131.John Jackson Fisher3 was born on January 6, 1843, in Illinois, possibly in Madison County. He was likely named for his paternal uncle, John J. Fisher. As a young boy, John and his family moved west across the Mississippi River into Iowa by 1850 and eventually settled in Wapello County. There he met and married Harriet J. Chapman on July 27, 1862, in Wapello County, in the second year of the Civil War. A year later John enlisted in the cavalry. They were said to have had a son during the war who died around the age of 2. During the war the Fishers moved west to southeastern and central Nebraska Territory. They had six children, only four of whom survived to adulthood:[Cen 1900]
Family tradition holds that John went off to war leaving behind his pregnant wife, Harriet. With the aid of an Indian squaw, Harriet gave birth to a son, but the son died after about two years, prior to John's return from the war. If this happened, it was likely that it was while the family was in Nebraska, however, John did not serve more than 10 consecutive months.
Civil War
John's father-in-law enlisted in the Union Infantry a month after John and Harriet wed. Seven months later, John enlisted in Ashland, at the age of 20, on May 12, 1863, and was assigned to Company E of the 7th Iowa Cavalry Regiment, under Colonel Samuel W. Summers, at Camp Hendershott, Davenport, Iowa. He was described as 6' 3" tall, light complexion, dark hair, and blue eyes.[Pens]
In June he took ill with the mumps and after several weeks at the regimental hospital and a worsening condition, in which the mumps “settled in his privates,” he returned home to recuperate on July 23, absent without leave and later declared as deserted.[Pens] The following September, the company crossed Iowa to Omaha, Nebraska, from where the company patrolled the western territories between the Missouri River and the Rocky Mountains, most prevalently along the Platte River in Nebraska Territory.
John returned to the company 14 months later on October 13, 1864. In January and February of 1865, John was dispatched to the field for service, perhaps in response to the January 7 Plains Indians attack on Julesburg, Colorado Territory, the biggest conflict that the regiment (specifically Company F) had engaged in. It was during this time that a fellow soldier recalled that the company was crossing the frozen Platte River and a wagon broke through the ice. Captain George P. Norris ordered the men into the icy water to retrieve the supplies. John balked for fear that the icy water would exacerbate his medical condition, in particular his “privates” and was relieved of duty.[Pens]
John saw field service again in May and June. As the war wound to a close and the regiment was left to “lazing in camp [with] nothing to do,” John left camp without leave on August 29, 1865, to tend to his family and was dishonorably discharged for desertion.[Pens]
After the War
Either during the war or soon thereafter, the Fishers moved to southeast Nebraska Territory, in the heart of Pawnee territory, and settled in Big Sandy (also known as Meridian), Hobbs Precinct in Jefferson County (now in Thayer County). Big Sandy Crossing was an important watering place on the Oregon Trail where it gave way to a flat region between Big Sandy Creek and the Little Blue River. John's father had settled here by 1862 and homesteaded in the center of Section 9, Township 2 North, Range 2 West. John homesteaded in the northeast part of the same section and received a patent on October 15, 1873 (#1372).
