USA > Kansas > Montgomery County > History of Montgomery County, Kansas > Part 61
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At the age of twelve years William H. Allin left his native state to become identified with the west. He accompained his parents to Iowa and was there educated in the district schools. For a higher training he was for two and one-half years a student in the lowa State University and, on the completion of his pupilage, assumed his station on the farm. His father presented him with an eighty aere traet which he improved and afterward disposed of to become a resident and a farmer of C'edar Co., that state, where he purchased a farm twice its size. Upon this farm he resided fifteen years and sold it only to come to Montgomery Co., Kansas.
Mr. Allin's connection with Montgomery county has been mutually valuable. Here he has accumulated an estate of three hundred and sev- enty-five acres and made it, artificially, one of the beautifully attractive farms of the county. llis residence, imposing and commodions, ocenpies an eminence studded with evergreen and natural forest and presents a landscape scene unsurpassed by a country Kansas home. To these sur- roundings add the convenience of natural gas and the less common lux- uries for physical man, and an ideal condition of life is the portion of our subject.
His capital beyond the requirements of his household and his farm. Mr. Allin uses in investments to the advantage of his estate. He was one of the organizers of the First National Bank of Coffeyville, was director of it a mumber of years and is yet a stockholder. He has served on the township board a number of terms and has been school director for many years. He is a Republican in politics and has contributed. in a modest and massuming way, to the success of his party at the polls.
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July 5, 1863. Mr. Allin married Julia A. Hollingsworth, a daughter of the venerable Richard II. Hollingsworth, of Coffeyville, appropriate mention of whom is made in his article herein. Mrs. Allin was born near Peoria, Illinois, February 20, 1847, and is one of five children. She is the mother of the following children: Perry N .. in the grain business in Coffeyville; Franklin W., a graduate of Baker University, for a number of years a successful teacher of the state-being seven years principal of the Paola schools and one year in the Emporia high school-and now a student in Rush Medical College. Chicago; Jessie B., wife of William 1 .. Etchen, of Omaha, Nebraska, and Miss Margaret Allin. The children are all graduates of the Coffeyville high school and have assumed most honorable and useful stations in life.
E.S.REA .- E. S. Rea is the General Manager of the Rea Patterson Milling Company of Coffeyville. Kansas, and was born in Saline county. Mo. His parents were : P. H. and Mattie E. (Samnel) Rea, both natives of Missouri.
Mr. Rea, senior, was a member of the state militia of Missouri, under General Price, was for a number of years a merchant, but is now retired and living at Marshall, Mo. He was born in 1840, and in 1894 his wife died, leaving five children.
Our subject obtained his education in the common schools, and in the Manual Training school, and graduated from the University of St. Louis Mo., in the class of 1890. After completing his schooling, he en- gaged at milling, in Marshall, Mo., where he remained four vaers. In 1894, he came to Montgomery county, and has since become interested in the gas and oil development of the county.
On the 15th of April, 1896. Mr. Rea was united in marriage with Margaret Owens, of Sweet Springs. Mo., and a daughter of the late Wil- liam Owens. To this union was born one child. Nellie E.
The Rea Patterson Mill's of which Mr. Rea is manager, are now the largest of the kind in the State of Kansas, employing about eighty-five hands. and producing about two thousand barrels daily.
JOHN A. MAILAFFY-The little municipality of Tyro is one of the most enterprising villages of the county, and is surrounded by an agri- cultural community of more than ordinary intelligence and thrift. They have good schools and churches and are, to a good degree, progressive. Among the most enterprising of the business men of the community is the gentleman here mentioned, one of the leading merchants of the place, and one whose long association with the people of the county makes him pe- enliaily adapted to representation in this work.
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Mr. Mahaffy came to this vicinity with his parents in 1870, when a hoy of eleven years, and has grown up among the people where he now re- sides. He was born in Galesburg, IL., on the 3rd of April, 1859, and was a son of Alexander and Emily ( MeGiff) Mahaffy, natives of the Emerald Isle. The father was born in 1829, and, at maturity, crossed the ocean in search of fortune. He first found it in New York, where he met and mar- ried his wife. From thence hecame out to Ilinois, and settled in Galesburg, where he remained until 1869, when he came ou to Kansas, and, the follow- ing year, settled his family on a farm adjoining Tyro on the south. Hero he passed the remainder of his days, succeeding by hard work, and good judgment, in acquiring a nice little competency before his death. He was a man possesing, in a high degree, the marked characteristics of his race, honest to a fault, and generous in the distribution of his charity. He died, in 1892, at the age of sixty-three years, and his wife still survives him, at the age of seventy-three. They were the parents of seven children, viz: Delila, the wife of E. A. Deuney ; Annice, wife of C. L. Keller; John A., Virginia, deceased, in girlhood; David, managing the home farm; Mary, died in childhood ; and one died in infancy.
