USA > Kansas > Crawford County > A Twentieth century history and biographical record of Crawford County, Kansas > Part 23
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JOHN MORT.
John Mort, senior vice of Shiloh Post No. 56, G. A. R., and one of the honored veterans of the Civil war residing in Crawford county, was born in Tuscarawas county, Ohio, August 15, 1833. A man now past the seventieth milestone of life, and among the remainder of the great host of our ex-soldiers who will soon be marching on. his career has been filled with useful deeds both to himself and family and to his country, and he deserves the high esteem in which he is held by his fellow citizens of Crawford county. Mr. Mort has been a resident of Crawford county since 1881, and has thus been identified with the county throughout its most progressive and important period of history.
Mr. Mort enlisted at Lima, Allen county, Ohio, August 22, 1862. in Company D. One Hundred and Eighteenth Ohio Infantry, under Colonel Mack and Lieutenant Colonel Walkup, and his company had three captains, successively, Berth. Taylor and Doty. From the camp ut Lima they went to Cincinnati, and during Morgan's raid crossed the
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Ohio and went to Covington. Kentucky. After the siege of Knoxville and the battle at Chickamauga they took part in Sherman's great cam- paign, being in the battles of Resaca, Kenesaw Mountain, New Hope Church, Burnt Hickory, and then in the siege of Atlanta. On the 22d of July, 1864, at Atlanta, while Mr. Mort was filling his canteen with water General McPherson rode up and asked him for a drink, which was gladly given. That was the gallant general's last drink, for only a little while afterward he was killed. being the second Union general slain on that day. From Atlanta Mr. Mort was in the forces sent back to engage Hood in the battles at Franklin and Nashville. Thence he was sent to Washington, and down into the Carolinas, joining Sher- man's army again, and was with his command at Raleigh and other points in North Carolina. He received several injuries during his service, and throughout made an excellent record as a soldier. He was honorably discharged at Cleveland, Ohio, and then returned to his old home in Allen county.
Mr. Mort was a son of George and Polly Mort. His father was a native of Maryland, and was a soldier in the war of 1812. He died in Allen county, Ohio, at the age of eighty-eight, while his wife, who was a native of Maryland, died in Tuscarawas county, at the age of sixty. The father was a stonemason by trade, and in the war of 1812 helped build the fort at Baltimore. He later took up the trade of cooper. There were nine children in the family, five sons and four daughters.
On his arrival in Crawford county in 1881 Mr. Mort bought a farm of eighty acres, and he still owns this valuable place near Cherokee. He was married in Allen county, Ohio, at the age of twenty-three to Miss Christina Harpster, a daughter of Jacob Harpster. She died in Ohio in 1873, having been the mother of nine children, eight of whom are living, namely : Isaac, Thomas, Daniel, Sarah J., Homer, Thomas, William, Frank and Clara. Mr. Mort then married his present wife, Lucinda Swank, the widow of Francis Swank. Mr. Swank was a soldier in Company E of the Forty-fifth Ohio Infantry. was taken
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prisoner at Knoxville and spent thirteen months in the southern prisons at Belle Isle. Salisbury and Andersonville. He left one son, George W. Swank, of Pittsburg, Pennsylvania. Mrs. Mort was a daughter of B. Dickerson. Mr. and Mrs. Mort have two children, John Amos and Retta Della Greenwell, of this county. Mr. Mort is a stanch Republican. and, as has been stated, is very prominent in local Grand Army circles.
THOMAS J. CROWELL.
Thomas J. Crowell, a prominent druggist and business man of Pittsburg, has lived within the confines of Crawford county since he was thirteen years old. The year 1876, in which he came here, was an early one in the history of this part of the state, for settlers were few, official highways were not at all. and the entire county was in the turmoil of a period of development and growth into a fixed com- munity. At the same time the Kansas City, Fort Scott and Memphis Railroad was seeking a right of way and grants of land from Congress in this county, and as a consequence there was much confusion in the buying and selling of farm lands. Mr. Crowell has thus been identified with the county from its incipiency, and the county has been fortunate in numbering him among her progressive business men for a number of years. He is well known in Pittsburg and the surrounding country. and is held in high esteem both in business and in social circles.
