USA > Kansas > Crawford County > A Twentieth century history and biographical record of Crawford County, Kansas > Part 40
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In 1873 Mr. Russell and wife went to California and lived in San Francisco, and from that time on traveled a great deal in hopes of bet- tering his health so impaired in the war. He went to Oshkosh, Wis- consin, in 1875, and spent three years there, and thence to St. Louis. and five years at Minneapolis, after which he returned to Illinois. In 1898 he came to this county and bought a home at Mulberry, where he lived until his death. Politically he was a strong Republican, was a
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member of the Methodist church, and took much interest in G. A. R. matters. He measured up to a high standard of personal and business morality, and was respected and esteemed wherever he lived, so that his death meant a real loss to everyone who had ever known him.
ALLEN J. GILHAM.
Allen J. Gilham, a resident of Cherokee, is a conductor on the Frisco Railroad and one of a family of railroad men who have made fine records in the great army of railroad industrials. He has been con- nected with railroad service for the past twenty-five years, having en- tered in 1879, and by strict adherence to duty and fidelity to the interests of all concerned he has been promoted to his present responsible place and is one of the best known and most popular railroad conductors in southeastern Kansas. He was born in Schuyler county, Illinois, August 16, 1862, and came to Crawford county from that place. Besides being so actively identified with railroading he has given his attention to an- other enterprise which has made him especially useful in the stock-rais- ing circles of Crawford county. As a breeder and raiser of fine hogs he stands second to none in the county, and his Chester Whites and Duroc Red thoroughbred and registered swine are notable and always favored wherever on the market or on exhibition. As may be inferred from these mentioned facts, Mr. Gilham is a man of great enterprise and abili- ty, and is a factor of importance in town and county.
He was married in 1884 to Miss Jennie Coray, who was born in Lafayette. Indiana, a daughter of M. R. Coray, an ex-soldier of the Civil war, now deceased. Mr. and Mrs. Gilham have nine children : Florence. John M., Sayle, Jessie. Jennie, Ruth. Allen. Jane and Alma.
Mr. Allen J. Gilham is a son of Thomas J. Gilham, another well known resident of Cherokee, and a man who has passed a life of long and useful activity. A native of Greene county. Indiana, where he was born December 26, 1841, he was at the age of five years taken to Schuy-
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ler county, Illinois, and in that county, in August, 1862, he responded to Lincoln's call and joined Company B, One hundred and Nineteenth Illinois Infantry, under Captain Kinney, who was later made colonel of the regiment. The regiment went into camp at Quincy, was sent to Ken- tucky under the command of General A. J. Smith, was at Vicksburg, took part in the Red River expedition, was in the three days' fighting at Nashville, was in the operations about New Orleans and Mobile, and in many other phases and campaigns of the war. He was honorably dis- charged at St. Louis, and then returned home.
This old soldier was a son of Enoch and Anna ( Hodges) Gilham. both natives of North Carolina, who from Schuyler county removed to Warren county, Illinois. The father died in Illinois at the age of ninety. and the mother in Pratt county. Kansas, at the age of seventy-seven. They had ten children, four sons and six daughters. Thomas J. Gilham was married in 1861 to Miss Rebecca Huft, who was born in Virginia of an old family of that state, being a daughter of Ben Huft. In 1884 Mr. and Mrs. Thomas J. Gilham moved to Pratt county. Kansas, where they lived five years, and then lived in Lynn county, Missouri, until 1903. since which time they have been residents of Cherokee. They are the parents of nine children, of whom Allen J. is the eldest. The son Thomas B. is also a railroad man, and resides in Cherokee. John is a railroad man in St. Louis. Oscar. of Scammon, Kansas, is also in the railroad business. Ed is a railroad man at Fort Madison, Iowa. Anna and Re- becca are both at home. Two other sons lost their lives in the service of railroads. Ben being killed at the age of nineteen and Bell at the age of twenty-five at St. Joseph, Missouri. Mr. Thomas J. Gilham and his sons are Republicans. He is a Grand Army man, and in religion is a Methodist.
