Sources:

• Battey's "Biographical Souvenir..  Buffalo, Kearney, and Phelps Counties"  ...Joe Clayton biography.. also see Mona J. Houser's  Where the Buffalo Roamed ,of the Buffalo County NeGenWeb project, or Eaton's Buffalo County, Nebraska)
• The National Archives
• My grandmother, Mary May Clayton Stover (who had a marvelous memory and a willingness to share), Great Uncle Ernest Clayton, Aunt Dorothy Stover Rodehorst, and others.

Contents:

• Early years, the Civil War
• A Wild Tale of Indians on the Platte
• Homesteading in Nebraska
• Joseph and Rosa
• Cedar Life (similar to "Early Days on the Cedar Creek")
• From the farm to Poole (Pool's Siding)
• The Clayton farm; a photo gallery...
• Joseph Clayton in Retirement

According to the interview in Biographical Souvenirs:

His first experience in a battle was had at West Liberty, Kentucky.  He also participated in the siege of Corinth.  His company for some time served as special escort to General Mitchell while at Cincinnati.  He was shot in the lung at the terrible battle of Russellville, Alabama, on the 3rd of July, 1862, and for several months afterward was closely confined in a hospital.

A review of his Ohio service record related to his discharge states:

He is reported sent to hospital in New Albany, Indiana, Sept. 29/62, Wounded, Nature of Wound not Stated.

   According to Dorothy Rodehorst, her grandfather Clayton "learned to read and write, spell and cipher while in the hospital in the Civil War."  [See also “Early Days on the Cedar Creek” by Mary May Clayton Stover.]

   The bullet in his lung was never removed, but it was apparently not enough to keep him down, for he enrolled in the Marine Regiment of U.S. Volunteers on December 26, 1862.  A few weeks later, on January 14, he was officially discharged from the Ohio Cavalry by reason of Special Order No. 89.. [image of 1863 discharge, 140 kb, courtesy Kim Stover] "to enable him to enlist in the Mississippi Marines."  This sounds like a medical discharge, but to mention his continued service in the Marines in the same sentence is puzzling... perhaps Marine service was less demanding than the Cavalry?

   The Cavalry discharge papers described Joseph Clayton as being 5 feet, 8 inches tall, with dark complexion, blue eyes, and dark hair.

   Probably unknown to Joseph at the time, his father Henry was also serving in the War.  Joseph's father, Henry, enrolled in the Indiana Infantry on July 25, 1862 at Warsaw, Indiana.  Henry was wounded in 1864 in the Battle of Peach Tree Creek in Georgia, lost his foot to amputation and was discharged with full disability in 1865.

   According to Ernest Clayton, his father Joseph participated in the Siege of Vicksburg while in service with the Mississippi Marines.  Dorothy Rodehorst related "He was in the Battle of Vicksburg, and I heard him tell of this, but not much more.  When on the Mississippi River he and his friends would sneak out and have an oyster fry - baked in coals."  Joseph served with the Marines until the end of the War and was discharged on January 20, 1865 at Vicksburg, Mississippi.

A few Civil War links:

• American Civil War Information Archive
• Poetry and Music of the War Between the States

A Wild Tale of Indians on the Platte

   Ernest Clayton shared a story from this time in his father's life. 
According to Ernest, it was during Joseph's years in Iowa that:

     He and three other young men decided to go further West to Fort Kearney, Nebraska.  I never heard my father mention this little episode that happened on the way, but one of the other men told of it years later.

    The four of them got all their belongings into wagons and started west.  When they reached Columbus, Nebraska, they were warned not to go any further, that a small band of hostile Indians were murdering, robbing and stealing on the trail west of Columbus.  Well, the four young men just out of the Civil War weren't afraid of a few Indians and made camp on the Platte River about twenty miles west of  Columbus.

