USA > Kansas > Cloud County > Biographical history of Cloud County, Kansas: biographies of representative citizens. Illustrated with portraits of prominent people, cuts of homes, stock, etc > Part 61
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Mr. Thompson was one of ten children. none of whom survive him. A sister, Martha Marsh, visited him a few years prior to his death, after a separation of forty years. She had learned of his residence through inquiry and without announcing her intention of doing so eame on a visit. Before making her identity known she stopped a couple of days at the Haynes House, in Glasco, for the purpose of determining whether her relatives were desirable acquisitions. She drove out with a neighbor and asked for a night's lodging; when the name was announced a joyful meeting followed between brother and sister who had met as strangers. When talking over childhood days each remembered instances that recalled their youth.
Mr. and Mrs. Thompson were the parents of seven children. Rachel is unmarried and lives with her mother. She taught in a dugout that had been a bachelor's residence, the first school in the Fisher Creek settlement before the organization of the district. It was a subscription school of perhaps a dozen pupils. She also taught the first term in the new school house for a salary of twenty dollars per month. The aged mother and her daughter have a very comfortable home. They are members of the Presbyterian church .- [Miss Rachel Thompson was deceased in December, 1902 .- Editor. ]
AARON HUDSON SPAULDING.
The late A. H. Spaulding. one of Glasco's brightest and most distin- guished citizens, and an old pioneer who settled in the Solomon valley in 1865. was an Ohioan by birth, born in Belmont county in 1843. He was one of six brothers and five sisters, children of William and Mary Spaulding, all of whom lived to be grown. Of the brothers known in Cloud county is Henry H., who was one of the very first residents of Glasco. but now living in Salem, Oregon, and Joseph, a well-to-do farmer near Wamego.
A. H. Spaulding homesteaded the place known as the William Thompson farm. on Fisher creek, in the meantime working on the extension of the Union Pacific Railway west from Junction City, along with Thomas Jones, of Glasco. Later he engaged in a general merchandise store with J. M. Cope- land and A. F. Bullock.
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HISTORY OF CLOUD COUNTY, KANSAS.
Mr. Spaulding was elected commissioner of Cloud county in 1877, serr- ing three years. In the autumn of 1883 he was elected to the office of regis- trar of deeds, and as an evidence of his popularity he received all but sir votes in Solomon, and about the same in Lyon, an adjoining township. In 1886 he positively declined a nomination which was equivalent to an election, and returning from Concordia built the pleasant home just north of the city limits of Glasco, where he enjoyed life until his death m 1806.
Mr. Spaulding's memory is held sacred by his friends and comrades at Clases, and it has been recorded that his was a life singularly free from the taint and contamination of sins which beset, entangle, and capture so many erring mortal- along life's pathway. He was a very excellent man,-mondest. retiring, conscientious and well informed .- and a man of pleasing address and of unusual good judgment. At his death the family lost a kind husband. an indulgent father and Glasen a citizen who went down into the valley of the shadow of death with a page clean and fair. Mr. Spaulding was connected with every worthy enterprise for the good of the community. He was a member of the Independent Order of Odd Fellow's and was buried by the rites of that order.
Mr. Spaulding was married April 1.2. 1872, t, Caroline E. Copeland, a most excellent woman, who survived him. Mrs. Spaulding was born near Vienna, Ihnois, where she lived until twenty-one years of age. Her parents were Isaac and Ellen ( Cove) Copeland, who ched within the same week and when Mrs. Spaulding was but an infant four weeks old, leaving a family of five children, the eldest of whom was but twelve years old, a daughter, who mar- ried at the age of fifteen. Mrs. Spaulding lived with this sister until twenty- one years of age, when she came to live with a sister and brother, the latter J. M. Copeland, then a merchant of Glasco; where she met and married Mr. Spaulding.
Five children were born to Mr. and Mrs. Spaulding: The eldest, a son. died in infancy. The four living are, Mand, wife of S. R. Haynes. a mail clerk on the Missouri Pacific Railroad from Atchison to Downs, married August 17. 1901. Mrs. Haynes until the spring of 1902 was engaged in the millinery business for about six years and very successfully. She was the leading milliner during that time, carrying a stock of about fifteen hundred dollars, with annual sales of twenty-five hundred dollars. Mrs. Haynes bought the Studt stock of millinery in 1896, assuming the responsibility without any capital, paid for the stock within two years from the proceeds of sales, and also bought the building where her store was located. Mrs. Haynes is a graduate of the Glasco high school and attended the high school at Concordia one year. She is accomplished in music and for several years has been the organist at the Presbyterian church and Sabbath school. The Spaulding Loys arc, Elmer, a resident of Oregon, located at Heppner, where he is employed as clerk in a store. Frank and George rent and operate the farm.
