My Genealogy Hound

BRINTON F. HARBAUGH was born in Hamilton county, Ind., March 28, 1854, and is the son of Samuel and Amelia (Seaman) Harbaugh. His father was born in Kentucky in 1808, but was reared in Ohio. In 1833 he moved to Indiana and in 1875 came to Nebraska. He was a wagon-maker by trade and was a soldier in the Black Hawk war. He has several times been elected justice of the peace and is a respected member of the Christian church.

B. F. Harbaugh learned the wagon-maker’s trade with his father, while a resident of Indiana. Being an industrious young man he concluded to accept the advice of that revered journalist, Horace Greeley, and go West. The spring of 1873 found him in Kearney, then a mere hamlet on the frontier. He followed the Wood river as far west as the present vilhge of Armada, where he filed a soldier’s declaratory claim to a quarter section for his brother and held it down for six months, when he purchased it for himself. He built a sod house and survived the grasshopper raid, but witnessed great suffering among settlers in those dark days. There were few ways of earning money then and many had to resort to hunting and trapping to gain a livelihood.

In 1885 he moved to Armada and engaged in the implement business, which he continued for about three years. Mr. Harbaugh is now justice of the peace for Armada township, and has held various other local offices. He is a young man of excellent habits and of exceptional ability, and has a bright future before him. He manifests a deep interest in the rapid development of Armada and the surrounding country, and is confident that at no distant day the success of the town will be assured. He was married November 1, 1882, to Miss Judy Burt. They have two children — Georgia, born August 17, 1883, and Annie, born November 21, 1884. Mrs. Harbaugh was born June 15, 1861, and is the daughter of Arthur F. and Elizabeth (Campbell) Burt.