USA > Kansas > Reno County > History of Reno County, Kansas; its people, industries and institutions, Volume II > Part 61
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To John U. and Elma J. (Heacock) Schoonover nine children were born, as follows: Susie Ethelyn, born on October 18, 1869, who married John Duke (now deceased) and later married Lewis Martin, resides at Kan- sas City, Missouri; Charles Oliver, January 21, 1871, who married Eliza Rau and lives at Kingsdown. Ford county, this state, where he is an extensive farmer ; Mary Elma, the first girl born in Haven township, who married James M. Forker and lives in Haven township, this county : William Edward,
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January 4, 1874, who died on March 28, 1874; George Howard Ray, unmar- ried, a well-known farmer of Sumner township; Hattie Josephine, married George Moreland and lives in Ninnescah township, this county ; Lucy Rebecca, who lives with her mother in Haven; John Jacob, who married Georgia Jordon and lives on the old Schoonover homestead farm in Haven township, and Robert Rawson, November 5. 1885, who died on October 2, 1887.
HENRY W. HARMS.
Henry W. Harms might well be said to have grown up in partnership with his father and the possession of his broad acres came to him no less by the inherent right of labor than by heritage.
John Harms, father of Henry W. Harms, was born in Dallenburg, Hanover, Germany, October 8, 1839. After growing up on a farm in that country, he emigrated to the United States when he was twenty-six years old. He worked as a farm hand in Wisconsin, Illinois and Iowa; and was also employed in construction and section work on railroads. In 1872, seven years after he landed in America, he decided to go to Kansas and take up a claim. Accordingly, with his chum, George Schlickau, he came by train to Newton, where they were joined by John W. Schoonover and Joe Kennick. Traveling across the country, the four arrived in Haven town- ship. Reno county, March 21, 1872. Reno county at that time was minus a railroad and no government had been organized. The first settlers arrived the preceding year, only three or four families living in Haven township.
John Harms homesteaded eighty acres in section 8, township 24, range 5 west, and his friend, George Schlickau, took the land adjoining. Harms built a dugout. He had little money and no team and he and his chun bought an ox apiece and tended their land with these. While working in Wisconsin, Mr. Harms had met and courted Mary Meier, who was born at Dallenburg, Germany, December 21, 1849. As soon as he could save enough money, which was not until 1873, he sent for her to join him and they were married in Kansas. Their son, Henry W., was born on the farm August 17, 1874. Their only other child is Mary, wife of Dick Meyer, a farmer of Haven township.
They were frugal, hard-working Germans of the peasant type, but at the time of the father's death, March 31. 1914, he owned seven hundred
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and twenty acres in Haven township and was financially independent. In 1902 he built a fine country home. He was instrumental in the building of St. Paul's German Evangelical Lutheran church, adjoining the homestead. For years he was an elder and served one term as president of the con- gregation. He was a stockholder in the Citizens' State Bank of Haven and in the Farmers' Elevator Company, of Haven. He carried on mostly grain farming. At the time of his death he was in far different circum- stances to those of the German youth, who started out with little means, braved the discomforts of treeless Kansas, the grasshopper plague of 1874 and the droughts. His wife died on August 24, 1909.
Henry W. Harms was educated at the Germania school under the con- trol of the Lutheran church, and also attended the district school near his home. He helped his father with all the work, and was rewarded when of age, with a full partnership. When his father died he willed him the home- stead, now one hundred and sixty acres, where he now resides, and several other farms, where he carries on general farming. He is a director in the Citizens' State Bank of Haven and stockholder in the Farmers' Grain Com- pany, of that place. Like his father, he is a Democrat. He and his family are Lutherans and he has served as president of the congregation.
Henry W. Harms was married on May 18, 1899, to Bertha Helen Scheele, daughter of Henry and Elizabeth (Beste) Scheele. They have one son, Herman Roland, born on March 2, 1900. He is attending the high school in Haven.
