James Lardner: Excerpts from....

Excerpts from, Pioneer tales of the Oregon trail and of Jefferson County by Charles Dawson (1912)
LINK


PG 420
JAMES LARDNER

Mr. Lardner was born in County Claire, Ireland, in 1840. Came to America in 1865. Worked on the grading of the Union Pacific through Nebraska in 1866-7. Came to Jefferson county in 1870, homesteading in Antelope Precinct, about one mile south of Thos. Walsh. He married Miss Mary Ann Cashman. The following are the children: Mrs. Sadie Carl, James, Mrs. Agnes Wiggins, Mrs. Susie Church, William, Thomas, Michael, and Miss Ada. The latter living on the old homestead with their mother. The father passed away in January, 1909.

*****


PG 404-405
THOMAS WALSH

Mr. Walsh was born in County Roscommon, Ireland, in 1840. Came to America in 1868, settling on a homestead in Antelope Precinct, Jefferson county, in 1869. Mr. Walsh married Miss Elizabeth Fally, in Ireland, in 1863. The following are the children: Mrs. Kate Dailey, Mrs. Anna Dart, Mrs. Bee Goff, Mrs. Mary Shay, Mrs. Sarah Hickey, James, and Mrs. Bertha Hughes, Henry, Thomas, and Pat Walsh. Mrs. Walsh died in 1883. Mr. Walsh is living in the city of Fairbury. Mr. Walsh is representative of the sturdy, progressive Irish, who were found along the advance guard that builded the railroads, and helped to construct a ''New West" in the barren wilderness of the "Great Plains." Like his friend Higgins, he handled many railroad contracts for the construction of new lines to thread the plains. Mr. Walsh, in company with Michael Higgins, Jas. Lardner, John Aiken, Wm. Kay, Ben Turner, Henry Blackball, Creg. Landkammer, Antone Hoppe, John Voltmer, and Dave Gillashman, a school teacher, outfitted a company to exploit the Black Hills for their fortunes in the year 1876-7. After two years of strenuous life in the Hills, the majority of them became disgusted and came home. The system of mining, at that time being much more crude than at present, precluded the successful working of certain grades or ores which the party seemed lucky in finding. To illustrate : Mr. Walsh's claim, which he called "The Fairbury," was pronounced by an assayist to be worthless at that time, but later on it sold for $100,000. Ben Turner and Kay stayed for a few years longer, and it is said that Kay eventually struck "pay dirt." Gillashman was the first to become homesick, and decided to return home by the way of Pierre, Dakota, via a "bull train" to this place and by steamboat down the river to a railroad point, but he never reached Jefferson county. Thus his disappearance became an unsolved mystery. Of the remaining party, all reached home, but time has removed all excepting Mr. Walsh, Turner, and Landkammer.