Douglas County KS

Biography of Charles Tholen

Charles Tholen, who came to Kansas in 1857, was for a long period of years a recognized force in the professional and civic life of Leavenworth and was especially a leader among the German element of the city. He was a pioneer lawyer and had come to Kansas when it was still a territory and was first identified with Leavenworth as an employe of the fort. He was born at Emden in the Province of Hanover, Germany, January 28, 1827. He came of a prominent family and was given unusual advantages and training as a youth. His father, Claas Tholen, … Read more

Biographical Sketch of William B. Clark

Of the two sons who continue his honorable record in the State of Kansas, William B. was born in Knox County, Illinois, November 8, 1847. He received a public school education, lived on an Illinois farm until he was nine years of age, and after reaching manhood he identified himself with agrisulture. After spending some years as a farmer in Illinois he sold out and moved to Kansas in the spring of 1878. The first year he lived on a rented farm near Lawrence, but in the spring of 1879 moved to his present place of 160 acres which had … Read more

Biography of Wallace H. Anderson

Wallace H. Anderson, county attorney of Allen County, had won many of the honors of his profession during his active practice at Iola, is a native of Kansas, and is a worthy product of Kansas country life and schools. His family came to Brown County in 1869 and Wallace Harmon Anderson was born on the farm there December 26, 1877. His ancestors were Englishmen who came to Pennsylvania in colonial days. His grandfather Amos Anderson was born in Pennsylvania in 1802, and had a brother who served in the War of 1812. Amos Anderson lived in Ohio, in Iowa, came … Read more

Biographical Sketch of Timothy D. Thacher

Timothy D. Thacher, a prominent editor and public man of Lawrence and Kansas City, was born in New York, October 31, 1831, of that famous Boston family, whose American founder was Rev. Thomas Thacher, pastor of the Old South Church. He graduated from Union College at Schenectady, New York, in 1856, and campaigned that year on the platform of the new republican party. In April, 1857, he came to Lawrence and began the publication of the Lawrence Republican, a free-state paper which figured prominently in state politics. He was a member of the Leavenworth constitutional convention held in the wintor … Read more

Biography of Frank P. MacLennan

Frank P. MacLennan is a fortunate man. Kansas is fortunate in having him as a citizen. As a youth he took from this state the raw materials which by the alehemy of a resourceful and independent mind and a vigorous ambition he transmuted into a career which has been of even greater beneflt to the state than it has been to himself. First and last Mr. MacLennan is a newspaper man. He knows how to write, especially when the subject is something not directly counected with himself. In furnishing the data to the editor of this new History of Kansas … Read more

Biographical Sketch of Mrs. E. C. Billings

(See Ward and Cordery)-Jessie Lee, daughter of James Lovely and Charlotte (Ward) Bumgarner, born July 2, 1884, educated at Female Seminary and Lawrence, Kansas. Married at Spavinaw March 30, 1902, K. C. Billings, son of John C. and America Billings, born Aug. 10, 1818 in Texas. They are the parents of Beatrice T., born April 16, 1906; Love, born August 17, 1908; Charlotte America, born August 31, 1910; Edith Belle, born April 22, 1912; Myrtle Ceaphine, born November 10, 1916 and Iva Dell Billings, born October 25, 1918.

Biography of Frank J. Hauber

Frank J. Hauber. A business is only as strong as that of the character and the personal forces behind it. This had been demonstrated over and over again, and perhaps no one enterprise in Kansas is a more signal illustration of this truth than the great Hauber Cooperage Company of Kansas City, Kansas. The president of this company is Mr. Frank J. Hauber. It is a business which had endured all the arrows and slings of fortune, was twice destroyed by floods, and twice by fire, and Phoenix-like had arisen again and is now bigger and better than ever. The … Read more

Biography Of Harvey W. Ide

Harvey W. Ide was one of the men who bore a conspicuous part in the early history of that section of Kansas around Leavenworth. He arrived when Kansas was a territory, and at the height of the epoch-making struggle over the slavery question. He was long distinguished as a lawyer, for many years was judge of the district bench, and a leader possessing not only brilliant intellectual qualities but that moral stability which is the expression of a strong character. He was born in Saratoga County, New York, April 19, 1833, and fourteen years later, in 1847, his father, Rodman … Read more

Biography of Samuel Walker

Samuel Walker, for nearly forty years one of the most stirring figures in the military and civil commotions which centered in the Lawrence region, was a Pennsylvanian, born in Franklin County, October 19, 1822. In 1848 he moved to Ohio and followed his trade as a cabinet maker, and in April, 1855, settled permanently in Kansas. He came with a large party of emigrants and located near Lawrence, with other pronounced free-soil settlers. About six weeks later he was urged by the sheriff of Douglas County to leave the country, but his answer was made the next day, in the … Read more

Biography of Shalor Winchell Eldridge, Col.

