Biographies of Wyandotte County, Kansas

WYANDOTTE COUNTY, KANSAS

BIOGRAPHIES

ALBON C. DAVIS

Albon C. Davis, settled in Wyandotte county, then a part of Leavenworth county, coming there from New York about 1857; he lost his seat in the territorial council through the contest of Crozier, Root and Wright for the seats of Halderman, Davis and Martin. Mr. Davis sat in the extra session of 1857 from its convening, December 7. until December 11. In 1858 he was appointed United States district attorney for Kansas territory, holding the office until 1861. He was among the active members of the railroad convention of 1860. In October, 1861, he obtained permission from Major-general Fremont to raise a regiment of cavalry, to be known as the Twelfth Kansas volunteer cavalry. December 26 four companies of Nugent's regiment of Missouri home guards were attached to the organization and the name changed to the Ninth Kansas volunteers. January 9, 1862, Davis was made colonel of this regiment, but resigned in February. He died in 1881, in New York. (Transactions of the Kansas State Historical Society 1907-1908, Vol. X, edited by Geo. W. Martin, Secretary, State Printing Office, Topeka, 1908, pages 205 & 206)

WILLIAM MOORE MCCLURE

William Moore McClure of Leavenworth (now Wyandotte) county, was born at Hillside, Glenmore, Chester county, Pennsylvania, March 6.1831. March 7. 1866. he started for Kansas arriving at Leavenworth October 21,1866. In November he returned to Pennsylvania, where he remained until March, 1867. October 6, 1867 he was elected as a free-state candidate a member of the legislature May 80, 1869, he returned to Pennsylvania to remain. At the outbreak of the civil war he recruited a company in Pennsylvania and was appointed captain. He was mustered out in July 1861, but immediately re-enlisted in the Second Pennsylvania heavy artillery as captain of company F and in October, 1864, was made colonel of the regiment He resigned in February, 1866. March 22, 1866, he married Christiana Boyd of Danville, Montrose county. He died at Lancaster. Pa., October 2, 1893. His widow and a daughter reside in Columbia, Pa. Barzillai Gray, of Kansas City, Kan., writes, January 30, 1908:

"One evening some forty or fifty gathered to settle on someone as nominee for the legislature. Wm. M. McClure having received a majority of the votes, was selected and subsequently erected. He was a member of the committee of the legislature to prepare a school law. Toward the close of the session he called at my office with a roll of manuscript and said, ' There is your school law; read and comment.' I read the first paragraph to where a provision is made to a rate bill to raise money sufficient to purchase a site for a schoolhouse. I interlined as follows: Provided that such site shall consist of not less than one acre of ground, and handed him back the paper. It occurred to me at the time that there was so much raw land in Kansas that any fanner would be glad to give an acre to secure a schoolhouse as a neighbor, and thus lessen the desolation of the surrounding prairie. That provision remains in the statute, and every school-house has an acre." (Transactions of the Kansas State Historical Society 1907-1908, Vol. X, edited by Geo. W. Martin, Secretary, State Printing Office, Topeka, 1908, pages 211 & 212)

JOSEPH POMEROY ROOT

Joseph Pomeroy Root, of Wyandotte, then a part of Leavenworth county, was born at Greenwich, Mass., April 28, 1826 and died at Kansas City. Kan., July 20, 1886. He was a member of the Connecticut-Kansas colony, better known as the Beecher Bible and Rifle Company, which settled at Wabaunsee. He organized free-state forces and in every way identified himself with the early history of the territory. As chairman of the free-state executive committee he located the road from Topeka to Nebraska City, thereby securing a safer route of travel for free-state fan-migrants. He was sent east as agent to obtain arms and other assistance and was very successful. On his return he located at Wyandotte and was there elected a member of the council. He was lieutenant-governor of the state in 1861; served in the Second Kansas as surgeon, and was medical director of the Army of the Frontier. At the close of the war he returned to Wyandotte and the practice of his profession, but was appointed minister to Chili in 1870. At the close of his term of office he returned again to Wyandotte, and continued there until his death, July 20, 1886. (Transactions of the Kansas State Historical Society 1907-1908, Vol. X, edited by Geo. W. Martin, Secretary, State Printing Office, Topeka, 1908, page 205)

