McPherson County KS Genealogy

Biography of Harris W. Manning, M. D.

Harris W. Manning, M. D. The country along the banks of the Cottonwood River around Emporia had become a landmark in Kansas literature, largely due to the ability of William Allen White in investing those scenes with literary color and description. It was along the hanks of the farnous Cotton wood, four miles west of Emporia in Lyon County, that Dr. Harris W. Manning, a prominent physician and a specialist at Eureka, was born September 20, 1868. His father, Patrick W. Manning, belonged to the colony of earliest settlers in Lyon County, having homesteaded a claim there about the middle … Read more

Biography of John H. Linn

John H. Linn. In the upbuilding and progress of Halstead as a business and civic community, the Linn family had contributed as much as any other one name or group of persons. The late Jacob Linn was one of the pioneers of the town, and many of its most substantial interests centered around his personality, while his son John H. had in every way pursued a similar course, creditable alike to himself and to his honored father. The late Jacob Linn was born in Germany in 1840, and when about three years of age his parents came to the United … Read more

Biography of Daniel Johnson

Daniel Johnson. Business achievement far above the ordinary and the influences of a character founded on the bedrock of integrity, were the fruits of the long and active years spent by the late Daniel Johnson at Lindsborg. At the time of his death Mr. Johnson had been for thirty-nine years a merchant at Lindsborg, and was the oldest business man of the city. He built up a splendid mercantile establishment known all over that section of Kansas and still a flourishing enterprise. He gave himself with the wholesouled devotion characteristic of him to church and to all the progressive affairs … Read more

Biography of Carl Otto Lincoln

Carl Otto Lincoln, a native of Lindsborg and son of one of the founders and developers of the city and community, is a highly educated gentleman and is now manager and editor of the Lindsborg News and Record. He is one of the stockholders and officials in the Bethany Publishing Company, which publishes the News and Record and also the Posten and various college magazines and papers. The News and Record is an independent journal, and was first founded in 1881 as the Smokey Valley News. In 1887 the name was changed to Lindsborg News, published by the Bethany Publishing … Read more

Biography of William J. Krehbiel

William J. Krehbiel is editor and owner of The McPherson Daily and Weekly Republican, the pioneer newspaper of McPherson County. It was established as a weekly issue in 1872, the year that McPherson City was founded. In 1885 it took on a daily issue, and Mr. Krehbiel had been its proprietor and manager for the past twenty years. Mr. Krehbiel had been a resident of Kansas since he was nine years of age, and was born at Denmark, Iowa, December 11, 1870. His parents were John J. and Anna (Leisy) Krehbiel. John J. Krehbiel was born in Hamilton County, Ohio, … Read more

Biography of Herman Bartels

Herman Bartels, the pioneer lumber merchant and president of the Bank of Inman, had been identified with McPherson County for over forty years. He is a veteran German soldier and fought with the armies of the empire in the Franco-Prussian war. He had a thorough technical and professional training in German schools, and was educated as an architect, but after coming to Kansas he applied his energies first to farming and later to constructive business affairs in Inman, and had been the chief business man of that town for many years. Mr. Bartels was born October 24, 1846, in the … Read more

Biography of Ross Homer Rhoads

Ross Homer Rhoads is agent for the Santa Fe Railroad Company at Arkansas City. He had been a railroad man for a number of years, and it was his efficiency and his ability that led to his promotion to one of the most important posts along the Santa Fe system in Kansas. Mr. Rhoads had spent most of his life in Kansas but was born at Somerset, Pennsylvania, April 9, 1883. His grandfather, Samuel A. Rhoads, was a native of Germany and came from there to Pennsylvania. He had ten children: Sarah, deceased; Adaline, single; Etta, deceased; Philip, deceased; Susan, … Read more

Biography of A. J. Shaw

A. J. Shaw, of McPherson, is the acknowledged expert authority in the West on the subject of hail insurance. Since its organization in 1899 he had been continuously secretary of the McPherson Hail Insurance Company. The McPherson Hail Insurance Company is a business organization of which the State of Kansas may be proud. It was the first Kansas company to offer an adequate service in this department of insurance. Prior to twenty-five years ago insurance against Hail was almost unknown as a practice in Kansas. The only company that offered such insurance was the St. Paul Fire & Marine. About … Read more

Biography of Maj. Willis L. Brown

Maj. Willis L. Brown, of Kingman, is one of the eminent Kansas whose records serve to illustrate and adorn the history of the commonwealth. Mr. Brown had been through nearly everything that is significant of Kansas life for forty years. He was at one time a poverty stricken homesteader and while the general public knows him chiefly through his broader business and civic relations, he is still in close touch with Kansas farming and through his work and initiative had probably done as much as any man in Kingman County to promote intensive and high class farming and stock raising. … Read more

Lingafelter, Betty C. – Obituary

La Grande, Oregon Betty C. Lingafelter, 76, of La Grande, died April 22 at a local care center. No public services are planned at this time. Daniels-Knopp Funeral, Cremation & Life Celebration Center is in charge of arrangements. Betty was born June 11, 1931, in Topeka, Kan., to Hulda and John I. Gustafson of McPherson, Kan. She married Dean Lingafelter of Galva, Kan., on March 12, 1948. Betty was active in McPherson High School and in church activities growing up. She loved to do anything with group and social activities. Betty had a variety of jobs and she enjoyed them … Read more

Biographical Sketch of J. A. Glaze, Rev.

