USA > Kansas > Wyandotte County > History of Wyandotte County, Kansas, and its people, Vol. II > Part 2
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The first American born within the limits of Illinois was Enoch. the third son of James Moore, his birth occurring February 17, 1783, at the Belfontaine farm. Enoch was a member of the convention that framed the first constitution of Illinois, under which it was admitted into the Union. He was a commissioned officer of the War of 1812 and afterward served as a member of the State Legislature, filling county offices for twenty years. Ile died in 1848. Hle was a great reader and hard student and frequently filled the pulpit in the Metho- dist Episcopal church. He made a survey of the Wisconsin-Illinois line in 1844.
David Nolan Moore, the youngest son of Enoch Moore, and father of the subject. was born at the Belfontaine farm in March, 1827. Ile went to California in the year 1849, with ox teams, leading a band of young men in company with the late William R. Morrison. He was graduated in the St. Louis Medical College in 1853; practiced medicine in Carlyle, Illinois, till 1884, with the exception of the time he was surgeon of the Fifteenth Illinois Cavalry in the Civil war. Ile re- moved to Decatur, Illinois, in 1884, and there practiced medicine and surgery until his death in 1903. He was a member of the Methodist Episcopal church and of the Masonic fraternity, and he gave his allegi- ance to the Republican party. David Nolan Moore married Matilda Scott, daughter of Henry and Eliza Scott, of Carlyle, Illinois, in 1857. She was educated at Monticello Seminary at Godfrey, Illinois, and died while visiting her sister at Hannibal, Missouri.
John MeCabe Moore was born at Carlyle. Illinois, JJune 11. 1862. In the public schools of that place he received his preliminary educa-
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tion and subsequently entered McKendree College at Lebanon, Illinois, from which in due time he was graduated. £ Being drawn to the law as a profession, he prepared for it in offices in Carlyle, Decatur and Chicago and was admitted to the bar in Illinois in 1886. £ Shortly thereafter having become impressed with the apparent advantages and opportunities of Kansas City, Kansas, he removed there and he has re- mained in practice in this city and in Kansas City, Missouri, ever since that time. He was for five years judge of the district court of Wyandotte county, having been first appointed by Governor Bailey of Kansas for one year and being subsequently elected for a four years term. His experience on the bench, combined with the ripened abili- ties of a strong mind, fitted him for his present position as first assis- tant United States attorney for Kansas to succeed Judge J. S. West, who was elected a member of the supreme court of Kansas. Judge Moore resides in Kansas City, Kansas, but his law office is in Kansas
City, Missouri.
As assistant United States attorney his official
residence is in Topeka, Kansas, and he is in the general practice of the
law in Kansas and Missouri. He is indeed an honor to his profession, his thorough knowledge of the law in its principles as well as its pre- cepts, his extensive acquaintance with the routine of the practice and his performance of his duties unhampered by the influence of friends or enemies, placing him high above the rank and file. llis loyalty to the Republican party dates from his maiden vote and he stands high in local party councils.
Judge Moore was married on the 20th day of June, 1904, his chosen lady being Miss Nellie MeCracken, of Nashville, Illinois, whom he first met when they both were attending McKendree College. She is a daughter of Ninian and Margaret McCracken, residents of Nashville, Illinois. Their home is one of the charming and cultured abodes of Kansas City in whose social life they play a prominent part. The subject is a Mason of the Thirty-second degree, Scottish Rite, and ex- emplifies in his own life the ideals of moral and social justice and brotherly love for which the great order stands. IIe has indeed suc- ceeded in his highest personal ambition to be an upright citizen and an honor to his chosen profession.
JACOB B. HIPPLE .- As editor and publisher of the Armourdale Press, a weekly paper issued at Armourdale, one of the important sub- urban districts now included in Kansas City, Kansas, Mr. Hipple has gained prestige as one of the able and popular representatives of the newspaper fraternity in this section of the state, and during the long years of his identification with journalistic enterprises in Wyandotte county he has made his paper an excellent vehicle for the furtherance of the best interests of the community as well as an exponent of the best civic ideals and policies. His experience in connection with the prac- tical affairs of life has been varied and interesting and he is a man of broad mental ken and positive views. ITis sterling character and genial personality have gained to him unqualified esteem in the county that has represented his home for more than a score of years, and he is well entitled to recognition in this history of Wyandotte county and its people.
