My Genealogy Hound

GEO. H. HARTSOUGH, county clerk of Kearney county, was born in Ontario county, N. Y., May 23, 1852. He was reared mainly in his native place, received an ordinary common-school education in the district schools of Ontario county, finishing with an academic course in the Canandaigua Academy of Canandaigua, N. Y. He began his career as a school teacher, going South about the time he reached his majority, and taking a school in South Carolina. He remained South only long enough to teach one term; when he returned to New York and engaged with D. M. Osborn & Co., manufacturers of reapers and mowers at Auburn, that state. While in the employ of this firm he took up the study of telegraphy, and, discovering in himself a growing taste for it, he quit Osborn & Co. after two years and went to Akron, Ohio, to perfect himself in his chosen study. In the spring of 1873 he came to Nebraska in search of work as a telegraph operator, having mastered his craft and acquainted himself with the forms and business branches which usually go with a knowledge of telegraphy. He began work for the Burlington & Missouri River Railroad Company at Harvard, this state, and worked for it at several places until December, 1883, when he was placed in charge of the station at Minden, Kearney county. He located there at that date and looked after the B. & M.’s interests for six years, or until December, 1889. He was elected clerk of Kearney county at the November election, 1889, and resigned his position as station agent of the B. & M. to accept this office. Mr. Hartsough’s rise in life has not been very rapid, but it has been well deserved, including his recent election as clerk of Kearney county. He is a thorough business man and a man of intelligence. He owes his position and his success in general to his own efforts, having begun his career alone, and he has come up solely by dint of hard work and faithful attention to business. He is systematic in his habits and his work, careful and painstaking, a rapid penman, competent accountant, and possesses a talent for the details of business. He is polite and accommodating, genial and companionable. His personal popularity is well attested by the fact that he was elected to his present position in a county largely republican in politics, while he is a democrat. He was elected solely on account of his well-known ability and fitness for the place, and has not disappointed his friends and those who stood by him. He has taken to the discharge of his public duties the same industry and application, the same thoughtful attention and marked solicitude for the public interests, that he displayed in the prosecution of his own affairs, and as he grows in public knowledge he also grows in public favor.

Mr. Hartsough married, in 1879, Miss Delia Babcock, of Dundee, Mich., the lady whom he selected for a companion being one in every way worthy of him and eminently fitted to bear him the companionship which he sought with her hand.

Mr. Hartsough is a member of a number of the benevolent orders and has held several positions of prominence in them. He is a man of broad views and charitable impulses, and he finds the best field for his endeavors in behalf of his fellow-men in the avenues opened through these fraternities.