USA > Kansas > Woodson County > History of Allen and Woodson counties, Kansas > Part 60
USA > Kansas > Allen County > History of Allen and Woodson counties, Kansas > Part 60
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JAMES B. PEES, of Liberty neighborhood, Allen county, is one of the C homesteaders of Iola township. He came to the county in March, 1871, and entered an eighty acre tract in section 18, township 24, range 18, the same year. He established himself among the settlers west of the Neosho river, married one of their pioneer women and has maintained him- self a useful honorable and appreciated citizen.
In tracing up the genealogy of Mr. Pees we find him to be a son of Nicholas Pees, a farmer who was born in Washington county, Pennsyl- vania, in 1798. In 1854 he emigrated to Ohio and settled in Cham- paign county, where he died in 1869. He was a son of John Pees, likewise a native of the Keystone state, whose parents crossed the mountains into western Pennsylvania in the first settlement of that region. Whether this ancestor or liis immediate relatives had any connection with the military of the United States during its early wars is not certain, now It is probable that they were Democratic patriots for Nicholas Pees affiliated with that political party until the issues of the war inade him a Republican.
Nicholas Pees married Susan Ingle who died in Allen county May 15, 1885, and is buried at Piqua. Their children are: Ruth A., wife of James McGlumphy, of Pittsburg Pennsylvania; Joanna, who married Jolin Mc- Crary and died near Keokuk, Iowa, in 1848; Mary, whose first husband was Edmon Loyd, resides in Champaign county, Ohio, and is the wife of John Shields; Sarah, who died single; Tephanes, deceased, was married to Joseph McAphee, and James B. Pees, our subject. He was married to E. A. Dennison October 3, 1878.
Mr. Pees was born in Washington county, Pennsylvania, August 14, 1842. He was reared in Champaign county, Ohio, from the age of twelve years and acquired a fair knowledge of books from the country schools of his day. With the exception of the years he spent in the army he re- mained with his father till the latter's death. Soon after that event he decided to come to Kansas and grow up with the county of Allen. He re-
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sided a short time on his small tract on Elm creek adjoining Iola but for more than a quarter of a century has maintained his residence near the eighty he homesteaded in the year 1871.
October 3rd, 1878, Mr. Pees married Eliza Dennison whose second husband was Lewis Dennison and whose father was Carver Gunn. The Gunns were Massachusetts people and Carver married Lucy Arvilla Owen, a Connecticut lady. Their surviving heirs are Osman Gunn, of Polk county, Missouri; Eliza, wife of our subject; Clay Gunn, of Polk county, Missouri; Addie, wife of Taylor Hadlock, of Crawford county, Kansas; Bettie, who married John Reed and resides in Bolivar, Missouri, and Rufus B. Gunn, of the same point.
Mrs. Pees' first husband was Jasper Hillbrant one of the first settlers of Allen county. He preempted the northwest quarter of section 24. town- ship 24, range 17, and died here in 1862, leaving a son, William G. Hill- brant, of Iola township. Mr. Hillbrant came into Kansas from Missouri and was in company with Henry Hillbrant who served in the Second Kan- sas, died in the service and is buried in Leavenworth. The environment of this young couple was certainly frontier from 1856 to 1860. There were not more than four or five families in the woods and on the prairies in the Liberty neighborhood in those days: The Berrys, Parkers, Gardners, Blacks and McQuiggs, but all went well with them till the year 1860 when the great drouth overtook their crops. Their first year's provisions they brought with them and they sold flour to people about the country includ- ing L. L. Northrup who was running a store at Geneva. Mrs. Pees re- turned to Missouri after her husband's death and was not again a resident of Kansas till 1867 when she returned with her second husband.
Mrs. Pees has a son by her second marriage, Thomas Dennison, of Iola, who is married to Hattie Bassett, and a daughter, Lillian M., wife of R. S. Rnss, Superintendent of Schools at Pittsburg, Kansas. Mr. and Mrs. Pees are the parents of two children, Guy E. Pees and Lacy A., wife of Charles E. Moriell.
