USA > Kansas > Montgomery County > History of Montgomery County, Kansas > Part 40
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When he became identified with Cherryvale, he took up plastering. but followed the trade only a short time, when he erected a few houses for rent and bought a few acres near the city, and has been occupied largely with the care and improvement of his property. In 1892. he was appointed postmaster of Cherryvale, being the second Democratie incum- bent of that office, commissioned for four years. His activity in politics in behalf of many aspiring friends commended his candidacy to the favor of his party and his appointment to the postmastership was the result. He has been justice of the peace of Drum Greek township and as a citizen has comported himself with dignity and patriotism.
Mr. and Mrs. Anderson have teu surviving children out of a family of twelve as follows: Lemuel E .. born September 5th. 1856: Mary Olive. horn November 12. 1858, is the wife of William Richie: Lneinda. born October 7th, 1860. is now Mrs. C. Friley ; Stanley A., horn July 31st, 1862, died September 18th, 1864; William F .. boro September 7th. 1864: Isaac T., born October 29th. 1866; John J. W .. born May 1st. 1869; Louisa M., born March 4th, 1872, is married to M. L. Brooks; Thomas T., born June 9th, 1874, and died November 5th, 1885; Cyrus R., born August 17th, 1876. was a soldier in the 20th Kansas in the Philippine Islands; Sallie Kate, born May 29th. 1879, is now Mrs. Oliver Hedley, and Charles Fitts, born September 5th, 1882. Lemuel Ray Anderson, a grandson of Mr.
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and Mrs. Anderson, was born May Ist, 1900, and is being reared, trained and educated by them.
Having acquired a modest competency, Mr. Anderson is passing his declining years in partial retirement. But for the presence of their grandson he and his wife would be alone in their comfortable and hos- pitable home. just northwest of the city limits.
JOHN T. CLAY-John T. Clay is one of the largest farmers of Liberty township. He was born in Pike county, Ohio, March 14, 183S. His father, Thomas Clay, a native of Virginia, married Elizabeth Moore, also a native of Virginia. They came to Ohio with their parents, when very young, settling in Pike county. where Mr. Clay, Sr., died at the age of seventy years. The mother's death occurred at the age of sixty-five.
There were seven children in the family. all deceased except our sub- ject, John T., the only survivor of the Clay family. The latter was reared in Ohio, where he had only limited opportunities for getting an educa- tion. His marriage to Sarah Moore occurred February 6. 1861. The war coming on, Mr. Clay did not enlist, but furnished a substitute to fill his place. He did patriotic service by staying at home and raising corn, wheat and stock, to help feed the large army of Union soldiers, that had to be fed.
In 1881. he came to Kansas and settled fourteen miles west of Wich- ita, where he bought a half section of land. He lived there two years, but became dissatisfied and sokl his land in 1883, and removed to Mont- gomery county. Here he bought three hundred and twenty acres on the Verdigris river. Two hundred acres of this was bottom land, covered with heavy timber at the time of its purchase, but now it is all in the very best cultivation, and he raises, on an average, two thousand bushels of wheat every year, besides thousands of bushels of corn. His stock consists of hogs. principally, a large number of which he feeds every year.
His home is situated on the east side of a large bluff, where the cold west or north winds cannot reach it, and is located six miles due north of Coffeyville. After years of hard work and untiring industry, Mr. Clay has made for himself one of the most productive farms in the county.
Twelve children have been born to Mr. and Mrs. Clay, viz: Charles and Daniel, deceased; Thomas V., who lives in the Indian Territory; Catherine, wife of W. E. Bever; Amanda, wife of S. R. Selby ; Elizabeth, Mrs. Charles E. McCorkle; and Louisa, wife of Marion MeCorkle. Five children died in infancy.
Politically, Mr. Clay is a Democrat. He has held office at different times, having been treasurer of Liberty township two terms. He is
J. T. CLAY.
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well and favorably known and is worthy of the respect and honor in which he is held.
JAMES E. KINCAID-The subject of this personal narrative be- came identified with Kansas first in 1885, at which time he emigrated from Chariton county, Missouri, and settled in Clark county, Kansas. He became identified with the country west of the Mississippi river in 1875, when, in company with his brother. Alexander, and an uncle, the trip was made from Orange county, Indiana, into Missouri and settlement made in Chariton county.
