USA > Kansas > Woodson County > History of Allen and Woodson counties, Kansas > Part 61
USA > Kansas > Allen County > History of Allen and Woodson counties, Kansas > Part 61
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Mr. Ireland was married in Schuyler county, New York, to Hattie Littlefield. Their two children died in infancy but, after coming to Iola they adopted Sadie Prentis, who became the wife of George Kirby and has a son, Jay Kirby.
John E. Ireland is a very quiet man, without assumption or show, but with all the elements of a real manly man. His relation to his fellow townsmen is most cordial and affable His homestead, which he purchased at what seemed a fabulous price, when he came to Iola. he has beautified and adorned with shrubbery, and residence and lawn until it is one of the handsome homes in the city.
W ILLIAM JOHNSON HUCK, Iola's well known painter and paper-hanger and a Kansas pioneer, was born in Ohio October 21, 1845. He is a son of the late Abraham Huck, of West Minster, British Columbia, and was brought west and into Anderson county, Kansas, in 1860. He located upon a claim thirteen miles south of Garnett and did farming and blacksmithing, as a civilian, till 1865 when he located eight
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miles south of Butler, Missouri. In 1871 he began a series of moves which finally brought him to the point where he died in 1892. He was born in Pennsylvania in 1817 and was a son of Jacob Huck, a German-American. The latter died in Williamson county, Illinois. He was the father of five children. Abraham Huck served in Company L, Fourteenth Kansas Volunteer Cavalry, as a private, and was discharged for disability in 1865. He married Nancy Gentry, whose father was from near Vincennes, Indi- ana. Mrs. Huck died in West Minster, British America, in 1893. Their children are William J. Huck, of Iola, Kansas; Jacob, who died at sixteen years; Mary E., wife of John Turner, who resides in Vancouver, Britishi America, Martha A., wife of George Grimmer, of West Minster, British Columbia; Caroline, deceased, and Cynthia, who married in British Colum- bia and resides at Chillwhack, on the Frazier river in British Columbia. "Billy" Huck was educated sparingly in the pioneer schools of Kan- sas. He enlisted in Company L, Fourteenth Kansas Volunteer Cavalry November 10, 1863, and was under Captain Harris and Colonel Briggs. He was mustered in at Cane Hill, Arkansas, and his service consisted. in the main. in fighting Bushwhackers in the Territory and Arkansas. The nearest approach to an engagement with which his regiment had to do was at Cabin Creek, Indian Territory. His company was one detached at Fort Scott to take a train of supplies down to Fort Smith, Arkansas. The little command was surrounded at Cabin Creek and the train captured with many of Company L. Mr. Huck made his escape to other Federal forces and was stationed at Fort Gibson at the close of the war. He was dis- charged at Lawrence, Kansas, August 22, 1865. He spent five years suc- ceeding the war in Bates county, Missouri, farming and when Wakefield & Company, through their agent, Henry Waters, made him an offer to engage with them he accepted and traveled over Kansas and Missouri selling medicines till 1874. With his accumulations he came to Allen county and went onto a farm, remaining only two years, then coming into Iola. In Iola he has become widely known as an artist in his business of painting and paper-hanging. He is best known for his absolute reliability and among the old settlers to say that "Billy Huck" did a certain piece of work was a sufficient guarantee of the efficiency and honesty of the job.
Mr. Huck was married near Lecompton, Kansas, February 12, 1874, to Agatha, a daughter of George Rose, who came from West Virginia to Kansas in 1863. Mrs. Huck was born May 20, 1856. Her sister, Agnes, is the wife of J. A. Stuck, of Dexter, Kansas, and her brother is James Rose, of Franklin county, Kansas.
Mr. and Mrs. Huck's children are: Hattie, born July 25, 1875; Mary, born January 9, 1883; Oscar, born January 17, 1885, and Earl and Ernest Huck, twins, born February 9, 1890.
Mr. Huck is one of the well known Republicans of Iola:
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G R.GARD .- In a profession where advancement depends upon indi- . vidual merit G. R. Gard has attained a prominent position, being one of the leading representatives of the bar of Allen county. He has won distinction through his devotion to his clients' interests and through his masterly handling of the intricate problems of jurisprudence that have been connected with the trial of cases in which he lias been retained as advocate either for the defense or prosecution. Thus he has long since left the ranks of the many to stand among the successful few.
