Wyandotte County KS

Biography of William Elliott Barnhart

William Elliott Barnhart, who has lived in Kansas City, Kansas, since 1887, has held many large responsibilities in connection with transportation lines, both urban and general railway companies, and has also regulated his private affairs so as to give time for much public service to his home city. His personal career has been one of many interesting experiences and achievements and his ancestry is also an appropriate matter of record. Mr. Barnhart was born at Cedar Valley in Wayne County, Ohio, December 8, 1857, a son of Frederick William and Clarisas (Gooding) Barnhart. The paternal ancestry goes back to his … Read more

Biographical Sketch of Timothy D. Thacher

Timothy D. Thacher, a prominent editor and public man of Lawrence and Kansas City, was born in New York, October 31, 1831, of that famous Boston family, whose American founder was Rev. Thomas Thacher, pastor of the Old South Church. He graduated from Union College at Schenectady, New York, in 1856, and campaigned that year on the platform of the new republican party. In April, 1857, he came to Lawrence and began the publication of the Lawrence Republican, a free-state paper which figured prominently in state politics. He was a member of the Leavenworth constitutional convention held in the wintor … Read more

Biography of Clifford C. Nesselrode, M. D.

Clifford C. Nesselrode, M. D. In 1906 there came to Kansas City, a young graduate in medicine who entered St. Margaret’s Hospital as an interne. Very modest was this young man as to his acquirements but not much time elapsed before his medical knowledge and his surgical skill were noted and approved, and at the present time no practitioner enjoys more public confidence or personal esteem than does Dr. Clifford C. Nesselrode. In addition to attending to a large and constantly increasing private practice, he is on the staffs of St. Margaret and Bethany hospitals and on the surgical staff … Read more

Biography of Early Whitten Poindexter

Early Whitten Poindexter. On January 8, 1854, there was born on a farm in Martin County, Indiana, near the village with the euphonious name of Loogootee, a boy whose destiny soon took him away from his father’s fields and livestock and in 1885 brought him to Kansas, where now for more than thirty years he has been general agent for Kansas of the Northwestern Mutual Life Insurance Company. He is recognized as one of the ablest life insurance men of the country. He is one of the leaders in the force of men who are regarded as the most aggressive … Read more

Biography of Byron Judd, Hon.

Hon. Byron Judd was a pioneer of Wyandotte County. He established his home in the village of Wyandotte in November, 1857, when Kansas was still a territory. He lived in the village, his capacities expanding with the growth of the community, and his personal position and influence rising as Wyandotte County grew and prospered, and at his death on July 27, 1909, it was generally recognized and appreciated that he was one of the men who had left a permanent impress for good upon Kansas City, Kansas, a great city of which his old home village of Wyandotte had in … Read more

Biography of William Hunter McKenzie

William Hunter McKenzie has found his work in the business administration of gas companies, and since 1905 had held the responsibilities of general manager of the Wyandotte County Company of Kansas City, Kansas. It was a boyhood experience while in a state institution in Ohio that gave him the permanent bent of a vocational experience. Mr. McKenzie was born in Harrisonville, Ohio, November 15, 1862, one of the four children of James T. and Mary C. (Hoover) McKenzie, both also natives of Ohio and of Scotch and Dutch extraction. James T. McKenzie was a cabinet maker by trade. At the … Read more

Biography of Nicholas Boyns

Nicholas Boyns. Any community however large is the better off for the presence of a citizen of such commercial calibre and individual enterprise as Nicholas Boyns. The time of his arrival on the scene which had been his permanent home for many years was 1871. In that year he landed in Kansas City, Missouri. His arrival made no particular stir, and he was practically unknown and his possibilities of work were unvalued. Deep within him he had ambition, energy and a long look ahead. The first employment which he was not long in finding was as clerk in the famous … Read more

Biography of Anthony C. Fasenmyer

Anthony C. Fasenmyer, now retired, has been a constructive factor in the commercial affairs of Kansas City, Kansas, and many of the results of his thirty-one years of activity still stand and have entered permanently into the life and well being of the community. Mr. Fasenmyer was born at Fryburg in Clarion County, Pennsylvania, January 10, 1857. He was the third of five children whose parents were Jacob and Frances (Fletcher) Fasenmyer. His grandfather Balthaser Fasenmyer lived near Strassburg in Alsace, France. He spent seven years as a soldier under the great Napoleon. From there he emigrated to America and … Read more

Biography of Thomas E. Trigg

Thomas E. Trigg. “A map of busy life” mused the poet Cowper more than a hundred years ago, over his newspaper. The description yet holds good, a century of existence only having widened its field and strengthened its power. With its modern perfected machinery for the garnering of news, and with its vivid portrayal of the world’s happenings, it is, indeed, a map of swiftly passing events, one that had become a necessary vitalizing element and an indispensable factor of every day living. How surely the development of a newspaper in a community marks the latter’s progress. A name well … Read more

Biography of Eldred Lloyd Eaton

Eldred Lloyd Eaton has been engaged in practice as a lawyer for the past six years, and in many ways had justified his choice of a profession and calling. In attainments and ability he now ranks as the leading lawyer of Chase County, his home and offices being. in Cottonwood Falls. Mr. Eaton had had a very active career, and he entered the legal profession after considerable experience as a teacher and business man. He was born at Hillsboro, Iowa, November 23, 1876, a son of Eugene E. and Etta Charity (Fligg) Eaton. His grandfather, Ebenezer Ancel Eaton, was a … Read more