Rev. J. A. Glaze is pastor of the Christian Church at Miltonvale. As head of that church he had one of the most spiritually efficient religious organizations in Cloud County. A brief outline of the church’s growth and development had its proper place in Kansas History. The Church of Christ at Miltonvale was organized April 17, 1884, with twenty-four charter members. The officers at the beginning were: Elders John Squires and W. J. Hays; Deacons J. B. Johnson and A. V. Step; and minister, Rev. Kenney. In 1886 preparations were begun for a building. In 1887 the ediflce was completed … Read more

Biography of Aron Dick, Jr.

Aron Dick, Jr., is editor and owner of the Inman Review at Inman, and had been continuously identified with that publication since early boyhood. He acquired most of his education in what had been called the greatest of universities, a printing office, and is not only a practical printer but a practical and thorough newspaper man. Mr. Dick was born February 9, 1885, on a farm in McPherson County, Kansas, five miles southeast of the Town of Inman. His parents were Aron and Anna (Kroeker) Dick. His parents were of that substantial stock of people, Mennonites in religion, who came … Read more

Kansas Registrations of Enemy Aliens, 1917 – 1921

The series contains original affidavits of registration that record personal information about each registrant, their photograph affixed to the majority of documents, and the registrants fingerprints. All of these are specific to Kansas, and most have the actual documents attached.

Biography of George W. McClintick

George W. McClintick. Kansas ought to remember the late George W. McClintick as a pioneer editor and newspaper man, and one of those who gave dignity to journalism and contributed not a little to Kansas’ place in literature. During much of his active life he lived at McPherson, where he died and where his widow, Mrs. Hester A. McClintick, still resided. George W. McClintick was born on a farm in Hancock County, Ohio, December 31, 1852, and died at McPherson, Kansas, August 21, 1903. His parents were Rev. William and Mary (Robbins) McClintick, of Scotch and English descent, the former … Read more

Biography of James Abram Garfield Shirk

James Abram Garfield Shirk. Now professor of mathematics in the Manual Training Normal School at Pittsburg, Mr. Shirk has filled many important positions in the public schools and colleges of Kansas, and is a recognized authority on his special subject. A native of Kansas, he was born at McPherson January 12, 1881. His ancestry is Swiss German. The first of the name came from Switzerland to Pennsylvania in colonial days. His grandfather, John Shirk, spent his life in Pennsylvania, was a farmer, and he also contributed fame to the family name by his service in the War of 1812. He … Read more

Biography of Isaac Fenton Talbott

Isaac Fenton Talbott, of McPherson, is president of the Farmers Alliance Insurance Company, with headquarters in that city. He had been identified with this organization nearly thirty years. The Farmers Alliance Insurance Company is perhaps the largest and most notable of the co-operative financial enterprises that were the outgrowth of the economic unrest of the ’80s and early ’90s. The company was organized in 1887 on the co-operative plan. It writes both fire and tornado insurance, and is now one of the largest of the state’s financial institutions. It had insurance in force in every one of the 105 counties … Read more

Biography of Cornelius Enns

Cornelius Enns founded an important industry in McPherson County and at his death left behind him a highly successful enterprise and the memory of an industrious, upright and thoroughly capable citizen. To no one class of people does Kansas owe more than to the Mennonites who came out of Southern Russia and applied their experience and methodical industry to the magnificent wheat fields of the Sunflower state. Cornelius Enns was a representative of that class of people. He was born in the Village of Landskrone, Taurida, in Southern Russia in 1839. His death occurred at Inman, Kansas, June 1, 1904, … Read more

Biography of Silas W. Nossaman, M. D.

Silas W. Nossaman, M. D. For the past fifteen years Doctor Nossaman had been carrying the heavy burdens of an extensive country practice as a physician and surgeon at Cunningham. He is one of the prominent medical men of Kingman County, and had spent the greater part of his life in Kansas. He is of old American stock. His great-grandfather was a Virginian, was reared and married in his native state, and in early pioneer days came north and west to Indiana, locating on a farm in Marion County, not far from the City of Indianapolis. He lived there the … Read more

Biography of Alexander Carraway Spilman

Alexander Carraway Spilman, living at McPherson at the age of eighty, is one of the few survivors of the true pioneer epoch of Kansas. The range of his experience seems remarkable even for a man of his age. He was in Kansas as a witness and newspaper correspondent of the factional turbulence of territorial days. He is a civil engineer by profession and was a member of the United States surveying party which surveyed Kansas west of the sixth principal meridian in 1858. It is probable that he is the only living pioneer or the oldest settler west of that … Read more

Biography of George G. Green

George G. Green, cashier of the Citizens State Bank of Little River, represents a pioneer family of Rice County, and had spent nearly all his life in this locality. He was born near Lexington, Missouri, November 16, 1869. His paternal ancestors came out of England and were colonists in Virginia. His grandfather, George Green, became a pioneer farmer in Western Illinois and died at Quincy in that state before George G. was born. The founder of the family in Kansas was William Green, father of the Little River banker. He was born at Quincy, Illinois, in 1831, grew up there, … Read more