WILLIAM S. HUBBARD.
Living in comfortable retirement in Muscotah is one of the pioneer settlers of Atchison county, who fought the good fight with grasshoppers and hot winds in the old days of hardships on the prairies over forty years ago. William S. Hubbard is one of the fine old gentlemen of Muscotah who came to Kansas a poor man, has reared a fine family of prosperous sons and daughters, and achieved a competence sufficient to support him in comfort during his declining years.
W. S. Hubbard was born March 10, 1839, on a farm near Cloverdale, Putnam county, Indiana, a son of Asa and Melinda (Holland) Hubbard, natives of Kentucky, who founded a pioneer home in the forests of Putnam county, Indiana. Asa Hubbard, the father, died when William S. was a child, and his mother married W. Davis. In 1844 the family moved to Illinois, where the mother and stepfather died in later years. The Davis farm was located in Henry county, Illinois. Here W. S. was reared to young manhood, and knew very few luxuries in those early days of privation and struggle. After a two years’ residence on a farm near Burlington, Iowa, he decided to come farther west to find a home and fortune where lands were cheap and opportunities seemed to be much better than in Illinois. In 1874 he set out with his wife and five children to find a home in Atchison county, Kansas. All of his worldly possessions consisted of a team of horses, a cow, and twelve dollars in cash. His first year on a rented farm in Grasshopper township was a disastrous one, and the “hoppers” got his crops, even to a fine crop of cabbage, which he harvested and tried to cover up by piling hay upon the cabbages to keep the greedy “hoppers” from eating them. Sad to relate, the grasshoppers burrowed down through the hay and ate the cabbage. The following year was much better, Mr. Hubbard raising a fine crop of corn. During his first year he raised a good flax crop which he sold for one dollar and forty cents per bushel. He was eventually able to invest in 220 acres of rich bottom land, bordering the Delaware river, at a cost of fifteen dollars an acre. Mr. Hubbard had saved $800 to make the initial payment on this tract, and in nine years succeeded in lifting the debt. During the period in which he was paying off the indebtedness on his land he was also paying interest on the money at the rate of ten per cent, annually. He sold his first farm some years after this and invested in the fine tract of seventy-two acres which he now owns. On June 12, 1913, he and Mrs. Hubbard decided that they had worked long enough, and left the farm for a home in Muscotah.
Mr. Hubbard was married January 29, 1861, to Miss Mary Ann Pence, a native of Lycoming county, Pennsylvania. Six children have been born to this worthy couple, namely: William Elsworth, a farmer, of Kapioma township, Atchison county, and the owner of 160 acres of well improved farm land; he married Mattie Roth, and they have six children: Lewis Henry Hubbard, a farmer of this county, owner of 160 acres of land: he married Ann Hinxton, and they have two children: Lillie Jane, wife of Malcolm Connor, residing on a homestead in South Dakota, and they have three children: Cora May, wife of Simeon Routh, Atchison county; they have six children. The other children are deceased. All of Mr. and Mrs. Hubbard’s children are prosperous and highly respected citizens of their respective communities, and are a credit and comfort to their aged parents, who are proud of the family. Mrs. Hubbard was born December 27, 1839.
Few people in Atchison county can point to a better record than Mr. and Mrs. Hubbard, or can look back with greater satisfaction over long years well spent in achieving a livelihood and rearing a fine family to maturity. They came to Atchison county at a time when Indians still roamed the prairies, and very little of the prairie land was improved.
Mr. Hubbard is an old-line Democrat, and, while he has taken an active interest in political affairs in his township and county, he has never been an aspirant for office, preferring to play the game for the pure love and fun of it rather than to become an aspirant for political honors. He and Mrs. Hubbard are members of the Second-Day Adventist church of Muscotah.