USA > Kansas > Woodson County > History of Allen and Woodson counties, Kansas > Part 20
USA > Kansas > Allen County > History of Allen and Woodson counties, Kansas > Part 20
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When Dr. Dornbergh settled in Allen county Indians were roaming over the county, settlers were scattered here and there along the streams, Humboldt was the county seat, and Iola, the successor to Cofachique, was only a place in name. In those days the Doctor's well was on a sled in the yard and as the Indians came by they helped themselves to the contents of the barrel so long as there was any, without the permission of its owner.
Dr. Dornbergh was born in Caledonia, Livingston county, New York, December 7, 1826. His father, John Dornbergh, was born near Albany, New York, in 1799.and died at Rochester, N. Y. in 1844. His wife, Sabra S. Oldfield, was born in 1806 and died in 1876. She was the mother of five children.
Dr. Dornbergh was married in 1854 at Clifton, Monroe county, New York, to Sarah A. Smith, widow of W. H. Smith. Two children have been born to them, viz: Harmon Lewis, born in 1855, died in 1878; John Cheever, born 1860, and who is a prominent farmer of Humboldt township, Allen county, Kansas. The latter is married to Nettie M., daughter of E. N. Wert, of Humboldt, and has five children.
Dr. Dorubergh was reared a Democrat. His father was an uncom- promising one and taught the faith to his children, but our subject departed from it when he grew up and was well known for his political convictions during the early days of Allen county. In fraternal matters he is a Mason and an Odd Fellow.
W TILLIAM J. EVANS was reared and educated in Carlyle and Geneva, Kansas. He was eighteen years of age when he came to Iola and he worked at odds and ends, hauling coal among the rest, till he entered the
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drug house of R. B. Stevenson as a clerk. When the Missouri Pacific railroad was building through Iola he had a place on the engineering force for a time. After this he was in Topeka, Kansas, occupying a position as a drug clerk for some months and upon his return to Iola in 1882 bought the drug business of Richards, Lakin and Ireland, a prominent firm twenty years ago. In 1883 in company with William Goodhue he purchased the drug stock of R. B. Stevenson and has since made drugs, books, stationary and paints his business. Upon the retirement of Mr. Goodhue the firm became W. J. Evans and remained so till the partnership of William J. and Tell Evans was entered into in 1892. This stand has always enjoyed a prosperous business. It has been the popular corner since the day Steven- son opened his paper stand, and later his little drug store, and its magni- tude and importance has increased with the demands of a metropolitan city. The firm of Evans Brothers is nothing if not progressive and public spirited. They get all that their legitimate business will earn but they do not keep all they get. Their liberality toward worthy charities and meritor- ious enterprises is well known and the money that they thus dispose of annually is in liberal proportion to their net incomes.
Mr. Evans has been a member of the State Pharmaceutical Association for near a dozen years, has been active on some of the committee work and in 1896 was elected president of the Association, serving the usual. term of one year.
In politics there never was a time when the Evans' were not on the side of patriotism and the flag. Whigs predominated in the household in the days of Webster and Clay and Scott but with Fremont they became Republicans and have remained so through all the history of that party.
William J. Evans was married in Iola January 26, 1888, to Jessie, a daughter of William Buchanan.
Mr. Evans is a Mason, a Knight of Pythias and a Workman.
The foregoing brief record and the more extended sketch of J. M. Evans, previously given, is the story of lives well and honorably spent It covers the period of Allen county's development and testifies to the part which one of its pioneer families took in that development. It is fortunate that the facts of genealogy herein contained have been so well preserved to us and that the brief reference to the first settlement of our county is thus vividly portrayed. The student of out times in the future, will gain information and find much to satisfy in the perusal of the lives of our worthy pioneers.
W ILLIAM M. MATTOCK .- Standing out conspicuously as a pioneer upon our eastern border and as a trusted and tried citizen of Allen county is William M. Mattock, of Marmaton township. The day when he was not among us takes us back to the Civil war era upon the close of which the soldiers of the Union scattered to homes throughout the
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length and breadth of the United States. Many of them sought the fertile and unsettled portions of our frontier, chief of which latter was the domain of eastern Kansas, and our subject was among the number. He drove, with his family, across the border into Allen county in 1866, and was the third settler to build a cabin in what is now Marmaton township. He entered the south-west quarter of section 24, township 25, range 20, and the settlers who were his neighbors then and are here still are the Culbert- sons, the Harclerodes, John Sapp and Henry C. Rogers. The Porters lived farther south than Rogers but have long since gone. All of eastern Allen county was included in Humboldt township till after the war. Els- more was the first to be cut off, in 1868, and Marmaton the second, about 1871. Mr. Mattock was in Humboldt school district at first but the next year little "Stony Lonesome," midway between Humboldt and Iola. was erected and he was attached to that district. His first two votes were cast in Humboldt, the distance to the polling place not sapping the voter of his enthusiasm any more than now.