In Orange county, Indiana, Mr. Kincaid was born November 3, 1856. His parents were farmers and his childhood and youth were, therefore, passed in a country home. His education was obtained in an attendance upon the winter terms of a country school and when he reached his eighteenth year his career as a pupil ceased.
While a resident of Missouri he maintained himself on a rented farm and spent ten years in the state.
With two teams and equipments, as his partial accumulations, he departed for western Kansas in the autumn of 1885, and experimented with farming out there for four years. This venture proved a mistake, for he virtually lost his savings of former years and, "broke" and almost stranded, he went to Cowley county, Kansas, where he worked Charles Hendricks' farm on the shares, taking one-third of the crop. He remained in that county till 1894. when he became a seeker of fortune in the new Oklahoma country and made the race for a claim. He obtained one in "K" county, lived three years of the seven passed there, in a "dug-out." proved up on his farm and. in 1900, sold it for $3,500.00 and returned to Kansas. This time he settled in Montgomery county, where he pur- chased of George T. Guernsey, four hundred acres in Rutland township, the farm lying in sections 25 and 36, township 32, range 14.
Grain farming occupies Mr. Kincaid principally, but cattle and hogs Field him a profit from the surplus from his fields.
Mr. Kincaid was orphaned at the early age of four years. His moth- er passed away in less than a year after his birth and. in 1863, his father, also, died. His father was William Kincaid and his paternal grandfath- er was Alexander Kincaid, a native of Kentucky. The family of the last named comprised Andrew. George, William, Mes. Belzora F. Walker, Mrs. Frances Edwards, Mrs. Mary Padgett. Mrs. Cordelia Poe and Henry A.
William Kincaid married Belzora Bishop, a daughter of Rufus Bishop, of Tennessee. The children of this marriage were : R. Alexander, of Chariton county, Missouri ; James E., of this review.
In 1878. James E. Kincaid married Margaret J. Padgett, of Indiana,
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and a danghter of Joseph and Barbara Padgett. Joseph William died at thirteen months. Charles Edward died aged about two years. Emily B. and Oliver M'. are the children born to Mr. and Mrs. Kincaid.
William Kincaid's life was brief but active and devoted to the work of the farm. He was born at Lexington, Kentucky, and went into Indi- ana as a young man. He enlisted there in Company "A," Sixty-sixth Volunteer Infantry. War of the Rebellion. and furlonghed home on ac- count of wounds. lle rejoined his command, was taken sick and died in the hospital at Pulaski. Tennessee.
The death of the parents of James E. Kincaid was a blight upon his life through childhood and youth. Ile knew no permanent and wel- come home till he made one for himself and when he began life's stubborn battle it was single-handed and withont financial help. Although he has experienced a number of reverses, his ambition has never flagged and dis- couragements have been brushed away. He has always maintained him- self among the best citizens of his county, where he has occasionally been honored with public trusts.
He is a Republican, politically. and was treasurer of his township in "K" county. Oklahoma. He and his wife hold membership in the Christian church and he is a Workman and a member of the Fraternal Aid and A. II. T. A.
JACOB B. KLINEFELTER-One of the substantial settlers of Montgomery county who came to it among the first years of its municipal existence was Jacob B. Klinefelter, of Cherry township. He was pre- pared for a life of "ups and downs" on the frontier by a service of nearly four and a half years in the volunteer army and the sound of martial mu- sie had hardly died within him when the civil march toward the prairies of the west began. If he encountered hardships. they were tame incidents in his career, and if fortune smiled upon him it was but nature's symbol of appreciation of the sacrifices of one of her noblemen.
It was in 1871 that Mr. Klinefelter came to Montgomery county, sin- gle and with limited means, and for the first three and one-half years he was a wage earner by the month : first for the pioneer, George Evans. and second, in the old saw-mill established on the Verdigris river nearby. He then entered a tract of the public domain, six miles north of the present city of Cherryvale and at once orenpied himself with the work of its im- provement. Beginning with 1879, he was absent from his farm for eight years, having migrated to Colorado where he was first employed in railroad work, as foreman of a pack train for the company building the road, and subsequently he went into the mines and labored in the dig- gings for seven years.
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Returning to Montgomery county, he resumed the cultivation of his farm. llis soil is rich and black and produces an abundance of grain and seeds. It is conveniently improved and the profits from its surface have placed its owner far beyond the pangs of want. He has his place well stocked and manages it with that intelligence that always marks the successful farmer.
