Samuel A. Hemphill. Youth is no bar to the handling of important responsibilities in the business field. Witness the case of Samuel A. Hemphill, aged twenty-five, who is vice president and cashier and executive head of the Nashville State Bank at Nashville, Kansas. Mr. Hemphill took up banking as a career soon after leaving school and was given executive responsibilities at a time when most young men are just laying the ground work of the business or professional career.
He was born at Pretty Prairie, Kansas, October 5, 1892. His ancestors were Scotch-Irish-Dutch people who came to America in early days and the family were pioneers in Ohio. The father, W. B. Hemphill, who still lives at Pretty Prairie, was born in Ohio in 1855, grew up there, married in Illinois, and about 1882 settled at Pretty Prairie, Kansas. He had been a farmer all his life, and though he had sold his own land he is still engaged in farming on a rented place three miles west of Pretty Prairie. He had been quite a factor in republican politics, served as deputy assessor of Reno County, and in 1910 took the census in several townships of that county. He is a very active member of the United Presbyterian Church and an elder in his home church. He married Maggie E. Rhomstock, who was born in New York City in 1852. Their family of children is as follows: Frank, a teacher living at Lamar, Colorado; Frances, twin sister of Frank, wife of A. A. Brown, a farmer at Pretty Prairie; George, in the stock and bond brokerage business at Boston, Massachusetts; Camerou, a state bank examiner living at Wichita; Haddah, wife of A. R. Cheatum, living at Moutrose, Colorado; Wylie, a farmer at Arlington, Kansas; Luella, wife of Gus Fear, who had a wallpaper and paint store at Muskogee, Oklahoma; Theo, wife of E. H. Bula, a bookkeeper in the Kingman Mills at Kingman, Kansas; Samuel A.; and Elsie, living at home with her parents.
Samuel A. Hemphill was educated in the public schools of Pretty Prairie, and at the age of about eighteen left school to enter the Spivey State Bank. There he learned the banking business through all the grades from a minor clerk to the post of assistant cashier. In 1915 he returned to the home farm, spending the summer and winter in caring for the crops and looking after the stock, and in January, 1916, became cashier of the Farmers State Bank at Adams. In June of the same year he became vice president and cashier of the Nashville State Bank, his present post.
The Nashville State Bank was established in 1907, under a state charter, with B. C. Bennett as president. The present officers are: Ben Morisse, president; S. A. Hemphill, vice president and cashier. The bank had a capital of $15,000, surplus of $10,000, and its deposits by a recent report aggregated $148,000. The interesting and significant fact about the deposits is that they have grown from $72,000 to more than double that figure since Mr. Hemphill became executive head of the bank.
He is a member of the Kansas Bankers’ Association, is a stockholder and member of oil companies, and also owned stock in the Farmers’ State Bank of Adams, Kansas. He is unmarried, but owned his home on Main Street. Mr. Hemphill is a member of the United Presbyterian Church and in politics a republican.