Charles Sperry

CHARLES SPERRY. While it is not possible to give in detail the experiences of Charles Sperry as a Western Kansan, there is every evidence of his success and prosperity surrounding his name and place in the citizenship of Graham County. He has accumulated an extensive estate of farm land which is conducted under his personal supervision, and is also president of the American State Bank at Hill City.

Mr. Sperry was born in Franklin County, Ohio, July 31, 1861. His maternal ancestors came from England to the United States. His father, Truman Sperry, was born in New York State in January, 1839. He grew up and married in Ohio and has spent all his active career as a farmer. After his marriage he moved to a farm near Lacon, Illinois, and is now living retired in that town. During the Civil war Freeman Sperry was for nine months in the Union army and was with Sherman's army on the march from Atlanta to the sea. In politics he is a republican. Truman Sperry married Leah Harris. She was born in Ohio in November, 1838. The children of their union are: Frank, a ranchman in the Imperial Valley in California; Charles, of Hill City, Kansas; Sherman, who died at LaRose, Illinois, at the age of fifty-two, after a successful career as a farmer; Anna, wife of Fred Weir, a farmer and stockman at Lacon, Illinois; and Elsie, unmarried and living with her parents.

Charles Sperry was educated in the public schools of Marshall County, Illinois. His life, up to the age of twenty-seven, was spent on his father's farm. He came out to Kansas in 1888. At Lenora he bought a pre-emption, and spent his first eighteen years in Kansas there as a farmer. He then sold out and in 1906 moved to Hill City, where for a number of years he has resided in a modern home. His possessions have continued to grow and accumulate, and he owns about 2,000 acres of farm lands in Graham County, used both for grain and stock farming, and it was as a farmer that he laid the basis of his abundant prosperity. He is president of the American State Bank of Hill City, is serving as a member of the City Council and is active in all community affairs. He is a democrat, attends the Methodist Episcopal Church, and is affiliated with Millbrook Lodge of Masons, Millbrook Chapter, Royal Arch Masons, and Millbrook Lodge, Ancient Order of United Workmen, all at Hill City.

In 1890, at Lenora, Kansas, Mr. Sperry married Miss Dora Shane. Her father, J. D. Shane, who died at Lenora in 1909, was born in Pennsylvania in 1835, and was one of the earliest settlers around Lenora. He homesteaded 160 acres and a tree claim of a quarter section near there and eventually owned an estate of 560 acres in that vicinity. He was honored with a number of township offices. J. D. Shane was a democrat and a member of the Methodist Episcopal Church and the Independent Order of Odd Fellows. He married Margaret Hinkle, who was born in Virginia in 1837 and is now living at Lenora, Kansas, past fourscore years of age. Mr. and Mrs. Sperry have one daughter, Lola Margaret, born October 31, 1900. She is attending the Fort Hays Normal School at Hays, Kansas.

Pages 2301-2302.