Biography of James Medill

James Medill. The late James Medill was one of the men who came to Kansas during its territorial period, and while he was but one of scores of similar pioneers, he bore his part worthily, although inconspicuously, in the upbuilding of the commonwealth. Mr. Medill was born on a farm in Jefferson County, Ohio, near Steubenville, May 21, 1824, a son of Joseph Medill, who was of the same family that produced the Medills who made the Chicago Tribune famous. James Medill was reared to manhood in his native county, where he acquired a good, practical education. As a young … Read more

Biography of Matthew Edgar Pearson

Matthew Edgar Pearson is serving his fifteenth consecutive year as superintendent of the public schools of Kansas City, Kansas. He began his work in the schools of this city thirty years ago, and no one individual had so intimate a knowledge of the actual growth and development of the local school system and had done more to improve its efficiency than the Pearsons. He is one of the best known and oldest educators in the State of Kansas. Mr. Pearson was born at Plainsfield in Hendricks County, Indiana, March 8, 1862, but had lived in Kansas since he was ten … Read more

Biography of Charles Edwin Westlake

Charles E. Westlake. There is a type of business man who had apparently a peculiar genius for doing a number of things well and efficiently. Such a man had the commercial instinct highly developed. Charles E. Westlake of Sedan illustrates the type. He had been a farmer and rancher, had merchandised in several different lines, had been an oil producer, and is now engaged in the undertaking business at Sedan, and one of the livest and most energetic citizens of that town. Both he and his family have been identified with Kansas a great many years. The Westlakes originated in … Read more

Biography of William J. Combs

William J. Combs. Among the families which have been known in business circles of Leavenworth for more than half a century, one which had always borne an honorable reputation and a name for absolute integrity combined with notable achievements is that of Combs, as represented here by the late William J. Combs, who was connected with a number of business enterprises dating from the year 1858 until his death, and his son, George W. Combs, general superintendent of the Great Western Manufacturing Company, and the inventor of several appliances which have made his name widely known. William J. Combs, with … Read more

Biography of John Wilson

John Wilson. Indelibly interwoven with the early and later history of Leavenworth and one of the great industrial captains of his day, was the late John Wilson, one of the solid men of this city for many years. His life story is interesting from every point of view, not alone because of the great business enterprises he fostered and founded, but also for achievements in other fields where his personality counted and where the life he lived so closely touched others that his memory will long be kept green. Mr. Wilson became a permanent resident and property owner in 1857 … Read more

Biography of Percival G. Lowe

Percival G. Lowe, for many years prominent in the public affairs of the city and county of Leavenworth, worth, was, in his young manhood, a typical plainsman and Kansas dragoon. He was essentially a man of action, and his only literary production in book form, “Five Years a Dragoon,” presents many cloarcut pictures of those early times. As a life-member and president (1893) of the State Historical Society he has also placed on record many valuable papers dealing with those subjects with which he was so practically identified. Mr. Lowe was born at Randolph, Coos County, New York, September 29, … Read more

Biography of A. P. Fonda

A. P. Fonda has made a most creditable record as a farmer, as a lawyer and particularly as a citizen whose devotion to the welfare of the great majority Is a recognized fact. A resident of Independence, he was born in Leavenworth, Kansas, March 30, 1878, his parents being Anthony Philip and Laura D. (Wier) Fonda, the former a native of the state of New York and the latter of New Jersey. His parents became acquainted and were married in Leavenworth, Kansas. The father conducted the first wholesale grocery in Kansas City, which place was then known as Port Fonda. … Read more

Biography of Bernard Stephen Kelly, Father

Father Bernard Stephen Kelly. A man honored and beloved, an ecclesiastic revered and respected by all sections of the community, liberal natured, broad minded, generous, kindly and free, full of understanding of special circumstances and conditions, and with a heart open in sympathy to every necessity, Father Bernard Stephen Kelly, rector of the Cathedral of Immaculate Conception, is an individual who exerts a powerful influence for morality and Christianity in the City of Leavenworth. Father Kelly is a son of William E. and Katherine (Dowd) Kelly, natives of Ireland, from which country they were brought by their respective parents in … Read more