A scion of stanch German ancestry in the agnatie line and of Ger-
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man and English on the maternal side. JJacob Baker Hipple claims the old Keystone state of the Union as the place of his nativity. He was born in Lancaster county. Pennsylvania, on the 3rd of February, 1857, and is a son of Jacob and Hannah (Baker) Hipple, of whose three children he is now the only survivor. The parents were both born and reared in Pennsylvania and the respective families were founded in America in the Colonial era of our national history. Jacob Hipple was a skilled mechanic, and for many years he sturdily plied his trades of blacksmith and wagonmaker. a man of industrious habits, indepen- dent views and impregnable integrity of character. Both he and his nohle wife continued to reside in Pennsylvania until their death and they left the gracious heritage of goodly lives and kindly deeds.
Jacob B. Ilipple was reared to maturity in his native county and in addition to the advantages afforded in the public schools he availed himself of those of the Pennsylvania State Normal School at Millersville where he gained a discipline that well equipped him for pedagogic endeavors. He began teaching in the country schools of his native county when he was twenty years of age, and he continued successfully in this line of work in Pennsylvania for seven years. Ilis closing services were those of principal of the Pennsylvania State Soldiers' Orphan School, at Mount Joy, and after retiring from this position he became managing editor of the Lancaster Examiner and Express, in the county of his nativity. He retained this ineumbeney about four years and then removed to Manheim, Pennsylvania, where he founded the Manheim Sun, of which he was editor and publisher for one year. after which he located in Lebanon, that state, as special correspondent of the Philadelphia Daily Press.
In 1889 Mr. Hipple came to Kansas and established his business in Armourdale. one of the leading industrial centers of Wyandotte county and now an integral part of Kansas City. this county. Here he has since been continuously and effectively identified with news- paper work, and he has been the owner, editor and publisher of the Armourdale Press for twenty odd years. He was the founder of this paper and has kept the same up to a high standard in all departments, with a well equipped and essential modern office. The paper is issued on Friday of each week and is a four column quarto, clean in letter, press and especially effective in the presentation of local news and the exploiting of home interests. The paper is independent in politics, though its editor and publisher is a stanch supporter of the generic principles and policies of the Republican party. He has never been imbued with office seeking proclivities and the only public office he has held is that of which he has recently become incumbent, deputy coller- tor of internal revenue for this district. Tle is a member of the Ar- mourdale lodge of Free and Accepted Masons and as a citizen he is broad minded, loyal and progressive.
At Mount Joy, Pennsylvania, in the year 1887, Mr. Hipple was united in marriage to Miss Lanra Leib, who was born and reared in that town, and they have two daughters, Maude and Corinne.
CHARLES K. WELLS .- Though not now engaged in the active prae- tice of his profession, Mr. Wells has long held prestige as one of the representative members of the Kansas bar and he may well be desig-
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nated as a pioneer of the state, as he has resided with in its gracious borders for a period of forty years, within which he has gained large and worthy success through his own efforts, as he started out in life without financial resources or other fortuitous influences. He is president of the Exchange State Bank of Kansas City, one of the strong and ably managed financial institutions of the state, and in his home city he has other large business and capitalistic interests. While he has made of success not an accident but the logical result of well directed effort, he has also stood exemplar of the highest civic ideals and is a liberal and progressive citizen, always ready to give his in- Huence and aid in support of those measures and enterprises that tend to advance the social and material well being of the community. Guaged by the metewand of popular approbation, Mr. Wells is fully entitled to the confidence and esteem so uniformly reposed in him and is distinctively eligible for representation in this publication.
