USA > Kansas > Crawford County > A Twentieth century history and biographical record of Crawford County, Kansas > Part 36
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Mr. Judd was reared on the old Illinois farm, and that he grew up among pioneer conditions is shown by the fact that he attended one of the old-fashioned log-cabin schools, one that had slab seats, a fireplace, and a broad plank against the wall for a desk for the older pupils, with such other meager educational equipments as were then in vogue. After the war he returned to Illinois, and was married near Springfield to Miss Martha Tibbs, and they have spent a happy married life of nearly forty years. Her father, James Tibbs, was one of the early settlers of Sanga- mon county, which will be remembered as the home of Lincoln, and Mrs. Judd in her childhood often played with the children of the great eman- cipator. Her father and Lincoln were warm friends. Her mother was Durinda Short, who was born at Springfield, her parents being among the first settlers in that vicinity. James Tibbs and wife had the follow- ing children : Margaret. Mary. Mrs. Judd, Lazetta and Janette, but Mrs.
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Judd and Mary are the only ones now living. Mrs. Judd's father died at the age of thirty-three, leaving his widow and five children, and his wife died at seventy-six. He was a Republican in politics, and he and his wife were members of the Christian church.
In 1868 Mr. Judd and wife took a journey to Kansas in a prairie schooner, camping out at night, and were twenty-one days on the road. They located in Osage township, four miles north of McCune, and for many years were successfully engaged in farming there. Mr. Judd devel- oped two fine farms of eighty acres each, with two residences, two or- chards, and all other accessories. After working out a prosperous career he finally retired from active affairs and gave the management of his farms into the hands of his sons, he and his wife moving to McCune, where they have a beautiful home in which to spend the remaining years of their lives in comfort and ease, as they have truly deserved from their en- deavors in the past. Mr. and Mrs. Judd lost a child at the age of four- teen months, and a daughter died at the age of eighteen, she being just at the entrance to womanhood and a popular and charming young lady of many noble and endearing characteristics. They have five children living : Edwin is on one of the farms; Albert, of Carthage, Missouri: Maud Groff. of Carthage: Mary Scott, of Neosho county, Kansas : and Charley, on one of the farms. Mr. Judd, although formerly a Douglas Democrat, is now in the ranks of the Republican party. He is a member of Osage Post No. 156, G. A. R., and he and his wife are members of the Christian church.
DR. J. W. PORTER.
Dr. J. W. Porter, the late well known practitioner of Pittsburg, was numbered among the medical fraternity of Crawford county for more than fifteen years, and established his large practice in Pittsburg in 1901. Outside of caring for a representative and extensive practice, he had been prominent in his profession in the association and literary
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lines, and had also taken part in public affairs as far as his private inter- ests would allow.
In the death of Dr. J. W. Porter, the medical profession as well as the social arena of Pittsburg met with a loss that will be deeply felt. He was of that affable. genial and cordial nature which passed as rays of sunshine in the sick chamber as well as at home and the social circle. He was a ripe scholar. and a man who aspired to elevate his worthy calling and profession to a place of prominency in the county of Craw- ford. He was so well and favorably known in the city of Pittsburg and southeast Kansas in the medical profession, that all classes had learned to revere him for his erudite knowledge and skill as a physician and surgeon. The news of his sudden death occasioned by appendicitis complicated with peritonitis, was received by the city with sorrow. He had, apparently, been in normal health previous to his sudden attack at Kansas City, whither he had gone on a business trip. He realized the serious and grave nature of the attack and came home, where he was confined till his death, which occurred December 14. 1904. at Mt. Car- mel Hospital after an operation had been performed.
Dr. Porter was a man of more than passing prominence and im- portance in the medical profession, as he was a prominent factor in the medical associations of Crawford county and southeastern Kansas.
He cared for his family, befitting his position, and left an affection- ate wife and four intelligent children to mourn his death, as well as a large circle of friends, who knew him as a man who was devoted to the noble and self-sacrificing profession of physician. It is with pleasure that these few sentiments of tribute can be truthfully written of Dr. J. W. Porter, to be placed on the pages of the history of Crawford county, where he had prosecuted his labors for almost seventeen years.
