USA > Kansas > Wyandotte County > History of Wyandotte County, Kansas, and its people, Vol. II > Part 30
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EVERETT D. DRAPER .- A native son of the Sunflower state who has here attained to distinctive success along business lines and who is known as one of the representative exemplars of the plumbing and heat- ing industry not only in the metropolis of Wyandotte county but also in the state, Mr. Draper holds precedence as one of the progressive business men of Kansas City and as a citizen of distinctive loyalty and public spirit. His well equipped establishment is situated at 644 State avenue, from which headquarters he controls a large and important business.
Everett D. Draper has the distinction of having been born in Topeka, the capital city of Kansas, and the date of his nativity was February 12. 1875. He is a son of Thomas II. and Margaret (David- son) Draper, both natives of Greensburg, Decatur county. Indiana, where the former was born in 1839 and the latter in 1837,-these dates bearing evidence of the fact that the respective families were founded in the old Hoosier state in the pioneer epoch of its history. The father died in 1902 and the loved wife and mother was summoned to the life eternal in January, 1910, their marriage having been solemnized in 1858. Of their nine children only two are now living,-Isaac A., who is a resident of Denver, Colorado, and Everett D., whose name introduces this review.
Thomas Harrison Draper was reared and educated in his native state, where he was actively engaged in agricultural pursuits at the time of the Civil war. He and his brother Hugh did a profitable business at this time by following the Union forces in the field, purchasing horses and mules that had been worn down in the service and after feeding the animals and getting them into good order again they resold them to the government for army purposes. They thus bought and sold thousands of the animals, and through their energy and enterprise did much to further the successful work of the Union forces in the field. In 1871 Thomas HI. Draper disposed of his property in Indiana and eame to Kansas. Ile secured from the government a tract of land where the city of Topeka is now located, in Shawnee county, and there engaged in farming and stock-growing as one of the sterling pioneers of that section of the state, where he became a prominent and influential citizen. Later he built up a large and prosperous business as a buyer and shipper of live stock, and in 1887 he removed to Kansas City. Kansas, where he
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continued to reside until his death and where he was identified with various lines of enterprise tending to conserve the normal development and progress of the community. Ile was a stalwart Republican in his political proclivities and both he and his wife held membership in the Methodist Episcopal church.
Everett D. Draper is indebted to the public schools of his native state for his early educational advantages, which included attendance in the schools of Armourdale, Argentine and Kansas City, Wyandotte county. and as a youth he entered upon an apprenticeship to the plumb- er's trade in Kansas City. He became a skilled artisan in this line and in 1898 he here engaged in the general plumbing and heating busi- ness in an independent way. Ile began operations on a modest scale and by energy and honorable dealings he has built up an enterprise that is one of the largest of its kind in the city. In September, 1909, he was appointed by the Kansas City Mercantile Club, of which he is a valued member. to draft a city ordinance providing for the installation of a practicable sanitary system in connection with sewerage and other public utilities. Ile is a member of the state board of examiners, be- fore which must appear those who wish to enter into active work at the plumber's trade, and. besides being secretary of the Kansas Master Plumbers' Association, a position which he has held since 1906, he has also been vice-president of the National Plumbers' Association since 1901.
Broad-minded and public-spirited in his civic attitude, Mr. Draper takes an active interest in public affairs of local order and in a more generic sense his economie ideas are indicated by the stanch allegiance which he accords to the Republican party. In the Masonic fraternity he is affiliated with Kaw Lodge, No. 272, Ancient Free and Accepted Masons; Wyandotte Chapter, No. 6, Royal Arch Masons: Caswell Con- sistory. No. 5. Ancient Accepted Scottish Rite, in which he has received the thirty-second degree; and Abdallah Temple. Ancient Arabic Order of the Nobles of the Mystic Shrine, in the city of Leavenworth. He is also identified with other civic organizations in his home city, where he is popular alike in business and social circles. In a retrospective way it may be stated that Mr. Draper is a scion of families. of English lineage, that were founded in Virginia in the Colonial era of our national history.
