Albert P. Crandall came to Western Kansas at the age of fourteen, spent many years of his active life in the railway service, had also been a farmer, and is now cashier of the Little River State Bank and had recently completed a term as mayor of that municipality. These and other interests identify him very closely and make his name well known throughout Rice County.
Mr. Crandall is of pioneer New York State stock, but the family in successive generations have moved their residence westward from the eastern side of the Alleghenies to the west of the Mississippi.
E. Crandall, father of Albert P., was born in Dearborn County in Southern Indiana in 1822. He grew up and married in his native county, took up farming, and in 1856 moved to the new state of Iowa, locating at DeWitt in Clinton County. He farmed there also and in 1868 went to Cedar Rapids, Iowa, and in 1879 to Little River, Kansas, where he had farming interests and where he lived until his death in 1888. He was a republican, a member of the Wesleyan Methodist Church and very active in its behalf and belonged to the Masonic fraternity. His wife was Minerva Laycock, who was born in Ripley County, Indiana, in 1826 and died in Little River, Kansas, in 1888, the same year as her husband. They had a large family of children: John R., who was a retired farmer when he died at Ness City, Kansas; Marilla, who died in Linn County, Iowa, in 1880, wife of Charles Crawford, a farmer who died in 1907; Indiana, who died in the spring of 1917 at Little River, had her home at Boone, Iowa, where her husband, David McConnell, is now living, a retired farmer; Thomas and Harrison both died at Little River in young manhood; S. R. is a retired farmer at Little River; Lucinda is the wife of Edward Bryan, manager of a manufacturing business at Carroll, Iowa; Lafayette was killed in a mine at Telluride, Colorado, in 1912; Albert P. is the ninth in age; A. A. is a farmer near Little River.
Albert P. Crandall was born at DeWitt in Clinton County, Iowa, January 24, 1865, and attended his first schools in the rural districts of Linn County, Iowa. He finished his education after his parents came out to Rice County, Kansas. The first twenty-one years of his life were spent peacefully and uneventfully on his father’s farm and he then entered the service of the Santa Fe Railway Company as agent. He put in twenty-one years with the company at different points in Kansas, but for fifteen years was railway agent at Little River. He left the railroad to live on and manage his farm for several years, but in 1911 became identified with the Little River State Bank as cashier, the post he still fills.
This bank was established in 1904 as a state bank by L. M. Wait. The bank had been conservatively managed and is a prosperous institution, with a capital of $15,000, surplus of $5,000 and deposits of $125 000. The bank, eligibly situated on Main Street, is officered as follows: C. C. Shumway, president; T. F. Downing, vice president; and A. P. Crandall, cashier.
Mr. Crandall is a director in the Automatic Bookkeeping Register Company at Kansas City, Missouri, and he still owned his farm of 160 acres 1½ miles north of Little River. His own home is on Kansas Avenue in Little River. His term of service as mayor of the town expires in 1917. He is a republican and is affiliated with Cofield Camp No. 1689, of the Modern Woodmen of America at Little River.
In 1890 at Ness City, Kansas, he married Miss Flora Wardlaw, daughter of J. W. and Hannah (Mow) Wardlaw. Her mother still lives in Ness City and her father, deceased, was one of the pioneer farmers in that region. Mr. and Mrs. Crandall have two children: H. C., a young and successful attorney at Lyons, Kansas; and Aubrey, who lives at home and is working in the bank under his father.