Henry Scheele, the father of Bertha (Scheele) Harms, was born on October 14, 1847, at Leahburgh, Hanover, Germany. He was the son of John and Lena ( Burminster ) Scheele, both natives of Hanover, Germany. John Scheele was a tailor by trade and is described as a modest little Ger- man Lutheran. His wife died in 1865 and he did not marry again. He was the father of six children, two of whom died in Germany. Henry was the eldest and is the only living child. The other three were William, who came to America in 1869, and was killed in a runaway in Haven township. hav- ing settled there in 1873; Fritz, who died in Haven; Lena, wife of Charles Astle, who died in Haven in 1913.
Henry Scheele grew up in Germany and attended school as prescribed by law, until he was fourteen years old. He then worked with farmers until he was of age in 1869, when he came to the United States and located in Wisconsin, near the Illinois line and did farm work. He was married there in December, 1872, to Dora Harms, who died two years later. They moved
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to Kansas in 1873. and he homesteaded on the north half of the northeast quarter, section 12, township 24, range 5 west, in Haven township. He first built a dugout. then three months later a sod block house and finally a twelve hundred dollar frame building adorned the homestead. By means of general farming he has increased his holdings to three hundred and twenty acres in the same township. His farm is set out with large orchards. In 1906 he built a fine home and in 1910 he built a smaller home for his own use, his son, Herman, moving into the large house.
Mr. Scheele's second marriage occurred on December 3, 1875, to Eliza- beth Beste. daughter of Henry and Christian Beste. She was born in the province of Waldeck, Germany, where her mother died. In 1872 her father brought his family, consisting of four daughters, to Joliet, Illinois, and three years later to Reno county, Kansas, where he later died at the home of William Mueller.
Mr. and Mrs. Scheele's children are Bertha, wife of Henry W. Harms, of Haven township: Anna, wife of Emil Tonn, a Lutheran minister of ANienzville, Illinois; Otto, died at the age of one year; Carl, died when five days old: Herman, who married Freda Miller and runs his father's farm on shares : Martha, wife of Titus Sene, of Laporte, Indiana; Ada, fifteen years of age, attending school.
Mr. Scheele had very little money when he came to Kansas. The first year in America he worked for only ten dollars a month and the next two years for two hundred dollars per year, but he has become one of the most prosperous farmers of Reno county.
MORRIS R. CAIN.
Morris R. Cain, deputy United States revenue collector for the Leaven- worth district, with headquarters in Hutchinson, this county, is a native of Ohio, having been born on his father's farm, near the town of Caldwell, in Noble county, this state, on September 14, 1859, son of James and Rosanna ( Racey ) Cain, both natives of Ohio. James Cain was a school teacher during the earlier years of his manhood, who later bought a farm, on which he spent the remainder of his life, his death occurring in 1889, at the age of seventy-six years. His wife had preceded him to the grave about four years, her death having occurred on December 25. 1885, at the age of sixty- six. Both were earnest and active members of the Presbyterian church, in
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which Mr. Cain had served as a deacon for many years. They were the parents of ten children, eight sons and two daughters, five sons and two daughters now living, three sons dying in infancy.
Morris R. Cain's boyhood was spent on the paternal farm in Ohio. Evincing an unusual aptitude for his studies he carly acquired an excellent common-school education and at the age of seventeen years began teaching school near his home and was thus engaged for five years. He was mar- ried in the fall of 1880 and in the fall of 1885 he came to Kansas, locating at Eudora, where for four years he was engaged in the publication of the Eudora News, a sprightly sheet, which he printed on a Washington hand press. In the fall of 1888 he sold that paper and accepted a position in the circulation department of the Hutchinson Democrat and he and his wife moved to that city. They bought a house at 107 Twelfth avenue, West, which then was regarded as being quite "out in the country," but which now is the very center of the most desirable residence section of the city, and there they still reside, in 1911 having built a new house, which is very com- fortable and modern in every respect. Mr. Cain remained with the Demo- crat for two years, at the end of which time he took charge of the Clipper. acting for William Loe, the owner of the same, and for several years was publisher and manager of that paper. He then took charge of the publica- tion side of a Democratic newspaper, issued by Mckinstry & Hutton, and was thus occupied until in January, 1901, at which time he received the appointment of chief clerk in the office of the secretary of state at Topeka. For one year and six months he filled that position and then, in response to a telegram from the Standard Oil Company, offering him the position of auditor of sales in that company's Wichita office, at a much larger salary than the state was paying him, was in the employ of that company for seven years and six months. He then transferred his services to the Slade & Kinsy Woolen Mills Company and for one year was a traveling salesman for that company. The Hirschberger & Rosenthal Cigar Company, of Kansas City, then made him a flattering proposition and he transferred his services to that company and for four years was employed by it as a traveling sales- man, his territory covering Kansas, Oklahoma and a part of Texas, termin- ating that employment to accept the position of stock salesman and assistant general manager of the strawboard and boxboard factory which was estab- lished in Hutchinson about that time, and he remained with that company for four years, or until his appointment, in October. 1914, to the position of deputy United States revenue collector for this district, under the collector,
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W. H. L. Pepper, of Leavenworth, a position which he is still holding and in which he has performed most efficient service for the government.
