USA > Kansas > Crawford County > A Twentieth century history and biographical record of Crawford County, Kansas > Part 45
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not even during the panic of 1893. Mr. W. H. Robson remained in Pittsburg only about a year at the time of his first arrival, for he was so favorably impressed with the - farming opportunities of this region that he decided upon that occupation. He located on a farm in Coffey county, where he remained for some years. In the fall of 1898 he re- turned to Pittsburg and became a coal operator. He was a very suc- cessful business man, and his death on December 30, 1899, was severely felt throughout the city. The coal business that he established is still carried on by his sons. Robert H. and William E., under the name of the Robson Brothers Coal Company.
Mrs. W. H. Robson still survives her husband, and is living with her younger children in the Robson homestead in this city. She is one of the esteemed ladies of the city, gracious, kind and benignant of char- acter, and a model mother to her family. She was born in Pennsyl- vania. and was married at Altona, Illinois. She is the mother of ten children. as follows: Robert H., William E., Frank H., Harry E., Albert G., Miss Jean, Mrs. Lottie Spence. Miss Mabel, Miss Bessie and Roy.
Mr. Albert G. Robson passed most of his youth in Coffey county, where he received his education in the public schools, finishing at the Burlington high school. He prepared himself for the profession of engineer, being a student, both in theory and in practice, under his father. He also took a correspondence course at the well known International School at Scranton, Pennsylvania. He did a great deal of mine and land surveying, and after coming to Pittsburg with his father advanced into such favor as an engineer noted for his competency and skill, that he was honored with two important offices. He was elected county sur- veyor on the Republican ticket in 1902, and is still the incumbent, and on May I, 1901, was appointed to his present position of city engineer, which is a very important office in a rapidly growing city like Pittsburg. He was also a member of the city board of education for four years, being president of the body for one year. Mr. Robson is unmarried, and makes his home with his mother.
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HENRY C. WILLARD.
Henry C. Willard, recognized as one of the most eminent business and personal characters of Pittsburg, although now retired from active connection with business affairs, is, as he has been for the last twenty- five years, thoroughly and closely identified with the city's material. social and civic welfare and prosperity, lending his efforts with unusual display of public spirit and generosity to such enterprises as mean a per- manent, steady progress for Pittsburg. For such reasons Mr. Willard stands foremost in the esteem of his fellow citizens, and his name and memory must stand during subsequent generations as a synonym for civic integrity and personal uprightness and ability.
Mr. Willard was born in Rockingham. Vermont, in 1837. a son of Alpheus and Mariah ( Sabin ) Willard. His father brought the family to Peoria county, Illinois, in 1839. and located there on a farm, where both parents died. Mr. Willard grew up and obtained his education in Peoria county. He went to the city of Peoria and learned the mercan- tile business, and finally got into business there for himself. He came from Peoria to Pittsburg in 1880, in which year Pittsburg was practically at the beginning of its great commercial growth. Going into the mer- . cantile business, for sixteen years he continued as one of the largest merchants of the city, selling his store and retiring from active business in January, 1897. At the present time he is secretary of the Seymour Dry Goods Company, is vice president of the National Bank of Pitts- burg and has valuable real estate and coal interests.
Mr. Willard and his wife have two daughters, Mrs. Lavon Lanyon and Mrs. Alice McWhirt, wives of men prominent in the affairs of this county.
ALBERT G. LUCAS.
Albert G. Lucas. A. M., long an active minister of the Christian church, almost throughout his long lifetime writer for or editor and 36
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publisher of newspapers, a man of varied experience in public, business and professional affairs, is now closing up his life accounts in his home at Girard, and at the age of eighty odd years is active in mind and body and hopes to continue so until the summons to the great beyond.
