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 65
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41 | Part 42 | Part 43 | Part 44 | Part 45 | Part 46 | Part 47 | Part 48 | Part 49 | Part 50 | Part 51 | Part 52 | Part 53 | Part 54 | Part 55 | Part 56 | Part 57 | Part 58 | Part 59 | Part 60 | Part 61 | Part 62 | Part 63 | Part 64 | Part 65 | Part 66 | Part 67 | Part 68 | Part 69 | Part 70 | Part 71 | Part 72 | Part 73 | Part 74 | Part 75 | Part 76 | Part 77 | Part 78 | Part 79 | Part 80 | Part 81 | Part 82 | Part 83 | Part 84 | Part 85 | Part 86 | Part 87 | Part 88 | Part 89 | Part 90 | Part 91 | Part 92 | Part 93 | Part 94 | Part 95 | Part 96
Mr. Butler owns two hundred and forty five acres of ground which is mostly wheat land In an exhibit at the World's Fair in Chicago, in 1893. he was awarded a beautiful bronze medal for the best quality of red wn.ter wheat. Mr. Butler along with Mr. Collins, who was interested in the exposi- tion, selected a bushel of wheat. His exhibit was taken from bulk in the gran- ary just as it was threshed from the machine. The yield per acre was thirty- four bushels, weight sixty-one and one-half pounds. The award was one of twenty-nine received in the state on threshed wheat, and one of two that came to Cloud county, which was not included in the wheat belt at that clate.
Mr. Batler with his family live in a commodious, imposing. two-story residence of twelve rooms He has a small but well bearing apple orchard. In March, 1880, he brought into the country one of the first herds of Short- horn cattle. The family are members of the Roman Catholic church. Mr. Butler is a member of the Society of Elks, of Concordia.
GEORGE W. BEERS.
G. W. Beers was a Kansas pioneer who settled in Osawatomie in 1868. In the autumn of 1870. he came to Cloud county, and filed on a homestead in Solomon township, the farm where he now lives. Mr. Beers and Conrad Romizer are the only original settlers on this part of Fisher creek. Mr. Beers is a native of Elmira. New York:, born in 1836. Before attaining his majority he had learned the stone mason's trade and worked two and one- half years in a printing office, where practically speaking he received his education. His father was George W. Beers, a coach maker, who built the first stage coach that ran on the turnpike from Geneva to Canandaigua. Mr. Beer's mother was Harriet Jemima ( Huggett ) Beers. She was of English birth, born near the city of London, and with her parents crossed the water when she was fifteen years of age, and settled in Ontario. New York.
When Mr. Beers was a small boy his father died and his mother when he was a youth of sixteen. In 1856, Mr. Beers located in Iroquois county, Illinois, where he worked on a farm by the month until 1862. when he en-
627
HISTORY OF CLOUD COUNTY, KANSAS.
listed in Company D. 113th Illinois Volunteers under Captain Lucas and Colonel George B. Hoge. Their movements were confined principally to the Missippi river between Memphis and Vicksburg. In December, 1862, he was with General Sherman at Vicksburg and Arkansas Post; from the latter point he was carried to the hospital where he was discharged from the service in December. 1863. on account of disability. and was thus cut short in his army career which imposed upon him a great disappointment.
During Mr. Beers' service in the army his wife sent him a picture of herself by an orderly sergeant, who had it taken from him by the rebels while on board the "Blue Wing" whose crew were taken prisoners. Two weeks later they were paroled and the picture sent back to the orderly with! the message: "Tell that 'Yank' that all weins have got to say, is, he's got a d-d good looking wife." An enlarged portrait of this historical okd daguerrotype adorns the walls of the Beers home.
After the war Mr. Beers resumed farming in Illinois, until 1868, when he came to Kansas. When Mr. Beers settled in Solomon township with his wife and family of children he had but five dollars, a team, and wagon. Al- though the outlook was discouraging he never faltered. He farmed in sum- mer and worked in the saw mill at Glasco in winter for the small wages of one dollar per day. In the winter of 1874-5 he ran an engine at a saw mill in Minneapolis, Kansas, for one dollar and fifty cents per day and boarded himself.
