My Genealogy Hound

OSCAR F. ROBERTS, merchant of Atlanta, Phelps county, is a native of New York, the third of a family of six children born to Samuel and Ermina (Lee) Roberts. His parents were both natives of New York, originally of Scotch extraction. They were plain, substantial people and always lived in their native state.

The subject of this notice was born in November, 1832, and reared on his father’s farm, receiving a good common-school education. In 1855 he married Julia Pratt, daughter of Stillman Pratt, of New York, and, selecting the carpenter’s trade as a pursuit, he settled down in his native state and began the solution of the problem of life. Just as he was getting fairly started the clouds of civil war burst over the country and he, like thousands of other patriotic men responded to the call for volunteers to defend the Union, enlisting in 1863, in Company G, One Hundred and Thirty-eighth New York infantry, entering for three years. He served with the Army of the Potomac, and was in all the engagements fought by that army from the date of his enlistment till the surrender, and had the good fortune never to be captured, wounded or sent to hospital. He was mustered out in Virginia and returned to New York, where he took up his calling as carpenter, which he followed there for a time, moving thence to Wisconsin and still later to Kansas, settling in 1871 in Jewell county, that state. There he took a homestead and lived for four years. Leaving the farm in 1875 he moved into the town of Burr Oak, Jewell county, and engaged in the drug and jewelry business. He moved thence to Alma, Harlan county, this state, and shortly afterwards to Atlanta, Phelps county, where he has since resided. He was the first merchant who opened a stock of goods in Atlanta and he has done a steady, successful business since locating there, now owning a combined drug and grocery house. He has filled a number of local offices since coming West, the duties of which he has discharged with credit to himself and satisfaction to all his fellow-citizens. He was county commissioner of Jewell county, Kans., for four years; he has been town clerk of Atlanta for seven years, ever since he has been a resident of the place, and he has been postmaster there for three years.

Mr. Roberts had the misfortune to lose his first wife in October, 1867, a daughter and son, Lida and Frederick, offsprings of his marriage, are both now residents of New York, where they were born and reared. He married again in December, 1889, taking to wife Miss Mary Harvey, a daughter of Edward Harvey, of Ohio.

Mr. Roberts is a member of the Masonic fraternity and a zealous advocate of the cause of temperance. In former years he affiliated with the republican party and still votes that ticket on National issues, but on state and local issues he stands with the prohibitionists.