USA > Kansas > Crawford County > A Twentieth century history and biographical record of Crawford County, Kansas > Part 42
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RESIDENCE OF E. F. PORTER
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educational training in the same matter of fact and definite and deter- mined manner in which he accomplishes business enterprises, and results followed, to the lasting glory and benefit of the state of Kansas. Energy, practicality, definiteness of aim, broad-mindedness and strict business integrity make up the sum of Senator Porter's character, and on these principles he has made his well deserved success.
Mr. Porter was born at New Salem, Fayette county. Pennsylvania, in 1859, a son of Judge John T. and Phebe J. (Finley) Porter. His father was born and reared in Fayette county. He was at first a farmer, and afterward a lumberman and grain dealer. He removed with his family to Illinois in 1860, and located near Grand Ridge, LaSalle county, where he lived on a farm until 1872. In that year he moved into the town of Grand Ridge, and built and operated two grain elevators. In 1876 he took his family to Clarinda, Iowa, and was extensively engaged in the grain and lumber business until 1882, when, on account of failing health, he removed to Florida and engaged in the lumber business. He founded the town of Grand Ridge, Florida, naming it in honor of his old Illinois home. About fifteen years ago, during President Cleveland's administration, he was appointed United States commissioner for the western district of Florida, which position he still holds, and he is like- wise one of the prominent citizens and business men of the state. His wife, whose ancestors were of the Scotch Presbyterian type and among the first to cross the Alleghanies into western Pennsylvania, is also still living, and they have a pleasant and happy home in Grand Ridge.
Mr. Porter lived on a farm to the age of twelve years, and then got his first taste of business life under his father at Grand Ridge. Illi- nois. working during the months he was not in school. He evinced an aptitude for mechanical invention, and made several useful devices. He was of great assistance to his father, and is still remembered at Grand Ridge as being a boy of exceptional talents and usefulness to his parents. He went with his father to Clarinda, and was with him in the grain and lumber business there. After the removal of his father to Florida
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in 1882 he remained at Clarinda in charge of the business. In 1885 he decided to go into business on his own account, and accordingly came to Kansas, locating at Wakeeney, in the western part of the state, and was in the lumber business there until 1890. In that year he came to Pittsburg, and has been here ever since. He is now secretary and treas- urer of the Carey-Lombard Lumber Company and is also manager of the local plant. The headquarters of this company are in Chicago, and the Pittsburg office, of which Mr. Porter has charge. is headquarters for Kansas. Mr. Porter also has large individual timber interests in the south, and is each year adding to his holdings of valuable timber lands.
For several years Senator Porter has taken a prominent part in Crawford county Republican politics, being a member of the county executive committee of three and in other positions. He has great power as an organizer, and keeps thoroughly in touch with every phase of the local political situation. In 1900 he was nominated and was elected state senator from Crawford county and the ninth senatorial district. In the senate he has been chairman of the mines and mining committee. mining being Crawford county's largest industry. He was also on the ways and means committee and on the federal and state charitable insti- tutions committee. But Mr. Porter had a special purpose in going to the senate, and that was to push his favorite measure, the manual train- ing school law, which has brought him most of his fame as a legislator. For some years he has recognized the value of manual training as a phase of modern education, and he has lent all his influence to the estab- lishment of free manual training schools in connection with the regular public schools. As a member of the school board of Pittsburg he had been instrumental in having established in this city the first public manual training school in the west. He saw the need, however, of an institution for the training of teachers who could properly direct the labors of the youth in such schools, which in a few years will have an established place in the educational systems of the state and country. So that on his entrance into the senate he at once put forward a bill for a state
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normal manual training school at Pittsburg. The measure was enacted into law, and the school was organized at Pittsburg, being one of the few such institutions in the United States. Both the public and the normal manual training schools at Pittsburg are monuments to the energy and educational zeal of Senator Porter, and also bring consider- able celebrity to the city in an educational way.
The first educational bill introduced in the senate by Mr. Porter was one establishing manual training as a part of the curricula of the public schools of Kansas, and this was passed without objection. The Porterian Society in the Pittsburg State Manual Training School is an association of students named in honor of Mr. Porter.