The Beers family have undergone many hardships-have sat around their frugal board and watched the last morsal of bread disappear not know- ing from what source the next would be provided. In 1875. Mr. Beers re- sumed his trade of stone mason. Prior to this period there was but little or no demand for stone masons in the Solomon Valley. He erected the first stone building in Glasco and many of those that followed, including the Oakes House and the bank building. Many of the stone structures through- out the valley are monuments of his architecture. His own residence is of stone, built by himself at intervals when not employed on other work. It is a comfortable eight room house. Mr. Beers quarried the stone, did his own masonry, plastering and most of the carpentering. His farm is well improved with good out buildings and a big orchard with three hundred trees. His land is largely wheat ground. In 1901, a field of fifty acres yielded twenty-seven and one-half bushels to the aere.
Mr. Beers was married in 1860, to Miss Esther A. Johnson of Belfast, New York. Of their family of ten children nine are living: Anna Laura, deceased wife of Leander Doty (she left four eluldren) : John W., a farmer ; Alice, wife of Wade Cook, of Ames: Edward, who farms with his father : William, the first white male child born in Solomon township, is a plumber (he was a soldier in the Spanish-American war. His Regiment, the 33di Michigan, participated in the battle of San Juan and the destruction of Ce- vera's fleet. When his services were no longer required he returned to his family, which consists of a wife and little son, Leslie Carl. Their home is
628
HISTORY OF CLOUD COUNTY, KANSAS.
in Owosso, Michigan) : Clara and Harriet, are unmarried and living at home ; Joseph 11. and Junius W., are twins, aged twenty-two years.
Mr. Beers is a Republican in politics. The family are members of the United Brethren church and take an ardent interest in church affairs. It was chietty through the efforts of Mr. Beers that Reverend O. Beistle preached his first sermon in the old court house of Concordia.
JACOB FRANKS.
Jacob Franks is one of the solid men of Solomon township. He was born December 18, 1841, within a few miles of Portland, which is the county seat of Jay county, Indiana. His parents were Aaron and Sarah ( First ) Franks, who were of Pennsylvania birth and reared in Fayette county. Aaron Franks was one of cleven children. His paternal grandfather was Jacob Franks, who came from Germany to Pennsylvania in a very early day and established the first church in that section of the country near the head waters of Jacob's creek, from which it takes it name, the Jacob's Evangelical lutheran church; the creek was also named for him. He bought a farm and gave it to the society and they built a church which was called the "Dutch meeting house." as the majority of the people were Germans. Almost fifty years ago this church was replaced with a brick edifice which is still in good condition.
Mr. Frank's maternal grandparents were of Dutch origin. His grand- father run away at the age of thirteen years without any money, and crossed the water. When he landed on American soil the ship's captain bound hmm as an apprentice to a cooper for three years that he might pay for his passage across the water. He served his apprenticeship and continued with his en- ployer four years longer. Having attained his majority he went to Pennsyl- vania where he took a tomahawk right to a piece of land where he lived until his death. He was the father of thirteen children, one of whom was Sarah First. our subject's mother. Jacob was a family name with both the Franks and the Firsts.
Aaron Franks and Sarah First were married and moved westward to Ohio, settling in Licking county, where three of their family of children were born. Being desirous of securing more and cheaper land they moved to Indi- ana where he bought a quarter of timbered government land which cost $1.25 per acre. Being a new country it was very unhealthy and the two eld- est children died. Aaron Franks was drowned in 1842. Mrs. Franks, the widow and mother. took her three remaining children and returned to Penn- sylvania where she became housekeeper for a bachelor brother who proved a benefactor. Mrs. Franks took care of him during his last illness and was well repaid for her services. Mr. Franks' mother died in Pennsylvania in 1875 at the age of seventy-five years.
