Lawrence Kansas

Biographical Sketch of Col. John Fraser

Col. John Fraser, second chancellor of the University of Kansas and state superintendent of public instruction, earned his military title and became widely known as an educator, while a citizen of Pennsylvania. He was born in Cromarty, Scotland, about 1823; graduated with high mathematical honors from the University of Aberdeen and thereafter spent several years in the Bermudas as a teacher. Coming to the States he conducted several private schools in New York and Pennsylvania, and then held the chair of mathematies at Jefferson College for seven years from 1855, during which period he raised money for the first telescope … Read more

Biography Of Wilder S. Metcalf, Gen.

Gen. Wilder S. Metcalf has been a resident of Kansas since 1887, and developed and is now sole owner of the business known as the Wilder S. Metcalf Farm Mortgage Agency at Lawrence. It is one of the oldest and best known agencies of the kind in the state and its business operations cover twenty-five or thirty counties in Kansas and Oklahoma. He is the only man who held the office of United States pension agent at Topeka for two successive terms. The Topeka agency was the largest in the United States, covering five states, and through it were distributed … Read more

Biographical Sketch of Colonel and Judge Oscar E. Learnard

Colonel and Judge Oscar E. Learnard, one of the founders of Burlington, for many years a resident of Lawrence, one of the organizers of the republican party in Kansas and prominent in numerous state institutions and enterprises, was born at Fairfax, Vermont, November 14, 1832. He was of English and Franch Huguenot stock. In 1855, the year after his graduation from the Albany Law School, Mr. Learnard came to Kansas and located at Lawrence, and the next year he commanded a “mounted regiment” of the free-state forces in the border war. In the spring of 1857 he helped to locate … Read more

Biography of G. S. Holt

G. S. Holt. A Kansas territorial pioneer whose name and services will always be specially remembered in the City of Ottawa was G. S. Holt, a native of Connecticut who came to Kansas Territory in the early ’50s. For a time he lived at Lawrence, but from there went to Ottawa and became proprietor of the first dry goods store, opened in a building at the corner of Second and Main streets. This building had been constructed from the timbers of the old capitol building at Mineola. Besides his work as a business man Mr. Holt was identified and was … Read more

Biography of Walter L. Payne

Walter L. Payne, a native son of Kansas, had been closely identified with a number of its business and public activities for a number of years, and is vice-president of the Pioneer State Bank of Burlingame. The Payne family have had a part in the making of Kansas for fully sixty years. It was Mr. Payne’s grandparents, Lorenzo Dow and Mary Ann (Wildman) Payne, who were the pioneers of the family in Kansas. They located at Trading Post in Miami County, where Lorenzo D., who was a physician by profession, practiced for two years until the border ruffians drove him … Read more

Biography of Marshall M. Murdock

Marshall M. Murdock, a pioneer journalist of Kansas, the founder of the Wichita Eagle and one of the marked men of the commonwealth, was born in the Pierpont settlement of what is now West Virginia, in 1837. He was of Scotch-Irish ancestry, and his father married into the Governor Pierpont family. Soon after his marriage the family moved to Ironton, Southern Ohio, and there Marshall Murdock attended the public schools and commenced to learn the printer’s trade. Thomas Murdock, the father, was unsuccessful in his business venture, and, as he had an abhorrence of slavery and Kansas was then the … Read more

Biography of George A. Crawford

George A. Crawford, the founder of Fort Scott, a well known editor and public man and several times a gubernatorial candidate, was born in Clinton County, Pennsylvania, July 27, 1827, of Scotch-Irish-German stock. After recejving an aendemie education and graduating from Jefferson College, he taught school in Kentucky and Mississippi, when he returned to Pennsylvania to study law. While still reading for the bar, he became edjtor and proprietor of the Clinton Demoernt. During the early ’50s he took an active part in politics against the Know-Nothings and in 1855 was a delegate to the Pennsylvania Demeratie State Couvention. In … Read more

Biography of Enoch Chase

Enoch Chase was one of the founders of the City of Topeka. He was actively identified with the free state movement in territorial times, and for years was a man of prominence in the state capital. While these reasons make his career a part of Kansas history, it is also noteworthy that his daughter became the wife of the war governor of Kansas half a century ago, while his granddaughter is the wife of the present war governor of Kansas, Arthur Capper. Enoch Chase was born in Newburyport, Massachusetts, August 29, 1824, a son of Nathaniel and Harriett Ann Chase. … 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 Sheridan M. Dick

Sheridan M. Dick. By choosing a line of activity and sticking to it closely for many years Sheridan M. Dick has attained an enviable position in business affairs. He is now foreman of the Baldwin Shirt Factory at Parsons. This industry is probably the largest of its kind in the State of Kansas. Mr. Dick was born in Indiana County, Pennsylvania, May 10, 1866. He is of Irish descent, his Grandfather William Dick having been born in Ireland and having come to the United States when a young man. He spent his life as a farmer in Indiana County, Pennsylvania, … Read more

