USA > Kansas > Montgomery County > History of Montgomery County, Kansas > Part 81
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CHARLES JOYCE-A better or more favorably known citizen can- not be found in Independence than Charles Joyce, one of the proprietors
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HISTORY OF MONTGOMERY COUNTY, KANSAS.
of the Opera House Drug Store, and a son of one of the pioneer farmers of the county, William Joyce, now deceased. Our subject was a lad of but seven years when his parents moved to the county and is therefore entitled to be regarded as to the manner born. He received a good common school education and remained on the farm until he had passed three years beyond his majority. He then came to Independence and entered upon the work in which he has been so signally successful. He served in subordinate positions, first under F. F. Yoe for four years, then with Thomas Calk until 1898, when, in company with Drs. Surber and Masterman, he purchased a stock of drugs, the store having since been operated under the name of the "Opera House Drug Store." The stock represents a $9.000 outlay and is kept in first-class condition by constant supplies of new and fresh material.
Charles Joyce is a native of Indiana, born in Marion county, Septem- ber 27, 1864, the son of William and Margaret (Clark) Joyce. The father was a prominent merchant and stockman, having business interests near Indianapolis for a number of years. In the spring of 1871, he sold his interests in the "Hoosier State" and located on a farm in Independ- ence Twp., which he continued to cultivate with success until his death, which occurred Sept. 20, 1899, at the advanced age of eighty-one years. Our subjeet's mother had died March 17, 1896, at the age of sixty-five years. They were the parents of five children-Elmer, Mgr. of the Brown Supply Co., Coffeyville, Kan .; Charles. Thomas, Mgr. of the electric light plant at Galveston, Texas; Harry, deceased at 23 years; and Laura, wife of W. E. Morrison, a farmer of the county.
As before stated, Charles Joyce needs no encomiums in a work of this nature to exploit his good qualities to the people of Independence. His life has been an open book before them and there are few in the city but know his worth. By persistence and studions concentration on the object he set out to attain, he has become a leading member of the business community and an influential member of its social life. In Masonry he has taken the Blue Lodge, Chapter and Commandery degrees, being at present Senior Warden of the latter, and is also a member of the Mystic Shrine. He has for years been a prominent member of the Woodmen, in which he has passed through all the chairs. In the city's municipal life he has taken an active and intelligent interest, having been for the past four years member of the council from the. 1st ward. He is now living in the 5th ward and out of politics. In polities he supports the policies of the Republican party, and is regarded as splendid material for future official preferment, should he consent to the use of his name.
Marriage was contracted by our subject March 21, 1889, the other contracting party being Mrs. McKee, daughter of John Adams, a farmer of the county. To her were born three children-Ivy L., Bessie T., and May, the latter deceased at 18 months. The mother of these children
CHAS. JOYCE.
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died May 18, 1900, at the age of thirty-four. Mr. Joyce's present wife was Miss Cora M. Clark, daughter of Thomas A. and Emma (leCord) Clark. To this marriage one child, Mildred, has been born. Mrs. Joyce is a member of the Congregational church, and a lady whose natural gifts canse her to be regarded as a most valuable member of the best social life of the city.
CLARKSON EDGAR MORGAN-The subject of this brief biography is one of the modest farmers of the vicinity of Bolton. He has resided in Montgomery county since the month of August, 1881, and owns one hundred twelve acres of improved land in section 19, town- ship 33, range 15. He came to Kansas from Parke county, Indiana, where he was reared and limitedly educated in the country schools. His birth occurred near Plainfield. Hendricks county, Indiana, on the 29th of December, 1857. His father was Nathan Morgan and his mother was Amy Doan, a daughter of Washington Doan, one of the early settlers of Parke county, Indiana. The father was born in Tennessee, April 21, 1831, moved to Indiana as a boy with his parents and passed his life in rural pursuits. Ilis efforts were fairly successful and he died at his old Indiana home at the age of seventy-one years. His first wife passed away and he married Arminta Doan. His children numbered seven, the first six following being the issue of his first marriage, viz: Lydia, wife of Joseph Bly, of Hendricks county, Indiana; Clarkson, deceased; C. Edgar, our subject; Elizabeth Ellen, who married Henry Hadley and resides in Parke county, Indiana; Thomas, deceased; Rev. Everett, who is doing evangelistic work in behalf of the Friends' church in Old Mexico; and Otto, the youngest and son of the second marriage of Nathan Morgan.
