Owen County, Indiana
Biographies
WILLIAM Q. ELLIOTT, who joined
the pioneers of Rice County in the early
'70s, has been one of the conspicuous men in that section of the state
for many years. His sturdy energy as a farmer brought him liberal
rewards, and he has used his means and influence to do good in many
directions. He sent a large family of children into the honorable walks
of life, has staunchly upheld the forces of religion and morality in
his home community and state, and at the age of fourscore his
usefulness still continues, especially manifesting itself in his
official work with the Friends University at Wichita.
He comes of substantial American
ancestry and the family for generations have been stanch Quakers. Mr.
Elliott was born in a stronghold of the Quaker Church in Wayne County, Indiana, February
19, 1837. Wayne County,
Indiana, was largely settled in early days by Quakers from the
Carolinas. His grandfather, Exum Elliott, came out of North Carolina in
1815 and was one of the pioneers
whose physical strength cleared away the forests and established
civilization in that then wilderness section of Eastern Indiana; The
wife of Exum Elliott was Catherine Lamb, of Guilford County, North
Carolina. They had eight children, six sons and two daughters, all of
whom reached mature years, married and with the exception of one
daughter had children of their own. Exum Elliott died at the age of
eighty-six and was laid to rest in the Friends Cemetery at West Grove,
Indiana. Mark Elliott, father of William Q., was born in North Carolina
December 28, 1813, and was two years of age when his parents came
north. On August 27, 1835, in Union County, Indiana, he married Mary
Haworth. Both were members of the Society of Friends and they were
married by the Quaker ceremony. Her birthplace was her father's farm of
200 acres, comprising an island in the Holsten River in the State of
Tennessee. Her father, Joel Haworth, moved from Tennessee to Union
County, Indiana, and bought a large tract of government land at $1.25
per acre in gold. His daughter, Mary, was the oldest in a large family
of children.
Mark Elliott lived on a farm in Wayne
County, Indiana, where he died in 1858 and was laid to rest in the same
cemetery where his father's and mother's remains repose. He left his
widow with seven children, four sons and three daughters. Mrs. Mark
Elliott afterwards came to Kansas and died at Sterling February 23,
1902, at the age of eighty-eight years, two months and twenty-one days.
Of the children of Mark Elliott and
wife, William Q. was the oldest. Hannah, the second, married Isaiah
Sleeper and both died at Baldwin, Kansas, where Mr. Sleeper owned a
farm. The son, Joel H., was, curiously enough, a "fighting Quaker," and
made a brilliant record as a soldier. He served throughout the Civil
war, being captain of Company M of the Seventh Indiana Cavalry. Through
the influence of Governor Morton, the Indiana war governor, he was
raised to the rank of major in the Seventh United States Cavalry. That
was perhaps the only case up to that time where a volunteer officer was
promoted to a higher position in the regular service than he had held
in the volunteer forces. In the regular army he served under the
command of the brilliant General Custer, and took part in that
memorable fight against the Cheyenne and Arapahoe Indians on the
Washita River in what is now the State of Oklahoma in 1868. He and
sixteen men were ambushed in that engagement and all of them were
butchered by the savage Indians under the Chief Black Kettle. His body
was left uncared for on the battleground for two weeks, but was finally
laid to rest in a national cemetery in Oklahoma.
The fourth child of Mark Elliott and
wife was Permelia, who lived at Richmond in Wayne County, Indiana,
widow of Oliver Miller, who died on his farm in that county. She died
in September, 1917. Elton B. is a lumber merchant at Indianapolis,
Indiana. Sarah Elizabeth, who died at Sterling, Kansas, in 1916,
married M. J. Barr, a retired resident of Sterling, Kansas. The seventh
and youngest child, Lewis D., died of diphtheria in Indiana at the age
of seven years.
William Q. Elliott spent his boyhood
in Wayne county, Indiana, during the 40s and 50s. that was a period
when public schools had not yet come into established vogue in Indiana,
but he received a good training in the Friends Monthly meeting School
at West Grove, where his teacher for sever years was Jeremiah Griffin.
Besides his experience on the farm he taught school five winters,
the first term before he was
seventeen years of age.
While his father was a large muscular man six feet two inches high, he
suffered during his last years with sciatica, and William during that
period remained at home and looked after the farm and in other ways
cared for his invalid parent.
February 4, 1858, Mr. Elliott married
Rebecca Jane Jackson. She was born in Wayne County Ind. January, 1838.
Her father, Joseph W. Jackson, was rated as the wealthiest farmer of
that community, and when he died at the age of sixty his estate was
valued at $250,000, acquired through his extensive operations as a
farmer and pork packer. Her mother died in Wayne County six years
before her father. Rebecca Jackson was the oldest of thirteen children,
eight sons and five daughters.
After their marriage Mr. and Mrs.
Elliott went to Vermilion County, Illinois, where they rented a farm.
They lived there for seven years, and then returned ' to the old
homestead, Mr. Elliott taking charge as manager after the death of his
father. In the meantime his attention had been attracted to the free
and new lauds of Kansas, and in the fall of 1873 he came to the state
and filed a homestead1 claim on eighty acres in what was then Reno but
is now Rice County. That original homestead is now owned by his son,
Sylvester J. In March, 1874, Mr. Elliott and his family located at what
was then known as the Village of Peace, now Sterling, and they remained
there until July 1, 1875, when they went out to the homestead and
occupied the house and barn which had been erected preparatory to this
removal.