Mr. Lucas not only has a long personal history but also his family annals cover and are closely identified with the most important phases of American nationality. He was born in Mercer county, Pennsylvania, June 23. 1823, a son of Samuel and Hannah ( Blair) Lucas, who were the parents of nineteen children, fourteen sons, of whom our subject was the youngest, and five daughters, but Mr. Lucas is now the only survivor of this large family. His mother, who was a woman of excel- lent intellect, transmitting many of her qualities to her children, was related to the ancient Scotch stock of the Montgomerys. Campbells and McPhersons. On the paternal side Mr. Lucas has reason to be proud of the patriotic record of his forebears, for his grandfather served five years and six months in the war for independence, was with Washington at Valley Forge, at the fighting in New Jersey, at the famous crossing and recrossing of the Delaware river, and at the surrender of Corn- wallis. Afterward he served nearly three years in the Indian wars, and he lived to the great age of one hundred and three years. The entire family are noted for vigor of mind and body, and longevity is one of their marked characteristics.
Going back into the old ancestral lines, there is ample documentary evidence to prove that the Luicases descended from a long line of Saxon barons, who were among the first to accept the Lutheran reformation, and, although the more immediate ancestors married into a family of Irish Catholics. Mr. Lucas' father never yielded one jot of his Prot- estantism, but was himself a stout Presbyterian with all that word implied a hundred years ago.
Samuel Lucas, the father, was born in Franklin county, Pennsyl- vania. April 10. 1778, and was a farmer and a school teacher. He voted for Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, James Monroe. . Andrew
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Jackson and Martin Van Buren. He served eighteen months in the war against Great Britain in 1812-15.
Mr. Albert G. Lucas, who is the only living representative of his parents' large family, was reared in Pennsylvania mostly, and began his education as a child, both parents taking part in his instruction and thus supplementing the meager work of the public schools. At his six- teenth year he was considered competent to teach, a pursuit which he entered upon in Clarion county, Pennsylvania, beginning February 14. 1839, and he taught every winter and some in the summers until the winter of 1850. In March of the latter year he graduated in medicine at Philadelphia, and in the April following took up practice. He con- tinned to pursue his studies, literary and otherwise, with unremitting ardor till in 1878, when the faculty and management of Abingdon Col- lege. Illinois, saw fit to bestow upon him the honorary degree of "Magis- ter in Artibus." He also holds two state teacher's certificates, one for Illinois and one for Missouri, and by hard study and honest industry attained the degrees of M. D. and A. M.
At the outset of his career for a year or so he was inclined to ramble, incidentally forming habits of intemperance, which, indeed, he inherited to a great extent, it being customary in those days to drink on all public occasions and also in the family. As already stated. his first step was school teaching, by which he was enabled to continue his studies, and which also gave him an opportunity to study human nature, which he did to the extent of his ability. His life experience has in fact been a rather checkered one. He began writing for the press when only fourteen years old, and from that time on there was not a year when he did not produce something to appear in print. In 1847 he was engaged as associate editor of the Franklin ( Pennsylvania ) Gazette, a mildly Whig paper. His productions were all of an anti-slavery cast. and mostly in poetry.
While living in Ohio in the early forties he was married, and he continued to reside in that state until the spring of 1845, when he re-
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turned to Pennsylvania, where he lived until the autumn of. 1854, engaged in teaching, preaching, and studying medicine and the German and Latin languages. Becoming somewhat disgusted with the uncertainty of the "healing art." he left for Illinois, where he intended to put in his time teaching and preaching. Here he fell in with a homeopathic physi- cian, and soon was convinced that if there is any science in therapeutics it is found in the statement "similia similibus curantur," and it was . not long before he was ranked among the "little pill" doctors. He followed the practice of homeopathy in connection with his preaching for more than twenty years, at the same time devoting himself to study and literature. It was during this time that he edited and published the Linn County (Iowa) Patriot (political) and the Herald of Truth (religious). Also during this period he wrote some of his best articles in prose and verse, and among the latter was one written in the National cemetery near Washington, and which was published in a Washington paper at the time and afterward copied into various papers.