Mr. Pees enlisted in September 1861 in the Second Ohio Infantry, Company D, Captain James Warnock, with L. A. Harris, colonel of the regiment. The regiment began its service in eastern Kentucky and did much skirmishing along down the river to Louisville and Bowling Green. It was with Mitchell's division on the tour through Tennessee and Alabama to Huntsville, at which point the return journey was begun in the nature of a retreat toward Louisville. On the way north the battle of Perryville was fought. The Murfreesboro or Stone River engagement followed in December of the same year. In the Chicamauga fight Mr. Pees was cut off from his command and taken prisoner. He was taken to Bell Island and remained two weeks before his transfer to Libby prison, at Richmond. In two months he was again moved, this time to Danville, Virginia, and was there imprisoned till March 1864. At each of these removals it was re- ported that an exchange of prisoners was being conducted and in this way the boys in blue were deceived into journeying from one prison to another without an effort at escape. Mr. Pees was taken to Andersonville prison
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from Danville and in March 1865 was taken to a parole camp ten miles est of Vicksburg, Mississippi, and actually exchanged. He was put aboard the illfated "Sultana," with twenty-two hundred men aboard, and started north. Seven miles above Memphis a boiler explosion destroyed and sank the boat and fourteen hundred ot the men were lost. Mr. Pees was thrown into the water and chanced to gather up a plank upon which with a few others, he floated down to Memphis He was badly burned and was placed in the Gaoso hospital where he remained two weeks, when he was again shipped aboard a Mississippi steamer and landed at Cairo, Illinois. He proceeded immediately to Columbus, Ohio, reaching home June 5, 1865.
Farming was what had been taught Mr. Pees before he put on a sol- dier's uniform and it was but natural that the farm should receive him again when his military duties were over. He consented to remain in the east only so long as his father survived and when he died our subject's advent to Kansas soon followed. His history in Allen county is summed up in the words "work" and "hope." He has worked incessantly and hoped for reward in proportion to his industry. After thirty years of ex- perience on the plains of Kansas he finds himself surrounded with ample substance to provide old age with the comforts of life. He resides in the midst of a community whose confidence he possesses in the highest degree and the welfare of whose citizens is a matter of his personal interest and concern.
E DWIN P. MINOR .- The late Edwin P. Minor, of Iola, came to Kan- sas with the colony of Massachusetts emigrants who settled at Law- rence in 1856 to aid in making this a free state. The Emigration Aid As- sociation of Massachusetts gathered together a party of two hundred and forty- eight people and sent them to Lawrence in 1856 and they were picked up all the way from New England to Chicago. The Minors joined the train in Huron county. Ohio, and the trip was made by rail to Mt. Pleas- ant, Ohio, and by wagon to Lawrence. Missouri was not a safe state in which to find Free State people on their intended mission to Kansas and, to avoid trouble the company came through Iowa, Nebraska and into Kan- sas from the north. Mr. Minor was a carpenter and he worked at his trade the first winter in Lawrence and the next season he went onto a farm and made that occupation his business henceforward. In 1859 he went into Greenwood county, Kansas, and took a claim and left it only when he felt it his duty to go into the army. While in the service his wife returned to Ohio and was joined there by her husband after the war ended. They re- mained some years in the east, returning in 1873, to Kansas, and taking up their residence in Allen county. Mr. Minor resided one-half mile east of Iola for more than twenty years and was engaged in farming and dairying. He sold his farm in 1894 and became a citizen of Iola, dying here in 1899.
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Edwin P. Minor was born in Huron county, Ohio, July 16, 1831. He was a son of Cyrus Minor, who went into Ohio early and back to Connecti- cut and again to Ohio from Hartford, Connecticut, in 1847. Cyrus Minor was a miller and was married to Sarah Hall. They lived in Connecticut until Mr. Minor was sixteen years old and then moved back to Ohio. Their children were: Erastus, of Portland, Oregon; Chatles, of Huron county, Ohio; Wallace, of California; Mitchell, of Los Angeles, California; William, of Huron county, Ohio; Lucy, wife of Charles Clark, of Michi- gan; Olive, wife of James Wilson, Tiffin, Ohio, and our subject.
Edwin P. Minor settled in Ohio in 1847. He learned the carpenter trade at the age of eighteen to twenty-one and became one of the early bridge carpenters on railroad construction in Ohio. He made his trade his support while he remained in the east and followed it periodically in the west. He enlisted in the Fifth Kansas Cavalry the second year of the war and took part in the battles of Pine Bluff, Helena and Dry Wood, among others. He was in the western department and was out three years and three months.
Mr. Minor was married in Huron county, Ohio, May 17, 1851, to Laura, a daughter of Dan Clark. The Clarks were from Litchfield county, Connecticut, and Daniel's wife was Almena Guthrie. In early life he was a teacher but became a wholesale dry goods peddler later, and finally a farmer. Mrs. Minor survives of their household, as does also Oliver Clark, of Lucas county, Ohio. Mr. and Mrs. Minor's children are: Ellis, born in 1852, married Eliza Anderson and resides in New Mexico; Hermosa; Frank G., born in 1855, of Denver, Colorado, and Lewis Minor, born 1859, resides in Iola.
