Sedgwick County KSGenWeb

Portrait And Biographical Album of Sedgwick County, Kan.

Chapman Brothers 1888

Pages 813 - 814

NELS MARTINSON is among the stalwart and substantial citizens of Delano Township, who are of alien birth, but who have, by their own unaided exertions, raised themselves from the state of comparative poverty in which they came to this country, to their present prosperous condition. He is engaged in general farming and stock-raising on section 19, and is a well-to-do and respected citizen of the community. He was born in Sweden, Oct. 16, 1837, and is the son of Martin and Charity Hawkinson, both of whom were natives of the same country.

            Our subject in his boyhood received the education that is so common to the youth of his country, for it is a well-known fact that but few of his countrymen are so illiterate as not to read or write. He grew to manhood in his native land, and becoming convinced that on that side of the ocean it was almost impossible for a man to rise above his condition or to acquire a competence, he decided to seek in the New World, and under the protection of the American Government, the friend of the poor man, that fortune which was denied him in his home. Accordingly, in June, 1865, he bade adieu to that land of the midnight sun, and embarking upon what proved a tempestuous passage across the Atlantic, landed in the United States. He at once came west to Chicago, where soon after his arrival, Aug. 7, 1865, he was united in marriage with Miss Nellie Oleson, a native of the same country, who was born Nov. 27, 1838, and who came over to this country on the same vessel as her future husband. Mr. Martinson remembers distinctly that just prior to the sailing of the ship, the news came of the assassination of Lincoln, the martyred President, and the flight and capture of Jefferson Davis, the President of the would-be Confederacy.

            Our subject remained in Chicago until 1870, employed as a common laborer by the day, but early in that year came to Kansas, and the following June pre-empted 160 acres of land on section 19, where he is now living. He has an excellent farm, lying on both sides of the Cowskin Creek, which affords water so necessary for stock or for raising grain in this country. The soil is of a heavy dark loam, generally, with some upland prairie, and is exactly suited to raise grain, stock, or small fruits. It is in a beautiful and healthy location, and has produced as high as seventy-eight to eighty bushels of corn to the acre. The district school is distant from it but half a mile, and two churches lie within easy access.

            Mr. Martinson, politically, is a supporter of the principles of the Greenback party, and also a strict Prohibitionist. He is a great reader, believing the company of good books to be truly civilizing. By the perusal of a number of papers he keeps himself well informed as to the progress of current events. In 1874 Mr. Martinson had the misfortune to loose his wife by death, since which time he has been living a lonely life on his farm, with his son, Frank Oscar, who was born in Chicago, Ill., Aug. 12, 1869. Lulu L., his only other child, was born in Sedgwick County, Kan., Dec. 3, 1871, being the first white child born east of the Cowskin in Delano Township. Mr. Martinson is a highly industrious man, and of rigid and sterling integrity, and his honesty of purpose and upright principles have won him the respect and confidence of everyone who knows him. He is making a great success in his calling, and is already well advanced on the road to that competence which will afford to his declining years the ease and comfort earned by a long life of toil.

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