John A. Mahaffy passed the entire period of his boyhood and youth under the home roof. dutifully helping to care for the family until he had arrived at maturity. At the age of twenty-three, with the assistance of Miranda J. Parrish, he began the building of a home of his own, the date of their marriage being March 2, 1892. Mrs. Mahafly was born in Wa- bash county, Indiana, on the 5th of December, 1875. She was taken into the home of Dr. Bradley, at an early age, and was reared to womanhood by them , coming to Kansas and being married in their home. She is the mother of three bright children: Alger Henry, George Ed and Ida Blanche.
Mr. Mahaffy was engaged, until the year 1902, in agricultural pur- suits, when he set up his present mercantile establishment. He carries a nice line of goods and his courteous treatment of custom is rapidly se- curing him a large trade. Politically, he supports the policies of the Pop- ulist party and is always found ready to aid any cause that looks to the upbuilding of his home town.
A R. QUIGG-A hardware merchant of Elk City and one of the old- est residents of Louisburg township, Mr. A. R. Quigg holds an honored place in the hearts of a large body of its citizens. His connection with the remarkable development which has come to Montgomery county in the past, has been of a most substantial nature, and places him in the list worthy of the special mention accorded those whose names appear in this volume.
Mr. Quigg first came to Kansas in 1866. Remaining a short time
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in each of Johnson and Franklin counties, he then settled in Leroy, Coffey county. and engaged, as a carpenter and bilder. The year 1870 marks his coming to this county and his location in Elk City, where he engaged in the cabinet-making and undertaking business. This he abandoned for the hardware business, in 1878, and his connection with this business has been continuous and successful to this date. Elk City has had no more earnest advocate of its interests than he. In season and ont. he has spent time and money in the advancement of its interests and now takes a par- donable pride in the evidences of its growth. He has served the people of his township in several of the minor offices-Treasurer and Clerk -- and has used his influence, at all times, in furthering projects which had for their object, the moral or material, advancement of his community. He votes the Republican ticket with regularity and is looked upon as a val- ued worker in the ranks of that party.
Noting, briefly, the salient points in the ancestral history of our es- teemed subject, his father, Joseph Quigg, was a Pennsylvanian, born in 1811, and, with his parents, went to Indiana at twelve years of age. When he grew to manhood, he adopted farming as an occupation, follow- ing that till his death, in 1873. He was a man of intensely patriotic mould, an out-and-out Abolitionist. fairly worrying himself sick over the fact that he was beyond the age to enter the army, as a volunteer sol- dier. He married an Ohio girl, of the name of Lydia Swain, and became the father if nine children, as follows: Ira, of Indiana; A. R., the subject of this sketeb; Sallie, widow of Harvey Mendenhall; Cyrus B., of In- diana: and Frank. Those deceased are: Ennice. William, Mattie and John.
A. R. Quigg was born in Wayne county, Indiana, April 14, 1843. His edneation was such as could be procured in the short winter months in the district school. He helped his parents on the farm most dutifully until the date of his enlistment in the army, August 6, 1862, when he went forth as a sacrifice, if need be, for an undivided country. He en- rolled, as a private, of Company "E." Sixty-ninth Indiana Volunteer In- fantry, and in the very first battle, that of Richmond, Kentucky, was se- verely wounded. He remained in the service until his honorable dis- charge, on the 8th of August, 1863.
The 4th of May, 1871, was a day made memorable, in the life of our subject, by his marriage to the lady who now presides over his home, and who has been a splendid partner of his joys and sorrows. Mrs. Quigg's maiden name was M. J. Sutton. She was born in the "Buckeye State" and is the daughter of Enoch Sutton. Four children have come to bless the marriage of our subject and his wife: Mrs. W. E. Johnson; of Joplin, Mis- souri, whose three children are : Ralph, Paul and Helen ; Bertha, Emma and Frank.
Successful as a business man, honored by his fellow townsmen, and
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revered by a large circle of friends and acquaintances in the county, Mr. Quigg is passing into happy and peaceful old age, conscious of having measured up to all the requirements of a good and loyal citizen.