C. E. Morgan, of this notice, was a son of a farmer, was brought up on the farm and has made farming largely his life occupation. After he had finished his career in the country schools he learned the black- smith's trade at Sylvania, Indiana, in the shop with his uncle, James Doan. He was engaged at his trade some seven years, to the exclusion of all other work, and maintains a small shop on his farm in Mont- gomery county simply for the economy it brings in the administration of his rural affairs.
On coming into Kansas, Mr. Morgan's resources were most limited. He accompanied his father-in-law hither and packed his few house. hold effects in the same car with the latter's, and thus avoided the freight. When he had reached his destination thirty-five dollars in cash constituted his capital with which to begin life anew. The first two years he passed in he home of his wife's father and with the labor of his hands provided his family with little more than their physical wants. At this juneinre he acquired "an old team" and soon afterward
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traded for five acres of land, his first substantial possessions in Kansas. His labors brought prosperity in a limited way and as the condition of his purse warranted he has expanded his real estate area till his homestead includes nearly three forties of land on Onion creek.
Mr. Morgan was married in Parke county, Indiana, January 21, 1879, his wife being Ruth Josephine, a daughter of Rev. Isaac Lindley, whose history appears elsewhere in this volume. Mrs. Morgan was born in Parke county, Indiana, January 17, 1861, and is the mother of the following sons and daughters, viz: Wm. H., born Oct. 28, 1879; Lizzie E., born August 20, 1882; Gertrude May, born May 8, 1884; Orie Ann. born Feb. 12, 1890; Leon E., born Nov. 23, 1894, and Lois A., born December 28, 1897.
In political belief the Morgans of this record were originally Repub- licans. Our subject cast his first presidential vote for R. B. Hayes and gave the Republican party his sympathy and support till the period of political reform of 1890, and later, brought a new party into existence, when he allied himself with its friends and made common cause for labor and its just reward.
NOAH E. BOUTON-The honored citizen and worthy townsman whose name heads this review came as a pioneer to Montgomery county in 1870. lle was then but twenty years old and he settled three miles northeast of where Cherryvale was afterward located. Here he cast his maiden vote and struck the initial licks of his long and honored career in the county. For thirty years he was occupied with the reduction and improvement of his homestead and then sold it and invested in the farm on which he resides, four miles north of the metropolis of Cherry township.
November 29, 1849, Noah E. Bouton was born in Delaware county, New York. His father was Noah E. Bouton and his mother Mary Todd, both natives of the same county in New York. The father was an iron moulder, and also a carpenter, and, in 1871, came to Labette county, Kansas, where he passed away at eighty-seven years old. His wife, who died early in life, bore him fifteen children, only five of whom now sur- vive, namely: Deborah Smalley, of Wilson county, Kansas; Mrs. Sarah Hinkley, Mrs. Adaline Whitbeck, Mrs. JJosephine Stockdale and Noah E., the subject of this article.
The loss of his mother in his childhood caused Noah E. Bouton 10 make his home with his oldest sister while growing up. He learned the carpenter trade on the approach of manhood and began life a mechanic. He acquired a country school education in Kankakee county Illinois, to which place he went in 1850, along with the family. July 4, 1867, he was married to Elizabeth Phares, a lady born in Tipton county. Indiana. Two years after their marriage Mr. and Mrs. Bouton turned their steps toward the untamed prairies of Kansas and established them-
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HISTORY OF MONTGOMERY COUNTY, KANSAS.
selves in Montgomery county. Here Mrs. Bouton died in 1875, at twenty- eight years of age, without issue. August 27, 1876, he married Lucy V. Yeager, who came to Kansas in 1869 From her birthplace in lowa. She was a daughter of A. B. and Adda Yeager, the present Deputy Probate Judge of Montgomery county. The Yeager children were four in number: Edward C., Clara T., Mrs. Bouton, and Frank, deceased.
Mrs. Bouton's residence on the frontier near the lines of Mont- gomery and Labette counties brought her into close proximity to the notorious Bender family. She knew John and Kate well and became familiar with their turnout as it passed to and fro past the Yeager home to Cherryvale. When the gory discovery was finally made in the Bender orchard. Mr. and Mrs. Bouton were on the ground and saw the bodies of their victims exhumed.
When Mr. Bouton came to Montgomery county the claim which he took was widely separated from civilization. Independence was their trading point and it contained no semblance of a town for a year after- ward. Erie was the point where he went to mill and he occasionally hanled stuff from Ft. Scott and Humboldt.