Jacob B. Klinefelter was born in York county, Pennsylvania, July 4, 1830, and his ancestors were of the early settlers of that place. His parents, Peter and Mary ( Baker) Klinefelter, were born in that county and lived there till 1852. when they emigrated, and settled in Christian county, Illinois. There the father died at the age of eighty-one and the mother at six years younger. Of their for children. only two survive, namely : Cornelius, of Illinois, and Jacob B.
A limited attendance upon the country schools sufficed for the men- tal training of Jacob B. Klinefelter. He accompanied his parents to Illi- nois, where he was married to Amanda Pierce, who soon died, leaving a child, Mary, still living in the "Prairie State." When hostilities broke ont between the divided sections of our country in 1861. Mr. Klinefelter was among those who responded to the President's call for 75,000 troops. He enlisted in the Eighth Indiana battery and began his part at putting down the rebellion at Wilson creek. Chief among his fifteen hard-fought battles were : Wilson creek. second battle of Corinth, Stone River, Chicka- manga. Missionary Ridge and Lookout Mountain, Dalton. Resaca, Ken- nesaw Mountain. Peachtree Creek, Atlanta, Franklin and Nashville. He was in many smaller fights and skirmishes and had many "close calls" during his four years, four months and twenty days in the army. He carries sears made by two Rebel balls and while he was thus severely wounded he never permitted himself to be captured. preferring death to imprisonment in a Southern stockade.
From Angust. 1865. till his advent to Kansas Mr. Klinefelter was a farmer in Christian county, Illinois. When he had entered land in Montgomery county, he saw the necessity of a help-mate and, Angust 23. 1872. he married Eva Heltz. born in Germany. September 29, 1851. When seven years old. Mrs. Klinefelter came to the United States with her parents. John and Christina (Barsch) Heltz, and for twelve years resided in Indiana. In 1870. they came on to Kansas and settled in Montgomery county, where the mother died in 1902. and where the father survives at the age of eighty-eight years. Ten children were born to this venerable couple, the seven living being : Katie, Maggie, Michael, Eliza- beth, Susan, John and Mrs. Klinefelter.
The issue of the marriage of Mr. and Mos. Klinefelter was five children, viz : Emil, Ada. William, Maynard and Lizzie, all of whom still surround the family "hearthstone."
For thirteen years Mr. Klinefelter filled the office of justice of the
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peace of his township. His first vote was cast for "John and Jessie" in the Fremont campaign, and his next Presidential ballot for Abraham Lincoln, whom he personally knew many years before he became Presi- dent. Republicanism has always remained his slogan and he has al- ways united his efforts with that party in Montgomery county.
THOMAS J. WARNER-On a farm in Lewis county, West Vir- ginia, Thomas J. Warner, of Rutland township, was born, December 10, 1866. He came to mature years about his native heath and acquired the rudiments of a country school education. He left the old home in 1896 and went into old Virginia where, in Rockbridge county, he was engaged in farm work for four years. Deciding to seek his fortune in the west, he returned home in a few months and then migrated to Welch, Indian Territory, in September. 1901. Having not found the object of his search, after a few weeks he came up into Kansas and, at Jefferson, in Mont- gomery county, he bought a farm of one hundred and sixty acres, which he parted with at sale after cultivating it one year. He came to Rut- land township from Independence creek and owns now a quarter section of section 14. township 33, range 14.
Mr. Warner's father was George G. Warner, born in Pendleton county. West Virginia, and a son of John Warner. The latter had ehil- dren . William , Zebedee, George G., James, of Taylor county, West Vir- ginia; M. J. H .. of Labette county, Kansas; Mrs. Rebecca Smith and Catherine. George G. Warner married Lucinda Clark, of Lewis county, West Virginia, and a daughter of John and Margaret ( Bonnett) Clark. The five children of this union were: Ida F., Thomas J., John M., of Cal- ifornia; William W .. of West Virginia; Mrs. Glennie Zinn, of Ritchie county. West Virginia.
April 24, 1890. Thomas J. Warner married Irena J. Mohler, of Rockbridge county, Virginia, a daughter of David H. and Mary V. (Shel- ton) Mohler, of Virginia and West Virginia, respectively. The two children of Mr. and Mrs. Warner are Mary L. and Ida M.
