Butler County Genealogy Trails Kansas Frank Harry Cron Bio

BUTLER COUNTY'S EIGHTY YEARS BIOS

FRANK HARRY CRON

(transcribed by Peggy Luce)

Frank Harry Cron, teacher, lawyer, banker and elected November 6, 1934, for the fourth time as state representative from the fifty-second legislative district, now president of the Walnut Valley State Bank, is a splendid illustration of the rewards of merit which await those who combine qualification with uncompromising integrity. He was born June 3, 1868, in mercer County, Pennsylvania, and came to El Dorado as a deputy county treasurer in 1897, and has since resided here.

Mr. Cron comes of pioneer stock, his forebears helping to settle three great regions, Western Pennsylvania, the Dakotas and Kansas. In 1873, when he was five years of age, his parents removed from Pennsylvania to the Dakotas. Eight years later, 1881, they decided to escape the rigors of that then desolate country and started to Kansas in a covered wagon. They settled in Bourbon County for three years, or until 1884, when they again moved, this time to a farm about five miles southeast of Augusta.

In the meantime, F. H. Crown had been attending district schools and upon arrival in Butler County enrolled as a student in Augusta High School and, later, attended Teachers College, in Salina. At twenty, he struck out for himself, deciding that teaching provided the best experience to secure a successful future. During the next eight years, or until 1897, he taught in country schools, the Augusta schools, was assistant principal of the Douglass High School and, for a short time, taught in the old Brumback Academy, El Dorado. During 1897-99, he was deputy county treasurer, and at the close of his term of office, he was elected principal of El Dorado High School. However, he accepted a position in the Citizens State Bank, instead. He had studied law while in the Kansas legislature, took the state bar examination and was admitted to practice in all the courts of the state, but never entered actively into that profession, although he continues a member of the Butler County bar.

Mr. Cron’s actual climb to success began in 1900, when he became a bookkeeper in the Citizens State bank, then directed by the late N. F. Frazier. He remained with this institution until 1923, filling all the positions, bookkeeper, clerk, teller, assistant cashier and vice president. In 193, he and various associates organized the present Walnut Valley State bank with himself as president and J. Earl Tanner as cashier. Under this strong and experienced leadership they cleared up and improved a situation in local banking, which had developed during the hectic period of the famous “oil rush” in 1915 to 1920 and which needed readjustment when that tremendous “boom” began to wane, by taking over and liquidating the Security State Savings Bank.

Active, progressive and endowed with the qualities of leadership, Mr. Cron early became prominent in Democratic Party councils of the county and state. In 1908, he headed his party ticket as a candidate for state representative and was elected, though Butler County is one of the Republican strongholds even in Kansas. His services were of such a notable constructive character that he was re-elected in 1910 for a second term. In the election of 1930, he again was chosen as representative, securing a substantial majority over a republican opponent who had served two successive terms. He was again elected as state representative in November, 1934. Among his more outstanding achievements as a legislator was his work as a member of the ways and means committee, on that of banks and banking and on mines and mining. He was an important factor in securing an adequate appropriation for the Memorial Building, at Topeka, and was a consistent and earnest supporter of equal suffrage for women. He is a life member of the State Historical Society and his efforts in behalf of improved schools caused his appointment by Gov. Hodges as a member of the board of regents of the State Teachers College, Emporia, to fill out an unexpired term, before the present system of management was inaugurated. And he has otherwise been active. He was the first president of the local chapter of American Red Cross and has acted as treasurer of the city of El Dorado, of the local schools and various fraternal and civic organizations.

In 1916, he attended the National Democratic convention, St. Louis, which nominated Woodrow Wilson for president, and in June, 1927, he was selected by the El Dorado Kiwanis Service club as a delegate to the International convention at Montreal. He is a thirty-second degree Mason, with membership affiliations in Patmos, No. 97, El Dorado; Knights Templar, Chapter and commandery, El Dorado; and the Chamber of Commerce. Professionally, he is enrolled as a member in the county and state bankers associations and the American Bankers association. He was appointed by Gov. Harry H. Woodring as a member of the State Banking Board and served during the Woodring administration. In religion, he is a Methodist.

