Frankfort Kansas

Biography of Glenn A. Smith

Glenn Smith, postmaster of Horton, and for many years engaged in the drug business in that city, had lived most of his life, a period of forty-seven years, in Kansas and had well earned a position of esteem as well as material prosperity. His ancestors were Scotch-Irish people who early settled in New York State. It was in New York State that his father, Nathan C. Smith, was born in 1819. Nathan C. Smith spent his early life in New York and afterwards removed to Western Pennsylvania, in that historic region associated with Washington’s exploits during the French and Indian … Read more

Biography of Rev. William Knipe

Rev. William Knipe is one of the few surviving participants in the war with Mexico, which was fought nearly seventy years ago. Many other interesting distinctions attach to this venerable and useful resident of Kansas. He was one of the pioneer Methodist missionaries in Jackson County, Kansas, and is one of the very oldest members of the Methodist Conference. He was also a soldier of the Civil war and few men who live so long succeed in compressing so much useful service to humanity within a lifstime. His birth occurred in a log house in Wayne County, Indiana, September 28, … Read more

Biography of William Wallace Reed, M. D.

William Wallace Reed, M. D. A physician and surgeon of very thorough attainments and unusual experience, Doctor Reed had been in successful practice at Blue Rapids in Marshall County since October, 1906. While his practice is a general one, he specializes in surgery and his attainments in that department have brought him membership in the Clinical Congress of Surgeons. Doctor Reed is of the third generation of his family represented in the medical profession. He bears the same name as his grandfather, who was a pioneer physician in Wisconsin. William Wallace Reed, Sr., was born in Virginia, where his people … Read more

Biography of John J. Fowles

John J. Fowles has been a Kansas educator since 1908 and is now superintendent of the city schools of Summerfield. Largely through his own earnest efforts he acquired a liberal education. He was born in Eldora, Iowa, January 3, 1884. He is of a Colonial American family. This branch of the Fowlers came out of England and settled in New York in pioneer times His grandfather. Thomas Charles Fowler, was born in Kentucky and died at Eldora, Iowa, before John J. Fowler was born. He was one of the pioneers around Eldora and became well known as a stockman and … Read more

Biography of Francis C. Dwinnell

Francis C. Dwinnell is a leading business man of Frankfort, Kansas, now proprietor of the electric light plant which supplies electric current not only to that town but to the town of Vermillion. Besides his own important business connections he represents a family that had been identified with this section of Kansas since territorial days. He is of New England and Revolutionary lineage. His great grandfather fought gallantly in the struggle for independence during the Revolution. His grandfather, Francis Dwinnell, was a soldier in the War of 1812. He was born at Charlestown, New Hampshire, in 1792, and was quite … Read more

Biography of Levi F. Johnson

Levi F. Johnson. As it was only about sixty years ago that the first permanent settlements were made in Kansas, there are a number of the real pioneers still alive, men who can recount their experiences when the plains were covered with buffaloes, when Indians made camp along the creeks, when the prairie fires raged across the high grass, and when the woods were filled with game, the creeks with fish, and when everything was new and primitive. Now living retired at a comfortable home in Winfield Levi F. Johnson had his share in the early making of Kansas, particularly … 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 William H. Smith

William H. Smith, of Marysville, is a man with a long and notable record in Kansas affairs. He came to Kansas with his arm in a sling as a result of a wound received at Malvern Hill during the Civil war. His home had been in the state for over half a century, and during that time he had been a pioneer farmer, merchant, public official and banker. A Pennsylvanian by birth, he is a grandson of James Smith, who came from County Tyrone, Ireland, and founded the family in Indiana County, Pennsylvania. William H. Smith was born in that … Read more

Biography of Leonard V. McKee

Leonard V. McKee. The life, the personal character and the influence of Leonard V. McKee impressed themselves strongly upon the formative period of Marshall County’s history. He was founder and president of the Frankfort State Bank, was a large land owner and one of the leading business men and citizens of the community. He was born in Allen County, Ohio, August 18, 1845, and died at his home in Frankfort, Kansas, December 22, 1916, aged seventy-one years, four months and four days. His parents, Robert and Sarah (Dunlap) McKee, were both natives of Ohio. His father was a cabinet maker … Read more