USA > Kansas > Crawford County > A Twentieth century history and biographical record of Crawford County, Kansas > Part 27
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creditable record in his profession. He is a member of the State Med- ical Association and the National Association of Railway Surgeons. He is devoted to his work, and is well read and constantly delving deeper into the great science of healing. He affiliates with Knights of Pythias and the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks, and is past chancellor of the former order.
Dr. Gardner was married at Dixon, Illinois, November 29, 1881. to Miss Jennie A. McKenney, a native of that town and a daughter of Henry and Eusebia A. (Nash) McKenney, both deceased. Her father was one of the first settlers at Dixon's Ferry, as Dixon was formerly called, and hauled from Chicago, ninety miles distant, the lumber with which to erect one of the first houses. He died in 1856, and his wife in 1888, and of their seven children three still survive. Dr. and Mrs. Gardner have three children: Thomas Gaines, who is ship's-writer on the United States Steamship Nevada: Henry Perry, a graduate of the Girard high school in 1904. is now a nurse at the Santa Fe Hospital at Fort Madison, Iowa, preparatory to entering medical college: and Aville Quarrier, a pupil in the public schools. The family are Episcopalians.
HON. A. J. CORY.
Hon. A. J. Cory, proprietor of the Maple Grove farm in Lincoln township, is one of the ablest farmers in Crawford county, and has made a fine record in every department of his activity. He has enjoyed liberal success in business affairs, but he has also been actively interested in public matters, having served in the state assembly and been a leader in county affairs in general.
Born at Syracuse, Kosciusko county, Indiana, November 10, 1846. he had attained the age of eighteen years when he became a soldier in the Civil war. He enlisted in January, 1865, in the One Hundred and Fifty-second Indiana Infantry, in Captain Smith's company and under the command of Colonel W. W. Giswold. From the camp at Indian-
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apolis they were sent to Virginia in February, and during the last weeks of the war were stationed in various parts of that central field of the war, being at Charleston, West Virginia, for a time, and being at Harper's Ferry when the war closed. He was honorably discharged, and returned home when still in his teens.
Mr. Cory is a member of a prominent family of Kosciusko county, Indiana, which settled in that county in the pioneer year of 1834. His father, Abijah C. Cory, born in Pickaway county, Ohio, in 1818, was a son of Jeremiah Cory, who was a native of Pennsylvania, of Scotch an- cestry, and was a soldier in the war of 1812. Jeremiah married Dorothy Martin, whose grandfather was with Daniel Boone in Kentucky, and her father was a native of Belfast, Ireland. Jeremiah Cory and wife moved from Indiana to Story county, Iowa, where they both died. Abijah C. Cory married for his first wife Sally Mann, who died in 1845. leaving three children, Samantha, deceased at fourteen years; Almeda, and Alonzo. After the death of his first wife he married Mrs. Matilda (Wood) Gunter, a daughter of John G. Wood, a soldier of the war of 1812, and by this marriage there were the following children: A. J .. Jesse, F. Malinda, P. Celestine, Elizabethi. The father, who died at Syra- cuse. Indiana, at the age of seventy-five, was a successful farmer and stockman, politically was a Whig and Republican, active in party affairs though never seeking office, and was a member of the Baptist church.
Mr. A. J. Cory was reared on the homestead farm in Kosciusko county, and attended the public schools. At the age of twenty-one, November 14, 1867, he was married to Miss Rhoda C. Watson, who was born near Warsaw in Kosciusko county, and reared and educated there, being a daughter of Robert and Sarah (Voss) Watson. Mrs. Cory faithfully performed her duties as wife and mother for twenty- seven years, until called to her final rest in 1894. She was a devoted member of the Church of God. She left three children. Minnie A. Lesher, of Lincoln township, this county; Sarah B. Love, of Franklin, Oklahoma ; and Clarence. who is nineteen years old and at home. Two
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children died in childhood. Curtis L. at the age of four years, and Jessie Pearl at fifteen months. In 1896 Mr. Cory was married to Miss Anna Todd, a lady of education and refinement and a daughter of Henry and Margaret (Emerson) Todd, both deceased, and formerly of Bourbon county, Kansas.
