EDWARD PERDUE.
Edward Perdue, president of the First National Bank of Atchison, and extensive farmer, of Huron, Kan., has been a resident of Atchison county for the past forty-five years. Like other successful men who were pioneers in Kansas, he arrived here from Canada when a young man of twenty years of age without money, but possessed of strength, a willingness to work at honest labor and an ambition to succeed. How well he has succeeded is seen in the substantial fortune which he has accumulated and the honors which have been conferred upon him by his fellow citizens.
Mr. Perdue was born on a farm in Peterboro county, Ontario, Canada, June 27, 1850, a son of Thomas and Catharine Perdue, natives of Ireland, who left the Emerald Isle in their youth and settled in Canada. Edward Perdue was reared to sturdy young manhood on the parental farm and attended the country school in the vicinity of his home as opportunity afforded. In March of 1870 he arrived in Atchison, and during his first year worked at any odd jobs which were presented, including labor on the streets and harvesting on the nearby farms. During the following five years he was employed as a construction foreman on the grading and building of the Santa Fe railroad from Atchison to the Colorado-Kansas State line. He saved his money and by the exercise of strict economy, which meant the denial to himself of all but the actual necessities of life, he was enabled to accumulate sufficient funds to invest in a farm near the town of Huron, on which he resided for the next five years. He then sold this farm and bought another one about one and one-half miles east from Huron, which remains his home to the present time. Mr. Perdue has given his attention mostly to the raising and feeding of live stock in his farming operations and has succeeded in amassing a comfortable fortune during the forty years he has been an agriculturist. He has increased his land holdings until at the present time he is the owner of 1,040 acres of splendid farm lands in Lancaster township. His home farm is one of the best improved tracts of farm land in the county and all of his farms show the results obtained from soil conservation and advanced methods of farming.
Edward Perdue
While Mr. Perdue has been primarily a farmer, he has given his attention to other matters as betokens a man of influence and substance. In the year 1891 he assisted in the organization of the Huron State Bank and is president of this thriving concern. In 1906 he took part in the organization of the Commercial State Bank of Atchison, which was succeeded later by the First National Bank, of which banking institution he has served as president since 1900. He is also a stockholder of the State Savings Bank of Leavenworth, Kansas.
Mr. Perdue was married in 1878 to Mary Viola Davey, of Brown county, Kansas, a daughter of Charles Davey, which marriage has resulted in the birth of seven children, as follows: Mrs. Maria Walters, living on a farm near Huron; Edna, wife of J. M. Delaney, merchant, of Huron, Kan.; Mrs. Mabel Schmidt, wife of the assistant cashier of the Huron State Bank; Charles, who is cultivating the home farm; Thomas Hendricks, at home; George, a farmer in North Dakota; and Edward, Jr.
Mr. Perdue has been a life-long Democrat, who has always taken a more or less active part in the political affairs of the county. He was elected county commissioner in 1897 and served one term. In 1904 he served one term as a member of the State legislature, representing this district, declining reëlection when his term of office expired. While he was reared in the Catholic belief, Mr. Perdue is tolerant of all creeds and takes a broad-minded view of religious matters. He belongs to the Ancient Order of United Workmen and the Modern Woodmen.