USA > Kansas > Butler County > History of Butler County Kansas > Part 71
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Mr. Hoss was married in 1877 to Miss Mary D. Baker, a native of Indiana, whose parents were early settlers in Douglass county, Kansas, and six children have been born to Mr. and Mrs. Hoss, as follows:
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Georgia S., married O. H. Easly, Colorado Springs, Colo .; Walter M., a successful farmer and stockman of Milton township; H. E., also a successful farmer and stockman, Clifford township; P. W., now in Col- orado for his health ; S B., conducting a cattle ranch in Barber county, Kansas, and Ruth C., at home. S. B. and Walter M. Hoss are partners in the Barber county ranch, which consists of 3,000 acres. Their plan is to raise and graze cattle on the Barber county ranch and ship them to the home farm in Milton township, to be finished for market. The Milton township place has all facilities for cattle feeding, silos, barns, feed yards, etc. The Hoss boys understand the cattle business, having been brought up in it, and inherit much of the initiative nature and ambition of their father. Melville Hoss is a member of the Knights of Pythias, and is one of Butler county's citizens who has something to show for his forty years of effort in this county. He has the gratifica- tion of seeing his sons continue the work which he has started and they are carrying it on to a greater development than he had even dreamed possible.
H. C. Haymen, proprietor of the "Spring Valley Stock Farm," Fair- view township, is a native of Ohio. He was born in Meigs county, No- vember 19, 1863, and is a son of Hezekiah H. and Esther E. (Costen) Haymen. Hezekiah H. Haymen was an early settler in Fairview town- ship. He was born in Maryland and was educated and grew to man- hood in his native State, where he was married to Esther E. Costen, also a native of Maryland. They lived for several years in their native State, when they removed to Ohio and settled in Meigs county, first lo- cating at Letart, and later at Racine, Meigs county. Mr. Haymen was engaged in the general mercantile business in Ohio, and met with a fair degree of success.
In the spring of 1870 he came to Kansas and filed on the north- west quarter of section 34, Fairview township. His first habitation on his claim was a dugout on the banks of a little stream called Spring Branch. He bought a yoke of oxen and a limited equipment of farming implements and proceeded to break the prairie and improve his place. However, he became discouraged, after meeting with failure under ad- verse conditions. His son, Robert H., had accompanied him here, while the mother and the younger members of the family remained in Ohio until the father and son had a home prepared for the family in the West. Mr. Haymen had written his wife that he and his son were dissatisfied with this country and for her not to come, but Mrs. Haymen and the other children had started before receiving the letter, and came by rail as far as Emporia, and drove the remainder of the distance to the Butler county claim, and Mr. Haymen and Robert H. were taken completely by surprise upon the arrival of the mother and the other children. However, the family decided to stay on the claim, and no thought of leaving it was ever entertained, from that time. Some of the older chil- dren, upon becoming of age, homesteaded claims, and the father spent
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his life on the original homestead. He died about three years after coming to Butler county, and the mother passed away a few years later. They were the parents of twelve children. For a number of years after the the death of the parents the old homestead was owned by the heirs, and in 1900, H. C., the youngest child of the family and the subject of this sketch, purchased the interest of the other heirs and the old Haymen place is now known as "Spring Valley Stock Farm," and is one of the ideal places of Fairview township.
H. C. Heyman, the subject of this sketch, was about seven years of age when he came to Butler county with his parents, and therefore has practically been reared in Butler county, and has many recollections of the pioneer conditions here when he was a boy. Coming here at the age he did, gives him the distinction of being an old settler and practi- cally a young man at the same time.
Mr. Haymen was married on April 6, 1892, to Miss Maude H. Heath, a native of Butler county, and a daughter of John and Esther Heath, natives of Illinois and early settlers in Butler county, locating on the banks of the Whitewater at a very early day in the settlement of this county. Mr. and Mrs. Haymen have no children of their own. but they have one adopted girl, Susie Heath Haymen, a daughter of Mrs. Havmen's brother. She is now the wife of Luther E. McCulloch, of Fairview township.
Mr. Haymen is a member of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows at El Dorado, the Knights of Pythias at Towanda, and the Anti-Horse Thief Association, Fairview. Both Mr. and Mrs. Haymen are members of the Methodist Episcopal church, and are well known and prominent in the community.
