Transcribed from volume II of Kansas: a cyclopedia of state history, embracing events, institutions, industries, counties, cities, towns, prominent persons, etc. ... / with a supplementary volume devoted to selected personal history and reminiscence. Standard Pub. Co. Chicago : 1912. 3 v. in 4. : front., ill., ports.; 28 cm. Vols. I-II edited by Frank W. Blackmar.

Prentis, Noble Lovely, journalist and author, was born on April 8, 1839, in a log cabin 3 miles from Mount Sterling, Brown county, Ill. His parents were natives of Vermont, descended from English settlers who came to America in 1630 and 1641, respectively. His grandfather Prentis served in the army during the Revolutionary war and two of his uncles gave their lives, one at Bunker Hill and one at Saratoga. Several of his mother's family enrolled in the Revolutionary army from Connecticut. His parents died at Warsaw, Ill., of cholera during the epidemic of 1849, leaving him an orphan at the age of ten years. He went to live with an uncle in Vermont and remained there until he was eighteen, when he removed to Connecticut and served an apprenticeship at the printer's trade. He then came west and worked for a time in a newspaper office at Carthage, Ill. At the opening of the Civil war he enlisted as a private in the Sixteenth Illinois infantry and served four years when he was honorably discharged. He published a paper at Alexandria, Mo., until Capt. Henry King of the St. Louis Globe-Democrat induced him to come to Topeka in 1869 and assist him on the Record. He next worked on the Commonwealth and then on the Lawrence Journal. From 1873 to 1875 Mr. Prentis edited the Junction City Union, then returned to the Topeka Commonwealth, and about 1877 began to work on the Atchison Champion. He remained with that paper during Col. Martin's term as governor and in 1888 took charge of the Newton Republican. In 1890 he accepted a position on the editorial staff of the Kansas City Star, which he held until his death. In 1877 he went to Europe. His observations during the trip were published in book form, entitled "A Kansan Abroad," which ran through two editions. He also wrote "Southern Letters," "Southwestern Letters," "Kansas Miscellanies," and in the last year of his life wrote a History of Kansas, which is his best known work. Mr. Prentis married Maria C. Strong on May 13, 1866. She died in Atchison, Kan., in 1880, and in 1883 he married Mrs. Carrie E. Anderson of Topeka, who survives him. Mr. Prentis died at La Harpe, Ill., at the home of his daughter, within a few miles of his birthplace, on July 6, 1900.

Pages 498-499 from volume II of Kansas: a cyclopedia of state history, embracing events, institutions, industries, counties, cities, towns, prominent persons, etc. ... / with a supplementary volume devoted to selected personal history and reminiscence. Standard Pub. Co. Chicago : 1912. 3 v. in 4. : front., ill., ports.; 28 cm. Vols. I-II edited by Frank W. Blackmar. Transcribed July 2002 by Carolyn Ward.