John Arthur settled on the banks of a river for the purpose of having timber, fuel and water, three essentials in keeping alive in the then sparsely settled country in the southwestern part of Iowa. He built a log cabin of logs hewn from trees chopped down with his own hands and chinked the cracks and crevices with mud. When he preëmpted his first tract of land in Iowa he had a yoke of oxen, $10 in money and a favorite bull-dog, things which he was fond of telling about as he grew older and more prosperous. During his fifty-two years of residence in Iowa he accumulated 800 acres of land and had money loaned out to the amount of $10,000. He was the father of eleven children, nine of whom grew to maturity, each of whom as he married was assisted by the father to settle on a farm of his own, and all have prospered—an enviable record for a pioneer family to make.
Joseph N., with whom this review is directly concerned, was reared on the Iowa farm, and knew something about the hardships of the pioneer days in his boyhood. He attended the district school in his neighborhood, and followed farming until he engaged in the implement business in his home county for some years, with a fair degree of success. He left his native State in 1904 and came to Effingham, Kan., purchasing 120 acres of land about one and one-half miles distant from Effingham in Atchison county. One year later he embarked in the real estate business, in partnership with B. F. Snyder. This partnership lasted for two years and then Mr. Arthur engaged in the business for himself. He also began to write insurance, and was reasonably successful in both the real estate and insurance business. He erected a brick building for his office quarters, and, when automobile owners multiplied in Effingham and vicinity he foresaw the need of a repair shop and established one in the rear of his real estate office. He soon afterward rented an abandoned garage and hired a mechanic to do the repair work. It was not long until larger quarters became necessary, and he built as told in a preceding chapter. In July of 1915, Mr. Arthur disposed of his insurance business, and has since devoted his energies entirely to the automobile business.
He was married in 1892 to Lillie M. Ramsey, daughter of Newton Ramsey, a pioneer settler of Adams county, Iowa, and a Union veteran of the Civil war. Four children have blessed this union: Pearl, aged twenty-one years; Jennie, aged eighteen years, and a teacher of music, and an accomplished musician; Le Roy, nine years of age; Charles, three years old. Three children are deceased: Chester A. died at the age of eight years; Milton died at the age of eighteen months; Blanche died at the age of nine months.
Mr. Arthur is a Republican in politics, and has identified himself more or less with the civic life of his adopted community, and is considered as one of Effingham’s best boosters and live wires. He is a member of the Methodist Episcopal church, contributes to the support of the same, and is affiliated with the Odd Fellows lodge and the Knights and Ladies of Security.
DON CARLOS NEWCOMB.
It is a pleasure for the biographer to write a story of the life of a man who has arrived at the evening of life and be able to record something really worth while for the benefit of posterity. The life annals of a man who has succeeded in making a name for himself, achieving a well deserved competence, and been of some use to his community, and has arrived at the time of life when he can look back over the vista of the busy years that have passed, is interesting to a high degree. In D. C. Newcomb, pioneer merchant and patriarch, of Atchison, we find embodied that spirit of the West which enabled men to build up this great country and to achieve things of importance in the business and civic world. Mr. Newcomb loves his home city, its people and prestige and is proud of its standing among the cities of the West. He has had no small part in the upbuilding of Atchison, and it would have been better in the days gone by if the city had more men like him to assist its growth. Ever ready to contribute to any enterprise which might help the growth of the city, his liberality and boosting proclivities became proverbial, and it has oft been a saying of his that Atchison could just as well have been a city of fifty or sixty thousand inhabitants as to be its present size. Such men as he are of decided benefit to any community.
Eng. by E. G. Williams & Bro. N. Y.
D. C. Newcomb
D. C. Newcomb, a pioneer merchant of Atchison, perhaps has had as much to do with the commercial development of Atchison county for the past half century as any other man within its borders. When Mr. Newcomb came to Atchison county in 1858 it was a difficult matter to tell whether Atchison, or its rival town, Sumner, was to be the chief town of the county. Sumner was a thriving frontier town, but Mr. Newcomb picked Atchison as the winner and time has demonstrated that his judgment was sound. D. C. Newcomb was born in Washington county, Vermont, on Friday, July 13, 1836, and is a son of Hosea and Harriet (Bixby) Newcomb, the former a native of New Hampshire and the latter a native of Roxbury, Mass., born in 1805. Hosea Newcomb was born in 1803 and came from a prominent New England family of English descent. The Newcomb family was founded in New England in 1635 by Francis Newcomb and his wife, who came from England and located in New England at that time. It is recorded that they made the voyage on a sailing vessel named “Planter.” Hosea Newcomb, the father of D. C., was prominent in the affairs of his native town, Waitsfield, Vt., where he remained until 1859, when he came to Kansas, settling at the new town of Sumner, now extinct, in Atchison county. He took an active part in the early-day development of that promising frontier town and served as postmaster there. However, he returned to Vermont in 1873, where he died in 1889, at the age of eighty-six, and his wife passed away March 17, 1903, age ninety-seven years, eight months and one day.