The original home of Mr. Mattock was McLean county, Illinois. He was reared there but born in Richland county, Ohio, September 1, 1840. His father, Jacob Mattock, was born in Pennsylvania in 1815, left the state with his father, Daniel Mattock, at eight years of age and settled in Rich- land county, Ohio. The Mattocks are descended from the French and German races who came to America in colonial times. An only brother of Jacob Mattock was killed, with his family, in the Spirit Lake Indian massacre, in Minnesota, many years ago. Jacob Mattock was married in Ohio to Eliza McConkie, a daughter of William McConkie, who emigrated from Westmoreland county, Pennsylvania. Two children were the result of their marriage, viz: William M., our subject, and Mrs. Mary Swine- heart, who died in McLean county, Illinois. Mrs. Jacob Mattock died in the same county in 1866.
In the spring of 1860 Jacob Mattock took his family into Cooper county, Missouri, where he died the same season. The following year his son enlisted in the 9th Missouri Cavalry, Company I, and served the first year as a scout with different commands. His company officer was Capt. Eaton and his regimental commander, Col. Williams. Mr. Mattock was promoted from sergeant of his company after the first year to Acting Ser- geant Major of the regiment. He served in the south-western department and was dealing with bushwhackers quite all the time. The Price Raid furnished a few engagements, like the Big Blue, which the 9th Missouri Cavalry got into, but beyond these the only excitement of the regiment was raised when a band of guerrillas or detachments of rebels was en- countered and brought into a fight.
Mr. Mattock's service covered Missouri, Arkansas and eastern Kansas, and his exposure during these years brought on him attacks of rheumatism from which he has suffered much torture all the years since the war.
William Mattock was reared chiefly in a small town in Ohio He was schooled at Newville and acquired sufficient learning to render him com- petent to transact the ordinary business of life. He was married in July,
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1865, to Maria J., a daughter of C. S. Starkey, who came to Kansas with our subject in 1866. His two children are Dr. J. A. Starkey, of Waynes- ville, Illinois, and Mrs. Mattock. Mr. Mattock's children are: Emma A., wite of J. W. McFarland, of Stillwater, Oklahoma; L. D. and J. A. Mattock, of Marmaton township, and Katie, wife of J. W. Sigler, of Lone Elm, Kansas.
Mr. Mattock was elected Trustee of his township first early in the '70's and has filled the office sixteen years, and only retires when his health will not permit him to serve longer. He is one of the staunch Republicans of Allen county and, for years, it was an unusual thing when he was not on the Marmaton delegation to any county convention.
C HARLES NELSON, who follows farming in Elsmore township, Allen County, was born in Knoxville, Knox County, Illinois, on the 19th of August, 1854. His father, Olaf Nelson, was a native of Sweden, and ere leaving that land he was united in marriage to Miss Inga Parison, who was also born there. They came to the United States about 1850, locating in Illinois, and in 1876 took up their abode in Kansas, the father purchasing a farm five miles west of Savonburg, near the south line of the county. He is still living there at the age of seventy-seven years, but in 1897 he was called upon to mourn the loss of his wife, who died on the 13th of March, of that year, at the age of sixty-eight years. They were the parents of eight children, of whom five are now living, namely: Charles, Frank J., Hannah M., Madison and Sarah.
Mr. Nelson, of this review, was reared in Illinois until sixteen years of age, and enjoyed the educational advantages afforded by the common schools of his native county. He resided with his parents until twenty years of age, at which time he left home and was married to Miss Caroline Home, of Knoxville, and that year they came to Kansas with her parents and Mr. Nelson preempted one hundred and sixty acres of land five miles west of Savonburg. Immediately he began the improvement of his farm and in 1880 he extended the field of his labors by embarking in general merchandising at Warrensburg, conducting the new enterprise in connec- tion with the operation of his farm, until 1888. He then removed his stock of goods to Savonburg. About that time the Missouri, Kansas & Texas railroad was surveyed through the place. Mr. Nelson organized a town company and was made its president. He has lived to see the little village grow and prosper and it now has a population of eight hundred. In its improvement and upbuilding he has been an important factor, his active co-operation in all measures for the general good being of immense benefit. On the Ist of March, 1896 he sold his stock of goods and returned to the farm, to the operation of which he is now devoting all of his time and at- tention.
