George J. Farrell, the popular sheriff of Phillips county, is a representative of that class of substantial builders of a great commonwealth who have served faithfully and long in Kansas. He is one of the pioneers of this great State who has nobly done his duty in establishing and maintaining the material interests and moral welfare of his community. Mr. Farrell was born in Washington county, New York, July 22, 1860, the son of Patrick and Margaret Farrell, both of whom were born in Ireland. They came to America and located in New York State, where Patrick Farrell engaged in farming. George was reared on his father's farm and attended the common schools of Washington county until 1872, when his parents removed to Jefferson county, Nebraska, coming west with a party known as the Plymouth Colony. Nebraska was on the frontier at that time and this company was one of the first to locate in the region. Mr. Farrell again engaged in farming and at the same time raised stock, but in 1877 he came to Kansas, taking land in Phillips county, and a year later his family joined him. They arrived in November, having made the trip from Nebraska in a wagon, as railroads were few and did not run to Phillips county. The nearest railroad was at Kearney, Neb., from which point the grain raised in the northern counties of Kansas was freighted to market. The first home of the Farrells in Kansas was a dug-out and the first school George Farrell attended here was also in a dug-out, furnished with rude home-made benches and desks of cottonwood timber. Mr. Farrell went to school only one term, as he immediately began to work on the farm, part of his time being devoted to herding cattle, as the country was open range. Buffalo grass covered the rolling prairies; there were no roads and went[sic] people went any distance they followed divides between the streams or crossed the creeks and rivers at fords. Crop failures were frequent and money scarce, as the school teacher in the district where the Farrells lived received but $10 a month and boarded around among families of the pupils. Upon attaining his majority, Mr. Farrell took a hometsead[sic] in Prairie View township, where he built a sod house, the usual habitation of first settlers in a country where sods were plenty and lumber scarce and high. For some time he lived in this home and still owns the original homestead upon which it stood, although he has since purchased eighty acres of land adjoining the first holding. Mr. Farrell engaged in general farming and for some years has made a specialty of raising Short Horn cattle and a high-grade of hogs, lines in which he has been very successful, due to his own personal supervision of the farm, business ability and hard work. Since first locating in Kansas he has taken an active interest in all public affairs, having served as township clerk, treasurer and trustee, and as trustee of the school board for twenty-nine years, from 1881 to 1910. In the latter year he was elected sheriff of Phillips county on the Democratic ticket, a position which he has filled with great credit to himself and to the satisfaction of the men who elected him to office. Mr. Farrell is a member of the Masonic order, being a Knight Templar. For years he has been a stanch adherent of the Democratic party and has stood high in its councils.

On November 27, 1884, he married Ellen, the daughter of P. C. S. and Nora O'Neill Lowe, the former a native of New Hampshire and the latter of Ireland. The parents lived in Minnesota before coming to Kansas, and there Mrs. Farrell was born, November 27, 1862. The Lowe family were among the pioneer settlers of Leavenworth county, Kansas, and from there Mr. Lowe enlisted in the army at the outbreak of the Civil war. Mrs. Farrell was raised in Leavenworth, attending the public schools there until 1879, when the family came to Phillips county, where she taught school in the country for a time before her marriage. The first school house where she taught was made of sod. There are two children in the Farrell family: Emmit, who has charge of his father's farm, and Nora, who teaches in Phillips county.