In November, ISSo, Morris R. Cain was united in marriage to Martha Hesson, who was born on a farm in Noble county, Ohio, daughter of Solomon and Margaret Hesson, both of whom now are deceased, and to this union four children have been born, as follow: Elizabeth Deane, who is at home with her parents; Quintella Dale, who married Clarence Yetter and lives at Detroit, Michigan; Leslie A., a retired shoe merchant, of Hutchinson, of the firm of Cain & Campbell, and Anna, who also is at home.
Mr. Cain is an ardent Democrat and for years has taken an active part in local politics, but never has been a candidate for office. He is a member of the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks and of the United Commercial Travelers' Association and takes much interest in the affairs of both these popular organizations.
DAVID H. KING.
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David H. King, one of the representative agriculturists of Reno county, Kansas, was born on May 7, 1849, in Suffolk county, England, and is the son of James and Susan (Morley) King, also natives of England. James King was a butcher by trade, which business he followed until death, in his native country. He was the father of the children whose names follow : Henry, Samuel, Emma, Hannah, Mary, Louise, David, James, George Fred- erick, and Isabella. James and George were twins. David, James and Fred- erick are the only ones of the family who immigrated to America.
David H. King received his education in his native country and, after six weeks on a sailing vessel, landed in Quebec, Canada, in 1869. The three years following his arrival he spent working for a wholesale firm in Char- lottetown, Prince Edward Island. This same firm sent him to Colorado, on July 2. 1872, as manager of a sheep ranch which they owned and he remained with them in that capacity for nine years. In 1881 he drove six- teen hundred sheep through to this county and has remained here ever since, following the sheep business as a permanent issue. The creamery business has also been a profitable undertaking, seventy-five gallons of milk a day having been sent to Swift & Company at Hutchinson. This business he continued for three years, discontinuing it in 1908.
DAVID H. KING.
MRS. DAVID H. KING.
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On September 27, 1880, David HI. King was united in marriage to Susan Nation, a native of London, England, and to them have been born three children, whose names follow : Richard J., born on November 25, 1881, died on June 20, 1882 ; Charles F., who married Emmie Kettle and now resides on his father's farm; William D., June 12, 1884, who lives at home, and Susan, August 13, 1886, who married Samuel Mclaughlin and is the mother of three children, Benjamin, Samuel and Eleanor.
Although David H. King has always been very active in civic and com- mercial life, he has never aspired to office, but has served his community in the capacity of township treasurer as well as a member of the township school board. As a citizen and man he stands high in the respect of his fellow citizens and numbers many friends among the residents of this section.
JAMES C. POTTER.
Township Trustee James C. Potter, of Sale Creek township, is a native of the state of Iowa, but has lived in this county ever since he was thirteen years old, with the exception of about nine years, during which he was developing a claim he took up in Oklahoma during the "rush" that followed the opening up of "the strip" there. Ever since he arrived at a voting age he has taken an active and an interested part in the political affairs of this county and is widely known throughout the county.
