McPherson Kansas

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 Emerson Carey

Emerson Carey. A chapter of this publication is devoted to the salt industry in Kansas. Salt ranks along with wheat, coal, petroleum and gas in contributing to the great fundamental wealth of this state. Of the individual concerns manufacturing salt in Kansas one of the greatest is the Carey Salt Company of Hutchinson. The head and moving spirit of this business is Mr. Emerson Carey. While the Careys were not pioneer salt manufacturers, they have in the last fifteen years become probably the largest operators when considered as a single family group, and today the name Carey is practically synonymous … Read more

Biography of William O. Mathes

William O. Mathes. There is no more enthusiastic Kansas than William O. Mathes of McPherson. He knows the state not merely as a great and prosperous modern commonwealth, but by intimate experience with this country when it was in its pioneer stages. He won his competence on a Kansas homestead and he and his people were among the earliest settlers in McPherson County. Mr. Mathes was born in a log house on a farm in Clark County, Indiana, September 7, 1854. His parents were Charles and Mary Ellen (Clark) Mathes. The Mathes family in an earlier generation became pioneers in … 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 Jeremiah L. Seitz

Jeremiah L. Seitz is one of the pioneers of McPherson County. He came to Kansas a short time after the close of the Civil war, in which he had served as one of the youngest volunteers on the Union side. As a homesteader, farmer, public official and business man he had played a worthy and influential role in McPherson County since pioneer days. He is still active and had a good business as a collecting agent and auctioneer. Mr. Seitz was born April 16, 1847, at Carlisle, Pennsylvania, son of Jacob and Barbara (Shellebarger) Seitz. His parents were natives of … Read more

Biography of Alexander Sutherland Hendry

Alexander Sutherland Hendry, who for more than a quarter of a century had practiced law at McPherson, is a member of the Hendry family which was so conspicuously identified with the early history of this section of the state. His father was one of the founders of the Ashtabula Colony and for years was prominent in the public and business life of McPherson. His father was the late Hiram A. Hendry, born at Jefferson, Ohio, in 1837, son of Samuel A. Hendry, likewise a native of the same section of Ohio. Hiram Hendry had a college education, and at the … 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 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

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

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 John M. Nelson

John M. Nelson is one of the oldest business men of McPherson County, and had continuously been dealing in hardware and implements at Lindsborg for thirty-four years. One of the oldest merchants, he is also one of the oldest settlers, having come as a boy with his parents to McPherson County almost fifty years ago. From pioneer times to the present his family have been an important factor in the material development and general well being of this section of Kansas. Mr. Nelson was born November 1, 1852, on Boberg farm, Sunne Wormland, Sweden, a son of Jan and Stena … Read more

Bigraphy of Herbert A. Rowland

Herbert A. Rowland, of McPherson, is one of the most widely known civil engineers of Central Kansas. He had served nearly twenty years as county surveyor of McPherson County, is city engineer of McPherson City, but his work in laying out and supervising municipal improvements is not confined to one locality. He had been consulting engineer for half a dozen or more of the larger towns in that section of the state. Mr. Rowland belongs to the pioneer element of Kansas. He was born in a dugout on a claim in Saline County April 2, 1869. His parents were Joseph … 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 Warren Knaus

Warren Knaus has two distinctions among the citizens of Kansas. For over thirty years he had been an editor and newspaper publisher at McPherson and is now one of the oldest newspaper men in continuous service in the state. His other claim to distinction is one more exclusive and recognized chiefly in scientific circles, but his work had brought him some of the rewards paid to scientific scholarship granted by bodies of world membership. He is one of the chief authorities in Kansas on entomology. A resident of Kansas since 1870, Mr. Knaus was twelve years of age when the … 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

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 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 Thomas Jones Darrah

Thomas Jones Darrah. One of the men most prominently identified with the development of McPherson County from pioneer times forward, and who made a striking success in business, was the late Thomas Jones Darrah, who died in the City of McPherson May 4, 1916. Mr. Darrah was in his seventy-third year when death called him. He was born in Burke County, Pennsylvania, October 6, 1843, a son of Dr. James and Margaret R. (Jones) Darrah, who were also natives of the Keystone state. Prior to the Civil war, Doctor Darrah brought his family out to Kansas and located in Leavehworth … 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