USA > Kansas > Marshall County > History of Marshall County, Kansas : its people, industries, and institutions > Part 90
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SAMUEL J. BEATY.
Samuel J. Beaty, lately deceased, was a substantial stockman. farmer and landowner of Marshall county, who lived at Vermillion. He was a native son of this county and had lived here all his life. He was born on a pioneer farm two and one-half miles north and one-half miles west of the present village of Vermillion on October 6. 1859, son of Major Steele and Elizabeth (Watson) Beaty, natives, respectively. of Ohio and of Indiana. who settled in this county in 1857 and here spent the remainder of their lives, influential and useful pioneers.
Major Steele Beaty was a son of Virginia parentage, born in Ohio in February, 1826, who in his youth moved to Indiana, where he married Elizabeth Watson, who was born in that state in February, 1836. In the spring of 1856 he and his wife went to Iowa with a view to settling in that state, but not satisfied with conditions found there, came to Kansas and in June. 1857. settled in Marshall county, one of the first families to locate in this county. Upon coming here Major Beaty bought a pre-emption claim in what later was organized as Noble township, built a log cabin on the same, established his home there and proceeded to develop the claim. soon becoming quite well fixed. During the Indian trouble of that year he was one of the company organized to put down the rebellious redskins and in other ways did well his part in the work of creating a proper social order hereabout. Major Beaty prospered in his farming operations and gradually added to his land holdings until he became the owner of eight hundred and forty acres and was accounted one of the most substantial resi-
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dents of that part of the county. He was a Republican and ever took an active part in local political affairs and in 1888-90 served as a member of the board of county commissioners. In his religious faith he was a Presby- terian and he and his wife were active in good works in the early days of the settlement of the county. Major Beaty helped build the local house of worship of the Church of God, later taken over by the Presbyterians, also helped to build the Presbyterian church at Vermillion, of which he was a ruling elder. In 1894 Major Beaty retired from the farm and moved to Vliets, where he and his wife made their home until 1901, when they moved to Vermillion, where they spent their last days, dying within two days of each other, Mrs. Beaty dying on January 22, 1912, and the Major dying two days later, January 24, 1912. They were the parents of three children, Samuel J., the subject of this sketch; Mrs. Lorena Cannon, of Baldwin, this state, and William W. Beaty, now living at Linn, in the neighboring county of Washington.
Samuel J. Beaty was reared on the home farm in Noble township and supplemented the schooling he received in the early schools of this county by a course of two years at Monroe Institute at Atchison. Until 1890 he remained connected with his father's extensive farming interests and then began farming on his own account, buying an eighty-acre farm one-half mile west of Vermillion, to which he presently added an adjoining quarter section, and now has there a well-improved and profitably cultivated farm of two hundred and forty acres. There Mr. Beaty made his home until 1914, when he retired from the farm and moved to Vermillion, where he had been living up to the time of his death on May 28, 1917. Meantime, Mr. Beaty continued to add to his land holdings and was the owner of six hundred and forty acres of excellent land, all located in Noble and Lincoln townships. Mr. Beaty was a Republican and ha dever given a good citizen's attention to local political affairs, but had not been included in the office- seeking class.
In December. 1884, Samuel J. Beaty was united in marriage to Claudia Randall, who was born in Buchanan county, Missouri, December 26, 1884. daughter of William and Elizabeth (Yates) Randall, natives, respectively, of the state of New York and of Missouri, the latter of whom was a daugh- ter of Kentuckians who had settled in Missouri at an early day in the set- tlement of that state. In 1880 the Randalls came to Kansas, locating on a farm three miles southwest of Axtel, where they lived until 1894, when Mr. Randall joined a son in the development of a homestead in Oklahoma, where he died in 1899. His widow survived him about four years, her death
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occurring in 1903. To Mr. and Mrs. Beaty were two sons, Fred Steele Beaty, born on January 11. 1889, who is now living at Kansas City and Claude S. Beaty, January 25. 1891, who is now living at Chicago, Illinois, who married Beth Eaton, of Topeka, and has one child, a daughter, Betty Ann, born on December 4. 1916. Mr. Beaty was a member of the Methodist Episcopal church, as is Mrs. Beaty, and they ever lent their aid and influence to all movements having to do with the advancement of the general welfare of the community.
