Ezra Bishop a prominent contractor and builder of Blue Hill, Webster County, Neb., was born at Phelps, Ontario County, N.Y., in 1848, and was third in a fmily of six boys reared by Joseph & Charlotte (Puffer) Bishop. His father, a native of New York, was one of the prominent farmers of that State, and was there married to Charlotte Puffer, was was also born in New York. To this union six sons were born, namely: Robert (deceased), Solomon, Ezra, Ira and Ira B. (both deceased) and Joseph. The father died in 1865, but the mother is still living and resides in Indiana. Ezra Bishop attended school and worked on the farm until he had reached years of discretion, when he learned the carpenter's trade, at which he worked for two or three years in Seneca County, N.Y., and in 1871 went to Illinois, locating at Odell, Livingston County, where he on contracting and building for a number of years. Later he engaged in the carriage and wagon-making business, whichhe carried on up to 1884. In 1880 Ezra came to Webster County and purchased 320 acres of land in Elm Creek Township, and in 1884 moved with his family and settled at Blue Hill, engaging in contracting and building, and was the most prominent and principal builder in this part of Webster and Adams Counties. He is an able mechanic and has built most of the best buildings in Blue Hill, as well as the greater part of the best improvemnts that have gone up within a scope of fifteen or twenty miles around Blue Hill, and has won for himself a reputation for honest, substantial work, which has followed him wherever he has lived, and in the city of Blue Hill, as well as elsewhere, he has many warm friends. Mr. Bishop was married in New York State, in 1874, to Miss Libbie Porter, daughter of George W. & Salina (Birdsey) Porter. She was born in New York in 1852, and this union has been blessed in the birth of a daughter, Lottie J., born at Odell, Ill., in 1876. Mr. Bishop is a prominent citizen of Blue Hill and takes a deep interest in all things pertaining to the welfare of the people. He casts his vote with the Democratic party.
~from the Biographical and Historical Memoirs of Adams, Clay, Webster and Nuckolls Counties, Nebraska 1890.