Mr. Cory moved from Syracuse. Indiana, to Crawford county in 1870. in a wagon, and has ever since been closely identified with the county's interests. He is owner of one of the fine places in Lincoln township, the Maple Grove farm consisting of two hundred and eighty acres of choice land and being one of the best improved and most valu- able places in the township. He has a comfortable and sightly residence. his barn is thirty by ninety feet and one of the best of its kind, and all other equipments show progressiveness and the latest advances in agri- culture.
In politics Mr. Cory is a Socialist, and has always worked and stood for the principles of his conviction rather than for regular party. He voted for Peter Cooper in 1876. In 1890 he was elected by the citizens of Crawford county as a member of the state assembly. and while there he acquitted himself most creditably by his efforts for many needed reforms and in the interest of his constituents. He affiliates with the Odd Fellows. and is a member of the Church of God. As an old soldier he is a member of the G. A. R.
JOSEPH E. BEVINS.
Joseph E. Bevins, a prominent coal operator and well known old citizen of Pittsburg and Crawford county, has the distinction of being among the first to mine coal in this county and thus open up the resources upon which have depended in great measure the material and industrial wealth and activity of the county. His life since boyhood has been spent in this county, and his diligence and intelligent endeavors, his capacity for working straight ahead to the goal of his ambition, and his
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long continued efforts in the right direction have placed him among the influential and well-to-do class of citizens. He has been acquainted with southeastern Kansas when it was an unbroken stretch of prairie still the haunt of the deer and buffalo, and has progressed with the country's development to a highly desirable state of material prosperity. He is well liked throughout the county and among his many business asso- ciates and friends, and has gained and merited their esteem by a public- spirited and generous career.
Mr. Bevins was born near Perry City, Illinois, in 1853, a son of Thomas and Mary (Kirkland) Bevins. His parents were both natives of England and were married there, and shortly after came to this country. They settled in McDonough county, Illinois, in 1845. and were prosperous farmers there until 1870, when the family all migrated to the state of Kansas, taking up their home in Crawford county. Mr. Thomas Bevins purchased a farming tract four miles northeast of where Pittsburg now stands, his farm being a part of the "Joy" land. In the first years of their residence there the nearest house to the Bevins home- stead was two miles away, and it was incumbent on them to develop a farm from the virgin prairie before attempting a settled course of agri- culture. Thomas Bevins is now deceased, but his wife is still living in Pittsburg.
Mr. J. E. Bevins was reared to manhood on the Illinois farm, but after moving to Kansas with his father he became interested in coal mining as a side line, at first spending his winters in the mines and work- ing on the farm in the summer. There were no mines at that time, however, in Crawford county, and when he took employment as a coal miner in the fall of 1870 it was in the mines at Fort Scott in Bourbon county. He was among the first to realize the profit of the coal industry in this county, and his practical experience as a miner led him in 1874 to begin getting out coal in the Pittsburg district. He leased a piece of land at the point where now the Litchfield bridge crosses the east prong of Cow creek, and here he uncovered the coal deposits by "strip-
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ping." He carried on a custom trade with the farmers of the neighbor- hood and from across the Missouri line, and at that time he sold coal for a cent and a half a bushel. He continued his dual work as farmer and coal operator for several years, and then gave up farming, and has since devoted all his time and energies to the coal industry in this district. In that time many improvements have been wrought in the manner and effectiveness of mining, and the coal industry has long since become an important element in the county's wealth. For twenty-two years he took out coal from the tract of land where Midway is now located. He also did contract work in connection with the building of the first rail- road through Pittsburg, the Joplin and Girard Railroad, now a part of the Frisco. At the present time Mr. Bevins is operating a mine a mile and a half north and half mile west of Pittsburg. He also owns two good farms in the western part of the county. He is well known as a pioneer coal operator, and a citizen who through nearly thirty-five years of residence has performed an honorable part in all spheres of activity to which he has been called.
Mr. Bevins affiliates with the Independent Order of Odd Fellows, the Knights of Pythias and the Modern Woodmen of America, and he and his wife are also members of the Rebekahis and the Rathbone Sis- ters. Mr. Bevins was married September 16, 1877, to Miss Mary Spragg, and they have two children, Mrs. Etta Locke and J. A. Bevins.
DR. LAWRENCE P. ADAMSON.
Dr. Lawrence P. Adamson, who for the past ten years has been numbered among the leading physicians and surgeons of Girard, is, in length of residence, one of the oldest citizens of Crawford county, which he has known and considered as his home for the past thirty-five years. He made the acquaintance of this country as a boy of ten years, and at a time when development and civilization had hardly begun.
