Cloud County
KSGenWeb
REVEREND F. D. BAKER.
Reverend F.D. Baker had charge of the
Clyde Methodist Episcopal church from 1885, until the present year (1902) when
he went to Beloit, Kansas. Mr. Baker comes from a family of divines, his father
having been a minister and an uncle, John Baker, was a prominent preacher.
Reverend Baker's relationship as pastor so many years in Clyde resulted in much
good.
CHARLES N. BALDWIN.
The subject of this sketch, C.N.
Baldwin, is a pioneer of Ness county, Kansas. He settled in that part of the
state in 1873, and for two years made a business of hunting buffalo for their
hides; not only for the the profit gained, but he was a single man and enjoyed
that nomadic sort of life. When Mr. Baldwin located in Ness county, there were
but two white settlers between him and the Rockies; he was thoroughly on the
frontier and Indians were numerous. There were only about one-half dozen
settlers in the entire county, and but two white women. The nearest postoffice
was forty miles distant. Mr. Baldwin was one of thirty bachelors in the county,
and Miss Emma Clason was one of the two young women, and she captured the
"Yankee." Their nuptials were celebrated in the centennial year, 1876. Mr.
Baldwin took up government land and made a home there, experiencing all the
incidences of frontier life. The settlers were in constant fear of the Indians,
and would gather together in the only large stone barn in the country to fortify
themselves, momentarily expecting an onslaught of the savages. Rooster feathers
were scarce, but the Indians would gather them for decorating purposes and beg
for everything in sight. Sometimes asking for salt, saying: "Pony died, eat
him." Notwithstanding the many drawbacks, Mr. Baldwin prospered there in cattle,
sheep, and horse raising. Upon several occasions he hauled corn from Salina (one
hundred and fifty miles), to fatten hogs. Becoming restless, he sold his
interests in Ness county, in 1880, and after spending three years in Arkansas,
came to Cloud county. His family was visited by sickness and they lost their
eldest son while in that state, which caused them to long for Kansas, their
former happy home, and after trading their Arkansas farm for a stock of goods
and a patent right, he sold the former and by the aid of a map selected "Fanny,"
as their destination; was attracted by the name and Mr. Baldwin replied - "I'll
go to Fanny." They came to Jamestown and Concordia and on through to Jewell
county. One year later they drifted back into Cloud county and bought one
hundred and sixty acres of Normal School land. Not for several years did the
family know they had located very near the first point of their destination
which had lost its identity. The name of "Fanny" was mentioned and upon inquiry
found it had been a postoffice very near the present site of Prairie Gem school
house.
While traveling over the country, Mr. Baldwin's capital was
reduced to a span of ponies, and he necessarily underwent many discouragements,
but could not go elsewhere; his means were exhausted. He conceived the idea of
making molasses, and he not only owed for his land, but went in debt for a
sorghum mill. There was much cane raised at that time, and he manufactured
hundreds of gallons of molasses that year. The investment proved a good one, and
in the year 1898 they made eight thousand gallons and raised one hundred acres
of cane. He made a wholesale business of it, raising his own cane instead of
grinding for the farmers, and increased the capacity of his mill to four hundred
gallons daily, grinding and cooking by steam. The latest equipment of machinery
cost him two thousand dollars, The whole country being in wheat, as soon as the
crop was gathered the chinch bugs would come in from every side, and cover the
cane, until Mr. Baldwin was compelled to discontinue this enterprise. However,
he thinks he may try it again in the near future. On September 1, 1896, a most
painful accident occurred in the engine room of the mill. Their little
two-year-old daughter, Lois, was so badly scalded by the escaping steam of a
bursted boiler that she did not survive the accident but a few moments and was
unconscious from the first. The engineer, Chris Hoel, in trying to save the
little one was badly burned. While wading through the hot water that had flooded
the room, to turn off the steam, Mr. Baldwin had his feet severely scalded.
Another and older daughter, who was with the unfortunate little victim, was also
badly burned. The parents, brother and sisters were wild with anguish, but the
accident was one of those unavoidable things that bring death and destruction
without a moment's warning.
Mr. Baldwin is a native of Connecticut, born
on a farm in Litchfield county, in 1846. He is a son of Junius and Mehitabel
(Beldin) Baldwin. His paternal grandfather and two brothers came to America in
colonial days; one settled in the state of New York, one in Massachusetts, and
the other in Connecticut. When Mr. Baldwin was nine years of age his mother
died. His father was married three times. He subsequently removed east of
Hartford, where he died in 1875. By the first union there were two sons; by the
second two sons and a daughter; by the third one daughter.
Mr. Baldwin
visited the old Connecticut home in the summer of 1902, and attended the reunion
of old veterans at Washington, D.C. The nineteenth Infantry, the regiment Mr.
Baldwin enlisted in, was one and one-half years later merged into the Second
Connecticut Heavy Artillery. He served two years and eleven months. About three
months after entering the service he was appointed drummer boy, and he has in
his possession the drum and drum sticks, with which he has beaten many a march
for the martial tread of the "boys in blue." Mr. Baldwin's extreme youth saved
him from severe punishment on one particular occasion. While he was returning to
Lyons, their headquarters, Mr. Baldwin was attracted by a garden adjacent to a
cottage. The guard spied him and called - "Halt." The drummer boy refused, and
the guard started in hot pursuit. When he overtook him a scuffle ensued, in
which Mr. Baldwin beat him over the head with his drum sticks. Enthused with the
desire to become a soldier, Mr. Baldwin ran away from the parental roof. On the
eve of his departure from the service his father found him, administered some
good advice, and bade him take care of himself.
Mr. Baldwin was among the
few old veterans in attendance at Washington, D.C., who participated in the
first review in that city in 1865 and the last in 1902. He served his country
well, and though a youth, took part in nineteen battles and skirmishes. He was
with Grant, after leaving Washington, and was in the battle of the Wilderness at
Spottsylvania, Cold Harbor, across the James river to City Point, tearing up
several railroads while enroute to the latter place. He was in battles under
both Grant and Sheridan; was with the latter when he made his famous ride from
Winchester. He belonged to the Sixth Army Corps, and was with them when they
found General Jubal Early in sight of the capital and routed him out through the
Shenandoah Valley. On the 19th day of October, near Center creek, they routed
his forces, captured his wagons and heavy artillery. After this event they
returned to Washington and took transports for City Point. During the winter
they were called out to extend their lines and while on this expedition engaged
in a battle at Hatches' Run. A snow came upon them, making their services
arduous and disagreeable. The troops had retired for the night, when Grant broke
the lines in the winter of 1864-5. They heard a commotion and upon looking out,
discovered troops were passing; a moment later they received orders to fall in
line. The enemy could be seen in the distance; the two lines passing in opposite
directions; they lost but few men. When the battered corps arrived at
Petersburg, to their surprise, they met President Lincoln. The troops overtook
the enemy a week later, and a battle was fought a few days before the surrender
of General Lee. Mr. Baldwin witnessed Custer's troops coming in with each of his
staff carrying a rebel flag.
Mr. Baldwin's visit to the "Nutmeg" state,
where he was born and where he lived until attaining his twenty-seventh year,
was not the least of the many pleasures enjoyed on his eastern trip in 1902. The
rugged mountains that were once regarded in the light of everyday things, seemed
higher; the rocks more gigantic. His stepmother, who had not seen him for thirty
years, did not know her son; his father had passed into the "Great Beyond," his
sisters and brothers grown to manhood and womanhood, and living in homes of
their own. Everything and everybody seemed changed, but he enjoyed reviewing the
scenes of his boyhood days. "As fond recollections present them to view."
To Mr. and Mrs. Baldwin nine children have been born. Two of whom are
deceased. Carrie, their oldest daughter, is the wife of Sherman Robinson, a
farmer of Grant township. His father, W.H. Robinson, is an old resident of Cloud
county. Junius, the eldest son, a namesake of his paternal grandfather, a young
man of twenty-three years, has begun the battle of life for himself. Minnie,
their second daughter, is a student on her second year of the Concordia high
school. Wesley, a young man of seventeen years, assists his father very
materially on the farm in summer and attends the home school in winter. May and
Bertha are little school girls; the latter is a namesake of Miss Bertha Marlatt.
John, the baby, is aged three. For several years Mr. Baldwin was not very
successful from a financial standpoint: but with perseverance, coupled with the
assistance of his wife, who is a woman of culture and good judgment as well, the
tide of fortune changed, and they now own two hundred and forty acres of land.
In 1893 he erected a dwelling; remodeled it in 1897, making a handsome
residence, which is situated on one of the finest sites in the country. With the
aid of a glass, Concordia, Scottsville, Kackley, and Jamestown are plainly
discernible. The farm is adjacent to the salt marsh, a wild waste of land that
in springtime is a field of water, which adds to the beauty of the landscape.
Mr. Baldwin is a staunch Republican arid never changes his politics. He has
served on the school board of district No. 34, and proved a very efficient
member. The family are members of the Jamestown Methodist Episcopal church. Mr.
Baldwin studied Osteopathy under Dr. Evans, a noted Osteopath of Wichita,
Kansas. He has given the science considerable attention and has treated many
cases. He combines magnetism with Osteopathy in cases of sensitive patients. He
keeps in touch with modern thought and scientific advancement and possesses that
energy and sturdy character so invaluable to attaining success.
LOUIS J. BANNER.
Louis J. Banner, the genial and accommodating agent for
the Missouri Pacific Railway at Clyde, was transferred to that city from Glen
Elder, where he had been stationed for several years - March 1, 1898. 0.K. has
doubtless been stamped to his credit in the various branches of his railroad
career, for he has been associated with the present company since 1893, with but
sixty days respite.