JOHN E. WINGARD-Introducing this review is the name of the State Grain-Weighmaster at Coffeyville. He is one of the successful and well-known farmers of the county of Montgomery, of which he has been a resident since 1882, and of the state since two years before.
Mr. Wingard comes of Ohio origin, in Stark county, where his birth occurred September 24, 1855. His father, Joseph Wingard, was born in the same county, October 5, 1829, and his mother, Maria, a daughter of John Spechnan, was born in Holmes county, Ohio, May 12, 1831. The parents were married September 23, 1852, and resided in the vicinity of Massillon till March, 1857, when they moved to DeKalb county, Indiana, where. at Auburn, the father now resides.
The Wingards of this generation are descended from John Win- gard, our subject's grandfather, who was born in Franklin county, Penn- sylvania, September 13, 1798. The latter married Polly Zent, born in the same county, March 19, 1799; the wedding' occurring March 8, 1821. Their children, in their order, were: Jacob, of Williams county, Ohio; John, who died in the same county; JJoseph, father of our subject ; and a daughter, who married Cornelius Clapper and resides in Stark county, Ohio. In the spring of 1829, John and Polly Wingard left the "Key- stone State" and settled in Stark county, Ohio, where they reared their family and passed their lives.
The issue of Joseph Wingard and wife were: Reuben, deceased; Charles F., of Auburn, Indiana ; John E. and Ira N., likewise of DeKalb county. Indiana. Rouben was born December 9, 1853; Charles F., Jan- uary 12. 1857. and Ira N., October 9, 1864.
John E. Wingard was the second child in his father's family and received a good common school education while growing up on his fath- er's farm. The Auburn high school was the last institution he attended, of an educational character, and when he assumed his independent sta- tion in life, it was as a farmer. When he left Indiana and directed his steps westward, it was toward cheaper land and the ultimate possession of a home. He stopped two years in Crawford county, and when he set- tled in Montgomery county, he purchased a farm of one hundred and sixty acres, in sections 18 and 13, township 33, ranges 16 and 15. Since his first settlement he has purchased an additional quarter in the same township of Independence and, while he is occupied with his official du- ties, he also dors all of the farming except the actual work, which respon- sibility devolves upon his young and manly sons,
Mr. Wingard was married in DeKalb county, Indiana. February
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10, 1876, his wife being Ella I. Pyle, a daughter of John Pyle, formerly from Stark county, Ohio. The issue of this marriage is two sons: Frank Leroy, aged twenty years, and Homer Hester, aged fifteen years.
Mr. Wingard is a Republican in politics, has served his township as trustee twice, has worked with the party leaders in the county in every campaign and was appointed to his present position and commissioned by Gov. Stanley, in 1902. He became interested in the establishment of rural delivery, early, and petitioned for one of the first rural routes established in the Third Congressional District,
DR. JOHN T. DAVIS-Among the practicing physicians who have attained renown in Montgomery county, is the worthy citizen of Inde- pendence whose name initiates this personal record. Since the year 1881, he has been numbered among the men of medicine, that date noting his advent to the county and his residence in Elk City. He came to the county seat in 1892, where he has taken front rank among the physicians of his school.
Mr. Davis is a vigorous example of the sons of the "Hoosier State." His birth occurred in Warren county, Indiana, February 26, 1853, on the farm of his father, James Davis, who was born in the county of the same name in Ohio, in 1823, At ten years of age, the father accompanied his parents, Andrew and Zillah (Grant) Davis, to Warren county, Indiana, where he grew up and married. Andrew Davis was a Jerseyman by birth, left his native state in the fore part of the nineteenth century and lived in Indiana, Illinois and, finally, in Kansas, where, at Manhattan, he died, at ninety-six years of age. He was of Welch stock, his father being a son of a Welchman whose emigration from the British Isles oc- curred during the contented and thrifty period of English domination and colonization of America. Andrew Davis' father was a wagon-master, under Gen. Washington, during the Revolution, and he. himself, served, loyally, against the British in our War of 1812. Ile had seven sons and four daughters, as follows: James, Joseph, deceased, feft three children ; William, of Cass county, Missouri; Caleb, of Rice county, Kansas; An- drew, of Walla Walla, Washington; Thomas, of Los Angeles, California ; and John G., of Elk county, Kansas. The danghters were: Mrs. George Little, of Warren county, Indiana ; Mrs. John Kerns, of Manhattan, Kan- sas; Mrs. Millie (name not known), of Indiana ; and Mrs. Nelson Farden, of Warren county, Indiana. JJoseph and John Davis were Civil war sol- diers from Illinois and Indiana, respectively.
