HONORABLE JOHN SQUIRES
Among the prominent men of Miltonvale is John Squires,
the subject of this narrative. He started on a business career in Miltonvale along with W. W. Bright in 1884, under
the firm name of Bright & Squires, dealers in implements, coal and grain. In 1889 Mr. Bright withdrew from
the firm and in 1892 E. M. Squires became a partner and the father and son have since conducted the business, the
extent of which takes in a radius of many miles. In the same year (1892) they added to their stock, pumps and windmills
and have done an extensive business in this line. They have also operated a well drilling machine with successful
results. This firm is agent for the Champion Buckeye Harvesting machinery, the J. I. Case thresher and the Dempster
windmill.
Mr. Squires was born in Kentucky, near the city
of Lexington, January 4, 1840. When five years of age he went with his parents to Wabash county, Indiana, where
he was reared and received a common school education. He had scarcely attained his majority when he responded to
his country's call for volunteers and in 1862 enlisted in Company A, Severity-fifth Indiana Volunteer Infantry,
under Captain Samuel Steel, who resigned and was succeeded by Captain Isaac McMillan. Mr. Squires saw active service
throughout the war. Starting at Louisville, Kentucky, he was in the army of the Cumberland under the noted General
Rosecrans and at Chattanooga under General Thomas and with General Sherman on his famous march to the sea. Mr.
Squires entered the service as a corporal and was promoted to first sergeant. He was a non- commissioned officer
a greater part of the time during the war. He participated in the battles of Chickamaugua, Missionary Ridge, Atlanta
skirmishes and was almost continuously under fire during the entire campaign.
The Squires ancestry were early settlers in Virginia.
Mr. Squires' maternal ancestors were related to the prominent Taylor family of Connectcutt. He is one of six children,
three of whom are living, including himself. A brother, William Squires, is a farmer living in South Dakota, and
a sister Mrs. Flory, is living in Indiana. Mr. Squires' parents both died in 1862, his father in February and his
mother the following December.
After the war Mr. Squires farmed in Benton county,
Iowa, for ten years. In 1877 he came to Kansas and bought the relinquishment of a homestead in Ottawa county, five
and one-half miles south of Miltonvale, where he lived until he became identified with his present interests.
He was married in i860 to Mary O. Sampson, of Indiana. To their union have been born four children, two of whom
are living. Cora A., wife of Joseph Neill, a farmer living two miles north of Miltonvale. Mrs. Neill is a high
school graduate and taught in the schools of Miltonvale; has been organist at the Christian church for several
years and has considerable musical talent. E. M., who is associated with his father, was married in 1892 to Josephine
Trople. They are the parents of two children Lois and Emery V.
Mr. Squires and his family are members of the Church
of Christ. Mr. Squires is a pillar in the church, has filled the office of mayor, police judge, councilman and
a member of the school board. In political faith he is a Republican and in all his busy and useful career has discharged
his duties faithfully religiously, socially and politically. He has been chaplain of the Miltonvale Grand Army
of the Republic Post almost since its organization.
Mr. Squires is a man of unquestionable character
and one who contributes liberally by industry and his stores of a worldly nature to the prosperity of public enterprises.
Mr. Squires' residence is located on Main street, a comfortable seven room house built in 1883. (Biographical
History of Cloud County, Kansas, Mrs. E. F. Hollibaugh, Pages 846-847)
BENJAMIN P. SMITH, M. D.
The present age is the age of the young man. In
all the walks of life, and more especially in the west, is this tendency conspicuous.
Doctor Smith is a son of S. P. and Elizabeth (Neil)
Smith (see sketch), and is a Kansan born and bred; was born in the town of Clyde, November 23, 1879. He received
a high school education in Miltonvale, graduating in 1895. For the three years following he became interested with
his father in farming and stock raising, but deciding to abandon farm life, he entered the American school of Osteopathy
in Kirksville, Missouri, in 1898, and received the degree of Doctor of Osteopathy in 1900. He began the practice
of his profession in Clinton, Missouri, July 13, 1900.
At the expiration of one year, he returned to Milton
vale, and opened an office where he has given successful treatments; but owing to the science being yet in its
infancy, the people require being educated up to it. Osteopathy was discovered in its first germs of truth by Doctor
Andrew T. Still, of Kirksville, Missouri. His first statement of the discovery met only with ridicule and abuse.
