John R. Sargent, of Topeka, Kan., junior member of the Sargent Cut Stone Company of that city, has spent practically his whole life in Kansas. He was born in Cincinnati, Ohio, April 17, 1871, and in 1879 accompanied his parents, John and Mary L. (Grigg) Sargent, to Topeka, where he was reared and completed the common and high school courses. He subsequently attended the Marmaduke Military College in Missouri, and later took a special course of instruction under Prof. Black, an Oxford graduate, who had a private class in Topeka. Upon completing his education, he began to learn the stone cutting and carving trade under the instruction of his father. In 1909 he became a partner in the business and has charge of the work in the yards of the Topeka plant, which has a complete equipment in the way of modern tools and stone saws for the successful execution of all work entrusted to the firm. For over thirty years John Sargent, the father of our subject, has been one of Topeka's largest and most successful contractors and has erected some of the finest buildings in that city. For a more detailed statement of his work see his personal sketch elsewhere in this work.

John R. Sargent was married on May 2, 1894, to Miss Grace E. Churchill, a native of Hamilton, Canada, where she was born Feb. 9, 1870. She was but nine days old when her father, Charles Carroll Churchill, died. Her mother, Ella (Durand) Churchill, is an aunt of E. Dana Durand, the present director of the census. The Churchills trace their lineage back to the same branch of the family to which Lord Randolph Churchill of England belongs. Mrs. Sargent is the only child of Charles Carroll Churchill, whose father was Prof. Henry Churchill of Oberlin College, Oberlin, Ohio. Prof. Elisha Gray, a simultaneous inventor of the telephone along with Bell, Edison and others, built his first telephone in the laboratory of Prof. Churchill at Oberlin. The first pipe organ ever in Oberlin was built by Prof. Henry Churchill. The mother of Mrs. Sargent later married Frank D. Lyman of Maquoketa, Ia. Mr. Lyman was killed in a railroad wreck on the Rock Island railroad in Iowa in 1909. Mrs. Lyman continues to reside in Maquoketa, Iowa. Mr. and Mrs. Sargent have four children, namely: Mary Eloise, born March 8, 1895, in Topeka, who is now a high school student in that city; John Churchill, born July 16, 1897, who is a student in the Central Park School in Topeka; William Carroll, born Dec. 24, 1902, who is a student in the grades; and Elizabeth Alice, born in March, 1905, who is at home. Mr. Sargent is a Republican in politics, and fraternally is a Knight Templar Mason. He and his wife are both members of the Central Congregational Church in Topeka.