James Davis married Mary Dawson, born near Chillicothe, Ohio, where her father, "Neddie" Dawson, was also born. Mary ( Dawson) Davis died in 1874, being the mother of Kate, who died at twenty-three years of age : Edward, of Kingfisher, Oklahoma: Dr. John T., Zillah, who
J. T. DAVIS, M. D.
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HISTORY OF MONTGOMERY COUNTY, KANSAS.
married Milton Keys and died in Benton county, Indiana, at the age of twenty-three; and Wesley, of Kansas City, Missouri.
At eighteen years of age. Dr. Davis left the home farm and all its peaceable and quiet environment. Ilis parents moved into Iroquois county, Illinois, in 1855, and Grand Prairie Seminary, at Onargo, Illi- nois, was where his literary education was obtained. He began life as a teacher in the country schools, followed it two years and then took up the study of medicine, with Dr. Gaston, of Ashgrove, Illinois. He entered the department of medicine in Ann Arbor University and graduated in medicine and surgery, in 1879. He located at Ambia, Indiana, where he was associated with Dr. J. M. G. Baird till 1880, when he closed his practice and came to Kansas. From 1881 to 1892, or eleven years, he was at the head of his profession in Elk City. The year following his advent to Independence, he took a post-graduate course in the Post- Graduate School of Medicine, Chicago, Illinois, and, since 1901, has had associated in practice with him, Dr. DeMott, firm of Davis & DeMott. In 1887, he was appointed Health Officer of Montgomery county, where he served twelve years, and, for eight years, he was a member of the Mont- gomery County Pension Board. While at Elk City, he was local surgeon for the Santa Fe Ry. and sustain's the same relation to the Missouri Pa- cific Ry. at Independence. He is a Republican, but never held or sought office.
May 1, 1883. Dr. Davis married Mattie Carson, of Elk City. She was a daughter of William Carson, whose memoir is preserved in the record of Lafayette Carson, in this volume. One child, Leita, born November 13. 1887. has been born to Dr. and Mrs. Davis.
Dr. Davis is a man of splendid business qualities and has managed his personal affairs well. His accumulations have been steady and his investments in real estate and in other lines, have demonstrated his keen foresight. He owns a farm of four hundred acres, on the Verdigris River, is the senior member of th drug firm of Davis & Calk, of Inde- pendence, and is a stockholder and one of the directors of the First Na- tional Bank. Dr. Davis resides in one of the most beautiful homes in this county, equipped with all the modern conveniences, at Ninth and Maple streets.
HORATIO TASKER-One of the recent and substantial settlers of Montgomery county is Horatio Tasker, of Tyro. His residence in Kan- sas dates from 1879, when he entered land in Gove county, patented it and resided on that western edge of the Kansas wheat belt. for eleven years. By his experience in this state and in the Indian Territory. he has been thoroughly assimilated and his ways are as purely western and adapted to western customs as though he had passed his majority be- tween the Mississippi and the Rockies.
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Mr. Tasker was married in Gove county. Kansas, March 3, 1886, his wife being Elmira Freas, whose parents, John and Susan (Campbell) Freas, migrated to Trego county, from Whiteside county, Illinois, in 1885. Mr. and Mrs. Freas were native to Pennsylvania. whence they settled in Whiteside county, Illinois, where Mrs. Tasker was born. May 28. 1866. Having moved about much, in their course from their native state toward the setting sun, Mr. and Mrs. Freas finally located in Inde- pendence, Kansas, where they now reside. Their five children are: Hor- ace, Mrs. S. A. Gibbons, Elmira Tasker, Ida and Mrs. Ed Harper. In 1890. Mr. Tasker disposed of his western interests and removed to the Indian Territory, where ten years were passed. at farming. on the do- main of the Red Man. in 1900, he came back into Kansas and purchased a farm near Tyro, which he has substantially improved and upon which he is devoting his time to stock and grain.
His start in life. Mr. Tasker acquired in the short grass country of Kansas. He settled away ont on the frontier and trusted to the elements and his industry to win him fortune. The elements occasionally failed to favor him, but his nerve never and he braved the difficulties till. when he departed from the fickle west, he had laid the foundation for his pres- ent independent condition. For the achievement of this beneficient re- sult, much credit is due to his helpful and encouraging companion. Wo- men are as brave, under trials, as men and, when the difficulties and dis- asters came, she supplied her own courage to pass through them.