Mr. Porter was married at Clarinda, Iowa, in 1882, to Miss Anna I. Berry, and they have two children, Houston H. and Harold B.
JAMES H. EVANS.
James H. Evans, of Monmouth, has been one of the prominent and successful citizens of Crawford county since 1867. from pioneer times, in fact, for when he came railroads and other modern advantages had not yet made their appearance, and he has thus been a witness of the march of progress as it has affected all departments of life and activity in this section of the state. He has had a busy and prosperous career, and during the first years of his budding manhood he was a soldier in the Civil war, in which he sacrificed much for his country.
Born in Terre Haute, Indiana, April 29, 1845, he was in the same year taken to what was then the territory of Iowa, where he grew up and spent his early years until the spring of 1863, when he enlisted in Company K, Thirteenth Iowa Infantry, Third Brigade, Fourth Division. Seventeenth Army Corps, under Colonel Kenedy: was sent south to Vicksburg, and was with Sherman's army all the way from Chicka - mauga to the sea, participating in the battles of Buzzard's Roost, Look out Mountain, Kenesaw Mountain, Resaca. Big Shanty, Burnt Hickory :
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at the siege of Atlanta the Thirteenth Iowa suffered terrible loss, espe- cially of officers: from Atlanta they went on to Savannah and the sea, and thence up through the Carolinas and were engaged in active opera- tions until the surrender of Johnston's army and the close of general hostilities. For twenty-one days of their campaigning the men of this regiment were compelled to live on hardtack and what they could find in the country about them. From the Carolinas they went on to Rich- mond, thence to Washington, where they participated in a grand review, and at Louisville, Kentucky, Mr. Evans was finally mustered out as a corporal, after which he returned to his Iowa home, with the con- sciousness of having performed well his duty to the Union.
Mr. Evans's parents were Jesse and Louisa (Looney) Evans, both natives of Indiana, and in 1845 they moved to the territory of Iowa and became early settlers at Kalona, in Washington county, where they lived until 1867. when they moved to Monmouth, in this county, their first home here being a log cabin. The mother died at Elk City at the age of sixty and the father at Lake City, Colorado, aged sixty- two. He had been a farmer and merchant, was a successful business man, and was well known in Masonic circles. There were the following children in the family : Margery, James H., Mary, Jane, Diana, Jesse, Fremont, DeWitt, Isabelle and Ellsworth.
Mr. James H. Evans was reared and educated in Iowa, in boyhood often assisting his father in the store, and when twenty-two years of age came to Kansas, where he has lived ever since. He was married in Iowa to Miss Anna Hendrix, who died in 1868, after they had moved to this county and settled on a homestead west of Monmouth, on the place later known as the Jordan farm. In 1869 Mr. Evans married Miss Emma N. Fry, who was born near lowa City, Iowa, and was reared and educated in that state, being a daughter of Jacob and Lettie (Harris) Fry, the former a native of Ohio and the latter of Hagerstown, Mary- land. Her father was one of the early settlers of Johnston county, lowa, having settled there when lowa was a territory, and in 1868 he
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became an early settler in Crawford county, Kansas, but thirteen years later returned to Iowa, where he lives at the age of seventy-eight. His good wife died in January, 1903. at Kalona, Iowa, being seventy-two years old. They were both devoted adherents of the Christian church, the father having been a church worker since boyhood, and they helped organize the church in Iowa, and were also charter members and fore- most workers in the denomination at Monmouth in this county. There were six children in the Fry family, three of whom are living, namely : Mrs. Evans, Ella and Albert, and the three deceased were Lucretia, Maggie and Bruce. The father was a Jackson Democrat of the good old type.
Mr. Evans is the owner of two excellent farms in this locality, one. of eighty finely improved acres, lying south of the town of Monmouth. His home in Monmouth is also surrounded by a fine plot of seven acres, on which he has a complete equipment of good buildings, and he has everything comfortable and in good shape, showing how capable has been his management and direction of affairs. It is especially cred- itable to him that he has thus prospered financially since he lost his eyesight as a result of fever contracted in the war, and he has prose- cuted his subsequent activities under many obvious disadvantages. He is affiliated with the Grand Army of the Republic, he and his wife are members of the Christian church, and he has always been an active and hearty worker for Republican success in political affairs.
