My Genealogy Hound

JOHN P. SWANSON, one of the largest and most successful farmers of Center township, came to Nebraska in the spring of 1883 and two years later located a homestead on the southwest quarter of section 10, township 7, range 18, Phelps county. His first care was to find shelter for himself, to which end he built a sod house and soon after built the frame house in which he now resides. Of his farm he has one hundred and thirty acres under cultivation, raising mixed crops, and has his farm also well supplied with fine grades of live stock. For five years his average wheat crop has been fifteen bushels, but has had some years as high as twenty-two bushels per acre, and has invariably had good crops which, having been judiciously managed, have placed him in very comfortable circumstances. When he came to the state he had $200, and what he now has he has made since.

Mr. Swanson was born in Sweden, November 4, 1863, raised on a farm, and received the usual education common to the children of his native country. After leaving the common school he entered the high school, where he had instilled into his youthful mind principles which, besides giving him a good education, have enabled him to fight the battles of life. At the age of eleven he left home and went to sea, shipping as a sailor, and served on the ocean for five years; then came to America, landing at New Orleans. He secured a position on a steam-boat and followed the Mississippi for two years; then spent six months with a United States surveying party in Mississippi, and then came to Nebraska, as above stated.

His father, S. P. Gustason, of Sweden, a shoemaker by trade, was also a farmer and horse-trader. In 1880 he emigrated and settled in Nebraska, locating a farm in Phelps county, but has since moved to Loomis and is engaged in the butcher business. He married Miss Matilda Buildings, also of Sweden, and by this marriage became the father of three children, all of whom are now living in this country. The father and mother of our subject are still living and are in good health, although past the meridian of life.

In March, 1889, Mr. Swanson married Miss Agnes Mary Elizabeth Olson, a daughter of Olaus Olson, a native of Sweden, who came to America in 1877, and three years later located in Nebraska and is now residing in this county. During his younger days Mr. Olson followed the sea, but left it and is now engaged in farming. To Mr. and Mrs. Swanson has been born one child — John Otto Swanson.

As a man, Mr. Swanson is industrious and enterprising and is ever ready to do anything for the bettering of his community. Politically, he is Independent and is a member of the Farmers’ Alliance. Besides cultivating the one hundred and thirty acres of his own farm, Mr. Swanson rents land and does farming on a large scale; he also runs a thresher, is something of a trader and is full of business.