Butler County Genealogy Trails Kansas Nathan Frank Frazier Bio

BUTLER COUNTY'S EIGHTY YEARS BIOS

NATHAN FRANK FRAZIER

(Transcribed by Lori DeWinkler)

Nathan Frank Frazier, for thirty years a leading banker of El Dorado, one of the wealthiest and most influential citizens of Kansas at the time of his death and founder of the local “House of Frazier,” a synonym for the strong Citizens State Bank, was born near Salem, in Henry County, Iowa, October 13, 1846. He died in El Dorado in 1907, after a continuous residence here of thirty-nine years, or since 1868.

Mr. Frazier was a scion of pioneer America and was endued with that spirit of adventure which characterized his forebears, who emigrated into Colonial Pennsylvania, later to push farther westward into Indiana and Illinois and thence into early Iowa. His was an exciting and picturesque life, whether driving a stage coach along the pioneer trails of Kansas and Nebraska; associating on equal terms with Wild Bill Hickok and other of the famed vanguard that dared the dangers of the period; sailing before the mast of an ancient Yankee clipper out of the Golden Gate and around the horn to New York; or gambling with the uncertainties of merchandising and banking, real estate and livestock in the Kansas and the Butler County of the 1870’s and the 1880’s.

And, as a magnificent testimonial that he succeeded in all his enterprises, he left upon his death, one of the largest estates in Kansas up to that time, consisting not only of the Citizens State Bank and numerous business and residential properties, but thousands of acres of land in Butler County, in Oklahoma and Texas, valuable mining assets in the rich zinc and lead district of southwestern Missouri and a reputation for progressive citizenship and unsoiled integrity that will cause his memory to be cherished by the town which he helped to found as long as local history endures. Few men in the annals of the Central West impressed their personality upon, or through genuine ability controlled the destiny of a newly settled community more thoroughly and none who realized his responsibilities more accurately or sought to develop along more permanent lines. In every particular, his achievements were useful and he left a heritage of splendid consequence to that present generation of El Dorado citizens. This is, the city would not be that it is today, if the whimsies of fate had directed him to locate elsewhere than here. One might speculate long and interestingly upon that subject.

In the limited space of a book of this character, only a sketch can be made in the review of the career of Mr. Frazier. His childhood was spent on a farm and he engaged in the usual work and the usual pastimes and diversions of a farm boy, until he became a stalwart lad of fourteen. He had acquired such education as the country schools provided, when, in 1860, he started out to make his own living. It is not of record that he ran away from home, but it is of record that his first job was with an old time circuit with which he was attached for two years---a somewhat strenuous and decidedly worldly experience for a boy of fourteen years. The following year, he was driving a stage coach out of Fort Leavenworth into the far west of the Nebraska plains. It was during this period that he became intimately associated with the Major Lillies (Pawnee Bill) and other present day celebrities of the old time West. In the fall of 1863, he returned to Iowa and went to school during the winter months, but when spring came, the wanderlust within him again asserted itself and, in partnership with John Betts, a boyhood chum and later the Mayor of El Dorado, he bought a wagon train, loaded it with merchandise and took the Mormon trail, out through western Nebraska, over the northern part of the present state of Colorado, into Fort Bridgers, just beyond the Wasatch, near where the city of Ogden now is and thence across the Sierras into California, selling the goods, probably, in San Francisco. At any rate, it was from San Francisco that the two youthful merchant adventurers boarded a sailing ship putting out for New York, by way of the Cape Horn.

In 1866, Mr. Frazier returned to Henry County, put in another winter at school then, in the spring of 1867, started on what eventuated into his long residence in El Dorado. Shortly after leaving home, he again ran across his young friend of the California trip, John Betts. They promptly invested in a freighting outfit and loaded it with provisions for distribution among the settlers of Butler County. The freighting outfit was sold the following year in El Dorado for $3,000, and with this capital they embarked in the grocery business, sharing fifty-fifty and with Mr. Betts attending the store while Mr. Frazier hauled the merchandise from Leavenworth, Lawrence and Emporia. They prospered and during the next ten years, Mr. Frazier had accumulated sufficient funds by reason of the grocery business, the rentals from a number of small business houses he had erected and through the returns from a tract he had homesteaded on Turkey creek, to enter the banking business. His first venture into banking was in association with the late Gen. Alfred W. Ellet, when they founded the El Dorado bank, as a private institution and with a capital of $10,000. It is of interest that these two early pioneer families were united in the marriage of N. F. Frazier’s son, the late Ray E. Frazier, to Miss Heniretta Ellet, daughter of Ed C. Ellet and granddaughter of General Ellet. Ed C. Ellet acted as president of the Exchange Bank and Mr. Frazier became cashier. In time, the Exchange, in 1885, was sold and Mr. Frazier organized the Merchants Bank of El Dorado, again with General Ellet as president, and himself as cashier. Later, the Merchants absorbed the Exchange and was reorganized as the Farmers & Merchants National Bank with Mr. Frazier as president. In 1899, he disposed of his interests in the Farmers & Merchants Bank and organized the Citizens State Bank of which he acted as president until his death in1907.

His activities were not confined to banking. He successfully invested in lead and zinc mines, near Joplin,Missouri, had stock in street railways and other corporations; took part in land developments in Oklahoma and Texas and Kansas and was the founder and president of the Oklahoma Mortgage & Trust company, at Guthrie, then capital of Oklahoma territory. He purchased all the assets of a failed Wichita bank, straightened out its affairs and became possessed of valuable property in that city. In addition to all these purely business enterprises, he served as city councilman of El Dorado, as postmaster and, at one time, was auditor of Butler County. He was active in lodge and civic affairs. In religion, he was a Quaker but frequently attended Methodist church services. He was a Republican in politics, but did not hesitate to give his support to Democrats if his own party failed to select candidates of proper qualifications and citizenship.

Mrs. Frazier’s American ancestry dates back to the old Quaker stock of the pre-Revolutionary period of Pennsylvania. One branch of the family moved south into Virginia and became known both as Frazier and Frayser; the direct ancestral line of N. F. Frazier came out of Pennsylvania into the then Northwest territory. Mr. Frazier’s parents were Francis H. and Lydia (Fisher) Frazier, the former a native of Indiana; the latter, also native of Indiana, but whose forebears probably were Virginians.

On February 4, 1872, Mr. Frazier married Miss Emma Crook, daughter of John Crook, who came to El Dorado in 1867, and served for a time as justice of the peace. The lineal descent of John Crook has not been saved, but it is a reasonable presumption that he was of Kentucky and Virginia stock, in that he preferred to call himself “Squire” and that appellation is given justices of the peace only in the state of Virginia, Kentucky and Missouri. Three children were born of the marriage of Mr. and Mrs. Frazier. They are the late Ray E Frazier, until his death president of the Citizens State Bank; Nat F. Frazier, Jr., present president of that great banking institution; and Edna, now the widow of the late J. B. Adams, of El Dorado.

The biographical sketches of the two Frazier boys immediately follow this sketch of their father.