J. V. Leydig, a Butler county pioneer and prominent citizen of Clifford township, was born in Muskingum county, Ohio, October 24, 1859, and is a son of Joseph A. and Winnie A. (Shirer) Leydig. Joseph A. Leydig was born in Somerset county, Pennsylvania. January 25, 1834, and was a son of Jacob Leydig, also a native of that county, and of German descent. Jacob Leydig spent his life in Pennsylvania and was the father of ten children, of whom Joseph A. was the fifth in order of birth. Joseph A. Leydig grew to manhood in his native State, and learned the carpenter's trade. In 1858 he was married to Winnie A. Shirer and removed from Pennsylvania to Muskingum county, Ohio, where two children were born to them: J. V. Leydig and B. R. Leydig, of sketch of whom appears in this volume. When the Civil war broke out. Joseph A. Leydig, the father of these two boys, enlisted in July, 1862, in Company E. Ninety-seventh regiment, Ohio infantry, and served with his regiment, participating in a number of important battles and many engagements, and on November 30, 1864, he was killed in action at the battle of Franklin, Tenn.
On December 22, 1869, his widow married William M. Leydig, a cousin of her former husband, who was also a Civil war veteran, having
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served in the Civil war in Company F. One Hundred and Forty-second regiment, Pennsylvania infantry, and was wounded at the battle of Missionary Ridge, and carried the bullet the remainder of his days, which eventually caused his death. He saw much hard service during the war. Winnie A. Shirer, the mother of J. V. Leydig, was a native of Ohio, and a daughter of Valentine and Ester (Gaumer) Shirer, natives of Pennsylvania. The Shirers are of Swiss descent, and the Gaumers came from Germany. The Shirers were prominent in the early day col- onization of this country. and one of them had a grant from the English crown to establish a colony in Maryland, and later had a grant to found a colony in Pennsylvania.
In 1871. J. V. Leydig and his brother, B. R., came to Kansas with their step-father and mother. The family came by train as far as To- peka, where the father bought a team and a covered wagon and started in a southwesterly direction, finally locating on a claim which was the northeast quarter of section 18, in what is now Clifford township. Here the family began life in the wilds of Butler county. They first built a little, log cabin. 12X12 feet, about a quarter of a mile from the White- water river. Their nearest neighbor was H. H. Wilcox, who lived a mile north. Here Mrs. Leydig and her husband spent the remainder of their days.
When J. V. Leydig was a boy about fourteen years old he began to hustle for himself, and became a cowboy in the employ of H. H. Wil- cox, who was an extensive cattleman, usually keeping a herd of from 1,000 to 1,500 head of cattle on the free range of the early days. Young Leydig received $15 per month. It was the custom to drive the cattle about 100 miles south into the Indian Territory during the grazing season. Indians were plentiful in that section of the country, and trouble with them eventually forced Wilcox to withdraw his cattle from the territory. Young Wilcox shot and killed two Osage Indians whom he caught stealing beef, which was a foolish act, as it was a matter of course that it was the nature of an Indian to steal anything that he needed, and this event proved quite a loss to Wilcox, as he had to move his cattle out of the country, as above stated. Mr. Leydig lived in the saddle as a cowboy about ten years, and has experienced all the various phases of the life of the early day cowboy on the plains.
In 1885 Mr. Leydig went to Scott county, Kansas, where he took a homestead, and after proving up on it, returned to Butler county in 1887. His step-father died July 9, 1886, and when Mr. Leydig returned to Butler county the following year he took charge of the home place, which he later bought of his mother, who made her home with him until her death, May 9, 1907. Since that time he has been engaged in farming and the stock business on the old home place, and has met with very satisfactory success. He bought a quarter section of land adjoining the old homestead, and now owns 320 acres of well improved and valuable land.
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When the "Strip" was opened for settlement in Oklahoma, Mr. Leydig made the race for a homestead over the old stamping ground, where he had herded cattle in the early days, and was familiar with al- most every foot of it, but when he got to the claim which he had picked he found a "sooner" who had been hiding in the brush for days, holding down the claim. In recent years Mr. Leydig has devoted himself to stock raising and feeding, which he has found to be very profitable.
Mr. Leydig was married in 1897 to Miss Grace Guinty, a daughter of Michael and Saphrona Guinty. See sketch of M. Guinty in this volume. To Mr. and Mrs. Leydig have been born two children: Lula and James Franklin.
