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Note: N411 State Superintendent of Immigration - Nebraska
Son of Jacob Noteware, grandson of George Noteware, a Hessian soldier employed by the British to fight the Revolution. He was captured and settled in the USA.
James Henry was a school teacher in Galesburg in the 1840s and 1850s. In 1858 he was appointed to be the first superintendent of public schools in Kansas, a position he held for 9 months. He moved on to Colorado and maybe Nebraska.
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“PEN SKETCHES of NEBRASKANS by A. C. Edmunds, Lincoln, Nebrasks, 1871
JAMES HENRY NOTEWARE.
STATE SUPERINTENDENT OF IMMIGRATION.
SUCCESSFUL life depends upon peculiar mental
and physical endowments. These requisites are
possessed in a large degree by the subject of this
sketch. The following epitome of character is so
strikingly correct that we cannot refrain from giving a
lengthy synopsis. It is from a written phrenological chart
by Mr. Fowler, in 1866. Mr. Fowler says :
"Your brain is broad, which gives force of character and
aids you in running the vital machinery. The brain contains
the seat of all the powers in the body. The stomach has its
part of the brain. The lungs, the liver each has in the
brain something like the telegraphic battery to do the work
of the telegraph. You have that battery strong enough.
You would get well if you were cut in two if they adjust the
pieces properly. We mean that you would get well where
few persons would, because you have a fondness and tenacity
for life. You have a high temper, but are not quarrelsome.
All you ask is an even start for a fair race, and fair j^lay.
You are not irrascible but not inclined to humbuggery. You
have a frankness of disposition which enables you to express
yourself with openness and directness, and at the same time
you have enough prudence if circumstances demand it. You
have a natural aptitude for governing men, for making them
believe that what you say is all right and proper, and that all
they have to do is to take your directions and carry them out.
You have a fondness for superintending. Your benevolence
is strong, and if you knew anything that would do a man
JAMES HENRY NOTEWARE. 395
good you would almost thrust it upon him. If a needy and
proper object comes to you for charity they would not go
away empty handed. You appreciate intellect and influence,
but you do not feel sufficient respect to pay homage to power.
You respect but not venerate it. You have an inclination to
prune down your creed and make it easily comprehended.
You generally look on the bright side of life and count the
chances favorably to yourself. If you should fail in business
by trying to do too much or by carelessly trusting other men
to do what you could do yourself by using three pair of hands,
you would prick anew and start with almost as much hilarity
and joyousness as you did when you crossed the threshhold
of manhood and started first.
We feel impressed that you started before twenty-one and
drove your own team, or somebody's else. You are not a
mere passenger, you are adapted to be personally present and
see that things are done. You are remarkable for firmness ;
it is almost defective thaf*you have so much will power, and
if you had not a healthy body and elastic constitution you
would be worn out all over by that will power. You love
justice. You have no idea that trickery and treachery ulti-
mately win. You feel that if a man has back bone and brain
and honesty, he can, if he follows the current of affairs,
come out ahead; if he has not talent and you feel that
he has no right to succeed in a high degree by indirection
and artifice.? You are socially a strong man. Your interest
in friends enables you to take men right along with you as
the magnet takes along steel filings. You ought to have been
a speaker not because you have so much language but because
you would remember all the facts and put it so strongly as to
carry conviction, with your memory so good and enough
body to give it support and strength to your mind. You
remember everything. As a lawyer you could remember
enough of cases to cite them sufficiently for the uses of the
court, the opposing counsel and clients.
Your first impression of a stranger is your best. You read
men like a book, and then you have the power of moulding
them. Therefore you are master generally where you are.
The love of home is strong in you, and wherever you may
396 NEBRASKANS.
rest or roam the place you call home is the dear spot. You
are orderly inclined to systematise whatever you do. You
remember faces, distances and magnitude remarkably well.
You are a good reasoner because you reason from facts. You
analyze sharply, and generally succeed in convincing because
you illustrate with clearness and force. Taking your head
all into account and also considering your temperament and
constitution, you are powerful bodily and vigorous mentally.
Your intellect taking always a practical form and analyitical
and historic basis, so that your reasonings are not above the
masses. Ycu are courageous and earnest. You are deter-
mined and steadfast. You are sympathetical and kind
hearted. You are ambitious yet so social that you never
seem to your friends to be above them. Whatever rank you
may hold really in the scale of thought and power they never
think you feel that you are superior to them. You have a
great deal of natural democracy, and though you feel great-
ness and power you are not inclinecf to cringe to anybody."
J. H. Noteware was born in Sheffield, Berkshire county,
Massachusetts, March 10, 181 7. His grand parents on his
father's side were Germans— his grandfather being a Hessian
under Burgoyne, with whom he was taken prisoner and
became of necessity, as he afterward did by choice, a citizen
of the new republic. On his mother's side he is a full blooded
Connecticut Yankee.