No one believed him. He was branded as a fraud, a pretender and impudent quack. Time passed on; through poverty
and contempt, he bravely held his own, fought down the opposition of the unthinking until now we have in Osteopathy
a science, not perfect, but in a fair way to become so; a science now recognized by more than one state in this
republic as a legitimate method of healing diseases and deformity. A science which recognizes no compromise with
drugs, in which the healing art reaches the highest pinnacle of approximation to nature. By only the human body
to heal itself, using the means which the Almighty has put in the human body to restore natural conditions where
these are absent. They contend the body is perfect. When in a natural condition we are in health; when all is not
as it ought to be, when the adjustment is at fault, if such a term might be used in speaking of the intricate,
animate, sentient machine, which we call "man."
The Osteopath corrects the abnormality, regulates
the amount and flow of blood, strengthens or diminishes the amount of nerve force traveling through the various
channels without any adventitious aid from drugs. Health, absent solely through the presence of the abnormality,
returns on the righting of the wrong. That the Osteopaths can and are doing these things every day, is a demonstrated
truth. Osteopathy is practiced in all the states, and sixteen of them have legislative enactment to that effect.-
[Doctor B. P. Smith has entered the Medico-Chirurgical College of Kansas City, since the above matter was compiled.
He will not abandon the science of Osteopathy by any means, but will finish a course in the Medical College that
he may administer either successfully in his practice.-Editor. (Biographical History of Cloud County, Kansas,
Mrs. E. F. Hollibaugh, Pages 847-848)
HONORABLE W. T. MATHEWS.
When the annals of this section shall have been
written for permanent record the name of "Wils" Mathews, as he is known to his friends, will be mentioned
as the first postmaster, and one of the earliest to engage in merchandising in the city of Miltonvale. With the
courage and perseverance that marked the early settlers of Kansas he struggled with the fickle goddess of fortune,
through the quick sands and vicissitudes of various enterprises, and relates his experience in a way that bears
with them the conviction that he made history.
He became a citizen of Cloud county in 1873 and
took up a homestead two and three-quarters miles northeast of the present town of Miltonvale; his two brothers,
James and George, following a few weeks later. They are also residents of Miltonvale and have extensive business
interests there. They gave up the ghost at one time and wandered back to their old Missouri home, but finding no
satisfactory opening there they "screwed up their courage and returned to Kansas.
In 1881 Mr. Mathews opened a country store. The
following year the railroad was built and he brought his stock of goods to the town site of Miltonvale and has
since been a prominent factor of the town. He has met with many reverses but there are few enterprises that do
not have their dark days.
In 1883 his store along with the whole block was
burned to the ground with a loss to him of over $3,000; in the autumn of the same year he became associated with
his father and bought the grocery business of James McCloud which they sold in 1885. Air. Mathews then became interested
along with his brother George and Mr. Bond and erected an elevator under the firm name of Mathews & Bond, Mr.
Mathews owning one-half interest. In 1893 ^ was set on fire by a spark from a Santa Fe engine. They were awarded
a small amount of insurance, but before judgment was passed the railroad went into the hands of a receiver. They
pressed their claim carrying it to the Supreme court, where they were awarded damages and insurance, but lost $3,600
in the deal.
As if to make the old maxim good, "Misfortunes
never come singly," he then went, into the cattle feeding business and when he shipped them upon the market
the following April, came out $1,500 in debt and a mortgage on his home.
Although unfortunate in his investments he continued
to buy, feed and ship cattle and made some shipments that netted him $2,000 and more. In the meantime he operated
an extensive implement business which has endured until the present writing and he is recognized as one of the
most successful salesman in the county. In 1901 one of his implement houses was demolished by a wind storm.
Mr. Mathews also has a war record. In 1864 a flaxen
haired youth of fifteen years, he ran away from home and enlisted in the army, but his ambitions were curtailed
by the ending of hostilities.
In his earlier life he learned the blacksmith trade
which served him well in the early days of Kansas, for money was not so current then as in late years and the transfer
of goods was as often based on the primitive mode of exchange as on cash value.
We will briefly state a deal he made with a Frenchman
which reveals something of his ingenuity in that direction and how after driving cattle a few months the early
settlers would sacrifice much for a team of horses. The Frenchman had two yoke of faithful plodding oxen that had
turned the sod of his homestead and were for sale or trade. Mr. Mathews had a span of old "plug" horses
which he dressed up in brand new harness gorgeous with red trimmings. He sallied out to meet the Frenchman and
after the dickering customary to such trades the bargain was closed, Mr. Mathews getting the two yoke of cattle
along with a barrel of molasses, two dozen chickens (equivalent to legal tender in those days), a cow and two calves,
with corn enough to feed all winter, in fact the Frenchman had but little left save his wife.
Mr. Mathews is a native of Logansport, Indiana,
where he was born in 1848. When three years of age his parents moved to Iowa and six years subsequently to Adair
county, Missouri, where he was reared on a farm.
