Lawrence Kansas

Biography of Claude Emmett Hamill, M. D.

Claude Emmett Hamill, M. D. The first thirty-two years of his life Doctor Hamill spent in gaining a liberal education and in successfully following the industry of farming. His ambition was always fixed on medicine, but various business interests contrived to keep the goal distant until some six or seven years ago. Since 1910 he has been in active practice at Parsons and enjoys a splendid reputation as physician and surgeon. His name represents an old and honored family in Kansas. His paternal ancestry goes back to Ireland, where his grandfather, Samuel Wallace Hamill, was born at Dablin in 1776. … Read more

Biography of Ely Moore, Sr.

Ely Moore, Sr. If Kansas should seek among its living citizens a man whose career is richest in associations with the events far back in territorial times there could be no better approximation to the ideal choice than that of the venerable Ely Moore, Sr., of Lawrence. Now in his eighty-fifth year, he saw when a young man in his early twenties much of that strenuous struggle which made Kansas Territory the battle ground of the nation. His own life had been regulated on strenuous lines, and he comes of fighting ancestry. He is descended from Sir Thomas More, who … Read more

Biography of Floyd E. Doubleday

Floyd E. Doubleday. It has been the fortune of Floyd E. Doubleday to realize many of his worthy ambitions, and through the exercise of good judgment and business ability to wrest from his opportunities financial and general success. For many years he has been interested in the coal industry, and at the present time is accounted one of the leading operators of Pittsburg. Mr. Doubleday was born at Italy, New York, June 23, 1859, and is a son of Guy L. and Caroline (Hobart) Doubleday. The Doubleday family is of English origin and traces its ancestry back in America to … 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 Charles J. Shawnee

Charles J. Shawnee, prominently identified with farming interests at one time but now practically living retired, making his home in Ramona, was born near Alluwe, in Coowescoowee in the Cherokee Nation, December 9, 1875. The name Shawnee was conferred upon his father during the Civil war but this was not really the family name, it being French. The father was John French, who was born at Spring River, near Seneca, Missouri, and he was of French, Shawnee and Delaware extraction. His people came originally from Sandusky, Ohio, and removed thence to Illinois and afterward to Arkansas. Still later they came … Read more

Biography of James Walter Gowans

James Walter Gowans, superintendent of the city schools of Winfield, is one of a trio of brothers all of whom are graduates of the University of Kansas and all capable school men in this state. Mr. Gowans is not only an educator but a thoroughly constructive administrator in educational affairs, and the public schools of Winfield have benefited much from his superintendence. Though a resident of Kansas nearly all his life, James Walter Gowans was born at Centerview, Missouri, September 21, 1877. He is of Scotch ancestry in the paternal line. His paternal grandparents, Walter and Elizabeth (Donnan) Gowans, were … Read more

Biography of Solon O.Thachek

Solon O. Thachek, of Lawrence, able lawyer, judge and public man of Kansas, achieved a wider fame as one of the pioneers in the great work of promoting friendly relations with the republics of South America. He came of a distinguished English and Revolutionary ancestry and was born in Stenben County, New York, August 31, 1830. His father was a county judge. After graduating from Union College of Schenectady, New York, and from the Albany Law School, he married, and in 1858 located at Lawrence, where he became one of the proprietors of the Journal. He was a member of … Read more

Biography of Seth J. Bailey

Seth J. Bailey. The gratifying success which had crowned the efforts of Seth J. Bailey, of Chanute, clearly and emphatically evidence the business skill, perseverance and enterprise of this individual, who had been engaged in business here since the fall of 1900. This is a utilitarian age, one in which advancement and progress come through activity in the industrial and commercial interests of life. There is nothing to which America owes her pre-eminence among the nations of the earth so much as to her inventions, and each year sees additions to the list which bear marked impress upon the world … Read more

Biography of Andrew H. Reeder, Governor

Pennsylvania had long been noted for her distingnished men in all walks of life. This is particalarly true of the Pennsylvania bar, and the current and popular phrase “a Philadelphia lawyer,” denoting unusual ability and intellectual acumen, illustrates the fact that it was thoroughly recognized both in and out of Pennsylvania that the lawyers of this commonwealth were worthy of the pre-eminence claimed for them. The bar of Northampton County shared this preeminence, and for more than a century it had maintained its prestige in the front rank of the profession in the commonwealth. Its roll contains the names of … Read more