Mr. Leydig is a Republican and for years has taken an active part in local politics. He has served as trustee of Clifford township for eight years, and has been a member of the school board continuously for the last thirty-four years. He is a substantial Butler county citizen, and belongs to one of the honored pioneer families of Clifford township.
E. Davis, editor of The Whitewater "Independent," Whitewater, Kans., is one of the veteran newspaper men of Butler county. He is a native of England, born in London, May 6, 1850, a son of E. and Jane (Hargraves) Davis, natives of London, where the father was a shop- keeper. In 1869 the Davis family immi- grated to America.
E. Davis, the subject of this sketch, came to Kansas in 1869 and, after spend- ing a short time at Lawrence, came to Butler county in the spring of 1870. When he came here Emporia was the terminus of the railroad, and he walked from there to Butler county. He located on a claim of 160 acres of Government land, two miles east of Towanda, where he re- mained a few years. He then bought The Towanda "Herald," and conducted that paper for eight years, and at the same time was engaged in other pursuits, as the E. DAVIS income from the paper was not sufficient to justify him in devoting all his time to that enterprise. He then sold the "Herald" and came to Whitewater and began publishing the "Inde- pendent," which he has conducted all these years. It is one of the sub- stantial and progressive newspapers of the county.
Mr. Davis was married July 30, 1887. to Eva Fay Eidson, a native of Wisconsin. To this union have been born the following children : Emily J. Fay, born July 24, 1888; Eva A. May, born June 29, 1890; Edmond Dillon, born September 4, 1892 ; Esther B., born September 8, 1900; Eidy, born January 26, 1903; Ela Francis, born October 18, 1905; Elridge Charles, born March 23, 1908; Earldon Enola, born November 25, 1910.
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Mr. Davis is well known throughout Butler county and is one of our most substantial men of affairs.
T. A. Enright, one of Butler county's most extensive cattlemen, is a native of Indiana. He was born in Wayne county, October 8, 1861, and is a son of Michael and Katherine (Buckly) Enright, natives of Ireland. They both emigrated from their native land to Canada with their respective parents when children. They were married in Canada and later migrated to Indiana, and for a time lived in Wayne county, and later moved to Hancock county. T. A. was the youngest of a family of seven children. He grew to manhood in Hancock county and received a good education in the public schools.
Mr. Enright was married in 1883 to Miss Mary Edna Scott, a native of Indiana, and a daughter of E. H. Scott, who now resides at Burns, Kans. In 1885 Mr. Enright removed to Kansas with his family and settled in Butler county, where he followed farming for a time, but soon came to the conclusion that this country was better adapted to stock raising, at that time, and accordingly turned his attention to that branch of agriculture, and for the past twenty years he has been an extensive stock raiser and feeder. About 1902 he leased 480 acres of land in Clif- ford township from Lord Scully, of England, and this, added to his own land, gives him a large scope of territory for the cattle business, which he conducts on an extensive scale. He usually has from 100 to 500 head of cattle on full feed, and his business is one of the largest of the kind in Butler county.
To Mr. and Mrs. Enright have been born two children: Nora F., who married E. J. Stewart, and has two children, Mary K. and Thelma F., who make their home with their grandfather, Mr. Enright, and Roy Enright, who resides on his father's farm in Clifford township.
Mr. Enright is a Democrat and keeps himself well posted on current political events. Since coming ot Butler county he has taken a keen interest in local politics, and in 1907 he was appointed assessor of Clif- ford township to fill out an unexpired term ; in 1908 he was elected to that office, and has been elected to succeed himself for every term since that time. He is a member of the Modern Woodmen of America and the Independent Order of Odd Fellows, holding membership in both of these lodges at Burns, Kans. In connection with his large volume of business, Mr. Enright makes frequent trips to Kansas City and Chicago and also to St. Louis, where he markets his cattle and keeps in close touch with the doings of the outside world.
