Lyon County, Kansas
Lyon County, Kansas
BIOGRAPHIES
AMOS HINSDALE PLUMB
Amos Hinsdale Plumb is one of the children of the late Senator Preston B. Plumb and Caroline (Southwick) Plumb.
He was born at Emporia, January 31, 1869. He was educated in the public schools of Emporia and the Kansas State
University at Lawrence. Mr. Plumb’s chief business activities have been in real estate and mining. He organized
and is president of the Mutual Building and Loan Association of Emporia, and during 1915-17 was president of the
building and loan section of the Kansas Bankers’ Association.
He was married at Omaha, Nebraska, January 1, 1897 to Elva Lawrence Gibson, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. E. M. Gibson
of Omaha. They have one daughter, Roxanna Plumb. (A Standard History of Kansas & Kansans, William E. Connelley,
Secretary of the Kansas State Historical Society, Topeka, Volume III, Lewis Publishing Company, Chicago, New York
1918, page 1179)
EDWARD PAYSON BANCROFT
Edward Payson Bancroft, born March 1, 1829, in Union, N.Y., died December 25, 1904, at Chelsea, Mich., was a member
of the first state senate, 1861. He removed with his family from New York to Michigan, where he studied medicine
at the Michigan State University. He came to Kansas in February 1857 and settled in Emporia, engaging in the real-estate
business. He was nominated secretary of state at the Free-state convention held at Topeka, April 28-29, 1858, and
was also appointed one of the agents to select lands granted the state by the general government. He was a member
of the railroad convention of 1860, from which he, with others, withdrew on account of the apportionment and representation.
At the beginning of the civil war he enlisted in the Eighth Kansas and was mustered in as quartermaster October
22, 1861, and promoted to major of the Ninth Kansas April 1, 1862, resigning February 19, 1863. Governor Robinson
appointed him a colonel on his staff May 2, 1861. In August, 1863, he returned from the South a very sick man.
He had been at the siege of Vicksburg, and stopped at Lawrence where he was joined by his wife and brother, A.
R. Bancroft, and caught in the Quantrill raid; they were at the Eldridge House and Major Bancroft was carried out
of the burning building in an armchair. He returned to Emporia. He was a regent of the State Normal School 1871-73
and was appointed on the board of centennial managers March 2, 1876. Major Bancroft sold bonds of the Normal School
and kept the money; he was arrested and found guilty, September 14, 1878 and sentenced to five years in the Penitentiary
and costs. This sentence was commuted by Governor St. John to two years and seven months. In 1881, Mr. Bancroft
went to Chihuahua, Mex., where he engaged in the real-estate business. Later he returned to Michigan and made his
home in Detroit. He was married to Mary B. Millspaugh of Ontario County, New York in 1853. (Transactions of the
Kansas State Historical Society 1907-1908, Vol. X, edited by Geo. W. Martin, Secretary, State Printing Office,
Topeka, 1908, page 238)
FRANK M. ARNOLD
Frank M. Arnold, banker, livestock grower and rancher was born in Lee County , Virginia , May 4, 1859 and since
1879 has resided in Kansas . His father, Alexander Taylor Arnold, was born in Tennessee , May 18, 1829 and died
at Anthony , Kansas , June 17, 1886. Sirilda Thompson, his wife, was born in Lee County , Virginia , September
27, 1826 and died at Anthony, January 24, 1924.
Frank M. Arnold attended public school two years in Virginia and is practically self educated. At the present time
he is president of the Commercial National Bank and Trust Company of Emporia , president of the Kansas National
Livestock Association.
