My Genealogy Hound

JASPER FISH. This much honored and esteemed gentleman is one of the early settlers of Buffalo county, having settled in the Wood River valley in the spring of 1872. He was born at Woodstock, Vt., March 23, 1826, and is the son of Nathan and Betsey (Hale) Fish. The former, a farmer by occupation, was a native of Vermont, born February 28, 1786; the latter, a native of New Hampshire, was born March 30, 1786. There were seven children in Nathan’s family, two boys and five girls, as follows — Marcia, Lucia, Harriet, Linus (died 1877), Laura, Jasper and Isabel. The father died in 1843, aged fifty-seven years; the mother in 1868, aged eighty-two years.

The paternal grandparent, Nathan Fish, was a native of Massachusetts, born in the year 1758, and was a farmer by occupation, and a soldier in the Revolutionary war. The paternal grandmother, Abigail (Pierce) Fish, also a native of Massachusetts, was born in 1757. The maternal grandparents were John and Mary (Whitcomb) Hale, both natives of Massachusetts, and born respectively in 1754 and 1753.

Jasper Fish, the subject of this biographical memoir, resided at home on his father’s farm in Vermont, until nineteen years of age, during which time he attended school in the winter and helped his father on the farm in summer. In the spring of 1845 he went to Lowell, Mass., and after working there one year, entered Newburg seminary, Vt. He continued his studies there, and at Springfield, in his native state, working and teaching to pay his expenses, until the spring of 1851, when he entered the sophomore class in Wesleyan University, Middletown, Conn. He graduated with honors in the classical course, in 1853, receiving the degree of A. B. After leaving the university he taught in Virginia and in Massachusetts, and in 1856 came West and taught in Illinois, Iowa and Wisconsin.

May 16, 1864, he responded to his country’s call for more troops and enlisted in Company C, Forty-fourth Iowa volunteer infantry. He served on picket and guard duty in Tennessee under General C. C. Washburn and was mustered out September 15, 1864. He went East in 1865 and continued teaching until the spring of 1868, when he located at Syracuse, N. Y., residing there until 1872, during which time he worked on directories and gazetteers.

He came to Buffalo county, March 21, 1872, and entered a homestead, a quarter section in the Wood River valley, four miles north of Kearney, and built an eight by twelve board shanty on his claim, in which he kept bachelor’s hall. This was the third house built in the township, and the first one north of the Wood river. The Pawnee Indians were quite numerous in those days, and were engaged in trapping and hunting on the Wood river. They paid his cabin an occasional visit, for the purpose of begging flour and meal, but other than this they never molested him. Deer and antelope were plentiful, and elk were to be seen occasionally.

Mr. Fish boarded with a family, for a time, on the opposite bank of the river, and relates a rather humorous experience which occurred during a spring freshet. He arose one morning, and, proceeding in the direction of his boarding house, found the river had risen during the night beyond the capacity of its banks, and the bridge gone. He was in a sad plight, as there was no bridge for miles on which he could cross. His landlord contrived a plan for relief by tying a cord to each handle of a dish-pan and throwing one end across the stream. In this manner he received his breakfast; milked the cow, which was on his side of the river, retained enough for his dinner, then started the remainder on the return voyage, in the dish-pan. But, alas! in midstream the vessel swamped, and the milk mingled with the turbid waters. After this, the liquid refreshments were transported in a jug, tightly corked, while chunks of bread and meat were thrown to him by his landlord, with all the accuracy of a professional base-ball player. In this manner Mr. Fish received his meals for three days.

During the winter of 1873, Mr. Fish built himself a sixteen by twenty story-and a-half frame house. He raised fair crops for the first two years, but in 1874 the grasshoppers destroyed everything, with the exception of a few bushels of wheat. The crops of 1875 were fair, and 1876 were a repetition of 1874, and Mr. Fish states that if he had sold his seed and turned his team to pasture, he would have had more money in the fall. By selling butter and eggs, eating wild game and practicing the most rigid economy, he was able to keep soul and body together.

In 1882 he sold his quarter-section for $2,500, and bought for $1,000 the quarter just east of it, where he now resides. One thing can be said of Mr. Fish which can be said of few Western farmers, that he has never mortgaged a single dollar’s worth of real or personal property, and has never paid a dollar of interest on money at a higher rate than ten per cent.

He is a member of the Methodist church; was one of the first trustees of the church in Kearney, and in the early days he was prominent in the organization of a Sunday-school in his district school house. Mr. Fish has never been married. His sister, Lucia Fish, has been his housekeeper since 1873. She is a native of Vermont, born at Woodstock, May 12, 1817. A consistent member of the Methodist church, with her brother she helped to organize and conduct the first Sunday-school in their vicinity.

Mr. Fish is a firm believer in the principles of the republicans, having voted that ticket ever since the organization of the party.