History of Topeka, (Shawnee County) Kansas United States of America

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Biographies:

Franklin George Adams, historian, was born at Rodman, Jefferson county, N.Y., May 13, 1824. His father was a farmer, and he had only the limited educational advantages of farmers' sons of the period?the district school for less than half the year. But he made the most of his scanty opportunities, and by the time he was nineteen had fitted himself for teaching the English branches in a somewhat advanced school at Cincinnati. This he did until he was twenty-four years of age, attending meanwhile law and medical lectures, and at the end of three years graduated from the law department of Cincinnati college. He engaged in the practice of the law in Kansas, to which state he emigrated in 1855, settling first at Ashland where he remained for a few months, when he removed to Leavenworth, and the following year again changed his residence to Atchison, where he lived for several years, acting as probate judge of Atchison county in 1858-'59. In 1858 he was a member of the Leavenworth state constitutional committee; 1863, clerk of the United States district court, Topeka; 1865-'69, United States Indian agent for the Kickapoos at Kennekuk. He edited the Atchison Squatter Sovereign 1857; State Record and Kansas Farmer, 1863; Atchison Free Press, 1864-'68, and the Waterville Telegraph, 1871-72. He was secretary of the Kansas state historical society, 1875-'99, and published "The Lives of the Presidents" and the "Homestead Guide" (1872). He died at Topeka, Kan., Dec. 2, 1899.

From: Twentieth Century Biographical Dictionary of Notable Americans, Johnson, Rossiter, editor

President and manager of The Whittelsey Mercantile Company, which operates a chain of grocery stores in Topeka, and is one of the largest retail grocery firms in the state.

A native of Redbank, New Jersey, Harry R. Whittelsey has been a resident of Topeka since. November 1, 1881, at which time he was a boy of thirteen. He was born December 5, 1868, a son of William Channcey and Grace M. (Hindes) Whittelsey. Of the six children there were four sons, Louis, Burt, Harry and William, Jr. The Whittelsey family were very prominent in the East. Grandfather W. C. Whittelsey was the first senior surgeon general of the United States navy, and held that office for a number of years. Harry Whittelsey's maternal grandfather Hindes was a prominent lawyer of Littletown, New Hampshire, was the first librarian of the city library there, and during the War of 1812 he gave the United States Government $60,000 in cash. In return he received a warrant for a tract of land in Virginia. His heirs lost this property, since the records were burned with the court house, and being lost the heirs were not able to prove conclusively either the right to the land or its location.

W. C. Whittelsey, father of Harry R., was educated in district schools and in a college in the South. During the Civil was he was a member of the Sanitary Commission of New Jersey, and he also acted as a messenger between Washington City and the Army of the Potomac. After the war he located in New York City, and for fourteen years was assistant superintendent of Central Park in Brooklyn. In 1881 he brought his family to Topeka, thinking the West offered better advantages for himself and sons.

On arriving in Topeka the senior Mr. Whittelsey embarked in the grocery business at Second and Madison streets. That was the beginning of the present large grocery house operated under the firm name of Whittelsey Mercantile Company. His older sons, with Louis at their head, had active charge of the store, and the business reasonably prospered. W. C. Whittelsey died at Topeka in 1904. His son Louis was head of the grocery house from 1882 to 1891.

With very little capital to begin on, all had to work hard to make the business give them a living. In 1892, after Louis retired from the firm, the Whittelsey Mercantile Company was organized with Harry R. Whittelsey as president and manager. It has been through his keen business judgment and untiring work that this company has developed its trade from one store to nine stores and a warehouse. Four of the store properties are owned by the Mutual Real Estate Company, of which William Whittelsey is president and Harry vice president.

It is also due to the push and enterprise of Harry R. Whittelsey that the Retail Grocers' Association of Topeka was formed. He conceived and engineered the organization of this association in 1887, renting the hall and sending the announcements of the meeting, and acting as temporary chairman until the regular election of officers. He was then made financial secretary of the body, and later became its president. Mr. Whittelsey is a republican, but is in no sense a politician. He is affiliated with the Knights of Pythias and the United Commercial Travelers and belongs to the Topeka Commercial Club. Religiously he is a Christian Scientist.

From: A Standard History of Kansas and Kansans by Wm E Connelley; New York: 1918.

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 [p.1200] 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 certiflcate 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 Morrill 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 30, 1894, Mr. Blakely married Miss Mattie Victor Kenney Dodge, of Paris, Bourbon County, Kentucky, and a daughter of David M. and Rebecca (Kennsy) 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.

From: A Standard History of Kansas and Kansans by Wm E Connelley; New York: 1918.