Kansas

Potawatomi Reservation

Pottawatomie and Great Nemaha Agency Report, of Special Agent Reuben Sears on the Indians of the Pottawatomie, Kickapoo, Iowa, and Chippewa and Munsee reservations, Kansas, August and September 1890. Names of Indian tribes or parts of tribes occupying said reservations :(a) Prairie band of Pottawatomi, Kickapoo, [Iowa], Chippewa, and Munsee. The unallotted areas of these reservations are: Pottawatomi, 77,358 acres, or 120.75 square miles; treaties of June 5, 1846, 9 U. S. Stats, p. 853; of November 15, 1861 (12 U. S. Stats, p. 1191); treaty of relinquishment, February 27, 1867 (15 U. S. Stats, p. 531). Kickapoo, 20,273 acres, … Read more

Iowa Reservation

The Iowa Indians of Kansas and Nebraska are fairly educated, at least the younger portion of them. Nearly all of them understand the English language; many of them speak it fluently, and many of their women are well educated. They are of good physical condition. They are also free from any external evidence of venereal disease. They are vigorous and active, and in appearance temperate, although it is said many of the men will drink whenever they can get whiskey. As a rule they cultivate their farms with judgment and skill, and raise all that is necessary to supply their … Read more

Chippewa And Munsee Reservation

The Chippewa, and Munsee (Christian) Indians have almost ceased to be Indians in the ordinary acceptation of the term. They are quite equal to the average white pioneers in mental capacity. They read, write, and speak the English language at all times. Their physical condition is as good as that of the average whites about them. They have no constitutional diseases nor any results of vicious habits. They dress like the whites, cultivate the soil, and raise corn, wheat, and other crops. Nearly all of the older members of these tribes have thrifty orchards of the apple, peach, cherry, and … Read more

Biography of Frank P. MacLennan

Frank P. MacLennan is a fortunate man. Kansas is fortunate in having him as a citizen. As a youth he took from this state the raw materials which by the alehemy of a resourceful and independent mind and a vigorous ambition he transmuted into a career which has been of even greater beneflt to the state than it has been to himself. First and last Mr. MacLennan is a newspaper man. He knows how to write, especially when the subject is something not directly counected with himself. In furnishing the data to the editor of this new History of Kansas … Read more

Biography of John S. Dean

John S. Dean, of Topeka, has been a Kansas lawyer for over thirty years, was for five years United States district attorney and by the force of his ability and his acknowledged service in many capacities is undoubtedly one of the foremost living lawyers of the state. His birth occurred in Seneca County, Ohio, November 11, 1861, and he is a son of William O. and Harriet J. (Curtiss) Dean. Mr. Dean was well educated, having attended college at Oberlin and determined upon the law as a profession when quite young. He became a student in the office of Judge … Read more

Biographical Sketch of John P. Hatterscheidt

John P. Hatterscheidt, of Leavenworth County, was a German by birth who came from Cincinnati to Kansas in the spring of 1857. He did much work in the territory as an engineer and surveyor. In 1858 he served as a delegate to the Leavenworth constitutional convention. All the Germans were freesoilers and Hatterscheidt was an acknowledged leader among them. In the spring of 1859 he returned to Cincinnati, where he is reported to have died. Another account of his later years is that he made quite an impression on Abraham Lincoln when he visited Kansas; that when elected President he … Read more

Biography of Preston B. Plumb

In the words of his biographer, Preston B. Plumb was a pioneer in Kansas. He was one of the founders of Emporia. He was in the Union army, and both major and lieutenant-colonel of the Eleventh Kansas. He was long United States senator from Kansas. In the Senate he was one of the men who accomplished things. He was the father of the ides of the conservation of the natural resources of America. It was his law that created the National Forest Reserve and extended aid to irrigation and the reclamation of arid lands. Many of the laws on the … Read more

Biographical Sketch of Amos Hinsdale Plumb

Amos Hinsdale Plumb is one of the children of the late Senator Preston B. Plumb and Caroline (Southwick) Plumb. He was born at Emporia, January 31, 1869, He was educated in the public schools of Emporia and the Kansas State University at Lawrence. Mr. Plumb’s chief business activities have been in real estate and mining. He organized and is president of the Mutual Building and Loan Association of Emporia, and during 1915-17 was president of the building and loan section of the Kansas Bankers’ Association. He was married at Omaha, Nebraska, January 1, 1897, to Elva Lawrence Gibson, daughter of … Read more

Biographical Sketch of Capt. John Hamilton

Capt. John Hamilton, acting under orders from Gen. Zachary Taylor, founded Fort Scott, Kansas, in 1842. He was a native of Pennsylvania, a soldier in the regular army, and first came to Kansas as a youth of nineteen and a United States dragoon, stationed at Fort Leavenworth. In 1842, as a sergeant of the First Dragoons, under Capt. Benjamin D. Moore, he left Fort Wayne, Cherokee Nation, to assist in selecting a site and to establish a military post in Kansas. There wore twenty men in the party and, after selecting the ground, the captain and surgeon of the expedition, … Read more

Biographical Sketch of Atlantic A. Moore

Atlantic A. Moore, during the twenty-four years that he resided in Kansas, assisted in the founding of Marion County and became a familiar and respected figure in both houses of the State Legislature. He was familiarly known as “Lank” Moore. A native of Ohio, he came to Wankegan, Illinois, as a boy, living there and in Wisconsin until he “entered the government service” with his brother, as a driver of ambulances from Kansas City to Santa Fe. Not caring to settle in that part of the Southwest, they started on their return in the fall of the same year. At … Read more