Dr. Porter was born on a farm in Jefferson county, Indiana. Feb- ruary 9. 1856. He received his early education in the country schools and the Madison township high school. remaining on the home farm until 1877. He then went to Piatt county, Illinois, where he was en-
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gaged in teaching school for four years, and at the same time read medicine. He graduated from the Kentucky School of Medicine at Louisville in 1883, and for a short time practiced at Deland and Parnell, Illinois. In 1885 he moved out to Jetmore, Kansas, and in 1888 estab- lished his practice in Litchfield, Crawford county, and in 1901 in Pitts- burg.
Dr. Porter was a member of the Crawford County Medical Society. the Southeastern Kansas Medical Society, the Kansas Medical Society and the American Medical Association. He was the organizer. in 1891. of the Southeastern Kansas Medical Society, and served as its president in 1902. He organized the medical society of this county in 1904. He was corresponding secretary of the state society in 1899, and its presi- dent in 1902. He was a prominent Mason, belonging to the Pittsburg Lodge and Chapter, the Mt. Joie Commandery and the Abdallah Tem- ple of the Mystic Shrine. He was a worker in the Republican ranks, and was elected and served two years as coroner of Crawford county. He was chairman of the Crawford county pension board, and also county health officer. He had been a leading contributor to medical journals, perhaps more so than any physician in the county, and the interesting chapter on the history of medicine in Crawford county, to be found in this volume, is also the product of his pen.
Dr. Porter married, at Mansfield, Illinois, September 6, 1882, Miss Josie Sheppard. They have one son and three daughters: Herbert. aged eighteen : Leila, fifteen ; Glenn E., thirteen ; and Mary, eleven.
T. S. McWILLIAMS.
T. S. McWilliams, who since 1872 has made his home in Crawford township and during much of this time has been actively engaged in farming in Crawford county, but is now living a retired life, was born 11 Highland county, Ohio, on the Ist of January, 1830. His parents, Phillip and Eleanor (Collier) McWilliams, were both natives of Penn-
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sylvania, and are now deceased. The son pursued his education in the public schools of Ohio and remained at home until twenty-one years of age, assisting in the work of the fields from the time of early spring planting until crops were harvested in the late autumn. On attaining his majority he began farming on his own account, and in 1856 removed to Iowa, where he carried on agricultural pursuits for thirteen years, meet- ing with fair success in his undertakings there. In 1872 he came to Crawford county, Kansas, where he rented a farm one mile from Girard. The following year he purchased a claim of one hundred and sixty acres, upon which he is now living, and he has since added to this a tract of forty acres, so that his farm comprises two hundred acres of land, which is rich and arable. Owing to his unfaltering industry he placed his farm under a very high state of cultivation and added to it many modern im- provements and equipments. He was progressive in all of his farm methods, using the latest improved machinery in the cultivation of his fields, and by his careful management he won a handsome competence that now enables him to live retired, his land being rented and thus re- turning to him a good annual income.
In 1860 Mr. McWilliams was united in marriage to Miss Mary Coffey. a daughter of Thomas and Eleanor Coffey, both of whom were natives of Virginia. Five children have graced this marriage: William, who is now living in Pueblo, Colorado: A. Lincoln, who follows farming in Crawford county ; Ella, who is the wife of William Gemmell, a resident farmer of the same township: Belle, the wife of S. C. Copenhaver, of Crawford township; and Hattie, the wife of Walter Naff. of Beulalı, Kansas. Mr. McWilliams and his wife are members of the Presbyterian church, and he is deeply interested in both the moral and intellectual development as well as material prosperity of his community. He has served as a member of the school board and has given active and helpful co-operation to many measures for the general good.
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NORMAN COUGHENOUR.
Norman Coughenour, prominent liveryman and real estate owner of Pittsburg, Kansas, has been in the livery business in this city for a longer period than any of his competitors, and in fact, established his first enterprise of the kind when the city was in its first stages of rapid growth. He has been a successful man in his business, and has a good financial standing in Pittsburg and Crawford county. He has known this county from pioneer times, and has been both a witness and a co-worker in the marvelous progress that has placed Pittsburg among the leading industrial centers of the state and the county up with the banner agricul- tural sections.
