USA > Kansas > Crawford County > A Twentieth century history and biographical record of Crawford County, Kansas > Part 25
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On the 20th of August, 1863. Mr. Shipman was married to Miss Sarah C. McClure, a daughter of James and Elizabeth ( Songer) Mc- Clure, of Fountain county, Indiana. The children born of this marriage are nine in number : Mary E., the wife of William Lamb, of Oklahoma ; Lucinda A., the wife of Anderson Fox, of Crawford township. Craw- ford county ; Sarah Anna, the wife of L. B. McClelland, of this town- ship; Maggie A., the wife of William Dunlap, of Grant township ; Henry. at home : Ida, the wife of A. McClelland, who is living on her father's
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farm: J. B., who was married October 3, 1903, and is living on his father's farm : Emily V., at home ; and one child that died in infancy.
The parents are members of the Church of God and are deeply interested in religious work. Mr. Shipman has served as school director for three years and gives his political support to the Republican party, but has never been active in politics as an office-seeker, preferring to devote his time and energies to his business affairs, which, being capably conducted, have made him one of the substantial citizens of his adopted county.
CARL C. COCKERILL.
Carl C. Cockerill, a prominent coal operator and proprietor of the C. C. Cockerill Coal Company, at Pittsburg, Kansas, has large interests in Crawford county's great mining industry and is numbered among Pittsburg's most enterprising young business men. He has been in- terested in coal operating and its allied industries from boyhood, and has been at the head of his present business for four years. He belongs to the class of men of whom Pittsburg is most proud-enterprising. public-spirited, alert to make use of opportunities for building up their own business, yet willing to sacrifice time and labor for the general development and progress of the city and county.
Mr. Cockerill was born at Glasgow, Missouri, in June, 1872, a son of Judge H. Clay and Kate (Almond) Cockerill. His father was born at Richmond, Missouri, in 1831, and is one of the old-time and promi- nent citizens of that state. He received a good education, studied law, and became a leading member of the Missouri bar. He was elected judge of the district court for Platte county, and was an honor to the bench during his incumbency. For the past thirty-five or forty years he has lived at Glasgow. Missouri, and was elected and served one term as state senator from Howard county. One of his sons. Hon. Harry W. Cockerill, who died in 1893, also served in the legislature from that
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county, and was taken away when well entered upon a distinguished career. Judge Cockerill's wife was born in Platte county, Missouri, in 1845.
Mr. C. C. Cockerill received most of his education in the Glasgow schools. He entertained a liking for the coal business when a boy, and in 1889. at the age of seventeen, came to Weir City, Kansas, and took an office position with the zinc works in that place. In 1891 he came to Pittsburg to fill a position with the Cherokee Zinc Company, which later became the Cherokee-Lanyon Spelter Company, operating one of the largest smelters in this district. He continued his connection with this company until its Pittsburg plants were discontinued in 1900, when he engaged in the coal mining business, under the name of the C. C. Cockerill Coal Company. He operates two mines and employs about three hundred men. Mine No. 121/2 is three miles and a half northeast of Pittsburg, and mine No. 16 is a mile and a half south of Chicopee.
Mr. Cockerill was married at Pittsburg in February, 1894, to Miss Minnie Nesch, whose father, Robert Nesch, is now a resident of Kansas City, but who still retains his large interests in Pittsburg, being vice president of the Pittsburg Wholesale Grocery Company, and also con- nected with some of the leading manufacturing plants of the city. Mr. and Mrs. Cockerill have three sons, Robert Clay, Carl and Almond. He affiliates with the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks, and he and "his wife are prominent members of the social circles of the city.
DR. ROBERT W. McLAREN.
Dr. Robert W. McLaren, a prominent physician and surgeon of Pittsburg, Kansas, has had an established practice in this city for about four years and is recognized as one of the foremost men in his profes- sion in southeastern Kansas. He came to this city with the very best of equipment for his work, and has since exhibited the qualities of the true physician-a careful and conscientious devotion to his calling, a scien-
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tific and thorough knowledge of all its departments, a deep sympathy that makes him a friend as well as a scientific counselor, and a right appre- ciation of the nobleness of his profession as a factor for good to man- kind.