His father is Elias Mathews who was a North Carolinian
by birth but came to Indiana in his early childhood. In 1850 he crossed the plains to California where he mined
successfully for three years, but most of his life has been spent farming. He is spending his declining years alternately
with his children, his wife having died in 1898. She was Sarah E. Covey, a native of Indiana. To their union eight
children were born, six of whom are living. Besides James and George, already mentioned, there is a brother in
Birmingham, Alabama, and one a resident physician of New York City, and two sisters in Kirksville, Missouri.
W. T. Mathews was married in 1872 to Anna Raredon
and the following year came to Kansas, where all their children except the eldest were born. The first son, Victor
T., is a graduate of the Miltonvale high school. He is an electrician and engineer who deserves great credit, as
he acquired the profession by practical application, the outgrowth of which secured him a lucrative position with
the Electric Light and Water Works Company of Marengo, Iowa. He has been with them four years. Arthur W., the second
son, is married and lives in Washington, Kansas. They have two children, a son and daughter. Mr. and Mrs. Mathews
have four daughters, viz: Ida, wife of Fred Kuhnle, who have one child, a son; Clara, wife of I. J. Bumgardner,
a farmer, six miles from Miltonvale; Laura, who keeps books in her father's store, and Blanche, a little school
girl.
Mr. Mathews served three terms as mayor of Miltonvale, is a member of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows, the
Knights of Pythias and of the Order of the Select Knights. He has one of the best homes in the city, is a man of
genial and cordial manner and one who in the earlier settlement of the county must have contributed much good cheer,
regardless of hardships and misfortunes. Time has not dealt harshly with him and he is still a hale-fellow~well-met-western-man.
(Biographical History of Cloud County, Kansas, Mrs. E. F. Hollibaugh, Pages 848-850)
SOREN PETERSON
SMITH
Destiny did the proper thing when she ordained
that such men as S. P. Smith's stamp should assist in laying the foundation of this western country.
Mr. Smith was born in the village of Hoirup, in Schleswig, a province of Denmark, in 1850; he remained in his native
land until early in the year of 1870, when he came, accompanied by his brother, Judge C. P. Smith, of Concordia,
who is four years his senior, to the Great Republic. As a result of the war between Prussia and Denmark, their
territory was set aside into Germany, and rather than enter the Prussian army against their own country, they left
their fatherland and came to America. After working two years in Keokuk, Iowa, and Hamilton, Illinois, they came
to Cloud county, Kansas, and took a homestead in Colfax township, dug a hole in the hillside 16x24 feet the primitive
Kansas dugout, and appropriated the boards of a deserted shanty from which they manufactured furniture. Their chairs
were made of cottonwood logs with holes bored in and pins cut out of wood inserted for legs. Here they experienced
for five years all the hardships of the average early settler. They came to the New World to seek their fortunes
with no capital, but vigorous physiques, industry and thrift-the heritage of their race.
They had but one pocket-book between them, which
was empty most of the time during that period. They secured employment by excavating for cellars, digging wells,
etc. Their larder was sometimes reduced to corn-bread made of water and meal, and this meager diet did not stick
to the ribs of men who were doing manual labor, and they would often have to resort to a lunch between times. For
six months they were without flour. These brothers were from a race of blacksmiths and had served an apprenticeship
with their father in the old country, and in the early '70s they bought the smithing outfit of a neighbor on six
month's credit (paid before due), dug a hole in the ground, leaving an opening in the roof for the smoke to escape;
thus establishing a blacksmith shop. From this they began to prosper and improve their homesteads.
In 1873, they had an experience not unusual to
the old timer. The road overseer had ordered the grass burned off along the side of the road, and being-inexperienced
in back-firing, they could not control the fire, and the flames swept in fury over the homestead and on to the
Republican river, doing much damage. Financially this accident crippled the Smiths badly, as they had to furnish
feed to some of the settlers, whose hay was destroyed and flour to a widow whose wheat stacks were burned.
In the autumn of 1876, S. P. Smith sold some of
his belongings and bought a blacksmith shop in Clyde, and shortly afterwards sold his homestead. Subsequently,
the two brothers formed a partnership and prospered there for several years. In 1880, they erected a one-story
brick building, 26x50 feet in dimensions with three fires and a wooden shop in the rear. They became widely known
as the manufacturers of the ''Tom Clipper,'' a square cut breaking plow, the first in this country. They paid a
royalty of two dollars for the privilege of making them.
In 1882, Mr. Smith sold his business interests
in Clyde and traded his residence for a farm in Starr township, two miles north of Miltonvale, which he still owns.
