USA > Kansas > Wyandotte County > History of Wyandotte County, Kansas, and its people, Vol. II > Part 74
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At Lawrenee, Kansas, on the 13th of June, 1882, was solemnized the marriage of Mr. Hanber to Miss Barbara Ellen Knuehl, who was born in Chicago, Illinois, and who was reared to maturity in Lawrence, Kansas, where she was afforded the advantages of the Catholic parochial sehools. She is a daughter of Joseph A. and Sarah (McGee) Knuehl, the former of German and the latter of Irish lineage. Joseph Anthony Knuehl was a stone mason by trade and his entire active career was one of elose identification with this vocation, in which he became a success- ful contractor at Lawrence, Kansas, to which place he removed with his family from Chicago in 1870, the year prior to the historie fire that swept the great western metropolis. He did much of the masonry work on the new buildings of the University of Kansas, at Lawrence, being crerted at that time. Mr. and Mrs. Hauber are communicants of the Catholic church as are their twelve children, and are liberal and active in the support of the parish in which they hold membership, that of St. Mary's church. Mr. Hauber is affiliated with the Knights of Columbus Vol. II-35
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and the Catholic Knights of America, in each of which worthy organiza- tions he takes deep interest.
J. W. DANA was born at Humboldt, Allen county, Kansas, on December 14, 1874. He is the eldest son of Alfred and Christina Dana, both natives of the Buckeye state. Alfred Dana was summoned "To come up higher" in April, 1903. full of years, and a profound faith in his Heavenly Father. His wife still survives him and resides at Kansas City, Kansas. The father was one of a long line of Danas who was bred to the law and learned in the profession. HIe practiced law in the form- ative period of the state's history in Allen county, Kansas.
At the age of thirteen, J. W. Dana berame dependent upon his own resources. His common school education was obtained through diffi- culty and his own personal efforts in the public schools of Humboldt, lola and Ottawa. ITis collegiate education was secured in the Baptist college at Ottawa University and at the State University of Kansas, where he devoted most of his studies to the natural sciences, higher mathematics, political economy and public finance. He later matricu- lated and received the degree of Bachelor of Laws from the Kansas State University as a member of the class of 1901.
Dana says he drew "salary" as school teacher for three years, but devoted most of his time to studying human nature and reading Black- stone. He also devoted all his spare time while securing his education as agent for books, views, nursery stock, sehool eharts and other articles, and says that he believes he can sell anything that has any merit to it, but claims that his greatest remuneration for that labor aside from sus- taining life at the time consists of learning to know men and empanel juries.
He located in Kansas City, Kansas, in the spring of 1902 and imme- (liately "was willing" to practice law, and soon built np a paying practice and became recognized as a safe counsellor and tactful trial lawyer.
In the municipal campaign of 1903 he took an active part and was elected chairman of the Republican City Central Committee where he distinguished himself as an organizer and leader of no mean ability. condneting to ultimate victory some of the most bitterly contested political campaigns known in the history of the city and county. From that time on he has been in elose touch with the political problems of his party, in city, eounty, state and national polities serving at various times as committeeman on the county, state and congressional Republican Central committees, and is recognized as a prominent factor in his party.
IIe was appointed head of the legal department of the city of Kan- sas City, Kansas, in the spring of 1903, while the city was submerged in the "great flood" of that year. By reason of the flood conditions re- sulting in the tearing out of all the bridges and viadnets spanning the Kaw river he was thrown into immediate contaet with every public service corporation, railroad and big business industry within the corpor- ate city. The rights of the street railways over viaduets and their duties to rebuild the same and the rights of railroads over publie streets and their duties to viaduct the same, the rights of the packing houses and stock yards to land accretions along the Kansas river, pipe line.
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telephone, telegraphic and railway franchises and right-of-way, tax litigation, city financial embarrassment, complications with the juris- dietion of the county and a special session of the legislature to relieve the situation all rolled in upon his office with irresistible force as the great flood itself. His ability in handling these problems, both in a legal and business way, is recognized by all familiar with the situation. Largely through his efforts the viaducts were rebuilt at the cost of the street railway and railroad companies and the bridges were rebuilt by the county at large, whose financial credit was much better in the bond markets than that of the city, securing a low rate of interest on the bonds. The city came out of the disastrous flood with its viaducts re- built and its new ones added and its bridges rebuilt with much better structures and an inter-city viaduet added, without increasing the bonded indebtedness of the city but slightly for cleaning up the streets of Armourdale.