Mr. Coughenour was born in Gallia county, Ohio, in 1851, and is a son of William and Clara ( Scott) Coughenour, the former of whom is one of the oldest men in the city of Pittsburg, and has the distinction of having experienced pioneer life in three different states of the Mississippi valley. William Coughenour was born in 1824. in the most picturesque part of Old Virginia, Rockbridge county. At the age of six years he was brought across the Alleghanies by his parents, who crossed the Ohio in 1830 and settled in Gallia county, where his father cleared a farm from the dense forest and made his home for many years. He was reared and educated there, but in 1870 came further west, locating on a farm near Harrisonville. Cass county, Missouri. About 1875 the entire family moved over into Crawford county, Kansas, and located on a farm north- east of Girard. William Conghenour lived there for several years, and then moved into Pittsburg, where he is still living, at the advanced age of eighty years.
Norman Coughenour was reared and educated in Ohio, and was nineteen years old when he moved to Missouri. He soon afterward moved from Cass county into Barton county, Missouri, which was then but sparsely settled, and there he broke up several hundred acres of raw prairie with teams of oxen. He moved to Kansas with the rest of the
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family in 1875, but after a short time returned to Barton county and farmed his place for two years. He then took up what has proved to be his permanent place of residence in Crawford county. In 1881, when Pittsburg was just beginning its rapid growth, he decided to come to this city and engage in business. He established a livery stable with Mr. Miller, whose interests he afterward bought, and has conducted the concern ever since. The name of the firm is now Conghenour and Com- pany, his sons being associated with him now. He also carries on a transfer business, and the two together compose an important local in- (lustry. The present substantial building was erected in 1891, at 1IO West Fifth street. In 1901 Mr. Coughenour completed the Conghenour block on the northeast corner of Fifth and Broadway. This is a business building, with stores on the first floor and offices on the second, and is one of the best and most modern commercial blocks in Pittsburg. He also owns other real estate interests, and through his good business judg- ment and foresight has become very prosperous.
Mr. Coughenour is a Republican in principle, but has usually voted independently and for the best man for the office. He served one term as a member of the city council. By his wife, Nannie ( Stephenson) Coughenour, he has five children, Charles E., Franklin E., Myrtle, Agnes and Emma.
ADMIRAL N. WINCHELL.
Admiral N. Winchell, of Sheridan township, is an old-timer of Crawford county, with whose history he has been identified as a factor in its making, as well as a worker for his individual prosperity, for thirty- five years. Stock-raising and general farming have been the pursuits in which he has achieved especial success, and he is recognized as one of the leaders in these basic industries which mean so much for the wealth and permanent welfare of the county. Although his lifetime has wit- nessed most of the decades of the past century and he is now more than
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threescore and ten, he yet retains active direction of affairs and the vigor and vitality which upheld him in his strenuous earlier years still remain with him in declining old age.
Mr. Winchell belongs to the Crawford county veterans of the Civil war. He was living in Schuyler county, Illinois, when the war broke out. and in August, 1862. responded to Lincoln's call for more troops, and from that time on until considerably after the war-some of the best years of his life-he was in the service of his country. From the camp at Quincy, Illinois, he was sent to Columbus, Kentucky : was at the Da- vidson Mills and Holly Springs engagements ; at Black River Bridge, and at Jackson : at the siege of Vicksburg and the Meridian raid; went south and took part at Yellow Bayou, Alexandria, Pleasant Hill, in the Red River expedition : after his return to Vicksburg he was sent to Mis- souri to fight the Confederates under Price ; was then at Nashville; took part in the operations at Fort Blakely and Spanish Fort, after which he was sent to Montgomery, Alabama, where he heard of the surrender of Lee and the assassination of Lincoln : was stationed at Mobile, and re- mained there throughout the days of reconstruction in the Confederacy. Being a vigorous specimen of sturdiest manhood, standing six feet and three inches, and a commanding figure wherever seen, he was selected as flag bearer of his company, and refused a second lieutenacy in order to carry the starry banner at the head of his company.
