My Genealogy Hound

GEORGE H. SILVERNAIL is one of the old settlers of Gibbon township, Buffalo county, having come with the Soldiers’ Homestead Colony in April, 1871. He is a native of Geauga county, Ohio, and was born in July, 1845. He comes of pioneer stock; his parents were born in New York, but settled early on the Ohio frontier. His father, Calvin Silvernail, and his mother, Abigail Rathburn, are still living, being residents of Gibbon and now well advanced in years. Besides himself there were six children in the family to which the subject of this sketch belongs, the full list being — Elizabeth, George H., Eugenia R., John H., James, Eliza and Frederick.

The subject of this notice, George H., was reared in his native county to the age of sixteen, moving thence in 1861 to Wisconsin. There, in September, 1864, at the age of nineteen, he enlisted in the Union army, entering Company K, Fifth Wisconsin, on its reorganization, and serving with it until the surrender. He took part in all the battles in which his regiment participated, chief among them being those at Petersburg, Hatcher’s run and Appomattox. He was mustered out in September, 1865, at Ball’s Hill, Wis. The following six years he lived in Wisconsin and Michigan, coming to Nebraska, in April, 1871. He was accompanied to this state by his brother John H., now of Kearney, and two others, Daniel R. Davis and Samuel Mattice. In the choice for homesteads these four cast their lots together and agreed to locate as near each other as possible, one man to draw, as was the arrangement, for the entire four. Mr. Silvernail drew for his comrades and himself, getting the twenty-eighth choice. He and his friends took claims on the south side of Wood river, a short distance west of the town of Gibbon, but not liking the soil they gave up their claims there and selected others in section 10, just north of the river. There they located, and our subject, being the only old soldier in the crowd, got one hundred and sixty acres while the others took eighty each. He filed on the southwest quarter of the section, improved it and lived there till 1883, except one year he resided in Gibbon. Selling this he afterward moved to his present place of residence, four miles north of Gibbon, in Valley township. He has been steadily engaged in farming and has filled the usual number of local offices, having been the first precinct assessor (elected in the fall of 1871), one of the organizers of his school district and for several years a member of the school board and more recently clerk of Valley township.

Mr. Silvernail was a single man when he came to Buffalo county, but married in the fall of 1872, November 17th, taking for a companion a young lady who, like himself, braved the hardships and privations of frontier life at that date in search of a home — Miss Marcia E. Howe, a native of Newport, N. H., her father, George W. Howe, and her mother, Sarah M. Carr, both being natives of Newport; the father died in the town of Marlow, that state, in 1884, at the age of seventy-three, but the mother is still residing there. Mrs. Silvernail is one of a family of six children, two of whom besides herself were among the early settlers of Buffalo county, Nebr.; these being Mrs. E. C. Griffin, now of Gibbon; and Mrs. Dr. Ira P. George, of Elkins, Colfax county, N. M. Mrs. Silvernail came to Buffalo county in the fall of 1871. Three children, all boys, have been born to Mr. and Mrs. Silvernail — Merton L., Errol H. and Halbert G. Among the few remaining old settlers of Gibbon township, those who came early and in the arduous undertaking of subduing nature and planting the seeds of civilization, “bore the heat and burden of the day,” none have been more faithful in the task imposed on them and none are more highly esteemed than George H. Silvernail and his estimable wife, whose memory and the part they took in the settlement of their adopted home are here commemorated.