After the war, John continued to suffer from complications of his illness with the mumps and rheumatism and was bedridden for a year from August 1866 to August 1867, according to his younger brother Sylvester.[Pens]
The Fisher family was still noted at Big Sandy during the 1870 census. After John's father died in 1871 at nearby Hebron, the family moved north to Sherman County in central Nebraska and lived in Loup City, Sherman County, around 1874 and 1875. There John suffered a long-term confinement to bed as a result of his rheumatism and after-effects of the mumps. Dr. John L. Goff, of Litchfield, Sherman County, began treating John in 1879 and noted that rheumatism of his neck, shoulder, and joints of his arms and legs was severe to the point that he was “disabled to the extend of the loss of an arm.”[Pens] The Fishers were enumerated in Clear Creek Precinct in Sherman County in 1880.[Cen 1880]
Frequently assaulted with illness, John returned to Wapello County, Iowa, in June 1887 to seek witnesses to testify on his behalf in seeking an invalid pension claim, citing partial incapacitation from “rheumatism, dyspepsia [indigestion], affection of the lungs and eyes, and catarrh of the head [inflammation of the mucous membranes].” He and his pension agent, George W. Sommerville, obtained affidavits from Captain George P. Norris, Chris Meyers, John C. McDonald, and John J. Frazer, in southeastern Iowa. John was subsequently ordered to undergo a medical examination in September in Grand Island, but missed the scheduled examination and his case was closed as “abandoned.”[Pens]
John filed again in January 1888, citing that his examination date had not been received, and gained a second order to appear in Grand Island for an examination. The examiner described John as 6' 4" tall and 170 pounds, and verified John's enlarged spermatic cord and affliction of the testes, but noted that he was generally in fair health for the age of 45 and his “hands show use in manual labor.” He was recommened for a disability rating of 4/18 for the mumps and its effects, but still witnesses to attest to the fact that his disability stemmed from military service. He further obtained affidavits from Captain George P. Norris, John J. Frazer, John McDonnald, and Cyrus E. Rosseter, in lieu of regimental doctors, Dr. James W. LaForce and Dr. Andrew J. Willey, whom he was unable to contact. He further noted that his family physician, Dr. C. F. Dildinr died two years previous.[Pens]
John's claim was rejected because of his desertion, so John filed to have his charge of desertion removed. This was further rejected in October 1888, and again in June 1889 on review. He appealed in January 1890, citing “that a dishonorable discharge is a penalty...for which a soldier may be punished, but that the penalty cannot include or relate to claim for a pension based upon disability.”[Pens]
During this time John appears to have moved south across the Sherman County line to Mahila, Buffalo County,[Pens] which was in Loup Township, about 12 miles west of Ravenna.
President Harrison signed the Dependent and Disability Pension Act into law on June 27, 1890, which provided pensions to Union Army veterans who had served 90 days and who were unable to perform manual labor, whether or not the cause of their disability was related to their service. John immediately filed a claim a week later but the claim was dismissed. In August he filed a physician's affidavit from Dr. John L. Goff, of Litchfield, and was granted a second medical examination in Kearney, Buffalo County, on December 17. John, age 47, 6' 3" tall, and 185 pounds, was evaluated to be entitled to 6/18 rating for rheumatism and heart ailments, 4/18 for dyspepsia, 4/18 for lung ailments, and 4/18 for catarrh of the head and eye ailments; however, further requests with affidavits failed in December 1891.[Pens]
California
The Fisher family moved west to California around 1894, likely with John's younger cousins, George and Lewis Fisher. They settled in Forestville, Sonoma County, by 1896.[Dth 1906] John's voter registration on August 9, 1898, listed him as a blacksmith and described him as standing 6' 3½" tall with a dark complexion, grey eyes, and light hair.
Come 1900, John, Harriet, son Theodoric, and daughter-in-law Cora moved briefly to Stillwater, Churchill County, Nevada, east of Reno. There John continued to work as a blacksmith and Theodoric worked as a farm laborer for the John W. & Hannah Freeman family.[Cen 1900] It is not known how long John and Harriet stayed there, but Theodoric and Cora had moved back to California by the following January.
John apparently tried to revive his disability pension case in 1904 with an inquiry from Congressman Theodore A. Bell but failed for the last time.[Pens]
John Jackson Fisher died on May 8, 1906, in Forestville, at the age of 63. He died from paralysis and suffered from hardening of the arteries. He was buried two days later at McPeak Cemetery in Forestville[Dth 1906], where his son David was reportedly buried three years earlier.
Harriet J. (Chapman) Fisher went on to remarry to Ira T. Williams two years later in 1910. Ira died in 1916 and Harriet lived another 20 years among her relatives until she passed away in 1936.
Mary C. Fisher (1845-<1871)
132.Mary C. Fisher was born on March 29, 1845, probably in Illinois or Indiana. She likely died before her father's death in 1871 as she is not listed among the heirs to his estate.
Isaac Fisher (1847-1866)
133.Isaac Fisher was born May 10, 1847, in Indiana. He was killed by Indians, probably in the attacks on Thayer County, Nebraska in the summer of 1867 which drove the surviving Fishers to Missouri for two years.