During the Civil war period Mr. Lucas was in the secret service about six months, resigning his position to take charge of the Linn County Register (Patriot). in November, 1863. He also served in the army under Sherman in the celebrated march to the sea, and was mus- tered out July 12, 1865, at the present time drawing a pension of twelve dollars a month for his war record. Politically he has always been active, yet never ran for a civil office. He was elected county school commissioner once, and served on the local school board several times. He was anti-slavery from his boyhood, and voted for James G. Birney, J. P. Hale. Abe Lincoln and U. S. Grant, and would have voted for Hayes and Garfield if he had been where he could have used his fran- chise. From 1844 on he took an active part in every political campaign until 1880, when his environments shut him off. In '44, '48, '52, '56 and '60 he held numerous public debates on the political questions of the times, besides writing somewhat voluminously for the public journals. His expressed political views and convictions have more than once
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brought him into conflict with local public opinion. During the summer and fall of 1862 he was watched by a class of men and boys who were too cowardly to go into the Confederate army and too disloyal to enlist in the Union army: and this was kept up until one evening. in the postoffice when the house was full. Mr. Lucas announced publicly that, as he carried a good 45-calibre six-shooter, it need not surprise anyone if two or three of the hounds who were on his track should be found lying at the roadside some morning. This put a stop to the cowardly surveillance. He was then president of the Union League of his com- munity. In October. 1871, while teaching and preaching at Liberty- ville, St. Francis county, Missouri, he received five dagger cuts in his left shoulder, the only reason assigned therefor being that he had dared to take the Missouri Democrat ( afterward the Globe-Democrat), and had it sent to that office, where no Republican newspaper had ever been seen before.
Mr. Lucas came to Kansas in 1884, and to Crawford county in 1888, as pastor of the Christian church at Girard. After one year there he went to Farlington, this county, where he built up a church and erected a meeting house. He returned to Girard in the fall of 1890, and served one year as deputy district clerk. He then bought the Western Herald and conducted it until the winter of 1894. at which time he lost his first wife, after they had lived together in happy love and mutual esteem for fifty-two years and five months. This bereave- ment bore heavily upon Mr. Lucas, and he sold out his newspaper and for nearly a year endeavored to do nothing, but unsuccessfully. Since then he has continued as one of Girard's honored citizens, and has kept himself actively employed at some useful tasks, not allowing himself to rust out in his declining years.
Fraternally Mr. Lucas has been a member of the Masonic order, the Odd Fellows, the Sons of Temperance, the Temple of Honor, Good Templars, Temperance Watchmen, Union League, G. A. R., and Farm- ers' Alliance, and belonged to one other secret society which is still
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a secret, and which he will probably so keep until he is beyond the reach of calumny and danger. On the 8th day of December, 1840, he united with the Church of Christ at Antioch, Clinton county, Ohio, and on the first Lord's day in the following March made his first attempt to preach, but was not ordained for the ministry until seven years there- after. And now, for sixty years, whatever else he had done, he has never forgotten the high and holy calling of the gospel ministry, labor- ing sometimes as evangelist and sometimes as pastor ; and in these years he has brought into the congregations where he has labored about five thousand persons, and half of that number he has baptized.
Mr. Lucas' first wife was Mary Jane McGrew, and they were mar- ried August 20, 1841, at Antioch, Ohio. The ten children by this long and happy union were as follows: John C., born August 15, 1842, who enlisted in the Fifth New York Cavalry on August 21, 1861, was mar- ried March 29. 1864, and in the following May was taken prisoner at Reams Station, Virginia, and died in Andersonville prison, August 19, 1864: William F., born February 19, 1845: Mary Emily, November 27. 1847 : Hannah E., April 26, 1850; Eugene M., August 11, 1852; Lucinda C., January 30, 1855 : A. Emma, July 7. 1857 : Flora E .. October 29. 1859: C. Albert, February 13. 1862: and a baby, September 21, 1864, dying in infancy. Mr. Lucas' present wife was Louisa Ellen Smith, a widow. Although he has resided temporarily in different places, Mr. Lucas has regarded Girard as his permanent home, and here he wishes to be laid to rest by the side of his first wife.
CLIFFORD E. WOODBURY.
Clifford E. Woodbury, clerk of the district court at Pittsburg, is well known in the public life of Crawford county, and as a representa- tive of some large financial and real estate interests has been a factor in promoting the development and general welfare of his county. Mr. Woodbury is a capable. popular and wide-awake young business man,
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and, his life having almost in its entirety been spent in southeastern Kansas, he is thoroughly identified with the best interests of this sec- tion of the state and by his ability is able to wield a large influence in its affairs.