Dr. McLaren was born in Glengarry county, Ontario, Canada, in 1872. being a son of Donald and Mary Ann (Johnson) McLaren, the former a native of Canada and of Scotch parentage and the latter a native of Ireland. Both the parents are still living in Canada. and his father is a carpenter and contractor.
Dr. McLaren received his early education in the country schools of Glengarry county, and was subsequently in school at Williamstown. From there he entered Queen's University at Kingston, Canada, where he spent three years in the department of liberal arts. He then matricu- lated in the famous medical school of McGill University, at Montreal. where he was graduated June 17, 1898. He then continued his profes- sional training along practical lines by spending a year in the Royal Victorian Hospital at Montreal, and was then house surgeon in St. Luke's Hospital at Ottawa, in which position he gained most valuable experience in surgery. He decided to locate for permanent practice in the United States, and in the latter part of 1900 established himself at Pittsburg for the general practice of medicine. He has been very suc- cessful and has gained a large and high-class patronage. He still retains membership in the Canadian Medical Society.
J. A. CARLTON.
J. A. Carlton, president of the Farmers' State Bank of Walnut. is one of the most thoroughly representative business men and financiers in Crawford county and southeastern Kansas. In this capacity his worth and importance to the county and the town of his residence is well known and appreciated. But of especial interest to the reader of this history is the fact that his large success has been gained by hard
James. A. Carlton
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and persistent industry and intelligent application beginning with the period of boyhood, and that in a varied career, connected with numerous enterprises, he has adhered steadily to the principles of rugged honesty and absolute integrity which were inculcated in him while a youth growing up among the hills of old New Hampshire. He has been pro- gressing to the goal of his ambition throughout a period of some forty years, and as a successful. honorable and public-spirited citizen his place in Crawford county is one of broad usefulness and worth.
Mr. Carlton is a native of Conway, New Hampshire, where he was born August 2, 1846. His parents were Andrew and Nancy ( West ) Carlton, natives, respectively, of Vermont and New Hampshire, and both now deceased. After a brief period of educational discipline in the schools of New Hampshire, young Carlton, aged sixteen, left home and went to the New England metropolis of Boston, where he worked in an express office two years. The scene of his endeavors was then transferred to the west, and two years of his early life were spent as a school teacher at Mt. Vernon, Wisconsin, where he later became engaged in the general merchandise business. His health failing, after five years he sold out and returned to New Hampshire, where for twelve years the mercantile and lumber business engrossed his activities, and all the time he was progressing and gaining a substantial place in the world of business. Selling out his New Hampshire interests, he next spent two years in Missouri, and on December 1, 1889. arrived in Wal- nut, Crawford county, and engaged in the general merchandise business, which has been successfully continued for fifteen years. In March. 1904. was organized the Farmers' State Bank, of which he has since been president and most active in promoting its success. The other officers of this institution are: George Goff, cashier: D. B. Gregory. vice president ; and B. E. Carlos, secretary. Mr. Carlton is also one of the largest money lenders in this part of the country, making loans on real estate. personals and chattels. On his ranch of seven thousand acres near Dodge City, Kansas, he raises large numbers of cattle and
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other live stock, and he also owns two fine farms in this county. besides his comfortable residence in Walnut and the block and store where his bank is located.
Mr. Carlton is. fraternally. a thirty-second degree Mason. In pol- itics he is a Republican, and has served as mayor of his town and also as township assessor.
He was married in 1870 to Miss Mary L. Haselton, of his native town of Conway, New Hampshire. They have two children, Winifred is the wife of Hollis Cole, of Conway, New Hampshire, and the son Guy is a merchant and stock buyer of Walnut.
JUDGE THOMAS R. JONES.
Judge Thomas R. Jones, who is filling the position of probate judge at Girard, Kansas, well merits the respect which is accorded him, for his has been an honorable record, in which, through the utilization of his opportunities, through his unwearied industry and persistent pur- pose, he has steadily worked his way upward in the business world and at the same time has commanded the esteem and confidence of those with whom he has been associated.