Mr. Elliott was not only a good
practical farmer but a thorough business man, and with unlimited
confidence in the future of Kansas he invested heavily in lands, buying
from the railroad companies, school lands and also developed a timber
claim, until he was owner of 3,300 acres. Nearly all of this he has
since sold. The development of the land for farming purposes and the
beautifying of the landscape occupied his time and energies for many
years. Mr. Elliott did much as a practical forester and also as a
horticulturist. Beginning in 1876, he planted large numbers of black
walnut, catalpa and cottonwood trees, and those grew until they
constituted large groves on his farm. In 1878 he set out an apple
orchard of twenty acres and in 1882 he sold a thousand dollars worth of
peaches from five acres of seedling trees. When in his prime as an
agriculturist he bred and raised horses, mules and hogs and was one of
the leading stock ranchers. In 1880 Mr. Elliott established the Rice
County Bank at Sterling and conducted it for seven years.
Mr. Elliott's first wife died in
September, 1913, and since her death he has moved to the Town of
Sterling and is now living retired. He is a large stockholder in the
Farmer's State Bank of Sterling.
Mr. Elliott was the father of fifteen
children, and including those living and his grandchildren and
great-grandchildren he now enumerates 101 descendants, a record
comparable to that of the patriarchs of old. For the purposes of this
history a brief reference should be made to each of the children. The
oldest, Mark, born October 29, 1858, in Vermilion County, Illinois, is
now a farmer in Reno County, Kansas. Mary Elizabeth, who was born
January 30, 1860, in Vermilion County, died in infancy. Joseph W.
Jackson, born in Vermilion County February 20, 1861, is now in the farm
implement business at Haviland, Kansas. Cassius Clay, born in Vermilion
County July 19, 1862, is a stockman and rancher in Idaho. Eupha Jane,
born in Vermilion County September 12, 1863, died in infancy. Selena
Margery, who was born after her parents moved back to Wayne County,
Indiana, on Match 29, 1865, is the wife of Albert Snook, and they live
on a farm a mile east of Sterling, Lincoln L., born in Wayne County,
Indiana, February 17, 1867, is a painter and decorator by trade, but
owns 800 acres of farm and ranch land and lives at Haviland.
Sylvester J., born in Wayne County July 6, 1868, is one of the leading
farm owners and business men of Sterling. William Q., Jr., born in
Wayne County February 17, 1870, is a farmer near Sterling. Charles
Sumner was born in Wayne County March 25, 1872, and died at Sterling,
Kansas, in 1874. Clarkson Taber was born August 22, 1874, his being the
first recorded birth of a white child on the town site of Sterling. He
is now a farmer in Reno County, Kansas. Caleb B., born at the old
homestead in what was then Reno County July 11, 1879, is a merchant and
also owns eight ranches at Delta, Colorado. Laban Moody, born in Reno
County July 11, 1879, is a farmer in Ellis County, Oklahoma. Stanley
P., born at the old homestead December 5, 1880, is also a farmer in
Ellis County, Oklahoma. Chester Garfield, the youngest, born in Reno
County, Kansas, October 11, 1883, occupies the old home farm. On
November 6, 1914, Mr. Elliott married, near Hoyt, Kansas, Mrs. Irene B.
(Brooks) Dale, who was born back in Wayne County, Indiana. Mrs. Elliott
is a sister of Mrs. Jonathan Thomas, a resident of Topeka, noted for
her wealth and generosity.
Reference has already been made to
Mr. Elliott's connection with the Friends University at Wichita. He is
vice president and a director of that institution, and chairman of the
board. He is also chairman of the building committee that now has in
charge the erection of a gymnasium to cost $40,000. He has been
entrusted with the handling of a large part of the endowment fund in
loaning this money on real estate. Mr. Elliott is a member of the
Kansas State Historical Society, and has been a lifelong republican. He
took an enthusiastic part as a boy in the first republican presidential
campaign in 1856, when General Fremont was a candidate. He cast his
first presidential vote in 1860 for Lincoln.
Source: A Standard History of Kansas and Kansans By William Elsey
Connelley
BUCHANAN, William John,
wholesale grocer; born, Gosport, Ind., Apr. 6, 1872; son of Henry M.
and Hannah T. (Foreman) Buchanan; educated in public schools of Indiana
and Illinois; married, St. Louis, Aug. 7, 1894, Helen G. Whitman. Began
as clerk in retail grocery at Morrisonville, ILL., continuing until
nearly of age; then came to St. Louis and was with Adam Roth Grocery
Co., later with Benjamin W. Clark Grocer Co., until 1905; president of
the Krekeler Grocer Co. for several years, now president Buchanan
Grocer Co. Office: 510 N. Main St. Residence: 3653 De Tonty St.
(Source: The Book of St. Louisans, Publ. 1912. Transcribed by Charlotte
Slater)
DIXON, JOSEPH was born on the
15th of April, 1830, in Highland county, Ohio. He was married in Owen
county, Indiana, on the 12th of September, 1850, to Miss Elizabeth
Morris. Four years later they came west to Faribault, [Minn.] and the
following spring to Morristown, [Minn.] where they were pioneers, and
staked out a claim in section twenty-six, now known as Nathan's
addition of the village of Morristown. On the 30th of April, 1864, he
enlisted in Company I, of the Fourth Minnesota Volunteer Infantry, and
served till the close of the war. He then returned to his home in this
place and has since devoted his time to its cultivation. Mr. and Mrs.
Dixon have ten children, five of whom are married and five still remain
at home.
(Source: History of Rice County, Minnesota, Published by
Minnesota Historical Company, Minneapolis, Minn. 1882)
Submitted by Veneta McKinney