H ENRY ANDERSON EWING was born in Bloomington, Illinois, August 9, 1841. His father was John W. Ewing, who was born in Statesville, North Carolina, February 9, 1808, and was of Scotch-Irish descent. His mother was Maria Stevenson who was born November 4, 1802, at Statesville, North Carolina. Her father was James Stevenson who was born at the same place in 1762, the son of Gabriel Stevenson who came to North Carolina from Pennsylvania in 1760. Both the Ewing and Stevenson families came originally from the Scotch settlement in London- derry, Ireland.
The children of John W. and Maria Ewing were: Adlai (died in infancy) Nancy J., James S., John W., William G., Henry A., Adlai T. Of these all are living except the first who, as noted, died in infancy. James S. Ewing served as United States minister to Belgium during the last Cleveland administration. William G. Ewing was for four years- 1885-9-United States District Attorney for the northern district of Illinois, and was later Judge of the Superior court of Chicago.
Henry A. Ewing spent his boyhood and youth in Bloomington in at-
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tendance upon the city schools, acquiring a good working education. He responded to the call for volunteers when the war came on, enlisting as a private May 25, 1861, in Company E, Fourteenth Illinois Infantry. He was offered a commission as captain, but modestly declined. His regiment very soon got into active service and as a part of the Army of the Tennessee took part in the campaigns from Donelson to Atlanta, participating in the battle of Shiloh and in the battles and sieges leading up to the capture of Vicksburg. The regiment made a better than average fighting record, traveling during the four years of its existence upward of 10,000 miles and fighting over country from Macon, Missouri, to the sea, and from Leaven- worth to Washington, and H. A. Ewing bore his share of the gallant and arduous service. On April 6, 1862, after the battle of Shiloh, he was made a sergeant, and on July 12, 1863, was promoted to second lieutenant, with which rank he was mustered out June 18, 1864, at the expiration of his term of enlistment.
Returning to Bloomington, he was elected sheriff and filled that office two years. He then began the study of law and was admitted to the bar in 1867, practicing in Bloomington until December, 1883, with no interrup- tion except that occasioned by a term in the Illinois legislature to which he was elected in 1879. In1 1883 he came to Jola, Kansas, and since that time has been engaged in the practice of his profession and in conducting his large farm near the city. In 1888 he was elected county attorney and in 1890 was re-elected-the only county attorney who has been awarded a second term in recent years. He is a Presbyterian and a Republican.
Mr. Ewing was married March 28, 1866, to Elizabeth Julia Merriman, who was born in Berkshire county, Massachusetts.
Mrs. Ewing's father was Henry Merriman, who was born at Hinsdale, Massachusetts, and was the son of Daniel Merriman, who was born at Dalton, Massachusetts, and the grandson of Jesse Merriman, also born in Massachusetts. Mrs. Ewing's mother was Sarah T. Bodurtha, who was born in Berkshire county, Massachusetts, the daughter of Harvey Bodurtha and Dolly Taylor.
The children born to Mr. and Mrs. Ewing were: Henry Wallis, (married August 5, 1893, to Alice Sweet, of Fon du Lac, Wisconsin, and whose children are Henry Wallis, Abbie Jane, Lucius Winchester and Lawrence Bodurtha); May Brevard, (wife of Charles F. Scott) Adlai Merriman, (married June 16, 1896, to Ella Taylor, to whom has been born one child, Annie McMillin), Elliott Winchester (deceased); Richard Avery, Ruth Stevenson and Sarah Katherine.
Henry A. Ewing is now associated in the practice of law with C. A. Savage, and the firm of Ewing & Savage is acknowledged to be one of the foremost at the Allen county bar.
O RLANDO HUNTER-The Hunters are among the familiar faces on the streets of Iola. The brothers, Orlando and Joseph, have been in Allen county a great many years, the former having arrived here
WOODSON COUNTIES, KANSAS.
