William W. Harvey, of Ashland, a leading member of the Clark county bar and well known professionally in southwestern Kansas, has been identified with the legal profession less than fifteen years, but through competent, honest, and persistent effort, has in that short time attained an enviable standing. Mr. Harvey was born Nov. 21, 1869, on a farm in Madison county, Kentucky, a son of James D. Harvey. The father, born in Kentucky, Jan. 20, 1830, was a miller during his earlier career, but in his later years gave his attention to agriculture. In 1863 he married Miss Rebecca Sparks, whose parents were natives of Kentucky and whose father was a lawyer. James D. and Rebecca Harvey removed to Kansas in 1877 and located on a farm in Shawnee county, where they resided until their respective deaths, the mother passing away in 1895 and the father on Sept. 5, 1906. They were well known and honored citizens of their community and were active in religious work, the father having been an elder of the Christian church; he was also a Mason. They were the parents of five sons, to whom they gave the example of useful and honorable lives. The eldest son, Lawson S., born July 15, 1865, is a successful lawyer at Kansas City, Kan.; James D., Jr., born Aug. 31, 1866, is a merchant at Butte, Mont.; Alexander M., born Nov. 24, 1867, was educated at the Kansas State Normal School, at Emporia, and is a lawyer at Topeka, having served as lieutenant-governor of the state in 1897 and 1898, and during the Spanish-American war was a major in the Twenty-second Kansas infantry; John E., born Nov. 13, 1868, is a mine operator in California; and the fifth and youngest son is William W.

Mr. Harvey supplemented his earlier education, received in the public schools of Shawnee county, by a business course at Topeka and by special courses at the State Normal School at Emporia, where he graduated in the class of 1896. For seven years he was engaged in the teaching profession, two years of that time having been spent as superintendent of the city schools at Ellsworth, Kan. In the meantime he was diiigently pursuing a course of privte law study, and in April, 1898, was admitted to the Shawnee county bar. He at once began the active practice of law, and thus far his efforts have been attended by a very gratifying success. In 1906 he formed a partnership with H. J. Bone, United States district attorney for Kansas, and together they opened an office in Ashland, under the firm name of Bone & Harvey. There Mr. Harvey has rapidly forged to the front and has become well known in southwestern Kansas for his legal ability.

On Sept. 4, 1894, was solemnized the marriage of Mr. Harvey and Miss Mamie A., daughter of James K. Conley, of Rossvilie, a pioneer farmer of Shawnee county. Mrs. Harvey was educated at the State Normal at Emporia and taught two years prior to her marriage. They have a son and a daughter: Howard S., born at Emporia, Jan. 21, 1896; and Helen, born at Topeka, March 16, 1903. Mr. Harvey is a Royal Arch Mason and is a past master of his lodge. In politics he is a Republican, and as such was elected county attorney of Clark county, in which office he served from 1906 to 1908.