Sedgwick County KSGenWeb

Portrait And Biographical Album of Sedgwick County, Kan.

Chapman Brothers 1888

Pages 853 - 854

AMBROSE B. WATKINS. Among the young, energetic and progressive farmers of great promise, in Waco Township, is the gentleman whose name heads this sketch. He is engaged in general farming and stock-raising on section 32, where his mother has an excellent farm of 160 acres of productive and fertile land, which is well improved and on which are handsome and comfortable buildings.

            The subject of our sketch is a native of Logan County, Ky., born Nov. 19, 1859, and is the son of Ambrose and Mary E. (Morrow) Watkins. His father was born in Logan County, Sept. 9, 1819, and lived and died in the place of his nativity, departing from this world in 1879. His wife was the daughter of James and Mary Morrow, both of whom were natives of Kentucky, and was born March 10, 1826. She was one of a family of eleven children, born to her parents as follows: Jane A., Mrs. J. Miller Booth, deceased: Thomas, who married Eliza LaRue, now deceased; Eliza, Mrs. Dr. W. Howard, a resident of Texas; Mary Elizabeth, Mrs. A. B. Watkins, the mother of our subject; James, who was married three times, and is now deceased; Samuel, deceased; William, who married Mary Ward, and is now deceased; Caroline, who died at the age of eleven years; Margaret, Mrs. Thomas King, who died in Kansas; Napoleon, who married Mary Small, and Crittenden. Of the paternal family of Mr. Ambrose Watkins, Sr., there is but one child now living: Fanny, Mrs. Elijah Barns, a widow living with her five children in Kentucky.

            The subject of our sketch was one of a family of ten children, born to his parents as follows: John, born June 30, 1845, died in infancy; Mary, born Oct. 31, 1848, the wife of James O. Rutherford, residing in Wichita, the mother of two children; Ellie, Mrs. H. H. Harris, born May 17, 1850, a resident of Derby, where her husband is Justice of the Peace; Henry C., born May 25, 1852, who married Jennie Herndon, and is a farmer of this county; William E. and a twin brother, born Sept. 9, 1854, the former of whom died in May, 1879, in Franklin County, Kan., and the latter in his infancy; Samuel W., born Oct. 16, 1856, who married Ellie Herndon, and is a grocery merchant in Derby; Ambrose B., the subject of our sketch; Robert D., born May 20, 1862, who married Edith Sickler, and is a carpenter of Derby; C. C., born March 5, 1864, and Charles P., Nov. 6, 1867.

            The subject of this sketch was reared beneath the paternal roof, and acquired a very fair education in the district schools of his native county. On attaining his majority in 1880, he started westward, to seek on the broad and fertile plains of Kansas a home for himself, and coming to Sedgwick County, was struck with the quality of the land and the beauty of the scenery, and concluded to make a farm within its boundaries. He accordingly settled where he now lives. In politics he is a Democrat, having more confidence in the principles of that party than in any other, especially on National or State issues. He is a young man of great promise, and of an energetic and progressive spirit.

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