Sedgwick County KSGenWeb

Portrait And Biographical Album of Sedgwick County, Kan.

Chapman Brothers 1888

Pages 187 - 188 

DR. WILLIAM M. PRESTON, physician and surgeon, practicing his profession in Wichita, is  a graduate of the Chicago Homeopathic College, and in his subsequent practice, by his devotion to his work and the careful study and diagnosis of the various diseases that have come under his observation, he has been unusually successful, and has gained quite a reputation as a skilled practitioner.  He is a native of Camden, N. J., and was born in 1850.  He is the son of John H. and Annie (Moore) Preston, natives of New Jersey.

      The senior Preston was in early years a carpenter, and followed that occupation until 1860.  In the year 1851 he went to Illinois, and settled in Peoria, where he engaged in business as a carpenter and builder.  In 1859 he turned his attention to farming in Tazewell County, Ill.  In 1860 he moved with his family to Aurora, and later to Dayton, Ill., where he had charge of the Fox River Feeder until the year 1868.  He then determined to try farming on the fertile prairies of Kansas, and with that object in view came here and purchased a farm in LeRoy, Coffey County.  While living there he heard many wonderful accounts of the great fertility of the soil of the valley of the Arkansas River, and he decided that he could do still better here than in Coffey County.  Accordingly he came here in 1869, and pre-empted 160 acres of Government land in Gypsum Township, this county, and his son Thomas also took up a 160-acre tract in the same township, adjoining his.  With the assistance of his sons he improved a good farm, and resided on it until 1882.  He is now living in Geuda Springs, where he is engaged in farming.  He has met with good success since he came to this State, and as a man of unimpeachable reputation and undoubted ability, occupies a high standing in the community where he lives.  In 1861, while a resident of Illinois, he was called upon to mourn the loss of his amiable wife.  Four children had been born of their union, three of whom are now living, namely: Thomas E., William M. and Julia T.

      Our subject was very young when his parents took him from the home of his birth to Illinois, and in that State he grew to manhood.  He gained the rudiments of his education in the public schools of Dayton, and then was employed in a woolen-mill in that town for awhile.  In 1868 he came with his father to Kansas, and remained with him in LeRoy, assisting him in the development of his farm.  In the following year he accompanied him to this county, performing the journey of 175 miles in a wagon.  He was at that time twenty years of age, and he rendered his father valuable assistance in preparing his land for tillage.  As soon as he attained his majority he took up a tract of 160 acres on Dry Creek, three miles from his father's farm in Gypsum Township.  He built a box house, 14 x 14 feet, plowed his land, set out fruit trees, and otherwise improved it.  He still continued to help his father, and at night would repair to his claim with his Winchester rifle, and stay in his cabin until morning.  His ears were often assailed in the lonely hours of the night by the howlings of the coyotes.  In 1874 occurred the great grasshopper raid, which devestated his smiling fields of grain and left him no return for his labors, and the following winter he was obliged to earn his bread by chopping wood on his father's farm, the wood being afterward drawn to the city and sold.

      In the spring of 1875 our subject was appointed keeper in the prison at Joliet, Ill.  There during his leisure hours he commenced the study of medicine with Dr. M. B. Campbell, of that city, and remained under his tuition until 1878.  In that year he entered the Chicago Homeopathic College, and was   subsequently a student there for three winters, still retaining his position as keeper through the kindness of the warden, R. W. McClaughrey, finally resigning in 1880.  He was graduated from college in 1881, and then commenced his   professional life at Charlevoix, Charlevoix Co., Mich., where he was appointed by the President of the Pine Lake Iron Company as its physician and surgeon.  He retained that position for some months, and then retired to the city of Charlevoix, where he could have a broader field for the exercise of his talents, and during his residence there, from 1882 till 1887, he built up an extensive practice.  In the latter year he decided to return to Kansas that he might be nearer his friends, and finding a good opening in the enterprising, thriving city of Wichita, he established himself here, as before mentioned.

      Dr. Preston is an honored member of the following societies:  The Charlevoix Medical Society of Michigan, the Odd Fellows' Royal Arcanum, and the Maccabbee; he is an alumnus of the class of 1881 of the Chicago Medical College.  In politics he is a Republican, and in religious views, a Baptist, and a consistent member of that church.  He has won his way to the regards of the people with whom he comes in contact in his daily rounds by his ready tact and kindly sympathy.

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