The home of Mr. and Mrs. Nelson has been blessed with eleven chil-
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dren, eight of whom are now living, namely: Estella M., who is a gradnate of the grammar schools and is now teaching in Iola; Victor C., John F., Gertrude V., Carl Inez, Gladys and Virl. The family is one of prominence in the community, the members of the household occupying leading posi- tions in social circles. Mr. Nelson gives his political support to the Democracy and keeps well informed on the issues of the day. Socially he is connected with the Ancient Order of United Workmen in Savonburg. His life has been a busy and useful one and while he has added to his own prosperity he has at the same time been numbered among the substantial citizens and also contributed to the general good.
N EWTON THOMPSON, of Marmaton township, of Allen County, who owns the northeast quarter of section 22, town 24, range 20, came to Kansas from Carroll County, Missouri, but he was born in Carroll Coun- ty, Indiana. His birth occurred near Delphi October 15, 1856, and he is - a son of George R. Thompson, a resident of Moran, Kansas. The latter spent many years of his life as a blacksmith in Delphi, to which point he went from Washington County, Indiana. In 1866 he emigrated westward to Saline County, Missouri, and resided there and in Carroll County, that State, till 1879, when he came to Kansas He was engaged in burning lime in the two Missouri counties and in the latter one he purchased and operated a farm. The first years of his residence in Allen County were passed in the country and he improved a farm in section 23, town 24, range 20.
Mr. Thompson is directly traceable to the Irish. He is a great grand- son of Thos. Thompson, born and reared in Ireland. The latter came to America prior to the Revolution and settled in Kentucky as a pioneer. There he reared his family and, at Frankfort our subject's grandfather was born in 1775. Thos. Thompson died in Franklin township, Indiana, in [828, at the age of seventy-two years. His son, Robert Thompson, our subject's grandfather, died in Washington County, Indiana, in 1864. He was a pioneer to Indiana and among the first settlers of Washington Coun- ty. Thos. Thompson was a soldier of the American Revolution, as were three of his sons. Robert Thompson was a captain in the War of 1812 and was engaged in the battle at New Orleans. He married Elizabeth Robinson and George R. Thompson is the ninth of ten children in his family.
George R. Thompson was born in Washington County, April 10, 1824, and at the outbreak of the Civil War enlisted in the 2nd Indiana cavalry, a rather independent organization, under the command of General Ed. Mc- Cook. He participated in every engagement of cavalry from Atlanta, in the fall of 1863, to the close of the war. His division went in advance of Sherman to and away from Savanah and saw the war ended at Jonesboro,
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North Carolina. He was mustered out at Nashville, Tennessee, July 26, 1865.
Our subject's mother was Emily Perdue. She bore eight children and our subject is the sole survivor.
J. Newton Thompson was schooled in the country and has practiced nought but farming. He was married in Allen County in February, 1880, to Leota Banta, a daughter of William Banta. Mrs. Thompson was one of the early and successful teachers of the county and was a boarder in the home of Hon. E. H. Funston, whose oldest son, the General, was one of her pupils.
The Bantas came to Kansas from Brown County, Indiana. William Banta was born in the state of Kentucky in 1817 and died in Allen County in 1897. He married Eleanor Coffland and was the father of Mrs. Thomp- son, Byron Banta, of Oklahoma; Rhoda, wife of Geo. W. Smith, one of the leading teachers of Allen County; Albin Banta, of Kansas City, Kansas; Mrs. Alice Jones, wife of Rev. L. S. Jones, of Westphalia, Kansas; Elijah Banta, of Allen County, and Mrs. Pearl Cox.
Mr. and Mrs. Thompson's children are: Addie Thompson, born 1880, is a graduate of the common schools and a teacher; Minnie Thompson, a graduate of the common schools; Rothwell, Clair, Arthur and Glenn Thompson.
"Newt" Thompson is one of the enthusiastic Republicans of Allen County and holds a membership in the Presbyterian church at Moran.
G EORGE MCLAUGHLIN .- Our attention is directed in the following brief sketch to a family who have done no little toward the moral, educational and material advancement of Allen county. Its establishment here dates from the year 1871 and its worthy and industrious head is the subject hereof.