Mr. and Mrs. Evans have the following children : Olive Painter : Blanche Adams, of Iowa, formerly a teacher: Ed: Frank, a railroad agent at Blaine, Kansas ; Jesse ; and David.
CHARLES L. NORTON.
Charles L. Norton, justice of the peace at Cherokee and one of the well known and old-time citizens of Crawford county, was born in Allegany county, New York, August 16, 1839. During his lifetime of
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sixty-five years he has had a varied yet successful career, having been a farmer. soldier and public official, and having shown himself worthy of the esteem and confidence of his fellow citizens in whatever relation of life he has been placed.
He was the son of Leonard Norton, also a native of New York state and a descendant of ancestors who, in the early history of the country, crossed the Atlantic and became pioneer settlers on Martha's Vineyard. The mother, Margaret (Carr) Norton, was the daughter of a Revolutionary soldier. who was captured at the historic Wyoming Massacre and held captive by the Indians for seven years. Leonard Norton died at the age of eighty-two. and his wife at the age of seventy- three. They were farmers, and people of the highest integrity and honor.
Mr. Norton, being reared in New York to the age of eighteen. early learned the trade of plasterer and mason, and was also a first- class general mechanic, and he followed his trade for years. The family came out to Knox county, Missouri, in 1858, and he was there at the time the Civil war broke out. He enlisted at Edina. in Knox county, in Company D. Twenty-first Missouri Infantry, under Captain Nick Murrow and Colonel Dave Moore. Going into camp at Athens, Mis- souri, they were then sent to Hannibal, and thence to Pittsburg Landing and took part in the battle of Shiloh and were under Grant at Corinth : also at Columbus, Kentucky, at Memphis, on the Meridian' raid under Sherman, and thence back to Memphis. In 1863 he went home on a furlough as a veteran and then went back to the front again. He was in numerous operations, being at Tupelo. Holly Springs, and Oxford. Mississippi ; was then sent to Memphis, to Cairo, and on to St. Louis: fought Generals Price and Marmaduke in Missouri and Arkansas: was at Harrisonville. Pleasant Hill and Lexington, Missouri, and at numer- ous other campaigning points throughout the Mississippi valley. It is estimated that the regiment, in marches, boat and railroad travel, made fourteen thousand miles during its active service, as it was almost con-
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stantly on the move and the endurance of its hardened veterans was tested to the utmost. Mr. Norton was promoted first to orderly ser- geant and then to first lieutenant of his company, and came out of the war with a gallant and enviable record in all departments of his service. After the war he was a resident of MeDonough county, Illinois, until 1880. since which year he has been a resident of Crawford county. He is a stanch Republican. He has served as justice of the peace for some years, and his judicial rulings have been made with utmost impartiality and on the firmest basis of equity, so that he has dignified his office and made it as worthy of honor and consideration as the higher courts. He is frank and genial as a business man and citizen, and has gained a large acquaintance in the county and has many warm friends.
Mr. Norton was first married in Missouri, to Miss C. Fowler, a daughter of R. T. Fowler of Ohio. She died in Missouri, leaving two children, Gertie Lessenbee, of Cherokee, and Alzena, of California. In 1882 Mr. Norton married Rachel Clugstat, a native of McDonough county, Illinois, and a daughter of Robert and Isabel Clugstat, of that state. They are the parents of two children, Jessie Davis, of Cherokee. and .Ada, at home.
L. G. PORTER.
L. G. Porter, postmaster at Hepler, Crawford county, is an old and esteemed resident and business man of this county, and has lived within the boundaries of the county almost continuously for over thirty years. While engaged in farming he was very successful, as a business man likewise enjoyed profitable trade, and in public office has acquitted himself in an especially creditable manner. He is a genial and popular man among his fellow citizens, and his career from his boyhood days of fighting for the Union until the present has been worthy of the honor and respect which are universally accorded him.
Mr. Porter was born in St. Joseph county, Indiana, October 3, 1846,
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being a son of L. G. and Eliza J. Porter. His parents moved later to Kankakee county, Illinois, where his father died in 1899. at the age of eighty-four, and his mother in 1901. at the age of eighty.
