Biographies
"K"
 JOHN KENT
John Kent, a vigorous business man of the younger generation, is one of
the most successful in Boise, although he has been an American for only
the last half dozen years. Of Cornish birth and ancestry, he is the son
of Robert Kent (1837-1911) and Emma Stevens Kent, of Cornwall, England.
Robert Kent was a blacksmith throughout his entire active life and for
forty years represented his family firm of Robert Kent & Sons in
that occupation. Emma Stevens was English by birth; she still resides
in Cornwall at the age of seventy-two years. That famous region of
England was the birthplace of John Kent and the date of his birth was
December 3, 1877.
After continuing in the public schools of Cornwall until he was
fourteen years of age, the learning of the blacksmith's trade was John
Kent's next activity. Having mastered its details, he left his native
place to try the fortunes of his occupation in the great manufacturing
city of Bristol, England. He remained there for two years, working with
engineers. After that experience, Mr. Kent felt convinced that his best
chance for individual achievement lay in the newer land beyond the
western ocean. In 1906 he found himself on the shores of the United
States and soon traveled from there to Boise.
The young Englishman secured employment very soon after reaching Boise,
for his abilities were at once appreciated by the Idaho Carriage
Company of this place. Such were his ambition and his thrift that after
only one year as an employee of this company he bought out the
business, which he is still conducting successfully. His shop is well
equipped and the work it turns out is of excellent quality.
Mr. Kent is an unassuming, home-loving man, with a quiet enthusiasm for
the things which are most worth while. Politically he is a Republican
of the independent class which allows no party traditions, however
noble, to blind the voter to the real issues of direct moral influence.
Religiously he and his family are connected with the Methodist
Episcopal Church.
Mrs. Kent was formerly Miss Ellen Oliver and her marriage to John Kent
was solemnized on January 23, 1901, at Cornwall. England. They are the
parents of three promising boys: John Redvers Kent, born April 16,
1902, in Cornwall, England; Richard Neil Kent, born June 20, 1904, in
Cornwall; and Rupert Idaho Kent, born July 13, 1908, in the city of
Boise Mr. Kent and his family believe in a great future for Boise and
the state and are as loyal Americans as any born in the United States.
[HISTORY OF IDAHO VOLUME
II; BY HIRAM T. FRENCH, M. S.; Publ. 1914; Transcribed and submitted to
Genealogy Trails by Andrea Stawski Pack.]
 HARRY S. KESSLER
In November, 1902, Mr. Kessler, who was then a young man of twenty-five
years, established himself in the practice of law at Boise, the capital
of Idaho, and here his success in connection with his profession and
important business interests has been pronounced. He is recognized as
one of the progressive and public-spirited citizens of Boise and in
addition to having gained definite prestige in his profession, is the
executive head of the Merchants' Protective Association, which has
exercised most important and benignant functions, and is secretary of
the Idaho Title & Trust Company. That he has achieved much within
the decade of his residence in Idaho's capital city is evident when it
is stated that when he arrived here his available resources in a
financial way were limited to the sum of ten dollars. He has been an
active, worker in the ranks of the Republican party and also for the
cause of prohibition in the state. He is a man of high ideals and
utmost loyalty and commands secure vantage ground in popular confidence
and respect.
Mr. Kessler was born at Tekamah, Nebraska county, Nebraska, on the 13th
of January, 1877, and is a son of John F. and Katherine (Sriader)
Kessler, the former a native of Pennsylvania and the latter of Ohio,
both being of German lineage. John F. Kessler was numbered among the
sterling pioneers of Nebraska, where he established his home about the
year 1872 and where he became a prosperous agriculturist, stock-grower
and merchant, besides which he represented Burt county in the state
legislature. He continued his residence in Nebraska until 1905 and he
now maintains his home in the city of Boise, Idaho, secure in the high
regard of all who know him. His wife passed away early in 1913. Mr.
Kessler, Sr., is a zealous member of the Presbyterian church. They
became the parents of seven children, of whom three sons and two
daughters are now living, the subject of this review being the eldest
son.