One story about Isaac connects his death to the Battle of Little Bighorn in Montana (June 25, 1876), however that battle was nine years after the attacks in Thayer County. The more likely event was during Red Cloud's War between June 1866 and 1868, in which a man by the name of Isaac Fisher was killed during the war's largest battle, which became known as the Fetterman Fight, on December 21, 1866.
Red Cloud's War: Fetterman Fight
Red Cloud's War, named for the chief of the Oglala Lakota who allied with the Northern Cheyenne and Northern Arapaho, fought U.S. Army troops along the Bozeman Trail through Crow territory in Wyoming and southern Montana. This territory included the Little Bighorn, where Lieutenant Colonel George Armstrong Custer suffered his defeat nine years later. The trail extended from Fort Laramie, Wyoming, to the Oregon Trail and Montana gold fields. The Army built three forts along the trail in 1866, chief among them was Fort Phil Kearny, in north-central Wyoming.
Red Cloud's warriors had been probing Army forces and attacking timber and firewood wagon trains throughout the fall of 1866. On the morning of December 21, a timber and firewood train under guard by almost 90 soldiers was attacked. Captain William J. Fetterman assembled a relief party that included two civilians, Isaac Fisher and James Wheatly. Fetterman was ordered not to pursue beyond Lodge Trail Ridge, but he was lured by the Indians into the valley beyond. Wheatly and Fisher went with Lieutenant George W. Grummond who led the cavalry at the head of the company. The Indians lured Grummond and the cavalry about a mile from the rest of the company. Then the attack came.
The Fort heard heavy fighting beyond the ridge around noon and dispatched reinforcements, but by the time they arrived they found Fetterman and all of his 80 men dead, stripped naked, scalped, and mutilated. Wheatly and Fisher were killed at the same spot, their faces smashed in. The battle was the largest action of the war and the worst Army defeat on the Great Plains until the Battle of Little Bighorn.
While Red Cloud's War was centered in Wyoming along the Bozeman Trail, one raid reached as far east as an attack on a Union Pacific Railroad train near modern-day Lexingon, Dawson County, Nebraska, on August 7, 1867. Lexington is about 150 miles west of Hebron, but that attack may have been what prompted Isaac's family to withdraw to Missouri in the summer of 1867.
Following later successes in repelling attacks—owing much to new breech-loading Springfield Model 1866 rifles—Army negotiations to conclude the Treat of Fort Laramie included abandoning the three forts along the Bozeman Trail in August 1868. The Native American warriors burned all the forts the day after they were vacated.
Sylvester FisherΔ (1849-1889)
134.Sylvester FisherΔ was born on November 12, 1849, along with his twin sister Sarah. They were born in Madison County, Indiana. Sylvester married Mary Jane Swaney, a native of Marietta, Washington County, Ohio, on September 25, 1873, in Bloomington, Franklin County, Nebraska. They had six children[Cen 1910] born in Nebraska, but one is not accounted for, persumably having died in infancy:
Sylvester Fisher Family, c. 1886
Left to right: Charles, Sylvester, Ida, Mary Jane, and Myrtle.
Photo courtesy of great-granddaughter Cheryl Casciani.
Following Sylvester's father's death in 1871, Sylvester moved about 80 miles west from Hebron to Bloomington, where he married Mary Jane Swaney and started their family.
Sylvester and his family, his mother, three youngest brothers, and his eldest brother John and his family, moved 80 miles north to Clear Creek Precinct, Sherman County, Nebraska, by 1880.[Cen 1880] Sylvester and younger brother Samuel lived in Clear Creek through at least 1885.[Cen 1885]
Sylvester Fisher died on January 11, 1889, in Kearney, Buffalo County, Nebraska, at the age of 39. Sylvester and Mary had been married 15 years. Sylvester was buried in Kearney Cemetery nearby his mother-in-law, Silence (Fish) Swaney, who had died four months earlier. Over 1889, Sylvester's one-year-old son John died in August and then in September Mary Jane's brother John Swaney lost four children to scarlet fever in the span of five days. They were all buried together in the Fisher-Swaney plot in Kearney Cemetery.[Grave]
After Sylvester's death, Mary and her four surviving children lived near the 1600 block of K Avenue on the southwest side of Kearney. There Ida worked as a weaver in a cotton mill and Charles worked as a farm laborer.[Cen 1900]
Mary and daughters Myrtle and Sophia moved to Chester Precinct, Brown County, in north central Nebraska by 1910.[Cen 1910]
Daughter Myrtle died in 1917 and was buried in Kearney Cemetery with her infant brother John. She was about 34 years old.[Grave]
Mary Jane (Swaney) Fisher died, 31 years after Sylvester's death, on December 19, 1920, in Nebraska. She was 68 years old. She was also buried in Kearney Cemetery.[Grave]
Sarah M. (Fisher) Wicks (1849-1883)
135.Sarah M. Fisher was born on November 12, 1849, along with her twin brother Sylvester. They were born in Madison County, Indiana. She married Wheeler Comstock Wicks, a disabled Union Army veteran and native of Liberty, Sullivan County, New York, on May 26, 1872, in Thayer County, Nebraska. She was 22 years old and he was a week short of his 25th birthday. They apparently had no children.
