USA > Kansas > Montgomery County > History of Montgomery County, Kansas > Part 49
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Moses J. Porter was born in Vermont and reared amid the hardships of pioneer life. He was one of the first to take up arms and soon so dis- tingnished himself as to attract the attention of his superiors. He partie- ipated in many of the hard-fought battles, and ,for six years was privi- leged to endure the hardships, which were so uncomplainingly partici- pated in by the great head of the army and his personal staff, and was present at the last great battle, where the world was "turned upside down" by the masterly tactics of him who was "first in war, first in
S M. PORTER.
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HISTORY OF MONTGOMERY COUNTY, KANSAS.
peace, and first in the hearts of his coutrymen." After the war, he set- tled in Ontario county, New York state, and to him was born a son, Moses G., the date of whose birth was December 7, 1819, and who be- came, in turn, the father of our subject.
At the age of twenty-three, Moses G. Porter settled in Oakland coun- ty, Michigan, where he, later, married Maria Morse, a native of Cort- land county, New York, born January 20, 1818. These parents reared a family of four children, and continued to reside in the locality of Walled Lake, Michigan, until their death. The father was a man of in- telligence and thrift, and, during his lifetime, participated actively in the social, religious and political life of the community. He served his township as trustee, and was, for many years, Justice of the Peace. He died at the age of sixty-five, in 1884, the wife surviving him thirteen years.
Sammel M. Porter was born on a farm, near the village of Walled Lake, Michigan, on the 14th of December. 1849, and is the second of four children now living, John A., Edward W .. and Sarah (now Mrs. Homer Chapman, of Walled Lake), being the other three. His prescholastic training was secured in the rather primitive country schools of that sec- tion of the state. He was reared to the independent life of the farm, and, in learning to run his furrows straight, was taught the value of right living. He early became imbued with the idea of the dignity of labor, and, through the intervening years, has always honored the "man behind the plow."
Feeling the need of a better education, he matriculated at that fa- mous old school, Hillsdale College, from whose sacred precincts have come some of the brightest minds of the great west, and, for a number of terms, alternately attended its sessions, and taught winters in the country schools of his section of the state. Through the influence of an old-time friend of the family, General Daniel W. Perkins, of Saginaw, he was induced to begin the study of law, and, in his office, began the career which is progressing so favorably. After reading, in this office, for a period, he became a student at the Michigan University Law School. located at Ann Arbor, and from which he graduated, in the class of 1874. East Saginaw, Michigan, was selected as a place to begin the practice, and, for the seven years succeeding, he practiced before the courts of that state, being admitted to the Supreme Court. in 1876. So assiduonsly did the young lawyer apply himself to the duties of his profession, that his health: failed, and, on the advice of his physician for a change of climate, he came to Kansas, in September, 1881, and, settling on a farm near C'aney for a time, abandoned his profession. This change of occupation and climate proved so beneficial that a few years only was necessary to put him in his old form, and he then resumed the practice.
This, in brief. is the story of the life of one of Caney's best citizens.
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Mr. Porter's connection with the people of Caney has been most helpful. He has always taken a keen interest in the progress of the city, and has been instrumental in bringing much capital to the section in which it is located. To him, probably, more than any other, may be attributed the building of the K., O. C. & S. W. Ry. In the interest of this enterprise he, in 1894, went to England and other foreign countries. Not meeting with immediate success there, he returned to New York, and, before con- ing home, had arranged for the necessary capital to begin the work. It was, also, owing to his indefatigable efforts, that the Santa Fe Ry. Co. became interested in its purchase, and it has thus become a feeder to one of the greatest systems of railway in the country.
Mr. Porter has shown his faith in the city by building one of the handsomest residence properties in this section of the state, a piece of home architecture that would attract attention in any city. Politics has no special charm for this busy man, and he contents himself in casting his ballot for good government, party being of but slight consideration, although he generally votes with the Republicans. He is financially in- terested in several of the local enterprises. A stockholder in the Home National Bank, and for which he aets as legal adviser. president of the Gas Company, and stockholder in the Caney Brick Company, besides owning two farms near the city.
Several of the best fraternities enroll the name of Mr. Porter, nota- bly the Modern Woodmen of America, the Knights of Pythias, Masons and the Knights Templar, in all of which he is a popular and helpful member.
In December of 1874, Mr. Porter was joined in marriage with Miss Susan Hoyt, in Michigan ; an estimable lady, who died five years later, leaving two little daughters: May now a teacher in the schools of Walled Lake, and Grace, a teacher in the schools of Caney. In December of 1883, Mr. Porter contracted marriage the second time, the lady who now presides over his home, having been Miss Elthea Smith, a native of Minnesota. The marriage has been blessed with four children : George F., Margaret, Lutie and Paul.