December 24, 1869. He was directly from Centralia, Illinois, to Iola but was born at Marietta, Ohio, October 31, 1845. Joseph Hunter, our subject's father, was born in Mercer county, Pennsylvania, May 17, 1915. He was reared on a farm and was a son of William Hunter who died in the Key- stone State about 1839. It is thought the family ancestors were Irish peo- ple who went into the Atlantic coast states at a very early date. Joseph Hunter, the second, settled at Marietta, Ohio, and was one of the finest cabinet makers of his day. A work-box which he presented to his affianced wife, and which is yet in her possession, inlaid with different woods and studded with pearls, surpasses anything coming from the work- shops of our later day mechanics. On the 28th of May, 1850, he was drowned in the Muskingum river, a few months prior to the birth of his younger son. He married Harriet Alcock, a daughter of William Alcock, a worthy representative of one of the esteemed families of Marietta. William Alcock was born in Cheshire, England, January 31, 1786. He married Sallie Posey, who was born March 3, 1788. Their children were: W. B., who died at Chanute, Kansas, the father of Mrs. A. L. Taylor, of Iola; Nelson S., who died at Geneva, Kansas in 1892; Drusy, who married Ed S. Davis, and died in Iola; Aurilla, who became the wife of Thomas Sinnamon and died in DesMoines, Iowa, Harriet, mother of our subject, born November 20, 1824; Mary, wife of B. W. Jeffries, who died at Ottum- wa, Iowa; George W., who died in Brooklyn, New York, and Charles T. Alcock, of Marietta, Ohio.
Harriet(Alcock) Hunter married Hugh Means February 28, 1864. The latter was born in New Wilmington, Pennsylvania, and spent four years in the rooth Pennsylvania infantry, Ninth army corps. He was Brigade Post Master in Rosecrans Corps and was born in 1820 and died in February, 1894.
Orlando and Joseph Hunter grew up in Ohio and in Illinois. The latter was born November 9, 1850, and both attended only the district schools in their boyhood. In February, 1864, Orlando Hunter enlisted in Company D, 77th Ohio infantry, Captain Sim McNaughton, Colonel William B. Mason. He joined his regiment at Marietta and proceeded to Little Rock, Arkansas. The regiment joined Steele's command which was ordered to reinforce General Banks. It went out to Camden and met the enemy in such force that it was forced back to Little Rock. The battles of Okalona, Jenkins Ferry and the capture of Camden were the chief engag- ments in which our subject participated and he was discharged at Little Rock, October 10, 1864, the same year of his enlistment.
Mr. Hunter spent the first few years after the war roaming over the west, through Illinois, Indiana and Iowa, reaching his final stopping place just before the close of the year 1869. December 1, 1871, he was married in Chautauqua county, Kansas, to Fannie E. Beaver, whose parents were from Gold Hill, North Carolina. Mrs. Hunter died in 1883. Her children were; Nettie, wife of Wm. O. Lees, of Iola; Mrs. Lees was born December 1, 1874; Dan Hunter, of Iola, born December 18, 1876, and Bertha May Hunter, born May 9, 1883. Mrs. Hunter was born July 16, 1852, and died in Chautauqua county, Kansas.
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M ISS CLIFFORD A. MITCHELL, superintendent of the Iola public schools, one of the popular educators of Kansas and a lady whose- intellectual and professional attainments have won her an enviable place in the confidence and respect of the people of Iola, has just completed her tenth year in Kansas. She was born in Clark county, Ohio, and was reared there to her seventeenth year. She was educated ,in the schools of New Carlyle and in the Normal school for training teachers at Dayton, Ohio. Her introduction to the polite profession occurred in Ohio, but after her first year there, she followed her parents to Kansas and has since been prominently identified with educational work in this State. Her first years in her adopted State were spent in Fredonia as principal of the high school. At the beginning of the autumn term of 1893 she entered the high school at Iola as its principal and maintained herself admirably in that position till her final promotion in 1899 when she became City Superintendent of Schools.
Miss Mitchell is a daughter of Asa N. Mitchell of Iola, a native son of "the best State in the Union outside of Kansas," and was born September 9, 1840. The latter is a son of James Mitchell who was born at Jamestown, Virginia, in 1803, and who died in Clark county, Ohio, in 1859. During the early life of the last named he was engaged in the nursery business but his last years were passed in New Carlyle as a hotel-keeper. The paternal great-grandfather of our subject was a Scotch-Irishman. He settled at Jamestown, Virginia, and was the father of five sons and a daughter. The whole family emigrated to Ohio as pioneers and reared families there.
Asa N. Mitchell's mother was Elizabeth, a daughter of Philip Swigart. Her children were: Mary F., deceased, married Denny Minrow; Asa N., and Lida, wife of Edward H. Fnuston, of Allen county. Asa N. Mitchell became a teacher, when grown, and was engaged in the work in Taylors- ville, Kentucky, when the war came on. He enlisted the first year of the war in the 16th Ohio Battery, with two other Allen county men, E. H. Funston and James W. McClure, and was mustered aboard a steam- boat between Cincinnati, Ohio, and Lawrenceburg, Indiana, where the troops disembarked. The battery crossed the country to St. Louis and over into the interior of the State and, from Pilot Knob, crossed the State into Arkansas, bound for Helena. The 16th battery was with Hovey's Division during the Vicksburg campaign and was with Sherman at Jackson, Missis- sippi. Following the close of this campaign the battery went down the river to New Orleans and, soon thereafter, crossed the Gulf of Matagorda, Texas, to join the forces intended for the interception of the Confederates when Banks should defeat and drive them out of Arkansas. Banks' failure to do liis part made it necessary for the immediate return of the Federal forces to New Orleans and when they did Asa N. Mitchell was mustered out, his enlistment having expired.
