C. C. Michal, for the past fifteen years, had been one of the extensive contractors in Southern Kansas, though his work had been done in various parts of the state. His home and headquarters are at Independence, where he is recognized as one of the substantial citizens. Mr. Michal went to the border with the Kansas National Guards, Company K, Second Infantry, as a sergeant and served three months.
His ancestors came originally from Ireland and were early settlers in the United States. They located very early in the nineteenth century in Western Indiana near Terre Hante, where Philip Michal, father of the Independence contractor, was born in 1828. Philip Michal was reared and married in Indiana and lived there as a farmer for many years. From that state he enlisted in 1861 as a member of the Twenty-ninth Indiana Infantry, and was in service until the close of the war. In one engagement he was wounded by a burating shell and never fully recovered from his wounds. However, he participated in some of the greatest battles and campaigns of the war, including Shiloh, Vicksburg, the march to the sea with Sherman, and all the battles of that campaign. Once he was taken prisoner and confined in the notorious Andersonville until exchanged. He was mustered out with the rauk of first sergeant. Some years after the war he left his Indiana farm and in 1882 moved to Cherryvale, Kansas, where he was an early settler and where he continued farming and stock raising until his death in 1896. He was a republican and was honored with various township offices. He was a deacon in the Dunkard Church, and a member of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows. Philip Michal married Emeline Yonce, whe was born in Indiana in 1832 and dled at Independence, Kansas, in 1908. They were the parents of ten children, and their first child, a son, died in early infancy. Elizabeth married Andrew Adamson, and they reside on a farm near Neodesha, Kansas. Sophronis, who died near Cherryvale, married Joseph Lee, a farmer. Delilah is the wife of Bert Bates, a farmer in New Mexlco. Lanta Philip travels for a contracting firm and lives in Oklahoma. Phalena died at the age of seventeen. The seventh in the family is Christopher Columbus Michal of Independence. Samuel is foreman for his brother at Independence. May, who resided at Bartlesville, Oklahoma, is the widow of Louis Liberger, who was a worker in a smelter. William is in Oklahoma.
Christopher Columbus Michal was born in Delaware County, Indiana, January 10, 1871, and was about eleven years old when the family moved to Cherryvale, Kansas. He sequired his early education partly in Indians schools and partly at Cherryvale, and spent the first eighteen years of his life on his father’s farm. Varied employment then engaged him until his marriage, after which he located on a farm at Oswego, Kansas, for a short time, and in 1900 moved to Independence. There he became foreman for Mr. Rushmore, a mason and sidewalk contractor, but in the latter part of the same year engaged in business for himself. Among the many large contracts he had efflciently carried out should be mentioned the storm sewer on South Ninth street at Independence, and the heat tunnels for the State Agricultural College at Manhattan, and for the State Normal School at Hayes. He has been very prosperous as a business man, and owned a largo amount of property in Independence, including his residence at 1001 West Main Street, an office building at the same number, another store building and some vacant property, ineluding land on the bank of the river near Independence.
Mr. Michal is a steward in the Grace Methodist Episcopal Church, and is a member of the National Union, the Frateral Aid and the Knights and Ladies of Security. Politically he is independent. On January 17, 1900, at Cherryvale, Kansas, Mr. Michal married Miss Bertha Schoettlin, a daughter of John and Mary Schoettlin, who are retired residents of Cherryvale. To their union have been born two sons: Philip and Alonzo, both now students in the public school of Independence.