Samuel J. Beaty died at his home in Vermillion on May 28, 1917, aged fifty-seven years, seven months and twenty-two days. His death was the cause of deep regret to his family and a large circle of friends.
LLOYD BENNETT.
Lloyd Bennett, one of the best-known and most progressive farmers and stockmen of Wells township, is a native of Virginia, but has been a resident of Kansas since the days of his boyhood and has therefore been a witness to the development of this part of the country since pioncer days. He was born in Harrison county, in that section of the Old Dominion now comprised in West Virginia, August 9. 1859, son of A. HI. and Sarah ( Husted) Bennett, also natives of Virginia.
A. H. Bennett was an ardent Union man and when the Civil War broke out was an active champion of the movement to bring about a separation of the loyal western part of the Old Dominion from the seceding state and he went to the front as a soldier of the West Virginia regiments, serving until the close of the war. His wife, the mother of the subject of this sketch, died in West Virginia and he afterward married again and in 1871 came to Kansas with his family and homesteaded a tract of land in Cloud county, where he established his home and where he spent the remainder of his life, his death occurring in 1910.
Lloyd Bennett was about twelve years of age when he came to Kansas with his father and he remained on the homestead farm in Cloud county until he was sixteen years of age, when, in 1875, he came over into Marshall county and began herding cattle on the Hadley farm three miles south of Irving. He then began working on the W. J. Williams farm and was thus engaged until his marriage in 1881, when he rented a farm one mile north of Bigelow and began farming on his own account. A year later he bought
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eighty acres of his present farm in section 12 of Wells township and there established his home. Upon taking possession of that place Mr. Bennett began a systematic series of improvements and it was not long until he had a well-improved and profitably cultivated farm. As he prospered in his operations he added to his place and now has a very well-kept farm of one hundred and sixty acres and one of the best farm plants in that part of the county. In addition to his general farming, Mr. Bennett has long given considerable attention to the raising of high-grade live stock and has done very well. He has a cement silo on his place and in other ways his farm plant shows evidences of the progressive character of his farming.
In 1881 Lloyd Bennett was united in marriage to Arta Belle Wells, who was born in this county in 1858, daughter of John D. and Elizabeth Wells, who were among the earliest settlers in Marshall county and further and fitting mention of whom is made elsewhere in this volume, and to this union six children have been born, two sons and two daughters, George L. Bennett, of Kansas City. and Archibald, Ethel and Edith, who are at home, and two who died in infancy. The Bennetts have a very pleasant home and have ever taken a proper interest in the general social activities of the com- munity in which they live, helpful in the promotion of all worthy causes thereabout. Mr. Bennett is a Democrat and gives a good citizen's attention to local political affairs, but has not been a seeker after public office.
LARS PETER OLSON.
Lars Peter Olson, a well-known and substantial farmer of Lincoln township and the owner of a fine home and two hundred and forty acres of land in section 7 of that township, is a native of the kingdom of Sweden, but has been a resident of Marshall county since 1879. He was born on January 20, 1852, son of Benson and Engelina Olson, also natives of Sweden, who spent all their lives in their native land. He received his schooling in his native land and remained there until he was nineteen years of age, when, in 1871, he came to the United States and was for two years engaged in railroad work in Pennsylvania. He then, in 1873, returned to Sweden, married there, and in 1879 came back to this country and proceeded on out to Kansas, locating in Marshall county, which has ever since been his home.
In 1880, not long after his arrival in Marshall county, Mr. Olson bought a tract of one hundred and twenty acres of school land one and one-
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half miles east of the Swedish Lutheran church and proceeded to improve and develop the same. In 1900 he sold that place to advantage and bought his present place of two hundred and forty acres in section 7 of Lincoln township, where he and his family are very comfortably and very pleas- antly situated. Mr. Olson has done well in his general farming and stock raising operations and has improved his farm in excellent shape. In 1893 he thought to broaden his field by homesteading a tract of land over in the western part of the state and rented his home farm and went to Wallace county, where he homesteaded a quarter of a section of land and spent two years there developing the same. These were dry years, however, and he lost on his venture. He returned to his home farm in this county in 1895 and has since been quite content to regard Marshall county as a good enough place of residence for anyone.'