He was born in Glamorganshire, Wales, on the 24th of March. 1858, and is a son of Richard and Eleanor (Rees) Jones, who were also natives of Wales. The father was a miner by occupation, and in No- vember. 1857. he bade adieu to friends and native land and sailed for the United States. He took up his abode in Ohio and for some time was engaged in mining in that state. Subsequently leaving Ohio, he moved to Pennsylvania about 1873. and resided there until 1875. thence to Will county, Illinois, ( Braidwood) for one year, and thence to Joplin. Missouri, in 1876, and was resident there until 1877. when he came to Crawford county, Kansas. On settling in Crawford county he turned his attention to farming, carrying on that pursuit until his death. He was killed, however, in the mines at Midway by slate falling upon him
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in August, 1891, being at the time fifty-eight years of age. His first wife had passed away in Ohio in 1862 when but twenty-seven years of age.
Judge Thomas R. Jones pursued his education in the public schools of Pennsylvania, Ohio and northern Virginia, successively, but his privi- leges in that direction were somewhat limited as at an early age he began to earn his own living. He was a lad of nineteen summers when he came to Kansas with his father and secured employment in the mines at Midway. He worked earnestly, diligently, mastered every task which was assigned to him and by reason of his fidelity and capability he was promoted from time to time, until in 1885 he was made foreman of the mines, and occupied that responsible position until the Ist of Janu- ary, 1903. when he resigned in order to enter upon official service. He had in the previous November been elected judge of the probate court of Crawford county, and on the 12th of January, 1903, he entered upon the duties of the office. He is now acceptably serving in that position, being a worthy custodian of the legal interests of the county in this direction.
On Christmas day of 1880 was celebrated the marriage of Judge Jones and Miss Elizabeth Tangye, a daughter of James and Mary (Bishop) Tangye, who were natives of England. Mrs. Jones was born in Maryland. By her marriage she has become the mother of six chil- dren : Harry, who is occupying a position as bookkeeper with the Bo- land, Darnell Coal Company at Hartford. Arkansas: Ethel, Thomas R .. James R., Arthur D. and Grace E., all at home. Mrs. Jones and the children are all members of the Episcopal church and the family is wide- ly and favorably known in Girard. The judge belongs to the Masonic fraternity, in which he has attained high rank, being now affiliated with the blue lodge No. 187. chapter No. 58 and Montjoie Commandery No. 29, at Pittsburg, and also with Abdalla Temple of the Mystic Shrine at Leavenworth, Kansas. He likewise belongs to the Independent Order
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of Odd Fellows. Lodge No. 196. at Pittsburg, and to the Ancient Order of United Workmen, Lodge No. 346, at Litchfield, Kansas.‘
Coming to this state in his boyhood days, Judge Jones has gained a wide acquaintance among the people in this part of the commonwealth, and is justly regarded as one of the foremost citizens of his community, his progressive spirit being manifest in active co-operation for the gen- eral good along lines of substantial progress and improvement.
MILES W. GREENWOOD.
Miles W. Greenwood, a leading contractor of Pittsburg, was among the first to cast in their lot with this settlement, and in a very substantial fashion helped to build up and develop his town into a city of which he and the entire county is now most proud. Nearly all the years of his adult manhood, thirty in number, have been passed in this city, and his success has been achieved here by his industry and steady adherence to fixed and honorable principles in life.
Mr. Greenwood was born at Alexandria. Campbell county, Ken- tucky, in 1854. His parents, James and Sarah ( Horswell) Greenwood, were both born in Yorkshire, England, and they came to the United States about 1834. James Greenwood was a woolen mill employe, and also engaged in that occupation after coming to America. His brother, Thomas Greenwood, with his family, had started for America a. year before James, but has never since been heard of. It is known that his vessel suffered shipwreck on the way, but it is also known that he finally reached this country, although the most diligent efforts to locate him or his family have been so far unsuccessful. James Greenwood died in 1862, and his wife in 1881, both in Kentucky, where they had lived since coming to America. Four of their sons served as Union soldiers in the Civil war. namely, James, Henry. John and George. The first named was wounded at the battle of Murfreesboro, and was also a prisoner in the awful Libby prison.