Mr. Porter received his education in the common schools of Illinois. In 1863. when seventeen years old. he enlisted in Company G, Twenty- third Illinois Infantry, and his company was among the first to enter Richmond during the last days of the war. He participated in several engagements, and received his honorable discharge at Chicago August 2. 1865. when still under age. In March. 1873, he came out to Craw- ford county, Kansas, and for eight years followed farming in this county. He then bought a farm in Bourbon county, and in 1883 was elected to the office of register of deeds in Bourbon county, which office he held for four years. In 1887 he moved to Hepler, and has since made this his home. His store was burned out in 1893. and he lost his entire stock of general merchandise, in which he had been dealing since moving to the town. He then embarked in the grocery business, but sold out in 1896. October 10. 1899, he was appointed to the office of postmaster, and he has given a most satisfactory administration of the affairs of the office to the present time. He was at one time a candidate for county clerk of Crawford county, but was defeated. He owns a nice farm in Crawford county and one in Bourbon county, and also his residence in Hepler.
Mr. Porter is a Republican in politics, and has fraternal affiliations with the Court No. 1000, M. W. A., at Hepler. He married. in Novem- ber. 1872. Miss Rosa A. Roe, of Illinois, and they have three children : Jennie, the wife of M. S. Whitehead, of Walnut township. Crawford county : Maud, the wife of Paul McGuire, of Windsor, Missouri; and E. Ross, who conducts a drug store in Oxford, Kansas.
FRANK F. ATKINSON.
Frank F. Atkinson, of McCune, is one of the well known citizens of this place. A man of integrity and honest purposes in life, with
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an honorable career of varied activity behind him, he holds an assured place in the esteem and regard of his fellow men. He has already passed the seventieth milestone of his career, and it is his happy lot to be able to pass the declining years in the material comfort and pleasures of friendship and home such as his useful past has deservedly won.
Mr. Atkinson has the honor of having been one of the first men to go to the defense of the Union in the Civil war. He was living at Bal- timore when the war broke out, where he had belonged to a crack mili- tary company for some time and was already a finished soldier in drill and knowledge of tactics, and six days after Fort Sumter was fired upon he enlisted in Company H, One Hundred and Second New York Volun- teers, under Colonel Thomas B. Van Buren. The regiment went into camp near Washington, and took the field early. Mr. Atkinson saw much hard service during the early part of the war, and at the battle of Antietam he was wounded by a shot through the left lung. He was confined by this dangerous wound in the hospital for eight months, and was honorably discharged in 1863. He later served in the quarter- master's department in General Sigel's division.
Mr. Atkinson was born in the city of Philadelphia, in August. 1833. being a son of Samuel C. Atkinson and Christina L. Coffield. The latter was of a prominent and wealthy Maryland family, planters and slave- owners, her brother, Thomas Coffield, being an owner of slaves, and the latter's son, George C. H. Coffield, being a rich and leading business man of Baltimore. Samuel C. Atkinson, who was born in New Jersey, was a surveyor by profession, and was a member of the Friends church. Politically he was a Whig and a Republican. He died at the age of eighty-nine, and his wife at eighty-six. They had the following family : Twin boys who died in infancy; Frank F. ; and Caroline, deceased.
Mr. Atkinson was reared in the city of Baltimore, where he enjoyed excellent educational advantages. He held a fine position with good salary when he left to go to the war. After the war he held a clerkship in the government service at Washington for three years, until his health
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failed, and since then he has traveled much and followed outdoor pur- suits mainly. He was in California. Oregon and Washington for some time, and he also took up a homestead near Manhattan, Kansas, on which he lived for two years. After being in Philadelphia for a while he went to Leavenworth, Kansas, and thence out west to the Pacific coast again. He lived at Parsons, this state, and has since made his home at McCune, where he has a comfortable residence and material blessings in abundance.
