EDWARD N ERICKSON

Edward N. Erickson, a farmer of Leona, Doniphan county, was born in Buchanan county, Missouri, on the 5th of January, 1854, and is a representative of one of the pioneer families of this section of the state. His father, Ole Erickson, was born in Norway, in 1824, and was a son of Erick Quastad. He followed farming as it was practiced in the southern section of the Norwegian peninsula and after arriving at years of maturity he was married, in 1850, to Anna Steanson. About a month later he bade adieu to the land of the midnight sun and sailed from Christiania for the United States. He had acquired a few hundred dollars, but much of this went to pay doctors bills, the rest being used for living expenses and in the purchase of a farm in Buchanan county, Missouri. Learning of better opportunities he secured land in Kansas, where the government was still the owner of the wild tracts. He sold his property in Missouri and came to the Sunflower state in 1858. He made a claim of one hundred and sixty acres of land on sections 12, 3, and 18, Robinson township, and there he established a good home. During the early years of his residence here he engaged in hemp farming, partly because he did not have teams and otter equipments sufficient to cultivate a large tract of land and also because the hemp crop was the only one that could be tended and gathered by hand and marketed at a good profit. In all his ventures he met with success and his business was so profitably conducted that at his death he owned an entire section of land in Brown county and three hundred and twenty acres in Gove county. He voted with the Republican party, but never took an active interest in political affairs. In religious belief he was a Lutheran and died in that faith in 1896. In his family were the following children: Martha, deceased wife of J. H. Fisher; Edward N.; Julia, deceased; Ole S., who married Gusta Thompson; Caroline, the wife of Chester Telefson, of Brown county; and Osborne, deceased.

Edward N. Erickson spent his boyhood days on his father's farm and acquired a good education in the common schools. After leaving the parental home he began the operation of a tract of land belonging to his father, but soon afterward purchased a farm of his own and in 1879 located upon his present place in Doniphan county. He has since engaged in the raising of cereals and of stock and has been very successful in his business ventures. He now owns three hundred and twenty acres of land in Wolf River township, besides a forty-acre tract.

On the 16th of June, 1880, Mr. Erickson was united in marriage to Miss Julia A., a daughter of Lewis Nelson, who was a pioneer citizen of Doniphan county, amid their children are: Leslie O., Anna E., Edward N. and Osborne.

Mr. Erickson is a stanch Republican and takes an active interest in local politics, yet has never been an office seeker, preferring to give his energy and time to his business affairs. Indefatigable industry has been the keynote of his success and his efforts have not been without that honorable financial reward which ever follows well directed and long sustained endeavor.