Mr. Crowell was born in Salisbury, North Carolina, in 1863. being a son of James and Catharine ( Russell) Crowell. His father was also a native of North Carolina, but later brought his family to McLean county, Illinois, and from there, in January, 1876, moved to Crawford county, Kansas, where he bought a farm and made a home for his family. He and his wife still live on their farm four miles west of Pittsburg, and are highly respected people and have been successful in their farming career. His wife was also a native of North Carolina.
Thomas J. Crowell received most of his education in the Kansas
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State Normal College, at Fort Scott, where at the time several others who have since become prominent in Pittsburg were students. He graduated there in 1885. having devoted himself especially to the sci- ences, such as chemistry, which would lead him into the pharmaceutical profession which he had already planned as his career. After he had become well started in this profession. on January 2. 1890, in partner- ship with C. W. Dry, he established a drug store in Pittsburg. under the name of Dry and Crowell. In July. 1891. he bought his partner's interest, and since that time has been the sole owner and manager of this important enterprise. He has a large store at 405 North Broadway. and carries an extensive stock of drugs, paints, oil, glass, school sup- plies, stationery articles, sporting goods and other merchandise which make up the well equipped drug store, and he has enjoyed a very large patronage.
Mr. Crowell was married at Lamar, Missouri, to Miss Leona Lake, and they have two children, Paul and Harold. Mr. Crowell affiliates with the local lodge of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows and also with other fraternal associations.
ARTHUR R. GETTER.
Arthur R. Getter, a leading farmer and stock-raiser of Grant town- ship, on section 12, in Crawford township, is a resident of this county of twenty years' standing, and has not only gained a creditable share of worldly prosperity in his diligent endeavors, but has throughout this period enjoyed the high esteem and regard of his fellow citizens, among whom he has sojourned from his earliest manhood.
Mr. Getter was born in Montgomery county, Ohio, October 6. 1864, being a son of Jolm N. and Phoebe ( Schenck ) Getter. natives of Ohio. His parents came to Kansas in 1886, and after living in Girard for seven years moved to Butler county, where they still reside and are among the highly esteemed inhabitants.
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Mr. Getter was reared to manhood in Ohio, where he enjoyed a common school education, and at the age of twenty years, in 1884, he came to Crawford county, Kansas. During the first year he worked by the month on a farm, and then bought the place of one hundred and twenty acres where he now makes his home. He has placed all the improvements on this farm, and has made a model farmstead out of a prairie tract. His favorite stock is the Poland China hogs, and he has made this branch of his operations as well as his general farming pay good returns.
October II. 1895. Mr. Getter married Miss Bertha Chamberlin, a daughter of Tertius and Susie ( Johnston) Chamberlin, natives, re- spectively. of New York and Massachusetts, and now living in Butler county, Kansas. Mr. and Mrs. Getter have six children : Vera, aged nine years: Jacob L., eight: Emma, six: Phoebe, five: Ethel, three: and Phadra, one. Mr. Getter is a member of the Modern Woodmen of America at Girard. He is a Democrat in politics, and is now serving as school director.
DR. G. IVAN POHEK.
Dr. G. Ivan Pohek, physician and surgeon at Pittsburg, Kansas. is one of the best equipped and most able men of his profession in south- eastern Kansas. The medical schools of Europe, and those of Austria in particular, have long taken precedence over all other institutions for medical and scientific study and research, and Dr. Pohek had the advantage of a number of years' preparation in the best of those insti- tutions. He has been located in Pittsburg for about a year, and has already gained a large clientage. He is an ardent devotee of his pro- fession from the mere love of it aside from its providing him a liveli- hood, and his deep knowledge and skill and experience have combined with his genial characteristics as a gentleman to rapidly bring him to the front in the professional work.
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Dr. Pohek was born in Austria in 1854. His bent toward medicine was early taken advantage of, and after a thorough general education he was placed in a medical school. He graduated in 1873 from the famous medical department of the University of Vienna, and for the following year was an interne in the Allgemines Krankenhaus in Vienna. He came to the United States in 1876, and for six years was engaged in practice in San Francisco. He then returned to Europe for further scientific preparation, and became a student in the Max- imilian Ludwig Medical College at Munich, where he graduated in 1884. He then returned to the United States and practiced successively at Omaha, at Fort Riley, Kansas, and at Kansas City, having built up a large business in the latter city. He came to Pittsburg in 1903, and at once found favor with those needing a high degree of medical and surgical skill. He has a thoroughly equipped laboratory and pharmacy. and dispenses his own medicines. He has all the modern appliances and facilities so valuable to the present-day practitioner, such as the X-rays. the violet rays and complete electrical apparatus. Dr. Pohek is a man of broad and generous proportions in every way, being a distinguished gentleman in social intercourse, a man of ample means and unusually successful in his profession, and is one of the most able scholars in this part of the state, having command over a dozen languages.
