Sedgwick County KSGenWeb

Portrait And Biographical Album of Sedgwick County, Kan.

Chapman Brothers 1888

Pages 435- 436

JOHN T. STOUT, one of the leading farmers and capitalists of Sedgwick County, owns a tract of land on section 10, in Wichita Township, valued at $100,000. Forty acres of this are laid off into town lots, and the remainder is still being devoted to agriculture. He came west of the Mississippi in the fall of 1879, renting a house at $20 per month, where he located his family, and then embarked in the dairy business, which he followed one and one-half years, and sold out for the snug sum of $940.

             About the next move which Mr. Stout made was the re-purchase of his dairying business and the land at $700. He rented fifty acres three miles northeast of the city of Wichita, upon which he operated one year, and in March, 1881, purchased the quarter-section which he now owns for $3,000. The rapid growth of the city, and his own good management, have made of Mr. Stout now an independent man.

             The boyhood days of our subject were spent in Licking County, Ohio, where his birth took place April 1, 1840. He is the son of Benjamin and Jane E. (Wathan) Stout, natives respectively of Virginia and Maryland. Both the parents passed away in the year 1884, at the home of their daughter in Peoria, Ill. They were members of the Methodist Episcopal Church, and the father followed farming all his life. John T. received a practical education, and continued with his parents until reaching his majority, assisting in the labors of the farm. He then commenced on his own account as a coal miner, at which he employed himself five years near Peoria, Ill. He next rented a tract of land in Tazewell County, Ill., where he followed farming nine years, and until the fall of 1879, when he changed his residence to this county.

             Mr. Stout, while a resident of Peoria, contracted matrimonial ties with Miss Hannah Lower, the wedding taking place at the home of the bride in Tazewell County, Ill., Aug. 14,1862. Mrs. Stout was born in Utica, Fulton Co., Ill., Feb. 1, 1840, and is the daughter of Robert E. and Hannah (Enoch) Lower, natives of Virginia, and now deceased. Their eleven children were named: Madison, William, George, Page, Henry, John, Elizabeth, Julia, Mary, Harriet and Hannah. Of these eight are living, and residents of Illinois, Missouri and Ohio.

             Mr. and Mrs. Stout commenced life together in Tazewell County, Ill.; our subject in the near future contemplates putting up a fine dwelling, and otherwise completing the plans for a homestead which he has long had in view. He is a member in good standing of the Methodist Episcopal Church, and politically he is a stanch Democrat. Besides the property which he occupies he has ten lots in the heart of the city, valued at $10,000. For these he expects to get an even higher price than this, when ready to dispose of them.

             To Benjamin and Jane E. Stout, the parents of our subject, there were born the following children: Jacob, Susan and Grant died in infancy; Alvin, Nicholas, John T., Miranda, Mary, Julia, Helen, Lansing, Calvin and Cora lived to mature years.

             The six children of Mr. and Mrs. Stout are: Joanna, John H., Marietta F. (who died July 23, 1884, aged fifteen and one-half years), Isabella, Luella and Violetta.

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