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Mr. Miles W. Greenwood received his education at Alexandria, Kentucky, and during his boyhood days there also began learning the carpenter's trade. He completed his period of apprenticeship at Cin- cinnati, and worked there for a time as a journeyman, having employ- ment in that capacity in the Mill Creek section of that city. In 1875 he came to Illinois and worked at his trade for nine months. His introduction to the present city of Pittsburg was in 1876, but the place was then known as New Pittsburg, and was a small station on the Girard and Joplin Railroad, containing probably one hundred inhabi- tants and a very few buildings. It was a promising locality because of the great coal prospects which were just beginning to be developed and which were certain to make a rich community in time. Mr. Green- wood went to work as a carpenter and contractor, and put up a number of buildings in the town. The second winter he was here the old Stev- ens Hotel, at which he was boarding, burned to the ground, and he suf- fered a heavy loss in his two hundred and fifty dollars' worth of tools. In 1884 he was compelled to give up his carpentry work on account of ill health, and during the following nine years he engaged in mining. He then resumed and has since continued his business as contractor and builder. He has constructed a great many buildings, both in the city and for the large mining companies nearby. Among others, he built the Schneider and Hunter blocks, and the Ash, Clark and Mccluskey residences.
Mr. Greenwood has always been a stanch Republican in politics, and for some time during his earlier career in this city was in public life. He was constable for eight years, and also served a term as deputy sheriff under W. H. Braden. His fraternal affiliations are with the Ancient Order of United Workmen, the Improved Order of Red Men, the Fraternal Aid, and his wife is also a member of a number of local orders. He was married in this city in 1879 to Miss Maggie Botts. and they have three sons, George, Harry and Dan. They have also lost a little son, Frank, and two daughters, Lucy and Edna.
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JOHN F. SMITH.
John F. Smith, of Washington township, has lived in this county from pioneer times, and is one of the successful farmers and stock- raisers in the eastern part of the county. He is worthy of the esteem and respect in which he is universally held by friends and neighbors, and by his enterprise and public spirit has become an influential factor in the affairs of his part of the county.
Born in the state of North Carolina. in 1836, of excellent family connections, a son of Andrew and Nancy E. (Clark) Smith, of North Carolina, the father born in 1813. at the age of two years Mr. Smith was taken to Indiana, and thence to Greene county, Iowa, but the family home was later again made in Indiana. The father died in Mar- tin county. Indiana, at the age of fifty-two. He was a farmer, and he and his wife, who died in Greene county, Indiana, at the age of sixty- six, were members of the Church of God. There were eight children : Martha, Sarah, Drusilla, Mary. Thomas, John F., Sina C. and Anderson C., the last named a soldier in the Twenty-second Indiana. now de- ceased.
Reared and educated in the state of Indiana, Mr. Smith was trained to the life of farming and has followed that occupation successfully from his earliest years. On September 21. 1864. he enlisted in Company I, Twenty-second Indiana Infantry, under Captain .A. R. Ravenscroff. and gave an excellent account of himself throughout the remainder of the war, until he received his honorable discharge and could go home with the consciousness of having performed his duty to country as well as to home. He was sent from Indianapolis to Nashville, and was in General Sherman's army in its famous march to the sea, being also pres- ent at the battles before Atlanta. He was detailed to drive cattle for the army, and brought a large drove along with the army to Savannah.
Mr. Smith was married in 1869 to Miss Celestine Burge, who was born in Greene county. Indiana. April 8. 1840. being a daughter of
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Hamilton and Sarah Marinda Burge, the former a native of Wales. Her mother died in Indiana, and her father lives at the age of eighty. having been a farmer throughout his active life. There were four chil- dren in the Burge family, Alexander. Malinda, Mrs. Smith and Eliza- beth. Mr. and Mrs. Smith have the following children: Frank, in Colorado: Emma, in Girard, wife of Orin Dunlap: John T., of Craw- ford county ; Della, in Iowa : and Arthur, a school boy. Three children are deceased, two when young, and Laura Davis at the age of twenty- eight. Mr. Smith is a Democrat of the Andrew Jackson type, and he and his wife are members of the Church of God. The Smith homestead is one of those hospitable and cheery places where friends are always welcomed and made to feel at home, and the entire family are held in the highest esteem throughout Washington township.
JONATHAN BAYLESS.
Jonathan Bayless has been one of the largest land owners and most prominent citizens of Crawford county for over thirty years, and is now spending the last years of a most active and useful life in quiet retirement in the city of Girard, where he is held in high esteem be- cause of his personal worth and venerable character.
