My Genealogy Hound

GEORGE D. ROWLAND, the subject of this sketch, is one of Phelps county’s oldest settlers, as he has been one of her most successful citizens. He has been a resident of the state for nineteen years, over twelve of which have been spent in the county where he now resides. He is a native of Wisconsin, and the fifth of a family of eight children born to John H. and Catherine (Farris) Rowland. His father, now a resident of Franklin county, this state, is a native of Virginia, and was reared mainly in his native state and Kentucky. He went to Wisconsin when a young man, where he afterwards married and lived for some years, engaged in the lead mines of that state. Coming to Nebraska in the fall of 1871, he settled in Franklin county, where he has since resided, having reached his seventy-ninth year. Mr. Rowland’s mother is a native of Ohio, being a daughter of Garrett Farris, who moved from Ohio and settled in Wisconsin at a comparatively early date. Of the eight children born to John H. and Catherine Rowland, all reached maturity, and are now living, being scattered all over the West from the great lakes to the Pacific coast. They are all married and settled down in life, and are succeeding reasonably well.

The subject of this sketch was reared mainly in Wisconsin, coming in the spring of 1871 to this state and settling in Franklin county, where he resided for seven years. In 1878 he moved to Phelps county and took a pre-emption and timber claim in section 11, township 5, range 19 west, and there located and has since lived. He began on limited means, and has had the usual hard experience which fell to the lot of all old settlers. He passed through the grasshopper scourge, the dry years, the hail storms and all the hard times incident to these. He lost several crops, but by industry and economy he came out of all his difficulties with energy unimpaired and courage undiminished, and he has succeeded, in a great measure, in realizing the one great hope of his life, namely, to make for himself a home where he can spend his declining years in the secure enjoyment of peace and plenty. He owns six hundred and forty acres of as fine land as there is in Phelps county, over four hundred acres of which he has in a splendid state of cultivation; the home farm of three hundred and twenty acres being furnished with a large and commodious farm residence and all necessary outbuildings, and being ornamented with trees and shrubbery and stocked with the best grades of horses, cattle and hogs.

When Mr. Rowland came to the state he was a single man and he had the magnanimity and good sense not to ask any woman to share his fortunes until he got his affairs in shape where they would at least partially justify him in taking this step. He married, in Franklin county. May 1, 1874, taking as a companion Miss Ella Reed, a school teacher, then of Franklin county, and a daughter of Orsamus and Henrietta Reed (who were born, brought up and married in New York), old settlers of that county. Mrs. Rowland is a native of Wisconsin, but was reared mainly in Wisconsin and Iowa, whither her parents moved when she was young. To Mr. and Mrs. Rowland have been born a family of four children — Ardell, Maud, Claude Leroy and Hazel E. They had the great misfortune to lose two of these — Ardell and Maud, from diphtheria, in July, 1880, the former at the age of four, the latter at fourteen months.

In politics, Mr. Rowland evinces the good sense that has always characterized him by remaining aloof from all party associations, acting independently and according to his own judgment on the merits of all men and measures.