HAMPTON B. DENMAN

Hampton B. Denman, was born in Ohio, about 1829. He came to Kansas in March 1857 and died in Washington D.C. in 1906. In a Democratic convention in 1859 to nominate candidates for state offices under the Wyandotte constitution, he received 27 votes for governor and Samuel Medary, the nominee, received 43. At the same election, December 6, 1859, he was elected to the first state senate. In 1863 he was appointed a commissioner to select certain lands due the state and in 1866 Indian superintendent of the Northern Agency. He was mayor of Leavenworth for the years 1858, 1859 and 1862. (Transactions of the Kansas State Historical Society 1907-1908, Vol. X, edited by Geo. W. Martin, Secretary, State Printing Office, Topeka, 1908, pages 239 & 240)

OTIS BERTHOUDE GUNN

Otis Berthoude Gunn was born October 27, 1828 at Montague, Mass. He was the son of Otis and Lucy Fisk Gunn. He had a thorough New England common school education and began work as a rodman on the construction of the Hossac Tunnel railroad. He was engineer in charge of the railroad between Rochester and Niagara Falls. He taught school for two years near Harrisburg, Pa. In 1853 he was division engineer in the construction of the Toledo, Wabash & Western and followed railroad construction westward until he located in Kansas in 1857, settling at Wyandotte. In 1859 he was elected to the first state senate, which met in 1861. In 1861 he was appointed major of the Fourth Kansas regiment, later the Tenth Kansas infantry, but in May 1862 resigned to resume railroad work being connected at various times with the Kansas City & Cameron, Leavenworth, Pawnee & Western, Central Branch Union Pacific, and the Missouri, Kansas & Texas. Of this last named road he built 600 miles. He built the bridge across the Missouri rive at Atchison and in 1876 superintended the construction of the present union depot in Kansas City. He was a great engineer. In 1896 he wrote a financial article entitled "Bullion versus Coin," which the Republican national committee circulated broadcast over the country. He died in Kansas City February 18, 1901 and was buried in Oak Grove, Lawrence. His widow resides in Kansas City, Mo. (Transactions of the Kansas State Historical Society 1907-1908, Vol. X, edited by Geo. W. Martin, Secretary, State Printing Office, Topeka, 1908, page 239)

CAMPBELL, D. G.

D. G. Campbell was born February 13, 1821, in Memphis, Tenn. In 1849 he emigrated to Ouachita county, Arkansas, near Camden, and in 1856 came into Kansas but on account of unsettled conditions located in Andrew County, Missouri. However, three years later, 1859, he returned to Kansas, settling at Quindaro, Wyandotte county, and in 1861 made a permanent location in Shawnee township, Johnson county. He was a member of the legislatures of 1863, 1864, 1865, 1868, 1875 & 1876. Mr. Campbell was married March 5, 1846, to Miss A. V. Cooley, of Dresden, Tenn. He was a lawyer, and practiced in partnership with John T. Little, of Olathe. He was in Shawnee when the place was destroyed by Quantrill. November 11, 1890 he was ran over by a locomotive at Merriam, on the Kansas City, Fort Scott & Gulf railroad, and instantly killed. (Transactions of the Kansas State Historical Society 1907-1908, Vol. X, edited by Geo. W. Martin, Secretary, State Printing Office, Topeka, 1908, page 269)

SHARP, ISAAC B.

Isaac B. Sharp was born in Ohio, in January, 1836. He was a graduate of Oberlin University and of the Ohio State Union Law College at Cleveland. He came from Fremont, Ohio in January 1859, locating at Wyandotte, where he began the practice of his profession with Charles W. Glick. In 1860 he was appointed assistant district attorney, holding the office until 1862, when he was elected to the senate. Upon the expiration of his term as senator he was again elected probate judge of Wyandotte county, and re-elected for the third term. In 1860 he married Maria A. Bennett, a native of Baltimore, Md. Judge Sharp took his own life June 22, 1884. He had been in poor health for some time, suffering from a cerebral affection. (Transactions of the Kansas State Historical Society 1907-1908, Vol. X, edited by Geo. W. Martin, Secretary, State Printing Office, Topeka, 1908, page 267)

