George W. Hurd. In 1869, a few years after the close of the war in which he had fought for the Union with an Illinois regiment, George W. Hurd pioneered into Dickinson County, Kansas, and established himself on a homestead. However, during his long residence in the county and at the City of Abilene, he had been best known and distinguished as a lawyer. He was one of the pioneer members of the bar, and had long held a place of leadership in the profession and in public affairs.
Born at Lafayette, Illinois, June 20, 1846, he had recently passed the mark of three score and ten, and to some degree is lightening the professional burdens on his own shoulders and shifting them to his sons, two of whom are active lawyers. His own parents were Theodore F. and Catherine M. (Driscoll) Hurd. Theodore F. Hurd was born in 1814 at Sparta, New Jersey, a son of Stephen and Nancy (Hinchman) Hurd, natives of the same state. Theodore Hurd, who died at Galva, Illinois, in 1899, spent his active career as a merchant. It is noteworthy that he was elected a member of the Illinois Legislature from Stark County in 1860, his name as a candidate being on the same ticket as that of Abraham Lincoln, who at that time headed the republican ticket as candidate for president. Catherine M. Driscoll was born in 1824 in Connecticut and died at Galva, Illinois, in 1904. She was the mother of five children, three sons and two daughters.
George W. Hurd spent his boyhood at Galva, Illinois, attended the public schools there, and his education was still incomplete when he enlisted in Company G of the One Hundred and Thirty-second Illinois Infantry and went away to fight the battles of his country.
From the homestead which he took up when he came to Dickinson County in 1869, Mr. Hurd removed to Abilene in 1877, and opened a law office, beginning the active practice of law which he had continued ever since. In 1880 he was elected county attorney of Dickinson County, an office he held six consecutive years, by repeated elections. As a republican he had long been a forceful leader in his party in that part of the state. He had been a delegate to state conventions and otherwise had rendered yeoman’s service for the republican cause. Fraternally he is a member of Abilene Post No. 63, Grand Army of the Republic.
On April 4, 1869, the year he came to Kansas, he was married at Davenport, Iowa, to Miss Ella Frances Comstock. Mrs. Hurd was born at Little Falls, New York, April 4, 1850, and after an ideally happy married life of more than forty-five years she passed away at her home in Abilene June 3, 1915. She was a daughter of Francis A. and Anna M. (Boothroy) Comstock, who were also natives of New York. Mrs. Hurd was a very religious woman, active in church, and also long prominent in clubs and literary circles at Abilene. As a member of the Federation of Women’s Clubs she was a delegate to both state and national conventions.
Mr. and Mrs. Hurd had four children, all sons. Theo W., born May 20, 1872, died May 20, 1878. Paul, born May 20, 1875, died May 20, 1904, just at the entrance to a promising career as a lawyer, having begun practice after graduating from the law department of the University of Michigan. Arthur Hurd, who was born February 10, 1878, is also a graduate of the law department of the University of Michigan, and is now actively associated with his father in the firm of Hurd & Hurd; in 1909 he married Miss Maud Rogers, and they have two children, George Arthur and Janet. Bruce Comstock, the youngest son of Mr. Hurd, was born January 1, 1890, was graduated from the Abilene High School in 1909, and from the law department of the University of Kansas with the class of 1914, and since his admission to the bar had practiced as a junior member of Hurd & Hurd. He was married November 20, 1913, to Miss Madeline Nachtman, a daughter of Andrew Nachtman, of Junction City, Kansas, where she was born July 23, 1893.