M1. Gard was born December 10, 1868, in Cumberland county, Illi- nois, and was reared upon a farm belonging to his father, Jacob Gard, who is represented elsewhere in this volume. Through the winter months he pursued his education in the common schools and during the summer season assisted in the labors of field and garden. The sports of youth also claimed some of his attention and in this manner the days of his minority were passed. He manifested special aptitude in his studies and showed particular fondness for intellectual advancement. It was this that led him to earn the money with which to pursue a college course. He spent the winter of 1888-9 in the Valparaiso Normal College of Valparaiso, Indiana, and then returned to his father's farm where he remained until the autumn of 1890, when at the request of his brother Samuel, who was then a rising young lawyer in Bronson, Kansas, he came to this state and began the study of law.
On the 5th of January, 1893, Mr. Gard was admitted to the bar at Fort Scott, and in order to seek a wider field for his labors removed from Bron- son to Humboldt, Allen county, in April of the same year. No dreary novitiate awaited him in his practice, for he soon gained a good clientage and became a popular attorney. He received the Republican nomination for county attorney in 1898 and to that office was elected by an overwhelm- ing majority. He entered upon its duties in January 1898 and in May of the same year removed his family to Iola, the county seat, where he en- tered into partnership with his brother, S. A. Gard, under the firm name of Gard & Gard. His official course was most commendable. He espoused the cause of the people with the firm conviction that crime should and must be suppressed and the laws of the state respected and obeyed. His labors resulted in the uprooting of a number of crimes in Allen county, and the perpetrators brought before a court of justice. He formed no entang- ling alliances in societies or organizations that could effect his faithful dis- charge of duty and allowed nothing to interfere with the administration of even-handed justfce. He also avoided unnecessary expense as the legal advisor of the county and that his course was highly satisfactory to the public is shown by the fact that he was tendered the nomination of the Re- publican party for re-election in the fall of 1899. Owing to the great in- crease in the civil practice in the firm of which he is a member, Mr. Gard declined the nomination for a second term and retired to private life.
While residing in Humboldt he met and married Miss Katie Gallagher whose father, John Gallagher, was one of the honored early pioneers of
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Kansas. She was born in Woodson county, this state, and prior to her marriage was engaged in the millinery business in Humboldt. Mr. and Mrs. Gard were married August 29, 1896, and they now have an interest- ing family of three children, a son and two daughters. Their friends in the community are many and they enjoy the hospitality of the best homes of Iola. A man of earnest purpose and strong determination with a com- prehensive knowledge of law and a high appreciation for his profession, which is the conservator of justice and the protector of life, prosperity and liberty, Mr. Gard has already gained a distinctively representative clientage and undoubtedly has a successful future before him.
JOHN HALL KUDER, Superintendent of the Iola Brick Company's works, is one of the recent additions to the citizenship of Allen county. He came here in 1897 and took charge of the manufacture of brick for his company and is responsible for the success, in a great measure, which this company and its projectors have enjoyed.
Mr. Kuder was born in Iowa, August 31, 1857, and is a son of a promi- nent retired farmer and stock man, George W. Kuder, who resides near Muscatine, Iowa, and who was born in Germany in 1803. He went into Iowa in 1841 from the State of Ohio and was one of the most successful men of his county. He first married a Miss Kurtz, whose three children were; Nicholas and Mrs Mahala Brown, of Muscatine, Iowa, and Madama, wife of Isaac McGill. of Davenport, Iowa. George Kuder's second wife was Sarah Oliva Crawford, daughter of James Crawford, people with Scotch- Irish antecedents. This wife was the mother of our subject. Her people were from Harrison county, Ohio. She died in 1857, leaving an only son, John H. Kuder. George Kuder married for his third wife, Sarah Ever- sole. Their children are: Frank, wife of John Thompson, of Wappelo, Iowa; Nellie, of Minneapolis, Minnesota: Guy S. Kuder, of Louisa county, Iowa. and Clyde and Earl Kuder, of Columbus Junction, Iowa.
