Owin E. Edgerton, M. D., had found the reward which goes with a long and active service in the profession for the benefit of humanity. For fully thirty years he had practiced in Riley County. He had been content to serve to the best of his ability a growing circle of families, many of whom he had known since childhood, and over the year had brought him increasing success, not so much, perhaps, in the material rewards of professional endeavor as in that fine esteem which is bestowed upon the unselfish doctor.
He is almost a native of Riley County. He was two years of age when his father first came to this county in 1859, as a pioneer. His father, Asahel 8. Edgerton, was born in Indiana, and after going to Iowa married Miss Melissa Osbourn, who was also a native of Indiana. In 1859, Asahel S. Edgerton came out to Kansas and settled near Fort Riley. He was a tiller of the soil, and he left his plow in the field to return to Iowa in 1861 at the outbreak of the war, when Kansas was an unsafe place for his family to live. A year later he enlisted in the defence of the Union as a private in Company I of the Twenty-ninth Iowa Volunteer Infantry. He was with that gallant reglment in all its battles, marches and campaigns, and he was a most faithful soldier, remaining with his command until the close of the war.
In the meantime, in 1863, his wife and children had returned to Riley County, and there he rejoined them after his honorable discharge from the army. In 1866 he located in Fancy Creek Township of Riley County, and secured a farm at May Day, a village which was named by him. Asahel Edgerton was a man of much prominence in the early days of Riley County. As a business he followed farming and stock raising, and his integrity of character brought him repeated recognition in civic affairs. He was one of the leading republicans of the county. In 1876 his fellow citizens elected him a representative in the State Legislature, and he did his share of the work in the following sessions. The prosperity that came to him as a farmer enabled him to retire during his last years, and he then removed to Canton, Kansas, where he and his wife died. She passed away at the age of seventy-six and he at seventy-nine. Of their ten children, eight are still living.
Doctor Edgerton was born in Guthrie County, Iowa, October 21, 1857, and was six years old when his mother took her family back to Riley County. His early recollections are of the old homestead in Riley County, and while a country boy he attended the local schools. For his higher education he entered a once well known Kansas institution of learning at Lecompton. This was Lane University, which prepared a large number of young men for useful careers. His ambition was early directed definitely toward medicine as a career, and for two years he studied under private practitioners. Then entering the St. Louis College of Physicians and Surgeons, he was graduated with the honors of his class in 1884.
Doctor Edgerton practieed at Parkerville, Kansas, but in 1885 located at Randolph, whieh town had been the center of his professional labors now for more than thirty years. He had all the standards and attainments of a successful physician and surgeon, and had practiced to an almost entire generation of people in this county. In 1888 he interrupted his private practice for a post-graduate course in the New York Post-Graduate School of Medicine. He had been a constant student, and is an active member of the Riley County and Kansas State Medical societies and the American Medical Association.
On May 15, 1885, Doctor Edgerton married Miss Rachel L. Bacon, a daughter of Joshua and Maria Bacon. Her parents were Canadian people and Mrs. Edgerton was born in that country. Her family located in Riley County in 1882. Doctor and Mrs. Edgerton have seven children: Oliver Paul, manager of his farm near May Day, Kansas; Lyla D.; Edna M.; Howard E., who is also on his father’s farm; Lenore M.; Charles Milo; and Lois.
Doctor Edgerton had won distinction in his profession and prominence as a citizen. In manner he is unpretentious and unagguming, is strictly loyal to the principles which have governed and actuated his life, and is true as a friend and kind and affectionate as a husband and father. While a staunch republican, he had never aspired to political honors, though several local offices have been thrust upon him, including the mayoralty of Randolph and membership on the school board. He is a Master Mason.