Edward Montieth Moore, vice president and manager of the Hutchinson Office Supply and Printing Company, is one of the veterans of the newspaper and printing industry at Kansas, and in point of continuous service is one of the oldest men connected with the Hutchinson Daily News.
Mr. Moore had spent most of his life in Kansas and is a son of the late Rev. D. M. Moore, D. D., one of the pioneer ministers of the Presbyterian Church in this state. Edward Montieth Moore was born at Greenfield, Ohio, April 27, 1861. His grandfather, Samuel Moore, was a native of Scotland, where he married a Miss Montieth. They came to America and settled on a farm in Ohio, where the grandfather died in 1865.
The late Rev. D. M. Moore was born in Cortsville, Mahoning County, Ohio, January 2, 1824. He grew up in his native state and graduated from the academy at Darlington, Pennsylvania, and also from Western University of Pittsburg, Pennsylvania. He graduated from Lane Seminary of Cincinnati at the age of twenty-three, one of the youngest graduates that seminary ever had. Later in life he received the Doctor of Divinity degree from Lane Seminary at Cincinnati. He did his first work as a minister in a country church in Brown County, Ohio, and his first charge was at Greenfield, Ohio, later was at Yellow Springs, and in 1868 came to Kansas, locating at Lawrence, where he was pastor of the New School Presbyterian Church several years. While there he consolidated the two Presbyterian churches of the city. In 1873 he came to Hutchinson, and was the first regularly ordained and installed minister of any church in Reno County. For a number of years he was pastor of the Presbyterian Church of Hutchinson, and his life represented an immense aggregate of work done in the cause of the church and humanity. He died at Hutchinson August 2, 1900. Politically he was a republican, and both at Lawrence and at Hutchinson he served as a member of the school board. His first wife was Miss Ellen McMillian, daughter of Captain McMillian, of Ripley, Ohio, who a year after their marriage died, leaving no children. For his second wife he married Mary Ann Ellison, who was born at Union Furnace, Ohio, August 11, 1834, and is now living, at the advanced age of eighty-three, in Hutchinson. She was the mother of three children: Mary Emma, wife of E. L. Meyer, president of the First National Bank of Hutchinson; W. E., who was a zinc manufacturer and died at Chicago in 1915; and Edward M.
Edward M. Moore received his early education in the public schools of Lawrence and Hutchinson, and for one year, 1877, attended old Wabash College at Crawfordsville, Indiana. In 1875, at the age of fourteen, he was apprenticed to learn the printing business on the old Hutchinson News while it was under the management of Fletcher Meredith. After leaving college he resumed his connection with this paper and was employed there until 1882. In that year he became shipping clerk of the Illinois Zinc Company at Peru, Illinois; but in 1886 returned to Hutchinson, where for six months he conducted a plumbing establishment and then went back to his first love, the Hutchinson News.
When W. Y. Morgan organized the Hutchinson News Company in October, 1895, Mr. Moore became owner of a fifth of the stock and still had that stock and is a director of the company. For a number of years his connection with the Hutchinson News had been largely in a business capacity, though he also had some of the credit for making the News one of the largest and most influential papers of Kansas.
Mr. Moore did much to develop the office supply business of the Hutchinson News Company, and for several years traveled on the road making contracts and placing these supplies. Then in 1910 he assisted in organizing the Hutchinson Office Supply and Printing Company, of which he is vice president and manager, with Mr. W. Y. Morgan president and George Hausam secretary and treasurer. While this business is a direct outgrowth of an old department of the Hutchinson News plant, it had since been developed as a large and important business, occupying independent offices in the plant at 100, 102 and 104 Sherman Avenue, East. This company supplies everything needed in offices, from pen points to a safe, and manufactures large quantities of blank books and general stationery and office supplies. One of its specialties is the manufacture and dealing in records and other supplies for county offices. The trade had been built up until it now covers the states of Kansas, Colorado, New Mexico and Oklahoma.
Mr. Moore is a republican of the old school. He is a member of the United Commercial Travelers and is a past grand councillor of that order. He was one of the charter members and for a number of years held the post of treasurer in the Hutchinson Commercial Club, and for his services to that organization had been made an honorary member. He is also a member of the Country Club, of the Rotary Club, and Hutchinson Lodge No. 453, Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks. Mr. Moore built a modern residence in 1900 at 527 Avenue A, East, and also owned three other dwelling houses in the city.
In 1893, at Hutchinson, he married Miss Clara McInturff. She died at Hutchinson in 1908, leaving no children. In August, 1911, at Shelbyville, Indiana, he married for his present wife Miss Belle Rice, daughter of George and Elizabeth (Shrink) Rice. Her father was a contractor, now deceased, and Mrs. Rice lives with Mr. and Mrs. Moore.