Sedgwick County KSGenWeb

Portrait And Biographical Album of Sedgwick County, Kan.

Chapman Brothers 1888

Pages 1075 - 1076

MANVILLE H. DEWING, a resident of Valley Center since the spring of 1884, came to this county from Chicago, Ill., in 1871. He had been there engaged as  collector for the firm of Moulding & Harland, and proved himself a good  business man and worthy of the confidence and esteem of the people around him.

            A native of Chautauqua County, N. Y., Mr. Dewing was born on the 22d of December, 1840, and is the son of Elihu and Orpha (Brown) Dewing, who were also natives of the Empire State. The father was a shoemaker by trade and manufactured the first pair of boots worn by himself. He occupied the shoemaker's bench for a period of thirty years, mostly in his native State. About 1859 he removed to Michigan, thence to Wisconsin, and from there to Illinois, and from there, in 1870, to this county, where his death took place in Kechi Township about 1881. He was a man of much force of character and popular among his fellow-townsmen. The year of the father's death the parents celebrated in a quiet way the fiftieth anniversary of their wedding, and the elder Dewing proudly went out into the field and finished breaking 100 acres of land at which he had previously been at work. He was of excellent constitution and enjoyed good health the greater part of his life. The mother is still living, and makes her home with her son Hubert L., who is the Vice President of the bank at Valley Center. She is now over seventy-seven years of age, but retains much of the vigor of her earlier years.

            The eight living children of the parental family include four sons and four daughters, namely: Thurston, Jane, Norman, Elmira, Manville, Rovilla, Hubert and Caroline. These are mostly residents of Kansas. Manville H., of our sketch, continued under the home roof until the breaking out of the late Rebellion, and after the family had removed to Wisconsin. He then enlisted in Company A, 4th Wisconsin Cavalry, under the command of Capt. C. E. Curtis, and participated in one battle only, at Baton Rouge, La., on the 6th of August, 1862. The term of his enlistment expiring on the 14th of October following, he was mustered out in Carltonville, that State. In the meantime he had been quite seriously injured during the collision of two steamers at the landing of Ship Island at the time of Butler's operations around New Orleans, and was confined in the hospital for about six months, from which he was taken to the boat on a stretcher and started homeward.

            Upon being released from military service Mr. Dewing made his way to Elkhorn, Wis., and from there subsequently to Milwaukee, where he made his home with his brother Norman H., and not long afterward was stricken down with smallpox, from which he endured great suffering for a period of six weeks. Upon his recovery he engaged in Chicago, and was thus occupied until his removal to this county.

            Mr. Dewing, while a resident of Illinois, was married, on the 28th of May, 1868, to Miss Esther Moulding, who was of English birth and parentage, and born in 1839. She was a child eight years of age when her parents crossed the Atlantic. They located in Kane County, Ill., and are now dead. Of this union there were born two children - Frank E. and Josephine. The mother passed from earth in January, 1874.

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