While city counsellor, Mr. Dana also put an end to a great flood of damage suits against the city by tearing up and burning in the public streets many miles of old board sidewalks, saving to the city untold sums in damage suits. He also obtained a judgment in the Supreme Court securing to the city title to 108 acres of land at the foot of Minnesota avemie estimated at over a million dollars in value.
After Dana's term of office expired as city counselor he was re- tained specially by the city to litigate the city's rights to relevy and reimburse itself for special assessments thrown on the city at large. He proseented some thirteen suits in the lower courts and five or six suits in the Supreme Court of the state of Kansas, all resulting in victory and securing to the city approximately $100,000 of back special assessments, for which he received a fee of about $15,000. He is now retained regu- larly by some of the largest interests in the state, including The Wels- bach Street Lighting Company, The Kansas City Pipe Line Company, The Wyandotte County Gas Company, the Kansas Bitulithie Company and The United Gas Improvement Company, by whom he is rated as a safe trustworthy counselor. In spite of his substantial clientage he still exhibits as keen an interest and activity in a just cause of a poverty affidavit as he ever did.
Dana was at the "Siege of Troy" (Kansas), and carried away a wife in the person of Edna Parker, when he was twenty-two years old. He named his oldest daughter Jessie, after the sweet scented Jessamine ; his only son Marshall after the United States Supreme Chief Justice of that name because he was incarnate reason ; and one daughter Helen in recognition of the purest soul that walks the earth bearing that name.
He believes in a professional man keeping in touch with nature and the business world. He therefore owns and operates a farm in Ray county, Missouri, known as the Pea Fowl ranch, where he raises thorough breds and high grades of roadster and draft horses, mules. short horn cattle, Poland China hogs, Shropshire sheep, Angora goats, white Hol- land turkeys. Wyandotte chickens. Pea fowls and guineas. He is now devoting special attention to growing alfalfa.
He believes in the doctrine of the "Brotherhood of man" and is therefore a member of the Baptist church, a Thirty-second Degree Mason and Shriner, helonging to Kaw Lodge No. 272, Caswell Consistory No. 5,
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and of Abdallah Temple at Leavenworth. Ile is also a member of Wyandotte Lodge No. 440, Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks, and Granite Camp Woodmen Lodge, and a Pythian Knight, and mem- ber of the Business Men's Mercantile Club.
He claims as his crowning virtue "fidelity to friends," and is ac- corded the unqualified confidence of the business and professional men of influence in the community in which he lives.
E. F. HEISLER is the son of Emanuel F. Heisler, who came to the United States from Wurtemberg, Germany, about the year 1834, loeating at Massillon, Ohio, where he was engaged as a cooper two years. About the year 1836 he bought land in Richland county, Ohio, clearing a por- tion and building a house in 1837. In January, 1838, he married Fredrica C. Hammer of Massillon, Ohio, a native of Wurtemberg, Ger- many. In 1839 he moved to Green Valley, or Hollister's Mills, where he operated a cooper shop six years and was employed as a weaver two years, when his wife died, leaving four children, E. F., Pauline, Charlott C. and John P. In the latter part of 1848 he married Mrs. Catherine Deardorff, of Richland county, Ohio. To them a son (Charles) was born in 1851, and a daughter (Kate) in 1853. In 1850 he bought a farm in Morrow county, Ohio, and in 1855 moved to Koseinsko county, Indiana, where he lived on a farm until the time of his death in 1882. He was a Democrat until after the "Dred Scott decision," when he be- came a Whig, and afterwards a Republican. He was a member of the Lutheran church, but in 1850 became a member of the Methodist Episco- pal church. Of the above named children only three are living, Miss Kate Heisler, of Claypool, Indiana; Mrs. Charlott C. Kinsey of Clay- pool, Indiana; and E. F. Heisler of Kansas City, Kansas.
The subject of this sketch was born October 25, 1838, in a two-room story and a half log house on his father's farm in Richland county, two and one-half miles northwest of Jelloway, Ohio, where the house still stands and has been occupied as a residence until a very recent date. His early life, until he was twenty-one years of age, was spent mainly working on the farm and attending school about three months each winter when the health of the family would permit. And to make up for the time thus lost from the winter school, he often would take his books to the field and study while plowing and otherwise engaged, so that in 1858 he was able to pass examination and secured a teacher's certificate, teaching one winter in Indiana ; the next winter in Pesotum, Illinois, the next year in Platte county, Missouri, and after the close of the Civil war in Wyan- dotte county, Kansas; after which he was elected county superintendent of the schools serving six consecutive years, when the political party which nominated him was in the minority in the county. No other person in this county has ever held that office as long as Mr. Heisler, and in all these years there was but one appeal from his decision, and he was sustained in that deeision.