In the politics of the county Mr. Bonton has ever taken a lively interest. He has frequently been honored with public office, being elected Trustee of Cherry township three terms. County Commissioner by election from 1886 to 1893 and Probate Judge of the county from 1895 to 1897. He is a radical Republican and a popular party man.
Mr. and Mrs. Bouton's family consisted of six children, namely: Adda L. and Charles, both deceased: Amanda E., wife of Guy B. Dart- nell, of Cherryvale; Hibbard, deceased; Freddie O. and Olla Bell.
JAMES J. MORRIS-In sections two and eleven, township 33, range 14. James J. Morris, of this review, maintains his home. His settlement in the county dates from the year 1880, and his residence in Rutland township began with that year. Five hundred and sixty acres comprises his farm and its physical condition is the pleasing out- come of twenty-three years of ceaseless and undiminished effort. He represents the progressive rural element of our population and, in his way, has contributed to the warp and woof of our local civilization.
James J. Morris was, it seems, decreed by fate to pass his life in Montgomery county. It was in that county he was born, in Indiana, Sept. 11, 1838. and in no other county, save the one where he now resides, has he had a home, except short periods spent in Pulaski and Clinton counties, Ind. His father, John J. Morris, was a native of Butler county, Ohio, and came into Indiana during the first third of the nineteenth century. William Morris, grandfather of our subject, was a Virginian by birth and had children: William, James, George W., John, Mrs. Emma Timmerman, Mrs. Betsy Curry and Lovina. John
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Morris and Lucinda Hagerman, of Butler county, Ohio, became man and wife and reared a family of nine children, as follows: James J., our subject; Sarah, wife of Marion Scott; Mrs. Jane Brant, Mrs. Emma Robinson, John. of Montgomery county; Mrs. Martha Reis, of Indiana; George, of Col .; Mrs. Margaret Tony lives in Missouri; Joseph, of Indiana. and Mrs. Armilda Fuller, of Missouri.
In 1558, James J. Morris married Martha J. Roush, a native of Clinton county, Ohio, and a daughter of Sebastian and Amanda (John- son) Roush. Seven children have come to bless the home of Mr. and Mrs. Morris, viz: Sarah, wife of William Haish, of Montgomery county, with children: George and Melvin; John, of Montgomery county, with one child. James: Mrs. Amanda Degarmore, of Montgomery county, with children : Minnie, Frances, Leslie, Oscar, Ed. Ophie, Ora, James and Nora Jane, twins; Charles, of Montgomery county; George, of the same county, with children : JJames and Myrtle; Joseph, with children : Walter and Vivian: Mrs. Emma Peaper, of Independence, Kansas, with three children : Christie, Martha and Harry. Of Mr. and Mrs. Morris' children. John and Amanda are twins.
When Mr. and Mrs. Morris launched their little craft upon the sea of life their capital amounted simply to their energy and their deter- mination to win. While pursuing the even tenor of their way they have filled a niche in the social and business world of their community and have risen by regular steps to a position of financial independence.
LEWIS A. RUNDELL-In this utilitarian age when the trend of population is so largely toward the great cities, it is gratifying to note the success of those young men who have resisted the temptation 10 leave the farm and are engaged in the noble occupation from whose ranks have risen some of the greatest men which this country has produced. All honor to them; and may they so instill into the minds of their progeny a love for the soil that the tinsel of city life will have but the effect of turning their minds the more contentedly to furrow and field. The gentleman whose name initiates this paragraph is a product of Montgomery's schools and rural society and is a fit repre- sentative of that stirring and energetic young manhood for which the county is famous.
Mr. Rundell was born in Charleston, Mo., in the year 1871, and is the son of one of the county's most respected yeomen, Mr. Levi E. Run- dell and his wife, nee Miss Mary King. The father was born in the State of Mississippi, September 4, 1831. Having lost his parents early in life, Mr. Rundell, at the age of fifteen years, went up the river to Madison Co., Illinois, where he engaged in farming for a period of some twenty years. It was here that he met and married his wife. They. later, removed to Charleston, Mo., and in 1874, located a mile and a half
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HISTORY OF MONTGOMERY COUNTY, KANSAS.
east of Independence, near where they now reside. Levi Rundell is a man whose citizenship at all times has lacked nothing of those essential qualities necessary in the framework of a peace-loving and law-abiding community and his friends in the county are legion.
