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JOHNSON COUNTY BIOGRAPHIES
Abbott, James B., one of the pioneer settlers of Kansas, was born at Hampton, Conn., Dec. 3, 1818, and grew to manhood in his native state. He was a member of the third party of emigrants from New England, which reached Lawrence on Oct. 10, 1854, and soon become recognized as one of the stalwart advocates of the free-state cause. Maj. Abbott took up a claim about half a mile south of Blanton's bridge, on the road to Hickory Point, and his house was a favorite meeting place of the free-state men in that neighborhood. As the pro-slaveryites grew more and more agressive, one of the crying necessities of the settlers was arms and ammunition with which to defend themselves against the predatory gangs which infested the territory. Maj. Abbott was one of those who went east to procure arms, and through his efforts there were sent to Kansas 117 Sharp's rifles and a 12-pounder howitzer. He was one of the party that rescued Branson from the sheriff of Douglas county; was a lieutenant in command of a company at the first "battle" of Franklin; commanded the Third regiment of free-state infantry during the siege of Lawrence in 1856; fought with John Brown at Black Jack, and was the leader of the expedition that rescued Dr. John Doy. He was a member of the first house of representatives elected under the Topeka constitution, and in 1857 was elected senator. Upon the adoption of the Wyandotte constitution, he was elected a member of the lower house of the first state legislature, which met in March, 1861. In that year he was appointed agent for the Shawnee Indians and removed to De Soto, Johnson county. At the time of the Price raid he led a party of Shawnees against the Confederates. In 1866 he retired from the Indian agency, and in the fall of that year was elected to the state senate. He was influential in securing the establishment of the school for feeble minded youth. Maj. Abbott died at De Soto on March 2, 1879. The howitzer he brought to Kansas in the territorial days is now in the possession of the Kansas Historical Society, of which he was a director for twelve years immediately prior to his death. (Kansas, Frank W. Blackmar, A. M., Ph. D., Volume 1, 1912, page 17) John Allen, pioneer Kansas physician, was born in McLean County, Illinois, August 26, 1847, and for forty-seven years has lived in Kansas. His father, David Sprague Allen, was born in Pennsylvania and died in McLean County, in 1865. His wife, a native of Ohio, died in McLean County in 1856. Dr. Allen was graduated from St. Louis Eclectic Medical College in 1882 and from the American Medical College in 1889. He has been in active practice since 1882 and is a member of the St. Louis Eclectic Medical Society, the Missouri Medical Society, the Southwest Missouri Medical Society and the Medical Society of Cherokee County, Kansas. On August 27, 1872, he was married to Ellen Eskew in McLean county. She was born there in 1850 and died in Marion County, Kansas in April 1875. Dr. Allen had two children by this marriage, both of whom died in infancy. His second marriage was to Mrs. Anna McGregor and to them was born one daughter, Reitha Lenore in 1881. She married Elbert Chester Laing. Dr. Allen is a dry Democrat. He has been county health officer at various periods for many years and is now probate judge of Stanton County. He is a member of the Latham Baptist Church, the Red Cross, and is noble grand of the Odd Fellows. Residence: Johnson. (Illustriana Kansas, by Sara Mullin Baldwin & Robert Morton Baldwin, 1933, page 27) Jerome W. Berryman, president of the Stock Growers National Bank of Ashland, can without distinction be named among the most prominent bankers and business men of Western Kansas. His extensive business relations make him in fact well known in both this state and Oklahoma. While he is not a native of Kansas, he belongs to one of the earliest Kansas families and his people were identified with this region when it was still a part of the great unorganized district west of the Mississippi, inhabited by no white men except those who were doing missionary work among the Indians or pursuing those gainful occupations that are peculiar to a wilderness territory. A special place of honor among Kansas pioneers is due his grandfather, the late Rev. Jerome C. Berryman. He was born in Hartford County, Kentucky, in 1810. Early in life he entered the ministry of the Methodist Episcopal Church, being ordained at the age of seventeen. He had been in the service of the ministry more than eighty years when he died. In the early '30s, perhaps as early as 1833, he was sent to look after the Kansas missions of the Methodist Episcopal Church. He had charge of the missions among the Kickapoos, the Shawnees, the Kaws and perhaps the Delaware Indians. He built the old stone manual training building at Shawnee which is still standing. On the map of the Shawnee mission grounds in Johnson County, as published in the historical portion of this work, direct credit is given him for the construction of one of the buildings there represented. He left the Kansas mission field in 1844 and returned to Southeastern Missouri, where he established the Arcadia High School or college, under the supervision of the Methodist Conference. He was in charge and control of the school until a few years after the war, and then resumed the active work of the ministry. He did not actually give up his labors