While it may be, as has been said, that the lessons of adversity are not always salutary, that they sometimes awaken or intensify the more unwelcome phases of human nature which are born of envy and a sense of injustice, it is undoubtedly true that there is scarcely a more decided and productive stimulus to effort and the development of manly qualities of self-reliance and resourcefulness then necessary and absolute dependence on one’s own exertions. This truth is wall illustrated in the life and achievements of Sherman G. Devall, for the last ten years prominent as a ranchman and stockgrower on Stockade Beaver Creek, twenty-two miles northeast of Newcastle, where he has a fine ranch of 220 acres of well improved and highly cultivated land, on which he dwells in commodious and convenient modern residence, which is surrounded with good barns, sheds, corrals and other appurtenances required for success in his industry. His life began on August 9, 1867, at Preston, West Virginia, where his parents, Absalom G. and Harriet (Draper) Devall, natives of that state, were engaged in farming, after an arduous and exacting service by the father in the Civil War, from his enlistment in 1861 until its close, in which he followed the fortunes of General Grant through his most difficult and dangerous campaigns, participating in many battles and many exhausting marches. After peace was declared he returned to his farm in West Virginia, where he remained until 1870, when he removed to Maryland, locating in Garrett County. There his wife died in 1878 and he in 1880. Sherman G. Devall was educated in the public schools of Maryland to a limited extent, but, being left an orphan at the age of fourteen years, he was obliged to take up the burden of life for himself at that early age, and, with a brother three years older, he went to Pennsylvania and there worked at various occupations in different parts of that state for three years. He returned to West Virginia in 1882 and there for nine years followed mining. In 1891 he came to Nebraska, and, after farming in Buffalo county of that state for a year, came on to Wyoming, where, in August, 1892, he took up his present ranch, on which he has since resided and carried on a profitable and expanding farming and stockraising enterprise. When he came here this whole picturesque section with its pleasing variety of hill and vale was almost unoccupied. Now it blooms with flowers, teems with the fruits and is fraught with the moral agencies of civilization, to the planting and growth of which Mr. Devall has essentially contributed. His early necessities and struggles produced a rugged force of character, quick and alert readiness in action, a clearness of vision and a resolute perseverance of a kind that deserves success and usually commands it. In politics he is an active republican and takes an eager interest in the success of his party.
