Charles Hewson

CHARLES HEWSON. The best lessons of history are to be learned from individual experiences, experiences that show the true life of the past and the reading of which may not be without value to future generations, who thereby can avoid the mistakes of their predecessors.

A brief chapter of such experience is found in the life of Mr. Charles Hewson, one of the prominent farmers of Pawnee Township, Pawnee County. Mr. Hewson arrived in this section of Western Kansas in the fall of 1883. He bought at that time the tract of land on which he still resides, the north half of section 13, township 21, range 17. This land included a small equipment of pioneer improvements, including a shanty to which he added some rooms and which served the family as a home while they were waiting the advent of real prosperity. Mr. Hewson brought with him some money and was able to buy teams and other machinery and start forthwith to raise grain.

Mr. Hewson in looking back testifies his efforts were extended almost in vain for a number of years. In fact nearly fifteen years passed before his profits began showing on the right side of the ledger. In his own words, "for four years hand running I never cut an acre of wheat," and though he planted corn for twelve years, he "never got enough to feed a horse." It was money sent to him by the folks back home that enabled him to stay and weather the storm of adversity. With all discouragements he never lost his faith in wheat as the real crop of this section, and he kept planting until rich and fruitful years came.

His first tract of land was covered with buffalo grass when he bought it, and it is now a landscape of beautiful tame grasses and wheat and corn fields. His home is one of the most beautiful and convenient in that section, including a two-story dwelling erected in 1911. More recently he added a barn 40 by 32 feet, and these improvements are only part of the great expenditure of capital and labor he has made during the past thirty years. Adjoining his home place Mr. Hewson owns the west half of section 18 in Larned Township, and this has also undergone many improvements. It contains a house of ten rooms, a barn 54 by 46 feet, a granary with capacity of 3,000 bushels. Mr. Hewson is one of the men who have experimented successfully with the growing of alfalfa and has found that an exceedingly profitable crop in the Ash Valley. A republican, he formerly attended conventions and was keenly interested in the development of campaigns, though he never held office and never aspired to hold one.

Mr. Hewson came to Kansas from LaPorte County, Indiana. Both he and his father were natives of Lincolnshire, England, where he was born February 1, 1838. His father, Charles Hewson, spent his active lifetime as a farmer. He brought his family to the United States in 1845 and was one of the early settlers in LaPorte County, a rich and populous district of Northern Indiana. There he lived out the rest of his years and followed farming. He was also a man of leadership in his community, was a republican, and a member of the Missionary Baptist Church. Charles Hewson, Sr., died in 1909, at the age of eighty-six. His wife, who died in 1907, was formerly Miss Savina Oliver. Their children were: Charles; John, who was a Union soldier in an Illinois regiment and served till the close of the war, and is now a retired farmer living at South Bend, Indiana; Elizabeth, widow of Herman Cormick, lives at Kingsbury, Indiana; and William, who died in LaPorte County.

Mr. Charles Hewson, who was reared in LaPorte County from the age of seven and received his education in the local schools, was married in September, 1883, the year he came to Kansas, to Miss Annie Lawrence. Her father, George Lawrence, was for five years a soldier in the Regular United States Army. He was a native of England. Mrs. Hewson is the only surviving child of her parents. Arthur, the oldest son of Mr. Hewson, was graduated when a young man from the Kansas Agricultural College and is now applying his college education to practical farming in Pawnee Township. He married Myrtle Clarkson and has children, Alma, Harry, Clara and Glen. The second child is Mrs. Carrie Oskison, also a graduate of the Kansas Agricultural College, living at home with her parents, and the mother of two children, Pearline and Orleta. Edna, who was educated in the Kingman High School, is the wife of E. W. Kaiser, of Larned, and has a daughter Hilma and a son, Clayton. Miss Bertha, a graduate of the Kansas State Agricultural College, taught in the public schools of Pawnee County and is now Mrs. George Meeker and has a son, Leo. Harold graduated from the Kansas Agricultural College in 1917, when only eighteen years old, and enlisted that fall in the Marines and is corporal of the Fifty-Seventh Company and is stationed in the Brooklyn Navy Yard.

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