My Genealogy Hound

MARTIN V. ESLER was born in Columbia county, Pa., July 18, 1844. His father, Frederick Esler, was a native of France, born November 11, 1796, and came to this country in 1826, locating in Philadelphia, where he began the manufacture of glass (at which business he lost $80,000), and afterwards located on the Susquehannah river and engaged in the manufacture of soap and candles. Our subject’s mother, Elizaboth (Aull) Esler, was a native of Bavaria, born in 1809. Martin remained at home helping his father until twenty-four years of age, at which age he emigrated West and located at Belleville, St. Clair county, Ill. He engaged as traveling salesman for Johnson, Huntly & Co., agricultural implement dealers of Brockport, N. Y., and traveled for five years over the state selling their goods. He then bought a farm in St. Clair county and tilled it for one year, but was taken sick and for four years his health was such that he was unable to do any work. He then moved back to Pennsylvania, residing there three years and working on a farm. He again emigrated West in January, 1878, and pre-empted one hundred and sixty acres in section 8, town 10, range 17, Buffalo county, Nebr., on which he still resides. He had on arriving here but $7.35 in money, and constructed a cheap dug-out in which he resided for two years, after which he built a more convenient house out of sod. When he first located in that section, deer and antelope were numerous. He has seen as many as nine deer in a bunch around his stable. The country about him was mostly raw and his nearest neighbors lived several miles distant. He borrowed money at 3 percent, per month with which to buy a team, and on account of the failure of crops was unable to pay it back for three years. He now has one hundred and sixty acres of the best land in the Wood River valley and has it all under cultivation except fifteen acres. Mr. Esler was married December 25, 1869, to Elizabeth Aull, who was born in St. Clair county, Ill., December 29, 1850, and is one of eleven children born to Frederick and Elizabeth (Schragg) Aull, both of whom were natives of Bavaria, the former having been born in 1813 and the latter in 1829, and came to this country in 1833.

To the union of Mr. and Mrs. Esler have been born the following children: Frederick, born October 5, 1870; Dora E., born January 17, 1872; Catherine A. (deceased), born March 6, 1874; Emma G. (deceased), born March 8, 1878; Rosa E. (deceased), born March 8, 1878; Mary F., born February 15, 1879; Henry A., born April 19, 1881; Roy A., born November 26, 1884; Daniel H., born March 20, 1887, and May V., born June 19, 1889.

In the spring of 1879 Mr. Esler secured by petition the establishment of a post-office at Green Dale, in Buffalo county, and was appointed the first postmaster at that place April 26th of the same year, and served until June 30, 1883, when he resigned in favor of Edward Haase. March 3, 1890, Mr. Esler relinquished farming entirely and settled in Kearney City where he employs his time in removing cancers.

Mrs. M. V. Esler had four brothers in the late war. Of these, Daniel, a member of Company F, One Hundred and Thirtieth Illinois volunteer infantry, was killed at the battle of Vicksburg, Miss., and Jacob, a member of Company C, Twenty-sixth Illinois volunteers, died at Scottsboro, Ala., of congestive chills contracted from exposure a few months before the expiration of his three years’ term of enlistment.

In politics Mr. Esler is a prohibitionist and an Alliance man.