Biographical Sketches
Martin Luther Fries
Martin Luther Fries, Senator from the Fifteenth District, composed of Custer, Valley, Loup and Blaine counties, is a Virginian by birth. He was born in Winchester, October 15, 1856. Left an orphan in early childhood, his youth was beset with cares and some few hardships. His early education was limited to the advantages afforded by subscription schools. Later in life he worked his way through college, then followed the vocation of a school teacher. Inclined towards the study of law, he entered the law school at Valparaiso, Indiana, but deciding upon a business career, abandoned the study for the bar at the end of a year. From 1883 until 1886 he was president of the Sierra Normal College at Auburn, California. Resigning this position in April, 1886, he located at Arcadia, Nebraska, his present home, and there engaged in the lumber business, in which he has been successful and has built up a large patronage. Senator Fries has always been a Republican. He is serving his first term as a member of the Nebraska Legislature. In 1883 he was married to Miss Cora M. Anderson of Streator, Illinois, an old classmate at Valparaiso, and has one child, a daughter, who is now in her seventeenth year.
Source: Transcription from the book, Portrait and Biographical Album of the State Officers and the Members of the Nebraska Legislature, edited by Daniel M. Carr, published in 1903; located on the website, Library of Congress (http://loc.gov), accessed 19 January 2026.
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