Biographies of Brown County Residents

DAVID ELLENWOOD BALLARD

David Ellenwood Ballard, was born in Franklin County, Vermont, March 20, 1837. He is of English descent, his paternal great-great-grandfather coming to this country twenty years before the breaking out of the Revolutionary War, in which five of his ancestors participated. His father, Appleton Ballard, moved to Morrow county, Ohio. His mother's name was Epiphena Ellenwood. Her father was a seafaring man, and was murdered and robbed in the harbor of Halifax after he had disposed of his cargo. In may, 1857 David E. Ballard came to Kansas, locating in Brown County. In 1858 he moved to Washington County and was the first county clerk, having assisted in organizing the county. In 1859 he was elected to the first state legislature and in the senatorial election was an active partisan of James H. Lane. In November 1861, he enlisted in the Second Kansas as a private and in 1862 was made first lieutenant. He was mustered out in February 1865. He was in the battles of Fort Wayne, Fort Smith, Cane Hill, and Prairie Grove. In 1867 he was appointed a commissioner to audit the Price raid claims. For two years ending in 1869, he was an assessor of internal revenue. At Leavenworth, December 25, 1865 he was married to Miss Louise Brown. He served also in the legislature of 1879. He has large farming interests in Washington and Meade Counties. His home is in Washington, Kan. (Transactions of the Kansas State Historical Society 1907-1908, Vol. X, edited by Geo. W. Martin, Secretary, State Printing Office, Topeka, 1908, pages 243-244)

JOHN DOWNS

John Downs, of Brown county, was born in Cameron, Steuben County, New York, September 27, 1825. He came to Kansas in October, 1858, settling in Nemaha County. In 1865 he moved into Brown County. He was a farmer. He died near Sabetha, August 27, 1890. His family removed to Stockton, Cal., in 1895. (Transactions of the Kansas State Historical Society 1907-1908, Vol. X, edited by Geo. W. Martin, Secretary, State Printing Office, Topeka, 1908, page 270)

HARTWIN RUSH DUTTON

Hartwin Rush Dutton was born in Allegany County, New York, July 20, 1824. He was a civil engineer by profession and early in the 50's located in Iowa, remaining there until 1857, when he migrated to Brown county, Kansas. He laid out the town of Hiawatha and was president of the town company. In 1859 he was elected to the last territorial legislature and was state senator in 1861 the first state legislature. March 26, 1861 he was appointed by Governor Robinson state treasurer, vice William Tholen, who entered the army; at the next election, November 1861, he was elected to serve out the term. Shortly before his term of office expired, he left Kansas, going to Chicago, where he went into the insurance business. He died at Zanesville, Ohio, November 12, 1883. (Transactions of the Kansas State Historical Society 1907-1908, Vol. X, edited by Geo. W. Martin, Secretary, State Printing Office, Topeka, 1908, page 240)

EDMUND NEEDHAM MORRILL

Edmund Needham Morrill of Brown county, was born at Westbrook, Cumberland county, Maine, February 12, 1884. He was educated in the common schools and in the Westbrook; Academy, and learned the trade of a tanner. He served on the local school board in his native place. In March, 1857, he came to Kansas, settling in Brown county. His first business venture was a sawmill, but a fire wiped out the enterprise, leaving a debt for the young man to struggle with. In 1857 he was elected a member of the free-state territorial legislature from the counties of Brown and Nemaha, and January 4, 1858, a member of the state legislature under the Lecompton constitution, in which there was no service. In 1861 he enlisted in company C, Seventh Kansas regiment, and in August, 1862, was made a captain and commissary of subsistence. General Grant placed him in charge of all the stores at Forts Henry, Heiman and Donelson. In October, 1865, he was discharged, with the rank of major. From 1866 to 1872 he filled the offices successively of clerk of the district court and county clerk. In 1872 he was elected to the state senate, and reflected in 1876. In 1882 he was elected to Congress, where he served four terms. By virtue of a bill bearing his name, there are now in the United States something like a half million soldiers' widows and orphans who draw annually nearly sixty millions of dollars from the bounty of their government. In 1890 he declined further service in Congress. In 1894 he was nominated and elected governor of Kansas. He was president of the State Historical Society in 1896. He is a man of great public spirit and of the strongest friendships. He resides in Hiawatha, where he has conducted a banking business for many years with great success. . (Transactions of the Kansas State Historical Society 1907-1908, Vol. X, edited by Geo. W. Martin, Secretary, State Printing Office, Topeka, 1908, page 213)

