USA > Kansas > Reno County > History of Reno County, Kansas; its people, industries and institutions, Volume II > Part 10
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JOHN WESLEY GLASS.
John Wesley Glass, a well-known and prosperous farmer of Lincoln township, this county, now practically retired from the active labors of the farm, is a native of the great Keystone state, having been born in Franklin county, Pennsylvania, April 17, 1853, son of Jacob and Sarah Ann (Guth- rie) Glass, both natives of that same county and who spent their lives there.
Jacob Glass was a son of George and Hannah Glass, natives of Ger- many, who came with their respective parents to America in their child- hood, both families settling in Franklin county. George Glass was a soldier in the patriot army during the Revolutionary War, and John W. Glass has the watch which his grandfather bought in Baltimore the day he was mus- tered out of the service at the close of the war in 1783. George Glass was a carpenter, and both he and his wife had been reared in the Mennonite faith, though in later life they were earnest adherents of the Methodist church. He lived to the great age of one hundred and six years, and his wife lived to be ninety-six. Jacob Glass learned the mason's trade in his youth and became a very competent craftsman, in after years becoming a very successful contractor in that line. He married Sarah Ann Guthrie, a neighbor girl, who was born in Franklin county, Pennsylvania, daughter of James P. and Isabelle Catherine (Wagonseller ) Guthrie, natives of England, who came to America, settling in Chester county, Pennsylvania, later mor- ing to Franklin county, same state, and both of whom died in Chambersburg.
When the Civil War broke out Jacob Glass enlisted in Company A. One Hundred and Twenty-sixth Regiment, Pennsylvania Volunteer Infan- try, attached to Hancock's Brigade, with which he served for nine months.
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at the end of which time he enlisted with a veteran regiment, with which he served to the end of the war, his regiment having been engaged in such noted battles as those of Antietam, Gettysburg and Chancellorsville. During the time of the rebel invasion of Pennsylvania the city of Chambersburg was burned by the invaders and after the war Jacob Glass filled large con- tracts for mason work in connection with the rebuilding of the city, having twenty-five or thirty men working under him for years. The battle of Gettysburg was fought within twelve miles of the Glass home and the roar of the battle shook the windows of the house. John W. Glass then was but ten years old, but he was taking an active part on the outskirts of the desperate struggle between the two mighty armies and succeeded in cap- turing a gun from a straggling rebel soldier who was on the way to the battle and he still has that gun, in proof of his claim that although only ten years old at the time he silenced one rebel gun at Gettysburg. After the battle the lad carried water to the wounded on the battlefield, vivid memor- ies of that great battle still being retained by Mr. Glass.
In 1859 Jacob Glass had bought a farm at the edge of the town of Scotland, in Franklin county, and moved his family onto that place, which was the family home for years. In their declining years, Jacob Glass and wife moved to Green village, that same county, and there spent their last days, the former dying in October, 1896, at the age of seventy-eight, and the latter in 1903, at the age of eighty-six. Both were life-long members of the Methodist church, in which faith their children were reared, and Jacob Glass had been for many years both a trustee and a steward of the church. He was a Republican and had served very efficiently as sheriff of Franklin county. He and his wife were the parents of nine children, as follow: James A., who was shot and killed by a rebel spy at his home ; Isabelle Catherine, who married John J. Allen, both now dead : George A., a bachelor, who died at Hagerstown, Maryland, at the age of sixty-two; Jacob W .. a Maryland merchant, now deceased; John W., the immediate subject of this biographical sketch; Hannah Jane, who died in infancy; Sarah Elizabeth, who died at the age of fifteen years: Charles S., a mer- chant, who died at Greencastle, Pennsylvania, in October, 1915, and Will- iam E., a merchant of Scotland, Pennsylvania.
