From A
Biographical History of Central Kansas, Vol. I, p. 556
published by The Lewis Publishing Co, Chicago & New York, 1902
J. M. WELLMAN
It falls to the lot of almost every individual to superintend, execute or control some business interests, and the man who is industrious and energetic wins success if he wisely chooses the work to which he devotes his energies. The majority of failures comes through the individual entering upon a life work for which he is unsuited, but nature undoubtedly intended Mr Wellman for agricultural labors, as in this line of work he has met with creditable and enviable prosperity. He resides on section 28, Valley township, Rice county, where he has a good stock farm.
Mr Wellman was born in Wyoming county, New York, May 24, 1834. His grandfather, Isaac Wellman, a native of the Green Mountain state, became a pioneer settler of Wyoming county, New York. In the former place he had engaged in business as a drover, but lost heavily and then removed to the Empire state, where he became a prosperous farmer. His death there occurred about 1848, when he was sixty-four years of age. He married Sally Bixby, and they reared eight children. The mother lived to be ninety-three years of age, and the parents and children when called to the home beyond were laid to rest in a cemetery in Lagrange, New York. The father of our subject, Chauncey Wellman, was a native of Brookline, Vermont, born in July, 1810, and his death occurred in Covington, Wyoming county, New York, in May, 1898. His first wife, who bore the maiden name of Electa Wing, died in New York in 1841, at the age of twenty-six years, leaving three children, namely: J M, of this review; Lucy, the wife of Rev Oscar Hewett, a Unitarian minister of Chicago; and Nelson M, who resides in Covington, New York.
J M Wellman acquired a fair academic education and was at home upon his father’s farm until he had attained his majority, when he was married and started out in life for himself. At the age of twenty-two, on the 9th of April, 1856, he was joined in wedlock to Jane A McMillan, a lady of Scotch parentage. Their union has been blessed with the following children: Irving, who is in the employ of the Santa Fe Railroad Company of Topeka, Kansas, and has a wife and two children, a son and a daughter; Eva, the wife of D Given, a farmer of Wyoming county, New York, by whom she has two daughters; Elton E, who was born in 1871 and is now living with his wife in the state of Wyoming; and E C, who was born in 1873. Eva was a student in the normal school and was a teacher, and E C pursued his education in the Cooper Memorial College. After their marriage Mr and Mrs Wellman took up their abode in New York, but in 1879 he sold his farm of one hundred and forty acres there and came to Rice county, Kansas, purchasing a quarter section of land in the northern part of the county. After two years, however, he disposed of that property at a good profit and homesteaded one hundred and sixty acres, upon which he made improvements and secured a title. He also became the owner of a timber claim and has a half section of good fertile land, well fenced and improved with splendid buildings and modern accessories. For sixteen years he lived in his pioneer shanty, until he had discharged all the indebtedness and then invested capital in the erection of a good residence and barn. He has all the latest improved machinery and all facilities for carrying on his work, and as the years have passed he has been enabled to enjoy the comforts and luxuries which success brings. Corn has been his principal crop, his annual harvests being from two to four thousand bushels. During the past sixteen years he has also been in the cattle business, raising and feeding stock and breeding and raising fine matched teams of horses. He now has about twenty head of horses and from one hundred and fifty to two hundred and fifty head of cattle upon his place. In his political views he is a Republican and has served in township offices in a most creditable manner, enjoying the confidence reposed in him by his fellow townsmen. However, he prefers to give his attention to his business affairs, and thus he has made a wise choice, for his energetic efforts have been crowned with a rich competence.