Fred Funston.
Fred Funston was born in Ohio, November 9, 1865. His father was a prominent public man and one time a member of congress from Kansas. He was graduated in 1886 from the high school at Iola, Kansas, and later studied for two years in the state university at Lawrence, but was not graduated. In 1890 he was a reporter in Kansas City, and his first public work was done as botanist in the United States death valley expedition in 1891. Returning he was made a commissioner in the department of agriculture and was assigned to explore Alaska and report on its flora. In 1893 he floated down the Yukon alone in a canoe. He served eighteen months in the insurgent army in Cuba, and upon his return to the United States, in 1896, was commissioned a colonel in the Twentieth Kansas volunteers. In 1898 he went to the Philippines and took part in several battles. He crossed the Rio Grande river at Calumpit on a small bamboo raft under heavy fire and established a rope ferry by which the United States troops were enabled to cross and win the battle. For this deed of valor he was promoted to brigadier-general of the United States volunteers May 2, 1899. He remained in active service in the Philippines and organized the expedition which succeeded in the capture of Aguinaldo. For this he was promoted to brigadier-general United States army, March 20, 1901.