Our subject was reared around Winfield and Muscatine, Iowa, by an uncle, William Crawford. He was left with a considerable legacy from his mother's estate and he learned to travel and sightsee in his youth. He undertook to learn the drug business but was counseled that it was hazardous to his health and he dropped it. He tried farming but he found this irk- some and somewhat difficult and he abandoned it. He got into the service of one of the Iowa telephone construction companies prior to his farm venture and received an injury-ran a hedge thorn into his knee-which permanently disabled the same. On leaving the farm and without previous experience he engaged in the business of contracting and building and, strange to say, he made some money at it. Leaving this work, he engaged to travel for the Thompson-Houston Electric Light Company for the sale of their goods, putting in light plants over the country. Eight years with this company sufficed and he severed his connection to engage in the
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electric light business in Coffeyville, Kansas. From this he got into the gas business but failed to reach the strong flow of gas and disposed of his- holdings for what little they would bring and made his first start in the. brick business. He took the position of engineer in the Coffeyville Vitrified Brick Plant, was promoted to foreman of the machinery and generally assisted in the manufacture of brick. His reputation at Coffeyville found its way to Iola, at a time when the latter place was searching for the right man, and he was offered a proposition, advantageous to himself, accepted it and still holds the position. He went to Coffeyville in 1887 and came to. Iola in 1897.
In his comparatively short life Mr. Kuder has probably met with more physical misfortunes than any other man of his age. His first serious in- jury was the falling from a telephone pole and running of a thorn into his. knee. White swelling followed and made a lasting injury. He next fell from the top of a high barn onto the floor and lay unconseious twenty-four hours. A horse kicked him and broke hisskull, and while in the brick plant at Coffeyville he got his foot into a drypan and mashed the instep. Lastly, at Iola, he was caught in the connecting shaft to the cut off table and he came out of it all with the left arch of his forehead crushed, the back of his head caved in, his left arm and shoulder broken, five ribs snapped off, and right arm and leg bruised. The remarkable nerve which he displayed when these wounds were being dressed, marked him as one of the most courageous and determined men to be found anywhere.
Mr. Kuder was married at Winfield, Kansas, in 1887, to Adelia, a daughter of D. P. Williams, whose early home was in Mississippi. Mr. and Mrs. Kuder's children are: Daisy M. and George Leo.
Mr. Kuder's Republicanism is well known. His father is a rabid Democrat and, during the war even held opinions antagonistic to the union of the States. Our subject has no time for an active interest in politics but he does his duty as a citizen and as often as the opportunity occurs. He has and holds the highest regard of his townsmen.
R OBERT I. THOMPSON-In his early life Robert L. Thompson was encompassed by those environments which have ever fostered the spirit of personal independence and self-reliance, and which have produced the self-made men who form the bulwark of our nation's prosperity and her wonderful industrial development. At an early age he started out in life for himself empty handed and today he is accounted one of the leading and prosperous farmers of Allen county.
Mr. Thompson was born January 4, 1860, in Waterman, Park county, Indiana, a son of Robert N. and Elizabeth D. (Truman) Thompson. The father was born in Indiana in 1830, and in Park county, in 1855, married Miss Truman, who was born in Oldham county, Kentucky, in 1820. He died in 1868, and she afterward became the wife of James D. Roberts, with
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whom she removed to Iowa in 1870, and to Kansas in 1872. They located in what was at that time Howard county, now Chautauqua and Elk counties. The mother died near Iola in 1889, being cared for by her sons. By her first marriage she has two sous: Charles M., who is with the Lanyon Zinc Company at Iola, and Robert L.
In 1874, at the age of fourteen years, Mr. Thompson, of this review. left home and went to Humboldt, Kansas. His only capital with which to begin business life was a strong determination to succeed, and a pair of willing hands. For a year he worked on a farm of J. S. Fast, who was afterward register of deeds in Allen county, and who took great interest in helping the boy. Mr. Thompson received as renumeration for his services for the year, his board and clothing, four months schooling and twenty-five dollars in money. During the greater part of the time through the succeed- ing eight years he was in the employ of ex-Sheriff Hodson. Through perseverance, indefatigable energy and capable business management, he has become one of the prosperous farmers of Allen county, and in addition to the cultivation of his fields he is successfully engaged in dealing in short horn cattle and Polan China hogs.