Harry S. Kessler gained his early educational discipline in the public
schools of his native state, where he was graduated in the Oakland high
school as a member of the class of 1892. In 1807 he was graduated in
Bellevue College, at Bellevue, Nebraska, with the degree of bachelor of
arts, and in preparation for the work of his chosen profession he
entered the law department of the celebrated University of Michigan, at
Ann Arbor, in which he was graduated as a member of the class of 1902
and from which he received the degree of bachelor of laws. In November
of the same year he established his home in Boise, Idaho, where he was
for two years associated with the law firm of Wood & Wilson. Since
that time he has built up a substantial private practice, enjoying
probably the largest commercial law practice in the state.
Considerable of his attention is also given to his administrative
duties as executive head of the Merchants' Protective Association,
which is incorporated under the laws of the state. He assumed the
management of this business in 1906 and under his careful direction it
has accomplished a most valuable work in the protection of credit
interests of both wholesale and retail merchants in southwestern Idaho
and eastern Oregon. This association has issued its sixth edition of
what is known as the "Credit Reference Book," and the same contains the
names and habits of pay of thirty thousand persons in the territory.
The publication has proved of great benefit to business men in the
extension of credits and the work has not lacked for appreciation and
support. Mr. Kessler is also secretary of the Idaho Title & Trust
Company, an important and well ordered institution, and has gained
precedence as one of the substantial citizens of the state in which he
has found and availed himself of splendid opportunities for advancement.
Active as a worker in the ranks of the Republican party, Mr. Kessler
has been unflagging in his efforts, to bring about abolishment of the
liquor traffic in Idaho, in which connection he was chairman of the
"Dry" element which made a most vigorous campaign in Boise in 1909.
Both he and his wife are most devoted and active members of the First
Presbyterian church of Boise, in which he is serving as deacon, and
they have a pleasant home at 1417 Redenbaugh street.
At Lyons, Nebraska, on the 18th of November, 1902, was solemnized the
marriage of Mr. Kessler to Miss Julia Christensen, who was born and
reared in that state and who is a daughter of C. Christensen formerly a
prosperous farmer and stock-grower of Burt county, Nebraska, but now
residing in Boise. Mr. and Mrs. Kessler have four children,— Lucile.
Lillian, Margaret and John Raymond, all of whom were born in Boise.
[HISTORY OF IDAHO VOLUME
II; BY HIRAM T. FRENCH, M. S.; Publ. 1914; Transcribed and submitted to
Genealogy Trails by Andrea Stawski Pack.]
HARRY KEYSER
Numbered among the representative members of the bar of Boise is Harry
Keyser, who has been engaged in the labors of his profession but a few
years but has already acquired an enviable standing as a lawyer. In his
veins is mingled Scotch and German blood, representing two
nationalities that have always been found in the advance guard of
civilization and that for mental alertness, robust morality and
uplifting influences have been more highly valued than have, perhaps,
any others that have contributed to the shaping of American character.
Mr. Keyser springs from Revolutionary ancestors and by virtue of lineal
descent is a member of the Sons of the American Revolution, being now
secretary of the Idaho branch of that order. Born in Bower, Jefferson
County, Nebraska, November 11, 1881, he is a son of George Edgar and
Clara E. Keyser. The father, deceased on December 15, 1905. He was a
pioneer and a prominent farmer and land owner in Jefferson County,
Nebraska. He had taken a prominent part in the public life of that
county, and at the time of the Populist movement was a leader in local
political affairs there. Clara E. (Bower) Keyser, the mother of our
subject, is a native of Nebraska and a daughter of Lewis Bower, who was
born in Wurttemberg, Germany, and upon immigrating to this country
became an early pioneer farmer in Jefferson County, Nebraska. There the
town of Bower, the birthplace of his grandson, was named in his honor.
George Edgar and Clara E. (Bower) Keyser became the parents of three
sons who are mentioned as follows: Alvin Keyser, now professor of
agronomy in the agricultural college of Colorado, graduated from the
University of Nebraska in 1904 as a Bachelor of Science and after
further work in that institution was graduated from the liberal arts
department in 1906 with a Master's degree; Val Keyser, the second son,
who graduated from the same university with the class of 1905. is an
expert horticulturist and is prominently known throughout Nebraska in
that connection, the awakening interest in advanced agriculture and
horticulture and the recognition of his large ability making his
professional opinions and advice in constant demand; for a time he was
superintendent of the Farmers' Institute at Lincoln, Nebraska, but
resigned in January, 1911, to engage in business for himself.