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HISTORY OF CLOUD COUNTY, KANSAS.
George Spaulding served two years in the Philippine war, and was a mem- ber of Company D. Forty-fourth Kansas Regiment. under Captain Curtis and Generals Smith and Hughes. He enlisted in 1899 and returned July 4. 1900. They were mustered into service at Beloit and were mustered out of service in San Francisco, June 30. 1901. He was in the battles of Tinana- wan. Negros Island, Valencia and Ormoc ( the two latter on White Island ) and in many other skirmishes and minor engagements. He was in the hos- pital four months from a severe attack of dysentery, followed by throat trouble, which reduced his weight from one hundred and thirty-nine to ninety pounds. Mr. Spaukling enlisted at the age of eighteen years, and was the only Glasco boy to respond to the call for volunteers.
JOHN HENRY BRIERLEY, M. D.
The services of Doctor Brierley among the citizens of Glasco and the Solomon valley who have been in need of medical assistance have been of incalculable value, and countless sufferers can testify to the potent charm's of his professional skill. He is the pioneer phy- sician of Glasco, and has obtained a reputa- tion placing him in the front rank of the medical fraternity. He is possessed of far more than average ability and since he en- tered upon the study of medicine it has re- ceived his almost undivided attention. Doc- tor Brierley is profoundly popular, both professionally and socially, and is one of those individuals found in every community who wield an extended influence among their fellow men, politically and otherwise.
Lockport. New York, is his birthplace. his birth occurring in 1849. He is of Eng- lish parentage: his fatlier. John Brierley. was born in the city of Oldham. When Doc- tor Brierley was nine years of age his father moved from Lockport to Springfield. Ohio, and five years subsequently to Dayton, his present residence. Doctor Brierley's mother, before her marriage, was Harriett Bates. She was born on the edge of Wales. in the city of Shrewsbury ; she was deceased JOHN HENRY BRIERLEY, M. D. in 1899. When Doctor Brierley arrived at the age of twelve years he began working in the foundry with his father, who was an iron moulder, and while en- gaged in this occupation earned money enough to gratify his desire for a
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HISTORY OF CLOUD COUNTY, KANSAS.
higher education, and entering Denison University, Granville, Ohio, he graduated in the arts from that institution in 1875. He then
entered upon a med- ical course in the Starling Medical College, of Colum- bus, Ohio, finished that line of progress and was granted a diploma February 25. 1878. The fol- lowing year he emi- grated west to " in- seribe his name on this goodly state of Kansas," and after a brief sojourn in Atchison, came to Cloud county and located in the then THE CHARMING COTTAGE HOME OF DOCTOR AND MRS. BRIERLEY. new town of Glasco. where in reality he began his career as a practitioner and where he has been so successful.
During the four and twenty years Doctor Brierley has been dispensing medicine to the sick and afflicted of the Solomon valley there has been no contraction or abridgement in the exercise of his profession. He did not make a mistake, when prospecting. to decide in that fair field opportunities were offered for an ambitious and enterprising physician. He has practiced in this vicinity continuously since 1878, with the exception of two years spent in Kansas City as meat inspector, an office established by the United States government in the interests of agriculture and pure foods. Doctor Brierley takes an active interest in politics and is one of the wheel-horses of the Repub- lican party. Hle served six years on the pension board, is vice-president of the Young Men's Republican Club. was made president of the Cloud County Medical Society, which was organized in Concordia May 20, 1902, and in the summer of 1902 he had the honor of being elected president of the State Medical Society, which convened at Topeka.
Mrs. Brierley's record as an educator and educational worker is one of the brightest in Cloud county. She was a teacher one year in the fifth grade of the Clyde schools and one year in the sixth and seventh grades of the Con- cordia schools. From 1884 until 1887 she was principal of the Glasco schools. succeeding Mr. Mitchell, and in 1894 was elected to succeed Mr. Fmick, resigned. Mrs. Brierley was elected county superintendent in 1894 and resigned the principalship of the Glasco schools to assume the duties of that office: she served four years. being re-elected the following term. Dur-
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ing each year she visited all the schools in the county and in 1896-7 visited each district twice. She is now practically retired, but her interests in edu- cational work have not waned and she manifests a lively concern in any- thing pertaining to school matters. The pretty residence of Doctor and Mrs. Brierley is an attractive cottage home, admirably appointed. heated with hot air and fitted throughout with modern conveniences.
LOT M. DUVALL.
