My Genealogy Hound

JAHUGH WINSLOW, one of the first settlers on the old Fort Kearney reservation and a prosperous farmer of Centre township, Buffalo county, was born March 4, 1841, in Washington county, Ind. His father, Josiah Winslow, a farmer by occupation, was also a native of Indiana, born in the year 1819. The mother, Sarah (Shields) Winslow, was born 1821. There were twenty-one children in the father’s family.

Jahugh Winslow, the subject of this biography, in his early days attended the neighboring school and assisted his father about the home place. He worked with his father at the tanning business in Washington county until thirty years of age. He enlisted in the war, in response to a proclamation calling for more troops, in September, 1864. He was assigned to Company E, Fifty-third regiment Indiana volunteers, and served in Sherman’s army, Seventeenth Corps. His company was sent from Indianapolis, via Louisville, Nashville and Chattanooga, near which last-named place they were deserted by their commander and for four days were without a mouthful of food, after which they procured some moldy bread which the men eagerly devoured. The regiment joined Sherman at Atlanta, and was with him on his famous campaign through Georgia, during which Mr. Winslow was taken with the measles and had to march thirty miles through the rain. Arriving at the rebel works at Savannah, he was put into an ambulance and sent to the hospital at Port Royal Island, where he remaired from December to February, when he was transferred to Fort Schuyler, where a month later his folks came after him, procured a furlough and took him home. He remained at home two months and then joined his regiment at Louisville. He was discharged July 29, 1865.

He continued to reside in Washington county until October, 1875, when on account of his health he decided to emigrate West. He accordingly came and located first in Kearney, where he resided until January 3, of the following year, when he homesteaded a quarter section in what is called the old Fort Kearney reservation, on which he still resides.

In 1876, he broke out and put into crops a portion of his place. The crops for a time flourished and gave promise of a rich harvest, but the grasshoppers came that year and destroyed everything, leaving the family with neither money nor food. That winter Mrs. W. plied her needle diligently, while Mr. W. trapped beaver and otter along the Platte river, the skins of which he tanned and made into gloves and mittens, for which he found a ready market. Mr. W. also shot prairie-chickens, which he shipped to Eastern markets. With the money they were able to earn in this manner, they managed to live. In 1877 Mr. W. took a load of flour in a train of provisions to the Black Hill country in western Dakota. He reports good crops ever since 1878, with the exception of 1887, when he had his crops destroyed by a severe hail storm.

Mr. Winslow was married March 14, 1867, to Sally A. Jones, daughter of Benjamin and Elizabeth (Newby) Jones; the former a furniture-maker by trade, was born in 1819; the latter was born in 1817. They are both living and have been blessed with ten children. The marriage of Mr. and Mrs. Winslow has resulted in the birth of seven children, as follows — John, Lydia, Alelia, Cora, Elbert E. and Benjamin T., and one that died in infancy not named.

In politics, Mr. Winslow adheres to the principles of the republican party.