An old resident of Clyde and vicinity, and an old veteran of the Civil war, who served his country well, is R.E. Stimson, of Clyde. He visited Kansas in the spring of 1866, en route home from Utah, where he was a member of General Custer's brigade. Mr. Stimson experienced nearly five years of United States service. He enlisted directly after the battle of Bull Run in July, 1861. He participated in the battles of Winchester in 1862, Culpeper Court House, Cedar Mountain, the second battle of Bull Run, Fredericksburg, Virginia, and Gettysburg. He was in the cavalry fight at Brandy Station, covering Meade's retreat, where from twenty to twenty-five thousand cavalry were engaged. Also at Mine Run, Bucklin's Mill and through the entire series of the battles of the Wilderness. He remained with the campaign until the explosion of the mine at Petersburg. After this event he went with General Sheridan to the valley of the Shenandoah and was in the battles of Fisher Hill and Cedar Creek. He spent the next spring with Grant's army in front of Petersburg. Mr. Stimson had many narrow escapes from death. He was wounded in a saber charge at Gettysburg and taken prisoner at Five Points, Virginia, just prior to the surrender of General Lee. He was wounded on the 3d of July, but entered the service again December 21, 1863. During the summer of 1864 three horses were shot from under him: one of them at Bethseda church, near Cold Harbor. At the close of hostilities between the north and the south Mr. Stimson's regiment was taken across the plains by the Colonel commanding Fort Bridger, where they were on duty until March 24, 1866. Immediately afterward he started with a party of nine comrades who emigrated along the valley of the Platte river, through Kansas to his home in Michigan, where he resumed farming and married Miss Helen French. In 1868 they emigrated to Highland, Kansas, and to Cloud county in May, 1870, where he homesteaded one hundred and sixty acres of land three miles north of Clyde. He sold his farm in 1886 and removed to Clyde, where he has since resided.

Mr. Stimson was born in Ontario county, New York, in 1843. When sixteen years of age he went to Michigan, where he had an older brother and began life as a farmer. To Mr. and Mrs. Stimson have been born three sons: Clarence, aged twenty-eight, a baker with residence in Concordia; his family consists of a wife and one child, Roland, aged twelve months. Ernest, aged twenty-six, is night central line man for the Clyde Telephone Company. Louis, aged twenty-four, is an employe of the Santa Fe Railroad in Topeka. Politically, Mr. Stimson is a Republican; is the carrier of the rural free mail delivery, Route No. 1. He is a member of the Modern Woodmen and the Grand Army of the Republic.