Civil War
Wheeler enlisted as a Private in the Union Army on January 4, 1864, at the age of 16, but he claimed to be 18. He mustered in with Company D of the 25th New York Cavalry Regiment on March 19, 1864, at Saratoga. The regiment was deployed to defend Washington, D.C., alternately serving with XXII Corps and the Army of the Potomac. He may have participated with XXII Corps in the Battle of Fort Stevens in the District of Columbia, north of the capital, in July 1864. The battle is noted for President Lincoln's presence on the battlefield. The 25th went on to serve with the Army of the Shenandoah in October and the Army of West Virginia in April 1865, at the end of the war. Private Wicks became ill at Harpers Ferry, West Virginia, in April and was hospitalized for two months at the U.S. General Hospital in Cumberland, Maryland, where he mustered out on June 16. Private Wicks was described as 5' 6" tall with a fair complexion, grey eyes, and light hair.[Mus 1865]Wicks later received a pension as an “Army Invalid” following the Service and Age Pension Act of 1907.[Pens]
Before Sarah and Wheeler married, Sarah worked as a domestic servant for the Joseph Tenesh family in Big Sandy, Hobbs Precinct, Jefferson County, Nebraska.[Cen 1870]
After Sarah and Wheeler married, they lived in Harmony Precinct, Webster County, Nebraska, where Wheeler farmed.[Cen 1880]
Sarah M. (Fisher) Wicks reportedly died on December 15, 1883, in Wells, Cherry County, Nebraska. She was only 34 years old and had been married for 11 years.
After Sarah
After Sarah's death, Wheeler continued to live in Harmony Precinct and worked as a mail carrier. In 1885[Cen 1885] he lived with an 11-year-old adopted daughter, Artie Dexter, from New York, and housekeeper Mrs. Henrietta R. (Moore) Lanor, age 40, whom he married three years later on June 27, 1888, in nearby Bladen, Webster County.[Mar 1888] He lived in Harmony Precinct (Bladen) through at least 1890.[Cen 1890]
Wheeler moved briefly to Vallejo, Solano County, California, where he farmed and registered to vote as unaffiliated in 1908.[Vote 1908]
Wheeler and Henrietta ultimately moved back east to 301 South Center Street in Corry, Erie County, Pennsylvania, by 1910.[Cen 1910, City 1912]
Henrietta R. (Moore) Wicks died on June 15, 1916, in Corry at the age of 77. She was buried at Pine Grove Cemetery in Corry.[Grave]
Wheeler continued to live at 301 South Center Street with his widowed sister Cornelia B. (Wicks) Williams and boarder Elizabeth Crane.[Cen 1920]
Wheeler Comstock Wicks died of heart failure brought on by uraemic toxaemia on September 18, 1920, in Corry, Erie County, Pennsylvania, at the age of 73. He was buried with Henrietta at Pine Grove Cemetery on September 21.[Dth 1920, Grave]
Ellen C. (Fisher) PoundΔ (1852-1899)
136.Ellen C. FisherΔ was born June 2, 1852, in Wapello County, Iowa. She married Clement W. Pound, reportedly on May 5, 1872, in Thayer County, Nebraska. They had as many as seven children:
Pound Children
Name
Birth
Death
Age
1361.