In 1894 Dr. Pohek was elected president of the Kansas Physicians Association, and served as such for two years. His wife is Mrs. E. Nevada (Schoshusen) Pohek, and they have two children, Ralph Byron and Margarita.
JOHN DAVIS.
John Davis, of Cherokee, has been connected with the coal-mining industry practically all his life, and is one of the most active, energetic and enterprising young men engaged in that line of work in Crawford county. At the present writing he is manager of shaft No. 5 at
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Cherokee. This was opened in February. 1904, and at a depth of forty-seven feet a vein of twenty-six-inch coal, of fine quality, easily accessible, was reached, and the output of the shaft is now about seven hundred tons per month. Fifteen men are employed at the shaft. Mr. Davis, having worked his way up through all the details of the mining industry, is not only efficient in the work himself but is also a most capable director, and his popularity among his men is voiced unani- mously by all who know him or of his work.
Born in Staffordshire. England. thirty-two years ago, at the age * of nine years he accompanied his parents to the United States and settled with them at Streator, LaSalle county, Illinois. He was a son of Richard and Mary Davis, both natives of England. The former was a brickmaker by trade, and a good one at that. and made a good living tor his family. Politically he was a Democrat. He died at the age of forty-seven, and the mother, who was a member of the Methodist church, died at the age of forty-three.
At the age of fourteen Mr. Davis began his acquaintance with the coal industry, and for the past eighteen years has been steadily and progressively in that line of occupation. He was married at Cherokee at the age of twenty-one to Miss Cora Fulton, who died when twenty- eight years old, leaving three sons, Richard, Earl and Homer. Mr. Davis has fraternal affiliations with the Improved Order of Red Men, and politically is a Democrat.
JOHN R. KNOTT.
John R. Knott, who is well known in Crawford county as a pros- perous and progressive farmer and breeder of high-class Poland China hogs, resides on section 19. Grant township, where he has had his home for thirty-five years. He is. in fact, one of the pioneers of the county, and has seen the prairies of this particular section develop from wind-swept plains to a fruitful and beautiful agricultural community,
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with groves and farm houses, waving grain fields, and thriving villages smiling with prosperity and filling to overflowing the cornucopia of the industrious husbandman. His life has been consonant with his place of habitation, and his ways have been those of peace and good will to his neighbors, of contented performance of duty and the quiet and unalloyed enjoyment of the fruits thereof. all of which has transpired to the better- ment of himself and family and the advancement of the welfare of his fellow citizens.
Mr. Knott was born in Monroe county, Missouri, January 16. 1843. a son of Clement and Margaret ( Thomas) Knott, who were both born in Kentucky, whence they came to Missouri at an early day. Clement Knott joined the California gold-seekers in 1849. and died on the Pacific slope in 1853, when forty-five years old. His wife lived to the age of seventy-two years, and died in St. Paul, Kansas, in 1876.
Mr. John R. Knott was reared in Missouri and had a common school education. He was yet under age when, in 1861, he enlisted to fight the battles of his country, in Company C. Third Missouri Infantry, with which he served until 1864, having been made a prisoner of war at the battle of Pea Ridge. After leaving the army in 1864 he went to Montana, where he was engaged in mining for the following four and a half years. He came to Crawford county, Kansas, in De- cember. 1869, and took up a claim of one hundred and sixty acres, which is a part of the farm of two hundred and forty acres which comprises his present nice homestead. He has made all the improvements on this place, and his farm is one of which he may well be proud.
Mr. Knott was married January 22. 1872, to Miss Mary Ann Carico, a daughter of James Carico. Both her parents are now deceased. Six children have been born to Mr. and Mrs. Knott. Aloysius is in South America studying for the priesthood: Clarence is also preparing to be a priest, being a student in Kentucky : Legora is at home : Beatrice is a sister of charity at Nazareth, Kentucky : James Mark is a miner at Chicopee, Kansas; and George A. is also at Chicopee. The family are
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all members of the Catholic church at Greenbush. Mr. Knott affiliates with Lodge No. I. A. H. T. A. He served as justice of the peace for several years, and his political belief is socialism.
