My Genealogy Hound

GEORGE W. WASHBURN was born at Beloit, Wis., January 17, 1844, and is the son of Ira F. and Jane E. (Pratt) Washburn, both of whom are natives of New York. His parents emigrated to Wisconsin in 1839 and were among the first settlers in the section of the county in which they settled. After spending a few years in Illinois the family came to Nebraska in 1876 and settled in Kearney county. The senior Washburn was a farmer by occupation. He died October 31, 1889, and his wife died in 1877. Both were members of the Baptist church. George W. Washburn remained at home until he was sixteen years old, when he went to Chicago and worked in a sash and door factory for a few years. He enlisted August 28, 1861, in the Thirty-ninth, Illinois regiment and served two years in the war. He was in the second battle of Winchester, was a participant in the storming of Ft. Wagner; and several short skirmishes, and was discharged August 5, 1863, for disability. He returned to Chicago and engaged in carpenter work, which vocation he has continued to follow more or less of the time since. In 1869 he went to Arkansas, where he spent a few years in the vast timber regions of that state. He came to Kearney county, Nebr., in 1875, and was among the first settlers in this new country. He took a homestead, which he at once put under cultivation and which he now owns, it being among the best improved farms in the township. When he first settled here the country was full of wild game, such as antelope, deer, etc. He was a victim of the grasshopper raid and witnessed a great deal of suffering among the early settlers. Many of the settlers of those days have gone and their places filled with new-comers. During the grasshopper raid he has seen eighty acres of land exchanged for a common cook stove, an incident which well illustrates the small value placed upon land by the settlers, after they had had their grasshopper experience.