1905 History of Crawford County Kansas

Clifford E. Woodbury, clerk of the district court at Pittsburg, is well known in the public life of Crawford county, and as a representative of some large financial and real estate interests has been a factor in promoting the development and general welfare of his county. Mr. Woodbury is a capable, popular and wide-awake young business man, and, his life having almost in its entirety been spent in southeastern Kansas, he is thoroughly identified with the best interests of this section of the state and by his ability is able to wield a large influence in its affairs.

Mr. Woodbury was born near Pontiac, in Livingston county, Illinois, in 1867, being a son of Forest H. and Martha (Garmer) Woodbury. The family is of old New England stock. His father was born at Woodstock, Vermont, and lived there to the age of sixteen. He was a stock farmer and became a rich man in that business. He first engaged in the business in Livingston county, where he located in 1855, and from there in 1874 he came to southeastern Kansas and continued his extensive stock industry in Cherokee county. In that early day he found the country exceedingly well adapted to his purposes, and his prosperity continued unabated. In 1890 he moved north into Crawford county, and three years later he died at the age of fifty-four, at Eureka Springs, Arkansas, whither he had gone to recuperate his health. Mr. Woodbury's mother was a native of Ohio, and she died at Girard, Kansas, in 1890.

Mr. Woodbury's early rearing was on a farm, and in the meantime he attended the public schools and in 1890 graduated from the state normal school at Fort Scott. For the three years following he was in the live-stock business with his father. Upon his father's death in 1893 he was appointed administrator and trustee to settle up the estate, which was a large and rich one. These duties took up his time for some years, but as the settlement was gradually effected and he had time for other matters, he turned his attention to private affairs, principally grain buying. For several years past he has made his home in Pittsburg, and in 1900 he engaged in the real estate business, in this city. Although still retaining his interests in this line, most of his time and energies are given to the duties devolving upon him as clerk of the district court, an office to which he was elected on the Republican ticket in November, 1903, taking up his duties on January 12, 1904, for a two years' term. Mr. Woodbury owns some valuable real estate, and he is directly and public-spiritedly interested in all that pertains to the growth and uplift of his county and city.

Mr. Woodbury was married at Pittsburg, December 31, 1903, to Miss Lydia A. Nichols, who is a descendant of John G. Howland, one of the passengers on the famous ship Mayflower, and her Pilgrim ancestry afterward intermingled with that of the Knickerbocker families along the Hudson. Mr. Woodbury's sister, Miss Bertha Mabel Woodbury, is distinguished as a musician, and she conducted her piano studies for four years under some of the most noted masters in Berlin and Vienna.