H. E. Cain .- To impart a vivid and intimate picture of an industry there is no better method than to tell the story of the men whose lives were spent in that industry. A view of the inner workings of cattle ranching is vividly seen in the life story of Elmer Cain, who for over a quarter of a century was closely connected with the Ramsey cattle ranch. To say that Mr. Cain knew the business from the grass roots to the stock yards is not exaggerating in the least. He was born near (42)
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Rockford, Ill., December 21, 1867, the eldest son of W. H. Cain, one of the early settlers of Lincoln township, whose history is found elsewhere in this volume. Elmer had a great love for horses, and his boyish dreams were of horses, cattle and cowboys. In 1885 his father moved to Kansas, settling on a farm on the high prairie of Lincoln township, where he sought to build a home and to wrest from the unwilling forces of nature a living for his family. During the dry years of 1886, 1887 and 1888, dollars were scarce in the Cain family, and to help out, Elmer, then a young fellow of eighteen, sought employment, and following the bent of his nature, he applied to A. C. Ramsey for work on the Buckeye Land and Cattle Company's ranch, and on March 8, 1886, began a busi- ness connection which lasted for over twenty-six years.
For the first three years Mr. Cain did general farm work and learned but little of the business of handling cattle. It was owing to what he afterward thought was a lucky accident that he almost sud- denly became a full fledged cow puncher. During the winter of 1888, as he was returning from church his horse fell with him. For two weeks he was laid up with a broken foot. He was lame from this injury for several months and of course this put an end to the farm work and he was transferred to the cattle department. For twenty-three years from that time the very air that he breathed was the atmosphere of cattle ; his dreams by night were of cattle; in the winter, of snow storms and feed and cattle ; in the long summer months, of fences, wind mills. water tanks and cattle ; of loading and unloading and counting cattle ; of cattle by great train loads, always of cattle; cattle of all kinds and descrip- tions, from the well bred Herefords to the long horned, slab-sided, thin- shanked, vicious cattle of Texas and Old Mexico.
The business of the Buckeye Land and Cattle Company was largely that of grazing the big herds of the Texas ranchers, and in the earlier days of the ranch, the herds varied from 1,000 to 1,500 head, the greater part of these being mature steers. In the early nineties the grazing lands were extended, bigger herds contractd for, and the business ex- panded generally. About this time Elmer Cain was made foreman, a position he held during the remainder of his connection with the ranch. During the winter from six to eight men were required to feed and look after the cattle. In the summer three cowboys looked after the fences and water, and sometimes herds of 20,000 head. It was a hard life, but spiced with excitement and danger that fascinated and held that class of men, famous with rope and horse, and noted for their cool nerve and dashing courage.
During the early years, while Cain was rather new in the cattle business, the ranch had on pasture a bunch of wild western bulls. In the fall, when the bunch was rounded up and driven to the feed lots of the owners, for some reason two of the herd were left. After a few days the strays were discovered, and arrangements were made to round up. brand and ship these two bulls. The foreman and young Cain rounded
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up and drove the bulls into the big scale pen, sixteen feet wide by sixty- four feet long, with its branding chute at one end. Without any serious trouble they were driven into the pen, but were rather hot tempered and quarrelsome toward each other. The foreman held the gate to the branding chute open, while Cain, at the farther end of the scales pen, leaning far over the gate, cracked his whip at the bull nearest him, about the middle of the pen. The other bull was at the other end of the en- closure. There they stood. front legs wide apart and with lowered heads glaring at each other. At the crack of Cain's whip the bull at the farther end lunged suddenly, catching his adversary about the mid- dle, knocking him with tremendous force against the gate over which Cain was leaning. It was all done in a few seconds. The force of the impact of the bull with the gate knocked his support from under him and Elmer found himself astride the bull and with his foot and leg wedged between the bull's ribs and the heavy boards of the scales pen. The pressure bent the rowell of his big spur around the heel of his foot, the spur probably saving his foot from being crushed. Cain lost no time in exchanging his seat on the bull's back to a safer place on the top board of the scale pen. After this display of bovine temperament the bulls walked quietly enough into the branding chute and the smell of singeing hair and seared bull hide marked the next scene in the adven- ture with the bulls.