The subject of this sketch is L. M. Duvall. one of the most successful educators in this section of the country, and few have inspired their pupils with greater or better influence tending toward a desire to excel in a higher education, or infused into their minds those impressions that are never effaced and with this training even under the most adverse circumstances men and women do not often recede from their purpose.
Mr. Duvall came to Clyde as principal of the high school, retaining that position four years with much eredit to himself and universal satisfaction to the scholars and patrons. His work there was principally in the high school department : his special- ties are mathematics, history, botany, eco- nomics and the sciences. Mr. Duvall eame to Kansas in 1887, and that year and the two following he taught the Sibley school. In 1895 he was employed in District No. 47 and during the two years he was engaged there, several of Cloud county's best teach- ers were sent out. Miss Kate Butler, of the Concordia high school, and her sisters, Rose and Frances, are among this number.
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LOT M. DUVALL.
Mr. Duvall substituted another teacher and taught an unfinished term as principal of the Glasco schools. He was chief instructor of the Nevadaville ( Colorado) schools for one year. Mr. Duvall graduated from the Cen- tral Normal College, of Indiana, where D. M. Bowen, Professor Miller, of the Holton schools, and other prominent educators received their knowledge. Mr. Duvall began his career as a "Hoosier" school master in Union county, Indiana, where he was born and bred. Early in life he began reading law with the intention of becoming a legal practitioner, but was drawn into other channels. He read Blackstone when a mere youth and was admitted to the bar in Indiana: to the district court and subsequently to the supreme court of Colorado.
Politically Mr. Duvall is a Republican and has been a candidate for office. In 1895 he received the nomination for county surveyor and was de-
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HISTORY OF CLOUD COUNTY, KANSAS.
featel by the Populists, but ran one hundred ahead of his ticket. In 1902 he inspired to the office of county clerk, subject to the Cloud county convention. and though he ran well did not receive the nomination. Had Mr. Duvall been elected he would doubtless have filled the office with the same excellent result that characterizes his efforts as a teacher, but by his ambitions being thwarted the schools of Glasco, where he is employed the present year, are insured of a superior instructor, who will contribute very materially to the wisdom and welfare of the rising generation of their city. In 1808-09-1900 and 1901 Mr. Duvall was a member of the examining board of Cloud county.
Our subject is a son of Ira P. Duvall, of Indiana. The Duvalls came to Pennsylvania and settled there in the pioneer days of that state. His father was a farmer and in his earlier life a potter by occupation. His mother was Elizabeth Gard. of Ohio. Her ancestors were early settlers in Virginia. He is the eldest son and second child of a family of nine children, all of whom are living. except the oldest sister. Four members of this family are teachers. Mr. Duvall has been a member of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows for ten years.
B. F. McMILLAN. D. D.
There are few clergymen better beloved by their congregations and by the people of all classes in a community, than Reverend B. F. McMillan, the pastor of the Presbyterian church of Glasco. He wields an influence that is far reaching in its strength. He is a forceful speaker, but is guarded in his utterances and does not assume the aggressive, nor antagonize his religious assemblies, but rather lives his religion that others may accept of their own volition. He is a close and constant student by both instinct and habit, and a devoted pastor that has developed an interest in Christian work far above the average minister.
Reverend McMillan was born in Lancaster county, Pennsylvania, in 1844. and when a lad of about eleven years of age removed with his parents to Polo, Illinois, where he was reared, and enlisted in Company E. Ninety- second Illinois, while a mere youth. He was in a company of mounted in- fantry. under Colonel Smith D. Atkins, who was afterward promoted to brigadier-general. Mr. McMillan served three years and one month: acted as orderly for Major-General David Cruft, and also served as sergeant and corporal. He was in the battle of Chickamagua on the 19th and 20th of September. 1863: battles of Ringgold. Dalton. Resaca, and Jonesboro, Georgia (where they lost one-half of their regiment ) : Lovejoy Station, Trenton and skirmished all through Georgia. They were in the battle of Waynesboro under Kilpatrick, and the battles of Savannah, Averyboro, Aiken, South Carolina, Bentonville and Lookout Mountain. His regiment was in the front at all times, having been first in line at Lookout Mountain, and also when Chattanooga was taken.
