JOHN C. VALENTINE.
John C. Valentine, owner and proprietor of the Northern Kansas Telephone Company of Effingham, for more than forty years has been a resident of Atchison county. The Northern Kansas Telephone Company, of which he is the head, was organized in 1903 as a coöperative concern, but is now owned and operated by Mr. Valentine and his son, A. G. Valentine. The lines of the company cover a section of country within a radius of six to ten miles of Effingham. Twenty-six lines are supplied with good service, and the company has over 435 subscribers at the present time. The plant is well equipped and is noted for the excellent service given the patrons.
John C. Valentine is a native of Dearborn county, Indiana, and was born in the Hoosier State July 28, 1845, a son of George and Sarah (Cornforth) Valentine. His father was born in New Jersey, and accompanied his parents to the Middle West, locating in Cincinnati when George was a child. He was reared in Cincinnati, and later settled in Indiana. His mother was the daughter of pioneer stock of English descent, and was connected with the Eubanks family, which figured in the early history of Indiana. Sarah Valentine died in 1863, and George married again, after which he settled in Illinois, and died near Xenia, that State. He was a soldier in the Civil war, and served in an Ohio cavalry regiment throughout the conflict. John C. Valentine enlisted in the 134th regiment, Indiana infantry, in the spring of 1864, and served until his honorable discharge in the fall of the same year. His health became poor while serving in Tennessee, and he was transferred to Louisville, Ky., and sent home from that city. He was kept on the reserve force while serving in Alabama, and was in the breastworks at Decatur, Ala. At this place he was exposed to a hot fire, and recalls that it was a very uncomfortable place in which to be. During the winter of 1866 he taught school in Decatur county, Indiana. He remained at home with an uncle, William Sawdon, at Aurora, Ind., after returning from the war, until September, 1867, at which time he went to Ft. Madison, Iowa, and there met some friends. He worked on farms in the neighborhood until Christmas of that year, and then left for Kansas, arriving at Leavenworth January 1, 1868.
During his first year in Kansas he broke prairie land for a living; the next year he sold sewing machines, and made good at that avocation; the second year, winter of 1868–69, he taught school in Leavenworth county, and two years after coming to this State he was married. He and his brother, Charles, broke prairie with their two teams in Jefferson county, and for four years after his marriage, Mr. Valentine had great success in farming in that county, raising immense crops of wheat. In the year 1874 he came to Atchison county and settled on a farm four miles northwest of Effingham on the south side of the Parallel road. He at first bought a tract of eighty acres and erected a small house on his land, erecting other buildings as he was able. Mr. Valentine has prospered in the years following his first purchase of land in this county, and he and his son now own a total of 200 acres of well improved land. He resided on the farm until January of 1896, then turned over the farm to the management of his son, and came to Effingham. For ten years following he traveled as salesman, and in 1905 engaged in the telephone business by the purchase of the coöperative company which formerly owned the lines he is now operating.
Mr. Valentine was married April 7, 1870, to Miss Lena Smith, of Johnson county, Kansas, who was born in 1855. The children born to this union are: Albert G., on the home farm, married Alice Frame, and is the father of one son and five daughters; Mrs. Mattie Stevenson, of near Beloit, Kan.; Edward died at the age of twenty-two years, and Robert died at the age of thirteen years.
Mr. Valentine is a Republican in politics, and has always remained loyal and steadfast to the party of Abraham Lincoln. He has served as city councilman and mayor of Effingham. He is an Odd Fellow, and a member of the Grand Army Post, No. 176, Effingham.