Florence Pound
(1874-1875)
--
--
1362.
Ernest Percival PoundΔ
17 Dec 1876
4 Jun 1915
(38)
1363.
Bertha Amanda PoundΔ
Feb 1879
1951
(72)
1364.
Daisy K. PoundΔ
14 Aug 1882
7 Jul 1916
(33)
1365.
Ira Sylvester Pound
8 Feb 1885
1932
(46)
1366.
Harvey H. Pound
Nov 1887
--
--
1367.
Gertrude I. Pound
22 Jul 1891
9 Oct 1963
(72)
Prior to their marriage, Clement worked on the Richard Ellison farm in Hobbs Precinct, Jefferson County (later Thayer County), which was enumerated following the households of Ellen's parents, brother, and cousins. Ellen, who was 18 years old at the time, has not been found in the 1870 census.[Cen 1870]
After their marriage, the Pound family is first found in Dorchester Precinct, Saline County, Nebraska, about 59 miles northwest of Hebron, Thayer County, by 1880. Clement worked as a farmer.[Cen 1880]
The family later moved back to Thayer County, and settled in Chester Precinct, about 13 miles south of Hebron, by 1885[Cen 1885]; however, by that time Ellen's brothers and widowed mother had moved to Sherman County some 150 miles to the northwest.
The Pounds moved from Nebraska to western Missouri between 1887 and 1891, where youngest daughter Gertrude was born[Cen 1900], reportedly in Lone Tree, Cass County.[Grave]
Ellen C. (Fisher) Pound died on January 12, 1899, at the age of 46 years old. She is bured at Fairview Cemetery, about 3 miles west of Melrose, Cherokee County, Kansas[Grave]
After Ellen
In 1900, Clement and the three younger children (ages 8 to 12) were living on a farm in Boston Township, Madison County, Arkansas, about 160 miles southeast of where Ellen was buried. None of the children were recorded to have been attending school.[Cen 1900]
Clement moved about 130 miles north to Joplin Township, Jasper County, Missouri, by 1910. There he lived with his son Ira, widowed daughter Daisy Roberts, and her children Mandy and John Roberts. Clement worked odd jobs as a teamster and Ira worked as a miner groundman. They were recorded along the “east side of [South] Range Line Road going south.”[Cen 1910]
Come 1920, Clement and grandson John Roberts moved in with daughter Gertrude Tweedy and her family on Group Road in Joplin Township. There Gertrude's husband worked as a gigman at a zinc mine. John Roberts, then 15 years old, was not yet employed.[Cen 1920]
Clement, John, and the Tweedy family moved about 23 miles southwest of Joplin Township to Quapaw Township, Ottawa County, in the northeast corner of Oklahoma, around 1921. There Gertrude's husband and nephew John Roberts worked as zinc miners.[Cen 1930]
Clement W. Pound reportedly died on February 20, 1932, in Douthat, Ottawa County, Oklahoma. He was 85 years old. Clement is buried with Ellen at Fairview Cemetery.[Grave]
David W. Fisher (1855-<1871)
137.David W. Fisher was born either around 1854 or 1855, probably in Wapello County, Iowa (or Indiana). He likely died before his father's death in 1871 as he is not listed among the heirs to his estate.
Frederick P. Fisher (1857-<1871)
138.Frederick P. Fisher was born January 22, 1857, probably in Wapello County, Iowa (or Indiana). He likely died before his father's death in 1871 as he is not listed among the heirs to his estate.
Theodore William FisherΔ (1858-1925)
139.Theodore William FisherΔ was born June 20, 1859, in Wapello County, Iowa. He married Nancy Jane Brewer on January 16, 1879, in Sherman County, Nebraska. They had eight children:
The Fishers started their family in Nebraska, but moved back east near Winterset in Crawford Township, Madison County, Iowa, in the early 1890s[Cen 1895] and over the following several years reportedly lived in Sioux City, Woodbury County, along the Missouri River, and to the southeast in Griswold, Cass County, Iowa, east of Omaha, Nebraska.
Sometime in the late 1890s, the Fishers returned to Nebraska and finally settled near Ainsworth, Brown County, in the Sand Hills of north-central Nebraska. Theodore lived out the rest of his life there.