Another interesting and amusing incident of his early days on the ranch was with a bunch of Texas and Cherokee cows. Some of these cows, shipped to the ranch late in the fall, were thin and in poor condition. The hard winter would not improve them to any extent, and by spring some of the poorest would sometimes be so thin and weak that they couldn't get up after lying down for a while. Helping cattle to their feet was one of the details of a day's work during the spring. Finding a cow down and unable to get up, the cowboy would roll her up "natural" and with a lift and a twist of her tail the cow was brought to her feet. Now, to a range bred Texas or Cherokee cow, fighting is just as natural as eating, and to avoid her long horns, with which she would invariably seek to impale the cowman after being lifted to her feet, the cowboy kept a firm grasp on her tail, and by giving the cow a strong pull sideways, he could get out of her way by several feet. These cows would seldom go much out of their way to attack a man. One day in the spring, Cain and two of his men were driving a small herd across the prairie, when the cattle sighted a small pond of shallow water. Into the muddy water the cattle went, half a dozen of the thinnest cows sticking fast in the deep mud around the water hole. Cain dropped his rope over the nearest cow's horns, gave the rope a turn around his sad- dle horn, spoke to his horse and the cow was pulled to the bank. Dis- mounting, he "rolled her up natural" and turned to the next cow. Stand- ing beside his horse, with his back to the cow on the bank, he was leaning over slightly as he adjusted his loop. In an instant he was
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sprawling in the dirt ten feet from where he stood. The cow he had res- cued from the mud had, unseen by the other two men, got on her feet and true to her natural instinct, seeing a man on foot and within easy reach of her long horns, had used them effectively. This incident was a great joke on Elmer for a long time after.
The monotony of ranch life was broken by the occasional trips to town, which were always all day jobs. No matter how much or how little business he had to attend to, the cowboy stayed in town all day and often until late at night, though it is to his credit that Elmer Cain was not one of these revelers. On one occasion he took a bunch of horses to the blacksmith at El Dorado. With the four horses necked together and riding a big buckskin, well known to cattle men as the best "cutting horse" in the cattle country, he reached El Dorado without accident or adventure. After the horses were shod, stabled and fed in the livery barn, late in the afternoon he started for home. With the four horses necked together and with a thirty-foot rope from the middle pair to his saddle horn, he started up Main street. Not accustomed to the strange noises and sights of town life. the four horses started, first in a trot, which soon became a gallop. Thinking to check their speed, Cain pulled up shortly on his bridle reins. The big buckskin with stiffened legs, stopped instantly. Cain was always careless about his cinches, and that day was no exception, and, as usual, they were loose. The saddle was jerked from the horse's back to his ears and Cain landed in the hard street right under his horse's nose. With the skin torn from his face and blood streaming from his nose, he scrambled to his feet, slipping the saddle from the neck to its proper place on his pitching horse. Cain looked for his four horses, but they had been stopped by some men farther up the street. After washing his bloody face in ice water in L. H. Powell's office, near the scene of the accident, Mr. Cain changed his plans. Sure that the horses would go straight home, he untied the ropes which fastened them together abreast and turned them loose. Still excited, they struck the bridge over the Walnut like a charge of cavalry. Cain on his buckskin followed leisurely and about four milts overtook them where they were grazing quietly along the road.
The late summer and fall days were busy ones on the ranch. With daily telegrams from the owners to ship out of such and such a pasture so many cars of cattle to the market, the cowboy saw the strenuous side of ranch life. Late in the summer of 1897, Cain and his men were rounding up, cutting out and loading. In the bunch of cattle in the corrals was a big yellow Colorado steer with an absolute dislike for fences and close quarters, and with a great love and longing for the open range. While the cutting out was in progress this steer jumped the fence and made for a corn field. The boasted pride of the Ramsey ranch was that they never let a steer escape. Accordingly, Cain, with George Ramsey and Bill Piper, started for the corn field after the out-
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law. The big steer heard them coming and out from the big weeds and corn near the creek bank he went. Cain on his buckskin was a little in advance of the others, and as he neared the creek he saw a yellow streak moving with the speed of a race horse through the corn and weeds. Putting the spur to his horse he determined to keep in sight of the steer. When the steer reached the fence he jumped into a little pasture of about 100 acres and stopped out in the open. After getting through the fence Cain waited for the others to join him, and the four riders then attempted to drive the steer to the pasture where he belonged. When they got him near the fence, in spite of their united efforts, he bolted for the open. Tak- ing his rope down, Cain and the buckskin went after the galloping out- law, which made for the rough ground and rocks. Intent on dropping his rope, Cain paid no attention to the ground around or ahead, and just at the brink of a steep bank of twelve or fourteen feet, he made the throw and the rope encircled the head of the steer. His plunge over the bank put a terrific and sudden force to the strain on horse and rope. The buckskin, well trained to work of this kind, kept his feet, but the sudden lurch threw Cain from the saddle with his hand doubled under him. He fell and rolled down the bank almost under the steer. About this time in the affair Piper rode up and put his rope on the ontlaw and to- gether they drove and pulled him where he was wanted.
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