KANSAS BIOGRAPHIES OF FORMER POTTAWATTAMIE COUNTY PIONEERS

Please note that only the biographies have been extracted. There may be other references to these settlers in the chapter regarding their settlement location.

In some cases, the subject of the biography may not be the Iowa reference. The wife, family or sibling may be the person who was from the state of Iowa.

J. H. DOWNING, editor and proprietor of the Star-Sentinel, was born in Scott County, Ill., in 1842. Lived in his native place until 1860, when he went to Council Bluffs, Iowa, and attended school, etc. Enlisted in the early part of 1864 in Company E, One Hundred and Thirty-seventh Regiment, Illinois Volunteer Infantry, as a private; was Commissary Sergeant of his company; participated in the battle of Memphis, August 20, 1864, and many skirmishes; was mustered out at Springfield, Ill., in the fall of 1864. He then returned to Council Bluffs and clerked, etc., and also went to Yankton, D. T., and clerked in 1867-68; then returned to the former city, where he secured a position on the Council Bluffs Nonpareil, which was his first newspaper work. He went to Leavenworth, Kan., in August 1868, where he engaged in reportorial work until late in 1869, when he went on the road as a correspondent for the Leavenworth Bulletin, in which position he remained until late in 1871; then was traveling correspondent for the Leavenworth Commercial until January 1876. Came to Hays City in March of that year, where he established the Ellis County Star, a weekly paper, and ran the same until January 1, 1882, when he purchased the Hays City Sentinel, and consolidated the two papers. The Star-Sentinel, which now has a circulation of 700, is the official organ of Ellis County. Early in 1880 he was appointed United States Commissioner. Married in November, 1879, to Miss Ella L. West, of Council Bluffs.

Found in Cherokee Co Ks HORACE C. PURSEL, Probate Judge elect, was born in Pennsylvania in 1830. He was raised on a farm and learned the trade of blacksmith, which he followed a short time and then went to Minnesota on a government survey two years. He then was in Michigan one year, and subsequently in Omaha and Council Bluffs. He came to Kansas in the fall of 1857, and resided in Atchison County, engaged in mercantile business for nine years. In 1867-68 and 1869 he was in Alabama in cotton business, and returned to Kansas, and located in Cherokee County, in the winter of 1870, where he was engaged in general merchandise business for three years. He was elected Police Judge and Justice of the Peace in 1874, and was elected Probate Judge in 1879 for two years, being re-elected to the latter office November 7, 1882, for two years. He was United States Commissioner for the district of Kansas two years, and was the first Postmaster at Muscotah, Kansas. He is Secretary of Cherokee County Agricultural and Stock Association.

G. B. ROBINSON, livery and sale stable, is a native of New York, and has always dealt in horses. During his stay in Montreal, Canada, he learned the profession of veterinary surgeon, getting his diploma in 1854; he then moved to Chicago, and afterwards to St. Louis; he then went up into Iowa and located at Council Bluffs, where he remained for twelve years handling the best of horses. In 1871 he sold the "King of the turf" to Judge Ford for $6,200. He came to Kansas in 1878 and brought with him twenty-eight head of horses, stopping at Fort Scott, where he first boarded his horses at Morely's stable. In 1880, put up the stable he now occupies, having fine brood mares in stock, and fast steppers of Bashaw, Hambletonian and Tom Hyar blood. Mr. Robinson has a family of ten children.