SIMS, JOHN THOMAS

John Thomas Sims, probate judge of Wyandotte county, Kansas, and an able member of the Kansas City bar, was born in Robinson, Crawford county, Illinois, Dec. 31, 1864, son of Thomas Jefferson Sims, a native of Virginia and a blacksmith and wagon-maker by trade, who later became a merchant miller. He died in Robinson, Ill., about 1877. The 'mother of judge Sims was Miss Arminta McComas Elledge, born in Kentucky in 1828, and died in Robinson, Ill., in 1884. Judge Sims has one brother and two sisters living. His eldest sister is Mrs. Ellen May Firebaugh, wife of Dr. Isaac L. Firebaugh, a prominent physician of Robinson, Ill. Mrs. Firebaugh is also prepared for the profession of medicine, having graduated from Rush Medical College, at Chicago, but she does not practice. She is a literary woman of talent and of note, being the author of a book entitled "The Physician's Wife," and frequent contributor of stories to the Youth's Companion and other Eastern periodicals. Miss Stella, the younger sister of Judge Sims, is a graduate in dentistry and is very successfully practicing that profession at Robinson, Ill. Charles Raymond, the only brother of Judge Sims, is a telegrapher by profession. Judge Sims was reared at Robinson and received an excellent early education in the public schools of that city. At the age of seventeen he left school as a student, and a year later became a teacher. After teaching three terms in Crawford county, Illinois, he came to Kansas, in 1884, and taught three more terms in that state, two of them in Labette county and one in Pratt county. Meanwhile, he had studied law while engaged in teaching and, in 1895, was admitted to the bar in Kansas City, Kan., in which city he had located in 1890. From 1885 to 1890 he was first a resident of Pratt, Kan., and later of Joplin, Mo. Since his location in Kansas City in 1895 he has devoted his attention to law, though he has also held offices during much of the time. In 1893 he was elected a justice of the peace, was reelected in 1895, and again in 1897, serving as such from 1893 to 1897, at which time his office, by legislative enactment, was abolished. In 1905 he was elected judge of the police court, was reelected to that office in 1907, and again in 1909, but resigned on Dec. 12, 1910, in order to accept the office of probate judge of Wyandotte county, to which office he was elected in November, I9IO. Judge Sims is a Republican in his political views and for many years has been one of the most active workers of his party in Wyandotte county. He has frequently served as chairman of delegations of his party in various party and district conventions, and for two years was secretary of the Republican central committee of the Second Congressional district. He is a member of the Masonic order and has attained the Knight Templar degree. He is further fraternally affiliated with the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks, the Knights of Pythias, the Modern Woodmen of America, and the Ancient Order of United Workmen, and is now serving his third term as chairman of the law committee for the last named order in the State of Kansas. He associates professionally as a member of the Wyandotte County Bar Association and the Kansas State Bar Association. Judge Sims, as a lawyer, has those powers of mind which enable him to master the most intricate problems connected with the law, and that tenacity of purpose which makes him a forminable opponent at the bar, and his persistent and logical handling of all cases entrusted to him has secured him favorable decisions in some of the most important suits in the history of Kansas court proceedings. Judge Sims was married Oct. 24, 1893, to Miss Cora Anna Petri, of Parsons, Kan., and they have one daughter living-Elizabeth Arminta-who was born Aug 1, 1894. She is now a student in the Kansas City high school. (Kansas Biography, Vol. III, Part 2, Pages 800-801, Transcribed by: Millie Mowry) (A picture of John Thomas Sims may be obtained by contacting the contributor at Rock2Plate@aol.com).

ALLEN, ASA HALLOCK

Asa Hallock Allen, assistant superintendent of the Kansas City Public Service Company was born in Rae County, Missouri, September 7, 1883. He has resided in Kansas for the past 16 years. His father, Francis Marion Allen, was born in Rae County, Missouri, and died in Kansas City, Missouri in 1894. He was a stockman. His wife died on May 7, 1884.

Asa Hallock Allen attended country school in Rae County and Woodson Institute of Richmond, Missouri.