On the 5th of June, 1881, Mr. Thompson wedded Miss Permelia C. Hubbard, who was born July 31, 1864, and is a daughter of Samuel F. Hubbard, a native of North Carolina, and one of the honored pioneers of Allen county, of 1857. She has one brother and two sisters living: A. D. Hubbard, of Memphis, Tennessee; Louisa, wife of J. F. Nigh, of Allen county, and Mrs: Charles M. Thompson, of Iola. Unto our subject and his wife have been born eight children: Blanche, Clyde, Grace, Truman, Frank, Ruth and Robert L., all at home, and Eugene, who died at the age of seventeen months. In politics Mr. Thompson is a Republican, and has always been an active worker in the party. Socially he is connected with the Inde- pendent Order of Odd Fellows. His life plainly indicates that pros- perity depends not upon genius, upon influence or upon environment. but upon the man.
REDERICK FUNSTON, whose brilliant achievements as a volunteer officer in the United States army in the Philippines have attracted the admiring attention of all the world, is an Allen county boy, and his old friends and neighbors are justly proud of him. He was born in Ohio in 1865. the oldest child of Hon. Edward H. and Ann Eliza Funston, but he came to Kansas with his parents when only two years old and hence has never known any other home. He grew up on the Carlyle farm, attending the district school at North Maple Grove during the winter months and doing his share of the farm work during the summer. He was quick in his books and ambitious to obtain an education; so at an early age he had mas- tered the course of study in the country school and entered the High School at Iola from which he graduated in 1886. Perhaps the first inde-
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pendent work in which he engaged was to teach the school at the little stone school house, half way between Humboldt and Iola, known all over the county as "Stoney Lonesome," from its material and its location, and a picture of which as it now appears is presented on another page in this history. As soon as he could accumulate some money with which to de- fray expenses he started to the State University which he attended at dif- ferent times for the next three or four years, but from which he never graduated. After leaving the University finally Funston engaged in news- paper work as a reporter, work which pleased him well and for which he had a peculiar aptitude. After continuing in the newspaper business, at Kansas City and at Fort Smith, Arkansas, for some time, he secured a better paid position as collector on the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe which he held until the summer of 1890, when he gave it up to accept an appointment as assistant with a party of botanists sent out from Washing- ton to secure specimens of the native grasses of Montana. He did this work so well, that when another party was detailed to go to the Death Valley region the following summer on a similar expedition, he was made a member of it. The hardships of this expedition were so great that of the party of uncommonly hardy men who entered upon it more than one-half were permanently disabled in either mind or body, but Funston fortunately escaped sound and well. The next summer was spent among the Indians on the Alaskan coast, still in the employ of the Agricultural department, collecting specimens of the flora of the region. This work he did so well that when the Department wished to know what was growing in the in- terior of Alaska Funston was selected for the arduous and dangerous task. It was not a pleasant commission. It meant eighteen months of exile. many thousand miles of travel, largely through an unexplored country, and a winter the other side of the Arctic circle. But Funston entered upon it with his usual cheerfulness and energy. He climbed the famous Chil- coot pass, built a sled and pulled and sailed it across the frozen lakes, built a boat and floated it through the White Horse rapids,-a journey so full of toil and terrors that thousands of strong men have failed to survive it-and joked about it in the letters he wrote home. He spent the long, long win- ter in an Indian village, where he was the only white man, taking for diversion the longest snow shoe journey ever made by a white man, barely escaping death from cold, exhaustion and starvation. When the slow spring finally came he set about gathering the plants for which he was sent, eventu- ally floating down the Yukon to its mouth where he was picked up by the United States revenue cutter Bear, and returned home by way of San Francisco, the expedition having been entirely successful.