John W. Glass received his early education in the school in the neigh- borhood of his home and all his life has added to that by wide reading and close observation until he is regarded as a very well-informed man. He has traveled quite extensively and has had a varied experience. He claims the distinction of being the only man in Reno county who has met every
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President of the United States from Lincoln to Wilson and has shaken hands with all save Mr. Taft, the latter of whom was nursing a badly bruised hand, the result of too much handshaking during a previous recep- tion, at the time he had the honor of meeting him. At the age of twenty years, Mr. Glass left home and started firing a locomotive on the Pennsyl- vania railroad between Harrisburg and Altoona. After about eighteen months thus engaged he was caught in a nasty wreck and decided that the life of a railroader was not the life for him. After reaching that conclu- sion, Mr. Glass pursued the less hazardous life of a farmer for thirteen months, working as a farm hand on farms in Mahoning and Stark counties, Ohio, and in March, 1875, went to Richwood, in Union county, same state, and worked on a farm in that neighborhood until the following October. at which time he rented a farm near Prospect, Marion county. In 1877 he married the niece of the man who owned the farm and continued to make his home on that place until 1881, in which year he moved to Prospect, where he was engaged in the mercantile business until January 1, 1886. He then sold his store and came to Kansas, settling in Meade county, where he pre-empted a quarter of a section of land, which he "proved up" and sold, and in the fall of 1887 moved to the town of Meade, where he opened a general store, which he conducted until March 1, 1890, on which date he sold out and came to this county, locating at Hutchinson, where he bought the Daniel Sickling meat market, at 10 South Main street, which he sold in the spring of 1891 and began working in the Hutchinson packing house, soon being promoted to the position of foreman in the same, and was thus engaged until 1894, in which year he engaged in the feed business at 4 South Main street, in the same city. In October, of that same year, he sold his feed store and rented the E. L. Myers farm in Reno township, where he made his home for five years, at the end of which time, in the spring of 1905, he moved to a farm in Lincoln township that he had bought the previous fall, the same being one-quarter of section 18, in that township. and there he has made his home ever since, being very well established and quite comfortably situated. Upon taking possession he built a good farm house on his place and in 1910 built a fine, modern. concrete barn, which he declares is as thoroughly finished and as well equipped as any barn in the county. Upon engaging seriously in the agricultural business, Mr. Glass went into the registered Shorthorn cattle business, also raising and market- ing some mules, and has made money out of his live-stock undertakings, besides being very successful in his general farming operations, being now regarded as one of the substantial farmers in his part of the county. In
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April, 1915, Mr. Glass was struck by an automobile and severely injured, the result of his injuries having left him so painfully crippled that he now is practically retired from the active labors of his farm, though still pos- sessed of his old ability as a manager and director of affairs thereon.
On December 9. 1877. John W. Glass was united in marriage to Emma A. Freeman, who was born in Marion county, Ohio, daughter of Alvin A. and Louisa ( Rush) Freeman, the former of whom was born in Marion county, Ohio, and the latter on the Atlantic ocean while her parents were coming to this country, and to this union the following children have been born, namely: Charles Orlando, born on April 27. 1881, who married Gertrude Minner, and is now a successful building contractor at Tampa. Florida ; Lulu. August 23, 1883, who married C. E. V. Coleman and lives in Reno township, this county: Welcome E., April 1. 1886, who married Marjorie Graves and lives in Reno township: Hazel, July 29, 1888, who married A. G. Siegrist and lives in Reno township: Jacob Winfield, Decem- ber 8, 1890, a teacher in the Reno county schools, who makes his home with his parents, and Mabel Juanita, May 13, 1893, also a school teacher, who lives at home. Mr. and Mrs. Glass are earnest members of the Methodist church and their children have been reared in that faith. Mr. Glass has been a class leader in the Methodist church continuously since 1875 and upon moving to Reno township, in 1900, assisted in a Sunday school which had been organized in the Poplar school house. ' Out of that well-directed move- ment grew the organization of the Poplar Methodist Episcopal church, and for eight years after the church was built he served very earnestly and very efficiently as president of the board of trustees of the church. Mr. and Mrs. Glass for years have been regarded as among the leaders in the community life of their neighborhood and they and their family are held in high esteem throughout that entire section of the county. Mr. Glass is a Republican and ever has given a good citizen's attention to the political affairs of the county, though never having been included in the office-seeking class.
HECTOR KENNETH MCLEOD.
Though a comparatively newcomer in Reno county. H. K. McLeod, president of the Reno State Bank at Hutchinson, has firmly established him- self in the regard of those connected with the commercial and financial circles of this county and is being generally recognized as one of the leading financiers of this section of the state.