When George McLaughlin located upon the north-west quarter of sec- tion 8, township 25, range 21, there were few persons who could now be termed neighbors. The Sapps, Culbertsons, Moores and the Armstrongs were among the nearby settlers and the neighborhood was considered to extend as far away as Nortons, west of Moran. The post-office was old Elsmore and there was naught to prevent one from taking the shortest cut to any desired point. Mr. Mclaughlin erected, or moved into, an old stone house layed up with mud, built by an old bachelor settler, Lindsey. This the family used as a residence till 1879 when the present family cot- tage was erected in the center of the section he now owns.
The first years in a new country are not infrequently years of occa- sional trials and hardships. This is particularly true of settlers who are without means, save as they gather them from their fields in the harvest times. The Mclaughlins were poor. They had settled in a new country because of that fact and when it is stated that a failure in their crops
mr. & mrs. george mc Loughlin
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brought suffering, both mental and physical, it is no exaggeration. There was one barrier between the family and actual distress, at times, and that was education. Mrs. McLaughlin had superior educational facilities. At the age of sixteen she was a classical graduate of the Macedonian Institute at Alexandria, Kentucky, and was immediately tendered the chair of English Literature in the Mt. Vernon, Ohio, Female Seminary, which she declined. Her first teacher's certificate was granted by Colonel Jacob Ammon, a close friend and old teacher of Gen. Grant. When Mrs. Mc- Laughlin was acquiring an education it did not occur to her that said education would some time save a little settlement on the frontier and pre- serve it for good in the development of a great state. But it so happened. When the hard years came and the family larder ran low the wife of our subject taught school. Rocklow and Union and Stony Point have all been garrisoned by her and a small band of America's youth and those times are now regarded as among the events of her life.
As the years wore on and crop conditions became more favorable and the growing of cattle profitable the material prosperity of the family be- came apparent. This condition of financial ease exemplified itself in a regular and steady increase in area of the family homestead. Eventually its boundaries extended to and included all the eighties in section eight, save one, and its shortage is made up in another section. To dig a section of land out of itself is not done without great industry and perseverance and the Mclaughlins are to be congratulated, in view of their early difficulties, in accomplishing the task in a quarter of a century.
Mr. McLaughlin came from Brown county, Ohio. He was born there May 12, 1835, and his wife April 25, 1844. The latter was Abbie J., a daughter of Thomas Pickerell, who cut off with his own ax three hundred acres of Ohio timber land. Mr. Pickerell was born in Mason county, Kentucky, March 12, 1800, and died in Brown county, Ohio, April 16, 1871. His father, Samuel Pickerell, enlisted at twelve years of age in the Colonial army for service in the war of the Revolution. He was a drum- mer and served through the war. He was with General Washington at the crossing of the Delaware and in the service his feet and hands were so frosted that parts of them were necessarily removed. He was a farmer and bought the old Pickerell place on Eagle Creek, Bird township, Brown county, Ohio, upon which the first church of the Campbellite faith was erected, in 1817. The Shakers had once occupied the site but had abandoned it and the early Campbellite leaders gathered and perfected their organization there. Samuel Pickerell died at the age of ninety-eight years. He was married and reared the following children: Dennis, who reared a family in Brown county, Ohio; Richard, Samuel, Lovell, Thomas, William, Betsy, who married Samuel Dunham, Jennie, who married James Beatty; Mary, who became the wife of Mr. Harbaugh; Sallie, wife of Mr. Gillespie; Mrs. Thomas Reese; and Lucy, who became Mrs. Samuel Bartholomew. Thomas Pickerell married Alice Mann, a grand-daughter of David DeVore, born in Alsace, France, now Germany. She was Mr. Pickerell's second wife. He reared two families; in the first eight children
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and in the second five. Those surviving are: Thomas Pickerell, of Rice county, Kansas; Addison Pickerell, of Carthage, Illinois; Alexander O. Pickerell, of Arkansas; John F. Pickerell, of Ripley, Ohio; Mrs. Mc- Laughlin; Sarah, widow of Samuel Peck, Dover, Kentucky, and Ella, wife of John McKee, of Ripley, Ohio. William C. Pickerell, deceased, was the first settler on the townsite of Topeka. He was a brother of Mrs. Mc- Laughlin who went out the Kaw river above Kansas City in 1853 and took the claim that much of the State Capital stands on. He enlisted in Jameson's command and served through the war. His twelve-year-old son, Thomas, rode ninety miles without saddle or bridle and without eating to a military post to carry out his determination to get into the service. He went through the war as buglar and resides in Ness county, Kansas, at present.