Mr. Banner is a native of North Carolina, born in
Banners Elk, a summer resort named in honor of his father's loyal patriotism
during the stirring times of the south. Our subject's paternal and maternal
grandparents were slaveholders, but freed them during the war. All the Banners
in the mountain district of the Carolinas were slaveholders, but they were
Republicans, freed their slaves and fought in the Union army. His father,
William D. Banner, was a sergeant of Company A, Fourth Tennessee Regiment of
Volunteers. He also had four brothers who served under the stars and stripes.
Several of the relatives were southern sympathizers, among them a maternal
uncle, who was visited by a band of Confederates, with a battering-ram and tried
to compel him to join their forces. He shot one of the rebels and the body was
left on the doorstep all night. The uncle afterward joined the Union.
Although born in the south Mr. Banner is a Kansan and was reared in the vicinity
of Clyde. He visited the place of his birth about ten years ago and after being
introduced to a score of relatives, a "darkey," who had been a family slave, was
presented as a "cousin," bringing to mind the story of an unsophisticated old
lady, whose husband had been elected "squire." When the announcement of his
honored position was made, the half dozen or more of children clamored around
the maternal parent and eagerly plied her with questions, one hopeful saying:
"Ma, are we all squires?" Where upon the supercilious mother, with lofty pride,
responded to the inquiry of her offspring: "No, you silly; no one but your 'Pap'
and I."
Mr. Banner's father came to Kansas in 1870 and located in
Clifton. Ten years later he removed to Vining, which was then a flourishing
town, where he was postmaster for fourteen years, and where he still resides. He
owns a drug store and does an extensive business.
Mr. Banner's mother was
Sally B. VanCannon, of North Carolina. Her mother is enjoying life at Banners
Elk, at the age of ninety-one years. She passed through a siege of la grippe in
1901.
Mr. Banner was married in 1892 to Ida Z. Miller, a daughter of J.T.
Miller, who homesteaded near Palmer, Kansas, in 1870. He later resided in
Clifton, where he conducted a merchandising business for fifteen years. He is
now retired and lives at San Antonio, Texas. Mr. and Mrs. Banner are the parents
of two little daughters - Vera, aged ten, and Margaret, aged six. In 1901 Mr.
Banner established a marble works in Clyde, under the name of the Clyde Monument
Company, situated at the corner of Washington and French streets, with A.H.
Lewis, a practical and competent workman, in charge. Their trade is far
reaching, receiving orders from many outside towns in northwest Kansas and
various Nebraska towns. Mr. Banner plays the saxophone in the Clyde Military
Band and to him is conceded much of the success of this popular company.
Socially Mr. and Mrs. Banner are among Clyde's most esteemed citizens and as a
railroad agent our subject is universally admitted to be one of the most
congenial in their employ.
SAMUEL H. BARONS.
The subject
of this sketch is the late Samuel H. Barons, who was a native of Devonshire,
England, born in 1829. Mr. Barons was one of nine children, seven boys and two
girls, viz: William, Mary, George, Henry, John, Thomas, Samuel, Jennie and
James, all of whom were born in England except the youngest, James. When "Uncle
Sam" (as he was universally known) was five years of age, his parents came with
their family of children to America, and after living a short time at Rochester,
New York, located in the town of Irondequoit, five miles distant and bought a
large tract of land, which was covered with forests of pine. This they cleared
and put under a high state of cultivation, and which within a brief time became
very valuable, and is now a suburb of Rochester. "Uncle Sam" became owner of a
large portion of this homestead, which he sold for one hundred and fifty dollars
per acre. A brother, John Barons, still retains a part of the land, which is now
very valuable. "Uncle Sam" attended the common schools, and when twenty years of
age he realized the need of a higher education, and entered a commercial college
in the city of New York, remaining four years. During the early part of his life
and that of his brothers, they worked on the farm, making it a very successful
and profitable industry.
In 1859 he was married to Miss Frank E. James,
of Greece, Monroe county, New York, nine miles distant from the city of
Rochester. Her father owned and operated a nursery there, and there she was
reared and grew to womanhood. Mrs. Barons is a cultured, refined woman, a
graduate of Avon Seminary, and taught school successfully for eighteen seasons.
She is one of six children, four daughters and two sons, two of whom are living:
Calista, widow of George Bristol, who makes her home with Mrs. Barons, and Miss
Lucy, who came west with Mr. and Mrs. Barons, and has ever since been a member
of the family.
After their marriage Mr. and Mrs. Barons lived on the farm
twelve years, when "Uncle Sam" became associated with E.M. Upton at Charlotte,
New York, in the forwarding commission business and was appointed agent for the
New York Central Railroad at that point, where he continued for a period of ten
years. He was mayor of the city and prominently identified in business and
social circles. The firm owned their own docks, elevators, warehouse and cold
storage, and did an extensive business. They furnished ties to the New York
Central Railroad shipped from Canada, dealt heavily in fruit and grain and were
a financial success.
In 1876 they sold to the New York Central Railroad
for ninety-five thousand dollars. His health had become impaired and he decided
to visit the west, whose wonderful possibilities at that time were being
heralded broadcast over the land. He took a trip to Denver, Colorado, in June,
when this country was redolent with fields of wheat and corn and great herds of
cattle and hogs. Enroute home he stopped to visit Kansas and was delighted with
the beautiful prairies and the great opportunity for stock raising. He returned
to his home in New York with the "western fever," full of enthusiasm over the
alluring prospects of the great future of Kansas, and the many avenues of
business waiting to be developed. His faith was unbounded and led to his
investing thousands of dollars in this vicinity. Mrs. Barons opposed taking up a
residence in the west, so "Uncle Sam" returned alone, gathered a crew of men
together and drove overland into Texas, where he bought eight hundred head of
three-year-old Texas steers, drove them through to Manhattan, Kansas, where he
fixed up winter quarters for them and returned to New York, spending the winter
months with his family, returning to Kansas again in the spring time. "Uncle
Sam" was then in prime of his vigorous manhood, and ere many years elapsed was a
typical westerner. Those who had only known him in his recent years of ill
health, together with the changes wrought by "Father Time," the bent figure of
the once stalwart, broad shouldered man, full of cherished ambitions - the
lack-lustre of his once magnetic keen eye, dark as night - cannot conceive of a
character so active in business life, driving herds of cattle and hogs over the
prairies and figuring as one of the largest stock dealers in this part of the
state. On account of the prevailing high taxes, he kept moving his cattle
westward until he reached Clyde, where he bought one hundred and sixty acres of
land adjacent to that town, including the hotel property, which he remodeled,
repaired and named "The Pomeroy," in honor of an old friend by that name in
Rochester, New York (and not for Senator Pomeroy, as many suppose). The land he
laid out in lots, streets and avenues, and employed a family to manage the
hotel, which was a leading hostelry in this part of the country at that time.
Shortly afterward he sold the hotel to J. Huntington, who failed to meet the
obligations and the property fell back into "Uncle Sam's" hands. He then sent
for his wife and brother James to take charge of the hotel that it might not
interfere with his stock and grain interests. He had in the meantime erected an
elevator, and was largely interested in the grain business.
In February,
1888, he came to Concordia and bought the hotel property of Randall & Crill for
a consideration of fifteen thousand dollars, and as soon as the frost was out of
the ground the following spring, he began to build and improve, which he
continued to do for five consecutive summers, until he had invested from
seventy-five thousand to eighty thousand dollars, raised the mansard roof and
added another story, building an addition with thirty rooms and another for
servants' quarters with spacious kitchen and pantry underneath, and a basement
under the building which includes splendid sample rooms, a handsomely equipped
barbershop with hand-carved wood work, a laundry which did a paying business for
several years and upward of a dozen other rooms. A gas plant was added that cost
three thousand five hundred dollars, the house piped throughout, a handsome
balcony with iron columns and railing that cost two thousand five hundred
dollars, hot and cold water on each floor, electric bells, and, later,
incandescent lights. In connection is a livery stable with frontage on Fifth
street and rear extending to Fourth street. The building is a large stone
structure with mansard roof erected at a cost of ten thousand dollars. In the
hotel are eighty guest chambers aside from the handsome parlors, large dining
room, office, etc. The house is well furnished and substantially built with
beautiful hard wood finishings. "Uncle Sam" retained the Clyde hotel and ran
both for about five years. "Uncle Sam" had two brothers who survive him, both
his seniors: John and Thomas. The former is a very wealthy and prominent man of
Rochester, New York. The latter is proprietor of a large "racket" store in the
same city. James Barons died after a brief illness in 1893. He had been with
"Uncle Sam" since he came to assist in the hotel at Clyde, and filled the
position of steward. He was a hotel man of natural ability and had many friends
among its patrons and the traveling public. Since "Uncle Jimmie" (as he was
known) died, Mrs. Barons has practically managed the hotel, for from his death
dated the beginning of "Uncle Sam's" decline. The strong ties between the two
brothers, coupled with the effects of the boom brought about complications which
undermined his physical strength. He was a large taxpayer and suffered more than
people without property.
"Uncle Sam" left a wife whose patient, unselfish
devotion, as she administered so faithfully, to his least expression or desire,
was beautiful in the extreme, and a son to whom he was deeply attached. Samuel
H. Barons was born on the farm near Rochester, September 2, 1868, and came with
his parents to Clyde when ten years of age. When fifteen years old he entered
the College of Notre Dame, Indiana, remaining two years and later finished a
course in the Lawrence University. In 1889 "Uncle Sam" deeded to him a half
section of land in Rooks county, Kansas, and he has added other lands until he
now owns six hundred and forty acres, with four hundred acres under cultivation,
two hundred and forty acres of pasture land, and raises cattle, horses, hogs and
mules. His ranch is twelve miles from Plainfield and five miles distant from
Natoma, the nearest shipping point. This is a well watered ranch with good
buildings, cattle sheds, windmill, etc. In 1890 S.H. Barons was married to Miss
Lizzie Dumas, who died in April, 1901, after all illness of two years.