Mr. Cron is of German descent. He is the son of A. G. and Emma F. (Womer) Cron, now residents of Mulvane, Kansas. The father and mother are both natives of Pennsylvania and come of a long line of Pennsylvania ancestry. On September 16, 1902, F. H. Crown was married to Miss Blanche A. Stanley, of Fort Scott. Mrs. Cron was born in Bourbon County, September 20, 1872. She is of rare personal charm and intellectual attainment and, for many years, has been a leader in local social, church and club affairs. She was educated in the Kansas Normal College, Fort Scott and Ohio Wesleyan University and taught, for a time in one of the higher institutions of learning in the state. She was one of the founders of the El Dorado chapter of the Kings Daughters; has been president of the Eighty district, Kansas Federation of Women’s clubs; and vice president of the Woman’s Kansas Day Club, eighth district; is a former regent of Susannah French Putney Chapter (El Dorado) of the Daughters of the American Revolution; now is a member of the National board and state chairman of the Needlework Guild of America. In 1928, she was hostess to Mrs. Thomas J. Preston, Jr., (the former Mrs. Grover Cleveland), National President of the Needlework Guild and in July 1930 was appointed state director of Kansas for the Children of the American Revolution and through which appointment she is a member of the National board. Also, she has been prominently identified with the Red Cross, particularly during the World War, and in the women’s division of the Democratic Party in the state. She was county chairman of the woman’s committee of the National Defense, appointed by Mrs. Dave Mulvane, and county chairman of the women’s division of the Liberty Loan campaigns during the World War.

She has a most illustrious ancestral line and a genealogical table, compiled by the family, shows her forebears were prominent during the Revolutionary and Colonial periods of America, and further back through English history to William, the conqueror, thence even to Charlemagne and Clovis of the old Frankish kingdom. Dr. William E. Connelly, of the Kansas State Historical Society, in writing of Mrs. Cron’s ancestral line, says, in part:

“Mrs. Cron is the daughter of James Madison Stanley, who was born in Delaware County, New York. He was reared and married in Knox County, Illinois and, in 1861, enlisted in Company K, Ninth Illinois Cavalry, with which he served throughout the war, rising to the rank of sergeant. In 1867, he came to Kansas becoming a homesteader in Bourbon County, and for a number of years was engaged in agricultural pursuits. Elected register of deeds of that county, in 1879, he served two terms in that capacity, and remained in Fort Scott, where he has since (1918) been engaged in the abstract business. In 1866, in Knox County, Illinois, Mr. Stanley married Miss Tracy Stroud Morgan, who was born April 20, 1844, at Greencastle, Indiana. ***The paternal grandfather of Mrs. Cron, John O. Stanley, was born in Delaware County, New York, removed to Knox County, Illinois, as a pioneer farmer, and died in Bourbon County, Kansas. The Stanley’s were originally from England, the progenitor of Mrs. Cron’s line locating in New York in Colonial times. Several members of the family fought as soldiers during the Revolution. On the maternal side, Mrs. Cron’s grandfather was John Rittenhouse Morgan, born at Philadelphia and who died in Knox County, Illinois, where he had been a pioneer farmer. He was descended from the Rittenhouse family, who had the first paper mill in the United States, located at Germantown, Pennsylvania. Perhaps the most distinguished member of this family was David Rittenhouse, who was appointed by General Washington as a member of the peace commission, was the second president of the American Philosophical Society and was subsequently professor of astronomy at the College of Philadelphia, treasurer of Pennsylvania and first director of the United States mint at Philadelphia. John Rittenhouse Morgan was the son of Benjamin Morgan, the latter a son of Morgan Morgan, who married Ann Robert. She was the daughter of John Robert, who was born May 28, 1714, and died October 8, 1801. On March 13, 1736, John Robert married for his first wife, Jane Hank, who was born in 1714 and died in 1762. John Robert assisted in establishing American Independence, while acting in the capacity of first-lieutenant and as captain-lieutenant in Capt. Nathaniel Tom’s company in the regiment of foot, Continental troops, commanded by Col. William Nelson, during the Revolutionary war. He entered service, March 17, 1777, and resigned April 1, 1779. Mrs. Cron has three other bars for her membership in the Daughters of the American Revolution, one from her father’s maternal grandfather, John Flansburgh; another from the latter’s father, Mathews Flansburgh; and one from Jacob Becker.”