On the 29th of December, 1898. Mr. Draper was united in marriage to Miss Inez Dale, who was born at Guthrie Center, Guthrie county, Iowa, and who is a daughter of John and Anna L. Dale, both of whom were born at Hamburg. Pennsylvania, and the lineage of each of whom is traced back to stanch German origin. 3 They were numbered among the pioneers of Guthrie county, Iowa, where Mr. Dale became a success- ful farmer and stock-grower, and where he continued to reside until his death. His wife now maintains her home in Kansas City, Kansas. and of their four children three are living. Mr. and Mrs. Draper have one son, Lawrence.
JOHN CAPLES .- Brought to the American continent in the arms of his mother when he was but nine months old, and into the United States a few months later. taking his chances in the migratory life his parents were subjected to for years. attending school when he had
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opportunity and thereby acquiring the best he could of a common school education, and beginning work for his own support at an early age, John Caples, one of the successful and prosperous merchants of Kansas City, Kansas, has made his way from nothing in the way of worldly wealth to a comfortable competency and a position of high standing in the estimation of the public.
Mr. Caples was born in London, England, on March 27. 1855, a son of Michael and Honorah (Conway) Caples, natives of county Tipperary, Ireland. The father, in 1854. left his young wife and braved the stormy Atlantic to better his estate and hers, coming to Canada and finding employment in construction work on the Grand Trunk Railroad in that country. In December, 1855. the mother and her baby son John joined him at Mosey in the Dominion, and thus reunited the long separated family under one roof. Soon afterward began the career of usefulness which the father and son have wrought out in different places in this country and the extensive and varied experience which has developed the faculties and business capacity of the latter to their present high state of power and resourcefulness.
In 1856 the head of the house moved his family to Detroit, Mich- igan, and there he worked at his trade of stone mason one year. He then changed his residence to Dubuque, Iowa, where he remained two years engaged in the same line of endeavor. At the end of that period he found another new home in St. Louis for a short time, and then still another in East St. Louis, Illinois. At that place he worked several years in the round house for the Ohio & Mississippi Company, now a part of the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad system. IIe had by the end of that service reached a period in life when a settled home and permanent occupation seemed very desirable to him, and accordingly he bought a farm in Madison county, Illinois, in the spring of 1870, and on that he has ever since had his home and employed his energies. His wife died on July 18, 1897, and his daughter at once became his house- keeper. Five children were born in the family: John, the interesting subject of this brief review; Mary, who conducts the household for her father; James and Michael, who now condnet the operations of the home farm of four hundred acres; and Patrick, who was third in the order of birth and is also a resident of Madison county.
In 1881, when he was nearly twenty-seven years old, John Caples left home after several years of ardnous labor in the coal mines, and on the home farm. and came to Kansas City. Kansas. IIere lie found employment in the repair department of the Wabash Railroad car shops for one year and a half, then transferred his energies to the service of the Union Pacific in the same capacity, remaining with that company also a year and a half. The Missonri Pacific offered him a better job as car inspector, and he took the place and filled it creditably for four years. At the end of that period he was made foreman of car re- pairers and oilers in the yards at State Line, and later general division foreman in the yards at Cypress. on the Missouri Pacifie.
In November, 1905, he left the railroad service and in May, 1906. started a general grocery and meat market at 941 Central avenue, Kansas City. Kansas, which he conducted until 1909. By that time his business had grown to such magnitude that he was obliged to seek enlarged accommodations for it, and moved to his present commodious
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and attractive location at 1004 Central avenue. ITis store is large, modern and completely stocked at all times with the best attainable goods in all the lines he handles, and his trade goes on increasing year after year, while his reputation as a progressive and enterprising merchant, fully up to date in all requirements, and as a citizen earnestly and intelligently alive to the best interests of the community, main- tains its high rank and keeps expanding.