Reverend McMillan received a common school education before enter-
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HISTORY OF CLOUD COUNTY, KANSAS.
ing the United States service and directly after his return he entered the Northwestern College at Naperville, Illinois, where he remained until taking a theological course at home and afterward under the direction of an uncle. Reverend J. H. Pratt, D. D., who was a minister at Allentown, New Jersey. He had turned his attention in the direction of educaton before entering the army and while in the service, as time permitted. For a brief time he engaged in the study of medicine, but again resumed his ministerial studies. taking the Princeton course. He began his labors as a pastor in Mitchell county, Kansas, in the year 1874. continuing until the year 1883, and then removed to New Jersey, where he engaged further in theological studies. He came to Kansas with his father's family and homesteaded land near Beloit in 1872: his father, brothers and one sister all secured claims. His parents both died on the homestead eight miles south of Beloit. His father died in 1898 at the age of ninety-two years, and his mother in 1899 at the age of eighty-six. By a previous marriage there were three children: by the second there were nine, all of whom are living excepting one sister. A brother in Philadelphia is a civil engineer; the other members of the family all live in Mitchell county, Kansas.
Reverend MeMillan's paternal ancestors were of Scotch Covenanters and Dutch Reformed sects, while his maternal ancestors were German Lutherans. His maternal grandfather was educated in the University of Ber- lin, and was by profession a teacher, attorney and surveyor. His paternal grandfather was a captain in the war of 1812. It was in 1883. 1884 and 1885 that Reverend McMillan took a two years' theological course under Doctor J. H. Pratt. of Allentown, New Jersey. While in the east he visited in 1901 the old cemetery containing the ashes of his ancestry and found graves that were marked 1735. Many others were unmarked and moss-grown. His maternal grandfather was the sexton of the Lutheran church built early in the seventeenth century, which was later merged into the present German Reformed Church. Reverend McMillan has in his possession the key to this primitive old house of worship. After preaching several years in Mitchell county. Reverend McMillan became pastor at Lincoln, Kansas, in the meantime laboring at Vesper, Lucas and other neighboring towns. He assumed charge of the Glaseo congregation in 1896, and ministers to the congregations at Simpson and Fisher Creek.
Reverend McMillan was married in April. 1877. to Julia S. Pratt, of Saltville. Mitchell county. Her father, Doctor R. W. Pratt, graduated in medicine at Athens College. Ohio. Her ancestors were of English crigin and early settlers in Ohio, while it was included in the northwestern terri- tory. Her paternal grandfather was Colonel Pratt. Her maternal grand- father. General John Brown, was treasurer of the State University of Athens. Ohio. They were prominent and well known pioneers. Mrs. Mc- Millan's parents located in Green county, Illinois, in 1852, where she was born. After living in Kansas twenty-five years they removed to Los Angeles, California, where her mother still lives and where her father died
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in 1888. Mrs. McMillan is the second eldest of ten children, all of whom arel iving. One brother is a Presbyterian minister in Portland, Oregon, and one brother is a physician in Alaska. All of her ancestors were profes- sional men, ministers and educators. Mrs. Julia P. Ballard, the well known author, was her father's sister. Mr. Ballard is still a professor of the U'ni- versity of New York and has almost reached the mark of four score years.
Mr. and Mrs. McMillan are the parents of two sons and one daughter. Robert W., aged twenty-three, is a graduate of Brown's Commercial Col. lege. Kansas City, is a bookkeeper and stenographer by profession and taught school successfully three seasons. He was given a position in the First National Bank, Beloit, Kansas, but on account of failing health was forced to give it up and seek outdoor employment. He now occupies a good position in the Bank of California, Los Angeles, California. The see- ond son, John P. aged eighteen, is a student in the second year of a high school course in Glasco. Jennie, a little daughter, aged fifteen years, attends the Glasco school.
Politically, Mr. McMillan is a Republican and served one term as col- lector in Ogle county, Illinois. The McMillans own their home, a neat little cottage in Glasco, and in the two acres which surround it they are cultivat- ing choice fruits and have given considerable attention to poultry and have some fine blooded varieties. Mrs. McMillan retains the homestead she filed on in Mitchell county, twenty-eight years ago. Reverend McMillan is a worthy Christian gentleman, universally esteemed, not by the few, but by all classes of society.
RUFUS R. BIGGS.
There is always a universal feeling of interest and respect for a man who, by his own exertions and natural ability, has won for himself a promi- nent place in either professional or commercial circles, or as a tiller of the soil. Mr. Biggs has done this and occupies a place among the successful men of the Glasco vicinity.