Life is what we make it; the balances turn up or down, in the de- gree in which we are kind and helpful and generous and brave. All of these attributes of character are found in the make-up of the gentleman whose brief sketch we here present, in the confidence that no man can say nay to what has here been written.
FELIX J. FRITCH-The worthy citizen and prominent lawyer, mentioned in the introduction to this review, is numbered among the early Kansans where, from the age of thirteen years, his life has been spent and the modest achievements of his career been wrought. With
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the genius of his mental faculties unawakened till the dawn of manhood and then embarrassed by the obstructions and adversities of inopulent surroundings, still, by his own boot-straps, as it were, he raised himself out of the mire of illiteracy to become an untrammeled and literate man. Broadening with the experience of years and ripening with the approach of maturer life, he presents an example of the self-made man, worthy the attention of the student of this local work.
Referring to his nativity and geneology, Joseph Fritch, our subject, was born in Ross county, Ohio, September 26, 1855. His father, Joseph A. Fritch, was a contractor and builder in early life and was born in the Province of Alsace, then France, twelve miles from the city of Stras- burg, in the year 1808. Joseph Fritch, the grandfather of Felix J., of this notice, was a wine maker and cask manufacturer of wealth, whose fortune was largely dissipated by a Napoleonic decree, causing the issu- ing of serip and pledging the property of the Catholic church for its final redemption. In 1825. the grandfather came to the United States, settled. for a time in Pennsylvania, and then moved to Ohio, where he died, at the age of ninety-six. By his two marriages, he reared a large family of children. His son, Joseph, had the advantages of a superior intellectual training and, having a bent for the study of the languages, mastered seven of them and became able to speak any of them fluently. He learned the cooper trade but took up carpenter work and finally ex- panded his efforts into the contractor's field. In 1868, he came to Kan- sas and located, with his family, in Leavenworth. In 1870. he settled upon a new farm in Wilson county, near Fredonia, where his children grew up, and finally departed from the parental roof. He married Bar- bara Vinson, a daughter of George Vinson, an Englishman. Barbara Fritch was born, in Tennessee, in 1818, and died in 1899. She outlived her husband seven years and was the mother of: Sarah, now a sister in the C'onvent in Columbus, Ohio; George W., of Fredonia, Kansas; Frank, deceased ; Mary, a nun in the Dominican Convent at Columbus, Ohio, and manager of St. Mary's Academy at Shepard, Ohio; Flora, deceased; Mrs. Clara Tipton. of Guthrie, Oklahoma; Felix J., our subject ; and Kate E., wife of C. B. McGinley, of Oklahoma City.
At twelve years of age. F. J. Fritch quit school, for the time being, and entered his father's shop, in the manufacture of school furniture. He was fond of mechanies, and, for many years after the removal of the family to Wilson county, Kansas, he aided his father in the erection of buildings here and there over the county. During this time. he spent three years as a laborer on railroad work, cutting the first stick of tim- ber ont toward the head of Choctow Creek, east of Sherman, Texas, while the construction of the railroad was going on.
After his return home, and at the age of twenty-three years, he was persuaded, by a sister. to take writing lessons, with the result that in a
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short time, he wrote a fair hand and, in consequence of which. he was chosen editor of the paper of the neighborhood literary society. The very night he was elected its editor, he had gone to the society meeting to help "break it up," a proceeding which his disposition. at that time, cherished as a "bit of fun." The distinction thus unwittingly thrust upon him. touched his pride and aroused his sense of justice and gave him his first effective shove toward a worthy and useful life. He made a marked suc- cess of the society paper, with the aid of his refined sisters, and became one of the popular young men of the locality. He soon afterward attend- ed. as a pupil, in the same school house. and was induced to attend the county institute the following summer. He applied himself so diligently toward the attainment of his, now, ultimate object. that he earned the third highest grade at the county examination. lle began teaching country school as soon as he was legally qualified and was engaged in the work, with little loss of time, till 1890. He was principal of the schools at Blaine, Kansas, for three years, and finished his school work, as princi- pal of schools, at Chautauqua Springs, in 1889. He spent two years read- ing law with T. JJ. Hudson, in Fredonia-from twenty-seven to twenty- nine years of age-and when his last term of school closed, he went se- riously into the law business. He was admitted to the bar in Sedan. Kas., and did his first practice in the justice court in Chautauqua Springs. In 1890, he came to Independence, fifteen hundred dollars overdrawn, and purchased an interest in the law business of Thos. W. Stanford, and the partners practiced together one year. Then he opened an ollice, alone. and was so situated till the spring of 1903, when he formed a partner- ship with John W. Bertenshaw, a young and promising attorney of In- dependence, and the firm of Fritch & Bertenshaw is one of the popular new firms of the city.
