John Augustus Hale, of Kansas City, Kan., one of the well known members of the Wyandotte county bar, was born at Foxcraft, Me., Aug. 7, 1852, a son of Augustus and Lydia Chase (Fisher) Hale. The father was a native of Portland, Me., and was a seafaring man practically all of his active life. He died in 1863, aged forty-nine years. He was a son of John and Mary (Jones) Hale, the latter a daughter of Dr. David Jones, who served as a surgeon in the Continental army during the Revolutionary war. Lydia Chase Fisher was born on Nantucket Island on the coast of Massachusetts, and died in 1865, aged forty-two years. Her parents, Leonard and Lydia (Chase) Fisher, were both members of old representative Massachusetts families, so it will be seen that John A. Hale traces his ancestry back to some of the sturdy New England yeomanry of the colonial era. John A. Hale continued to live in his native town until he was eighteen years of age. He attended the academy there, and later attended a school at Pittsfield, Me. In 1869, his parents having died, he decided to seek his fortunes in the West. An uncle, John K. Hale, was at that time attorney for the Kansas Pacific railroad and resided in Wyandotte county, Kansas, and this was the principal thing that influenced the young man to come to Kansas. He entered the employ of the Kansas Pacific as a timekeeper and continued in that capacity for about eighteen months, when he entered his uncle's law office as a student. After a preparatory course of reading there he went to Bangor, Me., where he completed his legal education, and in 1874 was admitted to the bar in his native state. Returning immediately to Kansas he began the practice of his profession at Kansas City, where he has been engaged in that line of activity for thirty-six years. Although Mr. Hale's practice embraces all sorts of cases, he is especially strong as a criminal lawyer. As an attorney he is tireless and painstaking in looking after the interests of his clients, and this is equivalent to saying that he has been successful from a pecuniary standpoint. He is a member of the Wyandotte County Bar Association, has a high standing as a member of the bar, and is always ready and willing to discharge the highest duties of citizenship as he sees them. Politically he is a Democrat, and his fraternal relations are with the Masonic fraternity, the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks, the Knights of Pythias and the Ancient Order of United Workmen.

On Nov. 10, 1875, Mr. Hale married Miss Lillian Walker, a daughter of Matthew R. Walker, who was a member of the Wyandotte tribe of Indians, although he had but one-sixteenth Indian blood. He was a brother of William Walker, the provisional governor of the Territory of Nebraska, established a few years before the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska bill, which organized the Territory of Kansas. Mrs. Hale was born on the Wyandotte reservation, and is not ashamed of her Indian ancestry. Mr. and Mrs. Hale have two daughters: Lydia Emily, now the wife of Archibald B. Chapin, of Kansas City; Kan., and Lillian Augusta, now Mrs. Judd Greenman, of Edith, Col.