Living through enslavement, marrying a white woman and raising 10 kids on a farm, and riding the Pony Express were all parts of story of the life of one centenarian who lived in Omaha. This is a biography of Mark Hanna Alexander (1842-1943).

Born enslaved in a city called LaGrange, Georgia southwest of Atlanta in 1842, Mr. Mark Hanna Alexander was freed at the end of the Civil War.

Stories of Mr. Alexander’s life varied according to what the newspaper reported and what he told them. Apparently he stayed in Georgia until 1881, when news of the assassination of President Garfield compelled him to go to Washington, DC. Telling his story to the Omaha World-Herald when he turned 100-years-old, Mr. Alexander said he got mixed up along the way and he ended up in Chicago.

He either headed west to Nebraska in 1860, around 1869 or around 1876. He was called a Pony Express rider, which only ran from 1860 to 1861. He was also reported to have been a mail carrier in southeast Nebraska when he first moved to the state. Somewhere along the way he might have served with the U.S. Army Indian Scouts.

In 1863, he married a white woman named Ella (Daisy) Alexander. The couple reportedly lived in Wilber, Nebraska, southwest of Lincoln.

After the Kinkaid Act was passed in 1904, Mr. Alexander and his wife headed to western Nebraska and claimed 640 acres. The Nebraska Homstead Land Records say his land was in Section 3, Township 22, Range 14W, but I don’t know how to locate more information. In 1911, the couple and their family lived in the Sandhills of north-central Nebraska, settling about 20 miles north of Ord. On that homestead, Mr. Alexander and his wife Ella raised a family ten children, seven of whom survived their father. The children who survived him included:

• Miss Opal Alexander
• Mrs. Rena Ellis (19??-1976)
• Earl Alexander
• Mark Alexander of Detroit
• LeRoy Alexander (1900-2001)
• Frank Alexander, and
• Herschel Alexander

In 1911, Mrs. Alexander was accused of stealing something and the Omaha Bee wrote it up. However, instead of featuring the accusations they featured the mixed nature of the couple’s marriage, highlighting Mr. Alexander’s race and Mrs. Alexander’s children’s race. The paper included this in the story:

“The accused woman is a weakly-looking white woman of perhaps 40 years, but she has the fighting blood of a long line of pioneer forebears.”

—Omaha Bee, July 9, 1911

At some point after 1911, Mrs. Alexander died. I haven’t found records of her burial yet.

At some point when William Taft was president (1909-1913), Mr. Alexander sent the president’s father a letter. Apparently he asked for a title to land that he owned, and was sent it. Mr. Alexander sold the land for $3,000, and at some point after that he moved to Omaha.

In Omaha Mr. Alexander became a chicken buyer at a packinghouse. Several of his kids lived in towns and he might have been a regular church goer.

When he died, Mr. Alexander lived at 1708 N. 7th Street in Omaha, approximately where Clark Street crosses the railroad today. Some of the harshest living conditions in Omaha, this area was called Squatter’s Row because the people who built homes there did not have a title to the property. Pictured above is a photo of Mr. Alexander’s house from his 1942 obituary.

When he died, Mr. Alexander had $250 saved up in and stashed in his house to cover his burial costs. However, somebody stole that money. Luckily his LeRoy, a private in the Army serving at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, during World War II, was able to get emergency relief from the Army to cover the costs, which came to $190.

Mr. Alexander is buried at Prospect Hill Cemetery, and according to the Prospect Hill Cemetery Association, Mr. Alexander was “one of the oldest men buried at Prospect Hill Cemetery” when he was buried on December 9, 1943 at the age of 101.

Today there are no memorials or plaques dedicated to Mr. Alexander in Omaha. The Prospect Hill Cemetery Association featured him in their 2002 newsletter, but other than that and now this article, his story goes untold.

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