Lewis, the son, is "a chip off the old block," and is daily proving his right to the good will which is his by inheritance. He was given a good district school education and when he came to years of discretion began farming on his own account. In 1899, he purchased the farm he now cultivates. It lies 4 1-2 miles cast and I mite south of Inde- pendence and consists of 220 acres of as good farming land as may be found in the county. He is fast bringing this farm into a high state of cultivation and as time passes is adding substantial improvements. No young farmer of the county bas a brighter financial outlook, and none stands higher in the general estimation.
Marriage was entered into by Mr. Rundell in 1895. Mrs. Rundell was Hesfer A. G. Madden, and she is the daughter of John and Keturah (Matsler) Madden, respected farmers of the county. She is the mother of three bright and healthy children whose respective names are: Levi, seven; Lewis, four; and Lloyd, one year of age.
In religious belief Mr. and Mrs. Rundell are Methodists, being workers in and liberal supporters of that denomination, while in politi- cal matters the party founded by the greatest of all statesmen. Thomas Jefferson, receives the suffrage of our honored subject.
HENRY N. BUNDY-The gentleman here mentioned is one of the leading business men of the prosperous community of Liberty, where he has conducted a drug store since 1895, and during this time he has been prominent in the development of this section of the county, and is always in the front of every cause which has for its object the uplifting of humanity and the building up of his community.
Mr. Bundy is a native of Indiana, where he was born, in Parke county, in the year 1861. The name of his father was P. II. Bundy and that of his mother, Rachell Caschatt. Mr. Bundy was reared to farm life, receiving a district school education, together with some further scholastic training at Annapolis, a town of his native county and near which his father was one of the prominent farmers. Our sub- jeef remained under the home roof until he had attained his majority and in the fall of 1882 came to Liberty, K's., where he engaged in the drug business. In the following spring Mr. Bundy's parents came to Liberty, where for the following twelve years they engaged in the hotel business. In 1895, they purchased a farm in the township, where the husband still resides, the mother having died in 1895. There were four children in the family: W. E. Bundy. a physician, living in Iona, Jewell county. Kansas, married Ella Cook, and has two children, Clyde
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and True: Jenny, who married John Green of Illinois, now a County Commissioner in that state, residing at Palmer, Ils.
Our subjeet was the youngest of the family. He married Emma Nicholson, of Goodland, Newton county, Indiana. Mrs. Bondy is the mother of four children; Myrtle, born, January 18, 1889; Ralph, Jan- nary 29. 1893; Hazel, Oct. 22, 1896; and Kenneth, November 2, 1899.
Mr. and Mrs. Bundy are leading factors in the social life of Liberty, where they are regarded with very great respect. Mr. Bundy is a member of the Masonic fraternity and in political matters affiliates and votes with the Republican party, in the local councils of which he is regarded with much favor. He is a gentleman of attractive personality and his business relations with his large trade is of the best character.
FRANCIS M. SURFACE-The successful young farmer whose name introduces this brief personal sketch, represents one of the worthy families of Montgomery county whose advent hither dates from the year 1881. le came here as a school-boy and has grown up an excellent speciment of a genuine Kansan. As a youth he developed the elements that have contributed to his success in life and as a man his achieve- ments and his personal worth are fit to be emulated by his posterity.
Francis M. Surface is a native of the Buckeye State. He was born in Darke county, Ohio, March 22, 1871. His father, Adam J. Surface, was born in 1818 and is a venerable retired citizen of Inde- pendence township. The latter brought his family to Kansas in 1881 and settled on a tract of land in section 12, township 33, range 15, pur- chased of L. A. Walker, well known as a citizen of the locality. The senior Surface has been an active, hearty man all his long life and went into semi-retirement only after he had acquired a competency sufficient to provide for his comfort in his decline. He was an active Republican in his earlier life and was frequently seen in county con- ventions as a delegate from his township. For his wife he married Elizabeth Snyder. The children of this marriage were: James, who was drwned in Elk river, Montgomery county, in Angust, 1897, and left three children; Jane, wife of Free Thompson, of Kansas City. Mo .; Elizabeth, who married William Godwin, of Bolton, Kansas; Francis M., onr subject; Charles 1., of Montgomery Co .: Clara, wife of Lincoln Thompson, of lola, Kansas, and John, deceased.
The subject of this review was educated in the common schools of Montgomery county and remained a companion of the domestic fireside till twenty-two years of age. He married then, Miss Minnie Buck, a daughter of Isaae Buek, of the Indian Territory, but formerly from Indiana. Mrs. Surface was born in the month of June, 1873. and was married to Frank M. Surface, January 22, 1893. She is the mother of three children, as follows: Marion, Fred and Hattie.