JOHN WESLEY MICHAEL.
John Wesley Michael, a well known and prosperous farmer in Grant township, has during a residence of twelve or thirteen years in this county advanced to a position of esteem and influence in his com- munity, and as a man of enterprise and public spirit in all that he under- takes he is a factor that makes for the well-being and material progress of Crawford county.
Mr. Michael began his career of usefulness at an early age, when as a mere boy of fourteen years, in May, 1863, he enlisted in Company E, One Hundred and Fifteenth Indiana Infantry, and went away to fight in defense of the Union and all it represented. The regiment went into camp at Camp Carrington, Illinois: was ordered to Cincinnati, thence to Louisville, and on to Cumberland Gap, where it was under General Hooker; marched and saw much severe campaigning through- out Tennessee. Kentucky and Virginia. Mr. Michael was sick with the measles for a time in the hospital, and in February, 1864. received his honorable discharge at Indianapolis. Indiana.
Mr. Michael was born in Edgar county, Illinois, near Paris, in 1849, the year of the exodus to the California gold fields. His father, a native and reared and educated in Pennsylvania, came from that state to Indiana in young manhood. settling in Parke county on the Wabash river, and later moved to Edgar county, Illinois.
Reared on the old Illinois homestead. where he was taught the value of honest toil. and receiving his education in the schools of his locality, he grew to manhood there and from youth up has been engaged in farming pursuits. He came to Crawford county in 1892 and bought one hundred and sixty acres in Grant township, on which he has erected
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a good modern house, furnished in taste and comfort, and which he has so conducted and improved as to make his estate one of the best in his neighborhood. He has taken much interest in the affairs of his home community, has supported and favored progress in education, good roads, moral and religious environments, and has utilized all opportuni- ties to make himself a man of worth not only to himself and family but also to society in general.
Mr. and Mrs. Michael have four children: Mrs. Bertha Hand, of Wilson county. Kansas: Alta : Clarice and Henry. of Crawford county. Mr. Michael is a strong Republican in politics, and he and his wife are members of the Methodist church.
THOMAS W. COGSWELL.
Thomas W. Cogswell, a lawyer known and honored in Pittsburg and throughout Crawford county, where for a number of years he has enjoyed a high-class abiding practice among the leading corporate and financial interests, is an old-time Kansan of thirty-five years' standing. and has been a resident of Pittsburg for the past fifteen years. He has been connected with much of the whirl and eddying political, social and professional activity of this state, and his career throughout has been without blemish, his errors, if any, having been of the head. not of the heart. He was noted as one of the most astute and successful criminal lawyers at the bar during the middle period of his practice. and one of the highest compliments that can be paid to his ability is that many citizens of Pittsburg and Crawford, when in need of legal talent. would consult none other than their well known and respected friend, Mr. Cogswell. He has labored devotedly and zealously through all his sixty-five years of life without apparent diminution of energy or will power, and his later years are crowned with a due meed of honor for high and strenuous endeavor in the good fight of life.
Mr. Cogswell was born in Nova Scotia in 1838, being a son of
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Benjamin B. and Sarah (Jackson) Cogswell, both natives of Nova Scotia, and the ancestry of the one being Scotch and English and of the other American. His great-grandfather on his paternal side was a soldier in the British army during the war of the Revolution, and in the same war his maternal great-grandfather fought in the ranks of the continentals. Mrs. Sarah Cogswell died in Nova Scotia when Thomas was about ten years old, and the latter's father then brought his family to Illinois and settled on a farm in Will county, not far from Joliet. Later in life Benjamin Cogswell moved to Pierce City, Missouri, where he died at the age of eighty-four years.