For three years, Mr. Fritch was Deputy Clerk of the Kansas Su- preme Court, under John Martin, of Topeka. He had studied shorthand after beginning the practice of law and, in seven months, became able to report cases and take testimony in the district conrt. In 1897, he was assistant secretary of the Kansas State Senate, by appointment of the Leedy administration. He has filled a vacancy, by appointment, as city at- torney of Independence and was an unsuccessful candidate for the office of county attorney.
In May, 1885, Mr Fritch married, in Blaine, Kansas, his wife being Cora M., daughter of Judge HI. W. Hazen, of that place. The issue of this union is two sons, Joseph Leo and Frank J. and two daughters, both now dead.
JOSEPH H. GRAVES-The father of Joseph H. Graves, Hender- son Graves, was a native of Virginia. He was born in 1808 and moved,
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with his parents, to Ohio, when only four years old. After his marriage, to Rebecca Ann Perkins, he removed to Missouri, about the year 1857, where he died, in 1868. His wife lived until June. 1895, when she died. at the age of eighty-two years. There were seven children, six of whom are now living.
Joseph Il. Graves, the subject of this sketch, was born in Coshocton county, Ohio, on the 14th of July, 1844. He was twelve years old when his father moved to Missouri. His opportunities for an education were few, for, at the age of sixteen, he enlisted as a private, in Company "1," Fourth Missouri Cavalry, and served twelve months and reenlisted in the Twelfth Missouri Cavalry. Company "M." and served throughout the war. He was in many hard battles ; the battle of Nashville, Tennessee, and was sixty-five days in the saddle, skirmishing and fighting, and was neither wounded nor captured. After the war, he returned home, where he was married. December 20, 1866, to Mary J. Conkel, a native of Pennsylvania. She was a daughter of Reuben and Elizabeth (Kline) Conkel, both na- tives of Pennsylvania. The father died in Indiana, at the age of fifty- seven years. His wife still survives him and lives in Independence, Kan- SAS.
For seven years, immediately following the marriage of Mr. Graves, he worked as a day laborer. This sort of "hand to month" existence was not pleasing, however, to either him or his wife, and they resolved to end it by taking advantage of some of the cheap land in the southwestern part of Kansas. They, therefore, settled. in 1873. in Summer county, where they bought a claim. A year in this part of the country was sufficient to give them a case of home-sickness, and they made their way back to Mis- souri. In 1884, they again resolved to try what Kansas could do to bet- ter their condition, and this time settled on a farm near Independence. They soon found that they had struek the right country and, in a short time, traded for the present farm, located two and one-half miles south- east of Caney. Here they have one of the prettiest situations in the conn- ty, their farm lying on high rolling prairie, which gives them a com- manding view of the valley below, where the enterprising little city of Caney lies in full view. The south line of the farm is but sixty-five rods from the state line. The appointments are of the best. a large and handsome residence, an immense barn and other outbuildings necessary to the conduet of a first-class farm. The family of seven children are as follows : Charles W., a business man of Caney ; Harry H., also in business in Caney ; Elizabeth Ann, Flety May. Ida Alice, Daisy Melissa and Mag- gie Maud.
Mr. Graves' first vote was cast for Abraham Lincoln and he still supports the party which esponses that cause.
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HISTORY OF MONTGOMERY COUNTY, KANSAS.
JOHN G. ERDMAN-One of the German-American farmers of Montgomery county, whose residence herein has lent an influence for good in the general rural development of recent years, is the gentleman whose name introduces this personal notice. His advent to the county dates from February, 1885, when he established his family on a part of section 3, township 33, range 15, when he converted a good mechanic into an equally good and successful farmer. He is a settler from Adams county. Illinois, where, at Quincy, he grew up from childhood, learned his trade and embarked successfully and honorably in the affairs of life.
Mr. Erdman was born in the Kingdom of Prussia, near the town of Muhlhausen, March 4, 1844. His father was John M. Erdman, of the town of Muhlhausen, and his mother was Anna E. Bang. In 1851, the parents sailed from Bremen, bound, on a sailing vessel. for New Orleans, Louisiana. They continued their journey from New Orleans up the Mississippi river and ended their trip at Quincy, where the parents passed their remaining years and died, the father in 1866 and the mother, January 12, 1871, at the age of sixty-five years. The father was a carpen- ter and his early efforts in the United States were given in the upbuilding of the city of Quincy, then a mere village on the bank of "The Father of Waters." Two of the three children of this venerable couple lived to reach maturity, viz: John G. and his brother, John Martin, who died in Los Angeles, California, in 1896.
