Hon. John H. Pohlman, born August 25, 1839, in Neumuenster, Germany, settled in Washington precinct, Nemaha County, Nebraska, in 1867. A veteran of the 47th Illinois Infantry during the Civil War, he established a successful farm, raising cattle, hogs, and fine horses. Pohlman married Elizabeth Crawford in 1863, and they had fifteen children. Known for his integrity and community involvement, he served two terms in the Nebraska legislature and nine years as a county commissioner. A staunch Republican and Lutheran, Pohlman made significant contributions to the agricultural and civic life of Nemaha County.
Hon. John H. Pohlman, who is one of the model agriculturists of Washington precinct, Nemaha County, and whose farming and stock-raising operations in this county have brought him a most gratifying degree of material prosperity, is one of the old settlers of this part of the state. He crossed the Missouri River on the 10th day of May, 1867, having driven across the state of Iowa in real emigrant style, with four of the best horses which had been seen in this part of the country for some time, and which excited universal admiration when he passed through the small town of Brownville to the place which he took up from the government. He has made his home here for the past thirty-eight or more years, experiencing several of the ups and downs which fortune pays all men, but on the whole being unusually successful. He has shown himself to be a man of strictest integrity, uprightness in business dealings, thoroughly capable and careful in the management of his affairs, and exhibiting a degree of industry which would bring success in any vocation. His principal occupation since taking up his residence in this state has been the subduing of the soil and its cultivation and the raising of all the products for which this section of the state is so justly famed, but he has likewise been keenly interested in the public welfare and the upbuilding and development of the community of his residence, having been more than once called to responsible offices in the gift of his fellow citizens.
Mr. Pohlman was born in Neumuenster, Schleswig-Holstein, Germany, August 25, 1839. His father, Hartwig Pohlman, was a railroad man in Germany and died there at the age of forty-eight, leaving his widow and two sons with a small estate. He was born in 1799 and died in 1847. He had married Miss Anna Inselman, and they had two sons, John H. being the elder, and Fred was a printer and died in Chicago at the age of forty years, leaving his wife and three children. Mr. Pohlman’s mother crossed the Atlantic in 1857 and landed in New York on July 4th, having been seven weeks and three days on the ocean. She came out to Illinois, and was later married in Peoria to Charles Polster, who came from the same part of Germany as she had. She died in Peoria, September 30, 1898, aged eighty-three years, and strong in body and spirit to the last, having been sick only one week before she passed away.
Mr. Pohlman had a good education in his native land up to his seventeenth year, and also attended school awhile after he arrived in Knox County, Illinois. He worked in Illinois at wages from six to fifteen dollars a month and was thus engaged until the war. August 18, 1861, he enlisted in Company C, Forty-seventh Illinois Infantry, and served thirteen months, but was discharged at St. Louis on account of physical disability, on September 27, 1863. He was confined in the hospital for two months before his discharge. His pension of eight dollars a month has recently been raised to twelve. After his marriage in 1863, he lived in Illinois until he started across the country, in a large covered wagon, and was thirteen days on the road to Nebraska, bringing his wife and two children to the new country across the Missouri. He took up government land, and his first residence cost him ten hundred and eighty dollars, but in 1871 this with its contents was burned to the ground. He could ill afford such a loss at that time, and in order to rebuild he was compelled to sacrifice a team of fine horses which he loved so well, selling them for four hundred dollars and erecting a cheaper residence until he could build a better. With the increase of his family and his material prosperity, he tore down his house number two, and has now one of the most substantial and comfortable country residences in this part of the county. It has two stories, with ten rooms, a cement-floored basement under all, and is everywhere known as one of the model homes of the vicinity. It is surrounded by a beautiful lawn, with cement walks leading in all directions, and the embowering groves of shade and fruit trees give the entire place a setting and charm which would entice any beauty-lover to an hour’s repose within its boundaries. Mr. Pohlman has always engaged in general farming and stock-raising, and his fine orchard of five acres, which he tends carefully and does not allow to die out, has also been a source of revenue, in addition to supplying the home with all needed fruit. He has shipped as high as three carloads of apples in one season. In the matter of stock, Mr. Pohlman has always been an enthusiastic lover of fine horses, and he usually raises from twenty to twenty-five head, and each year feeds from forty-five to one hundred head of Poll Angus cattle and about five hundred hogs of the Poland China strain. He raises some of the best mules in the country. His farm consists of three hundred and twenty acres, and all its improvements and equipment and methods of cultivation show the up-to-date and progressive agriculturist who owns it.
December 23, 1863, Mr. Pohlman was married in Knoxville, Illinois, to Miss Elizabeth Crawford, who was born in Knox County, Illinois, November 4, 1845. Her parents were Thomas and Diana (Metcalf) Crawford, who were born May 15, 1807, and February 20, 1809, respectively, and were married December 18, 1830, being the parents of fourteen children, as follows: Three died in infancy or childhood; James Crawford died in California aged about sixty-five years; Thomas died in California when about fifty, leaving a wife; Deborah, the wife of James Buck, died in Illinois, leaving three children; Mrs. Mary Daniels lives in California, having one son; Robert died during the Civil War, leaving two children; Joanna is in California and has three children; Martha, the wife of John Thompson, died in Nemaha County, leaving two children; Mrs. Pohlman is the next of the family; Vachel is a farmer in Jewell County, Kansas, and has five children; William, a dealer in musical instruments in Lincoln, Nebraska, has three daughters and one son; Walter died at the age of nineteen. Thomas Crawford, the father of this family, died in California about 1894, aged eighty-seven years, and his wife had passed away in 1859.
Fifteen children have been born to Mr. and Mrs. Pohlman, as follows: Frank C., born in Knox County, Illinois, in 1864, is a successful stock rancher in Thomas County, Kansas, and has two sons and three daughters; Minnie L., born in Illinois in February, 1866, is the wife of George Leiser in Grand Island, Nebraska, and has four daughters; John H., born in Nebraska, December 7, 1868, died when two years old; Olive B., born October 19, 1870, is the wife of B. L. Brinkley, of Johnson, and has two daughters and one son; Etta, born August 28, 1872, is the wife of Byron Phelan, a farmer in Nemaha County, and has five sons; Anna, born March 8, 1874, is the wife of John Weber, a farmer of Nemaha County, and has one daughter; Homer J., born February 25, 1876, a farmer near his father’s place and for the past two years a mail carrier, has two sons; Thomas C., born December 30, 1878, is unmarried and at home; Fred, born January 28, 1880, died when two years old; Ella and Delia, twins, born August 25, 1882, died within twenty-four hours of each other when two years old; John H. and Jennie, born June 10, 1884, are both at home; Charles P., born October 17, 1886, is a student in Grand Island College; and Rose, born January 4, 1887, is at home and attending school in Johnson. The daughters all have musical taste and sing and play. Withal it is a family to be proud of, and Mr. and Mrs. Pohlman thoroughly enjoy and appreciate their model home. Mr. Pohlman has served his fellow citizens two terms in the lower house of the legislature, and made a name while there for conscientious interest in the welfare of his constituents and the state. He has also served nine years in the office of county commissioner. He has always been a staunch Republican, and is logical and intelligent in his beliefs. He was reared in the faith of the Lutheran church, while his wife is a Methodist. He is one of the German Americans who on coming to this country readily adapted themselves to the ways and customs of this land and acquired the language with the readiness of a child learning its own vernacular, so that he has since helped many other Germans who have worked for him to learn the language.
Source: Lewis Publishing Company, A Biographical and Genealogical History of Southeastern Nebraska, 2 volumes, Lewis Publishing Company, 1904.