On June 17, 1888, he was married to Ifie May Espey at Ashland , Kansas . She was born at Bushnell , Illinois ,
February 17, 1870. There are four children, Lucile M., born March 15, 1889, who married Judson Cook Fisher; Francis
H., born August 13, 1895; Marion E., born October 4, 1897; who married Nita Mitchell and Iras M., born August 14,
1902 who married Albert Phelps Armour. Francis H. is engagedin banking with his father in Emporia , while Marion
E., is engaged in ranching and livestock breeding on his father’s ranch. Residence: Emporia . (Illustriana Kansas,
by Sara Mullin Baldwin & Robert Morton Baldwin, 1933, page 43)
Andrew Jackson Andrews was born October 10, 1825, in Richland County, Ohio where he received a common-school education and where he married Julia A. Biggs, December 30, 1855. He came to Kansas in 1858 and settled at Neosho Rapids, in Lyon County, his family joining him in 1859. He enlisted as a member of company C, Eleventh Kansas, in August 1852, and served until the end of the civil war being mustered out August 7, 1865. He was elected to the house of representatives of the legislature of 1868. Mr. Andrews died January 9, 1897. (Transactions of the Kansas State Historical Society 1907-1908, Vol. X, edited by Geo. W. Martin, Secretary, State Printing Office, Topeka, 1908, page 268)
Kansas Biography Part 2, Vol. III, 1912
Page: 1051
Kansas Biography Part 2, Vol. III, 1912
Page: 1049-1051
Calvin Hood, was born in Erie county, Pennsylvania, Sept 13, 1832, and died in Emporia, Kan., Feb. 4, 1910. He
was the son of John and Olive (Hall) Hood. John Hood was a tanner and a farmer, and in 1837, when his son was less
than five years of age he removed his family to the vicinity of Adrian, Mich., where he developed a farm when that
country was a wilderness. There Calvin Hood was reared. His early education was limited to the winter terms at
a log school house. At fifteen years of age he entered a general store at Adrian, where he remained five years.
His health failing, he gave up his position and went to the Lake Superior copper region, where he preempted a claim.
During the winters of 1852-53-54 he was trading with the Chippewa Indians where Superior City now stands, and in
midwinter, with an Indian guide and a dog sledge, he made a trip on snowshoes of 300 miles to the Lake of the Woods,
carrying Indian goods and trading for furs. With health renewed he returned to Adrian in 1855 and there engaged
in the mercantile business. In 1859 he removed to Sturgis, Mich., where he was living when the Civil war came on.
At the call of President Lincoln for troops in 1861 he promptly offered his services to his country, was commissioned
a captain in the Eleventh Michigan infantry, and served throughout the war. His military career was marked by constant
devotion to duty and acts of conspicuous gallantry, especially at the battle of Murfreesboro, where he was assigned
to an important position in command of the pioneer battalion of his division, with instructions "`to hold
the place at all hazards." For gallant conduct in pursuance of these orders he was mentioned by General St.
Clair Morton, in his report of the battle. He was then promoted to the rank of major. The Eleventh Michigan was
one of those famous regiments whose brilliant achievements contributed to the imperishable renown of the Army of
the Cumberland. After the war Mr. Hood engaged in mercantile business in Sturgis, Mich., until 1872, when he came
to Emporia, Kan. Here he ever afterwards resided. When Major Hood landed in Emporia he had poor health, a large
family and $3,000 in money. But more than that, he had a world of grit. He engaged in the Texas cattle trade, at
first in a small way, but later upon a larger scale with the late United States Senator P. B. Plumb. For fourteen
years he spent a portion of every winter upon the frontier of Texas, taking the saddle and roughing it with the
cowboys. He thus lived among the rough men of the Texas cattle trade of the '70s, and though soft-spoken and self-deprecatory,
almost shy in manner, he was respected as one of the men who could .always hold his own, and was never crowded.
He was a small man, never weighing more than 135 pounds, but among men of great physical prowess he held his own
by sheer grit. Nothing ever made him afraid. It was in the cattle business that he laid the foundation of his fortunes.
The firm of "Plumb & Hood" was known all over the West, and it was in every big undertaking west
of the Missouri-mines, land, banks, cattle, town sites, politics, beef contracts-everything in which energy and
thrift could make an honest dollar. Major Hood entered the Emporia National Bank as a director. In 1880 he was
chosen president of the bank, and he remained at the head of the institution for twenty-five years, retiring in
1905 from active business cares. In the affairs of the bank he took special pride. In fact it was the particular
pride of his life for a quarter of a century. Its twenty per cent. dividends and the rise of its stock filled him
with joy. He was one of the first men down in the morning and one of the last to leave Commercial street at evening.