Mr. McLaughlin's father was David McLaughlin, a pioneer settler in Brown county, Ohio. He was born in Pennsylvania but was reared in Mason county, Kentucky. He was a son of John Mclaughlin and the farm where he first settled is still in the family, owned by our subject's youngest brother. David McLaughlin was a soldier in our second war with England and was in the garrison at Detroit when Hull surrendered it to the British. He died in 1880 at the age of eighty-four years. He married Reebcca Ramey who died in 1873. Their children were: John R., of Brown county, Ohio; Lydia, deceased, married R. P. Fisher; George Mclaughlin; Josiah C., who died in 1863; Frances, deceased, and Law- rence McLanghlin.
George McLanghlin served in the hundred day guards called ont dur- ing the war to protect the border from Rebel invasion. He left Ohio in 1866 and came west to Jackson county, Missouri. He resided there three years and took another step westward into Brown county, Kansas. In 1871 he left there and came down into Allen county. He was married May 2, 1860, to one of the successful teachers of Brown county, Ohio. Their children were: Herschel, deceased; T. Hamer; Josiah C., of Kansas City, Kansas, married Cora Holman; Anna, widow of J. L. Edson, resides in Kansas City, Missouri; Alice, wife of Will Shank of Bronson, Kansas; Chilton W., of Kansas City, Kansas, assistant surgeon St. Margaret's Hospital; Rose, wife of W. L. Stahl, with Kansas City Journal, and Leona and Myrtle McLaughlin, successful teachers of Allen county, and Horace Mclaughlin, at home.
Mr. Mclaughlin is a Democrat. He was reared one and there has been no time when he felt warranted in changing his faith.
EROME. W. DELAPLAIN, who for almost a third of a century has J made his home in Allen County, traces his ancestry back to France and finds that many representatives of the family are living in various sections of this country. The orthography of the name has undergone many
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changes, some spelling it as dwellers of the plains, De La Plain. Samnel Delaplain, the grandfather of our subject, was born about the 7th of November, 1781, and served in the War of 1812. He married Jane Mc- Fadden, a descendant of a patriot of Irish birth who served for seven years in the war of the American Revolution. Some time in 1808 Samuel Dela- plain, accompanied by one of his brothers, made the journey on horseback from Ohio to Illinois, also accompanied by their aged mother, a Scotch woman, who died at the age of one hundred and four years. The grand- father was a pioneer Methodist preacher and crossed the Mississippi River to a French village where the city of St. Louis, Missouri, now stands. He was also a carpenter and took a contract to build the first market house there, going to the forest and cutting and hewing the timber and making the boards from which to construct the building. The old French market house long stood as a landmark of that locality.
While Samuel Delaplain and his wife Jane were occupying the French claim in 1812, Joshua P. Delaplain was born unto them, being the fifth of their eleven children. Shortly afterward the family again crossed the Mississippi River, settling on a farm four miles north of Alton, Illinois, where the son Joshua grew to manhood. We find him early taking an active part in the work of the Methodist church, of which he remained an active and consistent member until his death in 1875. Holding a commis- sion from Governor Reynolds of Illinois in a company of State militia when the Black Hawk war broke out, he resigned his military office and enlisted as a private in a company of Independent Mounted Rifles, serving until the old chief and his followers were subdued.
On the 9th of October, 1836, Joshua Delaplain was united in marriage to Mary O. Copley, who was born October 7, 1818, at Oneida, New York. Her parents were of English ancestry. Of this marriage were born the following named: Jerome W., Eugene W., now of Logan township; John B., of Kansas City; Charles L., deceased; Emma J., who in 1871 married George D. Ingersoll, then a merchaut of Iola, and died in Moran, Kansas, in 1886, leaving three children; and Ellis P., of Elm township, who come pletes the family.
In 1868 Joshua P. Delaplain and his eldest son, Jerome W., made a prospecting tour to Missouri and northern Kansas without finding just the location they wanted, and after considering the future of Galveston, Texas, as an outlet for the produce of Kansas by the Leavenworth, Lawrence & Galveston railroad, then talked of, the father in the early summer of 1868, came to Allen County, Kansas, spending the first night after his arrival at the Rodgers farm, southeast of Moran. The next day he met William Buchanan of Iola, who showed him the Snodgrass farm of one hundred and sixty acres, one mile south of Gas City. The farm was purchased and Mr. Delaplain went east for his family who came overland in the last of Sep- tember, 1868.
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