This is a well watered, well stocked, and well improved farm of one hundred and sixty acres, with modern residence
and other improvements. In 1901, he bought the "Miller" residence property in Miltonvale. Prior to this
time, however, he had resided alternately in Miltonvale and on the farm. For several years Mr. Smith has operated
a shop in Miltonvale and by his untiring industry and strict integrity he has earned a reputation throughout this
community and his workmanship has brought him patronage that no agency can divert so long as his shop is open for
business. He does general blacksmithing in all its branches. Mr. Smith's parents were Peter Christian Smith and
Karen Soren's "dotter'' (as it is expressed in Denmark).
Mr. Smith was named for his maternal grandfather.
Soren Peterson Smith, while his brother, Christian Smith, being the eldest son, was named for his paternal grandfather,
Christian Peterson Smith. The parents joined their sons in America in 1883. The father was born in Denmark in 1819.
and died in 1891. The mother was born in 1817, and died in 1894. Besides these two sons there were three daughters,
Margaret, wife of Xeils Thompson, of Palmer, Washington county, Kansas. The second sister died at the age of twenty-six,
unmarried. Caroline was married in Denmark and came to America with her parents and is a resident of Belleville.
Kansas.
S. P. Smith was married December 25. 1878. to Elizabeth
Neil, a daughter of Benjamin Neil. She was born in Magherlaggen, County Down, Ireland, and came with her parents
to this county when seven years of age, and has practically been reared in the "Sunflower State.'' Benjamin
Neil, or "Uncle Benny" as he is called by his neighbors and friends, was a son of the "ould sod,"
born on the Emerald Isle in County Down in 1820. In his earlier life he was a miller but later followed farming.
"Uncle Benny'' was a man who possessed a store of valuable information: a man of honorable and upright character,
and his familiar face was missed by the people of Miltonvale when July 31, 1894, he was called to his final resting
place. He died at the age of seventy-four years, less nine days. An illustration of "Uncle Benny's" reputation
for honesty and integrity is told in the following:
He had plodded along for years and could not acquire
more land, other than his homestead. There was an adjoining farm for sale and he was sadly in need of more land,
but had not the wherewith to buy. In speaking of it to a neighbor, Dave Ferguson, who was and is ever ready to
help a friend, told him he would loan him his farm; so "Uncle Benny" was given a deed, mortgaged his
friend's farm and bought the land. In a few years he lifted the mortgage and deeded it back to its generous and
magnanimous owner. "A friend in need is a friend indeed/' but such demonstrations as this do not occur often
in the history of a man's lifetime.
Mrs. Smith's mother was Fanny (McRoberts) Neil
and died nearly thirty years ago. She was born in Ireland in 1832. The Neil family came to America in 1870, and
after living in Westfield. New York, three years came to Cloud county and settled in Starr township. There are
nine children, all but one of whom are living in Cloud county-Mary Clegg, of Billings, Montana. Mrs. Smith's brothers
are Jim, Joe and George Neil, all farmers near Miltonvale. The sisters are Mrs. Catherine Barber, Mrs. Fanny Shay
and Mrs. Sarah Anderson, all of Miltonvale, and Airs. Anna Woodruff, of Clyde: two sisters deceased, Margaret and
Matilda, both of whom were young-unmarried women.
To Mr. and Mrs. S. P. Smith, eight children have
been born, seven of whom are living. They are Benjamin P. Smith (see sketch). Carrie M.. a successful Cloud county
teacher. She was educated in the schools of Miltonvale, receiving a Cloud county common school diploma. In 1901,
she taught in district No. 36 where she had an enrollment of forty pupils. She has been employed for the present
year in the grammar grade of the Miltonvale school. Ray, deceased in infancy; Fannie and Juanita, two bright little
girls of ten and twelve years; George B., a manly little fellow of five years; Azile, aged three, and an infant
son born on the first day of the year, 1903.
Mr. Smith is a Republican in politics and cast
his first vote for General Grant. He is interested and takes an active part in city and educational affairs; has
been a member of the city council, and on the school board almost continuously for many years; he is one of the
directors of the Drover State Bank. He and his family are members and regular attendants as well as workers in
the Christian church. Mr. Smith served five years as superintendent of the Sunday-school and to his ardent interest
it owes in no small degree its success.
In concluding, it is but a fitting tribute to say
of Mr. Smith he is a Christian gentleman who lives his religion every day, and whose pride and ambition centers
in his family and his home, that brings to him the peace of soul, that money cannot buy nor poverty dissipate.
(Biographical History of Cloud County, Kansas, Mrs. E. F. Hollibaugh, Page 850-854)
