Charles J. Conlon, a prominent attorney of Atchison, who is now serving his second term as county attorney, is a native of the Empire State. He was born at Orwell, Oswego county, New York, October 31, 1860, and is a son of James and Anna (Bowen) Conlon, the former a native of New York and the latter of Ireland. Anna Bowen, the mother, came to America with her parents, William and Nancy Bowen, when she was thirteen years of age. James Conlon was born in Oneida county, New York, and was a son of Charles Conlon, a native of Ireland, who immigrated to America in 1814 and settled in Oneida county, New York, where he spent the remainder of his life. James Conlon grew to manhood in Oneida county, and in 1859 was married and about a year later removed to Oswego county, bought a farm and followed farming there until 1867. He then returned to Oneida county, where he remained until 1870, when he came to Kansas, locating in Atchison county. He bought a farm about a mile and one-half southwest of the city of Atchison, where he was successfully engaged in farming and stock raising until about a year prior to his death, November 1, 1899, at the age of seventy-three. He was a very successful farmer and a highly respected citizen, and at the time of his death owned 200 acres of valuable land, which is still owned by the Conlon family. He was a life-long Democrat and a member of the Catholic church. His wife died September 22, 1898, aged sixty-three years. They were the parents of the following children: Anna M. married Peter Donovan, now deceased, and three children were born to this union, Peter, Fredrick and Charles, and after the death of her first husband, Anna M. married John McInteer, who is also now deceased and she resides in Atchison; Charles J., the subject of this sketch; William H. resides on the old homestead; John F., farmer, Atchison; James D., plumber, St. Louis, Mo.; Letitia M. McKenna, Denver, Colo., and Fred J. died in Atchison at the age of thirty-three years. He was a machinist and well and favorably known in Atchison county. Charles J. Conlon was educated in the public schools, St. Benedict’s College, Atchison, Kan., and Whitestown Seminary, Whitestown, N. Y., graduating from the latter institution in the class of 1882. He then entered the law department of the University of Michigan, at Ann Arbor, Mich., and was graduated in the class of 1884 with the degree of Bachelor of Laws. He then engaged in the practice of his profession at Atchison, Kan., and has continued in the practice to the present time. He was elected county attorney of Atchison county in 1912 and reëlected to succeed himself in 1914. Mr. Conlon is a capable lawyer and is a fair and fearless prosecutor. Mr. Conlon was united in marriage February 14, 1903, to Miss Mae Flanigan, a native of Oswego county, New York.
JOHN F. CONLON.
John F. Conlon, farmer, was born October 15, 1865, in the town of Orwell, Oswego county, New York. He was educated in the common schools of his native town and later attended the Whitestown Seminary at Whitestown, N. Y. After coming to Atchison county, Kansas, in 1885 with his parents, he studied at St. Benedict’s College. He remained with his parents on the home farm southwest of Atchison until their death, and managed the estate for several years thereafter successfully.
THOMAS O. GAULT.
Personal achievements of the individual are always worth recounting when he has accomplished something worth while. There is considerable satisfaction in the latter years of the life of an industrious couple, who, having begun at the foot of the ladder of success and having climbed upward by degrees, have attained to a state of wealth and comfort by the time middle age has been reached. Thomas O. Gault and his wife, residing in a beautiful farm home in the northeast part of the city of Effingham, are among the most respected citizens of Atchison county. Mr. Gault is one of the large land owners of the county, and while not an old resident he can lay claim to the fact that he was a homesteader in Kansas back in the “grasshopper” era, and has had as many ups and downs as the average western pioneer.
Thomas O. Gault was born November 7, 1849, in Wycomico county, Maryland, a son of Archibald and Eliza (Littleton) Gault, natives of Maryland, and descendants of old American colonial families. The ancestry of the Gault and Littleton families dates back to the earliest days of the settlement of the eastern coast of America. Archibald was the son of Obid Gault, who was a soldier in the War of 1812, and was an early pioneer settler of Indiana. Eliza Littleton was a daughter of Thomas Littleton, and died when Thomas O. was seven years of age. Archibald Gault emigrated from Maryland to Ripley county, Indiana, about 1859, and settled on a farm south of Pierce City, or near Stringtown. This was in a timbered country, and he lived there only three years, returning to Maryland during the dark days of the Civil war, where he remained until the war was over. In 1865 he returned to his farm in Ripley county, and cultivated his Indiana farm until old age overtook him, and he finally returned to the old home in Maryland, there spending his declining years, dying in 1900, at the age of eighty years.
Thomas O. Gault was educated in the district schools of Ripley county, Indiana, and began working at the hardest kind of farm labor when yet a boy. When he attained his majority he came to the great West, where opportunity seemed to beckon with a more lavish hand than among the hills and forests of his native county and State. He located in Jasper county, Iowa, and worked at farm labor until twenty-five years of age, then came to Kansas and homesteaded a Government claim in Phillips county. This was a sad experience, however, as the grasshoppers came along soon afterwards and “cleaned out” the crops of the homesteaders in his neighborhood, and he abandoned his claim and left the country. He returned to Jasper county, Iowa, in 1873, where he remained for three years, after which he remained in Iowa, locating in Pottawattamie county in 1878, where he had purchased a farm. He and his wife developed the farm and prospered for a period of fourteen years. Selling out their Iowa farm at a good round price in 1903, they located in Effingham, where they have resided since March of 1903. Mr. Gault invested his capital in Kansas and Missouri lands and has made money since he came to Kansas. Being gifted with the moneymaking instinct and capacity, he has dealt somewhat in land and been successful in his farming operations in Atchison county. He is the owner of an eighty acre tract of valuable land, purchased in 1902, adjoining Effingham, Kan., on the northeast, and has one of the most attractive modern farm homes in the county. He owns at the present time a total of 582.5 acres of land, 262.5 acres of which is located in Grundy county, Missouri, and the rest in Atchison county. He has a large farm of 240 acres near Pardee in Center township, which is one of the best improved tracts in the vicinity. This farm was purchased in 1902 and is equipped with excellent buildings, including a house of twelve rooms and three good barns.
He was married on March 4, 1888, to Miss Melissa Drury, of the town of Drury, Rock Island county, Illinois. They are the parents of two children: Essie, at home with her parents, and Pearl, wife of William Thomas, a son of Robert M. Thomas, of Effingham. Mrs. Gault was born March 4, 1861, in Drury, Rock Island county, Illinois, a daughter of Eli and Margaret (Hubbard) Drury, natives of Wayne county, Indiana, and Bedford county, Pennsylvania, respectively. Mr. Drury served as postmaster of the village named in his honor in Rock Island county for thirty-five years, and was filling the office at the time of his death, in 1892.
Mr. Gault is a stockholder in the Farmer’s Mercantile Company of Effingham. He is a Republican in politics, but is an independent voter, who believes in doing his own thinking as regards the merits of respective candidates for office and the principles which influence good government. He became an Odd Fellow in Marshall county, Iowa, in the early eighties, and has continued in good standing in the order to the present time. One of the incidents of his early career which left an impression on Mr. Gault’s memory, which time has never been able to eradicate, was his first Kansas experience. He was so thoroughly cleaned out during the great grasshopper scourge in the seventies, in Phillips county, Kansas, that he was forced to walk the entire distance from Blue River, Kan., to Atchison.