One of the children, perhaps Loman, died between 1900 and 1910, as Nancy was noted to have six of her eight children surviving in 1910.[Cen 1910] During the following decade they lost both King and Ethel, followed by Theodore's passing.
Theodore William Fisher died on November 22, 1925, in Ainsworth, Brown County, Nebrasaka, at the age of 66 years. He is buried at Ainsworth Cemetery.
Only 15 months after Theodore passed, his daughter Eva May died, leaving only three of their eight children.
Nancy lived with her son Earnest in Ainsworth after Theodore died.[Cen 1930]
Nancy Jane (Brewer) Fisher died on September 19, 1930, in Ekalaka, Carter County, Montana, where her son Oley had moved in 1928. She was 69 years old. Nancy was buried in Ekalaka on September 24.
Samuel M. Fisher (1861-<1897)
13A.Samuel M. Fisher was born August 5, 1861, in Iowa, probably in Des Moines Township, Jefferson County. Soon after his birth the family moved to Nebraska. He married Keturah “Kittie” A. Brewer on November 19, 1883, in Loup City, Sherman County, Nebraska. Keturah was the younger sister of Samuel's elder brother Theodore's wife. Samuel and Keturah had at least one son:
Fisher Children
Name
Birth
Death
Age
13A1.
Clarence Fisher
29 Oct 1884
4 Feb 1957
(72)
Samuel M. Fisher appears to have died sometime between 1885[Cen 1885] and 1897[Cen 1900] in his twenties or early thirties.
Keturah remarried to Jergen Benjamin Clausen around 1897 in Sherman County and afterward moved west to Winburn Precinct (apparently near Erie), Weld County, Colorado, to the north of Denver, by 1900. Keturah's brother, John F. Brewer and his family lived nearby.[Cen 1900]
Later the Clausens returned to Sherman County, Nebraska, and settled in Hazard by 1910. There Jergen worked as a mail carrier and a farm laborer.[Cen 1910, 1920]
Keturah A. (BrewerFisher) Clausen died in the 1920s.[Cen 1930] She was in her late 50s or early 60s.
Jergen stayed on in Hazard and ran a lunchroom there.[Cen 1930]
Ira H. FisherΔ (1863-1938)
13B.Ira H. FisherΔ was born on April 1, 1863, in Hebron, Thayer County, Nebraska. He married Harriet Matilda Clark of Griswold, Cass County, Iowa, on February 10, 1889, in Hazard, Sherman County, Nebraska. He and Harriet had nine children:
Ira's father died when Ira was eight years old and inherited his father's muzzle-loading rifle that he called “Black Leg.” His father had broken the stock when he slipped and fell on the frozen Little Blue River. His father patched the stock with a piece of brass. Ira bagged his first elk around the Loup and Dismal rivers using “Black Leg” and later put it on display at the North Platte courthouse.
Harriet Matilda (Clark) Fisher was born September 22, 1867, in Griswold, Cass County, Iowa. She was the daughter of Samuel Harrison and Susana (McCleary) Clark. After Harriet and Ira married in Hazard, they started their family there with four children. About 1899 they moved further west to Maxwell (Brady Island?), Lincoln County where Andrew Pete Fisher was born. Their sixth child, Thomas Jefferson Fisher was born in Brown County, northern Nebraska and the last three children were all born in Williard (Cox?), Lincoln County.
Ira H. Fisher died on November 3, 1938, at the age of 75 in North Platte, Lincoln County, Nebraska. He was buried November 5 at the Garfield Cemetery, Garfield, Lincoln County, Nebraska.
Harriet Matilda (Clark) Fisher lived until July 31, 1962, when she died in Lyman, Scottsbluff County, Nebraska. She was buried on August 4 in the Garfield Cemetery.
Robert A. Fisher (1865-)
13C.Robert A. Fisher was born on December 9, 1865, in Thayer County, Nebraska.
One story about Isaac connects his death to the Battle of Little Bighorn in Montana (June 25, 1876), however that battle was nine years after the attacks in Thayer County. The more likely event was during Red Cloud's War between June 1866 and 1868, in which a man by the name of Isaac 
