HISTORY OF CLAY COUNTY                          217

work. In this field he has been continuously at work for something
more than nineteen years. For six years he was presiding elder of the
Chadron district and for four years past has held the same position in
the Long Pine district. These districts are in the Northwest Nebraska
Conference, of which he is a charter member. At the time he left
Indiana he was a member of the board of trustees of De Pauw University.
For fifteen years past he has been a member of the board of trustees of
the Nebraska Wesleyan University, and for ten years a member of the
board of trustees of the Omaha M. E. hospital. As still further marks of
confidence reposed in him by his fellow churchmen, he was sent as a
delegate to the General Conference of the church at its sessions held
at Cleveland, Ohio, in 1896, at Chicago, in 1900, and at Baltimore, in
1908. The Nebraska Wesleyan University conferred upon him the
degree of doctor of divinity in the year 1904.
    On the 4th day of September, 1872, he married Lucy C. McAulay,
of Bowling Green, Kentucky, at the home of her grandfather, Hon.
G.  D. Blakey, at Greencastle. Four children—three sons and a
daughter—have been born to this union, of whom the youngest son died
October 7, 1908, at the M. E. hospital, Omaha.
    Mr. Julian has a ranch on the Niobrara river, in Cherry county,
Nebraska, but resides at Gordon, Sheridan county, and is at this time
superintendent of the Chadron district by appointment of the General
Conference at Baltimore for the year 1908.

    Nathan A. Thomas and wife, Nancy (McAnelly) Thomas, natives
of the state of Ohio, came to Clay county in 1865, locating at Bowling
Green. Both were experienced teachers, and taught successfully a
number of years in the schools of Bowling Green and Washington town-
ship. After a continuous residence of twenty-seven years, having dis-
posed of their property interests there, on the 11th day of August, 1892,
they left Bowling Green and went to Colorado, locating at Ft. Collins,
Larimer county, where they still reside, occasionally touring, in season,
the scenic mountain country of the West and Southwest for pleasure
and health.

    James M. Russell, native of Clay county, born on the farm half
mile south of Center Point, February 13, 1852, having a sister and a
brother older and a brother younger than himself. The father dying
in 1854, the family moved to Parke county, locating on a farm near
Sylvania, where they resided until the spring of 1857, when they returned
to their Clay county home. Here the subject of this sketch grew up to
manhood, working on the farm during the summer months and attending
the public schools during the winter season. After two or three terms
at the Center Point graded school, he took a two years’ college course
at Westfield, Illinois. Owing to failing health, he quit college in the
spring of 1887 and went to Minnesota to recuperate, and remained there
one year. Returning to Indiana in the spring of 1878, he married Miss
Julia E. Hays, eldest daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Daniel W. Hays,
of Center Point, on the 8th day of April, 1879, then went back to Min-
nesota, locating at Litchfield, where he taught school and read law. In
the month of September, 1882, he was admitted to the bar and began
the practice; was elected city attorney in the spring of 1883, serving
three years; elected county attorney in the fall of 1886, serving until