1905 History of Crawford County Kansas

Frank F. Atkinson, of McCune, is one of the well known citizens of this place. A man of integrity and honest purposes in life, with an honorable career of varied activity behind him, he holds an assured place in the esteem and regard of his fellow men. He has already passed the seventieth milestone of his career, and it is his happy lot to be able to pass the declining years in the material comfort and pleasures of friendship and home such as his useful past has deservedly won.

Mr. Atkinson has the honor of having been one of the first men to go to the defense of the Union in the Civil war. He was living at Baltimore when the war broke out, where he had belonged to a crack military company for some time and was already a finished soldier in drill and knowledge of tactics, and six days after Fort Sumter was fired upon he enlisted in Company H, One Hundred and Second New York Volunteers, under Colonel Thomas B. Van Buren. The regiment went into camp near Washington, and took the field early. Mr. Atkinson saw much hard service during the early part of the war, and at the battle of Antietam he was wounded by a shot through the left lung. He was confined by this dangerous wound in the hospital for eight months, and was honorably discharged in 1863. He later served in the quartermaster's department in General Sigel's division.

Mr. Atkinson was born in the city of Philadelphia, in August, 1833, being a son of Samuel C. Atkinson and Christina L. Coffield. The latter was of a prominent and wealthy Maryland family, planters and slaveowners, her brother, Thomas Coffield, being an owner of slaves, and the latter's son, George C. H. Coffield, being a rich and leading business man of Baltimore. Samuel C. Atkinson, who was born in New Jersey, was a surveyor by profession, and was a member of the Friends church. Politically he was a Whig and a Republican. He died at the age of eighty-nine, and his wife at eighty-six. They had the following family: Twin boys who died in infancy; Frank F.; and Caroline, deceased.

Mr. Atkinson was reared in the city of Baltimore, where he enjoyed excellent educational advantages. He held a fine position with good salary when he left to go to the war. After the war he held a clerkship in the government service at Washington for three years, until his health failed, and since then he has traveled much and followed outdoor pursuits mainly. He was in California, Oregon and Washington for some time, and he also took up a homestead near Manhattan, Kansas, on which he lived for two years. After being in Philadelphia for a while he went to Leavenworth, Kansas, and thence out west to the Pacific coast again. He lived at Parsons, this state, and has since made his home at McCune, where he has a comfortable residence and material blessings in abundance.

He was first married at Washington, when twenty-six years old, to Miss Elizabeth Champion, who died at Ferndale, California, leaving six children, namely: Florence L., Nettie, Lennie, Effie, Ferd and Bert, and the daughter Ella May died at the age of four years. Mr. Atkinson was married at Colfax, Iowa, in 1889, to Mrs. Jennie E. (Fullington) Hill. Her husband, William C. Hill, who had been a soldier of Company B, Thirty-second Iowa Infantry, and was prominent in G. A. R. circles, died at Colfax in January, 1876, leaving four children, John H., Emma, Nancy and Carl. Mrs. Atkinson was born in Burlington, Vermont, a daughter of Artemus H. and Fannie B. (Beul) Fullington, both of Vermont and both now deceased. Her father was a farmer, politically a Democrat, a member of the Baptist church, and his death occurred at the age of seventy-eight, and his wife passed away at seventy. They were the parents of seven children, three sons and four daughters, and two of the Fullington boys, Edgar B. and G. Jackson, were soldiers. The Fullington family first removed from Vermont to Union county, Ohio, and thence to Colfax, Iowa.

Mr. Atkinson has a pleasant and well furnished cottage home in McCune, a library of good books, and he and his wife are people of taste and refinement and popular in the best social circles. He is a Republican, and is adjutant of Osage Post No. 156, G. A. R. Fraternally he affiliates with Cossia Lodge No. 15, of the Masons, and has passed all the chairs in the local Odd Fellows lodge.