He was born in Allegheny city, Pennsylvania, January 30. 1859, a
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son of W. C. and Hannah (Musser) Adamson, both natives of Penn- sylvania. Ancestry is Scotch, and his great-grandfather, William Ad- amson, was born in Scotland in 1760, and in boyhood came to America. He fought with the Americans at the battle on Lake Erie, so that his descendants may claim membership in the patriotic order of the Sons and Daughters of the War of 1812. He had seven children : John, Arthur, William, David, Mrs. Mary McElhaney, Mrs. Pauly Aikley and James. Of these, William, who was born in 1800, was twice married and died in 1866, was the father of William C. Adamson, the father of Dr. Adamson.
Mr. W. C. Adamson was a carpenter and builder throughout most of his life. He came from Pennsylvania to Crawford county, Kansas, in 1869, and took and proved up a claim of railroad land in Crawford township. He was born March 27. 1824, and died in 1894. and was noted for his phenomenal energy and vigorous health, and was never ill a day until his last sickness. He and his wife were members of the Pres- byterian church, in which he was an elder. He was married, first. No- vember 16, 1848, to Miss Henrietta Godfrey, who was born September 17, 1832, and passed away leaving one child, Laura. who died at the age of eight. He was married, second, June 15, 1853, in Center county, Pennsylvania, to Hannah Musser, who was born July 26, 1831, and died March 4, 1895. Her grandfather, Phillip Musser, came from Ger- many at the age of eight years, settling in Northampton county, Penn- sylvania, where he grew up and married Rebecca Oswalt, by whom he had the following children: John; Phillip, born in 1790 and died in 1871, was married four times, and Hannah Musser and her brother David (of Center county, Pennsylvania) were the children of the third marriage: Daniel: Betsey, Mrs. John Durst; Liddy, Mrs. John Reem; Hannah, Mrs. Adam Schaeffer; and Kate, Mrs. Elias Wasser. W. C. and Hannah Adamson were the parents of seven children: Emma, wife of F. S. Wolf, of Kansas City : I. J .. a farmer near Girard; Dr. L. P .; WV. H., near LaVeta. Colorado : Maggie, Mrs. George Baker, of LaVeta,
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Colorado; Miss Minnie, formerly a teacher of Girard, now of Trinidad, Colorado: and Anna, wife of Horace Maloy, both former teachers of this county, and now in Calhoun, Colorado.
Dr. Adamson was educated in the schools of Crawford county, and, like most of the family, engaged in teaching for a time. He taught his first school at the age of eighteen, continuing till 1879, and then went to Colorado and engaged in building and contracting, also in the grocery and mercantile lines. He was a contractor and builder in San Francisco two years, and also in railroad work. He returned to Crawford county in 1885, and for a time taught in Girard and Monmouth. In the fall of 1890 he was nominated on the Republican ticket for the office of county superintendent. but the populistic landslide overwhelmed him with many others, and this defeat was the cause of his changing his career. He began the study of medicine in the fall of 1891, and spent three years in the University Medical College of Kansas City, where he was grad- uated in 1894, and has since been building up and retaining a successful general practice in Girard. He is a member of the Southeastern Kansas Medical Association and is secretary of the United States board of pen- sion examiners. He has served on the city council for several years, and is elected for two more. He has always remained loyal to the Republican party. He affiliates with the Knights of Pythias, the F. A. Association, the Ancient Order of United Workmen and the Home Builders' Union, and is medical examiner for these orders as also for the Equitable and New York Life insurance companies. He is well known in social and business circles, and is one of the substantial and popular men of the city and county.
Dr. Adamson married. October 31. 1889, Miss Mamie Merithew, a native of Indiana, and she died at the age of twenty-four, March 12, 1895. On June 12. 1896, Dr. Adamson married Miss Pearl Meador. of Weir City, Kansas, and they have four children: Loice Pearl, Onoto Watana. Juanita and Lavaughn.
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F. R. SMITH.
F. R. Smith, of Hepler, has been in the stock business all his life, and has followed it most successfully for nearly twenty years in this county, and has been a resident of various parts of Kansas for the past thirty-five years. He is one of the leading and progressive business men of Hepler, and he has also been a man of affairs, interested in the public improvement and upbuilding of his community and fulfilling in a public-spirited manner every trust reposed in him.
