A transcription of pages 195-469,
Family Histories from the Verdigre Centennial Book
Thanks to the Verdigre Library and its volunteers for making this available.
 
The index below only includes the husband and wife for each family.
The maiden name for the wife is used if listed.
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Index's A-I, J-P, & Q-Z

GEORGE W. QUIMBY

George W. Quimby was born, according to the Creighton Centennial Book, in Knox County, Ohio. In 1858 he went to Waupaca County, Wisconsin. He may well have been born about 1840, for in 1862 he enlisted in Company B., 32nd Wisconsin Infantry. He is supposed to have served 62 months and been mustered out as a captain. Since the Civil War lasted only until April of 1865, that would fit in well enough with his next move, for in 1868 he went to Dakota Territory. In the winter of 1869-70 he moved across the river to Niobrara in the state of Nebraska and on January 1, 1871, he came into the future Creighton area, in which he was the first person to stake a claim. He must have been married at the time, for his wife is said to have been the first white woman to arrive there.

Quimby was Creighton’s first postmaster, serving from August 21, 1871, until June 17, 1872, and again from September 25, 1872, until July 7, 1873.

[pg 373 PHOTO Mrs. Quimby]

The Creighton book states that Quimby was influential in getting the legislature to change the name of the county from L’Eau Qui Court to Knox. If that is so, it may well be that the county was not named directly after a Revolutionary War general (whose name would have been known to few) but rather for Knox County, Ohio.

Quimby is described as having been in the real estate business during his Creighton years. He generally was, but that was only part of the story. He was a notary public in the ‘70s. In the ‘80s he was, at various times, a newspaper publisher with a penchant for selling his paper. One of these papers was the Creighton Hornet, which suspended publication.

George Quimby was Knox County Surveyor in 1885. He was excellently placed to know something of the future plans of the Fremont, Elkhorn and Missouri Valley Railway which had pushed as far as Creighton in 1881.

In the spring of 1887, Quimby began to buy various parcels of land, most of them components of the Joseph Mlady homestead. By July he was platting this land. Within a month there was a town. Quimby himself started up the Hornet again and he was also soon a partner in a saloon.

Later in 1887 Quimby transferred his land to the Northeast Nebraska Town Lot Improvement Company, which he had formed with some other Creighton businessmen, and of which he remained a major stockholder. To raise capital, an undivided half interest in the town lots was sold to the Pioneer Townsite Company.

Quimby, the whilom proprietor, probably did not profit greatly. He sold the Hornet or he ceased to operate it. In 1897 when John Barrett left Verdigre, he turned the operation of the Knox County Recorder over to George Quimby and his son Fred, apparently, but probably in the late spring of 1898 he left the village.
He had not prospered greatly. Scattered references show that he was at one time building a livery stable or operating a real estate business. One business had a connection with early irrigation systems in Holt County. Once he was apparently reduced to the expedient of going to Arkansas to work in the harvest fields for a few weeks.

Once he tried to reclaim his dream. He had been instrumental in getting the railroad to come to Verdigre in 1888.. There were hopes and prospects that the railway would build its tracks on north and into South Dakota. In 1891 Quimby took up options on some land several miles north of Verdigre along the line he calculated a railroad track would follow and platted the land, hoping to become the proprietor of yet another railroad town. But it became apparent that no railroad track would soon be built there.

Quimby several times ran for office but he failed in these bids until 1898, when he was elected justice of the peace. Not many weeks after the election he pulled up stakes, probably bankrupt, the lots sold to satisfy a judgment, leaving behind him only an Addition, Quimby’s First Addition (from which his name was dropped) and Quimby Avenue, which runs only three blocks.

He may have gone to the Pacific Northwest at once for when Mrs. Qumby died on May 8, 1918, it was at Linden, Washington. They had, according to her obituary, lived in Whatcom County, Washington, for about 20 years.

The youngest of six Quimby children had been born at Verdigre in 1888, the first white child to be born within the limits of the village. She was named Verdie, after the town. Of the others, Maude (Mrs. Dan Smith) was already living in Norfolk while the Quimbys resided in Verdigre. The obituary names two other daughters, Mrs. Will Parker and Mrs. John Beck, without particularizing. The sons were Fred, Walter, and Willard. Fred would have been remembered in Verdigre as a young man whose foot was crushed in an accident and amputated.

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