He was born in the city of New York, March 13, 1829. The fam- ily in America originated with three brothers, one of whom was the great-grandfather of Jonathan, who came to this country in the colonial period of our history. To distinguish themselves from all others of the name they left off an s from their name, spelling it Bayles instead of Bayless. One brother settled in Virginia, one in Maryland and one in Connecticut. Jonathan is a descendant of the one who settled in Connecticut. In 1882 he added the omitted s to his name, as nearly all the other descendants have done, although his brother James, of Kansas City, still writes his name Bayles.
Jonathan Bayles, the grandfather of Jonathan Bayless, was a farm-
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er in Westchester county, New York. He served in the war of the Revolution, from first to last, and acted as captain of his company, although he was never commissioned. He married Miss Rhoda June, a descendant of French Huguenots who fled from France at the time of the revocation of the Edict of Nantes and the persecution of the Protes- tants. By this marriage there were eight children, four sons and four daughters.
The youngest son was Samuel Bayles, who was born at Rye, West- chester county, New York. November 22, 1796. He lived on the farm until he was nine years old, and then his parents moved to New York city, where he was educated and lived ten years; at the end of which time the family returned to Westchester county. His father died in December. 1823. and in the following spring Samuel returned to New York city and taught school there for two years. After that he was engaged in the grocery business until the spring of 1832, and in that year moved west to the territory of Michigan, where he purchased three hundred and twenty acres of government land in Lenawee county, on the Raisin river, now the townships of Madison and Dover, near Adrain. He paid one dollar and a quarter an acre for this land, and the deed to it was signed by Andrew Jackson, then President of the United States.
Samuel Bayles married, December 28. 1825, Miss Mary Hubbard, a daughter of Andrew Hubbard, a well-to-do farmer of New Rochelle, Westchester county, New York. The following children were born of this marriage: Andrew H., who is deceased: Jonathan, of Girard, Kansas: Jennie A., first the wife of Dr. Briggs, of Toledo, Ohio, and later the wife of J. H. Kennedy, of Detroit, Michigan, where she now resides; James A., of Kansas City ; Samuel M., who died in St. Louis, where his widow, son and daughter now reside : Ophelia B. is the widow of Rev. Solomon S. Littlefield, who died in Detroit, Michigan, and she is now living in Evanston, Illinois, with her daughter, who married Rev. Charles Stuart, a professor in Garret Biblical Institute; Edwin L .. who died in infancy ; and Benjamin H., a resident of Denver, Colorado.
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Mrs. Mary ( Hubbard) Bayles died December 28, 1874, in Adrian, Michigan, in her sixty-eighth year, after a long, useful and happy Christian life. She was converted and joined the Methodist church when twelve years old. Her parents were life-long members of the same church, and they died on the old farm in New York where they had lived before, during and after the Revolutionary war. In repairing their old house after the war the front door was left in place as a relic. because it bore the marks of so many British bullets. Samuel Bayles lied July 20. 1882. in Detroit, Michigan. at the home of his daughter. Mrs. Ophelia B. Littlefield, being then in his eighty-sixth year. Early in life he too had joined the Methodist Episcopal church, and was a faithful and active member throughout his life.
At this point it will be proper to insert an obituary which appeared in the press at Adrian, Michigan, on the occasion of the death of Samuel Bayles, as indicating still further the beauty and worth of noble char- acter that now belongs among the past. "Samuel Bayles, formerly of eastern New York, but for many years a resident of Michigan, died in Detroit, July 20, 1882, aged eighty-six years. He was converted at an early age, and from the happy day when he gave his heart to God he was a devoted, consistent, intelligent and zealous Christian. His spirit was always uncomplaining. trustful and cheerful. His place was never vacant in the house of the Lord unless he was kept away from it by Providence. He was respected by those who knew him, and in the city of Adrian where he has lived for many years his name is honored and the memory of his virtues and of his beauty of character and life will be long cherished. He lived long and well, and died a conqueror. Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord. The following poem was found in Mr. Bayles' Bible marking the chapter which he read last. The chapter was the account of the raising of Lazarus :
"Tell thou to my friends when, weeping.
They my words descry, Here you find my body sleeping,
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