USA > Kansas > Reno County > History of Reno County, Kansas; its people, industries and institutions, Volume II > Part 57
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RENO COUNTY, KANSAS.
OVERTON HICKMAN.
Overton Hickman, treasurer of Reno county, is a native of West Vir- ginia. having been born in the town of Fayetteville, that state, on October 23. 1874. son of John and Mary (Huddleston) Hickman, the former of whom, born in old Virginia, March 15, 1821, died in January, 1906, and the latter, born in that section of Virginia known, since the war period, as West Virginia, April 27, 1844, died on March 15, 1901, both having spent their last days in this county.
John Hickman was the son of William Hickman, a Virginian, who was the son of an Englishman who came to America in 1755 and later fought in behalf of the colonies during the Revolutionary War, William Hickman, in his generation, also having fought against England, during the War of 1812. John Hickman was a merchant and hotel keeper at Fayetteville. In 1882 he and his wife and three children came to Kansas, settling in Miami county, where they lived for two years, at the end of which time, in 1884, they came to Reno county and bought a quarter of a section of land in Med- ford township, where they established a permanent home, Mr. Hickman and his wife spending the remainder of their lives there. They were Baptists in their religious persuasion and Mr. Hickman was a Democrat in his political belief and a Mason in his fraternal affiliations. He and his wife were the parents of three children, the subject of this sketch, who was the second born, having two sisters, Anna, wife of Minor A. Chappel, a retired farmer now living in Hutchinson, this county, and Sarah, who married Frank Hamilton and is also a resident of Hutchinson.
Overton Hickman was eight years of age when his parents moved to this state and was ten when they came to Reno county, consequently his youth and early manhood was spent on the farm in Medford township, where he remained until his marriage in 1901. Some time later he bought a farm in that same township, on which he made his home until 1909, in which year he moved to Hutchinson, the county seat, where he became a salesman for the International Harvester Company. In 1911 he was appointed deputy sheriff of Reno county, in which capacity he served for a year and in 1912 he engaged in the automobile business, he and his partner having the agency for the "Overland" car in this section.
Ever since the days of his early manhood, Overton Hickman had given thoughtful attention to political affairs in Reno county and for years served as precinct committeeman in behalf of the Democratic party. During his
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residence in Medford township he had served as township clerk and also had served the public to advantage as a member of the school board, during which latter incumbency he helped to organize and inaugurate the first consolidated graded school established in Reno county. In 1912 the Democrats of Reno county made him their nominee for the office of county treasurer and he was elected in the ensuing election in the fall of that year. So satisfactory did his services in this important office prove, that he received a second nomination in 1914 and was again elected and is now serving his second term in that office, making one of the most popular officials in the court house.
On June 16, 1901, Overton Hickman was united in marriage to Emma (Hodges) Wyatt, a widow, who died on August 29, 1909, leaving two children, Clarice, born on August 30, 1903, and Norena, August 18, 1905, and on February 15, 1911, Mr. Overton married, secondly, Anne (Love) Chenoweth, who was born in the state of Mississippi, daughter of William A. Love, now a well-known farmer of Westminster township, this county. Mr. and Mrs. Hickman are members of the Congregational church and take an active interest in all good works hereabout. Mr. Hickman is a member of the Odd Fellows, the Knights of Pythias and the Modern Woodmen of America, in the affairs of which orders he takes a warm interest. He is the owner of a quarter of a section of good land in McPherson county, besides his interests in this county, and is considered quite well circumstanced.
BEN S. HOAGLAND. .
Ben S. Hoagland, whose valuable connection with the musical and cul- tural life of this county has been established for years and who is also one of the best-known real-estate dealers and realty promoters in the city of Hutchinson, in which business he has been engaged for years, is a native of Illinois, having been born in McDonough county, that state, in the house originally built for and for a time occupied by Joseph Smith, the Mormon leader, his father having bought the house after the incensed neighbors of the Smith colony had driven those religionists over to Nauvoo. This house, which was the administration house of the original Mormon colony, was built in the old Mormon style, with a wide hall through the center and large. high-ceiled rooms on either side of the same. Mr. Hoagland's parents both were Kentuckians, his father, O. M. Hoagland, having emigrated from that state to Illinois, locating in Schuyler county, in 1828, and his mother, who,
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before her marriage was Mary A. Stapp, having emigrated with her parents to McDonough county in 1832, both having been among the earliest settlers of the respective communities in which they grew to maturity. In the bio- graphical sketch relating to Martin Hoagland, presented elsewhere in this volume, there is set out in greater detail further particulars of the genealogy of the Hoagland family, to which the reader is respectfully referred in this connection.