Mr. T. W. Cogswell grew up on the farm in Will county, Illinois, in the meantime received a good mental equipment in the district school. in the graded and in the high schools of Joliet, and after graduation from the latter took an extensive classical course in a college in Chicago. He had also been carrying on his law studies, and when his education at Chicago was finished he entered the office of E. C. Fellows, one of the most noted criminal lawyers of the day, and after completing his studies with him was also engaged in practice with such an eminent partner. His admission to the bar was in Peoria in 1861. He enlisted twice in the aimy, but was rejected on account of organic heart trouble, with which he has always been afflicted. In the case of one enlistment he helped raise and organize Company A, One Hundredth Illinois Infantry, in Florence township of Will county. In 1865 his poor health led him to go west to California, and he was located at Auburn, in the Sacra- mento valley, until 1869.
In the latter year he came to eastern Kansas and opened his office in Osage Mission, now St. Paul, where he practiced law for twenty years, having gamed a large clientele and made an enduring circle of friends. He was elected county attorney of Neosho county, and also to several other offices of lesser importance. He is perhaps hest remem- hered within the boundaries of that county for the prominent part he took in the memorable county-seat contest of 1869-70, which furnishes
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an exciting chapter of county history. not without its amusing episodes, although at that time filled with complications that were truly serious. Osage Mission and Erie were the two rival towns. On one cold, dark night Mr. Cogswell went alone to the court house at Erie, took the records of the county and district court, and carried them in a gunny- sack back to Osage Mission, which the county officers at that time made the seat of government. The county seat remained for two years at Osage Mission, during which time a loaded cannon was kept on top of the court house, ready to be touched off should any have the temerity to come in force and remove the records. Subsequently, when Mr. Cogswell made the race for county attorney, this act, instead of militat- ing against him in the case of the people of Erie, really won him votes from that precinct, since they admired the courage of a man who would come alone at the risk of his life, when the Erie people were armed and ready to resist any removal of the precious documents.
In 1888 Mr. Cogswell came to Pittsburg and opened his office. having made this his residence ever since. He has always maintained a high reputation in criminal cases, but in Pittsburg has devoted his talents mainly as adviser for some of the leading business firms, financial institutions and corporate interests of this city and vicinity. In 1900 his health failed, and he turned his practice over, temporarily, to his son- in-law, William J. Gregg, and retired to his farm four miles east of Pittsburg, where he soon recuperated and resumed his legal duties. At the present time he is vice-president and attorney of the Pittsburg Water Supply Company. One of the pleasurable incidents of his long practice is the fact that he has had as students in his office and has been preceptor to a number of young men who have since distinguished themselves. notably. Congressman Phil Campbell and brother. John Campbell. and also his above mentioned son-in-law. William J. Gregg, who is now a successful corporation lawyer in Kansas City. Mr. Cogswell cast his first presidential vote for Stephen A. Douglas, but his second was for Lincoln, and he has ever since been a Republican.
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Mr. Cogswell was married at Elgin, Illinois, in November. 1870. to Miss Martha Wardlow. They have only one son living. Samuel Cogswell. Miss Carrie Cogswell. now Mrs. W. J. Gregg, is their daughter by adoption. Mr. and Mrs. Cogswell have always taken a kind-hearted interest in young people, and several times they have taken a child into their home and given it all the advantages that their own children received.
A. J. GEORGIA.
A. J. Georgia, of Pittsburg, Kansas, was born in the township of Newfield, Tompkins county, New York, August 23, 1835. His father was a farmer. In 1846 the family moved to Tioga county, and in 1850 to Bradford county, Pennsylvania, but in 1852 returned to Tioga county, locating at Waverly. In the fall of 1854 they moved to Kala- mazoo, Michigan, and in 1860 to Iowa. After the close of the Civil war they left Iowa and came to Kansas, locating near the present site of the city of Pittsburg.
Mr. A. J. Georgia attended the public schools of the various com- munities in which he was reared. At the age of sixteen he applied to the public schools of Waverly, New York, and upon examination was assigned to classes in higher mathematics, including algebra and geo- metry, also natural philosophy and physiology. He afterwards, for two terms, attended the Ceresco Institute in Michigan. Upon his removal to Michigan he began teaching, his first school being in Kalamazoo county, and he afterward taught in Branch, Calhoun and Allegan counties.
He was married to Miss Edith Bennett, at Colon, Michigan. April 4, 1860, and in the fall moved to Iowa, where he continued to teach until the summer of 1862. He then enlisted in Company E. Twenty- eighth Iowa Infantry, and at the close of the war he came to Kansas and settled on a claim near the present site of Pittsburg. Here he
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