McPHERSON PIONEERS
On February 4, 1832, John McPherson and Catherine Boyne were married northeast of Greenok on the North Sea Coast of Scotland. In 1849 they and their six children, Jennie, David, Robert, Jane, Margaret and Catherine, immigrated to America. Their first American home was in Alabama and from there they moved to Delaware County in northeast Iowa where they lived until the early l870s.
John and his eldest son were stone masons and David plied his trade in many of the states. In one instance he took a freighter to the Isthmus of Panama, walked to the Pacific side and took another freighter to San Francisco. From there he went to Sacramento where he worked as a stone cuttcr on the first California State Capitol Building. On his return home he was reluctant to carry the $500 of gold he had earned. A banker told him they could transfer it to a New York bank and he could pick it up there when he got there. He wasn't sure how it could be done but he turned it over to the banker.
At about the same time the MePhersons left Scotland a family from Edinburgh, John and Elizabeth Davidson Robertson and their six children, Jane, Margaret, Elizabeth, Belle, John and Agnes, sailed to America. After two years in Brooklyn, they moved to Allamokee County in northeast Iowa.
These two families became acquainted and David McPherson and Margaret Robertson were married. Margaret had a cousin. Tom Smith, who lived on the southwest edge of Otoe County, Nebraska, at a place called Solon. This may have been the reason she and David considered moving to Nebraska. Anyway, on June 19, 1869, they "with $900 in hand" purchased the 160 acres across from what is now the Rose Hill Cemetery south of Douglas.
In a few years the rest of the John and Catherine McPherson family, with the exception of Jane, cast their lots in what is now the Douglas Community. Two young Civil War Veterans from Van Buren County, Iowa, had joined the family. Charles Beetem had married Margaret McPherson and his brother, Thomas, had married Catherine McPherson.
The other son, Robert McPherson, bought the 240 acres southeast of the intersection a mile south of Douglas and 160 acres joining David's on the north. The west part of Douglas is in this 160 acres. Later Robert sold it to his sister Margaret Beetem. Catherine and her husband, Tom, bought 240 acres across the road north from Margaret's farm. Jessie, the oldest sister, married Charles Fishel and they lived one and a half miles north of Douglas.
These families and others of their kind who lived around them realized their American dream of making the community a good place to call home.
Submitted by David T. McPherson