Sedgwick County KSGenWeb

Portrait And Biographical Album of Sedgwick County, Kan.

Chapman Brothers 1888

Pages 979 - 980 

JOHN FARMER. Prominent among the real-estate dealers of Wichita is Mr. Farmer. He is of an excellent old family of English birth and descent, and who at a later day settled in the seaport town of Tralee, County Kerry, Ireland. They were Orangemen, loyal to the Government, and eminently respectable and well‑to-do. Farmer's Bridge, of County Kerry, Ireland, was named after this family. Such great confidence had the Government in them that they were allowed to carry firearms, and there were among them several who distinguished themselves as brave soldiers. Miss Alice Hoffey, cousin of the maternal grandmother of our subject, married Lord White, to whom she was given in consideration of her weight in gold. The Right Honorable Morris Fitzgerald, of Ireland, was an uncle by marriage to Mr. Farmer. He was wealthy and died without heirs.

            Richard Farmer, the father of our subject, was born in County Kerry, and came with his parents to Canada some time in the first quarter of the present century, and when he was but an infant. He was reared in New Brunswick, and when a young man migrated to Guelph, Province of Ontario, where he subsequently married Miss Ann, daughter of John Hans, of Guelph. They became the parents of eleven children: Mary, John; William H., who died when a young man; Alfred J., Charles, Esther L., Frederick W., Morris, Hattie, and two who died in infancy.

            The elder Farmer was a wheelwright by trade, and continued a resident of Guelph for many years. In 1870 he sought the far West, removing with his family across the Mississippi to Southern Kansas, and pre-empted a homestead in this county one mile south of the present city of Wichita. He lived to be sixty-three years of age, and passed to his eternal rest in the spring of 1881. He accumulated considerable property, real estate which has since become valuable. Upon becoming a naturalized citizen he identified himself with the Republican party, and was a member in good standing of the Episcopal Church. The mother of our subject is still living. The brothers and sisters of Mr. Farmer were seven in number, of whom all except one are living in Wichita. One sister is living in Belle Plaine, Sumner Co., Kan.

            John Farmer, of our sketch, was born March 6, 1849, at the homestead of his parents in Wellington County, Canada, and came with the family to Kansas in 1870, when twenty-one years of age. He had received a good common-school education, and during a comparatively brief residence in Pennsylvania had served an apprenticeship at the carpenter's trade. Soon after his arrival in this State he commenced working at his trade, and assisted in building the first frame house put up in Wichita. In 1874 he was united in marriage with Miss Jessie A., daughter of J. P. and Elizabeth (West) Chapman, of Wichita, which union resulted in the birth of six children, namely: Henry, Ella, George, Pearl F., Ross and Alice.

            In 1872 Mr. Farmer purchased a farm of 140 acres in Delano Township, upon which he operated successfully until 1887. Then selling out, he purchased real estate in Wichita, to which he removed and built a comfortable residence at the corner of Hewett and Elm avenue. He is now a dealer in real estate. Politically, he is a Republican.

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