On October 1, 1883, in the city which is now the seat of his ex- tensive and profitable mercantile operations, Mr. Caples was united in marriage with Miss Margaret Riordan, who was born in county Lime- riek, Ireland, and came to this country and the city of her present residence at the age of eighteen years. Ten children have been born to them and all are living. They are: Michael, a traveling salesman for a wholesale grocery at Amarillo, Texas; Bridget, who is a Sister of Charity in Butte, Montana, from the Sisterhood at. Leavenworth, Kan- sas, and is known as Sister Mary Benedict ; and Morris, Mary, Margaret, Dorothy, Martha, Rose, Cornelius and Catherine, all of whom are still members of the parental household.
The father obtained his education in the public schools of East St. Louis and in chance attendance at intervals in others. Ile is a member of St. Benedict's Catholic church and faithful in attendance to his religions duties. In fraternal life he is connected with the Ancient Order of United Workmen, hokling membership in the lodge of the order at Wyandotte, and also belongs to the Knights of Father Mathew in the city of his home. In polities he is an independent Democrat, giving a good citizen's attention to public affairs on all occasions, but not subservient to partisan considerations, looking only to the general welfare in all respects.
DAVID BUCKLAND, the popular weigh master of the Board of Trade, of Kansas City. Missouri, has spent practically all of his life in the vicinity of Kansas City and Rosedale, where he is well known. Not only has he aided the industrial and commercial enterprises of the state, but he has become identified with political and civie prosperity and im- provement. There is no more publie spirited man in Rosedale than Mr. Buckland, nor is there one who has been more active in the further- ance of all matters of common betterment. A brief recital of the leading events of his life will serve to show that he has well earned the approbation which he has gained in this locality.
David Buckland was born in the city of Cardiff, the flourishing seaport town in South Wales, in the year 1872. ITis father, T. J. Buckland, is also a native of Wales, where his birth occurred in 1855, and he was reared in his native country. The Welsh tongue is gradn- ally dying ont, as it is no longer taught in the schools, and the only way in which it survives at all is through its being spoken in the homes and thus handed down from generation to generation. T. J. Buckland, therefore, although he spoke Welsh, was also perfectly familiar with the English language, which he learned at school. After he left school he learned the trade of a moulder, but the wages in Wales were very low and he felt that he possessed potentialties that needed other scenes for their development, and he waited an opportunity of making a change. When he was twenty-seven years old he married a little Welsh girl
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seventeen years of age. Within the next four years three children were born to the couple, and with the birth of each child, Mr. Buckland realized more and more the advisability of seeking other loeation if he would give his children the advantages he desired for them. In 1875, he determined to wait no longer, but as he had not enough money to bring his whole family to America and to support them while he searched for work-a more formidable undertaking in Wales than it is in Amer- ica-he bade farewell to the little wife and his babies, took passage for New York and crossed the ocean, which had no terrors for him, as he had been brought up on the shores of the Bristol channel. Arrived in New York, he found work immediately, and as he was in reality a thorough workman, he was able to earn what seemed to him munificent wages. ITis tastes were simple, and he was unused to the American lavish expenditure of money, so that at the expiration of one year, he had accumulated enough money to warrant him in sending for his wife and children who had remained in Cardiff. To the older children the voyage was a delight, but the little mother, between homesickness and seasickness and her maternal duties found it a fearful experience. Her joyous anticipations of seeing her husband again, however, helped to make the trip supportable, and when they finally landed, all discom- forts were forgotten in the comfort of being together onee more. Mr. Buckland did not remain long in New York after his family joined him, but they moved to Lehigh county, Pennsylvania, and thence to Spring- field, Missouri. In 1879 he came to Kansas City, Missouri, and in 1888 took up his residence in Rosedale, Kansas, where he worked in the big rolling mills, and there he still lives surrounded by his wife and five of their children. There were thirteen children born to Mr. and Mrs. Buck- land, three in Wales, and the remaining ten in America, but only eight of this baker's dozen of children are living now. J. J. is a resident of Boston, where he is a salesman ; William lives in Rosedale. engaged in the foundry business ; David, we will speak of more fully below; Sadie is now Mrs. B. Spencer, of Rosedale: Anna is married to Mr. I. C. Lightfoot of Rosedale, while Elizabeth, Jenetta and Florence are at home with their parents.