Col. Shalor Winchell Eldridge. A great deal of early Kansas history revolves around the name Eldridge. Colonel Eldridge touched Kansas life at so many points that the record of his individual experience might appropriately and without undue forcing be expanded into an illuminating history of the most vital events connected with the founding and formative period of the state. Of the many New Englanders that came to Kansas at the beginning of the free state struggle none were more typically New England than Colonel Eldridge. He was born at West Springfield, Massachusetts, August 29, 1816, a son of Lyman Eldridge … Read more

Slave Narrative of Eliza Whitmire

Person Interviewed: Eliza Whitmire Location: Vinita, Oklahoma Date of Birth: 1833 Age: 102 My name is Eliza Whitmire. I live on a farm, near Estella, where I settled shortly after the Civil War and where I have lived ever since. I was born in slavery in the state of Georgia, my parents having belonged to a Cherokee Indian of the name of George Sanders, who owned a large plantation in the old Cherokee Nation, in Georgia. He also owned a large number of slaves but I was too young to remember how many he owned. I do not know the … Read more

Biography of Sidney Clarke

Sidney Clarke, one of the early members of Congress from Kansas, was born at Southbridge, Massachusetts. October 16. 1831, and in his early manhood published and edited a weekly newspaper which he had founded in his native town. He became an active free-soil advocate, supported Fremont in 1856. and three years later, upon the advice of his physician, went west and located at Lawrence. He hecame an ardent supporter of the radical wing of the free-state party, and in 1862 was elected to the State Legislature. The following year President Lincoln appointed him adjutant general of volunteers, and he was … Read more

Biography of William S. Tyner

William S. Tyner was one of the early settlers of Kansas, though he lived in the state only a few years, but founded a family which had become especially well known and prominent in Osage County. The Tyners were an old and prominent family of Indiana. William S. Tyner was one of seven sons and was born on a farm in Rush County, Indiana, September 20, 1820. His parents were John and Nancy (Sailors) Tyner, both Indiana people. William S. Tyner was a consin of James N. Tyner, who served as postmaster-general under President Hayes. The early education of William … Read more

Biography of William Lloyd Garrison Soule

William Lloyd Garrison Soule, Auditor of San Bernardino County, and founder of the mining town of Calico, is a lineal descendant from Puritan stock, and was born in the State of Maine, in July, 1836. He was reared from early childhood in Massachusetts, and started to learn the printer’s trade in Boston at the age of fourteen. He came with his parents to Kansas in 1854, and set the first stickful of type ever set within the boundary of that State, on the Herald of Freedom, established at that time in Lawrence. Being like his illustrious namesake, an uncompromising enemy … Read more

Biography of Aaron B. Perine

Aaron B. Perine. One of the few remaining of the old pioneers of Kansas. Aaron B. Perine, of Topeka, came to this state sixty-three years ago, and has been a permanent resident of Kansas since 1854, except for the two years he was out of the state. In the early days he was engaged in work among the Indians for the Government, later turned his attention to the blacksmithing trade, and for many years now has been at the head of the successful Perine Plow Works. He was born at Dansville, Livingston County, New York, May 4, 1836, and is … Read more

Biography Of Joseph Gardner

The ancestors of Joseph Gardner were descended from Quaker stock which landed upon the shores of Nantucket Island in 1620. Later they lived in North Carolina and emigrated from there to the Territory of Indiana in the latter part of the eighteenth century. It was in Union County, Indiana, that Joseph Gardner was born in July, 1820. His parents, William Gardner and Mary Hollingsworth, were ardently opposed to slavery, hence adhered to the anti-slavery wing of the Quaker Church. Upon attaining his majority, Joseph Gardner aligned himself with the Abolitionists and finally died fighting for the freedom of the slaves. … Read more

Biographical Sketch of Gen. Carmi W. Babcock

Gen. Carmi W. Babcock, president of the first free state council of 1857-58, a leading citizen of Lawrence and a prominent contractor in the building of several noted structures of the state, was born in Franklin County, Vermont, April 21, 1830. In 1850, after teaching for a time, he moved to St. Paul, Minnesota, where he read law and was admitted to the bar. He arrived at Lawrence in September, 1854, and finding that everything was too unsettled to make the practice of the law reliable he engaged in the real estate business. In 1857 he established a bank, only … Read more

Biography of William A. Harris, Gen.

Gen. William A. Harris was a brave officer of the Confederacy, a pioneer railroad engineer, a successful and leading stock raiser of improved breeds and, both in state and national bodies (including the Congress of the United States), an untiring and effective promoter of agricultural interests. Born in Loudoun County, Virginia, October 29, 1841, as a boy he was educated in his native state and at Buenos Aires, Argentina, whither his father had been sent as United States minister. In June, 1859, he graduated from Columbia College, Washington, District of Columbia. Immediately afterward he went to Central America and spent … Read more

Biography of Benjamin E. Lewis

Benjamin E. Lewis. It is invariably found in tracing the influences which make for good citizenship, integrity and morality that the fundamental of these qualities lies in education. Therein is found the basis of intelligence, of judgment according to the value, of comprehension, and, equipped with these, youth may enter upon the struggle of life well prepared to fight its battles. Southeastern Kansas had no reason to feel ashamed of its educational system, or of the men who direct it. The individuals chosen to manage and to discipline have been carefully selected, and in their ranks are found men of … Read more

Biographical Sketch of Joel K. Goodin

Joel K. Goodin, an early lawyer and legislator and a free-state leader, was born at Somerset, Perry County, Ohio, February 24, 1824. He received an academic education, after which he took up the study of law. Early in 1854 he was admitted to the bar in his native state and the following June located upon the Wakarusa River in what is now Douglas County, Kansas. Mr. Goodin was a delegate to the Big Springs convention; was clerk of the lower house of the Topeka Legislature until it was dispersed by Colonel Sumner; was secretary of the council in the free-state … Read more