He was first married at Washington, when twenty-six years old, to Miss Elizabeth Champion, who died at Ferndale, California, leaving six children, namely : Florence L .. Nettie. Lennie. Effie. Ferd and Bert. and the daughter Ella May died at the age of four years. Mr. Atkin- son was married at Colfax, Iowa, in 1889, to Mrs. Jennie E. (Fulling- ton) Hill. Her Imisband, William C. Hill, who had been a soldier of Company B. Thirty-second Iowa Infantry, and was prominent in G. A. R. circles, died at Colfax in January, 1876, leaving four children. John H., Emma. Nancy and Carl. Mrs. Atkinson was born in Burlington, Vermont, a daughter of Artemus H. and Fannie B. (Buel) Fullington. both of Vermont and both now deceased. Her father was a farmer, politically a Democrat, a member of the Baptist church, and his death occurred at the age of seventy-eight, and his wife passed away at seventy. They were the parents of seven children, three sons and four daughters, and two of the Fullington boys, Edgar B. and G. Jackson, were soldiers. The Fullington family first removed from Vermont to Union county. Ohio, and thence to Colfax, Iowa.
Mr. Atkinson has a pleasant and well furnished cottage home in McCune, a library of good books, and he and his wife are people of taste and refinement and popular in the best social circles. He is a Republican, and is adjutant of Osage Post No. 156, G. A. R. Fraternally he affili- ates with Cossia Lodge No. 15. of the Masons, and has passed all the chairs in the local Odd Fellows lodge.
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COLONEL GEORGE E. HOWARD.
Colonel George E. Howard. prominent in Pittsburg and Crawford county as a real estate dealer and financier and in connection with the military affairs of the state, was one of the first settlers and merchants of this county. When he came to this country thirty-five years ago the corporate limits of the county had not yet been defined, a waving sea of prairie grass billowed on each side of the trails along which moved the prairie schooners of the hardy emigrants, and only the industry and persevering efforts of an indefatigable class of pioneers could unlock the golden resources of the rich soil. Colonel Howard has therefore progressed with his adopted home county, and in its development and prosperity his enthusiastic and far-sighted endeavors have been of great value and have borne fruit both for himself and for his fellow citizens. He has been interested in many enterprises which have placed the finan- cial affairs of the county ou a solid basis, and has been especially helpful in promoting the upbuilding of Pittsburg during the past fifteen years. to which city, as to the county as a whole, he has attracted many sub- stantial and thrifty citizens of industrial and business worth.
Colonel Howard was born in Boston, Massachusetts, in 1846. a son of Samuel and Anna ( Bramhall) Howard. His ancestry on both sides is old and distinguished in the annals of the country. His maternal grandfather, Elisha Bramhall, fought in the war of 1812. and his paternal great-grandfather was a soldier in the Revolution. Another notable ancestor was Charles Howard. Duke of Norfolk, and a paternal ancestor was among the passengers of the Mayflower. Samuel Howard. the father of Colonel Howard, was a well known Boston business man. and died in that city in 1876.
George E. Howard received his education mostly in Chelsea. Massa- chusetts. At the conclusion of his school days he went into a wholesale dry goods house, where he learned the business in all its details, and finally embarked in business on his own account, making a success of
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it. He early became interested in military affairs, which was quite natural since his boyhood days were passed during the Civil war con- flict, and during the latter half of the war he became prominently con- nected with the Massachusetts militia, serving in the home guards, and was one of the first members of the Forty-second Massachusetts Regi- ment.
In 1869 he decided to come west, and in that year located at the old town of Crawfordville. Crawford county. That was then about the only village in the county, but has since dwindled to little more than a name. At that time in the history of the county the nearest rail- road was forty miles north of Fort Scott. In Crawfordville Mr. Howard opencd a general store, which he conducted about a year, and then. Girard . having been started and made the county seat, he followed the general exodus and moved his business to that place, which was two miles and a half away. Later he engaged in the grain business, and for three years was bookkeeper for the Bank of Girard, which was the first bank in that town. In 1889 hie located at Pittsburg, and this has been his residence ever since. At first he was in the grain and feed business, and afterwards engaged in his present occupation, dealing in real estate and in general financial affairs. He has been secretary of the Pittsburg Water Supply Company since its organization in 1890.
While living in Girard Mr. Howard became prominently connected with the state militia of Kansas, and was one of its first officers. In 1883 he was elected captain of Company D, First Kansas Regiment, and later was commissioned major. then lieutenant colonel and finally colonel. He is now on the retired list, with all the privileges, however, of the military rank of colonel.
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