In 1875, in Sweden, Lars Peter Olson was united in marriage to Jose- phine Benson, who was born in that country on February 7. 1854, daughter of Benson and Anna Anderson, who spent all their lives in their native land, and to this union seven children have been born, namely: Augusta, who married Albin Odberg, of Kettle River, Minnesota, and has two children, Gertrude and Matilda : Oscar, now living at St. Joseph, Missouri, who mar- ried Hikla Bragg and has two children, Gladys and Charles; Edwin, who died in 1908; Elmer, who is at home; Theodore, a farmer of Lincoln town- ship, who married Edla Helstrom and has two children, Evelyn and Audrey; Dell, who is at home, and Emma, who is living at St. Joseph, Missouri. The Olsons are members of the Swedish Lutheran church and Mr. Olson has served as deacon of the same for the past thirty years. He is a Repub- lican and takes a warm interest in political affairs, but has not been a seeker after public office.
JAMES G. STRONG.
The great-grandfather of the subject of this sketch was William Strong, born on the eastern shore, Maryland, January 8, 1783; he moved to Jefferson county, Ohio, where Samuel S. Strong was born, November 3, 1807. The family then again removed to Liberty, Indiana, where, on April 12, 1832, the son, Samuel S. Strong, married Temperance Crist, a daughter of George W. Crist, who was born near Albany, New York, in 1770, of German parentage. In 1834 this young couple moved to Lebanon,
JAMES G. STRONG.
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Indiana, where the father of the subject, James G. Strong, Sr., was born on March 4, 1836. After receiving his primary education in the common schools, he attended the State University at Bloomington, Indiana, and then the Law School of Cincinnati, where he graduated in the class of 1859. He was married on April 25th of the same year to Rebecca M. Witt at Lebanon, Indiana, whose people had been pioneers from Kentucky and North Carolina. Her father, Michael Witt, was a brother of Mary Witt, the mother of Joaquin Miller, and her grandfather Wall was an own cousin of Daniel Boone. Their wedding trip was a wagon journey of two hun- dred miles in company with the large family of Samuel S. Strong to Liv- ingston county, Illinois. James G. Strong, Sr., taught school and prac- ticed law at Dwight, Illinois, and later engaged in the grain and banking business. He was one of the incorporators of the Plymouth, Kankakee & Pacific railroad, on which nearly four hundred thousand dollars was expended, and was a director and its secretary and treasurer. He was also a large bond and stockholder in the Kankakee River Improvement Company. In 1870 he was elected to the Twenty-seventh General Assembly of Illinois, where he introduced the first bill ever presented to the Legislature of that state for the appointment of a board of railroad commissioners. In 1872 he was elected to the State Senate, serving as chairman on the printing committee and introducing bills which saved the state over one hundred and thirty thousand dollars. Business losses caused him to enter the government Indian service in South Dakota through the influence of Gen. John A. Logan, and three years were so spent at Yankon Agency. Locating at St. Marys, Kansas, in 1882, he again engaged in the grain and milling business and in 1891 moved to Blue Rapids, Kansas, and engaged first in the milling business and later entered into the practice of law with his son. He died at Blue Rapids, September 4, 1895; his wife survived him until August 4, 1914, and is buried beside him at Blue Rapids, Kansas. They have three living children: Emma Temperance, now the wife of Frank B. Chester, the owner of a seven hundred and twenty-six- acre farm four miles south of Valparaiso, Indiana ; Ella May, now the wife of Z. T. Trumbo, of Pontiac, Illinois, where he is assistant superintendent and chief clerk of the Illinois State Reformatory, the second largest institu- tion of the kind in this country; and James George, the subject.
James G. Strong was born at Dwight, Livingston county, Illinois, on (60)
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April 23, 1870. He received his common school education in the local schools of Dwight and Bloomington, Illinois, and St. Marys, Kansas; he then attended Baker University, took a correspondence school of law and stuclied under his father and was admitted to the bar in Marshall county, Kansas, and in 1895 entered into partnership with his father in the practice of law at Blue Rapids, Kansas, where he has attained success both as a law- yer and a business man.