Ile was twice delegated to the National Teachers Association, repre- senting the Kansas State Teachers Association. When teaching school in Platte county, Missouri, in July, 1861, after most of the Southern states had seceded from the Union, he conducted a celebration in his school district, this being the only place in the state of Missouri, (either in the country or in any of the cities,) where a celebration was held and
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the Declaration of Independence was read that year. Several toasts were offered, bitterly condemning secession.
E. F. Heisler came to Wyandotte county, Kansas, in April, 1860, and entered 120 acres of land in Coffey county with a land warrant. In August, 1861, he enlisted in Captain Veal's Company A, Sixth Kansas Cavalry, and two weeks later, (September 2) he was wounded at the battle of Dry Wood twelve miles east of Ft. Scott, and was left on the battle field by the surgeon in whose care he had been placed, without having his wounds dressed. But he was rescued by his comrades before leaving the battlefield and sent to Ft. Scott. After recovering he participated in the battles of Newtonia, Old Ft. Wayne, Cane Hill, Prairie Grove, Honey Springs, Prairie du Ann and Jenkins Ferry, in- cluding most of the campaigns of the Trans Mississippi country. He served as a private, as company clerk, company quartermaster sergeant, and in 1864 was elected by a vote of his company as second lieutenant.
At the close of the war he was again engaged in teaching; then manufacturing improved school furniture, supplying many of the schools in the adjoining counties. He afterwards published a property map of Wyandotte county, and a property map and history of Johnston county, Kansas.
In 1876 he established the Louisburg Herald, and was its publisher for ten years. In 1889 he established the Kansas City Sun, which news- paper he is still publishing.
In 1860 he walked fifteen miles to Kansas City, Missouri, to vote for Abraham Lincoln. In 1867 he was one of the stockholders who built the first bridge across the mouth of the Kansas river, and afterwards was toll keeper until the bridge washed away in 1868. He also was appointed by the governor of the state, a member of the board of direc- tors of the Freedman University of Quindaro. Ex-Governor Robinson was president, Byron Judd treasurer, and E. F. Heisler secretary of this board. He is also secretary of the Kansas Soldiers Monumental Association. Besides these, he has held many other elective and ap- pointive offices of trust.
He is a zealous advocate of the Good Roads movement and the im- provement of our internal waterways, and has frequently been sent to represent the state in the National gatherings of these organizations.
In politics he was a Republican, until that party made the bondhold- ers "preferred creditors" by paying them in a different money than it paid the soldiers who fought the battles of the country. Then he be- came a Greenbacker and now is publishing a Populist paper, but usually tries to vote for the best men regardless of their political affiliations.
In 1870 he married Miss Ollie Dove, a school teacher and a daughter of Jacob Dove of Kusciusko county, Indiana. At the time of their marriage both were delegates to the National Teachers Association, which they attended at Cleveland, Ohio, on the day of their marriage.
They have a family of five children, all living. J. L. Heisler, the yonngest is married and lives in Kansas City, Kansas. Miss Lida Heis- ler and Will H. Heisler are single and living with their parents. Fred D. is married and lives in Washington, D. C., employed in the govern- ment printing office, as a proof reader, and Mrs. Lou H. Brandeberry is married and lives on Hoods Canal, twenty miles west of Seattle, Washington.
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WALTER DALE SMITH, D. D. S .- One of the most progressive and valuable members of the dental fraternity of Kansas is Dr. Walter Dale Smith, one of the youngest members of his profession and a native of the state. Dr. Smith was born in Clyde, Kansas, January 4, 1880, and is the son of Uriah and Jennie (Sitton) Smith. The father was born in the state of New York in 1848 and accompanied his parents to Kansas in 1854, when a mere child. The family later located in Valley Falls and from there removed to New York, Uriah being a young man at the time. In 1862 he took up arms for the cause of the Union, enlisting in the One Hundred and Twenty-sixth New York Regiment. After the war he returned to Kansas and was married in Wayne, Kansas, his wife being a native of Savannah, Missouri. He and his wife reared to useful man- hood and womanhood the following family of children : Clarence W., physician of Cherokee, Oklahoma; Daisy F., wife of J. J. Newell, of Colorado; Leroy V., engaged in the stationery business in Oklahoma City; Dr. Smith, of this review, and IIonor B., a farmer residing near Clyde, Kansas. In his political affiliations Uriah Smith is a Republican. Ile is a member of the Methodist church.
