Jasper M. Neher Biography


	This biography is from "Memorial and biographical record; an illustrated
 	compendium of biography, containing a compendium of local biography,
	including biographical sketches of prominent old settlers and 
	representative citizens of South Dakota..." Published by G. A. Ogle & 
	Co., Chicago, 1899. Pages 310-311

	Scan, OCR and editing by Maurice Krueger,mkrueger@iw.net, 1998. 

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JASPER M. NEHER, the sheriff of McCook county, is one of the most 
popular and highly respected men of the county. He has at different 
times held very responsible offices in the county, each time being 
elected without canvass or,solicitation on his own part, and he has 
never failed to justify the confidence placed in him by the people. His 
home is on a far~n in Emery township, where he is conducting a general 
farming business, and although he has spent much time and taken much 
pains in the service of his fellow men, he conducts his farming 
thoroughly and systematically. 

Mr. Neher was born in April, 1841, in Germany, the oldest son and third 
child in the order of birth of a family of fourteen children, ten of 
whom are now living. His parents were both German, and his father was a 
stone dresser by trade and also a musician who played many instruments. 
The family migrated to America when Casper was but eleven years of age 
and settled in Sauk county, Wisconsin, where the father continued his 
trade and also worked at farming. Eleven years later they again moved, 
and located on a farm in Eau Claire county, of the same state. A year 
later the family moved to town and the father retired from active work. 

Our subject was educated in Germany, and after coming to America he 
helped his father on the farm until he reached the age of twenty-five 
years. He then left home and found employment in a brewery for three 
years. In 1869 he built a brewery in Augusta, Wisconsin, operating the 
same for six years, when the local option law made it a failure. He 
then borrowed ten dollars and moved to Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin, and 
rented a brewery which he operated for two years and failed again. In 
1878 he started for Dakota, in debt two hundred dollars, and possessed 
of only an old wagon and twenty dollars. He filed claims to the east 
half of section 4, township 102, range 55, and during that winter he 
stayed in Nebraska. Returning in the spring of 1879, he began to 
cultivate and improve his farm, although for the first three years he 
had to work outside a part of the time to make a living, and from this 
commencement he has risen to an enviable position not only among the 
farmers of the county, but also in political affairs. Politically, Mr. 
Neher was formerly a Democrat, but is now identified with the Populist 
party, and in 1882 he was elected on that ticket to the office of 
county commissioner of McCook county and served for a term of three 
years. In 1896, and also in 1898, he was elected to the office of 
sheriff of McCook county. He is a member of the Catholic church and 
also a member of the Independent Order of United Workmen. He is very 
popular with the people of his adopted county and a man of influence in 
the locality. 

In 1869 Mr. Neher was united in marriage to Miss Barbra Herreth, a 
German-Bohemian girl, who was born in Germany and came to America at 
the age of five years. To this union have been born eleven. children, 
ten of whom are living and are now grown to maturity.