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Hector Kenneth McLeod was born in Prince Edward Island, Canada, on September 25, 1868, son of Donald and Anne ( Mckenzie ) McLeod, both natives of that same place, the former born on January 20, 1826, and the latter October 10, 1836, and both are still living. Donald McLeod is the son of Angus McLeod, and Anne ( Mckenzie) McLeod is the daughter of Hector Kenneth Mckenzie, both born and reared near Belfast, Ireland, of Scotch Highlander descent and both of whom were elders in the Presbyter- ian church for more than fifty years. In 1804 Angus McLeod and Hector Kenneth Mckenzie emigrated, with their respective families, to Prince Ed- ward Island, landing from the good ship "Polly," that having been about the time the French were driven out of Arcadia, an event made famous by Longfellow's "Evangeline," and there both the McLeods and the Mckenzies became farming people.
Donald McLeod was reared on the paternal farm in Prince Edward Island and upon reaching manhood engaged in the mercantile business at Eldon, in his native island, and he and his wife still live there, though he has been retired from business for the past thirty years. He has been an elder in the Presbyterian church for the past forty-five years and is regarded as one of the leaders in his community. He and his wife have a very pleas- ant home and one hundred acres of land. To them four children were born, namely: Rev. M. J. McLeod, pastor of St. Nicholas German Re- formed church in New York City, established in 1728, the oldest church in that city, and attended by the old Dutch families of Gothani's "400;" Davina, who married Dr. Harry D. Johnson and lives at Charlottetown ; Hector Kenneth, the immediate subject of this biographical sketch, and Ada Belle, who married Arthur G. Putnam, manager of the Royal Bank at Van- couver, British Columbia.
Hector Kenneth McLeod, in the days of his youth, spent his school vacations in the store of his father, acquiring an excellent commercial edu- cation. The schooling he received in the public schools of his home town was supplemented by a course at Prince of Wales College, from which he was graduated in 1890, after which he became connected with the legal department of the Phoenix Insurance Company, of Brooklyn, New York. and was stationed in the company's offices at Chicago, where he remained until 1899. In the meantime he had been sedulously pursuing his legal studies, and in 1898 he was graduated from the Chicago College of Law. In 1899 he came to Kansas, locating at Ellis, where he organized the Ellis State Bank and was at the head of the same, acting as cashier for thirteen years, at the end of which time, in 1913, he bought an interest in the Reno
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State Bank, of Hutchinson, this county, and was made vice-president of the same. He then moved to Hutchinson and on January 1, 1915, was elected president of the bank. Upon leaving Ellis, Mr. McLeod did not sever his connection with the Ellis State Bank, and is now vice-president of that institution.
On June 26. 1901, Hector Kenneth McLeod was united in marriage to Helen E. Burbank, who was born in Montreal, Canada, daughter of Robert and Emily Burbank, who came to Kansas in 1890, settling at Ellis, where Robert Burbank, who is now deceased, was for some years engaged in mercantile business, and where his widow is still living. To Mr. and Mrs. McLeod two children have been born, Donald Angus, born on September 3. 1903, and Hector Kenneth, Jr., May 10, 1907.
SAMUEL D. GASTON.
To the late Samuel D. Gaston, for many years a prominent farmer and cattleman of this county, belonged the honor of having been the first homesteader south of the Arkansas river in Reno county. When he filed his claim there the stakes marking the site of the city of Hutchinson had not yet been driven and the county had not yet been organized. He took a leading part in the development of social and economic conditions in his neighborhood and was a substantial and useful citizen, whose memory ever will be cherished thereabout.
Samuel D. Gaston was born in the county of Wheeling, Virginia (now West Virginia), April 24, 1827, son of John and Mary (Farris) Gaston, it that the ancestor of the Gaston family in America was a younger brother of a king of France, and held a stronghold in northern France. The king both natives of that state, members of old colonial families. Tradition has sent a strong force against him, but he and his followers defeated the king's forces, routing them utterly. Gaston knew, however, that his victory was only temporary; that he could not long hold out against the resources of France, and believing that discretion was the better part of valor, crossed the channel and found refuge in Ireland, becoming there the founder of a numerous family, a descendant of one branch of which emigrated to Ameri- ca in an early day in the settlement of the colonies and became the founder of the family in this country. John Gaston was reared a farmer in Virginia and there married Mary Farris, some years later, when his son, Samuel D.