C. C. BROWN.
C. C. Brown, postmaster at the village of Arma, in Washington township. has been a leading and prosperous citizen of eastern Crawford
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county for over twenty years. He is very popular as the incumbent of the postoffice, being by nature accommodating and obliging and a man who wins friends wherever he goes. For a number of years he has also been in the general merchandise business at Arma, in fact, has been identified with this town almost throughout its period of existence. He was first in partnership with Mr. Holtensworth, and later with Mr. Sowers. He keeps a first-class general line of goods, such as groceries, dry goods, notions, etc .. and by progressive and energetic business methods has extended his trade over a large territory in the eastern part of the county.
Mr. Brown is a native of Effingham county, Illinois, where he was born June 28, 1861. He is a son of an ex-soldier of the Civil war, H. H. Brown, who served and made a gallant record with the Fifth Illinois Cavalry, the crack rough rider regiment of that state. He was in the war for three years. He now lives at Altamont, Illinois. The mother. whose maiden name was Deffenbaugh, is also living at this writing. There are three children in the family. C. C., Isabel and Lena. The father is a member of the Grand Army of the Republic, and politically is a Republican.
Mr. C. C. Brown was reared in Effingham county, learning the du- ties of the home farm, and his education was received in the Illinois schools. At the age of twenty-one, in 1882, he came to Crawford county, and bought a farm of eighty acres in Washington township. He made this a first-class and highly improved farm, and has been a successful man in agriculture as well as in merchandising. For some years he successfully operated a steam threshing outfit in the county.
Mr. Brown married Miss Maggie Morrill, who was reared and edu- cated in Missouri, being a daughter of M. M. and Catherine ( Burrison) Morrill, the former now living in Labette county, this state. Mr. and Mrs. Brown have six children, William, Fred, Earl, Charlie, Nellie and Katie. Politically Mr. Brown is a Republican, and has served as a dele- gate to the conventions, taking an active interest in party affairs.
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JESSE BEELER.
Jesse Beeler, a prosperous farmer on section 29, Crawford township, Crawford county, is one of the early settlers of this county, having lived on the one farm for thirty-five years. He has already reached and passed the Psalmist's mark of threescore and ten, which is believed to in- dicate the period of man's usefulness on earth, but he is by no means compelled or willing to lay down the burdens of life for some time yet, and his vigorous manhood and his worth as a citizen make him still a valued and highly honored resident of his community.
Mr. Beeler was the youngest child of a family of seven sons and four daughters, all of whom are now deceased except his sister Martha Seeley, who is now living in Lee county, Iowa, at the advanced age of eighty-four years. Mr. Beeler was born in Montgomery county, In- diana, September 12, 1833, and his parents were Isaac and Jane ( Hughes) Beeler, both natives of Tennessee. His father was a wagon- maker and a farmer. He became one of the pioneer settlers of Lee county, Iowa, where he took up his residence in 1836, when Iowa was still a territory. He entered eleven hundred acres of land in one body. and was a prosperous and influential farmer during the rest of his life. which was ended in death in 1871, when he had arrived at the great age of eighty-nine years. His wife died in 1860, at the age of sixty- seven.
Mr. Jesse Beeler was educated in a subscription log school in Iowa, and his boyhood was passed among the primitive conditions that existed in that state during the forties. He lived at home until he was twenty- seven years old, and from that time until the fall of 1869 he was an enterprising Iowa farmer. He made his advent into Crawford county, Kansas, in 1869, and bought one hundred and sixty acres of the rail- road company, which land he has improved and made his home place to the present time. He has been known throughout the county since 1870 as the operator of a threshing outfit, having used in that period all the
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kinds of machines from the old-fashioned horsepower to the present powerful steam outfits. For the past ten years he has also run a feed grinder and sawmill.
Mr. Beeler married. in October, 1861, Miss Martha Permelia Moore, a daughter of John and Abigail F. Moore, of Virginia. Her father is deceased, but her mother still resides in Iowa. Mr. and Mrs. Beeler have had six children : Amelia Jane died at the age of twenty-five years ; Mary died when ten years old: Ella and Nellie were twins, and the latter died at the age of two years, and the former is the wife of George H. Hanshaw, of Crawford county: Abigail Gertrude is the wife of A. C. Copenhaver, of this county : and Jesse Aiton is at home. The family are members of the Baptist church at Girard. Mr. Beeler affili- ates with the Anti-Horse Thiei Association. In politics he is a Repub- lican. and was a school director for two terms.
