Online Source: http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~nesaunde/1915/vol2/1915vol2p282.html

Extracted from Past and Present of Saunders County Nebraska, 1915, Volume II

GEORGE W. VAN SICKLE

Saunders county lost a substantial, worthy and representative citizen when George W. Van Sickle passed away, leaving many friends to mourn his loss. He was born in Genesee county. New York, in February, 1814, a son of Richard H. and Susan (Smith) Van Sickle, the former a native of New Jersey and the latter of Fremont, Ohio. Richard H. Van Sickle removed to the Buck-eye state and there carried on general agricultural pursuits until 1870, when he arrived in Saunders county, Nebraska. He took up a claim about two miles south of Ithaca and at once began to break the sod and till the fields, for up to that time not a furrow had been turned upon the place. His labors wrought a marked change in the appearance of the land, which he converted into productive fields, continuing its cultivation until his death, which occurred April 2, 1890, when he had reached the advanced age of eighty-four years. He had long survived his wife, who died in 1880.

George W. Van Sickle gave his father the benefit of his labors upon the home farm until he reached the age of eighteen years, when he felt that his duty to his country was paramount to all else and he donned the blue uniform of the United States soldier, enlisting as a member of Company A, One Hundred and Eleventh Ohio Volunteer Infantry. He served for three years and in one of the hotly contested battles in the south was wounded. He made a most creditable military record, for he never faltered in the performance of any duty, whether stationed on the lonely picket line or in the thickest of the fight on the firing line.

After the war Mr. Van Sickle turned his attention to the operation of a sawmill near Fremont, Ohio, and while thus engaged had the misfortune to lose his left hand. In 1870 he came to Saunders county with his parents and he also secured a homestead claim, which he afterward sold and made an investment in one hundred and forty acres of railroad land, which he continued to develop and improve for about fourteen years. He was then taken ill and passed away ten days later, on the 1st of April, 1885.

Mr. Van Sickle was married on the 9th of February, 1874, to Mrs. John J. Hammell, whose maiden name was Miss Martha O. Watson. She was born on the 1st of May, 1840, in Walnut Hills, a suburb of Cincinnati, but when six years of age was brought by her parents, William and Elizabeth (Treadway) Watson, to Jefferson county, Missouri. The father of William Watson was the owner of a large plantation near Baltimore, Maryland, in which locality the son was born. He was a machinist and a cabinetmaker and at an early day went to Missouri, where he worked at his trade. He died in Jefferson county, near St. Louis, Missouri, in July, 1861, while his wife, a native of Ohio, passed away in 1840. Mr. and Mrs. Van Sickle never had any children of their own but reared several, to whom they gave the loving care of parents.

In his political views Mr. Van Sickle was a republican and then a populist and his religious faith was that of the Congregational church. His was a well spent life characterized by many sterling traits and by honorable purpose and at all times he was as true and loyal to his country as when he followed the nation's starry banner on the battlefields of the south. His widow now owns and occupies a fine home on Silver street, in Ashland, and, like her husband, has many friends in the town and throughout the county.