My Genealogy Hound

JOHAN BRAUN is a native of the town of Lutzk, Russia, and was born in March, 1846. He received very good schooling in his youthful days, and later learned the trade of a tanner, which he followed during his stay in his native country. In 1871 he married Miss Ernestina Renn, daughter of Johan Renn, a weaver, who still resides in the old country. In 1874 Mr. Braun came to America, landing in New York City, from which point he came at once to Kearney county, Nebr., and in June of the year named located a homestead near where Minden now stands. This farm is in the northeast quarter of section 12, township 6, range 15, and on it he lived for ten years, when he sold out and bought the farm he at present occupies, situated in the southwest quarter of section 29, township 6, range 14. This farm was then raw land, to which Mr. Braun added eighty acres, making a total of two hundred and forty acres, all now under fence and improved with good buildings, orchards and groves, and one hundred acres under cultivation. It is located three miles south of Minden, which town affords him a ready market for his produce. Mr. Braun was a stockholder in the Town of Kearney Land Association, that platted the young city in 1881, but he has since sold out his shares at a considerable profit. He is a gentleman possessing keen foresight and business sagacity, and, although of foreign birth, has become a true American and takes a genuine interest in the advancement of the country in which he lives. He was among the first to settle in Kearney county when the then frontier was an unbroken prairie, but he has lived to see it become a well improved and blooming section of the country, that has become wealthy through the enterprise of just such men as himself. On his first settlement here he had but little money, and for two years was harassed by the grasshoppers, which devastated the country and brought ruin in their train. Notwithstanding these pests and the visitation of disastrous storms, Mr. Braun was tenacious in his purpose and held his own until now he is quite as comfortable as one would wish to be.

August Braun, the father of the subject of this sketch, followed the trade of a tanner in his native Russia until he came to the United States, where, until recently, he followed farming in Nebraska until about seventy years of age, when he retired from active work. He married Miss Johanna Jurack, who bore him four children, and the whole family came to Nebraska with Johan in 1874, he being the eldest child. Of these children one girl has died since coming here. The union of Johan Braun and Ernestina Renn has been blessed with five children, born in the following order — Ottilie, Wilhelm, Frederich, Ludwig and Anna. In politics Mr. Braun acts indepentlently; in religion, he and his family affiliate with the German Evangelical Lutheran church. Mr. Braun has had his military experience, but not in this country, as the late Civil war was happily over when he arrived here; but he served in the army of his native country in the war of 1866 as a private, and in the war of 1870 as a sergeant, and passed through both contests without injury, and without doubt he would willingly have given his services to his adopted country, had he been present when she required the aid of soldiers such as he.