In 1863. Mr. Franks married Sarah Caldron of Fayette county, where they both had grown to manhood and womanhood in the same circle of ac- quaintances. In the autumn of 1880, twenty-three years ago. they came to
629
HISTORY OF CLOUD COUNTY, KANSAS.
Cloud county and purchased of Reed P. Bracken the quarter section of land where they now live, four miles northwest of Glasco. Mrs. Franks is of German origin. Her paternal great-grandfather emigrated from Germany to Fayette county, in the early settlement of the state of Pennsylvania, and lived there until the death of himself and wife. Her father was Ellis Cal- dron, a farmer, who died in 1872. Her mother died in 1892. To Mr. and Mrs. Franks seven children have been born, five of whom are living . Miles, deceased at the age of thirty-one years, leaving a wife, Celia ( Benson) Franks, and little daughter Edna. He was a farmer of Solomon town- ship. He died in 1896. Andrew J., a farmer of Solomon township, whose wife was Fannie Weaver, a daughter of Nicolas Weaver of Solomon town- ship. They have one child, Audrey Beryl. William, a resident and miner of Goldfiekl, Colorado. His wife is Lydia Ulery of Pennsylvania. They have one child, Thelma. . Dora, deceased when an infant. Charles ( see sketch ), Lester and Bessie are at home.
Mr. Franks' only sister is Mrs. Peter Miller of Dunkirk, Indiana. Mr. Franks has improved his farm, built a large stone residence, and in 1899 built a basement barn 32 by 42 by 12 feet in height, and shortly afterward added one hundred and sixty acres adjoining his land on the south. Most of his farm is wheat land. Wheat raising is his chief industry and several years has had a yiekl of from twenty to thirty bushels per acre. Mr. Franks is a Populist, has served as township treasurer several times and has been a member of the school board. The family are members of the Baptist church. Asherville congregation.
REVEREND JOHN NESBITT BEAVER.
The subject of this sketch is Elder Beaver, present pastor of the Christ- ian churches at Osborn and Asherville. Elder Beaver is a native of North Carolina, born in 1851, at Statesville, county seat of Iredell county. His father was Eli Beaver, a miller by profession. The family emigrated to Illinois, in 1867, and settled in Biggsville, Henderson county, where Eli Beaver operated the Biggs flouring mill. In the early eighties he moved to Kansas and became associated with the mills at Delphos and Simpson, under the firm name of Kyser, Beaver & Company. His health failing, he sought the milder climate of Tennessee where he died in 1886. The Beaver ancestors were of German origin and settled in the colony known as the Penn- sylvania Dutch in the early settlement of that state and in 1760, located in North Carolina. Reverend Beaver's mother was Lavina Beaver. Their fathers were of the same name, David Beaver, but in no way related. She died thirty-nine days prior to the death of her husband.
Elder Beaver is the youngest of two children, himself and an invalid sister who never walked from the time she was two and one-half years old, and died in 1887. Elder Beaver received a common school education during their residence in Illinois, and entered upon the profession of miller, stw
630
HISTORY OF CLOUD COUNTY, KANSAS.
miller and engineer, and ran an engine for several years. While engaged in the mercantile business in Glasco in 1884-5. he traded for the farm on which he now lives.
