine condition and as fully supplied with the multitudinous details indispensable to efficiency in farming and stock-raising as any of its neighbors. This property is owned by our subject. The father of Michael Kilroy, whose given name was Peter, was born in County Sligo, Ireland, upon Easter Sunday of 1814. In the schools of that county he received his education, and afterward gave his time to the mastery of the mysteries of milling, as restricted in that county to the manufacture of flour. In the year 1836 he left his home and the green Isle of Erin, emigrated to America, and settled in Oswego, N. Y., where he followed his old occupation of miller. He was a resident of that place at the time of the great fire, shortly after which he entered into the wholesale grocery business in the same city, and continued until 1857. In that year, accompanied by his family, he went to St. Paul, Minn., purchasing an extensive farm, which he continued to work with much prosperity until 1872, when he retired and took up his residence in the city, and left his youngest son and daughter to carry on the farm.
   Peter Kilroy, while a resident at Oswego, and at the age of twenty-three years, was united with Bridget McGinty, who was born in County Mayo. Their family included nine children, seven of whom it was their privilege to bring to maturity. Both the father and mother of our subject are still living, and considering their age are enjoying good health. They have always been earnest, consistent members of the Catholic Church. Miss Bridget McGinty came to this country from Ireland in 1816, when she was eighteen years of age, took up her residence

at Oswego, and it was during this period that she met and was united to her husband. Her father, John McGinty, followed the occupation of farming in his native country.
   Our subject was born March 28, 1847, at Oswego, N. Y., and the third child born to Mr. and Mrs. Kilroy. His education was received in the Oswego schools, where he was enabled to lay a firm foundation which to rear the various undertakings of his future life. After passing through the classes of these institutions he spent some time at Council Bluffs, where he attended and was graduated from the Business College. The next eighteen years were spent upon the road as salesman for the firm of the Chicago Company. His duties in this relation took him all through, and made him perfectly familiar with Minnesota, Wisconsin, Iowa, Nebraska, Msssouri (sic) and Kansas. Seeing so much of the conditions of life in these States, he was enabled to more intelligently select his farm when he determined to follow that occupation. The result was his location upon the property where he now resides, which he purchased in the year 1880.
   It was not until the year 1886 that our subject entirely severed his connection with the firm for which he had been traveling, and left the road for the more quiet and restful life at the farm. Our subject has devoted himself with enthusiasm and energy to the work of improving his property, and the various works and buildings thereon are the result of his own efforts, and in the main the work of his own hands. He is devoting much attention to the raising and culture of all kinds of trees, both useful and ornamental. He has already over 1,000 apple trees of excellent grade and variety, and about 500 others, including plum and cherry trees. This year he has added to the already extensive and finely selected collection of forest trees over 2,000 new ones, all of them thrifty and in excellent condition. From the time of his purchasing this property our subject has been unremitting in his efforts for the improvement of his farm, and not only his orchard and grove, but the fields, testify to the care and labor bestowed. Amid the various duties and responsibilities devolving upon him in connection with the above he still finds abundant time to devote to the interests of stock-raising, in which he is extensively engaged and takes much pleasure, bringing to bear upon this department as upon the others the full vigor of his thought and benefit of his experience.
   When sixteen years of age our subject enlisted, but his father entered strong objections to his continuing in the service, and after seven months he was withdrawn. During this time he was connected with Company H of Hatches' Battalion, under Gen. Sibley, and the greater part of it was on duty at Ft. Snelling, but saw considerable of active service in other districts. The political sympathies of Mr. Kilroy are with the Democratic party, and although he has not been hitherto prominent before the State in the political arena, his well-known character, ability and intellectual force would seem to indicate that he has yet to be heard from in this regard. He continues his allegiance to the faith in which he was reared, and is a member of the Catholic Church and in good standing. Whether we consider Mr. Kilroy as a businessman, farmer or stock-raiser, whether we view him in his domestic relations or as a man and citizen, it is only just to him and to his fellow-citizens to say that he is the recipient of the highest possible regard of the entire community.

