Hiawatha Kansas

Biographical Sketch of Ralph W. McDonald

Ralph W. McDonald is proprietor and editor of the Robinson Index at Robinson, Kansas. His activities and experiences have nearly all been wrought out in the environment of a printing office and editorial sanctum. At the age of eighteen he left school and began his apprenticeship in the printing office of the Hiawatha World. He was with that paper in various capacities until July, 1914, when he removed to Robinson and bought the Index. This is one of the older papers of Brown County, having been established in 1891. Through populism and every other politicaliam it had steadfastly advocated republican … Read more

Biography of Tom D. Smith

Tom D. Smith, lawyer at Hiawatha, had for a number of years been regarded as one of the most forceful orators and leaders in the republican party of Kansas. Because of his unusual resources as a speaker and reasoner, he was given some of the most important assignments during the national republican campaign of 1916. Much of his work was done in the far East. He spoke at President Wilson’s home and at Long Brauch, and spoke with Charles E. Hughes and William Taft during the Union Square meeting in New York City. He stumped all over New Jersey, Connecticut … Read more

Biography of Henry F. Macy, M. D.

Henry F. Macy, M. D., deceased, was born in Stark County, Ohio, in 1826. He was reared to farm life, and bad in early life the advantages of a common-school education. His father, Matthew Macy, was a native of Nantucket, Massachusetts, and a descendant from one of the oldest families of that island. His mother, nee Patience Austin, was a native of Rhode Island. Dr. Macy was reared in the pioneer days of Stark County, when educational facilities were comparatively limited, but he secured a good education, and after arriving at manhood entered upon the study of medicine, graduated at … Read more

Biographical Sketch of Albert Chandler

Albert Chandler, P. O. Cawker City, is a native of the State of Maine, having been born in Ellsworth, Hancock County, in said State, in the year 1841. Young Chandler and his parents came to Kansas in 1856, and located in Brown County, near Hiawatha. The subject of this notice was a soldier in Company C, Seventh Kansas Cavalry, for four years and one month. After the war he was, until 1871, a practical farmer of Brown County; in that year he moved to Irving Township, Jewell County, where he now resides and cultivates a farm of 600 acres in … Read more

Biography of Edmund Needham Morrill, Hon.

Hon. Edmund Needham Morrill. Of the record of Governor Morrill during his term as head of the state government of Kansas a review is given on other pages of this history. It will be wise to supplement that record with some of the more personal details of his career and his various connections, public and business and philanthropic, with Brown County, where his name will always be revered and where he was regarded by common consent as the foremost citizen. He was born at Westbrook, Cumberland County, Maine, February 12, 1834, and died in 1909, after completing three-quarters of a … Read more

Biography of Allen Thomas Stewart

Allen Thomas Stewart is one of the younger business men of Doniphan County and had established himself firmly in business and civic esteem at Denton, where he is proprietor of the only drug store and is now serving his second suecessive term as mayor. Most of his life had been spent in Kansas. He was born at Salem, Kentucky, in Livingston County, March 11, 1881, and came to this state with his parents when he was five years old. He attended public schools, graduated from the high school at Seneca. Kansas, in 1901, and following that had two years in … Read more

Biography of John Schilling

John Schilling. A hazardous and arduous task confronted those venturesome and hardy men who forsook the security and comforts of the settled communities during the ’50s and penetrated the wilds of the untrodden West. None but themselves and their children can ever realize, in the faintest degree, the difficulties with which they were forced to contend, the perils to which they were exposed, and the privations which they endured. Fortunately, they were animated by an indomitable spirit and sustained by inflexible resolution, and patiently, perseveringly and steadfastly accomplished their mission, leaving to their posterity the fruits of their enterprise, in … Read more

Biography of Elmer Birdell Gift

Elmer Birdell Gift, a native Kansan, spent his active years in educational work. He is now city superintendent of the public schools of Manhattan, and has been a teacher or a student in higher educational institutions continuously for the past twenty years. He was born on a farm in Smith County, Kansas, April 28, 1874, a son of John and Rachel Ann (Akers) Gift. His parents came to Kansas from Iowa in 1873, settling on a farm. His father was a native of Pennsylvania of German lineage, while his mother was born in Ohio of Scotch and English ancestry. Their … Read more

Biography of Charles H. Browne

Charles H. Browne is proprietor and editor of the Horton Headlight-Commercial, now the only journal published in that enterprising and flourishing city of Brown County. Mr. Browne had been largely identified with newspaper work since he left school, and is a vigorous type of citizen and easily a leader in any community. For a number of years he had been connected with the National Guard of Kansas and had been especially active in recent events in which the country had been involved in tronble, first with Mexico and later with Germany. The Horton Headlight-Commercial is a consolidation of half a … Read more

Biography of John C. Hoyt

John C. Hoyt became identified with the real estate, loan and insurance business at El Dorado over thirty years ago. He is the dean in that line of business in Butler County, and the reputation for honesty and integrity which had become associated with his name through many long years had brought him all the business that his firm could attend to during the rapid development of Butler County’s resources in recent years. Mr. Hoyt was born near Bellevue, Ohio, September 3, 1860. His people have been identified with Northern Ohio since pioneer times. His grandfather, John Hoyt, was born … Read more

Biography of Charles D. Lamme

Charles D. Lamme is president of the Morrill-Janes Bank of Hiawatha, one of the largest and most prosperous financial institutions of Northern Kansas. His is a business career that may be studied with profit by all members of the rising generation. He was not yet twenty years of age when in January, 1880, he became connected with the Morrill-Janes Bank. At first his dutles were not classified on the regular payroll. Morning and night he did janitor work and during the day was variously employed as a messenger and in any other duties thought best by his superiors. He possessed … Read more

Biography of John P. Davis

John P. Davis, Topeka. A resident of Kansas for forty-four years, Mr. Davis has in his career set an example of all that is best in American citizenship, not only to his immediate family but to the public in general. He has been prominent in public and business affairs, and has discharged the responsibilities which have fallen to his lot in a conscientious and able manner. His most potent influence for good has been exercised in business as well as in every day life. By his extensive business connections and his extended personal acquaintance he is one of the well … Read more

Biography of Addison W. Swayze

Addison W. Swayze. During the working out of an honorable and worthy career Addison W. Swayze had been the master of his own destinies. When he started life independent of family connections or influences he had only the capital with which nature had endowed him, but his self reliance was of such a sturdy nature that it enabled him to develop to the utmost his native talents, which included the characteristics of determination, enterprise and practical ambition. His inherent judgment pointed out the way for him to succeed, his keen insight discerned opportunities, his native powers developed new fields, and … Read more

Biography of Charles G. Blakely

Charles G. Blakely, whose attainments as a business man have made his name familiar not only in his home City of Topeka but in many parts of the state, has been a resident of Kansas since the fall of 1883, and his first experience here was as teacher in Brown County. His is the interesting story of a boy born and reared in the mountainens district of Eastern Kentucky, where people lived on the plane of the simplest existence but not always of the highest ideals. There, in his early youth, came a stimulus to his ambition and hope which … Read more

Biography of Walter C. Palmer, M. D.

Walter C. Palmer, M. D., after practicing several years in Kansas City, Missouri, where his father was for a number of years a member of the medical profession, removed to Hiawatha, Kansas, and is now giving all his time and attention to surgery. In addition to his broad experience as a practitioner and his equipment in American schools, Doctor Palmer, went abroad in 1916 and from April to July worked in the war hospitals in France. Nowhere had surgical methods undergone greater changes and been brought to a higher degree of perfection than in the hospitals in the war zone … Read more