One of the well known and highly regarded citizens of Topeka, Kansas, with which state he had been practically continuously identified since 1888, is William A. Myers, who is a leading factor in and a probable candidate of the republican forces in Shawnee County. For twenty-eight years he had been a competent and faithful employe of the State of Kansas, in the state printing department, is a man of property and of personal high standing.
William A. Myers was born in 1856, in Saint Joseph County, Indiana, and is a son of Andrew and Ellen (Oliver) Myers, and a grandson of Jacob Myers, the family history extending no farther back than the Pennsylvania Dutch antecedents of the latter. Jacob Myers was born in Pennsylvania and as he married in Stark County, Ohio, it is probable that he went there in early manhood. He continued in Stark County until in early middle age, when he removed to Elkhart County, Indiana, that section then being pioncer land, almost a wilderness. He reared a family of thirteen children to maturity.
Andrew Myers, father of William A., was young when his parents settled in Elkhart County and there grew up. He learned the milling business and coutinued in the same line as long as he was active in affairs, earning the respect of all with whom he had business relations because of his industry and personal integrity. Mr. Myers still survives, bearing well the weight of eighty-one years, and makes his home with his daughter, Mrs. Ida Mather, at Westherford, Oklahoma. In 1855 he was married to Ellen Oliver, who was born in Scotland, and they had three children: William A.; Ida, who is the wife of J. D. Mather, now a banker at Westherford, Oklahoma, but formerly at Middleburg, Indiana; and one other. The mother of the above family belonged to a thrifty, industrious, talented family that settled early in Elkbart County and was a niece of James Oliver who was the famous inventor and manufacturer of the Olivor chilled plows.
William A. Myers was given a good common school education and on deciding upon a trade he chose that of printer. He was young when he went to work at the same in Mendon, Michigan, and after adequate experience returned to Indiana, some time later going into the newspaper business. He started the South Whitley Magnet, at South Whitley, Indiana, which he conducted but later disposed of and then moved to Kalamazoo, Michigan. He worked for one year on the Kalamazoo Herald. In 1888 he came to Topeka and after a few months went to Kingman, Kansas, with the expectation of locating there, but circumstances came about that led him to return to Topeka, and in December of the above year he went to work in the state printing office, under State Printer Clifford Baker. Mr. Myers had remained in the employ of the state ever since, this prohonged continuance in an office demanding education and high technical skill being creditable in the extreme.
Mr. Myers was married to Miss Mattie D. Hale, whose father was an early pioneer of Kalamazoo, Michigan. They have two daughters: Bertha, who is the wife of Lester Cluff, of Topeka; and Winnifred, who resided with her parents.
In politics Mr. Myers is a republican and he is very favorably mentioned for the office of representative in this legislative district.