Biographies for Marion County, KS

MARION COUNTY, KANSAS

BIOGRAPHIES

WILLIAM FRED AVES

William Fred Aves was born at Monroeville, Ohio, May 13, 1845, son of Frederick W. and Fanny (Damerell) Aves. The father, a farmer, was born in London, England, came to the United States in 1830 and died at Monroeville, Ohio. The mother was a native of Exeter, England.

Mr. Aves attended public school and on January 8, 1873 was married to Mary Kurtz at Milan, Ohio, her birthplace. She was born August 3, 1849. There are six children, Charles, born October 28, 1879, who married Mable Fisher, Lottie, February 7, 1876, who married Ralph Smith, Harry, March 30, 1881, Fannie, August 25, 1883, who married E. J. Martin, Florence Edith, May 21, 1885; and Stella, August 15, 1887, who married Oscar Cummings.

Ralph has two sons, Ralph and Frederic and a daughter Frances. Fannie had a daughter, Pauline while Stella had a son, Randall.

Mr. Aves has been successively a blacksmith, lumber and coal dealer and a farmer. He is owner of the Florence Lumber and Coal Company and vice president of the Florence State Bank. He has resided in Florence 61 years, and was one of its first mayors. He is a Democrat.

During the Civil War Mr. Aves served with Company A, 169th Ohio Volunteer Infantry. He is a member of the Grand Army of the Republic, the Modern Woodmen of America, and is a Mason (charter member of the Advanced Lodge No. 114). He is an Episcopalian. Residence: Florence (page 51)

MOORE, ATLANTIC ABRAHAM

Atlantic Abraham Moore, familiarly known as "Lank" Moore, was born in Ohio September 15, 1834. In 1842 his family moved to Waukegan, Lake County, Illinois, and after some years residence there, to Hodge County, Wisconsin. Though a chance acquaintance with Colonel Collins, superintendent of Indian affairs at Santa Fe, N.M., Lank Moore, with his elder brother, was engaged in 1858 to drive government ambulances from Kansas City to Santa Fe, they started back to the states with an ox train. At Fort Union they were held under government orders until five trains had assembled ready to make the trip east, and with these trains was sent an escort of United States soldiers, Kit Carson commanding. This was in the fall of 1858. At Cottonwood Crossing (now Durham, Kan.) on the Santa Fe Trail, a man named Smith had built a small log cabin and was running a trading-post, selling whiskey, canned goods and other provisions to passing trains. The Moore brothers, interested in the country and on the lookout for a location, bought him out and then and there took possession. Later, taking up a claim there, the place became known as Moore's Ranch, and a post-office was established in the spring of 1861; A. A. Moore, postmaster. That year the town of Marion Center was laid out and there Mr. Moore built a store and otherwise identified himself with the interests of the place. Upon the organization of Marion county, in 1865, he was elected county treasurer and representative and was returned to the legislature of 1867. he also served in the senate of 1868, and was again a member of the house of representatives in 1871. In 1882 he left Kansas, moving to Prescott, Ariz., and later to Walnut Grove, in the same territory where he now lives. He has been a member of the city council of Prescott, county supervisor, and a member of the legislature of Arizona for the years 1890 and 1899. Mr. Moore was married at Council Grove to Nancy O. Waterman in 1862 and to them was born in 1863 the first white child born in Marion county, Ira A. Moore, who lives near his father in Arizona. During his residence in Kansas Lank Moore was identified with every project in his county that had for its end the bettering of social conditions. In 1868 he was foremost in the building of a stone schoolhouse. Likewise when the Rev. Timothy Hill, a Presbyterian missionary, came to the Marion settlement, it was through Mr. Moore's efforts that a church was built, which is still used by the Presbyterians of Marion. He is a man of more than ordinary ability and although his educational advantages had been extremely limited, he was a brilliant conversationalist, and has left something of the imprint of his individuality upon the county he helped to claim from the wilderness. (Transactions of the Kansas State Historical Society 1907-1908, Vol. X, edited by Geo. W. Martin, Secretary, State Printing Office, Topeka, 1908, page 267)

VERDAN, F. M.

F. M. Verdan, pastor of all the Catholic churches of Chase and Marion counties, Kansas, was born in Savoy, France, and was the only one of a family of seven brothers to take up the work of the church and come to America. His younger brother became a noted surgeon in the French army and died in Africa when only twenty-six years of age. Father Verdan as a child was remarkably precocious. He could read as soon as he could talk, and at the age of nine years began his studies preparatory for entrance to the priesthood. He found no difficulty in keeping up with his classes, notwithstanding his youth, and was graduated from the highest institutions of learning in Paris. When twenty-six years of age he came to America and entered Notre Dame University, at South Bend, Ind., where he learned the English language. He afterward went to New Orleans and was a teacher of languages in St. Isadore College for eight months. He was then ordained to the priesthood and went to Montreal, Canada, where he remained only eight months, because of a loss of hearing in one ear. From there he came to Crawford county, Kansas, in 1881, and located first at Greenbush, but at the beginning of his pastorate a number of different small towns were included in his parish. A friend and a member of his church gave him a mule on which to make his pastoral calls, which necessarily extended to all parts of the entire county. He was very successful in that field of work, and on his transfer from Crawford county to Strong City, Kan., a Girard paper gave the following account of it: "Friday, Jan. 24, 1908, when Father Verdan received the order from Bishop Hennessey, stating that he was to be transferred from the parish which he had built, and in which for over twenty-five years he had faithfully served as pastor and priest, he glanced back and thought of the remarkable changes that had taken place in that quarter of a century. In a vivid picture before him were the memories of the past. In his parish he had baptized 776; married 138 couples; prepared 552 members for
confirmation and performed the last sacred rites of the church at the deaths of 218 members of his congregation. There was scarcely a family in his parish that the death angel had not visited. But now he is leaving this host of friends, the home and church which he built, to take up his labors in a new field-sad indeed-but seeing his duty he obeyed the command promptly."

Father Verdan began his pastorate in Strong City, Jan. 29, 1908, and assumed charge of all the Catholic churches in Chase county, since which time he has built up the church in Strong City alone to about fifty families. In May, 1909, Marion county was added to his parish, and Father Verdan has organized and built tip strong churches at the towns of Florence, Spring Branch and Burns. Though Father Verdan has been in charge of this parish but a short time he has already greatly endeared himself to all of his parishioners. (Kansas Biography, Vol. III, Part 2, Pages 787-788, Transcribed by: Millie Mowry)

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