ANDREW SPEER.
Andrew Speer, county commissioner for the second district of Atchison county, Kansas, was born in this county, February 20, 1863. He was a son of Joseph and Mary (Fountain) Speer, both of whom were natives of Lawrence county, Indiana. In 1859 Joseph and his wife left the old home in Indiana, en route to Kansas, and stopped during the winter in Iowa, where the oldest child of the family was born. Joseph came on to Kansas, leaving his wife in Iowa among friends, and preëmpted a quarter section of land in Grasshopper township, three miles northeast of Muscotah, now owned by William Speer. In the spring of 1860, the year of the great drought, the father of the family returned to Iowa and brought his wife and son, William, to the new home which he had prepared for them on the Kansas plains. While the drought of their first year in Kansas worked considerable hardship upon the settlers, Joseph was better prepared to withstand this hardship, because of the fact that he had brought considerable means with him, which enabled him to successfully weather the crop failure of that year. Joseph Speer was a man of more than ordinary education and had been a school teacher in Indiana in his younger days. All of his life, he was a student and was a fine mathematician. While teaching in Indiana he had read law to some extent, and became a justice of the peace in Grasshopper township, a position which he held for many years. He also served several years as township trustee. Nine children were born to Mr. and Mrs. Joseph Speer, of whom Andrew is the third in order of birth. (See biography of D. Anna Speer, county superintendent of schools, for further details regarding the Speer family.)
Andrew Speer, with whom this review is directly concerned, was educated in the district school of his neighborhood, and brought up on his father’s farm. His marriage occurred after a trip to the western part of Kansas in 1888, and he then rented a farm. He has continually been engaged in farming and is now cultivating the Moore farm of 320 acres in Grasshopper township. When the Cherokee strip was thrown open to settlement in the Indian Territory by the Government in 1892 Mr. Speer, with eleven other Kansans from his neighborhood, made the run for homesteads on the opening day. Six thousand or more men were lined up ready for the great race and all rushed forward when the cannon boomed for the start. Andrew drove a wagon and was unfortunate in staking out his claim which proved to be a quarter section of school land. Each of the other eleven men who accompanied him secured a good claim.
Mr. Speer was married May 1, 1889, to Miss Alida Gilliland, who has borne him five children, namely: Myrtle, wife of Fred Draper, a farmer of Atchison county; Albert, at home; Joseph, a teacher at Prospect Hill, Atchison county, and the first school teacher ever graduated from the Muscotah schools and directly became a teacher; Stephen, a pupil of the eighth grade of the Muscotah schools, and Nicholas, deceased. The mother of these children was born in Illinois, October 22, 1863, a daughter of Josiah and Delitha (Maxwell) Gilliland, who died when she was but a child four years of age. She then went to the home of an aunt, Mrs. Kline, living in Jackson county, Kansas, who reared her to young womanhood. Josiah Gilliland lives in Nebraska, aged eighty-three years. He was a veteran of the Civil war from Illinois, and served in the Union army, and moved to Missouri directly after the war ended.
The Democratic party has always had the unswerving allegiance and support of Mr. Speer, and he stands high in the councils of his party in Atchison county. He was first elected to the office of township trustee and served for four years. Two years after his term of office as trustee expired he was elected to the office of county commissioner of the second district. Mr. Speer has performed the duties of his official position with great credit to himself and for the benefit of his constituents. He is an honest and capable county official who has the best interests of the entire county at heart. He is a member of the Masonic lodge of Muscotah, the Modern Woodmen of America, and the Central Protective Association. Mrs. Speer is a member of the Methodist church, the Eastern Star lodge, the Royal Neighbors and the Mystic Workers.