In 1887, he began a correspondence Bible course with Ashley S. Joli- son of Kimberland Heights, Tennessee. In the year 1888, was ordained to the ministry and assumed his labors in the Christian church at Glasco. Dur- ing the winter of that year took charge of the churches at Mayview, Jewell county, and Ada. Ottawa county. He began his evangelical work at May- view and nine days' labor resulted in the addition of fifty-one converts. Ile held other successful revivals that year. His work continued in Ada and Mayview three years. During the years 1891-2-3. he labored in Randall, and preached to the Star church organization in Jewell county. For five years, beginning with 1893. he took charge of the work at Waterville and Miltonvale. His special work has been, building. remodeling churches, and paying off indebtedness. When he entered upon the charge at Randall so encumbered were they with debt, they were about to throw up the work. Through the efforts of Eller Beaver they were reorganized and put in a prosperous condition. The same conditions existed at Delphos and Milton- vale, the latter laboring under a debt of eight hundred dollars. At Osborn they were set free by the paying off of a four hundred dollar debt and in 1900 he built and dedicated a new house of worship at Asherville. During the twelve years of his ministry Elder Beaver has baptized seven hundred converts, and has been instrumental in the paying off of seven church debts that were almost hopeless. He has united one hundred couples in matri- mony and he has received more people into the church at Glasco than any other pastor. During a revival of four weeks duration there were forty- six converts.
Ekler Beaver was married, in 1872, to Miss Margaret E. Patrick, a daughter of Robert and Mary ( Lane) Patrick. Mrs. Beaver was born and reared in Boone county, Illinois and came to Kansas with her parents in 1870. Robert Patrick took up a homestead on Mortimer creek where he died in 1879. Mrs. Patrick was married, in 1881, to T. J. McCullough, who died in 1890. Mrs. McCullough now resides in Glasco.
Eller Beaver's family of children consists of two sons; Robert Eli, a farmer living one mile southwest of Concordia. He was married to Lo- rena S. Best and to this anion three children have been born ; Gladys, Nes- bitt and Roy. The youngest son George Henry, a young man who has just reached his majority, is a mute, the affliction having been brought about by an illness when an infant. He was a student of the Olathe school for mutes, and is a bright and ambitious young man, who reads and writes fluently. He had desired a higher education, but his health would not permit of such close confinement. He thrives better in the country and loves farm life.
Elder Beaver has one hundred and sixty acres of highly improved land. In 1886, he built a commodious house of eleven rooms and a barn 44 by 44 feet in dimensions. This country place bears the name of "Our Orchard
631
HISTORY OF CLOUD COUNTY, KANSAS.
Farm." and has one of the finest bearing orchards in the community. Among them are one hundred and fifty Genitan apple trees that bear largely each alternate year and many other varieties. Some of the trees are twenty years old and are abundant fruit bearers. He has a four-year-old orchard of peaches, pears and small fruit that seldom ever fails to yield largely.
Politically Ekler Beaver is a Prohibitionist. At one time he was a Ma- son and a member of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows. Knights of Pythias and Sons and Daughters of Justice, but when he went into the min- istry he dropped the lodges. "Our Orchard Farm" is one of the mose beau- tiful homes in the vicinity of Glasco, where Elder Beaver and his estimable wife expect to enjoy that rest so desirable in the latter part of life's journey when one feels the evening shades approaching. Elder Beaver is a man of large individuality, broad minded and liberal in his views and much beloved by the members of his various parishes.
SAMUEL P. FRANKS.
One of the early pioneers of the Solomon valley is S. P. Franks, who came to Washington county, Kansas with E. C. Davidson in 1869, and the following winter took a homestead in Cloud county, three miles northwest of the present site of Glasco, where he built a dugout, and as he dryly re- marked "batched with the coyotes and rattle snakes" until he was married in 1880.
Mr. Franks lived in Ohio, the state of his nativity. until he was fifteen years of age. He was born on a farm-in Franklin county, in 1849. The Franks are of German extraction and settled among the Pennsylvania Dutch in the pioneer days of that state. His father. Jacob Franks, moved to Illi- nois, in 1864, and five years later emigrated to Knasas, where like all the early settlers, they experienced many hardships.
S. P. Franks has killed numerous buffalo on the Kansas prairies, bring- ing down as many as a quarter of a hundred in one expedition, thus helping to "keep the wolf from the door." In 1875. he was one of the fifty or sixty men who hauled goods sent by the government for the grasshopper sufferers. . He held his homestead and managed to eke out an existance by doing ma- sonry and stone work which he learned soon after coming to Kansas. In 1884, he sold his original homestead to F. C. Davidson, and bought a farm on Third creek, in Solomon township, where he has lived sixteen years.