The varied pursuits of the farm have occupied Mr. Warner through life. The efforts of his active life have been fairly rewarded and he is today master of the situation that confronts him. In politics he is a Democrat and he and his hold allegiance to the Methodist church.
CHARLES WASSERMAN LAMB-It is our privilege to relate, in this sketch, a few of the events in the life of one of the few mountain- eer characters of the old time, yet remaining, and to suggest a career filled with exciting and romantic incidents enacted from the metropoliti- cal shore of the Atlantic to the placid waters of the Pacific and over
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plain and mountain of the northwest. An experience gleaned from a ramble that started from the metropolis of the "Empire State" in 1852, and ended sixteen years later in the midst of a band of Osages on the virgin prairies of Kansas.
The frontier has been almost obliterated and, with its passing, the characters who were identified with it have, many of them, gone to their reward on the other shore. Their lives were spiced with incidents of ex- ploration and conquest which. if recited in intricate detail, would rival, in interest. some of the experiences of "Kit Carson" in the Rockies or of James B. Hicock, the once-famous "Wild Bill" of the western plains. Yet few of them left any connected narrative of their experiences and "went away" with the pages of their book of life blank as to the essential facts of their romantic careers.
History, as told in the lives of the people and confined to the real affairs of life, possesses a peculiar interest in the study of man and indi- cates his trend of mind, or mental bent ; and while, in this particular sub- jeet, we touch upon, in a general way, the events which have transpired as a result of his early inclinations, it furnishes us with an insight into his makeup and helps the reader to understand the man.
Charles W. Lamb has, as inferred from the introduction hereto. had a somewhat checkered, though honorable, career. His life has been surrounded by all the arts of peace and it has led him into paths where danger lurked and where the brutal assassin only awaited the discovery of his presence. The spirit of adventure which seized him on the ap- proach of manhood. in New York City, and urged him to the summit of almost every American mountain peak and. unscathed, through the lair of many a human foe, has been gratified, and his advent, as a pioneer, among the scattered settlers of Montgomery county, marked for him a new life and the opening of a new career.
Born in Hartford county, Connecticut, July 19, 1830, he was a son of German parents, his father being Thomas Lamb and his mother Fan- nie Wasserman, both of German birth. The parents moved to New York City during the childhood of our subject, where they died at eighty-four and eighty-two years, respectively. leaving four children, as follows: Fannie. Catherine. Nathan and Charles; the first three being citizens of California, at the Golden Gate.
Charles W. Lamb grew up in New York City, where he acquired a fair education. beginning life as a clerk in a wholesale establishment in the city. He mastered the details of merchandising in the nine years he was thus employed and, at twenty-two years of age, yielded to a consum- ing desire to roam and went to the frontier in the west and opened a store in Nebraska. Four years later he again became restless and leaped across the plains to Colorado. Hle engaged in the mining and mercantile business in that state, becoming more and more infatuated with the wilds
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of the far west. His ambition not yet satiated, he traversed the rocky ranges to the northwest and threaded the territories of Idaho, Montana, Waslington and even made himself somewhat familiar with the British northwest.
As he stopped along the way to prospect some ore-bearing region or to resume a merchant's life or to practice at the blacksmith's forge, he took part in the affairs of the people and came to know the white man's ernde civilization of the frontier. His journeys he made, carrying his pack in the saddle, and as he climbed the rugged mountains and pierced the dark canons of the Rockies and Sierras, on many an occasion he felt the chill that danger's warning gives and oftentimes barely es- caped with his life. Sixteen years of a strenuous life, unsurpassed in the intensity of its excitements and unequaled in its tension on the human nerves, sufficed to gratify his youthful longing and Mr. Lamb wended his way eastward and chose his future home in Montgomery county, Kansas.
In 1868, he took a claim five and one-half miles north of where Cher- ryvale now stands and founded a civilized colony right among old White Hair's band. The haunts of the Red Man were everywhere about him and the shrill and terrifying bark of the coyote added to the wildness of the scene. Miles of space separated neighbors and a trip to the nearest town consumed days of time. But time turned the frontier into settle- ments and the civilizing agencies of a composite citizenship brought order out of chaos and established all the institutions of peace. To the credit of Charles W. Lamb let it be said that he participated in all this change and was a part of it himself. He has acquired, by industry, title to three hundred acres of land and has equipped it with all the heredita- ments necessary to make it a valuable and attractive place. His farm is in section 17 and lies on Drum creek, at the mouth of which stream the famous Indian treaty was made.
