Robert Wilkinson Furnas, born May 5, 1824, in Miami County, Ohio, was a distinguished figure in Nebraska’s history. Orphaned by cholera in 1832, he was raised by his grandfather. Furnas apprenticed in tin-smithing and printing before venturing into publishing, founding the Nebraska Advertiser in 1856. A Civil War veteran, he organized Indian regiments and served in key battles. Post-war, he engaged in politics, agriculture, and education, becoming Nebraska’s governor in 1872. Married to Mary E. McComas, they had eight children. Furnas contributed significantly to state agriculture, education, and veterans’ affairs.
Robert Wilkinson Furnas was born on a farm near Troy, Miami County, Ohio, May 5, 1824, being a son of William and Martha (Jenkins) Furnas, both natives of Newberry, South Carolina, where the father was born in 1804 and the latter in 1800. In the paternal line, the family is traced back to the great-grandfather of our subject, John Furnas, who was born at Standing Stone, Cumberland, England, March 5, 1736, while his son, Thomas Wilkinson, the grandfather of Robert W., was born at Bush River, South Carolina, March 23, 1768. Both the paternal and maternal ancestors were Friends or Quakers. William and Martha Furnas died of cholera within a few days of each other, at Troy, Ohio, in the year 1832. In their family were three children, the twin brother of Robert W. dying in infancy, and the daughter, Mary Elizabeth, died at the age of eighteen years.
Robert Wilkinson Furnas was reared in the home of his grandfather Furnas until twelve years of age, receiving but limited educational advantages in his youth, and his school days were limited to about twelve months. For two years, from the age of twelve to fourteen years, he served as “chore boy” in the general store of Singer & Brown, of Troy, Ohio. At the age of fourteen years, he was apprenticed to the tinsmith’s trade, in which he served for four years, and then served a four-year apprenticeship to Rich C. Langdon, of the Licking Valley Register, Covington, Kentucky, there learning in detail the art of printing. After the expiration of his term of apprenticeship he, with A. G. Sparhawk, for some years conducted a book and job printing house in Cincinnati, Ohio, during which time he was also the publisher of several periodicals. Returning to his native county of Troy in 1846, he there purchased and published The Times at the county seat, but after a number of years thus spent he retired from the newspaper business and engaged in the clock, watch, jewelry, and notion trade in the same town, also serving as the village clerk and deputy postmaster. On the completion of the Dayton & Michigan Railroad to Troy, he entered the employ of that company as railroad and express agent and conductor.
In March 1856, Mr. Furnas came to Brownville, Nebraska, bringing with him a printing press and outfit and again ventured into the journalistic field. He established, published, and edited the Nebraska Advertiser, which is still published in Nemaha County, and in 1868 published and edited the Nebraska Farmer, that being the first agricultural paper edited in Nebraska. In the same fall in which he came to the state, he was elected to the council branch of the territorial legislature, serving four consecutive years, and was elected by that body the public printer, printing the laws and journals of the fourth session of the legislature. During his first session, he was the author of the first common school law for Nebraska, also the law creating the territorial, now state, board of agriculture. During his term as a legislator, he introduced and secured the passage of many acts of both local and general importance, never having failed in securing the passage of a bill when introduced. He was conspicuous in the passage of an act declaring against holding slaves in Nebraska.
At the breaking out of the war between the states, Mr. Furnas was commissioned by the then acting governor J. Sterling Morton, colonel of the territorial militia and was afterward commissioned, by acting governor A. S. Paddock, brigadier general in the same service for the district south of the Platte River. Without solicitation on his part, he was appointed and commissioned by President Lincoln, March 22, 1862, colonel in the regular army, being mustered into the service by Lieutenant C. S. Bowman, of Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, May 22, 1862, and under this commission organized three Indian regiments from the Indian Nation, composed of Creeks, Seminoles, Choctaws, Chickasaws, and Cherokee Indians, commanding the brigade. In this campaign, Colonel Furnas had with him as members of his staff and Indian advisers the two noted Seminole chiefs, Opotholoholo, then said to be over one hundred years old, and Billy Bowlegs. These two Indian leaders, it will be remembered, were conspicuous characters in the Florida-Seminole war of 1838. While in this service Colonel Furnas captured the celebrated Cherokee Indian chief, John Ross, and family, sending them to Washington, D.C., for conference with the president of the United States. This terminated the trouble in the Indian nation. With these Indians, he fought several successful battles against white confederate soldiers on the border of Missouri and in the Indian territory. Colonel Furnas was detailed from this service with a special commission from the noted “Jim Lane” to recruit in Nebraska, recruiting largely the Second Nebraska Cavalry. He entered that service as a private but was later commissioned captain of Company E, and when the regiment was completed was by Governor Alvin Saunders commissioned colonel of the same and served under General Sully in his northern Indian expedition against the Sioux and other hostile Indians north, near British possessions. The Second Nebraska Cavalry successfully fought the battle of White Stone Hill against a treble number of the Sioux Indians.