John G. Erdman learned his trade in his vigorous youth, becoming proficient in both wood work and blacksmithing. With the exception of three years, when he was sojourning, temporarily, in Marysville, Cali- fornia, he was a resident of Quincy, Ill., till his advent to Kansas. In 1864, he crossed the plain, driving a team, and made the trip to California, be- ing located at Marysville, near Sacramento, where he remained three years, and where he followed his trade. He returned east, by water, and disembarked at Charleston, South Carolina, where he took rail for his home in Quiney. Resuming his trade, he engaged with W. T. and E. A. Rogers, of Quincy, with whom he continued eleven years. Being a short while in the steam and gas fitting business, on his own account, he dis- continued it and employed with the well-known haypress manufacturer, George Ertal, where he remained four years. Following this, he was em- ployed, as a blacksmith, for three years, in a wheel factory and the sav- ings he accumulated in these eighteen years constituted the capital with which he came out to Montgomery county, in 1884, and purchased the farm which he has developed into an attractive homestead. He found here, a small field of twenty acres plowed, the place barren of buildings, and little else was there, in sight, to indicate that it had been touched by the civilizing hand of man. A commodious farm residence now domi- ciles the family and ample barns and sheds give shelter to the stock of the farm. The mention of these, constitutes only a suggestion of what
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has been done by the industrious household, under the supervision of its paternal head. Mr. Erdman owns one hundred and sixty acres of the section in which he lives and makes it all produce abundantly and prosper.
April 8. 1869, Mr. Erdman married, in Quincy, Mary Bruening, a lady of Mecklenburg birth. Her father, John Bruening, came over from Germany to Illinois, in an early day, and followed cabinet-making in Quincy, where he died, in June, 1900, at eighty years of age. Mr. and Mrs. Erdman's children are: John F., Henry W., Ida, wife of Henry Meyer. of Elk City, Kansas: Sophia and Mary. Mr. Erdman votes the Republican ticket and worships with the German Lutheran congrega- tion, in Independence.
WILLIAM W. MCKINNEY-In Louisburg township, of this county, on a farm of one hundred and sixty acres, there has lived, since 1886, a gentleman who has the distinction of being a veteran of the Mexican war. He served in that struggle, under General Winfield Scott, from the Gulf coast to the Mexican capital. This veteran is W. W. MeKinney, the subject of this review, now seventy-eight years of age, and he looks back upon a long life of stirring activity with the consciousness of having per- formed each requirement of manhood as it was presented to him.
Mr. MeKinney was born in Pulaski county, Kentucky, in the year 1825. His parents were Flemon and Ann Delilah (Gregg) Mckinney. Ile is a grandson of William MeKinney, who emigrated from his native State of Virginia to Kentucky, at a very early period, in the settlement of the "Blue Grass State." The family are of Scotch descent, the great grandparents of our subject having come to America in the latter part of the eighteenth century.
Mr. MeKinney's parents passed their entire lives in the "Blue Grass State." His mother died in Pulaski county, while he was yet a child, and his father located in Louisville, after the Civil war. They reared the following children, viz: Elizabeth, William W., Pauline B., John G., Hiram K. and Lucinda; all deceased but Hiram K and William W. By a second marriage, Flemon Mckinney had the following children : James F., Charles H., Nancy, Pauline and Eliza Ann; and by a third marriage, were two children : Margaret and Emma.
William McKinney received his education in Pulaski county, Ken- tucky, and continued to reside upon the old homestead until 1886. He enlisted in the Mexican war, in 1847, as a volunteer in Company "C," Fourth Kentucky Volunteer Infantry, for which service he now receives a pension of $8.00 per month. He married, in 1848, Lora Ann, a daughter of Alexander and Elizabeth (Lawson) Reid, of Pulaski county, Kentucky, and to whom were born children, as follows: Mary Elizabeth
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and Cyrenus J., deceased; Nancy Ellen, wife of Joseph M. Hubble, a farmer of Pulaski county, whose four children are: Lena, Edgar, Annie and William; James, who first married Sophrona Vaught, who died, De- cember 3, 1893, leaving four children : Eher J., Pearl, Rose and May; his second wife was Annie Goodwin, daughter of Alfred Goodwin, a farmi- er of Montgomery county, whose two children are: Fannie and Mary; John Talbott Mckinney, married Mary Belle Bryant, a daughter of Henry Bryant, a farmer of Kentucky; her children are : Oscar, William B., Alba and Lela; Sarah L., is the wife of B. J. Vaught, a farmer of Pulaski county ; her children are: Vietor G., Fanny A., Allie, Neatie. Fauna, Beatie and Mocella ; William F.'s first wife was Myrtle Skinner, daughter of Dr. M. W. Skinner of Kansas, and after her death-which occurred May 1, 1896-he was joined in marriage with Lilly Vaught, daughter of Fountain F. and Margeret (Dungan) Vanght, farmers of Pulaski county, Kentucky. The Vaught family consists of eleven children, five of whom are now living, as follows: Boen, Pulaski county ; Elisha, Parke county, Indiana ; Ansel, Estell and Mrs. Mckinney.
