My Genealogy Hound

HON. GEORGE W. BURTON. Hon. George W. Burton, state senator from the Twenty-ninth senatorial district, president of the First National Bank of Orleans, Harlan county, and one of the leading men of central and southwestern Nebraska, is a native of Indiana, having been born near the town of Stinesville, Monroe county, that state. He is a descendant, however, of Southern ancestors, and comes mainly of Scotch-Irish stock. His father’s people were Virginians; his mother’s, North Carolinians. His paternal grandfather emigrated from Greenbrier county (now West) Virginia, to Kentucky in 1783 and settled in what is now Bath county, and there lived till 1819, when he moved across the Ohio river and settled in Indiana, where he died. Mr. Burton’s father, Henry W. Burton, was born near the present town of Bethel, Bath county, Ky., and was taken when a child in 1819 to Indiana. He is still living, being a resident of Bird city, Kans., and well advanced in years. He has been a farmer all his years and has led the plain and uneventful life common to his calling. Mr. Burton’s mother, who bore the maiden name of Martha McDaniel, was born in the town of Statesville, Iredell county, N. C., and was taken when a child by her parents to Bell brook, Ohio, and afterwards to Spencer, Owen county, Ind., where she was mainly reared and where she met and was married to Henry W. Burton. She died in 1850 at Goodenow, Will county, Ill., leaving five children, of whom the subject of this sketch is the youngest. The others were — John McDaniel Burton, now proprietor of the Rawlins County Bank, of Atwood, Kans.; Miss Mary F. Burton, assistant cashier of the First National Bank of Orleans. Harlan county, Nebr., and Reuben Henry Burton, who died in the United States service during the late war as a member of Company D, Forty-second Illinois volunteer infantry; Martha, who died in 1856, at the early age of six years.

George W. Burton was born December 20, 1847, in Monroe county, Ind., and was taken, two years later, to Goodenow, Will county, Ill., and in 1855 to Waldron, Kankakee county, that state, where he was brought up on his father’s farm. At the age of sixteen he enlisted in the Union army, first entering Company G, One Hundred and Thirty-eighth Illinois, and afterwards Company A, One Hundred and Fifty-sixth Illinois. He served in these two regiments till the close of the war, and then returned home, where, after a few years spent on the farm and in local schools, he prepared himself for college, and entering Asbury (now DePauw) University of Greencastle, Ind., he graduated in 1871. In April, 1872, he started West, coming to Nebraska. He was for some time United States deputy surveyor, engaged in surveying government land on the frontier in Nebraska and Dakota. He studied law in the law department of the Iowa State University, and located as an attorney in October, 1875, at the town of Wahoo, Saunders county, Nebr., where he was successfully engaged till February, 1880. He then removed to Orleans, Harlan county, and there established the Harlan County Bank, of which he was sole proprietor until May, 1883, when he sold an interest to Mr. A. E. Harvey, who is still associated with him in business. In May, 1885, he organized the First National Rank of Orleans, of which he is president. He resided on his farm adjoining Orleans and is one of the largest farmers in Harlan county. He has been largely engaged in the live stock business, and owns several thousand acres of land in Harlan and adjoining counties. Since locating at Orleans his firm have lent over $2,500,000 of Eastern funds on approved real estate in southwestern Nebraska and northwestern Kansas.

In 1884 Mr. Burton was a delegate to the Republican National Convention at Chicago. In 1887 he was chairman of the Republican State Central Committee, and in November, 1888, he was elected state senator for the twenty-ninth senatorial district, composed of the counties of Kearney, Phelps and Harlan.

Mr. Burton has traveled extensively in our own country and abroad. He is a student of men as well as of books. He is a man of quiet tastes and the most unobtrusive habits. The public positions which he has held he has been called to because of his recognized fitness for them, he has never sought office to gratify personal ambition. Indeed, he is, and prefers to be known as, a man of business.

Mr. Burton married, November 26, 1885, Miss Alma Holman, of Indianapolis, Ind. His wife is a daughter of William Holman, formerly of Indiana, now of Minneapolis, Minn. She was born and reared in Noblesville, Ind. She is a graduate of De Pauw University, and has spent several years abroad. Her training has fitted her to bear her husband the true companionship which every man seeks in matrimony, entering actively as she does into all his business pursuits and diversions, and rendering him efficient aid in the practical management of all his affairs. Two children have been sent to the care and guardianship of this couple, whom they have named George Wm., Jr., and Martha.

Mr. Burton resides on his farm of nearly two thousand acres, adjoining Orleans, in sight of his bank, half in cultivation, balance in pasture, through which runs Flag creek for nearly two miles. The stream never runs dry. Standing in his observatory on top of his house he can see up and down the Republican valley. The bluffs can be seen beyond Republican city, twelve miles east. Oxford can be seen thirteen miles northwest, and Furnas county can be seen up the Sappa valley, ten miles west. The depth of soil is almost inexhaustible.