Ben S. Hoagland was reared on the paternal farm in Illinois, his ele- mentary education being received in the local schools of that neighborhood. At eighteen years of age he began teaching school and for several years was thus engaged in that vicinity. Even as a boy he had displayed an unusual aptitude for music and was the possessor of a voice of much strength and rare quality, and from the beginning of his teaching career made much of the instructions in music, with particular reference to voice culture. As a boy he had been a member of a quartet, singing second tenor, and after his voice had changed became a basso of much power. Mr. Hoagland recalls very vividly the singing of the quartet to which he was attached upon the occasion of the departure of the first troops from his neighborhood for service in the Union army during the Civil War, though he did not then understand the full seriousness of the situation. Upon the return of these soldiers at the close of the war, the missing places in the ranks of the returning veterans were noted and the pathos of the songs and the general solemnity. mingled with rejoicing, of the occasion filled every eye with tears. In addition to his work in the school room. Mr. Hoagland also taught singing schools throughout the surrounding country, his nights being thus employed, and he became one of the most familiar personages in that section of the state. On Sundays his fine voice would find exercise in directing the choir in the Presbyterian church. In 1871 Mr. Hoagland was married and in 1874 he came to Kansas, locating at Emporia, where he was engaged to teach sing- ing in the normal school there and also in the public schools, and for a year was thus engaged, working about eighteen hours a day, which strain so impaired his health that his physician advised him to get out of doors. In pursuance of these instructions he came to Reno county in 1875 with the expectation of buying a farm here, near the place of his brother, Martin Hoagland, who had located here but a short time before. At Hutchinson, then a village of but a few straggling houses, Mr. Hoagland fell in with C. C. Hutchinson, founder of the town, who strongly urged him to invest in a tract of eighty acres near the town site, lying in the corner south of what is now Fourth street and east of Lorraine. On that tract Mr. Hoagland
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erected a brick house and established a new home for himself and wife. At that time Joe Talbott, who is still living in Hutchinson, was the only dray- man in the town and he declined to haul Mr. Hoagland's lumber out to his place, declaring that it was too far away from town, the nearest house in the then village being more than half a mile away.
Following his arrival in Hutchinson and awaiting the development of his promising town-lot section, Mr. Hoagland taught music and held singing school of nights at the McGuire school house in the country, which became the social center of the new community. Presently Mr. Hoagland was a teacher in the Hutchinson schools, a position he held for three years, during which time the first graduation exercises in the Hutchinson schools were held. He then began teaching in the schools of the county and for ten years served as a teacher in the county teacher's institute, at the end of which time he was called to Iola, where for two years he taught music in the public schools of that place, after which, for several years, he traveled over the states of Kansas, Nebraska and Iowa, introducing school music. By this time he recognized that the time was ripe for the development of his town-lot tract at Hutchinson and in 1886 he actively entered the Hutchinson real-estate field, in which he ever since has been a conspicuous figure. In the way of development he gradually built thirty-five houses on his tract, to which the town was rapidly advancing by that time, which he readily sold on install- ments, and has since promoted two additions to the city out of his land. In 1893 he joined the Hutchinson Commercial Club and for three years was secretary of that useful organization.
On September 6, 1871, in McDonough county, Illinois, Ben S. Hoag- land was united in marriage to Hattie E. Rae, who was born near Marietta, Noble county, Ohio, whose father, a well-to-do merchant and stockman, was killed in 1861 in a railway accident, following which his widow and her daughter settled in Illinois, the widowed mother years later dying in the home of the Hoaglands in Hutchinson. To Mr. and Mrs. Hoagland one child has been born, a son, Rea S., who, after his graduation from the Hutchinson high school in 1898, entered Kansas City Dental College, from which he was graduated in 1902, following which he established an office in Hutchinson and is there very successfully engaged in the practice of his profession. Rea S. Hoagland married Lila R. Gowdy and has three children, George Benjamin, Ruth A. and Lila. For some years Mrs. Ben S. Hoagland has been an invalid and Mr. Hoagland has devoted much time to her care. Mr. and Mrs. Hoagland are members of the Presbyterian church, with which he has
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RENO COUNTY, KANSAS.
been connected for more than fifty years, and of which he has been a deacon for years.