Charles K. Wells was born at Painesville, the judicial center and metropolis of Lake county. Ohio, on the 7th of April. 1845, and is a son of Leonidas K. and Olive (Bachelor) Wells, both of whom were natives of the state of New York. The Wells lineage is traced back to stanch Welsh origin and that of the Bachelor family to English sources, the original progenitors of this family having settled in New England in the Colonial era of our national history. The parents of Mr. Wells moved from Ohio to Monmonth, Illinois, in 1859. and in the latter state the father devoted his attention principally to merchandising until 1876, when he came to Kansas, where he lived virtually retired during the latter years of his long and useful life. Both he and his wife passed the closing years of their lives at Kansas City, this state. Charles K. Wells gained his rudimentary education in the public schools of his native state and was a lad of fourteen years at the time of the family removal to Illinois, where he was edneated at Monmouth College. He was admitted to the bar of Illinois in 1867 and his initial work in his profession was done at Monmouth, that state. In 1871 he came to Kansas and established himself in practice at Concordia, the capital of Cloud county, where he remained until 1876 and where he met with success in his professional work. In 1875 he represented that county
in the state legislature. In the Centennial year, 1876, Mr. Wells re- moved to the city of Atchison, where he found a broader field for pro- fessional endeavor and where he long continued in the successful prac- tive of law. with a clientage of distinctively representative order. He served four years as county attorney of Atchison county and was otherwise prominent and influential in local affairs of a publie nature.
In 1890 Mr. Wells came to Kansas City, retiring from his law practice in order to have more time for the supervision of his various business and capitalistic interests, which had reached extensive propor- tions. He has been president of the Exchange State Bank of Kansas City since 1905 and has guided its policies with a firm and able hand, with the result that it has become one of the solid and popular insti- tutions of this part of the state. His other capitalistic investments have been made judiciously and a number have been in connection with enterprises that have materially aided in expanding the industrial and commercial prestige of his home city. In politics, with well fortified convictions, he accords an unwavering allegiance to the Republican
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party and he has been a prominent factor in its councils in Kansas. He is a member of the Kansas City Mercantile Chib and other civic organizations.
In 1876 was solemized the marriage of Mr. Wells to Miss Eliza- beth V. Peiffer, who was born and reared at Meadville in the state of Pennsylvania, and is a gracious chatelaine of the beautiful home, which is a center of cordial hospitality. Mr. and Mrs. Wells have two chil- dren, Leonidas K. and Helen E. Leonidas K. Wells is employed in the Exchange State Bank. Helen E. Wells married Charles II. Haren and resides in Kansas City, Kansas.
JAMES E. PORTER .- The many positions of public trust that have been held by Mr. Porter within a residence of more than a quarter of a century in Kansas City, Kansas, well indicate his sterling character and the popular estimate placed npon him in the community. The last preferment of official order that has been his is that of mayor of Kansas City, to which office he was elected in April. 1910, for a term of one year. and his business like and progressive administration gained to him unequivocal commendation upon the part of the citizens of the thriving metropolis of Wyandotte county. He was re-elected to the position of chief executive of the municipal government in April, 1911. and his record in this and all other positions in which he has served the public will stand to his lasting eredit.
James Edgar Porter was born on a farm in Cass county. Missouri. on the 23rd of Angust, 1857, and is a son of James W. and Susan (Phelps) Porter, whose marriage was solemnized in that state, to which the father moved from his native state of Tennessee when a young man. there forming the acquaintance of his future wife, who was born in Kentucky, both being representatives of stanch old southern fami- lies. James W. Porter continued to be engaged in agricultural pur- suits in Cass county, Missouri, until the time of the Civil war, when conditions became such as to lead to his removal to Independence. Jackson county, that state, where he followed various lines of busi- ness enterprise and where he continued to reside until 1885. when he came to Kansas City, Kansas, where he lived retired until his death, in 1888, at the age of seventy-eight years; his loved and devoted wife survived him and passed the closing years of her life in the home of her son James E., of this sketch, where she died in 1905, at the vener- able age of eighty-two years. This worthy couple became the parents of five sons and four daughters, and the future mayor of Kansas City was the youngest of the number.
