George S. Linscott, president of the Linscott State Bank, of Holton, Kan., was born in Washington county, Iowa, Nov. 4, 1868, son of S. K. and Josephine (Mallett) Linscott. His father was born in Chesterville, Me., descendant of fine old Scotch-English ancestry. When only sixteen years of age he left his native state and located in Illinois and engaged in farming, but soon realized that an education was one of the essential equipments for a man to succeed in the world, and went to New York, where he entered Hamilton College. There he met and married Miss Myra Simmons. They came west and for some years engaged in farming on an eighty-acre farm in Washington county, Iowa, raising corn and selling it at ten cents a bushel, and fat hogs at $1.50 per 100 pounds. During the Civil war Mrs. Linscott died, leaving a daughter, and Mr. Linscott enlisted in the Ninth Illinois cavalry and served in Alabama and Mississippi until the close of the war. After leaving the army Mr. Linscott returned to Iowa and engaged in the mercantile business. In 1866 he married Miss Josephine Mallett, whose ancestors were Connecticut Yankees of Norman and English descent, and some of whose relatives went to the Sandwich Islands as missionaries in 1820. Of this union were born seven sons, six of whom grew to manhood. In 1872 the father sold his interests in Iowa and came to Jackson county, Kansas,—before the railroads were built. Immediately he was offered and accepted the position of cashier of the first banking house started in the county. The ambition grew to have a bank of his own, and in 1874 he sold his interest in the Holton Exchange Bank and started the banking house of S. K. Linscott. For thirty-two years he was the able executive of the bank and never gave up work, being actively engaged until his death, Dec. 11, 1906. Mr. Linscott had great business ability and foresaw the bright future of Kansas. He dealt largely in lands, bought, farmed and sold many farms, principally buying the wild prairie tracts in large quantities and breaking the sod and improving it, and selling in small tracts. Always a pioneer—to Illinois in 1853, to Iowa in 1858, and to Kansas in 1872—in 1896 Mr. Linscott went to southern Mexico and bought some 50,000 acres of land on the Isthmus of Tehuantepec. Besides being a pioneer, he was a progressive farmer, being one of the first men to introduce thoroughbred Poland China hogs, Shorthorn and Jersey cattle and standard bred horses into Jackson county. He loved horses and owned a number of good ones, among them being King Sprague, 2:12; Dandy O., 2:11, and Otto W., 2:13 1/4. He was also one of the first to introduce the growing of tame grasses in the county and was among the first to plant alfalfa and demonstrate that it was a paying crop. It produced for him ten and one-quarter tons per acre in one season, and he was among the very first to use a silo, building one on "Hickory Hill" farm in 1887. We always look up to the men who accomplish things in this world, and Mr. Linscott always was building up and improving. He was a self-made man, having achieved success by his own efforts; was self-educated, but never felt that the education was finished, for he was a scholar to the end of his life, a reader and a thinker, and was remarkably well posted. Holton owes much to this great-hearted, generous man, as many of its best buildings were built by him or through his efforts, and he always encouraged all civic improvements and was a liberal contributor to them. In addition to the battle he fought for his own success, he assumed all the indebtedness of his father, who lost heavily in the panic of 1837, and did not rest until every cent was paid, which was nine years after his father's death.

George S. Linscott accompanied his parents to Kansas when a young child, coming into Holton on the first passenger train to reach that place, and was reared and educated in Holton, graduating at Campbell University in 1886. After leaving school he entered the bank with his father, and having a natural inclination to business soon learned business methods, and he was advanced from time to time from one position of trust to another, serving as errand boy, assistant cashier, cashier, vice-president, and after the death of his father was chosen president by the board of directors, which position he is filling with marked ability and to the entire satisfaction of all the stockholders.

Mr. Linscott is interested in farming, having spent five of his younger years on a farm, and is proprietor of the Linscott Ranch of 800 acres near Kansas City, and 2,900 acres in Texas, besides lands in Missouri and Oklahoma. On Dec. 31, 1891, at Farmington, Me., he was married to Miss Minnie B. Linscott, a native of that city, and daughter of Dr. J. J. and Rena C. (Hemenway) Linscott. Her father, besides being a practicing physician, was Democratic state senator, and her grandfather, the late Joseph A. Linscott, was cashier of the Sandy River National Bank, then auditor and for many years treasurer of the Maine Central railroad, and a member of the Governor's Council. He and the late S. K. Linscott were cousins. To Mrs. Minnie B. Linscott belongs the honor of having organized the Samuel Linscott Chapter, Daughters of the American Revolution, with the largest charter membership and the largest number of descendants of one person belonging to any one chapter ever organized anywhere,—this one having twenty-three descendants of Samuel Linscott among its charter members. To her also belongs the honor of being descended from sixteen Revolutionary soldiers.

George S. and Minnie B. Linscott have two children—Orena J. and John S., both students in the high school. The family are Methodists and Mr. Linscott is a member of the board of trustees of that church, having also served as president of the building committee when the new $25,000 church was built. He is also president of the board of education of the city of Holton, treasurer and member of the board of trustees of Campbell College, trustee of the Knights of Pythias lodge and also of the Odd Fellows' lodge; chief of the Holton volunteer fire company, and trustee of the Firemen's Relief Association. He was one of the incorporators and directors of the Bonner Portland Cement Company, and later was a member of the stockholders' reorganization committee; and he was secretary of the Jackson County Building & Loan Association. He is a director of the Kansas State Historical Society, a member of the National Geographical Society, and also of the Sons of the American Revolution.