Harry Keyser, the youngest of the three, after completing his
preparatory work in Lincoln Normal University, the Lincoln Academy and
the Agricultural School, entered the University of Nebraska and was
graduated in 1905 with the degree of Bachelor of Arts. Continuing the
study of law in the same institution, he was graduated with high honors
and with the degree of Bachelor of Laws in the class of 1907. After
leaving college he returned to his father's ranch for a short time to
rest up from his long application to studies and then in the fall of
1907 accepted a position on the legal staff of the Union Building &
Trust Company of Lincoln, remaining with them six months.
In September 1908, he was married and on the same day as that event
came west accompanied by his bride. After a pleasant trip throughout
the Northwest he located at Seattle, Washington, but four months later
came to Boise, Idaho, where he has since been engaged in the practice
of his profession. He at once entered into partnership with W. B.
Davidson, opened offices in the Sonna building and for two years the
firm did a very successful business. In March, 1911, the partnership
was dissolved and Mr. Keyser began independently, opening a fine suite
of rooms in the Idaho building, the tasteful and appropriate
appointments of which bespeak the aesthetic nature of its occupant and
are a credit to the profession. He has acquired a representative
clientele and satisfactory practice and during a year and a half of
service as deputy prosecuting attorney in Boise gained a splendid
reputation as a prosecutor, in consequence of which many cases of that
nature are offered him. Politically he is a Republican.
He is a member and presiding officer in the local lodge of the Royal
Highlanders, is a member of the Phi Del Phi legal fraternity, and is a
trustee of the Unitarian church. In the way of recreation he enjoys
hunting and delights in boating. Believing that the state's natural
resources yet undeveloped are untold and that industrial development
here is but in its infancy, he has a firm faith in the future of Idaho
and expects it to eventually take a foremost place among the
commonwealths of the Union.
Mrs. Keyser was Miss Mable Eleanor Waugh before her marriage, a native
of Grant City, Missouri, and a daughter of W. W. Waugh. She is a
graduate nurse of Green Gables Sanitarium, Lincoln, Nebraska. Mr. and
Mrs. Keyser have one daughter, Josephine, born June 12, 1909.
[HISTORY OF IDAHO VOLUME
II; BY HIRAM T. FRENCH, M. S.; Publ. 1914; Transcribed and submitted to
Genealogy Trails by Andrea Stawski Pack.]
WERNER KLINGLER
A resident of Payette since 1905, Mr. Klingler is manager of the
Payette-Weiser Milling Company, and a thoroughly experienced miller and
business man.
Werner Klingler was born in St. Gallen, Switzerland, September 9, 1876,
a son of Franz and Mary (Anderau) Klingler, both natives of
Switzerland, the former of whom died in 1903 at the age of seventy
years. Mrs. Klingler survives and still has her home in Switzerland.
During the last forty years of his life Franz Klingler owned and
controlled a mill at Gossau, Canton St. Gallen, Switzerland, and was a
man of considerable prominence in his community. He and his wife were
the parents of nine children, concerning whom the following data is
here incorporated: Herman is a rancher in the vicinity of Vernon,
Texas; Anna is the wife of William Brunshweiler, a wholesale wine
dealer of Switzerland; Otto lives in Switzerland and is a manufacturer
of lace curtains; Robert is a miller and owns and controls a loo-barrel
mill in Switzerland; Walter is a miller in Chile, South America;
Werner; Mary K., is the wife of August Kurrer, a lawyer, who resides in
Switzerland; Hedwig, married Joseph Huber, cheese dealer in
Switzerland, and Oscar, a civil engineer, is also a resident of
Switzerland.