Mr. Woodbury was born near Pontiac, in Livingston county, Illi- nois, in 1867, being a son of Forest H. and Martha ( Garmer ) Wood- bury. The family is of old New England stock. His father was born at Woodstock, Vermont, and lived there to the age of sixteen. He was a stock farmer and became a rich man in that business. He first engaged in the business in Livingston county, where he located in 1855, and from there in 1874 he came to southeastern Kansas and continued his extensive stock industry in Cherokee county. In that early day he found the country exceedingly well adapted to his purposes, and his prosperity continued unabated. In 1890 he moved north into Craw- ford county, and three years later he died at the age of fifty-four, at Eureka Springs, Arkansas, whither he had gone to recuperate his health. Mr. Woodbury's mother was a native of Ohio, and she died at Girard, Kansas, in 1890.
Mr. Woodbury's early rearing was on a farm, and in the mean- time he attended the public schools and in 1890 graduated from the state normal school at Fort Scott. For the three years following he was in the live-stock business with his father. Upon his father's death in 1893 he was appointed administrator and trustee to settle up the estate, which was a large and rich one. These duties took up his time for some years, but as the settlement was gradually effected and he had time for other matters, he turned his attention to private affairs, principally grain buying. For several years past he has made his home in Pittsburg, and in 1900 he engaged in the real estate business in this city. Although still retaining his interests in this line. most of his time and energies are given to the duties devolving upon him as clerk of the district court, an office to which he was elected on the Republican ticket in November. 1903. taking up his duties on January 12, 1904. for a
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two years' term. Mr. Woodbury owns some valuable real estate, and he is directly and public-spiritedly interested in all that pertains to the growth and uplift of his county and city.
Mr. Woodbury was married at Pittsburg, December 31, 1903, to Miss Lydia A. Nichols, who is a descendant of John G. Howland, one of the passengers on the famous ship Mayflower, and her Pilgrim ancestry afterward intermingled with that of the Knickerbocker families along the Hudson. Mr. Woodbury's sister, Miss Bertha Mabel Wood- bury, is distinguished as a musician, and she conducted her piano studies for four years under some of the most noted masters in Berlin and Vienna.
JOHN N. HODGES.
John N. Hodges, manager of the Pittsburg and Midway Coal Company, Pittsburg, Kansas, is one of the most able executive business men in this city. Pittsburg, financially and industrially, is built on its great coal mines, and the fact that Mr. Hodges was a pioneer in the development of these resources is sufficient for considering him among the founders of Pittsburg, as, indeed, he was located here when there was nothing that could have been dignified with the name of town, and in addition to his part taken in uncovering the coal deposits was also one of the first merchants of the place. His life throughout has been a most busy and useful one. For a number of years he was connected with contract work on railroad construction in various parts of the country, and his first introduction to the site of Pittsburg was obtained in this connection. He has been engaged in numerous industrial and commercial enterprises, and his known executive ability and his reliabil- ity and financial integrity have caused him to be the depositary of im- portant trusts and business matters. He is likewise actively interested and public-spirited in all matters pertaining to the public welfare.and the advancement of civic progress.
en Hodges
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Mr. Hodges was born in .Schuyler county, Illinois, in 1849. being a son of A. B. and Martha ( Mitchell) Hodges. His father was a native of Buffalo, New York, and in young manhood moved west to Illinois, and later lived in different parts of the middle west. He settled in Kan- sas in 1856, being one who braved the terrors of the political situation of these days of warring slave and anti-slave elements. He spent most of his life in Topeka, where he died in 1897. His wife died in that city in 1900.
Mr. John N. Hodges was reared to manhood in Topeka and vicinity. and gained his education in the public schools of that place. As a young man he began working for a real estate firm in Topeka, and later took a contract for construction work on the Santa Fe Railroad in Kansas. He became associated with J. D. Criley in a contract for construction work on the Scioto Valley Railroad between Columbus and Chillicothe, Ohio. He left there in 1876 and came to Kansas again. He joined Jack Armell in a contract which that gentleman had for construction work on the Joplin and Girard Railroad, running from Joplin, Missouri, to Girard, Kansas. In this work they made their headquarters on the present site of Pittsburg. The only evidences of a town at that time was a graded country road, with a small building here and there on the prairie, and the name of the settlement was New Pittsburg. So that Mr. Hodges was here from the very beginning of the town and in connection with an enterprise which had a wonderful influence on the future development of the town.
