Thomas L. Lindley, of Medicine Lodge, a pioneer citizen and a successful business man of that city, came to Barber county, in 1876, at a time when the county was but newly organized and there were but few white settlers in that section of Kansas. He is a descendant of English ancestry on the paternal and Scotch-Irish on the maternal side, and is of the sixth generation descended from Francis Lindley, who immigrated to America from England, in 1649, and founded that branch of the Lindley family to which Thomas L. belongs. His son, John, who was born in 1668, and died in 1769, had a son John, born in 1693, who died in 1750. Levi Lindley, son of John Lindley II, was born in 1731, and was the great-grandfather of Thomas L.; he died in 1788. Benjamin Lindley, son of Levi, was born July 28, 1779, and died in September, 1869; his son, Cephas, was the father of Thomas L. Cephas Lindley was born March 28, 1826, and died March 19, 1898. On March 15, 1840, he married Anna Manna, who died Jan. 31, 1859, when her son, Thomas L., was a lad but eight years old. The Manna family dates back to the Thirteenth Century, when Patrick Manna, a resident of the southwest coast of Scotland, built and occupied a castle, since known a "Castle Sorby." Both the Lindley and Hanna families in America were among the first settlers in Western Pennsylvania and located there when that section was almost wholly virgin forest land.

Thomas L. Lindley was born a few miles south of Washington, in Washington county, Pennsylvania, Aug. 25, 1850. He was reared in Pennsylvania and, after completing the usual common school course, attended the normal school at Claysville, Pa. Later he attended the college at Waynesburg, Pa., and also took a commercial course at Duff's College, in Pittsburgh. He removed directly from Pennsylvania to Barber county, Kansas, in 1876, and for the first ten years was there engaged in the raising of live stock. He then engaged in banking and in the farm loan business for a few years and later took up the abstract and real estate business, in which he is still engaged. In the meantime he has continued to be interested in farming and cattle feeding and has been successful in his various lines of endeavor. In 1880 he was elected county superintendent of schools of Barber county and served one term. He has also served six years as mayor of Medicine Lodge and has been a member of the board of education there twenty years.

Early in 1880 Mr. Lindley married Miss Emma E. Blanton, a daughter of Capt. N. B. Blanton, of Kiowa, Kan. She died, early in 1889, leaving three children: Esme Nell, the eldest, married Walter Scott of Detroit, Mich., who died in 1909, and his widow now resides in Medicine Lodge; Herbert R., the eldest son, is a druggist at Chattanooga, Okla.; and Frank B. is a traveling salesman for the Morton Simmons Hardware Company of Wichita. Late in 1890 Mr. Lindley married, as his second wife, Miss Laura A. Wadsworth, a daughter of Jasen Wadsworth of Medicine Lodge. Of the children of this second union four are living: Clifford B. graduated in the Medicine Lodge High School, in 1911, and is now attending the Kansas University at Lawrence; Glen E., a junior, and Gordon W., a sophomore, are in the high school; and Robert G. is a student in the grades.