In the public schools of Switzerland Werner Klingler attained his
preliminary education, including a three-years' course in the high
school. Subsequently he attended a French institute for one year and
thoroughly learned the French language. Under, the direction of his
father he then acquired the trade of miller and for one year was a
student in a miller school at Dippoldiswalde, Saxony, Germany. In 1900
he began his practical career with the management of a mill at Dole,
France, where he remained eight months and was then employed in a Swiss
milling plant for a short time. He was connected with different trades
for several months and subsequently went to Russia, where he was in a
shoe factory at Warsaw for one year. Going to England in 1902 he spent
the first eight months studying the English language in a private
school. From England he crossed the Atlantic to Old Mexico, where he
took charge of a flour mill in the state of Sonora. Eighteen months
later he went to Oregon, being associated with his brother Walter for
one year in conducting a mill near Portland. Having sold out his
interests in that place in 1905, he came to Payette, Idaho,
establishing the milling concern known as Thomas & Klingler. The
business name of this concern was Thomas & Klingler Milling Company
for the first three years, since which time it has been the
Payette-Weiser Milling Company. The company own and conduct two mills
in Payette, Idaho, and one in Weiser, Idaho, and the firm also is
engaged in the wholesale grain business. The Payette-Weiser Milling
Company in the past few years has become one of the largest concerns of
its kind in Idaho and its business and products are of substantial
benefit to the people of the state.
Mr. Klingler maintains an independent attitude in his political
opinions and activities, and is a progressive and energetic citizen,
one who displays a deep and sincere interest in all matters effecting
the good of the community. He is a well read and well informed man, and
has command of several languages. Mr. Klingler is unmarried.
Source: "A History of Idaho" by Hiram T. French, Volume III, published by The Lewis Publishing Company, 1914.
Submitted by Don Tharp
J. FRANKLIN KOELSCH
J. Franklin Koelsch is a member of the firm known as the Sand-Lime
Brick Company, engaged in the manufacture of sand-lime brick and
blocks, located in Boise, Idaho. The business was organized and
established by Mr. Koelsch and others in 1906, and has been one of the
big manufacturing plants of the city since its inception. Mr. Koelsch
gave up a profitable and well established business to enter his present
line, seeing the unlimited possibilities open to such an enterprise,
and the growth and success of the new concern has amply verified his
farsightedness in every respect.
Born in Washington county, Wisconsin, on July 17, 1864, J. Franklin
Koelsch is the son of Peter and Sophia (Schumacher) Koelsch. The father
was a native German, and the mother the daughter of German parents. Of
these worthy parents more detailed mention is made in the life sketch
of Hon. Charles F. Koelsch, brother of the subject, so that further
record of the ancestry of Mr. Koelsch is not necessary at this point.
J. Franklin Koelsch was educated in the schools of Washington county
and in the Northern Indiana Normal at Valparaiso to the age of sixteen.
When he was seventeen years old he taught in the common schools of his
native state, continuing in his pedagogic work for a period of five
years. Giving up his educational labors, the young man turned his
attention to mercantile lines, and began to learn something of the
business as a clerk in a grocery store. His first employment of that
nature was at Rochester, Minnesota, and for three years he followed
that work. In 1899 he came west, settling first in Butte, Montana,
where he felt himself sufficiently experienced to enter business on his
own responsibility. He accordingly opened a grocery store, and though
he was successful in a financial way, he was not satisfied with
climatic conditions and after two years he removed to Boise, Idaho,
this city ever since representing his home and the scene of his
business activities. Here again Mr. Koelsch entered the grocery
business, feeling himself best fitted for that branch, and up until
1006 he continued as he had begun. In that year, however, he decided to
branch out somewhat, whereupon he organized the Boise Mercantile
Company, Wholesale & Retail, Incorporated. Mr. Koelsch was
secretary and treasurer, L. L. Ormsby was vice-president and M. A.
Reagen was president.
This concern proved a success and is still in existence and carrying on
a thriving trade, although Mr. Koelsch is no longer connected with its
operations, having sold his interest when he organized the Sand-Lime
Brick Company. The officials of this firm are as follows: D. O.
Stevenson, president; George B. Rogers, vice-president; and J. F.
