Floyd E. Doubleday. It has been the fortune of Floyd E. Doubleday to realize many of his worthy ambitions, and through the exercise of good judgment and business ability to wrest from his opportunities financial and general success. For many years he has been interested in the coal industry, and at the present time is accounted one of the leading operators of Pittsburg. Mr. Doubleday was born at Italy, New York, June 23, 1859, and is a son of Guy L. and Caroline (Hobart) Doubleday.
The Doubleday family is of English origin and traces its ancestry back in America to Colonial days, when the earliest ancestor came to Massachusetts. Elisha Doubleday, M. D., the grandfather of Floyd E. Doubleday, was born in 1800, near Binghampton, New York, practiced medicine and surgery all his life in the Empire State, and died at Italy, New York, in 1865. Guy L. Doubleday was born at Italy, in 1827, and as a young man selected the profession of his father for his life work. He secured his degree from the Geneva College of Physicians and Surgeons, and continued in practice throughout his life, dying in 1870, at Italy. He was one of the most prominent men of his community, was a leading democratic politician, and at the time of his death was serving as associate judge of Yates County, New York. He was a member of the Methodist Episcopal Church. Doctor Doubleday married Caroline Hobart, who was born in 1831 at Potter, New York, and died at Penn Yan, New York, in 1908, and they were the parents of four children: Elisha, who died at the age of six months; Leander L., who came to Kansas in 1874 and lived at Columbus until 1898, where he was a banker, then went to Racine and Milwaukee and engaged in the real estate and investment business for twelve years, and finally located at Kansas City, Missouri, where he died in February, 1914; Floyd E.; and Charles E., a graduate of the Syracuse University medical department, and now a practicing physician and surgeon at Penn Yan, New York.
Floyd E. Doubleday was educated in the public schools of Yates County, New York, and the high school at Penn Yan, from the latter of which he was graduated in 1874. Two years later he came as a pioneer to Columbus, Kansas, where he secured a position in a bank and remained thus employed for four years, at that time going to Neodesha, where he was identified with a milling company for two years. Mr. Doubleday received his introduction to the coal business at Litchfield, Crawford County, Kansas, in 1882, and remained there seven years, in 1889 coming to Pittsburg, where he continued in business until 1901 as superintendent and general manager of a number of coal companies. In 1901 he removed to Lawrence, in order to give his children better educational advantages, and in 1908 went to Kansas City, Missouri, where he made his home until 1912. He then returned to Pittsburg, where he has since continued as an operator, being the owner of a mine near Areadia, in Crawford County. Mr. Doubleday’s home is at No. 708 West Euclid Avenue. He is a republican, and in fraternal affairs is affiliated with Pittsburg Lodge No. 187, Ancient Free and Accepted Masons; Pittsburg Chapter No. 58, Royal Arch Masons; Pittsburg Commandery No. 29, Knights Templar; the Ancient Order of United Workmen and the Modern Woodmen of America.
In 1880 Mr. Doubleday was married at Columbus, Kansas, to Miss Elizabeth Phelps, daughter of the late George H. and Celina (Carse) Phelps. Mr. Phelps was a well known attorney of Columbus, and Mrs. Phelps, who survives him, makes her home with her daughter and son-in-law. Mr. and Mrs. Doubleday have three children: Darlene, who resides with her parents and has one child, Elizabeth, born October 3, 1909; Carolina, who is the wife of Robert D. Yates, connected with the Underwood Typewriter Company, of Kansas City, Missouri; and Floyd E., Jr., a graduate of the Lawrence High School, who finished the junior year in engineering at Kansas University and is now engaged in business with his father. Floyd E. Doubleday, Jr., married Miss Alice Wilhelmi, and they have four children: Alice, born December 31, 1910; Floyd E. III, born May 8, 1912; Charles, born September 23, 1913; and Max, born May 18, 1915.