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was a child, locating in Delaware county, Ohio, where he and his wife spent the remainder of their lives. They were earnest members of the Presby- terian church and their children were reared in that faith.
Samuel D. Gaston was reared on a farm in Delaware county, Ohio, and was married in that neighborhood. Shortly thereafter`he moved to Illinois, his elder brother having previously established a large stock farm in McLean county, that state, and after a sometime residence in that county moved over into Logan county, same state, where he bought a farm, where he remained until he and his family came to Kansas in the spring of 1871. Upon arriv- in this state the Gastons settled at Paoli, in Miami county, where they spent the season. In August, of that year, Samuel D. Gaston came over into the section now comprised in Reno county, hunting buffaloes. He was so well pleased with the appearance of the land hereabout that he filed a homestead claim on the southwest quarter of sction 4, township 24, range 5 west, which, when the county was later organized, lay in Lincoln township, and in 1914, upon the organization of Yoder township, became a part of the latter township. Samuel D. Gaston's claim was the first filed on land south of the river in Reno county. At that time there was not even a shack on the site of the present flourishing city of Hutchinson and the county had not been organized. Upon filing his claim, Mr. Gaston built a sod shanty on his tract and then returned to Paoli, where he wintered with his family. In the following February he and his eldest son, S. Clinton Gaston, started for Reno county, and on March 2, 1872, reached their homestead. Mr. Gaston found that a party of Texas cowboys who had been herding cattle in that locality had taken possession of his sod shanty, but there was no diffi- culty in establishing his rights and he set about preparing the place for the reception of his family, his wife and the other children joining him and his eldest son in the little sod shanty on the plain in May. There Samuel D. Gaston established his home, later erecting a more suitable residence, which. in 1893, he supplanted by the fine, large house which now marks the home- stead, and there he spent the rest of his life, becoming a prosperous farmer and cattleman. He started his herd in 1874 and for years was actively engaged in cattle raising, in which he did well, at the time of his death. in June, 1904, being regarded as one of the most substantial citizens of that part of the county.
In 1854 Samuel D. Gaston was united in marriage in Ohio to Hester A. White, who was born in Morrow county, that state, daughter of Tim- othy and Sarah White, natives of Ohio, the former of whom was a well-
(8a)
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known practicing physician in that section, who later moved from Ohio to Missouri, thence to Illinois and thence to Paoli, Kansas, where Mrs. White died, Doctor White's last days being spent at the home of his daughter, Mrs. Gaston, in this county. To Samuel D. and Hester A. (White) Gaston seven children were born, as follow: Samuel Clinton, who is managing the old home farm in Yoder township; Ida, now deceased, who married David Taylor, of Hutchinson, this county; William E., who is engaged in the life insurance business at Wichita, this state; Alice, who married Harry Wainer, a well-known farmer of Lincoln township, this county; John Wal- ter, an extensive wheat farmer, of Pawnee county, this state; Grace, who married A. H. McHarg, a Lincoln township farmer, and Lee, unmarried, who lives with his eldest brother on the old home farm. Mrs. Hester A. Gaston, widow of Samuel D. Gaston, died on October 17, 1915.
Samuel Clinton Gaston, eldest son of Samuel D. and Hester A. (White) Gaston, was born in Dalaware county, Ohio, in 1855, and received his early education in the district school in the neighborhood of his home there. He was fifteen years old when he came to this county with his father, and thus may be regarded as one of the very earliest settlers of Reno county. He went through all the hardships of pioneer life hereabout and has witnessed the complete development of this region from its primitive state to its present high state of cultivation. He has a distinct recollection of the days when the Santa Fe construction crew was driving the grade stakes along the line of the road where the populous city of Hutchinson is now situated, but on which there was then not a sign of the coming city, and also recalls having seen C. C. Hutchinson, founder of the city of Hutchinson, at Har- ner's shack on the north side of the river, before Hutchinson had decided where to set the stakes for the city he even then had in his mind's eye. The elder Gaston was much troubled with rheumatism and even from the days of his young manhood, S. C. Gaston took a lead in the work of developing the homestead. In 1902 he opened a general store in the new town of Yoder and was appointed first postmaster of that village, but the next year returned to the farm where he ever since has continued to reside. He is unmarried and he and his youngest brother, Lce, quite successfully "bach it" together in the old home. For several years they were engaged in the wholesale dairy business, with a fine herd of Jerseys. S. C. Gaston is an active and influential Republican and was elected first trustee of Yoder township upon the creation of that civic umnit in 1914. He takes an earnest interest in general public affairs and is looked upon as a substantial and progressive citizen.
