Transcribed from volume I of Kansas: a cyclopedia of state history, embracing events, institutions, industries, counties, cities, towns, prominent persons, etc. ... / with a supplementary volume devoted to selected personal history and reminiscence. Standard Pub. Co. Chicago : 1912. 3 v. in 4. : front., ill., ports.; 28 cm. Vols. I-II edited by Frank W. Blackmar.

Haskell, Dudley Chase, member of Congress, was born at Springfield, Vt., March 23, 1842. He was seventh in line of descent from Roger Haskell, a native of England, who settled in Beverly, Mass., about 1632. Four of this illustrious family fought in the Revolutionary war. Franklin Haskell, Dudley's father, was a member of the first New England company to settle at Lawrence, Kan., in Sept., 1855. He was one of the seven men who organized Plymouth Congregational church, and is credited with having made the first public prayer ever offered on the town site of Lawrence. Mr. Haskell's mother, Almira Chase, belonged to an old New England family. She endured with cheerfulness and courage the privations of frontier life in Kansas and her son inherited from her many valuable qualities. When thirteen years of age Dudley and his mother came to Kansas, following the father who had come before to make a home. The trying scenes of those early days soon made a man of the lad, and he acted as master of transportation with the quartermaster's department in the Missouri and Arkansas campaigns of the Kansas troops. At the close of the war he went to Williston Academy, Southampton, Mass., to prepare for Yale University, where he completed the scientific course. On his return to Lawrence Mr. Haskell engaged in mercantile pursuits, but met with indifferent success. In 1871 he was elected a member of the Kansas house of representatives and succeeded himself for two terms following. During the last term he was speaker of the house. He was nominated for governor by the Temperance party in 1874. but declined to accept the nomination. Two years later he was nominated for Congress in the Second district and elected by a large majority. He was reëlected in 1878, 1880 and 1882. While a member of the house he served as chairman of the committee on Indian affairs and was vigilant and untiring in looking after the interests of the Indians of Kansas. The Haskell Institute, at Lawrence, Kan., where Indian youths receive a fine technical education, stands as a monument to his memory. Although elected to the 48th Congress he was unable to take his seat on account of broken health. He died on Dec. 16, 1883. In Dec., 1865, Mr. Haskell married Hattie M. Kelsey, a descendant of the celebrated New England divine, Cotton Mather. Mrs. Haskell was a woman of great intellect and many attainments and by her sympathy helped her husband over many of the difficulties encountered in business and political life.

Pages 827-828 from volume I of Kansas: a cyclopedia of state history, embracing events, institutions, industries, counties, cities, towns, prominent persons, etc. ... / with a supplementary volume devoted to selected personal history and reminiscence. Standard Pub. Co. Chicago : 1912. 3 v. in 4. : front., ill., ports.; 28 cm. Vols. I-II edited by Frank W. Blackmar. Transcribed May 2002 by Carolyn Ward.