James C. Potter was born in Johnson county, Iowa, on February 6, 1865, son of Adam and Rosannah (Layman) Potter, who later became pio- neers of Reno county, the former of whom was born in October, 1826, and the latter January 13, 1835. The mother is still living on the old home- stead farm in Loda township, which they pre-empted in 1877. The father died on February 4, 1916. Adam Potter was born in Coshocton county, Ohio, and when a lad of eleven years moved with his parents to Tippecanoe county, Indiana, where he grew to manhood on a pioneer farm. He was apt at his studies and for some years taught school. He also learned the miller's trade and for some time was thus engaged. When the Civil War broke out he sought to enlist in an Indiana regiment, but on account of a slight "limp," due to the improper setting of a broken leg some years before. was rejectd. He married in Indiana and made his home in Tippecanoe county until the fall of 1864, when he and his family moved to Johnson county, Iowa, where they bought a farm and made their home until the
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spring of 1878, when they came to this county. In the spring of 1872, shortly after Reno county was opened to settlement, Adam Potter had made a trip through this section of Kansas and had taken admiring and appreciative note of the countless buffaloes roaming the apparently inex- haustibly fertile prairies hereabout and he then and there became inocu- lated with a severe case of "Kansas fever." In 1877 he returned here and pre-empted a quarter of a section of land in Loda township, to which he and his family removed in the following spring and there have resided ever since. until his death, becoming, in all the years that since have elapsed, one of the best-known and most substantial families in the county. Upon com- ing here his eldest daughter and two of his sons also pre-empted a quarter of a section each, the Potter holdings thus being considerable from the very time of the family's settlement here.
Adam Potter was a Democrat of the progressive type, an ardent admirer of William Jennings Bryan and took a warm interest in political affairs in a local way. He and his wife ever have been earnest members of the Chris- tian church and were mainly instrumental in effecting the organization of the Christian church in Loda township, not long after their settlement there. To .them ten children have been born, namely: John, who died in infancy; Jane, who died in early womanhood; Ada, who married W. H. Snell and lives on a farm in Kingman county, this state; Jacob W., who came to this county in 1877, but presently returned to Iowa and is now living in Johnson county, that state, a prosperous farmer ; Frank, who died at the age of three years ; Willard, who lives on a farm adjoining that of his father in Loda township; James C., the immediate subject of this biographical sketch ; Alice, who married G. W. Baker and lives in Loda township; Elmer R., who operates a seven-hundred-acre wheat farm in Haskell county, this state, besides a large farm in Colorado: Iowa, who died in 1912, married Thomas J. Nall and lives in Oklahoma, and Ida, who married William Heck and lives near Wellington, this state.
James C. Potter was thirteen years of age when he came to Reno county with his parents and for several winters after coming here attended school in the little sod school house in the neighborhood of his home in Loda township, in which dried corn stalks were used as fuel. He remained at home, assisting in the work of developing the homestead, until the time of his marriage in 1889, at the age of twenty-four, when he bought a farm of eighty acres in Loda township, besides which he rented other land, and there he lived until the "strip" was opened in Oklahoma in 1893. He. was
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among those who participated in the memorable "run" to that section and was able to locate a claim in Woods county, in the new state. He then tore down his house in this county, transported the material to his new claim and there re-erected it, making his home there until 1902, in which year he traded his Oklahoma farm to advantage for one hundred and sixty acres in Salt Creek township, this county, the northwest quarter of section 16, town- ship 23, range 7 west, and there he since has made his home. He later bought an adjoining quarter section, which he sold three years later at a . profit of three thousand five hundred dollars. Upon taking possession of his farm in Salt Creek township he built a handsome and comfortable farm home and he and his family are very pleasantly situated. In addition to his home quarter section, Mr. Potter also profitably manages a farm of four hundred acres nearby, which he has leased, and is looked upon as one of the big farmers thereabout. Besides these holdings, he is the owner of thirty acres in the suburban gardens of . Houston, Texas, and is a director in the Farmers' Elevator Company at Partridge, this county, and is an active man of affairs.
On September 22, 1889, James C. Potter was united in marriage to Eva B. Dix, who was born in Meriden, this state, daughter of the Hon. J. W. and Nancy A. Dix, both of whom now are deceased, the former of whom was a veteran of the Civil War and a former representative in the Kansas Legislature from Reno county. To Mr. and Mrs. Potter five chil- dren have been born, as follow: Edna A., born on July 6, 1890, who mar- ried W. J. Richardson and lives in Bell township, this county; Edith, De- cember 20, 1892, who married P. A. Herron and lives in Salt Creek town- ship; Clarence, October 15, 1897, an able assistant to his father in the lat- ter's extensive farming operations; Charles C., October 24, 1899, still a student in the county high school at Nickerson, and Rhea Irene, August 31, I903. Mr. and Mrs. Potter are earnest and influential members of the Christian church and their children are all members of the same. Mr. Pot- ter has been a member of the church since he was sixteen years of age and is one of the elders of the church at Nickerson, in the affairs of which church he takes an active interest.
