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Wyoming, and his wife went east to her people.
Spencer Sheak was born in Duchess county, New York, December 18, 1847; came to Black Hawk, Colorado, in 1867; worked in the mines several years; took land in Saline county, Nebraska, in 1869 and remained there until 1875.
He settled on Rock Branch in Norton county on May 16, 1876; moved to Long Branch, where he now resides, in 1880.He was married to Nannie Collins of Sumner county, May 15,1889. He is a successful farmer. Dr. Newton took a claim on Long Branch in 1874; he was elected coroner in 1875. During the winter of 1875 he left the country abandoning his family and has never been heard from since. His wife afterward married Charlie Rogers; his two stepsons, John and Thomas Connor, are well known to all the early settlers. John married Nettie Campbell but they afterward parted; she has since married again and lives in Cheyenne, Wyoming. John also lives in Wyoming working on a stock ranch. Tom married Lyda Cush; they have three children; he is now in business in Norcatur. Oscar Bass came from Fremont county, Iowa in 1872. He was a hunter and trapper. He took land on Long Branch; he built a dugout at Norton which he used while hunting and trapping on the Prairie Dog. He went back to Iowa in the fall of 1874. Reason Oliver came to Long Branch in the spring of 1874 and took the land he now lives on. His wife ran away with a German by the name of Godfrey Byrus who had settled there in the spring of 1875; this elopement occurred in 1878. They were in Georgetown, Colorado, when last heard from. Oliver remained on the farm with the five children; they are all grown now and reside in the county. Oliver was married January 24, 1894, to Clara Lockhart. Erastus Campbel [Campbell] came here with his family from Nebraska in 1875 and settled on Long Branch where they now reside. Henry Lebeau came here from Elk Horn, Nebraska, in the spring of 1873 and remained here until about 1879 when he and his wife parted and he went to the Indian Territory and married again; he has remained there ever since. Mrs. Lebeau with her five children still lives on the Sappa. In the spring of 1874 William Jones and Frank Boyington came in and took claims. Jones was born in New Hampshire but stopped a short time at Avoca, Iowa. He took the claim that Dave Blue now owns. He began to break prairie and make improvements but had not built a house yet and was camping out on the prairie near where Dave Blue's house now stands; one night in July he accidentally shot himself; or at least that was the verdict of the coroner's jury. On the night in question he was |
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