My Genealogy Hound

NELSON W. SHORT. An old settler of Gibbon township, Buffalo county, an old soldier with an honorable record, and a citizen of exemplary habits and blameless private life, is Nelson W. Short, whose eventful career this article is designed to commemorate Mr. Short is a native of Ohio, and is a descendant of two of the first settled families of that state, his grandparents on both sides being pioneers of the “Buckeye regions” of the Northwest Territory. His paternal grandfather, Elihu Short, moved from Delaware into Ohio, in 1810, and settled in Perry county, where he lived for several years, then moved to Sandusky county, where he subsequently lived and died. Mr. Short’s father, Moulton H. Short, was born in Delaware but reared mainly in Ohio, being eleven years of age when his parents moved to that state. He grew up on the borders of civilization, as it were, and being fascinated with the free life of the frontier he in turn became a pioneer, becoming one of the first settlers of Fremont, Ohio. He died there in 1864, at the age of sixty -five years. He was an industrious farmer and led the plain and uneventful life common to his calling. Mr. Short’s mother, Matilda Tracy, being a daughter of Phillip and Nancy Tracy, was born in Cumberland county, Pa., and was brought by her parents, when a child, to Ohio, settling in Sandusky county, where she was reared and where she afterwards lived and died. Her father was a Pennsylvanian by birth and her mother a native of Germany. To Moulton H. and Matilda Short were born a large family of children, thirteen of whom reached maturity, these being— Celia, Susan, John, Phillip, Elihu, Rachel, Nelson W., George, Mary, Frank, Sarah, Matilda and James.

The subject of this notice, Nelson W., was born in Ohio in March, 1835. He was reared in his native place and married there in 1856, and shortly afterwards immigrated West and settled in Missouri, where he was residing when the war came on. With an alacrity born of the patriotism in him — a patriotism characteristic of the sons of Ohio — he offered his services to the Union cause, enlisting in 1862 in Company H, Third Missouri state militia, and served in this command till local troubles were quelled and confidence was established in the Union cause, and Southern sympathizers were either driven out of the country or forced to go into the Southern ranks. He then entered the volunteer service, enlisting in Company K, Forty-seventh Missouri infantry, being at once elected second lieutenant of his company and going to the front with his regiment to take part in the stirring scenes then being enacted at the theater of war. His regiment covered a wide area, serving in Missouri, Tennessee, Arkansas, Mississippi, Kentucky and Alabama; it helped to repel the several raids made into Missouri by Price, Marmaduke and Jeff Thompson, and it took part in the hard-fought battles at Franklin and Nashville, Tenn., it being ordered there to re-enforce Thomas. Mr. Short served till the surrender, being mustered out at St. Louis in April, 1865. For the next six years he lived at St. Louis, Mo., Columbus, Ky., and intermediate points, being engaged at the Kingman iron works, Carondelet dry docks, and other places. In the fall of 1871 he came to Nebraska, reaching Gibbon, where he now resides, October 6th. He selected a homestead at once in the northwest part of the township, taking eighty acres in the southeast quarter of section 3, township 9, range 14 west, which, however, he afterwards sold, buying another eighty acres in section 35, township 10, range 14 west, in Valley township. He lived on the farm till October, 1880, when he moved into Gibbon, where he has since resided and has been variously engaged. He has held a number of local public offices and is at present marshal of the town of Gibbon and overseer of the village highways. Mr. Short is an industrious, useful citizen and an honest, upright, capable public officer. Like most of the old settlers, he has seen many hardships since coming to the county, but he has borne them with the courage and fortitude becoming an old soldier. He has many friends, and with the better class of society — the intelligent, law-abiding, home-loving citizens — he is very popular. He has a family himself — a wife and four children — having married, as before noted, in his native county in Ohio. His nuptials were celebrated August 3, 1856, the lady whom he selected to share his life’s fortunes being Miss Maria Gray, daughter of George and Nancy M. Gray. Mrs. Short’s parents were natives of New York. They moved to Ohio in 1844 and settled in Sandusky county, where the father died in July, 1871, then in his seventy first year, the mother surviving him some years, dying at the home of Mrs. Short in Gibbon, February 16, 1888, being near her eighty-first year. Mrs. Short was born in Oswego county, N. Y., and was a child when her parents moved to Ohio, she being reared in Sandusky county. She is one of eight children, all of whom reached maturity and are now living. Mr. and Mrs. Short have had born to them a family of five children, all boys — Clarence (now deceased), Gilbert, Frank, Vernon and Archie.

In politics, Mr. Short was reared a democrat, but, differing widely with that party on the war issues, he cast his lot with the republicans and affiliated actively with them for some years and still votes their ticket occasionally; but, being a strong temperance man he has in recent times given his support to the prohibition ticket, especially in local and state elections. Mr. Short believes in temperance, sobriety, in preserving the purity of the moral atmosphere where he lives, and in defending the sanctity of home and the innocence of youth and the helplessness of women, and for these reasons he favors strong laws and their strict enforcement against the liquor traffic.