Upon taking up civil life Mr. Mitchell became a bank clerk in Upper Sandusky, Ohio. From the bank he engaged in the fruit and nursery
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business and has remained so, in the main, before and since his advent to Kansas.
In April, 1868, Mr. Mitchell married Fannie E., a daughter of the Rev. E. Rogers Johnson, a graduate of Bowdoin, College, a classmate of Henry W. Longfellow, and who carried off the honors of his class. He entered the ministry at New Carlyle, Ohio-his first charge-and died in the service of the same church. His wife was Julia Colton and three of their four children reside in Clark county, Ohio.
The first child of A. N. and Mrs. Mitchell is Clifford A. Mitchell Their other children are Lieutenant Burton J. Mitchell, on the staff of Brigadier General Funston, in the Philippines, and Miss Florence Mitchell, one of Allen county's young teachers, and a graduate of the Iola high school.
Miss Mitchell is remarkably gifted and endowed as a teacher. Hers is a strong combination of intellect and a genius for directing affairs. While she is always the controlling influence in her educational work she is happily the confidante of her pupils. Her sincerity of purpose and her grace of manner attract both patron and pupil and all work together in harmony for the strength and efficiency of one of the best schools in Kansas. Miss Mitchell maintains her station as Superintendent well in her attendance upon county and State associations and in meeting ably the requirements of those bodies when responding to her number upon the program.
JOHN E. IRELAND, Iola's efficient ex-postmaster and one of the old residents of Allen county, was born in Devonshire, England, December 18, 1828. Robert Ireland, his father, was a carpenter aud master mechanic who passed his years of activity in the city of Liverpool. He married Maria Eggbeer, wlio was also a Devon, and both of whom died in England's great port of entry. Of their ten children John Eggbeer Ireland was their eighth. His early life was spent as an errand boy and pupil. At the age of fourteen he went to the tailor's trade in Liverpool. Having served his time and completed his trade he came, in 1849, to the United States. He was ten weeks in coming over on the sailer and entered through the famous Castle Garden. He got a job on the dock in New York City, load- ing vessels with cotton and remained with it till the first of January follow- ing. He went up into Schuyler county, New York, and worked at his trade at Havana. Some time later he located in Geneseo and was in that city when the war broke out. He enlisted in the 50th New York Engineers, as first Sergeant, and was promoted to Sergeant Major of his regiment. He was with the Army of the Potomac and saw how it was done and helped do it all the way from first Bull Run, Petersburg, Yorktown, Seven Pines, Fredericksburg, Seven Days, and Gettysburg and Chancellorsville, Wilder- ness and the rest, till his muster out in 1864. In all this conspicuous and hard service he escaped personal injury, in the field, and retired from the
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army with a consciousness of having done his full duty to his adopted country.
After he was discharged Mr. Ireland worked at his trade in New York City till the 21st of February, 1865, when he came westward to Galva, Illinois. He remained in that city at his trade till 1870 when he was in- duced to come to Iola to work for Davis & Vannuys, then in the clothing business. He arrived here in June and began a long and pleasant residence in the little western metropolis. The year 1874-5 he spent with W. W. Scott in Winfield, Kansas, as a tailor in his clothing establishment, and upon his return to Iola he established his first independent tailor shop. In 1878 he went into the grocery business with Sam J. Cowan. He was a member of the well known firm of Richards, Lakin & Ireland, wholesale grocers, who were burned out in 1882, later on. After severing this latter connection he went into the livery business with S. T. Ellis. In 1885 he retired from this business to enter the post office as Post Master of Iola-the first and only Democrat to fill the office. His four years of public service was most satisfactory to the patrons of the office. At the expiration of his term a Republican succeeded him and he again went into the grocery business, this time with Eugene Esse. The firm burned out some months afterward and business was not resumed. When it was seen that another Democratic Post Master was to serve the Iola office, with one accord the pat- rons of the office looked to Jolin Ireland as the rightful appointee. They were not disappointed, for in 1894 he succeeded his successor, William H. Mc- Clure, to the office. His second administration was even more popular than his first. His former experience had rendered him perfectly familiar with the office and his second office force was more desirable than the first. Since the fall of 1897 he has been in actual retirement from business.
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