ALBERT N. HAYDEN.
Albert N. Hayden, a well known and successful traveling sales- man in the southeastern part of Kansas and a member of the board of education of Pittsburg, is one of the popular business men of this city, where he has had his home for the last ten years. He has been in the ranks of the traveling business men of Kansas for the last twenty years, and his devotion to every-day business, his genial and whole- souled manner, and his ability and energy have gained him a well de- served success among that Yankee fraternity whose methods have placed American goods and products in every corner of the habitable world.
Mr. Hayden was born in Grant county, Wisconsin, March 8, 1860. His father, Joseph H. Hayden, was a native of Maine, but in the early days he came west, and for some time lived in Pike county, Missouri. He was married in that county to Miss Elizabeth Pritchett. This couple later took up their residence in Grant county, Wisconsin, but in
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1872 returned to Pike county, Missouri. where they remained till their ‹leath.
Mr. A. N. Hayden spent the first twelve years of his life in Grant county, Wisconsin, and then grew to manhood in Pike county. He re- ceived a good education in the Pike county schools, and later studied law. He has never practiced law to any extent, having used it mainly as a help to his business as fire insurance adjuster, which position he held for several years with the Home Insurance Company of New York. He continued to live in Pike county until 1885, and then removed to Kansas, where he quit the insurance business and went on the road as a salesman. He had his headquarters at Chanute, where he lived for four years. In 1893 he moved to Pittsburg, where his home and headquarters have been ever since. His first work after coming to Pittsburg was for Harper and Company, wholesale produce, of this city ; he later traveled for the Pittsburg Wholesale Grocery Company, and now represents the Western Wholesale Grocery Company of Kansas City.
In April, 1903. Mr. Hayden was elected a member of the board of education of Pittsburg on the Republican ticket. This office came to him entirely without solicitation on his part, and he made no effort to secure his election, in fact, remaining out on the road until noon of the day of election. He has hosts of friends in the city, and his popularity and worth as a citizen are attested in many ways.
Mr. Hayden was married at Erie, Kansas, in 1886, to Miss Ida Neal. They have four children, Stella. Clyde, Neal and Velma.
J. E. WALSH.
J. E. Walsh, who has served for two terms as under sheriff of Crawford county and at this writing is the people's choice for the office of sheriff, was born in Edgar county, Illinois, on the IIth of October, 1867. and is the second in a family of ten children, four sons and six daughters, who were born to Thomas and Nancy ( McDonald) Walsh.
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The paternal grandfather was a veteran of the Mexican war. The father was a native of Louisiana, but in early life became a resident of the north and at the time of the Civil war he espoused the cause of the Union and served for three years as a member of Company D. Sixty- second Illinois Infantry. He married Miss McDonald. a native of Illi- nois, and they continued to reside in that state until 1872, when he came to Kansas. Thomas Walsh turned his attention to merchandising at Reading, this state, and after one year he removed to St. Martins, Brown county, Ohio, where he carried on merchandising for three years. On the expiration of that period he established his home in Paris, Illinois, where he continued in the same line of business until 1880. He then came to Crawford county, Kansas, and invested in land here, spending his last days upon his farm in Grant township, where his death occurred in July, 1899. His widow still survives him and is yet living on the homestead farm in Grant township.
J. E. Walsh largely acquired his early education in the public schools of Crawford county, Kansas, and he afterward spent one year as a stu- dent in the Kansas Normal College at Fort Scott. He then returned to owns eighty acres of land. On the 8th of January, 1900, however, he was appointed to the position of under sheriff, and in January, 1903. his home and engaged in stock-raising in Grant township, where he was reappointed to that office, the duties of which position he has dis- charged in a very acceptable, prompt and faithful manner. A recogni- tion of his worth was accorded him in his nomination for the position of sheriff as a candidate of the Republican party and since then he has been elected as sheriff of Crawford county by one of the largest majori- ties in the history of the county. He has always been an advocate of the principles of the Republican party and has done effective service in its . behalf.
On the 12th of November, 1899, Mr. Walsh was united in mar- riage to Miss Margaret Seigcl, a daughter of George Seigel, and they now have two interesting children : Helen, who is three years of age,
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and Margaret, who is but a year old. Mr. Walsh and his wife are com- municants of the Catholic church at Greenbush, Kansas, and he is iden- tified with the Modern Woodmen of America, and both are connected with the Knights and Ladies of Security. He has always been found reliable in business and faithful in public office, and in his present posi- tion will undoubtedly prove a valuable official.