CHARLES G. BLAKELY

Charles G. Blakely, whose attainments as a business man have made his name familiar not only in his home City of Topeka but in many parts of the state, has been a resident of Kansas since the fall of 1883, and his first experience here was as teacher in Brown County. His is the interesting story of a boy born and reared in the mountainous district of Eastern Kentucky, where people lived on the plane of the simplest existence but not always of the highest ideals. There, in his early youth, came a stimulus to his ambition and hope which raised him out of his circumstances, and by self-help he struggled upward on the road of aspiration and finally made himself a place among the world's influential workers. In the early days of Kentucky about the time Daniel Boone made history from the "dark and bloody ground," members of the Blakely and Brown families from North Carolina and Virginia respectively settled within the borders of that commonwealth, and aided in reclaiming it from the domain of the wilderness, fought wild beasts and wild Indians, and for several generations lived peacefully and contentedly in the mountainous districts of the state. Many years later John Chestnut Blakely, a native of the mountains of Laurel County and Sarah Brown of the Bluegrass region, met and married, and they were the- parents of Charles G. Blakely. The latter was born on a small mountain farm in Laurel County, Kentucky, September 4, 1853. Until his early manhood his knowledge extended only a short distance beyond the immediate neighborhood in which he was born. He worked spasmodically at the tasks to which most boys applied themselves but he grew up strong and vigorous in body, and for about three months each year attended the backwoods district school. There he learned little more than the rudiments of the literary art. When at the age of seventeen he found employment in East Tennessee at a salary of $10 per month, he thought he was on the way to comfortable prosperity. He was at that work for about a year, and fortunately through the kindness of his employer, was privileged to attend an academy about five months of the time. Here occurred the real awakening of his powers and his aspirations. With a widening mental and spiritual vision, he saw beyond the immediate horizon in which his attention had previously been concentrated, and he realized that there was a broader and better domain for those who could successfully struggle through the preliminary difficulties.

From East Tennessee he returned to Laurel County, Kentucky, and a few months later determined to acquire an education. Once more he took his place as a student in the district school, which in the meantime had increased its term to five months annually, and he was also a student in a private school conducted at the county seat at London. By hard work he qualified to pass the examination and secure a certificate as a teacher. He taught, and taught well, and from his earnings was able to enter the Agricultural and Mechanical College, subsequently the University of Kentucky, at Lexington, where he was graduated with the college degree in 1879. The story itself is briefly told. However, to the tall, gangling, and none too well clad boy, the narrative had its tragical phases, with mingled heartaches and hopes.

Having completed his college course, he became principal of the Laurel Seminary one year. His next position was as assistant engineer in the construction of the Knoxville branch of the Louisville and Nashville Railroad. In the meantime he had read and heard much of Kansas as a state of opportunities, . and decided that he would make it his future home. He was thirty years of age when he came to Kansas, and in Brown County he taught one year in the country school, two years at Merrill and one year . at Hiawatha. He left teaching to become a solicitor for. life insurance, and with somewhat of a genius for mathematics he was promoted to actuary of his company and it was in that capacity that he removed to Topeka in 1892. Since 1898 Mr. Blakely has had a successful real estate and fire insurance business and is regarded as one of the prosperous men of Topeka.

In religious belief he is a Protestant, and is an independent republican. He served as a member of the Topeka City Council for three years until 1910, when Topeka went under the commission form of government, and was a member of the legislative session of 1913-14. Fraternally he is a thirty-second degree Scottish Rite Mason and is also a member of the Royal Arch Chapter. Mr. Blakely has always endeavored to live according to the instructions of the Divine Teacher and to so regulate his life that when the final summons comes it may be truthfully said of him that the world is better for his having lived in it, and that itself is an ambition worthy of the best mettle in any man.

On October 80, 1894, Mr. Blakely married Miss Mattie Victor Kenney Dodge, of Paris, Bourbon County, Kentucky, and a daughter of David M. and Rebecca (Kenney) Dodge. She is of an old southern family on both sides. Her father was a successful planter and a lover and breeder of standard bred trotting horses. Among horses he raised and owned was Gail Hamilton, who took the three-year-old record of the Grand Circuit races of 1902. He is also owner of Lemonade, the most famous brood mare of Kentucky of her time. The three children of Mr. and Mrs. Blakely are Charles G., Victor Kenney and James Mills, the last being now deceased. considerable factor in the material prosperity of the state, particularly in connection with the agricultural interests. As resident agent for a firm of foreign capitalists, he has been instrumental during his time in handling and distributing over $25,000,000 cash to the land owners and farmers of Kansas and adjoining states, and he is perhaps as well informed as any man in the state on the subject of agricultural credit, land values and farming interests from the financial standpoint. A native of Herkimer County, New York, where he was born June 3, 1855, Arthur W. Bronson is a son of O. W. and Elizabeth (Harter) Bronson. His family have been Americans for many generations, and G.. W. Bronson was a carriage manufacturer, a trade which he adopted from his father. O. W. Bronson also owned a farm in New York, and it was in the country that Arthur W. Bronson spent the first twelve years of his life. He attended the public schools, and in 1877 graduated in the civil engineering department of Willston Seminary in Massachusetts. Though prepared for a technical profession, Mr. Brouson never practiced civil engineering, but instead engaged in merchandising at Herkimer, New York, and not finding that business to his liking he came west in 1884, and for three years was inspector with the Lombard Investment Company. He then became resident agent for Close Brothers & Company, who were English capitalists representing the Mortgage and Debenture Company. For nine years Mr. Bronson lived in Sioux City, Iowa, then spent two years at Kansas City, and since then has lived in Topeka. His business service is chiefly to extend credit to farmers and through the medium of his agency has been distributed perhaps more actual cash for Kansas farming operations than through any other one source. Mr. Bronson is a member of the Topeka Commercial Club, is a thirty-second degree Scottish Rite Mason, and a member of the Presbyterian Church. In 1878 he married Miss Ida M. Bridenstein. Their one son Olcott W. is employed in the scientific department of the State Historical Society as curator. (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, - Submitted by Barbara Ziegenmeyer)