Biographical Sketch of James F. Legate

James F. Legate was a leading citizen of Leavenworth for nearly forty years, and during the active period of his life few men in the state were better known in legislative affairs. He was a native of Massachusetts, born in Worcester County, November 23, 1829, in the house built by his paternal ancestor five generations preceding him, and on land deeded to that ancestry by the Engilsh government in the reign of George H. His father was a captain in command of a privateer in the War of 1812, and on both maternal and paternal sides were numerous representatives of … Read more

Biographical Sketch of David Gladstone Page

David Gladstone Page, son of Thomas Page, whose career as one of the leading millers of Kansas has been sketched on preceding pages, is a native of Topeka, and for the past fifteen years has been closely identifled with the Page milling interests of that city. He was born January 7, 1881, at the family home at 831 North Quincy Street in Topeka. His early training was acquired in the public schools, and in 1899 he graduated from the Topeka High School. After two years as a farmer he entered his father’s office in 1900, and for a number of … Read more

Biography of Thomas Page

For upwards of half a century, Thomas Page has been one of the prominent commercial figures in Kansas. With possibly one exception, he is the oldest miller in the state, and for years has been a factor in the milling and grain interests and as much as any other individual has contributed to make Topeka a center for the manufacture of flour. A native of Scotland, he was born in the little manufacturing hamlet of Dunshalt in Fifeshire, September 3, 1843. With a practical schooling he began an apprenticeship in the milling business. For some time he was employed in … Read more

Biographical Sketch of Otis B. Gunn

Otis B. Gunn was a native of Massachusetts, born at Montague, October 27, 1828, and before he came west as a railroad engineer, had served as rodman on the Hoosac Tunnel Railroad and superintendent of the construction work of the line between Rochester and Niagara Falls. In 1853 he was appointed division engineer in the building of the Toledo, Wabash and Western, and followed railroad construction westward until he settled at Wyandotte, Kansas, in 1857. He was a member of the 1861 State Senate, and while thus serving was appointed major of the Fourth Kansas, later the Tenth Kansas Infantry. … Read more

Biography of Harry R. Whittelsey

Harry R. Whittelsey, president and manager of The Whittelsey Mercantile Company, which operates a chain of grocery stores in Topeka, and is one of the largest retail grocery firms in the state. A native of Redbank, New Jersey, Harry R. Whittelsey has been a resident of Topeka since. November 1, 1881, at which time he was a boy of thirteen. He was born December 5, 1868, a son of William Channcey and Grace M. (Hindes) Whittelsey. Of the six children there were four sons, Louis, Burt, Harry and William, Jr. The Whittelsey family were very prominent in the East. Grandfather … Read more

Biographical Sketch of Luther C. Challis

Perhaps Luther C. Challis, nearly forty years a citizen of Atchison, is best known as a pioneer railroad man. He was born in New Jersey January 26, 1829, and for some years before moving West was engaged in business in Philadelphia and Boonville, Missouri. In 1855 he located in Atchison and joined his brother as one of the first merchants of that town. He afterward became a banker, and maintained a profitable ferry across the Missouri River until the building of the bridge in 1875. Mr. Challis was elected to a seat in the Territorial Council of 1857-58, made vacant … Read more

Biography of Col. Lewis R. Jewell

Various members of the Jewell family have been well known at Fort Scott and vicinity for many years. Both Col. Lewis R. and his son, by the same name, were active, and the father quite prominent, in the days of the Civil war. He came of old Massachusetts lineage, moved to Ohio early in life, and while a resident of Washington County married Susan Hutchinson. Mr. Jewell became interested in river transportation, and when he moved to St. Louis, several years before the war, was the owner of several boats plying the Mississippi and Ohio, and had reached the rank … Read more

Biography of Lewis T. Hussey

Within the limits of Kansas there is probably no better informed insurance man than Lewis T. Hussey, who is now filling the responsible position of state fire marshal at Topeka. Mr. Hussey is the only son of Jerry Hussey of Williamsburg, reference to whom is made on other pages. Born in Clermont County, Ohio, November 19, 1866, Lewis T. Hussey came with his parents to Kansas when two years old, and in his early life imbibed the spirit of Kansas prairie. His youth was spent on a farm, where he learned all the duties of a Kansas country place during … Read more

Biographical Sketch of Samuel E. Hoffman

Samuel E. Hoffman was born in Pennsylvania about 1835. He came to Kansas from Iowa, locating in Neosho Falls, Woodson County, in 1858, being the first lawyer in that section of the state. Mr. Hoffman was prominent in the early stages of statehood, being a member of the Wyandotte constitutional convention of 1859 and of the first State Senate in 1861. He was also one of the agents appointed to select lands granted to the state by the general government in 1861-62. The later years of his life were spent in St. Louis, Missouri, where he was engaged in banking.

Biography of John MacDonald

John MacDonald of Topeka has probably done more for the cause of education in Kansas than any other one man, and in saying this no disparagement is intended for the scores of men and women who have devoted much of their lives to educational work. He may well be distinguished as a pioneer in the method of reason as applied to learning. His kindly personality has left a deep impress for good, and many who have achieved distinction in the different walks of life are indebted to him for their early training. Throughout his career he has evidently been impressed … Read more