ROBERT F. BISHOP.
Robert F. Bishop, farmer, residing in Mt. Pleasant township, Atchison county, Kansas, and whose farm is located two and one-half miles west of Potter, is one of the most substantial and progressive agriculturists of his neighborhood. He was born August 16, 1861, in the town of Watkins, in Schuyler county, New York, at the foot of Watkins Glen, which is now a noted summer resort, and one of the most beautiful spots in all New York. He is a son of Freeman and Annie (Sims) Bishop, both of whom were born and reared in New York State and descendants of old eastern families. The Bishop family is of English origin and is descended from old colonial stock, members of which figured in the early wars in which America has been engaged. The Sims family is of Scotch and Irish extraction. The Bishops were early settlers in the section of New York where Robert F. Bishop was born. Freeman was a ship carpenter by trade who followed his trade in New York, and in 1872 came to Kansas, settling in Jefferson county on a farm, where he prospered and reared his family of four children, Robert F. being the eldest.
He of whom this review is written was a boy ten years of age when the family came to Kansas to make a permanent home. He lived on the home place and assisted his father in the cultivation of his farm until he was twenty-four years of age, then married, and two years later, in 1885, came to Mt. Pleasant township, Atchison county, and purchased the old Miller farm consisting of 180 acres of good, tillable land. Mr. Bishop has added to his original farm as he was able and now owns 261 1–2 acres all in one body and well improved. Besides his home farm he is also the owner of another tract of 208 acres, which makes his total acreage 469 1–2 acres in all. The accumulation of this amount of land in about thirty years is a considerable undertaking, in Kansas especially, when the possessor had very little of this world’s goods at the start of his career. Mr. Bishop began with very little capital but imbued with a determination to succeed and the willingness to work hard and deny himself the luxuries of life until he was well able to afford them. When he purchased his first farm his cash capital was so limited that he was forced to go in debt for two-thirds of the purchase price of the land. Since then he has risen to become one of the wealthy farmers of Atchison county, and has one of the finest and best improved places in Kansas, equipped with excellent buildings and a modern silo. His farm is considered a model one in the county and was one of the first to be visited by the county farm visitors for the purpose of ascertaining the progress made and using it as a model for others in the county. Mr. Bishop is a natural born agriculturist who has kept pace with the advancement made in the science of agriculture, and is blessed with an intuitive knowledge of the best methods of tilling the soil.
Mr. Bishop was married in 1883 to Elizabeth Shaw, a daughter of Henry Shaw, well-to-do farmer of Leavenworth county. To this union have been born seven children, namely: Caude, a farmer, in Atchison county; Curtis, a farmer; Robert, living at home and assisting his father in the farm operations; Myrtle S., Mable, Maude, and Irene, at home with their parents. The father of Mrs. Bishop is the owner of the old Penseneau farm, which is the first piece of land ever tilled in Atchison county.
The Republican party has generally had the allegiance of Mr. Bishop, and while he has not taken an active part in political matters, he was one of the stanch supporters of the movement which resulted in the establishment of the high school at Potter. It is only natural to learn that he, like others who have succeeded in Kansas, has always been a live stock man and believes in feeding the grains and grasses raised on his land to the live stock on his place, in order to preserve the fertility of the land and make marketing the output much more convenient. He maintains a dairy herd of thirty well bred Holstein milch cows and is a well known breeder of Duroc Jersey hogs, having 200 head or more on his farm.