until a few years before his death, which occurred in 1907, at the venerable age of ninety-seven. Rev. Jerome Berryman was twice married. His children were by his first wife, Sarah Cessna. They were: Dr. Gerard Q.; Mrs. Emily G. Russell, of Sykestown, Missouri; John W. Berryman, of Peoria, Illinois; and Mrs. Elizabeth Barrow, who died in Dallas, Texas. The second generation of the family is represented by Dr. Gerard Q. Berryman, who was born at the old Kickapoo Mission in Kansas September 22, 1835, a date which easily places him among the oldest native sons of what is now the State of Kansas. He was educated in the Methodist School established by his father at Arcadia, Missouri, graduated there, and afterward took up the study of medicine and graduated from the Cincinnati College of Medicine and Surgery. He spent his active life as a physician and practiced both at Arcadia, Missouri, and in Elk City, Kansas. His return to Kansas was in 1888, and he lived at Elk City until his death in 1895, having died twelve years before his father. During the war he was in the Confederate army in Price's troops and in Jeff Thomas' division. Nearly all his service was in the State of Missouri. He took little part in politics, though he was a man of convictions and voted the democratic ticket. He was a member of the Southern Methodist Church and was a Mason. Dr. Berryman married Minerva Woods, a sister of Dr. W. S. Woods, the noted Kansas City financier and banker, and a daughter of James Harris and Martha J. (Stone) Woods. The present Ashland banker is a descendant of Revolutionary soldiers through three lines, the Berrymans, the Woods and the Stones. Mrs. Minerva Berryman was born at Paris, Monroe County, Missouri, and died in 1892, at the age of forty-eight. She was educated in the Christian College at Columbia, Missouri, and was a successful teacher in Monroe County and also in a denominational school at Caledonia, Missouri. Doctor Berryman and wife had the following children: Jerome W.; William S., of Fredonia, Kansas; Mrs. W. M. Price, of Emporia; and Mrs. W. L. Roberts, of Coldwater, Kansas. Jerome W. Berryman was born at Arcadia, Iron County,
Missouri, March 12, 1870. His boyhood and youth were spent there, and he had a public school education. It was
a country town in which he grew up, and his father, though a physician, owned a small farm near by, on which the
son was trained to the practical essentials of agriculture. It was only with this knowledge and experience that
he started life for himself. At the age of seventeen he came to Kansas and began working in the capacity of a "chore
boy" in the Elk City Bank. That was in June, 1887, and in the following November he was promoted to assistant
cashier and in October, 1888, when only eighteen, became cashier and practically had the control and management
of the institution until 1892. In that year he moved to Medicine Lodge, Kansas, becoming vice president of the
old Citizens National Bank. The Stock Growers National Bank of Ashland was established in 1884 by George Thies, Jr., of Columbus, Kansas. Its record is a remarkable one among the banks of Western Kansas and is the only institution in this part of the state that has had a continuous operation for over thirty years and has been unaffected by financial storms. After a few months it was made a national bank under the name First National Bank, with Mr. Thies as cashier and leading spirit in its management. About 1893 it was reorganized, surrendering its national charter and taking the name Farmers and Stock Growers Bank. In June, 1900, it was again nationalized as the Stock Growers National Bank, with Mr. Berryman as president and Mrs. Berryman as vice president. D. C. Rhodes is cashier and Virgil W. Hill, assistant cashier. The bank has a capital stock of $50,000 and surplus of similar amount. Mr. Berryman has had much to do with the promotion and success of the Chandler system of banks in Kansas and Oklahoma, and the Ashland Bank is part of that system. He has organized and operated at different times about a hundred banks in Kansas. Mr. Berryman owns the Home Lumber Company of Ashland, which was established in 1905 and which operates about twenty yards in Southwestern Kansas and Northwestern Oklahoma. He is vice president and a director of the Aetna Building & Loan Association of Topeka, the largest general building and loan association in the United States. With Mr. Chandler he organized and built the Red Star Mills at Wichita. He also owns and has developed a stock ranch in Ellis County, Oklahoma. As a citizen of the community where he has lived Mr. Berryman has participated in public matters from local community offices to that of representative in the Kansas Legislature from Clark County. He was elected in 1905 and served two terms. During the first session under Speaker Stubbs he was put on the committees on railroads, live stock, insurance, banking, municipal affairs. His chief interest was in live stock and railroad legislation. Among the several bills he introduced and brought to passage, one is the present Trust Company Law of Kansas. He was a harmonious factor in the republican organization and worked enthusiastically for the program of legislation set out. He supported Charles Curtis for United States senator. In the following session under Speaker John Simmons he was given practically the same committee assignments except the railroad committee. He impressed his experience on the