Mr. Smith was born February 14. 1840, in the state of Tennessee. His parents were Joseph and Minerva E. (Warden) Smith, natives, respectively, of Tennessee and Virginia. The mother died in Kansas in 1885. Mr. Smith lived with an uncle in Kentucky until he was grown, and his educational advantages were obtained in the schools of Albany, Kentucky. On July 14, 1861. he enlisted in Company C. First Kentucky Cavalry, and was in the Union Army of the Cumberland. He fought against Morgan, was in campaigns in Georgia. Tennessee, Kentucky, Indiana and Ohio, being wounded four times, and was discharged at Louisville, July 28, 1865. having gained a most creditable record as a soldier of his country. He had given four years' full service to the government, and is now one of the few surviving and honored veterans of the great Civil war. After his discharge he traveled for some time, and was in Michigan two years. He came to Allen county, Kansas, in 1869, and for sixteen years lived in that and in Bourbon county. He took up his residence in Crawford county in 1885, and five years later moved to Hepler. In addition to his dealings as a stock buyer and shipper from this point, he also does a real estate and loan business of considerable proportions. He is also at the present time assessor of Walnut township.
Mr. Smith is a Republican, and has held the office of justice of the peace. He affiliates with the Court No. 1000, M. W. A., and as an old soldier makes one of the interesting members of the Walnut Post of the Grand Army of the Republic.
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October 17, 1872, he married Miss Martha E. Harper, of Ohio, and four children have been born to them: Nora E. is a stenographer for the Chicago Lumber and Coal Company at St. Louis; Charles R. is at Pagosa Junction, Colorado; Minnie is a teacher in the high school of Hepler; and Georgia Euphemia is at home. The family are members of the Methodist Episcopal church at Hepler.
SAMUEL JAMES.
Samuel James, a prosperous farmer and esteemed resident of Lin- coln township, can claim citizenship in this section of southeastern Kan- sas for about as long a time as any of his neighbors or acquaintances. He well recalls how the country appeared when he arrived at Fort Scott one day in October, 1857, and it has been his lot to witness it develop from the primitive conditions existing at that time until southeastern Kansas is now considered to be one of the most advanced sections of the entire state and of the middle west. Mr. James has lived a useful, varied and successful life, and the prosperity which has favored him is of his own making and thoroughly deserved.
Mr. James has the honor of having served in a Kansas regiment during the war of the rebellion. After the war broke out he enlisted at Fort Scott in Company D of the Sixth Kansas Cavalry, his leader being Captain Jewell, who later became colonel and was killed at the battle at Cane Hill, Missouri. The regiment saw plenty of rough service all along the Kansas and Missouri border, fighting principally bushwhack- ers and guerrillas, but also met at different times Price's troops and came into conflict with Quantrell's band. Mr. James proved his fidelity to his country and his courage as a soldier, and received an honorable dis- charge at the close of his service.
Mr. James was born near Jacksonville. Morgan county, Illinois. November 4. 1835, being a son of one of the early settlers of that part of the state, Robert James, who was born in Virginia, of an old Virginia
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family, and who was married in that state to Eleanor Pease, a native of Olio. These parents moved to Morgan county about 1831, settling upon a farm of prairie and timber land, and became prosperous and substantial citizens of that locality. The father, who was a man of won- (lerful physical powers. standing six feet and one inch and straight as an Indian, attained the age of eighty years. He was a Whig in his political sympathies. His wife, who also attained to good old age, was a devout member of the Methodist church. The following children are named as comprising their family: William, John A., Elizabeth, Mar- tha, Nathaniel. Riley. Samuel, Mary, Levi, Harriet. Susan. Robert F. and Emily, of whom Samuel and Emily are the only ones now surviving. Emily being a resident of St. Louis.