"Uncle Sam" was a broad minded, well informed man, just, generous, temperate in
all his habits and affable in manner. His motto through life was, "If you cannot
speak well of a man, say nothing." He was a friend of every little child and
never passed them without a kind word or smile, and of every unfortunate person,
bestowing charity wherever needed. He was widely and favorably known to all the
commercial travelers, many of whom had patronized him for years. He died June
21, 1901. His remains were taken to Rochester, New York, his old home, and all
that is mortal of "Uncle Sam" rests in Mount Hope by the side of his father,
mother and brother James. Mount Hope, with its walks and driveways, bordered
with flowers, which skilled hands have made a triumph of art, with its silent
tombs and stately monuments, is one of the loveliest spots in existence - a
veritable "city of the dead."
In June, 1902, Mrs. Barons sold the "Barons
Hotel" to C.H. Martin and under his supervision it will remain the same popular
headquarters for the traveling public. The hotel is widely known for its
superior comforts and accommodations and is the central resort of many
commercial men and the permanent residences of their families.
After the
sale of the hotel property Mrs. Barons removed to Lyons, Kansas, where she is
conducting a smaller hotel very successfully.
HONORABLE G. W. BARTLETT.
G.W. Bartlett is distinguished as being a retired member of the
Pioneer hardware firm and Clyde's first mayor. He came to Clyde in the spring
time of 1870, and assumed charge of the hardware business of Whitford & Perry,
of Manhattan. In 1871 he formed a partnership with W.S. Crump, under the firm
name of Bartlett & Crump, successors of Whitford & Perry. Their capital was two
thousand dollars, which made but a small showing. Hardware was high and freight
one dollar and fifty cents from Atchison, hauled by teams and sometimes cattle.
Mr. Bartlett has been engaged in various enterprises. In the grocery
business two years, in the drug store one year but has been practically retired,
for the past sixteen years. Bartlett & Crump erected a building on the corner of
Washington and Green streets in 1873, which was burned to the ground January 23,
1886. They erected the block which bears their name in 1883. Mr. Bartlett owns
some good residence property. The Bartlett home was the first to be built on
Lincoln street. There were no near neighbors and they went "cross lots" to go
down town. Mr. and Mrs. Bartlett have seen Clyde grow to its present
proportions. There was not a tree on the town site when they arrived, and the
beautiful avenue of large soft maples that surround their residence was set out
by their own hands. Mr. Bartlett was offered six thousand dollars for a corner
lot on Main street without a building on it.
Mr. Bartlett is a son of
Milton and Ruth (Bull) Bartlett, both of Massachusetts. His paternal ancestry
were of English origin; his maternal ancestors were from France. Mr. Bartlett is
a native of Connecticut, born near Hartford in 1840. When fourteen years old he
ran away from home and sought refuge with an uncle in Ohio, where he worked for
one year at twelve dollars per month. He subsequently operated an agency for the
Weed Sewing Machine Company. For several years he was in the employ of the
Charles P. Colt hoop-skirt and corset manufactures and when they failed
established a factory for himself at Vernon, Connecticut. He did a flourishing
business until the hoop-skirt began to wane, when he suspended this enterprise
and took a position as traveling salesman for the Fickle & Lyon Sewing Machine
Company. While in the state of Connecticut Mr. Bartlett says he did almost
everything but manufacture bass wood hams and wooden nutmegs; he even sold
clocks.
Mr. Bartlett was married in 1860 to Eliza J. Perry, a daughter of
Israel K. and Jane (Walker) Perry. They emigrated from Connecticut to Illinois,
where Mrs. Bartlett was born and three months later returned to their eastern
home. In 1857 Mr. Perry came with his family to Topeka and in 1866 to Manhattan,
where he became associated with A.J. Whitford until he retired from business in
1876. Mr. Perry was for years a member of the Congregational church. He was a
man of high moral character, guided by the principles of justice and right. He
died in Florida April 6, 1902, at the age of eighty-seven years. He was born in
Manchester, Connecticut, in 1815.
To Mr. and Mrs. Bartlett have been born
two sons, Ralph W. and Charles P., both of whom are well-to-do and successful
business men. Ralph W. is a resident of New Oxley, California, where he is
engaged in the cattle business. Charles P. is a capitalist and real estate
dealer.
MRS. ALICE L. BATES.
Mrs. Bates is now retired
from school work, but she has been one of the most prominent educators of the
county and enjoys the distinction of being the first of her sex to hold the
office of county superintendent of public schools in Cloud county. That her
reign was a successful one is evidenced in the fact that the office has never
reverted to a male official.
Mrs. Bates was born in central New York, but
when a child came with her parents to Monticello, Iowa, where she received a
common school education, followed by a literary course in the Lennox Collegiate
Institute. In 1872 she graduated from the Iowa State University, preceded by a
teacher's course in Monticello under Jerome Allen, who was afterward connected
with a training school in New York City and became quite noted.
After
graduating Mrs. Bates became principal of the Sand Spring school for one year,
then entered the Monticello high school. In 1877 she came to Cloud county and
entered the primary department of the Concordia public schools. At that time
there were three teachers. She continued in the employ of the Concordia school
until their number increased to sixteen. She taught in both the primary and the
high school. In 1890, Mrs. Bates was elected superintendent of public schools by
the Populist party, and in 1892 was re-elected. She did not make a campaign, nor
ask for a single vote.
In 1896 she was selected to fill a vacancy on the
Concordia school board, was re-elected and served two years. The first year she
served as vice-president of the board and the second year as president. In the
early part of her school work in Concordia she taught in institutes and during
that time was one of the board of examiners. It was through Mrs. Bates' efforts
that the library of the superintendent's office had its origin. The first books
- fifty in number - were won at the State Association for the largest attendance
of any county in the state. To her credit is due the starting of many libraries
throughout the country districts. She was engaged in school work for thirty-six
years.
Mrs. Bates is a daughter of the Honorable Joseph and Nancy Cool,
both natives of New York, and both teachers. Mrs. Bates was married to Perry
Bates in 1874. He was a native of New York, but was educated at Hillsdale
College, Michigan, was a professor of schools, teaching in Iowa, and later in
Kansas. He died the same year of their marriage, in Oskaloosa, Kansas. Mrs.
Bates' residence is on West Ninth street, near the courthouse. She is a member
of the Universalist church.
W. B. BEACH. M. D.
Though a
young man, Doctor Beach, the subject of this biography, is a very successful
practitioner, and although he has been a resident of Clyde but a brief time is
well known. A few months after graduation he became associated with Doctor
Marcott under the firm name of Marcott & Beach, forming a strong combination of
rising young M.Ds. Doctor Beach entered upon the practice of his calling with
the zeal of an old practitioner. His professional standing is rapidly gaining in
popular favor and his natural qualifications assure for him success and a
promising career.
Doctor Beach is a native of Niagara county, New York,
born in 1873. He came west in 1897, and visited his brother, who lives near
Concordia, and later received a position in the hospital wards of the
Ossawatomie Insane Asylum, and subsequently occupied the same position in the
Clarinda, Iowa, Asylum. In 1899, he finished a course in the Kansas Medical
College of Topeka, making a special study of brain and nerve diseases. His
father was Sherman Beach, a New York farmer, who died in 1876. His mother before
her marriage was Jane Mandaville, who lives with her son, George S. Beach, four
miles northwest of Concordia. The Mandavilles were the first settlers in the
state of New York.
Doctor Beach was married May 8, 1901, to Blanch I.
Lay, of Seneca Falls, New York. Doctor and Mrs. Beach occupy a cozy cottage home
which he purchased from A. Lavalle. It is a model of neatness, a pretty little
home presided over by his accomplished wife. Doctor Beach is a member of the
Topeka Medical College Alumni Society and of the Cloud county Medical Society.
Politically he is a Democrat. - [By the recent death of Doctor Marcott's father
the associations of Doctor Beach and Doctor Marcott have been severed, the
latter removing to Concordia and succeeding to his late father's practice. -
Editor.
REVEREND JOHN NESBITT BEAVER.
The subject of this
sketch is Elder Beaver, present pastor of the Christian churches at Osborn and
Asherville. Elder Beaver is a native of North Carolina, born in 1851, at
Statesville, county seat of Iredell county. His father was Eli Beaver, a miller
by profession. The family emigrated to Illinois, in 1867, and settled in
Biggsville, Henderson county, where Eli Beaver operated the Biggs flouring mill.
In the early eighties he moved to Kansas and became associated with the mills at
Delphos and Simpson, under the firm name of Kyser, Beaver & Company. His health
failing, he sought the milder climate of Tennessee where he died in 1886. The
Beaver ancestors were of German origin and settled in the colony known as the
Pennsylvania Dutch in the early settlement of that state and in 1760, located in
North Carolina. Reverend Beaver's mother was Lavina Beaver. Their fathers were
of the same name, David Beaver, but in no way related. She died thirty-nine days
prior to the death of her husband.