On October 3, 1904, he was married to Hermie Woodville Duffield at Leavenworth. She was born at Holden, Missouri, July 10, 1883. There are five children, Edith, born July 20, 1905, who was married to O. Burwood Cook; Frances, October 29, 1907, who married Fred E. Palmer; Hal, Jr., December 17, 1910; who married Beulah T. Cole; Jack, October 12, 1912; and Helen, August 29, 1916.

Mr. Allen is a Democrat and a member of Richmond Methodist Church. His favorite sports are fishing and hunting. Residence: Kansas City, Kansas. (Illustriana Kansas, by Sara Mullin Baldwin & Robert Morton Baldwin, 1933, Page 21)

ALLISON, OSCAR ETHAN

The Reverend Oscar Ethan Allison, clergyman, was born in Mount Vernon, Indiana, August 24, 1880, son of James Alexander and Sarah Hannah (Hillyard) Allison.

He received the degree of Bachelor of Arts from DePaul University at Greencastle in 1906; his Master's degree from Boston University in 1910; and the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in 1915.

On September 12, 1906, Dr. Allison joined the Indiana Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church. He is now a member of the Kansas Conference, and was a delegate to the general conference in 1928 and 1932. He is the pastor of Washington Avenue Methodist Episcopal Church at the present time.

On October 18, 1906, he was married to Emma Antoinette Olmsted at Evansville, her birthplace. Mrs. Allison was born May 17, 1881. There are two children, Dorothy Ann, born at Boston, on April 14, 1912; and Hugh Vincent, born in Indianapolis, November 24, 1916. Residence: Kansas City, Kansas. (Illustriana Kansas, by Sara Mullin Baldwin & Robert Morton Baldwin, 1933, page 31)

BAILEY, WILLIAM ARTHUR

William Arthur Bailey, editor and manager of the Kansas City Kansan, was born at Baldwin, March 6, 1884, son of Charles William and Mary E. (Stark) Bailey. The father, a clergyman and a veteran of the Civil War, was born in Watertown, Wisconsin, February 10, 1848. Pie has been district superintendent of the Fort Scott district, but at the present time is retired and resides at Baldwin. Mary E. Stark was born in Scott County, Illinois, November 8, 1860.
William Arthur Bailey attended public school at Louisburg and Cherryvale, Kansas, and in 1900 was graduated from high school at Cherryvale. He received the degree of Bachelor of Arts in 1905 from Baker University, and took one year of post-graduate work at the University of Chicago. His fraternities include Phi Delta Kappa and Delta Tau Delta.

On August 19, 1909, Mr. Bailey was married to Myrtle Amelia Thorne at Onarga, Illinois. She was born there July 2, 1885. There are two children, William Thorne, born December 30, 1912; and Elizabeth Jean, April 8, 1917.

From 1905 until 1909 Mr. Bailey Avas teacher and high school principal at Eureka and Wichita, Kansas. He became principal at Enid, Oklahoma, in the high school in 1909, and from 1913 until 1915 held the same position in the Leavenworth High School. The following four years he was principal of the Kansas City, Kansas, High School, and from 1919 until 1921 was assistant cashier of the Exchange State Bank.

Mr. Bailey helped establish the Kansas City Kansan in 1921, and is now its editor and manager. Mr. Bailey is the author of articles on educational subjects and on newspaper practices. He is a director of the Young Men's Christian Association, the Red Cross, Salvation Army, and Community Chest, and the Family Service Society. He is past president and a director of the Chamber of Commerce, a regional vice president of the Kansas Chamber of Commerce, and a member also of the Kansas Press Association (vice president), the American Newspaper Publishers Association, the School Masters Club, the Kansas State Historical Society, and the Rotary Club, of which he is present director and past president. He is an Elk and a 32nd degree Scottish Rite Mason and Shriner. His club is the Milburn Golf and Country Club.

In 1921 he resigned his position to help establish and become business manager of the Kansas City Kansan, under the ownership of Senator Arthur Capper. He has been with the Kansan since its establishment and is now editor and manager.

He is a member of the official board of the Washington Avenue Methodist Episcopal Church. Residence: Kansas City, Kansas. (Illustriana Kansas, by Sara Mullin Baldwin & Robert Morton Baldwin, 1933, page 56)