He put in a full, busy and altogether happy day. In the banking business he found the thing he could do well and
did it, and his fortune climbed up into the hundreds of thousands. Beginning his business career in the West in
partnership with Senator Plumb, Major Hood was naturally drawn into politics, and he liked it. He and the senator
often "hunted in pairs" politically, and they had no secrets from each other. When Senator Plumb left
the senatorial office vacant, Major Hood aspired to it as soon as there was a Republican legislature. He had much
of Senator Plumb's strength, and in the legislature of 1895 he held the balance of power which prevented the election
of J. R. Burton. The late I. E. Lambert was Major Hood's chief lieutenant, and it was Lambert using the Hood strength
who united the anti-Burton forces upon Lucien Baker and made him United States senator. Baker was always loyal
to Major Hood, but the intimacy of a life-time friendship was lacking and the two men did not work together. Baker
supported Major Hood for governor in the canvass of 1898, but he was not forceful, and the Major relying too much,
perhaps, upon the senatorial influence was defeated, though his candidacy was one of good showing. Thereafter he
never seriously considered another candidacy, yet he maintained even to the last days of his life a keen interest
in politics. With all this, politics was only a small part of his interest in life. Essentially he was a business
man. He had a theory in 1905 that he would retire and enjoy life. He sold his stock in the Emporia National Bank-the
pride of his life-but the habit of a life-time was upon him-the habit of hard work-and he could not throw it off.
Consequently he moved his desk down to the Citizens' National Bank, settling down in his new quarters as if he
had always been there, and in a week was again at work and happy. Here he sat daily until the week before his death.
The keystone of his character was loyalty. He was forever helping people. He was a friend to education and church.
He was a charter member of the board of trustees of the College of Emporia, and was a member of the board when
he died. Many a struggling and worthy college student cherishes his memory, because of aid rendered him by Major
Hood. He was generous and charitable, but unostentatious in his giving. For years he was a member of the First
Presbyterian Church of Emporia. His fraternal relations rested with the Masonic fraternity, in which he rose to
the Knight Templar degree.
In 1856 Major Hood married, in Poughkeepsie, N. Y., Miss Fannie T. Platt, and unto them were born five children
that grew to maturity Henry Platt; Clara, who married F. C. Newman, and died in 1893, leaving two children; Grace,
now Mrs. Harry Clark of Salt Lake City, Utah; Mrs. Florence Beecher of Colorado Springs, Col., and Mrs. Alice Hood
Hammett of Topeka. While the Emporia National Bank was the pride of his life, the joy of Major Hood's life was
his family and home. He was a devoted husband, father and friend. He was for years one of the prominent characters
of the state-prominent in politics, but better known in the business world. As a banker he was preeminent, and
for a number of years served as president of the Kansas State Bankers' Association. In his death there passed away
a founder and builder of the great commonwealth of Kansas.
Transcribed as written by, Millie Mowry. (See also Henry Platt Hood)
HOOD, HENRY PLATT
Henry Platt Hood, son of the late Maj. Calvin Hood, was born in Michigan, Oct. 4, 1857. He obtained a high school
education and began his business career early in life by engaging in the cattle business, first being associated
with his father. Later he bought a ranch in New Mexico, and in the cattle business he has continued with gratifying
success. Aside from this form of business he holds an interest in the Citizens' National Bank of Emporia, which
is his resident city.
In 1882 he married Miss Martha Walkup, the daughter of James R. Walkup, a Virginian, who served in the Union army
during the Civil war and came to Kansas in 1869. In politics Mr. Hood is a Republican, and he served as a member
of the State Sanitary Board under Governor Bailey.
Transcribed as written by, Millie Mowry. (See also, Calvin Hood)