Mr. Lamb was united, in Omaha, Nebraska, in marriage with Eliza- beth Vansickel, a New Jersey lady and a daughter of Andrew and Sarah Vansickel. Mrs. Lamb was born May 27, 1837, and is a representative of one of the ancient American families, her forefathers having come to the New World from Germany three hundred years ago. The Vansickels acquired a large body of land in New Jersey, which has remained undis- turbed in the family name. Two children have blessed the marriage of Mr. and Mrs. Lamb, namely : Charles, Jr., who resides in Sumner county, Kansas, and who has children, Windell and Bessie, by Miss Elizabeth Windell. now his wife. Bess, wife of W. D. Barker, is their second child, and she resides in the parental home. She has two children, Fannie and Arthur Barker.
Mr. Lamb became a Democrat early in life and has aided the ef- forts of that party in many campaigns. He has been a justice of the
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peace a number of times, in Cherry township, and, in all things, has maintained himself an upright citizen.
GEORGE H. WHITMAN-A gentleman who has had a rather re- markable career, especially in his earlier years, whose genial and versa- tile personality is a factor of much attraction to his host of friends in the county, is George H. Whitman, a leading implement dealer of the rural village of Liberty. He is a gentleman of wide experience in business and social life and is a most companionable man. He has traveled over many portions of the world "with his eyes" open and has profited by the mental breadth and depth, that travel brings.
George H. Whitman is a native of New York State, born in Mont- gomery county, in the year 1833, and a son of George and Susannah (Green) Whitman. At four years of age, his parents removed to the then far-distant State of Illinois, where they settled in Peoria county, where Mr. Whitman was reared to manhood. His father was a Method- ist Episcopal minister and labored in Illinois until his death in 1847. He left a family of four children, of which our subjeet is the eldest. The others are: Emily, who married James Moore and, after his death, Charles Lister, and lives at Wellsfield, Illinois; Isaae A., lives in Colora- do; and Fanny, who was the wife of Walter Vale, is now deceased.
When a youth of nineteen years, Mr. Whitman left home and crossed the plains to the Pacific coast. He then took passage on a vessel and visited China, being in that country when Commodore Perry did such splendid service in opening the Japanese ports to the commerce of the United States. From there he went to London, England, and then re- turned to New Orleans. After a period in this city he again shipped on board a vessel bound for France and visited Havre. That was in 1855, and in the latter part of that year he returned to his home in Illinois, where he remained and where he lived at the time of the Civil war.
He enlisted in the army in the latter part of the war and served until September of 1865. Upon returning from the war, he settled in Bureau county. Illinois, where he engaged in farming until 1874, the date of his settlement in Montgomery county, Kansas. He purchased a quarter section seven miles southwest of Independence, for which he paid $1,100.00. He enltivated this property for some years, then sold it and removed to the town of Independence and for a number of years, was "outside man" for the implement firm of Funk & Whitman. In 1886, he returred to Ilinois where he spent five years, after which he moved to Wappelo county. Iowa, and remained here three years, engaged in farm- ing. In 1894, he came to Liberty township and purchased a farm one mile south of the village of Liberty, paying $2.200.00 for one hundred aeres. He held this for a period of four years and then disposed of it
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to the Foster Brothers and engaged in the implement business with his son, Newton E. Whitman. Four years later, he soll his interest to a son, Clinton A. Whitman, since which time the style of the firm has been Whitman Brothers. This is one of the largest implement firms in the county, maintaining, besides their Liberty establishment. a branch store at Cherryvale and doing a very large and prosperous business. They are agents for the Milwaukee harvester and binder, one of the best on the market. and of which they sold during the season of 1902. forty-six new machines. They are also agents for the J. I. Case line of implements and the Canton line of implements, all of which are popular and excellent makes of machinery.
On the 7th day of March. 1861. George Whitman was joined in mar- riage to Mary J. Pettit. a native of New York (Niagara county). Eight children were born to this union. of whom seven still survive, viz : Eudora E .. wife of D. F. Blme, of Liberty township; Clarissa. wife of Stephen Gray, of Marshall county. Illinois: Ira P .. died in infancy; Henry Eugene, who is married and lives in Marshall county. Illinois; Fannie, at home: Clinton A .. who is married and lives in Cherryvale; Newton E., of Liberty. Kansas: and Luther E .. who lives near Winfield, Kansas.
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