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DAVID E. RICHHART.
. David E. Richhart, a well-known nad well-to-do farmer of this county, now living at Nickerson, is a native of Illinois, having been born on a farm near Jacksonville, that state, November 2. 1855, son of Henry and Betty (Taylor) Richhart, the former a native of Ohio and the latter of England, who became pioneer residents of this county, where their last days were spent.
Henry Richhart, an honored veteran of the Civil War, was born near Chillicothe, in Ross county, Ohio, September 27, 1829, son of Henry and Susanna Richhart, natives of Pennsylvania, and farming people, who moved to Ohio in early days and spent the rest of their lives in the Chillicothe neighborhood. They were members of the Methodist church and substan- tial people in that community. The younger Henry Richhart was reared in Ohio and when a young man moved to Illinois, where he became a farmer. On February 10, 1852, he married, at Aaronsville, that state, Betty Taylor, who was born in England on May 9, 1834, and who was seven years old when her parents, Ernest and Alice Taylor, came to this country from England, landing at New Orleans in 1841 and making their way up the river to Illinois, where they entered a homestead of eighty acres and spent the rest of their lives there. In August, 1861, Henry Richhart enlisted for service in the Civil War in the Twenty-first Regiment, Missouri Volunteer Infantry, with which he served for three years and seven months. He was in the battles of Bull Run, Vicksburg, Chattanooga, Charleston and a number of other important engagements, besides marching with Sherman to the sea and from the effects of powder burns lost his sight. In 1873 he and his family came from Illinois to Kansas and he homesteaded a tract of land on the border between Reno and Rice counties, part of the land lying in each county, and there he established his home, remaining there until 1880, in which year he and his wife retired from the farm and moved to Nickerson, where their last days were spent. her death occurring on May 14, 1903, and his on May 9, 1906. Both were earnest members of the Methodist church and were among the organizers of a church of that denom- ination in their neighborhood in pioneer days, Henry Richhart serving as a trusteee of the same to the time of his death. For years also he was a justice of the peace and did his part well in the pioneer community. To him and his wife but two children were born, the subject of this sketch having had a sister, Alice, born on September 10, 1854, who married Daniel
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Van Natton, a farmer living north of Nickerson, and she died at Nicker- son, May 22, 1907, without issue.
David Richhart was about eighteen years old when he came to Kansas with his parents. in 1873, and his schooling was completed in the school in district No. 24, one mile east of Nickerson, now recalled as the old Nicker- son school. He married in the fall of 1885 and homesteaded a farm not far from that of his father on the Reno-Rice county border, and proceeded to develop the same. He was a successful farmer and stock raiser and from the very first prospered in his operations, gradually enlarging his land hold- ings until he now is the owner of a fine farm of six hundred and forty acres, one-half of which lies in this county and the remainder in Rice county. In 1898 he retired from the farm and he and his family moved to Nicker- son, where they are very comfortably and very pleasantly situated. Mr. Richhart is a director of the State Bank of Nickerson and a stockholder in the Farmers Elevator Company, of the same place, long having been regarded as one of the most substantial and public-spirited men in that place.
On October 15, 1885. David Richhart was united in marriage to Mary Cochran, who was born in Pennsylvania on April 12, 1859, daughter of William and Margaret (Wilson) Cochran, and to this union three daugh- ters have been born, Ethel Lucile, born on November 26, 1889; Alma Mar- garet. November 2, 1891, and Letha Elizabeth, July 6. 1893; the two elder are teachers in the Reno and McPherson county public schools and all three are graduates of the Reno county high school. Ethel and Alma are grad- ulates of the Southwestern College at Wingate, Kansas, and Letha, the youngest. is taking the domestic science and art course at the Kansas State Agricultural College. Mrs. Richhart and her daughters are members of the Methodist church at Nickerson, and the family takes an earnest part in the general good works of the community. Mr. Richhart is a member of the Modern Woodmen of America and of the Anti-Horse-Thief Association, in the affairs of which organizations he takes a warm interest.
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