    Retiring that night, they fixed their blanket rolls to look like people sleeping by the fire, and waited in a plum thicket close by.  Along in the night the Indians came.  The men waited until they sneaked up to camp, then they started shooting and wiped them out.  After it was over, They found they were white men dressed as Indians.

    That ended the trouble on the trail west of Columbus.

Homesteading in Nebraska

    On May 20, 1862, and March 21, 1864, the United States Congress approved "An Act to secure homesteads to actual settlers on the public domain," commonly known as the Homestead Act.  An Act approved on June 8, 1872, was entitled "An act to enable honorably discharged soldiers and sailors, their widows and orphan children, to secure homesteads on the public domain."  This was commonly known as the "Soldiers' and Sailors' Homestead Act."  Quite a bit of paper work was involved in making a claim under the homestead acts; much of it has been preserved in the National Archives.

    On October 28, 1872, Joseph Clayton filed a Declaration for the Northwest Quarter of Section 10, Township 11 North, Range 15 West, containing 160 acres.  (map of part of Cedar township)  The Declaration was filed at the land office in Grand Island and was accompanied with a $2 filing fee.  This claim was 3 miles north and 1 mile west of the 120 acre farm to become known as the Clayton place.  The 120 acres was on the NW 1/4 of Section 26, and was originally homesteaded by Ellen Ewer Higgins for her orphaned children by Rewel Ewer.

    Homestead Law required that a homestead application be made within six months of filing the declaration.  Apparently, Joseph returned to Ohio after filing the declaration in October, 1872, and returned later than expected, for he did not meet the six month deadline of April 28, 1873.  He didn’t file the application until July 16, 1873.  The application required an affidavit in which Joseph swore to his identity, his military service details, his sincere intentions of settling, and that he had not previously acquired title to any land under any homestead laws.

    The late date of filing the application apparently generated more paperwork.  Included in the homestead papers is a notarized statement made by John J. Elliot and Isabelle J. Elliot of High Hill, Muskingum County, Ohio, dated August 22, 1873, in which the Elliots declared "that they are personally acquainted with Joseph Clayton, now of the State of Nebraska and that from our personal knowledge do say that the above named Joseph Clayton was detained here in Ohio, from returning to his land claim in the State of Nebraska by reason of sickness and disappointment in receiving his pension depriving him of the means on which to travel."

    On May 20, 1862, and March 21, 1864, the United States Congress approved "An Act to secure homesteads to actual settlers on the public domain," commonly known as the Homestead Act.  An Act approved on June 8, 1872, was entitled "An act to enable honorably discharged soldiers and sailors, their widows and orphan children, to secure homesteads on the public domain."  This was commonly known as the "Soldiers' and Sailors' Homestead Act."  Quite a bit of paper work was involved in making a claim under the homestead acts; much of it has been preserved in the National Archives.

    On October 28, 1872, Joseph Clayton filed a Declaration for the Northwest Quarter of Section 10, Township 11 North, Range 15 West, containing 160 acres.  (map of part of Cedar township)  The Declaration was filed at the land office in Grand Island and was accompanied with a $2 filing fee.  This claim was 3 miles north and 1 mile west of the 120 acre farm to become known as the Clayton place.  The 120 acres was on the NW 1/4 of Section 26, and was originally homesteaded by Ellen Ewer Higgins for her orphaned children by Rewel Ewer.

    Homestead Law required that a homestead application be made within six months of filing the declaration.  Apparently, Joseph returned to Ohio after filing the declaration in October, 1872, and returned later than expected, for he did not meet the six month deadline of April 28, 1873.  He didn't file the application until July 16, 1873.  The application required an affidavit in which Joseph swore to his identity, his military service details, his sincere intentions of settling, and that he had not previously acquired title to any land under any homestead laws.