general work of the session and was author of a bill which passed the House providing for the election of one half the state senators every two years. The Senate refused concurrence with this measure. As already noted, Mr. Berryman grew up in a home of democratic influence. He himself began voting as a democrat, casting his first ballot for Grover Cleveland in 1892. But in 1896 he supported Major McKinley for president and has been with the republican organization ever since. He has attended some of the big party conventions of recent years. He was a spectator in the St. Louis convention of 1904 when Judge Parker was nominated by the democrats, and was also at the Denver convention in 1908 when Bryan was last nominated. Mr. Berryman was made a Mason at Elk City, Kansas, in 1891, and has taken practically all the degrees and orders in the York and Scottish Rites. He is a member of the Wichita Consistory and the Midian Temple of the Mystic Shrine, and is a past master of his lodge. He was reared a Methodist, but is now a member of the Presbyterian Church at Ashland. He was one of the workers in the local church for the conduct of the Rayburn revival meetings at Ashland in 1917, one of the greatest revival successes recorded in Kansas. Mr. Berryman is a member of the Kansas Historical Society. At Cortland, Nebraska, June 8, 1898, he married Miss Annette McNickle, daughter of Albert B. and Rhoda (Balderson) McNickle. Her father was a native of Pennsylvania, went to Illinois and enlisted from that state as a soldier in the Union army, and was throughout the war. Later he moved West, lived for a time in Missouri, was a farmer in Gage County, Nebraska, was a postmaster of Cortland, and represented that district in the State Legislature. Some years ago he moved to Ashland, Kansas, and has served as probate judge of Clark County and is now a justice of the peace. Judge and Mrs. McNickle have the following children: Mrs. Mary L. Trekell, of Denver; Mrs. Berryman, who was born at Marshfield, Missouri, October 12, 1871; George W., of Ashland; and Mrs. Edith Lucke, of Omaha, Nebraska. The children of Mr. and Mrs. Berryman are Dorothy, Jerome C., James W., Virginia Minerva and George Albert. Dorothy is now a member of the class of 1918 in Bethany College at Topeka. (Standard History of Kansas and Kansans, by William E. Connelley, Secretary of the Kansas State Historical Society, Topeka. Chicago: Lewis Publishing Co., 1919) Maj. John B. Bruner was born at Muncy, Pa., July 29, 1837, and was educated at the Muncy seminary. He was a jeweler by trade, and engaged in that business in Mason county, Illinois in 1857. In 1860 he went to Colorado, but soon returned to Illinois, enlisting in the Company K, Twenty-sixth Illinois infantry, in November 1861. On the organization of the company he was made second lieutenant, and filled successively the grades of first lieutenant, captain and major in that regiment. He was mustered out in July 1865, and immediately started for Kansas located at Gardner, Johnson county, and engaged in the mercantile business. He served as a member of the legislatures of 1868 and 1879; was county treasurer in 1871 and re-elected in 1873. Major Bruner was married to Minerva E. Cramer of Gardner, April 15, 1869 and they now make their home at Olathe where Major Bruner was until his retirement from business in 1903, vice president of the First National Bank. (Transactions of the Kansas State Historical Society 1907-1908, Vol. X, edited by Geo. W. Martin, Secretary, State Printing Office, Topeka, 1908, page 269) Frank W. Sponable, cashier of the Farmers' Bank at Gardner, was born at Gardner, Kan., July 3, 1870, a son of Hon. John W. Sponable, deceased (see sketch). He was reared in Paola, to which place his father removed in 1873, and was educated in the Paola High School. When eighteen years of age he entered the Central Bank of Kansas City, Mo., as a clerk and was there employed seven years, until Jan-uary, 1895, when he came to Gardner and organized the Farmers' Bank of Gardner, the first regularly organized bank in that town. He became its cashier and has filled that position to the present time. Possessed of splendid business acumen, he has by wise and careful judgment so guided the business of the institution during the past sixteen years that it has steadily grown in financial prosperity and stability and is recognized as one of the soundest financial institutions of the county. Mr. Sponable is also president of and holds a controlling interest in the Johnson County Telephone Company, and is also interested in a number of other financial enterprises. In 1895 occurred the marriage of Mr. Sponable and Miss Stella West, of Mason City, Iowa. To them have been born three children: John. W., Josephine, and Mary Estella. Politically, Mr. Sponable is a stanch. Republican and has been chairman of the Republican Central Committee of Johnson county for the past seven years. He very ably represented his district in the-state senate, from 1900 to 1904. Fraternally, he is a member of the Masonic order. As a financier, politician, and senator he is recognized as one of the ablest men of Johnson county, and enjoys the universal respect of his fellow citizens. (Kansas Biography, Part 2, Vol. III, 1912, page 898, Transcribed as written by Millie Mowry) John Warren Sponable, one of the most conspicuous
pioneer business men of eastern Kansas in his day, was born at Oppenheim, Fulton county, New York, Nov. 2, 1832.