Dr. Smith was reared in Clyde. He had the misfortune to lose liis mother when he was eight years of age, her demise occurring in 1884. Ile attended the public schools and was graduated from the high school, and subsequently spent several years studying in Baker University at Baldwin, Kansas. He then entered the dental college at Kansas City, Missouri, and in due time received his diploma from that institution. In 1906 he was fully prepared to enter upon his career and opened dental parlors in Rosedale, where he has every modern invention known to the profession. Dr. Smith is ambitious and devoted to his profession and his youth does not prevent his realization that only constant study and application can keep the dentist at the head of his profession.
In 1908, Dr. Smith was united in marriage to Miss Selma Nixon, of Maryville, Missouri, and he and his young wife both enjoy secure place in popular confidence and esteem. Both are prominent members of the Methodist church. In political convictions he is a Republican ever casting his ballot for and using his influence to further the good of the community.
PERL WILBER MORGAN, author of "The History of Wyandotte County," is a native of Indiana. Ile was born in the town of Monrovia, Morgan county, December 4, 1860, being the third of eight children of William Hoard Morgan and Maria (Marvin) Morgan. The father was born in Harrodsburg, Kentucky, in 1824, and the mother in Zanesville, Ohio, in 1836. In 1864 the family moved from Monrovia to Plainfield, twelve miles distant, and in that historic old Indiana Quaker town the subject of this sketch was reared. He received such education as the common schools afforded until, at the age of fifteen, he entered the office of the Plainfield Citizen, a weekly paper owned and edited by John N. Vestal, as a printer's devil. By a study of good literature, for which he has a likiug, and by almost constant reading, together with the ad- vantage the newspaper work brought to him in the way of self-educa- tion, he made rapid advance in the newspaper profession. He combined his work as a printer apprentice with writing local articles for the paper and with correspondence for the Indianapolis Journal and Sentinel and
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the Cincinnati Enquirer and Gazette for four years. In 1879 he left his home town and went to Indianapolis, where for seven years he was connected snecessively with the mechanical department of the Indiana Farmer, the Saturday Review, the Journal and the Sentinel. Al- though engaged in printing as a member of Indianapolis Typographical Union No. 1 during these years he did much writing for the Sunday Sentinel and other publications. In 1886, when he decided to come to the west, he was in charge of the auxiliary printing department of the Sentinel, supplying "patent insides" for many Indiana weekly papers. In April, 1886, he stopped at LaHarpe, Illinois, and spent a few months in helping to set up and start the Hancock County Herald.
On coming to Kansas, Missouri, he dropped the mechanical side of printing and devoted himself to writing, reporting and editing. He went to work as a reporter on the old Kansas City Times when it was owned by Dr. Morrison Mumford, and in a few weeks was placed in charge of the news department for Kansas City, Kansas. He filled the position until 1890, when he became associated with the Kansas City Gazette as news editor, George W. Martin, secretary of the Kansas Historical Society, being the editor-in-chief. After three years of this service Mr. Morgan resigned that position to become the head of the news staff in Kansas City, Kansas, for the Kansas City Star. To this position was added larger responsibilities when Colonel William R. Nelson, in 1901, purchased the Times and made it the morning edition of the Star, Mr. Morgan being at the head of the news service for the two papers. In this important position he had an opportunity of "trying" scores of vonng men ambitious to become newspaper reporters and writers, and he is proud of the fact that many successful men now employed on news- papers in the United States served their apprenticeship in the Kansas City, Kansas, office of the Star and the Times. Mr. Morgan also is proud of the fact that his position afforded great opportunities for use- fulness in helping along the development of Kansas City, Kansas, from an aggregation of towns to the metropolis of the state. And it was this civic interest, together with a desire to perform a larger service for his city, that caused him to resign his position with the Star in April, 1911, to become secretary of the Mercantile Club.
Mr. Morgan was married October 21, 1884, to Miss Mary MeKnight, of Plainfield, Indiana. Of the four children born to them, a son, How- ard Charles Morgan, is living. He, at the time of this publication, is a student at the University of Kansas. 3
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