52 Ancestors - Week 9 - Elmer Ellsworth Squibb (1865-1932) - His Early Life

My great grandfather, Elmer Ellsworth Squibb was born 31 July 1865, to Adam Edward and Elizabeth (Fox) Squibb. The 1870 Census shows the family living in Center township (Comanche post office) in Clinton County, Iowa. By 1880 they had moved across Iowa to Charter Oak, Crawford County, Iowa. Ellsworth, as he was called most of his life, came to western Nebraska with his parents, brothers Tom, George and John and sisters Armeda, Laura and Julie, from Charter Oak by train about 1886. The railroad had made it to this part of Nebraska and settlers followed, taking advantage of the Homestead Act and the offer of free land. According to stories passed down through the generations, the family took a homestead on Willow Creek which emptied into the Running Water (the Niobrara River) east of Marsland, Nebraska. Adam Squibb had the first blacksmith shop in Marsland.

Elmer Ellsworth Squibb