A Standard History of Kansas and Kansans Collections – Page 3 of 109

Biography of William S. Norton

William S. Norton. Whatever their environment, men of true ability have the power to raise themselves above circumstances, and apparently handicaps and difficulties act only as a spur to increase effort and accomplishment. There are few Kansas whose careers better illustrate the truth of this assertion than that of William S. Norton, who is known so well in Cherokee County as a financier and business man. Mr. Norton could review by personal recollections practically every phase of life in Southwestern Missouri and Southeastern Kansas during the last half century. He was a Union soldier during the war and the keynote … Read more

Biography of William S. Marshall

William S. Marshall, a native son of Butler County, is now one of its most successful business. men and among other interests is cashier of the State Bank of Leon, where he resided. Henry H. Marshall, his honored father, was a Butler County pioneer and one whose career deserves to be remembered by subsequent generations. He was born in Fountain County, Indiana, in 1846, his parents having come from South Carolina. He grew up in Indiana, and in 1869 married Miss Mary A. Elwell. Two years after their marriage they came out to Butler County, Kansas. In 1871 he bought … Read more

Biography of William S. Hyatt

William S. Hyatt is one of the leading corporation attorneys of Southeastern Kansas, and has handled a large and profitable practice at Parsons for the past thirteen years. He is a native of Kansas and his family have been identified with the state since the early days. The Hyatts were of Scotch descent but came from England to North Carolina in colonial times. One or more of them served with the army of the noted “Swamp Fox” of the revolution, Francis Marion. Mr. Hyatt’s grandfather, Benjamin A. Hyatt, was born in South Carolina in 1820. He grew up in that … Read more

Biography of William S. Gooch, M. D.

William S. Gooch, M. D., has practiced surgery and medicine at Mapleton, Kansas, for the past fifteen years, and in point of experience and general ability ranks as the first and leading member of the profession in that community. Doctor Gooch is a Missourian and was born at Meadville, in that state February 6, 1875. His family settled in pioneer times in Northwestern Missouri and the original stock came out of England and established themselves in Kentucky along about the close of the Revolutionary war. Doctor Gooch’s Grandfather Gideon Gooch was born in Kentucky, moved from that state to Northern … Read more

Biography of William Ross Phillips

William Ross Phillips. During a residence in Shawnee County of more than forty-five years, William Ross Phillips had proved himself one of the ablest and most resourceful farmers in the Kaw Valley. Hard work and a sober industrious life have had their rewards in this case. There is an interesting evidence of his prosperity in the shape of tax receipts. His first tax receipt in Kansas was for five dollars. In 1915 he paid in taxes on his lands $236. His farm comprises fifty acres in the home place, and 160 acres in Menoken Township, of rich bottom lands in … Read more

Biography of William Rollin Yenawins

William Rollin Yenawins. Farming has been the business of William Rollin Yenawine. He has given to that vocation the same qualities of enterprise and energy which a successful merchant gives to his store or a manufacturer to his factory. His success has followed as a matter of course. Mr. Yenawine is now the owner of “Brook Side” farm in Ashland Township of Riley County. It is said that the really busy man has more leisure than the one who pursues every undertaking with frantic haste and wastes his efforts on small accomplishment. This is perhaps the reason why Mr. Yenawine, … Read more

Biography of William Renwick Curry

William R. Curry. That American agriculture had not kept pace with other grent American industries is due mainly, in the opinion of experts and students of the subject, to lack of intelligent organization. While the problems of Amcrican farming are now being attacked with an energy never before displayed, there is no question that one of the influences that have done most and will continuo to do more to vitalize farming methods is the county agent’s movement, which furnishes at least one of the principal instruments by which better co-operation can he supplied and the available sources of information more … Read more

Biography of William R. Zook

William R. Zook (1846–?), a Civil War veteran and Kansas pioneer, was born in Indiana and later raised in Missouri. He enlisted in the Union Army in 1863, serving with the Second Nebraska Volunteer Cavalry on the Western frontier. After the war, Zook moved to Kansas in 1869, where he homesteaded in Republic County and endured the challenges of early settlement, including scarce resources and conflicts with Native Americans. Over decades, Zook became a respected landowner and retired in Cuba, Kansas. He married Nancy Casteel in 1869, and they had five children: John F., Tilly, Aaron, Alveretta, and Jessie.

Biography of William R. Thompson

William R. Thompson is a native Kansan and had given his years so far to the work of education and is now superintendent of the city schools of Halstead. Mr. Thompson was born in Brownell in Ness County, Kansas, December 23, 1884. He is of Scotch ancestry, though his forebears settled in Connecticut a number of generations ago in Colonial days. His grandfather, Joseph Thompson, was born in Athens County, Ohio, in 1829, a state in which the Thompsons were also pioneers. He spent his life there as a substantial and hard working farmer and died in 1901. The maiden … Read more

Biography of William R. Smith

One of the fine buildings bordering the State Capitol grounds at Topeka is the Kansas State Printing plant. That is the official headquarters of William R. Smith, state printer, and also secretary of the State Printing Commission and chairman of the School Book Commission of the state. Doubtless any citizen, and particularly a printer, would deem it an honor to be at the head of an establishment which experts pronounce to be the equal in mechanical equipment and operating effieiency of any commercial printing establishment in the country. When Mr. Smith went into office on July 1, 1915, he brought … Read more

