Winona County, Minn., on the 16th of June, 1869. Her education was received in the district school. Mr. and Mrs. Young first settled upon the property where they now reside, the first purchase including 160 acres. This was speedily brought into shape and prepared for his purpose, well improved and supplied with a good residence and the needed outbuildings for farming purposes and stock-raising. The latter has been the chief occupation or our subject and that which has enabled him to make the success in life that he has.
   Isaac Annabel, the father of Mrs. Young, was born in Saratoga, N.Y., on the 5th of November, 1810, and was the son of Prince and Ruth (Howland) Annabel. The family is of French extraction, but for several generations have been citizens of New England. Mr. and Mrs. Annabel have four children living, viz: Lucy Jane, Lorenzo, George, and Lou E., the wife of our subject. Mr. and Mrs. Young are the parents of three children -- Nettie Bell, Guy Garfield and Ralph Annabel.
   Mr. and Mrs. Young have made many friends in this district, and are much esteemed for their personal qualities and worth. They move in the best local society and are always accorded a cordial welcome. Our subject is thoroughly interested in all questions of political importance, and usually votes the Republican ticket, of which party he has always been a firm friend and ardent admirer.

LIJAH LUFF. The reader is here introduced to a compendious biographical sketch of the largest landowner and perhaps most prominent farmer of Russell Precinct. This gentleman operates 1,080 acres of land on sections 33, 19 and 4, and is chiefly engaged in the buying, feeding and raising of thoroughbred and high-grade stock. He is at the same time one of the early settlers of Otoe County, and has been energetic in the enterprises and undertakings that have advanced its interests.
   Mr. Luff is the son of William and Ann (Wallen) Luff. His father was born in Somersetshire, England, as was also his mother. Both come of good old English families, of what might perhaps there be called the upper middle class, a distinction happily unknown and largely not understood in our free land. His parents died respectively in the years 1878 and 1880, the father being seventy, and the mother seventy-two years of age. They were the parents of seven children, who received the following names: Betsy, William, Joseph (deceased), George, Matilda, Elijah, and Sidney (deceased).
   The native place of the subject of our sketch is in Somersetshire. He was born on Good Friday of the year 1834. Until he was twenty years of age he continued at home. He received no schooling as a child, and has felt the injury resulting therefrom all his life, and has labored hard to overcome the same.
   In the year 1855 Mr. Luff sailed from Bristol on the good ship "Try," and landed at New York City after a dull and wearying journey of six weeks, experiencing for the greater part of the time bad weather, which was by no means helpful to the comfort or spirits of those who were invading Neptune's realms for the first time.
   In beginning life in the New World, our subject went to Wayne County, Ohio, and worked for one summer at masonry; in the winter he found employment on the railroad. In the spring of 1856 he went by rail to Leavenworth, Kan., thence by steamer to Weston. From there he footed it to St. Joseph, a distance of thirty miles, his entire earthly belongings and property packed in an old carpet bag that he carried upon his back in primitive style. From St. Joseph he came to Nebraska City, and spent two years here, and in 1859 he went to Russell Precinct, going from there to Pike's Peak, but being unsuccessful in mining gold, returned a after four months. and took up the remunerative, though sometimes dangerous, employment of freighting from Nebraska City west to Denver. He continued thus engaged during the greater part of the war period.
   On the 1st of January, 1863, our subject made a change; leaving his freighting he homesteaded the present farm whereon stands his residence. It was then in nowise different to the prairie surrounding it, and he had all the work he could do to bring it to anything like it right condition. He had a fine practical knowledge, and is naturally a fine business

manager. From time to time as he was able he bought land, adding piece by piece until the present noble estate is the result. All is in Russell Precinct. He has a large herd of cattle and feeds perhaps fifty more, but his chief pleasure on the farm is his horses, of which he has some twenty-five or thirty head, all of standard breed, and either pure blood or very high grade. He owns the well-known animals Compeer and Coleus.
   Mr. and Mrs. Luff celebrated their union in wedlock in Russell, upon the 6th of November, 1863. The wife of our subject was prior to her marriage Miss Charlotte Mills. Her parents, William and Jane Mills, were born in Somersetshire, England. Her father was a very prosperous farmer in his native country, and died there in 1872, aged sixty-nine, having survived his wife almost twenty years, her demise occurring when she was forty-seven years of age. Mrs. Luff, who is also of English birth, came to this country from Bristol in the year 1863, and came into this State with the above-mentioned result. She is the eldest of three children; her brother George is now deceased, and her sister Harriet is now in Michigan. She is the mother of six children, viz: George, Albert, Annie, Thomas, Charles and Alice, all of whom are still with their parents.
   Mr. and Mrs. Luff hold a very high position in society, and are much esteemed, both on account of the sterling qualities of their character and their social position.. Their family is among the best in the county, and in all that means true home life they are in the front rank. As a citizen, man and friend, Mr. Luff is universally regarded by those who know him worthy of every regard. His political sympathies are with the Republican party, and have been since he came to understand the political institutions and principles of his adopted country.

HRISTIAN BISCHOFF, the champion stock-raiser of Otoe County, owns and operates 400 acres of finely improved land, occupying a portion of sections 28 and 29 in Rock Creek Precinct. As one of the self-made men of Southern Nebraska he has built up for himself a good record, his career having been marked by great industry and perseverance, and the result of which he cannot fail to look upon with satisfaction. His homestead is noticeable for its handsome and substantial buildings, the dwelling being roomy and convenient, and the barns and outhouses finely adopted to the shelter of stock and the storing of grain. His land is well watered by Sand Creek, and the soil has responded bountifully to the labors of the agriculturist.
   Mr. Bischoff ranks among the pioneer settlers of Nebraska Territory, coming within its limits as early as the spring of 1858. He then pre-empted 160 acres in Rock Creek Precinct, and began the labors which have been crowned with such flattering success. Prior to this he had been living in the vicinity of Mendota, Ill., where he was employed as a farm laborer eighteen months. To this point he had migrated from Kenosha, Wis., where he settled in the fall of 1854, upon his emigration to the United States.
   Our subject, a native of the Grand Duchy of Baden, Germany, was born Sept. 9, 1834, and there he lived until a youth of nineteen years, receiving a thorough education, and upon leaving school was employed at forming. He was accompanied to the United States by his father, Christian Bischoff, St., the, mother having died when our subject was a little lad four years of age. She in her girlhood was Miss Dorthia Detrich, and died at the birth of her ninth child, leaving four sons and three daughters. Two children had died before the decease of the mother. The survivors accompanied their father to America, and the latter located in Chicago, Ill,, where his death took place three months later, when he was sixty-six years old. Both parents had been members of the Lutheran Church, and were people of honesty and integrity, and of good standing in their community.
   After the death of their father the children worked out by the month. Christian came to Nebraska a single man, but not long afterward met his fate in the person of Mrs. Elizabeth (Neolch) Fuchs, to whom he was married in the spring of 1860. Mrs. Bischoff, also a native of the German Empire, was born in the Kingdom of Wurtemberg, May 7, 1832 She crossed the Atlantic with her brothers