His father was a prosperous farmer and his grandfather, Philip Sponable, was a soldier in the Continental army
in the Revolutionary war, and was present at the surrender of General Burgoyne at Saratoga. From his Dutch and
English ancestry Mr. Sponable inherited many of his leading traits, which made him so successful in his business
career. He received the rudiments of his education in the common schools and supplemented this by self-culture,
becoming a well informed man. In this he was greatly assisted by his mother, a native of Massachusetts and much
better educated than the average woman of her time. When seventeen years of age he left the farm and went to Cincinnati,
Ohio, where he engaged in mercantile pursuits, in which he was successful. Two years later he removed to Camden,
where he continued in the same line of business and also as a dealer in grain. In 1857 he came to Kansas and located
at the town of Gardner, in Johnson county, where he opened the first store and built up a large trade. For several
years he was the leading merchant in that section of the state, but in a raid made by guerrillas, the fall of 1861,
he suffered the loss of several thousand dollars, on account of goods taken by them. In addition to his mercantile
interests he was extensively interested in real estate and farming operations. The loss caused by the guerrillas
was soon recovered, through his energy and sound judgment. In 1873 he built a large mill at Paola and removed to
that place. He was one of the incorporators of the Miami County Bank, of which he became vice-president, later
becoming president and holding that office for twenty-one years, or until the time of his death, Nov. 1, 1899.
Notwithstanding the claims of his private business concerns, Mr. Sponable always took a keen interest in public
affairs. He was a public spirited citizen and did much for Paola. Among his benefactions was the site of the present
public library, and he also contributed generously to the library in other ways. At the time of his death he was
regarded as one of the wealthy men of Kansas, and every dollar of his accumulations was the fruit of energetic
and intelligent effort. His career may well serve as an object lesson to the youth of the state, for it shows what
energy and integrity can accomplish. Politically, he was a lifelong Republican and took an active interest in political
affairs. In 1861 he was elected treasurer of the county and was reelected in 1863. In the Price raid of 1864 he
served with the Kansas state troops and aided in driving the enemy from the state. In 1866 he was elected to the
Kansas legislature and well and faithfully served the people of Johnson county, but declined a reelection. He was
actively engaged in securing the building of the Kansas City & Santa Fe railroad, in 1868-69, and was largely
instrumental in completing the line from Olathe to Ottawa. When the State Agricultural Society was organized he
was, its first superintendent and life member, and continued to serve as superintendent and director until 1870.
He was elected mayor of Paola, in 1875, and served one term. Fraternally he was a member of the Independent Order
of Odd Fellows and filled all the chairs in his lodge. John Lockhart, of Johnson county, was born in Scotland about 1884, and was brought to America in 1886. He taught school in Wilmington, Ill. In 1866 he came to Kansas, settling in Johnson county. In 1866 he was elected to represent that county in the legislature under the Topeka constitution, the body dispersed by General Sumner July 4, 1866. He was elected October 6, 1867 to the regular territorial legislature, and in 1868 to the territorial legislature of 1869. In 1869 Mr. Lockhart was elected by a large vote to represent Johnson county in the state senate under the Wyandotte constitution, serving in the session of 1861, but resigning before the session of 1862, to enter the army. He was commissioned a captain of the Union Guards at Uniontown, August 19, 1861; was commissioned a captain in the United States service March 18, 1868; and was captain of company I. Fifth Kansas volunteer cavalry. His father resided at McCamish, Johnson county. He died at Helena, Ark., September 12, 1862. and his remains were brought to Leavenworth. A negro cook in the camp of the Fifth Kansas was claimed by a Missourian, and the negro promptly surrendered. It is told of Lockhart that a few days after, while scouting, he found the negro in chains. He released the negro and placed the chains on the master. (Transactions of the Kansas State Historical Society 1907-1908, Vol. X, edited by Geo. W. Martin, Secretary, State Printing Office, Topeka, 1908, pages 211 & 212) |
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