JOHN SCHWAB.
The little republic of Switzerland has sent to the shores of America some noble specimens of sturdy, honest manhood, and among that num- ber was the subject of this review, John Schwab, who is now deceased. He was born in the old and historic city of Bern, January 17, 1834. He was educated in the excellent common schools of his native land. At the age of eighteen, after he had studied a little of the law, he secured a position as clerk in an attorney's office, where he remained for three years, in the meantime improving his spare moments in the acquisition of more knowledge of his profession. During these years he had read of the prospects for a young, ambitions and energetic man in the United States of America, and accordingly, September 5. 1855, he set sail, after bidding a fond adien to his native republic, and a little later landed in America, a poor but honest lad. with no capital and in a strange land and among a strange people.
He was not disheartened nor discouraged, but was willing to do anything to earn an honest living. He faced to the west and cast anchor in Ohio, where he secured a position on a farm at a small recompense. There he remained one year, and 1856 found him in Henry county, Illinois, where he sought and secured a place on another farm, and remained there until some years had passed away.
October 2, 1862, he married Miss Hester C. Romig. He rented a farm for three years, and then purchased a farm of his own. In April, 1884, he sold his well-stocked and well-equipped Illinois farm of two
John Schwab
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hundred acres, and came to Cherokee, Crawford county, and here pur- chased a farm. This locality being in the great coal mining belt of southeastern Kansas, he also entered into the mining and shipping of coal. In .August, 1897, he organized the Weir Junction Coal Company, of which company he continued as president until his death, which resulted from injuries and which occurred on October 8, 1897.
The present roster of the Weir Junction Coal Company is as fol- lows: J. G. Schwab, president: Hettie E. Schwab, secretary: Lewis S. Schwab, manager and treasurer.
The Cherokee Commercial Company of Cherokee is composed of the following persons: H. C. Schwab. J. G. Schwab. M. C. Bolick, George P. Norton and Lewis S. Schwab. These commercial enterprises in south and southwest Crawford county are factors of great force and importance in the county. The men who represent these industries are typical business men, of the conservative caste, and merit the full con- fidence of the public.
Mr. Schwab, the elder, was a gentleman known for his strict honesty and integrity of character. He had co-operated often with the elder Lanyons who founded the bustling, progressive little city of Pitts- burg, which now numbers seventeen thousand souls. He was a great lover of his home and family. He was a consistent member of the German Lutheran church.
His wife, formerly Miss Hester C. Romig, was a native of Tus- carawas county, Ohio, born May 25, 1840, and her parents were early settlers of that county. It was September 5. 1855. when she came with her parents to Henry county, Illinois, and the entire country at that time was an open prairie. She remained a resident of Illinois until after her marriage with Mr. Schwab, and since 1884 she has been a resident of Kansas, and is yet living in Cherokee, where she is surrounded by her children.
Her son J. G. Schwab-brother of Lewis-was born in Henry county, Illinois, May 22, 1869, but since 1884 his home has been in
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Crawford county. He received a careful training in the public schools and at the Cherokee high school. He entered mining in 1889. and was engineer at the mines from 1892 to 1896. He was superintendent of his father's mines until his father's death, when he succeeded as presi- dent of the coal company at Weir Junction. He affiliates with the Masonic fraternity, also is a member of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows at Cherokee, and is independent in politics. He married Miss Ella E. Gadsbury, March 17, 1892.
JONATHAN P. ALDEN.
Jonathan P. Alden, a prosperous farmer near Monmouth, has lived in Crawford county since 1877. and during this period of more than a quarter century he has witnessed the development of the county from almost pioneer conditions to the flourishing present. Of sturdy New England ancestry, a descendant of the famous Alden family whose mem- bers have figured in history and romance from the coming of the May- flower in 1620, Mr. Alden has inherited many of the virtues of this stock, and has the substantial integrity and force of character which have always dominated the true Puritan and have won them a place of esteem in whatever community they have resided.
