E. A. Bachelder, a prominent farmer and stockman of Murdock township and a member of a Butler county pioneer family, is a native of New York. He was born in 1856, and is a son of Nathaniel and Rosanna Bachelder, the former a native of Vermont and the latter of Ireland. They were the parents of the following surviving children: Nathaniel, Wichita, Kans.; W. H., Wichita, and E. A., the subject of this sketch.

The father was a carpenter in early life, back East, but removed to Illinois where he engaged in farming until 1873. He then came to Kansas with his family where he also engaged in farming, giving almost his entire attention to raising wheat, which he sold at a fair price, considering the day and age, usually getting about a dollar a bushel, after hauling it to Wichita or Newton. The family lived in a box house 12x14 feet consisting of one room, when they first came to Kansas, the boys sleeping in a straw house. They found timber enough in the vicinity of their home for the frame work of the new house and other lumber, which was

used in its construction, they hauled from Newton. This house when completed consisted of four rooms and was considered one of the fine residences of that day, and frequently the young people came from a radius of thirty miles to attend dances there, Judge Mooney, the author of this work, being one of the young folks who often attended these dances.

Nathaniel Bachelder, the father, became one of the prosperous men of the community, and at the time of his death in 1903, he owned a half section of land. His wife died in 1886. E. A. Bachelder remained on the home farm until he was about twenty-five years of age when he began life for himself. In 1887, he bought 160 acres of land where he now resides and later bought another 160 adjoining it. He has met with uniform success in his farming operations and has been unusually successful in raising horses, mules and hogs, which have yielded him very satisfactory profits.

Mr. Bachelder was married in 1878, to Miss Mahala Wallace, a daughter of T. J. and Mary Wallace of Missouri. Mrs. Bachelder is one of the following children: W. D. Wallace, Benton; Mrs. Martha Cochran, Bartlesville, Okla.; Mrs. Mary Cochran, El Dorado; Mrs. Georgie McMasters, Benton, Kans.; Mrs. Rose Henry, Benton, Kans., and Mrs. Bachelder. The Wallace family were among the early settlers of Bourbon county, Kansas, locating there in 1869. In 1872, they came west, locating in Sedgwick county, then on the frontier, and Mrs. Bachelder remembers having often seen Indians wandering across the plains in bands of varying sizes.

The Wallace family suffered many hardships in those pioneer days, of which Mrs. Bachelder has a vivid recollection. She says when a girl she wore "government shoes" to school they were regular men's shoes, coarse and heavy, and she has gone to school without her dinner because there was none for her to take, but she rejoices in the fact that she has lived to see all this changed, but it is possible that the vicissitudes of these early days served a purpose. It was the acid test of endurance, and a case of the survival of the fittest. The privations of the early days were the great kindergarten of life that built character and fitted the boys and girls of the plains for the great task of building up a bigger and better industrial system of civilization than the world has ever known before.

Mr. Bachelder, while giving his own personal affairs close and careful attention, has always been able to find time to perform any duty that naturally falls to the lot of a progressive member of the community. He has taken a deep interest in education, and has served on the school board of his district for a number of years, and at present is the treasurer of Murdock township.

Mr. and Mrs. Bachelder are the parents of the following children: Roscoe, Benton, Kans.; Mrs. Stella Leap, Furley, Kans.; Floyd, married Hazel Wait, of Murdock township, and resides in Murdock township; Ira, Theodore, Waunita and Berdine, all at home.

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