Elder Beaver is the youngest of two
children, himself and an invalid sister who never walked front the time she was
two and one-half years old, and died in 1887. Elder Beaver received a common
school education during their residence in Illinois, and entered upon the
profession of miller, saw miller and engineer, and ran an engine for several
years. While engaged in the mercantile business in Glasco in 18845, he traded
for the farm on which he now lives.
in 1887, he began a correspondence
Bible course with Ashley S. Johnson of Kimberland Heights, Tennessee. In the
year 1888, was ordained to the ministry and assumed his labors in the Christian
church at Glasco. During the winter of that year took charge of the churches at
Mayview, Jewell county, and Ada, Ottawa county. He began his evangelical work at
Mayview and nine days' labor resulted in the addition of fifty-one converts. He
held other successful revivals that year. His work continued in Ada and Mayview
three years. During the years 1891-2-3, he labored in Randall, and preached to
the Star church organization in Jewell county. For five years, beginning with
1893, he took charge of the work at Waterville and Miltonvale. His special work
has been, building, remodeling churches, and paying off indebtedness. When he
entered upon the charge at Randall so encumbered were they with debt, they were
about to throw up the work. Through the efforts of Elder Beaver they were
reorganized and put in a prosperous condition. The same conditions existed at
Delphos and Miltonvale, the latter laboring under a debt of eight hundred
dollars. At Osborn they were set free by the paying off of a four hundred dollar
debt and in 1900 he built and dedicated a new house of worship at Asherville.
During the twelve years of his ministry Elder Beaver has baptized seven hundred
converts, and has been instrumental in the paying off of seven church debts that
were almost hopeless. He has united one hundred couples in matrimony and he has
received more people into the church at Glasco than any other pastor. During a
revival of four weeks duration there were forty-six converts.
Elder
Beaver was married, in 1872, to Miss Margaret E. Patrick, a daughter of Robert
and Mary (Lane) Patrick. Mrs. Beaver was born and reared in Boone county,
Illinois and came to Kansas with her parents in 1870. Robert Patrick took up a
homestead on Mortimer creek where he died in 1879. Mrs. Patrick was married, in
1881, to T.J. McCullough, who died in 1890 Mrs. McCullough now resides in
Glasco.
Elder Beaver's family of children consists of two sons; Robert
Eli, a farmer living one mile southwest of Concordia. He was married to Lorena
S. Best and to this union three children have been born; Gladys, Nesbitt and
Roy. The youngest son George Henry, a young man who has just reached his
majority, is a mute, the affliction having been brought about by an illness when
an infant. He was a student of the Olathe school for mutes, and is a bright and
ambitious young man, who reads and writes fluently. He had desired a higher
education, but his health would not permit of such close confinement. He thrives
better in the country and loves farm life.
Elder Beaver has one hundred
and sixty acres of highly improved land. In 1886, he built a commodious house of
eleven rooms and a barn 44 by 44 feet in dimensions. This country place bears
the name of "Our Orchard Farm," and has one of the finest bearing orchards in
the community. Among them are one hundred and fifty Genitan apple trees that
bear largely each alternate year and many other varieties. Some of the trees are
twenty years old and are abundant fruit bearers. He has a four-year-old orchard
of peaches, pears and small fruit that seldom ever fails to yield largely.
Politically Elder Beaver is a Prohibitionist. At one time he was a Mason and
a member of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows, Knights of Pythias and Sons
and Daughters of Justice, but when he went into the ministry he dropped the
lodges. "Our Orchard Farm" is one of the most beautiful homes in the vicinity of
Glasco, where Elder Beaver and his estimable wife expect to enjoy that rest so
desirable in the latter part of life's journey when one feels the evening shades
approaching. Elder Beaver is a man of large individuality, broad minded and
liberal in his views and much beloved by the members of his various parishes.
FREDERICK PETERSON BECK.
"Happy Home Farm," owned by F.P.
Beck, is one of the finest stock and fruit farms in the country. Mr. Beck is a
native of Denmark, born in Sleswig in 1857. He is a son of Peter Hanson Beck,
who died when Mr. Beck was an infant six months old. His mother was Kjersten
Hansen, also of Denmark. Mr. Beck is the youngest of three children born to this
union - a brother, Hans Beck, whose sketch immediately follows and a sister
Mary, who married Hans Broudelund (both are now deceased, the husband dying in
New Zealand). Mrs. Beck was three times married. Her second huusband[sic] was
Jacob Jorgenson, who died in 1886. To their union four children were born, three
of whom are living, viz: Caroline, wife of Fred Thesman, a successful farmer of
California; he harvests many acres of wheat annually. Peter, a farmer of Solomon
township; Jens, a butcher, living in Denmark. The third marriage was with
Christian Hansen; no children were born to this union. The mother never having
emigrated to America, died in Denmark in April, 1900.
When Mr. Beck
attained his majority he began his career working by the month. When coming to
America he had no capital. He first located in Mitchell county in the year 1877
and obtained work on the farm of Mathias Nelson. In 1873, he homesteaded land in
the hills of Solomon township, as all the first, second and third bottom lands
were taken by those who came earlier.
About this time he married, and
took his bride to the little dugout he had prepared for her. Its dimensions were
about 12x12 feet, minus both floor and windows. "Though poverty came in at the
door," love did not fly out at the window. Perhaps none were more industrious
and frugal than this worthy couple. Their beautiful country place bespeaks the
result of hardships and many weary hours of toil. In 1890, Mr. Beck sold his
homestead and bought his present farm which he has put in a fine condition.
In 1898, he erected a handsome imposing residence of eight rooms. This house
is modern, completely finished and furnished, in 1894, he built a splendid barn.
Mr. Peck has one of the best apple orchards in Cloud county, which is his
especial pride. It consists of two hundred trees that are heavily loaded with
the rarest fruit. This year (1901) the yield was three hundred bushels. He has
been very successful as a horticulturist and sets out a few trees each year. His
apple orchard presents a beautiful sight, loaded with the crimson and golden
fruit. He also has large quantities of pears, peaches, apricots, cherries, etc.
Mr. Beck is a large wheat grower. Besides his home place he owns "Wheat
Valley Farm," one of the finest in any land, opposite G.W. Hussey's place, and
recently he purchased the "Oak Leaf Farm," a valuable estate consisting of two
hundred and forty acres, which makes his landed possessions a total of five
hundred and sixty acres. He keeps a herd of about twenty-five head of native
cattle and in corn years from one hundred to two hundred head of hogs. Because
of his love for horses, Mr. Beck has given special attention to the raising of
horses and mules. He breeds roadsters of the Hambletonian stock and has some
fine specimens in his stables.
Politically Mr. Beck is a populist and a
prominent figure in the conventions of the county. He has held the offices of
constable and road overseer of his township and is a member of the school board.
The family are members of the Lutheran church.
Mrs. Beck, who has been
his true helpmate all through their married life, is a refined and gentle woman.
She is a native of Denmark, where she grew to womanhood in the same locality
with her husband, and where they were engaged to be married. Mr. Beck proceeded
to America to prepare their home in the New Empire. Her father is Nicoll Henry
Hanson. He came to America in 1884 and is now living with his daughter at the
age of eighty-eight years. The Hansens are of German origin. Mrs. Beck's mother
died in 1883. She is one of eight children, five of whom are living. Three are
in Denmark. A sister, Maren Christine, is the wife of Hans Asmussen, a farmer of
Solomon township.
To Mr. and Mrs. Beck eight children have been born,
five of whom are living. Peter, twenty-two years of age is married and rents
part of his father's farm. Henry, associated with his brother in farming.
Christina deceased in 1899, at the age of fourteen years. Grief over the loss of
this daughter has broken the health of Mrs. Beck. Jacob, Willis, and Elizabeth;
the three latter at home.
HANS F. P. BECK.
H.F.P. Beck,
like many of his countrymen, left his native land to secure a home in America.
He was born in Denmark in 1853, and is a brother of Fred Beck. At the age of
eighteen years he emigrated to this country and reached his destination, Solomon
City with less than five dollars where he worked as a day laborer on a farm, on
the railroad as a section hand, and in the livery stable of McGraff &
Hollingsworth. In 1875, Mr. Beck bought the filing of the Kimball claim, which
he homesteaded. About the only improvements were a log house with a dirt floor,
where they continued to live nine years and where six of their children were
born.
Mr. Beck was married in 1877, to Karen Peterson, a young woman who
came over from Denmark with Fred Beck, a brother of her intended husband. Her
parents came to America in 1883. Her brother died twelve days after their
arrival and her father four years later. Mrs. Beck is one of four children,
three of whom are living. Jens Peterson, a farmer of Mitchell county, just over
the Cloud county line, is a brother, and Mrs. Halder Halderson, who lives near
Glasco, is a sister.
To Mr. and Mrs. Beck nine children have been born,
seven of whom are living - all daughters, estimable and prepossessing young
women. Martha, wife of Edmond Bennett, an Oklohoma[sic] farmer. Mary, wife of
Herbert Dalrymple. Kjerstine, Anna, Emma, Serena and Rosa. Frederica, a young
woman of nineteen years died in 1900.
Mr. Beck's farm consists of one
hundred and sixty acres situated in the remote south-west corner of Cloud
county. His land corners with both Mitchell and Ottawa counties. His chief
products are wheat, corn and Kaffir corn, cattle and hogs. In 1886, he erected a
large and substatianl[sic] stone residence. He built a barn in 1890, 20 by 36
feet in dimensions, with corn cribs on either side.
Mr. Beck is a
Populist in politics. He is a member of the Ancient Order of United Workmen
lodge of Glasco and the Royal Neighbors. The family are members of the Lutheran
church.
GEORGE W. BEERS.
G.W. Beers was a Kansas pioneer
who settled in Osawatomie in 1868. In the autumn of 1870, he came to Cloud
county, and filed on a homestead in Solomon township, the farm where he now
lives. Mr. Beers and Conrad Romizer are the only original settlers on this part
of Fisher creek. Mr. Beers is a native of Elmira, New York, born in 1836. Before
attaining his majority he had learned the stone mason's trade and worked two and
one-half years in a printing office, where practically speaking he received his
education. His father was George W. Beers, a coach maker, who built the first
stage coach that ran on the turnpike from Geneva to Canandaigua. Mr. Beer's
mother was Harriet Jemima (Huggett) Beers. She was of English birth, born near
the city of London, and with her parents crossed the water when she was fifteen
years of age, and settled in Ontario, New York.