William F. MeKinney was born, in 1862, in Pulaski county, and received his education in the common schools of that county and at the University of Lebanon, Ohio. He was, for a period of ten years, station agent for the Missouri Pacific Railroad Company, at different points, but has for several years, been managing his father's farm, in Louisburg township.
The social position of the MeKinney family is a commanding one in the county. The correct and upright lives which have been lived by our subject and his children, has established for them a most enviable reputation. Their character and citizenship is of the best and they are held in high regard. Politically, they support the party of Lincoln and Garfield, and are devoted members of the Christian church.
THOMAS J. STRAUB-Probably the youngest Register of Deeds of Montgomery county is Thomas J. Straub, of this review. He is a na- tive of the county and is a son of pioneer parents, Francis J. and Eliza- beth ( Wilkinson) Straub, the former of whom took up a tract of the pub- lic domain, in Liberty township, in the year 1869. He was a settler from Missouri but was born in the State of Wisconsin, January 24, 1847. His parents were of German birth and his father, Henry J. Straub, brought his family to Wisconsin in an early day, resided there fill some time in the 50's and then moved down into Missouri, where his younger children grew up.
Frances . Stranb came to manhood's estate on the farm and ac- quired a limited education in the country schools. He espoused the side of the union, during the Rebellion, and enlisted, in 1862, in the Twelfth
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Missouri Cavalry. He served two and one-half years in the South and when discharged from the service, returned home and reengaged in civil pursuits there till 1869, when he anticipated Horace Greely's advice and came west. The "claim" he took in Montgomery county, he improved and resided on until 1902, when, having lost his companion and having brought his children to years of maturity, he accompanied his son to In- dependence, where he now resides. September 20, 1871, he was united in marriage with a daughter of Thomas Wilkinson, a gentleman of Irish birth, whose early American home was maintained in the Dominion of Canada. There his daughter, Elizabeth, was born, in 1846. She accom- panied her father to Kansas and settled in Montgomery county, in 1869, and died in Liberty township, on the 12th of September, 1902, after a married life of nearly thirty-one years. The children of this union were : Etta, who died at twenty-one years; Ivan E., of Baker City, Oregon; Thomas J. and Kate E., twins, the latter of whom died December 24, 1898; and Ulysses G., who died June 2, 1901.
Thomas J. Straub was born November 29, 1878. He followed the ways of the farm youth, till the spring of 1898, when he enlisted in Captain Elliott's company of Twentieth Kansans, for service in the Spanish- American war. The regiment rendezvoused at San Francisco, Califor- nia, till October, 1898, when it was embarked aboard the transport In- diana. for Manila, to assist in the reduction of the Spanish stronghold in the Pacific. December 1, the transport anchored in Manila Bay and the Twentieth Kansas, on being disembarked, was given a position on the outpost of Manila. It remained on this species of guard duty till the Filipino outbreak, on the 4th of February, 1899, when it took a promi- nent part in all the fighting, from Caloocan to San Fernando, the follow- ing June. On the 23d of February, our subject was on picket duty within the city of Manila, when it was expected that the Filipinos of the place would undertake to massacre all the English-speaking and Spanish resi- dents. and when the city was thrown into a turmoil of excitement by the recent discovery of such a plot. But, few lives were sacrificed, other than Filipinos, during the night, and morning relieved the tension and assured the safety of the city. Mr. Straub participated in the battles of Tuhuli- han river, Calumpit and Malolos. in addition to those previously men- tioned. returned to the United States on board the transport Tartar, hy way of Hong Kong and Vokahoma, and reached San Francisco October 15, 1899, and on the 2d of November following, ended a flying trip across the continent, with the regiment, to take part in the reception tendered the famous Twentieth by the citizens of Kansas at Topeka on that day.
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