My Genealogy Hound

LEVI M. COPELAND, the pioneer druggist of Minden, Kearney county, is a native of Henry county, Ind., and was born December 26, 1842. He is the oldest of nine children born to Nathan and Amelia (Clanton) Copeland, and is the only representative of his family in this state, most of his brothers and sisters residing where they were born and reared in Henry county, Ind., where also live the parents, now well advanced in years.

The subject of this notice was reared on his father’s farm in Henry county, Ind., and received an ordinary common-school training, working as a farm hand through the summer months and attending the district schools in the winter. He entered the Union army in July, 1862, then just turned into his nineteenth year, enlisting in Company I, Sixty-ninth Indiana infantry. He served till the close of the war, participating in all the campaigns and engagements that his regiment served in till the surrender.

This simple narrative of Mr. Copeland’s military career will probably excite no special interest in the mind of the general reader, as it is the oft-told story, true of thousands of old soldiers, but it will, nevertheless, be of absorbing interest in years to come to his descendants who will treasure the meagre facts thus preserved of his army life as the miser treasures his gold. Thoy will look upon those years as the eventful ones of his life as well as of this nation — those years when patriotism flushed through the land like an electric thrill; when the canker of gold and the dust of cotton dropped from the manhood of the nation, and men went forth to battle for their country; when they surrendered the search for wealth, dropped the plow in its furrow, the hammer at the forge, the pen at the desk and marched cheerily to wounds and to death.

The war over, Mr. Copeland returned to his home in Henry county, Ind., and again went to farming. March 6, 1867, he married Miss Sarah E. Harrold, of his native county and a lady whom he had known from childhood. He resided in Henry county, engaged in farming, till 1876, when he moved to Henry county, Iowa, thence in 1878 to Cowley county, Kans., thence in 1879 to Harlan county, Nebr., and in December of the same year to Minden, Kearney county, where he has since resided. On locating in Minden he bought of George W. Espey a drug-store and began the drug and book business. In addition to this he has been identified in a general way with the best interests, material and social, of his adopted town and county, and there is hardly a more liberal-minded or public-spirited citizen to be found in this community than himself. He has never aspired to public office, preferring the peaceful paths of private life and the pleasure that comes from a consciousness of duty well done as a humble citizen to the turmoil, disappointments and heart-burnings incident to the life of the office-seeker. He takes an active interest in the Grand Army of the Republic, having been commander of Strong Post, No. 91, at Minden, and adjutant of the post for three years, and a liberal contributor to all purposes looking to the betterment of the condition of his old comrades. He is also a zealous member of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows, having joined them over twenty-two years ago. He has passed all the chairs in this fraternity and has represented his lodge on two occasions in the grand lodge.

Mr. and Mrs. Copeland have a pleasant home and are justly popular with the best people where they live. They have two daughters — Cecil C. and Anna B., both grown and around whom now naturally clusters the chief interest of their lives, and in the unfolding and development of whose characters they find their keenest pleasures.