Mr. Franks was married. in 1880, to Carrie A. Billingsly who came with her parents from Iowa to Kansas, in 1876, and settled in Solomon township. Her father is William Billingsly, now living in Mitchell county. She is one of eleven children, all of whom but one are living in Kansas.
To Mr. and Mrs. Franks have been born five children, viz : Gertrude, wife of Augustus Teasley, a farmer of Solomon township: Amy, Nora, Edith. and Raymond, a little son of six years. Mr. Franks has considerable fruit on his farm. He has a herd of about fifty head of native cattle. He
632
IHISTORY OF CLOUD COUNTY, KANSAS.
still works at his trade and has assisted in constructing some of the best buildings in the Solomon valley. He is an honest and industrious man. When asked about his politics he replied "I think Iam, and always will be. a Democrat." He is a member of the Glasco lodge of Odd Fellows. Mrs. Franks is a member of the Rebekahs.
CHARLES NEWTON FRANKS.
The subject of this sketch is C. W. Franks, a son of Jacob Franks. He came to Kansas when five years old: was educated in District No. 58 and he Glasco High School. Mr. Franks is a rising young farmer and stock man ; hog raising is his chief industry. He owns a tract of forty acres with a neat cottage home and farms a part of his father's land.
lle was married in 1808, to Luella Suyder, who is one of the excellent daughters of Captain and Mrs Suyder, and was one of Cloud county's popu- lar teachers for more than eight years. She graduated from the Glasco high school in 1890, and entered upon a career of teaching at No. 18.
Politically Mr. Franks is a Republican. He is a member of Glasco lodge, Knights of Pythias. He and his wife are regular attendants at the Methodist Episcopal church, of which Mrs. Franks is a member.
WILLIAM JORD.A.N.
William Jordan, an old resident of the Solomon valley, came to Cloud county from Cornwallis valley. Nova Scotia, in 1870. He came with his wife and children and his children's children to make homes in the "Far West." and consequently ticketed to Topeka, where they came in contact with emigrants who were enroute to Smith county and induced the jor- dan's to join them with that destination in view. As they passed through the beautiful Solomon valley they were pleased with the country and its prospects, but went on into Smith county. The outlook in that county not being to their liking they returned shortly afterward to what they deemed a more civilized country and took up the homesteads where they still live.
Mr. Jordan's parental grandfather was of English birth and lived and died on the estate where he was born. His father emigrated to the rugged shores of Nova Scotia before the Revolutionary war. Mr. Jordan's maternal ancestors were of German origin and settled in Connecticut prior to the Revolutionary war and rather than become traitors to their mother country during that period they removed to Nova Scotia.
Mr Jordan was married to Elizabeth Ward in 1846. All of their eight children but one are living in Cloud county. Aaron Edmond is a farmer of Meredith township: Anna J., an unmarried daughter at home : Lavina, wife of M L. Woodward. of Glasco ( see sketch) : Celeste, wife of C. E. Martin of Lane county, Kansas; Norman, a farmer of the Solomon valley; Judith, wife of S. W. Waggoner, a farmer of Arion township: Eu-
633
HISTORY OF CLOUD COUNTY, KANSAS.
nice, wife of A. D. Atkinson, a farmer of Cloud county, and Everett, whose sketchi immediately follows.
Mr. Jordan has three hundred and sixty acres of land which is nearly all wheat ground. Mr. Jordan is a Populist in politics.
EVERETT W. JORDAN.
Everett W. Jordan, a son of William Jordan, is one of the rising young men of Lyon township. When six years of age he came with his parents from Nova Scotia to Kansas and remains a resident in the community where he was educated and grew to manhood, and where the family settled in 1870. He is one of the young men who have "grown up with the country." and has witnessed the wilderness don its robes of prosperity. The Jordan's first residence in Kansas was a blacksmith shop and later they built the first stone residence in their neighborhood.