Mr. Potter is a progressive Democrat and from the time he attained his majority has taken a warm personal interest in political affairs, having been precinct committeeman for his party for many years, and a constant attendant at Democratic conventions. During the time of his residence in Oklahoma he carried his political interest with him and was elected the first
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trustee of the new township in which his claim there was located and during the last year of his residence there he served as deputy sheriff of Woods county. For years he was township clerk in Loda township and is now trustee of Salt Creek township. Mr. Potter ever has taken an active inter- est in the educational interests of the county and has been a member of the school board even from the days before his marriage. There is no ground for any misunderstanding of Mr. Potter's position on the liquor question and all his life he has been a most earnest advocate of the principal of pro- hibition. He is warmly interested in all movements having to do with the general betterment of conditions hereabout and has for years been one of the prominent members of the Anti-Horse Thief Association.
HENRY RABE.
Henry Rabe, a prosperous and substantial farmer of Salt Creek town- ship, this county, one of the most influential members of the sterling Men- nonite colony of that section, and one of the real pioneers of Reno county, is a Hanoverian, having been born in the kingdom of Hanover, now a part of the German Empire, on February 28, 1842, son of John Henry and Margaret ( Ekoff) Rabe, both natives of Hanover and both of whom died of smallpox when their son. Henry, was two years old, leaving four chil- dren, all of whom are still living, the others being as follow: John, a wealthy retired farmer, living near Peabody, this state; Mrs. Elizabeth Otten, who lives at Oldenburg. in the province of Prussia, Germany, and Mattias, who lives in Carlinville, Illinois.
Henry Rabe was reared in the family of his guardian, Mattias Teuton, in Hanover, and attended the government schools until he was fourteen years of age. At sixteen he left his guardian's roof and worked as a farm hand until twenty-four years old. In 1866 he came to the United States and joined his brothers, John and Mattias, at Carlinville, Illinois, they some time previously having settled there. There Henry Rabe hired out as a farm laborer and for seven years was thus engaged in that neighborhood. In 1872 he accompanied William Lawrence, a veteran of the Civil War, on an overland trip to Kansas, their objective point being Reno county, and they were four weeks driving through with a team of mules. Upon their arrival here. Mr. Rabe homesteaded eighty acres in section 4, Salt Creek township, and Mr. Lawrence took a soldier's homestead claim on the quarter
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section adjoining. Henry Rabe constructed a dugout on his place and in that primitive form of tenement lived during the time he was proving up his claim. He was one of the first settlers in that section and during the first few hard years of his residence there suffered all the hardships to which the pioneers hereabout were subjected, hardships which aroused the sympathies of the whole nation. What with the grasshoppers and the hot winds and the droughts, Mr. Rabe felt that there was small chance ever to win out, but he stuck to it and presently was greatly rewarded, for when Kansas did begin to smile on the settlers she "smiled all over," her fertile soil rendering to them rich rewards for their toil and for all they had suffered. For the first few years of his residence here. Mr. Rabe had nothing which he could turn into money, the only money he could earn being such trifling sums as could 1 be gained by hauling buffalo bones to Hutchinson. One year he went to within twelve miles of Wichita to put out a crop. He presently replaced his dugout by a shack, which was little better or more comfortable as a place of habitation and which possessed the added disadvantage of being the sub- ject of destruction every time a good stiff breeze came sweeping over the prairie. But he presently began to prosper, his indefatigable industry being rewarded by good crops, and in 1884 he built a comfortable home, in which he still lives.
About that time Mr. Rabe bought the southwest quarter in the same section, and on November 5, 1889, he married Mary Yaggy, who had come to this county from Indiana in 1884. Mr. and Mrs. Rabe are both members of the Mennonite church and are substantial and highly respected members of their community. In 1900 Mr. Rabe took a trip back to Europe to visit his sister in Oldenburg and enjoyed every hour of his outing.
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