Mr. Hoagland is a Republican and for several years was a member of the city school board and also a member of the county examining board. For forty-four years he has been a member of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows, in the affairs of which popular order he ever has taken an active interest. It i's as a promoter of high-grade music in Hutchinson that Mr. Hoagland is best known in this community and his unceasing endeavors for many years in that connection have had a far-reaching effect upon the musical and cultural life of the community. He was the main agency in organizing and maintaining the Musical. Jubilee which for years endeavored once a year to bring some of the best musical talent in the world to Hutchinson.
OSCAR R. SLAVENS.
Oscar R. Slavens, owner and manager of the stockyards at Hutchinson, operated under the name of the Union Stockyards Company, of which he is president, and one of the best-known cattlemen in the entire cattle country, is a native Virginian, born in Pocahontas county, that state, now a part of West Virginia, May 25, 1860, son of John Randolph and Margaret Priscilla (Wooddell) Slavens, the former of whom was a son of Jacob G. Slavens, whose father, John Slaven, was of Scotch-Irish descent and settled at Meadowdale, Highland county, Virginia, in 1774, and built the little brick Presbyterian church which still stands and where he is buried .. At one time Jacob G. Slavens was the owner of the most extensive plantation and the greatest number of slaves of any man in Virginia. John Randolph Slavens inherited a portion of the great ancestral estate in Pocahontas county and there spent all his life, a prosperous farmer and stock raiser, having several farms in the blue grass country. He died in 1889, in his fifty-ninth year. and his widow survived for ten years, her death occurring in 1898, she being sixty-seven years of age at the time of her death. They were the parents of seven children, of whom the subject of this biographical sketch was the eldest, the others being Guy, who died in Kansas; Josephine, who married Squire L. Brown, who for twenty-one years was clerk of his home county in West Virginia: Alice, who married Hon. L. M. McClinick, an attorney and former member of the West Virginia Legislature, and three sons who died in early youth.
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RENO COUNTY, KANSAS.
Oscar R. Slavens was reared on the home farm, receiving his schooling in the schools of his home neighborhood, and remained on the home place, very materially assisting in the conduct of the affairs of the same, and for a time teaching school, until October 26, 1883, at which time he left home and came West. After prosecuting a bit in Nebraska, Iowa and Texas, he located in Ottawa county, Kansas, July 9, 1885, and there connec- ted with J. W. L. Slavens Company, of Kansas City, that being the first packing company of Kansas City, and then entered the cattle business hin- self and remained for six years, at the end of which time he for six years was successfully engaged in farming, at the same time paying considerable attention to cattle raising. He then determined. to enlarge his cattle inter- ests and went into the business on a large scale, in Texas, Colorado and Indian Territory, in partnership with C. W. Gates and W. R. Patterson, at one time having as many as thirty-two thousand head of cattle. In the meantime he had moved to Kansas City and resided there three years and then moved to Hutchinson, for during his travels over the cattle country no section carried to Mr. Slaven's heart a stronger appeal than that section comprised in Reno county and no city seemed to him so desirable as a place of residence as did Hutchinson, therefore in 1899 he moved to Hutchinson and has ever since made his home in that city. In 1902 he bought the Hutchinson stock yards and has ever since owned and operated the same, He also continues extensively engaged in the cattle-breeding business on his large ranch in Colorado, making a specialty of Herefords. There is hardly a town in the whole cattle country where Mr. Slavens is not known and where he has not friends. He has bought cattle all over northern Mexico, western Colorado, New Mexico, Idaho, Wyoming, Nebraska and Kansas and is one of the best-known cattlemen in the business. Mr. Slaven is a Democrat, but has never taken an active part in political affairs; that is, not as an aspirant for public office, his own extensive affairs having engrossed his attention to the exclusion of other matters.
On November 20, 1888, Oscar R. Slavens was united in marriage to Etta Kuhn, who was born in Youngstown, Ohio, daughter of William Kuhn and wife, and to this union three children have been born, Lillian, born on. July 18, 1900, who is now attending a private school at Lindenwood. a suburb of St. Louis ; John Randolph, who died at the age of fourteen months. and Margaret, born on December 9, 1905. The Slavens live at 122 Sixth avenue, East, and are very pleasantly situated. Mr. and Mrs. Slavens are members of the Presbyterian church and take an active part in the various
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RENO COUNTY, KANSAS.
beneficences of the same. Mr. Slavens is a thirty-second degree Mason and a noble of the Ancient Arabic Order of the Nobles of the Mystic Shrine, as well as a member of the Elks, the Independent Order of Odd Fellows and the Ancient Order of United Workmen, and in the affairs of these several organizations takes a warm interest.
