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Mr. Samuel Shears the Managing Proprietor of the "Lincoln" is the Man.

He Tells Some Interesting Facts in Relation to the War, How the Peace Conference Was Conducted At Niagra.

How a Passport Across the River Was Secured.

Among the prominent citizens of Lincoln is one who is entitled to the distinction of having spent more years in hotel life than any other man in the state, and it is doubtful if any other person in the country has spent as many years in the harness as host as he. Mr. Samuel Shears, the proprietor of the Lincoln, by all odds the finest hotel in the state, was born at Rochester New York in September 1828, and is consequently was sixty-two years of age. At the time of his birth his father was the proprietor of the Monroe house the then leading hotel of Rochester, and from that day to the present Mr. Shears' life has, with the exception of about five years, been spent in a hotel. At the age of eighteen he went to Buffalo and in company with a brother opened and conducted the Arcade, the principal hotel of that city. This they ran until 1851 when he formed a partnership with another brother and for twenty-two years rean the Clifton, the leading hotel on the Canada side of the river at Niagara Falls, Samuel assuming the active management. In the latter part of 1878 they sold out the Cliften and he opened the Boody house at Toledo, then just completed and the finest house in that portion of Ohio. From Toledo he went to Cincinnati where he opened the magnificient Burnett, and remained there until 1882, when he came to Omaha and in company with Messrs. Markel and Swobe built and opened the Millard whose popularity under the direct management of Mr. Shears soon extended from the Atlantic to the Pacific.

Something over two years ago he thought that half a century and more in the harness entitled him to a release from active work and he sold out to his partners. He had however mistaken his own temperament and found that contentment for him was not to be found in the relinquishment of the business habits and activity acquired by his many years of service, and he began to cast about him with the object of again entering the life for which his is so eminently fitted. During this time a number of enterprising and wealthy citizens of this city organized the Lincoln Hotel company, and proceeded at once with the erection of the present magnificent structure, costing nearly $250,000 on the corner of Ninth and P streets. Before it was completed it was leased to Mr. Shears and his former partner in the Millard, Mr. Markel, and it is as joint proprietor and active manager that Mr. Shears may be found, always ready to meet the guests of the house with those polite attentions which at once puts them at their ease and makes them feel at home. The faculty of pleasing the travelling public is born in some men, and is a something that cannot be acquired, and this faculty is possessed to an eminent degree by Mr. Shears. As may be supposed his long career as proprietor of leading hotels has brought him in contact and in numberless cases on terms of familiarity with the celebraties of this and other nations, and he possesses a fund of anecdote and information about people and events that makes him a most interesting conversationalist.

A few evenings ago a JOURNAL man asked him to recount some of the incidents that transpired at his house during that most interesting period of American history, the civil war. In compliance with this request he obligingly seated himself, saying:

"I hardly know how to begin, each day during those stirring times was crowded with events that if fairly told would prove most interesting. As you are aware, Niagra Falls from its location and natural attractions became during the rebellion, the headquarters on on this continent for foreign southern sympathizers. This of itself made it the northern headquarters for copperheads, and large numbers of representative southern men who were in one way or another actual participants in the rebellion. My hotel was the leading one, and from the first became the headquarters for conferences and political intrigue, and as a natural consequence I became acquainted with and entertained many prominent personages. While proprietor I had among other guests of the house the Prince of Wales, who remained five days, Princess Lousia, his sister, the Duke of Endinboro for two weeks and Prince Arthur who remained three months; besides these were innumerable foreign ambassadors and their families in addition to scores of noted men of the United States, both north and south.

Mr. Samuel Shears the Managing Proprietor of the "Lincoln" is the Man.

He Tells Some Interesting Facts in Relation to the War, How the Peace Conference Was Conducted At Niagra.

How a Passport Across the River Was Secured.

Among the prominent citizens of Lincoln is one who is entitled to the distinction of having spent more years in hotel life than any other man in the state, and it is doubtful if any other person in the country has spent as many years in the harness as host as he. Mr. Samuel Shears, the proprietor of the Lincoln, by all odds the finest hotel in the state, was born at Rochester New York in September 1828, and is consequently was sixty-two years of age. At the time of his birth his father was the proprietor of the Monroe house the then leading hotel of Rochester, and from that day to the present Mr. Shears' life has, with the exception of about five years, been spent in a hotel.