As a lawyer, Mr. Strong served his city as its attorney for fifteen years without losing it a case; was assistant attorney general for Marshall county two years and closed up and kept closed the "joints" which had been engaged in the sale of liquor. He was elected without opposition as county attorney in 1916, which position he now fills with credit to himself and satisfaction to the people. He stands high in his profession and has won his success by ability and work.
As a business man, Mr. Strong has been unusually successful. Starting without means of any kind after the death of his father, when he was twenty-five, and receiving no gifts by inheritance or otherwise, he worked his way to success in the business world. He organized the Blue Rapids Telephone Company in 1894, became its president three years afterward. built it up to its position as one of the best equipped and conducted exchanges in the country and is still its president. In 1913 he 'organized the Marshall County Power and Light Company and began the rebuilding of the splendid water-power which had long been the pride of Blue Rapids, but which no one had been able to make either permanent or profitable. He was able to secure capital and gather around him able associates and, despite many obstacles and local prejudice is fast building a network of transmission lines from a magnificent hydro-electric plant to all adjoining cities, now furnishing electric current for light. heating and power to the cities of Blue Rapids, Marysville, Waterville and Irving. besides furnishing power to two large plaster mills. Over one hundred thousand dollars has been spent upon the proposition. Mr. Strong is the only resident stockholder and is at present a director and the secretary and manager.
Aside from his work as a lawyer and business man Mr. Strong has found time to serve six years upon the board of education : he takes a lead- ing part in the Commercial Club, the Chautauqua, the county fair and all matters pertaining to the business and educational life of the community. He has led in the work for good roads, was vice-president of his congressional
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district of the State Automobile Association and is president of the Blue Valley Highway and director of the Kansas White Way Highway.
Mr. Strong has always been a loyal Republican and served fifteen years on the county committee ; he was elected to the national convention of 1912 for Roosevelt, but did not leave the party; was in the state "har- mony convention" in 1914 and a member of the committee which wrote the resolutions which were adopted and helped unite the party. He has assisted in many speaking campaigns and is an ardent admirer of the "old soldier." being generally their choice speaker on Decoration Day.
On December 18, 1894, James G. Strong was united in marriage to Frances E. Coon, of Blue Rapids, and a daughter of Emir J. Coon, deceased, and the granddaughter of Judge John V. Coon. The latter was one of the organizers of the city of Blue Rapids. He was born at Phelps, New York, March 30, 1822, where, in the year 1842, he was united in marriage to Charlotte M. Miller. Moving to Elyria, Ohio, after his graduation as a lawyer, he won prominence and success in his profession, and there his only son, Emir J. Coon, was born. After service in an Ohio regiment in the Civil War, the son united in marriage with Elizabeth Boynton, a member of the prominent Boynton family. In 1870 Judge Coon assisted in the organ- ization of the town colony composed of well-to-do people from Genesee, New York, and Elyria, Ohio, who located at the "Rapids of the Blue River" and incorporated and platted the city of Blue Rapids. They built the splen- did stone dam at the head of the rapids at a cost of thirty thousand dollars which still stands as a monument to the quality of their work. Judge Coon divided his time between Blue Rapids 'and Elyria until 1876, when, together with his son and their families, they took up their permanent residence in Blue Rapids, where he soon became the leading lawyer and was recognized as one of the ablest real estate lawyers in northern Kansas. He recognized the value of the gypsum deposits found near Blue Rapids and, with his son, built the first plaster mill, and thus began the industry which has made the town renowned for its high grade wall, molding and dental plasters. At the time of his death, January 3. 1895, he was mayor of the city and county attorney-elect. His widow was born in 1821 and is living today with the subject of this sketch, being the oldest resident in Marshall county.
To James G. and Frances E. Strong have been born two children, George Eugene Strong, born November 30, 1895, who graduated from the Blue Rapids high school in 1913. He then attended the State University
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at Lawrence for three years and graduated from the University of Chicago on June 12, 1917, with the degree of Ph. B. He is now deputy county attorney for his father in the county attorney's office at Marysville, Kansas. Erma Elizabeth Strong was born, August 30. 1898, and will graduate from the Blue Rapids high school with the class of 1919. In a beautiful home, the life of this family is a most ideal one and, with the grandmother and great-grandmother, comprises four generations.