JOHN S. SHUYLER.
John S. Shuyler, a well-known farmer of Reno county, was born in Spencer county, Indiana, in 1846. The exact date is not known, as his step- sister, while playing with the family Bible, when a child, cut out that page. The first Shuyler of the family to emigrate from Germany was Philip, who was a soldier in the Revolutionary War. Michael P. Shuyler, the father of John S., was born about 1798, in Bucks county, Pennsylvania. He was a mechanic by trade, having learned the edged-tool trade at Pittsburgh, but was engaged in blacksmithing during his residence at Taylorsport, Indiana. He died in Spencer county, Indiana, in 1853. His wife died when John S. was only a few weeks old, and he afterward married Malinda Richardson, who bore him two children, Lewis and Saleta. The children of his first marriage were George, Eliza, D. M., Rosan, W. H., Jane, J. A., Mary, Samuel, Nancy and John S., all of whom are deceased except John S.
John S. Shuyler was educated in the country schools of Spencer county, Indiana. He lived with his brother until he was fifteen years of age, when he enlisted for service in the Civil War as a musician in the Sixty-second Regiment Indiana Volunteer Infantry, January 16, 1862. This regiment later was consolidated with the Fifty-third. Mr. Shuyler served three and one-half years. Through exposure his throat and hearing were impaired. After the close of the war Mr. Shuyler farmed in Spencer county, Indiana. In 1873, accompanied by his bachelor brother, Joseph A., Mr. Shuyler moved to Reno county, Kansas, driving through with two teams and covered wagons, spending six weeks on the road. In the same year he homesteaded his present farm in section 2, township 23, range S. His land now includes three hundred and twenty acres, on which he has a handsome and comfort- able home.
On March 27. 1867, Mr. Shuyler was married to Julia M. Allen, a native of Tennessee, the daughter of William and Mary ( Harder) Allen. Mrs. Shuyler's mother made her home with Mr. Shuyler for sixteen years,
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her death occurring at the advanced age of ninety years. Mr. and Mrs. Shuyler are the parents of the following children: William P., Adelia A., Omar C. (deceased), Florence, Floyd. Harry, Mabel, Reynold, Mildred, Dean, and two who died in infancy.
In 1875. Mr. Shuyler helped organize a class in the Methodist church, of which he is an active member, and to which his family belong. He is a Prohibitionist in politics, and served for years on the school board of his township. He was also justice of the peace for eight years. He is now retired from active life, but forgets not the early days when he hunted buffalo on the plains and also hauled buffalo bones to market for a living.
DAVID ALONZO MOORE.
David Alonzo Moore, who may very properly be regarded as the dean of the real-estate and insurance business in Hutchinson, the county seat of this county, from the fact that he has been connected with the same longer than any other person thus engaged in that city, is a native of Sullivan county, Missouri, where he was born on January 6, 1861, eldest son of Will- iam T. and Rachel (Ellis) Moore, both natives of Tennessee, the former of whom, born in 1834, died on November 30, 1892, and the latter, born in 1834, died in 1912, both having spent their last days in Hutchinson, this county.
