Benjamin Carbiener

BENJAMIN CARBIENER is one of the early settlers in the vicinity of Lucas in Russell County, and for over thirty years has steadily sustained his position as one of the leading merchants of that locality. He is a man of many resources, and besides selling goods to the community he has also taken a vital part in the basic industry of agriculture and owns one of the best wheat and stock farms in that vicinity.

Mr. Carbiener was born in St. Joseph County, Indiana, November 28, 1862. His father, John Carbiener, was born in Alsace-Lorraine in 1821, and lived there until after his marriage. He spent the regular three years in the German army and then another three years in a branch of German government service. In 1856 he brought his family to the United States, lived in Ohio for a time and on moving to St. Joseph County, Indiana, entered a claim of timber land of 120 acres at $1.25 an acre. He became one of the well to do farmers of that rich and populous county of which South Bend is the county seat, and lived there until his death in 1894. Besides serving his native country in the army he was a soldier of the Union during our Civil war. He spent a year and three months in the army and then paid $1,100 to got a substitute so that he might return home and take care of his wife and family. He was a stanch republican and a member of the Evangelical Church.

John Carbiener married Catherine Walmer. She was born in Hamburg, Germany, and died in St. Joseph County, Indiana. These parents had five children: David, who was a merchant at Lucas, Kansas, where he died in 1913; Peter, a farmer in Colorado; Samuel, who lives on the home farm in St. Joseph County, Indiana; Benjamin; and Emma who died in St. Joseph County, Indiana, the wife of Edward Berger.

Benjamin Carbiener grew up on his father's farm in St. Joseph County, Indiana, and lived there to the age of twenty-four. His education was supplied by the country schools. On coming to Kansas in 1885 he worked a year in a store at Wilson and in 1886 he removed to the Town of Lucas in Russell County, where he at once entered the mercantile business. He had a general stock and at first supplied the trade for many miles around. The store has grown and is today the best mercantile service in this part of Russell County. His farming interests comprise 1,000 acres three miles from Lucas, devoted to crops of wheat and to livestock. Since early manhood he has been a stanch republican in his political affiliations.

In 1889, at Lucas, Mr. Carbiener married Miss Mary O. Chadwick, daughter of John and Ellen (Key) Chadwick. Her father was a farmer, and her widowed mother lives with Mr. and Mrs. Carbiener.

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