F. M. SURFACE AND WIFE.
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HISTORY OF MONTGOMERY COUNTY, KANSAS.
Frank Surface began life with a disposition to work as his chief capital. Soon after his marriage he purchased, on payment, a part of the home farm, has discharged every obligation and owns another eighty of land besides. Ile has simply done the best he could with the opportunities afforded him and is regarded one of the substantial young farmers of his community. In other words, he and his wife started in life without a dollar and after about ten years of married life have accumulated one-fourth section of land, as line a farm as can be found anywhere, entirely paid for, with fine residence, out buildings, etc.
NAPOLEON DURAND-In the career of our subject is exemplified the trite adage-"labor has its sure reward." The proverb is strik- ingly true in this instance, applying, as it does, to one thrown upon the world in boyhood without the power of money or the prestige of influential friends behind him and being able, with his hands, to work out a destiny that shall some day class him among the successful self- made men. A victim of parental indigence in childhood and hampered by the lack of opportunity for an education, but endowed with intelli- genee and a strong physique, he met the world with these simple forces and dug his way, by slow processes, into a creditable position among the honorable men of his community.
The Durands were, as the name suggests, of French origin. The paternal grandfather of Napoleon Durand was a native Frenchman who settled his family in New York state where Brazil, the father of our subject. was born. The latter came to Illinois when a young man and located near Kankakee, where he married Catherine Detour, an Illinois lady of French parents. In 1874, his wife died leaving three children : Catherine, wife of Lee Detour, of Guide Rock, Nebraska; Napoleon, of this notice and Edward. Brazil Durand demonstrated his patriotism by his enlistment in an Illinois regiment for service in the Civil war and saw much of the hard fighting of the first three years of the war. Ile belonged to Rosecrans' army and was in the fight at Stone River and on the Atlanta campaign. When the war was over he returned to the work of the farm and left Illinois in 1879 to become a citizen of Kansas. ITe settled a piece of railroad land five miles northwest of Humboldt, in Allen county, and for tive years labored. almost without resources, in the improvement and cultivation of his place. He sold out in 1884 and located in Coffeyville, Kansas, from which point he made a prospecting four of the northwest in search of a more favorable location, and while in Helena, Montana, died. at fifty years of age.
Before his departure from Illinois, Brazil Durand married Jennie Berk. a French lady. by whom two daughters. Bertha and May. were born. The former is Mrs. Yingling. of Chicago, and the latter Mrs. Edward G. Snyder, of Oklahoma.
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HISTORY OF MONTGOMERY COUNTY, KANSAS.
At the age of thirteen years Napoleon Durand undertook the responsibility of his own support. He was a good stout boy, with a good mental balance and manly bearing, but with education greatly neglected. Farm work was what he was equipped for and this he went at with a vim. His monthly stipend was not very large but it served to give him encouragement and good clothes for his back and some money in his pocket. Wherever he worked he was liked as one of the family and he always left his place with his employer's regret. For several years he remained near the towns of Humboldt or lola but in 1891, he went to Colorado and spent two years on a ranch in the San Lonis Valley. He returned to Kansas in 1893, was married soon after and began married life on a farm near Havana in Mont- gomery county. In two years he fell able to venture to buy a farm and he did so. owning and cultivating it until 1898, when he sold it and moved to Cherryvale where he has since made his home.
His twelve years' experience as a hired man were of value to him in gaining knowledge of men, and in the transaction of business in later life has enabled him to cope successfully with his peers. In the Farmers' Oil and Gas Company of Cherryvale, he is a stockholder and the development of their leases has proven their holdings to have a substantial value.
November 26, 1893, Napoleon Durand and Nettie Robinson were married. Mrs. Porand is a daughter of the Rev. Joseph I. Robinson, of Sedan, Kansas, who brought his family to the "Sunflower State" in Sept., 1875, and settled in Montgomery county. Mr. Robinson was born in Pennsylvania, August 19, 1827, and married. in Ohio, Ruth Ann Markley, born in Ohio, February 13. 1829. About 1860, Mr. and Mrs. Robinson moved to Illinois where their daughter Nettie was born July 2, 1870. Mr. Robinson engaged in the ministry in the prime of life and continued it till his superannuation in recent years. His home was on his farm near Havana for many years and there he brought up his family. as follows: Cecil C., Charles H., John T., William O., and Nettie A., Mrs. Durand.
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