Two or three years after we had located here, two young men came along from Kansas looking for work. My brother was away from home, working at carpentry, and his wife, fearing to be alone, would lock the stair door after they retired and unlock it in the morning before they appeared. They gathered the corn and then remained and worked for their board. One day, one of the young men was taken sick. The other was sent for Dr. Boggs. He lost his way in a raging blizzard and came out five miles north of where he intended to, but reached the doctor and secured medicine, the doctor not being able to go. The next day Dr. Boggs, with his son to shovel through the drifts, succeeded in getting there. The young man grew worse, they sent for his mother, and she came by stage. The storm was so fierce the stage was left there for a week; the horses were taken to Melroy postoffice. The young man died and was taken in the stage to Beatrice to be shipped home, men going with shovels to dig a road. Arriving there it was found that the railroad was blocked. As they could not ship the body, they secured a casket and the next day brought it back to our house. My brother was not at home, and they took the corpse to a neighbor's house. The next day they buried him four miles east, at what is now known as Crab Orchard.
True, life in those days tended to make our people sturdy, independent and ingenious, but for real comfort it is not strange that we prefer present day living, with good mail service, easy modes of transportation, modern houses, and well equipped educational institutions.
BIOGRAPHY OF FORD LEWIS
By (Mrs. D. S.) H. Virginia Lewis Dalbey
As my father, Ford Lewis, was one of the pioneer land owners in Nebraska and assisted actively in settling the southeast part of the state, I have been requested to give a brief sketch of his life and early experiences in this state. My only regret in writing this is that he is not here to speak for himself. Ford Lewis was born in Deckertown, New Jersey, July 25, 1829, son of Phoebe and Levi Lewis, the latter engaged in mercantile business both in Hamburg and Hackettstown, New Jersey.
After finishing his education at William Rankin's Classical School and studying under Chris Marsh, author of double entry bookkeeping, he assisted his father in the mercantile business for some time. However, he preferred other pursuits and after a successful test of his judgment in real estate, started west. At Syracuse, New York, he was induced to engage in partnership under the name of Chapman & Lewis, watch case manufacturers and importers of watch movements; keeping standard time for the New York Central and other roads and supplying railroad officials, conductors, and engineers with the highest grade of watches.
Selling his interest in 1856, he accepted the general agency of the Morse Publishing House, New York, making his headquarters at Charleston, South Carolina, in winter and at Cleveland, Ohio, in summer, until 1859, when he went to Jerseyville, Illinois, with his parents and sister, buying and selling real estate in that city and Jersey county until 1867, when, with Congressman Robert M. Knapp, he visited Nebraska, and made his first investment in government land, many of his United States patents being signed by Presidents Grant and Johnson.
Ford Lewis was in pioneer days one of the largest owners of farm lands in Nebraska, his holdings being chiefly in Pawnee, Otoe, Gage, Johnson, and Lancaster counties. On one of his advertising cards he states that, "occupied for eighteen years past in the purchase and sale of over 80,000 acres of other lands, these, on account of their well known intrinsic value have been reserved intact."
Mr. Lewis founded the towns of Lewiston in Pawnee county and Virginia in Gage county, naming the latter in honor of his daughter.