Biograph of M. D. Jasper William Hayward

Jasper William Hayward, M. D. Since he earned his privilege of practicing medicine in 1909, Doctor Hayward has become increasingly well known as a physician and surgeon in Kansas City, Kansas. Aside from his attainments professionally much interest attaches to his career because of the valiant struggle he made as a youth to secure an education and win a position in a learned profession against heavy odds. Doctor Hayward was born in Kingman, Kansas, April 3, 1885, a son of Charles and Kate (Weir) Hayward. His father was a native of Boston, Massachusetts, of English descent, was reared in Boston, … Read more

Biography of Thomas Jefferson Barker

Thomas Jefferson Barker. The history of Kansas is a generalization of the histories of thousands of individuals whose character and activities made the state what it is. Hardly one of those individuals came into closer touch with the adventures and exciting realities of pioneer times than the late Thomas Jefferson Barker, who was a pioneer of old Wyandotte and for many years one of the leading business men of Kansas City, Kansas. Mr. Barker died at his home in Kansas City, Kansas, August 4, 1913, and was then nearly eighty-five years of age. He was born in Bedford County, Virginia, … Read more

Biography of William Henry Craddock

William Henry Craddock. As the greatest calamity ever suffered by Kansas City, Kansas, was probably the flood of 1903, that year will always be memorable in the city’s history. Another event associated with that year was the death of William Henry Craddock, who had just completed a service of two years in the office of mayor. Mr. Craddock was stricken on March 2, 1903, and his death occurred on the 4th of the same month at the Savoy Hotel in Kansas City, Missouri. He was mourned by the entire city, and never any similar occasion in the city had brought … Read more

McNulty, Viola Margaret “Vi” Devine Mrs. – Obituary

Viola Margaret “Vi” Devine McNulty, 96, died Aug. 8, 2005, at the Siuslaw Care Center in Florence. A private family graveside service was held in honor of Viola on Aug. 18 at Eagle Valley Cemetery in Richland. A rosary and Mass for the repose of the soul of Viola were offered at the St. Therese Catholic Church in Halfway. Vi Devine was born on Nov. 13, 1908, in Oklahoma to Herbert and Ida Cecilia Stroud Devine. At birth Vi weighed less than three pounds. Stories passed down from family indicate that her tiny head would fit in a teacup and … Read more

Biography of Wylie White Cook

Wylie White Cook. During a period of more than thirty years, Hon. Wylie White Cook has been almost constantly before the people of Kansas as the incumbent of public positions, and that he still retains in marked degree the confidence and respect of Kansans is evidence of his worth, fidelity and integrity, for the duties of the various offices which he has held have in nearly every case directly affected the welfare of the community. In Mr. Cook’s case it has almost invariably been a case of the office seeking the man, for with but one exception in his long … Read more

Biography of Colonel Jacob H. Bartles

Time is the perspective which places the individual in his true position in relation to the history of the community with which he has been identified and time serves but to heighten the fame and brighten the good name of Colonel Jacob H. Bartles, in whose honor the town of Bartlesville was named and who was also the founder of Dewey. He was ever a man of most progressive spirit, of which many tangible evidences may be cited, including the fact that he was the first man to establish electric light and waterworks plants in the state. He was also … Read more

Biography of Charles H. Prescott

CHARLES H. PRESCOTT. – The subject of this sketch is second vice-president of the Northern Pacific Railroad. He was born in Boston, Massachusetts, on the 22d of June, 1839, and is the son of Harrison and Sarah Harris Prescott. His father was a native of Massachusetts, and can date back for three generations as members of New England families. Harrison Prescott died when his son was yet in infancy; and at the age of six he suffered the loss of his mother. So under the care of guardians he was educated in the common and high schools of Boston. At … Read more

Biography of William Warring Gordon

William Warring Gordon is now in his second term as chief of police of Kansas City, Kansas. An office fraught with so much importance and complicated with so many difficulties and responsibilities had received an administration from Mr. Gordon which had been a splendid tribute to his tact, forcefulness and efficiency as a public official. Mr. Gordon had spent the greater part of his life as a resident of Kansas and was a successful business man before he was called upon to administer his present office. He was born in Kentucky in Owen County on a farm June 13, 1874. … Read more

Biographical Sketch of Otis B. Gunn

Otis B. Gunn was a native of Massachusetts, born at Montague, October 27, 1828, and before he came west as a railroad engineer, had served as rodman on the Hoosac Tunnel Railroad and superintendent of the construction work of the line between Rochester and Niagara Falls. In 1853 he was appointed division engineer in the building of the Toledo, Wabash and Western, and followed railroad construction westward until he settled at Wyandotte, Kansas, in 1857. He was a member of the 1861 State Senate, and while thus serving was appointed major of the Fourth Kansas, later the Tenth Kansas Infantry. … Read more

Biography of Walter Roscoe Stubbs

Walter Roscoe Stubbs. The distinctive features of the service rendered by Mr. Stubbs as governor of Kansas from 1908 to 1912 had been described on other pages of this history. A few other details as to his work as governor and something as to his personality and career will be of wide interest to the citizens of Kansas. Everyone knows former Governor Stubbs as a man of wonderful business ability and of absolute integrity. It is only natural that the resources of personal character should be partly explained at least by reference to ancestry. When it is explained that Governor … Read more