Horatio Tasker was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, March 29, 1856. His father was James Tasker and his mother's maiden name was Lydia Hiles. The parents were both of English birth and came to the United States in 1841. The first four years of his residence in this country, James Tasker spent in New York state, where he supported his family at his trade of shoemaking. In 1845. he moved out to Milwaukee. Wis- consin. and continued his trade in the" Beer City" till 1881. when he fol- lowed his son to Kansas and to the Territory and back into Montgomery county, Kansas, where he died, in the fall of 1900, at eighty-one years of age. His wife died at the age of seventy-six. being the mother of two children : Horatio and Alfred H., the latter of whom died in 1901. Hora- tio Tasker was educated in the public schools of Milwaukee and learned the carpenter trade, following it a few years in the city. With his small accumulations he settled on a timber claim in the Kansas county before mentioned, determined to win his way in the world as a farmer.
By their marriage, Mr. and Mrs. Tasker have four children, namely : Elmira, Frances, John and Charles.
ALEXANDER B. POWELL-The career of the subject of this re- view covers a diversified field of activity and leads the reader to the con- clusion that his has been a busy life; that from early manhood to ap-
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proaching old age, he has continuously cansed something to be done. His prominence in Montgomery county is not the result of any distinction, as a pioneer, but as a sincere and devoted citizen, to the cause of his locality, whether commercial, political or official. Edgar county, Illinois, gave origin to Mr. Powell, on the 12th of November, 1838. His parents, Thomas M. and Lucretia (Dill) Powell, of Kentucky birth, came into the "Sneker State" from Kentucky, in 1835, and entered a tract of the public domain and passed their lives in the town of Paris, where the father worked at the blacksmith and carpenter trade. He was born in 1800 and died July 3, 1876. Hle and his wife were faithful members of the Christian church, of which he served as deacon and trustee. His wife died October 17, 1875, at sixty-three years of age. The issue of their mar- riage were: Alexander B., our subject ; Sue M., widow of C. W. Powell, of Paris, Illinois; and Zara E., of Paris, Edgar county, Illinois.
The education of A. B. Powell was gleaned from an attendance upon the common schools in his youth, and at the Paris Seminary, as he neared his majority. August 1, 1862, he enlisted in the Seventy-ninth Illinois Volunteer Infantry, and his command formed a part of the Army of the Cumberland. He was in engagements at Stone River. Missionary Ridge and Culps Farm ( while on detached duty), the latter being his last battle. Hle received the appointment of quartermaster-sergeant and per- formed those duties until his discharge from the service, at Nashville, June 27, 1864.
On leaving the army, he entered railroad work at Paris, Illinois, and resigned his position as agent to accept the clerkship of the Edgar County Court, to which he was elected for four years. Ilis reelection occurred with a satisfactory majority and he was the incumbent of the offiee from 1868 to 1876. He went next into the employ of the Midland Railway Company, as their superintendent and, in twenty months, re- signed and became cashier of the Edgar County National Bank, at Paris, and served the institution eleven months. Resigning, he went to Colo- rado and engaged in mining in Breckenridge district for about one year. He then went to Albuquerque. New Mexico, where he was employed, for a few months, by the Adams Express Company. Returning to the east, he engaged in contracting railroad ties at Indianapolis, Indiana, and was in that business some sixteen months. This work closed his career in the east and he came to Kansas, in the spring of 1882, and identified himself with Coffeyville.
In this city he is connected with the real estate, loan and abstract business. For four years, he served Coffeyville, as postmaster, and was widely bailed as the best official of the office the city ever had. He was appointed by President MeKinley and filled the position four years.
Mr. Powell was first married in April, 1862, to Ella Douglas, a daughter of J. T. Douglas, of Logansport, Indiana, who once had charge
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HISTORY OF MONTGOMERY COUNTY, KANSAS.
of the Bureau of Indian Affairs. Three sons resulted from this mar- riage. namely : John C., of Chicago, Illinois, manager. of the Associated Press and for twelve years in their employ ; Jesse M .. an engineer. resid- ing in Chicago; and Burt B., manager of the tailoring department of Burnam. Hanna & Munger, of Kansas City. November 9, 1882, Mr. Powell married, at Terre Haute, Indiana, Frances Rauschon. a native of Cologne, Germany. Two children by this union are : Lulu and Edward C. Mr. Powell is a Mason and holds a membership in the Blue Lodge. Chap- ter and Commandery. He is an ardent Republican in politics and has commanded Coffeyville Post 153. G. A. R.
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