N. J. Knipple

NEHEMIAH J. KNIPPLE.

Nehemiah J. Knipple, filling the office of postmaster at Buda, was born in the neighboring state of Indiana on the 5th of September, 1846. His parents were Robert G. and Alice E. (Schenck) Knipple, who were farming people and in 1853 removed to Michigan, settling at Centerville. In 1863 they made their way to Kewanee, Illinois, in which locality the father purcliased a farm, and in 1866 he came to Buda. where ho lived retired for many years. He passed away, however, in 1889. while his wife survived him until 1904.

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ilr. Knipple has a creditable military record, for in 1864, when not yet eighteen years of age, he offered his services to the government as a defender of the Union army, enlisting as a member of Company D, One Hundred and Twelfth Illinois Infantry. He thus served until the close of the war as a private and was in the commissary department. He is a member of the Grand Army of the Kepublic and thus maintains pleasant relations with his comrades who wore the blue upon the tented fields of the south. He is likewise a Mason, belonging to lodge Xo. 399, and has held the olSces of secretary, senior warden and master. In his political views Mr. Knipple is a stalwart republican and takes an active interest in the work of the party. He has been a delegate to congressional and other conventions for the past thirty-five years and his opinions carry weight in local party councils. He has been honored with.some public offices and has always done cajjable service as a public oflioinl. He served for nine years as school director and six years as township trustee. He has been clerk of the village board for three years and township clerk for eight years, while for two years he has been president of the village board. Community interests find in him a stnlwart chanipinn where the qtiestion is one for the betterment of the county and its substantial improvement.

Mr. Knipple was married to Miss Eunice B. Foster, a daughter of Stephen H. and Sarah Foster, who were farming people of Bureau county. Her father died in 1901 and the mntber in 1903. The marriage of Mr. and Mrs. Knipple was celebrated at Buda, October 16, 1874. They are well known people of the community and the hospitality of their home is greatly enjoyed by their many friends.

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Christian Schuneman came to America with his parents when fifteen years of age. He was totally unacquainted with the English language but with a boy's readiness he soon picked up a knowledge of the English tongue as he came in coutiict with neighbors and acquaintances. His training at farm labor was not meager, for from an early age he assisted his father in the work of the fields, and when twenty-three years of age he started out in life on his own account as an agriculturist. He bad no money to buy property, so rented eighty acres of land in Walnut township, where he lived for three years. On the expiration of that period he rented his father's farm on section 29, Manlius township, and also lived upon it for three years. He next purchased his present home of one hundred and twenty acres, for which he gave seven thousand dollars. In 1893 he bought one hundred and twenty acres adjoining his farm on the west for sixty-two hundred dollars. He has continued to buy land to the present time and has sold different properties to good advantage. In 1903 he bought the homestead of one hundred acres, for which he paid ten thousand dollars, and in 1904 be Ijought the adjoining ])property, making his holilings in farm lands four hundred ami twenty acres. He also raises stock and markets froui eight to ten thousand bushels of grain annually. He is perhaps one of the largest tax-payers in the township and is one of the most extensive farmers in this part of the county. His farms are very valuable owing to the excellent buildings which have Iieen placed thereon and the high state of cultivation manifest in the fields. He uses the latest improved machinery to facilitate the farm work and everything al>out the place is indicative of the skill and care of the owner who has not been a followed but a leader in the work of agricultural development in this locality.

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As printed in Past and present of Bureau county, Illinois (1906). See the original pages. Wording is the original; obvious scanning errors have been corrected, and a few may remain.