Mr. Winchell was born in Jennings county, Indiana, July 1, 1827, and when three years old he was left an orphan by the death of his father, Walter Winchell. He was then bound out to Levi Hunter, with whom he remained until he was of age, and during all that time he en- joyed eleven months of schooling. But he waxed strong and large un- der the invigorating work of the farm, and obtained a training in honest industry and in hardened muscular vigor which have stood him in good stead all his life. At the age of twenty-four, in January, 1851, he mar- ried Miss Julia A. Underwood, who was born in Jefferson county. In- diana, a daughter of Zachariah and Sarah (Jones) Underwood. the
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former a native of Virginia and who died in Indiana at the age of sixty- eight, and the latter a native of Georgia and who died at the age of forty- five.
Mr. and Mrs. Winchell soon after their marriage moved to Schuy- ler county, Illinois, which remained their home until 1870, which was the date of their arrival in Crawford county. Mr. Winchell is the owner of a fine farm of four hundred and forty acres in Sheridan township, sit- uated in the valley about a mile and a half from Monmouth, and this is recognized as one of the most productive and best managed places in the county. Besides the comfortable country residence, there is a barn fifty by fifty feet, with a rock foundation, and everything is in keeping with modern methods of agriculture. Mr. Winchell has been very suc- cessful as a stockman, and still takes much interest in active affairs.
Mr. and Mrs. Winchell had the following children: Joseph Leroy. of Cherokee : Levi Albert, of Greeley Center, Nebraska, a successful busi- ness man of that place : Anna Bell, married and living at Mt. Carmel. Kansas : William died at the age of forty-six years : Grant, the youngest, died in March, 1903, at the age of thirty-five. Mr. and Mrs. Winchell have two granddaughters, Orla and Millie, who make their home with them and are popular and successful teachers in this county. For many years Mr. Winchell was a member of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows, and he is also a Mason. He is a member and active in the affairs of the Grand Army.
THOMAS W. HOWE.
Thomas W. Howe, the efficient chief of the fire department of Pitts- burg. Kansas, has held this position for the past two years, and has in that time made Pittsburg noted for the excellence of its fire-fighting force and for its unexcelled equipment and system in a city of the same size. He went about the organization of his department in his practical and energetic way, and in this, as in his previous efforts, met with results
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that are pointed to with pride by his fellow citizens. He has had a va- ried career, and is entirely a man of self-achievement, having relied on his own efforts ever since he was eleven years of age. For which reason he is highly deserving of the esteem and personal regard in which he is held by his friends and associates, and for the past ten years he has been numbered among Pittsburg's public-spirited and enterprising citi- zens.
Mr. Howe was born at Fairbury, Livingston county, Illinois, in 1868. His parents were Charles and Jennie ( Gibb) Howe, the former a native of Somerset, England, and the latter of Scotland. His father served eleven years in the British army, and for his bravery in the Cri- mean war received a medal from Queen Victoria, and also other medals for military service. After his emigration to the United States he became a coal miner and a coal operator in Illinois. He first lived at Fairbury, Livingston county, and later moved to La Salle county and located at Streater. He was killed in a gas explosion October 29, 1879. His widow was afterward married to Thomas Robinson, a prominent busi- ness man, and they both reside in Streator.
Mr. Thomas W. Howe can be said to have almost been reared in the mines, for he began working in them when he was eleven years old and continued at that occupation until he was between nineteen and twenty. November 20, 1887, he began work for the Santa Fe Railroad with their steel gang on their new line between Galesburg and Chillicothe. He later became a brakeman on the same road, and worked in that capacity until June 3, 1890, when he was made a conductor on a local run be- tween Pekin and Streator. On December 8, 1891, he became conductor of the local between Joliet and Chicago, which position he held for about three years. On July 5. 1894, he resigned this place because of the great strike of that year, and on August 11, following, arrived in Pittsburg. His first work was as a miner for the Wear Coal Company, but after three months he took a position as conductor on the Kansas City, Pitts- burg and Gulf Railroad, being in charge of the local run from Pittsburg
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to Siloam Springs. He retained this position only from November 19 to December 25, 1894. and then became mule boss for the Wear Coal Company. He was thus employed until April 11, 1895, when he was ap- pointed deputy city marshal of Pittsburg, and was connected with the police force until 1900, in which year the Republicans of the city elected him to the office of city marshal, in which he remained for sixteen months, resigning to join his brother. C. H. Howe, in conducting the Pittsburg Steam Laundry. As a policeman he made a fine record. When he became a member of the force the city was infested with a criminal class and there was much outlawry, but he was of material assistance in making Pittsburg a most law-abiding place and in clearing out many of the undesirables from the city.