David Buckland has but a dim recollection of his Welsh home and of his voyage across the ocean to America. Their sojourn in New York is but a dream to him, but he can distinctly remember when he first came to Kansas City, at the age of seven, and the school which he and his brothers and sisters attended. He was graduated from the Benton school in Kansas City, and he then learned the machinist trade, as he had from a child shown special aptitude at putting machinery together, beginning with his toy engines. He followed the trade of a mechanic until 1892, when he was injured and was laid up for two years, and he then gave up all idea of ever working with machines again. In 1895 he was elected on the Citizens' ticket to the office of street com- missioner, which office he held for the term of two years. He has "made good" while he was serving in this capacity, and he was ap- pointed state weigh master of Kansas, and in 1894 he was appointed by the Board of Trade as official weigh master, with headquarters at Rosedale. ITe served as police judge of Rosedale in 1909-10, and dur- ing his term of office the town was conspicuous for the order which was preserved. His decisions were remarkable for their mingling of justice
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and merey, and he not only kept the town clean, but gained the good will of its citizens. lle is now serving on the Board of Education, and has made some very valuable suggestions to the board.
On the 29th of June, 1903, Mr. Buckland was united in marriage to Miss Maraydd Rees, a young lady of Welsh ancestry, but whose nativity occurred in Rosedale, Kansas, where she has spent most of her life, and where her parents are still living. Mr. and Mrs. Buckland have one daughter, Lois, who is in school.
Mr. Buckland is affiliated with two fraternal orders, as he is a member of the Modern Woodmen of America, and secretary of the Eagles. IIe is one of the leaders of Rosedale, politically, socially and commercially.
ALBERT J. MEVERS .- One of the leading representatives of the plumbing business in Kansas City, Kansas, is Mr. Meyers, whose well equipped establishment is located at 810 Minnesota avenue. He has gained definite success through his own well directed energies and as a citizen and business man he has a secure place in the confidence and es- teem of those who know him.
Mr. Meyers was born in the city of St. Louis, Missouri, on the 16th of September, 1864, and is a son of Michael and Anna (Thomas) Meyers, both of whom were born in the province of Alsace, France, which is now a part of the great empire of Germany. £ The mother was forty-seven years of age at the time of her death and the father lived to attain the age of sixty-two years. Michael Meyers was a youth at the time of his immigration to America, in 1830, and the voyage was made on a sailing vessel of the type common to that period. He landed in the city of New Orleans, and finally proceeded to St. Louis, Missouri, where his marriage was solemnized. His wife was ninety days on the ocean at the time when she came to America, and the primitive vessel on which she had taken passage was severely buffeted and delayed by storms ere it reached its destination, in New Orleans. Of the four children three are living: Adeline, who is the wife of Vietor Hugg, residing in St. Louis; Albert J., who is the subject of this sketch ; and William. of St. Louis. Emil is deceased.
Michael Meyers was engaged in agricultural pursuits in Missouri until the outbreak of the Civil war, and he responded to President Lincoln's first call for volunteers by enlisting for the ninety-days ser- vice. After the expiration of his term he re-enlisted in another Mis- souri regiment, and he continued in active service as a gallant soldier of the Union until the elose of the war. Soon afterward he engaged in the general merchandise business at Carondelet, in the locality now known as South St. Louis, where he passed the remainder of his life. In the meanwhile he had been one of the adventurous spirits who joined the ever memorable exodns of argonauts to California, in 1849, and he continued to be identified with gold-mining in that state until 1855, when he returned to Missouri. Ile was a Republican in politics, was a member of the Grand Army of the Republie and both he and his wife were devont communieants of the Catholic church.