When Mr. Beers was a
small boy his father died and his mother when he was a youth of sixteen. In
1856, Mr. Beers located in Iroquois county, Illinois, where he worked on a farm
by the month until 1862, when he enlisted in Company D, 113th Illinois
Volunteers under Captain Lucas and Colonel George B. Hoge. Their movements were
confined principally to the Missippi[sic] river between Memphis and Vicksburg.
In December, 1862, he was with General Sherman at Vicksburg and Arkansas Post;
from the latter point he was carried to the hospital where he was discharged
from the service in December, 1863, on account of disability, and was thus cut
short in his army career which imposed upon him a great disappointment.
During Mr. Beers' service in the army his wife sent him a picture of herself by
an orderly sergeant, who had it taken from him by the rebels while on board the
"Blue Wing" whose crew were taken prisoners. Two weeks later they were paroled
and the picture sent back to the orderly with the message: "Tell that 'Yank'
that all weins have got to say, is, he's got a d-d good looking wife." An
enlarged portrait of this historical old daguerrotype adorns the walls of the
Beers home.
After the war Mr. Beers resumed farming in Illinois, until
1868, when he came to Kansas. When Mr. Beers settled in Solomon township with
his wife and family of children he had but five dollars, a team, and wagon.
Although the outlook was discouraging he never faltered. He farmed in summer and
worked in the saw mill at Glasco in winter for the small wages of one dollar per
day. In the winter of 1874-5 he ran an engine at a saw mill in Minneapolis,
Kansas, for one dollar and fifty cents per day and boarded himself.
The
Beers family have undergone many hardships - have sat around their frugal board
and watched the last morsal of bread disappear not knowing from what source the
next would be provided. In 1875, Mr. Beers resumed his trade of stone mason.
Prior to this period there was but little or no demand for stone masons in the
Solomon Valley. He erected the first stone building in Glasco and many of those
that followed, including the Oakes House and the bank building. Many of the
stone structures throughout the valley are monuments of his architecture. His
own residence is of stone, built by himself at intervals when not employed on
other work. It is a comfortable eight room house. Mr. Beers quarried the stone,
did his own masonry, plastering and most of the carpentering. His farm is well
improved with good out buildings and a big orchard with three hundred trees. His
land is largely wheat ground. In 1901, a field of fifty acres yielded
twenty-seven and one-half bushels to the acre.
Mr. Beers was married in
1860, to Miss Esther A. Johnson of Belfast, New York. Of their family of ten
children nine are living: Anna Laura, deceased wife of Leander Doty (she left
four children); John W., a farmer; Alice, wife of Wade Cook, of Ames; Edward,
who farms with his father; William, the first white male child born in Solomon
township, is a plumber (he was a soldier in the Spanish-American war. His
Regiment, the 33d Michigan, participated in the battle of San Juan and the
destruction of Cevera's fleet. When his services were no longer required he
returned to his family, which consists of a wife and little son, Leslie Carl.
Their home is in Owosso, Michigan); Clara and Harriet, are unmarried and living
at home; Joseph H. and Junius W., are twins, aged twenty-two years.
Mr.
Beers is a Republican in politics. The family are members of the United Brethren
church and take an ardent interest in church affairs. It was chiefly through the
efforts of Mr. Beers that Reverend O. Beistle preached his first sermon in the
old court house of Concordia.
JOHN BEESLEY.
One of the
most prominent farmers and stockmen of Summit township was the late John
Beesley, a native of Montgomery county, Indiana, born in 1847. He came with his
parents to Missouri in 1855, and shortly afterwards located in Alba, Iowa, where
his father died in 1861. In the spring of 1862, though but fifteen years of age,
Mr. Beesley enlisted in the eleventh Missouri Calvary. He was not old enough to
enlist for active service, so he entered the ranks as a bugler, and was known to
his comrades as the "bugler boy."
He carried a saber, gun and revolvers
and was chief bugler of the regiment until 1865, when he was mustered out at New
Orleans. Mr. Beesley was wounded in the left hand, his horse was killed under
him, and he was captured and paroled five days later. His hand was not dressed
until he returned to the ranks at Duvall's Bluff, Arkansas. Mr. Beesley
experienced many close calls and carried eleven bullet scars on his person (none
of which caused serious wounds) and had four horses shot from under him. He was
under the command of General Steele. When he applied for his pension in 1881,
Doctor Slade, the physician who dressed his hand, wrote to know, "if he was the
little boy whose hand he had dressed."
After the war Mr. Beesley returned
to a sister in Iowa and soon after entered upon a freighting expedition across
the plains, a business he followed for three years, through Colorado, Arizona
and Wyoming as far as Fort Bridger. For a period of five years there were few
nights that he slept under shelter.
In the spring of 1869, he visited
Nebraska City where he met and married Mary Jane Macy, of Syracuse, Nebraska, a
daughter of G.W. Macy (see sketch).- They came to Kansas with her father's
family in 1871, and landed on the ground which they afterward homesteaded, April
twenty-fourth. Their nearest neighbor was four miles distant. A reunion was held
by the Macy family twenty-five years from that day, and there were twenty-five
Macys present - one for each year. There had been but one death in the meantime
of the original settlers, the wife and mother, Mrs. G.W. Macy.
Mr.
Beesley advocated the principles of Prohibition, was an active member of the
Free Baptist church, and superintendent of the Sabbath-school at the time of his
death, September 14, 1901. He was a gentleman of high Christian character and a
director of the church for years. To Mr. and Mrs. Beesley nine children have
been born, eight of whom are living, viz: Dell, wife of Alvin Hart, a farmer
near Jennings, Oklahoma; Lydia C., wife of Alva Taylor, a farmer with residence
in Glasco; David F., Fred N., and Harvey are all farmers living in the vicinity
of Macyville; Josie V., a young lady of sixteen years, and John L. and Thomas
Macy, aged twelve and eight years respectively.
Mr. Beesley was the
youngest member of the Concordia W.T. Sherman Post, Grand Army of the Republic.
Seventeen of the members of this body attended his funeral.
EDMUND A. BELISLE.
There are countless young men who start in business
with a fair sized bank account to their credit, but totally inexperienced and a
few years later ofttimes finds them bankrupt.
Then upon the other hand is
the ambitious fellow who has a generous store of pluck, energy and brains; he
begins at the foundation and is surprised ere many years have elapsed to find
himself with the essential experience which he often combines with the proceeds
of his savings and is far better equipped to succeed in the world of business
than the former. To the latter class belongs E.A. Belisle, the subject of this
sketch, who came to Concordia in April, 1878, and entered the employ of McKinnon
& Company as a hardware clerk. He remained with them eight and one-half years,
or until 1886, when he associated himself with Cyrus Twitchell, under the firm
name of Twitchell & Belisle. Two years later W.F. Groesbeck succeeded to the
interest of Mr. Twitchell and the growing business was known under the name of
Groesbeck & Belisle. The firm prospered and Mr. Belisle became proficient with
all the details of their stock in trade and early in the 'nineties consummated a
deal whereby he became sole proprietor. He has steadily increased his stock
until his capital now invested is about eleven thousand dollars. Mr. Belisle has
dealt extensively in farm implements and machinery; he is closing out the stock
in this line, but will continue his well selected department of harness and
vehicles. He makes plumbing and tinning a specialty and has practically placed
all the pipes and other apparatus pertaining to the water works in every
building in Concordia. Under his supervision the city's water works, which is
second to none in the country, were placed in 1902. He also piped the Caldwell
bank building and the Barons house for steam heat, both of which are a perfect
success. Mr. Belisle's trade reaches beyond the limits of Cloud county; in the
cornice line he has had patronage from Beloit, Smith Center and other places. He
employs the services of four men. Mr. Belisle's interests extend further than
Concordia, being a member of the hardware firm known as Belisle, Holcomb &
Turner, of Ft. Cobb, Oklahoma. F.L. Holcomb, the second named in the
combination, was formerly in the employ of Mr. Belisle, as bookkeeper, for a
half dozen years or more, and David Turner is a well-known ex-citizen of Clyde,
a son of the late David Turner, Sr. (see sketch).
Mr. Belisle is a
Vermonter, born in Montpelier in October, 1852. He removed with his parents, in
1855, to Kankakee, Illinois, and lived in that city until emigrating to Kansas
in 1878. His father, Onesine Belisle, died in Concordia about four years ago.
The family settled near Aurora and lived there until the father's death. Mr.
Belisle's mother is still living and makes her home with her children. Of his
father's family of eight children (three deceased), all are citizens of Cloud
county, except one sister, who remains in Kankakee. Mrs. W.H. Fullerton, of
Concordia, is a sister. His brothers are all prosperous farmers. Mr. Belisle was
married in 1880 to Adeline Lavalle, a sister of Amedie Lavalle, a prominent
hardware man of Clyde. Their family consists of eight children: Roy and Eddie
A., Jr., are two manly boys, who give promise of becoming influential men. The
former clerks in his father's store, the latter is a student on his second year
in the Great Western Business College of Concordia. Their second child is a
daughter, Blanche. Ruby is a junior of the high school. The younger children are
George, Daisy, Edith and Lucile.
Mr. Belisle is a staunch Republican and
has never wavered from the principles of his party. He has contributed liberally
to the growth and prosperity of Concordia, both by industry and public spirit.