Koelsch, secretary and general manager. Although the new firm is yet
almost in its infancy, it has amply demonstrated its possibilities for
the future, and has already established its promoters upon a sound
financial basis. Mr. Koelsch is regarded as one of the financially
strong men of the city, a condition of affairs which has resulted
entirely from his own industry and energy. He gained his education
through his own efforts, working his way through school, and then
fitting himself for a higher place in the mercantile world by beginning
at the bottom of the ladder and learning the business item by item and
detail by detail, until when yet a young man, he was able to own and
manage a successful establishment.
Mr. Koelsch is a Republican, and has always taken an active part in the
labors of that party. He has given valuable service to his city as a
member of the council from 1906 to 1908, inclusive, and has always
taken a praiseworthy interest in the civic advancement of the
community, thus demonstrating the high quality of his citizenship. He
is a member of the Woodmen of the World, in Camp No. 150 of Boise.
On July 22, 1888, Mr. Koelsch was united in marriage at Eyota,
Minnesota, with Miss Mary A. Bresnahan, the daughter of Mr. and Mrs.
Ben Bresnahan, farming people of that region. Two sons have been born
to Mr. and Mrs. Koelsch: Charles Clay, a student in the Idaho State
University at Moscow, and William A., now attending the high school in
Boise. The home of the family is maintained at 109 E. Bannack street,
while the office of the firm is in the Overland block.
[HISTORY OF IDAHO VOLUME
II; BY HIRAM T. FRENCH, M. S.; Publ. 1914; Transcribed and submitted to
Genealogy Trails by Andrea Stawski Pack.]
WILLIAM KRULL
A prominent figure in realty circles of Boise, where he holds an
enviable position in-social and public matters, William Krull,
secretary-of-the-Idaho Inter-Mountain Fair Association, has been
identified with the interests of the city ever since his arrival here,
and his long and honorable business career has made him well known in
various sections of the west. Mr. Krull was born December 25, 1870, in
Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and is a son of Robert and Anna (Keppler) Krull,
natives of Germany. His father emigrated from the Fatherland to the
United States in about 1865, settling; in Milwaukee, where he was
engaged in the gram brokerage business until a few years before his
death, which occurred in 1910, at Nordhoff, California, when he was
sixty-seven years of age. Mrs. Krull came to America about the year
1867 with her parents and met and married Mr. Krull at Baltimore,
Maryland, and her death occurred at Milwaukee, in 1882, when she was
but forty years of age. William was the oldest child and only son of
their four children.
After attending the common and high schools of Milwaukee and taking a
special course in the institution of Guestrow, Germany, Mr. Krull
returned to this country. When he was fifteen years of age he secured a
position on the Milwaukee Board of Trade as a messenger boy at a salary
of three dollars per week, and during the next twenty years was
connected with the board in one capacity or another, principally as a
broker. Mr. Krull arrived in San Francisco the day of the great
earthquake, but remained in that city only a short period, removing to
Portland, Oregon, where he took the position of auditor for the Filer
Music House, and one year later was transferred to Boise as manager.
Here he continued in the same line for a time and then turned his
attention to the real estate, insurance and loan business, and in the
fall of 1910 assisted in the organization of the Security Loan and
Trust Company, of which he was secretary. Politically a Democrat, he
was the candidate in 1912 for the office of assessor of Ada county. He
belongs to the B. P. O. E. lodge.
On September 2, 1901, Mr. Krull was married to Miss Vivian Van Slyke,
daughter of Herman Van Slyke, a native of Chicago. They reside at the
Hurtt apartments. Mr. Krull has a number of mining interests. A shrewd,
capable business man, the architect of his own fortunes, he has risen
to his present position through hard, faithful labor, and as a man
whose activities are benefitting his adopted community he stands high
in the esteem of its citizens.
[HISTORY OF IDAHO VOLUME
II; BY HIRAM T. FRENCH, M. S.; Publ. 1914; Transcribed and submitted to
Genealogy Trails by Andrea Stawski Pack.]
Copyright © Genealogy Trails 2012
All data on this website is
Copyright by Genealogy Trails with full rights reserved for original
submitters.
|