While engaged in his railroad operations here Mr. Hodges found that some prospecting in the coal fields of the vicinity had been going on. and a little surface mining, with the crude means of pick and shovel and teams was being attempted. As a railroad builder he knew the efficacy of the steam shovel for excavation and grading, and he conceived the idea of bringing from Ohio one of these machines for doing surface mining. This project was carried out, and during the fall and winter of 1876-7, with Mr. Armell, he stripped off coal from the surface at
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Carbon (now Litchfield) near Pittsburg. The steam shovel, though not made for that business, did the work of thirty or forty teams, and effected a great advance in the style of mining as previously carried on, and in fact it was the first machinery used in the Pittsburg district.
In the following summer Mr. Hodges went into partnership with M. M. Snow in the mercantile business, and they erected a small build- ing for a store, on Broadway, between Fourth and Fifth, where the Wright building now stands. They conducted this store until the spring of 1879. when Mr. Hodges sold his interest to Mr. Snow, and returned to Topeka. For the following ten years he was engaged in contract construction work for the Santa Fe Railroad, on their main and branch lines through western Kansas, Indian Territory and the Panhandle of Texas. In 1889 lie returned to Pittsburg, and has made this his per- manent home ever since.
For the first six months he operated a flour mill, now known as the Pittsburg Modern Milling Company. For several years he was engaged in prospecting and locating coal lands and mines for various companies in this district. For three years he was receiver of the Pitts- burg Gas and Electric Light Company, and after the receivership he continued his successful operation of the plant for two years, and left it in the best condition it had ever been. During all these years Mr. Hodges has been closely identified with the Lanyons in their various enterprises here, and in 1902, on the re-election of officers of the Pitts- burg and Midway Coal Mining Company, of which A. K. Lanyon is president and A. H. Lanyon secretary and treasurer, he was made man- ager, and has since acted in that capacity. Their coal industry is located at Midway, where they have three mines and some strip work.
Mr. Hodges has been otherwise prominent in city and county affairs. He was treasurer of the first school board of Pittsburg. In 1896 he was the candidate of the Republican party for county treasurer, and although the Populists swept the state and he made no serious effort to secure elec- tion, his defeat was by the narrow margin of only one hundred and
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thirty-five votes. He has considerable influence in local politics, and has always exerted it toward getting good, clean men in public positions. Fraternally he affiliates with the Elks and the Masons.
Mr. Hodges was married at Topeka, Kansas, in July, 1879, to Miss Effie Baxter, a native of Grand Rapids, Michigan. He had the mis- fortune to lose his wife by death within a month after their marriage.
DR. WILLIAM T. EMBREE.
Dr. William T. Embree is recognized as being in the foremost rank of dentists of Pittsburg and southeastern Kansas, where, during a resi- dence of about seven years, he has come into possession of a large and profitable practice, built up entirely on the basis of practical skill, thorough knowledge. and progressive and energetic prosecution of all departments of his work. Coming to Pittsburg with a fine theoretical equipment obtained from study in one of the best schools of the country and also from practical experience, Dr. Embree was not long in proving his class and ability. and since then his practice has been limited only by his capacity for attending to it.
Dr. Embree was born at Moberly, Randolph county, Missouri, in 1870. His parents were C. and Savanna ( Bunnell) Embree, and his father, a native of Missouri, and by trade a carpenter, has for many years been a merchant, and, with his wife, who was born in Kentucky, is now living in Jasper county, Missouri.
Dr. Embree's primary education was obtained in the Moberly public schools, and he took the course and graduated at the State Nor- mal School at Kirksville, Missouri, in 1889. Then, at the age of nine- teen. he began teaching school, and for two years was principal of the school at Ianthe, Missouri. He began his preparation for the dental profession as a student in the Western Dental College at Kansas City, and in April, 1896, graduated from the Anatomical department of that institution. The first impression that one forms concerning Dr. Embree
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