EONARD H. KING is a practical, sagacious farmer of Nemaha Precinct, who, discouraged by in success in his old home, brought about by his sickness, came to this State with his family in 1876, and here began life anew with but $40 in his pocket. Soon, under the revivifying influence of the splendid climate of Nebraska, he began to regain his lost health, and with it his old courage, confidence and animation. With much of his old energy he set about repairing his shattered fortunes, with what success may be judged by the appearance of his farm on section 27, with its well-tilled acres, and its many improvements in the shape of a comfortable house, barns, sheds, etc. Thus in the space of the twelve years that he has been a resident

of this place his industry has accomplished much, and he has raised himself from poverty to prosperity.
   Mr. King comes from an ancestry that dates back to Colonial times, and of which he has reason to be proud, some of his forefathers being of pioneer fame in the early days of the settlement of Kentucky. His grandfather, Armstead King, a citizen of Kentucky, bore in honorable part in the War of 1812. The parents of our subject, Isaac and Amanda (Seigester) King, were born in Kentucky, the father on the banks of the Licking River, being children of early settlers of that State. They were married in Rush County, Ind., where the father engaged in farming for a short time, and then removed to Cass County, in the same State, where they are still living on their farm in the enjoyment of a competency gained by their united labors. The father is seventy-one years old, and the mother sixty-eight, and they are both justly esteemed for the many good qualities of mind and heart that have made them valued members of the community where they have so long made their home. They are the parents of six children, namely: Mary, Leonard B., Armstead, Edward, Richard and Isaac M., Jr.
   Leonard B. King, the subject of this biographical sketch, was born May 21, 1841, in Rush County, Ind., near the town of Milroy. He was six years of age when his parents removed to Cass County, and there the remainder of his boyhood and youth was passed in the performance of the duties that early devolved on the farmer's boys. When scarcely more than a child he learned to swing an ax with skill and precision. He continued an inmate of his father's home, assisting him in the management of the farm until his marriage, in 1862, to Miss Hannah, daughter of G. W. and Elizabeth (Birch) Hendy, natives respectively of New York and Canada. Her parents were married in the latter country, and came to Indiana in 1849, where her father engaged in his trade of millwright, and also managed a farm that he owned. He prospered well, and is now, at the age of seventy-one years, living a life of retirement at Royal Center.
   Mrs. Elizabeth Hendy died at the age of sixty-three years. Twelve children, seven soils and five daughters, completed this household, of whom Mrs. King was the eldest. She was born Dec. 19, 1844, near Niagara Falls, in Canada. She was four or five years old when her parents went to live in Indiana, and there she was educated in the common schools. Of the twelve children born to her and her husband, eight were natives of Indiana and four of Nebraska, and all are living and enjoy flue health. They were named Mary E., George E., Manson L., Melissa E., Thomas H., Amanda U., Martha J., Alice A., Isaac M., Alfred R., Grover C. and Armstead C. Mary is the wife of W. B. McClun, a prosperous farmer of Colorado, and they are the parents of three children--Jessie L., George LeRoy and Hannah E. George E. lives in Nemaha Precinct; Hanson is a farmer in Colorado; Melissa married Daniel J. Grim, and they have one child, Anna Pearl. Mr. and Mrs. King's other children reside with them.
   Mr. King carried on farming in Indiana for several years, but met with many losses and discouragements through sickness in his family, etc. At last he decided to settle up his affairs in that State, and try his fortunes in Nebraska, hoping not only to better his pecuniary condition on its remarkably rich and fertile soil, but at the same time, with his family, derive benefit from its pure and health-giving air. Accordingly he came hither in 1876, with a team and wagon, accompanied by his wife and children, and soon purchased eighty acres of railroad land on time, which, with the eighty acres presented to him and his wife by her father, now constitutes his farm. We have already spoken of the success that has followed his efforts, and the able assistance afforded him by the best of wives. Since coming here he has enjoyed good health, and is contented and happy in the companionship of his wife and children in the cosiest of homes, whose bountiful hospitality, extended by the noble-hearted and generous host and hostess, often makes glad the hearts of the friend or stranger who happens within their gates. Mr. King is public spirited, and heartily seconds any scheme to advance the welfare of the township or county. He has served as Road Supervisor, and gave good satisfaction to his fellow-townsmen while holding that office. In his political views he is a solid Democrat, earnestly