James E. Porter attended the public schools at Independence. Missouri. until he had attained to the age of fifteen years, and thus it may he noted that the major part of his education has been received under the guidance of the wise headmaster. experience. Upon leaving school he found a due quota of adventure and hard work in the occupa- tion of herding or "running" cattle, to which he devoted his attention for four years, in Kansas and Iowa. He then returned to Indepen- denee, Missouri, where he was in the employ of a lumberman for a time and his experience in this connection led him to make his first indepen- dent business venture-that of buying and shipping walnut logs. Thereafter he showed the versatility of his makeup by acting for a
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HISTORY OF WYANDOTTE COUNTY
time as foreman of a gang of men engaged in railroad construction, and in 1885 he came to Kansas City, where he engaged in the selling of cigars and tobaceo for a local concern. In November of the same year he became a patrolman in the city police department, and eigh- teen months later he was promoted to the position of police sergeant, an incumbency which he retained until March, 1889, when he was ad- vanced to the office of captain. He served in this capacity, with marked acceptability. until 1891, save for a brief interim when the office was then declared vacant. but he was soon called upon to resume the office. On the Ist of May, 1901, Mr. Porter was elected street commissioner of Kansas City, and he showed marked zeal and judgment in handling the work of his department, including the cleaning and repairing of the streets after the flood of 1903. lle retired from this position in the year last mentioned and thereafter was in the employ of the Wyan- dotte Coal & Lime Company until 1906, when he was again called to public service. by his election to the office of sheriff of Wyandotte coun- tv. Hle assumed the duties of the shrievalty in January, 1907, and retired from office in January, 1909, after a vigorous and effective administration. In April. 1910, he was accorded a special mark of popular esteem, in that he was then elected mayor of his home city and re-elected, and his policies in the directing of municipal affairs fully justified the popular choice.
In polities Mr. Porter has ever been found aligned as a stalwart supporter of the cause of the Democratic party, and he has been an influential factor in its local affairs in Kansas City and Wyandotte county. In the Masonic fraternity he has not only attained to the chivalrie degrees of the York Rite, in which he is affiliated with the Kan- sas City Commandery of Knights Templars, but he has also received the thirty-second degree of the Ancient Accepted Scottish Rite, besides which he is identified with the Independent Order of Odd Fellows and the Knights of Pythias. Both he and his wife are members of the Baptist church and both are popular figures in connection with the social activities of the city in which they have so long maintained their home.
In the year 1887 Mr. Porter was united in marriage to Miss Fannie 1. Booth, daughter of the late Charles L. Booth, of Jackson county. Missouri, and of the children of this union only one is living, Martha Evelyn.
JOHN C. POLLOCK .- The fine old Buckeye commonwealth has not only given its full quota of presidents to the United States but its con- tribution to the bench and bar of other commonwealths of the Union has also been specially noteworthy. That Judge Pollock, who claims Ohio as the place of his nativity, has attained to marked distinction as one of the representative legists and jurists of Kansas needs no further voucher than that offered in the fact that he has served as a member of the supreme court of this state and that he is now presiding on the bench of the United States district court. He has maintained his home in Kansas City. this state, since 1908, and has been a resident of Kansas for nearly a quarter of a century.
