Franklin Pierce Lindsay, a well known attorney and orator of Kansas, and formerly judge of the police court at Topeka, was born at Sharpsville, Tipton county, Indiana, Jan. 15, 1855. His father, Dr. James P. Lindsay, was a prominent physician at Sharpsville and practiced medicine in Tipton county for a remarkably long period of active service covering more than forty years. He was a native of Kentucky, born in 1822, the son of Joseph Lindsay, whose father, David Lindsay, was a descendant of an old Scotch family. Dr. Lindsay died in 1895. His wife, Amanda Pierce, whose family name is borne by her son, was born in Montgomery county, Ohio, in 1833, and died at her home in Sharpsville, Ind., in 1907.

Franklin P. Lindsay was reared in his native town and there attended the public schools. After a course of study in the Northern Indiana Normal School at Valparaiso, he entered the law department of Washington University at St. Louis, Mo., where he prepared himself for the legal profession. In 1882 he was admitted to the bar at Indianapolis and soon after was admitted to practice before the supreme court of Indiana. In 1885 he came to Kansas and located at Medicine Lodge, where for a few months he practiced law. He then moved to Lakin and made his residence there for the next five years, engaged in professional work. In January, 1890, he made his final location at Topeka, where during the twenty years of his practice as a lawyer, he has risen to a place of prominence among the members of his profession and has been admitted to practice before the higher courts of the state and before the United States supreme court. He gave the city efficient service as a public official, in the capacity of judge of the police court—an office which he held for one term. Judge Lindsay's fame as a public speaker has been more than state wide. He has given his effective service as an orator to the Republican party, and in the presidential campaigns of 1900 and 1904, his platform work was of such force and earnestness that in the state of Montana he was known as the "Kansas Cyclone." For many years he has interested himself in temperance work and has given his influence and services to the cause, being one of the field lectures of the Kansas State Temperance Union.

Mr. Lindsay was married Oct. 22, 1885, to Miss Flora A. Roberts, a native of Indiana, who before her marriage to Mr. Lindsay, had been a teacher in the public schools of Indianapolis. Of the children born to this union, three are now living, viz: Frances Russell, a graduate of the Topeka High School, who is now studying art in Chicago; Marian, a student in the Topeka High School; and James Franklin, who is receiving his early education in the city schools. Mr. Lindsay is a member of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows, and both he and his wife maintain membership in the First Baptist Church of Topeka.