1905 History of Crawford County Kansas

Lewis Martin, editor and proprietor of the Walnut Eagle and its job printing plant, has an acknowledged high rank among the newspaper men of Crawford county, and the journal of which he has been editor for the past eighteen years has its fitting description in the history of the press of Crawford county, to be found on the earlier pages of this work. Mr. Martin has a somewhat conspicuous place in the county because of his resolute and successful opposition to the liquor traffic, and the Eagle is the only pronounced temperance organ of the county. He has all the aggressiveness, devotion to principle, sympathy with general progress and upbuilding in the county, and the power and acumen of the editorial writer which make the successful and useful editor, and his and his paper's worth in the county entitles him to the esteem and regard in which he is held.

Mr. Martin was born in Prussia, January 3, 1849, a son of Peter and Charlotte Martin, also natives of Prussian Germany. His parents came to America in 1849, locating first in Greensburg, Pennsylvania, but in 1856 moved to Hancock county, Illinois, and both died in that state.

Mr. Martin had a public school education and afterward attended the Central Wesleyan College at Warrentown, Missouri. For several years he was engaged in teaching school, and in 1887 he arrived in Kansas and purchased a half interest in the Walnut Eagle. He has maintained this paper at a high standard, has always given his readers the news and something worth reading, and it has a good circulation throughout the county. About six years ago Mr. Martin, through the columns of his paper, began a crusade against the open saloons of the town, operating against the state law. This was an up-hill and bitter fight, and the mayor of Walnut offered fifty dollars to have the paper run out of town, and a mob also made an attempt to drive out the editor. But the final victory lodged with the Eagle, and Walnut at present is without saloons. Mr. Martin was one of the organizers of the first law and order league in this state, and he is now its secretary, with R. W. Preston its president.

Mr. Martin is a member and the secretary of the Lodge No. 69 of the Woodmen of the World. He and his family are members of the Methodist Episcopal church, and he takes an active part in church work and has been one of the church trustees for four years. He was married, at West Point, Illinois, March 30, 1881 [note: handwritten in margin is the date Oct. 29, 1879] to Miss Eliza Wilson, a daughter of J. B. Wilson, who formerly lived in Illinois, but now in Missouri. Mr. and Mrs. Martin have one son, John Arthur Martin, who is twenty-three years old, and is employed in the Eagle office.