At a very early age Jacob Noteware, the father of the sub-
ject of this sketch, removed to Owego, New York — then in
the far west — where he purchased a farm of one hundred and
thirty acres of wild land, covered with heavy timber. He
wrestled manfully with the sturdy forest pine, hemlock and
beech until near the close of his life. In 1854 he removed to
Galesburg, Illinois, where he died in 1860. James lived with
his father working on the farm and attending district school
until prepared to officiate as teacher in the neighboring dis-
tricts. His parents being in moderate circumstances, were
not enabled to give him a classical education and scarcely
full advantage of the very ordinary district school. The best
part of his textual knowledge was gained by personal indus-
try. After finishing his day's work on the farm, by the aid
JAMES HENRY NOTEWARE. 397
of a pine knot torch-light he would pursue his studies late
into the night. By this means he gained a thorough knowl-
edge of the higher branches of mathematics and of practical
surveying. In the latter branch he became quite noted for
his field work, as an active surveyor before his twentieth year.
He followed school teaching until the spring of 1844 when
he removed to Galesburg, Illinois. In Galesburg he was
engaged as school teacher until the spring of 1846. In April
of this year he was married to Miss Harriet S. Colton, a
daughter of C. S. Colton, a man of much influence in cen-
tral Illinois and now one among the wealthiest citizens in that
portion of the state. In the early history of the Chicago,
Burlington & Quincy Railway Mr. Colton was elected one of
its directors and has held that position ever since. He is
also one of the trustees of Knox College, a position he has
filled with satisfaction to the patrons of the institution from
an early date in its history.
Immediately after his marriage Mr. Noteware engaged in
the mercantile business with his father-in-law, in which he
continued until the spring of 1S50. The old forty-niners
having created a gold fever throughout the land it was caught
by Mr. N. and with a horse team he crossed the plains to the
new El Dorado. He engaged in mining on Feather river, for
about one year. He was then engaged by Capt. Knight, in
behalf of the Howland & Aspinwall line of Ocean steamers,
as principal adviser in San Francisco, at a salary of $5,000 a
year with perquisites amounting to as much more. After one
year's service he returned to Galesburg, Illinois, and resumed
the mercantile business with his father-in-law, in which he
remained until the spring of 1855, when he moved to Chicago
and engaged in real estate and produce business. In the
spring of 1857 he removed to Leavenworth, Kansas, with his
family, where he took an active part in putting down border
ruffianism and making of the disorganized territory a free
state. He shared with those sturdy pioneers all the toil and
pluck necessary to insure freedom to himself and posterity.
During his first year in Kansas he was elected by the legisla-
ture as Territorial Superintendent of Common Schools, and
served faithfully his full term of two years. He did much in
398 NEBRASKANS.
framing the school laws of that territory and giving common
schools a successful start.
In the summer of 1860 he went to Denver, Colorado, hav-
ing become an extensive mail contractor in that territory.
He also engaged extensively in mining and mercantile busi-
ness, but his mining enterprise proved a failure and nearly
absorbed the profits arising from his other branches of business.
In 1864 he returned to Leavenworth, and from thence with
his family to New York for the purpose of educating his chil-
dren. In 1867 he returned west and settled in Omaha where
he engaged in real estate.
During his life he has filled many places of official trust and
profit in the different states and territories in which he has
resided. In Colorado he was candidate for Speaker of the
House and after a sharp contest of several ballots with a tie
vote the contest was decided by Mr, Noteware in casting his
vote for his opponent.
In the spring of 1871 he was elected in a joint session of
the legislature of Nebraska as State Superintendent of Immi-
gration. He entered at once upon the discharge of his duties
with his accustomed zeal, and by energy and a well disciplined
system of operation has done a work in a few months time
that will result in the increase of our population by immigra-
tion of many thousands. In speaking of Mr, Noteware the
Galesburg Republican says :
"From an acquaintance of many years we are free to com-
mend Colonel Noteware to all persons in search of homes in
the west, as a gentleman well versed in matters pertaining to
lands in Nebraska, and elsewhere in the west, where he has
for several years occupied different positions of trust and
honor, both under the state and national governments.
Holding the position that he now does, he is bound to faith-
fully represent the interests of the whole state, concerning
the agricultural resources and developments of each and every
part thereof, as they truly and actually exist. We are confident
that he will furnish reliable information."
Politically he is a republican and in religion a protestant,
and here the record must end.
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JAMES HENRY NOTEWARE
Birth:
Mar. 10, 1817
Great Barrington
Berkshire County
Massachusetts, USA
Death:
Sep. 4, 1877
Saunders County
Nebraska, USA
Family links:
Spouse:
Harriet Sophia Colton Noteware (1826 - 1887)*
*Calculated relationship
Burial:
Sacred Heart Cemetery
Morse Bluff
Saunders County
Nebraska, USA
Created by: Kent Mauk
Record added: Feb 10, 2009
Find A Grave Memorial# 33717320
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