Atchison Kansas

Biographical Sketch of H. A. Lewis

H. A. Lewis, grain dealer, was born in Georgia December 7, 1859; attended an academy, also St. Benedict College, Atchison, Kan. Came to Jewell City in August, 1872, and engaged in the grain business, and is also purchasing grain in Mankato. Mr. Lewis was in the grain business with his father in Atchison for six years. Is a member of the Odd Fellows’ Lodge, and K. of P. Mr. Lewis has just branched out in business for himself, and is working up a good trade. He is young and enterprising, and will come to the front in the commercial world.

Biography of James M. Chisham

James M. Chisham. Perhaps no one had been more closely identified with the public affairs and public ntilitias of Atchison than Mr. James M. Chisham, who is now superintendent of the Atchison Water Company. For a number of years he filled official positions in the city’s government, and helped make Atchison a city of medern improvements, including paved streets, and possessed of those public utilities which are insoparable from health and convenience. He is an old resident of Atchison, having come to the city when a child. He had fought his own way to success. He was born in Randolph … Read more

Biography of Chester E. Hunsaker

Chester E. Hunsaker is editor of the Everest Enterprise at Everest in Brown County. The Enterprise is now in its twenty-ninth volume. It was first published on March 9, 1888, having been founded in that year by T. A. H. Lowe. It is a weekly paper and had a large and influential circulation in that section of Brown County. Mr. Hunsaker is one of the younger editors of Kansas, and had spent most of his life in this state. He was born at Tarkio in Northwest Missouri July 4, 1891. His ancestors were Colonial settlers from England in New York. … Read more

Biography of Marcus A. Low

No intelligent resident of Kansas would dispute the assertion that in Marcus A. Low, of Topeka, is found one of the really big men of the state. He is a man of many achievements. His ability in the law had led to distinguished position with great corporations; his ranching and developing of oil and gas properties have been conducted on so large a scale as seemingly might have been weighty enough interests to engage the ordinary man; his political foresight and intnition have caused his selection for public office as high as he would accept, but not upon these evidences … Read more

Biography of Albert C. Berger

Albert C. Berger is the founder and president of the Atchison Leather Products Company, one of the newer industries of the city, but one which adds to the distinction of Atchison as a manufacturing and disprosperity of the community, since its goods go over a large territory and the business furnishes employment to many hands. Mr. Berger is one of the forceful and enterprising tributing point, and it is a factor in the commercial younger men of Kansas. He came here in his twenties and was born in Williamsport, Pennsylvania, October 25, 1885. His father, Albert Berger, Sr., was born … Read more

Biographical Sketch of Luther C. Challis

Perhaps Luther C. Challis, nearly forty years a citizen of Atchison, is best known as a pioneer railroad man. He was born in New Jersey January 26, 1829, and for some years before moving West was engaged in business in Philadelphia and Boonville, Missouri. In 1855 he located in Atchison and joined his brother as one of the first merchants of that town. He afterward became a banker, and maintained a profitable ferry across the Missouri River until the building of the bridge in 1875. Mr. Challis was elected to a seat in the Territorial Council of 1857-58, made vacant … Read more

Biography of Edgar Watson Howe

Edgar Watson Howe. Kansas journalism had produced several men whose names are household words in America. By no means least among them in attainments and influence is Edgar Watson Howe, founder of the Atchison Globe, for many years its editor and publisher, and now in his semi-retirement publishing Howe’s Monthly. His many colleagues and admirers in the newspaper profession have for years been accustomed to referring to him as “Old Ed Howe.” As a matter of fact he is not even now an old man. Mr. Howe was born near Treaty, Indiana, May 3, 1854, and is of English descent. … Read more

Biography of Edward C. Willis

Edward C. Willis, superintendent of the State Orphans Home at Atchison, is a graduate of Dartmouth College and came to kansas nearly forty years ago with the equipment and training of a oultured New Englander. His work in this state had been largely of an educational nature, and he had taught, had been superintendent of schools, and was finally appointed to his present post at Atchison, where he had served with the exception of two years since 1907. Nearly all of Mr. Willis’ ancestors were colonial families of New England. The Willis family came originally from the northern part of … Read more

Biography of Damian Lavery, Rev.

Rev. Damian Lavery, director of St. Benedict’s College at Atchison, is a graduate of that institution and had been actively connected with it as an instructor since his ordination as a priest fourteen years ago. Father Lavery was born in Benson, Vermont, February 17, 1878, but had lived in Kansas since early infancy. His father, John Lavery, who was born in Connanght, Ireland, in 1835, came to this country when a young man, located in Vermont, was married there, and for many years followed his trade as a mechanic and employment as a railroad man. In 1879 he brought his … Read more

Biography of A. Beauchamp

A. Beauchamp. More than thirty years ago A. Beauchamp entered the service of the Chicago, Burlington & Quiney Railway at Atchison as car clerk, and had been continnously with that road, being now one of the veteran employees, and by successive promotions now handles the responsibilities of local agent for the company at Atchison. Mr. Beauchamp is a native of Kansas, and was born in Doniphan County September 15, 1856. That date indicates the pioncer residence of the family in this state. He was born four years before Kansas became a state. It was in the border epoch of Kansas … Read more