He was a member of the council for one year under the reign of Mayor Messall and
also for the same length of time during Mayor Stewart's term of office. He was
an active member of the board of education for two years. Socially he is
identified with the National Association of Master Plumbers and also with the
State Association. He has been through all the chairs of the Independent Order
of Odd Fellows, Knights of Pythias and the Benevolent Order of Elks. He is a
member of the Woodmen, and of the Knights and Ladies of Security.
JULIUS ALEXANDER BELO.
A. Belo, a representative farmer and stockman
of Arion township, has achieved the competency he possesses by his own efforts
and labor, and there is scarcely a day that he does not devote himself to toil;
yet he is never so much engrossed or too busily engaged to meet friends or
strangers with a courteous and hospitable bearing. He is a farmer of lifelong
experience and began his career as foreman of Robert Stewart's extended farm in
Buchanan county, Iowa, in 1876.
In the spring of 1878 he emigrated to
Kansas and settled temporarily in Mitchell county, near Cawker City. In July of
the same year he rented a farm in Cloud county, and the following autumn
homesteaded forty acres of land adjoining his present home place. A year later
he bought seventy acres one mile south, known as the Everett homestead. In 1887
he sold these two tracts and bought the farm of two hundred and eighty acres
where he now lives and which he put under a good state of improvement. In 1881
he proceeded to build a comfortable six-room residence and a small, but
well-built, barn. He has considerable fruit, including apples, peaches, pears
and grapes. His chief farm products are wheat, corn and oats. He keeps a herd of
from fifty to eighty head of native cattle, among which are some graded
Polled-Angus, and feeds from fifty to one hundred and fifty fine-bred Jersey Red
and Poland China hogs. In the summer of 1884 Mr. Belo farmed two hundred acres
of land that was planted in corn; fifty acres of this ground grew corn that
yielded eighty bushels per acre; on the two hundred acres he had a total yield
of eleven thousand bushels. The shellers bid one cent per bushel, and at that
figure their bill footed $110. The corn marketed from eighteen to twenty-three
cents per bushel. In 1901 he had a field of wheat containing sixty acres that
threshed twenty-eight bushels to the acre.
Mr. Belo was born on a farm
near Milwaukee, Wisconsin, in December, 1856. He is a son of John and Henrietta
(Trebom) Belo. John Belo was born in Germany in 1837, emigrated to America in
1855, and settled in Wisconsin. In 1861 he emigrated with his family to Iowa and
bought timbered government land in Buchanan county for one dollar and a quarter
per acre, which he cleared and improved and where he still lives. Mr. Belo is
one of ten children, five of whom are living: Our subject; Edward, a stone mason
of Jessup, Iowa; Lena, wife of John Metchmier, a grain dealer of Jessup, Iowa;
John; and Telia.
J.A. Belo was married in February. 1881, to Susanna
(Burns) Sheridan, the widow of Thomas Sheridan. She was born in Ireland, came to
America with her parents when a child and settled in the state of New York. Mrs.
Belo died April 13, 1884, three years after her second marriage, leaving one
child (and three by her first husband), John Edward, who is interested with his
father on the farm and is a young man of good education in both English and
German. In 1889 Mr. Belo was married to Mary Ann Driscoll, a native of
Vermillion county, Illinois, and a daughter of Cornelius Driscoll, who became a
farmer of Arion township, Cloud county, in 1878. Her parents were both of Irish
birth. Her mother's brothers, General Humphries and Major Humphries, were
distinguished officers of the English army. Mrs. Belo's father was found dead
from natural causes March 3, 1896, in the field where he was herding horses. Her
mother died in May, 1900. Mrs. Belo is one of seven living children, all but two
of whom live in Cloud county. Mr. Belo is a Populist, but formerly voted the
Democratic ticket. He has served several successive years on the township board.
Himself and family are members of the Concordia Catholic congregation.
W. C. BERNEKING.
W.C. Berneking, the subject of this sketch, is a
self-made man, earning his living since he was ten years old, being thrown on
the world homeless and penniless at that and doing whatever he could find to do
to gain a livelihood for several years.
He was born in Germany in 1856,
and came to America with his parents when an infant, settling on a farm in
Monroe county, Illinois. His father was Henry Berneking and died when his son,
W.C., was ten years old. His mother was Christina (Bower) Berneking and died
while the family were enroute to America, and was buried at sea. Henry Berneking
was a shoemaker in Germany but followed farming principally in America. He
married the second time, and by this marriage several children were born, all of
whom died, one daughter dying at the age of sixteen years.
Mr. Berneking
had a brother, Fred, who went as a substitute in the army for their father who
was drafted, and died of smallpox at Memphis, Tennessee. He had been discharged
at the close of the war and had started home when he was taken ill at Memphis.
W.C. Berneking was married In the autumn of 1883, to Caroline Margaret Pape,
a daughter of Henry and Wilhelmena (Moenkhoff) Pape, natives of Germany. Her
father died in 1877 and her mother the last day of the year 1885. Her father was
twice married. There were five children by the first marriage and eight by the
second, four of whom are living, three daughters and one son, a sister, Mrs.
Sparwasser, living in Cloud county, near Glasco, another Erstina Gerber, of
Monroe county, Illinois, and a brother, Herman Pape, also of the latter place.
Mr. Berneking has prospered in Kansas. He came to the state with six hundred
dollars and lived upon rented land seven years. In 1891 he bought the Al Edwards
homestead near Simpson, which is one of the many good farms in that part of the
county. He has now in course of erection a ten room, two-story frame residence,
44 by 34 feet in dimensions. He owns one hundred and sixty acres of land and
raises cattle and hogs. He has a barn 48 by 60 feet in dimensions, and the
Solomon river runs through his place.
To Mr. and Mrs. Berneking have been
born seven children, six of whom are living, the eldest having died in infancy.
Louisa, sixteen years of age, Lydia, Henry, Mary, George and Catherine. The
family are members of the Lutheran church of Glasco. Mr. Berneking is a
Republican in politics, and socially is a member of the order of Maccabees at
Simpson, Lodge No. 67.
RUFUS R. BIGGS.
There is always a
universal feeling of interest and respect for a man who, by his own exertions
and natural ability, has won for himself a prominent place in either
professional or commercial circles, or as a tiller of the soil. Mr. Biggs has
done this and occupies a place among the successful men of the Glasco, vicinity.
Rufus R. Biggs is a son of Joseph Biggs, upon whose original homestead the
city of Glasco was built. He settled there in 1869, and was one of the
organizers of the town. A brother, Isaac Biggs, was Glasco's first postmaster,
and for years engaged in general merchandise. Isaac Biggs died in 1888. R.R.
Biggs received a common school education in Iowa, the state of his nativity, in
the vicinity of Cedar Rapids. When he was fourteen years of age his father's
family moved to Missouri, and the following year to Kansas, where Mr. Biggs
began a career of farm life. in 1882, he engaged successfully in the livery
business in Glasco; discontinued in 1890, and bought a farm north of that city,
where he lived two years - 1893-4 - and in 1894 bought part of the old H.H.
Spaulding homestead. It was a bare wheat field of ninety-seven acres adjacent to
Glasco. Mr. Biggs put this land under a high state of improvement; built a
comfortable six room cottage, substantial barns, etc.
Mr. Biggs was
married, in 1885, to Mary Emma Haddock a popular Cloud County teacher. She was
educated in the graded schools of Concordia and a student one year in the State
Normal of Emporia. The Haddocks were old settlers in Cloud county and
homesteaded what is now the Messmore farm near Glasco. Her father died in 1898,
and her mother in 1884. Mrs. Biggs was a teacher in the old stone school house
of Glasco; entered as a substitute for one day and taught for a period of five
years. She began her school work as a teacher at sixteen. Mr. and Mrs. Biggs are
the parents of one child, a little daughter, Wilma Inez, aged four years. Mr.
and Mrs. Biggs have reared two daughters of their deceased brother, Isaac Biggs.
Ida is a graduate of the Glasco High school and is married to Charles Wall. The
youngest daughter, Oral, remains one of their household.
Socially Mr.
Biggs is a member of the Knights of Pythias and Independent Order of Odd
Fellows. He is considerable of a sportsman; goes to Colorado, Montana, Oklahoma
or Arkansas annually for a season's hunting. He is progressive in his views and
contributes to all worthy enterprises, either by his personal efforts or from
his stores of a worldly nature. The Biggs have a modern, desirable home, and are
among the representative people of their community.
JAMES W. BILLINGS
One of the old landmarks of Cloud county and a trapper of the
"60's" J.W. Billings who came to Kansas in April, 1868, is a native of Michigan,
born and reared on a farm situated near the lake. he is a son of Walter and
Sarah (Wilson) Billings, both natives of New York, born near the city of
Rochester. They settled in Michigan in 1835, an early period in its settlement
and before there was a railroad in the state, traveling by the way of the lakes
and Erie canal. The father died three years ago and his mother in 1881.
Walter Billings was a soldier of the Civil war, serving in the Eighth Michigan
Cavalry. He was captured and placed in prison, and from there was taken to
Florence where he was detained six months, and during that period contracted
disease from which he never entirely recovered. He drove one horse from Michigan
to Kansas a half a dozen times or more and "Old Bill" was as well known as any
of the Billings family.
During the primitive days of Kansas J.W. Billings
followed trapping. He associated himself with Sam Doran, Uriah Smith and Frank
Rupe and arranged a bachelor home with all its comforts and discomforts. He
followed trapping and hunting as a livelihood for several years. At first he
sold to local buyers his numerous beaver, otter and coyote skins, later to New
York, and more recently to Oshkosh, Wisconsin, which latter place he found to be
the best market. He did not take up a homestead until 1875 and later sold eighty
acres of his claim to procure a team, harness and wagon. The next year a prairie
fire destroyed his team, harness and cow, leaving him nothing of his deal but
the wagon.