Rufus R. Biggs is a son of Joseph Biggs, upon whose original home- stead the city of Glasco was built. He settled there in 1869, and was one of the organizers of the town. A brother, Isaac Biggs, was Glasco's first postmaster, and for years engaged in general merchandise. Isaac Biggs died in 1888. R. R. Biggs received a common school education in lowa, the state of his nativity, in the vicinity of Cedar Rapids. When he was four- teen years of age his father's family moved to Missouri, and the following year to Kansas, where Mr. Biggs began a career of farm life. In 1882, he engaged successfully in the livery business in Glasco: discontinued in 1890. and bought a farm north of that city, where he lived two years- 1803-4. and in 1894 bought part of the old It. H. Spaulding homestead. It was a bare wheat field of ninety-seven acres adjacent to Glasco. Mr. Biggs put this land under a high state of improvement ; built a comfortable six room cottage, substantial barns, etc.
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HISTORY OF CLOUD COUNTY, KANSAS.
Mr. Biggs was married, in 1885, to Mary Emma Haddock, a popular Cloud county teacher. She was educated in the graded schools of Concor- dia and a student one year in the State Normal of Emporia. The Haddocks were old settlers in Cloud county and homesteaded what is now the Mess- more farm near Glasco. Her father died in 1898, and her mother in 1884. Mrs. Biggs was a teacher in the old stone school house of Glasco; entered as a substitute for one day and taught for a period of five years. She began her school work as a teacher at sixteen. Mr. and Mrs. Biggs are the parents of one child, a little daughter, Wilma Inez, aged four years. Mr. and Mrs. Biggs have reared two daughters of their deceased brother. Isaac Biggs. Ida is a graduate of the Glasco High school and is married to Charles Wall. The youngest daughter, Oral, remains one of their household.
Socially Mr. Biggs is a member of the Knights of Pythias and Inde- pendent Order of Odd Fellows. He is considerable of a sportsman ; goes to Colorado, Montana, Oklahoma or Arkansas annually for a season's hunt- ing. He is progressive in his views and contributes to all worthy enter- prises, either by his personal efforts or from his stores of a worldly nature. The Biggs have a modern, desirable home, and are among the representative people of their community.
JAMES W. HEAD.
The subject of this narrative is J. W. Head, of Glasco, a retired farmer. lumberman and an old veteran of the Civil war. Although a born south- erner and his father once a slave owner. true to his convictions, Mr. Head took up arms against the south. Some of his father's slaves are now living in Kansas City, and in Nicodemus, Kansas.
Mr. Head was born in Scott county. Kentucky, in 1849. His parents were James G. and Martha Ann ( Sebree) Head. His grandparents' place of nativity was the historical county of Culpeper, near the Culpeper court house, where the Heads settled among the colonists of Virginia. His grandfather emigrated to Kentucky when that state was in its infancy, and where his son, J. G. Head, was born May 4. 1807. He was reared and married in Scott county and here his family of eight boys and two girls were born. five of whom are living, all in eastern Kansas, except the subject of this sketch.
Mr. Head's mother passed away when her children were yet young, but his father kept them together and never married again. He died May 23, 1884. in the seventy-seventh year of his age in Miami county, Kansas, where he emigrated as early as 1858. Hle was a farmer by occupation.
Mr. Head received his early education in the state of Kentucky. It was limited to a few terms in an old log school house. They came to Kansas in the state's pioneer days, and when the war broke out he enlisted in Company I. Fifth Kansas Cavalry, under Colonel Johnson, who was killed at Morristown. After his death they were transferred to General
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Powell Clayton's command, who was promoted to brigadier general for his bravery. Mr. Head stood in the foremost rank of his regiment as a marks- man and being a good rider was made an orderly. He was held a prisoner at Little Rock three months. He made his escape with others by digging out. They formed an organization and planned an outlet. When named at roll call one morning it was found they had disappeared. They were three weeks accomplishing this feat of digging a twenty-seven foot tunnel, four feet in depth with an old door hinge. Of the seventy who escaped, all went in the direction of Fort Scott and got through in safety with the exception of Mr. Head and a comrade, who took another route in the direction of Mis sissipi and were run down by blood hounds, captured and returned to prison, after being out eleven days. They were only kept a few days, how - ever, until they were paroled. Mr. Head's regiment participated in the battles of Helena and Pine Bluff. At the latter place General Clayton and his forces of six hundred men held the fort against four thousand con- federates. The town was riddled with shot, shell and all sorts of missiles. The brick court house was pierced with three hundred and twenty-five balls. The building was afterward photographed. General Clayton seemed to have led a charmed life, as on his spirited horse he galloped around, above and before the breastworks, constantly exposed to the enemy's fire. The Fifth and Seventh Kansas regiments pushed south and were in the midst of dangerous warfare. In the battle of Helena, out of one hundred and seventy men only sixteen evaded the enemy; twenty-three were taken prisoners, and the rest left on the battlefield.
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