1905 History of Crawford County Kansas

R. W. Preston, who is now engaged in the breeding of fine registered Poland China hogs at his home place in Walnut, has for many years been identified with the agricultural interests of Crawford county, and has met with an excellent degree of success. He is a man of good judgment in business affairs, has been energetic and progressive since beginning the battle of life on his own account, and his place in the citizenry of Crawford county cannot be measured alone by the dollars and cents which he has accumulated, for he possesses many of the qualities that are sought among men of public spirit and advanced thought in the life of a community.

Mr. Preston was born in Portage county, Ohio, March 7, 1845, a son of Joseph and Philenda (Waldo) Preston, the former a native of Virginia and the latter of Ohio. His father died on July 3, 1903, when eighty-four years old, but his mother is still living in Stark county, Ohio, and has attained the advanced age of eighty-six years.

Mr. R. W. Preston attended the common schools of Ohio, and later the academy at Shalersville, Portage county. When twenty years old he began doing for himself, and was engaged in the occupations of farming, painting and teaching school in Indiana. In February, 1870, he came out to Kansas. He rode from Kansas City to Fort Scott on the first passenger train operated on the old Fort Scott and Gulf Railroad. On arriving at Fort Scott he set out to walk to Neosho county, and the women of the party rode in the stage. He located a claim near St. Paul, then called Osage Mission, and began improving the land. But five years later, during the year of railroad land troubles, he and his family returned to Ohio for a time. In 1883 he bought one hundred and twelve acres a mile north of Walnut, and was successfully engaged in farming there until September, 1901, at which time he bought his home and seven acres of land in the town of Walnut, and has since been breeding and raising fine hogs, which is an industry that has paid him good returns and which he has managed very judiciously. Two and a half years of his Kansas residence were spent in Eureka and Webb City.

Mr. Preston affiliates with the A. H. T. A., and in politics is a strong Prohibitionist, being president of the law and order league and otherwise promoting the cause of temperance. He and his wife are members of the Baptist church, and she is also a temperance worker, being president of the local branch of the Woman's Christian Temperance Union. She also writes for the Walnut Eagle. Mr. Preston married, April 28, 1867, Miss Kezia Ann Price, a daughter of William H. and Rachel (Lee) Price. Her father died in Indiana in May, 1885, at the age of sixty-eight years, and her mother died in Walnut, Kansas, in 1879 at the age of fifty-four