Mr. Alden is now a man past the age of threescore and ten, and his long career has been filled with an unusual degree of useful activity. Born in Dearborn county, Indiana, August 15. 1832, he was educated in the schools of his locality and reared to the honest industry of a farm. On October 30, 1862, he enlisted in Ripley county in Company K, Ser- enth Indiana Infantry, under Captain Jesse Armstrong and Colonel Gavin: the regiment was sent east to Alexandria, Virginia, being in the Army of the Potomac : took part in the battle of Fredericksburg, at Cold Harbor, and in the Wilderness campaign, in the James river campaign. and the siege of Petersburg. Mr. Alden was in the hospital at the time of the battle of Gettysburg, so that he did not participate in that crucial
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conflict. He had many narrow escapes, his clothing being pierced by bullets on several occasions. He received his honorable discharge at Indianapolis July 21. 1865, and went home with a good record as a sol- dier of his country.
Mr. Alden was a son of Isaac and Ruth ( Morgan) Alden, the for- mer a native of Massachusetts, and the latter of an old New York state family, and a daughter of John Morgan. The mother, who was a wo- man of many virtucs, lived to be ninety-one years old, and the father met death by accident while butchering at the age of forty-five. Isaac Alden was a Whig in politics. There were twelve children in the fam- ily. seven sons and five daughters.
Mr. Alden was married in Indiana, October 30, 1858, to Miss Cath- erine L. Ehler, who was born in Dearborn county, Indiana. a daughter of Thomas Ehler. Their happy married life extended over thirty odd years, being terminated by the death of Mrs. Alden in January, 1891, at the age of fifty-four. She was known as a good mother, a kind friend and neighbor and a diligent member of the church and social circles, and was highly esteemed for her excellent qualities of heart and mind. She was the mother of six children: Moody, who married Cassie Emerson. has one son, Clarence; Clarence is a railway telegraph operator ; Lillie Kelly ; George, who lives on the homestead, married Enima Volt and has a son, George Earl; the two deceased children are William, who died when twenty-one years old, and Etta, at thirteen.
Mr. Alden lived in Edgar county, Illinois, until he came to Craw- ford county in 1877. He has a fine farm of one hundred and sixty acres, most of it bottom land, situated a mile and a half from town, and has made such a happy combination of progressiveness, thrift and industry that he has accomplished a large success, and is one of the well fixed and substantial farmers of south Crawford county. Mr. Alden is a Mason of over thirty years' standing, having been initiated into that order at Milan, Indiana, in 1874. He is a member of the United Breth- ren church, and is well known and popular throughout the community.
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GEORGE W. ROBINSON.
George W. Robinson, carrier on rural free delivery route No. I out of Cherokee, where he is a resident, has lived in the state of Kansas for the past thirty-eight years, and has made a capable and worthy record as a citizen and man of affairs, and is also esteemed as one of the honored veterans of the Civil war.
He was a boy of eighteen years when he responded to the first call that went out for three-year men to put down the rebellion, and he en- listed at Taylorville, Christian county, Illinois, in August, 1861, in Com- pany D, Thirty-third Illinois Infantry, under Captain H. H. Pope and Colonel Charles E. Hovey. From Bloomington, Illinois, this regiment was sent to the field of hostilities in Missouri, and most of his campaign- ing was done in that state and in Arkansas. He was at Pilot Knob until the spring of 1862, and then took part in numerous skirmishes and small engagements in southeastern Missouri. At St. Louis, Missouri, he was honorably discharged on account of disability, being afflicted with tuber- culosis. He then returned to Illinois and as soon as his health per- mitted he engaged in farming.
Mr. Robinson was born in Shelby county, Illinois, February 9, 1843. the same year in which the birth of President Mckinley occurred. He was a son of William Lang and Lydia Elizabeth (Strador) Robinson. father a native of Virginia and mother of North Carolina, and they were among the earliest settlers of Shelby county, Illinois, going there in 1826. when the country was wild and undeveloped, when game was plentiful in the woods and prairies, when the dwellings were log cabins heated by fireplaces, and all other things were primitive and uncouth. The father died on the Wabash river in 1852, at the age of fifty-six, but the mother came out to Kansas, where she died in 1879, at the age of sixty-nine. These parents were noted for their many excellences of heart and mind. and their generous hospitality was always in evidence. especially during their early life in Illinois, when the latch string was always to be found on
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