Reared on the home farm in Morgan county, Illinois, Mr. James learned first of all the value of industry. His remembrance of his school days shows how primitive the country was at the time, for the school- house which he attended was a log cabin, fitted up with slab seats resting on rough pins, a fireplace supplied the heat, greased paper let in the light, and "reading, ritin', and rithmetic" were the intellectual food which the young pupils were fed upon. He continued to live in that locality of Illinois until 1857, when, with a team and wagon, he drove across the country to Kansas, reaching Fort Scott at the time already mentioned. He settled on a piece of land in that vicinity, living in a log cabin until the fall of 1863, when he came to his present place in Lincoln town- ship, where he has thus been a permanent resident for over forty years. It was Indian land when he took it up, and he has developed his hundred and sixty acres from virgin soil to its present productivity and agricul- tural value. On his place there is the best grove of oak and walnut tim- ber to be found in the county, and from these native trees was cut the lumber with which his beautiful, large and comfortable residence is finished off. His fine meadow land is the result of his early work at clearing off the trees. He has two excellent bearing orchards, and his entire farmstead forms one of the most desirable homes in Lincoln town- ship.
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Mr. James was first married in 1858 to Miss Elizabeth Hagerman. who was born in Illinois and died a few months after her marriage. March 20, 1862, he wedded Miss Margaret Odom, who was born and reared in Missouri and who died on the Crawford county farm in 1897. She was a member of the Baptist church, and a woman of unusual strength of character and kindness of heart. She left four children : Eleanor Cullison, Sarah E. Farmer. Genevieve Reynolds, and Robert, who is a prosperous young farmer engaged in operating his father's farm. On March 3, 1901, Mr. James married for his present wife Mrs. Susan E. Kirby, who was born at Quincy, Adams county, Illinois, being a daughter of Henry and Maria (Messick) Goble, the former a native of New York state and the latter of Kentucky, both now deceased. Mr. James is identified politically with the Democratic party, being a Demo- crat of the Jackson stripe. Fraternally he is a Free Mason, and his cordial manners and his proved personal worth and fine character make him a very popular and influential citizen of his township and county.
DR. J. G. SANDIDGE.
Dr. J. G. Sandidge, physician and surgeon and proprietor of a drug store at Mulberry, Crawford county, has been very successful from a pro- fessional and from a business standpoint during the ten years of his work in this town, and now enjoys a larger practice than he can comfortably attend to. He had a very fine training in medicine as well as in pharmacy, and his engaging personality and eminent fitness for his life work have given him immediate and high favor among those needing his profes- sional services.
Dr. Sandidge was born in New Orleans, November 12, 1870, being a son of J. G. and Susan (Wilson) Sandidge. His mother, a native of Virginia, died in 1884. His father is a prominent cotton planter of Louisiana, and makes his home in New Orleans. He is a mining en- gineer by trade, and followed that occupation until he engaged in his present industry.
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Dr. Sandidge went to school at Bartrop, Louisiana, was a student in the St. Louis high school and the International Business College of St. Louis. He studied in the St. Louis College of Pharmacy, and in 1892 graduated from the medical department of Washington University. For six months he was assistant physician of St. John's Hospital at St. Louis, and on March 31, 1893, he located at Mulberry, Kansas, and began practice. In 1900 he opened his drug store in the town, and in both lines he has a large and desirable patronage.
Dr. Sandidge is a member of the Crawford County Medical Soci- ety, the Kansas State Medical Society and the American Medical Asso- ciation, and has fraternal affiliations with Lodge No. 417, I. O. O. F. He was married, February 8, 1899, to Miss Florence Miller, a daughter of WV. L. Miller, one of the leading business men of this county. Dr. and Mrs. Sandidge have one child, Allen Wilson, who is four years old. The doctor and his wife stand high in. the social circles of their community, and play a worthy part in all affairs pertaining to public progress and social and intellectual uplifting.
HON. WILLIAM H. RYAN.
William H. Ryan, mayor of the city of Girard and one of the fore- most agriculturists and business men of Crawford county, has been a conspicuous man of affairs in southeastern Kansas for a number of years, prominent as a legislator and in political matters, and public- spirited and progressive in all that pertains to the welfare of county and state.
He was born at Omaha, Nebraska, August 15, 1857, a son of William and Bridget (Daughney) Ryan, the former a native of London, England, and the latter of Canada, and both of Irish extraction. His father was brought to Canada at the age of five years, and lived there until 1854. when he went to Nebraska, where he remained until 1870, in which year he took up his residence in Neosho county, Kansas. For
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some time he was a contractor on the Northern Pacific Railroad, but after moving to Kansas followed farming until his death, which oc- curred in April, 1895, at the age of sixty-seven years. His wife died three years before, at the age of sixty-four. They were members of the Catholic church. They had eleven children, and nine are living at the present time.
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