After the expiration of his term of service, Colonel Furnas was honorably discharged, and soon afterward, without his knowledge, was appointed by President Lincoln agent for the Omaha Indians in northern Nebraska, serving nearly four years, during which time he also had charge of the Winnebago and Ponca Indian tribes. During his term as Indian agent, from a condition of annual support by the general government, he elevated the Omaha Indians agriculturally to the production and sale of forty thousand bushels of surplus corn in one year. Through his efforts, the mission school increased from thirty-five to one hundred and forty-five pupils. For political disloyalty to “Andy” Johnson, he was removed by him, he having succeeded Lincoln after his assassination. Returning to Brownville, Mr. Furnas engaged again in the newspaper business and later turned his attention to farming in Nemaha County. Politically, he was an old-line Whig and afterward a Republican, and in 1872 he was elected the governor of Nebraska. After his term of service expired, he returned to Brownville, where he has ever since been engaged in farming and fruit and forest-tree growing. Since coming to this state he has also held numerous other official positions, as follows: president and secretary of the state board of agriculture, president and secretary of the state horticultural society, president of the state horticultural society, president of the Nebraska soldiers’ union, vice president of the American Pomological Society, president of international fairs and expositions, president of the American Fair Association, president of the first trans-Mississippi irrigation convention at Denver, Colorado, in 1879, a delegate to the convention at Topeka, Kansas, in 1857, to form a new territory composed of land between the mouth of the Kaw and Platte Rivers, United States commissioner to Philadelphia centennial, the New Orleans cotton centennial, Chicago Columbian exposition and special commissioner of the international exposition at London, England. For two years, Mr. Furnas was a special agent for the United States pension bureau, and was a member of the first board of regents of the University of Nebraska, a portion of the time being president of the board. He was also a special agent of the United States department of agriculture to investigate the agricultural needs of California, Washington, Oregon, and New Mexico, also to obtain forestry data for territory between the Mississippi River and the Pacific coast, and special agent to obtain national data for the United States treasury department. He was a delegate to the national convention which first nominated General Grant for president and was a member of the committee on resolutions.
While a resident of Cincinnati, Ohio, on the 29th of October, 1845, Mr. Furnas was married to Miss Mary E. McComas, and eight children were born to them, six sons and two daughters, as follows: William Edward, who was born in Cincinnati, Ohio, October 13, 1846, served as a soldier in the Union army during the Civil War, and died in a hospital at Omaha, Nebraska, December 16, 1862; Fillmore Taylor, born in Troy, Ohio, October 29, 1848, died in Brownville, Nebraska, April 21, 1864; Arthur W. was born in Troy, Ohio, June 30, 1850; George Gilbert was born in that city on the 25th of May, 1852, and married Charlotte Judkins, at Brownville, September 25, 1873; John Somerville Inskip, who was born in Troy, Ohio, February 6, 1855, married Martha Cook in California, May 14, 1889; Mollie, who was born in Brownville, June 25, 1857, was married in this city June 16, 1880, to William J. Weber; Celia Hensley was born in this city June 29, 1860, was here married, June 5, 1895, to Edward E. Lowman; and Robert, who was born in Brownville August 29, 1862, died in the Omaha Indian reservation on the 16th of May, 1864. Mr. and Mrs. Furnas have a unique volume entitled “The Golden Anniversary of Robert W. Furnas and Mary E. Furnas,” dated Brownville, Nebraska, 1895, contains one hundred and seventeen pages and is filled with reminiscences and congratulatory letters from their many friends.
This volume is dedicated to their children. Mr. Furnas is a member of the Grand Army of the Republic and the military order of the Loyal Legion of the United States. He has filled all the grand chairs in the Masonic bodies of the state, also in the order of Odd Fellows in Nebraska and served as representative to the grand lodge of the United States. In religion, he was born a Quaker, but when nineteen years old identified himself with the Methodist church, and after coming to Nebraska connected himself with the Presbyterian church, of which he is yet a member.
Source: Lewis Publishing Company, A Biographical and Genealogical History of Southeastern Nebraska, 2 volumes, Lewis Publishing Company, 1904.