Ben F.
Stockwell
From: Compendium of History,
Reminiscence and Biography of Nebraska, p. 1004
Few men living today in the state of Nebraska have memories of its prairies fifty years ago, but one of these few is Ben F. Stockwell, now retired, living in Boyd county, in the county seat. Mr. Stockwell first set foot on Nebraska soil in 1861, when he traversed the state on his way to Nevada, where for eighteen months he was employed in the silver mines of Virginia City. He had spent it short time in Utah, Idaho, and Montana, but made his longest sojourn in the state of Nevada before returning to his former home at La Grange, Indiana.
Mr. Stockwell was born in the village of Alexander, Licking County, Ohio, September 7,
1838, and when four years old his parents moved to La Grange county, Indiana. He is a son
of Ephriam and Margaret (Streeter) Stockwell, the former working as a millwright
practically all his life. Ben Stockwell has been self-supporting since he was but nine
years of age, working for his board and clothes, neither of which was over-abundant. At
the age or twenty. He became one of a threshing crew, and for thirty years followed that
employment [sic]. After his return from the mountains in the year 1862, Mr. Stockwell
lived in Indiana until coming to the west. He lived during the winters of 1870-1871 in
Jasper county. Iowa, before making residence in Nebraska in June, 1871, when he settled in
Cass county, on a farm three miles west of Weeping Water, where he bought railroad land.
Here he lived nine years, suffering total losses two Years. owing to the grasshopper pest.
In 1880 he sold in Cass county, and moving to Lincoln county, Kansas, bought two hundred
and forty acres six miles east of the city of Lincoln. Here he plied the science and art
of farming and stock-raising seven years. Coming to Holt county in the. fall of 1877, he
bought a relinquishment and filed on a homestead of one hundred and sixty acres seven
miles cast of Eagle Mills where he resided until 1903.
In 1900 Mr. Stockwell retired from active farming and became a resident of Butte, where
his, brother, Dr. Stockwell, had been the leading phyiscian [sic] since the founding of
the town. He bought two lots, built a residence, and at once planted trees which are today
as large and thrifty as any in town. His place he sold to advantage in 1903, and built his
present home, which faces the school square on the north.
Mr. Stockwell was married September 5, 1860, to Miss Jane Rowland, a native of Huron
county, Ohio. Her father, William Rowland, was a native of New York, who died at the age
of eighty-seven; the mother, Mary Holcomb, lived until attaining her seventy-fifth year.
Four children have been horn to Mr. and Mrs. Stockwell, named am follows: Lydia, wife of
S. Anderson, of Henley, South Dakota; Kate, who is married to George Kirkland, of
Atkinson, Holt county; Emma and her husband, Wilford Standeford, have a claim
near Gregory, South Dakota; and Charlotte, is married to Ray Coleman, who is
employed at Phoenix, Holt county, Nebraska.
Mr. Stockwell was living in Holt County at the time of the great blizzard of January 12,
1888, and going from the house to the barn to feed his stock, he lost his way and with
difficulty returned to his door. The weather looked suspicious to the mother that day, and
the children were kept home from school, saving them suffering and distress. Mr. and Mrs.
Stockwell never lived in the primitive sod house, as many settlers were compelled to do,
but always lived near enough a town to buy lumber for a frame dwelling. Part of the time
while living in Cass County corn was a drug on the market and furnished a cheaper fuel
than coal.
With a recollection of Nebraska extending over a period of more than fifty years Mr.
Stockwell has no cause to regret the impulse that brough him to the state as a settler;
and the state has cause to congratulate itself on acquiring so thrifty and substantial
citizens as he.
* Wilford Standiford went from KY to IL to Gregory, SD before migrating to NE. The had at least one son: C. Vere Standiford.