Biography of William R. Reid

It was to the building of the business of the Fort Scott Grocery Company that the late William R. Reid gave the best years of his life. He was presminent as a salesman. He had the commercial integrity, candor, and enthusiasm which are the bedrock policies of salesmanship, but more than that he always justified his loyalty and confidence in the goods he sold. Moreover, wherever he went, and for nearly two score years he traveled through every section of the states of Kansas and Missouri, he carried with him the gospel of good cheer, and the citizens of numberless … Read more

Biography of William R. Murrow

William R. Murrow. Kansas, with splendid natural resources and true western energy and progressiveness, has afforded to her native sons the best of opportunities, and it is gratifying to note that the greater percentage of the younger generation representative of pioneer families has had the good judgment to pay unfaltering allegiance to the Sunflower commonwealth and to aid in the furtherance of the civic and material progress and prosperity of the state. In the thriving City of Independence, Montgomery County, such a native son is he whose name initiates this paragraph, and his prominence and influence in the business affairs … Read more

Biography of William R. Martin

William R. Martin is a native of Doniphan County, for many years was connected with a packing house at St. Joseph, and more recently had applied his efforts successfully to fruit growing and farming, which he still earries on in connection with his duties as postmaster at Wathena. His birth occurred near Wathena April 12, 1861. His full given name was William Redman Martin. Mr. Martin is descended originally from Scotch-Irish stock. There were two brothers of the name who immigrated to America during the early Colonial period, one of them settling in the North and the other going South … Read more

Biography of William R. Lott

William R. Lott. A resident of Kansas since 1893, William R. Lott came to this state to secure feeding grounds close to the central market. He had for a number of years been extensively engaged in ranching in New Mexico, and is one of the men most familiar with the life of that former territory, especially of conditions there twenty-five or thirty years ago. The fact that he went to New Mexico and sought his fortunes in a country and period where only the strong and the courageous survive is suffleient to indicate the independence and enterprise of Mr. Lott. … Read more

Biography of William R. Alexander

William R. Alexander is a native of Jefferson County, Kansas, and his life had been spent there profitably to himself and to the community, partly as a teacher, and for a number of years as a successful bridge builder. He is now serving his second term as county surveyor. Mr. Alexander was born on his father’s farm in this county March 13, 1863. He is of Scotch ancestry. His grandfather, William Alexander, was a native Scotchman, but left that country when a boy and was a pioneer settler at Old Sweetwater, Tennessee. He followed the trade of mechanic and wheelwright for … Read more

Biography of William Q. Elliott

William Q. Elliott, who joined the pioneers of Rice County in the early ’70s, had been one of the conspicuous men in that section of the state for many years. His sturdy energy as a farmer brought him liberal rewards, and he had used his means and influence to do good in many directions. He sent a large family of children into the honorable walks of life, had stanchly upheld the forces of religion and morality in his home community and state, and at the age of fourscore his usefulness still continues, especially manifesting itself in his official work with … Read more

Biography of William Potter Campbell

There had been no period in the long and significantly active, vigorous and varied career of Judge Campbell in which there had been any possibility of submerging his incisive individuality. As a youthful and gallant soldier of the Union in the Civil war, as a lawver and jurist, as a man of large and benignant influence in public affairs and as one of the honored pioneers of Kansas he had left a record that shall ever refiect honor upon his name and memory. He had been most elosely and influentially associated with civis and material development and progress in the … Read more

Biography of William Peyton Waggener

William Peyton Waggener, only son of Hon. Balie Peyton Waggener, had followed in the footsteps of his father in the profession of law, and had attained enviable rank and prominence in the profession at Atchison. He was born at Atchison June 18, 1870, and grew up in his native city, where he attended the public schools and St. Benedict’s College. In 1887 he graduated from the Military School at Boonville, Missouri, and for two years was a student in Midland College at Atchison. He then entered the law office of his father and after a careful preparation was admitted to the bar … Read more

Biography of William Peterson

William Peterson, during the last years of his life, lived retired with his wife in a comfortable home at Randolph in Riley County. He had a remarkable range of experience. A native of Sweden, he came to the United States a poor man. He had hardly become accustomed to American ways before he entered the army to fight for his adopted land. Three years of gallant and faithful service as a Union soldier are to his credit. Nearly fifty years ago he came out to the new State of Kansas. He was a homesteader and for years a successful farmer … Read more

Biography of William Paxton Hazen

William Paxton Hazen, who died at Chetopa, Kansas, April 16, 1909, was for many years a successful Kansas banker. His widow, Mrs. Addie (Glass) Hazen, who survives him, is widely known in women’s circles in Kansas, and is especially active in charitable and philanthropic enterprises in her home city. Mr. Hazen died when at the high tide of his usefulness. He was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, July 10, 1858. His father, David Hazen, was a lawyer by profession, practiced for many years in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, but died in Erie, Kansas. Mr. Hazen’s maternal grandmother, Mary Ewing, had her pew in … Read more