William T. Moore and wife, shortly after their marriage in eastern Tennessee, emigrated, in 1858, to Sullivan county, Missouri, and settled on a farm four miles west of the town of Milan. When the Civil War broke out Mr. Moore enlisted in behalf of the Union cause in the First Missouri Cavalry and served for three years and six months, seeing much active service during that period, a considerable portion of which was spent in war- fare against Quantrill's guerillas, at the battle of Warrensburg. Missouri, receiving a severe wound in the knee. At the close of the war he returned to his place in Sullivan county and remained there until 1873, in which year he came with his family to this county, settling in Valley township, where he homesteaded a quarter of a section of land and bought a quarter of a sec- tion adjoining, his purpose being to have a sufficient tract on which to rear his family of five sons and five daughters. There he remained until 1888, in which year he and his wife retired from the farm and moved into Hutchin- son, where their last days were spent, his death occurring four years later,
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in 1892, his widow surviving him for twenty years, her death occurring in 1912. William T. Moore was a member of the Methodist Episcopal church and his wife was a birthright Quaker. They were the parents of ten chil- dren, of whom the subject of this biographical sketch is the eldest, the others being as follow: Dr. J. J. Moore, of Concordia, Kansas; Dr. J. D. Moore, dentist, of Pueblo, Colorado; William W., a furniture dealer in Salem, Oregon : Thadeus, a farmer, of McPherson county, this state, who died at the age of forty-eight; Isadora, who married J. A. Reed and lives on the old home farm in Valley township, this county; Kate, who married J. W. Merris and lives in Prescott, Arizona; Cora, who married Frank W. Roberts and lives at Greensburg, this state; Laura, who married Lawrence McNeely and lives in Los Angeles, California, and Lillie, who married J. E. Long and lives at Little Rock, Arkansas.
David A .. Moore was eleven years of age when his parents came to this county and established the new home for the family and his elementary edu- cation thus was continued in the Dodge district school in Valley township. He remained on the farm until grown and in 1881 went to Colorado, where he was engaged in gold and silver mining in the White Pine district, for two years, at the end of which time he returned to this county and located in Hutchinson, where he entered the employ of J. A. Grayson, in the agri- cultural implement and feed business, continuing that connection until the fall of 1886, at which time he engaged in the real-estate business. Hutchin- son's far-famed "boom" came on the next year and Mr. Moore profited greatly thereby in that and the immediately succeeding years and has ever since been actively engaged in the same business, in addition to which he does a large business in the way of insurance and loans. Mr. Moore has been in the realty business longer than any man now thus engaged in the city of Hutchinson and is known far and near throughout this part of the state for the extent of his transactions in that line. His business now is largely confined to city property, of which he owns quite a bit in his own name. He is a director of the Haines-Miller Paint and Glass Company, of Hutchinson, and has been secretary, as well as a trustee and director of the Eastside Cemetery Association for the past twenty-two years.
On November 4. 1887, David A. Moore was united in marriage to Nettie Hinds, who was born in Paris, Illinois, daughter of William H. and Martha Hinds, both now deceased, the former of whom was a harness maker who located in Hutchinson in 1886, and to this union three children have been born, Anna R., born on November 2, 1890, who married Robert A.
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Parrott, now of Baltimore, Maryland, and has one child, a son, Robert; Ruth, November 4, 1894, a graduate of the Hutchinson high school, who also attended Ohio Wesleyan University and is at home with her parents, and Esther, May 12, 1897, who was graduated from the Hutchinson high school with the class of 1915. Mr. and Mrs. Moore are members of the Methodist Episcopal church, the congregation of which Mr. Moore has served as steward, trustee and in other official capacities and of which he for years was treasurer, and in many ways they have demonstrated their interest in behalf of the general welfare of the community.
Mr. Moore is a Republican and ever since the beginning of his business career in Hutchinson has taken a warm interest in civic affairs, for six years having served on the board of education. He is a member of the Ancient Order of United Workmen and of the Sons and Daughters of Justice, in the affairs of both of which orders he takes an active interest.
RICHARD JUSTICE.
Richard Justice, a well-known, progressive and prosperous farmer of Reno township, this county, is a native of Massachusetts, having been born in the city of Boston, that state, on June 19, 1863, son of Richard and Susan (Copithorn) Justice, both natives of Ireland, who came to this coun- try with their respective parents in their youth and were married in Boston. The elder Richard Justice was engaged in the wholesale flour business in Boston and he and his wife made their home there until 1883, in which year they came to this county and their last days were spent in the home of their son, the subject of this biographical sketch, who had settled here in 1880, the mother's death occurring on October 3, 1891, she then being sixty-eight years of age, and the father's in March, 1908, he then being ninety-seven years of age. He was born in 1810 and, his parents having died when he was quite young, he was reared by his paternal grandparents. He and his wife were members of the Episcopal church during their long residence in Boston, but upon locating in Hutchinson became affiliated with the Presby- terian church. They were the parents of six children, of whom the subject of this review is the youngest, the others being John, now deceased; Eliza- beth, who married James Dukelow, a wealthy retired farmer, now living in Hutchinson; Kate, who died aged twelve years: Mary, who married C. J. Noyes, and William, who resides in Chicago.
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