John McCann was born April 5, 1852, in Washington County, Va., and for a period of about forty years spent his life among the hills which are so familiar to a great many of the old settlers in this part of the country, and from which many of them came during the period of reconstruction following the Civil War. About the year 1890 he came to Nebraska to renew the friendships of earlier days and was so impressed with the new country that he decided to cast his lot also with those who had come before and so settled in the neighborhood of the Colby school house, and has maintained his residence in Washington County ever since. He was intensely interested in the development of the interest of the farmer and was a splendid type of that rural citizen who has the great common welfare of the whole county side at heart. In his early youth he was baptized and confirmed in the Evangelical Lutheran Church and maintained his relationship all the years of his life, and those who were most intimately acquainted testify to the sterling qualities of this life, and to his intense desire to be at peace with all who knew him. He died at the home of his brother, Isaac McCann, with whom he resided during the last few years of his life, on April 10, 1913. The funeral services were held in the Grace M. E. Church, Rev. Hiller officiating, and interment was made in the Kennard Cemetery where the services were in charge of John S. Bowen Lodge, 235 A. F. and A. M., of which he had for years been an active member.

Obituary courtesy of the Washington County Genealogical Society. Newspaper clipping on file at the Blair Public library.