Albert J. Meyers gained his early educational training in the schools of Carondelet, St. Louis county, Missouri, and as a youth, in compliance with the wishes of his father, he served an apprenticeship to Vol. II-15
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the barber's trade. Ile had no liking for the business, however, and did not follow the trade after he had become a skillful workman. For a time he was employed in the steel mills in St. Louis, as was he later in those at Bridgeport. near the city of Chicago. He then drifted into Wisconsin, where he was employed on a farm near Geneva lake for a period of about three years. Thereafter he held a position in the steel mills at Joliet, Illinois, for a time, and in 1884 he established his home in Kansas City. Missonri, where he was identified with various lines of occupation, including the plumbing business, in which he gained a practical knowledge of all details. In 1894 he came to Kansas City, Kansas, and established himself in the plumbing business, with which he has here been identified since that time, save for a period of a few months passed in Alaska, in 1896. Ile has built up a prosperous busi- ness and gained reputation as a reliable and progressive buiness man and loyal citizen. In polities he maintains an independent attitude and he is affiliated with the Knights of Pythias, the Modern Woodmen of America and other social organizations.
October 16, 1894. stands on record as the date of the marriage of Mr. Meyers to Miss Edith B. Gordon, who was born at Augusta, Kenne- ber county. Maine, and who is a representative of staneh old New England stock. Mr. and Mrs. Meyers have one daughter, Helen Leora.
GEORGE W. CROSSLEY .- By the death of this estimable and useful citizen of Kansas City on April 14, 1911, Wyandotte county suffered a distinet loss, and the testimonials of respect at his burial freely admitted the fact. Ile was useful during the whole of his mature life to the community of his home, and gave the people around him an impressive example of good citizenship both in prosperity and adversity, for he suffered serious reverses in business throngh eireumstances beyond his control. It they neither soured his nature or diminished his nerve. He began life over as soon as the fruits of his first venture were swept away, and by persevering industry and economical living soon re- trieved his fortunes.
Mr. Crossley was a native of Dauphin county, Pennsylvania, where he was born on January 23, 1840, a son of Charles and Elizabeth Cross- ley, and allied with families long resident in that state. He was reared in his native state and obtained a limited education in its dis- triet sehools, attending them from his father's farm. After leaving school he continued working on the farm until his marriage, which took place in June, 1860. when he was but twenty years of age. In this he was united with Miss Elizabeth Keim, a native of Perry county. Pennsyl- vania, and a daughter of George and Christina (Long) Keim, who were born in Northampton county in the same state and passed the whole of their lives within the borders of the commonwealth. of which they were representative citizens.
After his marriage Mr. Crossley learned the carpenter trade and worked at it in his native state until 1882. In that year he yielded to a yearning that had long possessed him to try his fortunes in the great and rapidly progressing West. HIe came to Kansas and located at Clay Center in Clay county, where he remained three years, working laboriously and with judgment as a farmer and prospering at the
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business. At the end of the period mentioned he moved to Kansas City in Wyandotte county, and again went to work at his trade.
Tiring of mechanical pursuits after some years, he opened a general store, which he conducted successfully for a time, then sold it and turned his attention to merchandising in feed. He was doing well in this venture when the great flood came in 1903 and bore away in its mad and destructive course everything he owned, home, business and resourees of every kind exeept his indomitable will and defiance of adversity. He had no other resort in that day of disaster but to go back to his trade, but this he did with a cheerful heart and a still aspiring hope.
As soon as he got on his feet again he started a grocery on Kansas avenue, erecting a building for the purpose. He flourished in this undertaking, as he had in his former mercantile efforts, and saw pros- perity smiling on him with benignant face. But his health began to
fail and he was obliged to retire from business. He sold his store and stock in October, 1910, and passed the few remaining months of his life at rest from labor but with the end manifestly approaching. He died on April 14, 1911, as has been noted above.
Mr. Crossley and his wife were the parents of seven children : John, a resident of Melbourne, Missouri; Calvin, who lives in Independence in that state: Aaron, whose home is in Kansas City, Missouri; Ann, the wife of Jacob Wentworth; and Harry, George and Burt, the last four residents of Kansas City, Kansas. The father was an ardent Demo- erat in polities and a man of great public spirit.
GUS BARBEN has been a man of prominence and influence in Wyan- dotte county for a period of thirty years, during which time he has ever commanded the unqualified confidence and esteem of all those with whom he was brought in contaet, in recognition of the reetitude and honor which have characterized him in all of the relations of life. For seventeen years he successfully conducted a dairy business and for the past nine years he has been still more prosperous in the management of the store in Rosedale of which he is the proprietor.
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