Casner Barnes, born on November 14, 1847, in West Point, Iowa, was a prominent farmer in Nemaha County, Nebraska, for forty-five years. Grandson of John Barnes and son of John Barnes Sr., he moved to Nebraska in 1857. Casner married Ophelia McIninch on April 1, 1877, and they had nine children. He owned 320 acres, excelling in general farming and stock-raising. A Republican, Barnes served on the school board for twenty-five years and was a member of the Cumberland Presbyterian church. His contributions significantly shaped the local agricultural landscape.
Casner Barnes, a prominent farmer near South Auburn, on mail route No. 2, has been a resident of Nemaha County for forty-five years, from the pioneer epoch down to the twentieth century present. He has been a successful farmer from youth and has made a reputation in this line, as also as a citizen and man. Few men could have put their diligent efforts to better use than Mr. Barnes has in making one of the fine farms for which this county is noted, and to whatever he has turned his hand he has done well.
Mr. Barnes is a grandson of John Barnes, a Pennsylvania farmer, who in 1840 came west to Lee County, Iowa, where he died in 1860, at the age of seventy-five. He had nine children, five sons and four daughters, and the only survivor is Alexander, living in Smith County, Kansas. John Barnes, the father of Casner Barnes, was born in Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania, in 1821, and died at Nemaha City, Nebraska, September 8, 1896. He and his wife inherited eighty acres of land in Iowa, and in 1857 they came to Richardson County, Nebraska, and two weeks later to Nemaha City, settling one mile north on one hundred and sixty acres of land, only ten acres of which had been broken, and they paid the claimant seventeen hundred dollars for his “squatter sovereignty” and then pre-empted. He bought and sold several farms and was in good circumstances. He was a Republican in politics, and was county commissioner and register of voters. He and his wife were Presbyterians, and he was an elder in the church at Brownville. He was married in 1846, at West Point, Iowa, to Miss Elizabeth Harger, who was born in Indiana, December 20, 1829, and died at Nemaha City, June 20, 1883. They were the parents of the following children: Casner; Catherine E., wife of James H. Drain, at Red Cloud, Nebraska, has nine children; Amanda is the wife of Charles M. Welton, of Johnson, Nebraska; Isham B. is a farmer of Coolidge, Kansas, and has seven children; John S. is a farmer of Smith County, Kansas, and has seven children living; Luther H. is a farmer, real estate man and contractor in Bison, Oklahoma, and has six children living; David, who was county superintendent of schools at Lamar, Colorado, died at the age of thirty-four, leaving a wife and three children; Lydia H. is the wife of H. O. Hermle, in California, and has two children; Mary E. is the wife of B. L. Shellhorn, M. D., of Peru, Nebraska, and has two children living.
Casner Barnes was born at West Point, Lee County, Iowa, November 14, 1847, and was reared on the farm and lived at home until his marriage in 1877. He bought his first land, ninety-two acres, in 1873. He now owns three hundred and twenty acres of choice land, upon which he has placed all the improvements, including three acres of orchard and shade trees. He does general farming and stock-raising, and in 1903, had in one hundred and thirty-five acres of corn and sixty of wheat. His cattle are of mixed breeds. He has been especially successful in the feeding of hogs, and ships about two carloads each year and always keeps on hand about a hundred.
April 1, 1877, Mr. Barnes was married to Miss Ophelia McIninch, who was born February 4, 1860, on a part of Nemaha County that has since been washed into the turbulent floods of the Missouri River. Her parents, W. H. and Catherine (Dunkle) McIninch, the former a native of Ohio, and the latter of Virginia, came to Nebraska in 1857, and are still living on the old farm near Auburn. They had eight children: Mrs. Barnes is the eldest; James H. McIninch is a farmer near Brownville; Miss Wille Kate is at home; David C. is a farmer near Auburn; Belle is the wife of D. E. Zook, a farmer near Auburn; M. S. McIninch is an attorney in Auburn; Barnett is at Brownville; and Julia, aged eighteen, is in school at Auburn.
Nine children have been born to Mr. and Mrs. Barnes. Katie E. is the wife of W. H. Linn, a dentist of Auburn, Nebraska; Miss Mattie M. is a teacher in Auburn, having taken the training course in the normal at Peru; Miss Lydia B. is a student in Auburn; Welton C. is also in the Auburn schools; Edna T. attends the district school at home; Mary; Delbert M. is eight years old; Guy died at the age of five; and Isham Bartlett is a boy of three. Mr. Barnes is a Republican in politics, and was once a candidate for county commissioner, and has been on the school board for twenty-five years. He and his wife are members of the Cumberland Presbyterian church.
Source: Lewis Publishing Company, A Biographical and Genealogical History of Southeastern Nebraska, 2 volumes, Lewis Publishing Company, 1904.