believing that the principles of that party are the best suited for the government of the country.
   The success with which Mr. King has labored is indicated in the building of one of the most comfortable homes in Nemaha Precinct, a fine lithographic view of which appears on another page in this work.

OLNEY A. MARKLE. The greatest debt this country of magnificent distances, marvelous natural wonders, and home of freedom, can ever contract will not be so much with the millionaire monopolist or its gazetted elite as it will with the noble, self-denying men and women who have launched out into the trackless wilds beyond the frontier. Men may speak of Columbus, and sneer at his discovery, call him a restless, shiftless rover without resource and executive ability, and cynically speak of the "accidental stumble" against the West India Islands by that world-renowned navigator, but such tongues should be silent before the grand army of pioneers who went out from their Eastern homes, and pushed beyond the confines of civilization in order to develop and open up to the world the boundless resources of this glorious country, which but a few decades ago was the home of the Indian and the wild beast.
   One of the most prominent as well as earliest pioneers of the Far West is Volney A. Markle, the subject of this sketch, who resides on section 29, West Oak Precinct, This gentleman is the son of Elijah Cody Markle, born near Cleveland, Ohio. He was educated in the common schools, and as a young man proceeded to Canada, where he was employed working on ship timber. In January, 1846, during his residence in Canada, he met Deborah M. Rightmyer, a lady capable of making life complete for him, and to whom he could give the strongest affection and highest regard of his manhood, and they were accordingly married in the same year. The family continued to live in Canada after their marriage for a period of two years, when a removal was effected; they settled in Hancock county, Ohio, and the father of our subject followed the business of pump maker, and although he has given considerable attention to farming, and is the owner of a very nice farm of sixty acres in Findlay, Ohio, upon which he lives, he has always continued to follow his trade. Physically, he is still hale and hearty, but has discontinued doing any heavy work.
   Mr. Markle, Sr., was born Jan. 6, 1820, and although he has almost completed the allotted term of human life, he journeyed, accompanied by his wife, from his home at Findlay to Nebraska on a visit to his son. When the Ohio National Guard was organized, one of the first men to offer himself for enlistment was the father of our subject, and afterward, although he was rapidly approaching the time of life when he might be truly called old, with a spirit patriotic and heroic, he was again one of the first to offer himself in defense of his country and its flag. When from the capitol at Washington the bugle note, the call to arms was sounded, he was mustered in the 15th Corps, 47th Ohio Volunteers. His wife was born in Canada, about Nov. 10, 1820.
   The subject of this sketch was born in Canada, Nov. 10, 1846, where he remained with his parents until he was five years of age, when he accompanied them to the home near Cleveland, Ohio, and afterward to Findlay. In the common schools of that city our subject received his education, which was afterward completed in the High School, and in these institutions he made the preparation which has enabled him successfully to fight the battle of life. When the thin lines of gray, and the solid columns of brigades of armed men, gathered the stars and bars, and began to march northward, our subject promptly answered the call for men to oppose themselves to these forces, and in defense of the Union and the only flag of the Republic, he enlisted in the 21st Ohio Volunteers. This occurred in the year 1863, from which time until the close of the war he continued in the service. He was one of the men who, although unmentioned by name, are always thought of as the companions of the great Sherman in that famous march which has become a household word, and has furnished the theme for the song of the patriot. Besides a number of minor engagements, our subject was an active participant in the battles of Atlanta, Blizzard's Roost, Resaca, Peachtree Creek, Altoona Pass, Kennesaw