PRESLEY H. CALVERT.
Presley H. Calvert, retired farmer, of Muscotah, Kan., was born November 14, 1835, in Owington, Ky., a son of B. Warren Calvert, a native of old Virginia, and a direct descendant of Cecil Calvert (Lord Baltimore), who founded the Maryland colony in America. The mother of Presley H. Calvert was Lucy J. Hawkins before her marriage with Warren Calvert, and was born in Frankfort, Ky. In 1837 the Calvert family migrated from Kentucky to Platte county, Missouri, and were among the earliest pioneer settlers of that county. Being slaveholders in Kentucky they brought along the family slaves and improved 160 acres of land in Missouri. Both parents ended their days on the old home place in Platte county.
Presley H. was reared on the farm in Platte county and was educated in the Pleasant Ridge College, the same school attended by B. P. Waggener, of Atchison. He followed farming until the outbreak of the war between the States and then served three months in the army of General Price, being under the direct command of Captain Mitchell and in Steen’s division. He fought at the battle of Lexington, Mo., in behalf of the Confederacy and received his discharge on account of sick disability at Osceola, St. Clair county, Missouri. After his marriage in 1867 he farmed for ten years in Platte county, Missouri, and then came to Kansas, settling on a farm three miles south of Muscotah in Kapioma township. For the first ten years Mr. Calvert rented land and then invested in 160 acres of good land three miles north of Muscotah in Grasshopper township. He improved this farm and resided thereon until 1895. He then rented his farm and moved to Muscotah. Mr. Calvert paid twenty dollars per acre for his land and sold it for $5,000 when he retired from active farm work. He is now making his home with Mr. and Mrs. Will Warren. Mrs. Warren is his niece.
Mr. Calvert was married in 1867 to Miss Cora A. Jackson, born and reared in Platte county, Missouri, a daughter of Wallace Jackson, a native of Kentucky and an early settler of Missouri. Two children were born to this union: Edna and Charles, both of whom are deceased. Mrs. Calvert died in 1908, at the age of sixty years. Mr. Calvert has been a life-long Democrat of the old school. When a young man he formed one of the hardy army of freighters who crossed the plains to the Far West in charge of the great overland freight trains before the advent of the railroads. He crossed the plains on four trips to Salt Lake City and other western points in Colorado.