Biography of Charles Leavitt Holman

There are few business enterprises that so closely touch the comfort and welfare as that which has to do with the lighting of homes and business houses, and the man who is active in control of public utilities must be one of broad vision, of thorough understanding of needs and conditions and of marked enterprise that he may keep in touch with the changing times. Possessing all these requisites, Charles Leavitt Holman has steadily advanced since he became connected with the Laclede Gas Light Company of St. Louis in April, 1903. He was advanced through various positions to tile presidency … Read more

Biography of Samuel N. Simpson

Samuel N. Simpson. A notable life came to a close with the death of Samuel N. Simpson on November 27, 1915: Important though his achievements were in the field of business and in the development of many useful enterprises and undertakings in the cities of Lawrence and Kansas City, Kansas, it is because his activities and influence were so vitally identified with the primitive period of the territorial Kansas that his individual history bulks so large in the annals of the state and furnishes a chapter that may be read with instruction and profit by every student of Kansas annals. … Read more

Biography of Oliver D. Walker, M.D.

Oliver D. Walker, M. D. By reason of his active service as a member of the Kansas State Board of Health, of which he was president in 1912, and the honor conferred upon him in his election as president of the Kansas State Medical Society in 1915, Doctor Walker, of Salina, is one of the best known physicians and surgeons in Kansas. At the doctor’s home in Salina resided his venerable father, George M. Walker, whose long experience and active service identifies him with a number of pioneer things in the State of Kansas. George M. Walker was born in … Read more

The Rodman Genealogy of New Bedford, MA

Thomas Rotch Rodman

The Rodman family was early settled in Massachusetts. The first of the name of whom there is authentic record was John Rodman, who died on the island of Barbadoes some time between Sept. 16 and Dec. 4, 1686. Thomas Rodman, son of John, born Dec. 26, 1640, came to Newport, R. I, from the island of Barbadoes in 1675, with William Edmundson, a “Friend,” who was on a religious visit to Barbadoes. He (Thomas) was a prominent member of the Society of Friends, and was clerk of the monthly, quarterly and yearly meetings for thirty years. He was also the first clerk of the New England Yearly Meeting, which position he held until 1718, He was an eminent physician and surgeon. His death occurred Jan. 11, 1728.

Biography of Martin S. McCreight, M. D.

Martin S. McCreight, M. D. A resident of Kansas since early boyhood, Doctor McCreight is one of the oldest business men and professional men of the City of Oskaloosa, where he began the practice of medicine and surgery over twenty years ago, and during the greater part of the time had also conducted a drug business and is vice president of the Jefferson County Bank. Doctor McCreight was born in Indiana County, Pennsylvania. February 19, 1870, and is of Scotch ancestry. His grandfather McCreight was a native Scotchman and on coming to America located in Pennsylvania. Johnston McCreight, father of … 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 Josiah C. Trask

Josiah C. Trask was one of the 180 victims of the terrible Quantrill raid and massacre at Lawrence, on August 21, 1863. He was a young and brilliant editor at the time of his death and few men of Kansas were more beloved. His father was a minister, who preached in Massachnsetts for many years, and he himself was born at Warren, that state, May 9, 1837. He pursued an academic course at Fitchburg, and when sixteen years of age went to Boston, where he was employed as a printer in various newspaper offices. Through his father-in-law, Joel B. Hibbard, … Read more

Biography of William J. Stewart, M. D.

William J. Stewart, M. D. His first years in. Kansas Doctor Stewart spent in the role of a practical farmer, but since finishing his medical course had been in successful practice as a physician and surgeon at Summerfield, Marshall County. Doctor Stewart is of Scotch-Irish ancestry. His grandfather, William Stewart, was born at Strabane, Ireland, in 1808, and married Nancy Wilson, a native of the same place, born in 1806. Both of them were of Scotch-Irish families. They married in the old country and all their children were born in Ireland as follows: Charles, who became a farmer and died … Read more

Biography of Justin Dewitt Bowersock

Justin Dewitt Bowersock. The secret of human leadership is a matter both of determination and temperament. Some men achieve it by a rugged aggressiveness which bears all before them, leaving in their wake many painful bruises and some wounds which never heal; other progress, perhaps even more rapidly, endowed with a decisive elasticity, a considerate and friendly spirit, a broad and attractive outlook, and obtain the enthusiastic cooperation of those who are best qualified to advance laudable enterprises and movements, either private or public in their character. It is to the latter class of elastic, able and pleasing leaders that … Read more

Biography of Prof. William H. Carruth

Prof. William H. Carruth, one of the leading linguistic seholars and authors of the West, had held the chair of German Language and Literature of the University of Kansas since its creation over thirty years ago. He was born on a farm near Osawatomie, Kansas, April 5, 1859, the son of James H. and Jane (Grant) Carruth. His father, from whom he in herited his love of books, was a home missionary of the Presbyterian Church, and from his mother he inherited courage, energy and an independent disposition. He worked his way through school and college, graduating at the University … Read more