Resigning his position in the Agricultural department, Mr. Funston spent the winter of 1894-5 on the lecture platform, telling the story of his Alaskan experiences. The summer and fall of 1895 he spent trying to organize a company to engage in the coffee business in Central America on a large scale. The enterprise required a laige sum of money and times were too hard to make success possible. Funston therefore gave up the project and went to New York where he was engaged for several months in
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writing newspaper and magazine articles and doing some work in the office of the Santa Fe railroad company. While thus employed he became ac- quainted with the Cuban Junta, then engaged in promoting in all possible ways the revolt of the people of that island against Spain. The cause en- listed his sympathies and he was easily persuaded to accept a commission as captain of artillery in the insurgent army. Proceeding at once to Cuba he engaged in the contest with so much zeal and ability that within eigh- teen months he held a commission as Lieutenant Colonel and was in com- mand of all the artillery of General Gomez' army. The distinction had not been won without paying the price. Twice the young artillery officer had been wounded, once by a fragment of a shell which shattered his left fore-arm, and once by a Mauser bullet, which penetrated both lungs, pass- ing within three-quarters of an inch of his heart. He had suffered an attack of typhoid fever also, but it was a fall with his horse that finally sent him back to New York, with a running abscess in his hip and with constitution apparently permanently wrecked. He went at once into a hospital where he submitted to an operation, and where he gradually gained strength enough to return to his home in Kansas. Although still far from well, he went upon the lecture platform, pleading the cause of the Cubans.
When the war with Spain broke out and Kansas was called upon to furnish her quota of the troops required, Frederick Funston was appointed without solicitation by Governor Jolin W. Leedy, Colonel of the Twentieth Kansas, the first Kansas regiment to be raised for service in the Spanishi war. Soon after his appointment Colonel Funston was summoned to Tampa, Florida, by General Miles, and for several weeks was engaged in writing some chapters in the book on the roads and topography of Cuba which the War department published for the use of the army in case it was found necessary to invade Cuba. He then joined his regiment which had been ordered to San Francisco. After several months in camp, spent in ceaseless drilling, the Twentieth was ordered to Manila, where it arrived about the first of December, 1899, and was made a part of the Eighth Ariny Corps.
From this time forthi the history of Frederick Funston belongs to the history of the United States, rather than merely to a history of Allen county, or of Kansas, for from the hour when the Filipinos foolishly re- belled against the authority of the United States, the Colonel of the Twen- tieth became a National figure. Suffice it here to say that he led his splendid regiment with such energy, skill and soldierly daring that within six months from the time the first shot was fired he was made a Brigadier General of Volunteers. When the Twentieth came home to be mustered out, in November, 1899, Funston came with it, expecting also to retire from the service, as his term of enlistment had expired. The War depart- ment, however, requested hint to return to the Philippines and resume command of his old brigade, and this, much against his inclinations and at great financial sacrifice, he did, regarding the request as a command of duty. Returning to Manila he was placed in control of one of the northern provinces of Luzon, with headquarters at San Isidro, where he exerted his
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efforts to pacifying the country with such energy and efficiency that in a short time the province was noted as one of the quietest and best governed on the island. In the spring of 1901 General Funston regarded the insur- rection as practically at an end and was looking forward to an early return to his home and to civil life, when news was brought to him of the where- abouts of Aguinaldo, the chief of the insurrection. He instantly formed a plan to capture him, and this plan, with the approval of his superior offi- cers, he successfully carried out. The exploit was so daring and so suc- cessful, that the whole world rang with it, and the name of Frederick Funston became as familiar in every court and camp of Europe as it is in Allen county. In prompt and grateful recognition of the splendid service he had done his country President Mckinley appointed him a Brigadier General in the regular army,-a fitting reward for patriotic, gallant and wonderfully able public service.
Frederick Funston was married only a few days before his regiment sailed for the Philippines, to Miss Eda Blankhart, of San Francisco, a lady of rare culture and beauty, who is now with her husband in the Philippines.
H ARRY E. THOMAS, the east Iola lumber dealer, and for many years, last passt, identified prominently with the building interests of Iola, came into Allen county in 1883 from Clinton county, Indiana. He was born in the latter locality September 25, 1861, secured his common school education there and left there, permanently, only when he came to Kansas. He is a son of John M. Thomas, a carpenter in Jefferson, Clinton county, a native of that county and born in Frankfort, Indiana, in 1835. He died in Iola in 1898. He was a son of Asahel Thomas, a Welchinan, by trade a cabinet maker and a pioneer to Clinton county, Indiana.
John M. Thomas married Barbara Utz, a daughter of George Utz. Mrs. Thomas died in Eldorado, Kansas, in 1896. Mr. Utz went into Indi- ana from Maryland and passed his early life at the carpenter's bench. His last years were spent on the farm.
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