He is still fond of hunting and fishing, but now it is for
pleasure and luxury, while in the early days it was a matter of necessity to
appease hunger. His first buffalo hunt was in May, 1868. He was one of a party
of eight who killed nine buffalo and one antelope the next day after staring
out. In September of the same year, during one expedition, they killed and dried
a load of buffalo meat which in those days was a royal banquet. They did not
suppose the herds that numbered thousands could so soon be exterminated. He has
also killed many elk. Mr. Billings has farmed, trapped, taught school and done
almost everything but preach, and possessed the ability for that calling had he
ever been in a position where his services were needed. He is of a family of
trappers, and has three brothers, all of whom but one are fond of the vocation.
Politically he is a republican but does not aspire to office. Two of his friends
labored the greater part of one night to induce Mr. Billings to allow his name
to be brought up before the convention as a candidate for sheriff, but he
absolutely refused.
Mr. Billings enlisted December 10, 1861, at the age
of sixteen years and served almost two years in Company B, 13th Michigan. He was
then transferred to the United States Signal Corps, served until the close of
the war and was honorably discharged before he had attained his twenty-first
year. His regiment arrived just in time to witness the finale of the first
battle of Shiloh. They were at Perrysville and Stone River where they lost
heavily and at Chickamaugua where they only lacked one man of losing half their
regiment, and of his immediate company of eighteen men, but four escaped. Mr.
Billings enlisted as a private and was promoted to sergeant. The captain of his
company was wounded and Mr. Billings was placed in command, holding that
position as a non-commissoned officer two months, at that time being but
seventeen years of age. His company participated in the battle of Chattanooga
and in the Atlanta campaign, and he was continuously in the service except a
brief time when home on a furlough. He was a brave soldier, always at the front
in the thickest of the fight; was never sick, wounded or in prison and seemed to
lead a charmed life. He was in the employ of the government after the close of
the war, his corps being sent to Texas and discharged at San Antonio in May,
1866. He served under Generals Buell, Rosecrans, Sherman, Thomas and Sheridan.
Mr. Billings was also a member of the militia raised by the government to
protect the settlers on the frontier, serving three months under the command of
Captain Sanders.
Mr. Billings was married, in 1875, to Miss Kate Prince,
whose parents are residents of Concordia, and were among the early homesteaders
of 1871 in Aurora township. Mrs. Billings has taught several terms in the best
schools of the county; she was engaged in the primary department of the
Jamestown school one year. She is an untiring temperance worker. At the Grand
Lodge of Good Templars held at Scranton, in October, 1900, she was appointed
Grand Superintendent of the Juvenile Templars of the Independent Order of Good
Templars, and unanimously re-elected at Clyde and Delphos in 1901 and 1902
respectively.
To Mr. and Mrs. Billings three children have been born.
Eugene, the eldest son is a resident of Clyde and employed as clerk in the
L'Ecuyer grocery establishment; he is married and has one child, a little
daughter, Eunice, aged four years. Kate, is a prepossessing and intelligent
young lady living at home, and Emory, the youngest son, assists his father on
the farm. The family are members and regular attendants of the Methodist
Episcopal Church of Clyde. Mr. Billings has served two years as commander of the
Clyde Grand Army of the Republic Post.
"Jack" Billings, as he is known to
all his friends, is one of the most highly esteemed citizens of the community in
which he lives, and when he is spinning the hunting tales of pioneer days he
seems to virtually live them over again, and as he rehearses these expeditions
and adventures the suns of fifty-seven summers that have come and vanished for
him, are forgotten - and he is "just as young as he used to be." - [Since the
above sketch was compiled, Mr. Billings, who numbered his friends by the score,
has been called to his "eternal home." He was one of the most companionable of
men and a central figure in the group of pioneers, trappers and hunters of the
early days. He was deceased early in May, 1903. - Editor.
FRANK S. BISHOP.
One of the most successful men of Lyon township is F.S. Bishop.
He is self made and began his career by working on a farm; his first employer
was Clarence Ballou. Mr. Bishop is also self educated. When a boy he met with an
accident which crippled him physically and prevented him from attending school
until he was twelve years of age. Four years later he came to Kansas, where he
was a pupil in the district school for one term, and a student of the Concordia
high school for one year.
He rented a farm of Charles King for one year,
the proceeds of which, enabled him to take a year's course in the Manhattan
Agricultural College. In Concordia Mr. Bishop worked his way through school by
driving a milk wagon for J.S. Herrick. This was in the winter of 1880, one of
the worst winters Kansas has ever known; the river was frozen solid until March.
Prior to this he worked in a broom factory, assorting corn and sewing brooms.
While in Manhattan he defrayed part of his expenses by working. Times were hard
but he was determined to have an education. He was a hard student and while at
the latter institution almost finished a two years course in one year. After
returning from Manhattan he worked for Charles King on the farm one year, and
bought the place he now owns from his father. Since then he has added other
lands until now he owns six hundred acres.
In 1900 he built a commodious
frame house of eight rooms, two stories in height and modern. They have
considerable fruit, apples, peaches, pears and cherries. He began with a small
herd of cattle which has increased from year to year, until he now owns a herd
of one hundred and fifty head of fine graded Herefords. His land is principally
pasture. The chief products of the ground under cultivation is corn, kaffir corn
and alfalfa. Mr. Bishop does not deny that his wife did her full share toward
helping him up the ladder. She is one of those excellent Cool women, who make
typical farmer's wives.
Mr. Bishop was born near Mannassa, Wisconsin in
1859. He is a son of F.S. Bishop, who was born in Vermont in 1833. He was raised
on a farm and followed carpentering the greater portion of his life. In 1853, he
emigrated to Wisconsin where he farmed and worked at his trade for about three
years, and returned to Massachusetts, taking his family. After remaining two
years, he returned again to Wisconsin. In 1868, he removed to Tennessee and
settled in Sparta, White county, where he worked at his trade and was also
associated in a grist mill. F.S. Bishop's mother died there. In 1872 the family
returned to Adams, western Massachusetts, and four years later emigrated to
Cloud county, Kansas, locating on the farm where F.S. Bishop now lives. It was a
timber claim.
F.S. Bishop's paternal grandfather was a native of the
Green mountains, Bennington county, Vermont. The Bishops originally came from
England. Three brothers came to America and settled in the New England states,
in the early days of that country. Mr. Bishop's mother was Cornelia Phelps, who
was also of Vermont, and a daughter of Frank Phelps, an old Vermont farmer,
whose estate has since been abandoned and allowed to grow up in timber. Most of
the farmers in that vicinity deserted their farms; their owners and tenants
working in the forests. His paternal grandmother was a neice of Dr. Hosea
Ballou, the founder of the Universalist faith. She was also a cousin of
president Garfield's mother.
F.S. Bishop and a sister are the only
children by his father's first marriage. The sister is Inez M., wife of S.C.
Gardner, a farmer of Lyon township. E.S. Bishop was married the second time to
Eva Young, and they are the parents of three children: S.E., a clerk for the
firm of Henry Bowen & Company, of Fairview, Oklahoma. Ralph, who farms with his
father, and Nellie, a Cloud county teacher, now employed at the Lyon Center
school house, district No. twenty-two.
F.S. Bishop was married April 18,
1886 to Miss Hattie M. Cool, a daughter of the Honorable Joseph Cool, an old
settler of Cloud county. (see sketch of Mrs. Bates.) She taught two years in the
schools of Cloud county, prior to her marriage. To Mr. and Mrs. Bishop three
children have been born, viz.: Bessie, Alma and Elson, aged thirteen, eight and
two years respectively.
Mr. Bishop is a Democrat and takes an interest in
all legislative affairs, but is not a politician; strictly speaking he is a
thorough farmer and stockman. He has been one of the school board of his
district for a term of nine years. He is a member of the Modern Woodmen, of
Glasco.
LEROY BISHOP.
Leroy Bishop, a successful farmer
and stockman, of Lyon township, came to Kansas in 1872, and settled one mile
east of Delphos, where his father had homesteaded. Mr. Bishop is a native of
Vermont, born near Reedsboro, in 1853. He is a son of Joy and Rohanna (Stearns)
Bishop.
His father was Joy Bishop, Jr., and his place of nativity was
also Reedsboro, Vermont. He was born February 12, 1815. He was a Universalist
minister for more than fifty years. He began his ministerial career in 1840, and
was pastor for several societies in the states of Vermont and Massachusetts. In
1856 he moved to Iowa, where he organized societies at Valley Farm, Strawberry
Point, Greely and other places. In 1871 he emigrated to Kansas, where he did
excellent work as an evangelist in Delphos and other towns. He was also a great
temperance worker and organized many societies for this cause. No man was more
universally loved and respected in this part of the state than Reverend Bishop.
Through his labors the society was organized at Delphos, and he was chiefly
instrumental in building the first Universalist church in that town, which blew
down in the cyclone of 1879, and replacing it with another church edifice. He
was a prominent Odd Fellow and received a medal of honor - a veteran jewel - for
twenty-five years of active service, a gift from the Odd Fellows grand lodge,
which he esteemed very highly.
Leroy Bishop is a grandson of Joy Bishop,
Sr., who was born in North Haven, Connecticut, about 1725 and served through the
Revolutionary War under General Washington. He married Abigal Blakely. They were
married young, moved to Vermont in 1790, where they purchased one hundred acres
of timber; cleared the land, built a small log house and reared their family of
fourteen children. In this humble home, where the mother spun the flax they
raised and converted it into clothing, Joy Bishop, Jr., was born.