    The late date of filing the application apparently generated more paperwork.  Included in the homestead papers is a notarized statement made by John J. Elliot and Isabelle J. Elliot of High Hill, Muskingum County, Ohio, dated August 22, 1873, in which the Elliots declared "that they are personally acquainted with Joseph Clayton, now of the State of Nebraska and that from our personal knowledge do say that the above named Joseph Clayton was detained here in Ohio, from returning to his land claim in the State of Nebraska by reason of sickness and disappointment in receiving his pension depriving him of the means on which to travel."

    I presume that the reason for this notarized statement was to establish a legitimate reason or viable excuse for the late application filing date.  The Elliot family is undoubtedly the same family as recalled by May Stover; probably Joseph stayed with them on his return to Ohio.  On September 8, 1873, Joseph appeared before the County Clerk in Gibbon and made a similar statement including a reference to the October, 1872 Declaration: "...and was prevented by reason of sickness and disappointment in receiving his pension depriving him of the means on which to move and place Homestead filing on said claim within the six months prescribed by law."

    The similarity in wording seems to indicate some contrivance for consistency.  Some of the statement appeared to be copied word for word and wasn't even altered to first person for use in Joseph's statement about himself!

    Joseph's Homestead Claim was approved and entered on October 23, 1873 at the land office in Grand Island.

From Biographical Souvenir...:

    The Spring of 1873 found him on a homestead in Cedar township, Buffalo County, Nebraska.  He was one of the first actual settlers in the township and there was but one house on the road between his homestead and Kearney, the county seat.  He built a good, comfortable sod house, and proved upon his claim in 1875.  The Pawnee Indians frequently passed through the settlement during the first year or so of his residence there, but he never experienced any difficulty with them.  He had more fault to find with the grasshoppers in 1874 than with the occasional presence of a few Indians.  The former took, without asking, everything he had that was green, while the latter usually begged hard for what little they got.

Joseph Clayton and Rosalie Ewer

Rosalie Ewer was born 9 March, 1859, Cassville (Grant County), Wisconsin to Reuel Ewer and Ellen Wamsley.
died 11 February, 1913, Poole, Nebraska

   [Reuel died in 1863 in service in the Civil War; Ellen remarried to Sam Higgins and homesteaded the NW quarter of Section 26 of Cedar Township for the four "orphaned" Ewer children, Angeline Adelia (Williams), Clara V. (Harford), Rosalie, and Abraham Lincoln Ewer.  Sam Higgins homesteaded the SE quarter of Section 22, diagonally adjacent to the Ewer homestead.  The west half of the Higgins homestead was a Timber Culture.  See also Reuel Ewer's background]

  S. G. Higgins, youngest son of Ellen Ewer by Sam Higgins, had a blacksmith shop just north of Rose Hill School.

   Some time in the early 1890's, the author of "Biographical Souvenir..." was interviewing for information to be included in his book.  The Claytons were included and a portion of the Clayton chapter is as follows:

   Mr. Clayton owns a splendid farm in the Cedar Creek valley, and has it well improved.  He has always had great faith in the future development of this country, and even when the grasshoppers robbed him of his crop he did not become discouraged.  He always believed exactly the opposite from the man who said, "It is simply a fight between the grasshoppers and drought on the one hand and the plow on the other, and he believed the former would win."  He has held various local offices, and is commander of Cedar Mountain Post, No. 220, Department of Nebraska, G.A.R.

   May Clayton Stover said that Joseph traveled back east to locate his father "after many years of wondering.  He went back to Ohio or Indiana to see him, found he had been married twice after Joseph's mother died.  He had a daughter by one wife, so Joseph met her, his half-sister.  He said blood is no thicker than water for he did not like her... he came home after one day.  It seems to me that Joseph went to Warsaw, Indiana, to visit."  This trip was possibly made before the "Biographical Souvenir..." interview, as a quite a bit of information about Joseph's father, Henry, is included in the Clayton chapter.  Henry's second wife died in 1866, and by 1889 he was divorced from his 3rd wife, Elizabeth, when he remarried again!.. All in the Warsaw, Indiana area.   [See Henry Clayton page]