John Calvin Pollock was born in Belmont county. Ohio, on the 5th of November, 1857. and the place of his nativity was the old home-
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HISTORY OF WYANDOTTE COUNTY
stead farm of his father, in Union township, where his boyhood and youth were passed under the griacious influence pertaining to the great basie industry of agriculture. Ile is a son of Samuel and Jane B. (Scott) Pollock, the former of whom was born in Washington county, Pennsylvania, in 1818, and the latter of whom was born in Belmont county. Ohio. Jane (Scott) Pollock, while of but limited scholastie education, was in every true and just sense a most superior woman, strong of intellect, courageous of purpose, indefatigable of energy, and she presided over the affairs of her country home with that ease of manner, that dignity of carriage, that power and poise of mind which ever characterize the refined and modest wife, the estimable and loving mother, the good friend and neighbor. In the sacred family circle gathered at the old homestead, consecrated by such joys and sorrows, hopes and fears as this life brings to the average American family, alone was her true worth known and the loveliness of her character fully appreciated. Samuel Pollock was a boy at the time of his parents' removal from the old Keystone state to Ohio, where he was reared to maturity and where he continued to maintain his home until his death, in the fulness of years and well earned honors. He was constant in his allegiance to farming and stock growing and through this medium gained definite independence and prosperity. He was a man of ster- ling character and strong mentality, and his life was guided and gov- erned by the highest principles of integrity and honor, so that he held as his own the unqualified esteem of those with whom he came in con- tart in the various relations of life. Both he and his wife continued to reside in Belmont county until their death and both were earnest and devont members of the United Presbyterian church. He was well fortified in his opinions and was a stalwart supporter of the prin- viples of the Republican party. The lineage of the Pollock family is traced back to sterling Scotch origin, and the founder of the American branch was Samuel Pollock, who immigrated from Scotland prior to the war of the Revolution and who established his home in what is now Washington county, Pennsylvania. James Scott, the maternal grand- father of Judge Pollock, came from county Down, Ireland, to America, and eventually settled in Belmont county. Ohio, where he and his wife passed the residne of their lives and where he was a prosperous farmer for many years prior to his demise.
Judge John C. Pollock gained his preliminary education in the public schools of his native state and his ambition for broader educa- tion met with the hearty approval of his parents, who assisted him in every possible way. He turned aside from the plowshare and the smiling meadows to enter Franklin College, at New Athens, Ohio, in which he completed the classical course and was graduated as a member of the class of 1882, with the degree of Bachelor of Arts. In the meanwhile the future jurist had formulated definite plans for his future career, and after deciding to prepare himself for the legal pro- T'ession he began the study of law in the office of one of the leading members of the bar of his native county, at St. Clairsville, the judicial renter of the county. He made rapid and substantial progress in his assimilation of the science of jurisprudence and continued his technical studies under such effective preceptorship until April. 1884. when he removed to Newton, Iowa, where he was admitted to the bar and where
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be continued in the practice of his profession until February, 1885, when he established himself in practice at Hartsville, the county seat of Wright county. Missouri. There he continued in the successful work of his profession until January. 1888. when he cast in his lot with Kan- sas, in which state he has since resided and in which his ability and well directed endeavors have gained to him distinguished precedence as one of the leading members of its bench and har. In the year last mentioned Judge Pollock located at Winfield. the metropolis and judi- cial center of Cowley county, and this place continued to be his home until 1900. when. upon his appointment to the office of justice of the Kansas supreme court, he transferred his residence to Topeka, the capi- tal of the state. His appointment to the supreme bench was made hy the governor. to fill a vacancy, and at the expiration of the term, in 1902, he was duly elected as his own successor. On the 1st of Decem- ber of the following year, however, he resigned this high office to as- sume one of still greater judicial responsibility and honor, as he had received appointment to the hench of the United States distriet eourt, a position of which he has since remained incumbent and in which he has added materially to his high reputation as a jurist of distinctive aenmen and of broad and exact knowledge of law and precedent. He continued to reside in Topeka until March, 1908, sinee which time he has maintained his home in Kansas City, an honored and valned citizen of the thriving metropolis of Wyandotte county.
Thongh never a seeker of official preferment outside the direet line of his profession. Judge Pollock has given yeoman service in be- half of the cause of the Republican party. of whose principles and policies he has ever been an uncompromising and effective advocate. He maintains the highest of civic ideals and is ever ready to lend his aid and influence in the furtherance of measures and enterprises ad- vaneed for the general good of the community. the state and the nation.
In the year 1887 was solemnized the marriage of Judge Polloek to Miss Lonise Lafferty, who, like himself, was born and reared in Belmont county, Ohio. One child. Lucile Pollock, now twenty years of age, resulted from this nnion.
VAN B. PRATHIER .- The honored and efficient inenmbent of the office of probate judge of Wyandotte connty is one of the sterling citizens given to Kansas by the fine old Blue Grass commonwealth, and he has been influential in public affairs during the period of his resi- dence in Kansas, where he has maintained at all times a strong hold upon popular confidence and regard.
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