Kansas

Biography of Eugene Hipple

Eugene Hipple is one of the enterprising young business men of Hutchinson, and is actively identified with the extensive grain and other business interests controlled by his father, Frank E. Hipple, one of Hutchinson’s business leaders for many years. The Hipple family is of Holland-Dutch ancestry and settled in Pennsylvania during Colonial times. Eugene Hipple’s great-grandfather was George Hipple. He was born in York County, Pennsylvania, November 27, 1790, and was a farmer by occupation. In 1841, with wagon and team, he moved across the country to Eden, Delaware County, Ohio, and lived on his farm there until his death … Read more

Biography of Albert L. Egy

Albert L. Egy. A retired cattleman and a bank director at Newton, A. L. Egy had had many interests to identify him with Harvey County, in which part of Kansas he had spent all the years of his life since early boyhood. Albert Lorenzo Egy was born at Wenona, Illinois, September 9, 1863. Going back several generations to his great-grandfather, the family came from Germany. His father, the late Solomon Egy, was a prominent pioneer of Harvey County. Born in Washington County, Pennsylvania, December 31, 1827, he grew up in that rugged and historic section of the Keystone State, afterwards … Read more

Biography of Claude Lathrop Cole

Claude Lathrop Cole, principal of the Reno County High School at Nickerson, had been identified with educational work and administration in Kansas for the past four years, but his teaching experience covers almost twenty years and in a number of the Middle Western states. Wherever he had been it had been the testimony that Mr. Cole had been successful in giving vitality and increased efficiency to the schools under his direction, and such had been the character of his work that he deserves the name educator as an appropriate means of distinguishing him from one who merely teaches or administers … Read more

Biography of Louis Bodwell Burt

Louis Bodwell Burt, county clerk of Wabaunsee County, and also president of the State County Clerks’ Association, had for many years been an active figure in this county’s educational and civic affairs. He is a hard worker, is faithful and attentive to his official duties and a man whose ability and service command universal respect. Mr. Burt is of English ancestry. His people were early settlers in the State of Kansas. Mr. Burt was born at Wabaunsee in Wabaunsee County, Kansas, January 7, 1882, son of George S. Burt. His father’s people were early settlers in the State of Wisconsin. … Read more

Biography of Charles B. Lines

Charles B. Lines was born in New Haven, Connecticut, March 12, 1807, was a self-educated and self-made man, having never attended school and was thrown on his own responsibility when a boy. He started out to be a sailor but gave it up and entered the cabinet business when thirteen years of age. He had told his grandsons how his boss would come around and tell him to push his planes faster. Although he was quite successful in business he took time for public affairs. While in the cabinet and undertaking business he placed Noah Webster in his coffin, also … Read more

Biography of John R. Beeching

John R. Beeching is a lawyer and since 1910 had been accumulating a large general practice and a rising reputation at the bar of Hutchinson. Mr. Beeching is a native Kansan, and represents a pioneer family in Rush County, where he was born February 19, 1884. His grandfather, Charles Beeching, was an Englishman, born in 1830, was a mechanic by trade, and on coming to America first settled in Connecticut and afterwards moved to Huntington, Indiana, where he died in 1898. Perry Beeching, father of the Hutchinson lawyer, was born in Connecticut in 1858. He was reared at Huntington, Indiana, … Read more

Biography of Samuel A. Hemphill

Samuel A. Hemphill. Youth is no bar to the handling of important responsibilities in the business field. Witness the case of Samuel A. Hemphill, aged twenty-five, who is vice president and cashier and executive head of the Nashville State Bank at Nashville, Kansas. Mr. Hemphill took up banking as a career soon after leaving school and was given executive responsibilities at a time when most young men are just laying the ground work of the business or professional career. He was born at Pretty Prairie, Kansas, October 5, 1892. His ancestors were Scotch-Irish-Dutch people who came to America in early … Read more

Biography of William F. Schoch

William F. Schoch, state senator and former probate judge of Shawnee County, is one of the prominent lawyers of Kansas and had practiced his profession in Topeka for over twenty years. One of the cardinal rules of his life had been that whatever is worth doing at all is worth doing well. Whether as school teacher, farmer, lawyer, political leader, public official, or in the prosecution of his various other interests, Mr. Schoch had applied this rule so faithfully and with such results that he had long stood among the leaders of the bar and in citizenship in Kansas. Practically … Read more

Biography of B. A. Welch

B. A. Welch, a native of Kansas, had been a prominent citizen of Kingman County for many years, is a former clerk of the District Court, was a farmer in early life, and for the past ten years had been active in the State Bank of Kingman, in which he is now cashier and active head. Mr. Welch was born at Valley Center, Kansas, September 8, 1876. He comes of a pioneer Pennsylvania family. His great-grandfather fought as a soldier in the Revolutionary war. His grandfather, Josiah Edward Welch, was a soldier in the War of 1812. He afterwards went … Read more

Biography of Walter E. Wilson

Walter E. Wilson, banker and business man at Washington, is the present bank commissioner of Kansas. His appointment had brought additional credit upon Governor Capper’s administration as one of those that reflect thorough business administration of state affairs. A native of Kansas and of a pioneer family, Mr. Wilson was born at Manhattan August 21, 1871. He is of an old Virginia family, the Wilsons having come from England and first settled at Jamestown in Colonial times and afterwards moving to the western portion of the state in what is now West Virginia. Their affiliations were all with the North … Read more