In 1902 the municipal authorities asked Mr. Howe to take charge of the city fire department as chief, and he accepted the appointment at the hands of Mayor Hunter. In 1903 he was reappointed by Mayor Price." As soon as he entered on his duties he began to put the depart- ment on a business basis. He collected copies of fire ordinances and rules and regulations from a number of large cities, especially from San Francisco, and after selecting the best of these and the ones suitable for a city like Pittsburg he made his recommendations to the mayor and council, who soon adopted an excellent system of fire regulations and laid the foundation for an efficient fire department. He next had the appropriations for fire-fighting increased, procured the purchase of mod- ern apparatus and the employment of a larger force of trained and uni- formed firemen at better salaries. Pittsburg now takes great pride in the fact that it has the largest, best equipped and most efficient fire (le- partment of any city of its size in the country, and the greater share of the credit for this excellent municipal improvement is due to Mr. Howe.
Mr. Howe affiliates with the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks, with the Ancient Order of United Workmen, and with the Inde- pendent Order of Odd Fellows. He was married in Chicago, February 25. 1893, to Miss Margaret Davis, of that city. They have five children : Frank, Vera. Jessie, and twins, Ray K. and Robert G.
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REV. J. J. O'BRIEN.
Rev. J. J. O'Brien has been watching over the spiritual affairs of the Catholic church at Walnut since the fall of 1901. He is one of the younger members of the priesthood, but his zeal and devotion to his 110- ble work have borne much fruit since he took his ordination degrees and came to America some four years ago. He has found many ways in which to exert his influence for good and to build up and strengthen the limits of his demesne, and his parishioners at Walnut and the vicin- ity esteem and revere him for his own sweetness and beauty of character and the work he is accomplishing among them.
The Rev. Father O'Brien was born in county Kerry, Ireland, June 18, 1875. At the age of sixteen he began the study of the classics in preparation for the ministry, and in 1804 entered St. Patrick's College, Carlow, where. after six years of study. he was ordained to the priest- hood in June. 1900. In the following October he came to America for his future field of labor, and after a short sojourn at the pro-cathedral at Wichita, Kansas, was appointed assistant to Dr. Joseph A. Pompeney, at Hutchinson. In the fall of 1901 he was assigned to Walnut.
E. L. SMITH.
E. L. Smith, a well known and prosperous farmer and stock-raiser of Crawford township, Crawford county. Kansas, has spent all the years of his manhood in this county, and these thirty odd years of intelligent effort directed to a definite end have been exceedingly fruitful in both the things that make one's material welfare and in the acquisition of that esteem and confidence on the part of one's fellow citizens which form such an important adjunct of a well spent career.
Mr. Smithi was born in Washington county, Virginia, September 15, 1850, being a son of Daniel D. and Rachel (Edmonson) Smith, na- tives of Tennessee and Virginia, respectively, and the former of whom
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died in Virginia in 1887, and the latter in Crawford county in 1890.
Mr. Smith was educated in the common schools of Virginia, and lived in that state until he was twenty-one years old. He arrived in Crawford county, Kansas, on November 1I, 1871, and for the first two years worked by the month on the farm of C. A. Hewett. He then moved to the one hundred and sixty acres which forms a part of his pres- ent farmstead, and to this he has since added one hundred and sixty acres more, so that he has one of the model farms of Crawford county, well improved and cultivated, and, under his management. exceedingly productive. He has gained his property by his own industry and good judgment, and is thoroughly deserving of the prosperity which has come to him.
Mr. Smith married, in May, 1875, Miss J. S. Hewett, a daughter of the Rev. C. A. Hewett, one of the early and well known settlers of Craw- ford county. Five children have been born to Mr. and Mrs. Smith : Martha Virginia is in Kansas City studying to be a trained nurse : Doren is at home : Ralph attends the high school at Cherokee; and Grace and Wiley are at home. The family are members of the First Baptist church at Girard. Mr. Smith has served as school treasurer of his district for a number of years, and has been public-spirited and helpful in all mat- ters affecting the community. He is independent in politics.
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