Leroy
Bishop's great grandfather, with his two brothers, came to America from England
in 1650, and settled at North Haven, Connecticut. Leroy Bishop began his career
by farming. His intentions were to go to Chicago and become a machinist, but he
came to Kansas and in the spring of 1874, was induced by circumstances to buy
the homestead of Horace Wilson. Although he experienced some drawbacks with
grasshoppers, prairie fires, drouths and various other things, he does not
regret having established himself in Cloud county.
One year be had all
his hay and much of his corn destroyed by prairie fire. He began existence in
Kansas in a 9x11 dugout, and this was large enough after being furnished with a
bed, organ and other necessary furniture, to accommodate another family. The
next season he hauled lumber from Clay Center and erected a small frame house,
where they almost froze to death. It was not nearly so warm as the dugout. It
was built of green cottonwood, which shrunk and left great cracks for the Kansas
zephyrs to swirl through.
Mr. Bishop has made most of his money in
raising corn and feeding cattle and hogs. His cattle are of the Hereford breed
and he has at present (1901) about ninety head. His farm consists of four
hundred acres. A handsome two-story residence and a barn 28x50 feet, a good
apple orchard of about two hundred trees, a large peach orchard with about
twenty different varieties of budded fruit: plums, cherries, raspberries, etc.
The magnificent growth of trees that surround and shadow their stately home
from the blistering summer sun, were set out by Mr. and Mrs. Bishop in 1876, and
have made a wonderful growth. In the spring of the Centennial year, to
commemorate that event, Mr. and Mrs. Bishop each planted a cottonwood slip,
which have made an enormous growth, one of them measuring twelve and one-half
feet and the other eleven and one-half feet in circumference and are about sixty
feet in height. Many squirrels play through their branches and it is nothing
unusual to see the sportive fox and gray squirrel gamboling over the roofs of
the out buildings.
Mr. Bishop was married in 1873, to Ida E. Ostrander, a
daughter of John E. Ostrander, who came to Kansas in 1872, and settled about
four miles northeast of Delphos. Mr. and Mrs. Bishop's family consists of a son
and daughter. Leon Clare, is a graduate of the Delphos high school, class of
1897. He is in the employ of a publishing company. Ida Rowena is taking a course
in music in Washburn College, Topeka. She is on her second year and is pursuing
both voice culture and instrumental. Her voice is high soprano. The family are
members of the Universalist church at Delphos. Mr. Bishop votes the Populist
ticket. He is a member of the I.O.O.F., of Delphos.
JOHN BOGGS.
The late Reverend John Boggs was one of the most influential and
best known men in the vicinity of Clyde. A learned and scholarly man whose brain
was a veritable store house of knowledge. This reverend gentleman was born in
the Baptist parsonage in the village of Hopewell, New Jersey, May 12, 1810. The
town of his nativity is situated in the beautiful and fertile Hopewell Valley
which is noted for its fine fruits and vegetables and celebrated for being the
seat of Rugers College, Nassua Hall, Princeton Theological Seminary; and also
renowned for the Revolutionary battles of Princeton, Trenton and Bond Rock.
Elder Boggs' father and grandfather both bore the name of John and were
Baptist ministers. His grandfather was born in East Nottingham, England April 9,
1741, and was a captain in the Revolutionary war. In his earlier life he was a
Presbyterian minister but in 1771 he embraced the Baptist sentiments and in 1781
was ordained a minister of that faith at Welsh Tract, Delaware, where he died of
paralysis in 1802; his wife who was Hannah Furness before her marriage was born
in 1737 and died January 31, 1788. John B., the second,, and father of our
subject as born at Welsh Tract, Delaware, January 20, 1770. For their son Joseph
the fond parents had mapped out the career of a clergyman, "but John," they
said, "was cut out for a farmer;" but Joseph became a lawyer and John developed
into both an excellent farmer and a gifted dispenser of the gospel. Elder Boggs'
paternal grandmother was Eliza Hopkins, the only child of an English Quaker
family whose parents, Isaac and Margaret Hopkins, resided in Burlington county,
New Jersey, from the time they came to America until their deaths, which took
place during her childhood, leaving their daughter in the hands of an unworthy
uncle who defrauded her of considerable property.
Charles Hopkins who was
a pastor of a New York City Baptist church for many years was a cousin of Elder
Boggs twice removed. W.C. Cooper, of Philadelphia, a brother of Commodore
Porter, formerly of the United States navy, married Fannie Hopkins, a cousin of
the same removal. Isaac Hopkins, a brother of Fannie Hopkins, was the father of
seventeen children including three pairs of twins. Elder Boggs was three times
married. His third wife was Mary Hunt; their two daughters, Elizabeth and Mary
Jane established and were proprietors of the Ladies' Seminary at Hopewell, New
Jersey, where their father was pastor for nearly forty years. Elder Boggs'
mother was Hannah Dewess. Her father's house, Colonel Dewess, was the home of
the Baptist ministers. She was distinguished for her many personal charms and
amiability. She died May 5, 1827, of paralysis at the Baptist parsonage in
Hopewell. They were the parents of six children, four living to maturity and
rearing families.
Elder Boggs served as chaplain of the one hundred and
eighteenth Ohio Volunteer Infantry, and from that period on labored in his
"Master's vineyard" until his advanced years would no longer permit; and when
his work was finished he undoubtedly received the welconie plaudit, "well done
thou good and faithful servant, enter thou into the joys of thy Lord." Had Elder
Boggs lived until the following September, the sixty-seventh anniversary of
their marriage would have been celebrated. His aged wife survives him at the age
of ninety-one years, but the sands of her life are almost run and a few years at
the best can but elapse ere she will have gone to join her companion of more
than three score years.
Elder Boggs was an extensive traveler, also a
voluminous writer, and contributed many articles to the press, many of them of
acknowledged worth. In 1888, he made an extended missionary trip through Nevada,
Wyoming, California, Oregon, Washington Territory and Colorado. He was loyal to
Kansas and upon his return from his tour vigorously asserted, "there was no
place like his cottage home in Kansas." Although Elder Boggs' farm is situated
just over the line in Washington, his labors were almost exclusively in Cloud
county. Several years prior to his demise he had changed his religion to the
Christian faith and established the Clyde congregation at the Boggs school house
with the understanding that when a church was erected in Clyde the society would
be transferred to that point, and in accordance with his request this was done.
Mrs. Boggs lives with her daughter, Mrs. Lottie Hakes at the old home. "Tri
Gable Cottage," as it is called is one of the most desirable homes in the
vicinity, nestled in the midst of a perfect bower of trees and flowering shrubs
that denote much care from the hands of its owners; a fine apple orchard that
yielded two hundred bushels the present year. The proceeds of the sales of their
crop of early cherries this year exceeded $30. The angel of death never having
visited their family, Elder and Mrs. Boggs have three children, all of whom are
useful, honest, and upright citizens.
JOHN NEWTON BOGGS.
J.N. Boggs the subject of this sketch is a son of the noted clergyman, Reverend
John Boggs, whose history is given in detail in the preceeding sketch. He was
born in New Jersey in the year 1832, was reared on a farm in Hamilton county,
Ohio, and moved to Bartholomew county, Indiana, but later returned to Ohio. It
is a well established fact that ministers are much like flocks of birds
migrating from one place to another, never remaining any length of time in one
location. Mr. Boggs received but a meager education in the country schools owing
to his family moving to Bartholomew county in advance of even subscription
schools. The scholars of today can never realize that in olden times children
walked miles over fields to some small building answering the double purpose of
church and school house. Many of those scholars are today holding some of the
greatest and loftiest positions that can be accorded to men and women.
Mr. Boggs was married in the year 1854, in Bartholomew county to Elizabeth A.
Low and they began their first housekeeping in a very primitive way, taking
their wedding journey in a "prairie schooner" enroute to Appanoose county, Iowa,
and consequently were for many years a little in advance of the towns and cities
of the plains. Wayne county, Iowa, adjoined Appanoose and they made their home
in the two counties until the spring of 1876, when they were attracted by
stories of homes to be gotten by simply selecting one of their choice - the cost
of the land office papers was the only price. In company with their seven
children born in Iowa they came to Kansas and settled in Elk township. Mr. Boggs
purchased the relinquishment of David Brosseau, where a home had been started
and a few acres of sod had been broken, homesteaded the land and bought the
Antoine Brosseau farm adjoining, thus owning a half section of land which he has
since divided with his children and is practically retired from farming.
Mr. Boggs served in company D, sixteenth Iowa infantry, and although he has been
practically disabled ever since he has never drawn a pension. Mrs. Boggs was
called from her earthly home leaving seven children, viz: Aquilla, deceased in
1881 at the age of twenty-six years, unmarried. Freeman, an electric street car
conductor at Houston, Texas. Joseph, a carpenter who resides in California.
Allen, a farmer of Elk township. Kate, wife of A.M. Shriver, a farmer of Elk
township. Joshua, owns a fruit ranch in California. Blanche is her father's
house-keeper. Pinkney died in Iowa.
Mr. Boggs had the misfortune to lose
a good frame residence by fire in 1893, which was replaced in the autumn of that
year by a six-room dwelling which narrowly escaped the same fate by a stroke of
lightning in October, 1902. Miss Boggs raises a great number of chickens,
hatching from two to three hundred annually, which is a profitable investment of
one's labor and care for the little broods of downy puff balls. She is a devoted
daughter, bestowing much of her time to the care of her father, brightening his
declining years, smoothing the tangles from his path. Politically, Mr. Boggs is
a Republican. His family are members of the Christian church and active workers,
while on a visit to Bartholomew county, Indiana in 1857 Mr. Boggs connected
himself with the Baptist church and upon his return to Wayne county, Iowa, was
one of seven, five females and two males, who organized a Baptist congregation
in a private residence. Mr. Boggs was elected clerk and served in that capacity
until uniting with the Christian church several years later.
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