Lewis E. Shuler has been identified with Jewell County around the community of Lovewell the greater part of his active life. At one time he was a Lovewell merchant. His ehief interests and activities are as an agriculturist and he owned some of the best farms in that section of the state.
Mr. Shuler was born in Ogle County, Illinois, Octobor 10, 1866. In the remote ancestry he is of German stock, the Shulers having come from Germany to Pennsylvania a number of generations ago. His grandfather, William Shuler, spent many years as a farmer in Clinton County, Pennsylvania, but late in life retired and moved out to Illinois, dying in Stephenson County.
Mr. Shuler’s father was Thomas Shuler, one of the pioneers of Northern Kansas. He was born in Clinton County, Pennsylvania, July 8, 1828, was reared and married in his native county and became a blacksmith. In 1850 he moved out to Ogle County, Illinois, followed his trade there, and in 1861 enlisted in the Fifteenth Illinois Infantry. He was a gallant and faithful soldier of the Union and was in active service until the close of the war. Among the many engagements in which he participated were the battles of Shiloh, Vicksburg and the campign of Sherman from Atlanta to the sea. In March, 1871, Thomas Shuler brought his family to Kansas, locating first at White Rock in Republic County and in 1872 going to Jewell County, where he homesteaded 160 acres three miles north and a mile east of Lovewell. He proved up on that place and lived there two years, when he sold and pre-empted eighty acres in the same neighborhood. This land he occupied as a farm and home until 1898, when he retired into Lovewell and died there August 16, 1906. He was always active in the Grand Army of the Republic and at one time was an official in the Soldiers Home at Dodge City. He also served as county commissioner of Jewell County. He was a republican and a member of the Methodist Episeopal Church. Thomas Shuler marrled Elizabeth Smith, who was born in Clinton County, Pennsylvanis, November 22, 1832, and died at Lovewell, Kansas, in 1912, at the age of eighty. She was the mother of seven children: J. W., born Ocotber 28, 1852, a fruit farmer nsar Seattle, Washington; J. M., born August 3, 1854, died August 22, 1856; C. C., born April 22, 1856, is a ranchman at Chinook, Montana; Thomas, born February 12, 1859, died November 21, 1860; Salins, born November 4, 1861, and died March 25, 1895, the wife of John I. Myers, a farmer in Brazoria County, Texas; Lewis E., who is the sixth in order of birth; and Whitman E., born October 22, 1868, was a farmer, and died at Lovewell, Kansas, July 25, 1913.
Lewis E. Shuler was about five years of age when his parents moved to Kansas. He was educated in the public schools of Republic and Jewell counties, and spent the first twenty-one years of his life on his father’s farm. Mr. Shuler was an active merchant at Lovewell for fifteen years, but since 1905 had given all his time and attention to the management of his farming property. He owned tbree farms, each consisting of a quarter section, one situated a half mile south, another a mile, and the third a mile and a half southeast of Lovewell. Mr. Shuler, who is unmarried, keeps his home in town, owning a good residence at Thomas Avenue and Scott Street. In matters of politics Mr. Shuler is a republican.