At the age of seventeen years. Mr. Jordan's father gave him his time and rented him the farm. That season 1882, he raised an enormous yield of corn and cleared $500. The following year he bought the old Halleck homestead and built a four-room cottage 24 by 24 feet in dimensions, and otherwise improved the place. He bought the original AAdrastus Newell home- stead in 1898, which is adjacent, making a half section in his farm and one of the best properties in the county. He changed his residence to the latter farm, added to and remodeled the house, and made a comfortable place of abode of the old cabin which was one of the old landmarks of the Solomon valley. This was the stronghold of the community where the settlers gathered to protect themselves against the Indian depredations. Openings were left between the logs for port holes. While the cabin was in course of construct- ion the settlers worked with Winchesters strapped to their backs, while with a field glass one of their number kept an outlook for the approach of the savages.
Mr. Jordan's land is well watered and timbered. Chris creek running through his farm. He has a shed on the creek bank which affords excellent shelter and feeding facilities for his stock. Most of his land is wheat ground with two hundred acres under cultivation. The season of 1900 he had a vield of fifteen hundred bushels of wheat. Mr. Jordan raises considerable stock: keeps a herd of about forty native cattle, fifteen head of horses, ten of them work horses, and from fifty to sixty head of hogs.
Mr. Jordan was married in 1892, to Pet Sterling, a popular and suc- cessful teacher of Cloud county, for five years. She was a graduate of the Concordia High School, class of May 16, 1888. She graduated at the age of sixteen taking the last two years' course in twelve months. She is a daughter of John C. and Margaret (Chadwick ) Sterling.
Mrs. Jordan came from near Des Moines with her parents to Kansas when about eight years of age and settled on a farm near Jamestown, mov- ing into Concordia one year later where her father represented a sewing ma-
634
HISTORY OF CLOUD COUNTY, KANSAS.
chine company, and was well known throughout the county. He was a native of llinois, and when a young man moved to Missouri where he ten- dered his services to sustain the flag of the Union, but was rejected on ac- count of an unsound ankle which had been broken. Affairs waxed too warm in Missouri and he emigrated to lowa where he hved mini coming to Kansas. He was a school teacher in his early life in the state of Missouri, and here he met Margaret Chadwick as one of his pupils, the young woman who afterward became his wife. Mr. Sterling died after a long and pain- inl illness in the city of Concordia in the springtime of 1901.
The Chadwicks were of English origin and there is an estate in England that has been in litigation for several years. Mrs. Sterling was born in ken- tucky, and with her parents came to Missouri. She was a pupil of her father and all their ellest children received their early education under his tutorage. Mrs. Sterling now lives in Concordia but expects soon to make a permanent home with her daughter, Mrs. Jordan.
To Mr. and Mrs. Sterling eleven children were born, eight now living. Olive, wife of Joe Glasgow, a farmer near Courtland, Kansas (she was a teacher for ten years, was principal of the Garfield school in Concordia for three years and tanght in the grammar department of the Belleville graded schools three years. Mrs. Glasgow is a woman of literary tastes. She is the mother of two children. Gwendolen and De Wayne) : C. A., familiarly known as "Bob" Sterling, a furniture dealer of Clyde (he is married and has one child. a little son, Worth ) : Rose, a dress-maker of Concordia ; Lem- uel. with his wife and one child, John C., live on a farm near Plymouth, Oklahoma: Nellie, and her sister, Rose, in Concordia; Willie, has been in the employ of a mercantile company in Leonardsville, Kansas for six years, only being out of the store abont a month during the entire half dozen years he has been in their employ. He is a steady, exemplary young man who did much toward the support of his afflicted father. He is at the head of the enterprise and is a trusted employe. Forest. a young man of eighteen years of age is also in Oklahoma.
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.