Mr. and Mrs. Strong are members of the Episcopal church. Mr. Strong is a member of the Odd Fellows lodge at Blue Rapids; the Knights of Pythias at Frank, Kansas, and the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks at Manhattan, Kansas, as well as the Modern Woodman and the Sons of Veterans.
CHRISTIAN BERGMANN.
Christian Bergmann, one of Lincoln township's best-known citizens and an honored veteran of the Civil War, a well-to-do farmer, now living practically retired from the active labors of the farm on his well-kept place in Lincoln township, is a native of Germany, but has been a resident of this country since he was twenty-five years of age and of Kansas since 1877, being therefore very properly regarded as one of the pioneers of this section. He was born at Riemendorff, Germany, March 2, 1835, son of Christian Gottlieb and Johanna Christiana (Schneider) Bergmann, natives of that same country, who emigrated to America in 1860, entering the United States by way of Quebec. The family left Riemendorff on May 10. 1860, and sailed from Hamburg on the 19th of that same month, arriving at Quebec on July 2. From that city they proceeded to Milwaukee. Wis- consin, where they established their home.
Christian Bergmann was twenty-five years of age when he came to this country and upon arriving at Milwaukee he secured employment as a laborer. He was living there when the Civil War broke out and upon the President's first call for volunteers to suppress the rebellion of the Southern states he and his two brothers. Ernest and Ehrenfried Bergmann, enlisted their services in behalf of their adopted country and went to the front as members of Company E .. Third Regiment, Wisconsin Volunteer Infantry, with which command Christian Bergmann served for three years and three
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months, seeing some of the most active service of the war. His brother, Ernest Wilhelm Bergman, was killed at the battle of Brandy's Station, Mary- land, and Ehrenfried Bergmann was killed at the battle of Antietam. In this latter battle. September 17, 1862, Christian Bergmann received a severe bullet wound in the left leg. At the battle of Chancelorsville, May 3, 1863, he received another bullet wound in that same leg. In referring to the coinci- dence of being shot twice in the same member, Mr. Bergmann is wont to declare that the "Rebs" were trying to shoot his left leg off, but didn't have powder enough. Besides the important battles just mentioned, Mr. Berg- mann participated in the battle of Winchester. the battle of Cedar Mountain and numerous minor battles and skirmishes, his regiment often being in the very thick of things. His war experience gave him an intensely patriotic regard for his adopted country, a regard that has only grown stronger with the passing years and he says he has reared five sons for Uncle Sam's army if the country should ever need their services.
Upon the completion of his military service Mr. Bergmann returned to Milwaukee and in the fall of 1865 was married. He remained in Wisconsin until 1869, when he moved to Nebraska and settled in Pawnee county, where he farmed until 1877. when he moved down into Kansas and rented a farm on the western edge of Center township, in the neighboring county of Nemaha, where he established his home and where he remained for twenty years, at the end of which time, in 1897, he moved across the road from that place and bought his present farm of one hundred and sixty acres in Mar- shall county, where he since has made his home and where he and his family are very comfortably situated. Upon taking possession of this lat- ter place, Mr. Bergmann was confronted with the task of developing it from its raw prairie state, but that task has been performed most effectively and he now has a well-improved and profitably cultivated farm on which he is living in comfort, now practically retired from the active labors of the farm, although he continues to give the same his careful oversight. He has a neat home and well-kept grounds and takes much pleasure in the same.
On October 26, 1865, in Dodge county, Wisconsin, Christian Bergmann was united in marriage to Augusta Krause, who also was born in Germany, in February, 1847. Of the children born to this union eight are still living, namely : William Frederick Christian, the owner of a farm adjoining that of his father on the north; Matilda, wife of John Daniels, a farmer, living one and one-half miles northeast of Vermillion; Emma Henrietta Louise Sophia, wife of Harvey Bishop, living near Vermillion; Henry, a farmer, of Lincoln township: Albert Conrad.
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who is farming in Cleveland township: Edward William, of Axtell, who owns a farm in Murray township: George Gustave. also a Murray town- ship farmer, and Bertha, who is at home with her parents. The Bergmanns are members of the Lutheran church and take a proper part in church work. Mr. Bergmann is a Republican and has ever given a good citizen's attention to political affairs, but has not been a seeker after public office.
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