Thornton William Sargent, judge of the second division of the Sedgwick county district court, is an Ohio man, having been born on a farm in Pike county, Ohio, Jan. 12, 1859. He is the eldest son of James and Lydia A. Sargent, both of whom were natives of Pike county. The father, who was a farmer, was born Jan. 23, 1823, and died in Fayette county, Ohio, June 17, 1906. The mother was born Dec. 25, 1833, and died at Columbus, Ohio, April 6, 1898. They were the parents of five children, of whom three yet survive: Thornton William Sargent, of this review; Charles Henry Sargent, of Washington Court House, Ohio; and Samuel Snowden Sargent, of Columbus, Ohio. The paternal grandfather of Thornton W. was James Sargent and his maternal grandfather was Thornton William Sargent, and though they bore the same surname they were but very distantly related. The Sargent family was founded in the United States prior to the Revolutionary war by an emigrant of that name from England, where the family had been established for a number of generations at Snow Hill, a suburb of London.

Thornton William Sargent was reared on a farm in his native county and at the age of sixteen entered the preparatory department of the Ohio Wesleyan University at Delaware, Ohio, where he attended one year. Then after completing a two-year course in the high school at Ann Arbor, Mich., in 1878 he entered the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor and was graduated from that well known school in 1882 with the degree of Bachelor of Arts. He then entered the law department of Columbian (now George Washington) University, at Washington, D. C., where he was graduated with the degree of Bachelor of Laws in 1884 and, upon completing a post-graduate course in that institution, had conferred on him the degree of Master of Arts. He was admitted to the bar in the District of Columbia in 1885. Soon after that he came to Kansas, where after a sojourn of three months at Wakeeney, the county seat of Trego county, he located at Wichita and since July, 1886, has very successfully practiced law in that city. In the quarter of a century that has intervened since then he has not only won an enviable success as a lawyer, but has also become one of the most prominent and influential citizens of the city. On separating the Sedgwick county district court into two divisions in 1911 Mr. Sargent was appointed judge of the second division by Governor Stubbs and has proved an able official in that position.

On April 26, 1893, Mr. Sargent wedded Miss Emily Wirth, who was born near Sidney, Ohio. Judge and Mrs. Sargent have two sons: James Wirth, born June 17, 1894, and Thornton William, Jr., born June 22, 1902, both having been born in June and each birthday having occurred on Sunday. James Wirth Sargent, the eldest son, is now a senior in the Wichita High School. Judge Sargent is a Republican in politics. He is a member of the Sedgwick County Bar Association; was one of the organizers and is now a director and was formerly general attorney of the Farmers' and Bankers' Life Insurance Company, of Wichita; and is a member of the Wichita Commercial and the Riverside clubs. In college he belonged to the Zeta Psi fraternity. Judge Sargent was for a time professor of law of contracts in Garfield University at Wichita, now Friends University.