JOHN BELZ.
The growth and development of any community depends to a considerable extent upon the management of its financial institutions. The manufacturing and commercial enterprises of the city of Atchison, as well as the farmers and stockmen in its trade territory, have enjoyed the benefits of progressive banking since the first bank was established in the county. It is in connection with this field of activity that John Belz became most widely and favorably known in Atchison county. He was for many years a managing executive of the German Savings Bank of Atchison, which he had helped to organize, serving as cashier, and later filled the same position with the United States National Bank of Atchison. He was known to the banking fraternity of Kansas as an able and discriminating financier, an executive who brought the administrative policy of the institutions with which he was connected to the point of highest efficiency. He was of material assistance in the development of the city of Atchison, an ambitious and tireless worker, a man of high ideals, and his business integrity and honesty were unquestioned.
John Belz was a native of Germany, born in Wurtemberg, near the city of Stuttgart, on August 18, 1833. His father was engaged in the milling business and was a man of some means. John learned the miller’s trade and also served his apprenticeship as a journeyman carpenter, and he enjoyed excellent educational advantages in the schools of his home town and the city of Stuttgart. The elder Belz died when John was nineteen, in 1852, leaving a comfortable estate which was dissipated by the administrator through mismanagement. Thrown on his own resources, and with two younger sisters dependent upon him, John came to the conclusion that America spelled opportunity for him. Master of a trade, possessed of an excellent education, thoroughly versed in the German and French languages, he believed that wealth and position were to be won in the United States; and his sisters believed in him. Leaving their native country, they crossed the Atlantic, landed in New York City, and for a time lived in Lancaster, N. Y., a little village near the city of Buffalo, where the brother found employment. A few months later they located in Cedar Falls, Iowa. Here John was employed as a carpenter, farm hand, and with such other jobs as offered. He attended school and acquired a comprehensive knowledge of the English tongue.
In 1857 John Belz came to Atchison and during the succeeding twelve or fifteen months was employed at his trade. He was thrifty and was soon able to open a small grocery store. His identification with the banking life of the city began in 1872, when he, George Storch and Robert Forbriger organized the German Savings Bank. He was elected its first cashier and filled this position until the institution closed out its business in 1886. Subsequently he was elected cashier of the United States National Bank, and remained in this executive office until 1887, when he resigned. He had early in life acquired the desire, the habit, the love of making money and the habit of work. He possessed shrewd business judgment, keen insight in business affairs, profound knowledge of men, and these, coupled with will and energy, enabled him to gain rank as one of the leaders in the financial and commercial life of the city. He became directly or indirectly interested in several commercial enterprises of the city and was closely associated with the late George Storch, at that time Atchison’s leading man of affairs. Mr. Belz was a loyal citizen, believed in the commercial future of Atchison, and could always be depended upon to assist, both with time and money, any enterprise or measure which meant a greater, better Atchison. During his residence in the city his various investments in financial and commercial enterprises were uniformly successful, from which he accumulated a large fortune. Shortly after his retirement from the United States National Bank he went to California, where he invested heavily in lands. This venture proved a failure and a large part of his fortune was lost. From this time until his death, which occurred September 11, 1895, while not actively engaged in business, he occupied himself as a real estate and insurance agent.
Coming to Kansas in 1857, and locating in any of the towns on her eastern border, meant taking sides with one or the other of the political parties. It also required courage upon the part of the settler. John Belz possessed not only courage but convictions, and, although a newcomer to the United States had, while living in Iowa, given the slavery question much study which resulted in his aligning himself with the Free State party on his arrival in Atchison. He became actively identified with political affairs and was elected a member of the city council, serving several terms. He was also elected to the office of city clerk and served several years. Had it not been for his sensitiveness over his inability to overcome a pronounced German accent in his English which caused him to decline to speak at public meetings, a most necessary qualification if one desired to attain State-wide prominence politically, John Belz would have become one of the powers in the political life of Kansas. He knew men and the motives which actuated them and possessed keen insight as to the demands of the future upon the legislators.
Mr. Belz became a member of Washington Lodge, No. 5, Ancient Free and Accepted Masons, on October 17, 1857. He was one of several who demitted from other lodges and was the oldest Mason among them, having been initiated at an earlier date than any of the others. He was also a member of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows. He was reared a Lutheran and a member of that church in his native town. He never affiliated with any church after coming to the United States.
Mr. Belz married on November 10, 1859, Miss Sophia Binde. She was born in Prussia, near Madgeburg. She was left an orphan at the age of six years and was adopted by her uncle and aunt, Ludwig and Mary Binde, and with them and their two sons came to the United States in 1857. They located northwest of the city of Atchison where Mr. Binde engaged in farming. He broke the raw prairie, fenced his property, underwent the privations incident to that pioneer period and developed a successful and highly productive farm. He and his wife were persons of culture, comfortably situated financially and their children were highly educated and talented musicians. Among their effects brought from the Fatherland were a Grand piano and the complete works of the great composers, which included those by Mozart, Mendelssohn, and Beethoven. Mrs. Belz talks familiarly and interestingly of these composers and has never lost her interest in things musical. The vessel which brought the Binde family to America also carried the Mangelsdorf family, of which August Mangelsdorf, Atchison’s pioneer seedsman, was the youngest member. As time went on John Belz came to Atchison and entered the grocery business. He met Sophia Binde and later she became his wife. His grocery business required the services of a clerk and August Mangelsdorf filled that position. The latter has often remarked that his first employer, John Belz, instilled in him the principles which were the foundation of his success in the commercial world; that his rugged honesty, high ideals and close attention to detail in the handling of any matter remained indelibly imprinted on his mind. Following his precepts has brought him a golden harvest.
Mr. and Mrs. Belz were the parents of two children, daughters. The eldest, Emma, born in Atchison, was married in 1892 to Augustin M. Moore, of Denver, Colo. Mr. Moore died in 1906, leaving an infant son and a daughter, Helen, the wife of Fred Stein, an electrician, of Atchison. Mr. Moore was a well known insurance adjuster and was in the employ of the Shawnee Fire Insurance Company of Topeka. Ida Belz, the younger daughter, also born in Atchison, is the wife of Thomas N. Gray, treasurer of the Symns Grocer Company of Atchison.