Biography of Frank Hageman

Frank Hageman, president of the National Bank of America at Salina, the largest bank in that city, and one of the strongest financial institutions in Central Kansas, is all but a native of Kansas and had been a resident of this state nearly continuously since the close of the territorial period. His name is one that had a very honorable and important connection with Kansas commercial life, his father, the late Miller Hageman, having been one of Leavenworth’s foremost wholesale merchants. The late Miller Hageman was born at Reedsburg, Ohio, in 1826. His was an example of the typical American … Read more

Biographical Sketch of Owen A. Bassett

Owen A. Bassett was one of the ablest and most energetie actors in the Border troubles, the Civil war and the civil affairs of the Roconstruction period. A Pennsylvasian by birth, his father moved to Illinois in 1837 and two years later to Iowa. The family home was first in Lee County. The son’s original intention was to be a civil engineer, but he finally decided in favor of the law, although the stirring and compelling affairs which entered his life prevented him for many years from utilizing the legal training which he acquired. In 1855 he was employed in … Read more

Biographical Sketch of Gen. James G. Blunt

Gen. James G. Blunt was a brave and able soldier, albeit never recognized as a brilliant man of civil affairs. He was born in Hancock County, Maine, in 1826, and until his fourteenth year lived on his father’s farm. Running away from home, he was a sailor for four years and then studied medicine. In February, 1849, he graduated from the Starling Medical College at Columbus, Ohio, and in the following January located at New Madison, Ohio, where he practiced his profession until late in 1856, when he removed to Kansas and settled in Anderson County. He quickly became an … Read more

Biography of Daniel Read Anthony

Daniel R. Anthony was one of the ablest men of his generation in Kansas. He possessed that ability so generally admired of fighting without quarter in behalf of any movement in which his convictions were enlisted. His long career touches Kansas history at many points as a pioneer and one of the founders of Leavenworth, as a soldier, and as a public official and a newspaper man. He came to Kansas in 1854 with the first colony sent out by the New England Emigrant Aid Society of Massachusetts. For nearly half a century he was identified with the City of … Read more

Biography of Henry W. Klemp

Henry W. Klemp. When, in the spring of 1863, Henry W. Klemp arrived in the United States, he was a poor German youth, without knowledge of the manners, customs of language of the people among whom he had decided to make his home. Notwithstanding his limited resources, however, he had a large fund of practical common sense, an overflowing store of ambition and energy, and a determination to make the most of his opportunities in whatever field he found himself. Today he is one of the successful business men of Leavenworth, the directing head of an enterprise the product of … Read more

Biography of Rev. B. L. Baldridge

Rev. B. L. Baldridge was born in Adams County, Ohio, February 9, 1821. His father, Rev. William Baldridge, was born in Pennsylvania, in 1760. He served in the Revolutionary war at the age of sixteen years, and for many years after its close was an active minister in the United Presbyterian Church. He graduated from college in 1790, was licensed to preach in 1792, was ordained in 1793, and died October 31, 1830. The subject of this biographical sketch was educated at Miami University and subsequently studied theology at Oxford. He was ordained January 10, 1851, at Centerville, Michigan, by … Read more

Biographical Sketch of Marcus J. Parrott

Marcus J. Parrott, the second delegate to Congress from Kansas Territory, was born at Hamburg, South Carolina, October 27, 1828. He received both a classical and a legal education and served two terms in the Ohio Legislature (having located for practice at Dayton) previous to becoming a resident of Leavenworth in 1855. At the first session of the Territorial Supreme Court, which commenced in July of that year, he was appointed reporter of the decisions, and in October was elected a delegate to the Topeka Constitutional Convention. He acted as a lawyer of the defense in the trial of Governor … Read more