Biographical Sketch of Samuel C. Pomeroy

Samuel C. Pomeroy, one of the leaders of Kansas in the times of her free-state travail whose political ambition overleaped his sense of honor, was born in Southampton, Massachusetts, January 3, 1816. When a young man be became strongly imbued with antislavery sentiments. He happened to be present when President Pierce signed the Kansas-Nebraska bill, and is said to have remarked to the nation’s chief executive: “Your victory is but an adjournment of the question from the halls of legislation at Washington to the open prairies of the Freedom-loving West, and there, sir, we shall beat you.” So earnest was … Read more

Biography of Willis J. Bailey

Willis J. Bailey, who was governor of Kansas from 1903 to 1905, had been a resident of the state since 1879 and had long stood as a leader in agricultural affairs, as a banker, and as a member of the republican party. His home is now in the City of Atchison, where he is vice president and managing officer of the Exchange National Bank. His administration as governor of Kansas is made the subject of some paragraphs in an appropriate place on other pages of this history. The following is intended merely as a biographical statement of his career and with some … Read more

Biography of Alexander E. Mayhew

The rewards of purity in public life are many, but one of the most important and apparent is continuance in public life. This is true everywhere, and of course it is true in Idaho, where the fact is emphasized and illustrated by the career of Judge Mayhew of Wallace, Shoshone County, Idaho. At least he lives at Wallace, but he is a man of the west and for the west, and his influence is active and far-reaching. Alexander E. Mayhew, son of Samuel and Elizabeth (Conklin) Mayhew, was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, March 31, 1830. His father, a native of … Read more

Biography of Joseph L. Eyman, Dr.

Joseph L. Eyman, M. D. In the profession of medicine and surgery few Kansas physicians have dispensed their services more widely and more successfully than Dr. Joseph L. Eyman of El Dorado, He is a most loyal Kansan. Coming to the state when a child with his parents, he began the practice of his profession twenty-one years later and had witnessed the gradual change and transformation which have made Kansas a highly developed agrienltural and industrial section from what was within his personal recollection an open prairie. Doctor Eyman had traveled over many of the states of the Union, and … Read more

Biography of Lester M. Crawford

Lester M. Crawford of Topeka is one of the men of remarkable enterprise in a state which for years had been in the habit of contributing enterprise, ideas, principles for the vitalizing and regeneration of the world. He is perhaps best known as the owner and lessee of a chain of theaters in a dozen or more cities of Kansas and other states. He had done more than any other man to bring artistic talent to Topeka and other cities of the state. A theatrical man is not often a pioneer in agriculture, but the readers of that old agricultural … Read more

Biographical Sketch of Rev. Gerard Heinz O. S. B.,

Rev. Gerard Heinz, O. S. B., pastor of St. Benedict’s Catholic Church at Atchison, had for almost forty years been connected with the Catholic institutions of this city as student, teacher, director and, pastor. Father Heinz was born in Chicago, Illinois, July 11, 1864. a son of Nicholas Heinz, who died in that city in 1876, at the age of fifty. Father Heinz lived in Chicago during the time of the great fire in 1871. While there he attended paroehial schools, but in 1877, at the age of thirteen, entered St. Benedict’s College at Atchison. He pursued the classical, philosophical and theological … Read more

Biography of Samuel V. Fraser, Rev.

Rev. Samuel V. Fraser. One of the younger members of the Roman Catholic clergy in Kansas is Rev. Samuel V. Fraser, pastor of the Church of the Immaculate Conception at Minneapolis, who in this, his first charge, had shown that he possesses with the dignity of his high calling Christian zeal, tempered with the knowledge of and sympathy for human frailty, that had endeared him to his parishioners, had won him the respect of his fellow citizens in general and promises to so increase his influence that it is certain that a rich field of usefulness awaits his future. Father … Read more

Biography of W. S. Ferguson

W. S. Ferguson is secretary and treasurer of The Locomotive Finished Material Company of Atchison, one of the most important industries of the city. Mr. Ferguson had been identified with Kansas and Atchison for over thirty years, and throughout that time had been connected with the foundry and manufacturing business in different capacities. He is now the oldest executive official in point of continuous service of The Locomotive Finished Material Company. He represents an old and honored family name in the City of Alton, Illinois, where he was born January 16, 1861. The Fergusons for several generations were linen drapers … Read more

Biography of William Peyton Waggener

William Peyton Waggener, only son of Hon. Balie Peyton Waggener, had followed in the footsteps of his father in the profession of law, and had attained enviable rank and prominence in the profession at Atchison. He was born at Atchison June 18, 1870, and grew up in his native city, where he attended the public schools and St. Benedict’s College. In 1887 he graduated from the Military School at Boonville, Missouri, and for two years was a student in Midland College at Atchison. He then entered the law office of his father and after a careful preparation was admitted to the bar … Read more

Biography of Albert A. Robinson

There are any number of sufficient reasons why a sketch of Albert A. Robinson should have an important place in the history of Kansas. His home had been in the state for the greater part of half a century. The parent lines of the great Santa Fe system originated in Kansas, and arnong the builders of the Santa Fe Mr. Robinson had been pronounced “the greatest builder of them all.” In this case biography and history go hand in hand and the significant story of the upbuilding of a great railroad system and the development of a large part of … Read more