Biography of Albert A. Hilliard

Albert A. Hilliard is a native of Harper County, son of the oldest living pioneer around Attica, and had made his mature years count chiefly in the field of banking, in which he had a broad experience. He is now cashier of the First National Bank of Attica. Mr. Hilliard was born in Harper County at the old homestead three miles cast of Attica April 10, 1884. His first American ancestor was his grandfather, John Hilliard, who was born in Ireland and when a young man came to New York State and about sixty years ago settled at Wilmington, Illinois, … Read more

Biography of Edward F. Erbacher

Edward F. Erbacher is manager of the Kingman Mills of the Kansas Flour Mills Company. He was promoted to that responsibility when a little past his thirtieth birthday, and at the time of his promotion was the youngest man among the many employed in the plant. The Kingman Mills are among the largest and best equipped flour mills of Kansas. Mr. Erbacher belongs to a prominent family of business men of St. Mary’s, Kansas, where he was born February 17, 1887. His father is Mr. John Erbacher, who was born in Germany in 1856, and was chiefly educated there. Coming … Read more

Biography of Joseph Chesky

Joseph Chesky has had his home in Kansas nearly forty years, and is one of the old time business men of Nickerson. Though retired from the mercantile field in which his activities were engaged for so many years, he is still a man of affairs in that community and is president of the Nickerson State Bank and is one of the largest land holders in Reno and adjoining counties. In this outstanding figure of Nickerson is represented the Province of Posen, Prussia, Germany, where Mr. Chesky was born February 6, 1853. His father, John Chesky, spent his life in Posen, … Read more

Biography of Clark A. Wallace

Clark A. Wallace. Official honors and responsibilities have come rapidly to Clark A. Wallace, and practicaly all the time since he began the practice of law at Kingman five years ago had been taken up by public work, at first as probate judge and now as county attorney. Three generations of the Wallace family live at Kingman. The oldest is his grandfather, Richard Henry Wallace, who was born in Kentucky in 1841, descended from a family that came out of Scotland to the United States in Colonial times. Richard H. Wallace was a farmer all his active life, and lived … Read more

Biography of Henry Brandley

Henry Brandley was born in Switzerland October 12, 1839, and died at his beautiful home at Matfield Green in Chase County June 1, 1910. When he was about twelve years of age his parents came to America, being fifty-two days in crossing the ocean. In 1852 the family settled in Cincinnati, where he finished his education and worked at the painter’s trade. In 1856 the Brandleys moved to Randolph. County, Indiana, and there the young man had further experience as a farm hand, in a shingle mill, as rail maker and digger of ditches. In the spring of 1859 he … Read more

Biography of R. T. Updegraff

R. T. Updegraff has been perhaps the leading individual factor in the commercial and business development of the Town of Maple Hill in Wabaunsee County for the past thirty years. Mr. Updegraff came to Kansas after completing his education, and the vigor and enterprise which characterized his early life in this state have borne abundant fruit in several different lines. Mr. Updegraff was born at Mount Pleasant, Ohio, November 28, 1862. He is of old Quaker family, the religion of the Friends having received the allegiance of the Updegraffs for many generations. The Updegraffs first came out of Holland in … Read more

Biography of H. H. Smith

H. H. Smith. Republic County had its share of men who have stepped aside from the path of labor to let the younger generation, with their clear-cut hopes and unrealized ambitious and to whom life is still a vast and unexplored country, pass on. This turning aside may mean much or little to the individual whose business tasks are finished, but if he had come from a small beginning and had worked his own way to independence and position there will always be those who would exchange with him success, as represented by a mere aggregation of wealth. H. H. … Read more

Biography of George Wagner

George Wagner, whose home is near Beloit in Mitchell County, is one of the men who bore the heat and burden of the day in introducing civilization to this section, and when the many hardships and vicissitudes encountered by him and his fellows are recalled it seems that no reward in comfort and circumstances could be too great for his declining years. Mr. Wagner is one of the few early settlers who still retain and reside on their first homestead. On coming to Kansas Mr. Wagner migrated from Adams County, Illinois, spent a short time at Selina, where he arrived … Read more

Biography of Byron Jennings Carver

Byron Jennings Carver, who served as county attorney for Miami County from 1913 to 1917, had not only proved his ability on many occasions as an able lawyer, but also as a forceful man of affairs and one who is willing to fight for his convictions and his position as to right. Mr. Carver had a hard struggle to get into the legal profession, being a poor young man and having to teach and struggle along at the same time that he was studying and qualifying for the bar. He is a native of Indiana, having been born at Franklin … Read more

Biography of Mrs. James Atkins

Mrs. James Atkins presided over one of the fine homes of El Dorado and had long been prominent socially in that city. Mr. James Atkins is an honored veteran of the Civil war, one of the earliest settlers of Butler County, and though he began life in the West with little more than his courage and the labor of his hands he now had abundance and deserves both his leisure and his success. Mrs. Atkins was born at Louisville, Kentucky, December 11, 1864. Her maiden name was Eva J. Pool. Her parents were Anthony and Matilda J. (Bennett) Pool. In … Read more